Zestana wrote:varian wrote:The motivation for my idea was to make the game more playable for newbies. There have been many newbies who have played our game and enjoyed it enough to come back a second time, only to find that their equipment was gone. Unfortunately, this has caused many of them to not return to Genesis.
Many of these newbies never left the tutorial, meaning that there was no possibility of larger players being able to assist them. They spent (in their opinion) a bunch of time and struggle to get (again in their opinion) "really good" weapons and armours, only to find that they were gone (or partially gone) on their next login.
I'm sorry.... You are basing the change from what it sounds like specifically toward a group of people who weren't even able to make it out of the Tutorial or see what actual magic gear could do? That's a flaw in the tutorial and easily rectified that everything on you while still in it glows.
First of all Zestana, thanks for the feedback, I will disagree with some of your points here and I don't want you to feel that I'm upset or angry
For some perspective, I first started playing Genesis about 24 years ago. While the online-gaming world has evolved in many ways since then, Genesis has only made minimal changes, and in general has remained static. As a long-time player and supporter of Genesis, I would like to see more new blood into the game... and to keep the old blood coming back
There are many, many things that could be debated on how to do this. Lots of things have been discussed, but there is generally a lot of disagreement and it makes it difficult to get a change done. This is just one thing... not everything.
This has actually been a very long-debated topic. Why can't people just keep their equipment? It is pretty-much standard for online games to allow this. We went through many different stages of this, and settled on the current "some things 'glow' and some things 'dont', so you can keep some of the stuff".
I can see that arguments on both sides of that debate, and to simplify it, on one side: Its just equipment that someone paid a price for (invested time, risked a death in combat, whatever....) so after earning it, why are you taking it away from me? on the other side: If we let people keep equipment, they are just going to take all of the good stuff and make it impossible for other players to get.
Obviously, you can just run in circles on those arguments.
Anyways, a (long) while back, my contribution to the argument was "if you are concerned about people hoarding all of the good equipment - which is the rare and magical stuff that has limited quantities - then just make everything non-magical save."
This was apparently ignored, or perhaps never truly heard, back then. Because when people were still arguing this subject and I said "I still think my proposed solution was a good idea..." a lot of people seemed to agree and never remembered hearing it before.
So... what prompted that last discussion? Well, newbie complaints. People who don't stay through the tutorial, or have difficulty going past it, or in various ways have a complaint about the eq they worked hard for is now just gone. They don't understand it, because other games don't work that way... so... we are different, and in their view, not in a good way. If they kept their stuff in the tutorial, but then stopped being able to keep it.... it would be misleading and a turn-off (or so I feel).
And yes, we could make tutorial items saving... and nothing else... but... why stop there? Why would we want to deprive people of equipment they worked for? Most of the arguments around keeping items non-saving, has to do with the limited quantity of special items. We don't want to take them away from other people in the game, and we want to keep those items 'special'. If you can get the 'super awesome cool item' EVERY time you fight monster/NPC X, its less special. If there are a limited quantity of them (by whichever means, absolute or practical) it makes them more special, and keeps some interest and excitement into the game. It provides one goal (and there can obviously be many other goals) for players to strive towards.
But, well, non-magical items are not regulated in this same fashion. They just arent... because, well, they arent magical.
If your claim is that "there are a bunch of really good non-magical helms and greaves and bracers and stuff! so why should people get to keep those!!" my answer is because, in theory, they could fight the monster/NPC owner of those items as often as they want to stockpile vast amounts of them anytime, and essentially insure themselves to have multiple saving sets anytime they want. They aren't limited, you can find them as often as you want already anyhow (unless there is some other restriction on them... and without speaking of specific items, we cant really talk details). So... why are we trying to deprive people?
Does it devalue the smiths guild? Mmm.... debatable, but not really in my opinion. My experience with various smiths is that it usually ends up being more about role-play than about the equipment forged.
I might say that if the best head/leg/arm/robe items in the game is all non-magical, then the wizard community (me included) should take a serious look at adding in some cool new head/leg/arm/robe items that are fun and magical. Don't use it as an excuse to deprive players of fun things to play with.
Varian
(The comments contained within this rant are purely the views of Varian, and do not reflect the views of Genesis administration in any way)