I want blood.... New Blood

[Denizen]

I agree that, while it is a short term gain, Power Leveling a person is not a great way to enjoy content and a good way to get jaded.

Personally I've been savoring every step through the tiers as I wanted to stretch the experience out. I think the struggles to get into various zones, like HoH is what makes it fun and a challenge but then that's me. Tokens are great to getting boxes flagged but, nothing like the doing it the "hard way" at least once.

I'll work on Wiki contributions....they have helped a lot but could definitely be further fleshed out.

I'm actually on vacation too...well sorta a working vacation, but away from my home.

Generally I've been helped when I've needed it...seems there is always someone who is willing to help about. I would like to incentivize such folks. Not sure how but it does seem that it would be nice to reward people who like to help. Maybe there could be a forum topic where you can give points to helpers or something.

[Enrikk]

We always recognize those who do this for the long term (artifacts!).

I was going to mention this as well, that there's already something in place for recognition, but it is ambiguous about what to do, when to do it, and what the "benefits" are.

I think the current artifact idea is already a great idea, but I figured long ago it wasn't something I would get. I just don't know how. Many that have helped me out, a lot, didn't get artifacts. And many that I've helped didn't yield one. Accordingly, I think that stems from people not wanting to "blow their own horn" or ask for something from already overworked developers.

For something to work, I think, it should be easily understood, easily implemented, and consistent.

Having read everything so far, however, I think I'll take an earlier thought, and just go make a post about it. I shared everything Shin made on my FB page, where my old guildies from live troll at times, but never thought about an ad in something like Craigslist. Novel idea.

[Lillu]

I'm all for new ways to reward veteran players who help out new players, contribute to the wiki, etc. Let me know what would be rewarding for you guys, for the long term.

[Paranoid]

As someone who waffles a lot between playing and hating the silence, I originally played EQ, and later WoW, and later lead a guild in the ~1% of the world, for the people. While I understand the desire to be max level and the desire to have the best items, there should be other drivers. A guy that comes to THF that just wants to play casually may get to 70 on his own, and that is about it, without significant assistance. There is some early raid content, some 70 group content, and all of that stuff is wonderful. But there is no incentive to camp a zone like BoT, and if there was a major incentive, it would be camped by anybody boxing instead.

How do you bridge the gap between a casual player and a 24-box player? I have thought a lot about this, and that is group instancing. I cannot count the number of times I have had guys join my guilds over the years on THF, move over several characters from their other guilds, just for a raid or two. It would be nice to have them join my group, I have access to the content, and they can run with me -- see if they like that content, spread around the rotting loot, pique their interest in the different guilds and boxers, etc. This could even reward the helping players with a special currency on special items. Maybe something as simple as casino tokens, or a currency to buy temporary, unique illusions (also cast on the group, to spread the love), or an increased chance on a global loot table for special items (resetting when they get something unique). This could even incentivize hardcore players to work together, because they cannot benefit from this alone.

I want to play on THF. All of the content I have experienced is awesome. But I do not want to play five characters all the time. I have spent some money on donor items and all my characters are fun and the content is exciting, but winning alone is saddening to me.

[Rude]

Voting system for helpful players cycling every 3 months with an artifact reward for the winner

[Niixnec]

I am not sure how a reward system for older players keeps them around or brings in new players. Most people on the server help newbies out in one way or another. Some do it very visibly using OCC, etc. Others may help by giving someone a token, dropping gear on the ground, buff as they run through the forest. Some may only do it when they finish their raids, others it seems log in just to help.

MQ2 -
Helped individual players yet hurt the server. I used to run 9 somewhat efficiently using hotkey macros and switching between 5-6 during a fight depending on the fight and what the guild needed. When MQ2 was allowed people started adding characters (I want to play this, we need this in case this person is not here, etc.). The guild got to the point that when we had 6 real people on we had to limit groups they could bring along on raids which is great if you only wanted to play a group but sucked if you were trying to get gear for your 3rd group. I now run 20 and can do most of the content which is nice since most of my guild stopped playing.

Donor gear -
While a great way to help out the devs and get some nice gear, it trivializes some content which in turns bores people or leaves people that can't / don't donate behind. If you tune the encounters to donor gear you make it nearly impossible for those without. Look at a fully donored tank vs. a non-donor/slightly donored tank. (http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/magelo.php?character=Shenanigans vs. http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools/magelo.php?character=Rafe) AC / HP are easily viewable so you can see the difference. It is like that with the other characters as well -- donored rogue vs. non-donored even just weapons, augs, bp, legs, the dps difference is pretty extreme. We had a couple of people join the guild. The first 2 characters we provided Xeru tokens to so they could join in DSK. They made another 10 to have one group apiece. They bought quite a few donors and went through all the tiers by themselves more or less (Veeshan, 2.0, Fear, DSK 1 & 2, HoH quest, etc). Within 5 or 6 months they were killing Chaos by themselves then quit.

Zones -
Outside of saying "I did that" where is the incentive to do tier 1-5? There are a few items that are useful but not enough that getting the Xeru / Khavsa / VT token is not the better alternative.

HoH was fun even with the guilds fighting over raid events. At least you could, at any point, attempt an event outside of Chaos (once the changes took place). You could do point raids for gear which was nice as well, except for those that just leached. Nadox was nice that once you completed a fight you didn't have to do the fight again if you didn't want to.

DSK3 took that away. Our guild used to be able to get people together for 2, maybe 3 hours during the week. Having to kill every mob before the ones you actually needed hurt the playing style. We got 6 or 12 flagged for the last mob before people got frustrated and started to quit. Wiping on one event meant we weren't going to get to boss 5 to get others flagged. The only other zone I can think of that forces you to kill mobs before possibly engaging the one you want is Fear.

VT takes us back to allowing you to skip around, more or less, as you would like but seems like the gear is marginally better than HoH/Nadox. I hate giving up aug slots for slight chance at an effect.


Dev interaction-
Granted I haven't played a whole lot lately but it seems that devs are no longer engaging in OCC, random events, etc. Maybe due to the new code port over and concentrating on issue or building new content but really since Micah has been gone there hasn't been that daily presence. Maybe having guides that could run special events (single mob take down, taking control of a mob in a guild instance, etc.) would help engage people.

Seasonal Events -
I love the seasonal events. It took you away from the normal raid grind however, making alot of the drops tradeable made quite a bit of the early tier drops non-desireable. During the Xmas event I can easily get 5-6 bags full of tradeable equipment meaning these items could replace alot of early tier farming for newbs. For instance, the world boss loot used to sell pretty good, now about the only thing people are looking for is the achievement items.

Group Instances -
I enjoy the 2 group instances that are currently available for the augs. It would be nice to see an updated LDoN type instancing that would provide a grouping alternative to raiding. Acrue points to buy HoH / Nadox gear including the rares. I have killed some mobs in HoH 60+ times and have never seen every item that they could drop (Seravince Ear, Zenurix augs, etc.) . The buyable items could be updated as new tiers open so they are just one tier behind the current.

I hope somewhere in this rambling something helps / makes sense. Whiskey + wife interrupting destroys my train of thought.

regards,
Niix

[Lillu]

I appreciate the feedback Niix but as you said this is rather just a "rambling". It has no suggestions however where or how to improve anything other than giving your point of view, listing the things you don't like and consider as an issue. I'm not saying some of these are not valid points but it's not contributing to anything that this thread is all about.

Each and every topic could be a separate thread and most were discussed already too. For example we could disallow MQ but then some players would become super upset while others would be happy. Would it change the overall server population? I don't know. Look at easy server, MQ is allowed there yet no major population drop lately.

As always we are open to discuss and debate anything suggested but I suggest we take one step at a time and discuss things separately giving each topic a separate thread not to derail and lose focus on the given topic. That all being said let's keep up the constructive discussion.

[Niixnec]

Yep, no problem - it started with good intentions and quickly devolved...

So how to get people?
- Post on forums - MQ2, EQEMU, allakhazam, other MMO forums.
- Offer incentives for coming to play - free distillers, unique item via a quest, something for trying it out
- Set up buddy program -- people that want to help and have been around the server post on the forums when they are available to help. People that need help post what they are trying to accomplish and when they can play.



Keeping people -
-Look at the quests - determine if the rewards justify the time involved. If you can pick up something cheap in the bazaar / or a short camp rather than spend time trying to quest for an inferior item which would most people do?

-Continuous quests for unique items -- use mixture of guild instances and global zones. Updates to some current items, Example: to get an upgraded mana clicky you have to turn in tier 1 mana item + some tier 2 or tier 3 items to update the mana item to tier 2. Quest continues where you turn in tier 2 mana item + some tier 3 and tier 4 items to get tier 3 mana update.

- As mentioned, group instancing of some sort as a raid alternative

regards,
niix

[Rude]

Take a page from the skeevy crack dealer that's always hanging out on the corner of the 7-Eleven There's no such thing as a former addict. All it takes is one hit

How long since the last Best of the Best, Lillu?

[Vaion]

Old Blood could Come back too but new content (epic, High end zones) are needed for it To happen.

http://www.thehiddenforest.org/webtools ... ?id=122823

Luclin Event is done, just have to get all the items\effects moved over from my personal PC into the server's DB. Not hard, but time consuming given I am not authorized much "internet time"