The classic server topic

I would like to present you guys my opinion on a classic server for DSO, and why I think it would revive the game a little bit (or even more than just a "little").
Before any of the forum moderators close this topic due to other topics related to the same thing that already exist, I would like you not to rush things, since, I believe, my post will be a little more polished and present multiple arguments and suggestions.
As all of us know the game is in a pretty dire situation, the player base continuously decreasing, people giving up on the game and all that stuff. Some of you might argue that this is not correct, but let's be honest, I've been to the parallel worlds lobby area and the global chat is almost dead, especially compared to the good old 45 lvl era, back then, the global chat was filled with people looking for groups, basically 24/7. Some of you might say that the global chat is not as active as it used to be because players are now mostly doing such activities with their guilds, rather than using the global chat, looking for random players, but I can assure you that's not correct. Back in the 45 lvl era, there used to be even more guilds with guild related activites than now. I was usually switching guilds every month, mind you, those were not even the big guilds, just random low tier guilds from my country and each of them had like 40+ members with 20+ active, depending on the time frame.
Leaving the PVE related stuff aside for a moment now. Some of you might complain, saying that they do not want to play on a server where the maxed out players make low lvl accounts, just to destroy the newbies, but that can easily be avoided by removing the xp block feature, abused by many of us, old players, to make low lvl, beefy accounts.
Another problem people might bring up are the DK and their busted kit, we all know how annoying a strong DK can be in PVP, with its high DMG, mobility, sustain and cc, but even this can be solved by simply increasing their cooldown on the mobility skills and maybe reduce or even remove the CC abilities in PVP, thus making the DK a kiteable class and forcing the ranged classes to learn how to kite around a DK, a skill which can prove useful even in PVE situations. This is how they usually handle the nerfing of such champions in MOBA games ( of which I've played a lot, for more than 4 years).
Back to PVE.
Some people might say that they will get bored rapidly of the limited 45 lvl content, but the DSO develop team can simply add the expansions they've been adding so far to the current game and simply tweak the stats of the mobs to fit the lvl 45 meta. After like half of year, when most people will max out on the classic server, just add the another expansion, 5 more combat levels, 5 more wisdom levels and all that stuff, and of course, lvl 50 gear.

There is a petition posted by someone online for Drakensang to release a lvl 40 server, in my opinion the lvl 45 era was better and had more players than the 40 lvl one, but I am not 100% sure on that. I am sure some people at the DSO developing team have the numbers and can tell which one was more popular. Sadly I can't put the link for that petition here since it might get deleted by the forum moderators, but you can find it on the internet relatively easy or if you want you can dm me on the forum and I will share it with you.

Another aspect that reflects the poor state of the game is shown by the YouTube videos, believe it or not, whereas the lvl 45 period had "legendary" players like Lordodemons, Anonymous and Balkanbeton, people who can bust out videos withj 50-70k views, nowadays most of the YT videos reach only around 5-10k at best, rarely surpassing that margin, depending on the topic and the creator, showing the lack of interest in the game.

If still a nonbeliever we can take a look at other mmos that released their original game as a "classic version" (for egs.: OSRS and WOW) and are doing much better now than they used to.
Of course, some of you might say that these 2 are much larger and much more popular than DSO, but, truth is, the same principle applies, an old community wanting to play the older version of the game and reliving those days. It is almost getting cliche how game developers and companies do not listen to their fan base, thinking they know better than the actual player base, when truth is, the developers and the company never know better than the guy who spends hundreds of hour playing the game, it is simply impossible. And I am saying this because I've seen others asking for the same thing as I do here, I've even saw YT with like 3k views covering the same subject and the previously mentioned petition has almost 300 signatures. I am confident that a server, just a single one for beginning, could boost the player base with thousands of players, in time of course.

Drakensang was always a simple game, with easy to grasp mechanics, even the most advanced PVP players did not have that great of mechanics (I've seen them playing a popular MOBA which I will not name, "lol", and barely reaching gold ranks, which does not really require good mechanics).
Before some start to criticise me for saying this, I think that was the strong point of the game and what made it popular. A rather good looking mmo, with easy to grasp mechanics and overall beginner friendly. I think the more you guys delve into a sea of stats, complicated numbers and item combinations, the more the player base will decrease ( that's just my opinion, some may say otherwise).

Before some of you say that the server would not be so popular, I can assure you that many of the old players knew each other personally or had a way to contact each other outside of the game and, if some of the still active ones, see this and are interested, I bet you they would let their friends know about this, I personally have irl friends that would play this and would spend money on it and I am 100% sure there are others like me.

If you are a content creator and have an interest in what I've presented here please consider making a YT video and let other people know about this and the petition I've mentioned.

Let's be honest DSO only cares about numbers, if there enough people interested in this I am sure they will consider it.

Sorry for making this so long, but I really wanted to give my imput on this.

 

Sorry, I'm not buying this.

Exactly how does BP make money off of a server with 300 players?

Factor in the expense of the equipment, the bandwidth, the development time (you did ask for new development immediately and new expansions in time), back-office support, technical support, customer service, etc., etc.; how many players does that platform need to break even, let alone turn a profit?

Have you paid attention to the problems the current servers are having? How long it's taken for the devs to bring out the next CE, and how obviously ill-planned it is (a couple weeks ago we saw a series of posts, I believe from Discord, in which 30% of the responses were, "TBD. We don't know. We're thinking about that.")? They are barely capable of keeping the current platform together.

And when the player base is disintegrating, you want to further fracture it by drawing players from the existing servers to an out-dated gameset?

You claim a bunch of people would pay to have the privilege to come back to an old version of the game. I claim the people who left have moved on. Who's right? Should BP be willing to gamble on your say-so?

I understand the nostalgia; I just think there's no capacity, desire or incentive for BP to go down this path.

Am I wrong about the economics?

 

You are only proving my point with your statement, that Bigpoint is digging a hole for themselves with the current game. Also why are you ridding on this "300 player petition thingy", just because some random petition on the internet exists, of which most of the community has no idea it does, that doesn't mean only 300 players would join the server ( not to mention, you completely disregarded the YT video I've mentioned, but w/e).
You also call the older version of the game outdated, which shows that you clearly have no idea how this even works, you think some random mess of numbers and "parallel worlds" with 5 or w/e types of difficulties is some sort of refined version, some polished gem of a game? It is not, nobody wants this, and the numbers show it. Do not take it personally, but I am pretty confident my taste and knowledge of what is good gaming design and what is not is a bit better than yours.
I've talked about OSRS and classic WOW in my post and their similar situations in the past. Is OSRS outdated compared to RS3? Of course, the graphics especially, but still it is a much better version of the current RS3 game, with fewer mechanics, downgraded graphics and LESS CONTENT. Same with classic WOW. There is appeal for the older version, s what I am saying.
Yeah, you might be right on the economics, but at this point, Bigpoint either starts gambling on something else ( not necessarely my idea) or lose the game slowly, cause we can all agree the game is losing ppl.
You people have to face reality, the game is dying, not because some tragic incident or some bad twist of fate, it is dying just because the game is getting worse with every expansion and update, the so called "outdated version" was more popular because it was the superior one. Imagine having the simpler product, that is easier to maintain and has its appeal, or the difficult one, that is barely manageable and has barely any appeal.
Let's be honest, they struggle to get deeper into the existing community's pockets just to pull enough to survive, they will never go back to proper numbers.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention that even if the classic server pulls just like, idk, 1k players near its early stage, something tells me, that is more than the current dead servers, like Agathon or Tegan, are pulling.

 

I didn't make my case very clearly, which led you to misunderstand at least part of my response.

I am not defending the current version of the game as superior to the one you want to return to … the old version is "outdated" in that the developers and programmers have moved on … the current version is a mess, but for them to go back and restore, debug, maintain, enhance the old version will require them to completely relearn what's in that old code (assuming they still have a clean copy on mag tape somewhere [does anyone use mag tape these days?]).

Look at it this way: They have been consolidating, not expanding the scope of the game. It's essentially no longer a browser game. They dropped Mac support (by "support" I mean the game no longer runs on MacOS). They dumped that Asian version, what, two years ago? They stopped supporting most 3rd party portals (and/or the portals dumped DSO).

I don't think there's a snowball's chance in Hades that they can maintain let alone continue to evolve two distinct strains of the game simultaneously.

 

I do see your point here. As far as I know, the developing teams ( not DSO necessarily), usually save the code for all the versions of the game, that's how some guys get their hands on older codes and make private servers.
My guess is that if a couple of random guys can create a private server from a game's code and maintain it, DSO should be able to do something similar, theoretically speaking ofc. (I do not totally know their current situation )
What disappoints me a little is that there are no other players giving their opinion on this matter ( it says the post has like 400 views, yet you are the only one responding, kind of sad )
What is also disappointing is the fact that the developers do not really seem to interact with these forums at all, I rarely see them answering to a post if ever, I would like them to come forward and answer people's questions and give their input.
Also did they ever make updates to the game based on players feedback and if so, who are those players? My guess is that they mostly listened to the "noobs", if they did, cause the stuff they added wasn't great at all, they lack common knowledge when it comes to balancing the game as well, some of the stuff they added back in the day was instantly dead content, like the Destructor boss.
I guess the lack of communication with the player base brought the game in this state.
I still hope to receive an answer from a developer regarding this topic.

 

I've been trying to share this idea for years, This whole game in it's current state is a hot mess.. nothing compared to like it was before in the good old times. I used to have about 70/80 friends on each of my chars on my account with most of them being active at the time however when i look at my friends list now on my low level and 55 there is literally not a single soul to be seen which is proof that the game is dying to an extent. Having a classic server would be great, Normal and hard difficulty , more parallel world items (the current parallel world uniques should be added) The old world uniques, Remove the goddamn "base stats" because that ruins pvp for anyone under level 55 ( under 45 in this state too) And keep the events simple but doable.. we dont need 800 progress bars where you need 392 days to complete them all :')
Also no... for the love of god dont add a level 50 cap after half a year, just keep it at level 45 .
There should be the classic parallel world like the atriums and there should be cardhun as well however there should be an upgrade to the ammon set maybe even including a weapon, shield and a book and a cloak
Another good idea to earn money on this new server would be cut all andermant and premium prices by half... this would make WAYYYY more people buy andermant and premium and then over time you can increase the prices back to their original value
THEY COULD EVEN DO A TRIAL OF THIS SERVER TO SEE HOW MANY PLAYERS ACTUALLY GO ONTO THIS SERVER.
Broadcast it through discord and you will get many many players wanting to play it.

 

That is what I am saying. I do not really know about the current uniques in a lvl 45 server, they should really be reworked ( stats wise ) and maybe added later on into the game, since they can make some things unbalanced. (The further away we stay from the current meta the better imo)
I agree with your point on the andermant idea, they should just make everything 50% discount at the beginning, just to sugarcoat things and make people spend some $. When they added the paid memebership subscription, I thought it was a good idea, since it did not make such great of a gap between F2p and P2p players and was also really affordable, most of the friends I had back then paid for the subscription monthly, even those who would not normally spend real money for the game.

 

Exactly, And if pvp was made a little more fair then that would also close the gap between F2P and P2P players

 

The only way I see them properly nerfing pvp is by removing the high tier stones, so the "whales" cant spend thousands of dollars on such stones and just wipe everyone else. The glyph system seems fair to me, a guy who spends day and night grinding should have some sort of advantage over the others or else the grind is pointless.

 

Yeah the gems should be capped at radiant or flawless i guess

 

Like 2 tiers above flawless is ok by me
They need people to spend money on the game after all

 

2 above flawless is royal, which was the exact same as the old times

 

As I've seen other people posting links to other sites on the forum, with out them getting deleted , so I'll try my luck and post the link for the petition (although I doubt it will make much of a difference). If the link gets deleted by a moderator I would like to know the criteria based on which links get removed or not (Ty ).
Here is the link: https://www.change.org/p/bigpoint-g...-online-team-to-release-classic-40-lvl-server

I am just curious to see if the vote counter would increase or not, although I probably should have posted the link a couple days ago when I made the post. (Since many people will "pass by" this post, but probably will not return later on ).
This is more of a joke, but if you are gonna delete it, do not delete the whole thread .

 

So, I started a new char to relive the "good old days". It was worse than I remembered. I don't see how anyone sticks with this game. This was actually my first mmo years ago and I didn't know any better. I was using the 3-day membership on this new char and it doesn't really help that much. I remembered some of the things that bugged me back then. You run out of quests and so you have to GRIND to go up a level to pick up more quests. Most of the time the drops are not as good as what you already have. I remember spending real money to buy gems for my first character. Too bad he is my DK. He has a lot of good gems, but he is still not as powerful as my SW. I always feel like I'm not strong enough to farm. During leveling, it doesn't make sense to keep buying equipment that will rapidly become obsolete. So, I don't think this *classic server* will go anywhere. I've been logging in for the free anderment, but that will be all until the CE.

 

You started a char to relive the good old days on a game which is completely broken in it's current state?
Hm, so you state many things wrong with the current game and then say the classic server wouldn't go anywhere =)
The old game was 100% better than the current version especially in terms of gear and diversity.
Many sets were used back in the day and many people had different builds which made the game much more fun than it currently is.
You could even buy items back then and they would still be useful 8,9 levels later as you can see in many people's videos from back in the day when they would use level 1 unique shields and level them up (due to the high block rate) and people under level 45 would still be using some buyable items too.

 

Completely broken is a bit of an exaggeration. My point is that the level 45 game was not perfect either. I will admit that the level 50 expansion changed a lot of the things that people enjoyed doing. The level 55 expansion is when so many people quit. If the game was making money in those previous versions, the developers wouldn't have had to change anything. My experience with other games is that a big expansion will make a lot of money in the short-term, because people will give it a try. The developers are usually good with a big cash-grab like that. Then they keep tweaking things to try and keep those payers to stay. I still miss the people I got to know in the old days.

 

On the one hand, I'm slightly interested because I do have good memories of the "good ol' days." On the other hand, I have to acknowledge that I personally would not be playing substantially on a classic server, nor would I be spending monies on it due to the sheer amount of grind it would require. If they were to implement a classic server, what I see happening is a temporary influx of players as peeps call up old friends and tell them to come back, then it dies off after a few months when the hype is over and folks move to new/better games they originally were playing before getting dragged back in, and eventually the classic server gets shut down like the Asia server or the Arabic server.

 

If they keep adding content to the game, the same one that they add to the current one ( only revamped a little bit to match the 45 stat progression and meta and without some of the idiot concepts) I am confident the server would not die off.
About the grind stuff, that's your personal preference, most of the players I knew in Drakensang were grinding addicts myself included.

 

Again, you're asking them to maintain two distinct games. How are they going to pay for the extra development/maintenance effort?

At a minimum, they'll need separate loot drop-tables; separate damage/defense tables for mobs in the new maps, along with proper pointers to mob levels; separate difficulty selection limits (I don't know how we'll select the level when we enter a map in DSO 2.0, but that code will most likely be different in your "classic" server); event progress bars will be distinct between "classic" and "modern" servers, both in terms of the loot and the overall mechanisms [e.g., you won't have Infernal on "classic" server, so events on "modern" servers which have difficulty-restricted progress bars must be reworked to fit the old style); etc., etc., etc.

And I'm just scratching the surface. What about all the bug-fixes they've done since level-cap was 45? What about the features in DSO1.55 that you do like (e.g., are you expecting them to graft in the Currency Bag? The Special Bag in your backpack? The Collector's Bag?)?

I appreciate your longing to return to simplicity, but you're not thinking through the practical aspects of what your asking. You can't have it both ways: Simple old style, but using new content built within a different paradigm. The code, the data structure, the "design," especially after CE, is different. They can't just slap an event, a map, a new mob or boss from DSO2.0 into DSO1.45 ... they are incompatible.

 

You don't really understand what I am saying XD. All they have to do is to add the new maps and mobs, without all the "current gen" mechanics, like "special bags" and all that stuff. They already have all the assets, the music, animations, they simply need to use some of it, while discarding some of the stuff you mentioned, that stuff doesn't have its place in the old style game anyways.
And the thing with drop-tables, damage and other things should not take that long, given they should have the code of the older versions.
And while you talk about this thing like it requires unimaginable amounts of effort and time, I will remind you that OSRS, a game with like 5 times the content and 100k+ players is managed by handful of people, literally.
And I am not saying they have to add the new content immediately, by no means, just the basic version with all its regular content, events and such, after seeing how the server performs, you add the new stuff.

And while I am it, you seem to think that the current code is so different from the old one, that it would be a whole ordeal for them to be able to transfer content from the current game to the older one and I disagree with that. If the way you describe DSO team is true, they seem to struggle a lot, but if this were to be true, I doubt they will create a whole new engine when the CE came to pass for a game that is dying anyways. I am pretty sure the new game runs on the same code and engine as the old one, I am almost 100% that is the case. I bet with a little bit of effort they should be able to transfer content between games and yeah, I said it, effort, the thing required for a game to be succesful.
I've seen people adding content from different games, that ran on totally different engines, and they still managed it, do you want me to believe that for a game that runs on the same old engine and code, it is immpossible?