Why are these things still implemented?

[luffy620]

Sincerely, I'm just wondering.

I understand that there have been many attempts and people are still working to get Zone back up on its feet, but it makes no sense to me that the features that drove many of the players away, are still here. Such as:
-Increasingly poor support for trial/non-pay players. These are possible new subscribers, and should be your MAIN priority at the moment
-Redaction of permanent basic weapons/items such as Jet-pack
-Removal of "laming" and "game breaking" options that some people did not favor
-New Worlds

These are all great, if you had an active player-base. But Zone doesn't. It has a 0-7 player count at all times, topping at 20 when people who play on other servers feel like getting a nostalgia high or seeing what it is. And if anyone does want to join, the completely unfriendliness to beginners/trials immediately puts them off. To be honest, if I didn't have my old stats and history with this game, I would never even sign on anymore.

Keep the gelat system, I know that the game needs whatever money it can get to stay alive. That, or look into ad-revenue to help dumb sub costs. There are almost no ads on the Graal homepage, in game, or anything. Its admirable, but this isn't WoW or an NCsoft game. Its a small indie online game.

I have read tons of threads with the same "bring back perm weapons/temp guilds etc etc" but it remains the same.

Its just idiocy to keep features that NEED A PLAYER POPULATION TO ACTUALLY WORK OUT, on a empty server.

-Make the basic rifles (red/blue) and jet-pack permanent for zone cash. If you new players have items permanently, maybe they'll stick around to USE THEM.
-Bring back cookies. I don't care if they're abused, not every beginner is as good as you or me. The best game times I ever had were times I stayed alive for longer periods. No one likes trekking back to the same spot to just die over and over. This is why games have healing.
-Hotkeys Hotkeys Hotkeys! These should be standard for everyone. Its a game staple, it may make abuse easier, but its dumb not to have them. It shouldn't be a pay factor. Never. If you want it to be a P2P service, make it free to all but enhance it for payers.
-Keep the Gelat system up. Just make some of the items that shouldn't be Gelat items (explosives, simple weapons, etc) non-Gelat again.
-Instead of basic weapons being for-pay only, make GOOD DEALS for Gelats. Like a super big pack of explosives that would save you tons of zone money. If someone is in the middle of the game and really wants more pipes/proxies, and they see an option for like $2 to get 100-300, instead of spending all their money they use for food on them, they might just spend $2. Make the very best weapons like 100k zone money, but only $4-5 on gelats. People pay for TIME savers, but hate when something is restricted to pay. This also gives incentives for people with less money to play LONGER. Longer playtime = more fun. More fun = word of mouth. Word of mouth = more players. Repeat ad nauseam.
-Gelat items should be permanent. Or at least last as long as your account does. Micro-transactions aren't amazing. If I a gold subscription, you shouldn't be making me pay more.
-Gold Accounts get free gelat items. Like 5 per however many months they pay for. Since Gelats are spread out between the entire game, this would save them Gelats to use on GK or another server.
-Back to basic. Remove worlds that never get played. Instead, refine work on your best maps "Iricia + Deathmatch" and wait for players to rise. Not only will this stop the paper thin player count from spreading themselves even farther out in-game, but as players grow, its good way to "re-add" new content to give players something new.


These are just a few suggestions. Do I expect them to be heeded? No. But maybe one of you will read the opinion of a long time player who used to have tons of fun back when Zone peaked at 70-100 players.

We aren't that hard to please. Just give players INCENTIVE to play. Make some sacrifices for a little while to gain some players, and THEN drop the weights onto the server when it has the manpower and people are faithful enough to give up some cash for something you made for them to love.

That's all guys, I hope you're doing well and keeping safe. I wish you all the best of luck in whatever you're doing with life, some of you are the greatest guys. I want this game to become something again, because of what it was for me, back when I played it for hours upon hours.

Sincerely,
Luffy (Steven), a longtime player (both pay and trial) and ex. Events Team member.