Dark Map ( Zem Free )
I know this has been proposed before, but at this point in the game things are incredibly stale. There are 20 or so god like accounts that get passed around to various people, new players come in every once in awhile but anyone who did not start 5 years ago has very little chance to catch up. Every year it gets harder and harder for newer players to get EK's and there's almost no excitement or risk for god like players with 5000c worth of gear.
Details
New map that does not allow Zems to be used, there will be a few high value creatures here but nothing too crazy and possibly an NPC that can give out slightly better quests.
Possible Map Details
- Creatures: 4 to 5 Unicorn Spawns, 1 Wyvern spawn, a few frost spawns?
- Quest NPC: Some kind of NPC at the back of the map that has various daily quests that are better than other NPC's. These may be easier quests for higher pay so its worth trying to get to him daily for some easy points.
- New Cape: Cape based on EKs in the map or NPC quest points maybe?
- Entering the map: To prevent people from camping it could be worthwhile to have 3 or 4 spawn locations or some other mechanism to prevent people from camping at the entrances.
Benefits to newer player
- If your starting on the Olympia right now its probably 10x harder to get EKs as it was 5 years ago. Players are so geared up the amount of skill it takes to get an EK on some one is extremely difficult. This provides a place where many players will opt to come in with DK gear leveling the playing field for many.
- It is likely that players will start coming into this map with a combination of DK gear + mid tier items to get a competitive edge. When these items are dropped it will help with item distribution giving some players a chance to get better items.
Benefits to older players
- Older players who have 5000c worth of items are likely board, they rarely die, there is zero risk aslong as they do not forget a zem and they have everything the game can offer. This could be a new frontier that brings back older players who got bored of the game. High risk / high reward, they can feel more alive in this map knowing they can risk going in with all their gear, cleaning up 10 EK's of people in DK items but risk losing something good. This could be a really fun "YOLO" moment for a lot of legacy players that could help mix up the item wealth a bit.
- Its worth implementing some kind of trophy for players who come in here and risk a lot, some kind of black cape for anyone who gets 500 ek's and an achievement for some one who loses an epic item in the map.
How it effects the overall game
- This will potentially shake up the meta and make new builds around DK items or mid tier items that were previously not worth investing in. The same way we have promise land builds we may have build specifically for this map.
- This brings some hope to new players and could spark interest in people who have left the game out of boredom.
Possible Downside
- Dead Map: The biggest downside is no one uses the map at all.
- Guild Run: The other big downside is that a big group of 20 or so people completely geared up come in and can run the map completely taking away much of the risk. However again high risk high reward, a larger guild from the other city could come in and try to clean up and get some good items fighting them.
This is one of the better ideas i've seen put forward. As a newer player myself i agree and support you 100%.
PvP is so off balance for new folks right now that i have no interest in it at this time and probably wont for a while.