IF ANYONE WANTS TO MAKE A RUSSIAN TRANSLATION OF THIS AND POST IT IN THE RUSSIAN FORUM,HE/SHE IS WELCOME TO DO IT .
Hello . I wanted to make an extensive argument of where this game is and especially why .
So ,to begin with ,this is the situation : Servers open with a big bang , 2 months pass , servers die . GM Trolya said in 2016 on a forum post: "The community has changed. They want something fresh, something new every time". Firstly, that is not an MMORPG vision,that is a shooter game vision,like we're playing CS:GO . What people want from an mmorpg varies for sure ,but they surely want to play the game . Playing an mmorpg is about the commitment to it , not a quick-and-run and move forward .
So the state of the game is a quick-and-run shooter game and the reason for this comes from the way servers are designed . From the very beginning of the server ,the path of the playerbase is split exponentially . Let me explain (with numbers) :
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We have 4 types of playerbases on most servers : people that play very much and donate (they are called top parties) , people that don't play a lot and donate( lazy-peons,don't usually join action and boast a lot) ,people that play a lot and don't donate (second-tier parties) and obviously the ones that don't contribute that much to server health .
From the server start ,the gap between top parties and second-tier parties is huge . Server offers them free C grade gear , free shots , experience rune up till lvl 61 , 35% increased everything (i want to call this too,those numbers are wrong . How can a premium character get 47k adena from varka monsters ,while a non-premium character gets a maximum of 26k from the same monsters ?! THAT IS NOT 35% !!!!!!). So,what will happen ? The top parties will get everything possible up to a point where it's impossible for a second-tier party member to fight him. They will have faster access to epics, top gear and will monopolize the server. Then,those people will start to wither away as they say they get 'bored' of not having enemies . (Natyralu left server in 2 weeks,god bless those guys,they were good). When the top parties leave the server ,the balance is broken and people go amiss ,get scared and start looking for the new fresh experience,which will be the same exact thing,because noone is breaking the cycle of announcing some server description ,then getting donators to play A TOTALLY DIFFERENT SERVER . These types of services are not enabling the players to have an easier gameplay experience,they are making said players have an unfair, pay2win advantage which doesn't account in this game .
I'm going to enumerate the advantage factor that comes from such game design,from day1 to day14 :
1 hour into the server , 2 parties were lvl 55. --- 1 hour into the server,most non-donators were lvl 25ish,while soft donators were lvl 35-40.
1 day into the server , 3 parties were lvl 76+ --- 1 day into the server, non-donators maybe made it past 40(don't forget,they have to do the 3hours quest) while soft donators were 55-60.
4 days into the server , several parties got to lvl 80,geared with A grades and some S grades ---4 days into the server,nondonators were lvl 65-70 in C grade(they didn't get any C sets or free shots,so they had to make it themselves,which cost around 12kk) while soft donators , due to the increased drop/adena rates,probably had some A grades.
1 week into the server, Natyralu had full S grades on every CP member,with weapons and everything.Noone could fight them --- Nondonators were probably still in C grades and farming / spoiling some recipes,not full sets yet. Soft donators probably finished 3rd class .
2 weeks into the server,Natyralu throws an aura flash and half the server dies,they get bored and leave . The Big Clans have been fighting for epics(top parties), anyone else has no chance to get in there,they will get stronger and stronger.
There's also such factors as EASY (coins) clan lvl 5, CRP scrolls(COINS)--> CLAN SKILLS . Epic quests (which consume time) for 1 click (COINS). I think you get the idea. There's too much content given to players outside the game infrastructure,and it is not done smart,hence breaking the game .
2 months into the server: Smite leaves because they haven't been doing anything for 1 month except epics,the game gave them everything from the start and they play a lot too.
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What i wanted to say is that making such a game design where not everyone is equal or atleast at a linear disadvantage breaks the game . It's not fun for neither side when someone is unstoppable,because the Project gave that opportunity and did not give a counterbalance opportunity for anyone else.
There's countless examples of Projects that made it extremely BIG without breaking the balance . Have you heard of the private WoW server Nostalrius ? They did not have premium accounts,they did not give heirlooms for free ,they had a team hunting bots and not unbanning them for money . They did all that with a small team of 20 members and while donating helped the project ,they did not wrap it around donations. E-global is a big platform. You can make a difference by creating content that's balanced how Lineage2 should be :). And maybe we will get a server that lives more than 2 months.
