Things I'd Like to see Before the Game's Audience Expands

As you guys surely know, a player's first impression means a lot in a game like this. If things look unfinished, spammy, laggy, etc, it can cause what could become a dedicated player to quit the game before they've even began to enjoy it. So I will try to list everything I can think of that would benefit the game to be implemented before BC's audience expands, in order of what I find most important to less important, in order to retain players and increase enjoyment for everyone, both new and old.

1. Mute option and spam filter for chat: It's never good when there are spammers on the channels and there is no way to mute them. As for the spam filter, maybe an automated 5 minute ban (or just temporarily disable their chat) could happen when 5-6 different posts are made by the same person in a very short period of time (less than 20 seconds?)?

2. Private PvP matching: while it's not super hard to arrange a match now with the current player base, when 200-1000 more regular active players join the game, this will be very important. People (and I) love being able to choose who they PvP and hate being sniped from the queue by the wrong player (especially when said player is much better than them). Private PvP matching should allow any two people to PvP with ease including faction or guild mates (a guild training course perhaps ). Maybe even allow players to use very different AP's or equipment tiers than eachother for private matching (just let players see the AP's and tiers before they begin fighting) so that for example naked vs GL battles and AP mismatch battles can be done if people decide they want to. Maybe mismatched PvP's will be unranked and not count towards your PvP win/loss rate, however? I love PvP so I may be a bit biased on this one, let me know what you think everyone. If nothing else, I'd love to see the most basic form of private PvP matching available by then.

3. 2nd layer of guild wars: It's a good impression for newbies to see that the territories are doing something and a lot less questions asked by them that will just be answered by "Nope, no trolls yet.". As for third layer of guild wars, that's up to you guys. I don't see it being imperative for the new players reaction of the game, but devs will know best on this one.

4. Private trading, either by guild or on a person-person basis (preferably the latter): It is far too easy to try to trade to someone only to have it sniped, especially good offers (and that's with the current playerbase). The more players there are in the market, the more and more sniping that will be going on. Sniping should have it's place, but only for the global market, not when you are simply trying to trade with a specific person. I've heard this one isn't high on your to-do list, but I think you are underestimating it's importance as the player-base grows. It is something that I personally value pretty greatly.

4. Chat moderator/watcher: I know this one would be a little harder, but someone who can ban obvious spam offenders without us having to go to the forum and wait for you check it would be great (or at least someone who can let you know sooner when something like this is happening). Although with the aforementioned mute and spam filter added this would not be nearly is important, keep in mind that when someone comes to a new game and the first thing they see is giant mounds of spam in all chats, it doesn't leave a very good impression, especially since they may not know how to mute at that point.

5. More protection against multiaccounts. While I don't think you should ban anyone with multiple accounts tied to them (that would be catastrophic), the least that could be done is make it where only one of the connected accounts could be logged in at a time. Alternatively they could get an automatic warning sent to their message box in all tied accounts if the game detects they've begun playing on another account and a log could be sent to developers or moderator, and if too much further action is detected between the tied accounts after the warning, ban all but the highest fame one permanantly. I don't know if this is the best suggestion but just food for thought, if anyone can improve this one with their ideas, please do.

Sidenote: Depending on the number of active players on at one time more chat channels may need to be accessible. This one may be worth waiting to see how it goes since you don't know how many players will come, but generally I'd say any more than 1000 players sharing one chat room could be a bad thing (though we don't want to be split up too much). Honestly this one has stumped me a bit because while I don't want chat to be flooded by there being too many people, I don't want to miss comments of some people because they are in another channel, nor do I want to miss people's PvP offers either... so I don't know. But if there is too many players, something will probably have to be done on this regard to prevent flooding.

Those are the most important things I'd like to see before any large influx of new players joins the game. Hopefully I didn't forget anything.

Do you agree? Do you think I'm crazy? Is my order way out of line with yours? Post your thoughts and things you think would be important to see before a horde of new players comes to BC.

more chat rooms-
yes, there should be more chat rooms;
perhaps a PVP chat, thus PVP offers would be separate from the "global", making global more of a conversation area, not a PVP arranging area.

I actually thought of one more thing: many of us get a lot of lag when in 3 player coop matches or large PvPs with several players. I suspect it is in part caused by the unit physics used to define their locations (the single units, not the groups of 20) which is why it lags worst when units are clumped together such as when battling or hiding behind on obstacle, with undead being the worst lag offender. Sometimes lag is bad enough to have no ability to move anything for upwards of 30 seconds on my computer. This is certainly worth alleviating before new players join, since 3 player coops will be in abundance with a large numbers of players.

If the game has a mute button then you would mute me

I voted second layer and private trading. First choice is obvious, I guess we all want the areas we claimed to give us some goodies  . Private trading, making the life of a treasurer more comfortable and the button says "Coming soon" all the time so I would love to see it implemented.

To the moderator thing I already wrote something, but a mute user option would be nice. Maybe when we get the profiles RS talked about and can visit other profiles there will be a mute button. With my current computer I do not dare to PvP (already a third party in coop is too much for me), so I have no opinion on private PvP but it sounds like many would love it. Might end in an elitist circle though, same people only PvP the same people, leaving others on the outside and losing interest in the game imo. This should be taken care of as well then, maybe a limit of PvP between each player? Oh I can see the PvP community kill me for that idea!

That PVP thing only includes some of the player base, so it would make it the least important feature since it benefits the least amount of people. The second layer(what everyone is already fighting for now), and private trading is the most important, since it will allow us to gear up new players with no sniping, and send them into war with some guild captured goodies.

Zara wrote:

I voted second layer and private trading. First choice is obvious, I guess we all want the areas we claimed to give us some goodies Wink . Private trading, making the life of a treasurer more comfortable and the button says "Coming soon" all the time so I would love to see it implemented.

To the moderator thing I already wrote something, but a mute user option would be nice. Maybe when we get the profiles RS talked about and can visit other profiles there will be a mute button. With my current computer I do not dare to PvP (already a third party in coop is too much for me), so I have no opinion on private PvP but it sounds like many would love it. Might end in an elitist circle though, same people only PvP the same people, leaving others on the outside and losing interest in the game imo. This should be taken care of as well then, maybe a limit of PvP between each player? Oh I can see the PvP community kill me for that idea! Wink

Well, if there is a lot of players they aren't all going to be doing private PvP. it would mostly (but not completely) be higher up players, but being completely obliterated less often in PvP may be seen as a good thing for many newcomers (although part of that will be fixed with tiers). Also, for private PvPs you can always find new players to fight in chat (the PvP chat room sounds great, realflantow!) and then just set up a private match with them to ensure you end up battling the right person. There could be some minor drawbacks but I foresee it doing more good than not once the player base expands. I think it would be a great addition for us older players who still want to PvP eachother now and then, and new players who don't want to get sniped. =)

Also, 1v1 on PvP doesn't lag much Zara (except rarely with skeles). For me, only 3v3 on a PvP lags as much as 3 player coop. But I'm sure results vary for players.

And Deadpool, I have heard Runeslayer say that PvP is basically the most important aspect of the game and PvE is just practice for PvP. If they really want this to be true than the PvP player base must grow, which means they must do things to make PvP more fun for everyone, like private PvP matching. I'm sure there are some players who stay out of PvP because it is either too much of a hassle to set up a match or because they are afraid they will be stomped by a much better geared player. I think a combination of PvP tiers and private matching will go a long way to make PvP more fun for everyone. And matching up with people of your own guild/faction will not be nearly as tedious and difficult making it much easier for anyone to find a PvP partner. Seems like a win/win to me. But yes, I do agree that private trading and second layer are both very important, and maybe should be implemented first. However, I think private PvP matching would be a very helpful thing to have implemented before expanding the player-base. Will have to wait and see the new rewards system after tiers are implemented to comment on PvP rewards though. =)

Bobba wrote:

As you guys surely know, a player's first impression means a lot in a game like this. If things look unfinished, spammy, laggy, etc, it can cause what could become a dedicated player to quit the game before they've even began to enjoy it. So I will try to list everything I can think of that would benefit the game to be implemented before BC's audience expands, in order of what I find most important to less important, in order to retain players and increase enjoyment for everyone, both new and old.

1. Mute option and spam filter for chat: It's never good when there are spammers on the channels and there is no way to mute them. As for the spam filter, maybe an automated 5 minute ban (or just temporarily disable their chat) could happen when 5-6 different posts are made by the same person in a very short period of time (less than 20 seconds?)?

2. Private PvP matching: while it's not super hard to arrange a match now with the current player base, when 200-1000 more regular active players join the game, this will be very important. People (and I) love being able to choose who they PvP and hate being sniped from the queue by the wrong player (especially when said player is much better than them).  Private PvP matching should allow any two people to PvP with ease including faction or guild mates (a guild training course perhaps ). Maybe even allow players to use very different AP's or equipment tiers than eachother for private matching (just let players see the AP's and tiers before they begin fighting) so that for example naked vs GL battles and AP mismatch battles can be done if people decide they want to. Maybe mismatched PvP's will be unranked and not count towards your PvP win/loss rate, however? I love PvP so I may be a bit biased on this one, let me know what you think everyone. If nothing else, I'd love to see the most basic form of private PvP matching available by then.

3. 2nd layer of guild wars: It's a good impression for newbies to see that the territories are doing something and a lot less questions asked by them that will just be answered by "Nope, no trolls yet.". As for third layer of guild wars, that's up to you guys. I don't see it being imperative for the new players reaction of the game, but devs will know best on this one.

4. Private trading, either by guild or on a person-person basis (preferably the latter): It is far too easy to try to trade to someone only to have it sniped, especially good offers (and that's with the current playerbase). The more players there are in the market, the more and more sniping that will be going on. Sniping should have it's place, but only for the global market, not when you are simply trying to trade with a specific person. I've heard this one isn't high on your to-do list, but I think you are underestimating it's importance as the player-base grows. It is something that I personally value pretty greatly.

4. Chat moderator/watcher: I know this one would be a little harder, but someone who can ban obvious spam offenders without us having to go to the forum and wait for you check it would be great (or at least someone who can let you know sooner when something like this is happening). Although with the aforementioned mute and spam filter added this would not be nearly is important, keep in mind that when someone comes to a new game and the first thing they see is giant mounds of spam in all chats, it doesn't leave a very good impression, especially since they may not know how to mute at that point.

5. More protection against multiaccounts. While I don't think you should ban anyone with multiple accounts tied to them (that would be catastrophic), the least that could be done is make it where only one of the connected accounts could be logged in at a time. Alternatively they could get an automatic warning sent to their message box in all tied accounts if the game detects they've begun playing on another account and a log could be sent to developers or moderator, and if too much further action is detected between the tied accounts after the warning, ban all but the highest fame one permanantly. I don't know if this is the best suggestion but just food for thought, if anyone can improve this one with their ideas, please do.

Sidenote: Depending on the number of active players on at one time more chat channels may need to be accessible. This one may be worth waiting to see how it goes since you don't know how many players will come, but generally I'd say any more than 1000 players sharing one chat room could be a bad thing (though we don't want to be split up too much). Honestly this one has stumped me a bit because while I don't want chat to be flooded by there being too many people, I don't want to miss comments of some people because they are in another channel, nor do I want to miss people's PvP offers either... so I don't know. But if there is too many players, something will probably have to be done on this regard to prevent flooding.

Those are the most important things I'd like to see before any large influx of new players joins the game. Hopefully I didn't forget anything.

Do you agree? Do you think I'm crazy? Is my order way out of line with yours? Post your thoughts and things you think would be important to see before a horde of new players comes to BC.

About number 2 they are going to set up private pvp lobbies so you will be able to 1v1 and getting sniped won't be a problem either with their new pvp tiers.

wow didn't see real's post about a pvp chat room. That is an excellent idea. I would love to see a pvp chat room