Argument for last longing servers.

[VK2BA]

Hi everyone. First of all I would like to apologize If my grammar isn't OK as English is not my native.I'm not a developer or game designer. I'm just a guy who wants to play on a decent server without all the BS going around. I wanted to create this topic because the servers nowadays are only up for few months tops and then as the NP goes up people are start leaving the game and eventually server goes down into the bin. For that reason I would like to discuss with all of you about "what is the optimal system for long lasting servers". I would like to share some ideas of my own and I'm hoping that people would add or change those ideas to get the best outcome out of this topic.

First I would like to talk about the common issues that raises the question "Why people are leaving or not joining a server?"
As far as I can say there are many reason to that but for me it's cause of national points at the end. No one wouldn't want to get in a server when they see the people on top has over several million national points, because people are competitive and for the most people having to accept that challenge is not a smart decision. Since there are no newcomers the server has no choice but to decay overtime. I remember there was that server (can't remember the name) had that system where you have do gear progression with national points and it worked for them for awhile. Yet I don't know what was the reason but eventually it shut down like any others out there.

So here are some ideas of myself about the issue:

I think that it would be a good idea to have seasons for national points rather than having to open new server once in every few months. Yet there must be a good reward at the end for the person on top and clan on top. ( I was thinking maybe good amount of KC but that applies for only low rate servers )

The gear progression could be done with national points as well. That had it's own taste to it and for the most part it worked for the server that I can't remember the name of. I'm not saying all the gears should be included in that system but at least higher grades. For me I wouldn't mind farming chitins first with my party or as a solo player and then with that chitin set I would be able to take down most of the bosses with my party as well as doing PK for NP for further gear progression. There are few ways to implement that feature. I saw that on other games private servers where you have to upgrade your gear by collection materials from PK or whatsoever to purchase higher grade gears from a NPC but that would be way too much just to go from +1 to +8. On the other hand there are people love to do on spot grinding ex. dark mare farm and I wouldn't take that away from them either. So, what I was thinking may be a system that with the national point a player could buy Trinas, Buff scrolls, Cospre items or a system where you need material from specific monsters in that case dark mares as well as national points. That way It wouldn't be pay to win as much and that would attract more people. At the end more players a server has more the owner would earn. For me it's a win=win situation.

I would like to thanks in advance to the people who took their time and read this. This is just a topic for to understand what people are thinking and to see what's the GOOD server image in peoples mind. As I was stated earlier I'm not a developer or game designer and I don't have resources to fund these ideas. Yet I would be happy see that some day instead of having over hundreds of servers at a time but just one server created by many developers together and solid as rock.


PS: Please leave this topic "TOXIC FREE" you may never know maybe someday a good thing would come out of this.

[Kallop]

Seasonal NP system technically exists, because of the monthly ladder. But the real reason servers don't last is because they do not promote player retention and give players a feeling of commitment, or in other words, a sense of value of investment. Basically long lasting servers offer players an incentive to keep spending time in the server. Most farm servers achieve this by simply giving people the chance to obtain gear. The other method to increase player retention is by adding plenty of different levels of progression, as well as multiple forms of different activities that promote PvP, especially in bowl. Most farm servers that I have played have basically died due to lack of incentive to enter bowl. Once PK starts getting stale, due to the "np race" ending, there should be another reason to go to bowl and fight. If there's none, then the server becomes incredibly peak-time oriented and will eventually get worse as time passes.

[iMissCarnacWest]

Seasonal NP system technically exists, because of the monthly ladder. But the real reason servers don't last is because they do not promote player retention and give players a feeling of commitment, or in other words, a sense of value of investment. Basically long lasting servers offer players an incentive to keep spending time in the server. Most farm servers achieve this by simply giving people the chance to obtain gear. The other method to increase player retention is by adding plenty of different levels of progression, as well as multiple forms of different activities that promote PvP, especially in bowl. Most farm servers that I have played have basically died due to lack of incentive to enter bowl. Once PK starts getting stale, due to the "np race" ending, there should be another reason to go to bowl and fight. If there's none, then the server becomes incredibly peak-time oriented and will eventually get worse as time passes.

This. Server starts and bowl is packed due to people camping for master items. Monster summon scrolls come up in PUS and/or server progresses and everyone gets mastered, bowl activity reduced to more than half. There needs to be something as important or at least near important as master items that you can only get from bowl (for example, assuming master items (level 1) -> something else (level 2) -> ... (level 3) and so forth). I don't know how to achieve that but if someone figures that out, I believe a server can last long.

[Kallop]

This. Server starts and bowl is packed due to people camping for master items. Monster summon scrolls come up in PUS and/or server progresses and everyone gets mastered, bowl activity reduced to more than half. There needs to be something as important or at least near important as master items that you can only get from bowl (for example, assuming master items (level 1) -> something else (level 2) -> ... (level 3) and so forth). I don't know how to achieve that but if someone figures that out, I believe a server can last long.

Isiloon, buffed drops from bosses, announcement for monument/CS spawns, bi-frost monsters spawning in bowl. There are so many ways to go about it TBH.

[VK2BA]

To me the game must be played the way it was meant to be just like in the beginning. Those days everything was hard and you have to work on your toon to achieve something. I still remember the time where there were paper mages doing Nova town in CZ in 60 cap and it was extremely fun. Now there are over buffed mage servers, archer servers, OP BP servers where there is no sign of balance. When I was talking about long lasting servers I wanted to mention about this sort of stuff as well but I didn't wanted to make the topic too long. I'd really like to see that current developers or server creators (w/e you call them) to be here brain storming with us and try to figure out what's best for the future of the game. USKO is unplayable for me it has changed a lot and it wasn't in a good way. Classes are unbalanced and there is that money hungry publisher. The current state of the USKO is VISA based and that's not something I can deal with. I can only hope someday few of the server creator would get together and make one hell of a server that would at least lasts a year or two (for starters). It's not impossible I've seen private servers of other games up and running over several years while keeping thousands of people actively playing the. Because people wouldn't wanna lose something they. They would donate to keep it up, It's just common sense.

[SkyHunter]

I genuinely love POE's system (for those unfamiliar, they open temporary servers / leagues with unique and new mechanics / items, those are open for 3-4 months, then close and people receive some level of permanent rewards onto their account).

I still don't understand why no KO server has attempted this, it wouldn't be very hard to do, but most KO owners are just too lazy to give a flying fuck about anything other than opening a server and then fucking off to do something else while their server slowly dies.

As far as long lasting servers, there's just no incentive to stay in a KO server much like there's less and less incentive to stay at a job for "loyalty" nowadays. Why would I play a server for 3 months, when by the 2nd or 3rd month the PK has dwindled down to the point where I don't even go into CZ unless it's specific hours? I could just sell out, make a small profit, and go invest into a more popular server while I wait for yet another server to open. Rinse and repeat, it's not about the money, it's just about getting the most fun out of this extremely dead game; and when you're limited to what times you can log on to have even semi-decent pk (subjective), kind of defeats the purpose.

If you really care about long lasting, Apex has been up for a long time (private server developed by two english devs, keeps up with USKO in terms of patches), but due to a concoction of issues ranging from poor administration to....well poor administration, the server is an absolute ghost town. It's absolutely beautifully programmed, by far the best KO server anyone has played in terms of quality (or at least, it was), but due to the administration lacking any ability of human interaction, the server's been abandoned by basically everyone.

People don't really care about losing what they earned though, and WoW private servers are a testament to that. WoW private servers have so much "drama" that most WoW private servers, once they're done releasing all the content, relaunch or launch another server within a year, and most of the time they generate somewhere in the range of 10,000 players. They give some level of compensation to the donators and just relaunch, and everyone plays it again for months and months until the next one. Granted they have some level of loyalty to the servers, but they still relaunch just a little less frequently than KO servers.

[mortal]

People don't really care about losing what they earned though, and WoW private servers are a testament to that. WoW private servers have so much "drama" that most WoW private servers, once they're done releasing all the content, relaunch or launch another server within a year, and most of the time they generate somewhere in the range of 10,000 players. They give some level of compensation to the donators and just relaunch, and everyone plays it again for months and months until the next one. Granted they have some level of loyalty to the servers, but they still relaunch just a little less frequently than KO servers.

You forgot one thing thought... WOW is a way larger scene and playerbase than KO even at its peak years.... and people play WoW privates for love for the game, and because they enjoy it while on KO they play for money not because they enjoy any of it. Huge issues with KO community it's livelihood for most people.

WoW also lack the amount of cheats KO community provide for KO, most people don't even bother cheat on WOW because its already made good, and enjoyable to grind stuff.

I do agree thought, seasonal idea could be good but it wouldnt happen with the current owners of servers because they just want profit and in order to make the seasonals fun it shouldnt be p2w... Also PoE always had similar system while KO community wouldnt even want them to add new armor in the game, yet alone new content or even wipe the servers every now and then.

[SheldonCooper]

Isiloon, buffed drops from bosses, announcement for monument/CS spawns, bi-frost monsters spawning in bowl. There are so many ways to go about it TBH.

All of those I've implemented

[Deadhealer]

OH my thanks for this topic! Love reading and brainstorming on this matter. I agree for the most part what is written here and definitely bowl activity after X amount of time is one of the important aspects that we should work on. I am also very against Monster SUmmon Scroll because it kills the bowl and pk in CZ at least by 50%. Yes, it gives more people master for $$ but this takes away game content that should be used more wisely to prolong the PK and activity.


I would like to say that the problem with macro these days is also terribly affecting how servers develop. People seek some kind of fairness during the play on private servers especially those who like to play more solo style. These people would pk alone or in a party of 2 -3 when for example bowl not in its peak activity. This gave a good sense of active CZ and real pk. In my opinion, macro killed it. You got a SIN party with 2-4 sins that almost unkillable that macro heals each other. This is really disgusting. Warriors who no longer 2rr or 2wrsr2wrsr2wrsr2wrs with hands. Thinking every day how to prevent that, but this is a really tough one.

Coding a function that detects unhuman like differences in time between each keypress, or scanning for repeatedly same combination with keys that were recorded by hands but would repeat every 2-3 minutes more or less. This would leave macros to create a very long macro combination. I don't know if this will solve it but would definitely make it harder for them.

[DaSinister]

OH my thanks for this topic! Love reading and brainstorming on this matter. I agree for the most part what is written here and definitely bowl activity after X amount of time is one of the important aspects that we should work on. I am also very against Monster SUmmon Scroll because it kills the bowl and pk in CZ at least by 50%. Yes, it gives more people master for $$ but this takes away game content that should be used more wisely to prolong the PK and activity.


I would like to say that the problem with macro these days is also terribly affecting how servers develop. People seek some kind of fairness during the play on private servers especially those who like to play more solo style. These people would pk alone or in a party of 2 -3 when for example bowl not in its peak activity. This gave a good sense of active CZ and real pk. In my opinion, macro killed it. You got a SIN party with 2-4 sins that almost unkillable that macro heals each other. This is really disgusting. Warriors who no longer 2rr or 2wrsr2wrsr2wrsr2wrs with hands. Thinking every day how to prevent that, but this is a really tough one.

Coding a function that detects unhuman like differences in time between each keypress, or scanning for repeatedly same combination with keys that were recorded by hands but would repeat every 2-3 minutes more or less. This would leave macros to create a very long macro combination. I don't know if this will solve it but would definitely make it harder for them.

Years and i mean YEARS ago i played a server and none of our macro keyboards or mouse would work on that server. Im not sure which server it was called but they had something to prevent macros. I know its possible. Who is to say that a server like that would hold a population? People seem to love using macros in 2019. I think the entire problem with servers not lasting isnt so much the content creators but the players themselves. Knight online is such an old game and it can grow old and boring pretty fast when you have been playing it for 10+ years. I think this is why alot of people are addicted to the rush of a new server.

[Breezy123]

Pretty simple why they don't last, it is the players. "I didn't get dragon first month, I am so far behind on gear" *leaves to join a new one*. Also, there is far too many servers out that can replicate other servers events and everything else so easy, hence why some are moving to newer versions to try and combat it.

[DaSinister]

Pretty simple why they don't last, it is the players. "I didn't get dragon first month, I am so far behind on gear" *leaves to join a new one*. Also, there is far too many servers out that can replicate other servers events and everything else so easy, hence why some are moving to newer versions to try and combat it.

I agree. I remember the first launch of oldschoolko the very first original. The server had constant issues staying online from attacks and when you did play when you logged off and back online you got a rollback to lvl 1. They had some Serious issues at frist yet that server was massive. It gave me that original Myko feel and it felt like you are playing the official back in 2006. Since then many have made the same exact copy of that server and flooded the market with generic copies and now its like people just join them for that fresh start.

We need a server that isn't made to tailor these bitch boys who claim to not have time. Im sick of seeing +7 max and insane amounts of gold and broken economies. We need somebody to create that 2006 Knight online.. Make the XP hard as fuck.. Make the fucking Grind an actual fucking grind. Make drops have value and hard to get. I shouldn't be able to run bowl for a week and have full uniques.. what happened to servers like this?? I think if you were to ask some of these server owners i think they would say that nobody is going to invest that much time in a private server yet i disagree. I think that if you made a private server which could offer Klasgame - paypal the two best ways to donate and you made it professional and original 2006 Knight online it would be populated as fuck and last. Knight cash shouldn't be dirt cheap.. I remember when gold premium was 25$ in the original. Make people invest $$ so they have a reason to stay. If it takes 200 SQ to get a iron neck guess how much that baby is going to be worth! For a long time i thought Sheldon was going to be the one to make a server like this yet im still waiting on his big nose to try.

[SexyLittleAnimal]

I agree. I remember the first launch of oldschoolko the very first original. The server had constant issues staying online from attacks and when you did play when you logged off and back online you got a rollback to lvl 1. They had some Serious issues at frist yet that server was massive. It gave me that original Myko feel and it felt like you are playing the official back in 2006. Since then many have made the same exact copy of that server and flooded the market with generic copies and now its like people just join them for that fresh start.

We need a server that isn't made to tailor these bitch boys who claim to not have time. Im sick of seeing +7 max and insane amounts of gold and broken economies. We need somebody to create that 2006 Knight online.. Make the XP hard as fuck.. Make the fucking Grind an actual fucking grind. Make drops have value and hard to get. I shouldn't be able to run bowl for a week and have full uniques.. what happened to servers like this?? I think if you were to ask some of these server owners i think they would say that nobody is going to invest that much time in a private server yet i disagree. I think that if you made a private server which could offer Klasgame - paypal the two best ways to donate and you made it professional and original 2006 Knight online it would be populated as fuck and last. Knight cash shouldn't be dirt cheap.. I remember when gold premium was 25$ in the original. Make people invest $$ so they have a reason to stay. If it takes 200 SQ to get a iron neck guess how much that baby is going to be worth! For a long time i thought Sheldon was going to be the one to make a server like this yet im still waiting on his big nose to try.

We did make a server you are describing, our very FIRST MYKO Ares was hard hard hard. we bought original OSKO database and client from the original owner, the Ares server was exactly the same as the first OSKO was, identical. Shortly put, It FAILED big time, nobody wants to play those servers anymore. People quitted on the EXP part already. Due to that each of our further myko server was made easier and easier untill it fitted the today's community of server jumpers. Those days are over, period, deal with it. The markets are overcrowded, you have tons of servers to choose from, you afford to have crucial bug or a massive DDoS and go offline now, you will never recover. Back in the day there were couple of servers and that was it, people got spoilt, that is what happens when you have too many choices to pick from. Even the BIGGEST sharks struggle (YourKO,Dark KO,OSKO) with the population, 1k user start,1-2 months go by they are back to 0, but this is how the community is nowadays. They join for the hype on fresh servers once it gets older and gap is created, they quit and move to another server or wait for re-launch. The only server capable of kepeing long-term population are OFFICIAL servers, and even they struggle, which is why they merge servers into one over time, it's really your best pick if you want farm and long term stability.

[SheldonCooper]

OH my thanks for this topic! Love reading and brainstorming on this matter. I agree for the most part what is written here and definitely bowl activity after X amount of time is one of the important aspects that we should work on. I am also very against Monster SUmmon Scroll because it kills the bowl and pk in CZ at least by 50%. Yes, it gives more people master for $$ but this takes away game content that should be used more wisely to prolong the PK and activity.


I would like to say that the problem with macro these days is also terribly affecting how servers develop. People seek some kind of fairness during the play on private servers especially those who like to play more solo style. These people would pk alone or in a party of 2 -3 when for example bowl not in its peak activity. This gave a good sense of active CZ and real pk. In my opinion, macro killed it. You got a SIN party with 2-4 sins that almost unkillable that macro heals each other. This is really disgusting. Warriors who no longer 2rr or 2wrsr2wrsr2wrsr2wrs with hands. Thinking every day how to prevent that, but this is a really tough one.

Coding a function that detects unhuman like differences in time between each keypress, or scanning for repeatedly same combination with keys that were recorded by hands but would repeat every 2-3 minutes more or less. This would leave macros to create a very long macro combination. I don't know if this will solve it but would definitely make it harder for them.

All you can do really against macro, is protect unhuman like time differences between spamming keys. You can easily achieve human like minor speed by putting 2x minor heal on your skillbar and alternately spaming those 2 minors. You will easily burn out your mana bar just by hand. Now if you record this spamming wtih delays, and set the same delay for macro spam. The game won't detect is macro.

Another way is to block entire spectre of software those macro keyboards and mouses are using, but again not effective so much, 1st of all you will hardly identify them all on the market, 2nd of all, you can mask the process so the game detection is bypassed.

But most important part of this is, if you were somehow be able to block it. Nobody would play your server because everyone are used to those macro mouses or keyboards nowadays. So you could spend a lot of time efficently developing such anti macro system but in the end you'd end up with empty server xD

So my approach to this is simple. If you put cooldown on minor for example, you will actually make it easier for macro players. If you remove it, both stand equal chances at least in VSes or supporting for example. Macro player will minor his party buddy just aswell, as non macro player with a support minor bar for example and spamming 3 buttons each 3 buttons having minor registered. For the VS part we all know you need to burn your mana smart and not fast. Instead you try to balance a class by maybe reducing his minor heal capacity, so it doesn't heal full 60 hp, if he can play just as efficiently with 56 or 57 hp per minor.

[DaSinister]

We did make a server you are describing, our very FIRST MYKO Ares was hard hard hard. we bought original OSKO database and client from the original owner, the Ares server was exactly the same as the first OSKO was, identical. Shortly put, It FAILED big time, nobody wants to play those servers anymore. People quitted on the EXP part already. Due to that each of our further myko server was made easier and easier untill it fitted the today's community of server jumpers. Those days are over, period, deal with it. The markets are overcrowded, you have tons of servers to choose from, you afford to have crucial bug or a massive DDoS and go offline now, you will never recover. Back in the day there were couple of servers and that was it, people got spoilt, that is what happens when you have too many choices to pick from. Even the BIGGEST sharks struggle (YourKO,Dark KO,OSKO) with the population, 1k user start,1-2 months go by they are back to 0, but this is how the community is nowadays. They join for the hype on fresh servers once it gets older and gap is created, they quit and move to another server or wait for re-launch. The only server capable of kepeing long-term population are OFFICIAL servers, and even they struggle, which is why they merge servers into one over time, it's really your best pick if you want farm and long term stability.

Okay I remember Ares..We had the best clan on your server ( HateOnUs ) The updates felt rushed and +8 was opened 2 fast. Also You guys forgot to bring the turks.. Other than that it was the best server by far that i played.. Even better than Zonemyko. I hope you guys find a turkish guy to help promote and try again. I have messaged sheldon about it before. If you can gain some recognition on the tukish forums then it will be on and popin. Why not try better eye catching name? Like Orginal 2006 Oldschool those keywords seem to always attract the turks. You guys have the best files IMO and your both likable dudes so i just dodnt get why your not pulling in the turks.