Blackrock: realm foundations

[ssoro]

hi, to me this realm is fortunately still in a position to quickly get its population back (thanks to the thousands of players still not losing hope in 2016), but this can only happen according we acknowledge that the word "change" doesnt necessarily solely imply improvement, but also has damage as a result possibility, and so that it is a flaw to desire change for the sake of change

- taking away already farmed trinkets (4 times)
- taking away already farmed transmogs (2 times)
- taking away already farmed wrathful gear
- resetting already achieved arena goals
- resetting already farmed professions
- taking away already paid donations

irritating and demotivating players by repeatedly deleting their progress does not have as result to increase the population, but to decrease it, i believe the approach should be the opposite; satisfying and motivating players, by "giving" rather than "taking away"
in order to increase population i think that the emphasis has to be put on blackrock's foundations, those foundations being represented by the few basic yet most impactful features offered (which also all happen to be a huge demand that is lacking to be fulfilled within the world of wotlk private servers), those are:

#1 an addictive transmog system
i recommend to either put back the original transmog system or give them all for free
being able to realistically freely swap from set to set without having to worry about a currency was addictive, a high percentage of players were literally spending hours of their days browsing the npc

#2 a motivating arena environment
i recommend to reduce players' mmr and teams' ratings by only 25% when a season ends (instead of the blizzlike 100% reduction)
this would help preventing players from feeling that their progress is being deleted every couple of months, it would also help keeping the ladders balanced rating-wise
note: i think that this change would require to use the blizzlike mmr system; the current custom mmr system could eventually lead to inflation

#3 an access to appealing world pvp
with line of sight being key for that purpose along with appropriate zone size, i suggest ffa in the wetlands' menethil harbor castle (to have "Enter Menethil Harbor (FFA)" as a new teleport option next to "Enter Isle of Quel'Danas")
this would allow online players to enjoy the realm outside of peak hours

with the above 3 vital foundation points dealt with, blackrock would be set up to start naturally steadily growing in population on its own just from word of mouth
once such process has started, there is no more rush, and so working on improving the realm with additional suggestion discussions becomes more and more enjoyable and achievable

[Zeradul]

I am pretty sure those suggestions are not thoughtful since Blackrock is called dead because there is no activity on the ladder at all. Making people spend literally hours a day infront of a NPC will not change this. Also, chances should be equal for everyone after a season ends. Giving people a free ticket to high rating, because they did it once, is stupid and boring, because at any time of the season you will most likely meet the same people/teams over and over again and therefore it is not fun. I won´t say anything against of for a new world pvp zone, but it won´t change activity on ladder directly either.
During the day Blackrock reaches 900-1000 players online, but only like 50 of those are playing arenas, so I guess we would have to give motivation to play arenas, rather than making them dodge it even more. Take that into consideration please.

[ssoro]

hey, well just because you disagree with someone's pov doesnt somehow prove his opinion to not be thoughtful you know^^

i disagree with your point about transmogs, giving people something they want and "making people" do something are 2 different things, as you wrote blackrock is called dead yet that is because of a low population, the lack of ladder activity is in fact only a consequence of a low population
the same purpose applies behind providing access to quality world pvp, and that is again to increase the population
those changes themselves would not directly increase ladder activity you are right, yet the population they bring would; ladder activity will come with population

there is no point in motivating 1 player to play 3s, start by working on getting 6 players, then see how it goes
my suggestions are all about getting to 6 players

i didnt understand what your meant when you mentioned giving people a free ticket to high ratings

[ScaleRipper]

i agree with zeradul. any player with little self-confidence and life doesnt care about statistic/title removal. it is actually qutie fun. gives a fresh start and actually makes people play ladder. the reset is good, becouse it motivates even old players who achieved it all to play again with something to gain. ladder is dead becouse everyone has wrathful (doesnt have to fight for anything) and the old players with titles/statistics don't play as much exacly becouse of those titles/statistics already achieved.

afterall i think anyone who cares about gameplay,fun and challenge more than bragging and titles will like the change.

[Zeradul]

Eventhough it doesnt prove anything, which I didnt mean to, I am still allowed to tell my opinion, am I not?
All I was saying is, we should concentrate on giving motivation to play arenas and therefore we have to screw on this part, instead
of adjusting nice features like transmog and world pvp, which should be there to make players stay when they are taking breaks from arenas,
but it shouldn´t be the main reason they are online for... IMO

[ssoro]

indeed zera people are allowed to behave as they wish, in the end its only a matter of moral values and the pov each person has on those

but yeah either way i understand the pov you 2 wrote down, yet i dont think it is realistic to have expectations from it unfortunately
we are in the same scenario since 3 years, i believe we should acknowledge that it is straight up simply not possible to have an active ladder on a realm with such a low population, after all a "1000 players private server realm with an active ladder" well that has never been seen
and so i dont believe it is reasonable to expect having active 3s on a realm with around 500 online players at peak hours

this is why after 3 years i still say the move is to first focus on getting our population back, just what i think

[dunkwanker]

+1
I agree, it doesn’t make sense at all to expect motivating players by deleting their progress.
If you’re fool enough to really think it’s motivating for a player to have his progress deleted, then why not wipe everything every season and see how far that goes while you’re at it, let’s “motivate” them even more, right? lol
If you want to succeed at motivating people to play on this realm, it’s obvious you have to give stuff to players, not remove stuff from players…
For example the 3 suggestions of Soro are just about giving stuff to players, it’s just positive, nothing negative, so then the thoughts of the players are:

The transmogs suggestion:
“It’s nice, I really like how my characters look now!”

The ratings reduction suggestion:
“It’s nice, I don’t have to worry about wasting my time now, my rating will not be deleted anymore!”

The small PvP zone suggestion:
“It’s nice, I can have fun outside of peak hours now!”

So simple… Instead of removing stuff from players and that they ask themselves and think:
“What’s the point of farming items if Malaco deletes them?”
“What’s the point of buying items if Malaco deletes them?”
“What’s the point of farming transmogs if Malaco deletes them?”
“What’s the point of farming professions if Malaco deletes them?”
“What’s the point of arena achievements if Malaco deletes them?”
“What’s the point of farming and donating if Malaco deletes that?”
“What’s the point of doing anything if Malaco deletes it?”
“I have 0 motivation to play here.”

I hope you quickly understand the trust problem that comes with so much disrespect before it’s too late, and the consequences (incoming 200 players(without lying website number) at peak hours in 4 months).

[ethrex]

You have to understand that there is currently no progress on the server.

The titles given to the players years back are now irrelevant as most of the players that have earned them have sold their accounts for substantial amount.

The transmog system does not matter right now due to ''choose by id'' and arena cases system. The ability to customize the character should be given to those who improve over time and gain it through rating and not just mindless farming that rewards the player for the amount of time they have spent in a bg or similar activity.

Wipe is the way to move forward in our current state of the server.

[Cowbroken]

The transmog system does not matter right now due to ''choose by id'' and arena cases system. The ability to customize the character should be given to those who improve over time and gain it through rating and not just mindless farming that rewards the player for the amount of time they have spent in a bg or similar activity.

The 'mindless farming' only occured because of the system that was put in place. It's not the player's fault and they shouldn't be punished for it. Even if you do think the farming was mindless, you still have to take into account the fact that people WERE farming. Yes it did take a long time to farm mog for my characters. The transmogs I got wasn't even available from arena rating, so please explain how improving over time will do anything about that. It's just a random waste of my time, when I was going to carry on playing anyway.

I agree that lowering gear and removing old titles and ratings could help the server, but isn't transmog just overkill?

Not even gonna go into how it must feel to be one of those high rated players from recent seasons.

[ethrex]

I wrote a larger post on this topic in a different thread.

I have been playing AT since it was called Abyssal. I can certainly point out some of my thoughts about the upcoming changes.
The upcoming changes look really promising for the server. Why? Its quite simple really, progression is going to be a factor that will finally take place since the previous success of the server.

When Malaco spoke about the changes and the transmog system on stream, he mentioned that the new transmog system is better as it allows the player to ''farm'' further - which in turn he called progressive gameplay. However, he is missing a point between progression and farming.

• Progression relates to moving forward in process;
  
  Obtaining better equipment through achieving higher rating
  Obtaining recognizable transmog through achieving higher rating
  Obtaining exclusive mounts through higher rating

This is what progression is, its moving forward to obtain certain goals/prizes, most importantly to distinguish yourself from other players.

• Farming relates to a repetitive process which has the same goal/prize over and over again;
  
  Obtaining meaningful items which in turn, are meaningless through repeating the same process, constantly.
  An example of such process is the current transmog system, which kills the purpose of differentiation by allowing less skillful players to obtain rewards by spending more time repeating the process rather than progressing through improvement - it kills competitive objectives.
  
  Farming completely wipes out the ability to distinguish yourself from other players.

The previous state of server population, large population was due to exact attribute, progress.

With wrathful upgrade, as well as the new transmog system, casual players (which we need to increase population and competitiveness) lose the interest. They simply have nothing to do on the server, it becomes boring and bland. Many players will disagree as they're highly competitive due to their nature, nonetheless, casual players need a reason to play, simple drive to continue playing on the server.

I believe that the changes will bring back both the population and purpose for other players.

[Jakkre]

Just to throw in some ideas for new custom content:

- additional 3.3.5b class changes. (For example, Explosive shot should stack).
- Grp size variation in quel danas (every few hours the grp size limit changes)
- Change the objective of BGs to a team deathmatch.
Each side has a set number of ressources and whenever some team member dies the ressources drop.
Ppl join BGs to kill players, nobody cares about capping the flag in WSG or find it fun to deffend a tower in AV.
- rated 10v10 arena (acquirable through solo queue or grp queue with 2 players maximum).
Locations for 10v10 arena could be BGs like WSG or open world locations like Menethil Harbor or other castles. When +20 player queue for a 10v10 match they get teleported to the arena locations and after 1 min preperation time the fight starts. Goal is to kill the opponent team like in a usual arena fight.

[ssoro]

slightly updated and restructured the topic

[Beckyfox]

i just want that ..
ps: all u say is true..

[Itamae]

Just to throw in some ideas for new custom content:

- additional 3.3.5b class changes. (For example, Explosive shot should stack).
- Grp size variation in quel danas (every few hours the grp size limit changes)
- Change the objective of BGs to a team deathmatch.
Each side has a set number of ressources and whenever some team member dies the ressources drop.
Ppl join BGs to kill players, nobody cares about capping the flag in WSG or find it fun to deffend a tower in AV.
- rated 10v10 arena (acquirable through solo queue or grp queue with 2 players maximum).
Locations for 10v10 arena could be BGs like WSG or open world locations like Menethil Harbor or other castles. When +20 player queue for a 10v10 match they get teleported to the arena locations and after 1 min preperation time the fight starts. Goal is to kill the opponent team like in a usual arena fight.

+1 +1

Considering the deathmatch style of WSG and all BGs... yes 10v10 in various locations around Azeroth, Outlands, Northrend would be refreshing and fun.