Personal Order of Development Suggestion
Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 7:22 am
Hopefully by the title it's clear that I am making this as a suggestion and not saying this is how it should be done but it seems like the development of RoR is very scattershot with bugs being fixed whenever but I would like to suggest an alternative route.
Firstly focus on fixing all the classes, this I feel should be number one because the classes are at the core of the game, so having so many classes that have bugs or missing mechanics that hinder the base gameplay can turn a lot of potential newcomers away. This would also allow the scenarios, which at time of writing is only Gates of Ekrund, to feel more like actual fights, especially when all classes will have their full T1 abilities available to them. I would however suggest not to balance based around the T1 meta as once development gets further along these small changes in T1 could vastly affect how T2 onwards plays.
Secondly start fixing Nordland and Norsca, as the later patches from Mythic made all new players start out within these two zones I would suggest starting with them as well. While it is nice to have alternative choices and being able to jump between the three starter zones is nice, having the starter zone in its best shape can allow for newer players to build up confidence in the development of RoR and convince them to keep an active interest in the project as a whole.
To that end I would suggest half the dev team starting from the beginning of both sides, one half starting order repairs and the other on destro, and fixing each quest as you encounter them along the roads. For those quests that cannot yet be completed as their respective end zones have not yet been implemented I would suggest marking them with a red exclamation mark so players will be aware of what quests can even be completed. Once these quests, and public quests are finished you can move on to fix greenskin v dwarves or high elf v dark elf.
Thirdly I would fix up renown so that it follows the old WAR style before the shutdown, I debated on if this should be second or third on my list but I feel getting the zones completed should be a higher priority and then allowing for fixes to renown to come afterwards.
Again these are just my opinion on the matter and the development team can do whatever they like, I just personally think this would be the best order to tackle some of the issues in to give a more polished alpha and attract more potential coders/designers to the project. Also any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Firstly focus on fixing all the classes, this I feel should be number one because the classes are at the core of the game, so having so many classes that have bugs or missing mechanics that hinder the base gameplay can turn a lot of potential newcomers away. This would also allow the scenarios, which at time of writing is only Gates of Ekrund, to feel more like actual fights, especially when all classes will have their full T1 abilities available to them. I would however suggest not to balance based around the T1 meta as once development gets further along these small changes in T1 could vastly affect how T2 onwards plays.
Secondly start fixing Nordland and Norsca, as the later patches from Mythic made all new players start out within these two zones I would suggest starting with them as well. While it is nice to have alternative choices and being able to jump between the three starter zones is nice, having the starter zone in its best shape can allow for newer players to build up confidence in the development of RoR and convince them to keep an active interest in the project as a whole.
To that end I would suggest half the dev team starting from the beginning of both sides, one half starting order repairs and the other on destro, and fixing each quest as you encounter them along the roads. For those quests that cannot yet be completed as their respective end zones have not yet been implemented I would suggest marking them with a red exclamation mark so players will be aware of what quests can even be completed. Once these quests, and public quests are finished you can move on to fix greenskin v dwarves or high elf v dark elf.
Thirdly I would fix up renown so that it follows the old WAR style before the shutdown, I debated on if this should be second or third on my list but I feel getting the zones completed should be a higher priority and then allowing for fixes to renown to come afterwards.
Again these are just my opinion on the matter and the development team can do whatever they like, I just personally think this would be the best order to tackle some of the issues in to give a more polished alpha and attract more potential coders/designers to the project. Also any feedback would be greatly appreciated.