Concept/Idea of a new unique 9dragons server?

[zeroboxer]

Hi fellow 9dragons players. I know you've seen this kind of topic atleast a thousand times, but I unironically believe this one *might* be a little special.

A little about myself, before you all lose hope is that I have a major in computer science and I'm a programmer with currently 3-4 years of professional work experience. I'm thinking if anyone oughta give it a shot, I might not be the worst candidate.

All I want right now, is to simply have a conversation before I even consider starting anything, about a concept to a server that I have and I want to know from you, your opinion and if you think it would even bear any fruit.

Let's get to it.

I believe many of us don't like the current state of every 9dragons server due to it being mostly Pay2Win - how about a solution to that?

I want to bring things back to the oldschool.
I want to add a sense of accomplishment back to the game.
I want to keep things very simple and to a bare minimum.

The concept or the selling point of the server would be that there won't be any:

- Item Mall / Pay 2 Win concept
- Extreme events
- Overpowered gear (Subjective and open for intepretation)

Now here's what I want to discuss. My vision of this server would include something like:

- Oldschool or even further reduced xp/skill rates?

- Reduced damage output (mob hps adjusted relatively). Something like all damage output divided by 10. So 6.5k becomes the new 65k.?

- Reduced gold income of everything. No more running around with billions and billions of gold. Divide all gold recievable by selling items by maybe 10 or 100, and gold recieved from quests. (Mob drops would have to be adjusted.)

I could go on, but I think you get the gist of the concept here. I want an absolutely brutal 9dragons server, with no big numbers in regards to damage or gold. No pay 2 win concept. Just hardcore grind.

Wouldn't it be interesting to go back to the old acclaim days and struggle against bears in opening chi or blood monks in revolving chakra, without having to worry about pay 2 win features?

But.. If there's no pay 2 win.. Where does the money come from to keep things going?!

That's another thing, this would be pretty much be a charity that I would like to host myself out of my love to this game. Donations will be welcome, but it won't give you an advantage ingame.

I don't know, maybe I'm simply being optimistic and nostalgic, but there's nothing on the table, all I want is a conversation.

[nmmt76]

No dis, but from a player going WAY back, you're falling into the rosy retrospection fallacy. In the "golden Acclaim" times the game was trash, what made up for it was the people and that it was "new". And you say can that pretty much about any MMO in it's prime. The key take, if there ever was one, is the old "nobody wants a power drill, everybody wants holes"

With that out of the way, and because i did start something similar that had to be put on hold because of work and health issues, let's address some points.

Experience rate:

Acclaim was base rate 1.25x. Anything bellow 5x is trash. Ain't nobody got time for that (now). Not because it's hardcore but because it's pointless when you don't have a fully populated server. You could mitigate it better by having a lower overall multiplier and manually adjusting the xp curves past GB and HM where it gets really trashy, your choice.

Skill rate:

Most shameless cash grab ever. Make it 1000x as a basic QOL improvement.

2nd role:

This is where rubber meets the road. It's trash. Not by itself but because it messes up with the underlying original design. It was "new bling" to cash in, like clothes ref and other things down the road. The excuse was "new maps, new mobs", but that could have been dealt with by adjusting those mobs and the old items instead of trashing the mechanics. (Lack of) can be mitigated by reworking items, see next.

Items:

If you go through the existing DB, you'll find LOT's of stuff that would have been major QOL but never got in. Like all sorts of hp/ve leech items, etc... With some care, you can give players great gear without breaking anything. Check the attached file for the stuff i picked. some is temp sadly, and would need to go on a vendor, which is ok, farming incentive.
To further improve, you'll need to edit items to adjust them to "reality". Like say pushing the Jade Plate from +2 to +5, WD Jade Seal from +5 to +10, adding another +3+3/+5 to old relics, etc...

End of day, just don't fall into the misconception that "oldschool was good because it was hard". "oldschool" had a "feeling", and you can retain that while making life more enjoyable for players.

p.s. 9D has quite a bit of leeway on how you can push the (basic) mechanics before it breaks. By simply cutting 2nd role and %dmg items out you can push the basic stats (with items) to the point where it still feels good/great but is not even close to game breaking.

[Cromastone]

most of us have jobs and not so much free time like in acclaim era when we were kids,so a hardcore grind server probably isn't gonna be a people favorite

[MontanaTT]

I think going "old school acclaim" is the wrong approach in general. We as a community aren't the same people as we used to be. Most of us have jobs and families to take care of and limited time we can spend playing. So grinding bears for a weeks won't do the job in the long run. In my opinion in todays day and age the major fun regarding 9dragons lays in the pvp aspect of it. Most people want to have exciting pvp battles and not pay much (or at all) for it. I personally prefer the newer game mechanics of the officials. Like the attack speed, cooldown reduction and so on. If i look back at old school 9d videos everything looks slow motion and out of place. Pets and Comrades dont necessarily have to be "visually" present but i overall like the idea of being able to obtain a buff boost for a specific period of time. I myself have pets visually deactivated in the officials and regard their buffs more like a "ssj transformation" boost that lasts for a period of time and requires energy. Long story short, I think you need the latest game files, no item mall (and if then only for visual stuff) and most importantly think of a way to put the focus on pvp and how to make it exciting.

[a904035]

Y'all need to wake the **** up with this game. In the age of tiktok you really think people still gonna be grinding in LD for 0.1% a mob for hours on end? LOL
Go invest your time in something more productive man.

[alshqqaa]

Originally Posted by a904035

Y'all need to wake the **** up with this game. In the age of tiktok you really think people still gonna be grinding in LD for 0.1% a mob for hours on end? LOL
Go invest your time in something more productive man.

9D a game dedicated to peasants
0.1% faster than a carrot grows in real life

[Fugea]

hahaha, 9d classic, let's release pre-alpha v0.1 and divide it with 100 on XP because fk everything.
Only thing private server needs is a working version of RF/KR content and have the IM prices reduced. For people who don't want fresh content, 9d classic already exists, any other concept will have 2 people playing on the server.

[DarkRaffy]

PvP server