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Lusternia Activity Levels
I don't think it's any secret that Lusternia's activity level has dropped rather abruptly in the last 30 days or so and I'm trying to understand why. I've popped into Discord a few times and have some ideas, but I'd really like to reach out to you for your thoughts. We really do care about Lusternia and hope you do as well, so if there's something that needs doing, please don't be afraid to share!
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(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
Because you as a administrator seem to have little or no understanding of the economy or items of your own game. That you built. You horrendously overvalue or undervalue things, sometimes to your detriment, and get pissed off when players catch it, take advantage of it, or complain about it. The recent issue with the website selling "leprechaun pots"? Come on, Estarra. Meanwhile, I'm still paying 109$ for an imaginary spatula that gives me extra food when I cook.
Because of the waning admin involvement in Lusternia over the past decade. Aside from recent events and hamster hunts by Darvellan, there's nothing interesting going on. We don't have great hunts as often as any of the other games. We rarely see things like MOMSROCK/DADSROCK, ironbeard, gnomes, lotteries (haven't had one in six years) or other holiday goings-on. And the events we do see are either super predictable (Atropos always losing her shears, anyone?) Or make no sense until it concludes at the end of the year (the current event).
Because your intro, for lack of a better phrase, sucks ass. Period . I rolled a newbie alt a few weeks ago and was horrified by the intro. It came across as a sale pitch, and was horribly ooc, not to mention condescending. I'd like to urge you to go to the other ire games, start a newbie, and try out their intros. Then, come back and write a new one.
Because of your stubborn refusal to add anything to the game unless it puts money in your pocket. See: the constant flood of wonderitems we've been inundated with since their addition to the game, many of which are meta-breaking for combat. Meanwhile, when was the last time we had a new basic design added? Fascinators, years ago? You complain about server bloat and replicas, and not wanting to add a lot of new things, but you're all about the new gewgaw people want to pay money for. We can harness great nodes of power and use them for magnificent feats, but can't keep an apiary? Can't seem to harvest chocolate?
Because your admin....man. You have one of the highest turnover rates of admin in IRE, and one of the lowest ephemeral success rates from what I hear. These guys work their asses off making things, designing, fixing code and what have you, and that's cool. But we don't see them. Gods show up/show back up, start or revive an order, and just disappear.
Which segues into my next point: there's nothing to do. I have two characters I play on a regular basis. One wakes up, does their org's power quest, stands around hoping people talk to them or rps with them, and then finally logs off. The other logs in, rubs all their genie bottles, complains about the aether goop cap and lack of coins/presents, stands around hoping to prod his god or dead guild into some rp or even a chat, and then just logs off. Lusternia doesn't engage me anymore.
Because I have a reputation in the Havens, mostly due to the responses I give like this. And because of that, I know that my opinion doesn't really matter, because I'm not telling you the things you want to hear as opposed to the things you need to hear. And because of all that, I know any actual complaints I make are generally met with an eye roll and a dismissal. And i know there are a lot of other players who feel like specific admin dismiss their complaints or advice, often because it isn't what the admin is looking to hear.
These are just some of the complaints I have.
Short list:
Half the admin do nothing, from a player perspective. Why do you have them? I mean someone is going to come in and say "That's not fair we don't see what they do behind the scenes!!!" and that's correct we don't. What we do see is the fact that nothing comes out of that behind the scenes so a safe assumption is they do nothing behind the scenes.
Wonderitems. You created a money grab that breaks the game on so many levels... at least you made money?
Pay wall. Lusternia has one of the highest pay walls there is. New players are going to find out how much they have to invest and go back to playing WoW where for 20.00 a month they get far more content and balanced game content at that
Projects. You need to stop having 10 things going on at once. Pick something, anything... finish it. Envoys being shut down twice in 2 years to catch up, Server Side Curing, 6th Archetpye, Mage Overhaul, Serverside Defenses, Hallifax Special Reports, overhaul in general (nobody believes overhaul is finished and most believe it caused more harm than good). Just... pick something and finish it.
Envoys. Delete them. Most of them are partisan and the ones that are not are ignored because the partisan ones yell louder.
Look back at the threads of players leaving for the last 2 years and why they are leaving. Your answers to the question you keep asking are all in front of you.
- People that are into PvP are unhappy about the state of conflict.
- People that are into ic economic stuff are unhappy with the state of the economy.
- People that are into the family system are unhappy with the family system.
- People that logged in to interact aren't finding things to keep them online.
- People that are bash a lot are capping out on demipowers.
Basically, an ever increasing number of reasons to actually play the game are being added to the issues list?Realistically we can get interaction anywhere, you can get interaction in the IRE set up in three other games with another on it's way.
Players have been posting here for years with ideas for things that would improve the game, they're ignored or better yet told that they're wrong. The reason people aren't raising issues is because these years of experience have demonstrated to the players that this is a pointless pursuit. (Unless you're in the chosen group that are deigned to be listened to, just for fun consider that these voices that are consistently prioritised over other players... they have some responsibility for the current state of the game)
I don't even think it's just the last 2 years, some of these issues have been there for far longer, everything's always "Too hard, btw guys what cool artifact do you want next".
First of all, I just want to thank you for opening this thread and giving people a chance to voice their concerns. There were threads earlier, such as "Player Growth and Retention" that began this dialogue several weeks ago. I had posted my personal thoughts to Divine Interaction, and many had discourse there. Now that you have opened this up, it is a good opportunity for honest and open discussion directly with you as a producer.
I want to iterate as a player that I am speaking for many people with my post, which is going to be an unpleasant read. I am writing this as representative of many who love this game, and perhaps the many who have departed. I do not speak for everyone I know, nor other players - they have their own opinions, which undoubtedly may contradict this content here. And that's okay.
I not only speak for myself, but for those who are perhaps unsure if their posts would be removed or otherwise ignored. For the many players I know who are tired of speaking, and unfortunately not being heard will not speak up again - So I am writing for them. Some of them have departed, some of them no longer play, so, again, I'm writing for them too.
I realise that this may feel like a tired diatribe, there will always be critics. But please realise that this comes out of a love for this game, which we realise is at its death knell. We are your customers, but also your friends in some pseudo sort of way - So this comes with a delicate balance of trying to be nice, and being honest with our critiques, feedback, and general woes.
I hope though, that it shows that we care about this game, and realise the dire straights that we are in as a community, that has dwindled.
Some also realise that you are desperately aware of the difficulties that will come when Starmourn opens. Unfortunately, which some predict, will end Lusternia and remove the rest of the players who are merely lying in wait for their open. That is the ugly truth.
For as long as I have been playing, many people have left. More, that I thought would because there is so much rich lore and many cool things about Lusternia. There was a lot that was critiqued upon their time of leaving, many of which might have come with some acidity. That can be polarising, but many believe that it comes from a good place.
These people actively wanted to stay, and tried, but couldn't justify spending their money or time.
I think the biggest problems with Lusternia lies in that admin and producers have bitten off more than they can chew. There is a lot to do, promises are made to keep people happy - then things aren't completed. There are problems with staying in touch what players say, desire, and need to remain customers who want to stay.
Here's a metaphor, for what I think the situation feels like:
A caretaker has promised a child a puppy for their 10th birthday and then never gave them the puppy. There aren't people around to take care of the child, even though the child wants to be loved - because who doesn't crave that? The child wanders around and ends up getting found again, but only because of another shiny new promise.
They're promised another brand new hybrid puppy that never comes, the cycle repeats. But the child will always thinking of the many promises with the first puppy, and the brand new bike, that their caretaker didn't make happen.
The child is handed or promised new after new thing, and they're expected to be happy. But they just get sad or upset. They stop believing things will ever happen.
The caretaker is still trying to make them happy, but cannot handle the amount of previous promises made - They try to get help, but in the end the caretaker's caretaker gets burnt out trying to do the necessaries. They don't understand why the child leaves when they grow up or stop trusting their promises.
This needs to change. You're going to ask for a solution. There are a ton to choose from, I think.
I know that you have, Estarra, asked for a lot of feedback over the years I have played. While asking for feedback on one thing is a good thing to do, and wonderful - years of problems remain without fixes. A lot of feedback has been given.
Some are not criticising the work that has been done to eradicate some of these issues, but there are so MANY ISSUES to begin with. As an aside, thank you to those admin who stepped up and gave hours of their time to try to fix all of those issues.
Many of players have presented solutions for some of our hugest problems. There are obviously more. But here is some of the one's I was suggested by some of the players. There are many threads on "Why I Quit" as well that could be useful in terms of feedback to find common themes:
https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/3349/leaving-lusternia/p1
https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/comment/187661#Comment_187661
https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/3355/problem-the-economy
https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/3353/family-system#latest
https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/3457/player-retention-and-growth#latest
There is lots of feedback to be found in the public forums you did last year as well. But I've also been speaking to many players for months who have been dissatisfied about a variety of things including those above listed in links, but not limited to:
*People have talked about advertising. Kick it up a notch.
*Hire. More. Admin. Spend a dollar to get thousands of dollars. Hire players to do coding. Hire players to inhabit npcs. Hire admin that don't have all the powers of divine, create new mechanics so WE CAN HELP YOU. Yes, we can help, by doing more than just give feedback or blowing hot air if you let us. Please.
*Admin taking critiques as attacks. Though this is speculative because some may be acidic in their approach because that is possibly the only way some are paid attention to. Please listen. We may be passionate, but please. We are begging you to listen more, be in touch, more. I am not advocating for being mean to you either. Please see my post in Player Retention and Growth.
*Bias in game balancing mechanics. This is an opinion that is shared. But not one I don't have, but it is one I have heard.
*Huge RP loss, as per lack of admin, and proper staffing to address said problems above. Many of our current admin are great. Not attacking them. There could be more done. RP mechanics, RP encouraging systems. RP. RP. RP.
*Lack of appeal. Lack of things to do. We don't want new things to buy, we want things to be fixed and promises to be fulfilled - not the "soon (tm)" that people fondly or bitterly remark on.
More quests, more something. (Shout out to Darvellan who has done some things recently) Less money spending until we have things that are whole, fixed, and not everything mostly broken. Ianir tried. But now that he's moved on, we need more than just him and Kalikai (who is also amazing) to hold this down. Hire more people. Ask for help from Matt Mihaly.
*Paywall. We spend too much if we want to have a lot of fun in this game. For PVP it's huge. If we are going to be spending that much, then it should be balanced fairly. Partisan is a word for it. If PVP players are the bread and butter of your income, which the game is now geared to be - Then please fix this.
Thank you.
theatre due to the snowy weather.
hungering malice.
This. So much this.
The point about activity goes both ways, granted. People complain about no RP but show zero motivation to just start their own, so that hardly helps. However, you then have half done events that just stretch on forever like the plague rats in Magnagora, apparent love for nasty plague mechanics for events, etc...which leaves people the feeling that even from above the RP isn't all that important to them. I am sure (hoping fervently) that this is just perception, and we all know that is hardly a basis of what is the truth, but that impacts a lot of things. When both the combat side AND the RP side get the feeling of neglect, people lose interest real fast. There is SO much potential in Lusternia, even now, that just gets pushed to the wayside.
There's a lot. The inability to at least tri-trans off of leveling credits from 1-Demi hurts quite a lot, that makes the learning curve so damned steep even the point of making alts to 'try new things' is like a kick in the gut. Be it combat, or just in general....basic survival takes up most of those lessons, but then you have things like aethercraft, influencing, trades, arts etc etc...gets to be a bit much. A new player comes in, looks at all that, tallies the cost...nopes right on out. And cannot fault them. I haven't tried the newbie intro yet, only a handful of alts so not my thing, but people have complained a lot about it even when it was changed to this from complaints about the old. Perhaps a general poll thread for suggestions and ideas on a new theme, winner gets something nice, might help with the redesign. Engage the player base, a lot of problems can go away here.
Though that crit change was just out of the blue and a smack to the face of avid hunters across the board. I imagine it stemmed from the introduction of Gnomeweapons and people laughing about the wall of crits that spawn from its use...but the change was NOT needed. At all.
I value your opinion, Shaddus! At least, I always (usually?) enjoy interacting with you. Some of the things you mention (momsrock/dadsrock/ironbeard) are IRE controlled, but we can try to do more of the other events. Regarding leprechaun pots (though I think it was an honest mistake), I apologize.
Regarding the intro, we've been working on a new intro for several months now and I hope you’ll at least give the new one a try.
I do resent saying that I refuse to add anything to the game unless it puts money in my pocket (if you only knew!). Actually, that really hurts my feelings. Wonder items and other promotional items are required monthly. I understand you and others feel they result in power creep and it's something we will try to address.
I really don't believe we have the highest admin turnover rate of all IRE games. There are longterm admin here and they're wonderful people.
But I can be stubborn and I apologize to you or anyone else that may have affected. I do hope you will believe that I care about Lusternia and I care about it a lot. It’s something I’ve devoted my life to, and if there's anything we can reasonably do to address things, we'll do it. We just need to know what it is. And, Shaddus, I welcome your opinion even though it may not be stated in the most diplomatic way but if you think I'm some sort of money grubbing, clueless monster, I'm not sure if there's any way I can repair your assessment of me--but I will nonetheless try!
Less the sticky aethergoop too, no one likes that, and makes it harder for those of us that enjoy buying novices nice things to help encourage them to stick around, to actually do so.
It's obvious the admin are too busy or don't care about the org I'm in even when its one of the most populous. On the RP side we have gone our halfway and just never been met. We have corpses and items laying around the city left over from guild overhaul, important issues undealt with. Look at the unending plague we have that we worked tirelessly on... until it was evident it was just gonna go until admin looked at it anyway. We have not had a single patron request dealt with in the Infernals since its creation, even simple stuff like room descriptions. Mags culture fosters spite that even if no one cares we do and we'll keep going admin or damned bc we don't want our enemies to win and that's finally wearing out. We loved Dro when she was around. We don't blame her because she communicated how long and why she'd be absent. We blame you for not taking on any more, for taking people who do nothing like Thax. You ran this game into the ground yourself by ignoring the basic rp environment in favour of cute meaningless events and cash grabs.
without further notice."
This event with the invading things - I just don't care about it anymore. It has been going on since July and four months later and we still know next to nothing. Now, this is probably because you have tied the event into the monthly. The first suggestion would never tie plot stuff into login things. If you want do logins, make it some sort of side quest - maybe something that increases culture or power generation. Second would be shorter turn around times for actual event progress (and not 'oh, these things have changed. Kill them for a month and Let's see what happens.' 'Oh. we are getting closer to finding things. Kill more things for a month') . Personally, I see a month at most for pushing the event forward.
Other things that have already been send:
I understand you have to do wondercrystal promos when IRE tells you do, but you don't have to make some 20crystal item that is so powerpacked that it basically becomes a required item. You can do a 10 crystal item or find some new use for crystals that people would use them on.
Some people play because of the divine interactions. We don't see all that is going on in the background. As such, we tend to believe that very little is actually happening. Admin who have decided to be more behind the scenes and work on fixing/code - I don't understand why you don't have a special group of god (like the anomaly) for these people. Having an admin take a god-role and do nothing with the order (or even delete the order altogether) doesn't send good signs to people. This gets worst when it is an important god to the org.
Other things:
This game is really costly. You may not think it is when you are looking at the prices in credits, but once you look at it using RL money, it is crazy. - That 300cr buff rune that makes you 15% better? 105USD. That 15%? Only a few hundred more damage at best. And that is one of the least offensive prices. Ones that are 1-2K credits are just insane for what they give. I know auctions inflate prices a lot but the Rune of the Magi - currently bid is 4053cr. This is 1120USD to be 20% better. You probably could cut all artifacts in half and they would be much better.
Echoing the tritrans from leveling credits - I think in general that either there should be more lessons given or the lessons required to trans reduced. It is 285cr to trans a skill, adding another cost to the list.
We can't hire more people unfortunately. That just isn't an option. Projects take time to do, and while I would love to address everything at once, we have to tackle things piecemeal. And, Tenaka, I think you are right that we need to focus on one thing at a time.
I will push back on "bias in game mechanics". There really is not any bias. If I had a nickle for every time someone said the admin were biased toward Magnagora or Glomdoring or Gaudiguch or whatever, I'd retire rich.
Look, the buck stops with me and many of the things you guys are bringing up are valid and can be laid at my feet. I'll take the blame. But I hope we can move forward and not just point fingers to the past.
As for gods, you're right. You do have some really good long term admin up there. To copy and paste a rant I had with someone privately on discord about this very thread:
Dro keeps making excuses as to why she can't be around, but I get it. Crumkane has quit on me -twice-. Valtreth has an event, makes a god realm, throws together some sort of rp with no connection to anything Celestian or eventru/lyrethish, and then flies off into the void with two half formed, never returning. Carakhan stays around just long enough to make her shrines and appoint some people, and then leaves. Whoever took over thax literally showed up for his return event, has a new mob that was around for it, and then just disappears after a day. No message for the person who was literally hired to be his public relations guy, nothing.
Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the admin. I know they work their asses off. But we don't see it. We don't see what they're doing because they're not around. We see our monthly "quest", that's about it. They have lives outside Lusternia, and I don't want them to give those up for a game. But what I do want is to know that there are people running this game, not just a skeleton crew thrown together to keep it going.
theatre due to the snowy weather.
hungering malice.
Past experience also informs human expectations, players will hold the same expectations of the admin until they are consistently shown those expectations are wrong.
Re: The issues with Gods. My suggestion for separation between order and non-order divine was because of the frustration of Hoaracle's return. It was so separate from old Hoaracle that you could have just slapped a different name on him and not upset the people that were in the old order.
You've bought a car, and it's a nice car with all the bells and whistles. But after a while, it starts to get worn. Maybe a side panel gets rusty, the ac goes out, someone snaps the Mustang off your hood. Instead of fixing these things, you're slapping a shiny coat of paint on it and going about your business, wondering why your blue book value has went down. This whole time, your buddies keep urging you to invest in fixing things. "Nah." You reply, sticking a pair of fuzzy dice under the rear view. "It's just as good as it was when I first bought it!"
Then one day, you aren't the cool car in town anymore. People snicker when you drive past. Little kids point and laugh. But at least you have that fresh coat of paint and running lights, right? But there's a new kid coming to town, and he's driving a space ship-looking car, and people don't want to ride in your jalopy because you haven't taken care of it. So you ask your pals again, and they just shrug because they have been telling you what's wrong the whole time.
And you didn't listen. And they have no reason to believe you're going to listen this time either.
"But Shaddus, that's not really that big of a deal."
No, it's not. But it does feed into what we're saying, that the admin are too busy doing "Ire mandated promos" and not fixing what's already there, or finishing projects.
Edit: This has apparently been fixed since last time I looked. Mea culpa.
There are several reasons I choose to no longer play, one that is personal and not useful for retaining any other players, but otherwise:
A: Content, truthfully I feel like I've done it all, and there's not enough fresh content to continue playing regularly, revolts flares domoths and wildnodes are just the same thing over and over again. Their lustre has long faded and they're merely repetitive RNG time activated events. The drive to build something up died in 2014 due to player drama, and there's no desire to put the level of effort in to create something like that again anymore.
B: Wonder items. They've already been mentioned here to death already but here's my +1, combat has become vastly imbalanced with their existence, and the game becomes more and more gated to new players with the ever increasing (and sure as hell expensive) must haves to get into combat.
C: Speaking of combat, skills remain broken for months, sometimes a year or more. Both in the over and underpowered means, nobody wants to use the latter, or waste time opposing the former. These things need to be identified, solutions created and implimented swifter, the envoy system is flawed as all heck with partisan arguments and people using their input to metagame combat by influencing the abilities they use vs the abilities they face, beyond that, skills that need to be changed quickly share their development time with non important tweaks, QoL changes and flavour skills getting adjustments.
There needs to be a system seperate from the envoys, where certain things are fixed swiftly to keep game balance constant, rather than wait months for change to come.
Edit: Thought I wrote this but I did not, on the flip side, the entire change to the crit system pissed me off greatly, that was an admin decided project, which acted without any player input or feedback, and feedback given post implementation felt ignored as the system remains as is, complete with now ridiculously overpriced artifacts.
There are other smaller reasons, but those are the key three for me. I love the world, the story and I wish there was more admin/player interaction but I get the difficulties of both recruiting admin and admin finding free time to engage, aside from their other work. This doesn't mean I'm okay with things as they are, more that I realise it's harder to fix.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
ANNOUNCE NEWS #2859
Date: 10/17/2018 at 3:43
From: Estarra the Eternal
To : Everyone
Subj: Introducing Orael the Anomaly!
I'd like to introduce Lusternia's new coder: Orael the Anomaly. He understands
combat and is familiar with balance and, more importantly, knows Lusternia
combat like very few others. His first mandate is to balance the combat,
including artifacts (including promotional artifacts like wonderitems). He will
be given veto power (even over me!) to take whatever actions he deems necessary
to bring balance to the game, including reviewing any new potential artifacts or
powers.
Further, we will be discarding the envoy system (don't cry!). Rather, we will
allow anyone to write reports, and allow players to vote on reports, and those
reports that rise to the top will be addressed. (This is a simplistic overview
but details will be explained further later.) For the time being, we will keep
the envoys themselves as a group for feedback.
After the Anniversary Battlechess Tournament this Sunday (2:00 p.m. PST), Orael
and I will meet with whoever wishes to meet with us to discuss any topic of your
choosing.
Hope to see you then!
Something like a proper economy rework could be more far reaching than combat, but done well it could tie into systems across the game offering incentives to traders, bashers, and combatants.
This has been my second home for probably fifteen or so years. It's seen me through depression and bouts of suicidal thoughts, and periods of joy and sunshine. It's been there when I need a creative outlet or just a place to be someone other than an overweight, overworked 38 year old. I want Lusternia to be the sort of place my kids would be interested in playing in, and telling their friends about. But right now, it's dying. I just hope this new helper can work to bring Lusternia up to snuff.