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Post by: raynbow(16237) 2004-12-09 23:49:42 |
I see that I missed a long conversation about lowering donater AP's last night. I just wanted to throw in my two cents. I said alot of this in chat, but I'll repeat it here to make sure it gets seen. Sorry if it's a little disjointed, its mostly cut and paste from chat with a little editing.
I am ok with raising the costs for some of the higher level options like training. That makes it a choice. If I want to spend AP's on training I have to decide if I can really afford to spare them. But don't just flat out lower my AP's. I hope you dont reduce the AP. If we don't use them all, oh well. But I've run out at least once, in a particular spat of bad luck when I kept losing characters and having to go back to the Old World. I try and keep a padding of AP's for exactly that reason. I realize that some of the parties breeze through without ever losing a character, but some of us have a little more trouble. Look at my spent AP compared to my scores and you'll see what I'm talking about. I also don't think it's exactly fair to look at the AP stashes of the people who barely play, and from that say that 'all high level players have unlimited AP's.' Because those of us who play regularly don't. I agree with what CoG was saying, I think people would spend more AP's if there were more things to do. More areas. Especially, as I've said before, areas that are HARDER than the NW/Islands, but easier than Astral. That's the spot where everyone is getting roadblocked at the highest levels. Or even an area as hard as astral, but in an area that's more accessible. It's not Astral itself that I'm afraid of as much as gettin gthere alive. That was my last big party wipe, on the square outside of Astral. You could also change the second party option for SfP. Instead of splitting your paid time in half, you could split the extra AP in half. I'd really like a second party, to see if I've learned from my mistakes, but I don't want to split my paid time in half. I like SfP but not enough to pay 10-14 dollars a month to play. The more I think about it, the more I like that idea. I've always wanted a second party, but I never made one because of the splitting the paid time thing. |
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Post by: FloriZeus(7923) 2004-12-10 00:48:00 |
Many useful ideas here, and I especially like the last one.
It's hard to spend a lot of ap with my old party, but it's easier to spend it with a young party. Besides cutting the ap gain in 2, you could maybe have the option of a divide key. EG, I have three parties and I say: 20 ap to my old party and 40 to the second and 40 to the third. I have paid double for nine months, I then gathered herbs for 590k ap's, dropped the herbs of in the AB and disbanded the second party. I'm not saying I wasted money here since it's helping Peter to live of the games thus giving him the opportunity to work on the games, but the thing is that I paid for 200 ap's an hour, while I even couldn't spend 100 an hour, eventually that's why I detached that other party. |
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Post by: Raffen(17213) 2004-12-10 07:41:44 |
I am definetly against lowering the AP for paying members. I only have one party, and in the first 6-10 months I was a non-paying player. As a result I wasted loads of APs doing basically nothing, and I played so often that I hardly had any AP to spend when I played. Finally, last month I desided that I needed AT LEAST 100AP per month to really enjoy this game, and handed in some money.
Currently I have over 100k APs. There's a couple reasons for this high number. 1. Exams. 2. I wanted loads of APs to improve my party. 3. Exams (I can't sit and play SfP all the time when I should be studying). I must say I hardly can't wait to spend the 100k APs, and I know there's going to be zero left after just a couple of days. I say: The more APs the merryer. Btw: Is it possible to change the name of your party, or am I stuck with this stupid name forever? (I started playing when I was unembloyed and didn't go to school. Therefor, thinking I would only play for a couple of weeks before I got bored with it (STUPID), I just made a name in to seconds.) The name of the party is Khrychztovic if anyone is wondering..... |
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Post by: TrickytotheMaximus(8206) 2004-12-11 05:12:49 |
Why not just drop AP all together for payers? As long as you pay, you get to play all you want. Non-Payers get a few thousand AP a day, with no carry over to the next day. Just seems a little simpler than the current system. |
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Post by: Raffen(17213) 2004-12-11 17:42:35 |
I'm for that.... Then I could play all day!!! ;) |
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Post by: Kubala(25078) 2004-12-13 07:06:07 |
You could spend all day killing everything in the arena and still not use more aps than you gain. I've tried it. It just got boreing when I had to do it just for efficency. I don't know, that's just where I stopped. |
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Post by: raynbow(16237) 2004-12-13 23:50:10 |
See, the arena, that's where everyone stalls.
Almost no one makes it past that to Astral. I really think that is where the major hangup is. It's so much harder to get to/survive Astral that you have to struggle on the islands/arena for so long that you get sick of the game before you ever can get to Astral. |
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Post by: Wolverine(1) 2004-12-14 15:49:36 |
You are probably right that lowering ap is a bad idea.
I have not entirely discarded it but I am lisening to your advice. Peter |
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Post by: Kubala(25078) 2004-12-18 13:57:54 |
I didn't really stall at arena, that's just where severe boredom set in. Not sure why really. I'd do it maybe 8-10 or more times a day for a few weeks and even though it was awsome for efficency, I just couldn't keep the fun AND efficency I previously had in the OW. Check scores 250k-300k and 300k to 350k. Efficent as hell, but just not what it used to be
And I remember being online when rainbow lost most of her guys in the astral entrance square. Too bad, but I bet you're back in there already. |
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Post by: raynbow(16237) 2004-12-20 23:28:32 |
I'm thinking about going back there. I don't know. Like I said, the power gap between Astral and the rest of the NW is just SO extreme....
After my last experience I'm pretty scared to try again. |
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Post by: Kubala(25078) 2004-12-21 04:33:08 |
I'm pretty as sure as you can start runnin throught the arena without thinking, you'll probably make it. |
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Post by: FloriZeus(7923) 2004-12-21 05:30:15 |
Rainbow, just make sure your blessed up to the notch.
Everyone in Bless End, Str, Ag, Div, Mag (even charisma but not necessary) Everyone in Imp Magic and Imp Melee(and cast these after casting Bless Magic on your mages. Same goes for the blessings... first bless divinity onyour healers and then bless the other spells you should be able to do it... I can now even survive unblessed and unimped |
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Post by: raynbow(16237) 2004-12-22 00:13:51 |
I already do all that Zeus. Astral is just HARD.
No matter how much you bless, it's MUCH harder than anything else. I still think there needs to be another area in there, harder than the arena and harder islands, but easier than Astral. |
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Post by: Argaud(36887) 2004-12-23 18:54:30 |
It is just me or the problem is that the NW is less interesting that the OW?
Dungeons are smaller and boring, QI are very scarce, there are few towns and even money is more difficult to find than in the OW. Also, the world is so huge than exploring is a pain in the rear, all you do is teleporting to the places the rumors lead you. Maybe the Arena will be more fun, but I am still a bit too weak for that, and given the comments I see, it is not. |
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Post by: Kubala(25078) 2004-12-30 10:17:21 |
You know, you are right about it being more boreing. The arena isn't more fun. It is, however, the most convenient place out there. |
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Post by: FloriZeus(7923) 2004-12-30 20:03:13 |
Well, you're right about dungeons being smaller, but QI's are not less scarce (not in terms of QI's found per ap's used).
You can make lots more of money and can train chars with money. However natural training goes a lot slower than in the OW, and you have to do the same dungeons a lot in order to increase in skill. Besides that, it's always more fun to play a game in the beginning, when death's around every corner and were you are not sure whether you will last in a dungeon. Chars with 500-900 hp's, bless and imp spells that cast for 100 and over; Power Bolts that hurt your enemies a lot or not at all, the same seven isles, the same fourteen isle dungeons, the incredibly hard Astral, the vast amounts of gold you gather but cannot spend because of the cap in paid training... and the bloody: 1 Axe SUCCESS, 12000 FAILURES when you train after spending 30k ap's. Yeah, OW was, for all of us, a lot more fun... but I still like the game though. |
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Post by: Argaud(36887) 2005-01-01 21:32:07 |
I am not yet to the level where I have spare money.
I don't think I will for a long, long time! :) The Arena is a bit dull, but man, some cash at last! I still find rather hard to find QI, maybe there are too many active groups in the NW, but often I clean an entire island worth of dungeons and find just one or two, or none. I wonder if it wouldn't be possible add a second level to some of those dungeons, to have more critters to hunt down for items. |
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Post by: Polare(30557) 2005-01-05 02:53:02 |
Heya everyone...
Haven't played for a couple of months for a couple of reasons. First, with the holidays and a busy spree at work I simply haven't had time. Secondly, though, I've run into the wall that Kubala describes -- I have a party that can do Astral, sure, but... well, quite honestly that has lost its shine. There's nothing challenging except AF, and AF is really quite small and repetitive compared to the vastness of the OW or even the variety of the NW islands. My second party is still going strong, but they're at the Arena point and quite frankly my interest for them has somewhat fallen off as well. My view of it is this: If you're an experienced player, you can breeze through the OW in no time at all - my 2nd party made it to NW in less than 45k APs spent - but the OW is the most enjoyable place due to its size. The NW is fun and more challenging, but there's no big dungeons where you can spend an afternoon doing a dungeon crawl (unlike, say, AC when I first went there, or even the Goblin/Orc/Pirate/etc. low to mid level dungeons that sprawl quite a bit). Where's the NW equivalent of Meriniver? What is there to do after you can easily roll the Arena? I hope to get back to playing some in the coming month or two when things slow down at work, but I will probably be spending less time than I used to until more content is added. Great game, but the content is not as replayable/open as it would be in a perfect world :) Peter, have you given thought to training/educating more world builders? Many MUDs get past the lack of content problems by allowing a number of mods/world builders (after appropriate vetting of course). The "area design" area you have obviously isn't enough -- it still takes far too much intensive work by yourself or one of the two others (that I know of) who can actually put an area together. -Mockers |