If you were in charge......

[Linuxmage]

Imagine, just imagine for a moment, that NGD had called on your services personally to help them make improvements to the game, short of redesigning it from the ground up. They need a bigger draw, a better playerbase.

Your budget is not a worry. However, we need a gameplan for the next year, thats all the time we have. In that time, we can develop and rollout up to 6 updates.

What would you do?

This can include new content, Balance updates, pretty much anything goes, as long as you retain the main objective and idea of the game -- 3 realms, RvR, the Dragons, a Warzone, forts and castles.

I have put some thought into this, and I personally would start by more or less hiring Bois as a player representative, and take on board all his Balance ideas, and some of his his ideas for redesigning the existing spell trees.

However, I would also strip out starting with three major classes, and make it so you start with your chosen subclass effectively. I would also rename the conjurer class to Healer, and alter the spells tree to reflect this. At the same time, the hunter class would be renamed to Scout, and the pets tree removed. I would also remove camo from this class.

I would then introduce two new classes on top of the current 6 - Rogue, and Beastmaster.

Beastmasters would get the pets tree, with the ability to use either a close range weapon or a shortbow. They would have the ability to really train their pets to make major attacks, be able to do something new in the game -- equip them with armor, and at the same time make a short ranged kill. They effectively pick up the other half of the hunter class, but without camo, and will resemble a barb or knight in armor rather than an archer type class.

Rogues -- well, no doubt some of you know this class well, also be a close ranged class, able to sneak in, use camo, and assassinate people without being seen more or less. However, in his case, being camoed slows his movement to just above walking pace, and the target has to be standing still for him to make the kill whilst camoed. He would be a master of a new weapon in the game -- Daggers, and knives -- He would have the ability to throw them with amazing accuracy to kill in one hit.

I would introduce some new weapons -

• Daggers - Self explanatory, I would make it so that rogues, barbs, and beastmasters can equip these.
• Crossbows - For Beastmaster, and scout. A "Very Slow" weapon with short range, but dealing very high damage, able to do hits of 500+ with the right buffs.
• The weapon on the Alsius Shield -- I though it was possibly a boomerang glaive, but it might actually be a two headed circular axe -- someone enlighten me on this??

I did have some thoughts about a new race, maybe making the Orcs a playable race?

Make some simple fixes like a progress bar for quests, and increase the amount of quests available to level 50 drastically. Make it possible to PvE play if you want to level 50, but introduce PvP kill quests above 40, and make it more warzone centric.

I would add the ability to put armor on your mounts. This might just be a cosmetic premium item though.

Thats all the ideas I can come up with for now.

However, before you reply, PLEASE think about what you are going to say. I do not want this thread to become full of biting comments and sour remarks.

I want to see small essays (no walls of text though....), and well thought out answers. Write your plan up on paper beforehand if you have to. I really want to see what we can come up with if we, the players were given the ability to make a significant impact on this games development over the next year.

[Krungle]

1) I would do a series of game updates that were quick like adding counters to quests, making mounts jump, reducing gravitational effects and maybe even tieing them to weight and dex/agi. Fixing mobs that have a habit of wondering off. Remove low level mobs from the WZ and replace them with mobs already in that area. Upgrade quest rewards to better fit the level those quests are actually completed for. Basically things that have been suggested for years.

2) Update Clans using various suggestions over the years (clan banks, better ranking and management systems, etc.).

3) Then I would add more quests for higher levels.

4) Only after that would I focus on new content of any kind, trying to incorporate player suggestions.

[Frosk]

Originally Posted by Linuxmage

Your budget is not a worry

Well, things suddenly become incredibly easy if this is applied.

Let's see what you guys come up with!

[Linuxmage]

Originally Posted by Krungle

1) I would do a series of game updates that were quick like adding counters to quests, making mounts jump, reducing gravitational effects and maybe even tieing them to weight and dex/agi. Fixing mobs that have a habit of wondering off. Remove low level mobs from the WZ and replace them with mobs already in that area. Upgrade quest rewards to better fit the level those quests are actually completed for. Basically things that have been suggested for years.

This would be included in my inital update, as part of the balancing update to get us started.

[Ricksa]

I would keep players with critical issues such as hacked accounts updated and not leave them in the dark for 2+ weeks despite many calls for any news at all. Or you know, reply to a 2+ week old ticket etc.

So I guess I´d hire more support staff, the result of which would help retain players old and new.

[VandaMan]

I would fire Frosk.

[Frosk]

Originally Posted by VandaMan

I would fire Frosk.

Remember to unban all your game accounts when you get there

EDIT: Let's keep on topic, shall we?

[SanguineLamai]

/me waits for Immune to reply to this thread.

While doing so.

I would give everyone in the game pretty hats to wear for free, so show my immense appreciation for the players that play here. They would be colorful and fashionable.

Some players, like Tigerious or Irsh, would be forced to wear them and never be able to remove them.

[bois]

First , I would give Frosk a raise in salary. Then hire Van to be his boss.

But, then I would have to step back a bit.

1. Look at NGD's organisational/management structure. Refine if necessary.
2. Assess its revenue take. Locate revenue leakages and plug them.
3. Assess teams, ongoing projects, time-lines.
4. Prioritise projects.
5. Take these projects and arrange them into a tick -tock approach. Tick is new, tock is maintenance. The team is small so most times you can't split.
6. projects with lowest cost, highest revenue take goes first. The company needs revenue to push forward. That must be the initial focus.
7. Redouble efforts to strengthen the Linux base.

To the game.
1. For every free big new thing there must be a premium component to help offset the cost.

2. Enlist community to help with folklore. This needs to be fleshed out. They shall be paid in Xim. A few will be immortalised in the game ( as NPC) as a reward.

3. Enlist a few community members to help flesh out a manual. This manual will be for sale and can be purchased for a few Xim.

4. Balancing will be done gradually and for every tock. The game will be gradually brought more fluid by gradually reducing damage, defense, Cast times and duration of CC. Debuffs will become the most potent as they only impair and not cripple.

5. Armour equations will be revamped to a percentage based system.

6. Lucky boxes will be arranged into 2 tiers. level 45 and below and 46 and up. low level boxes will obviously be cheaper.

7. Gemstones will be craftable items. They will have a free component and
a premium component. Exotics will be brought into the game.

8. Premium access stash in the field and merchant access in the field will be brought on line.

9. Level cap island idea of low level war zone will be implemented.

10. Entire quest system will be revamped. better XP, equipment, gold.

11. Gold cap will be lowered. However , maximum gold holdings will increase under a premium item. Players will be able to bank their gold in account stash under a unified system. Gold in bank will be available to all characters in an account.
b. to encourage holdings in the bank, any player holding over 2 million gold on a character is subject to lose 1000 gold drop per death in the war zone. Under that, you lose nothing.

12. Magnanite will be regulated by having an equation modulate daily gold equivalent via NPC. Quartz and Amber weapons will be brought in.

13. Off hand weapons will lose Attack speed stat. Weapons that have cast speed or Attack speed embedded will not be able to equip a similar gem.

14. Only mages and Knights will be able to acquire movement speed items.

15. All spell animations (where weak) will be upgraded. Animation bugs will be fixed.

16. new emotes such as "facepalm", "drunk dance", and "off with their heads/Bravehart" will help pay for this.

17. Bow ranges will be reverted.

That's enough for at least one and a half year of work.

[VandaMan]

Originally Posted by bois

...

How could you forget spell focus and resistance formulas? :'( Son, I am disappoint.