Game direction and objectives for Regnum Online (2008 version)

[chilko]

Dear Regnum Online players,

We strongly believe that certain aspects of the present and future game need to be put out in the open.

Our game is about to reach a year after commercial launch and to tell you the truth it has been a hard battle for a small team as ours, and as I've said in several ocassions this is probably the project of our lives.
I am here to tell you that we are redoubling our efforts and investing all of our energy (and money too) into game improvements, fixes and to grow this wonderful community.

Since a long time ago we have been debating about how to continue enhancing the game, analyzing it, gathering feedback from the community, talking between us and our partners about how to improve it, to make it more attractive, fullfiling our goals as developers and making the community happier at the same time, studying other games, the market and MMORPG's in general.
I hope you understand that this is a tough process, that takes time and that has its ups and downs.

I would like to explain some of the changes that will come.

Experience curve:

Regnum was designed to be a short game with a level cap. Why? Because the fun part is the realm versus realm aspect and we want the people to get there as quick as possible.

When we released the game with a new business model, we quickly realized that it was too short.

After making a deep analysis on the statistics generated by the game, we came to the conclusion that most players that reach level 50, do it in around 3 or 4 months. In fact, a lot of people has done this in less than a month. For a free game, this is a really short time.
The Experience curve has been modified in a way that it practically doesn't affect the leveling process up to level 30 and is steeper from then on.
The total amount of creatures that you will have to kill from level 1 to 50 has risen only a 15 percent.

Fatigue:

The fatigue mechanism is used by several games to discourage the irrational use of the game and to balance out users that may play several hours per day and those that have less time to play.

For starters, this is not only a commercial subject but a matter of social responsability. We recommend that nobody plays more than 6 hours a day and that every 2 hours a break is taken, as for any other videogame.

From a commercial standpoint, you need to understand that our costumers, the premium users, are usually people that doesn't have that much time to play, hence they buy experience scrolls. Also, it's important to understand that those that play free for 8 hours a day consume broadband resulting in higher costs.

Among other games that use this mechanism you may find World of Warcraft and StarWars Galaxies.

More attractive premium content

In NGD we pay close attention to recommendations made by the community in regards to Premium content. But, you must understand that this type of decisions require a deeper knowledge in terms of sale statistics, difficulties to develop certain features and what really works in the market.

The mastery scroll and the 200% booster were added due to them being the most demanded items.
Paints and dyes will ofer players the possibility of customizing their avatars and making them unique.
We hope that this feature is welcomed by the community being that it took us months of work and tuning.

Limits to the powers reset feature (Next version)

Regnum was never designed so that the characters would be able to change their setup on the fly. In fact, this generates a great unbalance among the
classes, due to some setups being better for "leveling", some better fit for hunting and others better for the war.

The idea of any MMORPG is that you have to be careful when assigning your points and that if you want the easy way you will get a weaker character at the end, but if you put more effort into it you will get a better PvP character.

The community got used so much to this "feature" (which sole purpose is to test spells and as a debug tool) that we cannot eliminate it completely, thus we are going to keep it in a limited form and unlimited as an item premium.

The details are not yet defined but we are making sure that everyone will be notified of this and all current users will receive this new premium item in gratitous form (with several uses) when we implement this new system.

Other features that we have in mind for this year

• Improvements in the PvP penalties/awards system (includes premium items).
• Improvements to the mounts system.
• New special creatures with magical powers.
• PvP oriented quests.
• Enhancements to the Realm versus Realm system (give purpose to the fort capture).
• Treasure system (War zone exploration).
• New premium items (gift box, lucky charm, etc)
• Invasions system.
• and last but not least, the source of the Xymerald will be revealed in a terrifying way.

I hope you are as excited as we are on this new stage and that you will accompany us as you did so far.

Best regards,

- Chilko

[Static_Fang]

Originally Posted by chilko

Dear Regnum Online players,

We strongly believe that certain aspects of the present and future game need to be put out in the open.

Our game is about to reach a year after commercial launch and to tell you the truth it has been a hard battle for a small team as ours, and as I've said in several ocassions this is probably the project of our lives.
I am here to tell you that we are redoubling our efforts and investing all of our energy (and money too) into game improvements, fixes and to grow this wonderful community.

Since a long time ago we have been debating about how to continue enhancing the game, analyzing it, gathering feedback from the community, talking between us and our partners about how to improve it, to make it more attractive, fullfiling our goals as developers and making the community happier at the same time, studying other games, the market and MMORPG's in general.
I hope you understand that this is a tough process, that takes time and that has its ups and downs.

I would like to explain some of the changes that will come.

Experience curve:

Regnum was designed to be a short game with a level cap. Why? Because the fun part is the realm versus realm aspect and we want the people to get there as quick as possible.

When we released the game with a new business model, we quickly realized that it was too short.

After making a deep analysis on the statistics generated by the game, we came to the conclusion that most players that reach level 50, do it in around 3 or 4 months. In fact, a lot of people has done this in less than a month. For a free game, this is a really short time.
The Experience curve has been modified in a way that it practically doesn't affect the leveling process up to level 30 and is steeper from then on.
The total amount of creatures that you will have to kill from level 1 to 50 has risen only a 15 percent.

Fatigue:

The fatigue mechanism is used by several games to discourage the irrational use of the game and to balance out users that may play several hours per day and those that have less time to play.

For starters, this is not only a commercial subject but a matter of social responsability. We recommend that nobody plays more than 6 hours a day and that every 2 hours a break is taken, as for any other videogame.

From a commercial standpoint, you need to understand that our costumers, the premium users, are usually people that doesn't have that much time to play, hence they buy experience scrolls. Also, it's important to understand that those that play free for 8 hours a day consume broadband resulting in higher costs.

Among other games that use this mechanism you may find World of Warcraft and StarWars Galaxies.

More attractive premium content

In NGD we pay close attention to recommendations made by the community in regards to Premium content. But, you must understand that this type of decisions require a deeper knowledge in terms of sale statistics, difficulties to develop certain features and what really works in the market.

The mastery scroll and the 200% booster were added due to them being the most demanded items.
Paints and dyes will ofer players the possibility of customizing their avatars and making them unique.
We hope that this feature is welcomed by the community being that it took us months of work and tuning.

Limits to the powers reset feature (Next version)

Regnum was never designed so that the characters would be able to change their setup on the fly. In fact, this generates a great unbalance among the
classes, due to some setups being better for "leveling", some better fit for hunting and others better for the war.

The idea of any MMORPG is that you have to be careful when assigning your points and that if you want the easy way you will get a weaker character at the end, but if you put more effort into it you will get a better PvP character.

The community got used so much to this "feature" (which sole purpose is to test spells and as a debug tool) that we cannot eliminate it completely, thus we are going to keep it in a limited form and unlimited as an item premium.

The details are not yet defined but we are making sure that everyone will be notified of this and all current users will receive this new premium item in gratitous form (with several uses) when we implement this new system.

Other features that we have in mind for this year

• Improvements in the PvP penalties/awards system (includes premium items).
• Improvements to the mounts system.
• New special creatures with magical powers.
• PvP oriented quests.
• Enhancements to the Realm versus Realm system (give purpose to the fort capture).
• Treasure system (War zone exploration).
• New premium items (gift box, lucky charm, etc)
• Invasions system.
• and last but not least, the source of the Xymerald will be revealed in a terrifying way.

I hope you are as excited as we are on this new stage and that you will accompany us as you did so far.

Best regards,

- Chilko

Great Job NGD! This is awesome of u guys!

[ementh]

Oh man...can't wait for the treasure system when I played UO - I loved treasure hunting...

Awesome NGD!!

[Mikan]

Originally Posted by chilko

Limits to the powers reset feature (Next version)

Regnum was never designed so that the characters would be able to change their setup on the fly. In fact, this generates a great unbalance among the
classes, due to some setups being better for "leveling", some better fit for hunting and others better for the war.

The idea of any MMORPG is that you have to be careful when assigning your points and that if you want the easy way you will get a weaker character at the end, but if you put more effort into it you will get a better PvP character.

The community got used so much to this "feature" (which sole purpose is to test spells and as a debug tool) that we cannot eliminate it completely, thus we are going to keep it in a limited form and unlimited as an item premium.

The details are not yet defined but we are making sure that everyone will be notified of this and all current users will receive this new premium item in gratitous form (with several uses) when we implement this new system.

Originally Posted by Dubhslainte

Skills reset limitations (next Version)

Regnum was never design so the charachter could change their settings so easily. In fact this generates a greta unbalance between classes, as there are somo configurations that are better fore levelling, others better for hunting and other for war.
The idea of any MMORPG its that you have to be previsor when you distribute your skill points and if one wants the easy way its going to get, in the long run, a weaker charachter that one trained with a lot more effort its going yo get a charachter better suited for PvP. The Community got so used to this charachteristic (that exits for the sole purpose of testing and fixing bugs) that we cant delete it completely, so we are going to limit it, and make it unlimited as a premium item only. Details are yet to be set. But dont worry, we are going to give the heads up before its implemented and every user si going to receive this new Premium item free of charge (with several uses) when we iplment this new system.

NGD,

Foreword:

The future looks promising, except for this change. And I can say this honestly and plainly - it doesn't matter what the game was originally meant to be like, this ability to change "builds" at any time has been it's one shining feature over most other MMORPGs. If anything, players wanted to see it implemented in a more fantastical form.

Now, before the team jumps to conclusions, please understand. There are many, many other premium items that you can make available, and I do not think this creates as much imbalance between classes as you think. If anything, I think it goes a long way to solve those imbalances, especially in wars. I will attempt to explain.

The problem:

I once asked my friend what he hated most about all of the MMORPGs he's played - "starting over" he said.

If one character could only level, or could only hunt, or could only play fort wars (especially in this lag) -, this is going to create a severe, true imbalance, the real meaning of the word, because you are limiting what the player can do and who they can win against, regardless of skill, and because of that they will not want to play as much.

Winning or losing any battle should not be determined solely on how well you thought out your build.

It would make some people (with the right "builds") more important than others, and encourage even more accounts and characters to be created by a single person just so they would have the chance to do everything. Sure, they would buy premium items to get even more characters to level 50, but they would be using up even more precious resources from NGD, and it would multiply exponentially for each person in the game.

Premium should not affect war, but this will make premium severely affect war. As I said in the above paragraph, those why do chose to buy Ximerin, or build a character from scratch with a war-only build, he is going to be far better at war than anyone else, and this is going to create the imbalance that I spoke of, and going to make others value him over everyone else, creating even more internal conflict amoungst the realms. It is like picking a player for a soccer game, the one who nobody wants doesn't get picked.

Furthermore, some classes can prepare for all situations on a single build, and some cannot. Even more imbalance.

Conclusion:

This is the best part of Regnum, take it away and there will be very little left (for the moment). It would take a hell of a lot of work on the game to make up for it - perhaps more than NGD can ever manage. It's like the Fatigue system - you compare it to games like World of Warcraft, and I do not want to hurt the developers' feelings or anything like that, but to be completely blunt and honest, Regnum really does not compare in content or stability.

You can't implement features from games that you think Regnum is comparable to, when it's not. I just hope that the team manages to implement huge amounts of gameplay improvements and content, and hundreds if not thousands of bug fixes before this, and the other changes, are implemented, or it would seem that I have wasted all of this time trying to play something a little different, when I should've been in WoW or something instead.

Implementing it as a premium item instead of removal does not solve the problem, it just makes you look greedy. Most players will still not be able to use it, so all of the problems above will still exist, and simply giving them a limited number of resets when the change is implemented is only going to last for a little while before all hell breaks lose.

People are tired of paying for their mistakes in Regnum and in MMORPGs. I know I am. I was hoping that, if anything, this was the one definite road that Regnum would follow - away from the 'haha you messed up so you're screwed forever' path, and towards the 'everyone can be equal beause everyone has equal access to everything' path.

It's especially annoying when these mistakes are because the developers did not properly inform us of certain things when we created our characters, or as we developed them over time. Then it feels like NGD's fault, too.

In closing:

You are free to make your own changes to the game, it is your game afterall, and all along the way I wil try to remain neutral, and give everything a chance. But remember that the opinions of players - not your development team, will ultimately determine whether you win or lose. And if you lose, it will not be our fault, since we tried our best to guide you down the right path, and not let Regnum just become Yet Another MMORPG out there.

As niclam said - Regnum is just a game. But, it is a game that many people love.

Chose your battles wisely, the ones that should be fought. Not just the ones that you think should be fought, or the ones that you want to be fought, just because that is how you planned or imagined it in the past.


Regnum is different. It's ok, don't fight it.

Regards.

[Nodalor]

I must say I approve of all EXCEPT for the reset_powers function removal.

That is one of the BIG reasons I stay in Regnum. In other MMO's I've made dumb decisions about a power and had to make a whole new char...

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep this in one form or the other. (for free I hope, or else that could get pricey)

Good luck and grats!

[Stefan1200]

Originally Posted by chilko

Fatigue:

The fatigue mechanism is used by several games to discourage the irrational use of the game and to balance out users that may play several hours per day and those that have less time to play.

For starters, this is not only a commercial subject but a matter of social responsability. We recommend that nobody plays more than 6 hours a day and that every 2 hours a break is taken, as for any other videogame.

From a commercial standpoint, you need to understand that our costumers, the premium users, are usually people that doesn't have that much time to play, hence they buy experience scrolls. Also, it's important to understand that those that play free for 8 hours a day consume broadband resulting in higher costs.

Among other games that use this mechanism you may find World of Warcraft and StarWars Galaxies.

Limits to the powers reset feature (Next version)

Regnum was never designed so that the characters would be able to change their setup on the fly. In fact, this generates a great unbalance among the
classes, due to some setups being better for "leveling", some better fit for hunting and others better for the war.

The idea of any MMORPG is that you have to be careful when assigning your points and that if you want the easy way you will get a weaker character at the end, but if you put more effort into it you will get a better PvP character.

The community got used so much to this "feature" (which sole purpose is to test spells and as a debug tool) that we cannot eliminate it completely, thus we are going to keep it in a limited form and unlimited as an item premium.

The details are not yet defined but we are making sure that everyone will be notified of this and all current users will receive this new premium item in gratitous form (with several uses) when we implement this new system.

This two thinks I dislike. Normaly I think about a come back in Regnum in some weeks, but this two thinks make this improbable.

I don't want to stop playing a game after three hours every day. I don't play many different games simultaneous. I play mainly one game the full free time I have. This seems not possible in Regnum in the future.

Also the reset powers think. It is ok, if I can't reset 50 times a day. Why not limit this think to one time a day. But making this as a premium only item makes me unhappy, because this feature is one think why I play Regnum. I played Guild Wars long time ago, and it was really good to play around with the own setting and skills. And I was also happy to have this feature in Regnum. If you make this premium only, Regnum loose one big advantage!

The other thinks on your list sounds nice, but if you do all changes as noted, the disadvantages of the changes are bigger! So Regnum will be the same crap as all other free MMORPGs, and I hoped that this never will happen.

Sorry if some words are too rude.

[Jynx]

I like the sounds of most of the changes. The fatigue and exp curve do not hurt that bad, although leave a slight sting, since i plan to become a premium user in the future.

The reset powers limit I am not to happy about. It is VERY nice to be able to change my setups for different situations.

As far as the update list goes, I did not see anything about fixing bugs. This should be #1 on the list as a development team, as it is hard to repeatedly deal with these bugs. Maybe there are plans to deal with these, I do not know, but it would be great if alot of them were dealt with.

Thank you for Regnum, it is a fantastic game with a great theme behind it. My life as a gamer has been much better since i found Regnum

[Static_Fang]

The only reason i liked the reset_powers was if i made a mistake when i was seting them in the first place (such as a double click instead of a single click), my setup is normally an average one. So i dont understand/know this situation for many setup swapping players.

As for the Fatigued, does that mean when u log in, the timer starts to count down? or does it take away the time it takes to kill a mob from a grand total of 180:00 minutes? Or when u attack the first mob, thats when it starts to count down?

[Anpu]

Wow, all sounds great! I love those changes, to me they seem fair and balanced. Excellent job there!

[Mellion]

Limit reset_powers to once a day AND make it possible to change selections during setup process before accepting the new setup.