Well, given I've finally come back, just in time to see the mass exodus, I think I should give my two cents on the direction things have gone. Essentially Lusternia now has a viable very similar alternative, and has to become competitive for a playerbase. In the past, the policy of using Lusternia as a cash-cow was viable, and even though it made the entry level of the game much higher, releasing more and more content that required -someone- to purchase the credits in the first place (even if other players could afford to buy resale from the credit market) was viable. It made plenty of money, and mudders didn't really have a choice. However the ballgame has changed, to be frank.
If Lusternia wants to compete, it needs to both lower the entry level for new players, and to go back to the principles that made it great in the first place. The step toward making combat curing easier for new players is an amazing, and excellent step. However the 'free to play, pay for perks' remains a truth in technicality only. With a credit market like it is, and the vast number of things -requiring- credits (higher than any other IRE, afaik), it means that the game has essentially become pay-to-play. This means that a lot of your playerbase is going to go elsewhere now that elsewheres are available. I logged in today and for several hours I saw that the number of (visible) people on lusty didn't rise above 20. What I'm saying may be incredibly harsh, but it holds an element of truth.
However, even if the entry level issue is resolved, there's one core truth that runs right to the heart of the decline. What made Lusternia great, and made me an instant addict who has played in some incarnation or another since open beta, hasn't existed in Lusternia for years, and I know that many other players I talk with feel the same. Lusternia became great on the basis of -meaningful- faction-based interaction. That is no longer true, and the discontent with the game I've seen seems to have gone hand in hand with that paradigm shift.
Nothing in Lusternia has a meaningful impact on the game any longer. Because of this the sense of identity within an org, the sense of solidarity, and the sense of urgency and importance, has decayed. Factional conflict, by combat, economics, culture, whatever, holds no purpose. You can fight, if you want, but ultimately the actions of characters no longer -change- anything. Without this principle, which I believe made Lusternia what it was in its prime, the decline I noticed -immediately- on logging in for the first time since my last hiatus, has become painfully obvious.
Now that I've covered what I see as the most central issues in the abstract, I'll offer some concrete advice:
-Provide meaningful gold sinks. Even if this means a loss of short-term profit gains. Release special gold-only perks that have a real benefit. Even if this means taking extreme measures. Some possibilities?
*Organization level gold sinks - make constructs require massive amounts of gold to create, or any of a number of other ideas I'm sure you could come up with *Meaningful gold-only buffs, on par with karma blessings at minimum. *Short decay gold-only versions of artifacts, similar to the ones bandits dropped. *Directly purchasable LESSONS-for-gold at a reasonable price (By reasonable, I mean prices designed for non-demi bashers), but capped in number purchasable per IC year across the account. This will force credit sellers to significantly lower their prices if they wish to afford the use of the gold sinks you create, rather than just offering them slightly cheaper. By making it lessons it will specifically target your entry-level players. *Perhaps alternatively make -memberships- purchasable with gold, scaled to the maturity level of the membership (renewing a 10 month membership with gold costing more than starting one, in proportion to the increase in benefits)
The possibilities are endless when you're willing to swallow the reality that even if you -could- viably offer something for credits instead, the presence of realistic competition necessitates fixing the long-term issues over short term profits. The nearsightedness of the last few years is part of what has really hurt things.
-Return the meaningful impact of conflict. Not just combat, though reviving the ability to damage each other through combat-related means is essential. I would also encourage, to link this to the gold issue, a form of economic warfare, both in raw gold, and via the actual performance of commodity quests and use of commodities, to translate into a meaningful conflict-oriented benefit. The ways you could do this are endless.
However the core of this point is that players must be able to meaningfully change the course of history in Lusternia once more. On the other hand, to prevent the frustration that I think led to a lot of the loss of conflict, a system of incentives for players in 'weak' orgs, ones with low populace and/or resources, should exist as well. It would encourage repopulation of ghost-orgs and an equilibrium, rather than a one-sided curbstomp. Additionally, diminishing super-alliances would prove very beneficial. For a possibility? If members of more than one org are moving in a group, or squadded together, cause everyone to suffer longer balances, or something. It doesn't matter how specifically it's implemented, so long as it becomes incrementally more crippling as the size and diversity of a group increases.
I know that a lot of what I've said here is likely very unpalatable, however I believe it's necessary if Lusternia wants to staunch the bleeding caused by the emergence of credible competition after years of growing discontent but having no alternative to resort to.
Addendum: You'll notice I didn't mention anything that -players- should be doing. Yes, they can do things to make the game more appealing. However, it's top-end decisions that -influence- how players behave. The responsibility always ultimately lies with the administration, not the playerbase. If you want players to behave in a certain way, create an environment that inherently biases them toward the preferred behaviors.
Out of curiosity, what "mass exodus" are you talking about. You mention "competition" but do not identify it. Are you talking about other IRE MUDs, some new MUD, or just F2P games in general? But while there's been at least a perceptual dip in the player base since 2010, I'm not seeing a sudden dip, and there's a lot more people with credits and gems of cloaking now.
F2P competition I can understand, as the general market has changed, and there's now so many games that they are now judged with "pay to win" vs. "equal for all" methods. Which is not something IRE can easily change.
There really is no 'mass exodus'. Our play time is pretty steady, if not slightly higher than usual lately. The only real competition would be other IRE games or interest in things like WoW (and I mean really, who can compete with Mists of Panderia?!). There are a few other new MUDs out there that may someday be competition, but from everything those who've tried it have said (within earshot, anyways), it's quite a ways off from being comparable.
That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, though!
(Zvoltz is so obsessed with WoW he had to fix a typo! Man, talk about God of Order and Structure. :x)
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Lessons for gold would be amazing. Cheaper and steadier than the credit market, but it also means they can't artie up off gold (at least not without dropping a fortune on credits.) I might actually try to gold bash rather than accumilating piles of gold on accident while I do other things.
I'd love to see that happen too. At a rate of 2k per lesson, that'd mean 12k per credit, which is a bit lower than today's standard. I see two problems with it though:
A) It'd set a minimum price for credits. No one would want to sell credits below a certain rate anymore (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I suppose). IRE would lose credit sales over it. That's probably going to be what kills this idea.
I think the artifact rental idea actually sounds really neat. Not sure how many people would use it. If you provide little quality-of-life items for a couple RL days for a high gold cost, you think that would be a popular gold sink?
I for one wouldn't mind an artifact rental system. I even think it'd be good for IRE; people will be able to test the artifacts, and decide on whether or not to buy them. I'm sure more than one person will test and buy an artifact they previously didn't want to spend the credits to buy.
Raahl, nearly single thing you added here conveys my own thoughts, just worded much better than I did. Nothing against any players here, but some of the the current player base will disagree because they are the ones who spurred Lusternia's current state. I.E. players who didn't enjoy conflict the way it was, etc.
Admin only respond to what their players want. The same can be said for any game. When players are loud enough, the admin feel compelled to "fix" things. In this case, the fix basically killed the game. You log in and it's like hearing crickets. As a matter of fact, this very thing almost happened to Achaea when they removed theft. It removed quite a bit of danger from the game. I think they've done great with fixing that problem now.
It's simply a matter of recognizing mistakes and gearing any changes to rectify the situation. Personally, I don't blame the admin for what's happened to Lusternia.
As for the mass exodus mentioned by Raahl, I agree to a point. There may be players here, but what do they do? Stagnancy is equivalent to an empty game, and it certainly feels like it to newer players who log in to hear nothing. No excitement, no adrenaline rush, nothing that actively engages their minds.
Regarding conflict, as I mentioned before, it is incredibly difficult to design and implement a conflict system that is fair, doesn't give 'winning' orgs a big advantage (and still be meaningful) nor depress a 'losing' org. It's funny how we can look back at the past through rose colored glasses. The fact is that when there was more conflict, there was also more rage, angst and depression that drove players away. People hate being on the losing side and winners tend to like to stomp the competition into dust. Efforts to remedy is always greeted with the 'punish the winners for winning' accusations.
What we want is to strike a balance. While everyone agrees that the ability to change the world is a great concept (you never hear me disagreeing!), the truth is that finding a way to do that without creating more issues has been the Holy Grail that Lusternia (and all games like it) has been questing for. But if you have ideas beyond a general yearning, whether original or that you've seen successful elsewhere, then I surely wouldn't mind hearing them!
The problem is did the majority like conflict or hate it? I don't think conflict was a major issue, but the incessent versions of it. The problem is a lot of players did too much conflict, such as running a conflict quest several times a week. The problem is that this game is not just a TF2 or DOTA2 where you have a combat session--there's also deep RPing, which can be tough to handle when the conflict gets too out of control. At least that's what I've seen happen.
The problem is I'm not entirely sure Rami and Rhaal are representing the majority. I've heard that the game was ruined when Avenger and Karma curses were introduced. I've heard removing theft and conflict quests caused problems--but that doesn't seem to be the cause of any population dip.
If you measure the only objective standard of traffic, mudstats.com, http://mudstats.com/World/Lusternia, traffic has been pretty steady even with those conflict changes. It appears only this fall has there been a drop-off. There's something that might be going on--noticed a rise in Achaea and Aetolia while Imperian's held steady.
I do think some things like the whole F2P economy can get strange and I think IRE has a lot more competition since most games are moving toward that model. But at the same time, it's still a business and I'm not sure what the ideal solutions are.
I don't think "players connected" or "play time" really mean anything, though, considering the prevalence of manse afk and sitting around, waiting for something interesting to happen.
Regarding conflict, as I mentioned before, it is incredibly difficult to design and implement a conflict system that is fair, doesn't give 'winning' orgs a big advantage (and still be meaningful) nor depress a 'losing' org. It's funny how we can look back at the past through rose colored glasses. The fact is that when there was more conflict, there was also more rage, angst and depression that drove players away. People hate being on the losing side and winners tend to like to stomp the competition into dust. Efforts to remedy is always greeted with the 'punish the winners for winning' accusations.
No idea if you saw them on the old forums, but I made a couple of posts about how I thought due to an alliance's ability to gain a stranglehold on domoths, it introduced a bias in the setup that discouraged participation in domoth conflict for the losing side. Quick summary was that one side (the holders) can dictate everything about when domoth conflict can occur, and the other side can do nothing to really change things off their own initiative.
Should a losing side org manage to steal a domoth during an upgrade, they are then typically forced into being constantly on the defensive, and face it being absolved when there's no one around which becomes an exhausting state and limits enjoying other aspects of the game. In contrast to this, with allies holding the opposing domoth, once the upgrade is done, there is no further threat of losing the domoth until you need to upgrade again.
I think the domoth setup has shown in the past that it is a great outlet for conflict, but for me, the problem above means that it is not realising its potential. There are times when the losing orgs want to fight in domoths, but current setup excludes that choice of fighting at a time convenient to them. I think introducing a mechanism that allows non-domoth holding orgs to challenge a domoth would be a good step and allow people to be proactive about challenging the stranglehold alliances can achieve. At the time this last came up, I liked the idea of vernal ascendants of orgs NOT currently holding a domoth being able to channel the energies of their nexus for X power cost to attempt a domoth challenge (absolve attempt). This challenge would not allow the ascendant to claim the domoth, only to absolve its level downward, and then if fully absolved, period of dormany ensues and regular domoth procedure begins.
Idea was something like: "Shedrin, channeling the temporal energies of the Matrix, attempts to absolve the Domoth of Chaos."
There was some other discussion of maybe making it a bit more like old nexus world weakenings, but the vernal ascendant challenge was my favourite. Anyhoo, summary is domoths can and should be fun conflict for all! Could this lead to more 'off-peak' absolves? Maybe, but I think it would make domoth conflict a lot more equitable and more dynamic rather than the perma buff to celest/glom/gaudi that has been the case for the past year.
Raahl, nearly single thing you added here conveys my own thoughts, just worded much better than I did. Nothing against any players here, but some of the the current player base will disagree because they are the ones who spurred Lusternia's current state. I.E. players who didn't enjoy conflict the way it was, etc.
Admin only respond to what their players want. The same can be said for any game. When players are loud enough, the admin feel compelled to "fix" things. In this case, the fix basically killed the game. You log in and it's like hearing crickets. As a matter of fact, this very thing almost happened to Achaea when they removed theft. It removed quite a bit of danger from the game. I think they've done great with fixing that problem now.
It's simply a matter of recognizing mistakes and gearing any changes to rectify the situation. Personally, I don't blame the admin for what's happened to Lusternia.
As for the mass exodus mentioned by Raahl, I agree to a point. There may be players here, but what do they do? Stagnancy is equivalent to an empty game, and it certainly feels like it to newer players who log in to hear nothing. No excitement, no adrenaline rush, nothing that actively engages their minds.
Edit to add: Lusternia is stale.
Lusternia is definitely lacking in any conflict right now, but the way your post comes out, you're making it sound as if the ex-Ironhart alliance is totally responsible for it. While it is definitely true that there have been political failings and people up and leaving, collectively we actually do enjoy conflict and some of us (including myself) play the game entirely for it. Perhaps you might be ill-informed, but the move to break up the ironhart alliance was not originally meant to make the game 'stagnant'. The main principle behind it was to break up so the opposing alliance would no longer feel the need to work together and also break up, thus catalyzing a mix-up of alliances. It was pretty clear after a long time that the other side was winning and after a miserable few years we wanted a change. To us, the game was becoming stagnant, and we chose to make a move to make it better. It was a risky move, and I actually didn't approve of it, but the idea behind it had merit. It's actually extremely insulting to say that the state of the game is because we don't enjoy conflict, when I can tell you with absolute certainty that most of us have poured in more sweat, blood and tears into improving the state of conflict on our side than you ever have on yours.
Also, the administration has not done a single thing to kill conflict in the game. I really have no idea what you're referring to, and you're really going to have to be specific if we're going to be on the same page here.
I personally have a number of really good friends who really were what made the game for me, and they all left out of extreme frustration with the state of the game. People don't play a game to get angry, and that was what logging into lusternia was for those past few months. Especially if you were someone expected to lead. You probably have no idea how burned out some people are on this side of things. It's actually far easier to just find something more enjoyable than to trudge along through losing battles when there's no sign of things improving.
I'm sorry if anything I said sounds insulting, I hope you understand I don't mean it that way. I am very passionate about lusternia and the efforts my 'side' has made in it, even if the other 'side' refuses to acknowledge that. I think if anything killed conflict in this game it's the fact that there was a number of fundamental problems that players were blind to and ignored until it reached this point. Lusternia has problems and we collectively as players can fix it, but until we see past our own enjoyment of the game and look at the big picture, it'll never be healthy.
4
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
There's already a mechanic to prevent alliances from having a strangle hold on domoths. They physically can't help eachother in most cases. I don't want arbitrary absolves through a nexus just because they can. talk about obnoxious.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
We could...fix order wars maybe. Talk about a dead and useless mechanic.
There's already a mechanic to prevent alliances from having a strangle hold on domoths. They physically can't help eachother in most cases. I don't want arbitrary absolves through a nexus just because they can. talk about obnoxious.
True, they can't help each other in the upgrade attempts, however the moment they lose the domoth, they are immediately free to help their allies insta-absolve it once dormancy is over. That certainly was obnoxious!
Regarding conflict, as I mentioned before, it is incredibly difficult to design and implement a conflict system that is fair, doesn't give 'winning' orgs a big advantage (and still be meaningful) nor depress a 'losing' org. It's funny how we can look back at the past through rose colored glasses. The fact is that when there was more conflict, there was also more rage, angst and depression that drove players away. People hate being on the losing side and winners tend to like to stomp the competition into dust. Efforts to remedy is always greeted with the 'punish the winners for winning' accusations.
No idea if you saw them on the old forums, but I made a couple of posts about how I thought due to an alliance's ability to gain a stranglehold on domoths, it introduced a bias in the setup that discouraged participation in domoth conflict for the losing side. Quick summary was that one side (the holders) can dictate everything about when domoth conflict can occur, and the other side can do nothing to really change things off their own initiative.
Should a losing side org manage to steal a domoth during an upgrade, they are then typically forced into being constantly on the defensive, and face it being absolved when there's no one around which becomes an exhausting state and limits enjoying other aspects of the game. In contrast to this, with allies holding the opposing domoth, once the upgrade is done, there is no further threat of losing the domoth until you need to upgrade again.
I think the domoth setup has shown in the past that it is a great outlet for conflict, but for me, the problem above means that it is not realising its potential. There are times when the losing orgs want to fight in domoths, but current setup excludes that choice of fighting at a time convenient to them. I think introducing a mechanism that allows non-domoth holding orgs to challenge a domoth would be a good step and allow people to be proactive about challenging the stranglehold alliances can achieve. At the time this last came up, I liked the idea of vernal ascendants of orgs NOT currently holding a domoth being able to channel the energies of their nexus for X power cost to attempt a domoth challenge (absolve attempt). This challenge would not allow the ascendant to claim the domoth, only to absolve its level downward, and then if fully absolved, period of dormany ensues and regular domoth procedure begins.
Idea was something like: "Shedrin, channeling the temporal energies of the Matrix, attempts to absolve the Domoth of Chaos."
There was some other discussion of maybe making it a bit more like old nexus world weakenings, but the vernal ascendant challenge was my favourite. Anyhoo, summary is domoths can and should be fun conflict for all! Could this lead to more 'off-peak' absolves? Maybe, but I think it would make domoth conflict a lot more equitable and more dynamic rather than the perma buff to celest/glom/gaudi that has been the case for the past year.
My immediate thought is that it sounds like this:
Magnagora and Serenwilde have all the domoths. Celest and Glomdoring have none. Regularly they have fewer fighters, little participation.
The suggestion is that Celest and Glomdoring should then be able to log in when they know Mag and/or Serenwilde have few if any defenders, and strip their earned bonuses from their domoths at their leisure. In this way they may not be able to claim anything, but they are able to remove what is earned and gained via the domoth system, essentially forcing winning orgs into the "24 hour defense" that you noted as being uncomfortable and painful for the "losing side" org that snatches a domoth. Except now it's 24 seven, unless they let every org have a domoth, just so no one can do it.
That sort of affair just seems unpleasant and doesn't really improve conflict, but rather encourages the kind of off-hours, "no one is here let's attack" mentality. Indeed, if they're losing domoths steadily enough to have this ability, they certainly won't be able to absolve when they face a fight. It seems like all it would really do is not only enable that kind of negative conflict, but actively encourage it.
I feel like the "random revolt" aspect of the domoths addresses the concern expressed as neatly as possible - it ensures there will always be a point when orgs can claim (or "steal" if you want to apply perceptions of ownership) a domoth without fear or risk of absolution - since its opposing domoth would also be free, and could be claimed by your allies (thus protecting them from absolving).
My immediate thought is that it sounds like this:
Magnagora and Serenwilde have all the domoths. Celest and Glomdoring have none. Regularly they have fewer fighters, little participation.
The suggestion is that Celest and Glomdoring should then be able to log in when they know Mag and/or Serenwilde have few if any defenders, and strip their earned bonuses from their domoths at their leisure. In this way they may not be able to claim anything, but they are able to remove what is earned and gained via the domoth system, essentially forcing winning orgs into the "24 hour defense" that you noted as being uncomfortable and painful for the "losing side" org that snatches a domoth. Except now it's 24 seven, unless they let every org have a domoth, just so no one can do it.
That sort of affair just seems unpleasant and doesn't really improve conflict, but rather encourages the kind of off-hours, "no one is here let's attack" mentality. Indeed, if they're losing domoths steadily enough to have this ability, they certainly won't be able to absolve when they face a fight. It seems like all it would really do is not only enable that kind of negative conflict, but actively encourage it.
I feel like the "random revolt" aspect of the domoths addresses the concern expressed as neatly as possible - it ensures there will always be a point when orgs can claim (or "steal" if you want to apply perceptions of ownership) a domoth without fear or risk of absolution - since its opposing domoth would also be free, and could be claimed by your allies (thus protecting them from absolving).
Is the idea ideal? Obviously not, which was why we ended up in the 'maybe it should be more like nexus weakenings' discussion last time. Astrologers determine that Domoths of Harmony/Chaos are weakening in X month, War/Justice in Y month this year, vernal ascendant can challenge only in those times etc. Other deterrents to its potential for off-peak griefing were significant cost to the org initiating the challenge. Or maybe the challenge does allow for stealing the domoth and so it becomes a once-off option.
Point I was trying to make was that current setup has a disparity that I think should be looked at in effort to improve conflict. When Hallifax was complaining that it was exhausting to keep domoths after repeated absolves, I think it was Malicia who said something along the lines of 'Why do you think they should be immune to being absolved?' She was right, that they shouldn't, but the current setup allows alliance controlled domoths immunity to being absolved. Introducing a means for the other side to be proactive about changing things would address this disparity.
There is absolutely no immunity to being absolved.
You can steal a Domoth while one member of the Alliance can't participate at all.
You can then absolve the other side; the "defensive" aspect only hits the side that sits around and waits to get absolved first.
At that point it really is defensive, because you have to upgrade in order to absolve back- so whoever does the absolve first puts the other party on the back foot. Alliance or no. The weaker alliance is also able to absolve off-hours, too.
Throw in Flux just to make sure that the things can't keep getting upgraded "when nobody is around" and to give everyone a chance to get in on it, and the system is pretty balanced. You guys just tried a few times, then instead of really focusing on the absolving, you let us push you on the defensive... which in this system doesn't work very well.
Is the idea ideal? Obviously not, which was why we ended up in the 'maybe it should be more like nexus weakenings' discussion last time. Astrologers determine that Domoths of Harmony/Chaos are weakening in X month, War/Justice in Y month this year, vernal ascendant can challenge only in those times etc. Other deterrents to its potential for off-peak griefing were significant cost to the org initiating the challenge. Or maybe the challenge does allow for stealing the domoth and so it becomes a once-off option.
Point I was trying to make was that current setup has a disparity that I think should be looked at in effort to improve conflict. When Hallifax was complaining that it was exhausting to keep domoths after repeated absolves, I think it was Malicia who said something along the lines of 'Why do you think they should be immune to being absolved?' She was right, that they shouldn't, but the current setup allows alliance controlled domoths immunity to being absolved. Introducing a means for the other side to be proactive about changing things would address this disparity.
I don't disagree, inherently, though the idea of domoths being absolved by people who are generally unable to compete on even grounds, sounds distinctly like punishing "winning" orgs by enabling and even reinforcing skirmish-style tactics. It's kind of on par with defile-and-run, or would be, once it got exhaustive.
I haven't given it much thought, but it strikes me as though something a bit more "momentous" should be required to forcibly free a domoth. Something that couldn't be completed by an org that simply is unable to compete, so that it can't be abused just to harass and irritate orgs who then have no means of equitable recourse.
My first thought is something simplistic, like kill a Supernal, give it to Luciphage and place the big sphere of black essence in the domothean throne. If Celest owns it, the domoth is immediately freed and goes back to dormancy with no ownership. Of course, it would lock things in along their dichotomies (Celest v Mag, Seren v Glom, etc) but I'm okay with that. It would also mean, as an org, you have to decide between attacking their guardian item and absolving a domoth.
I don't think the idea is terribly well thought out, though. Not that I think it's bad, just not sure I like it!
True, however that is where the one side being able to dictate the 'when' of domoth conflict occurs problem come in.
If you initiate an upgrade at a bad time and have it be stolen, then that is on you. However being able to choose when you upgrade allows you to nearly always ensure you have an advantage.
Comments
I could get a 5% increase in damage by upgrading my rune.
If Lusternia wants to compete, it needs to both lower the entry level for new players, and to go back to the principles that made it great in the first place. The step toward making combat curing easier for new players is an amazing, and excellent step. However the 'free to play, pay for perks' remains a truth in technicality only. With a credit market like it is, and the vast number of things -requiring- credits (higher than any other IRE, afaik), it means that the game has essentially become pay-to-play. This means that a lot of your playerbase is going to go elsewhere now that elsewheres are available. I logged in today and for several hours I saw that the number of (visible) people on lusty didn't rise above 20. What I'm saying may be incredibly harsh, but it holds an element of truth.
However, even if the entry level issue is resolved, there's one core truth that runs right to the heart of the decline. What made Lusternia great, and made me an instant addict who has played in some incarnation or another since open beta, hasn't existed in Lusternia for years, and I know that many other players I talk with feel the same. Lusternia became great on the basis of -meaningful- faction-based interaction. That is no longer true, and the discontent with the game I've seen seems to have gone hand in hand with that paradigm shift.
Nothing in Lusternia has a meaningful impact on the game any longer. Because of this the sense of identity within an org, the sense of solidarity, and the sense of urgency and importance, has decayed. Factional conflict, by combat, economics, culture, whatever, holds no purpose. You can fight, if you want, but ultimately the actions of characters no longer -change- anything. Without this principle, which I believe made Lusternia what it was in its prime, the decline I noticed -immediately- on logging in for the first time since my last hiatus, has become painfully obvious.
Now that I've covered what I see as the most central issues in the abstract, I'll offer some concrete advice:
-Provide meaningful gold sinks. Even if this means a loss of short-term profit gains. Release special gold-only perks that have a real benefit. Even if this means taking extreme measures. Some possibilities?
*Organization level gold sinks - make constructs require massive amounts of gold to create, or any of a number of other ideas I'm sure you could come up with
*Meaningful gold-only buffs, on par with karma blessings at minimum.
*Short decay gold-only versions of artifacts, similar to the ones bandits dropped.
*Directly purchasable LESSONS-for-gold at a reasonable price (By reasonable, I mean prices designed for non-demi bashers), but capped in number purchasable per IC year across the account. This will force credit sellers to significantly lower their prices if they wish to afford the use of the gold sinks you create, rather than just offering them slightly cheaper. By making it lessons it will specifically target your entry-level players.
*Perhaps alternatively make -memberships- purchasable with gold, scaled to the maturity level of the membership (renewing a 10 month membership with gold costing more than starting one, in proportion to the increase in benefits)
The possibilities are endless when you're willing to swallow the reality that even if you -could- viably offer something for credits instead, the presence of realistic competition necessitates fixing the long-term issues over short term profits. The nearsightedness of the last few years is part of what has really hurt things.
-Return the meaningful impact of conflict. Not just combat, though reviving the ability to damage each other through combat-related means is essential. I would also encourage, to link this to the gold issue, a form of economic warfare, both in raw gold, and via the actual performance of commodity quests and use of commodities, to translate into a meaningful conflict-oriented benefit. The ways you could do this are endless.
However the core of this point is that players must be able to meaningfully change the course of history in Lusternia once more. On the other hand, to prevent the frustration that I think led to a lot of the loss of conflict, a system of incentives for players in 'weak' orgs, ones with low populace and/or resources, should exist as well. It would encourage repopulation of ghost-orgs and an equilibrium, rather than a one-sided curbstomp. Additionally, diminishing super-alliances would prove very beneficial. For a possibility? If members of more than one org are moving in a group, or squadded together, cause everyone to suffer longer balances, or something. It doesn't matter how specifically it's implemented, so long as it becomes incrementally more crippling as the size and diversity of a group increases.
I know that a lot of what I've said here is likely very unpalatable, however I believe it's necessary if Lusternia wants to staunch the bleeding caused by the emergence of credible competition after years of growing discontent but having no alternative to resort to.
Addendum: You'll notice I didn't mention anything that -players- should be doing. Yes, they can do things to make the game more appealing. However, it's top-end decisions that -influence- how players behave. The responsibility always ultimately lies with the administration, not the playerbase. If you want players to behave in a certain way, create an environment that inherently biases them toward the preferred behaviors.
That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, though! (Zvoltz is so obsessed with WoW he had to fix a typo! Man, talk about God of Order and Structure. :x)
A) It'd set a minimum price for credits. No one would want to sell credits below a certain rate anymore (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I suppose).
ROFL! That's what I meant! *ahem*
Raahl, nearly single thing you added here conveys my own thoughts, just worded much better than I did. Nothing against any players here, but some of the the current player base will disagree because they are the ones who spurred Lusternia's current state. I.E. players who didn't enjoy conflict the way it was, etc.
Admin only respond to what their players want. The same can be said for any game. When players are loud enough, the admin feel compelled to "fix" things. In this case, the fix basically killed the game. You log in and it's like hearing crickets. As a matter of fact, this very thing almost happened to Achaea when they removed theft. It removed quite a bit of danger from the game. I think they've done great with fixing that problem now.
It's simply a matter of recognizing mistakes and gearing any changes to rectify the situation. Personally, I don't blame the admin for what's happened to Lusternia.
As for the mass exodus mentioned by Raahl, I agree to a point. There may be players here, but what do they do? Stagnancy is equivalent to an empty game, and it certainly feels like it to newer players who log in to hear nothing. No excitement, no adrenaline rush, nothing that actively engages their minds.
Edit to add: Lusternia is stale.
What we want is to strike a balance. While everyone agrees that the ability to change the world is a great concept (you never hear me disagreeing!), the truth is that finding a way to do that without creating more issues has been the Holy Grail that Lusternia (and all games like it) has been questing for. But if you have ideas beyond a general yearning, whether original or that you've seen successful elsewhere, then I surely wouldn't mind hearing them!
Should a losing side org manage to steal a domoth during an upgrade, they are then typically forced into being constantly on the defensive, and face it being absolved when there's no one around which becomes an exhausting state and limits enjoying other aspects of the game. In contrast to this, with allies holding the opposing domoth, once the upgrade is done, there is no further threat of losing the domoth until you need to upgrade again.
I think the domoth setup has shown in the past that it is a great outlet for conflict, but for me, the problem above means that it is not realising its potential. There are times when the losing orgs want to fight in domoths, but current setup excludes that choice of fighting at a time convenient to them. I think introducing a mechanism that allows non-domoth holding orgs to challenge a domoth would be a good step and allow people to be proactive about challenging the stranglehold alliances can achieve. At the time this last came up, I liked the idea of vernal ascendants of orgs NOT currently holding a domoth being able to channel the energies of their nexus for X power cost to attempt a domoth challenge (absolve attempt). This challenge would not allow the ascendant to claim the domoth, only to absolve its level downward, and then if fully absolved, period of dormany ensues and regular domoth procedure begins.
Idea was something like: "Shedrin, channeling the temporal energies of the Matrix, attempts to absolve the Domoth of Chaos."
There was some other discussion of maybe making it a bit more like old nexus world weakenings, but the vernal ascendant challenge was my favourite. Anyhoo, summary is domoths can and should be fun conflict for all! Could this lead to more 'off-peak' absolves? Maybe, but I think it would make domoth conflict a lot more equitable and more dynamic rather than the perma buff to celest/glom/gaudi that has been the case for the past year.
My immediate thought is that it sounds like this:
Magnagora and Serenwilde have all the domoths. Celest and Glomdoring have none. Regularly they have fewer fighters, little participation.
The suggestion is that Celest and Glomdoring should then be able to log in when they know Mag and/or Serenwilde have few if any defenders, and strip their earned bonuses from their domoths at their leisure. In this way they may not be able to claim anything, but they are able to remove what is earned and gained via the domoth system, essentially forcing winning orgs into the "24 hour defense" that you noted as being uncomfortable and painful for the "losing side" org that snatches a domoth. Except now it's 24 seven, unless they let every org have a domoth, just so no one can do it.
That sort of affair just seems unpleasant and doesn't really improve conflict, but rather encourages the kind of off-hours, "no one is here let's attack" mentality. Indeed, if they're losing domoths steadily enough to have this ability, they certainly won't be able to absolve when they face a fight. It seems like all it would really do is not only enable that kind of negative conflict, but actively encourage it.
I feel like the "random revolt" aspect of the domoths addresses the concern expressed as neatly as possible - it ensures there will always be a point when orgs can claim (or "steal" if you want to apply perceptions of ownership) a domoth without fear or risk of absolution - since its opposing domoth would also be free, and could be claimed by your allies (thus protecting them from absolving).
Point I was trying to make was that current setup has a disparity that I think should be looked at in effort to improve conflict. When Hallifax was complaining that it was exhausting to keep domoths after repeated absolves, I think it was Malicia who said something along the lines of 'Why do you think they should be immune to being absolved?' She was right, that they shouldn't, but the current setup allows alliance controlled domoths immunity to being absolved. Introducing a means for the other side to be proactive about changing things would address this disparity.
You can steal a Domoth while one member of the Alliance can't participate at all.
You can then absolve the other side; the "defensive" aspect only hits the side that sits around and waits to get absolved first.
At that point it really is defensive, because you have to upgrade in order to absolve back- so whoever does the absolve first puts the other party on the back foot. Alliance or no. The weaker alliance is also able to absolve off-hours, too.
Throw in Flux just to make sure that the things can't keep getting upgraded "when nobody is around" and to give everyone a chance to get in on it, and the system is pretty balanced. You guys just tried a few times, then instead of really focusing on the absolving, you let us push you on the defensive... which in this system doesn't work very well.
I haven't given it much thought, but it strikes me as though something a bit more "momentous" should be required to forcibly free a domoth. Something that couldn't be completed by an org that simply is unable to compete, so that it can't be abused just to harass and irritate orgs who then have no means of equitable recourse.
My first thought is something simplistic, like kill a Supernal, give it to Luciphage and place the big sphere of black essence in the domothean throne. If Celest owns it, the domoth is immediately freed and goes back to dormancy with no ownership. Of course, it would lock things in along their dichotomies (Celest v Mag, Seren v Glom, etc) but I'm okay with that. It would also mean, as an org, you have to decide between attacking their guardian item and absolving a domoth.
I don't think the idea is terribly well thought out, though. Not that I think it's bad, just not sure I like it!
If you initiate an upgrade at a bad time and have it be stolen, then that is on you. However being able to choose when you upgrade allows you to nearly always ensure you have an advantage.