A Newbie's Experience (Disco Vampires included.)

[bloodybladez3]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXMNYUSPVOM

It should be no surprise why no new players are sticking to this game.

[RedEmerald]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXMNYUSPVOM

It should be no surprise why no new players are sticking to this game.

Nice vid! I wish to see more like these in the forums. Did you make it? I was laughing most of the time.

[PenguinJoe]

Frankly I found the video a seriously pathetic attempt to make a game look bad. That is something that can be done to in any game on the market.

It simply looks like a couple of ex rohan players pretending to be not only noob players, but people that have no idea how to go about trying a game out for the first time.

If you are a noob player stepping into a game you have never see before do you:

• Download and play game and play it without first checking out its website to see what each class/race has to offer and what its strengths/weaknesses are.
• Leave the tutorial immediately without first trying out the character there to see if is your style of playing.
• Choose a weapon that is totally counter to the play style of the character you selected.
• Waste competency points in areas you know are counter to the style of play you chose.
• Not bother to read the tests that are presented to you throughout the game (you know - the ones that veteran players commonly ignore because we have all seen them a thousand times before).

Nah, that video was a poorly done smear job for sure. Perhaps a couple of veteran Rohan players butthurt because they ran out of money playing this game, or got raped over & over again by those that didn't.

[xXxAurorAxXx]

Wow, I came across this vid some months ago. Even sent a link to Karazy for them to see first hand at how this game is reviewed. I cant recall if he watched it or not.
I made comments on the game in the comment section but little response.

This vid is a piss poor effort at a "fresh look" into Rohan.

[White Arctic Fox]

''yea let's skip the tutorial'' ''ah man I have no idea how this sh1t works'' #retard

I agree with PJ it's kinda lame, sure there's 100's of things wrong with rohan but the creators of this video are just tards lol, if you do the tut + read some on the forums/wiki/website you can get a pretty descent start. Add to that that you get free stats + skill reset at lvl 50 (so you can basically do whatever you want <50), the lvl up reward quest also give you enough stuff to be able to survive descently without paying $ (up to a certain lvl).

[RBNXD]

Back in 2008 when i first started this game i remember playing the tutorial till level 17 with a dhan but i had no idea how the stat points worked so i put stat point where they werent needed :l
I had to start off again but made sure to look for a guide at least back when Agi dhans where a combination of 1 vit every 10 levels and 3 vit every 12 leves something like that.
At least i searched for a tutorial

This guys sound like ex rohan players that have nothing else to do than complain an old game saying it is bad and not worth playing cause its old. If you like Rohan you keep playing it same with WoW, Tera, Blade and Soul etc etc. If you want to quit sure quit but don't start crying when things change soo much you have to start over from scratch.

[bloodybladez3]

In this vid, my criticism was about key areas of the game being empty, or a ghost town. Back in 09 and 10, there would be dozens of people at montt, GH Lime, outside of Ahkma, at R1/R3 bind, etc. If they actually went further into the games content and gameplay, the review would have been even worse.

Put yourself in the eyes of a new player who has just read up on every important tip. You know how to forge, level up, craft, etc. You level up to level 20 solo, wondering where everybody is, then remember that Ahkma is a big leveling spot for low-levels, so you go there. It's empty, completely empty. The game looks interesting, though. There are dozens of pieces of weapons and armor, new maps and dungeons, and new skills to unlock. It fills you with determination. So you spend the next few days leveling up your Knight alone, slowly killing mobs 1 by 1 until you're level 45, and now you think you're pretty strong. That same day you meet another Human with gold-and-black armor, and a big, shining silver sword. You ask to test your damage on him, and he agrees to let you.

The next thing you see on your screen is 18+0, 20+0, miss, miss, miss, 19 +0, miss, miss... over and over, and you wonder wth is going on, he's the same level as you, with the same buffs, so why is he so powerful He smiles and hits you back twice, you see 752+140, and 800+169 appear in red, and your health is reduced to less than half in an instant. You're in awe, you ask him to show you his equipment. He links a full set of Edwin armor, and a Kayra's Destiny +12. The first thing that comes to your mind is how he created such powerful gear, let alone refine it over 30 levels. You, being a newbie, think that you're rich because of the 1 million crone that you got from your Hunter Kit, until he tells you that it took hundreds of millions of crone just to refine it, after he spent over 40 dollars in real life to purchase it. You, being a new player aren't going to drop 40 dollars on a game you just got into a little over a week ago, so you decide to make your own gear in-game during the forging event. You put your character on its HK every night for 5 days, while your desktop whirs and accumulates dust, and then the day FINALLY arrives. You have 5 million + crone, parts to create a set of Pluion with 30-40 pdef, and an Edwin's Quickblade with 20% melee and some Armor Defense.

You put the two pieces of Armor of Red Dragon and Rhodium armor into the slots to forge them into an Armor of Natu, and wait, expecting to see 30 pdef in green text, and then BOOM-FAIL. It shocks you, but you knew that the event did not guarantee that you would succeed on every forge, so you press on with the rest of the equipment. After all of the smoke has cleared, you walk away with only Boots and a Helmet of Pluion, massively disappointed, you think, oh well, at least I can still try to create my weapon! On the two rare sword forges, the bar almost hits fail, but it narrowly avoids it and falls back down to success. Nervously, you put the Gladius of Graham Warsword of Taran Graff into the slots along with the option stones, and nervously click "forge". There is no bouncing back this time, the bar goes straight to FAIL with no hesitation. You can't believe it, after all that time, only about 15% of your input resulted in usable output. After face-palming inside and out, you remember how every place you visited was a ghost-town...

Yea, it's obvious that these guys half-assed this "review", but you can't deny that this game has a massive barrier of entry, and no longer has much intrinsic value for new players. There is nothing fun about busting your ass for little to no tangible reward. There's two reasons why people still throw time, money, and effort into I-Rohan. They've felt that they've put in soooo many resources into the game that it would be wasted if they don't keep building on it, even if there's a better alternative. This is the sunk-cost fallacy. The other reason is egotistical. They want to be the best, they want to be the one to make the enemy press confirm, no matter the cost.

[RBNXD]

If you read the Tips and Tricks section of the Wiki page you read that it is recommended to actually buy your stuff already made and not forge them yourself for those last reasons you posted. I to bought like 99.999% of everything i have. At least on my experience with the forging rates hasn't been bad but i heard of people complaining on everything failing so everyone doesn't have the same luck.

[bloodybladez3]

The problem is, there are too few low-level players in the game for a new player to even try to rise up through in-game means. The new player has nothing valuable to offer to the people higher up.

In the beginning of the game to around 2011, new players were flowing in. A Level 3x started with nooby Froianne. After awhile they got strong and were able to make Froianne easily themselves, then sold it to below them. They could keep saving crone and get Pluion. After they get strong with the Pluion, they save up and buy Edwin Armor. After they get strong with the Edwin, they can eventually reach a financial point where it's easy to make Pluion, they use that crone to fund their efforts to make Bedron.

Who is a level 40 player going to sell his farming spoils to if 95% of people are 90+? All they can do is struggle to make their own gear alone, they could buy RPS, but who is going to spend 30+ USD on a game like that? It's not impossible to rise up, but there are good reasons why new people generally see it as a complete waste of time.

[PenguinJoe]

I agree with you that the official game is relatively deserted. Even Jainus looks like most mediocre private servers I have checked over. I've created toons in Isen and I swear I heard my footsteps echo with the lack of players.

Yes the lack of new players is a problem. Rohan has never and never will reach the staying power of WoW - which still manages to draw new players despite its age. If the reviewers would have made it clear that they were coming in as a new player and showing how empty the game is rather than being idiots putting str stats and a sword in the hands of a well documented mage, I would have been a little less critical about them.

As it stands today this game is being supported by its more dedicated and high paying clientele rather than with new players. The game is not as friendly to new players as it was back prior to 2010 and indeed seems to frustrate the new player with the perceived un-reachability of the end-game.

Here's a tip for the Powers-That-Be:

Level 65 is a easy goal and worthwhile for any new player to attain.
Level 80 is a harder goal and worthwhile for any new player to attain.
Level 99 is a realistic goal and worthwhile for most new player to attain.
Level 115 is a difficult goal that most will try to attain.
Level 125 (115 +10) is a goal only dedicated players will attempt it.
Level 165 (115 +50) is a goal that 99% of new players will get frustrated and leave before ever reaching end-game. This goal is interesting only to hardcore players that have a vested interest in Rohan to achieve. Anyone else will leave the game long before reaching that level.

New players will start this game, see what the leveling speed is, look at the documentation on this game and see where you have to be to reach end-game. This is about the time that most will say "fk it" and go find another game to play that has achievable goals to strive toward.