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Adding some emphasis to your role in the world Yes, I know there's a whole cartoon about Wakfu, I know about characters background, as I know about Wakfu history, the point I want to make in this topic it's not about the whole "Wakfu History" concept, but about the importance of your character in the Wakfu universe.

I'll take Dofus as an example as at least half of you guys know that game.

The first time I logged into Dofus, I guess it was 5 years ago or so, I was amazed. Every single character Class had an huge background, and every character had it's own personality, it's own Philosophy, that huge world was full of things to learn, nothing was a coincidence.

From when, in the undergrounds of Tainela, Ganymede taught me how to play the game, the same Ganymede who is now the guardian of the Gobball Dungeon.
I remember spawning at my class God/Goddess' statue, and loved the Npc greeting you with "Welcome to the world of Eleven.. [...]" explaining me about my class' role in the world, about the jobs they suited for (remember the Sacrier Saketsu, in the Butcher shop or the Eniripsa alchemist, Nibe Lulle).
The Newbie quests which made me meet all the Astrubian Npcs, talking me about how the 11 Classes saw eachother, the Xelors, who were always in competition with Ecaflips since their ability to see in the future couldn't beat the Eca's luck when it came to betting, Or the Srams always trying to steal treasures from the Enutroves.

I remember myself playing the first year of Dofus doing basically nothing but running around talking to Npcs, going to the Amakna libary and spending all my kamas to buy the books about the Dofus history, running to the Class temples and talking with the "Class masters Npcs", who explained me why an Ecaflip would use a Sword and not a Dagger, or why an Osamodas prefers an Hammer to a Staff. Making tons of characters just to see if the dialog would have been different if I used another class to talk to the same Npc.
I liked how Ankama used to care about details, how every single Npc spread around the World of Amakna could add up a piece to that puzzle which was the history of Dofus, it was like reading an endless book.
I remember the day Pandawas came out with the whole Pandala island, full of new Npcs, a whole new library with books, new Monsters, four new villages, one for each element since the pandawas were the only class who could choose any of the four, and a lot of background for the new class, like the martial art of Pandawushu, which taught you how to use a shield (still remember the funny scene of the Pandawan Master just kicking your shield once and saying "Now you have mastered the art").
The grandmaster teaching you about Pandawas bringing the KanoJedo to Amakna.
As I loved their Asian-Looking architecture and culture, and all the jokes they used to make about beer and alcohol in general. (That's probably why Pandawas are still my favourite class after all)

Now that I'm playing Wakfu I don't feel like a character of a novel like i did in the first years of Dofus 1, I feel like another player in a game, a pretty good game, but still a game.

I miss that "being part of the Ankama universe" thing I used to feel when I first started Dofus, might be just me not seeing the game with the eyes of a new player anymore, but still I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who felt this change.
My suggestion is to put more emphasys on the 14 classes' role in the world, adding the class temples in the nations, and adding a few Npcs with their own stories, talking about the story of Wakfu and giving you simple, maybe unrewarding quests that requires you to discover some of the Wakfu/Dofus secrets. Another good Idea could be adding some "Wakfu history trivia" events.

Might sound like a bored, nostalgic Old-Timer thing, but I'de be glad to hear your opinion.

Hey that's something cool.I haven't played dofus so i don't know much about relations between wakfu gods and those informations you are saying about xelor-ecaflip or sram-enutrof sounds interesting. I'd love to hear more about it and i would really enjoy this game more (and longer) if there were some kind of library or maybe some random drop with part of the book that you can collect to read whole history (after you collect all pages). Also this could be some kind of achievement to collect all 100 pages and craft book from them with... handy man proffesion! Maybe 100 pages would be too difficult to collect due to lack of inventory slots (especially if they have different text) so maybe few books with 5 pages?

Anyway after playing wakfu and creating few chars, each time i start in incarnam i got the feeling that there should be some more things to do. Tutorial with Mimi and Wolfgang economy doesnt really explain how to increase wakfu/stasis % up. I remember that not so long ago i was asked by one player (who had stasis 99%) why my gemlin have cool-looking blue colour. I told him that if he plant some seeds he will be closer to get wakfu % up and with high wakfu % his gemlin will become blue. And guess what he said: "But when i plant seeds my wakfu/stasis gauge loose %!" Yes, he thought that doing good thing like planting flowers or tree's will make him loose % in wakfu/stasis gauge. For that player it wasnt stasis gauge or wakfu gauge %. In order to get high wakfu/stasis % high he was destroying economy, but he would like to have blue gemlin.... and he was doing all things wrong way! Why its not explained more deeply in tutorial? Only after getting 15% in either stasis or wakfu gemlin will mention something that you might automatically ignore. Some NPC's could be added in incarnam and simply explain everything. Also More details about nation should be given to the begginers. After talking with Sokay people usually choose first option available without knowing that they actually choose nation. Well they can still change their mind in asturb but nobody explain this either and they usually goes back the the owl they met before (this is mainly why a lot of new players goes to Amakna, without thinking much).

I remember when i was talking to sokay before brakmar and sufokia were added there was one question about what i think when i see gobbal. My answer was: If its not tatooed, then nothing. It was funny choice and sokay informed me that in this condition best nation for me would be bonta. Now there's only info: I will go straight to bonta - wich is some kind of boring text. Would be cool if they pay more attention to those details and make talking with clan members more interesting. If you for example go to other nation there are some clan members that wont say a word to you. Why? They could bring some informations about classes, gods and history. Obviously some information about hiostory could be added to Incarnam too. There actually are those floating stone's wich include some short story about Ogrest but thats all about it. I don't feel like going to play dofus just to learn wakfu-history, so please, Anakma add those informations to wakfu world too. You know like for me it could be even copy-paste text from dofus, i just want to read this and feel like being part of something important.

I agree with you, the game in it's current state is lacking of directions and depth, also, except a bunch of Stasis/Wakfu Equipments (which are mostly unuseful for any Build-related purpose, due to adding generic stat.s like HP or Resist.) and a pretty coloured Gemlin, there's no reason to worry about the Ecosystem.

I'm not saying the game isn't good, because the imputs are brilliant, the point is Ankama is developing a little bit of everything and focusing on nothing, Wakfu has much, much more potential than Dofus and many other MMORPGs I seen, but, maybe because they're rushing the release, they are making a good product out of the concept, when they could have made a top-quality MMO.

Should be easy to add Npcs around, explaining thing and history, they won't make the game less player-run, it will just make the game feel like your favourite novel, I'll put down some ideas

1. Drunk Pandawas and some talking characters at the taverns, Ecaflips playing cards... with say some evil looking rogues and/or Srams in Brakmar tavern
2. Npcs "craft masters" in the workshops, that can show you all the recipes for a profession, could be an Enu at Jeweler's, Sadida at Sawmill and so on
3. Other Npcs sitting around or talking to eachother with quests

Also, what happned to the Class Temples? I mean, you have the Input to add another 14 areas per nation, use it, it would be awesome to have, say, a Cra temple for every nation, differing from each other by environment and the way the 14 classes follow they principles.
To make it clearer.
Bonta Iops: Could be the stereotypical Paladins, all about justice, courage and chivalry.
Brakmar Iops: Could be brawlers like, always looking for a fight.
Sufokians Iops: Could be Navy like soldiers. (Seriously sufokia is too generic)
Amaknians Iops: Could be the wandering knights, running around the amaknian praires looking for a challenge
Rogues could be outlaws everywhere, just in a different way.
And getting different bonuses from your class temple depending on which nation you are in, for example a Cra from Brakmar could get a Small Damage bonus, while a Cra from Amakna could get a range bonus.

Or you could perhaps add some more structures with Background related Npcs. Here are some ideas:

1. The Tower Of Bonta with the Bontarian elders, talking about the ancient orders?
2. The Class Temples, oh, please the Class Temples
3. Libraries in ruins, it's okay for Hoot to sell books but what if we want to look for some ancient documents or book pages? (could also work as easter eggs, like adding pages with screenshots of the older versions of wakfu)
4. Some weird places, like that "Tower" that was in the middle of Sidimote Moor in Dofus, with the blood dripping altar, it served no purpose, but I spent like a week thinking about why it was there.
5. Pandala. To satisfy my "I wanna se Pandawas everywhere" fetish (just kidding, could be cool to see it as an island, tho)
6. Ruins of the Dofus buildings, like the Wabbit Castle (with ghost wabbits?), A collapsed Imps Village, The Gobball Dung.. no, there are too many kinds of gobballs around already.

Just some ideas, I guess everyone got plenty of stuff like this.

I belive they will add Pandala to Sufokia as island to be unlocked just like Sadida Kingdom is in bonta. I also expect some canibal island in sufokia in the future update with shaman-sadidas tribe. Still how they expect people go to other nations then amakna or bonta if they are not finished? Whats guarantee that they will add new maps with release?

I think that they wont change the release day and they will only add new things after they get some money from players so.... adding more NPC's to talk about history and explain wakfu/stasis mechanics seems to never be added. Let's make it real, whats the point of improving asturb and incarnam maps if they are only going to be f2p? Maybe would be fine to add them before release so everybody can taste the same beggining - but if they wont add it soon then they most likely wont add it at all. Only hope is that if they will want to attract more players to the game or if they will want people to start new char to see new additions and feel it once again with better explanations... yes then they might add this.

Would be cool but still i doubt they will implement this within month.

Nah, that's just dreaming. I hardly believe that if a Dev. ever happens to read this post will just grin and move on to the next suggestion. What I am asking here, I'm 100% sure it's not a priority, since the core mechanics isn't even defined.

About the maps, it is just a my guess but it sounds fairly real that they will try to start the game with all the four nations having the same number of maps, to give at least an illusion of balance.
Anyway, I'm sure enough they won't move the release date, it's SE making the rules on that aspect, and I doubt they are going to change their mind, no matter how incomplete the game is. (does this sound as bad as it seems?)

I would love to see instead of a "certain Jonk's whining "everithing's ok exept some generously shaped plants are missing" to greet you or have some more depth like if the ecosystem is in perfect shape he could say "all is well this is really incarnam on earth"(heaven-incarnam get it?), but if it would be unbalanced he would be all like "whoa, what the shushu's going on here, who wrecked the ecosystem?!", or that he would tell you some news(new governer, ecosystem state, wars, talking about the current weather(and not be "my kryon thinks weather's changing" ALL THE TIME, seriously)).

Add some racism between classes, like enutrofs not trusting srams at first, or xelors blaming an eca for messing up his bet with someone by standing near him, or just make some NPC's joke when they meet a certain class and possibly tell a funny story that happened to him and that class, or some anecdotes about the twelve gods(hear this, one time Ecaflip and shushu walk into a bar...).

Now, that's what I mean.

Adding inside jokes, increase the competition and adding some anecdotes regarding the classes
Making the environment alive and adding something to have fun with when you're not in the mood to grind.
I find annoying the repetitive clan members too, they have like what, two sentences per NPC?

Thanks for your post, Cody.


This post has been edited by Lindel - February 04, 2012, 22:02:44.