[DISCUSSION] Private server gameplay ideas from the community to the developers

[Phizex]

I've recently started playing private servers again after a two-year break.

I always enjoyed it, but two years ago I decided to stop playing because I found the servers had a lot of disadvantages. I started playing official, but since then I’ve been looking for a great private server almost every day. A few days ago, I decided to give all the top private servers another chance.
So far, I've enjoyed Eastmile, but I also wanted to open this discussion thread to give a platform for players to share their ideas and what they love and hate about private servers.
It's also a chance for developers to work on ideas that will be loved by the community.

I know everyone's different and everyone will have their own ideas. Something I like might be hated by 99% of the community. This is totally normal, and I want everyone to understand that.

If you like an idea that's been shared in that post, just leave a like for the person who shared it. That way, the developer will know how many people like that specific idea.

I also would like to keep the thread readable for the entire community. It would be great if each post will be easily readable for everyone.
For that reason, I would like to ask you to use a translator like:


If you want to write in English, you can use that to style the language in a right way:


With the links above, the posts will have a high quality English description and each post will be readable by everyone.

I want to start with a few ideas I have in mind. I will describe both in short and longer way.

Short:

• Raids that are actually difficult to complete and reward high-value items that are well worth the time and mental focus required to complete
• Focus on the "team-play-events" instead of making most of the events almost single-player

Longer description:

• What I hate most about most private servers is the way raids are handled. Actually, this is also terrible on official servers. There is no hard raid. Not a single one. New raids might be difficult in the first few days after release, but after that all raids are easy. I am not a big fan of that. After doing the raids a few times, you almost go into auto mode and do the raids automatically without using a single cell in your brain. It makes the game boring. I would love to find a server that actually has a difficult raid that always requires some specific tasks. I can't give an exact example because I don't know what's possible from a developer's perspective, but some randomisation in the same raid would make it unique.
• I have always loved this game because of its unique community. Some of the players are trash and that is normal. But I actually met two of my best friends in the game. It was almost a decade ago and we still met every weekend. And it wasn't obvious because two of our trio already have families of their own. But we still stick together. And once again - it all started with NosTale.
  And this is what I would like to see on the server. Something that would require a real connection between players. Something that would bring players to voice chats and force them to talk and meet new people. Currently none of the servers offer this kind of stuff. Maybe there is 3v3 on Eastmile, but I haven't seen anyone playing that mode. Again, I can't give you an example because I'm not a developer, but the general idea can give you some hints.

This is all from me. If I see a lot of activity in the thread, I will make a new post with many more ideas I may have in mind. At the moment, I just don't know if anyone will be interested in contributing with it's own ideas or any developer considering these suggestions.


Short guide:

• Share your gameplay ideas
• Use deep-L if your English isn't 100% readable
• Use "Thanks" button if you like the ideas of other people

[Hayell]

Do you want to know why servers have activities that are mostly designed to be done alone? Because most people today:
- dont know how to play
- dont understand the basics of the game
- dont want to improve their EQ
- dont want to socialise, so they prefer to join mass fam "just to be in a fam", where nobody gets any help
- they would rather quit and find another server that is easy enough to play solo than work on any of the above

I feel like a lot of people come with a 2012 Offi mentality where all you need is eq+10, sp+15, some random ress and bushi to play all the content - all within 1-2 weeks and they just ignore the fact that they are playing on a pserver with a lot of custom features and more accessible stuff.

Another problem is that people cannot play for more than 2-4 weeks on one server, so it is easy to open scam servers where people play for 1 month until it randomly closes and in 3-4 months there is another one doing the same thing and people get used to it because they like to start on a fresh server so if server is X months old already its "too late to start playing on it". Unfortunately, nos servers have become money farms for scammers who paid 50 euros for barely working source, and servers with ideas that have been around for years are being punished for their "long term gameplay design".

I would really like to play or make a hard server without a lot of rng, with slow leveling and activities that requires tactics and teamwork (with like 4-8 ppl team instead of 15-20) etc, but seeing how people play on servers that already seem pretty easy makes me think that there is no place for hard servers anymore and content has to be super easy and simple so working few months on a server just to peak at 30 players after few weeks "because its too hard/slow" is just a waste of time and money.

[Feuerdrachenzauber]

The Problem is: "Host & Money"

If you create your P Server a lot of money go to the Server Host. The P Server owner need a method to get his money back ~IG Shop~


Problem to resvolve it: "Dont buy a Server. Host a Server over LAN. Invite another players"(It works only for a small player base, for under 5~8 players.)

My idea: "Developers create a small player groups for this method and to avoid any costs from the host server"

[amagedon99]

Im playing Nostale on and off since 2008 and my most fun playing was till c-gear arrived.

U guys remember when the endgame was basically fighting in act4 to get as much raids as possible to farm r7 shells?

I think P-server´s forgetting that Act4 is/was the endgame of nostale (PVP based).
U know why u saw so many ppl back then in arena, cuz there was no Teoman shell spamming.
u could kill lvl90+ people with lvl74.

It was a good marketing option for Nostale overall because they big enabled the Betting option for shells, which sadly slowly killed the game.

My last most fun i had on a p-server was the first 3 months on Olympus when
people would fight in act4 over the raids cuz u got alot of PP stones back then,
really good times, sadly which they also killed.

I would love to see a p-server that focuses on killing some gambling options in the game aka bring back the old act4 shell farming option.

Sadly now-days people focus more on "fast gameplay" then " grind gameplay".

[Feuerdrachenzauber]

Originally Posted by amagedon99

Im playing Nostale on and off since 2008 and my most fun playing was till c-gear arrived.

U guys remember when the endgame was basically fighting in act4 to get as much raids as possible to farm r7 shells?

I think P-server´s forgetting that Act4 is/was the endgame of nostale (PVP based).
U know why u saw so many ppl back then in arena, cuz there was no Teoman shell spamming.
u could kill lvl90+ people with lvl74.

It was a good marketing option for Nostale overall because they big enabled the Betting option for shells, which sadly slowly killed the game.

My last most fun i had on a p-server was the first 3 months on Olympus when
people would fight in act4 over the raids cuz u got alot of PP stones back then,
really good times, sadly which they also killed.

I would love to see a p-server that focuses on killing some gambling options in the game aka bring back the old act4 shell farming option.

Sadly now-days people focus more on "fast gameplay" then " grind gameplay".

I think a classic P Server could be very nice. With only act 1-5 or 1-4. Classic style. Only EQ/Resis/Shells/Partners/Pets/SP(without perfection)max. +15 upgrading. EXP and Gold x3 or x5.

[amagedon99]

the potential is for sure here for a classic style server.
However this Server will need a whole rework, since all server are build up
in the new "nostale gameplay".

Means progression/gearing needs to be tested and adjusted to the classic feel,
which will be a hell of a work and then to consider if the server will be populated is the next question, so hard to get a team inspiring it.

MY PERSONAL VIEW:

Releasing a Old system Nostale, which we had till act5.2
Nostale back then was pretty hard and u had to be grouped most of times.
as Feuerdrachenzauber said above, all this additions from Partners/pets/runes/tattoos
and so on was only marketing from nostale and killed the game. its legit betting for real.
Which every single good mmorpg got killed by it.

My old pvp/pve was act4 and im so angry that they killed this act, with betting EQ.
I cant stress this enough.
So many Nostale players are searching for there pvp/pve endgame and P-Server owners
dont wanna get it, that original Nostale killed act4 just for big money flow.
not to add how many options u can add to this act if people start grind for shells there PVP/PVE content wise.

ACT4 IS YOUR ENDGAME

[Phizex]

I like both ideas for an "old NosTale", but I don't think it will work. Developers need to make money and I think this type of server would have a pretty small end game to keep players for a longer period of time.
Act 4 as an endgame will not be enough for people who have been playing this game for the last decade. There have been too many changes that have improved the game. Of course there have been a lot of **** ups, but some of the additions to the game have really been a hit.

For example, it would be difficult to play this game with SPs 1-4. Newer cards became players' favourites, and I don't know anyone who would be cool to go back to the days of only 4 cards. At the same time, adding all 11 SPs while removing heroic level, books, perfection and all the rest would require an insane amount of balance. Newer SPs would run out of mana after using 3 skills xD Not to mention defence, crits, dodges etc.


I agree the idea is cool, but I don't think anyone qualified for the job will waste time on it.

The only hope is that the COMMUNITY (actually people who want this server) get together and make it happen. The last time I spoke to a developer, he said that balance work doesn't require any programming skills. Maybe there will be a group of people determined to work on it and maybe one day we will see the server you both dream of.

[amagedon99]

I fully agree with u, its gonna be so hard to pull out smt like this these days.
people have already gotten into the habit of fast finishing everything and if somethink takes a while u get alot of hate for it.

Sadly the good old mmorpg games turned into full fast space gambling games,
people just wait for reset´s to rush endgame and get bored, which i see in a lot of games nowdays.

[Phizex]

Originally Posted by 3745872345

Random question: How feasible would it be to write one such emulator from the ground up? I myself am unable to estimate how much work that would require. There isn't much documentation about how Nostale p-server emulation generally works, and the only experience I have with Nostale p-servers is getting an old Ventus source to run. I am asking because I thought this might be a good opportunity to create a community successor to OpenNos that actually works without bugs, since the feature set of an oldschool server would be very limited and therefore easier/quicker to develop.

I asked my friend and I will describe his answer. I may not be 100% accurate because I am not into it and this is just what I remember from 2 hours ago when we had a conversation, as well as my newbie assumptions.

"The features you have in mind are a small part of the emulator. He described that implementing these features is not a big deal and is actually a quick process.

Creating a new emulator for an old-school NosTale from 2014 would take 90% of the time it would take to create an emulator with all the Nostale features in mid-2024.
The biggest part of the emulator is a core and all the logic related to damage etc. And this is needed in 2024 features as well as in 2008.

He also said that in case of working on a completely new emulator, AI would help a lot because a large part of the algorithms and overall logic could be copied from existing emulators and redesigned with AI to fit the needs of the new emulator. But it is still not worth the effort for such a small game"


About emulators. My friend showed me how to set up vanosilla.
For me, a complete newbie who knows almost nothing about programming, opennos seems readable. At least I understand what is going on.
With vanosilla I understand nothing.

But as my friend said, only a blind idiot would ever use opennos. And since I trust him, I think you should concentrate on vanosilla if you are considering working on a server.