The Future of the Battledome by epk |  |
THE BOOBOODOME - I've been hanging around the Battledome a bit more lately.
Getting twice the number of fights, but losing the same high percentage. And
then upgrading weapons and stats, well, it's safe to say I have I mild addiction.
Even my last article was Battledome related. Yeah, I'm addicted to the Battledome.
Almost as much as my Stock Market and Food Club addiction. But, I've noticed
a few things about it. A few INCOMPLETE things about it.
Let's start off with something fairly obvious: Leagues.
The first Battledome League Challenge was...eh...very slow. It started off
fast, where you had the option of joining a limited-member access 'League,'
so not everyone got in. (My story? Eh, I was going too, but I decided to wait
a while, and it ended up I couldn't fight in the leagues at all) You'd fight
members of your league for about a week, and whoever got the most wins or highest
score or whatever went onto the Knockout Round. There were 64 fighters, and
each fighter was paired up with another to fight against, resulting in 32 fights.
It was single-elimination, if you lost, you lost the knockout. If you won, you'd
go on to fight one of the remaining 31 fighters, and if you won again, you'd
fight one of 15, 7, 3, and then the last opponent. If you won, you got a whole
lot of cash or some other reward. The winner of the first Battledome League
was HynFaerie.
After a very long time. And I mean a very long time. Like months time. I mean,
hello? A fight only takes 10 minutes, or possibly 30. The knockout shouldn't
take more then a two weeks. Why did it take so long? Well, first of all, you
gotta know if your paired up with an opponent with stats thirteen times yours
your not just gonna fight. Your going to stall and get those stats up! So, as
you see, a problem arose. After weeks of waiting, Neopets finally enforced a
3-day or something fight rule. If somebody hadn't moved for 3 days and the other
opponent was just waiting, the other opponent, well, won. Soon after that Neopets
got the great idea, "Hey, look. It was a stupid idea and we had to do something
about it, but let's do it again!" Great. Just great. Not saying that Neopets
makes bad choices all the time, but, eh, this really needs to go under the Top
10 list of Boo-boos, right underneath the whole Employment Agency being an Temp.
Employment Agency and not loading up Tyrannian Land War when it was ready.
Well, guess what? They did do that, or should I say the almost did that. This
time, to qualify for a league, you had to beat the 6 Elemental Faeries and the
Battle Faerie in the One-Player Battledome and you were supposed to of been
given a 'Key' of sorts that let you join a league. Well, for some reason, the
leagues never opened, the key never found, etc. But, yet, it still says they
are coming. Well, this may of been another Neo-boo-boo, as some people haven't
been around the whole year and 4 months since the chance to beat the Faeries
first arose. (Or some people could never beat them all, such as me)
The leagues in general is surely one of the Battledome weaker parts, as it
is a very difficult thing for anyone to organise and moderate. For example,
the rules for the Faerie
Leagues:
You must fight battles quickly.
There will be NO withdrawing from fights!
If you refuse a certain amount of challenges you will be removed from the league.
If you have not fought within 3 days of entering the league or within 3 days
of your last battle in the league you will be removed from the league.
Finally, please respect your fellow league members. They are trying to have
fun too!
The big problem is #4 - sometimes your grounded, disconnected, or away for three
days and you can't fight in the league. How does Neopets fix that? My best guess
would be to make Leagues easier to prepare for. i.e.: First week of a month
is sign-ups. Second week is League Fighting. The rest is reserved for Knockout.
A monthly league competition is something I would actually prepare for. But,
eh, don't expect to win if your HP is below 3,000. Seriously.
Well, now that I'm done critiquing Neopets about stupid mistakes, let's move
onto something else: Battle Arenas.
So, what exactly are Battle Arenas? Well, they are places where you can choose
where to fight. You choose to fight in the Regular Arena, the Island Arena,
the Ice Arena, the Stone Arena, the Tyrannian Arena, or the Space Arena. Not
much really happens when you go to a different arena, except for a small picture
below your Neopets representing the dome, and different colours for the Battledome
Frontpage. However, they are more of a nuisance then a help. Why? It is human
nature to click buttons - may it be the 'Don't let anyone but Neofriends Neomail
you,' (I see that a lot after someone Neomails me and asks me for a reply)
or the 'Island Arena' button on the top of the Battledome Page. And when someone
from the Island Arena challenges you, you have to go to the Island Arena to
accept or reject the challenge. I mean, it's only an extra click of a button,
but when you have 50 challenges to go through and reject, (the challenges I'm
not on for or when the challenged Neopet has no weapons equipped) you can either
A) Go to the correct arena and reject, or B) Withdraw instead of reject.
But, I can see the Battle Arenas actually being a good thing. How? Well, let's
make each one give you a different battle experience! Maybe the Ice Arena has
a 1:10 chance of freezing you, or possibly the Tyrannian Arena has a 1:10 chance
of a wild Pteri coming down and pecking at you and causing damage. (Eh, that
would stink if you had would of had 1 HP before the Pteri) Possibly the Stone
Arena will have a way of transferring weapons and HP randomly from opponent
to opponent. Oh, and the normal Battledome? Nothing special, we need somewhere
to go if we don't want all these special rules. I'd actually like to see where
most Battledome experts choose to go, and if this ever happens, which I think
it should, I'll be taking a poll, so watch out for that.
Another thing I know Neopets promised us about Battle Arenas is the front page.
Each one's content would be unique to that arena. My guesses are that there
would be a cell where you can choose to view a fight. (I've always wanted to
be able to witness a fight) Maybe each arena has it's own times it is open,
(the regular arena of course would have to be 24/7) or possibly it's own tournaments.
These can probably add that nice twist to the Battledome we've been wanting,
after the not-so-nice twist of Chia Flour.
But, here's something the Battledome did have, but was taken off, and never
seen for a long time. What was it? High Scores.
I forget when the High Scores were taken off, but I remember what they were
like. Your 'scores' would be, well, your overall score. There was also a Weekly
High Score, giving rookies a nab at the list. But one thing I really appreciated
about the high scores were that you may actually be able to make NP off of the
Battledome, no matter what your skill level. We never were able to, but Neopets
could of easily added a 5,000 NP (or some other number) and Trophy Prize to
the weekly and overall High-Scores. That may very well be why the High Scores
are...well, 'Down for Maintenance' Yea!
If that was ever to happen, well, that'd mean battledome weapons and training
would take a sudden priority and much more newbies would be entering. Luckily,
the Battledome is well-explained, so the more knowledgeable people would rarely
have to help out the newcomers. But codestones, dubloons, and weapons would
take a sudden surge. So get a stash of those sorts of items, because it is almost
too obvious that this is going to happen, if not something else that makes it
easy to gain NP.'
Now, that is essentially all I want to cover, as I believe I'm stretching your
attention span. However, as a few of you know, I recently hit 50 Neopian Times
Trophies (and, ironically, the picture for that article had a Lupe in it) and
I've set this little space aside to give a little bit of thanks. 1st - all the writers for pushing me and rivaling me to
submit the highest quality possible along with quantity. 2nd - the great people
over at the Web site NBN for supporting me and inspiring me. (aquaking17 gave
me a little too many ideas. axel_grease also gave me small inspiration, but
that never went through. Heh) 3rd - although they have counted for a small
amount of it, the people at my recently opened guild Neopian Plus also are helping
me out. 4th - The Neopian Times Appreciation Guild, which inspired many things
in The Neopian Times writing. If it wasn't for you guys, I never would of stuck
to it. I love your members submissions, and if it wasn't for my move to go out
and make a guild, you'd be seeing me there right now. 5th - All those people
that have to of put up with my constant compliments and criticism. (May I say
this: I only want to suggested what you what to do different. Just saving my
own hide there) 6th - You the reader, especially if you've been giving me feedback.
Especially that one that went out and made a fan club. (still recovering from
shock) 7th - the editor, for accepting, & correcting (My Spell Check runs
like a Purple Slorg) my submissions. Plus bearing with my occasional 'junk submissions,'
especially my first one. I sure hope that has been, erm, deleted. Forgotten.
Poof. Let's look to the future now.
Anyway, that's all set aside, support Maraqua and bye in six different languages
until next time.
Disclaimer: Any predictions, guesses, etc. made by the author (such as differences
in Arena or money from the High-Scores) are most likely false but are hopefully
close. Article written 9/28/02, 9/29/02, 9/30/02 and submitted approx. 8:14
PM NST 9/30/02. (Just in case anything covered in the article becomes out-of-date) |
