Some thoughts on Regnum in general...

[makarios68]

There's also the important issue of the price of this game: NOTHING!

Many other games have monthly subscriptions and charges for expansions, and they still don't have better PVP than RO.

Sure, you can speed up your uberness in this game by buying premium.

But never forget that a good, committed player can come into this game, lvl their char to 50, grind for epic items or kill elite bosses for epic items, and then compete in the WZ and beat the best players with the best items - and they can do all this for free.

Pretty good deal, don't you think?

[Raideniza]

Originally Posted by makarios68

There's also the important issue of the price of this game: NOTHING!

Many other games have monthly subscriptions and charges for expansions, and they still don't have better PVP than RO.

Sure, you can speed up your uberness in this game by buying premium.

But never forget that a good, committed player can come into this game, lvl their char to 50, grind for epic items or kill elite bosses for epic items, and then compete in the WZ and beat the best players with the best items - and they can do all this for free.

Pretty good deal, don't you think?

I'd rather if this game had a monthly subscription fee instead of the shop. Nominal price of this game is indeed 0 in any currency, but in 3-4 weeks I need to hit lvl50 with a char (+ customizations) I spend approximately enough money for, e.g. whole guild wars collection. Usually those F2P games with microtransactions cost the players more then mmo's with some sort of premium model (be it monthly subscription or just to buy retail box) in the long run.

As for the last part of good, committed player (...) Grind for epic items or killing elite bosses to get good drops takes months, I've participated in almost every evendim-daen-thork run for some 3 months in a row, grinded 8hrs/day with sm conju and sm lock for some 2 months in a row and only thing I got was some gold to cover my repair costs. And the people who do drop good items expect insane stuff in exchange or don't want to trade at all under the excuse that it's for their clan. I'm not sure you are aware how hard it is to get good items in this game for the whole last year (since invasions update). Skill in this game got completely overshadowed by your financial power to buy stuff and imo that kills off a lot of competitive spirit that this game had (unless you play a hunter and can do whatever you want around wz with no setbacks if you don't have good gear).

[monktbd]

Originally Posted by Raideniza

Imo, the devs should tailor the game to fit the new and incoming players, not older ones. And once there is a solid enough base of regular players they should start adding/improving/whatever endgame content.

improving the initiation areas, new graphics engine and soon (tm) new models did exactly that: trying to keep new players in the game as this was what chilko saw as the biggest flaw: a lot of players leaving after maybe playing an hour or so.

Whether they succeeded doing so with the above improvements only they know looking at their logs.

High level player retention is also very important. most people who are very active on the forum have been playing the game for a long time. a lot of them complain that the good old times were much better then what the game is now and in some part they are correct and some others they arent in my opinion.

This game is about RvR in the end. And it should stay like this. If chilko thinks it should not then they need to work on PvE otherwise they need to work on RvR once the above mentioned steps for new player retention are completed.

Originally Posted by Raideniza

I'd rather if this game had a monthly subscription fee instead of the shop. Nominal price of this game is indeed 0 in any currency, but in 3-4 weeks I need to hit lvl50 with a char (+ customizations) I spend approximately enough money for, e.g. whole guild wars collection.

Yikes! No to monthly subscriptions!
And I am glad that ngd commits to the business model they have shown.
If you have the money to save time by buying boosters and if you really need that cool haircut and armor color then well pay for it.
I dished out some money for the game but I did that for a game I play and enjoy for - well - years.
If people are greedy about things in game then they have to pay for it. (Be it with real money for Xim or with a ban by duping items)

... I'm not sure you are aware how hard it is to get good items in this game for the whole last year (since invasions update). Skill in this game got completely overshadowed by your financial power to buy stuff and imo that kills off a lot of competitive spirit that this game had (unless you play a hunter and can do whatever you want around wz with no setbacks if you don't have good gear)....

Times were good when people gave stuff away for free and there were no lucky boxes and gems that combined do changes not necessarily the outcome of fights but the overall greedyness in the game.

[Gytha_Ogg]

Originally Posted by Raideniza

I'd rather if this game had a monthly subscription fee instead of the shop. Nominal price of this game is indeed 0 in any currency, but in 3-4 weeks I need to hit lvl50 with a char (+ customizations) I spend approximately enough money for, e.g. whole guild wars collection.

Not me. If this was a subscription game, I never would have started playing. I do buy xim on occasion (you can have Mr. Ed when you pry him from my cold, dead hands!

Which at Agg fights is generally about every 3 minutes. )

I've also, like Maed, been over a year in-game and yet to reach 50, so I'm not nearly so efficient at grinding as you are. If you're doing it how you like, and can afford it, cool. If I want to do it on-the-cheap, it'll just take me longer.

As to improving the game for new players first, it should be easy to figure out when the game is losing players, just graph counts players who haven't logged in in 1, 3, or 6 months vs their level.

Last year, NDG beefed up the initiation areas quite a bit, and added some new quests, so I suspect they agree with you. They probably need to sit on those changes for a while, to get stats on how well they worked, before they layer on more changes.

There was also talk about changes that give lower levels a taste of RVR appropriate to their levels, I don't know if that's still in the works.

[makarios68]

Originally Posted by Raideniza

I'd rather if this game had a monthly subscription fee

I suspect that you are in a minority here.

[monktbd]

Originally Posted by GythaOgg

There was also talk about changes that give lower levels a taste of RVR appropriate to their levels, I don't know if that's still in the works.

Yeah I hope there is more to that than the lvl 4 quest withe the dual banners and the mini arena in the initiation zone (speaking for alsius here) in the future.

[Raideniza]

Originally Posted by makarios68

I suspect that you are in a minority here.

possibly, but i said subscription fee instead of item shop. it'd create more stable incomes for ngd and a more fun and fair playing ground for the players + possibly lead to reduction of xp curve and increase of drop rate. a small fee of $10 /mo would be completely acceptable imo (and yearly less then what i spend on this game per year atm)

[makarios68]

Originally Posted by Raideniza

possibly, but i said subscription fee instead of item shop. it'd create more stable incomes for ngd and a more fun and fair playing ground for the players + possibly lead to reduction of xp curve and increase of drop rate. a small fee of $10 /mo would be completely acceptable imo (and yearly less then what i spend on this game per year atm)

I would probably subscribe to such a fee also. If push came to shove and it was a choice between not playing or subscribing to a fee - i'd choose the fee.

But that's just me - however, there is a large base of players who would not or cannot pay this fee.

For example, there are no doubt many younger players (at college, etc) who would struggle to keep up a regular fee. Or maybe some whose parents would not agree to the burden of a monthly fee.

I can see how a game like RO suits these people - they can play for free, but whenever they get a bit of spare cash they can buy some premium.

As things are their 'subscription' is non-obliging and irregular - they pay whenever they can afford it.

I'd hate to see this change.

[Ulti19]

Originally Posted by makarios68

I would probably subscribe to such a fee also. If push came to shove and it was a choice between not playing or subscribing to a fee - i'd choose the fee.

But that's just me - however, there is a large base of players who would not or cannot pay this fee.

For example, there are no doubt many younger players (at college, etc) who would struggle to keep up a regular fee. Or maybe some whose parents would not agree to the burden of a monthly fee.

I can see how a game like RO suits these people - they can play for free, but whenever they get a bit of spare cash they can buy some premium.

As things are their 'subscription' is non-obliging and irregular - they pay whenever they can afford it.

I'd hate to see this change.

Totally agree with you. This game offers people that just can't play for a fee, even if small, a way to play RO. For some people it's not even a money issue, they don't want to use financial info over internet.

[ncvr]

Originally Posted by Hamster_of_sorrow

I have to agree. i actually finished the tenax quest (last quest in ignis) and it gives 25000xp and 33000 gold. but other than that. you get nothing. nothing at all. it seemed kinda anticlimactic.

Well, to be fair neither the quest, its objectives or its rewards were written by NGD.

Anyway, many games fail because they don't have a good balance of early game, middle game and endgame content. Regnum is one of them. Sure, a well balanced warzone (class and realm balance) is awesome, but let's face it, you can only truly enjoy this at 45+. 90% of players who have just begun in this game will take a long time to get there, even if it takes an experienced player who knows what he's doing 1 or 2 months.

Early game is necessary because it gets a player attached to his character. You need to offer some enticing content or give players a taste of the endgame to keep them playing. Middle game in Regnum is the grind - around lvl 32 to 49 (or a little lower, depending on how many points you are willing to sacrifice for pvp), and it's the worst part of the game. Lots of players leave at under lvl 20, but even more would leave during the middle game even if NGD fixed the early game up.

Overall Regnum doesn't have a lot of content and it only appeals to a small audience. That's another point - NGD keeps trying to appeal to the masses who came from WoW and such, when they really don't have the resources or the time (with such a small team) to add such a huge amount of depth.