What happened to Dawn of Midgard?

Started by AkQ, May 14, 2016, 02:30 PM

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AkQ

Hi!

I have been checking DoM from time to time since it was released and i was looking forward to play there after summer vacations started.

Now it has been shut down, but there is no information whatsoever in this forum nor in reddit.

What happened?

Shilo

I've never heard of Dawn of Madrid?

Was this a server?


Bue

Who knows, their drama never reach RMS.

According to their main page, they begin with 'due to recent events.'

But the admin of the server comes around, maybe he can comment.

Yuzo

I followed their forum but didn't play, so I can only know so much.

Their admin, Zinnia, listened too much to players and implemented just about anything. Too much bowing down to cliques.
One of the WOE guilds, the Russian one, broke the economy by abusing some exploit (not sure what this was). Zinnia removed it, but that only caused the other guilds to be even further behind.
Lots of community conflict between PVM and WOE players. One of the stupid things they made was you can't enter a castle if your guild didn't have 10 people online. Just cause the woe guilds wouldn't stop b1tching about griefers (even though its part of the game). They can't deal with random breakers strolling past their def so they b**** so hard that Zinnia bowed down to them.

snowblind

I followed their forum as well, was going to wait for at least a year and see if the server is still healthy before investing any time into it.

Even with the reasons Yuzo gave, I can't imagine the playercount dropping from (presumably) 1000 to 0 in just 1 or 2 weeks? Exploits can be dealt with quietly by wiping items and zeny from the exploiters. That leaves the economy with a lot of "printed" zeny from the things they bought, but that only hurts new players, not really something to quit over..

It's funny how lower rates are supposed to be more stable, but it's just the opposite.

Yuzo

Players quitting seemed to come from the realization the server had no future. They were still 200-300 strong after the flock left, which is nothing to scoff at, but you could tell from Zinnia's tone the server was not going to last. As soon as people sense that, it's over.

Playtester

The population dropped over the span of 2 months actually.

When Tree of Savior started, most casual PVE gamers left to play that instead, which mostly left WoE players.
Then there was pre-trans WoE, but the attacking guild found themselves to be completely unable to win and they just quit WoE. Which also caused the defending guild to quit because "Everyone is so weak lately, boring." And because PT WoE was dead, the guilds that joined to join it also quit.
Then the same thing happened in WoE SE. One of the guilds became too strong, nobody could beat it. People accused guild to hack because they couldn't beat it. Drama drama drama, everybody tired of drama, quit.
Then the server was about to die anyway and Tree of Savior put a 50% discount on their early access, so most people left at that point.

Minabe

#7
Doing Tripper's job.

Yuzo

Quote from: Minabe on May 16, 2016, 12:34 AM
That's how the Cookie crumbles. Guess Zinnia learned something from him, if only how to destroy your own work the evidence.
Yeah I think that's a really bad look to try bury your skeletons. Its better to own up and learn from them. Big mistake, I reckon.

Voryry

PVM-wise, there might be a wisdom in not making things too easy. Levelling was too fast in DoM v1, and too boring. Same maps, same parties, same roles.

You can't just give every screaming whiners whatever they want. Spoiled kids have shorter and shorter attention span.

I wish to see v2 soon, but on the other hand I also wish them sufficient time to prepare better set up.

Just hope it won't be too long, otherwise the audience would have moved on.

snowblind

Quote from: Voryry on May 16, 2016, 10:08 AM
Levelling was too fast in DoM v1, and too boring. Same maps, same parties, same roles.
What did people expect? Exploring every map on a great journey like it's the first year of RO? It's always gonna be the same s*** on "close to official" servers.

I'm convinced at this point that RO servers are not sustainable without tons of custom content. People always get bored.

Voryry

Not really. There are some set of maps people go to in every server, and most maps noone is around.

However in DoM v1 it was even more linear than that, everyone went to Anolian, Magma, and some Majo. 99.9% LFM & LFP in party chats were all about those places.

Zinnia

#12
I'm surprised some people still ask that question. My apologize if the information hasnt been shared enough.

Basically, some woe guilds (at least 5 of them) abused the hell out of zeny bugs (Rogue/Monk Quests, Infinite Plant Cultivation), generating billions worth of zeny within a month. That blew up the economy. Players pointed out that a guild in particular was botting (they were not), and the IRC channels started to become extremely discouraging. Despite our constant and doubled efforts against bots, and the fixing of these "exploits" (that are actually present on every ragnarok server since forever), players kept leaving weeks after weeks due to discouragement, until there were only 10~20 concurrent players. Below 40 active players, there was no point in keeping the server online.

tldr; woe guilds abusing zeny bugs, toxic players generating misinformation.

We are currently working on a Version 2 with a lot more of preparation. The V1 (let's consider it a beta!) has been very useful to identify flaws that we'll make sure are fixed. We kept records of every donation in an excel document and will return accounts with 1/1 novice and their donation points when we open the v2.

Yuzo

@Zinnia but why did you have to hide all your skeletons in the closet? i.e. why did you kill your forum without notice

Zinnia

Quote from: Yuzo on May 17, 2016, 09:03 AM
@Zinnia but why did you have to hide all your skeletons in the closet? i.e. why did you kill your forum without notice

???

We did notice at least 2 weeks in advance. There was multiple topics about that. I said the server would shut down early may so we could save some more $ for the reopening.
I even made a very long topic about transparency, sharing with everyone everything that happened since early march and the difficulties we had to face within the staff.