I think there are plenty of people finding alternative ways in EU to advance and progress and its not always with a trust fund or going into credit card debt.
I agree that the skill compression does slow people up. It slowed up my skill advancement goals when it was implemented. Did I stop skilling? nope. Did I eventually reach my goals? yes and I am still working towards others. EU is not like other MMOs IMO..
Well i agree that EU is different from the usual MMO and this isn't at all bad, but i still think there's room for improvement.
Of course the skill compression doesn't keep you from skilling and eventually reaching goals, but the fact remains that you will need to spend an enourmous amount of time and/or money to even get close to a level were old-schoold players are now (i guess we can agree that we are talking about years of hardcore-hunting here). Just look up what it would cost a new player to chip in avoidance or combat sense for example and you'll get a rough idea of the costs involved. Surely you can achieve goals with a limited budget but then your goals also have to be limited. And even if you invest a lot of time to skill instead of chipping in you will still be missing the good equipment.
And as much i agree with you that there are opportunities and things to keep yourself busy or improve your avatar, i still think with the current balancing, the current skill progress and the current droprate of items MA isn't doing themselves a favor.
No offense, but i am not even sure if an AoW member can really understand the situation of the newbies and stuck mid-level players.
In the current situation we have a very small circle of ubers, a small group of semi-ubers, a lot of medium-skilled players and according to my gut feeling and that of other people we have a decreasing number of newbies
I think we agree that the Cryengine update is a huge opportunity for Mindark, but i think we can also agree that there are a lot of people who are expecting a lot more then just improved graphics with this update or shortly thereafter.
We all know people who only stick around to see how it will be after the update and the worst-case scenario i have in mind is Planet Calypso going live with the Cryengine update and no further changes to speak of.
If there are no changes for the average player i fear that a lot of them just won't see the point anymore.
I believe you when you say that you know people who made it without depositing lots of money, but tbh my experiences are different.
Everyone i have known who has made it to really good skills and equipment has either deposited shitloads of money or in one case i know has had an ATH, so for my part i assume that you can surely optimize your strategy but to become really good at anything you will require an insane amount of money or you need to get lucky.
But the average player will not go on depositing forever just on the assumption that one day he will get lucky.
So basically i fear that if there are no changes we will lose a good portion of the mid-level playerbase.
Surely a lot of new people will join because they are attracted by the improved graphics, but after a while they will also be in the same situation many of us are now, skillgains become terribly slow and better equipment is terribly expensive, so the daily playing experience becomes dull.
I fail to see why Ma would take no steps to make sure those new players and the current mid-level players are motivated to stay in EU. And the thing to achieve that is a constant skill progression (it doesn't have to be uber in a year but it has to be quicker and cheaper then uber in 10 years after spending 20 K USD) and the opportunity to improve your equipment (again, it doesn't have to be ML-35 for 20 USD but why does it have to be 1500-1700 USD?)
At the moment a newbie can loot pixie or goblin fairly easy, perhaps even shogun, but that's about it. How many people do you know that looted all parts for even just vigi by themselves? (and i'm not even getting started about how people loot the wrong gender item for themselves or how only EU alone manages to make the gender selection in the beginning an important decision for the possibility to get armor sets cheaper). And when was the last time someone looted an ML?
If everything stays as it is now Planet Calypso will have a short hype after the cryengine update and then we (or the new players who come with Cryengine) will be in exactly the same situation and sooner or later that just won't be enough anymore.
EU can be played as an MMO or it can be used to gamble (i know MA doesn't like to hear that but if people with next to no skills have the opportunity to spent 2 K USD on clicking OA101 and possibly ATH that's gambling in my book) and at the moment it's just going too much in the gambling direction for my taste (less averages loots, higher ATHs, Uber items which drop uber rarely but can be sold at uber prices).
It would be good to remember those of us who are here for the mmo part.
Keep in mind that at the moment there are not many alternatives for people who want to spent some quality time online in a science fiction setting, but there are a few high-profile Scifi-MMOs in the making, so now would be a good time for MA to get their shit together and take steps to make some improvements.
It isn't enough to take premium money, you also have to give people a premium experience if you expect them to continue giving you money.
, that one has all the parts collected, what does one do now? How/where do we trade these in Marco?
