This suggestion is more to Gameforge & Runewaker leaders than any other group:
Make this game fun for as many players as you can. I think RW has been very... focused on satisfying the needs of the end-gamer and has lost sight of the real market in any game: the new player.
Many of us on these forums are long-time players that still love this game, but we should NOT be the target audience of Gameforge... we're here, we're jaded, we love this game -- it's a lot of work to keep us happy all the time; & you can't make everyone happy all the time.
Focus on making this game fun for the guy that happens across an ad and sees some awesome MMO action in a video. Early zones are empty now. Nobody is filling them up. By rights, there should be a churn where new people are playing and occupying those zones. & this comes from RW's short-sightedness. I don't believe RW ever meant for this game to go past lvl 50 & now, we're waiting for lvl 85 content.
Gameforge upper management early on decided to make things more streamlined when they obtained this franchise & I understand that from a business standpoint. At the time, there was the Euro market ( decidedly the largest RoM market ), the USA market and the Australian market -- all run by separate entities. So RW condensed everything down to the 1 Item Shoppe based on the largest market. After all this time, we're finally getting used to it. There are still things we would love to return to the IS'es that we've had playing in different markets; but I get this business decision & it's not a deal breaker. What IS a deal-breaker for many is the lack of understanding on the end of upper management when you look at cost-benefit towards this game. Gameforge upper management MUST know that the way this game is priced, it is out of control. ie, I joked with my guild about the cost involved to t20 a 2-h sword from t5's & the cost is astronomical & I have no issues buying thousands of diamonds.
The previous paragraph highlights one reason why the lower levels are barren -- the cost/availability of gear and the IS item required: Advanced Bind Lifters. It is not worthwhile to a person to spend time in a lower level instance to farm gear for someone UNLESS that other person is near and dear to them. The scarcity of the Advanced Bind Lifter and the rising cost of diamonds ( due to lack of diamond buyers, due to the game being less fun for certain buyers, etc... ) make it impractical to help someone this way. Lower level players who would gladly run an instance to get their gear, don't have the resources to survive that instance since there's nobody in the zone generally. So this MMO becomes a solo grind.
When this solo player is able to successfully complete the instances they want, they come to realize that some instances just cannot be solo'd due to gimmicks. Gimmicks put in-place to prevent bleeding edge players from quickly solo-farming instances. This solo player must now find a party that understands these mechanics and is willing to die to figure them out. IF a player has been solo'ing this whole time, do you think it's going to be easy for them to integrate into a group?
At what point is it worthwhile to continue to make things difficult for players to succeed in this game? IF Gameforge & Runewaker are concerned about toons becoming too powerful, then make a game where that issue doesn't exist. But don't punish new players for others willing to do what they can to be the best. I've seen sooo many posts about how to equalize siege, how to close the gap in players, etc... WHY? As Rick Flair says, "To be the Man, you gotta BEAT the Man." Other players are fine with not being the best and that's cool too. But the money, the real money comes from new players willing to stick around and become us old players. All the gimmicks and all the sales won't mean anything if people aren't willing to pay those prices. Gameforge, make the Item Shop something that's silly and fun and possibly helps people -- you WILL make money from it. Runewaker, adjust your game to allow people to play their own way and not make everything about the hardest of the hard core players.
Plenty of things can be done here:
1. Place Advancement quests in each zone. You are not allowed to level your primary class until you've completed the advancement quest. ie, use Instances starting @ lvl 50. You many not go past lvl 50 until you have completed a lvl 50 instance. lvl 55, you may not advance beyond lvl 55 until you have completed a lvl 55 instance. This way, you set up situations where people are in their level appropriate zones. Players that just want to craft prolly won't leave Logar & will need to request help from other players to get the mats they'll need in higher level zones.
2. Make easy, normal & hard mode stats all the same TYPES with different values. ie, easy mode stat could be 150/140, normal mode could be 150/150 & hard mode could be 165/165. I think people would rather something like that than going through modes only to get crap stats like strength/mdef. If there's a strength/mdef, all 3 modes should have an equal chance of it; same as a str/patk -- if there's one in hard mode, there's one in easy mode. The ONLY difference between the modes should be the "strength" of the stat.
Those are 2 examples of things that could be done & I'm sure people will argue that "artificial limits" can only hurt the game or how the hard mode players are the ones driving the game, etc... but look deep into the players in your own guilds -- how many DO things & how many sit in their houses chatting?
I just want this game to be profitable enough for Gameforge to keep running it. Everything else is secondary, really.
)...no matter how much content they add or what price changes they make, the game is old and will prob stay pretty flat lined for it's remaining days. 
Runes of Magic Gameplay Discussions »
Diamonds in AH - NO MORE
(Jan 28th 2014, 3:22am)
