Dead World
They cannot make it free to play in its current state. They need to add a ranked arena, flesh out open world pvp, add a few more dungeons, and 1 big raid. They also need to make a PvP mode accessible to sub-60 players, and make sure leveling from 30-60 isn’t a huge grind like it was on release. Once they do that stuff they will be ready for a free to play re-release. The question will be is it financially viable to develop all that stuff or is better just cut their losses.
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Yes, Kipp, they can. I’d expect you, of all people would understand this. You have worked in the industry, and should understand these things enough.
I’d recommend some sort of download it today for free for a weekend, or if you have amazon prime this month its free type deal.
These things are not required to sustain the population of the game, and it will take around a month or two for those players to reach the point where they can actively be involved in those types of content.
Flagged pvp is enough, just buff the exp gains to 50% or even 100% bonus exp.
I cant speak for everyone but i know iv dropped atleast 140-160 in this game, plus the initial cost of the game. The game is financially viable, and i see people with new skins all the type.
You cant run these metrics off what is currently here, they have to be ran off the original 1m player population, or even beyond that. The game will survive if they can keep gas in the engine, but players (gas) needs to be added to keep it going for another 3-4 months to allow the changes (pvp areana’s etc) To take place.
It was an honor to cope with you gentlemen
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ok this made me giggle a bit
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If the game is dying in its current state why do you think it would survive with a temporary influx of players? These new players might make it to level 60 and then quit like everyone else.
New world can only go free to play once. If they blow the free to play launch the game is surely dead forever. Therefore, the game needs to be in a good position before going free to play.
They could, however, let the game be free to play up until level 30 or something. That might get a few more players in the meantime.
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Games don’t go free to play when they are thriving lmao
Its exactly when your veterans are fed up and you need new blood.
The idea is to bring new people while you try to fix the shitstorm that is happening in the meantime while these players are still on their honeymoon phase
When I say “good position” I’m referring to content/stability/gameplay. I’m not talking about active users. I think this game is going to drop to <10k concurrent users in the next few months. The only way I see this game surviving is essentially to “re-release” as a free to play game when they have a well thought out end game that includes PvP and PvE. I think if they go free to play too early they might see a population bump for a few months, but players will leave again and they will likely never return.
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So your point is that going free to play is more of an incentive for people to come and see that the game has actually gotten worth their time? So It relies on devs making content good enough for these people to stay instead of just coming to see a broken game and leaving.
I think i get it now.
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this is a very important question. I will answer it in a metaphore.
Imagine you are traveling in the desert in -30f temp. If you get out of the car, you can die in minutes. Your only hope is to get to a motel, but you cant get there without more gas. You need to stop at a gas station on the way.
In this situation you need just enough gas to get to the gas station to drive the way to saftey.
In this situation the temp is the danger imposed to the game that was brought about by the orb system. The player influx is the gas, and the car is the current game and population. The motel represents a place of saftey, or where the game needs to get to survive.
Some engines run more efficiently than others. new world has a major design flaw (orbs). To save this game we really just need two things, the orbs to be changed to not expire on completion (ie killing the boss) or some sort of simi-permanent nature to them that does not require grinding more and more. Think of wow’s mythic keys. If they worked with similar conditions (get them from a normal dungeon run the first time and as long as you run them each week you dont need to require an orb from a normal dungeon, and they progress with you).
In addition we need to make dungeon spam leveling a possibility.
That is the only real condition we need to fix the flaw in the game. Out side of that the game just needs people and we will make it to the motel.
Today, the largest two guilds on our server (the two most progressed ones) announced disbanding from new world and leaving the game. People are droppign at a rapid pace. They must fix these issues and make the game free to play, or this project is toasted.
Originally i thought they had 3-6 months, but i am starting to suspect its much sooner (a week tops) before the game enters an unrecoverable state.
See my above explination to understand my position clearly.
I felt after the first couple months that the only way to save things would be the Realm Reborn route.
I think the core of the game is robust. But they need to take what they learned and reboot in 8 months - 2 years.
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When i made that statement i was talking about reversing a game from a situation where people are consolidating into fewer, larger groups and then subsequently leaving because of not being able to find a place to fit in.
The orb system and the zone conquest systems are in ways funnels, but not for reasons you’d think. They funnel people into a few, larger, more powerful guilds and this aspect of the game is extremely destructive. It turns people, in their many ways of thinking, idea’s, self expression, personalities, and affinities into a sort of industrialized form of a reflection of what ever that leader in those specific guilds follows or belongs to (from the above).
The result of this is a sort of oppression where people cannot express their idea’s and opinion, and this is at the very essence the foundation of what guilds should reflect in an mmo. When this becomes invalidated, the game consolidates it and its only a short period of time later it becomes a graveyard.
The orb system has managed to not only making people feel insanely bored and "controlled’ (often refered to as gated), but it has also managed to in essence attack their identity and who they are. People get frustrated on a subconcious level about this and end up leaving the game because the mind in all its seemlingly endless complexities and variations concludes that no real personal connection can be established, and so it forces people out of the game.
I see your point. Bringing in new players that might get interested enough in the game that might buy skins. Even if they don’t get to 60, if 30% of the new players purchase some skins, AGS will have some income therefore an incentive to improve the game.
My question is, do you think they can bring this game around before these players will leave ?
Most people have an issue with the game after lvl 60, not before and you can reach lvl 60 in 1-2 weeks. If they make the game free to play, I expect an increase in the first 2 weeks, and in 1-2 months the game will be back where it is now.
I mean, it’s worth a try even if it gives it one more month to live, but to me it seems like taking pain killers to cure a tumor…it’s pointless
I think we’re all forgetting that AGS has another income stream that just launched. Lost Ark is a very Dev-light game from the AGS perspective; other than some localization and minor changes it’s not their code to maintain. That LA revenue can be funneled right back here if they decide to do that.
A number have mentioned the game looks too similar from lvl 30 on, same mobs, more grind. No pvp at that lvl except ganking by 60’s. So nothing for pvers or pvprs.
And to top it off the changes they made in early dec? I think mean the skill grind is harder for anyone else coming thru leaving the early craft levellers as rich getting richer. Along with the companies owning the big 2 being far wealthier than anyone else.
I don’t think it’s worth a try to give it one more month. I want to see it taken down as soon as possible and actually fixed. At this point we are beating a dead horse.
A hotfix with those orb/dungeon changes will be a permanent solution to the problem.
Projects dont generally work that way.
AGS, like any company, can take revenue from one product and shift it to cover costs on another as they see fit. If there’s an opportunity to leverage cheap money and put it into a flagship product (which an isometric click to move game is not) then I can certainly see it as an option they might take advantage of.
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