Devs: Dungeon Resurgence makes good business sense.

dread4moor

Yes, it's been said 1000 times already.
Maybe 1001 will be the charm.

Here is a simple, fast, low-cost method to boost your zen sales, increase active player login and recover the tarnished NWO reputation:

Selective return of specific popular dungeons. Just three is enough. Any three of these will be successful:

removed[1] Lair of the Mad Dragon Helm's Hold
removed[1] Throne of Idris Ebon Downs
removed[1] Spellplague Caverns The Chasm
removed[1] The Dread Vault Whispering Caverns
removed[1] Fardelver's Crypt Gauntlgrym
removed[1] Dwarf King Crypt Gauntlgrym

Hereafter referred to as the ODs (Old Dungeons, Original Dungeons, Our Dungeons... whatever).

1) Make room.
Lack of server space was a Dev argument for not bringing back the ODs.
Free server room by dropping superfluous side-dungeons and instances. Delete quests and minidungeons from earlier Mods that are not being used, instances filled only with bots and those that are not required for campaign progression.
They earn you nothing and will not be missed by players.

2) Modest updates.
Update three ODs for current game mechanics. Add universal campaign progression currency, moderate refining drops and reasonably rare epic gear drops (all account-bound). Place bot-barriers on the loading screen (eg. Captcha).

Done. Old players will return. Current players will stay. New players will buy zen. I know a dozen retired players who would return to the game tomorrow if you tried this.

Thanks for considering @strumslinger @asterdahl et.al.

lirithiel

dread4moor said:

Lack of server space was a Dev argument for not bringing back the ODs.

It was? First I've heard of this. I thought it was laziness/lack of originality or creativity on the current dev team.

dfgss

would love to see this lets say it another 1001 times we need more dungeons to run

beckylunatic

lirithiel said:

dread4moor said:

Lack of server space was a Dev argument for not bringing back the ODs.

It was? First I've heard of this. I thought it was laziness/lack of originality or creativity on the current dev team.

No, it's just bullhamster that people like to repeat without actually finding a source for it. Purple monkey dishwasher.

It's an ignorant statement regardless. The quest lair or dungeon asset (more properly a set of assets: the setting, props, critters, effects, etc.) takes up minimal resources just to exist as a set of code to be called up when needed. The resources are used by hosting instances, which for example is why Strongholds are not persistent when nobody is in them. One instance of CN takes a certain amount of resources to host, and ten instances of it takes up 10x that much.

So yes, quest lairs that had thousands of instances operating to bot skill nodes for RP were a huge resource hog, but a quest lair in Helm's Hold that has no active instances at a given moment and exists only as code waiting to load? That's nothing.

two30

dread4moor said:

Lack of server space was a Dev argument for not bringing back the ODs.

Free server room by dropping superfluous side-dungeons and instances. Delete quests and minidungeons from earlier Mods that are not being used, instances filled only with bots and those that are not required for campaign progression.

They earn you nothing and will not be missed by players.

Even though your premise is wrong, I'm curious to know which quests and lairs you think aren't being used and wouldn't be missed.

cambo1682

I would also like to see the old dungeons return, but please please please, un-butchered like what they have done to CN. Knowing what an epic crawl that was and seeing it in it's current state is just plain sad. I agree with the OP that a return of dungeons (and more importantly a 'culture' of dungeons in DUNGEONS and Dragons) could herald new hope for all that have been waiting patiently (many have given up).

I actually like and enjoy the new zones aside from the monumental mis-step of returning to an empowerment system. If @mimicking6533 actually reads this, please if anyone in your office EVER suggests "hey how about empowered armor, derp derp" again, just kick the ever living HAMSTER out of them straight away. Seriously, I will come do it for you, I know others who will help. Your new zones are beautiful, the art team did a fantastic job. The quests are fine ok in terms of fetch numbers, could be toned down a smidgen. But for the game's sake, bring back all the old dungeons in their former state, unscathed, update the mob levels sure, maybe tweak the bosses if you must, but there should be a focus on dungeons in a DnD game.

Right now most "server resources" associated to dungeons seem to be cloak tower bot runs, pouring huge amounts of AD into this broken economy. Seriously, at times >90 instances of cloak tower going? pfft, let's get real players running dungeons again.