I think also, right now, players need transparency.
What’s happening? where are the priorities? what state are all these mysterious projects in? What kind of timeline is there for all of this? how many years is it going to be before there’s going to be space for meaningful work on the issues that haven’t made the list?
cause like, if it’s going to be five years before all of the current combat stuff is finished, and all the new combat stuff that comes up is sorted, and then maybe some of the other stuff actually starts getting addressed. then the people who are considering leaving cause of that other stuff might as well just pack their bags.
Sad to say, I've been here since the very beginning; Lusternia's been a refuge through several bad years, and I could hardly have loved it more; and yet, I too have hardly played lately. Partly this is for personal reasons, which have nothing to do with the game. But I've also found it difficult to return, because of a dearth of solid reasons to do so.
Undoubtedly there's a vicious circle effect going on. It's hard to watch your friends leave, and with every retirement my game time becomes lonelier and more isolated. It's hard to muster the will to make new friends when there's the feeling they, too, will probably be gone tomorrow. But it's more than that.
I'm logging in and finding nothing much to do.
I'm a player who's always been 100% bored by combat, in every game, everywhere. I used to love Lusternia because it offered so much to a player like me. But, looking back at my years here, and all the things I used to do, I realise most of those things have either become very difficult to engage with, or have vanished from the game altogether.
This list includes such things as: Divine Order RP, written works, designing, questing, RP in general, and simple day-to-day tasks and goals that contribute to some of the above.
Divine Order RP: This problem started back with Order affinity. I understand totally why this was put in, and which problems it was intended to solve. I'd still contend that it caused more harm than good. Because now, in order to have a shot at enjoying a fulfilling Order experience, the planets have to align in your favour. There has to be a god in whichever org you're committed to that interests you, whose goals at least kinda work for your character, and who's active. Well, in the last... 7 years maybe? This has happened exactly once for me, and the god in question stuck around for about two months. At this point I've pretty much given up trying. Order affinity means there will never, ever be enough active gods for more than a fraction of the playerbase to engage with Orders at any given time, and that eliminates a whole slew of things that players enjoy.
Written works: At this stage of my life, there are some major OOC reasons why I don't write much for games anymore. But, the chances of my doing so went down dramatically when bardic and artisanals disappeared. Again, I know why that happened and I get that it's been hard to come up with a workable solution. Still though, this stripped another thing out of the game that used to keep players engaged (including me), gave people stuff to do, goals to work towards, and rewards for their efforts, and it's a big loss. It would be great to see this reintroduced, somehow. As for plays: I adore the stage system, it's fantastic, but I stopped trying to produce plays ages ago because I just can't. As time has gone on, it's proved increasingly impossible to get enough actors together at the same time to create even a small production. I don't know what the solution for this might be, but... it's another thing crossed off my list of activities.
Designing: I think there are a few reasons why even my interest in designing is on the wane. One is rule creep. This is natural enough; over the long life of a game, with many successive design admins, the list of rules is going to get longer and longer because everyone's got something to add. The trouble is, no one ever removes any rules. Thus we arrive at a situation where even I feel my heart sink when I look at HELP TRADEMASTER. I can't imagine it's encouraging to new players thinking of getting into it. Worse, some of those rules are purely negative - they take something away or impose obstacles without achieving anything productive. Example: the inexplicable, joy-killing chocolate embargo.
Which brings me to new design types, or the lack thereof; mead/etc and fascinators has been it for many years. I've made a thousand of everything that ever interested me at all, and I'm just... a bit bored.
I'd like to echo whoever it was that voted for tradeskills to stop being gated behind class, too. It makes some sense from an RP point of view, but it also cuts down on the proportion of the playerbase who can actually engage with those trades. If you want to do forging but you've zero interest in playing a warrior, tough luck. That's rather a shame.
Questing: I've always admired Lusternia's brilliant epic quest system, it's fantastic, and many of those quests are amazing. They are, however, deeply complex and incredibly time-consuming. I don't really have the time or energy to do most of them anymore, because I don't often have 3-8 hours to sink into doing just one quest. Also, the rewards for them are too paltry to make it worth the time investment, especially after you've done it once and got the honours line. I quest a lot more in other games, which have a wider variety of smaller, simpler quests with decent rewards for doing them. In Lusternia, I rarely bother with it at all. More simpler quests might be nice for players in general (I realise this takes a lot of time to implement), and in the meantime, maybe upping the rewards for epic quests would give us more reasons to find the time to do them (when we can). Perhaps more unusual rewards, too; I'll hazard a guess that the epics most often repeated are the ones that give curio pieces.
And as for day-to-day tasks: in this category I can think of bards/scholars/pilgrims/power quests etc, which are pretty good when teamed with those achievements and solid rewards for doing them (plus increase in gold rewards helped. That was nice, thanks ). Besides this, there's an occasional temporary month-long quest to kill stuff, such as garosaurs. And, um.
Mm... nope, that's about it now. I know that things like fishing and gathering comms/materials and such have already been shot down (in this thread or elsewhere) as tedious or grindy, and maybe they are to some. But they're also pretty popular elsewhere, simply because they give people more stuff to do even when they don't have a patron right now, and their friends aren't around, and they're bored with killing stormeaters and peacocks.
So then, I want to second the vote for more non-PvP developments. Years ago, the decision was made to focus resources on the combat overhaul, and it was (as I recall) the popular choice at the time. Fair enough. We were warned that it would mean little or no development of other areas of the game, for at least a year, and that was fair, too; I know Lusternia is always going to be short on manpower. But, it feels like that's still going on, with the exception of the new guilds. I've been waiting patiently for something new to emerge that would be of interest to a player so wholly bored by combat as I am, and it hasn't really happened. Areas of interest have vanished, and nothing much has emerged to fill the gaps they've left.
For all these reasons, I lately find that I log in, kill a few garosaurs, take three pixies to the Moonhart, and then... log off. And I go back to Achaea, where I've a list as long as my arm of things to do. This makes me sad. I love Lusternia, I love my character. I'm hanging on because I don't want to lose these things, and because I want to support a game I've loved for so long. But I can't pretend it isn't touch and go right now.
*I have had experience with games where you mine or otherwise produce comms and I am not a big fan. It is monotonous churn for players (worse than old forging) and encourages AFK scripting.
You aren't a big fan, but are your players? Isn't that more important? I can tell you, that is what keeps me playing games. It's pretty much my favorite thing to do in many games, including FFXIV, which I currently play more than Lusternia, despite my subscription to Lusternia costing me more. I will log in, fish for a while, throw some fish up on the marketplace and log out. Maybe half-hour, 45 mins, chatting away with my guild the whole time. That's why I play online games. Fun, relaxing experiences and interaction with like-minded players. The lore got me into Lusternia, some great players (most no longer here) got me to stick around. It has never been the mechanics. I don't do PvP and even bashing is boring and overly complicated to me. I "have to" spend way too much time buffing before I go out and smack mindless mobs. I'd much rather be resource gathering for people that need what I can get. A year or so ago I took herbs, because it was the only skill in the game that had resource harvesting (that I could find). I very much enjoyed hunting around the Basin to find the different herbs, watching the calendar to see when I could stock up on what. But then I found out how prohibitively expensive it was to have a shop AND the shops were all flooded with herbs anyway (should have done some research beforehand, I guess). And so I quit doing Herbs and took up Bookbinding simply because I could make stuff for myself. So I stopped doing a task that was intended for others and started doing one to benefit myself. That's not a good progression.
You want players to stick around, well, make it fun for them. You've got a PvP system that some people love, but if you're not into that you really feel like you aren't contributing. Give me something non-PvP to do that actually helps my City win fights, and I'll log in. Yes, we have culture victories and whatnot, but that's very ephemeral and time-locked. Give me something I can do and see it help my friends do what they love to do, which is fight.
This has gone on way, way longer than I intended, and I think it all boils down to self-sufficiency. You have only a handful of players online, and yet you have glutted markets, silent channels and empty social spaces. We don't need each other. Except to watch our backs/zerg in combat. If my City actually needed me, I'd be there. But they don't.
You guys have given me a lot to think about regarding comm mining mechanics. I admit my opinion was more from an admin perspective than a player perspective (and granted none of you would have heard the admin gripes) as well as player feedback about mechanics like forging. Anyway, I'll give it some more thought.
I hope the mining thing wasn't all you got out of that. I really think the interdependency is the bigger issue. For the most part, PvPers don't need non-PvPers. Or, at least, that's the way it feels. That needs to be addressed.
I think also, right now, players need transparency.
What’s happening? where are the priorities? what state are all these mysterious projects in? What kind of timeline is there for all of this? how many years is it going to be before there’s going to be space for meaningful work on the issues that haven’t made the list?
cause like, if it’s going to be five years before all of the current combat stuff is finished, and all the new combat stuff that comes up is sorted, and then maybe some of the other stuff actually starts getting addressed. then the people who are considering leaving cause of that other stuff might as well just pack their bags.
I believe this is a big thing. We want to see what the schedule is going to look like for you guys. Not just from a customer perspective but to know how you guys will be addressing it @Estarra.
As Xenthos, myself, and many others have mentioned. Doing this stuff on just two people is a huge burden. Give mortals a chance and change some of the mechanics to allow for more to assist with what they are good at. Bring in people from other games. They can help too.
I think transperancy is key. Especially with this sort of feedback where there is so much to be done. It’s better to make a schedule that shows what will be focused on. Perhaps it would be wise to let the players vote on prioritizing things in category’s via the game referendums and referring to this thread for more comments.
Many do not use the forums. And it would encourage them to share and make their choices.
The cool night-time breeze shivers in the arid caress of the streets of the capital city, brushing the earthen taste of dust across your lips.
*
A blessed silence falls upon the city for the moment, most activity confined to the towers and the theatre due to the snowy weather.
*
Pinprick points of light twinkle in the deep black overhead, their brightness full of a cold, hungering malice.
If you want to work up a proposal of an interdependent resource system that could work for Lusternia (doesn't have to be detailed), I'd be more than interested in looking at it. BTW, you don't have to do that if you don't have time or interest or whatever (before I get accused of asking people to do my job--I can work something out in my mind on my own as well).
Orael has planned to post something about the goals he has for coding projects. I believe he will also elaborate on what's replacing the envoy reports, which will be player reports and player voting on them to see which ones players want.
@Vatul I'm not sure I understand what you mean by giving mortals a chance to change mechanics. If you mean design, then sure--I'd be open to design proposals but someone would have to code that design which would mean halting other development to implement it (which has gotten us into trouble before, instead of finishing projects, we keep getting sidetracked on other projects). If you mean letting mortals code new mechanics, that's trickier. We do have a couple of mortal coders but their service is limited (obviously), though depending on the project, maybe I can work something out with them.
@Vatul I'm not sure I understand what you mean by giving mortals a chance to change mechanics. If you mean design, then sure--I'd be open to design proposals but someone would have to code that design which would mean halting other development to implement it (which has gotten us into trouble before, instead of finishing projects, we keep getting sidetracked on other projects). If you mean letting mortals code new mechanics, that's trickier. We do have a couple of mortal coders but their service is limited (obviously), though depending on the project, maybe I can work something out with them.
I mean, changing any mechanics that would prevent an army of people helping out in some way. Yes it is trickier but I think overseeing and speed of completion (with guidance) would make quick hands of the work. I know it would be scary at first having a lot of people on the job if they step up. But I wouldn’t limit it to just some mortal coders you already have.
The cool night-time breeze shivers in the arid caress of the streets of the capital city, brushing the earthen taste of dust across your lips.
*
A blessed silence falls upon the city for the moment, most activity confined to the towers and the theatre due to the snowy weather.
*
Pinprick points of light twinkle in the deep black overhead, their brightness full of a cold, hungering malice.
Am not combatant, so I do not know if this is actually a thing they might want: If people are concerned about the impact of artifacts and such on combat, there might be interest in an arena setting to disable them? Just to have fights without artis. Maybe combine it with an automated arena tournament system with smallish prizes. Probably wouldn't want to disable artis for all of those because that would make them lose tons of value, but turning it off for some might be appealing.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
Otherwise, wonderitems. This has been beaten to death in this thread already, but I'll throw my support in -- please, for the love of Yudhe, no more wonderitems. The first few were neat -- but now it's at the point where I roll my eyes when I see a new Announce subject line mentioning "wonder*". These items require such a ridiculous investment to get to their better potentials, and the fact that new ones keep coming out time after time is discouraging to say the least. The Pay-to-Win sensation has been carved in stone with these. Mind you, I did eventually give in to investing a crystal in a Wonderclock when it came out, and then bought another to imbue -- only to immediately regret it when I realized how expensive it would be to actually get to the powers I wanted. Then another item came out, with powers I would have preferred, followed by yet another; and now, without the financial means to invest in every new item, some players are at a disadvantage? If these were more just flavour items (obviously with a lower pricepoint) rather than combat/game-breaking artifacts, coming out with new ones wouldn't be so bad, but at this point... where does it end (and how difficult is it going to be to get the upper hand on someone who's able to spend more on them)? I fully support the previously-mentioned ideas about offering wondercrystals for monthly promos instead.
There is of course more that I could say, but much of it has been said already and these are the otherwise glaring issues I perceive. Thank you, @Estarra, for finally opening this thread and replying to as much as you have.
Tonight amidst the mountaintops And endless starless night Singing how the wind was lost Before an earthly flight
I do definitely miss when Lusternia felt it was alive and changing, when there were world elements you interacted with and interacted back. Things greater than the players themselves (some players are really present, but it's just not the same). Now our events are basically "one time a month the story advances, then it is in limbo for a month". Nowhere near as many little things happening that make it feel inhabited. I end up sitting around the Ravenwood waiting for people to talk to me.
That's actually something I forgot to mention - the monthly "kill or gather this many of a thing every day" has held utterly no interest for me, partly because the rewards don't seem worth the time and partly because we know the event will most likely progress at the end of the month whether we kill the darn things or not.
Tonight amidst the mountaintops And endless starless night Singing how the wind was lost Before an earthly flight
I hear you regarding this month's quest; others have said similar. But I will note that killing them does have an impact, the more that are killed, the better the weather becomes which was supposed to offer some incentive, both RP and mechanical (reducing the cold weather effects).
Hi! Chiming in with my biggest sadface about Lusternia:
The deluge of promotional items has, I think, diluted much of the charm the game once had. When I first started out in IRE, Lusternia had the deepest and most intriguing lore and story, bar none. From Yudhe and his children, the war between the Heralds and the Star Gods (+Dracnoris, Keph, Mysrai?), the creation of the mortal races, the Holy Celestine Empire, the Taint Wars...it was so, so enthralling.
Ever since the monthly promotions started, though, it feels like that more attention is turned towards those than to the great storyline of Lusternia. How do wonderitems fit into the grand scheme of things? Are they new inventions from where, exactly? Where is the epic saga of New Celest versus Magnagora? What has happened to the intrigues of Faethorn Court, and the conflict between Serenwilde and Glomdoring? What of the great, overarching war between the factions of the Basin of Life for control of the Power, with which they can dictate the fate of Lusternia itself?
I understand that the push for monthlies comes from the Top of IRE, and that you can't really say no to them. But tying in the promotions to the larger story of Lusternia would, in my opinion, go a long way to revitalising the look of the game.
Check with some of the former MKO players once you put comm mining and comm quality into place it adds another new dimension of issues in play including people doing nothing but harvesting in order to corner the market resources, for a simple example think of those people who ran around grabbing all the glowbats it'll be worse with comms needed for crafting if quality comes into play.
You guys have given me a lot to think about regarding comm mining mechanics. I admit my opinion was more from an admin perspective than a player perspective (and granted none of you would have heard the admin gripes) as well as player feedback about mechanics like forging. Anyway, I'll give it some more thought.
I do definitely miss when Lusternia felt it was alive and changing, when there were world elements you interacted with and interacted back. Things greater than the players themselves (some players are really present, but it's just not the same). Now our events are basically "one time a month the story advances, then it is in limbo for a month". Nowhere near as many little things happening that make it feel inhabited. I end up sitting around the Ravenwood waiting for people to talk to me.
I feel this so much. I get lonely most of the time waiting for RP on RPWho.
The cool night-time breeze shivers in the arid caress of the streets of the capital city, brushing the earthen taste of dust across your lips.
*
A blessed silence falls upon the city for the moment, most activity confined to the towers and the theatre due to the snowy weather.
*
Pinprick points of light twinkle in the deep black overhead, their brightness full of a cold, hungering malice.
Quick and dirty pre-nap idea: Condense and re-skin poisons into harvesting lots of bits from mobs, or add them to Environment. Feathers and poultry from dead birds, eggs from live ones, wool from live sheep, meat from lots of stuff, hide (NOT leather) from lots of large animals, etc.
Herbs can similarly be condensed and expanded to also include hemp, cotton, bark, and other plant-based materials. Nix lumber generation from mulching and instead put it in here or (again) Environment.
New skill that does the same as previous, but is for minerals, fossils, ores, gems, metals, etc.
These are tier one or primary trades. They produce raw materials that can be used for final creations, but doing so makes basic finished goods. The 'nodes' for these should be in public places, and be gated behind non-exclusive mini quests, like silkworm larvae in Tolborolla getting a dozen or so siblings, each of which follow the same rules as recent quests where once they're turned in they spawn again, after a short delay if necessary to avoid flooding the market, and once a given player turns in 36 that player drops any remaining worms and can't pick up any more until the weave change.
Orgs should also passively generate certain raw materials that can be purchased by any member post novicehood.
Tier two trades are entirely dependent on villages, with one major exception: each org has a set of resources they can refine alone, better and higher than a village. Examples are Halifax being able to refine gems into specific stones, 'rarer' stones that most villages can't produce, and distinct Halifaxian cuts, but being unable to process meat without a village to do so for them while Mag can do meat and bone refinement and can take raw meat and produce forbidden flesh (ie: sentient species), but can only use fruit processed in a village. Certain non-village zones can also produce unique ingredients, like perfume, sky-silk, and powderfruit from Clarramore, or distilled madness from the Asylum, and there should be somewhere to buy limited supplies of high and mid tier comms for extortionist rates in gold. Ideally wandering traders or caravans rather than contributing to Bob Jr and his business ventures. The less money Bob jr gets, the better.
Main idea here is that you'll still produce comms, and those are still the comms used for stuff, but there are now ways to produce, say, Dairuchi cotton, marinated meat, or pristine gemstones. These should be active processes, not passive. Attach mini games to the refining processes. Make someone trying to get a good cut of meat go to Acknor and find a contender for the arena to beat the SNOT out of it, and if you got the right clues from the peons around the village you get either tender meat or tough meat. Or take marble to Talthos and play Bombard! to find as many flaws in the stone as you can in under a minute, the better you do the better your commodity. This would be most or all of the point of villages in this set up.
Lastly, tier three/production/Tertiary trades take comms produced or refined and make neat things out of them. Higher quality goods increase duration, prestige, satiation, weight, base stats, etc. inside the currently existing system, but are otherwise identical to the base commodity. (This is to avoid having to manually review each and every design and modify the components, but if we open up this process to mortal reviewers and tradesmasters and overhauled tradeskills and the tradesmaster and cartel system fully then forcing higher tier goods to require higher tier commodities fixes the question of how to make the high tier comms relevant)
Special materials unlock special things, for instance the Collectivist-cut prism stone, which can only be refined in the heart of the Transphenortex Grid by a Hallifaxian of rank 3 or higher, is required for Hallifaxians to take advantage of the free immolation construct. Or shadowbound roses grown from composting vegetables under Night Tower being a component needed for Shadowdancers to call down a Rage coven. (Is Rage Night or Moon..? Whichever one, you get the idea). Or to a lesser extent, or taking it in a different direction, high tier materials could raise the damage floors if a weapon were forged with at least 75% high-tier metal, or an Aquanancer can use high quality coral to summon a new staff with 1/x asphyx bonus for the next y months, or suits made with Angkrag silk give a 1/x excorp. resist until mended.
To make up for villages being different now, each allows for one org to win, one to place, and optionally one to show. Winner gets full access to the village, second place gets the refinement stations but can't generate the village-unique comms, the org diametrically opposed to each of these is locked out of using that village due to ideological differences, and anyone else can only refine first or second tier commodities. Revolts reset everything to square one, and winners are determined over the following 24 hours by tallying quest completions, commodity turn ins, and village-skill influences, weighting them per that village's criteria (say, Acknor-Estelbar places each farmer freed or enslaved as 3 points, Acknor gives 2 points per comm and 1 per influence plus 5 points for electing a chieftain that aligns with your org at the time, Estebar reverses those and gives 20 points for fully helping at the daycare, but Riken rates those as 3 per comm, 2 per influence, and completing their quest 5 times nets 10 points unless you beat the record, which grants another point immediately and 4 after the fifth completing for a total of 15.) Arbitrary numbers are for demonstrative purposes only please keep all hands and tails inside the vehicle no exchanges or refunds void where prohibited.
Villages will also periodically send raw materials out in caravans, but only to other villages relatively nearby that they have good relationships with (Riken <=> Estelbar could happen, but not Estelbar <=> Acknor or Riken <=> Dairuchi), or if a given org holds the same position in two neighbors (Dairuchi sends some silk to Talthos because Glom placed in both villages, and sends a full caravan to Stewartsville since New Celest won both. Celest gets a portion of whatever gold Talthos sends back, Glom gets some of what Stewartsville sends.)
Orgs can send caravans as well, but only to other orgs, and doing so opens that caravan to raids. To raid a caravan, the org that wants the contents of it can spend their own comms to find out what's in it, put together a raiding party, equip them, and feed them, then go out and guard that raiding party from defenders. with the spoils divided between the raiders' orgs based on how well the raid went. These go through a demiplane created by a forgotten God of commerce that tends to favor whoever is at the bottom of the heap, creating for your org more entrances the fewer villages will deal with you. Note: only the npc raiders can directly steal caravan contents or damage the caravans. Don't pay for raiders and all you can accomplish is to grief the people defending the caravan and wave as it goes by.
I just want to say that the grind of mining metals (hell, stick them on Earth, or Astral), praying to the RNG for good-quality metals, and then sorting the metals, then using them to create the best weapons in the game (while still praying to the RNG)... that was my catnip in MKO. I'm sure it isn't for everyone (and I know that weapon stats and durability are quite a divisive thing, but they'd be needed) but if that was in Lusty I would probably never complain about the game again.
I'm reading through some of the longer posts on this thread and really really a big thing is lack of things to do.
Thats the underlying root of most peoples problems. (There are other issues but if people had something to do every day they loged on that would at the very least alleviate or cover up the harder to solve issues.)
Make more events, More hunts, More pvp events(tournaments, faster domoths), more roleplay events.
I know a lot of people
feel there are deeper seated issue than as I'm very glibly putting it
“make more stuff to do” but I just want to point out how having
stuff to draw people to the game on a daily basis will have an
uplifting effect on almost every aspect of the game.
If you have a reason to
log in and play every day(which we dont really have now) then you
increase the online population.
You increase the number
of people online during your playtime to interact with. Fighting,
Roleplay Trading etc all improve with more people.
You improve the
economy. A working economy needs constant flow of goods and services.
More people means more flow.
Now I don't disagree
that there are more specific issues that need to be addressed. (I'm
really on board with Maligorn here in how we've had big reports
sitting over our heads waiting for literal years now. I was expecting
the melder report to go in before last christmas or last ascension
at the latestest from the way it was described at the time.) But
having said that; more people playing and interested in the game
means more potential volunteers to help you with the work load in the
future
Side note: People have raised the issue of entry level cost for Lusternia. Its super high and I don't know how you can solve it but you are losing people to Imperian because they can get a fully trans'd out character there without paying a cent.
Maybe do shorter events more often instead of having ones that last months at a time? At a personal level I'd also prefer lower scale things. Less basin-shaking threats, more crimes, NPCs having feuds and such. I dunno if that one is a popular opinion or not, but I find those easier to relate to and be interested in.
I agree with so many of the things on this thread, but none more than this. There's a certain feeling you get when you realize the mob emote you just saw was a big deviation from their normal ambient emotes and it's not just programmed, but someone behind the scenes is driving and inviting you to engage. At that point, you're not just playing the game; the game is also playing back. These types of RP interactions made everything else I did seem more vibrant, including combat (which today just feels like an OOC pissing match). But those interactions are really rare these days.
I'd take one of those types of interactions over a long, giant event any day of the week. And they're small enough that they can be improvised or require only minimal planning. And the best part is you don't have to keep up with huge amounts of lore to participate and feel like you're contributing or getting anything out of it for your character.
Bardics outside of the game has been something people have been bummed about. It’s an opportunity to enrich the world but also get some credits for their characters when some can’t afford it.
The cool night-time breeze shivers in the arid caress of the streets of the capital city, brushing the earthen taste of dust across your lips.
*
A blessed silence falls upon the city for the moment, most activity confined to the towers and the theatre due to the snowy weather.
*
Pinprick points of light twinkle in the deep black overhead, their brightness full of a cold, hungering malice.
Can you give me examples of "stuff to do"? Keep in mind we've got a lot of blowback when you "have" to do something (then it's a big grind and we get complaints that the quest or whatnot is 'griefing' a city or commune). Also note @Tambador's warning of what can happen if there's any possibility that someone or group of someones can monopolize a resource.
What do you guys think of the ideas of @Luce? Obviously, we'd shut down all development for months to implement everything but maybe some of the more simple things as baby steps?
You guys have given me a lot to think about regarding comm mining mechanics. I admit my opinion was more from an admin perspective than a player perspective (and granted none of you would have heard the admin gripes) as well as player feedback about mechanics like forging. Anyway, I'll give it some more thought.
Just from something my partner said when I was talking to him about this thread (not a MUDer but really into games design)
Game economies aren't just about making curatives/weapons/etc. They provide engagement and reward for certain activities that the game designers want to promote. FFXIV, for example, encourages experienced players to repeatedly run older primal fights by putting in cool drops such as special mounts and weapons that you desynth for materials to make even cooler weapons, which in turn provides an ongoing incentive for people to repeatedly run the same thing over and over so when other players show up later there's still people interested in running.
There's also an article that I came across which included the point that, fundamentally, healthy game economies encourage players to interact because they create an interdependence on each other as no one player can easily have everything they need without the involvement of other players.
If we just replaced comm generation with mining it wouldn't work and similarly the economy should be a change that directly impacts all players, providing that something to do which keeps echoing around here.
Can you give me examples of "stuff to do"? Keep in mind we've got a lot of blowback when you "have" to do something (then it's a big grind and we get complaints that the quest or whatnot is 'griefing' a city or commune). Also note @Tambador's warning of what can happen if there's any possibility that someone or group of someones can monopolize a resource.
What do you guys think of the ideas of @Luce? Obviously, we'd shut down all development for months to implement everything but maybe some of the more simple things as baby steps?
Deichtine gave some examples that could be good starting points:
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What’s happening? where are the priorities? what state are all these mysterious projects in? What kind of timeline is there for all of this? how many years is it going to be before there’s going to be space for meaningful work on the issues that haven’t made the list?
cause like, if it’s going to be five years before all of the current combat stuff is finished, and all the new combat stuff that comes up is sorted, and then maybe some of the other stuff actually starts getting addressed.
then the people who are considering leaving cause of that other stuff might as well just pack their bags.
Artisinals
Fix chemwood Wyrdenwood
Undoubtedly there's a vicious circle effect going on. It's hard to watch your friends leave, and with every retirement my game time becomes lonelier and more isolated. It's hard to muster the will to make new friends when there's the feeling they, too, will probably be gone tomorrow. But it's more than that.
I'm logging in and finding nothing much to do.
I'm a player who's always been 100% bored by combat, in every game, everywhere. I used to love Lusternia because it offered so much to a player like me. But, looking back at my years here, and all the things I used to do, I realise most of those things have either become very difficult to engage with, or have vanished from the game altogether.
This list includes such things as: Divine Order RP, written works, designing, questing, RP in general, and simple day-to-day tasks and goals that contribute to some of the above.
Divine Order RP: This problem started back with Order affinity. I understand totally why this was put in, and which problems it was intended to solve. I'd still contend that it caused more harm than good. Because now, in order to have a shot at enjoying a fulfilling Order experience, the planets have to align in your favour. There has to be a god in whichever org you're committed to that interests you, whose goals at least kinda work for your character, and who's active. Well, in the last... 7 years maybe? This has happened exactly once for me, and the god in question stuck around for about two months. At this point I've pretty much given up trying. Order affinity means there will never, ever be enough active gods for more than a fraction of the playerbase to engage with Orders at any given time, and that eliminates a whole slew of things that players enjoy.
Written works: At this stage of my life, there are some major OOC reasons why I don't write much for games anymore. But, the chances of my doing so went down dramatically when bardic and artisanals disappeared. Again, I know why that happened and I get that it's been hard to come up with a workable solution. Still though, this stripped another thing out of the game that used to keep players engaged (including me), gave people stuff to do, goals to work towards, and rewards for their efforts, and it's a big loss. It would be great to see this reintroduced, somehow. As for plays: I adore the stage system, it's fantastic, but I stopped trying to produce plays ages ago because I just can't. As time has gone on, it's proved increasingly impossible to get enough actors together at the same time to create even a small production. I don't know what the solution for this might be, but... it's another thing crossed off my list of activities.
Designing: I think there are a few reasons why even my interest in designing is on the wane. One is rule creep. This is natural enough; over the long life of a game, with many successive design admins, the list of rules is going to get longer and longer because everyone's got something to add. The trouble is, no one ever removes any rules. Thus we arrive at a situation where even I feel my heart sink when I look at HELP TRADEMASTER. I can't imagine it's encouraging to new players thinking of getting into it. Worse, some of those rules are purely negative - they take something away or impose obstacles without achieving anything productive. Example: the inexplicable, joy-killing chocolate embargo.
Which brings me to new design types, or the lack thereof; mead/etc and fascinators has been it for many years. I've made a thousand of everything that ever interested me at all, and I'm just... a bit bored.
I'd like to echo whoever it was that voted for tradeskills to stop being gated behind class, too. It makes some sense from an RP point of view, but it also cuts down on the proportion of the playerbase who can actually engage with those trades. If you want to do forging but you've zero interest in playing a warrior, tough luck. That's rather a shame.
Questing: I've always admired Lusternia's brilliant epic quest system, it's fantastic, and many of those quests are amazing. They are, however, deeply complex and incredibly time-consuming. I don't really have the time or energy to do most of them anymore, because I don't often have 3-8 hours to sink into doing just one quest. Also, the rewards for them are too paltry to make it worth the time investment, especially after you've done it once and got the honours line. I quest a lot more in other games, which have a wider variety of smaller, simpler quests with decent rewards for doing them. In Lusternia, I rarely bother with it at all. More simpler quests might be nice for players in general (I realise this takes a lot of time to implement), and in the meantime, maybe upping the rewards for epic quests would give us more reasons to find the time to do them (when we can). Perhaps more unusual rewards, too; I'll hazard a guess that the epics most often repeated are the ones that give curio pieces.
And as for day-to-day tasks: in this category I can think of bards/scholars/pilgrims/power quests etc, which are pretty good when teamed with those achievements and solid rewards for doing them (plus increase in gold rewards helped. That was nice, thanks
Mm... nope, that's about it now. I know that things like fishing and gathering comms/materials and such have already been shot down (in this thread or elsewhere) as tedious or grindy, and maybe they are to some. But they're also pretty popular elsewhere, simply because they give people more stuff to do even when they don't have a patron right now, and their friends aren't around, and they're bored with killing stormeaters and peacocks.
So then, I want to second the vote for more non-PvP developments. Years ago, the decision was made to focus resources on the combat overhaul, and it was (as I recall) the popular choice at the time. Fair enough. We were warned that it would mean little or no development of other areas of the game, for at least a year, and that was fair, too; I know Lusternia is always going to be short on manpower. But, it feels like that's still going on, with the exception of the new guilds. I've been waiting patiently for something new to emerge that would be of interest to a player so wholly bored by combat as I am, and it hasn't really happened. Areas of interest have vanished, and nothing much has emerged to fill the gaps they've left.
For all these reasons, I lately find that I log in, kill a few garosaurs, take three pixies to the Moonhart, and then... log off. And I go back to Achaea, where I've a list as long as my arm of things to do. This makes me sad. I love Lusternia, I love my character. I'm hanging on because I don't want to lose these things, and because I want to support a game I've loved for so long. But I can't pretend it isn't touch and go right now.
The lore got me into Lusternia, some great players (most no longer here) got me to stick around. It has never been the mechanics. I don't do PvP and even bashing is boring and overly complicated to me. I "have to" spend way too much time buffing before I go out and smack mindless mobs. I'd much rather be resource gathering for people that need what I can get.
A year or so ago I took herbs, because it was the only skill in the game that had resource harvesting (that I could find). I very much enjoyed hunting around the Basin to find the different herbs, watching the calendar to see when I could stock up on what. But then I found out how prohibitively expensive it was to have a shop AND the shops were all flooded with herbs anyway (should have done some research beforehand, I guess).
And so I quit doing Herbs and took up Bookbinding simply because I could make stuff for myself. So I stopped doing a task that was intended for others and started doing one to benefit myself. That's not a good progression.
You want players to stick around, well, make it fun for them. You've got a PvP system that some people love, but if you're not into that you really feel like you aren't contributing. Give me something non-PvP to do that actually helps my City win fights, and I'll log in. Yes, we have culture victories and whatnot, but that's very ephemeral and time-locked. Give me something I can do and see it help my friends do what they love to do, which is fight.
This has gone on way, way longer than I intended, and I think it all boils down to self-sufficiency. You have only a handful of players online, and yet you have glutted markets, silent channels and empty social spaces. We don't need each other. Except to watch our backs/zerg in combat. If my City actually needed me, I'd be there. But they don't.
As Xenthos, myself, and many others have mentioned. Doing this stuff on just two people is a huge burden. Give mortals a chance and change some of the mechanics to allow for more to assist with what they are good at. Bring in people from other games. They can help too.
I think transperancy is key. Especially with this sort of feedback where there is so much to be done. It’s better to make a schedule that shows what will be focused on. Perhaps it would be wise to let the players vote on prioritizing things in category’s via the game referendums and referring to this thread for more comments.
Many do not use the forums. And it would encourage them to share and make their choices.
theatre due to the snowy weather.
hungering malice.
theatre due to the snowy weather.
hungering malice.
Otherwise, wonderitems. This has been beaten to death in this thread already, but I'll throw my support in -- please, for the love of Yudhe, no more wonderitems. The first few were neat -- but now it's at the point where I roll my eyes when I see a new Announce subject line mentioning "wonder*". These items require such a ridiculous investment to get to their better potentials, and the fact that new ones keep coming out time after time is discouraging to say the least. The Pay-to-Win sensation has been carved in stone with these. Mind you, I did eventually give in to investing a crystal in a Wonderclock when it came out, and then bought another to imbue -- only to immediately regret it when I realized how expensive it would be to actually get to the powers I wanted. Then another item came out, with powers I would have preferred, followed by yet another; and now, without the financial means to invest in every new item, some players are at a disadvantage? If these were more just flavour items (obviously with a lower pricepoint) rather than combat/game-breaking artifacts, coming out with new ones wouldn't be so bad, but at this point... where does it end (and how difficult is it going to be to get the upper hand on someone who's able to spend more on them)? I fully support the previously-mentioned ideas about offering wondercrystals for monthly promos instead.
There is of course more that I could say, but much of it has been said already and these are the otherwise glaring issues I perceive. Thank you, @Estarra, for finally opening this thread and replying to as much as you have.
Tonight amidst the mountaintops
And endless starless night
Singing how the wind was lost
Before an earthly flight
Tonight amidst the mountaintops
And endless starless night
Singing how the wind was lost
Before an earthly flight
The deluge of promotional items has, I think, diluted much of the charm the game once had. When I first started out in IRE, Lusternia had the deepest and most intriguing lore and story, bar none. From Yudhe and his children, the war between the Heralds and the Star Gods (+Dracnoris, Keph, Mysrai?), the creation of the mortal races, the Holy Celestine Empire, the Taint Wars...it was so, so enthralling.
Ever since the monthly promotions started, though, it feels like that more attention is turned towards those than to the great storyline of Lusternia. How do wonderitems fit into the grand scheme of things? Are they new inventions from where, exactly? Where is the epic saga of New Celest versus Magnagora? What has happened to the intrigues of Faethorn Court, and the conflict between Serenwilde and Glomdoring? What of the great, overarching war between the factions of the Basin of Life for control of the Power, with which they can dictate the fate of Lusternia itself?
I understand that the push for monthlies comes from the Top of IRE, and that you can't really say no to them. But tying in the promotions to the larger story of Lusternia would, in my opinion, go a long way to revitalising the look of the game.
theatre due to the snowy weather.
hungering malice.
Condense and re-skin poisons into harvesting lots of bits from mobs, or add them to Environment. Feathers and poultry from dead birds, eggs from live ones, wool from live sheep, meat from lots of stuff, hide (NOT leather) from lots of large animals, etc.
These are tier one or primary trades. They produce raw materials that can be used for final creations, but doing so makes basic finished goods. The 'nodes' for these should be in public places, and be gated behind non-exclusive mini quests, like silkworm larvae in Tolborolla getting a dozen or so siblings, each of which follow the same rules as recent quests where once they're turned in they spawn again, after a short delay if necessary to avoid flooding the market, and once a given player turns in 36 that player drops any remaining worms and can't pick up any more until the weave change.
Orgs should also passively generate certain raw materials that can be purchased by any member post novicehood.
Tier two trades are entirely dependent on villages, with one major exception: each org has a set of resources they can refine alone, better and higher than a village. Examples are Halifax being able to refine gems into specific stones, 'rarer' stones that most villages can't produce, and distinct Halifaxian cuts, but being unable to process meat without a village to do so for them while Mag can do meat and bone refinement and can take raw meat and produce forbidden flesh (ie: sentient species), but can only use fruit processed in a village. Certain non-village zones can also produce unique ingredients, like perfume, sky-silk, and powderfruit from Clarramore, or distilled madness from the Asylum, and there should be somewhere to buy limited supplies of high and mid tier comms for extortionist rates in gold. Ideally wandering traders or caravans rather than contributing to Bob Jr and his business ventures. The less money Bob jr gets, the better.
Main idea here is that you'll still produce comms, and those are still the comms used for stuff, but there are now ways to produce, say, Dairuchi cotton, marinated meat, or pristine gemstones. These should be active processes, not passive. Attach mini games to the refining processes. Make someone trying to get a good cut of meat go to Acknor and find a contender for the arena to beat the SNOT out of it, and if you got the right clues from the peons around the village you get either tender meat or tough meat. Or take marble to Talthos and play Bombard! to find as many flaws in the stone as you can in under a minute, the better you do the better your commodity. This would be most or all of the point of villages in this set up.
Lastly, tier three/production/Tertiary trades take comms produced or refined and make neat things out of them. Higher quality goods increase duration, prestige, satiation, weight, base stats, etc. inside the currently existing system, but are otherwise identical to the base commodity. (This is to avoid having to manually review each and every design and modify the components, but if we open up this process to mortal reviewers and tradesmasters and overhauled tradeskills and the tradesmaster and cartel system fully then forcing higher tier goods to require higher tier commodities fixes the question of how to make the high tier comms relevant)
Special materials unlock special things, for instance the Collectivist-cut prism stone, which can only be refined in the heart of the Transphenortex Grid by a Hallifaxian of rank 3 or higher, is required for Hallifaxians to take advantage of the free immolation construct. Or shadowbound roses grown from composting vegetables under Night Tower being a component needed for Shadowdancers to call down a Rage coven. (Is Rage Night or Moon..? Whichever one, you get the idea). Or to a lesser extent, or taking it in a different direction, high tier materials could raise the damage floors if a weapon were forged with at least 75% high-tier metal, or an Aquanancer can use high quality coral to summon a new staff with 1/x asphyx bonus for the next y months, or suits made with Angkrag silk give a 1/x excorp. resist until mended.
To make up for villages being different now, each allows for one org to win, one to place, and optionally one to show. Winner gets full access to the village, second place gets the refinement stations but can't generate the village-unique comms, the org diametrically opposed to each of these is locked out of using that village due to ideological differences, and anyone else can only refine first or second tier commodities. Revolts reset everything to square one, and winners are determined over the following 24 hours by tallying quest completions, commodity turn ins, and village-skill influences, weighting them per that village's criteria (say, Acknor-Estelbar places each farmer freed or enslaved as 3 points, Acknor gives 2 points per comm and 1 per influence plus 5 points for electing a chieftain that aligns with your org at the time, Estebar reverses those and gives 20 points for fully helping at the daycare, but Riken rates those as 3 per comm, 2 per influence, and completing their quest 5 times nets 10 points unless you beat the record, which grants another point immediately and 4 after the fifth completing for a total of 15.) Arbitrary numbers are for demonstrative purposes only please keep all hands and tails inside the vehicle no exchanges or refunds void where prohibited.
Villages will also periodically send raw materials out in caravans, but only to other villages relatively nearby that they have good relationships with (Riken <=> Estelbar could happen, but not Estelbar <=> Acknor or Riken <=> Dairuchi), or if a given org holds the same position in two neighbors (Dairuchi sends some silk to Talthos because Glom placed in both villages, and sends a full caravan to Stewartsville since New Celest won both. Celest gets a portion of whatever gold Talthos sends back, Glom gets some of what Stewartsville sends.)
Orgs can send caravans as well, but only to other orgs, and doing so opens that caravan to raids. To raid a caravan, the org that wants the contents of it can spend their own comms to find out what's in it, put together a raiding party, equip them, and feed them, then go out and guard that raiding party from defenders. with the spoils divided between the raiders' orgs based on how well the raid went. These go through a demiplane created by a forgotten God of commerce that tends to favor whoever is at the bottom of the heap, creating for your org more entrances the fewer villages will deal with you. Note: only the npc raiders can directly steal caravan contents or damage the caravans. Don't pay for raiders and all you can accomplish is to grief the people defending the caravan and wave as it goes by.
I know a lot of people feel there are deeper seated issue than as I'm very glibly putting it “make more stuff to do” but I just want to point out how having stuff to draw people to the game on a daily basis will have an uplifting effect on almost every aspect of the game.
If you have a reason to log in and play every day(which we dont really have now) then you increase the online population.
You increase the number of people online during your playtime to interact with. Fighting, Roleplay Trading etc all improve with more people.
You improve the economy. A working economy needs constant flow of goods and services. More people means more flow.
Now I don't disagree that there are more specific issues that need to be addressed. (I'm really on board with Maligorn here in how we've had big reports sitting over our heads waiting for literal years now. I was expecting the melder report to go in before last christmas or last ascension at the latestest from the way it was described at the time.) But having said that; more people playing and interested in the game means more potential volunteers to help you with the work load in the future
theatre due to the snowy weather.
hungering malice.
What do you guys think of the ideas of @Luce? Obviously, we'd shut down all development for months to implement everything but maybe some of the more simple things as baby steps?
Just from something my partner said when I was talking to him about this thread (not a MUDer but really into games design)
Game economies aren't just about making curatives/weapons/etc. They provide engagement and reward for certain activities that the game designers want to promote.
FFXIV, for example, encourages experienced players to repeatedly run older primal fights by putting in cool drops such as special mounts and weapons that you desynth for materials to make even cooler weapons, which in turn provides an ongoing incentive for people to repeatedly run the same thing over and over so when other players show up later there's still people interested in running.
There's also an article that I came across which included the point that, fundamentally, healthy game economies encourage players to interact because they create an interdependence on each other as no one player can easily have everything they need without the involvement of other players.
If we just replaced comm generation with mining it wouldn't work and similarly the economy should be a change that directly impacts all players, providing that something to do which keeps echoing around here.
Tonight amidst the mountaintops
And endless starless night
Singing how the wind was lost
Before an earthly flight