0.9.7 Status Update

OMFG MORE ABILITY GEMS WOHOOOO!!!

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Chris wrote:

On a side note, what do people think of the idea of a one-week league or something like that? Last time it was mentioned, there were concerns that it'd promote unhealthy gaming, but if there are no prizes then there's less reason to stay awake for a week.

It sounds nice at first, but sadly these concerns are completely justified. I can't think of a way to prevent this kind of event from becoming unfair and unhealthy.

However, I can suggest the following idea. For the next event, don't remove the league at the end, then make us start the next event with the character we played last time. It's like a 6 hours event. This idea can be declined in many ways(3 hours per day, 1 hour per day, 2x 3 hours per weaks, ...). The purpose is to make it fair while not promoting unhealthy gaming and allowing players to reach higher levels in an event.


About the new skills, I noticed a minion skill, does that mean minions have been reworked to remove all those bugs ?

By the way. Patch 0.9.7 is currently a ~1.2Gb download.

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zriL wrote:

About the new skills, I noticed a minion skill, does that mean minions have been reworked to remove all those bugs ?

No. Minions will get a major overhaul in a future patch.

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zriL wrote:

However, I can suggest the following idea. For the next event, don't remove the league at the end, then make us start the next event with the character we played last time. It's like a 6 hours event. This idea can be declined in many ways(3 hours per day, 1 hour per day, 2x 3 hours per weaks, ...). The purpose is to make it fair while not promoting unhealthy gaming and allowing players to reach higher levels in an event.

You pretty much read my mind, I was just about to post something to this effect.

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Chris wrote:

Regarding the wipe issue:


On a side note, what do people think of the idea of a one-week league or something like that? Last time it was mentioned, there were concerns that it'd promote unhealthy gaming, but if there are no prizes then there's less reason to stay awake for a week.

I guess it really depends on what your intentions are for one-week leagues. I probably would not play myself due to the following reasons:

1) I feel this league, at least currently, would probably suffer from the same problems that plague Hardcore. Many players would not join the league because they do not want to lose their progression. With too few players in the league, there is little in the way of trading, grouping, or socializing.

2) I can't see there being any sort of viable economy. Everything becomes significantly devalued when you know it won't exist in a week.

3) After looking at the first two issues, why would anyone want to invest anytime in this particular form of league? If there is no prize at the end of the tunnel, people would have even less reason to play on the server.

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One idea I've had that I would love though:

Set up 1-2 month leagues - something long enough that players will feel justified in investing their time. For these leagues there could be any number of "prizes" that could be awarded without promoting unhealthy gaming. Instead of awarding prizes based solely on fastest leveler, first to clear a zone, first to kill a boss, etc (You could still award things based on this for the short term rush at the start), you should also add things like:

After the 2 month league ends the following prizes are given out via random drawing:

(These numbers are just to show the idea, obviously would need to be adjusted)

Drawing for anyone level 60+:
5x random people get a unique forum title and a random unique to take back to their normal league + some random high orbs
5x random people receive a unique to take back to their normal league + some random high orbs
5x random people receive 10x random high orbs

The general idea being that there is a large enough window of time for many people to reach level 60 (maybe even make it 70?). People would not need to spend 20 hours a day to qualify. By including some prizes such as unique forum titles (maybe later on even in game titles), you would give people a huge incentive to play on the new server -- even after losing everything when the league resets, they still retain some value.

Perhaps even go as far as to give people 1 entry into the drawing for each unique class they level to 60 (Thus prompting those players who hit the prize threshold to continue playing instead of just dinging 60 and leaving). This also has the added benefit of encouraging your player base to try more than just 1 class. I may never have any desire or reason to play a ranger, however something like this would prod me to give it a chance. Also, if people are rolling multiple characters, they need to gear up multiple characters. Therefore the economy would continue to thrive (or at least not die as fast).

Anyhow, typed a lot more than I planned on - just some ideas/thoughts/whatever.

I don't care one way or the other, but I guess I would prefer a wipe.

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FaceLicker wrote:

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zriL wrote:

However, I can suggest the following idea. For the next event, don't remove the league at the end, then make us start the next event with the character we played last time. It's like a 6 hours event. This idea can be declined in many ways(3 hours per day, 1 hour per day, 2x 3 hours per weaks, ...). The purpose is to make it fair while not promoting unhealthy gaming and allowing players to reach higher levels in an event.

You pretty much read my mind, I was just about to post something to this effect.

Only trouble is it removes the intensity and pacing of the race.

It will be open beta?

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haerde wrote:

It will be open beta?

No. 0.10.0 will be open beta, unless the road map changes.

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Chris wrote:

Regarding the wipe issue:
On a side note, what do people think of the idea of a one-week league or something like that? Last time it was mentioned, there were concerns that it'd promote unhealthy gaming, but if there are no prizes then there's less reason to stay awake for a week.

Much better idea to simply give accounts in the league a league timer.

So if you want to play in league Weeklong, you'd get say 15 hours for your account to play in it shared between characters with a little timer in the top left of the screen.

If it was month long you could give people maybe 60 hours of play time as the cap.

Please don't character wipe. My friends and I joined the beta near two weeks ago, and we have finally have some characters in merciless, hardcore.

Wiping that out would be disappointing because we have not experienced the "end game".