The biggest thing that hurt Classic was wild inconsistencies from the GMs. We had a pretty good pre-trans period, interesting maps and some custom changes that spiced things up a little but at a slightly increased pre-trans exp rates. Updates after that were sporadic and not very well planned out (see Dragonlabs, this was a HUGE turn off for many people).
There was also the Inter server issues we had very early on which drove people insane, having it restarted every 30 minutes because they couldnt fix the cause was pretty painful and everyone was regularly complaining about disconnecting on map changes. It was better than the server dropping for several hours at a time overnight but I think a lot of people got discouraged.
It'd be really interesting if we could see a (very simple and basic) renewal -> classic transfer or at least give players with a max level Renewal char something on Classic to experiment with.
If we could get a way to encourage people who havent played on classic a while to return we could probably manage to keep quite a few of them around. Something like a cheap/free short term VIP for accounts that havent been accessed for xyz period.
I'm also for removing the Magic Stone requirement to change classes. If KP hadnt skyrocketed I'd probably be more willing to keep a few around to hand out to new players who are interested, but as it is even helping out a few dudes is a pretty expensive endeavor. You can still keep the stones ingame and do what people were recommending, just make that VIP services guy give out the 3x bonus/port to players more often. You could have current VIP players get it every 5-7 days and anyone who is not VIP but has used a magic stone something every 2-4 weeks. This'd still make it super worth using a magic stone on a character you're not planning on instantly leeching to 99 trans (which is most of the players) and keeping people who have already used a stone from feeling like they got cheated.
Right now Classic is in a really good place, most of the annoying things people disliked are gone. Bugs and server issues have been (mostly) fixed. We just need a way to encourage new players to stick around and older players to come back to see that everything is as it should be right now.
This post basically touched on mostly everything I wanted to say. Classic is in a bad place currently, and that is because of past mistakes that the GM team has made by ignoring what the players had to say and went ahead with stupid decisions (such as account binding gear). Perhaps it's not too late to reverse all those terrible changes. Please listen to your players, we want classic to succeed even more than you do. That is the truth.
Here's a list of changes you can do that would bring people to this server :
1. Return Bio3 to area spawns. Currently the map is unused, and that is because of the absence of area spawns. Area spawns MADE the map, without it the map might as well not exist for the majority of the population.
2. Unbind slotted mids and give more ingame ways to obtain them. Currently you cannot compete in WoE without having access to slotted mids. I have always said that slotted mids have to be all or nothing, either everybody should have them or nobody should have them. Right now, only huge kafra shop spenders and people with zeny to buy KP have them. This is a very bad thing for a healthy WoE environment. So many friends I have asked to play have flat out refused because they'd have to spend over 100 dollars to try getting a pair of slotted mids on their account.
3. Promote more BG/PvP activity. For somebody who has already leveled everything they wanted, there is nothing to do. If there was a healthy BG/PvP environment, people would have something to do. If people actually fought in BG and didn't afk/multi-log for badges it would be fun. PvP wars are also really fun.
4. Remove magic stones. This is such a retarded change. I have given countless magic stones to newbies because they couldn't afford to job change. Do you really want to drive potential players away over a measly $1?
5. Add in an NPC to convert guild treasure to starsands. Guild treasure sucks, and nobody wants it. It takes up too much space. Why not add an NPC that converts it into starsands for guilds to supply? Right now starsands are being supplied by bots and nothing else. I don't see how this would hurt.
6. When revamping training grounds, add anti-bot measures. The opportunity to revamp training grounds is very good as it gives you the chance to do in some anti-bot measures. Please take the opportunity.
7. Disable reflect in high-end MvP maps, or enable Ice wall in all high-end MvP maps. Pick one or the other. If you want to do away with cheesing high-end mvps, disable reflect (or eske, maybe). If you don't care and leave reflect in, add Ice wall back in too as disabling Ice wall is meaningless. I would prefer the former, but whatever.
Edited by Hrishi, 02 August 2013 - 05:36 AM.
, just look 800~900 population and you can see a WoE video just 3 guilds on in WoE?
