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Make UnderLight Great Again

This is a game for roleplayers. We want your ideas how how to build the better game. Post your suggestions here.
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Koi-Wish
Founder
Posts: 309
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 3:51 pm

Make UnderLight Great Again

Post by Koi-Wish »

Not to steal anyone's political campaign but hey if it worked for that guy, I can certainly try to steal its thunder and see what we get. ( This is in no way a political thumbs up or thumbs down for any one )

UnderLight v.3 has surpassed year #2 back in September. And technically as a project all together we are nearing our 3rd year having started "Clash of Dreams" in January of 2014 as merely a post on the EoC forums.

Here we are - we have a great GM team, I am very pleased with the team we have, some are creeping up on their two year anniversary themselves. I can't thank them enough for the day to day stuff they provide for you folks in the City.

Our Dev team has dramatically changed over this past year. James Hite was just finally believing in who we were and was excited about coding for UL again and being on a team who knew what was up. Sadly he passed away before he could even enjoy the advancements he helped code. Koi-Spark was a tremendous asset for a number of years, a very tried and true old school ULer trying to hold onto the City and the core of what made UL popular in the 90s. Unfortunately that caused lots of clashing between today's ULers and yesterdays and he sadly has moved on to other things. We added some new faces and are looking forward to what we can do in the upcoming year.

With that being said, 2017 is around the corner. This will be UnderLights 20th year overall online as an MMORPG! I would love to get us to a point where we have a strong population again. We have a small core base of dreamers that keep the City very alive and dreamers who sporadically come and go based on IRL demands or IC events that hold their attention.

I would love to increase that number by double, I would love to see real, legit new players in our City as well. Give me your opinions on what we need to do to make UnderLight 2017 one of the best years if not the best year the City has ever known!

My personal thoughts:
Some of the Dev/GM are reviewing new player experience and how to clean this up to attract and keep players.
Orbit 30 to start (or maybe even higher) - Todays gamers are all about NOW. We didn't have a choice when we started, todays gamers do (its called other games) - give them a chance to be competitive day 1, and then teach them to RP.
Pin up flyers in your local game shops.
Market to TableTop RP websites. This is more us then the MMO's the rest of the world plays.
Wolfgar
Dreamer
Posts: 59
Joined: Mon May 18, 2015 2:05 pm

Re: Make UnderLight Great Again

Post by Wolfgar »

Thoughts of an unsocial player:

In light of "giving" spheres, why not make the first few more self guided through a message board scenario. Structure it not based on traditional learning, but on task based learning. I haven't been newly in...well, a very long time, but with the large amount of time away I have been a born again newly many times in 20 years. Sometimes I think we focus on the story and lose the mechanics. If you make the first few spheres easy to attain by doing simple things that can be done alone it would be better than just giving them. First sphere may simply be gathering ten essences and ten items. If the newly opts to interact with another higher sphere dreamer that takes about ten minutes to achieve, but they don't have to. As you move from first to second to third you gradually evolve them into working with teachers to gain more traditional tasks.

With a limited player base I just believe low sphere need to be able to be achieved independent. Plus is allows for the secondary characters of veteran players to grow very rapidly and be able to interact more in an RP environment. Perhaps for the first three sphere the core arts all rise as you sphere versus independently. Less tasking and more exploring/roleplaying would seem to be the answer for the first few spheres in my mind.

I am not sure we hold the mechanics to achieve it, but if you set a universal standard of what needs to be done for the first few, you could utilize teachers. Create an art of First Sphere for all teachers, so when the newly shows up with the items needed in the above example they simply sphere them, raising all the arts and sphere. Not quite automated, but if I was brand new and gathered my items, then only had to find anyone with a sparkly headband that is reasonable.

I think giving them three to start doesn't work because now their first experience with growing will be more difficult. Give them easy steps to get the first three or four or whatever makes sense based on current population. I know that personally I would run another character for a specific role play if it was possible to level them quicker to a usable point. Each secondary/temporary character has the ability to add depth to the community too. And with the current nature of people returning it would allow for you to level that secondary quickly enough that nobody would know you were new, and allow for more roleplaying options.

Just my two cents worth along with a congratulations on the 20 year mark. When Cupid showed up the other night and mentioned 20 years I thought he was crazy, but now I just feel olde.....*chuckles*

--Wolfgar
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