Warning: Wall of Text

This post got me thinking:

Starkmalark wrote:

Era is on its death bed, the old players are getting bored of playing, and hardly any new players are coming in.

Noobs are treated in such a way that they try this game, get frustrated, and cannot justify spending cash to get Gold.

I honestly don't think Era will be around in the next year at this rate, nobody does anything any more, except idle at unstick and play events all day. Wheres the street pking? Wheres the gang drama? Wheres the player drama? All gone, people are getting older, tired, and just plain fed up with this game.

It's 2012, Era needs something fresh, as there are so many other games to play now a days that Era is on the lowest tier, most of the people who play have been playing since they were young, and only continue to play in hopes to relive those cherished memories of the past.

iPhone Era sadly, will most likely be the only active incarnation of Era, as PC Era is doomed for failure very soon. All it would take is a few more oldbies to quit, which is happening more and more, as people realize they are getting older, with more responsibility, limiting the amount of time they can waste on this sub-par game.

I was going to post this in the thread that he originally posted it in, but I think it deserves its own thread.

I can see pretty much everything he said coming true. It has been going on for a long time.

I think this game could get better. It just requires drastic change.

A leveling system: PKing levels as it were. A way to progress besides garnering more skill or buying a better gun. Maybe could be accompanied by a talent system.

A questing system: More quests for downtime between PKing. Improved NPC enemies. (this is really optional, but could be a nice addition to the game)

A raiding system: A more efficient way for gangs to organize raids. I imagine an event system-like framework for organizing raids with gang leaders being the "ETs" and being able to set up raid warpers that gang members can "subscribe" to.

Better ways to make money:
I propose one or more of the following changes:
-Make PKing pay as well or better than jobs
-Make jobs less boring
-Make jobs pay more
-Make jobs easier or faster to do

People should be having fun on this game, not slaving over a hot mining drill for hours at a time for months or years to be able to afford a gun so that they can compete against the people who have been playing this game since they were in middle school and are now in college.

Incentives for PKing: My original idea for gun drops comes to mind. BlueMelon took it and made it only drop food/ammo/ECs. I think if it works well for Team Fortress 2, it could work well for Era.

A crafting system: A way to make items in the game. A crafting level system, to ensure people all start at the same spot, despite wealth. This could tie in well with PKing incentives. Players could drop materials to make guns/hats/novelty items. Or a salvaging system could be put in place where players sacrifice guns (which they would get from player drops) for parts to make better guns/items.

A weapon mod/upgrade/customization system: A way to make your MP5 different from someone else's. This could come in the form of:

-weapon mods that allow you to change some aspect of your gun's performance
-a weapon upgrade system that essentially allows you to level up your gun the more you use it.
-ammo mods that let you choose the behavior of your bullets (armor piercing, incendiary, etc.)
-customization: being able to change the way your gun looks.

An auction house: If you want people to PK more, you have to reduce the time idling at unstick required to try and sell your stuff.
An automated Auction House (much like WoW's, or like the Grand Exchange from Runescape) accomplishes this elegantly and conveniently.
The mall is a start, but it's really clunky and in no way equivalent to a good Auction House system. Also, you have to pay for a physical spot in the mall, which you wouldn't have to do with an Auction House, because there is no limit to how many items can physically fit in it.

A new chat/communication system: Mass messages are an antiquated way of messaging all of the players on the server. In no way should they go away, because they are a good method for advertising, but they should be a supplement to a more modern approach to a global messaging system.
There should be a chat window visible at all times (unless the player chooses to hide it) somewhere on the screen that has several different chat channels: general chat that all players can see, party chat that only your party can see, gang chat that only your gang can see (regardless of whether or not you're on tag), trade chat for advertising and trading purposes, and local chat that only players near you can see.

There is a chat window that Tim made that was only used for maybe the first day after he released it. It's not the kind of chat system I'm talking about. You couldn't stop, type a quick message, and keep playing with his system. You couldn't glance at it every now and then to read what people are saying. When you closed the chat window, and reopened it, all the previous messages were gone, and you missed all the messages that were sent while it was closed.

Basically what I'm talking about is an extended /tg system.

Achievements: I'm not one of those people who tries to get all of the achievements in every game I play, but it's a cool feature that Era is lacking.

Any of these things would be awesome to see in the game, and all of them combined would make a wholly new game. One that I think people would enjoy as much as they used to enjoy Era.

Also, I'm not of the opinion that Era sucks, just that it's very outdated compared to modern games.

Totally right, and all excellent ideas.

Leveling -
People should get small upgrades to their character which will provide incentive to play, without being overpowering. What if you could get small, yet permanent speed increases? Awesome. Or increased melee weapon swing speed. Perhaps a 10% reduction in received damage, the ability to chuck grenades farther, or an ability to quickly side-step out of the path of incoming bullets? I'm not sure that linear leveling system can go too far - after all, what is there to level? Rather, a system of tiered perks might be more appealing - what if you could spend points from leveling via kills on perks? That would be incredible, and would make combat much more interesting and rewarding.


Quests - Hell yes. Rewards like weapons or hats, or even unique perks (see above). You could raid gang compounds (NPC gangs), fight sewer hobos, or kill crab people.

Raids - Also yes. People should be able to designate a high-stakes "capture point" in a base, and defend it with trip mines, barricades, and possibly even mounted swivel machine gun nests. That would be incredibly badass, and make for more interesting and competitive gang combat.

Jobs - They totally suck currently. Too repetitive. What if you could raid "dungeons" full of NPCs to get cash, or fight waves of bots in a training arena? Money per kill could be transferred to the player's ATM, and the bots could drop ammo and shit too.

PK Gun Drops - Yes. Make them rare so as to add an unexpected twist and a reward to PKing.

Weapon Mods - I suggested this a while back:

Tom133t wrote:

The Concept:
I love guns in real life. Once I get ahold of a gun and take it to the range, my mind starts racing about various ways to tweak it, improve it, and customize it. I think Era should have a firearms modification system, which would allow players to buy upgrades and parts for their guns. The gap between weapon tiers is so huge that most medium-income players like myself won't see any equipment improvement at all between tiers. Weapon mods could add intermediate levels of weapon stats, and would allow players to customize their beloved guns.

How it would work:
Each weapon would have a few compatible mods. Players would buy parts from an NPC / menu interface that would direct them to the appropriate mods. With a few clicks, the player could install parts to a certain gun, removing them from his inventory. Each gun should only have three mod slots, to avoid crazy-powerful combinations of mods. This becomes difficult to script once you end up with hundreds of unique variants of each weapon, so simply prevent the player from selling modded guns to NPCs, trading them to players, or dropping the guns. Allow players to remove mods whenever they want, and sell stock guns and piles of parts separately. A simple GUI element in the inventory would show the mods and stat bonuses / active effects of the highlighted gun. As a bonus, allow players to "name" their customized guns. AKA, "The Annihilator". People do that in real life too, and sometimes it's goddamn incredible.


List of proposed Mods/Parts:
- Enhanced muzzle-break: A muzzle break essentially minimizes the recoil of rifles with a screw-on part that goes on the end of the barrel and redirects escaping gases. This would translate into a very slight freeze reduction.

- Mounted Laser: A cool laser graphic would be added, which would result in greater practical accuracy (AKA, lower spread).

- Precision Fire-control Group: Basically, the trigger's guts. A tighter FCG would result in a crisper trigger pull, and in the context of Era, a higher rate of fire.

- Synthetic Stock: For the weight-conscious, this polymer buttstock would be easier on the inventory than outdated wood. Weapon weight-reduction.

- Extended Magazines: Who cares whether they're California-legal? A larger magazine would allow guns to hold more rounds per magazine.

- Suppressor: Quieter gunshots may sound impractical on Era, where stealth counts for little, but tell me this - how often are you attracted to a pair of scuffling noobs when you hear bullets ricocheting in the hospital parking lot? A suppressed firearm would have a cool sound effect, which would only be heard by very close players.


These are only a few rough ideas, but I think a weapon modification system would add a ton of depth and playability to Era. Like I said, it would bridge the gap between weapon tiers, and it would add an awesome collection and customization element to the game. Who's with me?

http://www.unofficialeraforums.com/t123-gun-mods
Do it.

Chat System - Yes. It would make communicating easier. Nobody ever knows what's going on in Era. Raids could be better coordinated, and spontaneous social events triggered by players could happen: "I hid 5k somewhere on the GMAP!".






Overall, it's a plain fact that Era has to innovate or die. This is it. Show's over.

everything you've suggested requires scripting knowledge and the unfortunate truth is that our dev team is very limited. era has so much potential to be a great game but the fact that it's ran by people who work on it in their free time, it's very hard to get stuff done on that sort of level. especially when there's only 2 people on the team that can script.

I agree that era and even graal in general is dying. something definitely needs to be done but it's not going to be easy.

Graal moved onto the Idevices, PC will die there is no doubt about that. Just ride the dying horse until it's dead and have fun, or quit. Whatever.

Frankie wrote:

everything you've suggested requires scripting knowledge and the unfortunate truth is that our dev team is very limited. era has so much potential to be a great game but the fact that it's ran by people who work on it in their free time, it's very hard to get stuff done on that sort of level. especially when there's only 2 people on the team that can script.

I agree that era and even graal in general is dying. something definitely needs to be done but it's not going to be easy.

Everyone needs to stop being lazy and learn to script, if you know how to script share your knowledge, if you are of reasonable intelligence, can speak english and want to see this game become better, then break out the level editor and start scripting...

I'm going to start today! I have too many ideas not to try.

Disregard that, its impossible to script on this shit. I can't even get a custom flag to work (

I could script all of what you suggested. The issue is, I'm just one person. It would take too long. Which is why we usually just work on what we feel is important. Like right now I'm working on battle royal, which is actually making really good progress. It will have a far better support for gangs as well.

I could also script everything listed. Do I have the time right now? I don't.

Then pick two things each and make shit happen.

Let's kill two birds with one stone and just make Rogue GBA, and give him level 4 RC to fix/make whatever he wants. (can do any dev)

Sounds gucci imo.

Tim_Rocks wrote:

I could script all of what you suggested. The issue is, I'm just one person. It would take too long. Which is why we usually just work on what we feel is important. Like right now I'm working on battle royal, which is actually making really good progress. It will have a far better support for gangs as well.

You mean Zach's project?

Robot wrote:

Frankie wrote:

everything you've suggested requires scripting knowledge and the unfortunate truth is that our dev team is very limited. era has so much potential to be a great game but the fact that it's ran by people who work on it in their free time, it's very hard to get stuff done on that sort of level. especially when there's only 2 people on the team that can script.

I agree that era and even graal in general is dying. something definitely needs to be done but it's not going to be easy.

Everyone needs to stop being lazy and learn to script, if you know how to script share your knowledge, if you are of reasonable intelligence, can speak english and want to see this game become better, then break out the level editor and start scripting...

I'm going to start today! I have too many ideas not to try.

Disregard that, its impossible to script on this shit. I can't even get a custom flag to work (

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic but learning how to script isn't a short process. it takes a while just to be decent at it, which isn't good enough for large scale projects.

fiberwire wrote:

You mean Zach's project?

It was, then I had a better idea of how to script it and took the project over.

I wrote this huge wall of text about why Era is dying and has been for awhile, but it never posted.


So, to sum it up, I think the obvious elephant in the room for the past 3 years is that Graal in general is the problem.


Graal is dead/dying and even real management of Graal barely give a shit.

I think everyone can agree with this really. It's hard to work on a game and put effort towards it when your provider or host is basically dead.

Era will live on!!!!!!! Tim 4 life!!

MonkeyBob wrote:

Era will live on!!!!!!! Tim 4 life!!

Stop yourself.




I think shrimps put it best. Graal is on its way out, so I'm confused as to why you're all so interested in 'saving' era. You're nurturing one branch of a tree while the rest is cut down at the trunk.

If you want to save Era, start by making era anew. Make your own MMO from the ground up, and implement era-like ideas (not suggesting you steal Graal's intellectual property) into it. That's your best bet.

Or you could do what's already been done, and move on with the times (iEra). The problem there is, that Era does not remind us of what we have, and had, so we dislike it.

Anything else is just kind of fooling yourself, no?

PC has been on a dying branch for a while now. Same with Era. The only thing we can do is make new updates and create new things to keep players interested.

Besides the fact that the server has gotten boring and lost its pizazz, the servers crash bi-weekly, and usually for days at a time. Even if Era's staff could make some cool additions to the server, the game as a whole is doomed due to indifference and neglect from the homeboys at the top who can actually do something about it, but choose to fap instead.

It doesn't help that dev isn't being renewed and the servers crash every other day either.

The first thing that needs to be done is to add a tutorial system that new players HAVE to finish before they go out into the real world. This will allow players to understand a little bit more before going into a community with unfamiliar surroundings. Next the guns and their stats should be redone.

hihihihii wrote:

The first thing done is to add a Tutorial system, that new players HAVE to finish before they go out the real world, this will allow players to understand a little bit more, before going into a community with unfamiliar surroundings..Next the guns and it's stats should be re-done...

Forced tutorials are the worst thing possible and piss me the fuck off.

I am me wrote:

hihihihii wrote:

The first thing done is to add a Tutorial system, that new players HAVE to finish before they go out the real world, this will allow players to understand a little bit more, before going into a community with unfamiliar surroundings..Next the guns and it's stats should be re-done...

Forced tutorials are the worst thing possible and piss me the fuck off.

Well you wouldn't have to do it, so.....

Do what zelderex and a lot of other games do. Make an optional tutorial, with a button to quit at any point. But make some (small) reward for completing the tutorial segments (mining drill, TNT, maybe a lightweight potion or two, who gives a shit), and when they hit quit bring up a box saying 'you can quit, but you will miss out on the reward'

Scoper wrote:

Do what zelderex and a lot of other games do. Make an optional tutorial, with a button to quit at any point. But make some (small) reward for completing the tutorial segments (mining drill, TNT, maybe a lightweight potion or two, who gives a shit), and when they hit quit bring up a box saying 'you can quit, but you will miss out on the reward'

Zelderex and those other games definitely got it right.

MonkeyBob wrote:

I am me wrote:

hihihihii wrote:

The first thing done is to add a Tutorial system, that new players HAVE to finish before they go out the real world, this will allow players to understand a little bit more, before going into a community with unfamiliar surroundings..Next the guns and it's stats should be re-done...

Forced tutorials are the worst thing possible and piss me the fuck off.

Well you wouldn't have to do it, so.....

DON'T TELL ME HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE!

Scoper wrote:

Do what zelderex and a lot of other games do. Make an optional tutorial, with a button to quit at any point. But make some (small) reward for completing the tutorial segments (mining drill, TNT, maybe a lightweight potion or two, who gives a shit), and when they hit quit bring up a box saying 'you can quit, but you will miss out on the reward'

Really? A drill?

No, The tutorial should reward a decent gun and ammo. How are we going to attract new players to the server if we force them to slave away in the mines for hours on end after they finish the tutorial? What game does that? Usually after finishing a tutorial you get items to jump into the game and start playing.