zman
New member
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2008
- Messages
- 13
- Points
- 3
Background
As many of you know, I've been part, in some capacity, of nearly every Dodian remake and related server that has popped up since the original shutdown of 3.0. Since the early days of 2.0, when the server wasn't much more than a runescape-content playground, to the long and sad deterioration of.net, I've been moderator, I've been content developer, I've been an owner, and I've held every position between. In this time, I've watched stellar programmers and developers fail because they had no idea what their player base wanted, and I've watched terrible owners meet with huge success because they gave people a game they actually wanted to play. This post, then, is a compilation of the ideas I've garnered on private server content over the years with the goal of offering my opinion on how this server can succeed.
Originality
One of the greatest allures of Ub3r 3.0 was the fact that it was almost completely original content. It was runescape, yes, but everything felt a little different, it didn't feel like I was playing runescape, it felt like I was playing something else, something original. Part of what created this feel was the use of little known or forgotten runescape content that was reworked in a way that was simple, made sense, and, above all, was fun and rewarding.
OSRS and RS3 exist, and you can go play them right now, so why would anyone want to play some knock-off version of the same content? Any attempt to simply recreate current runescape content will in inevitably fail. The exception to this, of course, are the PK and boss-simulation servers which allow you to engage in high-tier content without putting in the required work for levels and gear. Since this aspect was never what made Dodian great, and surely isn't what this community wants from the game moving forward, the success of this server depends on capitalizing on its strongest niche: its originality.
New Custom Content
To do this, the server needs new, custom content that is created from the resources available in the cache (sprites, graphics, maps, items, NPCs, etc) just as Ub3r 3.0 did back in 2005. A lot has changed since 2005, however, and the server needs to reflect this. From what I've seen, the current client seems to be loading content from around late 2008 (revision 474). I've been through the available resources in this revision so thoroughly that I can confidently say there simply isn't enough here to build a server in the modern era.
To effectively produce the experience of originality, as mentioned above, the developers need access to newer resources which they can then rework into a more modern Dodian-style feel. In the past, we've seen the introduction of user-made maps and items toward achieving this end, but these are extremely time consuming to produce and often leave much to be desired in terms of quality and functionality. This does not mean this avenue should be completely ruled out, but there is another option: loading resources from the OSRS cache. This will give our developers a vast array of new resources to work with in creating new, custom content for the server. I do not believe it's possible for this server to maintain any level of success without this update.
With access to OSRS resources, developers can, and should, cocsider options for reworking current Dodian content with a mind for how these changes will feel within the Dodian experience. In my mind, the current Ub3r server acts as a good base to build upon as the server develops. With a few tweaks, such as boss-fight reworks and relocating certain NPCs and skills, the Ub3r 3.0 content can act as a low-tier beginning to a server of higher-tier content that grows around it.
Planning for the Future
In doing this, it is extremely important to be cognizant of how the server will unfold as new content is added and how it will fit into a long-term plan. For this, of course, our developers need a general idea of what a completed server might look like in both the near and far future. This doesn't mean the outline needs to be written in stone, but considering where a new weapon or skilling item might fit into a grand plan will ensure that there is continued room for growth. This means accepting, both as players and as developers, that the server is a work in progress that will grow and expand overtime. I've seen remakes that quickly become oversaturated with every form of high-tier gear dropped by a plethora of confusing and useless bosses all released within the first months with little consideration to how it fits into the rest of server. There must be a level of restraint when adding new content that may render past content obsolete. Everything added to the game needs to consider how it will effect and compliment or detract from the content that is currently available.
Scaled Resources
As the server grows, developers must consider the player count in terms of availability of resources and equipment. In keeping with Ub3r 3.0, nearly all of the high-level equipment in the game comes from boss drops. The issue we have seen with this over again with almost every Dodian remake is that the drop rates of these items are based on a 500+ player count. This means that within months of any release, there is more equipment in the game than their are players to use it. This ends up stagnating the economy and dampening the effort-reward aspect of obtaining these items. Its imperative that this cycle is broken as soon as possible before its too late to do so. It's difficult to adjust drop rates without inciting the rage and pushback of a community who have grown use to where they are. As such, user @Mark Rutte suggested an elegant and effective solution to this issue. This is the implementation of daily boss-kill-counts that, as the name implies, limits each account to specified number of kills per day of any given boss NPC. By adding this, developers can easily control the amount of equipment coming into the game with a simple and universally fair way of adjusting it overtime as the player count grows.
Conversely, the low player count makes it extremely difficult to train consumption skills such as smithing, crafting, fletching, etc. The Ub3r content is set up in a way in which these resources are meant to be added to the game by a large and active player base. As a result, users are forced to play as pseudo ironmen, collecting their own resources as the only effective way to train. There is an opportunity to correct this issue while simultaneously stimulating the economy. This is by focusing early server development on adding new skilling methods which produce far more resources than the currently available methods.
Instead of changing the rates of Ub3r content, features such as unlockable skill assets and high-intensity training methods should be woven into the meta in a way that contributes to server growth.
Unlockable skill assets include new resource areas that allow players to obtain resources at much faster rates. One example of this would be a high-density coal mine where players can mine more coal per rock. In addition, developers may consider the use of high-tier skilling tools or abilities that increase collection efficiency, such as the ability to "learn" how to cut more wood from a tree. Of course the key here is implementing these unlocks in interesting and fun ways that are proportional to their benefits.
High-intensity training methods are processes that require much more clicking and focus on the game in order to collect resources at substantially increased rates. An example of this could be some kind of woodcutting activity where players must chase down rapidly spawning and moving tree spirits in a sort of whack-a-mole game play. The pay-off of receiving more resources is weighed against the level of effort players are willing to put into their game. If someone simply wants to AFK mine yew trees, the option remains open to them at the slower rate they're use to.
Voting & Advertising
I don't know much about advertising, so I won't speak too extensively on it. What I do know, however, is that I found Dodian originally because it had a high vote count on a top list. To this day, when you google "runescape private server" it seems top lists are still the primary means of finding a server to play. It stands to reason, then, that getting daily votes is a worthwhile avenue to explore in building our player base. So how do these servers end up with so many votes? While I'm sure loyalty plays a role, one thing I've noticed is that most of the servers on these lists offer some type of reward system that encourages their player base to vote.
We are not sellouts here at Dodian, we never have been, so how do you implement an enticing vote-system that doesn't end up as a kind of pay-to-win program? My suggestion, one that I have made many times in the past, is to integrate voting as a part of playing the game. In my original vote-area suggestion, players received a number of tokens for each of the top lists they voted on that day. These tokens would be exchanged for limited time access to an area with slightly better resources and/or experience rates than they could find anywhere else in the game. The total daily time limit that could be accumulated per day of voting would be equal to somewhere around 1-2 hours of game play; this, of course, could be saved up overtime to use when you are inclined to do so. What this creates is an optional aspect of gameplay that gives players a sort of daily boost to their account without comprising the overall experience of the game. It would become part of the meta strategy to ensure you voted daily and made the best use of your limited time in the resource-area.
Continued on next post...
As many of you know, I've been part, in some capacity, of nearly every Dodian remake and related server that has popped up since the original shutdown of 3.0. Since the early days of 2.0, when the server wasn't much more than a runescape-content playground, to the long and sad deterioration of.net, I've been moderator, I've been content developer, I've been an owner, and I've held every position between. In this time, I've watched stellar programmers and developers fail because they had no idea what their player base wanted, and I've watched terrible owners meet with huge success because they gave people a game they actually wanted to play. This post, then, is a compilation of the ideas I've garnered on private server content over the years with the goal of offering my opinion on how this server can succeed.
Originality
One of the greatest allures of Ub3r 3.0 was the fact that it was almost completely original content. It was runescape, yes, but everything felt a little different, it didn't feel like I was playing runescape, it felt like I was playing something else, something original. Part of what created this feel was the use of little known or forgotten runescape content that was reworked in a way that was simple, made sense, and, above all, was fun and rewarding.
OSRS and RS3 exist, and you can go play them right now, so why would anyone want to play some knock-off version of the same content? Any attempt to simply recreate current runescape content will in inevitably fail. The exception to this, of course, are the PK and boss-simulation servers which allow you to engage in high-tier content without putting in the required work for levels and gear. Since this aspect was never what made Dodian great, and surely isn't what this community wants from the game moving forward, the success of this server depends on capitalizing on its strongest niche: its originality.
New Custom Content
To do this, the server needs new, custom content that is created from the resources available in the cache (sprites, graphics, maps, items, NPCs, etc) just as Ub3r 3.0 did back in 2005. A lot has changed since 2005, however, and the server needs to reflect this. From what I've seen, the current client seems to be loading content from around late 2008 (revision 474). I've been through the available resources in this revision so thoroughly that I can confidently say there simply isn't enough here to build a server in the modern era.
To effectively produce the experience of originality, as mentioned above, the developers need access to newer resources which they can then rework into a more modern Dodian-style feel. In the past, we've seen the introduction of user-made maps and items toward achieving this end, but these are extremely time consuming to produce and often leave much to be desired in terms of quality and functionality. This does not mean this avenue should be completely ruled out, but there is another option: loading resources from the OSRS cache. This will give our developers a vast array of new resources to work with in creating new, custom content for the server. I do not believe it's possible for this server to maintain any level of success without this update.
With access to OSRS resources, developers can, and should, cocsider options for reworking current Dodian content with a mind for how these changes will feel within the Dodian experience. In my mind, the current Ub3r server acts as a good base to build upon as the server develops. With a few tweaks, such as boss-fight reworks and relocating certain NPCs and skills, the Ub3r 3.0 content can act as a low-tier beginning to a server of higher-tier content that grows around it.
Planning for the Future
In doing this, it is extremely important to be cognizant of how the server will unfold as new content is added and how it will fit into a long-term plan. For this, of course, our developers need a general idea of what a completed server might look like in both the near and far future. This doesn't mean the outline needs to be written in stone, but considering where a new weapon or skilling item might fit into a grand plan will ensure that there is continued room for growth. This means accepting, both as players and as developers, that the server is a work in progress that will grow and expand overtime. I've seen remakes that quickly become oversaturated with every form of high-tier gear dropped by a plethora of confusing and useless bosses all released within the first months with little consideration to how it fits into the rest of server. There must be a level of restraint when adding new content that may render past content obsolete. Everything added to the game needs to consider how it will effect and compliment or detract from the content that is currently available.
Scaled Resources
As the server grows, developers must consider the player count in terms of availability of resources and equipment. In keeping with Ub3r 3.0, nearly all of the high-level equipment in the game comes from boss drops. The issue we have seen with this over again with almost every Dodian remake is that the drop rates of these items are based on a 500+ player count. This means that within months of any release, there is more equipment in the game than their are players to use it. This ends up stagnating the economy and dampening the effort-reward aspect of obtaining these items. Its imperative that this cycle is broken as soon as possible before its too late to do so. It's difficult to adjust drop rates without inciting the rage and pushback of a community who have grown use to where they are. As such, user @Mark Rutte suggested an elegant and effective solution to this issue. This is the implementation of daily boss-kill-counts that, as the name implies, limits each account to specified number of kills per day of any given boss NPC. By adding this, developers can easily control the amount of equipment coming into the game with a simple and universally fair way of adjusting it overtime as the player count grows.
Conversely, the low player count makes it extremely difficult to train consumption skills such as smithing, crafting, fletching, etc. The Ub3r content is set up in a way in which these resources are meant to be added to the game by a large and active player base. As a result, users are forced to play as pseudo ironmen, collecting their own resources as the only effective way to train. There is an opportunity to correct this issue while simultaneously stimulating the economy. This is by focusing early server development on adding new skilling methods which produce far more resources than the currently available methods.
Instead of changing the rates of Ub3r content, features such as unlockable skill assets and high-intensity training methods should be woven into the meta in a way that contributes to server growth.
Unlockable skill assets include new resource areas that allow players to obtain resources at much faster rates. One example of this would be a high-density coal mine where players can mine more coal per rock. In addition, developers may consider the use of high-tier skilling tools or abilities that increase collection efficiency, such as the ability to "learn" how to cut more wood from a tree. Of course the key here is implementing these unlocks in interesting and fun ways that are proportional to their benefits.
High-intensity training methods are processes that require much more clicking and focus on the game in order to collect resources at substantially increased rates. An example of this could be some kind of woodcutting activity where players must chase down rapidly spawning and moving tree spirits in a sort of whack-a-mole game play. The pay-off of receiving more resources is weighed against the level of effort players are willing to put into their game. If someone simply wants to AFK mine yew trees, the option remains open to them at the slower rate they're use to.
Voting & Advertising
I don't know much about advertising, so I won't speak too extensively on it. What I do know, however, is that I found Dodian originally because it had a high vote count on a top list. To this day, when you google "runescape private server" it seems top lists are still the primary means of finding a server to play. It stands to reason, then, that getting daily votes is a worthwhile avenue to explore in building our player base. So how do these servers end up with so many votes? While I'm sure loyalty plays a role, one thing I've noticed is that most of the servers on these lists offer some type of reward system that encourages their player base to vote.
We are not sellouts here at Dodian, we never have been, so how do you implement an enticing vote-system that doesn't end up as a kind of pay-to-win program? My suggestion, one that I have made many times in the past, is to integrate voting as a part of playing the game. In my original vote-area suggestion, players received a number of tokens for each of the top lists they voted on that day. These tokens would be exchanged for limited time access to an area with slightly better resources and/or experience rates than they could find anywhere else in the game. The total daily time limit that could be accumulated per day of voting would be equal to somewhere around 1-2 hours of game play; this, of course, could be saved up overtime to use when you are inclined to do so. What this creates is an optional aspect of gameplay that gives players a sort of daily boost to their account without comprising the overall experience of the game. It would become part of the meta strategy to ensure you voted daily and made the best use of your limited time in the resource-area.
Continued on next post...
Last edited:
