What do you think will make heRO better?

[Nidsrule]

I don't see how changing fish is going to make heRO better in any sense. Like Ayu said, RO is an old game. People no longer care (for the most part) about the journey to end game. RO has never been and never will be about the story line, quests or even being an interesting experience in leveling up; RO vets have done it all before, multiple times. The focus is entirely on the end game content; PvP/WoE and to a lesser extent, MvPing.

Looking back on PvP/WoE, especially in heRO's case, this is most certainly heRO's weak point. While I can hardly talk about the current WoE situation, from comments I've read here on the forums and from the little remnants of LW that remain, WoE has hit a low point. Yet, the population (at least going off the CP) is still higher than it was when WoE was more fierce.

You can't expect the server to attract players with a heavy focus on PvP/WoE if the current player base shows little to no interest. End game is the motivator and if the end game (PvP/WoE in this case) is lackluster, why would any new players/guilds want to put in a few weeks/months effort to get up to a reasonable standard to be able to compete? Especially when they can go to servers with a more established PvP/WoE player base, with a potentially easier ride (see higher rates).

So getting back to how this relates to the main topic, the only way to attract more PvP/WoE minded players is to either offer a PvP/WoE environment that no other server has, while making it more interesting than any official PvP environments (see custom battlegrounds/WoE) or to have the current heRO population take a more serious approach to WoE. heRO arguably has the population to support at least a decent WoE environment; it all comes down to player mentality and general willingness to compete. The only real way to influence this is by modifying the potential rewards. I don't want to go into that here.

Let's get back to the issue of attracting new players. There are a huge number of private servers out there and having so much choice, people have a very low tolerance for "giving a server a go". They either want an easy ride to end game (once again, see high rates) or at the very least, the promise that their effort will eventually be rewarded with decent end game content. MvPing is pretty consistent across servers, unless you add MvPs that have potential rewards comparable to existing official MvPs. Since this isn't the case on heRO, the MvP scene here is about the same as any other server.

So once again we get back to PvP/WoE. New players to the server need to be able to see first hand, examples of heRO WoE. Whether it be guild created WoE videos or more commonly, open discussion about each WoE (screenshots included), new players are going to want to see some example of what they are in for/working towards, so they can see what they are in for. Otherwise, for the few players that do level just to find out, they will be disappointed. Of course, the only exposure new players can expect from WoE on the forums (at this stage) are complaints that WoE is in bad shape, which really doesn't help anything. Once again, it all comes down to changing the mentality of the current WoE player base for any improvements to be made.

The other factor that sets servers apart is the way they handle updates. There are servers that stay up to date with whatever eA releases, servers that are very careful with their updates and wait for any bugs to be ironed out (heRO) and finally servers that have the ability to pump out content before eA can (or at least pump out custom content that compares to the latest and greatest official content). I can't say that heRO's custom content compares in any way to the latest official content (I'm not referring to any update in particular). Either way, heRO has it's own method of releasing updates and I don't expect that to change. Still, it is a factor.

Custom content is a bit of a grey area. There are people that like it (as it does have the potential to add a lot to the game) but at the same time, from what I've seen on more WoE/PvP orientated servers, there are people who simply detest it (especially wings). Still, unless custom content compares directly to official content (see custom dungeons/MvPs), don't expect it to be the selling point of the server (unless everything is as up to date as possible).

Getting back to the fish discussion, buffing pots isn't the "solution". You are merely "balancing" out a concept that is conceivably "imbalanced" by imbalancing something else.

Either way, the server is now 4 years old; you should have some idea as to what works and what doesn't in terms of attracting players and just as importantly, keeping them interested. Personally, I think the community is what needs to improve/change to see any changes in the PvP/WoE situation. Good luck with that.

[mahawirasd]

<3 Nidsrule...

even though i myself don't particularly enjoy pvp/WoE, i must say that the pvp/WoE scene in HeRO is dead (or at least dying even more) because let's face it: HeRO is a fun RO server for customs and quests. Main reason i play here is that i was looking for a server where there are no uber-hax donation gears where hard work counts, and quests/customs that are enjoyable for those not too focused on end-game situations (like what nids elaborated quite eloquently)

the server is 4 years old, i've been here 1 year and a few months. I love it the way it is, my wife loves it the way it is. What i was proposing are "minor adjustments" that "might" -just might- appease the end-game loving crowd...
of course the GM team does not have to cater to any population in particular, and with all the social guilds shrooming in HeRO as well as all the demand for custom quest items one need not ponder on what the current majority of denizens of HeRO seem to like to do... But hey, if we can grab a few more end-game lovers, why not?

and of course my suggestions are not perfect, especially the one about the warper. Perhaps for the warper we can set the base rate at 1500z and 2500z and then multiply with a factor of {(blvl+1)%*bRate} so that a lvl 1 would pay 2% of 1500z and a lvl 99 would pay 100%...


btw, asuracide with nemo? gah... healer > nemo!


-w-

[GM-Pandora]

Thanks for the suggestion everyone, I mean it. And I hope this thread can stay clean and positive like that, kudos.

On sink... I'm not sure raising the prize of healer/warper would be a popular move, but I'm not completely closed to the suggestion, if we make it free until level 40 like the reset npc perhaps. Speaking of sink, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that the Birthday Pandelina Quest sinked over 2 billion Zeny!

On fish... I'll see what we can do about that, already had some small ideas in store, but Ayu and others brings new stuff to the table which is worth discussing. Also a no-fish (maybe no healing item) pvp room is still in the work, sadly no one has taken the request so far.

On PVP... I'm working really really hard on bringing more PVP features to encourage it on the server, there's the Battleground of course, the Last Men Standing that I briefly mentioned in the Retro WoE thread which will be a quick weekly automated event between the 2 sunday WoEs and newly added to my to-do list is the Death Zone (work-in-progress title) which I will pitch to the GM team in a few minutes. Of course these take time, so I'm grateful for your patience.

Note: To players who are part of the Test&Dev section we need your help! LMS + BG are already on the test server just awaiting testing&fixing. If you want to join the test&dev team please PM GM-Aki.

On WoE... I know the above does not help WoE directly (maybe indirectly since a lot of PVP fans also like WoE and if we attract PVP enthousiast they might WoE too). I feel we made an effort on WoE already by making the chest rewards better but it seems it didn't make that great of a difference. We'll be adding the new dungeon switch soon, but that too is not likely to have a big impact. I'm open to WoE improvement suggestions, however I feel it's too soon to be thinking of closing any trans castle, with the Retro WoE coming next month I'd like to see how that unfolds first. An extra guild on the trans WoE scene might improve things a bit, I know it's not much but please consider it's hard for the GM team to have an influence over this, guilds do what they like after all, if they don't like WoE we can't force them to participate.

Addendun: since writing the above (yesterday) I had a sort of new idea (while driving home) to try to improve WoE a little, it's something I've seen in another game, every once in a while they have "Super Guild Wars", these wars are announced a few weeks before and have additional reward and impact associated to who wins the castle at the end, will discuss with the GM team and will inform you in advance if/when we decide to implement this.

On new GM... yeah maybe, I'm overly picky on GM but we'll see what we can do, a new face would provide more staff presence in game / more events which is always nice (and an extra help that I can poke on msn with my random requests XD).

On quest bug... I feel awful I know the fixing has been going very slow, we'll try to improve, but it's not easy and those quest aren't exactly the fastest so testing itself is painfully long. For the next reboot we have a fixed version of the Sign Quest which I hope will be the end of that problem at least then we can turn to other ones.

On getting fix/features faster... I decided that soon I will start paying for certain developer's request in the test&dev section that require an advanced level of scripting or particular knowledge or hard work (scripting/spriting/paletting/etc.) this should speed up the updates a bit as some have been lingering for months, hopefully some incentive will speed up the process.

On updates like brasilis/splendide/manuk/Satan Morroc... they are coming, SM basically awaits Ayu's event as promised where all light/dark hero try to battle it together. The other 3 cities some of you have seen in events, we'll work on those to have permanent access in a not-too-distant future.

On more people... I'm already doing my best I think, I pay hundreds of dollars per month in advertising, I'm active on RMs to recruit anyone who is looking for a server with requirements that fit heRO. I think a little effort on the players themselves is required here:
-Make a review on RMS, it takes only a few minutes and it's easy, if you have a problem or don't know how to, you can email me personally and I will walk you through it step by step (pandorathatsme at hotmail dot com).
-Voting is also good although topsites are not that great, still, currently we get on average about 1.5 vote per day in the top, that means out of the 200 or so people online only 1 or 2 bother to vote!
-Invite friends, poke them, tell them about heRO, help them install it and guide them in the game.
-Another thing you can do to help is make a video about heRO and upload it on youtube, show features or fun stuff you do on the server, it will attract people (pay attention to your tags to make sure the video appears when ppl view RO vids).

[GM-Ayu]

note: I browse eA weekly to find databases to "borrow." Nobody got info on brasilis. Map is out, nothing else is. Monster info is released by doddler but nobody knows the monster ID to match up the info with the proper "slot" in the database...

As for SM, everyone in test/dev knows its current status which is a positive one~

For Kiel Quest, Vanadis fixed an error within my fix so it's worth attempting again on test server.

[azurerogue]

Oh, Aurial, I miss you.

And thanks for the responses, Pandora, it means a great deal to a lot of players to hear from you.

[Aaronock]

Hm, you know we could do some of our own things with Manuk, Splendide, and Brasilis. We have several quests which are being worked on that are custom why not place their starting points there? If they are essentially empty towns let's have a bit of fun with them I say ;o

[GM-Pandora]

Agreed, for example I plan to put some npc to populate brasilis, the vday quest amongst others will include 3 npc there and I want to find a way to include another npc in a future quest who is "on vacation" since brasilis looks like a good vacation resort place. Other than that, I know brasilis is accessed from Alberta so it'll be easy to make our own "pay 10k to sail to x city" npc even if the dialog/npc sprite is not the same as gravity.

[Naruhodo]

Personally I think that heRO is already on the track to becoming even better.

While I won't deny that PvP and WoE are essential, I think there are already many other really compelling reasons to join heRO over other servers. In time the PvP/WoE scene will probably become compelling again too.

Who knows, I might finally start PvPing someday myself

(...noob alert)

[GM-Ayu]

Hm, you know we could do some of our own things with Manuk, Splendide, and Brasilis.??We have several quests which are being worked on that are custom why not place their starting points there???If they are essentially empty towns let's have a bit of fun with them I say ;o

But Moscovia is empty enough as is

heh and I was thinking of being an evil bum turning brasilis to noble resort *stabbed by commoners* to add more feats to being noble...

[mahawirasd]

kudos to you too Panda

especially for this:

On sink... I'm not sure raising the prize of healer/warper would be a popular move, but I'm not completely closed to the suggestion, if we make it free until level 40 like the reset npc perhaps. Speaking of sink, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that the Birthday Pandelina Quest sinked over 2 billion Zeny!

(refers to my first post... this stuff is just genius... GENIUS i tell you...)
i know it wouldn't be a popular move, but you could reserve the idea for the future where it will become increasingly harder to think up of zeny sinks. It could be a crucial trump card if ever inflation happens...
i don't server hop, but from what i hear inflation can really kill a server...
oh and i'm curious: did the recent increase in OCA availability mainly from increased donations? was that a chain reaction caused by the severe deflation due to Pandelina? xP


oh and Ayu: B> moar noble feats... screw the commoners, they should have saved up their gold and zenies to become a noble too!



-w-