Two types of Characters.

[Makfly]

For all the vitriol towards WoW and games of the same kind, it's striking how ignorant some are about those games.

There are a bazillion quests in WoW, and for all it's flaws, most make much more sense and have more lore than those of Genesis. A very small portion of them are repeatable, and of those the vast majority are at the max level.
Quest rewards are much, much more meaningful, as they provide alot of Xp, reputation/faction, items and gold most often.
So much so, that the way to progress to the max level is done through quests, though they have provided ways for you to gather Xp through dungeon-crawls or through PvP'ing. Nobody stands around and just beat on random monsters over and over, like we all did in EverQuest or are doing in Genesis.
It is amusing though, that it is somehow more acceptable to steal ideas from Diablo, also a greatly outdated game, whos best ideas are already incorporated into WoW and other MMORPGs.

Seriously though, I know it's easy and hip to rail against the commercial successes, but if you want to survive, you need to adapt, and Genesis is sorely in need of adaptation both in and out of game.
Also, MMORPGs are not a different species to a MUD, basically EverQuest was a graphical dikuMUD, and the market Genesis needs a bigger slice of, comes from the same huge, huge computer-gamer market that other MMORPGs draws upon.

You are more likely to draw in a computer-gamer to play Genesis, than you are to draw in an avid reader that doesn't player computer-games. Genesis for all that you like to pretend that it's very special, is just an outdated computer-game with some great user-created content.

Trying to come up with changes to will both benefit the current, small player-base and also strengthen the appeal of Genesis to new potential players, seems like an impossibility. You can't both please and strengthen the status-quo, while also enacting substantial change to adapt to the present & the future.

[Laurel]

There are a bazillion quests in WoW, and for all it's flaws, most make much more sense and have more lore than those of Genesis. A very small portion of them are repeatable, and of those the vast majority are at the max level.

disagreed - "most" quests in WoW are repeatable bullshit quests where only names of targets and their location change; SOME are nice chains (like the Sons of Hodir chain) with nice story around and stuff to gain
also - I could level up in WoW (on several chars) without doing a single quest - just instances after instances (rested bonus + items with +% exp per kill bonus) until I was forced to do a quest required to progress into another area/instance

[Cherek]

Makfly: You make it sound so bleak and impossible. I disagree, I think a text game could be successful even today. No matter what you say the imagination of seeing something you reading is something I think will always cater to people. And you cant beat no matter how fancy graphics you have. You are right, targetting people who already play games is a good idea, but I bet alot of gamers also read books.... and not everyone likes WoW or similar MMORPGs. I dont. I think Genesis is funnier. I cant be the only one who is looking for a different experience the MMORPs can give me?

Anyway, I do think we could borrow game concepts from WoW that are good. Who said its more okay to borrow from Diablo? I am all for borrowing good components from other games.

My suggestion of having one type of XP and up rewards for quests does sound alot like the WoW style I think. I also think we should borrow "grinding-quests" from Wow.

I am all for "Go collect X of this" quest... or... uh "chores" maybe we could call them since a "quest" is something else in our world.. Tutorial land has a few of those and I think its a good way to make grinding a little less boring since it gives you a goal, and a bonus if you reach the goal. Its gaming basics and it works well. I say copy it.

I also think we could think of more ways (more or less incorporated in WoW too I think?). Like some type of missions that come with a bonus in experience and/or gold access to an area, etc. Instances its called in WoW? With missions like "Clean out this dungeon". Or "Defend this castle for X minutes", "Storm that fort and kill the king". etc etc. Where you get normal Xp for that you kill and then those who paricipated get a bonus in the end of they succed in the mission.

Those are things that I think would improve grinding in Genesis immensively and I hope some day a wizard feels interested in working on it. I think after the webpage and the newbie-dungeon, this is what I hope wizards would focus on, together with fixing the old quests by adding more hints. (discussed in another topic.).

I think the WoW-style of grinding (Made to fit the Genesis-style) would do tons both in attracting and keeping new players. As well as make grinding more fun for us oldies.

Thats what we need to get the game going I think, and make it feel more modern. And I dont think its such a HUGE job, even one single "dungeon" would do alot of good.

[Sharn]

Good ideas Cherek, I agree.

[Rhaegar]

I would also like to see more team quests (but less obscure than MM entrance). Where, for example, part of the team must hold a corridor where an endless stream of guards is arriving while the others kill a lord of the castle. If the guards reach the lord's room, the entire party is wiped out, if the lord is killed the guards stop arriving and the entire party gets rewarded.
You know, so that questing is no longer a solitary, time-consuming thing but rather something you can share and discuss with others.

[Tive]

I would also like to see more team quests (but less obscure than MM entrance). Where, for example, part of the team must hold a corridor where an endless stream of guards is arriving while the others kill a lord of the castle. If the guards reach the lord's room, the entire party is wiped out, if the lord is killed the guards stop arriving and the entire party gets rewarded.
You know, so that questing is no longer a solitary, time-consuming thing but rather something you can share and discuss with others.

Ah, why don't you wiz and code all your ideas yourself, mister?
Hmm, on the other hand... I suppose that would not be any good for anyone...
*scared*

[Earth]

Let me explain further why your questing would be beneficial to you with the system I proposed:

When you hit myth, you stop growing, end of the road (yes, I'm actually talking about the limit to which players can grow here, something that should be implemented in gen long time ago). Now, qexp not only provides you with immediate boost to your experience but it also allows you to go over the cap.
In other words, if you want to be a bigger myth than others, you need to quest. Grinding alone can bring you to the slowest myth level and that's it (you would still get exp that goes towards guildstat though).

Now, with this system, when a new quest is introduced, myths can grow a bit more (thus increasing the available player cap) and when we reach the situation when myth saturation becomes too much (a bit like the old days, when almost everyone was champion) wizzies can just add another player level(s) and the brute table is pushed down one place for each added level (so, with 2 new mortal levels added myths would drop from ex vio to vio and continue growing).
So, if you have completed all the quests, you could be the biggest bastard out there, with power level being over nine thousand and what not.

Everyone can become a myth but only the most dedicated of players can be really big, giving them advantage over the others.

Does this sound appealing to you at all?

Hold on a second...did anyone else but me notice that if you change myth to rising hero or hero that you essentially get the same thing? Wasn't this what happened when the wizards added the mortal titles? Basically, everyone can reach the old "champion" level with some minimal questing (tours and stuff) and lots and lots of combat. If you want to grow bigger than that, you have to quest...

If you ask around, most of the really large players have dedicated time to completing the quests as necessary. Personally, I spent many years at rising hero/hero level until I dedicated some time to questing. Even though the quest exp gained didn't seem to improve my brute, I did notice that the most quests I did the easier it was to advance my mortal title.

[Cherek]

Exactly Earth: However it worked well before since everyone could reach the highest title with very little questing, thus nobody felt "forced" to quest.

Now the maximum title is much higher and forces you to quest to reach it, so people feel forced to quest.

But most of the quests and their rewards were made to fit in a world were champions was the highest mortal title. The old champion that is, which is what? expert-rising hero today? Today most rewards feel insignifficant and too small, and you need a whole lot of more quest XP to reach the highest level.

Solution?

Up quest-rewards so they are more in line with the current "size" of the game? But I dont know how experience works so I dont know of it would be mathematically possible to recalculate this somehow... and what to do with brute if you up the rewards I dont know either...

Thats why I suggested remove brute and up the rewards considerably, but I dont know if thats a good idea either.

[Rhaegar]

The old champion is current veteran (I know because it was changed a day after my old char reached champ).

[Creed]

Exactly Earth: However it worked well before since everyone could reach the highest title with very little questing, thus nobody felt "forced" to quest.

Now the maximum title is much higher and forces you to quest to reach it, so people feel forced to quest.

But most of the quests and their rewards were made to fit in a world were champions was the highest mortal title. The old champion that is, which is what? expert-rising hero today? Today most rewards feel insignifficant and too small, and you need a whole lot of more quest XP to reach the highest level.

Solution?

Up quest-rewards so they are more in line with the current "size" of the game? But I dont know how experience works so I dont know of it would be mathematically possible to recalculate this somehow... and what to do with brute if you up the rewards I dont know either...

Thats why I suggested remove brute and up the rewards considerably, but I dont know if thats a good idea either.

I think thats a horrible idea.
It should not be possible to reach myth as fast as it was to reach the old champ. So I personally think that the time and brute involved in reaching myth is fine.
People have worked at it for years, and have managed to get there.
It should not be something you can achieve in 6-8 months, which wasn't a big problem when champ was max.

If you make it easier to reach myth, all you start is a run for "I soon got all 6 stats at supreme"..
You'll just move the focus from mortal lvl to stats.. Im quite sure of it.