Roma Victor

Before I get into what I want to talk about, I'll give a quick synopsis of what's been happening in RV lately. My character is Baldur, warchief ot a warband in the game called the Trinovantes, and we've recently built our guildhall south of the Wall. This extremely aggressive act was done for one reason.... this game is a boring grindfest and the only thing that makes it playable is player driven conflict. And by conflict I mean PvP... not flamefests on the forum. What we need is more of the former and less of the latter.

We're two boards southwest from Erring (one board southwest from Milecastle XXIV), which is in the heart of Roman territory. A 30 minute run or less from most Roman settlements, including the Roman starter town, the potential for PvP is limitless. Though until this weekend us and the Romans have mostly been just bitching at each other except for a few skirmishes, but now things have stepped into overdrive.

The only problem is, as it is well known, there is still a population imbalance between Freemen and Romans. This is something that's been an issue for a while, and I'm not here to talk about why this is the case, god knows everyone likes to bitch about that, and right now we're really starting to feel the strain.

So I'm asking all you ex freemen, who left the game for whatever reason, to come give it another shot. Just see what's changed, head down to our hall, kill a few Romans. It might be the righ time to stop trolling and login for a change. We have everything set up for a huge PvP war, just need a few more people who are able and willing. If you have that combat character just collecting dust on the server, why not take him out for a spin? You'll probably be suprised that the game has become even more bearable than before, for the PvP if for no other reason.

And to new players... become a freemen  It's a well known fact that we are 50% more intelligent and attractive than Romans.

Drop by #freemen in IRC to see what's happening. Let's get this shit rolling like the old days, but with less lag.

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by the way... I don't want to talk balance, why Freemen don't work hard enough, and ESPECIALLY that we should have conjured up an army before we went south. We did what was needed to get some life into the game, and that's that.

How's the pvp? Still the same as it has been? Also if they still have that "skill loss on death" penalty then I don't see much future for this especially for a side that is strongly outnumbered. No one likes fighting a losing battle especially when losing can cause hours(or in some extreme cases days) of work gone with a quick jab to the head.

Of course if this does get alot of the freeman support then PM me since I'm getting bored of playing roman.

Well the PvP hasn't changed if that's what your asking... still point and click mainly. And as for skill decay it's still in and still really lame. KFR made a big post explaining the changes that would be made to skill deccay, 1 pt lost from top skills on death along with some statistic decay (strength, fitness, etc). That's much better in my opinion than the possible 5 pts lost from some of your top skills we see now. But this is KFR, and he gave no ETA so I'm not really hoping for much there.

In terms of regrinding skills, it isn't too bad now with our setup. You can heal a full stamina wound in 30 minutes in our hall, so we're just always training there. Keeping your skills up high isn't too hard now, as long as you choose your battles. No more suicide runs, and it just makes you that much more careful when outnumbered.

PvP is almost non-existant. As far as what they say they are putting in...well, dont count your chickens before they hatch. It took them 6 months more than their projected finish date for guildhalls, and all they are is a money sink, and safe zone for the people to hide in. The very people who are calling for help. But they hide to not lose skills, so that in itself should tell you something.  they've been almost finished with ballistics for over a month now. they are so slow in adding stuff, there is another thread on their forums about how badly more stuff and updates are needed. The player base is in a spiral dowmward, if not numerically (which I would say it is) then it is with moral.

but, then again, the Op was asking for people to "Return" to the game.  You've already spent the cash for the game, go check it out again. hopefully the reason you quit last time has been resolved, but I doubt it.

The developers have been at this game almost 7 years and I think it's safe to say that they have lost sight of whatever they intended to produce from the outcome.

The game has a lower population than I have ever seen before actually, and from what I've been told the PvP aspect of the game (always quite scarce but quite good when it got going) is completely nullified.

What's more is, recently a lot of long time players have finally had enough, especially with all of this impractical, dissapointing guildhall business and further promises of the developers. Sometimes it's thought that some of the developers don't even know what the features the lead developer has actually mentioned to the community, whether or not it's true no one knows but the promises sure aren't met.

The skill decay is a huge deterrant of Roma Victor's PvP, probably the nail in the coffin for the fighters of yesteryear - the long time beta testers, etc.

The community used to be quite good, however it's slipping some. The bickering on the forums is something of a deterrant in itself, which really set someone community-oriented like myself back quite a lot. Now I won't be coming here to be flaming or to be spreading utter lies and moistening the tongue of carnage, but there is a lot of what I personally see as injustice in the way the community is handled at the moment. As most veteran players would agree, the forums really are a place for the afterwar seeing as battles are short and you have to travel far to have a fight anyway. Now, the forums used to have swelling great big 10 page essays of utter crap about who won what etc. That was stopped which was a great plus for the community. Recently however, the developers have been somewhat neglecting their community driven listening skills and have actually been absent from the forums more and more often - some think they got into AoC Beta... lol. So naturally some of that bickering has rekindled which is a shame. Without maintenance the forums begin to lower themselves again but there is still more to be heard about the community in general.

RedBedlam are quite fond of allowing banned players back into their game and acting "docile" to the fact that they're there. There's a guy who has been banned at least twice, and he's still running the money and calling the shots on the forum. How they can let that happen and stand by that is a mystery to me and also a great spark in my anger towards the game of late.

Recently I packed in the towel for this game, although I decided to stick around their forums for a little while longer. Well, that turned out great. For whatever reason, I come to their forums one day to find out I've had my access revoked... I had not even posted for over a week so it could not have been a post I had made. It seems to me as if RedBedlam might be banning quite vocal players who stop being vocal. Lol. I still to this day don't know why they've banned my forum privileges, no one else can tell me, I had no explination email or anything like that which does thwart the patience a tad bit. A couple others have been banned I think, some quite vocal and mocksy/mouthy, but then again others who just generally speak their mind. That really rips a hole in the community feel however. Allowing banned players to slip in under the rug "unnoticed" but revoking the speech (forum privileges) of those who haven't actually done anything wrong

In all honestly, with no intention of - "driving players away because I don't play anymore and I feel mad blah", I feel as if the developers do not have their original image in sight and are not fit to continue it. The game has not grown an awful lot this year, or last year really. It's dragged on long enough. I feel as though KFR (lead developer) especially, is quite tired and he almost acts like someone who has not had sleep for about 3 days and is just generally quite grumpy. The other developers we never really hear from so not much can be said for their morale or motivation.

General synopsis: Game is not going anywhere fast and "developer inspiration" has lost it's light in the lantern. If you've bought it, keep an eye on it, if you have a decent PvP character, log in for a fight now and again (but do NOT sit hiding inside a guildhall!!!!!! ). If you've not bought Roma Victor yet and are considering, make sure you do your reading, it's the only thing that can ever help you. The starter towns are deserted at least 95% of the 24 hour day so in game help won't get you far. The various mIRC channels are deserted, neglected and not correctly maintained so I would not recommend them sadly. Guild forums however would be your best bet if you actually have to ask a complex question or whatever. Guilds like the 18th Legion especially I would say are most eager to actually give out answers to non-guilded inquirers etc. Don't pour your soul into it though. It feels quite harsh to say such things but it'll do you good, stress-wise.

From the server changelog:

 Fixed bug which allowed players to place containers within containers (baskets in handcarts).

• Prevented animals from depositing zero quality items.
• Loot and carcasses are dropped at a slightly lower height
• Quivers are now craftable and can be equipped. When using bows, arrows will be automatically (and only) drawn from your character's equipped quiver.
• Added new death and loot rule set*

*The list of penalties for dying are as follows:

1. Badge Loss
2. Minor Skill Decay
3. Minor Stat Decay
4. Major Stat Decay
5. Loot Drop, A. combatant specification and B. non-combatant specification.

The combatant specification (A) consists of all non-equipped items and one equipped item. The non-combatant specification (B) consists of all equipped items and one non-equipped item.

The penalties for the type of death awarded:

Death by suicide: 2, 3, 4
Death by bleed: 1, 2, 3, 4
Death by drowning: 1, 2, 3, 4
Death by NHC or deity-owned NPC as combatant: 1, 2, 3, 5A
Death by NHC or deity-owned NPC as non-combatant: 1, 2, 3, 5B
Death by player-owned NPC: 1, 2, 3, 4
Death by player as combatant: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5A
Death by player as non-combatant: 1, 3, 5B
Death by crucifixion 5A

Exceptions include:

No loot drop for a death in an arena.
No minor skill decay for holders of the convalescent badge. The convalescent badge is awarded for all types of deaths except crucifixion or a player death blow.

Champions:
The champion badge is awarded to a local player who deathblows the local champion in an arena. If there is no local champion, then the first local player to kill another local player in the local arena will become champion. A local player is one who is homed in the same board as that arena.

Full loot! Sort of at least :P

What's the point when 90% of the veteran PvPers have left already. Most of the fighters today are either newcomers or crafters turned fighters due to boredom. All the true pvpers have left town already.

What a joke Roma Victor has become. I really do suspect that it is just KFR and DGH left on the team. Rarely do we see Kanoth on the forums, fishmuffin has dissappeared without a trace, and the rest it's like they never existed. I wouldn't blame them for leaving either.

Well if you put it that way then yeah, it does just seem a bit grim .

The only thing this game needs now is the population. Player conflict has always driven the game, and nobody wants to log in when theres nothing ever happening because of low population. But II can guarantee if we had 20 old pvp vets come back to both sides, you'd all enjoy it. That's all I can hope for by threads like this, and maybe try to rekindle any interest at all for PvP in this game.