When are you going to adjust the bonuses to make it fair again?

[diamondman31]

i just recently joined this game and all i have seen is ignis owning the crap out of the other two realms yet they still have a experience bonus from you to join them to boost their population, hmm yet i see at least 20-40 on every time they invade realms. sad thing is you give syrtis no such bonus yet we have less high levels. alsius has about the same as us and fall to the same fate as we do each week. please let me know that you look at the state of your realm form month to month to make sure that your balance technique is actually fair for all realms cause it sure seems imbalanced at the moment. this is not an attempt to cry about being beat it is only just asking if you even bother to check this or is it an over looked issue since the beginning of the game itself. if so maybe you need to look at the average combat levels of each realm and then renew your population experiment.


just a food for thought

[ncvr]

Nobody has the bonus now.

Btw, Syrtis has around 3x as much war ready players as Alsius.

[Miraculix]

Not even close to Alsius, but compared to Ignis, both other realms are undermanned. The RLM system isn't working properly, obviously.

[Kittypretty]

i have always thought this whole debacle was retarded from the get go, splitting the community down the middle, loss of friends, loss of clans (like INQ on RA is dead, Daggers is dead, Ironfist is dead, and thats just syrtis.

why couldnt ngd simply have added a espanol tab, as well as an english tab for the global chat. so people could communicate on separate channels ( i have long since stopped believing war zone chat added lag..just made the premium item banners profitable)


or at least gve us more word on the status of player migration..

[-Edge-]

I always thought the RLM system was flawed, but it does give a bonus to the underpopulated realm, and it does a good job of tracking which realm is underpopulated. The only flaw NGD missed in this is that the RLM bonus worked too quickly and too efficiently, as Ignis went from the worst realm to the best realm by 3times, and its still growing now. The RLM balance system should've worked differently,

The system is currently counting players by how many are in each realm.... which is stupid because alot of those players don't even play. And the problem is that the changes to the RLM bonus occur to slow on that point. The system should give a bonus by checking every 24 hours which realm had more players online at once.

But its only partly to blame for the current state of affairs. The main problem right now is that players have isolated themselves into timezones for each realm. Id roughly say Ignis is mostly american, and syrtis and alsuis are european.

i have long since stopped believing war zone chat added lag..
I never believed it added real lag, even when there was massive spam. On events when the global chat was up and you had all 3 realms spamming, I felt no lag even though there was a new line of text every 0.005 seconds.

If NGD wants to get rid of lag, how about they get rid of some of the useless mobs in the warzone that no one even bothers to fight, like the snakes or igneos around Samal,

[Anpu]

What amazes me is:
1. NGD said that Horus is their priority now.
While many Horus players asked for quick response about situation on that server, still nothing.
1.1 While Horus players asked for quick fix of "bug with instant casting", which is serious problem on Horus due to low population, they are working on some animations. Should I remind they said Horus is their priority?

2. While NGD attitude according bug abusing is that abusers should be banned, they even don't care to take a look of Ignis who is openly doing bug abusing at their gate with those area spells and teleporter, every time someone tries to invade them. Not only that, but even jumping from walls. Maybe we should have new class in game now, paratroopers. Do I need to mention that this kind of bug and its users (in general) are already reported many times here?

While many players are frustrated that NGD doesn't want to even say something about this matter (except when its some Inn thread), and some even don't want nor to buy premium nor to take part in invasions, NGD team is working on new ninja warriors, probably in the name of keeping "realistic" image of game.

And at the end even if someone respond, it ll be: "Hi, we are small team, be patient please and understand us. We are working on new update. Regards." But anytime they need to understand players, there comes fail. And after sometime, when they realize what players are saying, they do hotfix. But after some time, when damage is already done.
If you re not capable of developing and maintaining game, why even to continue this. You are always forgetting that players is what makes money flowing around. If they are not satisfied, you ll loose customers and their money which I honestly don't want to happen to you nor this game.

This is not "yet another flame post", I just call you to see these facts, think about it, and react on them. Time will show again if your reaction was good or bad. I m sick of logging every time on Horus to see my friends, my clan members, my realm mates disappointed because of all I wrote above. They are NOT enjoying in game, its NOT providing fun, as entertainment software should.

[Adrian]

Hi Community,

The Realm bonus is working as it should by design, but this doesn't mean that the formula is accurate. We've been checking constantly the behavior of this numbers (and what you state in this forums, yes, even if you don't believe it :) ) and we acknowledged there's a flaw in it which doesn't lead to make it useless, but to stop it when it has been effective for a while.

Currently, the bonus is applied based on active players of levels higher than 30 during the past two weeks. We do think that there's a problem with how active a player is, as in hours of play during those two weeks. What do you think about the issue?

Also, please discuss any other issue in a separate topic to keep them ordered and understandable.

Regards,

[diamondman31]

well i have played for 2 weeks so far and we have been invaded 5-6 times so far so the in balance is there. whether they do not care i doubt they do not care they most likely think it is not a huge deal. but if they keep letting players abuse bugs as they have without responding they will fail as a company because people will go for fair over some fun any day rather than live under the thumb of some cheating thugs.

1. they have to balance the bonus system! not hard to do no excuse not too!

2.they have to have more harsh punishments for abusers. i.e. lvl downs as in 10 lvls lost, 30 day bans , perm ip bans sooner so people are more discouraged from cheating as they do now

3.i was going to pay $60.00 us dollars to help invest in characters and experience scrolls, but until they decide to make it fair i am going to with hold my money from this game( not saying anyone else should but i am)

4. they have a great product and really have a good base for an epic game it is sad that it seems they value an update more than fixing a major problem such as they glitches being used by many players that have already been reported screen shotted and continue to do the same things over and over again.

5.i am going to give this a few more days to see if they even try to fix anything but if they fail to even attempt to fix i will have to go to another game where the staff actually does what i have asked

[overander3]

Hi Community,

The Realm bonus is working as it should by design, but this doesn't mean that the formula is accurate. We've been checking constantly the behavior of this numbers (and what you state in this forums, yes, even if you don't believe it :) ) and we acknowledged there's a flaw in it which doesn't lead to make it useless, but to stop it when it has been effective for a while.

Currently, the bonus is applied based on active players of levels higher than 30 during the past two weeks. We do think that there's a problem with how active a player is, as in hours of play during those two weeks. What do you think about the issue?

Also, please discuss any other issue in a separate topic to keep them ordered and understandable.

Regards,

I don't know how you count those 30+ lvl caharcters, but I would like to add some suggestions to that.

1. Every account can hold 3-6 characters, and high lvl players tends to start new ones, so 3 30+ character on one account is not rare occurence. 20 accounts can hold 30-40 high lvl characters easily, and counting each of them could be misleading, since only one character is playable at a time. I think it measures the realm strengh more accurately, if only the highest lvl characters are counted per account.

2. Not every high lvl character has the same value. So i suggest "counting them" based on their levels.
For example:

If Character.lvl > 30 then Realm_strengh := Realm_strengh + Character.lvl;

Since I dont think that 2 lvl 30 character can defeate a lvl 50 character, but they count more on the summary (60 vs. 50) it is not too accurate, but it is better than counting each of them as 1.

3. To solve the time zone problems: the Realm streng should be measured frequently, based on the online characters.

For example for every hour or for every 15 minutes the server measure the realm strengh and adjuste the bonuses according to the summary.
As a result, for example on Horus: it is possible to give bonus to Ignis at 12:00 (GMT) witch time Syrtis outnumbering them on my experience and give bonus to Syrtis at 3:00 (GMT) when Syrtis is the most weakened and Ignis holds the zerg. (Of course Alsius needs the bonus all the time. ^^' )

So to summ it up, my suggestion is:

Count the highest level characters per account - that has online character played when the measurement is done - weightened by their levels, and do it frequently to avoid time zone problems.

(As a side note, i think lvl 30 is too low to be counted as war ready, lvl35 or lvl40 would be more accurate.)

----

Lylia - Sytris(Horus)

[Pendalf]

Think similar as diamondman. Me and my brother spent about 100$ for scrolls etc. But today we wait until -RLM xp disappeared, cause -RLM xp means -my_money.
I met several people in game chat who does the same. This is a good reason to think about.

Kailer said:
What do you think about the issue?

From one side, Realm system should give bonus to invaded realms. If the realm was invaded, it automatically means that this realm needs help. From another side, it shoulnd't happen that being defeated is better then victorious.
Invation must be a reason for high-leveled chars of invaded realm to play more often. So, invaded high-leveled chars can be made unable to use their special, epic etc stuff, but low-leveled (< 30) should have an XP bonus to grow up faster.

[Mantarni]

Personally, I've always held the idea that an immediate realm bonus would be that whenever a realm is weak, the guards for that realm would multiply and be much stronger, rather than relying on an exp bonus to gain more players.

For example, when Syrtis is at their bottom (which is roughly 10 warzone ready players, like last night) and 30 - 40+ Ignis are attacking them (the majority high leveled, we checked many times), there could be 3-5 times the number of guards at our gate, and they would be vastly strengthened compared to if we had equal numbers of players.

I'm thinking this could be related to the number of enemies (+ their levels, within that particular zone - also correlating to who has the forts/castle, so as not to have two realms attacking at the same time make the invaded realm immortal, just slightly stronger than if one realm attacked) in correlation to the number of allies (+ their levels, within that zone and the surrounding inner zones). Of course, a completely unmanned gate would still be easier to invade than one with no players (offsetting the possibility of everybody just leaving to strengthen the gate) - maybe count for all higher level players within 3-4 area zones or something.

This just came off the top of my head and could use some reworking so as to not make it over or underpowered, but you get the idea of where I'm going...

[Angelwinged_Devil]

I think that lylia has a good point about characters from the same ip, if an ip logs on with a char above level 30 they would count as one person for the realm balance system.

Also I think that about invasions (as from the thread starter) there's a lot of bugs which needs to be solved out which makes invasion much easier, it seems ignis likes to use em'

You know what I do when I code? I try to use some time on "getting to the bugs before they get to me" etc.
What would happen if someone sent such a request? Is there some place in the code which will prevent a wrong behaviour? I don't know if you guys do too but a lot of events could be prevented by thinking like this sometimes especially, what would prevent people from just camping the castle all the time? What possibilities are there for a low level player to intefer with invasions?

Another point which comes to my mind is server population which has been discussed before, something needs to be taken into account that there's going to be a difference if a server has 200 active users and 1000 active users.

Some algorithms would be in place in terms of maybe gate health for forts, guard strength etc. which would be similar to the realm bonus and will give the "server difficulty" some kind of level depending on how many are logging on, this means the server enviroment will be justified depending on how many people are active at the server, it's a big difference if you focus on ra which has a lot of active players whereas horus has not so many (can't imagine how it is at niffleheim and muspell) and adjust the server to RA enviroments who has many players.

A good analogy would be serving a meal for 1000 to 200 people

[Yawney]

Invation must be a reason for high-leveled chars of invaded realm to play more often. So, invaded high-leveled chars can be made unable to use their special, epic etc stuff, but low-leveled (< 30) should have an XP bonus to grow up faster.
So you want to punish high lvls just because of the high lvl. Stop this madness please. This is just a game.

There's nothing that can make players (maybe just me though) quit more than any sort of negative effects. I'm perfectly fine with boosts and bonuses for others because they deserved it, be it because of a successful invasion or whatever. But why should I be screwed just because I am lvl 50 and couldn't be online when we got invaded?

[Mantarni]

gate health for forts, guard strength etc

Sounds familiar, how did you think of that. :tsk_tsk:
(read up)

[Angelwinged_Devil]

Sounds familiar, how did you think of that. :tsk_tsk:
(read up)
been thinking of it for a long time, I was still writing my post when you posted yours :p (look at the times they were posted)

[Mantarni]

Yeah, I'm just testy because I have a tendency to have my posts be ignored.


Must be the name or something, maybe I should try writing in a different color and font...

[chilko]

What amazes me is:
1. NGD said that Horus is their priority now.
While many Horus players asked for quick response about situation on that server, still nothing.
1.1 While Horus players asked for quick fix of "bug with instant casting", which is serious problem on Horus due to low population, they are working on some animations. Should I remind they said Horus is their priority?

2. While NGD attitude according bug abusing is that abusers should be banned, they even don't care to take a look of Ignis who is openly doing bug abusing at their gate with those area spells and teleporter, every time someone tries to invade them. Not only that, but even jumping from walls. Maybe we should have new class in game now, paratroopers. Do I need to mention that this kind of bug and its users (in general) are already reported many times here?
.

1) Horus is our priority indeed.
1.1) the bug that you are mentioning has been fixed, the problem that you are experiencing is a problem with synchronization between client and server (why do you think that we are re-wrighting the movement system in the game?, simulation, comunications and client side prediction?)
Also, (and i hope this is the last time i have to say this) animations are made by animators, bugs are fixed by programmers.

2.) there are many issues with invasions that we are aware of. we are going to adress them on a bigger patch later, including things related to realm balance such as handicap. This is a difficult task as we cannot make 2 games one for big pop servers and another for low pop servers.

[Miraculix]

Hi Community,

The Realm bonus is working as it should by design, but this doesn't mean that the formula is accurate. We've been checking constantly the behavior of this numbers (and what you state in this forums, yes, even if you don't believe it :) ) and we acknowledged there's a flaw in it which doesn't lead to make it useless, but to stop it when it has been effective for a while.

Currently, the bonus is applied based on active players of levels higher than 30 during the past two weeks. We do think that there's a problem with how active a player is, as in hours of play during those two weeks. What do you think about the issue?

Also, please discuss any other issue in a separate topic to keep them ordered and understandable.

Regards,

Multiply each character's contribution to his realm strength by the time he is logged on.

1 lvl50 that played 2 hours == 2 lvl50s that played for one hour.

Make the contribution exponential by level, like the XP curve. A lvl50 would count as two lvl44's, etc.

This is all just suggestion that may as well break the system more than fix it.

NGD could share the statistics it uses for calculating the strength of a realm, and players based on their experience can suggest formulas that represent the actuality. Maybe something like the testing team, but server specific and balanced in terms of who is in it from each realm.

[Syd_Vicious]

I think we are just really beating a dead horse here while NGD watches. To stay on this topic though here is what I think about the bonuses:

1. Using an IP address would show a family that plays as 1 person. So while two to three ppl could have accounts only the highest lvl'ed one being represented would not be a proper representation of realm strength when all three could play in different realms. I do like Lylia's idea of the highest level within an account though.

2. Punishing other players for something that they have no control over (times that ppl play, what level they are, what type of items they might have picked up during countless hours of grinding) is just an easier way to disenfranchise the veteran player base. Taking away my item bonuses because we got invaded while I was asleep decreases my ability to defend against invasions (albeit slightly) during the time I am awake. Why punish players for living outside the game?

3. The invasion system as it is on Horus is one sided due to time zone imbalances and population imbalance. It would serve no purpose to give someone an xp bonus when a part of the invasion system allows a stronger realm to remove that bonus for a week. So yes as cisco2950 is correct at saying that a negative bonus applied to his realm does indeed in fact hurt his pocket book. On the premium portion on the website, no where is there a full disclosure statement saying that the invasion system can affect the actual amount of Xp received.

4. We do think that there's a problem with how active a player is, as in hours of play during those two weeks. What do you think about the issue?

For the stated problem this statement is too generic to answer responsibly as I do not know what you are talking about Kailer. Do you mean someone plays to much, play to little, play is sporadic? Without knowing the exact computational method for which your system derives it's outcome it is difficult to understand wherein your system's problem lies. Other than not working very well.


Currently, the bonus is applied based on active players of levels higher than 30 during the past two weeks.

For what I am saying is this, does the above statement count as soon as they login, choose a character and connect? What is the duration of the connection required in order to log the player as being there? How long must they play in order to be counted in other words. If they don't do anything, ie. player is logged in only chatting with friends and the character remains in one spot for the entirety of the login, is that still counted? What is NGD's definition of play?

[w_larsen]

As a result, for example on Horus: it is possible to give bonus to Ignis at 12:00 (GMT) witch time Syrtis outnumbering them on my experience and give bonus to Syrtis at 3:00 (GMT) when Syrtis is the most weakened and Ignis holds the zerg. (Of course Alsius needs the bonus all the time. ^^' )


if i understand correctly, 12:00 is meant to be 12:00(day) not 24:00/00:00(night)? if so i'd suggest syrtis to start invasion around then, because it usually happens around 18:00gmt, which is mostly nice evening in europe, when everyone is back from work and ready to play some games.

[Kianoni]

...
:D thank you chilko, you just made me extremely happy. it may seem I complain a lot but this is the kind of feedback I would like to hear more often.
love the game, keep working and we'll keep playing :D

[Anpu]

1) Horus is our priority indeed.
1.1) the bug that you are mentioning has been fixed, the problem that you are experiencing is a problem with synchronization between client and server (why do you think that we are re-wrighting the movement system in the game?, simulation, comunications and client side prediction?)
Also, (and i hope this is the last time i have to say this) animations are made by animators, bugs are fixed by programmers.

2.) there are many issues with invasions that we are aware of. we are going to adress them on a bigger patch later, including things related to realm balance such as handicap. This is a difficult task as we cannot make 2 games one for big pop servers and another for low pop servers.
Fixing important problem on either of servers, no matter if its well populated or not, should be your priority always. While Horus will feel more benefit from it than Ra, both server would have one bug less, and customers would be satisfied. Don't forget, players are your customers. Depending how you treat them, your overall income and popularity will adjust to it. By that I mean spending real money in game and advertising for free on other forums, to friends and so on. Do you really think that someone would invest its money for xp boosters while having -xp bonus because bug abusers used bugs to get other gems(yes, examples of logging in enemy realm and trying stealing gems etc..), defend own etc ? Do you really think anyone will recommend such game to his/her friend? Put yourself in position of my friend, what would you say to hear this? Or even see this by yourself?

Also check one fact: Ra, more populated server, no portals have been opened so far if I am correct. Horus, less populated server, your current priority now, 7 times opened portal by same realm. Tons of complaints, people aren't enjoying, and many are angry. Do you know what Syrtis did last night after being killed again by bug abusers at Ignis gate in less than minute? They went to kill Vesper. Can you guess why? To try at least there to have some FUN in GAME. And game, by its definition, should most of the time provide fun.

When you opened English server, many left Ra and joined Horus, leaving even some of Spanish friends and good positions there. Many new players joined Horus too. And what happened since all those sweet words of yours about new server? Nothing. First all was ok. Each realm had its power, chance to invade. Syrtis even invaded Ignis first time in peak hours. Then what happened?
They started to use bugs, sneak at night hours, fighting against NPCs. Since then, none can even touch their gate. You know why? because battle there don't last more than max 2 mins. Why? Areas need time for casting. Time required for casting giving enough chance to enemy to try break your casting. We don't have that. Instant casting areas, one by another, and cool. This situation lasted very long, yet you didn't respond at all till today. Why ? Did we see any of your moves against it? To take a look in matter, fix it, finding alternatives, anything? And that is what pisses most players off. You are silent in front of those problems who are active for very long time there. As well as you are silent for UDP problem and many scripts that appeared recently. In my eyes this looks like you want to stay blind in front of these very important problems. Every game had these problems, earlier or later, but none of their dev teams acted like you here. Their priorities were always fixing very important exploits ASAP, not like you "later in the big patch". I see you re taking WoW as example while developing this game. Why didn't you take also their example how they treat with such problems?

There is really no excuse for this behavior. If you don't have programmers, well go recruit. Make reorganization, do something, don't just look at your monitors who are saying:"its okay NGD, everything is fine there".

I m extremely angry that my friends, and myself too, who abandoned our work and more than one year spent on RA, in the name of population your new server, are now not having fun at all. We were all patient, server to get new players, things to get sorted out, but this situation is lasting too long. I personally don't feel that anyone of you care this ->.<- much about Horus at all. Nothing has changed, you are just all posting that you have super plans, from month till month giving us many false hopes without doing a shit. What can player say you did so far? New crappy lucky boxes, fatigue, negative xp feature in invasion system, total disorder and imbalance of realms, complete F A I L. Give me one positive thing you did since opening Horus. First time after all this time I invested in playing this game, I feel so much disappointed in you. Why I need to go again to RA, so I could have fun, and cant have SOME fun, 1/10 of Ra fun, at Horus? Why aren't you doing anything? What happened with all promises and "perfect" plans of yours how to improve situation on Horus about population, balance etc?

Oh cmon, give me a break. You can ban me, I don't care, but you failed and yet you are still pushing some stories and false hopes. And that is, Chilko, and the rest of you, very hypocrite and rude from your side. How much more to wait? Will it happen anything at all when that "big patch" of yours come? Or will there be yet another bug that we ll need to wait yet another couple of months for its fix in yet another "big patch"? Woot big patch for bugs and quick hotfix for removing items, premium one too and destroying event ones too.

Really good job there. Keep up extremely "good" work. :thumb_down:

[chilko]

Dear Anpu.

It's not like we don't want to fix important bugs or that we don't take horus into account whenever we make a decision...

A feature such as Invasions, opens so many doors for emergent behavior that we decided to take the time to analyze everything first, do the proper design and implement fixes later on an important update. Population by time zone and by server adds another dimension of difficulty for addressing this. We are still in the design process, and we are following all topics on this forum about this matter to gather feedback. Also, it is summer in Argentina, and many developers have left or are leaving soon on vacation. We've decided to postpone big updates until after that. for obvious reasons.

Horus was a great bet for us, we came to the conclusion that we would never have a big international community because of the barrier that language played, so we invested on new hardware for opening a second server.
We hoped that we could land an advertisement deal fast (something similar to what we have in germany) to be able for the server to grow as fast as necessary. Sadly, all of this deals went down, but we are still trying to sign one that might change the situation radically.

As for your advice on how to run our company let me just tell you that you should be more humble as you have no idea of our reality. We are a very small company, doing two games at the same time, working on a very low budget and within a very small local industry.
Its not like we place an ad in a Buenos Aires newspaper and we find a ton of experienced game programmers. Even if we could find one, it's not like we have enough money to hire them.

We are an independent studio, we are not a great success case but we still do the best efforts that we can because we believe in this product and we are very passionate about making games.

Luckily, our second project (a work for hire that sustained Regnum during this whole year) is almost done. and soon we will have 6-7 more developers working on Regnum. We hope to address this and many other issues as soon as we can (also considering all the other things that also need to be done).

As always, we will not ban you for feeling bad about the game, believe me, the worst thing for us is to loose players. but there is so much we can do considering the situation. I can even tell you that there might be bugs that we might never be able to fix, or features that we may never be able to implement (although in a given time, such impossibility never happened yet)

If you don't feel comfortable, playing on a free game, with a small, Argentinean, independent, developer behind it i'm sorry. I hope that you come back in a couple of months to see if the situation or the game or the company has improved.

Best regards,

- Chilko
NGD Studios
General Manager

[Miraculix]

I don't understand the reasoning behind the Horus bet, as you call it. You want it to grow as fast as possible, and put your hopes on promotion deals. So far so good, a perfectly sane move that anyone would do.

What I fail to understand is the lack of a plan B, in case the deals didn't work out. I know that the final outcome of a deal can take a while before it's obvious, but it's also obvious if it's not succesful immediately as you wanted (needed) it to be. You are not blind, you saw that there was no deal that brought new players at the very start of the server, even if some of these potential deals still were not clear whether they would last or not. It *was* clear however that they didn't work when needed the most.

So, why no plan B to save that situation as much as possible with what you already have? And it's not like you did not have suggestions for a plan B. Migration has been suggested before the actual launch, ever since the announcement for a server was made.

I understand the will to start a server with completely new players, new individual paying customers to horizontally expand your income, but this is secondary priority. If Horus failed to expand horizontally (by horizontally I mean more customers, same average income per customer), you could always go for migrations to quickly help Horus get back on it's feet as soon as possible, and possibly expand your income vertically (Same amount of customers, paying more money) by charging migrations. Horus would be in a better situation right now, some extra cash would be in your pocket, and you would have bought enough time to try a second time for some more horizontal expansion by new promotion deals.

It is not too late, you can still do this.

[n4gh4sh]

We hoped that we could land an advertisement deal fast (something similar to what we have in germany) to be able for the server to grow as fast as necessary. Sadly, all of this deals went down, but we are still trying to sign one that might change the situation radically.

Wouldn't it be easier to change xp curve to some more player friendly one?
Now 1 of every 30-40 ppl starting to play this game makes it to lvl40. The rest quits and will never come back. Don't you see the lost chances ? You should treat these ppl as lost money for you and lost fun for us - players, because it would also have impact on game balance (positive i think). And probably no bonuses would be needed.

Regards.

[chilko]

So, why no plan B to save that situation as much as possible with what you already have? And it's not like you did not have suggestions for a plan B. Migration has been suggested before the actual launch, ever since the announcement for a server was made.

I understand the will to start a server with completely new players, new individual paying customers to horizontally expand your income, but this is secondary priority. If Horus failed to expand horizontally (by horizontally I mean more customers, same average income per customer), you could always go for migrations to quickly help Horus get back on it's feet as soon as possible, and possibly expand your income vertically (Same amount of customers, paying more money) by charging migrations. Horus would be in a better situation right now, some extra cash would be in your pocket, and you would have bought enough time to try a second time for some more horizontal expansion by new promotion deals.

It is not too late, you can still do this.

At the time, this deals that I mentioned seemed like almost done.
Also, implementing a character transfer system was very hard to do considering our database structure (this has been recently solved)

We really thought that by word of mouth Horus would grow (at least at the same speed as Ra), we hoped it would be enough. Anyway, we see that after invasions, player population on Horus is growing, slowly but consistently.

We wanted to make horus a fair server where everyone starts fresh...
I guess that, character transfers will be available in the future as we already have the basic feature implemented. We don't see that transfers will fix the problem anyway.

Growing horizontally is the only way that Regnum can grow, you know why? because for it to become successful/sustainable we need to multiply its revenew 10 times (not 1.7 times).

It's difficult to have plan B's given our real situation... its evident that you still don't understand that many times our plan B was shutting down the game, filling for chapter 11 and in my case go back to my mom's apartment :)

I can now say that we now have proved that the game works, as a game and as a business. Also, we managed to work on another game to to sustain the whole company. Now we have another turn at the bat, at least invasions was a hit (maybe not the home run we initially thought)

regards,

- Chilko

[chilko]

Wouldn't it be easier to change xp curve to some more player friendly one?
Now 1 of every 30-40 ppl starting to play this game makes it to lvl40. The rest quits and will never come back. Don't you see the lost chances ? You should treat these ppl as lost money for you and lost fun for us - players, because it would also have impact on game balance (positive i think). And probably no bonuses would be needed.

Regards.

this is a free to play game and most of our income comes from XP boosters (as in every other F2P game out there) the new experience curve was a request from our partner in germany, because the game was not monetizing well and they have a lot of experience managing other games with this business models.

clearly we have problems with retention because of this (and because of other reasons), this is why we are removing fatigue (considering that now people have less time to lvl because of invasions and working on enhancements to the newbie areas, quests, and we will be working on some interesting features to put the end game right there from the beginning.

Best regards,

- Chilko

[Miraculix]

I understand that Regnum has walked a fine line between shutdown and extreme self-sacrifice, NGD reminds us at every turn. What you don't seem to understand is that the playerbase already knows that. It's probably the main reason most of your customers are still around and not payed about the same amount of money to some other, cold and faceless buisness that develops another game. Regnum financial system is not unique, in fact the subscription based model is dying out, microtransactions are looking like they are the future, so it's not like they don't have an economically similar choice.

I never said migrations would solve the problem, and I understand (through repeated NGD spam about it... xD) that Regnum needs more players, not more expensive transactions. I only said that it would (and will) buy you enough time to make the server fun for new players to actually play there. Such deadlocks like Horus are not solved by a single change, it's always a combination of things. Migration would be one of these. The RLM system (broken as it may be for now, I believe once it works it will produce results) is another. Good word of mouth is also a helping factor, but a tricky one.

I don't accuse NGD for relying on word of mouth - in fact, I commend that. No matter what amount of banner spam there is for a game, people will eventually "be sold" to a game if the existing playerbase is entusiastic about the game they play. Speaking as a player from both servers, the only reason I would recommend someone to play the game (and I have, on multiple occasions) is because of my previous experience on Ra.

Don't get me wrong, what Regnum is, it's core gameplay design, is probably the best thing I've seen in an MMO out there (and I have done my homework, I've looked around) and one of the main reasons I stick around. Horus *can* be fun. But I'm not the average player - I don't mind losing, I try to enjoy the fight as much as I can. This is far from the average mentality in your target group (teenagers). Hell, last night someone was crying in Ignis because he didn't get the Draconic Gem and said he would quit the game. For people that like to win, or at least have a chance at winning, Horus is most definitely not fun, and the people in that situation will not be very enthusiastic about the game they play, so word of mouth is working against Horus right now.

The Horus playerbase, and their happiness about the game they play should be top prioruty (in acts, not just words) if you want the word-of-mouth factor to kick in and work in favor of that server.

Fixing the RLM system, implementing migrations, and providing feedback on your actual acts for the Horus playerbase (instead of keeping us in the dark about it) will give you good word of mouth. In my opinion, anyway. It's not my company at risk, I can just say things from a safe perspective. But it's definitely something to try at least, I think.

[Eli2]

NGD communicating.
I love you guys :)

[n4gh4sh]

First I would like to thank you for such fast reply to my ideas. I'ts also nice to see NGD is doing so more often recently.

About fatigue I must say it didn't hinder me that much and I think there is quite lot of ppl who doesn't play more that 4 hours often. However taking into account the second group of ppl who can play like a maniac of a very long time, it is good you address their complaints.

About xp curve change I mean mostly levels between 25 and 35(37) in which I see the most players retention. In these levels they realize how much grinding is before them to be able to do something in warzone. And that's the real reason of quitting. The players who quit earlier would probably do so sooner or later for other reasons.

I wish you this game to be a real success concerning ingame player experience as well as business success. I know you have put a lot of time and work in it and I really appreciate that.

Best regards

[Nightchill]

Dear Chilko,

We are all aware that you are a small team with a humble budget, I think you've repeated that line so many times that it is now first association when someone mentiones NGD. If you are in a desperate need of workforce, open source some regnum libs, let us gamers do a part of your job. There's a lot of smart & skilled people here that can help in making Regnum a better experience and probably you won't even have to spend money to pay for the service.

As for Gamigo, they might have experience but they suck. Confirmed by tons of german people. Why are you sticking with them, except for the obvious? Don't let them turn Regnum in a crap product with low player retention just to make it monetize well. Has it ever occured to you that if you left the XP curve the same, never introduced fatigue, that you'd have more players then now and earn more money in the long run? It seems to me that you've only thought of shorter period of time with all those decisions.

As for your second game product, I am glad to hear that you're doing a good job with it and that it will pay the bills, but I'm not so glad to hear that it's done on Regnum's expense. Probably if you had all the workforce only on Regnum from day 1 without any sideproducts, RO itself could've payed out pretty well because the concept of this game is unique (well, there is DAoC, but that's long dead now) and on paper it seems like a fairytale but as we all know the practice part is far from fairytale.

To sum up all my writings now, the point is that you've made a string of bad decisions as it turns out now, starting with gamigo. You can still save RO like Miraculix said - it's not too late yet but the things need to go in right direction as of now or you can file for chapter 11 and move back in with your mom like you said.

Greets,

-Nightchill

edit: I've forgot one thing, nice to see devs finally communicating on the forum more frequently, shows us you actually do care.

edit2: Another point which proves Gamigo couldn't care less for regnum: RO isn't visible on even 1280x1024 screen on their main page (I need to scroll all the way down to find it's little square), and on top 5 games RO is nowhere to be found but they've managed to find place for some crappy golf & tennis mmo's.

[diamondman31]

i am pleased that you replied to my post and to others replies , by doing so i will give this another chance.
i only wish if you cannot fix the bonus program for realms that you suspend it till you can do so because you are causing more of a problem than solving one.

[Pendalf]

Agree with diamondman31 again. Remove all bonuses, fatigue, RLM system and make really equal conditions for each realm untill you decide what to do and end all vacations.

I am very happy to see NGD representatives here. This should mean for me that there's a light at the end of our tunnel.
I don't think that NGD will work in direction of our mind under our pressure. We can offer suggestions, and any more will be just waste of time.
I came to horus from Ra, left my Warlock there and started a conj in Horus with 30-lvl scroll. That was all I can do to support NGD at the moment. Now I can do more (read: give more money). Look: I not only suggest, I support too. Not me only do this. So if you GIVE to people something, you will GET something. The more you want to get, the more you have to give. This is an order of REAL world, don't forget where do you live in.

[chilko]

Dear Chilko,

We are all aware that you are a small team with a humble budget, I think you've repeated that line so many times that it is now first association when someone mentiones NGD.

Hey Opt1k,

I don't want this to be the first association when someone mentions NGD.
We are just a hard working group of people that managed to make something great with our bare hands... and will put our lives to make it happen.

Making Regnum open source is not an option, and please tell me how many thriving open source MMOs are out there? there are a lot of reasons why this kind of games don't work within that model. It's a discussion i won't get into right now.

The second project didn't work against Regnum. As i said, we invested more money into Regnum this year than ever. Because of that other game.
Without it Regnum would have died.

During that time we managed to improve Regnum's quality and monetization so we can sustain both teams with Regnum only. this achievement is really close.

Gamigo has been a good partner with lot's of resources and experience. I hope that they will push regnum to become something even bigger in germany.

I wonder guys, I see that you amass a great deal of knowledge about how to make videogames, run mmos and make great business deals. I hope that NGD, as a proof that everything is possible, will inspire you to start your own companies soon.

(this is not ironical, i just want you guys to put some perspective on what we do)

best regards,

- Chilko

[Flightcap]

Chilko, kudos for the communication. You have no idea how much it means to us to know that NGD actually does talk to us once in a while. In American terms, it's like a hotline to the President. ;) Communication, communication, communication....

I would like to ask, since the large advertising deal at the beginning of Horus didn't go through, what have you been doing to advertise the game, specifically the server, since then? There has been a lot of visible work done (albeit very controversial and likely somewhat broken) to address realm imbalance with the player base and the trickle of new players that we have already. However, the real key to solving an imbalance problem correctly seems to my foggy brain to be bringing in enough new players to fill the gap. Are there advertising plans underway ready for immediate launch once a satisfactory imbalance-solving idea for the game has been implemented? If so, is there some way the community can help?

Thanks again for talking to us, but especially for making such an awesome game. It's got its bugs and its problems, and they are big ones, but RO has come a LONG way from a concept idea on a piece of paper. :)

[-Edge-]

Chilko I understand now very clearly from your post on why the exp curve is needed, as its the backbone of your profits. But isn't it possible to still get Regnum out of grind based gameplay?

Im sorry for saying it, but the current leveling system is a joke, players don't know what they will get out of it, they spend too much time leveling and they don't know if in the long end its actually worth it. I want to start another character but I just cant bring myself to it because I don't want to bore myself grinding on the same mobs each day the same way for months. The fact that I can't buy premium aggitates me only further.

Wouldn't it be better if Exp was more balanced out? I think players would at least feel better if they hit an actual level a day or every 2 days, right now its just the next level will be x3 the amount as the last level. Level 45-50 is 1-45 all over again. In my opinion the worst stage is just in the mid 30's and beyond, thats when the leveling starts to take a toll on you. Quests or not.

Would it be possible to balance out the levels so its more similar for each level? Or even create an unlimited level and just leave a certain level as the plataeu of power, where no changes are made anymore to stats. And a level like this would be 40 or something.

-Edge

[Mantarni]

...



I would have to agree that this is one of my highest (if not the top) non-realm-balance issues.

I've been playing for a little, and I learned the game and a good amount of tactics and politics pretty quickly (very fast learner). As of now, I have 3 characters - a lvl 29 warlock, a lvl 25 knight, and a lvl 11-ish marksman (all Horus).

Why nothing higher? Because I am really not looking forward to the grind, I even tried a strategy with my knight of not doing any quests until lvl 20 to try to shoot to the 30's (the built-up quests can actually get you directly to lvl 25 with no grinding using that strategy), so that I can look at the exp bar and switch over to the marksman. Just trying to get my characters to that level in case NGD decides to bail us out in the next update. I just don't want to spend 98% of my time in a PvP game grinding.

The warzone was also a decent distraction from this, even for a lower level, until we just stopped caring 4/5 of the time (but thats a completely different story).

[chilko]

Chilko I understand now very clearly from your post on why the exp curve is needed, as its the backbone of your profits. But isn't it possible to still get Regnum out of grind based gameplay?


It's not like we want the game to be a grind or that we chose this as the backbone of our profits.

Just try think about different aspects of the game and what things are really valuable. People's time is the most precious thing they have.

I think that most of horus players are from either north america or western europe. you guys have a lot of experience playing games like DaoC or WoW...
You look at Regnum and you compare it to those games, because it is competitive, it tries to be immersive and it is PVP oriented. Now look at those Korean F2P games... and you'll see what kind of a grind those really are.

This is because in a subscription game you are getting money for every user every month. In our case 5% of the users have to pay for the development of the game and the bandwith cost of 100% of the user-base.

What we will do this year is to add new gameplay mechanics to make the game more interesting for low and mid level players to keep them hooked and make the so called grind less boring. But we cannot change the perceived value of time.

Of course that we would like to come out of this model in which people's time becomes the currency, nobody in the industry likes it a lot... but that's a bet for our second game maybe, its not something that is so easy to change or design.

regards,

- Chilko

[-Edge-]

Mmm those are all good points Chilko, but im not really talking about Korean games or games with insane levels like Cabal or Silkroad, the difference however in Korean games since you brought them up is that each level actually means something, because in PvP players can still fight each other in some balanced form, and higher levels are usually only there for bragging rights.

This is Regnum, it should be unique, it already is, but for a RvR oriented game there is a huge amount of time people need to spend before they can actually try this PvP.

All skills are only unlocked at level 37, and Regnum's level 37 is alot like many other MMO's max level in the time spent to reach it, and yes it IS true that a player can experience real side by side fighting in the 30's. But this game has no PvE aspect to it, some of the main things that make this leveling long are:

-Mob spawns are bugged in alot of locations.
-There is a lack of quests (though NGD has been addressing this now)

And a common problem is that someone may pick a certain class, or even a certain realm, and then it will end up after the person spents months getting to lvl 50 that he picked the wrong thing. Its just extremley boring to fight a same group of monsters each time, waiting a long time for a mob to spawn, and then theres resting every 2-5 mobs. Mana regen is extremely slow and so is HP. It dosen't appear to grow with each level, it just stays the same, so the more you have to longer you wait. Whereas it should be the same waiting time on all levels.

Then there is the problem of imbalance while leveling even. Warriors have no distinct method of leveling that puts them on a level like warlocks and marksman, who can kite and don't even need to rest. NGD fixed this problem, but you guys had to remove it because it affected RvR aswell, its just another example of how there is no PvE. Because if you did a change to one area, it would screw the other.

It would be better if each class had at least its own healing spell, and ill say it again, the mana regen is extremley slow. In other games even where there isn't kiting present, a character can at least level in a nonstop manner, even in a month long sequence if thats what you want.

I have no problem with taking months leveling, its just the fact that its so boring. There should be exp from players, and guards too.

I don't know what more to say, I guess im just going to have to keep waiting on that new character of mine.

This is because in a subscription game you are getting money for every user every month. In our case 5% of the users have to pay for the development of the game and the bandwith cost of 100% of the user-base.
I dont want to use it as an example, but Guild wars is an example of a game where you pay 1 time, and thats for the game itself. The game has survived for 3 years off a system where they develop new content if players continue to buy the game. The max lvl is a measly 20 that can be achieved in a few days, but ill give it this much that when it breaks down to PvE and PvP it breaks down into skill and skill completly. Guild Wars 2 which will come out at the end of this year or next year will continue this method while adding content to users to a point where they have too much ( I hope it kills WoW ) anyway, I don't want Regnum to be like other MMO's. Its already a superb game, I was just using that as an example since you brought it up

[chilko]

...

well Rated_R_edge, it's clear to me that you need to know more about game development and the industry in general. Let me explain a few things:

About No PvE
This is something that we will try to address, stuff like adding powers to monsters, implementing a new spawn system (as we already did), re-designing spawn locations as we are doing now and creating new quests goes into making the PvE experience better.

About RvR
RvR is the most important feature of the game and we know that of course. Our course of action is to work on ways for low level players to be able to taste of the end game (RvR and PVP) from the begining.

About XP from PVP
We avoid this as it is exploitable through collusion, there are no games that allow you to really lvl through PVP and that's the reason. We toy with this idea every now and then... but every concept that we come up with ends up in grave exploit opportunities.

About GuildWars.
If we got 20 dollars out of everyone who played Regnum believe me that we would be in a much better financial position than now.

just for fun let's do some math:

we have 350,000 registered users, times 20USD = 7,000,000 USD! WOW!!! :)
let's say that only 10% of those users had paid that, well that would have meant 700,000 USD wich is a LOT more than what regnum has made in its life time. The truth is that Regnum has not the quality level to have a price tag, even for a one time purchase.

Anyway, GuildWars business model is backed by their constant expansions (which they charge for) and the fact that all of the PvE gameplay is peer to peer, lowering considerably the server and bandwidth costs for the game.
Also, let me tell you that i know from very trusted sources (like the company that represents NC soft here in Argentina) that guild wars has been a huge cash sink for the company for years, I hope that situation has improved since then)

About the grind
if you want to level up faster, start buying those 200%XP boosters and you' ll see how fast you can get to lvl 40+ :) (as I can see you've never bought any ximerin)

Regards,

- Chilko

[-Edge-]

About No PvE
This is something that we will try to address, stuff like adding powers to monsters, implementing a new spawn system (as we already did), re-designing spawn locations as we are doing now and creating new quests goes into making the PvE experience better.

Then I will wait patiently and look forward to that.
Also, let me tell you that i know from very trusted sources (like the company that represents NC soft here in Argentina) that guild wars has been a huge cash sink for the company for years, I hope that situation has improved since then)

Oh I know that. I used it as an example because ive heard NCsoft say that quote almost as many times as we've heard the Regnum 7 man team story :p



About the grind
if you want to level up faster, start buying those 200%XP boosters and you' ll see how fast you can get to lvl 40+ :) (as I can see you've never bought any ximerin)

Regards,

- Chilko
I would love to buy Ximerin, I would be one of your top customers, thats a promise. But the fact is PayPal is your only form of payment, if you invested in other forms of payment you would get more customers. A risky move aswell, but what hasn't been a risk to this point as you've said :p

But can I send $400 in an envelope to Buenos Aires Argentina in that case??

[Mantarni]

T
But can I send $400 in an envelope to Buenos Aires Argentina in that case??

I second that!

I don't even have a credit card or anything for paypal use, but if I could just send some $$ in an envelope to a US branch that would wire money to you (or some such system, since I bet international mailing fees would be a pain) I would most likely buy some Ximerin.

[chilko]

Then I will wait patiently and look forward to that.
I would love to buy Ximerin, I would be one of your top customers, thats a promise. But the fact is PayPal is your only form of payment, if you invested in other forms of payment you would get more customers. A risky move aswell, but what hasn't been a risk to this point as you've said :p


Whats the problem with paypal? and what payment system do you need?

[-Edge-]

Whats the problem with paypal? and what payment system do you need?
I strictly don't use credit cards, and even if I did there are some problems with PayPal in Poland.

I don't know! SMS is always a great form of payment :p There are tons of different ways to open up forms of payment. PayPal has problems in certain countries, I know Anpu and other people have said this before aswell.

But really could I send cash to your doorstep or something XD?

[nemrood]

@Rated_R_Edge
I'm also from Poland. Make an account in mBank (which is free). You can have access to paypal using mBank normal debit card (widely known blue dolphin ;)). After you have that, the only thing you need is to call mLine and set the limit for online transactions (default is 0). Then you can register your debit card in paypal system.

The only thing I dislike is that the prices for european are the same euro as $ for the same amount of ximerin. And actual EUR/USD ~= 1.33. So we Europeans are charged of for extra 33%. The proof for this could be this post of another user: http://www.regnumonline.com.ar/forum/showpost.php?p=618895&postcount=79

Please NGD make your payment system take into account the currency trend of EUR/USD.

Best regards.

[Enitharmon]

Hi Community,

The Realm bonus is working as it should by design, but this doesn't mean that the formula is accurate. We've been checking constantly the behavior of this numbers (and what you state in this forums, yes, even if you don't believe it :) ) and we acknowledged there's a flaw in it which doesn't lead to make it useless, but to stop it when it has been effective for a while.

Currently, the bonus is applied based on active players of levels higher than 30 during the past two weeks. We do think that there's a problem with how active a player is, as in hours of play during those two weeks. What do you think about the issue?


As I have asked of you in other threads (but not received any response at all), we would appreciate it alot of you could show us some numbers that is the base for the RLM bonus system's assumption that Horus is now "balanced" realm wise. Because from the player perspective it is painfully evident that realm imbalance for Alsius on Horus is worse than ever, and that the now evaporated RLM bonus are *very* far from reaching its goal.

Random example: Alsius set a time for attempted invasion a week beforehand and managed to assemble an "army" of *21* (most of which not even lvl 50), a force which Ignis managed to outmatch 2:1 in a matter of minutes. And that's just relative to Ignis, the imbalance with regards to Syrtis is far worse.


Something needs to be done here fast, or the rumoured death of alsius will indeed become reality, and Horus will become a 2 realm server, and NGD stuck with quite a few unhappy customers.

[chilko]

As I have asked of you in other threads (but not received any response at all), we would appreciate it alot of you could show us some numbers that is the base for the RLM bonus system's assumption that Horus is now "balanced" realm wise. Because from the player perspective it is painfully evident that realm imbalance for Alsius on Horus is worse than ever, and that the now evaporated RLM bonus are *very* far from reaching its goal.


As an example this is today (active users lvl 30+ in the past two weeks):

Alsius: 271
Ignis: 287
Syrtis: 272

If the population difference so radical as we are seeing, there must be not only a problem in the system but people actively exploiting it.
We will look into this... but its not something that will be fixed in a day or two...

[Miraculix]

As an example this is today (active users lvl 30+ in the past two weeks):

Alsius: 271
Ignis: 287
Syrtis: 272

If the population difference so radical as we are seeing, there must be not only a problem in the system but people actively exploiting it.
We will look into this... but its not something that will be fixed in a day or two...

It might help if you count people that were active in the war zone if that is possible. I definitely did NOT see 271 alsius in the war zone these past two weeks.

[Safia_Aurelya]

It might help if you count people that were active in the war zone if that is possible. I definitely did NOT see 271 alsius in the war zone these past two weeks.

I think the same ! :)

[Adrian]

It might help if you count people that were active in the war zone if that is possible. I definitely did NOT see 271 alsius in the war zone these past two weeks.

In two weeks, 271 users are possible to be counted if they played a bit at least and here lies the problem.

Zone measurement is exploitable, so it can't be an option for this calculation. We were discussing, until some hours ago, how to fix this and we came up with the fact that the best way will be using the play time factor too (remember that a lot of ideas can go to the sink just for tech limitations).

As soon as we can, we (surak) will implement this new calculations and hopefully we will have this issue (bonuses) solved and let the realms in disadvantage have the bonus they deserve.

Regards,

[Enitharmon]

As an example this is today (active users lvl 30+ in the past two weeks):

Alsius: 271
Ignis: 287
Syrtis: 272

If the population difference so radical as we are seeing, there must be not only a problem in the system but people actively exploiting it.
We will look into this... but its not something that will be fixed in a day or two...

Thank you for this response! Both the numbers, and the fact that you are acticely looking into this. :clapping5365:
I do understand that, being a low population server still, Horus is particularily fragile to realm imbalance, and this certainly isn't an easy calculation to make right "enough" to work in this environment. But I do appreciate your effort.

But yes, these numbers does not match the current experience of the Horus warzone. I don't know the solution to this though. One issue that springs to mind is the number of players that are no longer active in Alsius, but check back in from time to time. If these 5 minute logins to say "hi" counts the same as one person playing maybe 10 hours+ a day, this could be one source of inaccuracy.

And given the numbers of very active warzone players in certain realms, I'd say that player time (preferably, time spent in the warzone, not time logged in) definitely needs to be a factor in this calculation.

--- edit: ---
Another warzone day in Alsius (today);
For 90% of the European active player timeframe, there are at a maximum 2 players lvl >40 on at a given time, that are able and want to fight in the warzone. (And because of this, a pair of hunters are able to roam freely all day killing lvl 30~ levellers, not meeting any resistance)
Not until the small timeframe where both European and American players are logged on simultaneously (from midnight CET and the next 1-2 hours), we finally manage to get together a war party of 10-12 people, counting all, even the low levels.
Since Syrtis and Ignis seems busy playing with themselves, we take an empty Samal, hold it for about 15 minutes until the second wave of Ignis twice our numbers manage to take it back.
Later on, we go and take Shanaarid, hold this too for about 15 minutes, until Ignis kicks us out with a force that breaks the door in about 30 seconds.

End of day, time to log out, less likely to log back on tomorrow. (And the same probably applies to every other person that logged on to Alsius/Horus today, sadly).


At least before, even though we never had the strength to invade, we could take a fort/castle and hold it for an extended amount of time, ignis any time of day, and syrtis whenever it was off european prime time. Nowadays this seems only an exercise in futility, as we will get kicked out the minute the other realm gathers their forces, which *will* outnumber our own at least 2 or 3:1, no matter what.

[Caelia]

Random example: Alsius set a time for attempted invasion a week beforehand and managed to assemble an "army" of *21* (most of which not even lvl 50), a force which Ignis managed to outmatch 2:1 in a matter of minutes. And that's just relative to Ignis, the imbalance with regards to Syrtis is far worse..

I think you are mistaken Eni :/ Syrtis is no longer the zerg that you keep saying it is. We have also lost a lot of people, and we also have to set a time a week ahead to attempt an invasion and besides the few times in the beginning that we succeeded, we have failed as well.

And as we continue to be invaded every night, more and more of our people (high levels and low levels alike) get discouraged and start not wanting to join as well. Yes, I understand that Alsius is many times worse, but I can not STAND it when people think that Syrtis is just this stupid zerg that has millions of numbers but do not know how to play.

Every single night, we have been getting "zerged" as well, not just Alsius, and the most powerful realm is continuing to get even more power.

But really, there is absolutely *no* reason that a single realm should be able to invade any other realm as many times as they want a night. And really is no reason that a single realm should be able to open the portal 8 (is it 8?) times while no other realm has come close.

I mean... gah. No matter how hard we try and succeed in keeping Ignis from getting in or leaving with our gems, they can just invade a bit later once even more people have logged off. And because of this more and more people get discouraged because...whats the point? You do a good job, and for what?

I care about the people in my realm very very much, and to see them all frustrated and angry is something I dislike to see :/ Sorry for the rambling, but I hope that something, anything, will be able to happen soon to help this situation.

[Safia_Aurelya]

The Server need more Population but
how to increase the number of players?
I think in all Realms are enough Players
for Fort Battles but they're too low LvL,
A Idea to make more High LvL Players and more
Fort Battles, more War, is:
Reactivate the Spawnpoints on Horus, They works 1 1/2 Jears(since I play regnum)
and works good on new Servers well Muspell and Nilfheim.(now this Servers old but as i begin with regnum and the situation was the same as on Horus, i think it helps)
Another Idea:
recruit Players from other Servers or open the Server for GamigoAccounts.
The current Situation is bad, new players believes its a Hunt Server 10 % Fortbattles and the rest PvE and Hunting:o
Regards,
Dessert

[Anpu]

Chilko,
just like you are concerned about your flat, players are also concerned about their chars and time/money invested in this game. Now, I understand you are small team, but you made it even smaller for trying to kill 2 flies at once (by developing another game). I cant complain much for that ofc, because you know better than me real situation in NGD, and maybe it was really needed. I don't know, so I wont discuss about it, without knowing much facts.

But as you ask players to understand every time because of size of team, we asked this time to understand us, players. Because we are the one that are using your product and were submitting negative feedback for some time without even official little response nor hotfix. As you can see from other posts, its important to communicate with community, not just watching silently. Even Kailer stated that you don't have much time for forum (and he is there to send you some inputs players posted that you consider important), I think that you can give him (if you personally have no time) to post some official statement for features that are often under discussion/complaints. And if possible, some serious posts, like those you did now, not something "on distance and too official" like Kailer knows to post (sorry Kailer :P ) It will encourage people to be patient little more if they know you actually know about matter they posted, but don't fail them, giving false hopes is something that can hurt a lot.

I also know that you cant get good programmer just like that, but why not to include community into story? I think you can conclude by now who you can trust, if nothing, you were able to meet many RO players at RO party. They dont need to develop some very important parts. For example, you could even decrease animation team if players accept to make some animations for you for free or for some xim amount. Make tool for that for example. Maybe even save some money that way or pay for another programmer (ok was just example, you know if that can actually works). I think quest and video contests were good for both sides. And looking at applied works on both contest, I think 80% of participants really tried hard to give you the best possible. And many really liked those contests. More contests, more interaction with players, better progress. You guys develop something, write code, we "test" your code and submit you feedback. Dont ignore us. Also, more contests, more people will understand and learn what you d really like to see, and try to focus their work in that way. I dont need to mention that contests will stay people alerted always, and give some additional fun. I like to write stories (as you can see from my long posts :P and quest contest), like to make pictures, videos (though I didnt have much chance to play with video recording/editing). Whenever I say some RL friend about Regnum, I usually except just describing what RO can offer, show/send link of RO videos, especially ones from video contests (which were very good). Good video and recommendation by RL friend is something you usually trust and give a chance without much thinking.

Also, for improving in game fun, or however you call it, you can also open GM sign up, where players can submit their application to become GMs. I think you can judge good who can be and who not, not like Gamigo. And not too many gms, RO doesnt need police squad, just couple of friendly gms who ll be there always for players and keeping in game community healthy. Pay them with some Xim amount or as you wish.

Maybe its not possible many of the things I wrote, you ll know better. We d like to know if its possible too. But important is that you dont forget on us, dont be too silent, it just annoys. In my post I wrote all I felt that night, as player of RO, as one of many clan leaders there, as friend of other players. It was too much, bugs constantly exploiting, you silent, no hotfix, noone to say anything about that matter or do, too many complaints/threads on same thing here. Its not like that you cant see when Syrtis or Alsius is doing invasion and log in invisible and watch fight at Ignis gate. You could do that, you could warn players who were exploiting bugs, you could even punish them according to your rules, or whatever, but there was nothing. At least nothing "visible" for players.

I tried many MMOs, but I stayed in RO more than in any other. I like this game and would like to keep growing. I like friendships I made here, I like clan I managed with my members to create and lead, I like my realm too. So its not option for me to stay away from RO till "your company improves". Personally, whenever I found something good in other MMOs according to my opinion or by usefullness in those games, I posted in Suggestions and replies on other threads. And not just me, everyone who saw RO as game with big potential, tried to contribute as much as possible. Ro can have extremely bright future, its unique RvR game (others are mostly PvP/mass PvP), and community is here to help you achieve that goal. Its in interest to you, as business product which could make you more popularity, money, offers etc, and for us too, who like this game and enjoy in it (and would like to enjoy in it in future too).

Regarding payment system, I dont know if you saw thread about it, but there were many demands to expand payment system. Like SMS, other payment services etc. I ll here take as example myself. I believe problems of other players are similar as mine.

Credit cards in my country is not so popular still, especially because of a lot of problems recently with security. My parents dont have it nor want to have it, I dont need it too for now since I m student. So credit card is out of option for me.
PayPal doesn't let me make account. I think there is possibility to pay for RO premium even without account, but it still demands to select my country. Which is not in the list. I contacted PayPal and they responded me that my country wont be added soon, till situation there "improves" (implying on political situations, like breaking common country btw Serbia and Montenegro, problem at Kosovo etc and they don't want to adjust their services every time something new happens). So PayPal, as unique way of payment system for RO is out of option, too.
Now, only stays SMS and/or PHONE payment. I googled recently and from many of SMS services, I found that OneBip (http://www.onebip.com/consumer/cs/) is covering a lot of countries (even mine, which made me extremely surprise), in match with others I found. Many players I believe have mobile or access to some mobile from they can pay premium for RO. No credit cards, PayPal accounts and other things. Register, receive password via SMS and there you go. Same for DaoPay (http://www.daopay.com/) (pay by phone). Take a look into it, maybe you could benefit from it. I found that those 2 services are, with PayPal too, used a lot in other MMOs or browser games especially.

Anyway, long story short, time is money for you, and time is mana for players. The longer you wait for solving some very critical problem, the more customers would be unsatisfied. The more you stay silent, more players would be pissed. I think that both sides learned something after these big and open posts we wrote here, and would be glad if it ll improve some important points on distance dev-community in near future.

[UmarilsStillHere]

Wow Anpu, thats a freaking essay :P

Thanks to cilko for the numbers, I think that I can use that to bury any other Ignis that claims we outunmber them all the time :P

And I also Aggree with Lunar, For the 4~ hours that I play on most weekdays Im loseing interest in trying to fight off Invasions, I only bother for the fun now, as do a lot of syrtis, we have just given up invadeing/defending invasions because we know that in a few hours we will all log off and Ignis will proberly get in anyway.

I feel for Alsius, they should get the large realm bonus, Syrtis should get the small one, I know the number differance isnt that huge but its clear we need the numbers more than Ignis, since they are now "pro" Gate attackers and Syrtis needs more people from other time zones. If you add most 40+ Syrtis player to your list and play the whole day its amazing to watch them start comeing on very quickly around 3-4 GMT then start to leave at 10-11 GMT.

Im not sure what else to say realy, Most balance attempts seem to fail, maybe that partner company in Germany has a few tricks up its sleeve?

[-SoL-]

Whats the problem with paypal? and what payment system do you need?


Try Surfpin I don't own a credit card or anything so it is difficult
and it has been a effective payment system on a few games! Most know runescape.

Or if you's made up a pay by phone way like Surfpin id be your number 1 costumer! and im sure it would be a move that would pay off in the long run!

[tikinho]

Wow NGD finaly responding to some posts cool :) lets check if they will ignore my question like so many times before... :)

What is the difference between arrows for level 50 with damage 42-58 and arrows for level 48 with damage 42-58 exept the gold cost and the level???

And don't tell me I haven't both ximerin I know that I don't have money because I play all the time... so keep with the good work bore me to death with regnum and maybe I'll stop playing for a few months and will get a job and when i get back will have money :play_ball: :/

[UmarilsStillHere]

Poor Stooge, Addicted, Again :) And as for your question, are the dmg types diiferant? Or maybe you pay more for a better picture of them? :P

[tikinho]

Poor Stooge, Addicted, Again :) And as for your question, are the dmg types diiferant? Or maybe you pay more for a better picture of them? :P
No m8 check out the arrows at dohsim or pm me in game to show you the arrows lol the damage type is the same.. dunno about the picture havent thought about it i don't care everything is ugly if i cared i won't be playing this game..

[e30G]

Interesting numbers there. However, it would be more interesting to see the average users per hour. A huge chunk of the realm imbalance seems to be based on timezones.