Lusternia Activity Levels

Saran · October 2018

Estarra said:

Not a bad idea! Would have to check how feasible such an email would be and would probably want to wait until we have something to announce (like maybe a new newbie tour?).

You really wouldn't. (I made the suggestion cause working with this sort of thing was literally my job for a couple years.) (edit: just for clarity, you wouldn't want to wait until you're announcing something)

Response rates are going to be higher if you're doing it as close as possible to when the player is disengaging from the game. (I.e the ideal time would be as soon as a flag comes up that they're disengaging)

Also, just retirees would only really get a specific proportion of the player base (i.e the people that have spent more than the minimum that would actually want to transfer that to a different game) while excluding the rest (like newbies who don't stick around or people who are maintaining their character in the hope that the game improves)

The flags I'd suggest (all account based rather than character based) are effectively any combination of trackable things that indicate the player's engagement has dropped:
* Retirement without creating a new character after
* Vote weights have dropped to 1 or 2 after being above 4 or 5
* Average daily play time for a week or fortnight is like less than 5-10 minutes (i.e people who are just logging in, grabbing quick daily things, maybe checking news)
* Cancelling an elite sub.
* Inactive character deletion (especially where this removes their last character but not where the other flags haven't been triggered)

Also, the goal would not be to necessarily reengage those players with that campaign. It's really just a way to gather data to inform the admin of what the real reasons for people leaving are. (for some general stats it's like 90% of people won't ever complain to a company and like 90% of that group will just leave)

For example, the data could justify maintaining the focus on combat, however, you could also find that the focus on combat is actually the cause of the issue.
If you track responses individually you can also compare things such as "if we resolve x complaints the majority of inactive players might return" where "the majority of people complaining about y are retirees who went to a different game so it'll be harder to get them back".

In the same vein, if you sort players into different groups based on their responses you can target your emails to reengage them more effectively.
The example here being disengaged players who are unhappy with the focus on combat would likely have a negative reaction to an email about combat fixes, so don't send it to them. Meanwhile the players who've left cause of the combat stuff would probably really like emails about that.

Rancoura · October 2018

@Saran Character suicides (maybe the last/only one registered to their email address?) might help as a flag as well.

Saran · October 2018

Rancoura said:

@Saran Character suicides (maybe the last/only one registered to their email address?) might help as a flag as well.

Yep, definitely.

EDIT: You could loop in just everyone, but only if you're tracking all the triggers as well because you need to be able to differentiate between engaged and disengaged players as... well there's probably a reason for the engaged players not leaving the game.

Vatul · October 2018

Off handed idea about RP - it may not be technically correct or feasible, but something as a springboard to jump off of. So don't take these as like a HUGE master plan. So I thought: How do more Rpz. This was obviously when I was on caffeine, so here we go.

Much like the PVP events we have happening, like wildnodes and flares - which could happen more we could have RP events. These events don't need to be run by admin, but could happen possibly every day and line up with the storylines and history of the orgs you're in. These would be open opportunity events that would factor in some scaling system that weighed in RP mechanics via participation.

Events could also be tailored to happen in orgs that are outside of the yearly questlines and promotions, like tangents or deeper into the details of the events hinting at other things admin may be wanting to develop. These would be "general" in terms of a prompt, but provide for a lot of creativity to happen.

Consider them like watered down quests, but a chance to exercise HELP EMOTES, HELP SAYS, and all of those RP mechanics to teach incoming players about what it means to develop your character. For for example:

Celest:

An event window where dragon turtles come to nest, some of the babies require nursing before you release them / Old Celest artifacts bubble up from the waters down from Spectre Isle. / Crabstrosities infest the city! Oh no!

Magnagora:

You witness a hanging/ You gamble for contemptible servants / You try to assist the harbourmaster in building more ships for the fleet. / You do experiments with Snaikka and co.

Glomdoring:

You cultivate wyrden spores/ You stalk a deer from outside of Serenwilde to offer to Crow / You nurse thornbeasts back to health and assist in building homunculi.

Hallifax:

You capture homing pigeons for the post / You assist a Master Artist outside of the Epic Quest / You try to sabotage Gaudiguch by doing something with gems and sparklies.

Gaudiguch:

You get drunk with one of those Enlightened Ones and they reveal pieces of wisdom that further develop your character/ You try to uncover secrets from the Illuminati and fail

These are just a random few. But then there would be combinations of events for each org that would get more unique benefits.

So you could feasibly have enemies RPing with one another, where there are some possibilities of PVP and RP mixing together (those would be tricky). World RP windows would get even bigger benefits - That would be outside of participating in World events run by admin.

Announcing the window for the RP event would be simply doing a world emote or org emote depending on what was needed. Then the window would close depending on what coded in choices they chose to take with the event. There would be options to be creative around a certain point to get benefits, with a chance of scoring big things like buffs, small prizes, even divine trinkets or secrets from the Fates.

You could get special benefits for quests if you RP'd in this window, maybe temporary artifacts or boosts to have better chances at crafting items depending on the subject of the RP event prompt. @Luce 's idea for the economy sounded interesting, and it could play into that as well - like there are small ways to encourage RP.
I'm not sure how you would be able to measure participation on a weighted scale. I know this doesn't seem like I have everything down pat about this idea.

Also, to mark how you have been doing in these RP Windows you could add - not honours but some sort of "reputation" marker for what you've done. So, for example. If I RP with Kalnid in a window about SCIENCE!(tm) and we do this maybe three times a week, we get some random buffs but we also get something on our Honours that says:

Her reputation as a Magnagoran citizen is pristine.

But when in Scores, with other orgs that you've RP'd with or are enemied to. It would say:

Her reputation as an enemy of Glomdoring is harrowing. (Meaning that Vatul has RP'd a lot in those windows with Glom, establishing some sort of villainy).

RP windows could also be added to tics in family logs, politics logs - if certain villages like certain event windows that appeal to their sensibilities - maybe it gives some orgs more of an edge.

Certain RP tics, and reputation markers could generate some different benefits. Maybe in aetherspace, culture, and maybe some buffs/malus to PVP. These buffs would only last for a few hours, so timing would have to fall in with the RP Windows.

-

Also, maybe we could have a CONFIG RPWHO, which shows not only who is on RPWHO, but who configs it on as a notification like:

"Vatul is interested in Roleplaying!"

Then off: "Vatul is no longer interested in Roleplaying."

There would also be an option to suppress the notifications if it was super annoying. You could have it organized by org.

Everiine · October 2018

Enya said:

One factor in that for me are the year long story arcs mentioned a few pages back as a feature. Hoooooo boy that's a major BUG for me, not a feature. I really really hate big year long event chains, because they pretty clearly are premeditated and planned way in advance... meaning that the outcomes don't engage with player roles. This is borne out for me in the way that these plots tend to move forwards: 1) NPC causes (plague). 2) Players frisk NPCs for help. 3) NPC explains framing device for event, provides busy work (gather essence). 4) NPC progresses the plot and resets back to step 1 until event resolves setting up for the next event to start at step 1.

Notice that NPCs drive that entire cycle. It makes me feel like no matter what I do to participate in an event, it's mostly standing around doing busy work waiting for an npc to come along and progress the plot so that we can check an obstacle off a list and progress to the next plotpoint. This invalidates a LOT of the other systems in the game. Why bother being high guild rank, when the NPCs will drive the game story? Why bother being guild leader, or amassing millions of gold, or winning every village. Do those things give you a role in the story of Lusternia during world *or even small* events? Hell no! It makes achievements really empty. The one different situation IMO are order events, *because they hook onto admin agency with your character as a favored side player*. Too bad there are loads of obstacles that make only very specific sorts of characters open to that Order RP. Outside of that, it's a lot like watching someone else play a table top game: sometimes they invite you to the table to play a bit part.

I know some events seem like this (and are), but I also recall that with some of the last few really major world events, it was revealed at the conclusion that our actions really DID make a difference. That there were really very serious consequences to our actions and choices, and the events could have gone in very different ways if we the players had made different choices. I know for the event that destroyed the old guilds and brought in the new ones, there were things that happened in the Serenwilde event that weren't scripted but the admin took what we had done and ran with it, to some truly emotional and heartbreaking conclusions. I absolutely agree that these are the best kinds of events (which is why I don't like the current one, because it certainly feels like the entire thing is planned out in advance because the monthly promos have to be planned out, so basically all we're doing is busy work until the next month starts).

Minkahmet · October 2018

Deichtine said:

Side note: People have raised the issue of entry level cost for Lusternia. Its super high and I don't know how you can solve it but you are losing people to Imperian because they can get a fully trans'd out character there without paying a cent.

Key phrase "without paying a cent" is clearly what I'm enjoying there as motivation and besides, pvp stuff every few hours too. So this clearly can be a spark of inspiration to use, but in Lusternia's twist of things potentially.

Saran · October 2018

Luce said:

Not so much trying to focus on villages as a mechanic for this as make sure that the whole system is integrated into the game in a way that makes each task and step in the process feel important, but doesn't force any one person to participate in every step.

General idea overall is for villages to still matter, for the economy stuff to still impact PvP in a meaningful way that doesn't have us needing to chuck the whole thing out and start over, again, and to make it so that anyone can generate raw comms in a steady amount with enough effort, but that in order for traders to really do well the pvp team or the diplomatic groups need to do well, and in order for those teams to squeeze out that last 2%, the traders have to do well. Ultimately the aim for what I was proposing is to make it so that each sphere of the game interacts with and supports each other (though obv how one rewards roleplay is beyond me).

The idea behind introducing the step between conflict objective claiming and benefits is really just if you just activate the benefits using the org comms that you get then everything is the same as right now. But it also introduces the ability to trade these comms between orgs adding a potential new dimension to alliances, not chucking anything just enhancing it. (You could also do stuff like stockpiling death domoth comms to put up the map when it's most beneficial).

With villages, while their "player comm" generation would stop, they'd still have a function as generators of "org comms" to build/maintain constructs as well as other potential bonuses or expansions to your org. This could also potentially introduce some more considerations to government styles as more comm gen focused ones could let you maintain more constructs with less villages while conquest might require more villages for the same in return for the conquest pool.

Similarly, it provides the possibility for introducing alternate methods for generating them, likely in small quantities, so if your org's having a bad time with PVP lately you can work around it. Or over time we could see other benefits introduced, such as org comm refinements to give different benefits or perhaps merging benefits. (Like, maybe merging knowledge and beauty gives you diplomacy which gives both org buffs with a slightly lessened cost on both pools)

I was aiming for the butchery skill to be a bashing-generation route, able to create meat, hides, and other things based on killing the creature that produces them (or rather, using critters you're killing anyway), harvesting to be plant-centric and requiring a lot of running around to get the most out of it, while the mineral based one is mostly about convincing miners to give up the stuff they're digging out. The hope is that concentrated efforts on doing nothing but commodity generation and refinement can easily garner those comms, but otherwise you need to rely on those who have that kind of focus or to take gold out of the game by buying them from NPCs. Tying refinement to villages rather than raw comm generation also means that it's not possible to lock an org completely out of participation, but it is possible to cause damage and make life tougher for them by consistently winning in villages they need, mostly as added incentive for working on villages.

In that skein, revolts would be more about resetting the field than snapping up points, and would be more a team effort to position leaders in the village who are more sympathetic to your org's causes than a dogpile to get all of the NPCs yes-manning your omninfluencers before the other person who happens to be online at the time gets there. Expanding the time frame it's active would hopefully mean more people can participate, but as with all of the proposal it's meant more as a springboard or seed of an idea than as a Vision of What Is To Be.

Hm, I suppose I feel like tying it into villages doesn't necessarily add much for me? Having general refinement be something that orgs just have the equipment for and can do is simpler while still introducing the new mechanics. It also doesn't involve introduce reworking village influencing into the mix. Also my expectation would be that everything has at least all three steps gathering > refinement > crafting. Some special materials might skip refinement and some others might require multiple refinement (refining herbs into an alchemical concoction that a smith type uses while refining ores to some end)

I think it'd be perfectly fine if there was just like... each village has a special workbench that can produce a specific special comm that's usable by their pledged orgs. Which functions as a bonus (in turn incentive) for claiming villages, which again goes back to potential aspects of alliance arrangements and the like.

But this also functions across the board, so you could have workbenches or special vendors that are only available to people who have completed an honours quest or while the area is in a certain state (the veil is raised in hifarae, for example)

Just as an example. Tully has a lot of time and feels like making money, so he goes out and uses harvesting skills to find/generate a dozen units of hemp. He knows that he'll be making a new broom later, and for that he'll need some quality twine, so he takes that hemp to Estelbar, where the hemp station is. He could also go to Acknor or Nyalia, but he thinks the orcs smell funny, and Nyalia can only make crude or passable rope. He needs good rope to make a good broom, so Estelbar it is. Inside the hemp barn, he's tasked with following instructions given to him by the overseer. First the overseer calls out spin, flatten, or dry, in this case dry, so Tully drops the hemp he's collected and PULLs a nearby chain to open the drying kiln. Next the overseer calls out flatten, so Tully needs to PULL the chain, then PUSH a lever to cause a press to descend on the rope. This goes on for several rounds, with Tully adding steps each time, until he fails. Depending on how well he did, he could have gotten crude, passable, or good rope, but he did very well and instead walks out with ten good rope and two units of fine Estelbar twine. He uses the good rope for his broom, and sells the Estelbar twine to Malicia for a profit. Malicia needed Estelbar twine to wrap the tang for her new weapon. She could have had the smith use good rope as well, but she had money to burn. The Estelbar twine wrapping gives her a surer grip, which translates into a balance recovery bonus in her case.

If instead Tully had collected minerals, he could have gotten coral from the deep sea and taken it to Nyalia to refine Bay coral shards, which Neos could have used to augment his Aquamancy staff with a damage buff, or grant his Aquachemantic chalice extra capacity. Both Malicia and Neos were far too busy murdering their way through Magnagora's forces to refine the materials themselves, so they need to buy them instead.

I kinda thing adding a unique crafting minigame for each refinement would add a decent amount of work and potential bugs into the mix.

What I was thinking was that refinement involves abilities that you gain in skills which enable you to generically refine things at a workbench, special workbenches could enable a special ability that changes the output, or they could even just substitute specified outputs for special comms. Similarly, you could build in the ability to tag certain materials as restricted for refinement requiring that the workbench specifically is set to allow them to be refined using it.

This could enable something like Gaudiguch's workbench being able to craft some fire type materials while everyone else might need to get access to one in Zoaka for the same.
Similarly, if there's a bug in refinement it'd mean that it's in that centralised system rather than on a single workbench, which also inversely means that refinements should just work if the system is hopefully making it simpler for the admin.

Steingrim · October 2018

Estarra said:

...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'm reminded of the stock market. I assume originally it was viewed as a really good way to gain funds to expand a business. In the last few decades it has become a beast that forces companies to bleed more and more their shareholders.

At some point IRE will have to consider if the monthly promos create enough fatigue that in the long run they harm their business long term.

It probably wouldn't be the worse idea for say January to be IRE's no promo month.

I found this current promo to be a bit problematic. Too many things can cause the buyer to feel like they can't possibly keep up and why bother.

You had genies, maps, and poteens on top of a new curio. For myself I would have very close to the same amount if it had only been only one type offered of the three. Leaving you to offer the others in following months where I would have brought more.

Estarra · October 2018

Sorry, the genies, maps and poteens were prior promotions that I put up for those interested in previous curios or weren't interested in the new ones.

Snald · October 2018

I liked having access to the genies, maps, and poteens. I think what Steingrim is saying though is he would have purchased more packages of each if they weren't all in the same like 15-20 day period.

Xenthos · October 2018

Also, a few questions on "things that got overlooked":

1) What happened to the honours line from the last Ascension? I think that's the first one that we didn't get a line for?

2) What happened to the honours for Last Old Guild Leaders?

3) What happened to the honours for First New Guild Leaders?

Estarra · October 2018

Xenthos said:

Also, a few questions on "things that got overlooked":

1) What happened to the honours line from the last Ascension? I think that's the first one that we didn't get a line for?
2) What happened to the honours for Last Old Guild Leaders?
3) What happened to the honours for First New Guild Leaders?

1) Hmm, I thought they were given out. I'll double check. [EDIT - THEY WERE GIVEN OUT DURING ASCENSION.]

2) Nothing should have happened to the honours as far as I know.

3) We never did honours for the new guilds. I believe it was discussed a couple of times whether or not it was appropriate.

Xenthos · October 2018

Estarra said:

Xenthos said:

Also, a few questions on "things that got overlooked":

1) What happened to the honours line from the last Ascension? I think that's the first one that we didn't get a line for?
2) What happened to the honours for Last Old Guild Leaders?
3) What happened to the honours for First New Guild Leaders?

1) Hmm, I thought they were given out. I'll double check. [EDIT - THEY WERE GIVEN OUT DURING ASCENSION.]
2) Nothing should have happened to the honours as far as I know.
3) We never did honours for the new guilds. I believe it was discussed a couple of times whether or not it was appropriate.

Were they? I don't see anything for that. Just the 500 C.E. stardust thing for the "repeat year".

And I know we were told we were getting honours for being the last guild leaders (I don't see those), as well as the new ones (we were never told that wasn't going to happen, so there was a disconnect there somewhere).

Anita · October 2018

There's no honours line for the last Ascension. (I was present during the whole Ascension final event, too, so wasn't given during.)

There's no last guild leaders honours line, either. (I should have last Moondancer Champion - Heir of Ellindel!)

Xenthos · October 2018

Anita said:

There's no honours line for the last Ascension. (I was present during the whole Ascension final event, too, so wasn't given during.)
There's no last guild leaders honours line, either. (I should have last Moondancer Champion - Heir of Ellindel!)

Veyils did get a line, but as far as I know nobody else did.

Estarra · October 2018

Oh, LAST guild leaders --- sorry, misunderstood.

FYI, if you have an honour for a seal already, it won't stamp you with a new one.

Xenthos · October 2018

Estarra said:

Oh, LAST guild leaders --- sorry, misunderstood.

FYI, if you have an honour for a seal already, it won't stamp you with a new one.

We're not talking about the seal honours, we're talking about "So and so survived the encroachment of the Avatar of Kethuru" or some such. All the previous ascensions had one of those for everyone who was active during the final Ascension month, but I'm pretty sure I didn't get one for the last. Was basically an acknowledgement of "Hey, you were here during this trying time, let's make sure it's noted on your character history!"

Edit: For example, "He has endured the Resurgence of Zenos the Insubstantial," "He did survive the rising of the Soulless God Muud," etc.

Zagreus · October 2018

If I recall right, I had heard the last/first GM lines were nixed because of all the metagaming and nonsense surrounding people vying for it just for the honor, or some such.

Estarra · October 2018

Ah, gotcha, sorry, I don't believe there was a special honour this year. We don't do that every year!

Regarding last/current guild leaders, I don't mind doing that but I'm not sure when I'll have time to go through the politics news to gather that info.

Everiine · October 2018

Estarra said:

Regarding last/current guild leaders, I don't mind doing that but I'm not sure when I'll have time to go through the politics news to gather that info.

I think somewhere is a log of all the old guild news posts, right? It might be easier to go through each guild's own newsboard and look for Election posts than try to sift through every Election post in the Politics board (or not, but it's a thought I had).

Anita · October 2018

https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/3476/old-guilds-titles#latest

I went through news posts. going to go through them again a bit later after some sleep, but majority (if not all) are correct!

Steingrim · October 2018

Estarra said:

Sorry, the genies, maps and poteens were prior promotions that I put up for those interested in previous curios or weren't interested in the new ones.

@Yendor had the right of it. If things like treasure maps, genies, poteens are lumped together and only offered 2-3 times a year then I have to be more picky. If on the other hand they're not all offered together, but spread out though the year, I'm more likely to buy more.

Lesgle · October 2018

Hi,
I'm new to the game. Less than 10 hours in. I played Gemstone and Dragonrealms about 15 years ago and dabbled a bit in Achaea and recently got the itch to play MUDs again. Came across Lusternia and it seemed interesting--I'm not super interested in combat, more interested in playing a writer/researcher type, and I liked the bit about making books, publishing them, getting them in libraries. Persuasion and debate as a viable alternative to fighting.

Anyway, this thread has been a scary read. I've started asking myself if it's worth investing time into--is the game dying? Should I bother?

I plan on sticking with the game for a bit. I'm still learning the ropes, trying to do my Collegium quests, get a feel for the geography, lingering in rooms reading the descriptions. Even though I'm new, I'd like to participate in this conversation to the extent I'm able. I think I can provide a newbie's perspective that might be missing.

For starters, the introduction to the game is pretty challenging. I came straight to the site and jumped right in with character creation in order to get into the game and get a taste of things. Boy was that a mistake. Character creation is overwhelming, to be honest. I had to pick a city, a race, a guild, a class. That's a lot of reading off the bat, before I even get to experience anything. I wasn't at first clear what my choices meant, and I wanted to rush through to get into the game itself. I got in and played for a very short time before realising I need to start over completely. I think Lusternia takes a lot more investment to get started than other MUDs I remember playing. The game is so ambitious! There's so much to learn about! This is attractive to someone like me

So I spent some time on the site, reading about the lore, the classes, and so on. The most useful thing I read was Falaeron's forum post, "Midkemians: Getting Started and Other Useful Information." Excellent summary of things which helped organize and contextualise all the information coming at me. Helped me narrow my character concept and what I wanted to play: a Lucidian living in Hallifax, member of the Consortium, Institute class. OK.

So I start playing again and end up on Avechna's Peak and get lost. Is Avechna's Peak supposed to be a newbie area? I felt like I was wandering around with no direction and had no idea what to do or where to go. I think there was a message about Newton's Grove, but I couldn't find it. I get it from an in-game IC perspective but I think the opening stages of the game, especially for one so complex as Lusternia, need some explicit OOC hand-holding at first. As for Newton's Grove, I almost don't see the point of it. Sure, it's a place to kill stuff for XP, but why? I can kill pigeons in Hallifax. I should get XP for completing Collegium quests to get me some levels. I don't get the relationship between Newton's Grove and learning about the world, Guilds, etc.

Another thing that irked me was the quests. I'm in Newton's Grove, trying to help the Gnomes find their lost explorers, but I had to log out when my wife got home and do RL stuff. When I came back later, I meet and explorer, and GIVE RIVET TO GNOME...only to discover I don't have any rivets anymore. ALL my stuff pertaining to the quest disappeared. WOW....so you have to do quests in one go? I had to go back to Newton's Grove, pick up bent rivets again, but also had to get the portal back open. So kill finks, get widgets, give them to Clanky, open the portal etc. all over again.

I'm not sure I'll bother with quests.

I did notice a few grammatical and spelling mistakes here and there in the text of the game. And I can't remember what it was, but one or two of the commands the game tells me I'm supposed to use don't actually work. It's as if some portions of the game have been revised or something. I do know that the LIBRARY commands are a mess, or I can't really figure them out. I was excited when I walked into a library and tried browsing, searching...it was very clunky. CHECKIN didn't work as a command, so I was stuck with the two books I did pull to read (they decayed to dust when I logged out, I hope I don't get fined!).

I'm starting to ramble, and I don't mean to hate on the game. There's a lot of interesting stuff here, but it actually feels rough and unfinished in places, at least mechanically. The helpfiles don't seem complete and still leave me with a ton of unanswered questions, and, as I implied above, seem in places to refer to things that don't exist anymore.

Maybe everything I've written is just the ignorance of a new player, so I hope no one takes anything I've said too seriously. These are just general impressions based on very limited play time. I hope to get my bearings, fall in with the right crowd, and start producing works of literature to enhance the cultural prestige of Hallifax.

Steingrim · November 2018

@Lesgle,

I used to be a GM in Dragonrealms a bit before you played and if you need any comparisons feel free to message me.

Influencing is an alternative to hunting or bashing. Debate is a far more rare alternative to combat, generally only done during village revolts and even then pretty much only when those revolts are peaced. Really good debaters are few and far inbetween.

Lusternia is more geared towards player interaction and lore while I would say Dragonrealms really catered to having interactive environmental effects. It is far easier for a player to leave a mark in Lusternia then it would have been to in Dragonrealms when I was involved there.

Not to be overly factious, but MUDs have been dying since the 1990’s. Hallifax appears to be coming off of one of its all time lows and I’d be a bit surprised if it didn’t have somewhat of resurgence once the new skill changes go live.

>>>Anyway, this thread has been a scary read. I've started asking myself if it's worth investing time into--is the game dying? Should I bother?

The game is old. Older games lose players. The game is unlikely to die unless the admin panic and just start making random changes (since with any change you risk loosing players).

RE: Game intro. We’re told there is another one in the works.

>>Another thing that irked me was the quests. I'm in Newton's Grove, trying to help the Gnomes find their lost explorers, but I had to log out when my wife got home and do RL stuff. When I came back later, I meet and explorer, and GIVE RIVET TO GNOME...only to discover I don't have any rivets anymore. ALL my stuff pertaining to the quest disappeared. WOW....so you have to do quests in one go? I had to go back to Newton's Grove, pick up bent rivets again, but also had to get the portal back open. So kill finks, get widgets, give them to Clanky, open the portal etc. all over again.

I’m not sure after all these years of playing, but it does seem that one of the design intention is that quests are designed to contain some frustration. Many people seem to have to do quests more than once to figure them out.

That said I avoided quests for many years and at some point found myself with the correct mindset to start completing them. In other words there is a bit of a learning curve, but once you get that under your belt you can get things to fall into place.

>>>I'm starting to ramble, and I don't mean to hate on the game. There's a lot of interesting stuff here, but it actually feels rough and unfinished in places, at least mechanically. The helpfiles don't seem complete and still leave me with a ton of unanswered questions, and, as I implied above, seem in places to refer to things that don't exist anymore.

I think this is due in large part to a conscious desire on the part of the designers to leave large sections of the game as word of mouth. You have probably noticed that the game is not designed for newbies to enter the world and be able to make their way on their own. Instead, they’re expected to announce themselves and ask for help. That works better with a larger population. However, they have in the last few years minimized a lot of this. Newbie starter items and the ability to suggest changes to help files.

For your own org’s files speak to the Minister of Education and if you can’t track them down, message the city leader with suggested changes.

>>Maybe everything I've written is just the igniorance of a new player, so I hope no one takes anything I've said too seriously. These are just general impressions based on very limited play time. I hope to get my bearings, fall in with the right crowd, and start producing works of literature to enhance the cultural prestige of Hallifax.

Before I forget, do look into the theater system. It is pretty unique to MUDs. I think the best advice I can give you is to enjoy the game for what it actually delivers and not stress too much over the other aspects. As an analogy, it doesn’t really matter that Taco Bell doesn’t make a good burger.

Edited to try to fix font size.

Saz · November 2018

Lavinya said:

I play a game which has a roleplay bonus - every player can give one every so often which is (in that game currency) gold and xp, nothing giant but a little "hey I enjoyed your RP have a little something in recognition" and it also has admin bonuses which are often given in the same way during group rp sessions like rituals or even just a bunch of people together actively RPing, to encourage more of the same.

@Estarra

Trust me there's no better endgame content you can provide than roleplay. It's the golden carrot you offer to people in 2018. About our really unique action packed combat? It's fun but I've bad news for you, there's Fortnite and a million other multiplayer alternatives where you can best others with your eye-hand coordination skills. Instead in a MUD there's the possibility to live the life of someone that isn't you, that will never be you, that should never be you or that can never be you. Let people explore that and even, push them in that direction.

Just look at two seasoned roleplayers Everiine and Rancoura for quick examples and how many times they got commended on forums by other players. Because their motivation to reach that point of immersion is self-driven, without the game actually rewarding it. Do you see them ragequitting because combat is broken? No. Because economy is wonky? Not sure. Because the game doesn't offer enough people interested in roleplaying with? What would they do when it came to that?

Basic idea

Rework the credibility system that's already in the game for this. Take away the default extreme credibility from everyone, set them to "is a credible character", allow players to give esteems three times a RL day which increase the recipient's credibility level. Make sure credibility levels decay at a reasonable level to keep it "grindable". Because it's the only kind of responsibility that can be repeated countless times and still feel fresh every time, because each player is different and it's always potentially a new experience.

Midkemia used to do that and despite that game fell into pieces at many other fronts, the RP was never a concern till the very end. Credibility system might not be the only reason for that, but I've worked really hard to reach that extreme credibility back then and it was always satisfying to hit that milestone. If it's a concern disconnect experience gain from credibility levels, but make sure there's a decent prize at the end of the day/week/month. At least as juicy as group bashing to keep it alluring. So the system can actually incentivize people to take time, spend effort, learn to emote to the point where they finally want do it better than the last time.

(Yes, this system 'can' be abused but there are ways to counter it with bringing dimishing returns to trading esteems between same characters, et cetera. There're also better answers to be found for all of these, of course.)

On a final note, reading an esteem in detail to see someone's heartfelt praise to your roleplaying skills or simply that they enjoyed a fine session. That itself can be a decent reward for people.

And personally, despite I imagine Lusternia as an ex-girlfriend that left me with many scars over the years, my fondest memories were always the RP moments. The story we wrote with Neftarys before even starting the game about our characters' past within Caoimhe Dell was the catch for me to give this game a chance. Or that one time I managed to gather 20ish people in Serenwilde for an impromptu feast which Charune even attended, it was so cool despite it blew up in my face for different reasons afterwards. My GL interaction with guild's tutor was also very fine. But what tops it all was our RP arc with Foehn, it never got 'that' deep but it was the best RP I ever had on this game. We even abused a bug that made so much sense IC and fit perfectly to the RP we were having. It was a great enabler that mixed so well with my player reputation, haha. Thank you for everything, if you are reading this.

And the fact that I, don't have more than what, 20 fond RP memories I still cherish? With just a couple of them being logged in my old computer in 2 and a half years? This tells more about the game than it does about me. This game always felt mechanical and a bit dull. Even if your squad isn't chatting about superbowl on an astralbash, the immersion still felt very fragile.

However you do it, that doesn't really matter, just encourage your players to roleplay.

Luce · November 2018

Steingrim said:

@Lesgle
For your own org’s files speak to the Minister of Education and if you can’t track them down, message the city leader with suggested changes.

Waaaant to chime in here and mention that right now this is me. I do log in and review messages at least once every other day, but due to real life constraints I'm not always fast to respond to IG messages (Though I try to manage anything that comes up ASAP.) and I'm usually only in-game for about an hour or so. If it's something that needs a fast answer, shoot me a PM on forums as well so I can start working on it at my day job. We have a ton of time during the pre-holiday season.

Rancoura · November 2018

Saz said:

[...]

And the fact that I, don't have more than what, 20 fond RP memories I still cherish? With just a couple of them being logged in my old computer in 2 and a half years? This tells more about the game than it does about me. This game always felt mechanical and a bit dull. Even if your squad isn't chatting about superbowl on an astralbash, the immersion still felt very fragile.

[...]

To me, at least, Lusternia didn't always feel so mechanical. Back when I started playing ~11 years ago, the atmosphere was so immersive that it kept me playing into the later hours of the morning doing rituals or just interacting with characters or participating in RP-intensive events. A few RP idols back from those days are the ones who inspired me to become the roleplayer that I am today; and the thing is, it felt like -everyone- roleplayed. Everyone seemed to make at least a minimal effort to stay in-character, to speak without RL slang and to use lore-accurate metaphors. CT was a lot noisier (usually in a good way), and characters would have long conversations with each other at the central meeting points ranging a variety of lore-related topics.

Over time, though, that sense of immersion was gradually lost -- one of my personal gripes is the growth of OOC channels. I know some existed back then, but I found that over the years, people would take their interactions more and more to the OOC mediums instead of roleplaying them through their characters IC. (Why this growth happened/is happening could probably be put up for debate.)

That said, I definitely support some sort of system to encourage more RP. Something that encourages people to have conversations "out loud" that others can jump in to. If we want to build up our RP environment again, which I'm sure for many has been one of the greatest attractions of this game, I'd venture to say we need it (without kicking up the old "more divine interaction to encourage RP" storm again).

Sylandra · November 2018

Rancoura said:

Over time, though, that sense of immersion was gradually lost -- one of my personal gripes is the growth of OOC channels. I know some existed back then, but I found that over the years, people would take their interactions more and more to the OOC mediums instead of roleplaying them through their characters IC. (Why this growth happened/is happening could probably be put up for debate.)

I'll definitely second this. My second round of Lusternia felt far more OOC-driven than my first go in 2010. Hallifax's OOC clan didn't even exist back then; the only clans I joined that were OOC happened to be run by friends I made ICly first.

Now? There's so many OOC clans for orgs, guilds, and whatnot. Some of this is because it's so much easier to convey your thoughts OOCly than to RP them, and I get that impulse, but it hits a point where entire orgs can determine their politics on OOC clans and Discord channels. And if you're someone who doesn't like much OOC conversation in your game, then what do you do?

I'm not as much of a social butterfly when I log in these days, but I do remember once feeling like if I bumped into a character in Lusternia, we'd talk in character before we'd chat in an OOC clan. Now, it feels like I meet people OOCly before I meet their character ICly, and if I talk to someone when I log in, the odds are that it's an OOC conversation.

I don't know how this trend started or whether or not there's a good way to combat it, besides ICly playing the sort of character you'd like to encounter in Lusternia.

Torgadon · November 2018

Support Rogues.

Some people don't fit in the neatly stacked communes/cities established.

Have an independent village/city that gives its own communication. A refuge for those wanting to escape the politics/hierachy of the cities/communes and they can keep their class they trained so hard to obtain.

Lillie · November 2018

Rancoura said:

Saz said:

[...]

And the fact that I, don't have more than what, 20 fond RP memories I still cherish? With just a couple of them being logged in my old computer in 2 and a half years? This tells more about the game than it does about me. This game always felt mechanical and a bit dull. Even if your squad isn't chatting about superbowl on an astralbash, the immersion still felt very fragile.

[...]

To me, at least, Lusternia didn't always feel so mechanical. Back when I started playing ~11 years ago, the atmosphere was so immersive that it kept me playing into the later hours of the morning doing rituals or just interacting with characters or participating in RP-intensive events. A few RP idols back from those days are the ones who inspired me to become the roleplayer that I am today; and the thing is, it felt like -everyone- roleplayed. Everyone seemed to make at least a minimal effort to stay in-character, to speak without RL slang and to use lore-accurate metaphors. CT was a lot noisier (usually in a good way), and characters would have long conversations with each other at the central meeting points ranging a variety of lore-related topics.

Over time, though, that sense of immersion was gradually lost -- one of my personal gripes is the growth of OOC channels. I know some existed back then, but I found that over the years, people would take their interactions more and more to the OOC mediums instead of roleplaying them through their characters IC. (Why this growth happened/is happening could probably be put up for debate.)

That said, I definitely support some sort of system to encourage more RP. Something that encourages people to have conversations "out loud" that others can jump in to. If we want to build up our RP environment again, which I'm sure for many has been one of the greatest attractions of this game, I'd venture to say we need it (without kicking up the old "more divine interaction to encourage RP" storm again).

I came out of the annals of history to vocally agree with this.

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