IDEAS FOR RYZOM

I chose HA as my 1st craft tree, a choice forever immortalized in "88 Lines About 44 Bunnies  "Freddy Chose the HA craft / he liked that kind of misery."  And that line was chosen because I never again experienced the "hassle" of getting all 4 mats both a) from the "math standpoint"... needed a calculator to figure how many of each mat to get.

But even more so because b) in NO region did I find all mats in the same place. Joolz is often claimed to be "the bear" , I guess because of so much clicking ... and when i doid it, each jool had different quantity of mats.  However, no math.... (if you had 660 bulk free, you dig 600 amber and 660 seed.) and amber and seed were always found in same place. 

I found Joolz a breeze by comparison. But I think the problem that Sarpes if referring to falls on the situation.  When game was developed, it went thru a long development period ... then there were several betas and things changes substantially.  When servers merged, everything had to get done quickly.

I don't get the post merge "wanted to remove advantage by experienced players thing" as it must have been obvious this wouldn't work, at least for spots.  Within a week, all the spots used by the experienced players (250 zone), were posted on Silenda.  So it actually had the opposite effect ... experienced players had maps for where they dig and the inexperienced players ... the ones doing 50 - 200 regions did not. If that was the intent, it had the reverse effect.

The only real equalizing effect that needed to take place I guess was due to the fact that the player culture was different.   When ya have one server where all factions cooperated to collect uber mats and gear, you are going to reap the rewards of working cooperatively.   When the main goal is not "getting the stuff" but "keeping the stuff away from others", there's going to be a lot less "stuff" around.

The economy was a big change too and they did great considering the time frame, wasn't really anything I could do w/ 1.3 billion dapper before merge.  It did take a bit more than I liked post merge to get "up to speed" w/ 4 meks, apartment and GH purchases but not overburdenly so. The one omission I felt was missed was that the cost for Restoration of NPC Plans was not adjusted for the new economy.

What I took from the discussion in PMs with Sarpes was that "not a lot of thought" went into the new locations.  I place the root cause here again to the limited timeline between old servers going down and new ones starting up.  Wasn't any time to really think about it, nor time to evaluate the placement. Given the time frame allowed, end result is better than I would have presumed.

Atys players are creatures of habit, like in every other game and I admit to shaking my head when uni was filled with complaints "Hey I can't dig bark and my usual spot cause there's goo here" ... well ya know ... there's 5 other bark spots ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dBE8nvWUi8

"improvise, overcome adapt" !

On the other hand, there are things that simply are frustrating because they don't make sense or don't balance risk versus reward.   I can dig exe zun in Paramount Stock all night long w/ "no chance in the hot place" that I gonna get DP... but when I want to get the basic / fine bark necessary for that 84% amp recipe, it's dead in the middle of a kincher spawn.

And yes .... understanding how we got here, not a bigga deal ... a ryzom player surely should be able to "improvise, adapt, overcome" ... but I do think that risk and reward should be balanced where possible. So I don't see the point to putting effort into take that inconsistency / imbalance even further .

And yes, there needs to be some mystery left to the game ... there was Supreme version of the "Exe Mat Resources Bunny Tool" but after evaluating it for 2 seasons, frankly, it took all the fun out of chasing Sups and so it was never released. made a funny April Fools Day joke tho :)

I don't really understand many of the responses in that I didn't really see any suggestion to make things easier than they are now. My understanding was that what was proffered was let's just not make things harder willy nilly w/o consideration of that risk / reward factor. I understand the mindset of "let's make it harder for peeps to get the same stuff me and my buds can get".

I don't agree with it but I understand why it is desired. But I also see the point Sarpe wants to make ... making the game more difficult so it's better suited to experienced players at the potential expense of new or returning players just looking to grind levels doesn't benefit anyone and is likely to have a negative effect on player retention.

I think we are in violent agreement with one another :) So I'm not sure who you are disagreeing with for this part of the post. Sarpe is talking about access to QL140 basic mats w/o getting DP. To my understanding, you, he and I are in complete agreement on sups.

Yes, this is a central point of division with no "right or wrong". The mindset that developed on each server was different and that difference, I assume, has its basis in culture. My Polish grandmother's "fav sausage" was kielbasa, for my Italian Uncle.. Italian sausage, for my German neighbor, it was Bratwurst". The best choice for anyone is ... of course... "what they like best".

But if a restaurant serves a neighborhood with limited population and mixed cultures, then if they cater to only one set of "cultural cuisine", it will be hard to keep the doors open. Even a steakhouse, will offer a couple of chicken, vegetarian and seafood options so that a "party of 12" is likely to have 2 or 3 in that category and will go some place else if those options are not available.

As I indicated before, the reason we were all stripped our our goodies, is that on Ari server, at every SN pop, the player base walked away with 300 sups from every spot. Kami, Kara and neutrals all dug side by side and openly traded mats, OP mats and everything else.

The goal was , when it came to an OP battle... looking across the field at an opposition 1/4th your size was not a "good thing" ... looking across the field and seeing the opposition was not as well equipped as you were, was a "bad thing". The mindset was "winning" is not "winning", when there is a significant advantage in size, skill level or equipment. If the goal was to present a "challenge" and "have fun", that wasn't going to happen under the conditions noted above.


It seemed to me, from the lore and discussions with the NA CSRs, that the purpose of the Trytonists was to keep either of the religious factions from gaining dominance.

"Trytonists have their own beliefs. They follow the will of Elias Tryton. In fine, their aim is to make sure hominity will live through and that, as long as there's no possibility to do otherwise, they will make sure no Power (K/K) is going to takeover the planet." So at least from a RP perspective, there was a means to encourage balance, however the associated mechanics never quite got implemented.

Ari went thru several community mindsets for settling on that PoV. Given that 6 years or so has gone by, I don't think a "meeting of minds" is in Atys' future. The difficulty we face when discussing "where do we go from here ?" is that any changes which move to greater alignment to one PoV, because of this dichotomy, will invariably disinterest the other PoV's.

In summary, I think it is necessary that, if we want the game to survive, we have to be careful. In order to make things a bit more interesting for players with one PoV, the impact on other PoV's should be taken into account such that others are not are not alienated or negatively impacted to the point where subscriptions drop to a level that maintaining the game becomes nonviable.

you forgot the /mic drop
well said.