Looking for Ideas!

[Exrou]

INTRODUCTION:

I grew up with Ragnarok Online (started from Oceania RO) and moved onto Private Servers when the server shut-down. I always wanted to make my own server and started developing many years ago, but I never really finished it due to a lack of confidence in myself. What always kept me coming back was the thought of giving a quality RO Gaming experience back to a community which has helped me through both the tough & happy times. I may not know you personally, but I consider everyone who enjoys RO as much as I do family.

While I do want to provide a high quality experience, we all know that it is a difficult goal. I can only try to like so many other server owners have done in the past. Let's not get ahead of ourselves...


PHILOSOPHY:

• Fun and Balanced

If it's not fun or balanced, then it doesn't get implemented. Honestly, these two categories are extremely difficult to achieve because the first one varies from person to person and the second one is prone to human error during implementation. The way that I am tackling "Fun" is with enough content to cater to different types of players, and I would have to be dedicated to planning and testing to ensure everything implemented is "Balanced".


TL;DR: What would you 'want' to see in an RO private server?

I'm not particularly looking for a basic feature listing, but you are free to post it. I am looking for out of the box "ideas" that you may have had but didn't have access to (development-wise). To start with it's a private server not an official one, if I wanted to play something similar to the official server I would just play the official server. In saying that, there are essential elements that I think should be kept from the official servers, that is my stance on the subject.

I could give you my ideas for the server, but that would be polluting your mind with mine which could be bias. I'm looking for unbiased ideas from players not associated with the development team. No matter how small your ideas are, I want to read it or even have a discussion about it when I find time. Unfortunately, I am the owner as well as the only developer in charge of coding, mapping and spriting, so finding time to have a talk with you will be incredibly difficult, but I will try!

The one thing I will pollute you with though (for WOE Players) is Custom War of Emperium Maps. What do you like about WOE 1.0 or 2.0? What would you like to see in a Custom War of Emperium Castle? Vantage Points (Range), Trap Locations, Hallways, Lighting, etc...

Thank You.

[XicoR4]

This question has been asked a couple of times before, which is probably why nobody is replying. Just two from the front page of General Discussion:
(http://forum.ratemyserver.net/general-discussion/what-were-you-looking-for-in-a-private-server/)
(http://forum.ratemyserver.net/general-discussion/(non-renewal)-what-were-you-looking-for-a-low-rate-server/)

As for actually answering with an idea, I'd like to see a pre-renewal mechanics server with 3rd classes implemented.
Having played one before, it's definately fun. Of course you have to balance it though, from insta-cast dex needed, to status immunities. This server should be without the 80/20 split in cast time btw, and reducing cast times of skills depending on the insta-cast dex (at 300 IC dex, skills should have half the cast time they currently do, to be fair for classes with cast time based skills).

Also, as far as balance goes, you can change all the skills if that's what you want. You can make unused skills stronger and skills that are used a lot can be nerfed. If you really want to, you can even go back and balance trans/classic skills to not leave as huge of a gap to 3rd class skills and fix overpowered skills like bragi.
You should also customize monsters (exp, AI, stats) and items, maybe even implementing custom ones.

This server would have tons of ways of playing, instead of the same boring meta game that's stale both in PvM and in GvG/WoE.

As for WoE, the only thing I wanna see is a different way to hold a castle instead of being the one to break the emp. Maybe make it so time the emperium is held, times the emp is broken, maybe kills/deaths (would need to prevent pre-cast to an extent or the defending team will always get more kills), or some other mechanism to reward WoEing the whole time instead of trying to break it in the last 2 mins.

[Exrou]

I was aware that there were other threads as well as posts in unrelated threads (I've read through all of them). Some of it came from really old posts and I wanted to understand the train of thought of the current community. This thread is more or less a chance for me to get to know my potential players. If someone puts in the effort to tell me their story, then by all means I must put in more effort to write mine (server).

As far as changing the meta-game goes, that is a goal, whether I'll be successful is another story. Your WOE suggestion is juggling some ideas around, none of them are decided as I neither like nor dislike them (which means they're probably terrible!). At this point, changing WOE mechanics is an interesting concept and it will be taken with a grain of salt.

I would like to comment on 3rd classes more, but that seems to be a fine line for a lot of people. There is "concepts" in the works, but I'm unable to write anything further as it has not passed the balancing stages yet, and if it doesn't, then it may just end up in the bin.

I could be withholding information so as not to spoil the initial fun of discovering.



Thank you for the response.

[Yuzo]

people dont wanna take part in these threads anymore cause they've already given their ideas elsewhere or they dont wanna contribute to another one of these threads which goes nowhere

[Bue]

people dont wanna take part in these threads anymore cause they've already given their ideas elsewhere or they dont wanna contribute to another one of these threads which goes nowhere

Either this or we've gotten smarter.

For example, the obvious red flag is the pandering: 'What do you want?!' And the talk of balance, lest we start another crusade? But the most damning thing about this is 'I want to provide high quality experience' and then asking for our ideas.

But the question is: why?

Unless this guy is infinitely creative with browsedit, but also a god-prodigy engineer, I want to see some samples and prototypes.

[Kyo-Kusanagi-aka-GuessWho]

INTRODUCTION:

I grew up with Ragnarok Online (started from Oceania RO) and moved onto Private Servers when the server shut-down. I always wanted to make my own server and started developing many years ago, but I never really finished it due to a lack of confidence in myself. What always kept me coming back was the thought of giving a quality RO Gaming experience back to a community which has helped me through both the tough & happy times. I may not know you personally, but I consider everyone who enjoys RO as much as I do family.

While I do want to provide a high quality experience, we all know that it is a difficult goal. I can only try to like so many other server owners have done in the past. Let's not get ahead of ourselves...


PHILOSOPHY:

• Fun and Balanced

If it's not fun or balanced, then it doesn't get implemented. Honestly, these two categories are extremely difficult to achieve because the first one varies from person to person and the second one is prone to human error during implementation. The way that I am tackling "Fun" is with enough content to cater to different types of players, and I would have to be dedicated to planning and testing to ensure everything implemented is "Balanced".


TL;DR: What would you 'want' to see in an RO private server?

I'm not particularly looking for a basic feature listing, but you are free to post it. I am looking for out of the box "ideas" that you may have had but didn't have access to (development-wise). To start with it's a private server not an official one, if I wanted to play something similar to the official server I would just play the official server. In saying that, there are essential elements that I think should be kept from the official servers, that is my stance on the subject.

I could give you my ideas for the server, but that would be polluting your mind with mine which could be bias. I'm looking for unbiased ideas from players not associated with the development team. No matter how small your ideas are, I want to read it or even have a discussion about it when I find time. Unfortunately, I am the owner as well as the only developer in charge of coding, mapping and spriting, so finding time to have a talk with you will be incredibly difficult, but I will try!

The one thing I will pollute you with though (for WOE Players) is Custom War of Emperium Maps. What do you like about WOE 1.0 or 2.0? What would you like to see in a Custom War of Emperium Castle? Vantage Points (Range), Trap Locations, Hallways, Lighting, etc...

Thank You.

Make a server exactly like DivinityRO and thousands of new players will join.

[Exrou]

Either this or we've gotten smarter.

For example, the obvious red flag is the pandering: 'What do you want?!' And the talk of balance, lest we start another crusade? But the most damning thing about this is 'I want to provide high quality experience' and then asking for our ideas.

But the question is: why?

Unless this guy is infinitely creative with browsedit, but also a god-prodigy engineer, I want to see some samples and prototypes.

Your concerns are understandable. I would have written the exact same thing.

My personal ideas are more or less solidified, I only wanted to see if there was something I missed, you can only think so much with one brain. I like to think of this as the "first set" of suggestions before the second set that comes with the server. The problem with "good" ideas is that they need to be implemented far before anything or considered as they "contribute" to the initial foundation. If you don't have a solid foundation, you can't do anything in the later stage because the building block has already been set in stone. You can't simply chop off a block and expect good results, the whole thing could potentially crumble over. Many video games run into issues in the later years simply as a result of a limited engine. In RO's essence, we can't change the engine (completely), but we can at least prepare the codes needed to build new "systems" later on. E.g. Stats Tracking.

Balance is a distant dream, developers can shoot for it, but they may not hit it. Quality varies with everyone, each person has their own preference, understanding them is the job of the developer/s. I can't provide a high quality experience if I only have my own assumptions of what players want. Like I said earlier, I think of this as the "first set" of suggestions so that I can properly prepare the foundation because when the "second set" comes around, I may not get the chance to do so without it affecting a ton of character data (which is something nobody wants).

I can't say I'm on the same level as Olrox in terms of map designing, but I at least understand exactly how he does X and Y (I won't necessarily use his techniques though). I'd post teasers here, but I think my techniques are quite obvious to an experienced editor, and I don't want to give them away "yet", at least until we're close to the release date! I am definitely not a god-prodigy engineer, so I'm not going to be able to fix the lag that the original game has. While I say that, it is at the top of my list if something comes to light. Or, big OR, I could also be an amateur spouting nonsense.

I hate to keep writing this (because I really want to), but I cannot show any samples or prototypes "yet". We are still far from a release date, and I fear releasing teasers now could open up the opportunity for someone else to take our ideas and run with it only to implement it with worse quality which would be disappointing to see. In saying that, I am not going to ask you to trust me with your ideas either, since that would be outrageous. But, if you do, I can only be thankful and respond to it accordingly.

TL;DR: Please only respond with your ideas if you fully trust me, or really want to discuss about it and potentially see it happen.

Thanks.

Make a server exactly like DivinityRO and thousands of new players will join.

What did you like about DivinityRO? Their features seem quite common to me, granted they existed back then, nowadays there're a bunch of servers sporting the same features as DivinityRO.