Zone....

[Wolfey]

Reasons I left Zone:

-Unbelievable trial restrictions
-Punishing Classic accounts by treating them as trials (before we had Friday,Saturday, Sunday and holidays to play with the same privileges as golds)
-Lack of general content, the only real content being pushed out was content that required you to open your wallet and bend over and _______
-Lack of decent staff, nothing like finding hackers all over the place and the lack of staff to handle the situation.
-No real reason to continue to play after you obtain Elite
-Idiotic development decisions, such as trashing the decent worlds for "new worlds" that would just be full of epic fail.
-Lack of faith in the development team
-Lack of interest in the holidays (pretty sure stuff is still being recycled)


I was told some of the above complaints have been resolved since i quit Zone but ya...Zone can still be an awesome playerworld, just a couple people need to swallow their pride and egos and get out of the way.

[swimdude]

Best doubleshot player , best pistol player 2012.

[Programmer]

Originally Posted by Wolfey

Reasons I left Zone:

-Unbelievable trial restrictions

This is Stefan's decision, in all of his infinite wisdom. Unfortunately, even if I wanted to, I cannot remove Stefan's restrictions, even as an administrator of the server. He his the owner of the game, after all. The point of having a trial program is to encourage players to buy the game. Right now, it has the exact opposite effect. Trials should have full Gold access (minus a few features such as events for example), but have the trial accounts deactivated after a certain period of time. This allows the trials to actually experience playing the game instead of just watching other people play it.

Originally Posted by Wolfey

-Punishing Classic accounts by treating them as trials (before we had Friday,Saturday, Sunday and holidays to play with the same privileges as golds)

I don't exactly understand this argument, as I have not experienced the issue myself. Care to elaborate?

Originally Posted by Wolfey

-Lack of general content, the only real content being pushed out was content that required you to open your wallet and bend over and _______

Unfortunately, previous managers did not have any large projects that would have encouraged players to actually play the server. Zone has not changed too much since I started playing a few years ago. When they introduced the Gelat shop, I was appalled by the lack of judgement exhibited by implementing such a game-killing feature. I hesitate to even call it a feature. This ability to purchase over-powered weapons from the Gelat shop is an immense game balance problem.

Originally Posted by Wolfey

-Lack of decent staff, nothing like finding hackers all over the place and the lack of staff to handle the situation.

The lack of decent staff was caused by previous managers instating under qualified staff (and by under qualified, I mean completely batsh*t stupid). That is the precise reason why I nixed the entire staff when I started my analysis and command of Zone. Unfortunately, the damage was irrevocable.

Originally Posted by Wolfey

-No real reason to continue to play after you obtain Elite

This falls under the "lack of general content" argument. A good game should be perpetually appealing. It should not lose its excitement just because you are the highest rank.

Originally Posted by Wolfey

-Idiotic development decisions, such as trashing the decent worlds for "new worlds" that would just be full of epic fail.

These decisions were made by previous managers, whom I will not name. Several of these decisions are attributed to Zone's downfall, namely the Gelat shop, the trial restrictions, and the limited world options. However, upon analysis, I see that the worlds are still there, just hidden by ETs/Managers. Why they were hidden is beyond my comprehension.

Originally Posted by Wolfey

-Lack of faith in the development team

The lack of faith, especially for me, was caused by Stefan's decision to slate Zone to deletion in favor of iZone. Unfortunately, with my understanding of the conversation I held with Stefan, it also appears that Zone will be placed as a sort of "minigame" under iEra. As you may perfectly well understand, I am not going to waste time and effort into a project that is merely going to be erased.

Originally Posted by Wolfey

-Lack of interest in the holidays (pretty sure stuff is still being recycled)

Holiday content is actually being recycled, indeed. Some of the content is a very poor edit of previous year content. Holiday events / content are meant to be unique to the year, in such a way that you don't expect most of the events being held.

Originally Posted by Wolfey

I was told some of the above complaints have been resolved since i quit Zone but ya...Zone can still be an awesome playerworld, just a couple people need to swallow their pride and egos and get out of the way.

Well, that's what happened. The previous manager resigned, and the current (Tenchry) recruited me to work on the server. However, several issues prevent me from working actively on it

Right now, I think the one who needs to swallow his pride is Stefan. His actions on Zone are now causing its demise. So, here I go:

Stefan,
From a fellow game developer to you, I highly recommend removing two aspects of your game. These are the trial restrictions and the Gelat shop. Trial restrictions are far too severe to attract a playerbase. These restrictions on trivial things such as heads is absurd. Even more so is the observer mode. I recommend a simple solution: A trial mode where players may try a full subscription account (minus events, custom housing, markets in servers, etc), but for a limited time, say 2 weeks. You know, like it used to be? Second is the Gelat Shop, primarially on Zone. The Gelat shop, although you see it to be a fantastic way to make a profit, is also a deterrent for other players. I would be happy with a more balanced Gelat shop were weapon upgrades may be purchased. For example, a stronger bullet at the expense of a slower speed. However, you should not be able to purchase a BFG (ironically also the name of a gun in Zone!) that can instantly annihilate any player in Zone. This deters the other players, which in turn causes the initial player to quit. Boom. You just lost several potential customers. Do you not see the futility of such a system?

So please, for the sake of Zone, work with us to resolve this issue and bring Zone back into the spotlight.