Ok where are we with RoG ?

We are in the middle of changing the tutorial at the start of the game, concerns were raised over the time period it would take a player to create a character, start the game and get to about level 20, so we have automated the tutorial so players are able to get through that and start playing the game faster.

AS it takes close to 25 dungeons to unlock most of the aspects of the game, that can actually take up to 2-3 days, which in gamer terms, is a long time as that is about 30 hours of game play, thats running solo, not in a team which will speed things up a lot

Now, getting to dungeon 10, can be done in under one hour but thats without rushing the game play... players still have control over checking what has been unlocked, what it does, etc....and make decisions about skill placement and equipment but they can also auto run the dungeons which is faster than doing it solo and manual. Teams unlock in the first few dungeons, for the players that perfer hands on game play

We are also addressing the bugs with the new system....

Rebalancing the game, we are reducing the atk of the elite bosses....and dungeon difficulty as it is considered to be too high.... we do not want to return to the original system where soloing was very easy but we want a middle game where soloing is a challenge to players and team work is better but not a situation where teams are constantly failing because they run out of time. Running into elite bosses that hit hard and have resistances and atk / magic block, is actually quite a challenge.

VIP system is unchanged but now free players can unlock the benefits of the 2nd thrall slot at level 50, so we are going with a cash payer advantage in the game with unlocking things faster but rewarding players for game play as well.

That to us is viewed as a incentive to play the game... and with the level 70 rebirth system we have planned, it allows free players to gain benefits then rebirth and run the dungeons with added ass kicking.....

rebirth will be available to all players.

Guild system update which is coming in the first version update, is planned to have a guild shop where items that are vip restricted, can still be gained by free players in the guild shop......

SO we are trying to get a balance where VIP players retain the increased drop rate in dungeons which means that running dungeons with vip players, benefits free players. Cashing players retain the benefit of getting items in game faster by cashing but the same items are generally available via game play.

Naturally the game is supported by cash flow but the game play should not be dictated by who has the biggest wallet......and that is where the team play side of it comes into it......and also character build, as each dungeon is different, the elite bosses reroll their stats and so the cashed up player may find that they have run into a atk block, high physical def boss and the weaker free players they teamed with, are doing more damage than they are.....

Bearing that in mind, the event system is structured around game play and resets reqularly so spending a lot of money then not playing for two days, means that other players can move up in the rankings and enjoy better rewards.

FB app is proving to be a problem and we may end up launching without it, tho the game can still be accessed via FB and FB gameroom....

Changing the main bar at the bottom of the screen, is being worked on....

Instead of just revising launch dates, its better to share with players why we are revising launch dates, what is happening behind the scenes, what changes are being made and where... that way players can feel like they are more involved in game development and get a understanding of how much work is going into a game.

Again, once the game is launched, that will continue with our planned loyal player feedback system where they are able to drop ideas on the ROG development team directly

As some players are aware, with the closure of felspire and siegelord, that actually reduces our workload, which is still very high and stressful as there is still the other games to watch over and manage. and while it is a shame to see any game close, it is the reality of gaming and news has come to us that luckily we only have two games by that company but they are closing a lot of their games....so I can only imagine the real number of affected players is much higher..... my heart goes out to them because some of the players at AMZ, have played since the games opened and in the case of SL, thats about 3 years.

Unfortunately for players, most games do not hit 2 years before they have died and the developers have moved on to other games.... the goal with ROG is to break the 2 year mark and still be growing as a game, maybe not as big as wartune or LoA... but its nice to think that RoG will be our first 100+ server game and rather than open, merge, open merge, we can have open, open, open and with the shared world system, a lot less merge merge merge.....

OF course we would have to consider have more than one shared world server system otherwise it would be lag central if we had 5000+ active players on the same server........

For players running alt accounts, yes it is possible to use them in a team and run the dungeon auto on the alts and manual on the mains.... We get that some players perfer that style of personal game play rather than joining teams of players where personal conflict can happen......but the answer is no, we are not going to have a market place where players can use alts to fund mains......

We get that a market place is a benefit to the game.... there have been times that I have wanted a specific skill for my build and I have had to wait for it to drop in a dungeon.....we will consider a skill convert system in the future but not at this stage......

using the argument that you want a perferred weapon of a certain level, will not work, because as of level 30, you can craft equipment...... and yes we know about getting the right level weapon type of a set so you can complete the set and get the aura.... we will address that in the future, there is 8 sets, 4 items per set and being able to complete sets is important to players.

anyways, I will update again next week unless we have the confirmed launch date by then in which case, I will get all excited, nervous and hope that we have a successful opening that is bug free...... current feedback is that there is a lot of interested players looking forward to playing ROG, many of whom are very experienced and knowledgable gamers who know what they want in gaming........ and for us, that means a lot