Kq head

 

“...all of those bugs are actually already patched up (among a plethora of updates that are waiting to be pushed) but some unexpected IRL circumstances have caused us to push back the update schedule a few times this past month.” 

Why must our playing experience suffer because of delayed bug fixes? You said yourself, all of the bugs are already fixed and ready to be pushed through, but why does this have to take so long? I fully understand new content takes time to develop, but if the bugs are already fixed why not just push them through every week with a weekly reset? Better experience for us, and less bitching coming your way. Weekly resets have been something the players have been asking for for as long as I can remember. Sure, the server doesn’t lag as much as it used to due to longer uptimes, but there are other issues to be dealt with, and this allows bug fixes to be pushed through consistently, keeping the players happy. It doesn’t matter if its 3 bug fixes or 100, every fix helps the server stay on top. 

 

The issue is not whether or not the new rank has slowed down updates or bug fixes, rather that the rank itself seems very rushed, with little thought as to possible alternatives. Players have been begging you for rank transfers for a long time now, and that isn’t even being considered. But for some reason you are considering a new top tier rank that will allow players another transfer, and it's simply not realistic. You can even see current immortal donators like @S / Seabound showing no interest in having to liquidate their entire bank to obtain this new rank. 

 

Communication has been an issue for awhile now, as Chad and I scramble to rush updates out (as a 2-person development team) we do sometimes lose sight of the big picture and neglect the communication aspect. It isn't something we intend to do, it simply makes more sense to us to put our time and energy into developing these updates to have a healthy, constant flow of new content and bug fixes, as well as responding to all the PMs that we receive daily and keeping in touch with the higher up staff team to make sure that things are running smoothly. That isn't an excuse, and we have made attempts to change this, such as providing more development blogs, but that has admittedly slowed down as the summer has ended. We understand your concern though, and I really would like to change this by planning out future updates on a stricter schedule with more consistent development blogs.

 

This communication problem could be solved very easily… delegate work. The staff team wants to help, they are passionate about the server and it’s very obvious. You need to have the trust in your team to let them work for you. You could delegate work on the forums that only you can do, to some of the admins. Let your staff team test and publish development blogs. You can keep saying the same things over and over, but until you trust your team to help you on this journey, it won’t succeed like it could. 

 

As for the rank, as I mentioned it is something that we've worked on this week and some of you may have noticed the usergroup on the active members list. I'll address a few points here to allow you to understand why we are adding it, and hopefully you'll come out with a different view of the rank. To preface, we have never proposed a previous donator rank. We do sometimes poll updates that affect Alora in a massive way, but donator ranks have not fallen under this category as they have always been a part of Alora. The fact of the matter is that Alora requires income to operate, and without income we would not be able to advertise or provide the development or support that we have for nearly 4 years now. The store, and the donator ranks that go with it have always been a part of Alora. I understand how seeing us working on a new donator rank after a month without updates may leave a bad taste in your mouth, and that goes back to the communication point, because we absolutely never intended to release this rank without the massive update that we've been working on.

 

The rank seems, simply put, rushed. It seems like a last resort to keep the server alive, when there seem to be other options out there, options that would make the players much happier. 

 

As you can imagine, after 4 years of uptime (longer than most servers last), store purchases are nowhere near where they were when Alora was first released. This is simply a side effect of having a mature economy -- nobody is purchasing whips from the store anymore, and to be fair custom donations for rank account for most of Alora's income nowadays as people don't need to purchase anything from the store. How can we counter this? Well, we can slowly start adding new over-powered items to the store to entice people more, but I don't think anyone wants to see those sorts of items in the store. Instead, a donator rank that a few will marginally benefit from, but will massively benefit Alora in staying alive as long as we possibly could seems like the best option to us. The way things are at the moment, we'd be forced to start cutting advertisements sometime in the next few months to make sure that Alora isn't losing money. Expenses to operate a private server are not cheap, especially if you care about the longevity of the server and want to ensure that there's a steady influx of new players.

 

My issue with this isn’t that the rank would be too powerful, rather that it is unnecessary and a ridiculous ask from your players. How do you counter this? Intermediate donor ranks, rank transfers, an updated in-game store.. Shall I go on? How about you ask your staff or your community for help and listen when they tell you their ideas. 

 

Aside from that, the Eternal rank is simply a prestige rank -- yes, there are a few new perks (such as being able to transfer your rank more regularly) but at the end of the day it isn't anything that threatens the integrity of the game, and ultimately the addition of this rank will do more good than bad as it will allow us to keep providing the best support and content that we possibly can.

 

Why would anyone in their right mind pay for a prestige rank? You’re basically saying the only thing that this rank would offer is more regular rank transfers.. So why not just offer rank transfers as a custom donation? This would apply to a much larger portion of the community, rather than the 1 person that MIGHT buy this new donor rank. You are flat out admitting that this new rank is a cash grab by saying it’s a prestige rank just so players can give you more money.

 

 

It’s time to admit when you’re wrong and own up and make changes. It’s clear that the community is fed up and ready for a change. Stop making excuses as to why things can’t be dealt with appropriately, there are options, you just don’t want to implement them. You don’t want to trust your staff to make all of these things possible, you don’t want to make a legitimate effort to fix these issues. Prove me wrong. 

 

 

Anyone else notice this new Eternal Donator rank? As far as myself, and many others in the community that I've talked with are aware, this rank was never proposed, polled, or even mentioned to anyone. Everyone I’ve talked with seems to agree that this is a clear cash grab, and honestly, a slap in the face to most of us. Moving on.. What perks could this new donator rank possibly even offer? Any perks that could possibly be offered to match the cost of the rank would be incredibly overpowered and game breaking. The opinion the community holds on donator ranks is already that the highest rank that is worth the cost is uber, so why would anyone in their right mind pay for a potential $20,000 (potentially higher) rank?

 

For an example, look at the drop rate differences from donator ranks… (While this is a very black and white example, it gets the point across that the rank truly doesn’t provide a benefit worth its price) The Corporeal Beast drops the Elysian Sigil at a 1/2697 rate for non-donors. For uber-donators, that is reduced to 1/2552, and for immortal-donators a 1/2370 chance. Estimating that efficient players can get 30 kills per hour, it would save an immortal-donator 10.9 hours when compared to a non-donator. A $10,000 donator rank is theoretically only saving the player approximately 11 hours, more than $900 per hour saved. Think about what master and immortal donators did to the CoX prices.. How much further can we buff drop rates before it gets to be too much?

 

What’s more realistic is that players (if any even tried) would try and buy the rank with in game gold, buying custom transfers. Considering the on-going rate for $100 custom donations is 3b gold, at a 1:4 rate it would cost a single player 150b gold to obtain the rank from scratch. The benefits that this new rank would have to provide the player to be worth the price would have to be so incredibly overpowered that it would break the game in no time at all. Not to mention… how many players could even afford to buy that, maybe 2? Even so, they would likely have to dump their entire banks to afford it. 

 

Something myself and a few others in the community have discussed as a better alternative would be paying for rank transfers. We understand that there is a cost of running the server, and the players are willing to do that, but a new donator rank isn’t the best way to go about it. Players being able to pay to transfer their donor ranks from account to account is a service that is much higher in demand than a higher tier donor rank. Not only does this accomplish bringing in more income to keep the server going, it also fills a huge need that the community has been asking for. How many players have left Alora because they wanted to play a new account and didn’t have the option to transfer their rank to a new account? Countless players have offered $100 and more to transfer their ranks, and those same players might come back if this was an option. 

 

 

Take a look at Oldschool Runescape’s method for development and why the current version of OSRS is a much bigger success than its prior Runescape 2 (pre-eoc). They run 30 question content polls at least once a month, and develop content around the results. If something doesn’t pass their threshold of being approved by the community (75%), they don’t bother implementing it unless they further reach out to the community, ask what changes would need to be made to see the content implemented, and then make said changes. While on Alora, the last major content (content that exceeds the “weekly update” time frame) poll took place in September of 2017. It has been over 3 years since one of these polls were posted. Here is the post for those looking… 

 

 

A development focused on what the players would like to see, rather than what content the developers would like to see. This is the style of development that Alora needs to implement. The players keep Alora alive, and players won’t stay when their thoughts and ideas aren’t being listened to. While Omi can, and should, make decisions for the server that he feels are ultimately the best, he should also take into account the ideas that the community has a strong passion for (ex: reworking Olm and ToB, adding nightmare instances and an overall combat system rework). Releasing content like Castle Wars and LMS are not what the players are asking for, yet they get implemented above all else and before fixing what the players are clearly asking for. 

 

Instead of leaving the players, in the dark when it comes to “major” content releases, create development blogs more often. There were 2 back in July and August for the Chambers of Xeric rework, and it was very exciting to see an update like that just around the corner. Knowing what updates are coming and thinking about preparing for those updates always brings back my passion to play because it sets me on a direct path for a cool new piece of content. 

 

Maybe development blogs are something that take up too much of Omi’s time, but there are a ton of dedicated players on the staff team that I am sure would be thrilled to help with the process of testing content and putting together a development blog for the community. 

 

 

Side note. What happened to crack the clue?

 

 

 

This is one of the things that I will never understand the logic behind... Let's look at the most recent, and probably best example of this. The Chambers of Xeric rework is probably one of the best content updates Alora has seen in a long time; not only is it a good advertisement point, but it is also the cause of many old players returning. While I don’t agree with people saying “cOx iS iMpoSsible” I must admit I don’t see any logic behind delaying crucial bug-fixes, like the scaling of the top floor or the chests randomly disappearing for an entire month. 

 

Another good example of this would be a very long time ago, when the skilling interfaces were updated to match OSRS. This update brought a crafting bug, that made the skill impossible to level early on, pretty much rendering the skill unusable for an entire week. Whether the reason is that a server restart would “annoy” players, or rather it was better to simply delay it a week so that the update would look bigger and better. It makes absolutely no logical sense. 

 

As a player, all of this makes me feel so unappreciated on the server. To know that cash grabs and flashy update threads are clearly more important than the player’s experience, it truly saddens me. 

 

 

I anticipate all of the discussions this may start, and I look forward to feedback from everyone within the community.