Quote:
Originally Posted by 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.
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It isn't always easy to remove features. To be honest, removing features helps to increase nostalgic feelings. Nostalgia is the last thing that the current Zone administration should create. For quite some time, I've seen players suggest that Zone be returned to the way it was during V4. Before that, there were suggestions to revive planets such as Alpha, and capture the flag. People are always going to want to have a things be a certain way, but that isn't going to happen. There isn't a magic reset button that will automatically create the community and feelings that made Zone great to you in the past. If features were to suddenly be removed from Zone, such as the hotkeys or Platform, there would be people who would love to see that content added back.
Your argument revolves around the things that you liked to see in the past, but I don't think the past is something that the current Zone staff should try to achieve. While you have many ideas, I think that, sadly, you are no longer in touch with the player base. I can't say I'm much better, but I think you are farther off than I. The ideas that seem appealing to you are things that the current player base has come to accept. The reason the older players, such as yourself, stopped playing was that they developed and changed and decided Graal, or Zone for that matter, wasn't the thing for them. That being said, I don't think that the tiny portion of the community that remains from the days from when you or I played should be the most heeded. The concerns of the current community should be the concern, not the people who played years ago.
To comment on specific ideas, you pointed out the increasingly poor support for trial and non-pay players. I don't think there has been a significant change in the services provided to trial or gold players. Trial players, if anyone, have benefited the most over the past few months. I haven't been paying close attention to Stephen's actions, but I know that for Halloween all players were given the flashpistol. Even if the updates are minor, the trial players have been given something, even if it isn't much. Also the more recent updates, such as rolling, have been for all players. I don't think it is fair to say that there is increasingly poor support when there hasn't been a significant change to provide more or less support for either group.
The removal of permanent items was great. It allowed for more events to be hosted, even though tons of events isn't always the way to go, and gave some life to Zone. With permanent weapons such as the RP/BP/Reapers, there is more potential to give those weapons out. It gives the current players incentives. I'm not sure if you remember the temporary event system of Huwajux, but that was intended to resolve problems with the playercount. I think that Huwajux understood he wouldn't be able to magically turn things around, but he increased events. Sadly those permanent weapons were accumulated by many players and that is what created the strong push in the fall when Dan stopped permanent weapons as rewards. By removing permanent weapons, it is easier to control the quantity of a weapon in the current population to keep it rare. If 10 players out of 20 have a weapon, it isn't rare. This is enough of my side rant/straw man logical fallacies.
You are arguing against temporary weapons in the gelat shop. There isn't any easy and sensible way to make gelat shop weapons permanent. It might increase the playercount, but it would lead to lower, and no, sales in the future when current players have all of those weapons. Why would Stefan want to kill off his own sales for minimal benefit? It would be a better investment of his time to work with Stephen to create additional updates, rather than to modify a system that will hurt Zone in the long run. While many of us don't like the gelat shop, it is one main reason Stefan supports Zone. If Zone earns Stefan 100 euro a month (No, I don't actually know how much is made), he is going to be more willing to support Zone development than with servers that have no benefit for him. I understand the futility you feel when this isn't changed, and this opinion has been voiced by a large part of the Zone community. Sadly, I don't think this is something that we should devote our efforts to when the benefits for the business outweigh the benefits for the community.
The removal of laming and game breaking options was a positive change. While it didn't cater to the older community that prefers to get their kills easily, it did make it easier on the new players. A situation that is similar to this is how Graal Kingdoms changed the lords from spawning in the same locations to have the lords be anywhere around the map. It was done to make the game more challenging, and hopefully, more rewarding. My point with this is that while laming and game breaking isn't always fun for the longer standing members of the community, it does make the community more welcoming for new members. You argued in the first part of your post that the removal of game breaking options was a bad change, but later on in your post, you stated that the community is unwelcoming to new members. Can you please clarify on what you would consider welcoming and unwelcoming? I would consider welcoming to be when a player isn't immediately under attack when entering a world.
New worlds aren't necessarily what Zone needs right now. I agree with you on that, but I disagree with you on how to accomplish this. As was pointed out to me by Rufus in the past, Zone needs to have more variable maps. Having multiple objectives is going to make the maps more fun for the existing player base, however small it has become.
In regards to advertisement, that is not the Zone manager's decision, that is the decision of Stefan and Unixmad. Advertising has been suggested in the past, but I don't think much has come from it. The best solution would be to consider that it advertising is currently not an option. The only reason for this is that I feel we should focus on Zone because the overall decision's of the Graal administration is their decision, not ours.
To return to replying to segmented portions of your post:
Quote:
Originally Posted by luffy620
Its just idiocy to keep features that NEED A PLAYER POPULATION TO ACTUALLY WORK OUT, on a empty server.
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I completely disagree. If Zone ever gets a player population, Zone will need features to entertain the players. I don't think we should remove features because of a shortage of player. That would be like saying if a store doesn't have customers that it should stop selling products. Just because there aren't currently customers doesn't mean the server should give up and remove features.
I don't think the red rifle, blue rifle, or jetpack will return to the Zone cash shop. If they do, they won't return as permanent weapons. Yes, if they are in the shop, some players may stick around and use them. I can't argue that if someone has something that they will use it, but I will say that I don't think being able to get those items for any amount of time is going to make people stick around for a significant amount of time.
As far as cookies go, I would suggest that they be rewards for holidays. I remember buying holiday items for the advantages they could give me months later in big events. My assumption is that with a new events team administrator, that there will be more big events. For that reason, cookies should be kept as rewards for events, or for advantages in events for larger prizes. You are right that not every beginner is the best player, and while I agree we should cater to new players, this is a situation in which we should not. If we give new players cookies, they are going to become the same desperate for kills community we have had in the past. Without cookies, there is a stronger emphasis on skill rather than advantages. While the best games for you may have been with cookies, there are many players who now find their best games with medics and the alternatives to cookies.
I don't like hotkeys. My disdain for them isn't going to change anything. Faster switching between weapons is a standard, and I'm surprised it took this long for hotkeys to be released. I also think that hotkeys should be kept as an advantage for those who upgrade. As someone who pays 300 gelats a month, I want some advantage over a trial player. If they can't beat me because I can switch weapons faster, I think that it might encourage them to purchase that advantage.
I do agree with you on the explosives. I would rather see explosives sold in group packages (Such as pipe bombs, proxmines, flamebombs). It makes sense and would actually give an advantage to those items. Right now, the cost of those items outweighs their usefulness and this hurts the sales. While I'm not terribly concerned about sales, I think that Stefan would be willing to make changes if they can mean an increase in money for him in the future.