Aaron

Greetings to HCS in general. You may not know who I am, but I am Will. One of the Volunteer Helpers over at Legacy. I am here to express a few concerns that I, myself, have that I wish to bring forth and hopefully have addressed. Some of these issues, I know the community as a whole has as well, but they feel it's pointless to even mention it. Which is something I intend to cover as well. Which, unfortunately, means that this post will be quite a read. So I apologize in advance for that.

What my concerns are stem from 3 specific things: Staff, Player, and the Game itself.

The Staff Side:

When I first applied for staff 4 years ago, almost everyone that was currently staff had to step down because Zorg joined HCS. The reason given was because Legacy would now be part of HCS. Which meant that staff from HCS would join in and help on the staff side of the house. I decided that I would stick around since I just joined the team and I would be able to easily mold into whatever needed to be done.

A short time after the merge, we were introduced to a few individuals. They hung around, chatted with the community, posted in the forums, it looked great. But then something happened. Everyone vanished. Almost literally to never be heard from again.

Why is this a problem for me and the other staff specifically? Well, we are no longer allowed to do certain things or be able to view certain things. Such as assist players with account issues. Reason being, we are not allowed to see the emails attached to accounts. We have a harder time catching potential multiple accounts (something not allowed at Legacy) because we are not allowed to see passwords.

This is all fine and good and I fully understand the reason behind it. Privacy related issues and etc etc. But the problem starts when there is nobody around to solve the issue. I can only hope when someone comes to me with an "account issue" is that it's an old, returning player and that they just have to make an HCS account to merge with their Legacy account. And if that's not the case and say they need an email change, that brings up an entire new problem. Relying on the ticket system.

I cannot speak for the other games that HCS own and how their process is done, but I can speak for Legacy. I have went 3, 7, even as long as almost 21 days waiting for tickets to be approved before I can view them. This part, I can also understand because the reason I was given, again, was it could pertain to email specific issues and that is something that I as an unpaid employee to the game, cannot view for privacy reasons. But again, if a person is forced to wait 21 days before they finally get a response, chances are they have just sucked it up and moved on. Or have found something else to do with their time and figured Legacy is no longer worth the time.

And it's not just account based issues. People have flat out told me that they don't bother with the ticket system anymore because the response time is horrid. And whenever I explain to them that it's not our (the Legacy staff) fault because we have to wait for HCS to approve it first, they honestly become appauled that it takes that long before they finally get a ticket approved so Legacy staff can come in to try and help. Which means all kinds of player harassment and abuse are left alone to never be dealt with because...the players feel they can't rely on staff to handle it because it takes so long for them to finally get a response.

The Player Side:

Hard as it is for me to believe these days, I was a player at one point. But even though I haven't been a player for the past 4 years, I have seen the growing frustration of the community. And this extends beyond the normal rants that Zorg has grown accustom to from the community over the last 10 years this game has been around.

First off: like I just said, this game has been around for 10 years. 10...solid...years...Despite all the ups and downs it has had, including a server move that damn near wiped out the entire database Zorg had, people are STILL around from the first days of the games release. Whether because they still enjoy the game itself, the community/friendships they've developed over the years, or even if it's just a part of their ritual to login and see what's going on, the fact is this game has some of the most hardcore dedicated players you will EVER have. Almost no game can hold a person's attention for more than a year. This game has managed to do so for 10. That alone should inspire a company to put some attention forth.

This game, despite having one of the most loyal communities I have ever seen and being promised numerous times that it would get more attention.......it has fallen by the wayside. "Once Eldevin has launched and is on it's feet." "Once I'm done with this project." And I'm not even going to bother going over all the plans and roadmaps that were given to the community. While yes, they were upheld to almost exactly what was stated, as soon as it was done, all presence from HCS and Zorg vanished entirely. And we only see him again every 3 months to rotate our Wasteland Map.

Everyone at Legacy knows full well that there are some very talented artists at HCS. Even having a somewhat dedicated graphic artist would be a step in the right direction because this neglect has went on for so long that our longest standing graphic artist has abandoned the game due to...well the game being abandoned.

The Game itself:

Like I have said before, this game has been around for 10 years. Any game that can claim it has been around for a decade, especially a text based game, is definitely one worth investing into. There are groups of people on Legacy that would group together and buy Legacy from Zorg just to keep it alive and do frequent updates because they love the game that much. So it's understandable why people are upset right now. Frustrating as it is for me to see it day in and day out from players, I can't help but sympathize with them at the same time.

One of the excuses could be, "Well Zorg is the only one who knows how to code it." That might be the case...but that can only work for so long. And after 4 years, the community no longer wants to hear that excuse. In 4 years time, surely someone could have been brought up to speed on how things are done. But nobody probably has. Because no effort, no TRUE effort, has been put forth.

At one point, the game had an accurate playerbase. This was due to the fact that inactive players would simply be automatically deleted for inactivity. But this was removed for some reason. A reason, that honestly, was never given publically. So people were left to theorize why. And the one everyone went with was because a game with no accounts/players looks bad next to the other games. So a bigger number must mean that more people play, right?

There are currently 9180 accounts.

And most of these are people who make an account, look around for 5 seconds, and logout. Never to be heard from again. While yes, the way it use to be meant that at most you would see maybe 800 accounts, but at least that was a more accurate picture. At least those 800 were dedicated enough to keep playing or at some point have supported the game by making a donation at some point so their account became permanent. Which this overall thing looks to me as an easy out for Legacy getting no attention. As long as that number of accounts keeps increasing, it must mean that the game is good enough as it is and there's no reason to put any attention towards it. Which that is anything but the case.

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All 3 of these issues tie into each other to some degree. But there is no denying that they are issues.

I'm not here to demand anything. I'm not here to try and cause issues. I'm not here to start drama between anyone.

What I am here for, is to try and be the voice that starts the process of Legacy getting some actual attention from not just HCS, but the creator that has managed to create a game that has brought people together and has kept a loyal fanbase for so long. And continues to grow to this day.

At this point, I believe the community would be happy even if they had 1 day where there is a little chunk of time set aside specifically for Legacy. Even if it's just 3 hours of that day. There are ideas being thrown around in game all the time to try and make things better. Whether it's to better balance the gear or something totally new. So it's not like much has to be considered. Just what is willing to be worked with.

As for me, I would personally love to see some sort of presence of HCS at Legacy. Just to show that Legacy DOES matter and we're not just some addition that was added on when a certain person joined the ranks.

Thank you for your time and hopefully we (myself and the community itself) will hear from HCS/Zorg at some point. Because as this forum has shown, with a majority of the threads being about Legacy, those at Legacy do pay attention and care about Legacy. And I intend to let them know that I created this thread.

As per feedback on my previous thread, I have now devised a new plan. Players didn't seem happy with the idea that everyone would eventually get a 'Perfect Scythe' and be in the same situation they're in now. There was also a lot of call for crystals to be involved in the item variance system so here goes...

Firstly, I'm going to release some never before seen percentages and statistics from the game.

Green Crystals (Chance of drop 1.0%):

1,182 in the game, lowest price is currently 300 credits.

Pink Crystals (Chance of drop 0.8%):

1,148 in the game, lowest price is currently 214 credits.

Water Crystals (Chance of drop 0.6%):

849 in the game, lowest price is currently 250 credits.

Fire Crystals (Chance of drop 0.4%):

336 in the game, lowest price is currently 2,850 credits.

This is the first time I've ever shared drop chances of Hunting NPCs with players, but it'll be useful in understanding the system I'm about to design.

February 5th 2014: Expanding Crystals

I'll be adding 5 new types of Crystals to the Crystal Entities. The crystals by rarity will then be:

(0.4%) Fire 

(0.5%) Void *

(0.6%) Water

(0.7%) Air *

(0.8%) Pink

(0.9%) Orange *

(1.1%) Yellow *

(2.0%) Null *

At this point you can start farming Crystals from the entities in preparation for future updates but the new crystals will serve no purpose.

February 19th 2014: Item Experience

All weapons, armor and misc items in the game will be given experience and level stats. Weapons will increase experience when they hit people and cause damage, armor will increase when it takes a blow and misc items will increase whenever the wearer earns warfare points.

All will start at level 1 and be able to level up to level 5. The levels will be named:

1. Untested

2. Tried

3. Tested

4. Proven

5. Perfected

I'm aiming so that getting an item from level 1 to 5 should take a month or so. At this point these levels are purely for display purposes (see later update) but it gives you a head start at levelling them.

March 5th 2014: Combining Crystals

All current crystals will become 'Small' stage crystals. When you USE a crystal in your inventory you will be given the option to combine it with another of the same colour and stage to get a new crystal 1 stage higher than the 2 combined.

The stages will be in this order: Shard > Small > Medium > Large > Perfect

It will therefore take 16 Shards to make a perfect crystal, or 8 of the small crystals to make a perfect crystal, and so on. Shard and Medium stage crystals will be added to the drop table for Crystal Entities with appropriate drop chances.

March 24th 2014: Crystal Entity Boss

A new NPC boss will be unlocked for avatars that is a giant Crystal Entity. He will always drop a medium or large crystal (of random color) when defeated. This boss may also drop a new level 80 item or 2 that could act as an alternative to current level 80 items.

April 9th 2014: Crystal Fusion

Items will gain a crystal slot for each level up. Using any crystal (of any color and state) will allow you to place it in an empty crystal slot on an item.

Crystals will grant a % increase to a stat based on their colour and state.

Shard: +2%

Small: +4%

Medium: +6%

Large: +8%

Perfect: +10%

(These may be adjusted per crystal color if some crystal types prove less potent than others)

The crystals will affect the following stats:

Fire : Damage

Void: Armor

Water: Dodge

Air: Accuracy

Pink: Defense Skill

Orange: Melee Skill

Yellow: Projectile Skill

Null: Speed

So for example, a level 5 Scythe will have 4 slots and with 4 x Perfect Fire Crystals will gain +40% damage. At this point there will be no way of replacing or removing crystals.

April 16th 2014: Crystal Removal

You will now be able to visit a special NPC to remove crystals from items. Removing a crystal will recover the crystal (at a cost of credits) but destroy the slot it was in. As such the item will decrease 1 level for each crystal removed and will need to be levelled up again.

As always this plan is open to debate. I've tried my best to incorporate all your suggestions in to this plan so I'd appreciate if you wouldn't just toss the lot out as a bad idea.