The problem of the Zezenia Roleplay - Parallel Stories

For those who speak Portuguese, I'll post translated below.
Pra quem fala português, vou postar traduzido embaixo.

Many people think that the problem of roleplay in Zezenia the fault of the few quests. Really it makes a little sense, but it's not just that.

For start, the players themselves are to blame... Some of those who say the game has a few quests, do not do anything without help (spoil). It may seem little and something normal, but that is where the trouble starts.

On the other way, we have the staff. I mean no offense, but I think it's time to seek new members to help grow the game... I do not mean to choose anyone that will not help at all and fill the vacancy on the staff, but people who are truly qualified. But anyway, it is work to K-Z, Hyuga ...

With these two groups have part of Roleplay problem, but there remains something else. The quests do not help the roleplay! Why? The npcs are simple, has no parallel stories.

Did not quite understand? Let me explain.
The NPC Henry, for example, serves to locate players. That's it. Normal for you? Should not be.
In view of roleplaying, to makes the game more depth, the NPC should have a story. And that does not mean just a great story, in a difficult quest and a special reward. Basically, they need a personality and a connection with each other.




How can Henry lives in the same house that Thomas and not say anything about it? Will they never saw? Do not know the other exists?



To some it is a nonsense. But if you see, that's where the interest arises by RPG. In Zezenia now all you have to do is hunt / hunt / hunt. In spare time has not been fun or anything like that. And that is where it would be nice to talk to the NPCs and find out what everyone thinks. And in some cases, find new quests.


# How to solve the problem?

- Adding a personality for every NPC. This does not mean adding a face on evil sprite, but change some details in his answers. Some may be more generous (as npcs in the Newbie Quest, for example), others more arrogant... depending on what each one does.

- Add connection between the NPCs. Families, for example. Henry and Thomas, quoted here, could be brothers. And when someone asked about the other, the NPCs should respond. For example:

Player: Hello
Thomas: Hello. I sell the basic equipment on your jorney you need!
Player: Henry
Thomas: Oh, my little brother. He have some hability with psychic spell. Probably he can help you to locate someone ... paying a little bit, haha ...

This is just one example. Not much, but shows a basic answer that would make a difference for those seeking the RPG game. In more complex cases, the answer would contain a history between the two, perhaps a fight when they were younger ... let your imagination work ;)

It would be a good member of staff responsible for the RPG (HyugaBR?) Keep a folder with general information of the NPCs and the stories. Example:



Anyway, in short it is. I think these stories parallels between NPCs (currently there is little in the game) can make a difference.

Thanks :)

O problema do Roleplay no Zezenia - Histórias Paralelas


Muita gente acha que o problema do roleplay no Zezenia é culpa das poucas quests. Realmente, faz um pouco de sentido, mas não é apenas isso.

Pra começar, os próprios jogadores tem culpa. Grande parte dos que reclamam do jogo e a falta de quests, não fazem nem as de subclasse sem spoil. Pode parecer pouca coisa e algo normal, mas é ai que o problema começa.
Do outro lado, temos a staff. Não quero ofender, mas acho que já passou da hora de procurar novos membros pra ajudar o jogo a crescer... não digo escolher qualquer um que não vai ajudar em nada e ocupar a vaga na staff, e sim pessoas que realmente sejam qualificadas. Mas enfim, isso fica a critério do K-Z, Hyuga...

Com esses dois grupos temos parte do problema do Roleplay, mas ainda resta outra coisa. As quests não ajudam o roleplay! Porque? Os npcs são simples, não tem as histórias paralelas.

Não entendeu muito bem? Vou explicar.
O NPC Henry, por exemplo, serve para localizar jogadores. E é só isso. Normal para você? Não devia ser assim.
Na visão do roleplaying, pra deixar o jogo mais detalhado, os npcs deviam ter uma história. E isso não quer dizer exatamente uma história grande, dentro de uma quest difícil e com uma recompensa especial. Basicamente, eles precisam de uma personalidade e de uma ligação uns com os outros.




Como pode o Henry morar na mesma casa que o Thomas e não falar nada sobre ele? Será que nunca se viram? Será que não sabe que o outro existe?



Pra alguns isso é uma bobagem. Mas se você for ver, é dai que surge o interesse pelo RPG. No Zezenia atualmente tudo que se tem a fazer é caçar/caçar/caçar. Nas horas vagas não se tem uma diversão nem nada do tipo. E é ai que seria bom conversar com os NPCs e descobrir o que cada um pensa. E em certos casos, descobrir novas quests.


# Como resolver o problema?

- Adicionando uma personalidade pra cada NPC. Isso não quer dizer adicionar uma face malvada no sprite, e sim mudar alguns detalhes nas suas respostas. Alguns podem ser mais generosos (como os que participam da Newbie Quest, por exemplo!), outros mais arrogantes... dependendo do que cada um faz.


- Adicionar ligação entre os NPCs. Familias, por exemplo. Henry e Thomas, citados aqui, poderiam ser irmãos. E quando algum jogador perguntasse sobre o outro, os NPCs devem responder. Por exemplo:

Player: Hello
Thomas: Hello. I sell the basic equipment you need on your jorney!
Player: Henry
Thomas: Oh, my little brother. He have some hability with psychic spell. Probably he can help you to locate someone... paying a little bit, haha...

Esse é apenas um exemplo. Não é muita coisa, mas mostra uma resposta básica que faria diferença pra quem busca o RPG do jogo. Em casos mais complexos, a resposta poderia conter uma história entre os dois, talvez uma briga quando eram mais jovens... deixe a imaginação trabalhar ;)

Seria bom o membro da staff responsável pelo RPG (HyugaBR?!) manter uma pasta com informações gerais dos NPCs e das histórias. Exemplo:



Enfim, resumindo é isso. Acho que essas histórias paralelas entre NPCs (que atualmente existem poucas no jogo) podem fazer diferença.

Obrigado :)

I like your opinions.. xD

Gratz krex Nice topic I agree with everything

Spoils, indeed it`s the first fault of the players who make or ask for them. It just ruins the game, after that they will complain we lack those elements, however they`ve taken care of it, they eliminated the basic elements of a RPG game.

Staff members list is too thin! They need to recruit as fast as possible, starting from people from their environement; friends, family etc.

And personality proposal seems nice, it should be for sure implemented!

Nice Topic Bro!
I Agree 100% in what you wrote

Learned with me!!

Something like that and even an additional feature is planned to give a better impression of the NPCs we got. Currently, the NPCs just seem to be there in order to serve you - but after all, they're supposed to "live their own life" in some aspect. One major thing that is most likely getting into the update (I don't know whether K-Zodron has/wants to take care of it yet) is that all NPCs will have a "basic knowledge". As Krex pointed out, it would be very unlikely that 1 NPC hasn't even got a single word for another NPC that might have his house a few meters next to him - unrealistic. Therefore, all NPCs shall be equipped with a basic language allowing them to answer to anything that would make sense such as areas nearby, rumours, other NPCs and anything else related to the area they live in, specifically for wherever that may be of course. Interaction between NPCs is also a nice way to improve the feeling, but I wouldn't say that there's absolutely nothing of that in Zezenia. I do agree that we're not using this kind of improvement too much yet due to other things being a bit more important at the moment, but the subclass NPCs for example do have personal likes/dislikes among them, for example.

It's easy for everybody to say that hiring more staff members will easily make everything good. Sadly, that's not how it works. Skilled people that dedicate their time for a project like Zezenia are really rare. On the one hand, most people just don't have what it takes (yet; age and maturity are also an important matter apart from talent here) while the others aren't willing to spend lots of time. Just think of it yourself: If there'd be so many people skilled enough to seriously help us out, wouldn't they have already started similar projects to Zezenia from scratch? I'm always trying to include other people into my work, especially about ingame matters. It's not really that we just want to do everything ourselves because our egos are too big or anything, it's just that the chance to find somebody that can actually help us out and fulfills all requirements to do so is really terribly small - whover I consider capable of helping us out will sooner or later be involved in the development. I'm for example step by step introducing a new mapper into mapping. You can't expect somebody who hasn't done Zezenia mapping before to suddenly map everything perfect, but the more he maps, the better he gets, the improvement from now to the beginning is clearly visible and I'm quite sure that sooner or later I'll only have to map really important stuff that I for some reason (storybased relation, sprite techniques) can only do myself while the other mapper can do everything by himself and additionally to that introduce a third mapper just the way he was introduced - but as said, that's not a progress lasting for a week but more likely several months. The only problem about coding is that we got no problem with coding, hiring an additional coder is completely irrelevant as K-Zodron is doing everything properly & quick and unless it's an idea where the win/effort ratio is completely insane also goes for harder and longer termed features. (Anyone who comes to the hilarious conclusion that we've got a problem with coding shall compare similar projects' progresses and amount of workers to what we've got and how far we've gone in not even two years.)

Storywriting is a tricky area which I for now still keep entirely for myself for various reasons. The only way I'd like to introduce storywriters is giving them complete freedom of a specific area - which we do not have yet because the map is still not that big. Let me tell you from experience that if you're having too many storywriters responsible for the same area most if not all of them will not be able to unleash their full potential and mostly even get into each other's way since all of them are having different ideas and visions of how things should work and look like. If I would have somebody skilled enough (and there we are the same problem again, finding somebody; not only does a storywriter need an incredible amount of imagination & creativity, he also needs to work proper(as in make the world seem like a world "working on its own" and not being there to serve players only) and in quest matters even be able to roughly estimate whether a quest would require 150 new functions to be implemented and therefore not be worth the time - not to mention that everybody without fluent English doesn't even stand a chance at all. Also, as said, working properly is a complete must here especially over a longer period. Players will ask themselves all kinds of questions about NPCs, quests and anything related to it and if you're doing mistakes there you might end up writing stuff negating each other or not making any sense at all.

I really do appreciate your effort to give advice us but as you can see we're trying to do the best out of the situation whenever possible and getting new staff member is not "quite" as easy as it may seem.

Well, that`s a nice post here Hyuga! Now I believe you, when you told that staff is interested in player`s proposals (however I never given up on you ^^).
Now, let`s go back to the topic. I`m glad to hear this will be implemented, for so far I know, no 2D MMORPG has it! It will bring more `RPG` what most of us are fighting for. I`m glad to hear that something is happening, something is moving, new mappers etc.
K-Zodron is the only one who is responsible for coding and as I see he is doing his job well, but recently we had some issues and many bugs were reported however they are still not fixed! It is K-zodron`s job if I`m not wrong, it can`t happen in the future otherelse many people will abuse them, making the game unplayable for the fair playing gamers.
Your stories are great and even better anyone could imagine, but as you say you can`t do it yourself forever!
It`s all I had to say, thanks.

Nice post Hyuga!

Mappers really have to work together with storywriters, if not the NPCs and the map are not in agreement with each other.
To add a new person on staff (mapper/story) will need to add a new area (maybe island?!) and give freedom to the member defining the details of it: climate, NPCs, history, monsters...
Thus, the new member has already begun to work with all areas, which somehow will leave him totally busy! Not recommended to add a person who has no maturity/skill to work all these areas, or the problems remain the same.

One suggestion about it: Do not do the same as the cipsoft did. With the updates, they forgot the old roleplay and created areas through non-sense.

Even adding new islands, try to relate them to what already exists. Simple example:

Island Name: Cheewz
Climate: City abandoned
History: Cheewz was a small town with pleasant climate, located amid the mountains and the black ocean. All was peace in that region until the monsters have rebelled and decided to take the space all for them. The residents had to flee to save their lives, and decided to cross the ocean to live in the great continent. On landing in the new lands, they created the city of Caerfa.
The few who did not go live today frightened by the constant attacks of creatures in the city.
Monsters: All kinds of humans in the city (especially a good respawn with wizards and freaks). In the mountains golems and dragons. In the basement, large areas of demonic creatures of all kinds.

I do not know if I gave you understand my point of view, but the new area of the example would relate to the story of Caerfa. And again comes what I talked about families: new Cheewz's NPCs were relatives of the residents of Caerfa =P