RoF Discussion: What direction should RoF go?

[Ogarci]

Heya everyone.

As obvious as it is, if you don't know, RoF has not been the most popular server lately, or the most updated one. I've recently been able to fix the issues we were having with the Classic gametype, but I do not feel that this, coupled with a bit of advertising perhaps, is enough to make the server something truly enjoyable.

Of course, I've heard several suggestions as to what we should do. Some love Classic and want RoF to be only Classic. On the other side, I know a lot of those who do not like the Classic rounds, and then there's those in the middle that say the balance we have now is perfect.

I'd like to start a (serious) discussion to try to figure out what the best direction to take RoF would be. If you have mentioned to me previously your thoughts on this, please post again here for others to see. If it gets to the point where a poll is necessary I will make one, but I don't think that would be the best tool right now.

Just to note, before any suggestions are made, we no longer have a committed developer to RoF, so any changes would have to be made with plugins available and nothing custom coded.

Here's some of the things I have thought about already, not all are suggestions. If you want me to explain some of these I will.
- Shortening rounds drastically but keeping prices where they are.
- Going full Classic would mean everyone who has earned their survival items would lose them permanently, as well as the lobby that we've worked on for shops would be obsolete.
- Going full Classic would be easier to advertise, since anyone who played classic LS knows what it is. It's easier than having to explain our survival take on LS to new or potential players.

I'm open to hearing anything that contributes to the conversation, if you have something to say that is not related please post elsewhere.

 

[Vatumok]

I think RoF should move to either classic or survival. Classic meaning that the server will be more abouting building and hanging around. Survival could have more potential but is way harder to reach, then it will focus on more actively trying to survive by doing "things(?)".

Right now it has the classic and passive playstyle but often the survival gamemode which is only really annoying since you will mostly chill in a box. Therefore the switch to classic would be obvious as it would remove the annoying survival gamemode in such a passive game but I think a lot of cool things could be possible in a more active version of RoF.

Now these 2 gamemodes could be mixed like we have now only then you get the problem that players will be upset, afk or quit because they didn't like the round switching for passive to active (or the other way around).

Whatever happens, not everyone will be happy with the choices made.

 

[les_morts_vivants]

we should go full classic the players are more active then survival where they finish building then go afk

 

[Velzerat]

I think full classic would be the best option. I personally never really liked how survival-based RoF was (it was in this awkward stage where it wasn't really difficult to survive, but it wasn't really easy to build nice-looking houses either) and while it is fun, I think most people prefer Classic and classic is arguably the most fun gamemode. My personal favorite way of doing things would be to have, say, 75% Classic rounds and 25% survival rounds, but I think that would probably just be too confusing. Full classic seems like the best way to go. (I hope some of the existing survival maps would be converted to classic though? Maybe have a vote for some maps?)

EDIT: words

 

[Psycho]

How I see it is that with Classic, it simplifies the game quite a bit for the players-- And I somehow suspect that it may not require as much staff or help to learn how to play a round. Of course, I may be wrong about that aspect, but without a Dev for RoF, it would be hard to keep the server maintained or up to date when new blocks/updates/problems come out. I also think that shorter rounds on top of Classic should be considered.

So correct me if I'm wrong here-- If RoF becomes Classic Lava- would players only need to worry about cookies earned and their rank?
Would it be easy to incorporate Pets that players can buy? Or would new plugins break the server?

 

[CaramelCow]

Bring back the old Pokémon like things if possible, they were good fun.

 

[Willchill]

Classic LS is much more active because you could still build after the lava has engulfed your home (flower tunnels!) and pretty much everything everybody else has said. I would add a poll to this if I were you so we could have a clear display of what the community would prefer.

 

[Notme]

Classic LS is much more active because you could still build after the lava has engulfed your home (flower tunnels!) and pretty much everything everybody else has said. I would add a poll to this if I were you so we could have a clear display of what the community would prefer.

1. Classic is dead.
2. Flower tunnels are impossible to make now.

--------------------------------------
I think classic is more fun, as you can build whatever you want. So I would want half of rounds being Classic and rounds being shorter depending on how many players are online.

 

[Ogarci]

(I hope some of the existing survival maps would be converted to classic though? Maybe have a vote for some maps?)

If a full Classic conversion took place, yes survival maps would be converted as well as more of the classic ones we have out of rotation would be added.

I also think that shorter rounds on top of Classic should be considered.
So correct me if I'm wrong here-- If RoF becomes Classic Lava- would players only need to worry about cookies earned and their rank?
Would it be easy to incorporate Pets that players can buy? Or would new plugins break the server?

Bring back the old Pokémon like things if possible, they were good fun.

Psycho: I think at this point, shorter rounds are a definite. Yes, that's all they would have to worry about.

If pets were to work exactly like they did in old lava, then it would take a custom plugin, which we don't have a dev for. If there is some outside plugin that already exists, adding it in shouldn't break anything, but I doubt there's anything that's even close to the Pokemon style pets that Cow is talking about. I'm sure there's a generic pets one out there, and I could probably rig something up to let you buy them, but it would be different.


Right now it's obvious that many want to go strictly Classic, but there's a couple problems with that that I'm thinking about.

Going classic means that there's not much point to cookies and ranks, as the server is right now. Currently you earn cookies to buy things from the store, and get higher ranks to earn more cookies to buy more things. But you don't need any of those things in creative, so the entire store, cookies, and ranks all become pointless. I suppose we could add the option to use commands with increased ranks, like make /paint and alias of //repl, but I'm having trouble coming up with things beyond that. There's 13 ranks to RoF right now, and I'm not saying we need to keep all of them but if we didn't then a lot of people would get demotions.

 

[Catcocomics]

I have a suggestion, though I'm not sure if you can pull it off.

Two portals

one is always classic, the other is always survival

maybe have both rounds in the same world, possibly with both maps in decent view of each other. If this can be done, then maybe also have a bridge between both maps that switches players to their respective game modes and inventories.

no more leaving because of a game mode you don't like.

 

[MiyakoWolf]

maybe have both rounds in the same world, possibly with both maps in decent view of each other. If this can be done, then maybe also have a bridge between both maps that switches players to their respective game modes and inventories.

That would probably be really laggy

 

[Lee_scar]

It would be interesting if there was some way to raise the amount of cookies gained dependent on the amount of players online.
You still receive baseline per rank, and +x for each other person online or in the round.
However that sounds like expanding the plugin.

 

[Willchill]

It would be interesting if there was some way to raise the amount of cookies gained dependent on the amount of players online.
You still receive baseline per rank, and +x for each other person online or in the round.
However that sounds like expanding the plugin.

That should only be one line of code to add, and a fairly simple one at that.

 

[les_morts_vivants]

Going classic means that there's not much point to cookies and ranks, as the server is right now. Currently you earn cookies to buy things from the store, and get higher ranks to earn more cookies to buy more things. But you don't need any of those things in creative, so the entire store, cookies, and ranks all become pointless. I suppose we could add the option to use commands with increased ranks, like make /paint and alias of //repl, but I'm having trouble coming up with things beyond that. There's 13 ranks to RoF right now, and I'm not saying we need to keep all of them but if we didn't then a lot of people would get demotions.

. What if we just turn the shop into a cosmetic shop then it would Eliminate another problem I see with some people declaring they Are higher than others just because They have a higher rank

 

[CaramelCow]

If a full Classic conversion took place, yes survival maps would be converted as well as more of the classic ones we have out of rotation would be added.




Psycho: I think at this point, shorter rounds are a definite. Yes, that's all they would have to worry about.

If pets were to work exactly like they did in old lava, then it would take a custom plugin, which we don't have a dev for. If there is some outside plugin that already exists, adding it in shouldn't break anything, but I doubt there's anything that's even close to the Pokemon style pets that Cow is talking about. I'm sure there's a generic pets one out there, and I could probably rig something up to let you buy them, but it would be different.


Right now it's obvious that many want to go strictly Classic, but there's a couple problems with that that I'm thinking about.

Going classic means that there's not much point to cookies and ranks, as the server is right now. Currently you earn cookies to buy things from the store, and get higher ranks to earn more cookies to buy more things. But you don't need any of those things in creative, so the entire store, cookies, and ranks all become pointless. I suppose we could add the option to use commands with increased ranks, like make /paint and alias of //repl, but I'm having trouble coming up with things beyond that. There's 13 ranks to RoF right now, and I'm not saying we need to keep all of them but if we didn't then a lot of people would get demotions.

Did anyone really care about ranks in the old classic? After you got access to /water and /lava I and many others stopped caring about what rank we were. I don't recall Lava Survival ever being about Surviving the Lava, it was always more about building the best duck and socialising. As much as I miss the old classic IMO it almost seems like a downgrade now, don't listen to me though as I'm sure I'm the minority on this opinion.
Also I don't think many things would drastically increase the popularity of RoF, to me RoF has always been fine but it was the other servers that were lack lustre (from my observations).

 

[UNST4BL3]

Heya everyone.

As obvious as it is, if you don't know, RoF has not been the most popular server lately, or the most updated one. I've recently been able to fix the issues we were having with the Classic gametype, but I do not feel that this, coupled with a bit of advertising perhaps, is enough to make the server something truly enjoyable.

Of course, I've heard several suggestions as to what we should do. Some love Classic and want RoF to be only Classic. On the other side, I know a lot of those who do not like the Classic rounds, and then there's those in the middle that say the balance we have now is perfect.

I'd like to start a (serious) discussion to try to figure out what the best direction to take RoF would be. If you have mentioned to me previously your thoughts on this, please post again here for others to see. If it gets to the point where a poll is necessary I will make one, but I don't think that would be the best tool right now.

Just to note, before any suggestions are made, we no longer have a committed developer to RoF, so any changes would have to be made with plugins available and nothing custom coded.

Here's some of the things I have thought about already, not all are suggestions. If you want me to explain some of these I will.
- Shortening rounds drastically but keeping prices where they are.
- Going full Classic would mean everyone who has earned their survival items would lose them permanently, as well as the lobby that we've worked on for shops would be obsolete.
- Going full Classic would be easier to advertise, since anyone who played classic LS knows what it is. It's easier than having to explain our survival take on LS to new or potential players.

I'm open to hearing anything that contributes to the conversation, if you have something to say that is not related please post elsewhere.

Hello there Ogarci, my name is UNST4BL3. I joined RoF about 500 days ago, but only recently have become active often on the server.
I see that you said you are lacking a dedicated developer. I feel that I might be able to help here. I have quite a bit of experience developing plugins and have even attempted at creating my own Lava survival minigame in the past, although it was never completed because I couldn't replicate the lava mechanics. I definitely have enough experience though to edit the plugin to implement those features you listed, though I'm not sure how the previous developer would feel about this. Alternatively, I can code "addons" if you will to the original RoF plugin which will work alongside it. Either way, I would be extremely happy to help.

 

[Refrigerated_Elements]

Just as warning of these suggestions may or may not require a dev. Some of these are 2 AM ideas so they may not be good

I am mixed on the Classic vs Survival debate. If it were up to me to chose what game mode would be removed without making any changes to the server would be survival. But to me each game mode has it pluses and minuses. For example while classic is more fun, survival gives more meaning to playing due to the collection of items. I feel that classic does not need too much work to make it fun. However with some overhauls survival could be improved greatly. Overall I am not in support of gutting Survival or Classic unless invs get bugged like in the past

I will now list changes that I think should be made to both game modes

• Fix and probably improve the tutorial and try to find a way to fix new players spawning out
• Completely overhaul the shops and rewards / price for each rank. I would like to see the structure of the shops and ranks allow new players to buy items while having it balanced for higher ranks.
• Add Robo's suggestion about quests http://escaperestart.com/forum/threads/upgrades-quests-and-more.18673/
• Test Psychos suggestion about chat http://escaperestart.com/forum/threads/chatreaction-for-rof.18809/
• Have 3 map choices for voting, rework or remove some maps, add jubjubers suggestion about map ratings http://escaperestart.com/forum/threads/in-game-map-rating.16798/ and/or add Wimalis suggestion about being able to rock the vote http://escaperestart.com/forum/threads/rock-the-vote.17644/
• Hold events every week - once a month.
• Make ores more common because many players don't even bother mining due to how rare ores are
• Find ways to make being the only player - 3 players more exciting and or have rewards for being the only player - 3 players
• Shorten round times to 25 minutes. I would be for 15 or 20 minute round times, but I feel there would too much trouble with timers. Shorter round times should be brought out slowly to see how players like the new round times.

I am probably forgetting about other things I thought about before.

 

[Fragile]

kinda building off what wii said
i recently joined a server with the chat thing, people were pretty involved with it and it made the server more fun
i also think you should do last man standing every month

 

[Hunter]

what if there was a gamemode so that you had to stay in the lava, and air flooded the map instead
build houses to keep out the air

 

[Mastersten]

It has been a while since I seriously played RoF but I feel that classic is the new future that people will join since it looks the most like the original classic lava BUT, if you do 1 day every month/week that turns the gamemode around (from classic to original RoF) with special rewards, it will become more popular and active.

Oh and I'm totally for the pet thing