New Servers?

[symolan]

To me it seems that many new players don't like the idea to start on servers where some of the populations is many years old (sometimes it feels as if you'll always be the youngster unless you started with ryzom in beta). Also on the existing servers the players have formed alliances which are quite hard (next to impossible probably) to change.

As a current player I don't want to have to restart my char so the suggestion wouldn't be to just start everything again, but to have additional servers. I know, basically this would mean the current servers would be dying sooner or later and my beloved char too, but somehow I think that the fact that servers are some years old is not actually sexy for newbs.

Dunno how costly this is to implement, but guess that it might become necessary.

And no, I basically do not like this idea, but to me it seems as if it might become a necessity.

embrel - menetekel
leanon

[iceaxe68]

What would you recommend doing differently to avoid repeating what happened with Cho?

[symolan]

What would you recommend doing differently to avoid repeating what happened with Cho?

please educate me^^ dunno nothing about cho. was just a feeling I had. And as I said, don't actually like the idea, but it seems to me that it was more appealing to newbs to start on a new server.

embrel - menetekel
leanon

[iceaxe68]

Cho was a new server (English speaking) which gave people a chance to start on a server that didn't have entrenched alliances and so forth.

The first thing to note is that many of the characters on Cho were alts of experienced players on Arispotle, and using their already hard-won knowledge they were able to level up and accomplish things much more quickly than true newbies could. So there was no "advantage" for new players to start there instead of on Arispotle. At least, no advantage of the sort that most advocates of fresh servers seem to want.

The second thing is related. Because there was little incentive for new players to start on Cho, few did. The majority of new players still went to Arispotle, which had more population and high level characers who helped new folks rather than being focused on the Cho "land grab".

End result:
Cho had very low population, and did not create enough income to pay for itself. The characters from Cho were eventually moved to Arispotle, and Cho shut down. The merge was problematic at times, with name conflicts and so forth, not to mention the Cho guilds (at least those that weren't just branches of Arispotle guilds) landed in a place where they had no stake.

I was still pretty new at the time, so perhaps others could fill in holes and correct mistakes I may have made here. I did have a character on Cho, and she is now on Arispotle, though I rarely play her.

The arguments I have heard in favor of starting from scratch have some understandable motivations, but I'm still waiting for an idea of how to achieve those ambitions. How will you keep existing players from going to new servers and using their experience as an "advantage"? How will you get new players to go to a new server where nobody will help them get started? And how will you get them to stay there when they discover that:

1. Ryzom is freakin' hard, and having some help is really nice.

and

2. Unless you already know what you're doing, there's little advantage to being the first on a server, and a lot of disadvantages?

Some people seem to expect some sort of competition to be the "best on the server" or "first on the server to do X" or some such. This probably comes from level-based MMOs and other sorts of games where the goal is to pwn your neighbor. Most experienced Ryzom players have learned that Ryzom is much more about cooperation than competition.

The truth is, there is not a good way to recreate the experience of being the first (player) homins on Atys. Even if you somehow keep the new server for true newbies, the knowledge is out there for the searching or the asking, both here in the official channels and elsewhere in greater detail.

[sidusar]

Exactly. Being there right after launch, on the first server to be started up, is a voyage of joint exploration and discovery, where the whole community together gets to know the world. Starting on a freshly opened server after the game has already been out for more than a year, is to be part of a giant arms race to be the "first to get to 250", "first to get NPC gear", "first to grab the outposts", etc. On Ryzom, this race would last a month or two, maybe three, and then the new server would be pretty much 'established' as well.

There do indeed seem to be many MMO players out there who don't want to start Ryzom on an old server, because they'll "never catch up to the old players". A misnotion, in my opinion, as a hardcore player that knows the ropes could be at the top of the food chain in 6 months, and even a 'normal' MMO player can have a master and several 200s after a year and participate in pretty much anything. Giving these players a new server may make them believe they have an 'equal opportunity' now, but they'll be left in the dust by alts of experienced players within a week.

So if this is to be used as a strategy to attract new players, the time element is critical: The server needs to attract enough players to sustain it within a few weeks of it's launch, or it's too established already. Within that time you need to catch all those players who are considering maybe trying Ryzom if they could do it on a new server. Thus, the launch date needs to be massively advertised for weeks in advance, so that they all know it, and it also needs to fall on a date when there's no holiday going on or other MMO or expansion coming out, so that they'll actually consider playing it.

If you only start advertising the new server after it's opened, then by the time most of these players hear about it and find time to try it, it'll be too late. If the launch date of the server coincides with the launch of some new MMO, they'll all be playing that first, and by the time they're bored of that and ready to try the new Ryzom server, it'll be too late.

Even if we do catch most of these players, I'm still not sure it'd be enough to warrant the cost of another server though...

And ofcourse, the big problem with this strategy is that it requires opening a new server every 3 months or so, generally leading to all the servers except for the oldest and the newest eventually bleeding to death over time. And every time you merge one of those emptier servers into an older more populous one, you risk loosing everyone that still plays on it.

[batuo]

Chiming in as a new player, i'd have to say i agree with what you guys are saying as flaws. as well as feeling the desire to be a part of something fresh.

There do seem to be so many alliances in this game that if a new guild wanted to try to make their mark they'd get stomped by everyone else.

It seems all OP's are taken. So no cats for newbs unles sthey get into old guilds. but then you have to live someone else's vision and not your own for a guild. this IS a disadvantage.

Perhaps a way to do this is through new content and lands which is something others have spoken of. Once the population increases enough for this to be a more serious issue then wait a lil while so folks have time to get some skills up then open some other area that everyone is gonna gun for. That way we new folks have a chance to conquer some new content or get our own OP's.

And yeah, every time a new server emerges the majority are usually older players who run to "get theirs" where they couldn't before. sometimes even older players want a fresh experience on a fresh server. and that will always happen.

If you aren't in at launch there is no real way to recreate the experience.

And of course the core community that has kept this game alive would jump ship over a full restart.

Even if they just reset all OP's well the old guilds/alliances of guilds would just sit there ready to retake it the moment they were able to. and with the more experienced players being in these groups the new folks still wouldn't stand much of a chance.

And even though the lore cannot currently be unlocked further, there is no way to "rediscover" that without changing the original lore of Atys. Which of course changes the continutiy of the game world for thos ethat have previously played.

Even with an alternate lore server, older players would still want to explore that alternate vision of Atys.

So the question is...is there actually a way to resolve this? Or can it be simply overcome by the community itself?

[sidusar]

Even if they just reset all OP's well the old guilds/alliances of guilds would just sit there ready to retake it the moment they were able to. and with the more experienced players being in these groups the new folks still wouldn't stand much of a chance.
This particular problem has already had some neat solutions suggested.

1. Outposts regularly get attacked by NPC armies, growing stronger and stronger until they retake the outpost, at which point it's open to be attacked by all.

2. Outposts randomly dry up and a new one opens somewhere else, free to whoever gets it first.

Apart from the many awesome effects of these features that fall outside the scope of this thread, the hope is that this would cause the oldies to stop bothering with the lower level OPs (which right now they can keep with almost no effort at all), leaving them open for new guilds to fight for. Specially if they open more q50/q100/q150 OPs to match the number of the q200 and q250.

[iceaxe68]

... So no cats for newbs unles sthey get into old guilds. ...

Not true at all, actually. q50 and q100 cats are freely available from several of the guilds that own those OPs, and higher level ones can be had as well.

Of course, I still think cats are eeeeevil. ;)

[numbie]

So the question is...is there actually a way to resolve this? Or can it be simply overcome by the community itself?
All so called "new players" have to finally understand their real role in Ryzom community: they are nothing more than vanity pets that can be leveled, equipped and trained by those who are the actual players in this game - proud owners of the "since beta" title. ["wink and shed a tear" smiley goes here]

[iceaxe68]

All so called "new players" have to finally understand their real role in Ryzom community: they are nothing more than vanity pets that can be leveled, equipped and trained by those who are the actual players in this game - proud owners of the "since beta" title. ["wink and shed a tear" smiley goes here]

Huh?

If that's not intended as humor, it's the most horribly cynical point of view I've seen here.

I haven't been here since beta, I still have no mastered skills, and yet I'm nobody's vanity pet, and I've made a small place for myself in the community.

If it was intended as humor, sorry, but I didn't rofl at this one.

Change of subject:
If you think taking and holding an OP is the be-all end-all experience of Ryzom, you are missing the freakin' point altogether. You "win" every time you log in and have fun for a while. You "lose" when you get all stressed out over politics in a game.

[kostika]

New servers aren't needed. As mentioned, Cho was a disaster. There will always be new players. There will always be older players that are established. What needs to happen is that plaers need to think outside the box. Wheel and deal. make your wn bargains and deals. Create your own alliances.

When the Samsara still existed we had a lvl 250 outpost and I regularly did deals with smaller guilds and players for outpost supplies. These players thought beyond the confines of entrenches alliances and made their own way.

So stop riding on someone else's coat tails and make your own way. Everyone has something they can offer for trade, you jsut have to figure out what is wanted.

[thlau]

Instead of opening new servers, I would appreciate some way for leaving a players footprints on Atys that applies to all levels of players. I think about something like the Temple Wars, and there especially the Steeles that are now placed near the temples and the abandoned construction sites.
I am still proud about the rankings of my guild and my guilds members, and what we accomplished with two rather low level skilled players. If I remember correctly I raised my harvesting skills from about 100 to 190 during the events months and my main crafting skill from level 60 to 150.

Not that I think that the Temple Wars were an especially good event, it was a way to leave a name that lasts beyond the online and subscription times.

[rakehell]

As a player that started on Cho simply because it was new, I can say that it wasn't the best of experiences. I arrived in Fairhaven to see no other players at all. All the NPCs fooled me at first until I realized they WERE all NPCs. I had to solo level for the most part and if I over-estimated my ability to handle various mobs there were no rezes either.

Realize, we aren't talking about just one new world. French and German speakers might expect new worlds as well.

The worlds are huge. I have no idea how many players they are designed for, but given the number of similar level XP'g fields existing it must have been a large number, 10k or more perhaps.

I'd guess the owners will concentrate on filling the existing worlds before opening new ones. Even then, they will likely decide to open new ones for specific language groups not already served.

They do need to come up with something new to go with an advertising push tho.