Hard wrote:My thoughts are if you don't have the time to commit, play something else. Instant gratification crap is what killed every MMO out there. Without significant time investment, there is no attachment to your characters and thus people will walk away from the server all that much faster. This is classic. Maybe you forgot what that was.

"I really have no sympathy for people wanting faster experience. What did you think when you joined a classic 1.65 server? If you have kids, you should understand that some things you have to sacrifice to be a good parent. That includes being a top-tier MMO player...i'm sorry if you can't understand that. Uthgard was up for over 10 years before so if it takes you 3 months to hit 50, what's the big deal? You then never have to exp ever again."


This is such a silly argument. For other games where the game is based on PvE this makes sense. In a game based on RvR, PvP-ready population actually makes a huge difference for the life of the server. Now, I am not saying get rid of any grind but 3 months of "pre" game before the actual gameplay(RvR) starts is absurd. Leveling in this game is NOT fun in any sense of the word. Its a pure grind. The leveling should take enough time to feel worth it, but also fast enough where if your casual friend said hey what sthis uthgard game? You could recommend them come try it and they could make it to 50 within a month.

I am a no lifer and have 3 40+ characters but I recognize how long it takes and how someone who has a life would not be able to do similar.

You are so lucky that Kaosfury is MIA, or else he would come in here and wreck you.

Laje wrote:

Hard wrote:My thoughts are if you don't have the time to commit, play something else. Instant gratification crap is what killed every MMO out there. Without significant time investment, there is no attachment to your characters and thus people will walk away from the server all that much faster. This is classic. Maybe you forgot what that was.

"I really have no sympathy for people wanting faster experience. What did you think when you joined a classic 1.65 server? If you have kids, you should understand that some things you have to sacrifice to be a good parent. That includes being a top-tier MMO player...i'm sorry if you can't understand that. Uthgard was up for over 10 years before so if it takes you 3 months to hit 50, what's the big deal? You then never have to exp ever again."


This is such a silly argument. For other games where the game is based on PvE this makes sense. In a game based on RvR, PvP-ready population actually makes a huge difference for the life of the server. Now, I am not saying get rid of any grind but 3 months of "pre" game before the actual gameplay(RvR) starts is absurd. Leveling in this game is NOT fun in any sense of the word. Its a pure grind. The leveling should take enough time to feel worth it, but also fast enough where if your casual friend said hey what sthis uthgard game? You could recommend them come try it and they could make it to 50 within a month.

I am a no lifer and have 3 40+ characters but I recognize how long it takes and how someone who has a life would not be able to do similar.

But there are ppl ready to RvR and Pop. is quite good most of the time?(EU PT that is) So whats the matter?
You can PL your friend and he will be 50 in no time...

I work 2 Jobs atm, to be fair no other obligations atm, otherwise it would look diffrent ofc, but im RvR ready for a Long time now...
Ofc if you can only Play for 2-3 h or even less its a huge grind, but that was expected.

Trickfinger wrote:You are so lucky that Kaosfury is MIA, or else he would come in here and wreck you.

The guy would argue with a broom if it offended him.

Trickfinger wrote:You then never have to exp ever again.

This is rather absurd. A game that encourages you, through an also absurd grind, to only focus on one character because the grind is so lengthy/boring, isn't well designed as it limits your experience and enjoyment of the game.

The grind existed to make Mythic money. Remove money from the equation and you have no reason. When people blindly argue for it, it shows me they have no business being in a discussion. Let me repeat, I am referring to GRIND, which by definition is nonconstructive use of time. Not simply leveling, which is a common progression theme in most RPGs.

Trickfinger wrote: That includes being a top-tier MMO player...

I literally laughed out loud in a bathroom stall sounding like a psychopath

Isavyr wrote:Are the GMs concerned about the trend so far?

Trishin wrote:Realm Balance:
We are aware that there appears to be a lot of forum activity regarding realm balance at the moment, and we are always closely monitoring the server incase we need to take action to ensure better realm balance. That being said there is some misconceptions that needs to be addressed.

- We want to make it clear that we are not biased towards any realm!
- The population number between hib/mid/alb is not as imbalanced as you might think.
- We are aware that the availability of respecs can have impact on game play and thus with the dragon implementation this should now no longer be an issue.
- While one realm is holding DF more actively, this is not the only place for money / template items. It is important that realms come together to not only take the valuable keeps needed for DF but to also defend them to allow ample time for your realm to have access to Darkness Falls.

We also want to remind players that any realm who holds all relics will result in their relic keeps holding zero delegate guards. The power of keeps and relics are an important asset to your realms and the bonuses can be great, but you need to not only attack but defend!

Now, with all that being said, we are closely monitoring the situation, and if it gets out of hand we will take actions and implement a system to encourage people to move to underpopulated realms (such as a shorter realm transfer timer). However at this time the balance between the realms has been surprisingly good and thus we see no reason to implement a timer just yet.

Trishin's comment is 1 month old, while I don't think anything changed that much.

@Isavyr Are you playing at EU or US - Primetime? I never had any worries about "Not enough action in RvR".
EU-Primetime more and more develops to a Zergfest in Odins AND Emain.

Greetings

I see players on Albion like Seal and crew literally on all day, every day. Midgard and Hibernia has their group of people like this as well, however, these people make up a very small portion of the server as a whole, as there aren't many players who have the luxury of having this amount of time due to jobs and responsibilities. If this trend continues, Uthgard will be right back where it was before the reset.

Nunki wrote:@Isavyr Are you playing at EU or US - Primetime? I never had any worries about "Not enough action in RvR".
EU-Primetime more and more develops to a Zergfest in Odins AND Emain.

Hi Nunki. I play from US. While I'm aware that EU time is much more active, my comments are addressing the American decline in population (which I sample about twice every evening). I probably should have addressed that. Furthermore, American time isn't dead, though I suspect it's headed there.

Weekend US is fine it's the weekday US west coast players who suffer the worst. I normally login around 8:30 PST and log around midnight. Sometimes it's a struggle to find fins group replacements then u end up wasting 30+ mins filling. We can usually count on our euro buddies to start logging in around 11pm pay to fill spots with

Diisx - Bard - Bloodsworn
Diis - Animist(farm toon)- Bloodsworn
Diisruptor - undecided DPS - Bloodsworn

From an NA perspective.

Current problems:
1. Takes too long to level(for most "casuals"/people with jobs)
2. Only 8 mans RvRing
3. Frontiers feel empty (especially non euro prime)

It seems a shame to me that a good chunk of the population will spend their time leveling and never get to see proper RvR. Leveling just takes too long(not to mention the amount of work you still have to put in once you are 50(templating/RRanks)). The difference between a fresh 50 and a templated 50 is enormous already.

My Fix:
Simple. Increase the experience in RvR enabled zones by 2x or 3x at the very least. Make it to where EVERYONE will want to level in the frontiers. Make that the number one place to level. This game is supposed to be about RvR.


Look how the Master crafting in the Excal equivalent keeps has livened up PvP. its sometimes the only way stealthers can even get kills. Just a small change like that has really become something awesome and a sort of powder keg for PvP.

What changing the Frontier Exp does ( Hint encourages PVP)

- It will encourage 8 mans to roam and counter roam.
- Small man pvp will rise because you can pick off lower level experience groups (which again feeds into this whole ecosystem of PvP).
- It will help train lowbies how to work together and fight and if they get tired of getting steam rolled by a particular group they can always level in the regular zones. This is why the experience modifiers have to be huge though. They have to offset the frustration of constantly being killed. It will encourage players to spread out throughout the frontiers and try and find nooks and crannies to level in.
-During off hours instead of West coasters and NA players having no one to kill the frontiers will remain lively. Possibly even MORE so because you will be able to get great leveling in with less players on!

The fact of the matter with DAoC is PEOPLE make this game. The more high level 50s, the more fights, the more small mans, the more people without templates fighting...etc. 50 is honestly the START of the game. The difference between a 49 vs a 50 is HUGE. Add on a template and you have a game that only begins at 50, and yet its a pain in the ass for everyone to get there.

It doesn't make sense to keep the experience this slow and bleed off anyone but the most hardcore to play on this server. This game becomes more fun with more 8 mans, more zergs, more small mans, more stealthers. So why are we settled with "well in 6 months we might have the numbers". "well in 3 months maybe there will be more stealthers".

The Frontiers are currently HUGE and EMPTY. I honestly think that tweak to Exp could completely change how this game is played for the better.

Castra wrote:4. The ability to find groups on Uthgard is actually quite difficult. The LFG tab is quite useful, but I feel like a proper LFG channel or a broadcast channel that works properly would be a lot more beneficial.

can help with this by putting all the newbie guilds in Alliance. Some newbie guilds are just retarded and only have like 12 people in them. Im looking at you Celt Animist guild.

Also yeah why cant we have a LFG channel? Who gives a ****** if its not 1.65? Only people who would be against it are already 50 and only group with their guild and PL their alts anyways.

bobb_the_slobb wrote: but the Uthgard devs are stubborn for no good reason at all.

because they have nothing to lose. they arent making money off this server so having 300 people online is no different than having 3000.

Borondir wrote:There is a reason to have a slow exp rate. You learn your class.

because spamming Doublefrost 39457345734753475973457 times on your way to 50 teaches you a WHOLE LOT about the game.

Hard wrote: This is classic. Maybe you forgot what that was.

So you should kill off your wife and kids then quit your job? cause thats the only way to get that classic feel back. You know cause you were 18-21 and had no wife and kids or a real job?

First post, but seems relevant... it would make leveling a lot better if there was a bonus to leveling in BGs and exp for keeptakes. It seems like a HUGE opportunity wasted.

The BGs are dead because there is no incentive to go, but they can REALLY break up leveling and engage new people at an early level. Right now you'll have to wait until 50 to actually RVR, which most people are not willing to do. This would help immensely with retention.

I can GUARANTEE you this freeshard is not picking up/retaining new players, not because the game isn't good, but because PVP is way too far along the horizon and it is a steep learning curve for a 15 year old game with so many classes and play styles. The same is true with irrelevant time wasters like the distance required to travel via horse w/o porters, among other things.

What I see in this thread, and in many similar threads, is a request to modify this server to be more friendly to the low population of North American prime time. While the server COULD be changed to be more favorable to those who only (or mostly) play at other than EU prime time... Why would the staff want to do that? The server site is in Europe so Eu players get less lag. Lag is important in an RvR game so the larger population will always be from Europe.

I think it's good that players from all over the world can play the game. I don't think it's realistic to expect the staff to modify the game to make it more North American time friendly. Now if there were a DAoC server located IN North America I wouldn't expect them to adjust anything to make it more EU friendly.

Gil wrote:What I see in this thread, and in many similar threads, is a request to modify this server to be more friendly to the low population of North American prime time. While the server COULD be changed to be more favorable to those who only (or mostly) play at other than EU prime time... Why would the staff want to do that? The server site is in Europe so Eu players get less lag. Lag is important in an RvR game so the larger population will always be from Europe.

I think it's good that players from all over the world can play the game. I don't think it's realistic to expect the staff to modify the game to make it more North American time friendly. Now if there were a DAoC server located IN North America I wouldn't expect them to adjust anything to make it more EU friendly.

Don't worry, alternatives are coming.