The Clan Lord Sentinel

Destian wrote:
Bring on Gloria's prefab characters, even. I just don't care anymore...

I'm pleased you remembered my compromise suggestion, Destian : )

Now that we're mostly in agreement that this is a problem, how do we start the conversation with the GMs?

Would you guys be okay with me sending a brief e-mail to Eldon that essentially says 'hey check out this thread... can you please consider implementing one of these solutions in the future?'

Sonny_Bill wrote:Would you guys be okay with me sending a brief e-mail to Eldon

You never need to ask us permission to talk with the GMs. If you think it's important you can email him - I email the GMs whenever I feel like it. Sometimes they respond and sometimes they don't. Just don't get to the point where you're pestering them (constant, "hey go read this thread" will probably get old very quickly).

If you're making suggestions, I'd stick to describing the problem in detail and why you think it's a problem and then after that list a suggestion separately. (i.e. "I see this as a problem because" rather than "I think this is neat and would fix that.")

I only email GM's for account stuff.

They all have access to the forums if they want to read them.

I suspect that a time or two people have emailed directly on issues already posted on the forums and gotten feedback or action that the forum post(s) didn't.

Sonny_Bill wrote:Now that we're mostly in agreement that this is a problem, how do we start the conversation with the GMs?

Would you guys be okay with me sending a brief e-mail to Eldon that essentially says 'hey check out this thread... can you please consider implementing one of these solutions in the future?'

Pretty much everything that could ever be said on the subject was said here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9980

Lori, who is the only reason many of us can even still play this game right now, asked the GMs to do something to help new players.

Yappy said "heard", though we're still waiting to see any changes made to help with this. :\

For the record, my offer of promoting the bejeezus out of CL once it has newbie acceleration still stands.

I'd make a 10 part video series (similar to the one in my sig) covering all of the major aspects of CL, from basic interactions, making money, earning ranks, all the way to analyses of the individual classes and subclasses (I'll be looking for volunteers to help me really flesh those out, of course) and discussion of the storyline, modern hunting areas, etc. There are TONS of facebook gaming groups I could then go to and advertise the videos around. I have no idea how many people we'd get, but I'm sure we'd get SOME new players from the endeavor.

But there's just no point in even attempting something like that until we have a reliable means of retaining new players. Even if, by some MIRACLE, I was able to entice 100 new players to try CL, they'd just dwindle away from the same attrition problems the game has always had.

Again, I have NO clue how CL would be received out in the wild, even by fans of retro games and sprite-based MMOs, but it's not even a relevant question until we get that newbie acceleration. In fact, one of the very first things I'd want to teach people in these videos is how to access the exp acceleration, be it through finding an oldbie to help them reach it or what...

It's the evolution of CL to have rambos that for me is weird.

Fair point Destian... I have no idea how others would receive it.

IMO most are used to faster ranking, and that's where some of the gap lies. For example I just got FFVII on my iPhone (rubbish port BTW) and my team is already quite strong. It's a single player game for a reason though...

Re: the Rambos comment... the game essentially has peons and rambos with very little middle ground IMO. Yes the mighty Zelk has caught up through an insane amount of dedication. However, in ~12 months I'm essentially a VERY weak circle 3 with 250BB. Not whinging about it, but this is still mega peon territory. I've gotten used to it, but I think I'm sorta special. I got super mad and went on a massive geek rage... then I STILL came back every night. Most people IMO will quit BEFORE the geek rage, or kick the bucket when the geek rage sets in. There's no logic in me coming back. However, I love seeing my precious little character grow, and there's some really cool people in the community who I enjoy catching up with.

The geek rage that happens between 2nd and 3rd is a real battle and IMO only the MOST resiliant players can survive it in the current paradigm.

Sonny_Bill wrote:The geek rage that happens between 2nd and 3rd is a real battle and IMO only the MOST resiliant players can survive it in the current paradigm.

And that's pretty much the entire issue. A fighter, if they're bloody determined to progress in CL, might be able to do so, but they have to literally do a ton of clanning alone and overcome the voice in the back of their mind saying, "You know, we'd be having more fun doing literally almost anything else right now..."

No sane person could blame someone for not wanting to spend a year+ NOT enjoying a game in the hope that they might one day enjoy it at some point in the future.

And that's the fighter path. Know how you level a new healer in CL?

1. Create healer.
2. Hand healer a mountain of coins.
3. Let healer bake in the expensive library for 5 goddamn years, popping out occasionally to be resupplied with coins and choose a new trainer.