Why my friend won't play EU

Tussi said:

Do you have a view on the situation which puts them into a good light?

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MA provides a service. A service that many people enjoy playing. Their product is innovative, more open than other MMOs, and amazingly addictive. They don't incorporate artifical quests (kill 10 rats) and they don't restrict what you can and can not do. They have provided this service for 5+ years and they product is 100x times more stable than it was just 3 years ago.

This and much more puts MA in a good light.

The key to this thread is that many are tired of feeling ignored, foraged, forsaken, laughed at by support and whatever else.

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With all due respects - I am the OP and only I can say what the key to the thread is. The intention was to focus on more and better items in the loot. To take this thread off into not enough loot or support issues is not the key or the intention.

ruskea said:

but this seems to be little too much challenge... after 2+ years and u havent got anything u could show to someone...

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I'd go even so far and say, that it's not even a challange anymore. It's a invisible wall, which is basicly unbreakable. "Too much Challange" would actually mean that you could with hard work advance your character progress. In EU you can't unless you have luck (and that's not something you can influence), you own a fortune in real and pump it ingame (this is not something a majority of the EU players can do) or you become a reseller (which wouldn't make you much friends and is kinda boring way to be successful).

The first time i took a break from PE was in Feb 2004, when Lineage II was released. I played it for approx. 10 or 11 months (on server Kain, so if everyone played on Kain ). And i played much, pretty much. Like 14-16 hours per day (for the first 50 levels it needed to grind/level 2 months 14-16 hours a day). After that, soloing became more and more impossible and i found a nice group of people (and changed to their clan) and leveld with them. Still 12-16 hours/day. And leveling became slower and slower. From 20-30%/day, it got slower and slower until at level ~70 it was as low as 5% per 16h of nonstop grinding (just imagine, you wake up, get a group at 13:00 and grind until 5:00 (am), every day). So after 11 months i was at 73.5 (max level was 75) and had one of the highest chars up there on Kain (afaik only two were higher/hit 75 before i quited).

Lineage II itself was game developed by an korean company (for people who are not common with Korean games: Korean games basicly mean: endless grinding). Until a certain level you could buy the weapons from shops for pretty much money, everything else needed to be crafting and all important materials was drop only or spoiled Tressure Hunters (a dwarven class). Since i was level 50 i spent time collecting to get the next better weapon upgrade until i was 70ish (~6-7 months).

Long story short: At that time i thought that this was the biggest grinding i've ever seen (until i started PE again). But the difference was, that i exactly know that if i continue playing Lineage II, i'd getting better and closer actually see the advancement. It was already know what materials youd needed for that weapon and everyday you was closer to it. In EU, there is nothing like that.
All you know: At one point you wil get stucked at an "advanced noob" level and won't be able to advance anymore without a fortune (either by depositing or being luckly to hit a 20-30k ATH).

And i think thats something MA needs to introduce too, even if you let the people collcet tiny bits of their desired weapon/armor and have them make the complete item once they have all pieces, people would at least know that with enough effort they could reach this goal.

Tseng said:

And i think thats something MA needs to introduce too, even if you let the people collcet tiny bits of their desired weapon/armor and have them make the complete item once they have all pieces, people would at least know that with enough effort they could reach this goal.

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And thats exactly what's not gonna happen, since EU isn't the typical MMO where time spent = advancement.

I know many people that go the other way around... they grind, get nothing, get forced to sell skills to continue... So they downgrade instead of upping the next level!

Its sad, but its the way things are here in EU for many players

I think MA should have this in mind:

People might love their product, (and i do, even when i whine alot) but life is short. Time flies and most people will come to realise that spending 5+ years in a game to get somewhere is a complete waste of time.

There used to be alot of opportunity in this place, where perhaps wasting that much time would bring you some returns, something you could show for the investment of your precious years.

But nowadays things are incredibly expensive, new players aren't getting in for many reasons, the ones that are in the middle stage are getting frustrated and feeling a dilemma on wether they should quit or mortgage their house to buy better equipment... And (L) is the future, so investing isn't safe anymore.

It was never safe, since the rules of the game can change at any minute, but now, the future seems darker. At least, seen from a gamer's POV.

Back to the key point in the thread...

I'd like to bring friends in the game, recruit more people. But as things are at this point - with no bling in loot, bad bugs that cost a shitload of money, and a progression that MA set for decades instead of months.. No new player without a fortune or a shitload of luck will last.

thoreau said:

Their product is innovative, more open than other MMOs, and amazingly addictive. They don't incorporate artifical quests (kill 10 rats) and they don't restrict what you can and can not do. They have provided this service for 5+ years and they product is 100x times more stable than it was just 3 years ago.

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We could arguee if it's really innovative and unique, since Ultima Online and Wish (latter one was canceled during Beta) also had similar learning-by-doing systems with no clasical class system.

At the time PE went gold i was pretty sure that this game wouldn't survive the next 8 months. Seem i was at fault.

But to get more back to topic: I think the lack of interesting stuff in loots and less lot (in TT value) than back when PE went gold is the result of their failed "vision" and an attempt to keep the money for themselve flowing. I think i can remember that back during the CoT times MindArk told that they was planing to get investors and companies into PE and have their products offering in the TT for purchase and by this additional money flows into PE (which isn't deposited by the players, but by the investors).

Even after 5 years, it seems they haven't found a single investor for this (or just gave up the idea after realizing that companies wouldnt invest in that kind of advertising/product selling). I mean the loots could be much better, if there would be such investors and let say allow you to by a can of coke from the TT and when you use it it would refill your health bar (like a heal potion) or to buy virtual Adidas shoes or see ads on the big screens in Hadesheim etc. and the money gained by such advertisements could be distributed as loots.

I wouldn't mind to get some cans of coke or pepsi from some umbra and mutants or some Sony mobile phones from robots, if this would mean more diversity on loots and better loots (either in TT value or by usability, ie more weapons, armors, tools drops)

This is a looong thread...

About getting more items in loot, I agree, but that wont realy solve the problem (for some players).

As said somewhere back, EU is about aim - shoot - loot (or something similar, ain't quoting).
By getting new items, more items, uber items or special, unique items, you solve the loot part of the equation. But some people take the fun from other parts of the game (or from all parts), so you have to solve the aim and shoot parts.
Getting better AI in mobs would solve the tactical part (doesn't look mutch as hunting if you sit and tank a mob). Could be also improved with a more FPS feal for guns and a more 'fluid' (cant get the word) fight with melee. Also, PvP 'quests' that change the way the game points would be cool (may not be pvp).
The shoot part is more related with skills and gear. Gear aint bad as is (just with very bad inflation, that could be solved by droping more items in a way that prices get more stable) but skills are not so good (not even for hardcore players). I fail to see why instead of making it so hard to get to higher skill levels, MA didn't chose to allow to get there (even if only after 2-3 years) and then shifted the levels in a way to rebalance the player base, or get some sort of skill loss so you are always in some sort of balance.

To add to that, we could use an even better event system and few MA game story related events going on (that actualy have an end and that take less than 6 months to happen).

So, mainly what I'm trying to say is that looking to the loot as the 'root of all evils' or 'solution to all problems' wont realy work. But it is a start.

Hope I make some sence (took me 3 hours to read all the thread and it's like 3:30 am) and keep in mind that it is just my pov.