Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted

I downloaded the trial and  decided to give this game a go.....After 2 hours of wandering I couldnt find a single person, not a single one? Sigh.....Deleted the game.

You were probably on Spirit Isle or Skalkaar, the tutorial islands. People graduate from them pretty fast, hence you might not see anyone there.

That said, Istaria does have a small population. It's a niche game, it's not advertised, and it doesn't have boxes in stores. But doing what you've done creates a paradox: leaving the game due to low population inhibits the population's ability to grow.

Speaking of  population, what is the max population at peak times. If it is above 1.5k then I think I will give this game another go, It seemed pretty cool to me.

Considering how low the population is, why not combine the existing accounts onto one server, wipe the other one, and advertise heavily about a fresh world launch and attract a lot of new and old players alike?

Many of us are starving for an old school seamless MMOG, we just don't want to play on a 4 year old server.

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Originally posted by RedwoodSap
Considering how low the population is, why not combine the existing accounts onto one server, wipe the other one, and advertise heavily about a fresh world launch and attract a lot of new and old players alike?
Many of us are starving for an old school seamless MMOG, we just don't want to play on a 4 year old server.

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Originally posted by snowytechna

Speaking of  population, what is the max population at peak times. If it is above 1.5k then I think I will give this game another go, It seemed pretty cool to me.

I'd be surprised if the total playerbase was that big. At peak times there'd be what? 100-150'ish players online on Chaos? Fewer on Order, the smaller server.

It's been half a year since I last played but there were generally folk running around in the noob area. Maybe everyone inclined to take the free trial has done it already?

From memory... Istaria has a non-standard chat setup. If you're starting out and want some kind of interaction with others - and let's face it if you don't have that you may as well be playing an offline game - join the dragons channel.

You might also do well to visit the official forums and look through the guilds section to see who's recruiting. I have no idea whether you can join a guild or not while on the free trial, but if you could find a guild willing to take you in, it'd probably make a big difference.

If you're expecting to hook up with other players to party, that doesn't happen so often. Particularly for non-dragon players, their mutliclassing system encourages solo'ing. Most player interaction is guild based and revolves around gathering/crafting/building.

Originally posted by katriell

 

You mean consolidate Chaos (normal) and Order (RP)? No thanks.

 

LOL -- could you imagine the dogfights over plots and lairs?!

No there are still people joining. I see new people all the time and even old timers showing back up from time to time. No it is not growing fast but I think it is more growing then dieing off. Last I heard the game was in the black and growing from a Dev.

Originally posted by green13

 

Originally posted by katriell

 

You mean consolidate Chaos (normal) and Order (RP)? No thanks.

 

 

LOL -- could you imagine the dogfights over plots and lairs?!

If it has then I don't see what the problem would be with merging the existing accounts for both servers onto one. Surely the so called RP server doesn't really RP more? That has never been my experience with any MMOG. If the developers want to grow their playerbase they have to offer a new launch start either with a fresh server, which obviously costs more money, or logically utilize an existing server, which they already own.

I never understood the plot shortage originally because there were huge tracts of land in Horizons that were underutilized and bare of anything including mobs.

Originally posted by RedwoodSap

 

Well plots were one of the main problems originally because the game advertised that every player would have equal access to a personal plot. This wasn't true though, because there were different types of plots and fewer of the desirable type which as I recall were the ones that allowed merchant and trade buildings to be constructed. There were not enough of those available for every player on each server which created an uproar and a lot of dissatisfaction with the game back then. I would hope that this has been addressed by the new developers.

 

If it has then I don't see what the problem would be with merging the existing accounts for both servers onto one.

Well my comment was made because I don't believe it ever was addressed. At least as of 6 months ago this was still an issue in that players could only own one plot/lair per account and it was definitely the case that not all plots/lairs were equally desirable.

Which really was stupid. It should have been the simplest thing in the world to throw in a few more portals to address the 'location' problem and it amazes me that they ever thought it was a good idea to create plots of such varying sizes with this system.

With the delays in moving the Unity people over, which delayed the plot reclamation, there's been a terrible shortage of plots/lairs - which are (if you can get a decent one) one of the game's better features.