Crowded zones
Crowded Zones

Currently, I play on the Innoruuk server. I play a druid, a ranger, an enchanter and a wizard, so I see the game from a variety of "good" race/class standpoints. The servers are designed to handle about 1,500 people comfortably. My server typically has between 1,800 and 2,000 people on it during prime time hours, and it is one of the less crowded servers. Needless to say, it is very crowded during prime time, making it very hard to find things to hunt. Camping is rampant, something Verant has stated they do not like. I would like to see the following changes to help alleviate the crowding:

Lightly Used Zones

By the time you get 1,800 people on a server, there is really no such thing as a lightly used zone. However, some zones are almost never used. I would like to see these zones tweaked to encourage people to spread out a bit.

Toxxula Forrest

The common advice for Euridites is to move to Qeynos as soon as possible. This is because Euridites do not have any sort of night vision, and their newbie area is dark! It is very difficult to find anything to kill, especially at night. You can only see a very short distance. Why fight that when a 10 minute boat ride will put you in a wide open zone like Qeynos hills?

In order to fix this, Verant needs to increase the visibility in the area. Also, they need to increase the number and type of spawns in the area. After 4th level or so, there is very little to fight in the area.

Kerra Isle

This is the next logical zone to visit after Toxxula Forrest. The creatures are good for levels 7 on up. So why doesn’t anyone fight here? Well, first of all, it is the next logical place to fight from Toxxula, but no one fights in Toxxula….. The mobs here are extremely social, very aggressive, and a large group hangs around the entrance. You need a full group to break the spawn, so you don’t want to go there unless you can get in a good group. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one is there, so no one goes there. Also, there is a high level mob that spawns in the middle of the lower area of the zone. He proceeds to kill everyone in sight.

The high level spawn should be removed or have his level lowered until a full group of 7th to 10th level people can take him down. The other spawns need to be spread out a little so you can pull a few at a time, if you are careful. Remember, Euridite classes do not generally get crowd control spells. Finally, bump the loot up a little. The third most common complaint I hear about Kerra Isle is that you do not get loot worth the trouble.

Lesser Faydark

I frequently see over 100 people in Greater Faydark. You can’t swing a dead Orc Centurion in Crushbone without hitting someone. But Lesser Faydark is always empty. There are some orc camps and a couple of bandit camps, but that is all unless you are mid-level. I think Verant should increase the number of 7th to 14th level mobs in this zone. Put a quest or two similar to the Crushbone Belt quest in this zone. This should lure some of the crowd out of Greater Faydark, and balance the area a little. Also, add some guards so the newbies can run for cover.

Southern Ro

Southern Ro is another empty area. There are some pretty good mobs to fight in this area. However, once you become encumbered, you run into problems. Then nearest "good" bank is in Freeport, a long run away. The only merchant that will sell to good races in Southern Ro gives chump prices. You can run one zone over to the Oasis of Marr, but 1 time out of 4 you will get jumped by something (usually by a Sand Giant) while you are selling. It is not worth the risk of death to sell.

This area needs a Gypsy camp or Inn tucked away in a safe area. Once that became available, this zone would become much more attractive.

Beholder’s Gorge

This zone will only support 15 to 25 people. It needs more mobs. I suggest a little variety. We don’t need 20 Minotaurs running around, but some mobs that won’t aggress everything in sight would be nice.

Also, Muddite miners need to be tweaked. They will con green to you, and still beat you up very badly. Right now, they qualify as an annoyance. When you are fighting Minos, they are a green creature that come in packs, beat you up badly, frequently cause an evacuation or death, give no xp, and drop pathetic loot. First off, raise their con by about 2 to 3 levels. Second, reduce the mob factor by reducing their aggression radius or cutting down on their roaming radius. Third, give them some decent loot. I do not know of anyone who practices pottery, so I don’t know anyone who wants the clay. Groups I have played with destroy it or drop it on the ground, rather than carry the weight.

Finally, bump up the Goblin Lookouts’ level. They are pretty low level for this zone. The only people that can get to them at a good level to fight them are the Halflings. They can stay in Misty Thicket and fight the goblins on the other side of Runnyeye without having to dash through a (to them) high level dungeon.

Western Karanas

This is one huge zone. It is fairly well populated with mobs from a variety of levels. All in all, it is pretty well balanced. So why is it relatively empty? Well, for one thing, while a zone full of Lions, Wolves and Bears might be a tailor’s dream, those particular mobs drop squat for loot. "Whooo-hooo! I got a ruined pelt, worth a whopping 8c if I don’t tailor!" There is a bandit camp near each edge of the zone, but let’s face it: anyone who can get through Eastern Karanas and Northern Karanas alive is going to find the bandits con green to them. That means only one camp is within easy reach of the players who are a good level to hunt them. That area is pretty generally camped. Once you get to the next level of mobs in the zone, they are pretty well concentrated, and therefore easy to camp. In this game, easy to camp = always camped.

I would add three or four more bandit camps near the Qeynos side of the zone. A healthy dose of gnolls would be nice, to draw the campers away from the entrance to Blackburrow. I would also bump up the level of the bandits and zombies near the Northern Karanas zone to entice the people in NK to try their luck. I would also add a few more mobs that would interest the NK people out near that zone.

Ocean of Tears

Well, it is pretty tough to identify the problem with this zone, but it could be that no one wants to fight in a zone where, if you die, you get to wait for 20 minutes for a boat to show up. This is another huge zone, but land mass is pretty scarce. They have recently modified the mobs so that they will chase you off the island. You get to move a swimming speed, and mobs get to move at normal speed in the water. That’s a nice recipe for death. Then you get to wait on the boat, and try to find your body under water! Fun for all!

The OOT needs more land. I realize it is an ocean, but what’s the point? Right now, it is just a zone that few use, and most view as a reason to pay 10p for a teleport. I could be using that 20 minutes to get some xp, instead of looking at a featureless ocean. You can’t even fish on the boat. Maybe verant could put an underwater entrance to a higher level dungeon. Or they could add some deepwater goblins.

Put some guards on the islands. All the mobs in the zone are social. Right now, if you get swarmed (and you will) and you do not have gate, you are dead. Who wants to fight in a zone where you are pretty much guaranteed frequent deaths, with long corpse retrieval times? Give us something to increase our survivability.

Najena

This zone has an 18.5 minute spawn time for the mobs. It can only support 15 to 20 people spread out over several levels. Reduce the spawn time in this zone.

Heavily Used Zones

Hey, everybody know the "best" zone to go to at a given level, right? Too bad such common knowledge makes those zone incredibly crowded. I have addressed one side of the issue by discussing some things that will make the less used zones more popular. On the other side of the coin, I think Verant should make some adjustments to the more popular zones to give people incentive to try some new areas.

Southern Plains of Karanas

This is a sweet zone. That’s why there are usually 70 to 100 people in it. You can hunt Centaurs without taking a faction hit. You can hunt aviaks, again with no faction hit. Kill one or one hundred of either, and they will continue to walk past you as you meditate. You can even go to the Centaur village and sell the bows and arrows you pulled off the Centaurs you just killed! ("Hey, isn’t this Fred’s bow?" "Ummm, yeah it is. I, ah, found it out on the plains. He must have dropped it or something…..")

Centaurs and Avaiks should have faction. When you kill enough they should start aggressing you.

Binding

One very big reason that some areas are lightly used is their distance from the nearest bind point. Everyone should be able to bind themselves. It should not be a spell, just a command. /Bind. This would not unbalance the game. It WOULD cut down on the shouts, oocs and auctions begging for binds in the city zones. This is just a convenience for the players. Half the classes can already bind themselves where ever they want. Just extend the ability to everyone. The only reason to not give this ability to all players is a desire to force long corpse retrieval runs. Heaven forbid that players spend their time doing enjoyable things! After all, the game would be completely unbalanced if no one had to spend 10 minutes running naked through a couple of zones filled with aggressive mobs…..
 
 

New Servers

Verant is bringing up new servers pretty frequently, but it is not really fast enough. The new servers are filled to capacity within two weeks at the current rate. That just demonstrates the need for a greater number of servers. They should add servers until the average server load during prime time is about 1,500.

Also, they need to provide a method to swap characters to new servers. If you have a 45th level character on a server with 2,000 people on it, you are going to be very reluctant to go back to level 1, even to get a big relief from crowding. However, if you could transfer your character to another server, you would be much quicker to move.

Spawn Rate

An alternative method for dealing with crowding would be to adjust the spawn rate of the mobs. I think that the spawn rate should be tied to the number of players in zone. For example, if there are 10 people in the zone, a given mob could spawn 10 minutes after it is killed. If there are 50 people in the zone, the same mob could spawn 1 minute after it is killed. The higher the spawn rate, the lower the loot on each mob. This would prevent prime time from introducing an excessive amount of currency into the economy.

Guard Killers

By and large, I do not have a big problem with people hunting guards. However, I do have a couple of opinions on the subject.

First, the guards are there to give the players a fallback position. Normally, they are around for the newbies. When you kill the guards, you remove the safety net from the low-levels. That is not particularly fair to them.

Steamfont is a big guard-hunting area. Many times I have run for the guard with a pack of Minos on my tail, only to discover that some necromancer or druid has killed him. Sometimes, they jump in and help out the newbie, but more frequently they just stand around and watch you die. This is fairly annoying.

Also, druids are supposed to be a good race. From a role-playing standpoint, they should not be hunting guards from good races. Druids do not have to be concerned about bad faction, as they can set their bind point outside of the bank in their home city and gate to sell. Then they teleport to the area they are hunting in and keep going. If they have bad faction in Qeynos, big fat hairy deal. They never have to go in there anyway. This leads some druids to some pretty amoral behavior. The same argument applies to necromancers. They should not kill evil guards, only good guards.

I think two adjustments need to be made to the guards. If you kill a guard from a good race, you should get a faction hit for ALL the merchants in ALL the good races. If you kill a guard from an evil race, you should get a faction hit for ALL evil race merchants.

Second, the guard spawn should be adjusted. I think there are two possible ways to tweak them. First, you could steadily increase the level of the guards. If you kill a level 10 guard, a level 15 guard spawns in his place, then a level 20 after the level 15 gets killed, etc. This would be very similar to the way Broon, Droon and Proon spawn. The logic for having the death of one mob trigger the spawn of another is already in place in several instances. The other possibility is that if one guard is killed, two spawn to replace him. If you are killing one guard easily, two will be a little tougher, and four would be too much. Both methods make sense from a roleplaying standpoint. If your guard gets killed, you either send a tougher guy to check it out, or you increase the size of the guard post.

Finally, if the guard dies, the next guard should spawn immediately. That will eliminate the "Missing Guard" syndrome, and save a lot of newbie lives.

Finally, while we are discussing guards, let’s talk about the guards in Eastern Plains of Karanas. The guards in the village near the wooden bridge are brain dead. If you run up to one with a gnoll on your heels, they will kill it with no hesitation. But if you run up with a lion on you, they do nothing. If that same lion attacks a farmer, they will kill it. What is up with that? Guards should kill all mobs that are in their aggression range.

Friends List

I think the Friends list is too small. You only have room for 20 names. If you can have 8 characters on a server, 3 people could conceivably fill up your list. Most people do not play 8 different characters, but they do play 3 to 5 different characters. I think the friends list should be tied to account. If you add someone to your friends list, it should add their account, and if they are playing any character on that account it should show up on the /who all friends.

Krakan Darkwind
23rd level Druid
Innoruuk