Why I believe NGD has been doing the right thing- community criticisms

[Lebeau]

Let's face irrefutable facts, this is a business: a small business. Due to various ongoing, limiting contraints, circumstances & economic realities, NGD's business model is NOT about improving the gameplay/functionality of CoR, focusing on or retaining it's long-term, low-or-no-spending OLD players or keeping them satisfied. It looks as if it NEVER will be. So, just face that.

NGD's business model IS about improving the LOOK of the game, attracting NEW players who'll come, spend $5, $10, $20, $40 or even more money over a few short weeks or months .... then, once they stop spending due to disenchantment from their eventual recognition of 'the-CoR-reality' .... they usually leave. This frees up the limited server & routing resources available to NGD & makes 'room' for NEWER, new people ... SPENDING people. High traffic, high turnover is THE plan....

This is what NGD has intended (or just accepted) for some time now, to get what money they can over the scant few remaining years of this game's viability. Both from diehards who just won't leave (& thus who need NO real incentive or enticement at all to stay ... like dogs on leashes), & definitely from those NEW players also, who regularly come, then go, like the tides ... & FAR more of these come & spend their cha-ching on NGD if game revenues & company resources are spent on advertising & dolling the game up with 'eyecandy', NOT bug-&-glitch-fixes.

The plan is all about NEW player flow, come, spend, leave, again & again, over & over, rinse & repeat. Get it? If NGD really wanted more to stay & play, netcode-engine-gameplay-&-balance-fixes would be the priority, but they aren't because NGD essentially doesn't. Period. Look at the collective threads on a variety of subjects for years now & all this IS all there, essentially staring out at any willing to just open their eyes & see it. Yes, they did fleece the OLD herd with new gears & a higher lvl cap when noobs weren't footing the bills & they might yet again .... but that isn't really change & such a move would assuredly break the existing game formulas/mechanics.

NGD has honestly said recently, albeit in a round-about way, that they just CAN'T do all (or even most of) the NEEDED fixes we're been asking about for months & even years & yet, they further made it CRYSTAL-clear they will NOT allow community coders or any other 'outsiders' to help them get it done either. Thus, what u c, as it is, IS what u get ... is what we ALL get. It IS what it is, do NOT expect ANY different or ANY more, or your expectations will be setting you up for CERTAIN disappointment, becuz' u r just foolin' yo'self .... if u like it as it is, play & enjoy it. If not tho, like I said, expect NOTHING substantively different.

[Awrath]

Originally Posted by fotomay

1) Email security difficulties

No issues with this, haven't tried the new login system.

Originally Posted by fotomay

2) Present unpopularity of TDM: In the past few months many mmos have been introducing PvP arenas and instances on a more focussed scale. So I do not begrudge NGD their attempt to do the saame. While it should have been better thought out, I feel the small size of NGD justifies their attempt to be busy and introduce popular elements. What do I mean by better thought out? I meanthat Regnum's single distinguishing characteristic is that it is the largest sngle instance RvR game on the market right now. TDMs detract from that and effort should not have gone into it without more careful consideration. Nonetheless, TDM instances may yet succeed, and I believe we should give NGD more time, even a year or more, before dispensing entirely with any TDM.

And what do you think will happen with TDMs in a year or more? I'll tell you, nothing. The problem lies in the fact that NGD (who don't disagree) are building upon code they do not fully understand. Any changes they make to the game, they must again delve into the code they don't understand. This is the reason why what are seemingly simple but annoying bugs remain unfixed for years on end.

Originally Posted by fotomay

3) Warmasters Exapansion: Many players are sharply critical of how this harmed gameplay. Correct me if I am wrong, but one of they key purposes of warmasters was to improve the power of melee classes as against range and magic classes, rebalancing combat so that it was more tactically interesting. Personally I favour mages, but I feel that purpose has been achieved - Regnum still has the most interest trinity pvp balance in the industry. I feel all other criticisms of warmasters are secondary to this purpose and I give credit to NGD as long as they can maintain that pvp balance.

You are wrong. The key purpose of the WM expansion was to generate income. Melee classes have gained no advantage versus ranged classes. If that was NGD's key purpose then why increase the range of bows in the first place? The main gripe most people have with the WM expansion is the lack of thought that went into the effect that this expansion has on class balance. Every class has gained an additional 20 power points as well as an increase in stats thus throwing what balance there was out of the window. The classes which gained the most from the extra 20 power points are barbarians and marksmen. I don't know in what world you observe PvP balance in this game, since it does not exist.

Originally Posted by fotomay

4) Pace of war: I place the many other criticisms by players under this rubric. This includes things like better bridge wars, settlements, linking TDM to war and so forth (all excellent suggestions, for example by Kyrottimus). Personally, i feel war should be visible on the map and occurring 100% of the time. At the moment, we have running and fort battles happening perhaps at best every 15-20 minutes, and in the meantime players stand idle at CS. This is an improvement on six months ago and I give NGD credit for that. However, I agree with the community that war should be happening 100% of the time. No player should feel comfortable standing idle and at a loss of what to do at CS at anytime (unless they are afk or just tired,).

This brings us back to the WM expansion. Before the introduction of teleports, bridge wars and open field fights were commonplace. These sorts of fights were a lot of fun, and often we would attempt to seek out such a fight. Teleports played a part in ruining what used to be a lot of fun.

With regards to the actual pace of war, granted the limited number of players on haven does play a part.

Originally Posted by fotomay

Now, all the really good suggestions for improvement to the 4 items above fill a good part of these forums. However, the truth is, when I thought about it, NGD is :-
1) a group of 30+ adults (ie: out of date guys) trying to have families,
2) pressured by silly mmorpg "expert" consultants in the industry
3) pressured by wives/partners to make positive earnings
4) living in a country with somewhat deficient software programmers (Argentina)
5) trying desperately to listen to everything and do everything in a logical careful way.
So, when you think about it, I feel everything they have done has been commercially realistic. if they had embarked on any of the really good large scale ideas typically suggested by players, they might have ended up, after 3 months of work, with no justification for their effort.

Point 1: How can one be out of date? I don't understand. If you are designing a product that requires technology in order to make use of it, then surely, as you have decided to make this your profession, you must keep up with the times and keep your knowledge going and make continued professional development a priority.

Point 2: What? While I appreciate your sarcasm with regards to expert consultants, it takes no expert to realise that game play bugs are bad for the image of any game especially considering they hinder game play.

Point 3: Yes. A better game = better income. So if this is their sole source of income, then really, NGD should put a bit more focus on doing what's necessary to keep the game alive. If the fact that the 10 year old code holding them back is a major issue, they should be working on either rewriting it or attempt to decipher the 10 year old mess.

Point 4: Don't get why that's relevant. Are you telling me that because the country is not renowned for its programmers, then it must mean we should have lower expectations of anything written by Argentinian programmers?

Point 5: I'm sure they are, but they fail to address the fundamental issues which are holding them back. Until they can, this game does not have a bright future.

Don't get me wrong. I like that they introduced an auction house. I like that knights got a an absolute block spell, buggy as it may be. I like that arcane devotion is now instant cast. I'm sure there's many other things NGD have done which I have been happy about.

Originally Posted by fotomay

This is why the ideas we propose must not only be logically sound, they (unfortunately) must be seen to be logically sound by the industry, or else NGD would not be able to justify any mistakes to the industry and may not be able to raise capital in future.

However, to bypass commercial pressures, I suggest this alternative way around the stupid industry pressures. NGD should engage the players on ideas and get players to prefund the cost of implementing those ideas, someone like a private community kickstarter (then we can run the modified version on a test server to test popularity).

So, for the reasons above, I feel we should really give NGD credit where credit is due and put our criticisms in perspective. I feel we should push NGD hard, but be aware it is really quite a small and somewhat parochial dev house tucked far away from the center of Western thought.

Finally, I strongly urge all players to stop insulting and putting down NGD in game and in forums. The number of times I see players stating "NGD is hopeless", "the game is gone to shit", "I am never coming back" etc etc is just not good. You are not helping the game and you are not helping yourselves. Instead, tell the world NGD is small, tell the world about the difficulties, but do so in a constructive meaningful fashion, or else you risk killing the population of your own game.

(edit: edited to remove "pathetic and disgusting" in the final paragraph and replaced it with "not good". maybe ive been watching too much Gordon Ramsay. also hi to Sanguinelamai! thx for any and all criticisms!)

Rewrite this engine of theirs for better opengl support as well as fix bugs, get rid of absolute armour resists, separate spell trees for every sub class and introduce scaling for mages, then that's a project I will happily support with my money. In its current state, not anymore, for me the fun is over.

Originally Posted by Lebeau

Wall of text.

Information on paragraphs.

[SanguineLamai]

Originally Posted by Awrath

Rewrite this engine of theirs for better opengl support as well as fix bugs, get rid of absolute armour resists, separate spell trees for every sub class and introduce scaling for mages, then that's a project I will happily support with my money. In its current state, not anymore, for me the fun is over.

Exactly dear.

Focus on game mechanics, NOT game beautification.

Fix bugs and issues. Dont attempt to change the game dynamic entirely from what it was, which by the way was working VERY well, just to address peoples issues.

Introduce small facets to the game in an attempt to correct whats wrong with it. Create balance by adding sublcasses, rather than nerfing and re-nerfing the existing classes.

Stop event-based updates based on holidays that do nothing for morale and only show the eventual greed of those who participate in it. (Purple Fever, nuff said).

Stop all this glitzy nonsense. Id rather have the above kind of fixes than ever I would for Tenax/Alasthor/Vesper to have a new shiny home. Its not even a home I would go and look at. Doesnt benefit me.

[fotomay]

Originally Posted by Awrath

And what do you think will happen with TDMs in a year or more? I'll tell you, nothing. The problem lies in the fact that NGD (who don't disagree) are building upon code they do not fully understand.

Actually i dont mind if TDM goes nowhere/gets removed. I suspect Regnum is the only RvR mmo where everyone is in one instance and it needs to keep and promote this unique quality.

Originally Posted by Awrath

You are wrong. The key purpose of the WM expansion was to generate income. Melee classes have gained no advantage versus ranged classes. If that was NGD's key purpose then why increase the range of bows in the first place? The main gripe most people have with the WM expansion is the lack of thought that went into the effect that this expansion has on class balance... I don't know in what world you observe PvP balance in this game, since it does not exist.

I can't find the quite by Adrian anymore but in it Adrian specifically states that the purpose of WM was to boost melee power and ensure the trinity balance between archers, mages and melee was preserved.

I feel there is nothing wrong in the WM expansion if it also has the primary purpose of generating income. Unless every piece of work is directed towards this objective, Regnum may not survive. (NGD doesn't have an open chequebook and timebale like Blizzard does).

I believe Regnum has, presently, probably the best PvP balance in the industry (but it can and needs to be improved). I've tried Silkroad Online, Bloodline Champions and looked at Tera, Rift, Aika and Aion - Regnum is the only pvp i know of where u can drop in for 20 minutes fight and feel and see every bit of your character contributiing, and those of your opponents as well. The other mmos feel sort of like a mashy smooth mixed paste of mushy ugh. (perhaps due to lack of clarity, precision, logic, graduation and disclosure of abilities).

Originally Posted by Awrath

This brings us back to the WM expansion. Before the introduction of teleports, bridge wars and open field fights were commonplace.

These sorts of fights were a lot of fun, and often we would attempt to seek out such a fight. Teleports played a part in ruining what used to be a lot of fun.

At the moment I find that bridge, open field and fort fights happen about once every 15-20 minutes on Haven. This is acceptable to me.

I would like it to be more intense and continuous but overall this is the position we need to improve upon. I suspect we can't go back to the previous times because the industry playerbase for RvR was entirely different then. There are a lot more mmos with aspirations to faction pvp now than there was when Regnum started. (ok sometimes its a lot slower than 15-20 mins, but i tend to feel off-peak periods shouldnt be counted..... )

Originally Posted by Awrath

Point 1: How can one be out of date? I don't understand. If you are designing a product that requires technology in order to make use of it, then surely, as you have decided to make this your profession, you must keep up with the times and keep your knowledge going and make continued professional development a priority.

By out of date i mean that as 30 yos, they cannot expect to understand everything about their front line audience - which for mmos i think it is 12-25 yos. High schoolers and college students all now seem to like gfx, instanced arenas, action combat etc nowadays -- its a different hip crowd to when the devs started Regnum. So it isn't just technological, its a different audience altogether. They need to understand them before applying the tech skills to build something.

note: it is possible that the Regnum playerbase is 30-50 year olds and that NGD can instead focus on catering to them only. In which case, the revenue base demographic has to be adjusted for financial projections, and project expenditure adjusted accordingly. No point spending megabucks on the forums demands if it turns out that only attracting the 15-20s will yield enough sales to cover costs.

Originally Posted by Awrath

Point 2: What? While I appreciate your sarcasm with regards to expert consultants, it takes no expert to realise that game play bugs are bad for the image of any game especially considering they hinder game play.

By expert consultants i dont mean just eliminating bugs. I mean NGD is being told everyday by industry experts and the media that they must update gfx, boost their cash shop, have more instances and generally make Regnum like another WoW. Rift, Wildstar, Tera are all already somewhat clones of WoW. We dont want Regnum to become a WoW clone. Yet NGD has to be cautious on what risks to take.

Originally Posted by Awrath

Point 3: Yes. A better game = better income. So if this is their sole source of income, then really, NGD should put a bit more focus on doing what's necessary to keep the game alive. If the fact that the 10 year old code holding them back is a major issue, they should be working on either rewriting it or attempt to decipher the 10 year old mess.

I suspect a major code rewrite would not be commercially feasible right now. That could be a rreally expensive ($5m+? dunno....) exercise and would only be justified if the additonal sales were reliably projected. I'm even doubtful that a major code rewrite will reduce the frequency of bugs unless front line programmers out of MIT are hired tokeep it up to date (too expensive for Regnum without a maybe 20x jump in player numbers).

Originally Posted by Awrath

Point 4: Don't get why that's relevant. Are you telling me that because the country is not renowned for its programmers, then it must mean we should have lower expectations of anything written by Argentinian programmers?

I believe it is relevant because we may not be able to expect engineering standards from NGD which we can expect out of North American programmers. Maybe im wrong because Im not an industry insider. But.. I have heard Argenina's culture is slightly fascist (different to others) - and it is a beautiful and vibrant society but it just doesn't produce as many Nobel laureates. Nobels are not the only measure of how good or worthwhile a country is, but maybe Argentina is not that hot in science/engineering excellence. NGD can still use overseas programmers but.. they work in a different time zone..

Originally Posted by Awrath

Point 5: I'm sure they are, but they fail to address the fundamental issues which are holding them back. Until they can, this game does
not have a bright future.

Personally, I think the most likely outcome for Regnum in the next few years is stable player numbers. NGD has to really lift their game and think internationally and plan specifically to be No.1 to raise prospoects of growth. However, even though my prognosis is average, I do not feel it is right for me to go around saying stuff like "this game is shit" "i will not spend another penny on NGD" or other bad things about NGD because it doesnt help ourselves or the game grow players numbers. Instead i feel we should just respect that NGD is trying to do its best, and hey, maybe the server wont be around in 2 years time but we still can have a good time now.

For veterans who feel the "fun is over" i feel that mmos are like theme parks. And sooner or later you may get tired of all the rides. In which case itis perfectly ok to go out and enjoy other rides or parks.

[kmdk]

Originally Posted by Awrath

Rewrite this engine of theirs for better opengl support as well as fix bugs, get rid of absolute armour resists, separate spell trees for every sub class and introduce scaling for mages, then that's a project I will happily support with my money. In its current state, not anymore, for me the fun is over.

+1 One for this.

About Warmaster ..was nice idea ...but practice fall in extreme ,that kills the casual player.

WM resists and enchantments fall in hand of half server population and other half population got disappointed about how long need to spend in game after fast nerf of quest to take wm coins.

Wtv,as casual player ,got bored of game after i've seen how long need to spend in game to be able to get a wm or lvl 60 armor.I've just quit because i was not able to compete or proper play the game without equipment.

Yes it's about game mechanics,i don't think any of old players just quit because of visual improvements ,but always because of bad implementation of game mechanics.
Yes game expansions boosted NGD profit ,but also lost base of players,and not because of NGD's profit ,just because gameplay fall in extremes for casual players or bad changes for addicted players.

[Krungle]

Many of the younger players were demanding better graphics, hence the recent update for character models.

However, updates to the gui, as has been suggested, is part of what these younger players are talking about when they say 'gfx' or 'looks.' More mouse-over popups, a better chat box, etc.

Putting time into bringing dragon loot back is needed. Putting time into a Hall of Infamy was not needed. Putting time into years old bug fixes is also needed. Putting time into instanced PvP when the entire game is RvR and PvP is not needed.

Adding more levels is a waste until the above mentioned stuff is fixed. It is about priorities and 'keeping up with the Joneses' cannot be part of the priorities when the Joneses have deep pockets and NGD does not. However, a bug-fix dedicated team is needed in any MMORPG.

[bois]

I'll say this.

In my opinion NGD made many right moves. Theoretically. What caused problems is not the ideas themselves ( the principle) but :

A: the timing.
B: the scalability to diverse servers
C: the deployment
D: Initial quality control and then ongoing review after a short period say 3 -5 months.

Take TDM. It is a good idea. I agree that instances is one way forward. However, you can't fill certain servers and it is absolutely crucial to have these servers at least 80% filled regularly before you do a TDM type thing. To do otherwise simply cannibalises your existing , not enough base.

In such a case, the best thing to do is have only PvE instances to start. Some of these can be premium ones which have an option to be bought into via Warmaster coins .

Let's use Warmasters. This was a good idea. Raise revenue and add some content. Let's not fool ourselves, that is what it was all about. Anything else is a steaming pile. It broke balance in so many way it ain't funny. However, from an economical position, I would say it was about one year too late.
In addition the initial deployment was ehrm, underwhelming. NGD was convinced that it was brilliant so they (via Zombrex) did the "coming soon" marketing gimmick. It was underwhelming but at least it filled the coffers. Mission success. Then, a review (despite prophecies and much protestation) took over a year to come.

Now, for the rest I agree with Awrath in the main so I rather not go over that ground. I prefer not to be a rationalizer or apologist for NGD. They are in business and face the same constraints that every entrepreneur (myself included ) face. That list you made fotomay would never be an excuse in my business and it shouldn't be in theirs. Either you are in or you are not.

While I do care about the fortunes of the company and my comments may sound callous, let us get it straight what this is about.
This is for profit, not a charity.

In finality, your commentary makes many assumptions and suppositions I tend not to agree with.
Many of these "veterans" as you call them are actually professionals in the tech industry and others that bear relevance. The resident intellectual resource in this community is higher than average (although it may not seem so at times).

Ironic is it fotomay that you caution us yet you readily make an affront to Argentina, its geopolitics, its location and the ability of the programmers of this game in their professionalism, programming capability, and their ability to stay relevant in their industry without any concrete evidence for this. Interesting.

[fotomay]

Originally Posted by Krungle

Putting time into bringing dragon loot back is needed.

im actually opposed to any permanent drop boss loot. my belief is that all boss items should be time limited (maybe 1 week).
in its ultimate incarnation, i believe RvR pvp should be based on all players selecting from the same inventory of equipment (which is statistically the same as random loot, provided the random number generators are working).
otherwise than that im happy for dragon and its loot to be brought back.

Originally Posted by Krungle

Putting time into a Hall of Infamy was not needed.

i feel the Hall of infamy is a good move. NGD needs more features which make it unique amongst mmos and must also promote these features.

(NGD must get the Hall of Fame right, then trumpet to the whole industry that it is the first to have a good ingame Hall.)

Im not sure but i dont think other mmos have a Hall of Fame feature which dynamically updates yet - but surely WoW must have one?

Originally Posted by Krungle

Putting time into years old bug fixes is also needed.

definitely. i wish evey bug could be economically ironed out: occasional holes in terrain mesh, stuck in position holes, movement controls stuck bug, inconsistences in behaviour of lamai builds vs other human shaped builds, inconsistencies in behaviour of invasion mechanics including apparent inability of devs to state clearly what they intended -- all marks of an unpolished mmo.

Originally Posted by Krungle

Putting time into instanced PvP when the entire game is RvR and PvP is not needed.

personally, i wud have skipped it but i respect that there is always 1) more than 1 path to success 2) things i do not know about or which i am totally wrong about; and 3) a need to try to stay aligned with popular industry trends.

Originally Posted by Krungle

Adding more levels is a waste until the above mentioned stuff is fixed.

i agree. no level additions at all ever would be my default position. (there are some limited exceptions).

[fotomay]

Originally Posted by bois

Ironic is it fotomay that you caution us yet you readily make an affront to Argentina, its geopolitics, its location and the ability of the programmers of this game in their professionalism, programming capability, and their ability to stay relevant in their industry without any concrete evidence for this. Interesting.

maybe i am biased against Argentina. and i could be totally wrong, but ive been trying to think what could be the cause of the difference inquality and texture of an mmo like Rgenum compared to other big budget mmos. is it just money? maybe so, but maybe there is something else. i really appreicate diversity in society, but i think we need to acknowdlege differences and shortcomings. so that's why i mention it.

(note differences can be strengths and not just shortcomings). and it is true, i dont have concrete evidence for it. so i could be totally wrong.

[jorgeseg]

Originally Posted by fotomay

I believe it is relevant because we may not be able to expect engineering standards from NGD which we can expect out of North American programmers. Maybe im wrong because Im not an industry insider. But.. I have heard Argenina's culture is slightly fascist (different to others) - and it is a beautiful and vibrant society but it just doesn't produce as many Nobel laureates. Nobels are not the only measure of how good or worthwhile a country is, but maybe Argentina is not that hot in science/engineering excellence. NGD can still use overseas programmers but.. they work in a different time zone..

What the... Dude, after that u shouldnt keep posting, u said everything about how serious we should take ur comments with that paragraph..