Lusternia Activity Levels

1356

Comments

  • 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.
  • Bardics
    Artisinals
    Fix chemwood Wyrdenwood
  • Estarra said:
    *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.
    image
    image
  • 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.
  • edited October 2018
    Saran said:
    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).
    image
    image
  • 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.
    image
    image
  • Estarra said:
    *snip*

    @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.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    edited October 2018
    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.
    image
  • 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).
    image
    image
  • 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. 
    Estarra said:
    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.

  • Xenthos said:
    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.
  • LuceLuce Fox Populi
    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. 
  • Lack of things to do.

    When you compare Lusternia to the other IRE games. The other IRE games have daily pvp and conflict events. Lusternia has weekly events.

  • 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.
    More of anything or everything you can think of.

  • 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 :D



  • 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?
    image
    image
  • Estarra said:
    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.
  • RancouraRancoura the Last Nightwreathed Queen Canada
    edited October 2018
    Estarra said:
    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: 

    Deichtine said:

    Make more events, More hunts, More pvp events(tournaments, faster domoths), more roleplay events.



    Tonight amidst the mountaintops
    And endless starless night
    Singing how the wind was lost
    Before an earthly flight

Sign In or Register to comment.