Why Global MuOnline cannot succeed(IMO)
Posted Apr 15, 2020 11:26:26 GMT -7
Post by Jon on Apr 15, 2020 11:26:26 GMT -7
I'm copying the contents from a thread I wrote on the official Global MuOnline forum on 16-04-15 at forum.webzen.com/forum/en/mu-online-english/mu-online-issues-feedback/693627-why-muonline-cannot-succeed to help raise awareness with the issues MuOnline players have been and still are facing.
To "start"
1.) Realms
You have 4 different Realms for a community base small enough to fit into one, let alone 4. All you're doing is causing people with 3 old crap computers in the closet to make duplicate accounts for each realm, meaning; no unique playerbase, just accounts. You MUST allow us to transfer characters to other realms at the VERY least!
Solution: Create one massive realm and combine all of your players. Or at least let us transfer realms at ease.
2.) The "MuHelper"
*Sigh* Where do I start. The MuHelper doesn't help. It plays the damn game for you. How can you expect anyone who takes gaming seriously to play a game where any John can just hop on an Windows 98 fire up Mu and run the game with the bot until it blows up, throw in a few $ for perks and BOOM, you have a level 700 and NO idea what you're doing. You can't honestly expect this game to go anywhere while the MuHelper is still implemented , it's a lazy way of fighting bots. Go talk with Jagex, they can tell you all about the struggle to succeed through botters, and maybe a few hints on how to actual maintain your game. You're basically giving everyone a tool to cheat, what's next, a bot that produces maxed items? Oh yea, we already have that. It's the Mu Store.
Solution: Put a max amount of time the Helper can play at idle before the player has to engage to re-activate.
3.) Mu Store
I understand budget and the fact that you're a business that needs to make money to succeed WebZen, but WOW! Do you really have to basically offer virtually ANYTHING for cash? How can this game have any novelty items if John and Sam can just open their wallets and have enough jewels for it in no time? You're thinking SHORT-TERM here! If you actually put some effort into this game rather than selling your souls for cash, in the long-term it could make you rich. Just ask Andrew Gower.
*I understand you need to make money, but when you think about it, with all the perks from in-store and P2P, training in F2P is virtually useless. I could understand maybe a 20-30% exp boost MAX. But like 300-400% or whatever the max is now, that's INSANE! The comparison from training without any perks from the store and with is on completely different scales, you make it pointless to ever think about training unless you purchase some perks, why would you train for a week for something someone can get in 2 hours spending some money in the MuStore. You guys are too money hungry and not thinking logically about the future of your game.
Solution: Stop selling maxed items, if someone wins an item, it should be +0, as for buying them from the NPC. Leave it to the horrible Chaos Machine to decide if they get the item upped to +15. You're making it worthless for someone to try and ever take the horrible odds of making an item to +15 when they can be simply bought from the Mu Store.
4.) Advertising/Marketing
MuOnline is a dead game, we all know that. But it has tremendous potential if you'd just open your eyes and put in a little effort! Advertise the game, look into graphical updates and new maps. Stop taking shortcuts, this game is legendary but currently a steaming pile of **** because of many obvious reasons. You have to SPEND a little money, to MAKE a lot of money.
Solution: Use Google Ads, or something! Just spend a little money on getting the game out there.
5.) EXP events / Perks
You think to save the game you should make it into a private server. Well guess what, there is a reason most private servers didn't last what so ever and couldn't hardly hold a community for the most part, is because it was a temporary environment , level fast, get the best items fast, then get over the game FAST. I actually enjoyed back in Wigle when I had to battle my way through the maps, it was exciting unlocking new skills and spells. It took alot of work to reach even level 100. Now it's done within hours, it's pathetic. You can't enjoy a game you speed up to fast no one is able to enjoy it as it goes by. Levels mean nothing compared to when I started, we actually respected high levels for the efforts they've put into MuOnline. We announced level 400 a on the main page it was that rare. Now what's left to respect or value in a level progressed by the MU helper while you actively played a better game? Or an item you paid a few bucks on chaos cards for, there is no value or novelty in that, you're dulling down your own game!
Solution: A fair EXP boost cap.
6.) BUGS and server stability
MuOnline has been the most unstable and buggy game I've ever experienced. Small things like spelling mistakes and over lapping menus, horribly annoying chat filters that don't allow for proper English grammar like the use of " ' ". I mean come-on! Do you even play your own games? That's such an unprofessional and sloppy way of running a gaming business.
Well, glad to get that all off my chest. Hope some of you reading can relate and express your reasons in this thread. I would love to see Mu in the right hands again, and we all voted for WebZen back while K2 was around, now I'm not to sure.
Solution: Spend some time figuring out all the bugs that are being reported in-game and on-forum, and hire some coders to fix them.
7.) Combat triangle
I'm going to keep this one short and sweet, the combat triangle in Mu is completely off. Level 200's buffed can destroy a level 400+, and from class to class there is hardly any equality among characters. It's sloppy and needs to be revised badly.
Solution: Add a bonus perk for being a higher level than the player you are in PVP with. (Depending on that gap)
8.) The Market
WebZen GM's, I'd like to make a bet with you. Go find me 960 Bless and let me know how long it takes you. Then ask yourself, how ridiculous it is that we trade with so many jewels that people have to use max rings, come on. This is just foolish. The currency needs to be corrected. Remove the duped gems and ban the stupid jewel selling website advertisers in-game.
Solution: Bring back reasonable jewel prices and keep in mind the time it takes to gather jewels. Remove duped jewels and look into accounts with large quantity and flag their next few trades.
9.) Customer Support
WebZen, you have one of the most unorganized and unqualified Game Masters yet, either that or you aren't laying enough funds in the budget to actually develop a real support system that works. You have a few of the only players left begging for support on a daily basis on the forums, open your eyes and see that once you host a MMORPG, you have to expect players needing your help on a large scale, not support for 1-2 players of Mu a day, people go weeks, even MONTHS waiting for your help. Buck up!
Also, blocking peoples accounts in error ?!? This is insane , and you wonder why the Mu community is so outraged? How can you block someones account who has probably paid you hundreds of dollars in error and not swiftly respond to their ticket to find a resolution to the problem? Come on...
Solution: Hire more customer support agents that actually know what their doing and have experience with customer relations and solutions. Hold board meetings and discuss what you can do to improve Mu online for everybody, keep in mind how happy and populated these servers once were back in the Wigle days. Bring that back.
----
For the record, I love MuOnline and it's been a game I've enjoyed for about 10 years now. The reason I have so much to say regarding issues is that a lot of them have been here for so many years it's very frustrating. I know there are good Mu GM's out there, but not enough, and the funding for this game needs to start being spent on the betterment of the game, not the investors driveway souvenirs.
----
To "start"
1.) Realms
You have 4 different Realms for a community base small enough to fit into one, let alone 4. All you're doing is causing people with 3 old crap computers in the closet to make duplicate accounts for each realm, meaning; no unique playerbase, just accounts. You MUST allow us to transfer characters to other realms at the VERY least!
Solution: Create one massive realm and combine all of your players. Or at least let us transfer realms at ease.
2.) The "MuHelper"
*Sigh* Where do I start. The MuHelper doesn't help. It plays the damn game for you. How can you expect anyone who takes gaming seriously to play a game where any John can just hop on an Windows 98 fire up Mu and run the game with the bot until it blows up, throw in a few $ for perks and BOOM, you have a level 700 and NO idea what you're doing. You can't honestly expect this game to go anywhere while the MuHelper is still implemented , it's a lazy way of fighting bots. Go talk with Jagex, they can tell you all about the struggle to succeed through botters, and maybe a few hints on how to actual maintain your game. You're basically giving everyone a tool to cheat, what's next, a bot that produces maxed items? Oh yea, we already have that. It's the Mu Store.
Solution: Put a max amount of time the Helper can play at idle before the player has to engage to re-activate.
3.) Mu Store
I understand budget and the fact that you're a business that needs to make money to succeed WebZen, but WOW! Do you really have to basically offer virtually ANYTHING for cash? How can this game have any novelty items if John and Sam can just open their wallets and have enough jewels for it in no time? You're thinking SHORT-TERM here! If you actually put some effort into this game rather than selling your souls for cash, in the long-term it could make you rich. Just ask Andrew Gower.
*I understand you need to make money, but when you think about it, with all the perks from in-store and P2P, training in F2P is virtually useless. I could understand maybe a 20-30% exp boost MAX. But like 300-400% or whatever the max is now, that's INSANE! The comparison from training without any perks from the store and with is on completely different scales, you make it pointless to ever think about training unless you purchase some perks, why would you train for a week for something someone can get in 2 hours spending some money in the MuStore. You guys are too money hungry and not thinking logically about the future of your game.
Solution: Stop selling maxed items, if someone wins an item, it should be +0, as for buying them from the NPC. Leave it to the horrible Chaos Machine to decide if they get the item upped to +15. You're making it worthless for someone to try and ever take the horrible odds of making an item to +15 when they can be simply bought from the Mu Store.
4.) Advertising/Marketing
MuOnline is a dead game, we all know that. But it has tremendous potential if you'd just open your eyes and put in a little effort! Advertise the game, look into graphical updates and new maps. Stop taking shortcuts, this game is legendary but currently a steaming pile of **** because of many obvious reasons. You have to SPEND a little money, to MAKE a lot of money.
Solution: Use Google Ads, or something! Just spend a little money on getting the game out there.
5.) EXP events / Perks
You think to save the game you should make it into a private server. Well guess what, there is a reason most private servers didn't last what so ever and couldn't hardly hold a community for the most part, is because it was a temporary environment , level fast, get the best items fast, then get over the game FAST. I actually enjoyed back in Wigle when I had to battle my way through the maps, it was exciting unlocking new skills and spells. It took alot of work to reach even level 100. Now it's done within hours, it's pathetic. You can't enjoy a game you speed up to fast no one is able to enjoy it as it goes by. Levels mean nothing compared to when I started, we actually respected high levels for the efforts they've put into MuOnline. We announced level 400 a on the main page it was that rare. Now what's left to respect or value in a level progressed by the MU helper while you actively played a better game? Or an item you paid a few bucks on chaos cards for, there is no value or novelty in that, you're dulling down your own game!
Solution: A fair EXP boost cap.
6.) BUGS and server stability
MuOnline has been the most unstable and buggy game I've ever experienced. Small things like spelling mistakes and over lapping menus, horribly annoying chat filters that don't allow for proper English grammar like the use of " ' ". I mean come-on! Do you even play your own games? That's such an unprofessional and sloppy way of running a gaming business.
Well, glad to get that all off my chest. Hope some of you reading can relate and express your reasons in this thread. I would love to see Mu in the right hands again, and we all voted for WebZen back while K2 was around, now I'm not to sure.
Solution: Spend some time figuring out all the bugs that are being reported in-game and on-forum, and hire some coders to fix them.
7.) Combat triangle
I'm going to keep this one short and sweet, the combat triangle in Mu is completely off. Level 200's buffed can destroy a level 400+, and from class to class there is hardly any equality among characters. It's sloppy and needs to be revised badly.
Solution: Add a bonus perk for being a higher level than the player you are in PVP with. (Depending on that gap)
8.) The Market
WebZen GM's, I'd like to make a bet with you. Go find me 960 Bless and let me know how long it takes you. Then ask yourself, how ridiculous it is that we trade with so many jewels that people have to use max rings, come on. This is just foolish. The currency needs to be corrected. Remove the duped gems and ban the stupid jewel selling website advertisers in-game.
Solution: Bring back reasonable jewel prices and keep in mind the time it takes to gather jewels. Remove duped jewels and look into accounts with large quantity and flag their next few trades.
9.) Customer Support
WebZen, you have one of the most unorganized and unqualified Game Masters yet, either that or you aren't laying enough funds in the budget to actually develop a real support system that works. You have a few of the only players left begging for support on a daily basis on the forums, open your eyes and see that once you host a MMORPG, you have to expect players needing your help on a large scale, not support for 1-2 players of Mu a day, people go weeks, even MONTHS waiting for your help. Buck up!
Also, blocking peoples accounts in error ?!? This is insane , and you wonder why the Mu community is so outraged? How can you block someones account who has probably paid you hundreds of dollars in error and not swiftly respond to their ticket to find a resolution to the problem? Come on...
Solution: Hire more customer support agents that actually know what their doing and have experience with customer relations and solutions. Hold board meetings and discuss what you can do to improve Mu online for everybody, keep in mind how happy and populated these servers once were back in the Wigle days. Bring that back.
----
For the record, I love MuOnline and it's been a game I've enjoyed for about 10 years now. The reason I have so much to say regarding issues is that a lot of them have been here for so many years it's very frustrating. I know there are good Mu GM's out there, but not enough, and the funding for this game needs to start being spent on the betterment of the game, not the investors driveway souvenirs.
----
