The new world has been operational, mostly, for about two months now. A lot of people have whined, a lot of people have rejoiced.
While some people might not like the new batmud or find that they can't cope with any large change, I think it's safe to say that, for the time being, the batworld will be very much as it is now. I.e. five large continents separated by large areas of deep sea.
So I'm creating this thread to gather some opinions, and to state some, not on the overall goodness or badness of the changes, but on how the game has changed, how game play and feeling is different, what new challenges there are and what could be improved.
I'm going to start out with some fairly arbitrary categories that might be discussed. Of course, some matters will span several categories, and others will not fit into any of the categories that I lay out here. However, these may stimulate some discussion. If you like them, or want to add opinions about specific things, I request that you prepend your replies with some kind of label, e.g. Travelling:, Balance:, Atmosphere: etc.
This is a long post, if you don't want to read it all, at least skip down and take a look at the bits that interest you.
Ok, let's get the ball rolling.
Atmosphere:
To me this seems to have been one of the important motivations behind the expansion of the outerworld. There is a feeling, if one is prepared to use one's imagination, that one is travelling over northern ice covered mountains or dense temperate forests etc.
The outerworld seems to provide a better backdrop to the areas which fit into it. Not that I am particularly keen on immersing myself deeply into some fantasy setting, but the new batworld does seems to have a better feeling of continuity than the old one.
Travelling:
We all need to get about a bit more now. If we leave the discussion about whether we should need to travel so much to another category, what do people think are the new challenges to do with travel.
Is travel itself too difficult?
What kind of activities don't work any more?
What do people think about the ferries, the portals?
How are people finding transport via there own ships (more about these later)? Is it worth the trouble? Can you travel about easily? What kind of basic ship does one need?
I don't have a lot of opinion here. Since the ep costs were changed, it's not hard to cross continents if one is prepared to take care and be a bit patient. I have a little boat and I can use that if I need to get around a large areas of mountains or swamps.
The portals are certainly handy, but overall they feel like a bit of a fudge to me. They seem to stand out as very different with no real fantasy setting based explanation. Ok, so they are magical, but the whole naked instant portals vs ferries and vortices is a bit stark.
Gameplay:
Is the necessity to travel long distances impinging on peoples overall enjoyment of the game?
I'm going to make an important point here, so take note.
It's easy to complain that it takes longer to do things. If you want make a point about travelling times and waiting please take care to justify your opinion carefully.
Running to an area that you know well and killing some mobs that you routinely kill etc is, to me at least, not much less boring than idling on a ferry/at a ferry point etc, and chatting. Ok, so you get exp, but, assuming that one could get about the same amount of exp in the same time which may or may not involve some waiting, surely it doesn't really matter when exactly you get the exp.
What exactly is better now that there is more travel?
Is it really more boring to walk around some swamps and cross some rivers rather than say 'use kick at smurf'? Why?
Does travel mean less exp/cash for you? why?
Does the need for travel make it difficult for certain kinds of player interaction? How? What would improve these situatiuons?
I'd say that overall, it's nice to have travelling as a another kind of challenge to be overcome. Basically I think it's easy to break down the challenges in the mud into some basic categories: Killing stuff, making cash/eq not directly related to killing stuff (e.g. making chests,ships,potions, and gathering other bits and pieces), solving puzzels or discovering things, misc logistics like storing eq/cash, getting scars removed etc and now travelling.
So now there's one more thing that a character can be good at. Something more to distinguish different types of character.
Ressing/Raising:
A little category. What are the particular problems and how do you think they could be solved?
Is it necessary for players to be raised/ressed to the same continent in which they died?
I think I'd prefer that rasied/ressed players returned to the caster rather than some special building in the continent that they are on (if the caster is not already in the continet). The current situation just seems a bit inconsistent to me.
Ships:
How important are they?
How much does it really cost to get a useful ship?
How hard is it to get a useful ship?
What about pirates?
I have a class 3 that I've been preparing for a long time. Now it's been rushed into service because it actually has some use. However, my ship was not cheap for me. I've got a cheap nav, but that was still 100k and I need to upgrade it (another 450k), I have quicksilver golems, which you appear to need if you want the conveniance of leaving you gangplank down without the risk of some ass climbing on board and killing all your crew, and these are costly. My ship is half finished and half crewed and it's probably already eaten substantially more than 2m cash.
Overall I suppose this cost is not too bad, but the cost and the relative trouble of getting a ship nav and other bits and pieces means that I don't think getting a ship is something a newbie or lowbie would be best advised to try. It was much easier before the changes, when one didn't really need a ship to get to the various ship related places and when there was no "ship rush" to push up silverlake prices and fill up merchant shipbuilding capacity. Perhaps things will even out a bit with time.
Balance:
Has the balance of the mud been effected adversely by the tune?
Of course some guilds now have more useful facilities, and maybe some guilds have been a bit shafted by the new travel requirements. Since reincing is always an option, any general shifts in balance between guilds shouldn't be a big problem. However, there may be larger issues with paritucular guilds. Are certain guilds really hurt by this? Are some others too advantaged? How? Why?
What about non guild issues?
What advantages have you gained? What disadvantages?
I feel that there is a balance issue between highbies and lowbies, but not one that is simply to do with how badly effected these different groups are. There seems to be an inevitable problem that when such large changes occur, that bring new challenges, it is the most able players who are most capable of overcoming the new difficulties (naturally) and there is no easy way to allow less advantaged players to somehow avoid the new challenges without make the a has of the whole thing. This I accept, however, I do feel that there have been two things that could have been done better:
1) Some new challenges and rewards for overcoming these challenges could have been prepared for the less advantaged players. I.e. the new travelling might have put certain areas in a better tune, but I'd say that other areas that are easier to reach without a ship, navs, wanderers etc are in no better tune than before, maybe worse. I would have liked to see some tuning that makes it much more worth while for travelling for those that can travel.
2) Certain tasks are now much more difficult. Some quests, reaching some places etc. are far more difficult for people who have not already done these things. I.e. exploring for wanderers was somewhat easier when any area could be reached easily. I explored a lot in the old world because it didn't take me very long to reach some of the more remote places in old bat, I could just wander there when I felt like it. Now I'd be less likely to explore remote areas (nothing wrong with that), but it means that wanderers and finding other things, is more effort (good). However, it's much less extra effort for those people, even me, who have already done certain things.
Ok, so what do I think could have been done better? The provision of some useful maps and guides could have helped, as it was, it was a well equipped ship that enabled a certain player or players to make the maps. Also, the introduction of trainers at cities could have been done a bit earlier.
Here is one constructive suggestion:
Please, put in some more aggresive tuning of exp rates (up and down) based upon player and mob level. In my opinion, the exp gathering strategy, which I like to call "grazing", of running around and killing lots of easy things, is still too good. I would like there to be more advantage in trying to kill things that are just a bit tougher. Such a measure should also allow some people to make better exp even when travelling, since they wouldn't run out of mobs so quickly.
Navs and Wanderers:
Are wanderers accessible enough (easy to get the levels)?
Do they work well? How may levels do you need?
I've seen some suggestions regarding merging wanderers and navigators. I was initially against this idea. However, it does seem to have its merits. I'd also like to add that I think the requirements are a bit odd. My feeling is that the general explore % and special explore rooms requirements could fit either guild and that, since the big change, levels in these guilds would be one of the things that you'd most want in order to help reach the requirements. How about making one larger guild (maybe just 1 or 2 levels larger) that spans both these current guilds, with smaller increments of skill/spell abilities and also requirements. I would hope that this would give more of a feeling of working your way up a guild than simply getting a block of travel related abilities.
Ideas:
Ok, here's a nice free for all category.
The new world opens up a world of oportunities (literally).
What new stuff do you imagine could be added (I don't mean what new areas to you want to see, or what new guilds/eq etc)?
Events?
How about a batmud "iron man" triathalon? Swim, ride, hike?
What about a regatta?
What about continental events? Should some be strictly confined to single continents, maybe even one particular continent?
Ferries and transportation and other stuff?
Someone had a nice idea about a postal service, that has got to be worth looking into.
What about private ferry services or a coach service?
That's enough for now.