The game has such an uninviting burden of knowledge, and Gravity wonders why it's difficult to find new players now. For instance-- everything may be just peachy until you need to do a real/mandatory quest. At that point, all hell breaks loose, and if you don't know how to get around it from previous game knowledge, or rather extensive knowledge of the game in it's current state, you won't.
Example? I'd be delighted:
Alchemist job quest problem number
1: "I want to be an alchemist! WHERE THE **** DO I GO? I'll go ask around in Pront (and be led to Al De Baran)"
2: "WHERE THE **** DO I GET MINI FURNACES OR BERSERK POTIONS FROM? Also, why am I 50kz short? It's all I had, I'm a new player and I don't understand quite how to make money yet."
3: "Oh cool, a math test, I can do this." Question: "What is the total defense of a Buckler, Coat, Gas Mask, Big Ribbon, Ribbon, Sakkat and Glasses?" "....What?"
The correct answer here is 16, but if you were to look at your buckler alone right now, it would be more than double all of that. Burden of knowledge.
4: "Go find (name)" "Who? I'll check my quest log. It gives me no direction-- this is fun."
I'd be surprised if somebody who's new hasn't quit already-- it frustrates me far too much, and I'm a returning veteran.
But wait, it gets worse.
5: Quest is to go find Morgenstein. "Where is Morgenstein? I guess I'll alt-tab AGAIN and find out what the quest log should have already told me."
"Oh look, I found him, he's in Geffen-- why won't he talk to me? (Alt-tab) I have to do a whole OTHER quest line?!"
a) Find Alcohol, Detrimindexta, Karvodailnirol, and an NPC you've never been informed of that in an entirely different city.
(Alt-tab to find where to get the drops) "Wow, a .2% drop rate on almost all of them? I guess I'll go look in the shops at Prontera for hours to try and find them. WOW Detrimindexta for 90kz?! I wish I had that 50k that disappeared earlier. 18k for alcohol, and 30k for detrimindexta? Where am I supposed to get all this money?" (Probably already spent about 20k already just teleporting with Kafra service IF he had the money to begin with [unlikely that a new player will have above 200k by the time of his/her job change])c) finally get it all, after searching Ragial.com/irowiki.com 20 times each.
6: Go talk to a guy who will give you a word puzzle. "Ok, that's easy to do." s m i e x b w u n e n t a g l r "I'M SUPPOSED TO GET 'TIGER' FROM THAT ****? OH ****, THERE'S 3 MORE?"
7: "Oh yes! A quest that gives me the items-- awesome, all I have to do is turn them in. Yuno? What the? How do I get there? (some time later after figuring it out) WHAT? I CAME ALL THE WAY TO YUNO AND I DON'T HAVE ALL THE ITEMS BECAUSE THE QUEST NEVER TOLD ME I NEEDED MORE (In fact the quest tells you that you have everything-- lies)?! Where do I get coal and mini furnaces from? (Alt-tab for the hundredth time) Mini furnaces all the way back to Geffen? Awesome. Coal? I have to check the Pront shops again, or farm monsters above my level? Great.
8: And at last, you have become an alchemist-- only to have so many more quests along the way to Genetic including unlocking zones, getting adequate gear, and experience. "Yep, this game is fun-- I liked doing all that, I'll stick with it." (Yeah, ok.)
This is simply one instance of the "burden of knowledge" that's so manifest in the game right now, and again, one of many reasons that the game is finding it difficult to grow, or for veteran players to come back (lack of zeny).
You may have sensed a bit of my rage from that example, but that's exactly what happened. Nobody should have to alt-tab a game 100 times just to do one quest-- the game should have all the information you need inside of it. The mixture and counteragent quest (Alcohol, Karvo, Detri) is by far the most burdensome. Judge me all you want, call me a QQ'r; regardless of it being true, I bring up several good points.
Don't get me wrong, I love RO and it was the first MMORPG I ever played, and I'm glad to see progress (Which is why I'm back) but this is nuts...
Sincerely,
concerned player.
TL;DR: The game has a huge burden of knowledge that's pushing players away.
(If you did read the whole thing, thanks!)
