My Observations (Very Lengthy!)
Posted: 11 Jul 2008, 21:12
The Mana World
Observations and Advice for Future Development
While many of you may not know me, as I am not active on the forums, many others may have an idea of who I am by seeing me on the game. In any case, in my rather brief time here playing The Mana World, I have noticed some key issues and problems which, in m opinion, must be resolved in order for this project to move forward completely, and not relapse into the situation it is currently in. While this post is rather long, I suggest to all that you read it, and “listen†to what I am saying. Please don’t discard it as the ramblings of a newcomer.
Main Content
The first issue, and perhaps the most important issue, is something which can be developed and tested right now. This is the games main content, the developed content. Currently, game play is somewhat fun, for awhile, but due to a large imbalance in the economy, which I am informed was caused by a hacker pouring at least 600 million GP into it, obviously leaves fun to be desired once you get past level 30. Were it not for the wonderful community the staff seems to take for granted, you may not have anyone to test “The Mana World.â€ÂÂ
Currently, new content is coming, or so I have heard, and apparently this has been a long time coming. I am unsure as to why it has apparently taken so long to release, and I’m doubtful there has been any good reason for it but slow development. This will be good for testing, however with the plan I have heard will be enacted in the near future, I fail to see what this new content will accomplish but satisfy upper level members.
The current plan I have heard from the staff is that a complete account wipe will occur. I am not sure exactly how complete it will be, but this will also be accompanied by a complete redo of all in game content. While I admit, this in part may help fix the problem, if the content is still unbalanced, as it is now, the staff will not know until much later after the restart. This will mean they will have to enact this plan over and over, making many players angry, and causing many to leave.
Sure, staff may say this is only a pre-alpha development stage, but you still need players to test your development. A player base of 100-200 is much better than a player base of 20. There is a much better solution to fixing in game content than countless account reset and mere “guessing†that you have balanced the games content. What is this solution? Test in the current situation. While you will still have an economical imbalance, if your new “balanced†content fixes game play for new members, then you KNOW you are on the right track. A blind test could reveal that you did the complete opposite of what you hoped to accomplish, and now you’ll have a worse game with unhappy players. No the most willing community to help anymore now is it?
In short, staff, you must let the community be your eyes and ears when it comes to things they want. Development may be slow, but you need to be motivated. If you are unmotivated, it will reflect in your content and will reflect in the attitude of the players. If you do not have passion for this game, if you cannot see the bigger picture, if you do not care about the opinions of others who test more actively and avidly than you, how can you ever expect for TMW to succeed?
Graphics and Mapping
Graphics are a large part of game play, and can greatly influence whether someone will play a game or not. These graphics you start with form a core of game play that is very difficult to go back and fix. Being a free community project, you will always encounter problems with graphics, but some can be fixed at their roots. Right now, sprites and monsters see great. Generally all have very similar form and style, and this is wonderful, however tiles are not as great.
Currently, there are many people working on tiles, and with the base tiles, such as the general land tiles, they are in great sync with each other, however, when more detailed tiles are done, the style differences become painfully obvious to all. Tiles right now are viewed as “oh, well you did a good job†and not “well, did you try to match a general style so our game will have continuity in the end.†The reviewers are obviously other pixel artists who judge based on the criteria of good pixel art, not of a general game-style.
I suggest that staff meet and form an overview committee of staff and community members, who would review tiles and make sure they all match or are very close to being the same style. This will help the game look whole and continuous from place to place, versus thinking you walked into a completely new game from land to land. It is important to fix discontinuity now, before developed has become so heavy that changing this would be too difficult to implement.
Of course, the lack of enthusiasm from some of the graphics artists does not help. I have heard some say it would take them 10 minutes to finish, but they just don’t feel like it. These same people also find the game boring and wonder why people play it. I am sure this only adds to the lack of morale that plagues graphics developers, and this would be solved by the content development being improved. It is a symbiotic relationship in which both graphics and content must work together more closely, making sure everything fits together like a puzzle, versus how it is now where you kind of just gather what you see and try to make something out of it.
This graphics problem also plagues the mappers, or if it doesn’t, it should. If you go to overview of any map now, you will see one thing; literally. Bland, repetitious, uninteresting, similar landscapes filed with emptiness and lots of monsters. While having a lot of monsters and plenty of space is good for an online game who expects to have many players, it is not impossible to make good maps which follow realism in their design that allow for this space. Right now the maps are so boring I could be put to sleep just staring at them. This is something that needs to be addressed to the graphics developers. They need to develop many side-items and spicy things that can be added to make maps more interesting: grass growing through cracks in a cave, a vent in a wall, more flowers or patches of overgrown grass for grassy areas. There are many things that could be done, that aren’t. Right now its either an empty save with lots of bats, a wooded area with a boring square road and lots of repetition, or an empty desert with too much emptiness. Beautiful does not mean cluttered, but functional does not mean empty! I urge mappers, community, and staff, to scrutinize maps more carefully and KNOCK OUT THIS CYCLE! Maps, along with graphics, should undergo the foremost observation and scrutiny before being accepted as part of the game. Right now, TMW seems so desperate for this kind of content that it will take anything, not looking for these key flaws, and letting sub-par content be added.
Code
Code, of course the foremost thing on the minds of many, as TMServ is the main concern of the programmers. It is sad that this concern is something many players feel will never see the light of day. With this in mind, I must urge the programmers to, while still developing TMServ, PLEASE pay some attention to the current eAthena server! This is where content is being tested and you MUST do everything you can to ensure that the test environment not be contaminated by hacked GP or botting players. There are simply security fixes that would not take more than maybe an hour to add, and nothing is done! While programming is an important job, and you want to develop TMServ, you must help the developers to fix the content. If you have a server with no good usable content ready, then TMServ will never be used to its fullest extent, yet if you can help the developers have an environment where testing can go unhindered by outside forces, you will be doing them a great service. They will be able to have content ready for moving to TMServ, content that will hopefully be up to par, and greater than that even! They cannot do this along though. You must not forget that testing for the content which TMServ shall house is on eAthena. You must not forget that this is where your community is at the moment. Pay them some attention, or you may regret it when the time comes.
Conclusion
In conclusion, TMW staff and community, I hope that you can walk away from reading this rather lengthy message with some ideas of how to better this game and fix some things NOW before you are in too deep later. I am sure this will get mixed reviews. A “we’ve heard it before†or “we’re already doing this†from the staff or “go away you n00b!†and those are fine, but take a step back and see if any of that is really true. Is the staff LISTENING or simply HEARING? Is the community thriving, or surviving on the backs of those willing to help and motivate? Community needs the staff as much as the staff needs to community. Please take heed, and do something. TMW has great potential, and it’d be a sad day to see it all ruined because of some mistake that could have been avoided and fixed now.
Observations and Advice for Future Development
While many of you may not know me, as I am not active on the forums, many others may have an idea of who I am by seeing me on the game. In any case, in my rather brief time here playing The Mana World, I have noticed some key issues and problems which, in m opinion, must be resolved in order for this project to move forward completely, and not relapse into the situation it is currently in. While this post is rather long, I suggest to all that you read it, and “listen†to what I am saying. Please don’t discard it as the ramblings of a newcomer.
Main Content
The first issue, and perhaps the most important issue, is something which can be developed and tested right now. This is the games main content, the developed content. Currently, game play is somewhat fun, for awhile, but due to a large imbalance in the economy, which I am informed was caused by a hacker pouring at least 600 million GP into it, obviously leaves fun to be desired once you get past level 30. Were it not for the wonderful community the staff seems to take for granted, you may not have anyone to test “The Mana World.â€ÂÂ
Currently, new content is coming, or so I have heard, and apparently this has been a long time coming. I am unsure as to why it has apparently taken so long to release, and I’m doubtful there has been any good reason for it but slow development. This will be good for testing, however with the plan I have heard will be enacted in the near future, I fail to see what this new content will accomplish but satisfy upper level members.
The current plan I have heard from the staff is that a complete account wipe will occur. I am not sure exactly how complete it will be, but this will also be accompanied by a complete redo of all in game content. While I admit, this in part may help fix the problem, if the content is still unbalanced, as it is now, the staff will not know until much later after the restart. This will mean they will have to enact this plan over and over, making many players angry, and causing many to leave.
Sure, staff may say this is only a pre-alpha development stage, but you still need players to test your development. A player base of 100-200 is much better than a player base of 20. There is a much better solution to fixing in game content than countless account reset and mere “guessing†that you have balanced the games content. What is this solution? Test in the current situation. While you will still have an economical imbalance, if your new “balanced†content fixes game play for new members, then you KNOW you are on the right track. A blind test could reveal that you did the complete opposite of what you hoped to accomplish, and now you’ll have a worse game with unhappy players. No the most willing community to help anymore now is it?
In short, staff, you must let the community be your eyes and ears when it comes to things they want. Development may be slow, but you need to be motivated. If you are unmotivated, it will reflect in your content and will reflect in the attitude of the players. If you do not have passion for this game, if you cannot see the bigger picture, if you do not care about the opinions of others who test more actively and avidly than you, how can you ever expect for TMW to succeed?
Graphics and Mapping
Graphics are a large part of game play, and can greatly influence whether someone will play a game or not. These graphics you start with form a core of game play that is very difficult to go back and fix. Being a free community project, you will always encounter problems with graphics, but some can be fixed at their roots. Right now, sprites and monsters see great. Generally all have very similar form and style, and this is wonderful, however tiles are not as great.
Currently, there are many people working on tiles, and with the base tiles, such as the general land tiles, they are in great sync with each other, however, when more detailed tiles are done, the style differences become painfully obvious to all. Tiles right now are viewed as “oh, well you did a good job†and not “well, did you try to match a general style so our game will have continuity in the end.†The reviewers are obviously other pixel artists who judge based on the criteria of good pixel art, not of a general game-style.
I suggest that staff meet and form an overview committee of staff and community members, who would review tiles and make sure they all match or are very close to being the same style. This will help the game look whole and continuous from place to place, versus thinking you walked into a completely new game from land to land. It is important to fix discontinuity now, before developed has become so heavy that changing this would be too difficult to implement.
Of course, the lack of enthusiasm from some of the graphics artists does not help. I have heard some say it would take them 10 minutes to finish, but they just don’t feel like it. These same people also find the game boring and wonder why people play it. I am sure this only adds to the lack of morale that plagues graphics developers, and this would be solved by the content development being improved. It is a symbiotic relationship in which both graphics and content must work together more closely, making sure everything fits together like a puzzle, versus how it is now where you kind of just gather what you see and try to make something out of it.
This graphics problem also plagues the mappers, or if it doesn’t, it should. If you go to overview of any map now, you will see one thing; literally. Bland, repetitious, uninteresting, similar landscapes filed with emptiness and lots of monsters. While having a lot of monsters and plenty of space is good for an online game who expects to have many players, it is not impossible to make good maps which follow realism in their design that allow for this space. Right now the maps are so boring I could be put to sleep just staring at them. This is something that needs to be addressed to the graphics developers. They need to develop many side-items and spicy things that can be added to make maps more interesting: grass growing through cracks in a cave, a vent in a wall, more flowers or patches of overgrown grass for grassy areas. There are many things that could be done, that aren’t. Right now its either an empty save with lots of bats, a wooded area with a boring square road and lots of repetition, or an empty desert with too much emptiness. Beautiful does not mean cluttered, but functional does not mean empty! I urge mappers, community, and staff, to scrutinize maps more carefully and KNOCK OUT THIS CYCLE! Maps, along with graphics, should undergo the foremost observation and scrutiny before being accepted as part of the game. Right now, TMW seems so desperate for this kind of content that it will take anything, not looking for these key flaws, and letting sub-par content be added.
Code
Code, of course the foremost thing on the minds of many, as TMServ is the main concern of the programmers. It is sad that this concern is something many players feel will never see the light of day. With this in mind, I must urge the programmers to, while still developing TMServ, PLEASE pay some attention to the current eAthena server! This is where content is being tested and you MUST do everything you can to ensure that the test environment not be contaminated by hacked GP or botting players. There are simply security fixes that would not take more than maybe an hour to add, and nothing is done! While programming is an important job, and you want to develop TMServ, you must help the developers to fix the content. If you have a server with no good usable content ready, then TMServ will never be used to its fullest extent, yet if you can help the developers have an environment where testing can go unhindered by outside forces, you will be doing them a great service. They will be able to have content ready for moving to TMServ, content that will hopefully be up to par, and greater than that even! They cannot do this along though. You must not forget that testing for the content which TMServ shall house is on eAthena. You must not forget that this is where your community is at the moment. Pay them some attention, or you may regret it when the time comes.
Conclusion
In conclusion, TMW staff and community, I hope that you can walk away from reading this rather lengthy message with some ideas of how to better this game and fix some things NOW before you are in too deep later. I am sure this will get mixed reviews. A “we’ve heard it before†or “we’re already doing this†from the staff or “go away you n00b!†and those are fine, but take a step back and see if any of that is really true. Is the staff LISTENING or simply HEARING? Is the community thriving, or surviving on the backs of those willing to help and motivate? Community needs the staff as much as the staff needs to community. Please take heed, and do something. TMW has great potential, and it’d be a sad day to see it all ruined because of some mistake that could have been avoided and fixed now.