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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2017 3:30:12 GMT
I definitely agree that it’s a tiny cost, and I’m happy to spend the money to upgrade (in fact I put in my pre-order the day this thread was made). But I can also understand that there will be other players who would rather not make that purchase. id also be happy to pay the cost if it was just a port over, if i lost everything id just find something else to play.
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Post by Test on Nov 27, 2017 4:01:48 GMT
there doesnt need to be an even playing field and why should there be one (its not a competative game its a co operative one....) Just to address that one point. I do not believe that there is an even playing field even in competitive MMORPGs. I make that statement based on having played to both Hero of the Alliance (multiple times) and Gladiator (once) on Warcraft. Admittedly, that was before I moved house and became so lag wridden, however, even in that competitive and fully PvP environment you needed people based resources and a significant amount of investment in the game to be even vaguely competitive (unless you cheat and used kick bot etc scripts - but they will only really place you in the Rat League). In competitive PvE (which I only dabbled in) the need for resources was much more extreme. Players would willingly wipe hundreds of times to make each kill when working on progression - and hence the gold banks required were very significant (think the equivalent of paying for 300 limbo-ed items) if you wanted to be competitive. This 'level the playing field' talk really belongs on a low magic +5eb cap server, not on a high magic server like HG.
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Post by chirality on Nov 27, 2017 4:58:34 GMT
if there's people other than acaos/funky with the chops and time to do an EE "portover" for HG then by all means, let them do it. in the meantime i'd like acaos and funky to spend their precious little dev time working on the HG that already exists and has a to-do list a mile long.
as was mentioned earlier in the thread, EE brings so little to the table in general, and relative to HG in particular (it may as well already be nwn's "enhanced edition"; aside from "improved" gfx and other engine oddities/fixes, it's basically its own standalone game at this point, far better than nwn1), that any discussion of benefits for HG is essentially limited in scope to player acquisition/retention rather than truly improving the game in a zero-cost manner (as far as i could guess from acaos' comments, any great engine improvements opened up by EE structure likely require their own X-hours of dev time to bring to fruition, but we already have unimplemented spells since years now).
it's an important discussion--the same as ever, walking the fine line between keeping old players happy and attracting new ones--but it's hard to escape the fact that there's so much dev-work to do already that it far surpasses the amount of time available. there's so many things that players beg for and could be done, but simply can't be attended to, and as best as anyone can tell it's been the case for years now. as also explained earlier in the thread, a decision must be made in regards to EE; it has to be dealt with one way or the other. unfortunately as also mentioned, there's no good answer or best solution. ultimately EE must be embraced for optimal future continuity, but if it's at the cost of dev time that should rightfully be spent on the enormous list of things long-awaiting attention, this would be a great time for some new dev to be hired or some player that has tons of freetime to learn some code and get to work.
if 20 bucks is a cheap cost to pay beamdog for something we don't need, then i'm sure another 20 bucks from each player could go a long way toward finding someone to help, or at least as a gesture of goodwill and gratitude to funky and acaos. i'd expect the thought of giving 20 bucks to beamdog should spontaneously provoke the desire to donate an equivalent amount to HG itself.
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Post by condude1 on Nov 27, 2017 18:19:07 GMT
Alright, I'm not going to respond to people if they keep misrepresenting me. I have never argued for a full reset - that would be absolutely ridiculous. I've argued that if/when we port HG over to EE, making the EE version "start from scratch", while keeping old HG around for endgame runs etc. makes sense.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2017 22:51:16 GMT
I've been thinking a little more about the wipe vs port issue, and I guess I'm more on the fence now. I do think that a server split with Classic remaining the same and EE being a clean slate is very problematic for the reasons discussed in previous posts. However, I can also acknowledge that a game like this has diminishing returns as you play more; at my stage playing is not particularly 'fun' because I need to dedicate hours and hours to get even the tiniest power boost (ie: getting better randomized gear than the extremely well-randomized gear that I already own). A hypothetical would be that if the servers were to get a virus and wipe all vault/bank data by accident, restarting from scratch could actually be quite fun (if I was to muster up the motivation). If there are a large number of new players from EE, the quantity of which is impossible to predict, then it really could be a breath of fresh life in the game. Having said that, if I literally had my toons in front of me and was offered the choice to voluntarily take the path of starting fresh, I think walking away from the hundreds of hours I've dedicated would be very difficult. Not quite sure how I feel about anything now
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Post by bubsnaga on Nov 27, 2017 23:15:28 GMT
Any interest in creation/maintaining a newbie/lowbie guild? 1-40. Not one where restrictions are made for players to simulate a "vanilla" experience (can find this in Warcraft etc.), but instead one that focuses on getting players to 41 and beyond. If current guilds fill this role already and would be redundant, is there a benefit of having say a drop and join guild at random, with no drama/hard feeling of moving up and out to a more end game focused guild.
Can any current guild members/leaders comment on current guild structures/activities/restrictions/fun? Also the guild rules seem to be pushing a form of pvp token guild combat.....is this encouraged or acted upon.
sorry if this post is a bit of a derail
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Post by manuka on Nov 27, 2017 23:19:32 GMT
Full reset and no bots alould!!
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Post by Test on Nov 27, 2017 23:30:12 GMT
Any interest in creation/maintaining a newbie/lowbie guild? 1-40. Not one where restrictions are made for players to simulate a "vanilla" experience (can find this in Warcraft etc.), but instead one that focuses on getting players to 41 and beyond. If current guilds fill this role already and would be redundant, is there a benefit of having say a drop and join guild at random, with no drama/hard feeling of moving up and out to a more end game focused guild.
Can any current guild members/leaders comment on current guild structures/activities/restrictions/fun? Also the guild rules seem to be pushing a form of pvp token guild combat.....is this encouraged or acted upon.
sorry if this post is a bit of a derail There was one for that purpose I believe - or at least it operated in that way. The guild was called Discovery. Thomas, who still posts on forums sometimes, was a member at one point I believe. (But that was a lot of years ago.) The new coming players did not join Discovery though, rather the members of Discovery used to actively help out newbies and help them find their way through 1-40. When I arrived, apart from some help from two guys who I had known from my own server, I got quite a bit of help from a Discovery player who went on to join Maelstrom with me a couple of years after that.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2017 23:33:57 GMT
Full reset and no bots alould!! Not sure if that was intended to be a joke or not But on that topic, I am *strongly* in favour of removing multi-boxing from EE (or at least restricting to dual-box at the most). I can see that it looks hypocritical since I am one of the people who first started mass-multi-boxing and benefited heavily from it, but that's the point; it has developed into what is essentially a cancer on the game, because it is so much more efficient than anything else (literally 1000-1500% greater rewards per hour if executed well), and although it was fulfilling and extremely profitable, it absolutely destroyed the 'spirit of the game' for me and probably others by extension. I would not want to enforce it on the current vault because I suspect players would rightfully feel resentment if multi-boxers like me managed to 'game the system' so much before having it restricted... but if there ever is a clean slate for EE, I think that having multi-boxing heavily restricted from day one is definitely the way to go. As it stands, I believe that the way EE's player verification system works would make multi-boxing problematic anyway.
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Post by blazingezus on Nov 27, 2017 23:42:13 GMT
As someone who played during the height of HG's popularity and who has returned only within the past year I understand exactly where the vets are coming from. Let me tell you... if I had to start over completely from scratch when I came back, I don't think I would have stayed around very long. I'm lucky because I came back to several toons who were over lvl 60 making it possible for me quickly do hell runs and build up a nice bank in a short period of time.
If I were playing the for 10yrs or more I know I wouldn't want to start from the beginning... that idea is absurd and shouldn't even be entertained. I don't know how many man hours it would take to move HG to EE, and I and don't know how long the back log of things that need to be done on the server. From what I have read on here and the EE boards many hours are needed for both projects.
Thus I have a proposal I believe will benefit everyone from newbies to vets.
Why not try a crowd funding campaign to raise money to get more people on the dev team. As incentive for people to donate for example lets say for a minimum donation of $20 they can get a BUR race book. So lets say they donate $50 they can get enough exp for a lvl 60 character. Those are just examples I'm using to illustrate my point.
The goal is to raise enough money to higher enough dev team members to accomplish a migration to EE and to clear the back log on what needs to be done. At the same time people new to the server get an extra boost when starting out on the server.
Well that is my crazy suggestion. I have done it myself to raise money to pay the cast and crew on a short film I made years ago. I don't see why it wouldn't work to benefit the needs of HG. There would need to be some kind of marketing campaign on gaming sights and social media to get the word out, but I think it could work.
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Post by tank on Nov 28, 2017 14:41:45 GMT
+1 for transfering over to EE
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Post by Acaos on Nov 29, 2017 2:27:28 GMT
Why not try a crowd funding campaign to raise money to get more people on the dev team. As incentive for people to donate for example lets say for a minimum donation of $20 they can get a BUR race book. So lets say they donate $50 they can get enough exp for a lvl 60 character. Those are just examples I'm using to illustrate my point. While this is very generous of you to think of funding us, any porting of HG to EE would be done out of our own time and money. We do accept donations to keep the server running, but have a strict policy against offering any kind of in-game benefit (other than a public 'thank you') for money. That said, we're waiting on some additional code releases from Beamdog before beginning the HG porting effort (the NWNX EE code base, to be specific). We'll hopefully receive those this week or next, and then it would likely be at least another couple of weeks before we have even a starting stab at the HG port (depending on developer time and how difficult it is to port all of our custom changes over to the new NWNX). And while it's still in the air whether or not we will offer vault transfers to the Enhanced Edition Higher Ground, it's very likely that the initial testing phase will be run on a completely fresh vault (porting over the player vault will be a very time consuming project for a number of reasons). I can also say with confidence that there will probably be at least one wipe of HG Enhanced Edition during the testing phase (because we'll likely be giving out easy experience boosts and gear so we can test all areas on HG). At the end of that testing phase we'll have a number of options, which include but are not limited to: 1. Continue running HG Classic and HG Enhanced Edition as separate servers, with separate vaults. Anyone who wants to play HG Enhanced Edition needs to start fresh. 2. Allow people to do a one-time port of their HG Classic vault to HG Enhanced Edition (they would be able to continue playing with those same characters on Classic as well, but the vaults would not be synchronized). 3. Move the entirety of HG Classic to HG Enhanced Edition (with a complete shutdown of HG Classic). Find a way to port over everyone's vault in some type of automated fashion. Possibly collect donations to buy NWN EE for people who can't afford to upgrade on their own. 4. Shut down HG Classic entirely; everyone starts fresh on HG Enhanced Edition. Possibly collect donations to buy NWN EE for people who can't afford to upgrade on their own. 5. Give up on the idea of HG Enhanced Edition; redirect our time and energy to making HG Classic better. 6. Some other option. Any final decision on how we proceed will involve a lot of open discussion between the players and DMs. All of us love HG and want it to succeed and keep evolving, especially with the opportunities NWN EE can bring us to get more players. Acaos
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2017 3:46:21 GMT
Thanks Acaos for the clarification and for your efforts in exploring the EE option.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2017 4:21:42 GMT
I am supportive of a complete vault copy. Or, at the bare minimum, veteran players get quality of life tools upon creation. (RoR, Portable Hole, Electrifier). Things where by having this will not have anyone skipping or not needing content while still allowing the veteran players to enjoy some of the ease with which their time on hG was managed. I don’t personally feel this is game breaking.
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Post by chainlink on Nov 29, 2017 8:02:58 GMT
Personally I've bought lots of EE versions of games but as they are pretty much all single player I've fairly quickly reverted to NWN here with the awesome community of players, whatever happens I suspect I'll still be playing here until the sun engulfs the earth at some point in the distant future As far as the suggestions go I'd probably plump for #2 as that enables you you play on as you were in the EE version and you can still keep going in the original version with players that have not moved even though its not synchronised. Based on use it should be possible to see when use of the old game becomes so negligible it is not worth keeping it up and running and at that point the player base in the EE game should have maximised. Lets be realistic NWN is ancient and any chance to extend its lifespan is a good thing especially as HG and the people here are the best!
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