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darkmaverick
Posted on: Mar 5 2024, 02:43 PM


Oh san
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Group: Nobles
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Joined: 4-July 06
Member No.: 90


I played DarkMaverik, and many years ago I used to be a fairly well known player in the community involved with the Chongun subpath and several other things.

Not many people knew that I also helped behind the scenes for a time, designing content and organizing Dreams board requests for implementation into the game. I was never an official Archon however, partly due to some in-game politics at the time (that is, lots of other influential players in the game did not like me / viewed me as competition).

Anyway. My brother came across some archives of work I had done and conversations I had with GM mug over AIM while I was designing content for Nexus related to events, San san release and the RP town project. I've decided to release this documents publicly for Nexus historians to get an otherwise little seen side of the game. I think some of the things I was talking with mug about reveal a lot about the state of the game at the time.

https://careymartell.com/wp-content/uploads...k-work-2008.zip

There is also proof here in some of the screenshots, for example I used the event character Hawkmori who would later kill a royal as part of an event. Part of my duties was to play Hawkmori to make him seem like a normal player who had joined the Nagnang Army as part of his infiltration of the group. There are also some screenshots from Nexus test server map where I was helping test Sa san trials content, and something called the Forest of the Elders which was put in the game but I don't think the full event for it (at least as I envisioned) was released, which was to recreate the original 1.0 subpath circles and have a variety of quests to do there.

  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121908 · Replies: 1 · Views: 145

darkmaverick
Posted on: Mar 5 2024, 01:31 PM


Oh san
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Group: Nobles
Posts: 4,644
Joined: 4-July 06
Member No.: 90


I was browsing on the online version of Community board a few months ago and someone was asking for help creating a timeline of the events in NexusTK's past history.

Several years ago, like way back in 2008, I contributed a ton of this information to a Nexus wiki project so that this info wouldn't be lost. But I couldn't find the info easily as searching on Google the wiki wasnt coming up.

My brother recently discovered some of my old NexusTK files (work I had done on the game) and in one of these files was a link to the wiki.

It seems the structure of this wiki has greatly changed over time, and I cant find the timeline events page anymore but there are a number of articles still remaining I contributed to, some including screenshots of the events in question.

I would strongly recommend anyone who cares about preserving this history to make copies of these articles and the featured screenshots, if they still exist. I have no idea who owns the iwki, it seems not well cared for and could be gone any day.

For many of the events, all I did was copy and paste the DreamWeaver posts, and sometimes other info contributed from memory. The important thing is dates of event release are included in these articles. I also wrote some detailed pages about important characters in storylines as well.

Here are some useful links,

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/Category:Game_Development_Events

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/Storyline_event

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/ChiZao

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Four_Directions

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/JaydePhoenix_and_the_Sea_Nymph

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/Category:Villains

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/Category:Legends

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/Category:Deities

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/Category:Undead_Characters

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/Category:Event_Characters

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/Remembrance_Fans_event

https://nexuswiki.com/wiki/Category:Legendary_Weapons

Again I would strongly recommend copying all this data if you want to preserve it. I don't have copies of these articles anymore and all of the screenshots. I also admittedly do not remember all the details anymore and would be impossible for me to recreate these assets.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121907 · Replies: 1 · Views: 53

darkmaverick
Posted on: Oct 7 2019, 10:32 PM


Oh san
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Joined: 4-July 06
Member No.: 90


The game population aen't growing. It's still around 200 active players.

My guess? The Archons have decided the way to get the community growing again is to encourage more clans, even though there isn't even enough players of the game to meet the current quota requirements and people are using alts to meet the quotas. And the reality is, 200 active paying customers for a $9.99 a month game is nothing and I have strong doubts the cash shop is making tens of thousands a month.

I'm sure some of them are reading this, because there is so very little going on with this game. This is my message to you guys.

If you want the game to grow, tell Wony to sell NexusTK to another studio that can properly run it. Or at least someone that has the passion to run it.

I don't run a games studio right now, but I do develop online software. I have the knowledge and resources to scale NTK. At the right price I might be willing to acquire it. But my interest is waning. The truth is the game engine is old and severely outdated, he has a complex licensing relationship with NEXON and he's chased away 99% of everyone who was passionate about the game with the way he's handled it. If it were not for me knowing precisely what needs to be done to address the gameplay issues and having a firm understanding of how to market games from my experience running a gaming YouTube MCN, I wouldn't even consider it at all.

The reality is, KRU needs to put up an 'under new management' sign if it wants to get its lost customers back. Nostalgia isn't good enough, because all the stuff people were nostalgic for is basically gone and replaced by inferior experience. Wony doesn't even know what was good about the game. He never played his own game. He never liked his own game. That's why he doesn't know how to fix it.

I've largely accepted it isn't going to happen though. I'm breaking ground on a commercial RPG game written in Unity for multiple platforms and using a proper engineer and art team later this month to release on Steam & mobile, and just work my way up to building the reputation to launch an MMO of my own design in a few years.

NTK won't scale anymore until it's under new management who understand how to scale it. There's several players who have demonstrated they know how to make the game more fun and build cool features that are liked, and how to recover the nostalgia factor. But I don't think there are many other people with the interest in NTK who know how to make it fun and also know how to turn it into a scalable business.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121858 · Replies: 2 · Views: 14,053

darkmaverick
Posted on: Jul 7 2019, 10:34 AM


Oh san
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Group: Nobles
Posts: 4,644
Joined: 4-July 06
Member No.: 90


QUOTE (Brant @ Jun 28 2019, 05:01 PM) *
Given how KRU treats TK like a daycare, I'm surprised they don't verify the websites they link to on their page:


Ironically I'm pretty sure that is an accurate representation of the Diviner path
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121852 · Replies: 29 · Views: 14,851

darkmaverick
Posted on: Jul 7 2019, 10:33 AM


Oh san
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Group: Nobles
Posts: 4,644
Joined: 4-July 06
Member No.: 90


QUOTE (Xing-Yu Seong @ Jun 28 2019, 10:36 AM) *
Are you talking about Nexus Network? I know there are some cached pages for the site hanging around on Angelfire and Wayback. Good times, though.

As for the answer to original question - Yeah, that seems vaguely familiar now. Thanks.


Yeah think so, Nexus Network. Good times indeed.

Np.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121851 · Replies: 29 · Views: 14,851

darkmaverick
Posted on: Jun 27 2019, 09:11 PM


Oh san
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Group: Nobles
Posts: 4,644
Joined: 4-July 06
Member No.: 90


QUOTE (Xing-Yu Seong @ Jun 27 2019, 12:30 PM) *
I've always wondered. What was the real reason NF and NA stopped linking back to one another? I remember it was Rule 40 or whatever compliance issues, but do you still stand by the decision to not link NF back to NA?


This was back when the game still had several hundred more players than it does today, so these forums were more active and a place we all started openly criticizing NexusTK. Pretty much everyone here including Vini, was making highly critical posts.

They removed the link from NA because in response to the criticism the Archons updated the website rule so that even being critical of Archons or GMs was an infringement, and they were threatening to have the link on the NexusTK website to NA removed as well as jail people for mentioning NA in-game.

So that NA could still be shared inside NexusTK, the link to the forums was removed from the site so we could keep using it to complain.

The forums, at least as a website, are older than NA. They were originally the forums for a previous fansite, also started by TSWulf, who later left that site to create NexusAtlas (which was originally a mapping project but inevitably started featuring similar content as the old site, including news updates), which later absorbed the content of the old site.

I cannot even recall the specific name of the old fansite now to be honest though. There was an old fan wiki site for NexusTK where I spent a lot of time creating articles about the history of the game, and about a timeline of in-game and out of game events from beta to the then-present, but that wikia seems to be gone now.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121845 · Replies: 29 · Views: 14,851

darkmaverick
Posted on: Jun 24 2019, 01:39 AM


Oh san
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Group: Nobles
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Joined: 4-July 06
Member No.: 90


QUOTE (halombobtk @ Jun 15 2019, 03:53 PM) *
I guess I just don't understand why any of your patents are important 5-10 years from now, but I have no idea what goes into broadcasting live content, nor how big that market segment even is. I know sports and news are $$$, but won't they eventually retire outdated infrastructure?


Patents last 20 years in the USA.

Our dynamic broadcasting is a digital kind of broadcasting. It's not radio wave broadcasting.

Broadcasting just means "the transmission of programs or information by radio or television." So livestreaming is a type of broadcasting.

As for sports, the rights to broadcasting sport games for professional and college teams is very expensive and generally locked down in exclusivity agreements. There are some apps specializing in it right now, notably ESPN's app, but the subscription fees they charge for access don't cover the cost of licensing the games to begin with, and with limited ability to generate revenue with ads against the streams they aren't very efficient business models. I foresee many of these niche video content apps eventually shutting down as they switch to virtual multi-channel programming distributor apps like Zenither, operating channels like they traditionally have done.

The biggest problem in the space right now is everyone thinking each TV channel should be its own app, and that consumers view their smart phone screens as a channel guide. That's just not how consumers are actually behaving. Consumers do not want a dozen different apps for each type of content they watch, which have entirely different user experiences and subscription billing to manage. They just want one app they can watch anything on. Nothing exists like that right now, but Zenither has the technology to be that one app. We just need to get the content.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121839 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Jun 15 2019, 03:00 AM


Oh san
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Group: Nobles
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Member No.: 90


The goal of Zenither from a business perspective is to replace other methods of broadcasting, in particular using expensive licensed broadcast automation software to beam signals into outer space and for those feeds to be downloaded by third party multichannel programming distributors, ran through CDN (content delivery network servers) and loaded on video players loading m3u8 -- which is how Sling TV, YouTube TV, Hulu Live, etc. work. They aren't very sophisticated pieces of software, just a half step above what is in a cable box.

Even content providers who just use broadcast automation solutions to run the CDNs directly still have enormous overhead costs which make it too expensive for many content providers to be on services like Sling TV.

Our patented Dynamic TV broadcasting method is significantly cheaper method of distribution since it segments content in a way that creates efficiencies that don't exist in the other methods (for example, we don't have to record hundreds of hours of linear feeds and play them back on delay systems for each time zone we operate in, which is an enormous overhead expense in data storage) and our API allows the stations feeds to be loaded into third party apps like Sling TV synchronously, complete with meta-data information like comments appearing across all devices, platforms and apps.

Content licensing is expensive, which is why we don't have all the major channels on board, yet. But we also don't necessarily need them because there are many other content providers who cannot afford to operate channels on competitor apps but can on Zenither, and are significantly cheaper to onboard.

Basically, Sling TV at best will have hundreds of channels due to the high cost of operating a channel with their service creating economic barriers to entry for many content providers.

By contrast Zenither could potentially have tens of thousands of channels since our cost to entry is significantly lower.

Much like any new technology, the major studios and networks will embrace it once it becomes popular. The goal is to eventually be that one app where you can "watch it all", which is our trademarked slogan.

All these other apps will never be the one stop shop for all content, due to inferior technology creating barriers to entry for content providers which limits what content they have. It's one of the reasons so many content providers are trying to make their own apps, but the market can't support hundreds of TV and movie apps. It can really just support 3 or 4, at best. The vast majority of services around right now won't be around in 10 years. They'll be a consolidation into virtual multi-channel programming apps like Zenither, and whoever has the best technology for the consolidation is going to stick around. The others which are basically poor imitations of Netflix, or piggybacking on outdated broadcasting methods will not be.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121832 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Jun 13 2019, 01:57 PM


Oh san
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Member No.: 90


QUOTE (Hijack @ Jun 11 2019, 10:32 PM) *
Edit: God dammit [Content removed] it.

Good luck with zenither. I can't tell what is different about it and pluto.tv.


Some of the features Pluto doesn't have that Zenither does.

1. We have Search, so you can search for films, stations and shows.

2. You can scroll back on the channel guide timeline and watch episodes released earlier in the day without needing to DVR.

3. We have Station pages you can follow, and can be accessed by clicking on the Station logo from the channel guide timeline or by searching for them.

4. When you follow a station any newly released content will be available from the activity feed page, kind of like Facebook's activity feed page.

5. We have integrated merchandise stores for stations, so you can buy t-shirts, dvds, etc related to the show you are watching directly from the apps without leaving it.

6. We have commenting and live chat on episodes.

7. We also have a proprietary ad system that eliminates any chance of getting malware and doesn't load third party websites when you engage with the ad, instead emailing you an offer from the advertiser which you can look at later after you're done watching the program.

8. We can support scheduling of live streams into the channel guide timeline to make it easier for viewers to find live shows as they would with regular TV channels. I'm not talking about the simulcast stations here but having a channel that has a mix of prerecord and live programming. None of our stations are using this feature atm though.

9. We also have patents on all of this stuff as it pertains to our system.


Admittedly we could do a better job of explaining some of these features to our users inside the app using some indicators in the GUI the first time you load it up, instead of having the explanations on a help file accessed within the bottom menu. The indicators haven't been added yet because we're still adding some new features, and my intent was to add them later after all the features were implemented, but some of the technical challenges are taking longer to work out than expected.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121829 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Jun 11 2019, 09:09 PM


Oh san
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Group: Nobles
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Member No.: 90


QUOTE (halombobtk @ Jun 10 2019, 08:10 AM) *
I stopped reading after this. I refuse to argue with someone whose reading comprehension skills are so poor that they don't understand I'm a donating player who has nothing to do with the creation or maintenance of TKR. It's amazing how consistently you fail to comprehend what people write, then expect someone to read your messy walls of text.


Then why the heck are you so adamantly defending it then and declaring yourself the "victor" in things?

Jesus christ.

Also the whole "I stopped reading thing", pretty sure nobody believes. It's just that you don't have any good answers to the points I make. And that's okay, because I'm not expecting you to have any.

The "glory days" of NexusTK were possible due to the time period and state of competitor MMOs.

*NexusTK was the only anime inspired MMO for its time period.

*The player-ran subpaths and clans / militias created drama and rivalries.

*The PVP events in Carnages and elixers created drama and rivalries.

*The limited hunting ground rooms in mythic dungeons created drama and rivalries.

*There was a huge aspect of mystery to the game, with players trying to figure out how to complete quests like Wind armor and Staff of the Elements, which it turned out were unfinished quests that couldn't be completed until Eldridge finished them.

As better MMORPGs were released that offered better gameplay and still had opportunities for drama and rivalries to form, and goals that were actually achievable because the quests were not part implemented into the game in unfinished states, players left NexusTK for those games and other new gamers looking to get into MMOs gravitated toward the better, more popular games.

NexusTK today is arguably a better game than it was during its "glory days" since now all Warrior and Rogue paths have a rage / cunning spell, and there are more than just 12 dungeons with only 3 or 4 huntable rooms in the end-game. The cash shop items mitigate some of the dumber aspects of the game, like break on death items and having to travel to different zones to sell your XP to buy stats. But NexusTK still is nowhere near as fun to play as say Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft, or even Ragnarok Online. RO better delivers an old-school MMO experience than NexusTK does, because RO is at least balanced and well thought out. NexusTK is a mess of bad design choices.

As it stands right now substantial parts of NexusTK need to be completely redesigned to make it competitive in the market. I'd say at least half of the dungeons need to be either removed or totally redesigned, as many dungeons now just have no real purpose since the experience rewards aren't as good as other dungeons are, and some dungeons just never did have good xp rewards to begin with (Woodlands is a good example).

NexusTK, like WoW and FFXIV, needs a reboot, another Great Shift event where all the maps and dungeons get redesigned, and some of the core parts of classes are redesigned. I just don't see it occurring under Wony's management of the game. He doesn't know how to do it and he cannot afford the designers who know how to do it. I and a few other veteran players I can think of might be able to do it, but we have no incentive to do it. Most of us are more successful in other careers we've fallen into to ever want to deal with NexusTK for Wony.

It'd be easier to make a new game, a spiritual successor or sequel to NexusTK, than to fix NexusTK. It isn't just design problems but technology problems with the server and client that also need addressing, and while it certainly can be done it's a lot of work for unclear gain.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121825 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Jun 8 2019, 11:51 PM


Oh san
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It's funny how you declare yourself the winner when it's been repeatedly said by most everyone in this thread that a retro server would only appeal to a small number of people, and not enough to actually support the work that goes into running the game.

Which is exactly what happens in every single emulator server. A handful of people playing it, for abit, until [Content removed] implodes and people leave. And with you running this one I honestly can't see that pattern changing.

Reading through the forums it does seem Hijack gave the number as 5-10 but he was being flippant, not literal. His point, as was everyone else's, is that from a business perspective a retro server would not appeal to enough people to be worth the time investment into making and running it. The same amount of time you've spent setting up and admining, and creating new content for your server would be more productive spent doing a lot of other more productive things -- like making an original game with modern graphics for modern gaming operating systems.

I mean let's be really honest here halombobtk. The NexusTK client requires you to run it in Windows XP compatibility mode just to play on Windows 10. That's completely ridiculous considering Windows 10 was released almost 5 years ago, and XP was totally discontinued for Microsoft support four years ago. KRU is not running a serious game company here. The level of incompetance is spectacularly outstanding. Any critical review of NexusTK done today would be like bullying the kid in class who has Down Syndrome. It just lowers you. The fact so many of my brain cells are devoted to storing information related to NexusTK is something to be ashamed of. The only way I can justify it to myself is by using it as a case study of how not to design and run an MMO in a book I've been writing on and off over the years about game design.

There's just SO MUCH that is wrong here that it's almost like a surreal parody of how a game company should operate. If Wony came out one day and said that NexusTK has all been a long term sociology experiment to see just how much abuse customers will take from a business I would totally believe it, because that's the only way any of this [Content removed] makes any sense at all.

The only thing that these private servers have proven some posters wrong about is the idea that additional NexusTK servers would cannibalize the playerbase. That really hasn't been the case, as there has been a few hundred people still sticking to this game for some reason I can't figure out, even though my own brother is engaging in this insanity.

But what has most certainly not been proven is that a retro NexusTK server would attract a lot of people. In fact you've got about as many people on your server as in the official NexusTK server, which nearly everyone including yourself universally agrees sucks and is a failure in the market. So it's quite a contradiction you've created here declaring your server a 'success' when the same numbers make NexusTK a failure.

But we already knew this, because as I said back in 2016 Illutia was a 100% original game that was designed to mimic old school NexusTK gameplay. And it has done extremely poorly in the market.

You believed adamantly that people quit NexusTK because it wasn't as good during its early glory days, and everyone would come back if there was a retro server. Everyone in this thread doubted that would be the case, and you haven't proven otherwise.

I also made this statement in 2016 and it is still true today concerning why people don't play NexusTK, and why some people still do.

QUOTE
It isn't because some people have millions more vita than they do or because people do not sit AFK in Mythic Vale occasionally saging for a party or an item they are selling. They leave because the game is not as fun as other MMOs. It offers nothing of substantial improvement in any particular area. A lot of the people still actively playing are addicts who have serious problems in their personal lives and are avoiding reality for the feeling of elitism, power and community they get from playing the same online game for the past two decades of their life. It isn't healthy and it's certainly not an indicator that a new server is what they want.



Also....

QUOTE (halombobtk @ Jun 7 2019, 11:37 PM) *
Your game will fail. You've never made a successful game like you described when you moved the goalposts to the other end of the Earth, and never will. Why? Because making a successful game is extremely hard and takes an absurd amount of advertising dollars and/or luck. Making a F2P private server reboot of NTK that aims to get 50-100 players is very, very doable and is being proven right now.


.....it is because I know making a successful MMO game is difficult that I haven't done it. I do however in fact have around 800 pages of game system design notes, world building and such which if I wanted to turn into an MMORPG I could do.

Haven't done it, because I am too busy trying to make a different software focused business into a success ( Zenither, a TV Anywhere app ) which is as equally challenging and similarly expensive (so far $1.3M in development costs, and we'll likely spend another $4M before we can get to profitability) as developing an MMO.

I don't spend my time creating a retro NexusTK server that will barely attract 100 people to it because that's not a reasonable thing to do. That's not a productive use of my time.

What is a productive use of my time is developing a TV Anywhere app like Zenither that allows, in addition to carrying others TV channels, for me to run my own TV channels and develop my own original intellectual property into TV shows which can build audiences and eventually be adapted into other media such as videogames, and all but guarantee that hundreds of thousands of people play the games I produce in the future. That's what I've chosen to do, because it's going to lead to the end result I want. It's a longer route but it's an actual well thought out business plan which will lead to being able to make other media such as video games and effectively fund their development and conduct the marketing for them.

Your own mileage may vary.

I could probably have chosen to raise capital and fund an MMO instead of making Zenither, but if Zenither succeeds it will result in being able to have the cash flow and marketing reach to make an unlimited number of games. Putting all my eggs into one MMO basket seemed more risky. So I chose this route instead.

It may very well be that because of the route I chose I will be in a position to purchase KRU when it finally goes on the market, which I think one day is bound to eventually occur. Even if the games are old and the playerbase practically non-existent, it still has some IP value and years of customer information data which could be useful for marketing other games. If the price was reasonable I might buy the company just for the customer data list alone. But as the NexusTK vets still playing the game die IRL and the technology stack doesn't stay relevant to today's operating systems, the opportunity to turn NexusTK around into a MapleStory level of success decreases rapidly. It seems to me a spiritual successor to the game is what will need to be created, if not an outright properly licensed sequel. With sufficient funding it probably wouldn't be too difficult to convince NEXON to license the Baram name to a sequel MMO engine developed by a third party game studio.

It does seem NEXON has somewhat done this already with a mobile MMO game, Baram: Yeon developed by a third party studio called Supercat under license from NEXON. So it's not out of the question.

  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121823 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Jun 7 2019, 07:27 PM


Oh san
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Group: Nobles
Posts: 4,644
Joined: 4-July 06
Member No.: 90


QUOTE (halombobtk @ Jun 7 2019, 09:17 AM) *
No one would play the game you're describing.


Literally millions of people play other MMOs.

More people play freakin Terraria than NexusTK.

Hell, more people played Mafia Wars on Facebook than have ever played NexusTK.

I'm sure more people have played Graal Online than NexusTK.

Just as more people have played Ragnarok Online than NexusTK. And are playing right now.


Make an original game using current gen game making technology for current operating systems. It's bound to be more popular than NexusTK, and especially more popular than a NexusTK private server.

I mean jesus christ man. You think 100 people playing an MMO is some kind of big deal. Every garbage low effort game on Steam has at least 100 people play it. This is no benchmark of success.

Let us know when you get 100,000 players.

Or, you know, try some of these other MMOs you don't think exist. You'll probably realize why people left NexusTK and aen't ever coming back.

QUOTE (Xing-Yu Seong @ Jun 7 2019, 11:41 AM) *
Nice. Not only are you gambling for digital goods, it's digital goods whose assets don't belong to you or the people who you won them from. laugh.gif

I can't even fathom the stupidity of people paying money for loot boxes, but to do it in a TK private server? Just... LOL

I like watching people double-down on their stupid. Feels good, man.


Yeah that sure is double stupid.

I mean it's dumb enough to still be shoveling money into NexusTK. But to do it in a private server for NexusTK when every server eventually implodes under drama is an extra stupid thing to do.

With a lot of elbow grease, thoughtful design input and effort NexusTK could be great for the current era. But it aen't going to happen until Wony isn't running the show anymore. So it probably will never happen.

You're better off building a spiritual successor game using current gen tech. I might someday do so.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121818 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Jun 5 2019, 11:27 PM


Oh san
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Group: Nobles
Posts: 4,644
Joined: 4-July 06
Member No.: 90


QUOTE (halombobtk @ May 27 2019, 09:24 AM) *
TKReborn, a new retro server, has 30+ people (100 concurrent logins this weekend) chomping at the bit to play despite numerous crashes. Subpaths aren't even released yet. Elixirs and carnages have higher turnouts than NTK already. Too early to declare that I was right and all of you were wrong?


Getting 30 people to download a free to play game isn't hard. The NexusTK Facebook groups have 340 to 695 people in them.

More people play freakin AdventureQuest these days than NexusTK, and I doubt that will change anytime soon because as previously stated the old school Nexus gameplay only worked in a world where lots of people had PCs that couldn't run Everquest so we played NexusTK instead.

Now a cheap smartphone can run better looking mmo games with better gameplay than NexusTK has ever had.

Instead of starting a private server for a crappy game why don't you spend a little more time and make a good game using original art assets that can run on a tablet, using a client that doesn't need to load in Windows 7 compatibility mode?

I mean just go get a cheap Hero Engine license, lock the camera up in birds eye mode and build a game that has similar gameplay as Nexus but uses 3d models and has better graphics and GUI, and actually runs on current OS.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121815 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Feb 13 2019, 11:58 PM


Oh san
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QUOTE (Qwertyer @ Dec 23 2018, 08:26 PM) *
Turns out I was permanently banned from Nexus for this post. Or maybe it was the one I posted frustrated they had billed me 60$ and refused to respond to my tickets. Oh well, add me to the list.


It's likely for the best dude, in all honesty.

I'm still surprised the same 300 something players from 2016 are still buying worthless cash shop items and paying a monthly subscription for this game.

For the same price you could be playing FF XIV, which is x100,000,000 better.

NexusTK is not going to make a resurgence. There will be nothing new added to the game except minor seasonal events to earn legend marks.

I check this forum only to see if NexusTK has shut down yet, and every time I am surprised it has not.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121804 · Replies: 29 · Views: 14,851

darkmaverick
Posted on: May 18 2018, 09:16 PM


Oh san
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lol!
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121771 · Replies: 29 · Views: 14,851

darkmaverick
Posted on: Feb 2 2018, 01:13 PM


Oh san
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Just switching on the scrolling damage numbers to the NexusTK would make it x100 more exciting and modern.

That last spell, with the traveling whirlwind of bats, would be such a kick-ass Warrior attack.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121747 · Replies: 7 · Views: 5,513

darkmaverick
Posted on: Dec 11 2017, 06:32 PM


Oh san
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The best way to get back at him is to stop playing the game. It should be clear to everyone that KRU will always be ran by Wony so long as you folks keep giving him money.

Stop giving him your money and investing your time into his games, and he'll be forced to either sell to new owners or shut down. Either outcome isn't good for him.

Literally the only way you can beat Wony is by letting Nexus die.

  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121735 · Replies: 14 · Views: 6,026

darkmaverick
Posted on: May 20 2017, 03:32 PM


Oh san
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QUOTE (Genji Works @ May 19 2017, 08:19 PM) *
If the game owners are not going to money and effort to update the game client or produce events for their paying customers. Why keep on feeding them?


This is the main reason to not play.

The current GMs can clearly script new dungeons, spells, items, and fix broken features.

Yet they waste their time on [Content removed] designed to be Kruna shop cash grabs or band-aid fixes to critically broken design flaws (ex. Ee san culture trial).

I mean how many months have they wasted on this "experience adjustment" mechanic which just doesn't need to exist if they'd fix the actual game design problems that create the player shortages to begin with? Sure they made Tangun optional now but that doesn't change the fact levels 1-99 are some of the most boring [Content removed]ing gameplay in the history of MMORPGs, especially when this game has to compete with the likes of FF XIV and WoW?

The most novel gameplay aspect NexusTK has going for it isn't subpaths and their elitist "king of the hill" bull[Content removed]. It's the stat purchasing 99+ mechanics. By putting the most interesting gameplay mechanics at the end of level 99 and making the most boring aspect the stuff newbies are introduced to, they make it tough to get new players. Besides once they finally get to 99+ there are now too many dungeons, so the once linear path to advancement is confusing as hell. They need to close 50% of the dungeons that exist right now and start consolidating the small playerbase. And the "Justice system" needs to be scrapped. No professional MMO company allows players to have punishment powers, or has policies where people get punished by saying non-profanity but another player just decided to be horribly offended at something trivial and dumb. People like Teragg entrusted with these powers behave like Fundamentalist Mormon cult leaders. If I owned NexusTK I swear Terragg would be the first person I ban because he's toxic to the community and aside from Sarina and tip, has done more to harm the game's financial prospects than any other player by running the Judge system like a Gestapo. I'm in the NexusTK related FB groups, I have seen for myself the stupid trivial nonsense that Terragg and co. are jailing people for, screenshots of the logs and all. He needs a perm ban from this game and to get a [Content removed]ing life. If he was employed as a community manager at any semi-professional game company his ass would be fired a long time ago.

Combine with this the majority of the PvE experience being a room camp experience killing waves of respawning enemies rather than the encounter based dungeon design every other MMORPG adopted, NexusTK is way behind the curve and the GMs just aren't even trying to make it a competitive game.

NexusTK needs another Great Shift. It needs a Cataclysm. They need to take a hint from WoW and FF XIV, and redesign the whole goddamn game to be relevant in today's market. Until they do this nothing is going to change, 90% of the ex-players will never return and they will keep failing to convert 99% of the new players that try it out.

But that isn't likely to occur until the game comes under new ownership and that won't happen until Wony finally gives up and sells the company to someone who can actually manage it in a financially responsible way. I mean it's hard to believe NexusTK was one of the first MMOs on the market in North America and it's had one of the worst financial performances of any MMO.

They don't even have a Facebook Page for their games. Can you believe that? The most amazing marketing platform in the world capable of generating tens of thousands of laser-targeted customer leads a day for $0, and they don't even try to utilize it. Facebook has now been around for a decade and never once have they even tried to make a Page and use it to market the game.

They have no idea how to run a commercial company, let alone a game publisher. There's no hope for NexusTK under its current ownership. They aren't even trying and if you believe otherwise you're just an idiot.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121663 · Replies: 21 · Views: 10,156

darkmaverick
Posted on: May 13 2017, 01:31 AM


Oh san
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He doesn't.

http://users.nexustk.com/webreport/Chongun.htm

  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121658 · Replies: 21 · Views: 10,156

darkmaverick
Posted on: Mar 5 2017, 08:19 PM


Oh san
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They should just make the game free to play and totally eliminate character levels. The real game is about selling experience to buy stats and using stat based abilities. And those abilities aren't really useful pre-99.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121605 · Replies: 14 · Views: 5,867

darkmaverick
Posted on: Dec 14 2016, 12:03 AM


Oh san
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"Your point is moot" is a common expression when someone makes a statement that has no relevance to the topic being discussed. There is vast consensus on this.

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions...e-point-is-moot

"The adjective moot is originally a legal term going back to the mid-16th century. It derives from the noun moot, in its sense of a hypothetical case argued as an exercise by law students. Consequently, a moot question is one that is arguable or open to debate.

But in the mid-19th century people also began to look at the hypothetical side of moot as its essential meaning, and they started to use the word to mean "of no significance or relevance." Thus, a moot point, however debatable, is one that has no practical value."


So, don't look for an alternate use of the phrase that nobody has been using since the 1800s, and focus on the one people actually use today. That is how it was meant and you know that.

Of course, I do understand you would prefer to engage in arguments of semantics because you cannot prove your main point -- that there is demand for a second NexusTK server. But I am not willing to chase you around in circles while you make semantical arguments because it's just a derailment.

QUOTE
I've said this so many times by now to please you guys - it doesn't have to be a retro server. Stop fixating on that please. The point is it needs to get a significant number of people to sub at the same time.


You are not saying that NexusTK needs a second server using the same mechanics and content it has right now. You want to scrap substantial amounts of the content so it goes back to an earlier build of the game. "Retro server" is just a placeholder for what you want, because writing it out as I just did is too many words all the time. So stop trying to act like this isn't your main argument by focusing on the semantics of what you believe "retro server" could mean, and focus on what it actually means in the context of this discussion.


Also, just because I don't quote your entire posts doesn't mean I am not responding to your posts. I already gave satisfactory responses to all statements you've made. For purposes of brevity I chose to not quote block your entire essay and instead focus on the crux of your arguments. I am not going to sit here and respond line by line to your earlier rant, nor am I going to go around in circles with you about dopamine releases and game design mechanics. My prior response about how the research is still greatly lacking and is not understood to the point we can make accurate statements like you are trying to, still stands.


QUOTE
Err, I gave you a list and you said it meant nothing. Now all of a sudden a list has value? You contradict yourself quite a bit. Try not to do that in your book.


You don't have a list! What are you even arguing here?
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121533 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Dec 13 2016, 03:20 PM


Oh san
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QUOTE (halombobtk @ Dec 13 2016, 10:00 AM) *
At its peak? Why the hell would you ever think it's OK to compare it to that? Getting 100 players to play on a new server would be an enormous success at this point. Any significant growth when the game is at 66 active avg. players is a huge win for a stagnating or dying MMO.


100 new players would not be an enormous success. I've posted before about the financial costs of NexusTK.

I'm not comparing NexusTK in any way that I wouldn't assess any other business venture. 100 new customers might be good for a B2B enterprise class product, but not a B2C consumer focused entertainment product like an MMO.

QUOTE
If by moot you mean debatable, yes, definitely.


No, by "moot" I mean completely irrelevant. You don't get to redefine the English language to suit your argument.

QUOTE
It's still evidence that there is always going to be some demand for a new server.


IT IS NOT EVIDENCE.

I don't know how to make this any [Content removed]ing clearer dude.

People lie. People misremember. People do not tell the truth.

Survey responses can at best be used to form a hypothesis.

Five [Content removed]ing people on reddit saying they would do something does not provide evidence that they will even do it, nor can their survey responses be used to make an accurate prediction for what thousands of other players would do, let alone the hundred you think might return.

QUOTE
You love making things all-or-nothing, but this so clearly isn't an all-or-nothing thing. You can't possibly say there would be zero interest.


I am not saying there would be zero interest. I am saying there is no evidence to suggest there would be any interest, and when there is no evidence to suggest something that doesn't mean you assume the possibility that evidence exists must mean it exists. That is some serious failure of logic. You're engaging in the fallacy of many possible worlds, which while it may have some value in computer programming where environments are virtual in nature, certainly has no application whatsoever to the real physical world we live in.

Just as people saying God exists is not evidence that God exists, people saying they would try a reset retro NexusTK server is no evidence they would actually do it. And when all you can get is a fisthul of people to say they would do it, out of the thousands of people who have played the game over the years, you can't even claim there is interest in the venture.

QUOTE
I maintain that you're both overestimating how many people would need to sub for it to be profitable (kruna, kruna, kruna sales) and underestimating how many random former players would try it out and get hooked again.


The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim. You claim hundreds of people would return, when you have no list of these people who have even said they would. I am rightly pointing out you have no proof and you are upset because I will not imagine along with you that proof exists.


QUOTE
Lol at thinking dopamine = pseudo-science. Jesus, man.


No, it's because I am actually familiar with the research that has been done on the topic and recognizing that you are not by the way you talk about it.

QUOTE
Let's ignore the word dopamine for a second since you love being a baby who fixates on things like car keys jiggling above them while missing the meat of someone's argument. In your book, you're going to talk about good and bad design choices, correct? Are you actually trying to say that good and bad design choices have no effect on the player's brain?


I'm not going to discuss it to the degree I talk in terms of physiology; why would I do that? The research is nowhere near to the point we perfectly understand how to manipulate this stuff in terms of chemical process. Else there would be a cure for all kinds of addictions already.

The book, like all game design books, talks about the theory of design. It uses examples of poor design and the consequences of which, and how the feature could have been designed better to produce the desired outcome which was not gained by the inferior design. It is about how to design well, and the topic of dopamine and brain research doesn't need to come up at all. You can talk about the subject without perfectly understanding the underlying brain function of thinking; we only need to go by the actual observations to form a workable and useful theory of how people respond to different game mechanics in certain situations. Just like how you do not need to go to automotive mechanics course to understand how to complete a driver's test for your state license exam. Needing to know how to operate a vehicle and needing to know how the car functions to its bare necessities are two different things.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121531 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Dec 13 2016, 01:58 AM


Oh san
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QUOTE (halombobtk @ Dec 12 2016, 11:41 PM) *
The point is that a blank slate has been proven to attract players and be fun, even when the product is subpar/buggy. People like DM and Doctor don't like this proof because it hurts their argument that literally zero people want to play a new NTK server.


No, it's because a blank slate NexusTK server has not been proven to attract players.

Even if you mean the private servers, they had some rather improved feature sets compared to anything that has ever been in NexusTK, and even then the server populations never exceeded what NexusTK has attracted. So your point here is totally moot. Those servers are also free to play, whereas NexusTK costs money. There's millions of people playing on private Ragnarok Online servers who will never pay for an official subscription. Basing a business decision on what people do when they aren't asked for money is how people lose their shirts on a venture. They think doing a free trial and getting users equates to cash. It does not.

Also I don't think I've commented on this before, but you seem to completely misunderstand how dopamine works, and are relying on a lot of very questionable pseudo-scientific psychology babble as some kind of proof for your arguments. Dopamine is just a neurotransmitter and while it plays a role in pleasure, it's far from being understood to the point it is an exact science to "schedule dopamine releases" in a videogame design.

Also, equating Flappy Bird to NexusTK is just dumb. Firstly, Flabby Bird was released for mobile devices and designed to be a short time waster for when people are on a bus or waiting on their laundry or standing in a line or something. MMOs requires a major time investment, and if you're going to invest time into something you want it to be the best kind of game. Second of all, Flappy bird was a free download and made its revenue from in-game ads.

The best comparison is Illutia, which you avoid because it clearly demonstrates the version of NexusTK you want to see in the market would do no better than what NexusTK is doing right now.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121524 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Dec 12 2016, 02:17 PM


Oh san
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QUOTE (halombobtk @ Dec 12 2016, 09:36 AM) *
Way to just completely blow past my block of text and not address a single thing in it.


I did address your, as you say, wall of text.

Not doing it again because in your latest post, you managed to just repeat yourself and all of my responses would be the same as I wrote in my last post. So, just re-read that one again?

  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121517 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

darkmaverick
Posted on: Dec 11 2016, 10:24 PM


Oh san
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QUOTE (halombobtk @ Dec 11 2016, 12:46 AM) *
DM getting rekt in 3...2...1...


lol no.

QUOTE
Website being broken is quite the red flag. At least NTK has the (lolworthy) "Comming soon" in some sections of its game guide, but a broken link is unprofessional af and shows instantly that it's just another bad knockoff made by a hobbyist.


A broken link on a website has nothing to do with the quality of the videogame. For all we know they are updating something on the forum and the link broke. This is just a poor excuse for why you won't download the game and see what it is. The forum software and the game software are unrelated.


Mind you, I am not saying Illutia is a good game. I am saying you cannot determine if it is one on the basis of a broken website link. That is a completely absurd argument, and it is this kind of tendency to logical fallacy that taints your objectivity on this issue. You just do not want to check the game out and see it's not as fun to play old-school NexusTK mechanics as you recall.

QUOTE
All I had to do was look at one screenshot to know that it wasn't even a NTK clone. No thx.


First of all, graphics do not define what a game is or isn't; the game mechanics do. Game mechanics are unrelated to visual assets. As an example, Star Wars branded Monopoly is the same game as playing regular Monopoly even if the SW branded one uses SW character dies and flavor text. Game mechanics define what games are, not their visual assets. Illutia and NexusTK have fundamentally identical gameplay mechanics with few differences.

Rogues play like NexusTK Rogues, Mages play like NexusTK Mages, etc and so forth. Illutia was developed with the specific intent to attract the players you claim want to return to NexusTK due to nostalgia for the earlier build, and it failed to do so because -- surprise surprise -- the vast majority of players no longer find those mechanics that enjoyable compared to other MMOs on the market with superior designs. The creators of Illutia, much like yourself, refuse to acknowledge this and instead run the game with the same degree of competency as KRU does. Which is rather ironic when you think about it.


Second of all, the graphical design is nearly identical between the two games, to the point items are drawn on characters the same way. They are both pixel, tile based games. If you place screenshots of the two games side by side, this becomes extremely obvious.





This is no accident, because Illutia was made by former Nexus players wanting to recreate this nostalgic period, just as you do. It's entirely relevant.


QUOTE
How lost are you right now on what former players want? It's not just about the [Content removed]ing game mechanics. It's about playing the same game they used to love. Not an imitation - the same exact game. How is this so hard for you to understand? Like, I get you not wanting it for yourself, but how are you so bad at understanding the thoughts/feelings of others who aren't like you?


The glory day you think existed never did. The period of time you are talking about is when a lot of players were quitting the game. It's clearly not what they wanted, else they would not have left in the first place.

QUOTE
Sigh. The present commercial appeal in the market is a new server and always will be since people aren't stupid and no one wants to start an MMO years behind with no one else near their lvl/stats. This is common sense for me, yet monumentally difficult to understand for you.


And yet people start new characters on new MMOs that have been around for years and have no qualms with leveling up from 1 to whatever-the-level-cap-is. Furthermore, "catching up" with other players is a key motivation for people to play a game, not a reason for them to not.

QUOTE
November's numbers show stagnation. We both know you're smart enough to know this can mean new players filtering in as old players get fed up with Wony's scummy money-grabs. It can also mean returning players coming back, then quickly leaving because it's not the product they wanted. Judging by these reddit posts, that is likely to be what's happening, though it's probably a combination of both.


I completely agree that people are finding the game is not the product they want. Our disagreement is that you think returning the game back to an inferior product state is the solution. There's no evidence whatsoever to support that notion because the fact is people quit the game during this period of time you are speaking of. Not small numbers of people, large numbers of players. They quit NexusTK for other games. This is like what, the fourth time I have reminded you of this? You're completing ignoring this critical fact because it doesn't conform to the narrative you want. Stop doing that. It's an indisputable fact people didn't universally love this version of the game you did.


QUOTE
That's 10 former players in the last two months alone who revisited the game and posted in the subreddit. It sounds like all but one (freshprincetrex) or two (greensky - not sure on this one) of them started from scratch, and many of them mentioned wanting to experience the 1-99 content again. 10 players that required a $0 marketing budget, zero social media outreach, and that number doesn't include potential friends/family or the rest of the nameless/faceless people waiting in the shadows for something to happen. If people are trickling back in without any real news, then the announcement of a new server would surely garner interest. It only needs to appeal to a hundred or so people to be a success based on microscopic variable costs for Kru.


What people say and what they do are two totally different things. Anyone with even a small amount of business sense knows this. I've got mailing lists for pre-launched products and out of the tens of thousands of people who sign up for the list, only about a few hundred might actually sign up for the product when it launches. You're pointing to a handful of former players who say they want something and believing erroneously what they say applies to every other former NexusTK player. It does not.

Whenever I proposed solutions to problems in NexusTK's design, I never relied on what people said they wanted. I instead pointed to exhibited behavior. People aren't quitting NexusTK to play no videogames at all, they are switching to other games with more fun mechanics, better customer service, etc and so forth.

By contrast you're basing your strategy on what people remember about their gameplay when they were 12, and are now in their late 20s. It is the rare game from 1998-2001 that we still find fun in 2016. Even Minecraft is more engaging than NexusTK is.


QUOTE
Or, the farfarfar more likely reason is because they returned hoping to have the same experience they had in high school, but the game is hollow and boring because no one is anywhere near their stats and everything seems different. Tangun is an aberration that they don't remember from their childhood, and no one hunts in Mythic anymore. You have such a strange relationship with this game that it's impossible to get into the shoes of someone who quit in 2006 after going off to college and hasn't registered since. They don't give a [Content removed] about the game being improved, or any of the drama that you've wrapped yourself up in over the years. There were hundreds, if not thousands of people who played the game without ever getting involved in subpath, archon, or clan drama. Those are the people who are coming back, and those are who this new server would be targeted at. It's by far the biggest segment of former players. Everyone in this thread represents the delusional minority who have completely different desires than the avg NTKer of the early '00s.


#1. NexusTK was never the most popular MMO to start with. At it's peak we had like 1,000 active people on the server at once. Then Ragnarok Online, WoW, Dark Ages of Camelot and a bunch of much better designed games came out and most of the playerbase left for those games.

#2. Why would the people who left for those games actively play a game they abandoned due to not being as fun as other games? Games like WoW have remained king by constantly improving their game mechanics, not rolling back to earlier models that people may feel nostalgic for, but ultimately don't enjoy as much as the newer builds. FFXIV has the extreme example where the entire game was totally redesigned practically from scratch because the initial build was failing in the market, and now it's one of the most popular MMOs in the world.


What NexusTK needs is improvements, not roll backs.


QUOTE
Uh, you're posting on nexusforums.com right now. Are you in denial or do you accept that you are just as [Content removed]ed up, if not more, as the people you just [Content removed] on?


I have posted this before, but my primary goal for engaging in these sort of debates is to contribute to the book I am writing on game mechanic design. Due to my intimate familiarity with it, NexusTK serves in the book to provide examples of many bad design concepts and customer service decisions. Engaging in these debates helps remind me of stuff I may have forgotten or allows me to write up stuff I can repurpose as sections of the book. This forum is just one of a dozen places I regular read and post to.

There is a method to what you may believe is madness.

QUOTE
I promise you 100% that NTK existed in the early '00s and I did play it. Are you drunk?


The game existed; the version of the game you recall did not. That is the point I am making. You have rose colored glasses on about the actual state of NexusTK in the past.
  Forum: Community Board · Post Preview: #121514 · Replies: 126 · Views: 49,584

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