I would imagine the combination of making the channel secret and password-protected would keep out riffraff, and good bot security / active ops would keep the troublemakers under control. You could go so far as to set up an in-game chat registration script that only "voices" confirmed users, but I'll grant you it's not worth the effort now that a chat alternative has already been set up (and possibly paid for).

Personally, I don't really use the chat anymore. When it was right there and I could watch it as I played, I used it often enough.

Now that its separate and I can't really use both at once without messing with my browser windows, its just not convenient enough to bother using.

Besides, its pretty dead now whenever I do check in.

First, I like the new chat. I have a pretty small screen, and the chatbox was obscuring part of the GUI.

Posted By maxwell_hauser on 18-08-2011 01:21 PM
I mean, stat caps in an RPG; are you serious? If you wanted to make a survival horror game, you shouldn't have made an RPG. RPGs are about gaining power and taking on greater and greater challenges. They are not about sitting around sucking forever and ever.

That's just plain nonsense. I'll go ahead and assume you know that RPG stands for, even if you have no idea what it actually means.
I can't think of a single game, RPG or not, that doesn't limit player strength in one way or another. Otherwise you can't create a balanced experience where everyone is on equal footing.
RPGs have nothing to do with gaining power or being challenged by the environment, and everything to do with the careful and deliberate building of a character. You derive your fun from a RPG through interacting with other players, portraying that character and reacting to the other characters.
What you're thinking of is 4X games: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit & eXterminate. Those are grind-games all about gaining power.
ZP has elements from both. Hopefully more features supporting RP will appear over time.

Posted By Bingoboy on 04-09-2011 05:32 PM
First, I like the new chat. I have a pretty small screen, and the chatbox was obscuring part of the GUI.

Posted By maxwell_hauser on 18-08-2011 01:21 PM
I mean, stat caps in an RPG; are you serious? If you wanted to make a survival horror game, you shouldn't have made an RPG. RPGs are about gaining power and taking on greater and greater challenges. They are not about sitting around sucking forever and ever.

That's just plain nonsense. I'll go ahead and assume you know that RPG stands for, even if you have no idea what it actually means.
I can't think of a single game, RPG or not, that doesn't limit player strength in one way or another. Otherwise you can't create a balanced experience where everyone is on equal footing.
RPGs have nothing to do with gaining power or being challenged by the environment, and everything to do with the careful and deliberate building of a character. You derive your fun from a RPG through interacting with other players, portraying that character and reacting to the other characters.
What you're thinking of is 4X games: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit & eXterminate. Those are grind-games all about gaining power.
ZP has elements from both. Hopefully more features supporting RP will appear over time.

I don't know what games u are used to play, but a hard cap where everyone has the EXACT same limits aint exactly the brightest concept in a rpg game. Specialisations are needed.

The hard cap is the rule in games, not the exception. And that's true wether they be RPG or not. Yes, they could have done a more lenient and harder to get "1 stat point over 200 every 50 levels" or something like that. But they're also trying to fix the 400 Con players, so a hard cap is the more equalitarian solution.

I agree that the game needs to be more diverse and have more builds/professions. But I also agree that the cap had to be implemented sooner or later. And it's better that it was sooner rather than later.

There are 2 forms of hard capps
1. There is no way to progress your character due to there is no way to get more points, in ZP it would mean no trainer can train you and you get no points from leveling up
2. There is a server wide true limit, meaning even if you have hundreds of points, you are already at the limit for that skill
!. I am fine with (for the most part)
2. I hate, a see this is going to fall right into it. I read somewhere that 138 points is all you need to train for to get a fully maxed character by level 400, problem is I'll have trained this much by the time I hit level 100 to 150. That means somewhere down the road I'll have points I can not use, and to me that's a pointless mistake to make.


*edit*
I thought I read all points would be rearranged on all accounts to fit the new limits? mainly bringing down the HP levels of the superman characters? Or was I mistaken?

Posted By Spiderjerusalem on 05-09-2011 02:42 PM
The hard cap is the rule in games, not the exception. And that's true wether they be RPG or not.

Well you still have character tailoring in all (good) mmorpg's.
Or lots or gear / perks / skills / talents to choose from to make your own personal touch.

A 200 skill cap would work fine if we had loads of different gear and perks with stat boosters on them so we could form the character after peronal taste.
Beeing the same as everyone else is just boring and dull.

Im not on much at all anymore, because my str is maxed and my CC is maxed in 3 lvls or something.

Im here to develop a character and have fun. Not mindless farming.

Posted By broberg on 05-09-2011 10:39 AM
I don't know what games u are used to play, but a hard cap where everyone has the EXACT same limits aint exactly the brightest concept in a rpg game. Specialisations are needed.

Well, maxwell was referring to having a cap at all, without speaking to whether it was the same for everyone.

I quite agree that having the exact same characters to start with is kinda bland, and that having the exact same characters at max level is just stupid.

However, I'm sure that is not how the devs plan to go when all is said and done.

Ideally, you should have to pick between having a specialized character (e.g. close or ranged combat), or a jack-of-all-trades which doesn't excel at anything but handles most things decently.