Idea for an experimental server

Unkempt Foliage

So this has nothing to do with alpha, or even a the distant future beta, just a potentially fun idea I had. I don't think Intrepid would actually end up doing this since it move away from the MMO genre as a lifetime game, but I'm still curious what other people think about it.

What if one experimental server had a timed reset on it? The server resets once a year. All characters are wiped but you get a tombstone, an urn, or something in remembrance of you character that you can use to decorate your next house after the reset.

This gives new players or players who missed launch a chance to experience the world when it was empty at launch. The new world will develop newer than the last one. And does a power reset.

Now people might get bored towards the end of the server life just before the reset. They would feel there work would be useless since its just going to be reset anyways. They would need something to work towards like a crafting a mausoleum for their guild that would appear in one of the new worlds metros graveyard or something.

Would that be something anyone else would be interested in?

Azherae

Unkempt Foliage wrote: »

So this has nothing to do with alpha, or even a the distant future beta, just a potentially fun idea I had. I don't think Intrepid would actually end up doing this since it move away from the MMO genre as a lifetime game, but I'm still curious what other people think about it.

What if one experimental server had a timed reset on it? The server resets once a year. All characters are wiped but you get a tombstone, an urn, or something in remembrance of you character that you can use to decorate your next house after the reset.

This gives new players or players who missed launch a chance to experience the world when it was empty at launch. The new world will develop newer than the last one. And does a power reset.

Now people might get bored towards the end of the server life just before the reset. They would feel there work would be useless since its just going to be reset anyways. They would need something to work towards like a crafting a mausoleum for their guild that would appear in one of the new worlds metros graveyard or something.

Would that be something anyone else would be interested in?

If the game does well enough for this to be a serious thing, maybe it could be a little different within the same idea.

Every year, each region gets one new server.

This is pointless if you considered the mausoleum part important, of course.

But if they made a big enough deal 'marketing wise' about 'new server, experience a fresh new version of Verra' and all that, maybe old players would make enough alts on that server to join the new players, for it to be good.

And if they wouldn't, then it doesn't seem likely that the yearly resetting server would serve much purpose other than creating a 'race for top content' amidst a few people.

I think newer players might be more interested in joining a fresh server if they knew that they could keep it, and unlike other older games where you could usually 'just server transfer at the end of a server like this', Ashes is about building up actual tangible places via your community, so just 'moving to another server where none of that exists' seems like it might be insufficiently appealing to draw a larger crowd?

I am consistently surprised by human motivations though, so I'll hope to learn something in this thread too.

HazardNumberSeven

A year seems like a very short timeframe for a sandbox MMO. A big part of MMOs is watching the server/world develop over years, and eventually decades. I don't think wiping will be popular with MMO fans, and it tends to be something failed MMOs fall back on as a crutch once their game becomes cluttered with bad game design forced in by marketing teams, as a way to just milk players for more playtime (and therefor money).

But that's just my opinion. Personally I am looking for a game to play for a very long time, and would have no interest at all in wipes or restarts.

SunScript

I would start by asking "why?" and I am asking genuinely. What is the desire behind it?

If the wish behind it is to experience what it was like during the time when the world was fresh and just being colonized, this could be controlled via population numbers on servers relative to node numbers. I mean, you're obviously gonna get big cities, centers of commerce etc, but you're also going to get 'the borderlands', the wilderness, areas at the edge of civilization where nodes aren't even crossroads yet. If you make sure nodes have a minor decay rate if left unattended and you control how many people there are per server, you will probably always have 'the borderlands' where anyone can experience that fresh start feeling.

If this is simply a desire for competition in the sense of starting over from a level playing field, I think one could do something less drastic than a new server. You could have periodic "war camps" spawning to fight the Corruption in particularly bad areas. You could join these and your level in them would be separate from the rest of the game. You'd get a few different small camps that you competed over to get them to have the architecture you want while you do corruption related content. And after a time, the war camp "moves on" (that is to say, you get a reset).

However, if the wish is to be able to experience the world with your high level friends and not feel like you got left behind by joining late, or allow high level people to relive their nostalgia of earlier days (or test their skills again), then this is my chance to suggest we get level capping into the game! Being a level 90 player who can level cap to 40 to join their friends for a dungeon they love sounds like a lot of fun and it seems like it would help with some of the feeling of missing out if you join later.
In fact, regardless of anything else, pls give us this Intrepid! I want to experience your cool content again! (without being overleveled)

Enigmatic Sage

you are referring to a classic server as a way to experience vanilla AoC again by calling it an experimental server.

If the game changes that much in the first year before its first potential expansion that people will flock to and desire a 1.0.0 server, then intrepid fucked up.

lol

Not saying it's a bad idea, I just dont see why it would be 1 year considering most expansions are usually around the 2 year mark. It's kind of planning for failure by upsetting a community too much.

Neat idea though!

Dygz

Why not just open a brand new server?

Unkempt Foliage

They can't constantly open new servers. They would need unlimited new players to do that. Merging half dead servers to open a new one, I don't think is possible, since worlds develop different and one server's city/metro layout will be different from another.

It's always the most fun when you have a large group of players in the same area and the resets would force everyone into the same area. And the beginning when the world is empty is only something you can experience once and only at launch. So if you enjoy that part of the game, or if you missed it entirely, it's never going to be recaptured again.

I knew Diablo-esque type seasons would be unpopular though. But since I'm a altaholic, and I always enjoy leveling up, I thought a few other people might like the idea as well. Doesn't look like it though.

Dygz

Node destruction already is a reset.
You could also experience beginning of the world if they start a new server each year.
The game is either popular enough for that or it's not.

Unkempt Foliage

But the world isn't empty and you don't get to see journey of how a world developed naturally from nothing. It's a different game genre but I play Civilization a lot (pretty badly).

One of the things I love about a Civ game is seeing how country borders develop in an empty world on each map. It's not the same as AoC borders but I'm betting its something that I will really enjoy about AoC. Seeing where people choose to go in a empty world, seeing how it develops, and the journey from nothingness. Something that can only be expereinced once.

Dygz

It's a different game genre. Yes.

HumblePuffin

I assume you’re talking about something like what WoW private servers do? There is definitely a section of the population that enjoy things like that so I wouldn’t give up on your thought so easily. I personally would enjoy it eventually down the line to capture those fresh first steps into the world but I definitely don’t think it’s something that I would start on. From my perspective it’s more of a novelty, and I would prefer the permanence of my main character.

It would be pretty interesting too since there’s no treadmill like WoW where you can figure out the optimal path to the end. I don’t know if that would deter or bring more people to the idea who enjoy this play style.