Number of players

[Nickwahh5]

We all have valuable feedback and thoughts. What everybody wants is increased player engagement, new content, and overall improvements to the game.

But the reality of RoR is that volunteers run the game. With no economic agenda, they only work on this as a passion project for keeping a defunct MMO alive.

What we can do is deliver feedback and make sure it's constructive and realistic with what capacity the RoR team has. But most importantly, we can encourage more community efforts:

- Do our part in the /advice channel

- Give new players tools to work with (post builds on class forums, guild events, et. c)

- And most importantly! Keep marketing this game. TheLazyPeon & MassivelyOP did us a significant favor in keeping up-to-date with the RoR game & community.

One minor suggestion for the RoR team is to encourage NA time... let us have a bonus for playing on non-peak hours (besides AAO for being outnumbered). And perhaps make it easier for caps with low pop. Definitely open to more ideas, but this is just off the top of my head.

[Belanoite]

They did, several times and at one point the server had over 3000 players. Unfortunately people got bored, others didn't like the balance changes/updates and they moved on.
EU playerbase is still okay! can't say the same about NA that place is a graveyard

Nope. What happened was the arriving of a famous streaming that brought thousands of new players to the game. But people left, for many reasons.

[Belanoite]

For me MMO isn't the heat of the moment as it was before 2010. NO mmo makes much success nowadays or last much time. WoW and FFXIV are exceptions. But WoW haven't half of the glory it had in it's past. And FF 14 is a place where you can have a virtual life with lots of QoL, the fun part of it is that WoW had some of it in it's glorious days but lost. Lol
War RoR doesn't have any of it. The only positive point of this game is the pvp and rvr. Which ends when you have to face the lack of groups or warbands. Or are booted off of the only open wb you find because the leader is using the stupid autoband addon, and need to go to lake alone and get killed by "witch-cancers". Then you think, "i'll make some scs, and lost many of them, because the matchmaking is broken and you leave, because there is better thing to do than get pwned on and on.

Actually, what I do when there is no ambience for fun in a side is log in to the winning side. I don't get nervous with this game anymore.

[sunmukh]

I think just word of mouth via different methods. I'm here because of youtube.

[Amdus]

Yes there are ways to increase the number of players. One being us making videos or telling our real life peers to try out. I have done the later and the longest I have kept someone was maybe a year. So I'd ask, are there ways to keep them? I think not. We can sugar-coat it as much as we want, but I think deep down we all know where the problem lies. Atleast, I have analised the situation for quite a long time and it's very obvious what is the fundamental problem.

Pretending that it's 2005 and we have no other MMO competitors around is disingenous to say the least. Trying out things that have been tried before in other MMO's and have failed isn't a good decision. And listenting to the serial whiners doesn't work either, quite on the contrary, in my opinion it's the most detrimental thing that you can do.

When it was the last time we got a patch with meaningful balance changes? When it was the last time we got content that didn't involve grinding as if we were teenagers without responsabilities?

Here's where I think the problem lies. That it's 2023 and some still think that we are in 2005.

[Battlefield]

Annoying premades, then healers with strong healing under 50% guard ability
and i'm pretty sure that the idea of the guard ability was just to reduce the damage for dps classes but not for healers or crossguard def regen tanks...

Also annoying several stealth classes in a group with almost infinite invisibility of waiting loners, welcome !

[Fallenkezef]

Only ONE thing will make this game work and get the numbers up: COMMUNITY

The game itself is flawed, there is little the devs can do to fic the basic problems from the original. The devs are part time, doing this for the love of the game and the setting and are overworked, they do their best but updates, fixes and enhancements are slow at best and that will never change.

So the only thing that drags people in is love of the genre and the setting and the COMMUNITY.

We have, quite frankly, too many toxic and unhelpful people who see new players as targets to troll in chat and free kills when they run around rvr and sc's in their premades.

But there are many GOOD people. Today, on my slayer alt, I asked if anybody was up for a sewers run and an IB 40 turned up and basicly solo'd it for my 16 Slayer. That is what community is, helping each other, teaching new players, putting guides out.

Bitterstone are a great example of what a community looks like. Their discord is open to all, not just guild and they give advice, have a freaking handbook detailing every Dwarf class and give positive advice and help. If we could have a community like that for the other races and classes this would be a different game.

[anstalt]

This game was designed around steep vertical progression, but such a thing is fundamentally incompatible with PvP.

In any sort of game, long term players are going to have an advantage (in terms of knowledge and player skill). If you combine that with increased character power, and the result is a game with extremely few "balanced" fights, a game that eats its own young, choking off the blood supply of new players.

Now combine that with the group-focused nature of this game, and you end up with a system that basically does everything in it's power to scare off new players.



The RoR team is therefore in a horrible position.

They can try to emulate the official game and appeal to those who enjoyed it originally. This is kinda the whole purpose of an emulator, but it means you're then stuck with the original design....a design that ultimately failed.

Or, they can make changes and improvements, but then the resulting game is no longer WAR. This risks alienating the people who did enjoy the original, with no guarantee of attracting replacement players.



I don't really care what the devs choose. They are the ones who are putting in the hard work, completely for free, so they should do whatever they want. If what they produce is worth my time, I'll play it. If not, I just hope it's enjoyable for others.

[Tanski]

This game was designed around steep vertical progression, but such a thing is fundamentally incompatible with PvP.

In any sort of game, long term players are going to have an advantage (in terms of knowledge and player skill). If you combine that with increased character power, and the result is a game with extremely few "balanced" fights, a game that eats its own young, choking off the blood supply of new players.

Now combine that with the group-focused nature of this game, and you end up with a system that basically does everything in it's power to scare off new players.



The RoR team is therefore in a horrible position.

They can try to emulate the official game and appeal to those who enjoyed it originally. This is kinda the whole purpose of an emulator, but it means you're then stuck with the original design....a design that ultimately failed.

Or, they can make changes and improvements, but then the resulting game is no longer WAR. This risks alienating the people who did enjoy the original, with no guarantee of attracting replacement players.



I don't really care what the devs choose. They are the ones who are putting in the hard work, completely for free, so they should do whatever they want. If what they produce is worth my time, I'll play it. If not, I just hope it's enjoyable for others.

Well put. I really don’t understand the thinking behind the renown nerf, it took me 7 days played to hit 80 on my last leveled char. For reference, in retail wow you can go 1-70 and get pvp gear in about 20 hours, you can do 1-60 in classic in 100 which is considered an extremely Grindy game. They should make ror more alt friendly, especially for tanks and for healers as they are always lacking (fundamentally because they are just not as fun as dps but that’s another issue ) . Anyone that says sov 80+, and especially 5 sov 4 tri on mdps isn’t a massive advantage is coping, stop listening to that person. They haven’t touched a non bis char in years

[Emissary]

We need a Community Manager that is willing to grab the bull by the horns and work on a communication channel.

One that isn't a general discord filled with gifs, memes and the occasional if you don't like it leave posts. (don't get me wrong I love a good gif, we just need a medium that is a little more professional)

This Community is filled with good people that care deeply for the game and its success for the long term. I understand the reasoning behind the team being silent on a lot of things and keeping the team very small, but that attitude will only stifle the game.

NA time is completely dead thanks to some players that wanted to drag it through the mud in SCs and the inaction for so long by anyone that could do something about it. It will never come back, but I will keep playing even if their is just 24 v 24