Is Illarion doomed to being another hack and slash?

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Pugnacious
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Is Illarion doomed to being another hack and slash?

Post by Pugnacious »

Where is the imagination? Every quest is always about yet another great evil threatens the island. Only those with strong sword arms or impossibly exclusive magic may take part. For the rest, be submissive, hide in fear or die.
The advertisement on the RPG site that I found Illarion on, stated, "A feature that is very important to us, is the depth of real role playing in Illarion. We want it to stand out from your every other RPG, that mainly puts focus on hack and slash monster fighting. In Illarion, it should be possible to live your whole life without ever killing a monster. The different crafts available supplement each other, so that craftsmen need to work together to be truly successful."
What about famine, natural disaster, loss of resources, or the most serious threat, the plague. The plague would affect everyone, a sharp blade would not save you. Maybe a rare herb can be found and cultivated by farmers, made into an potion by druids, and distributed to the masses by medicos. Political organizations being needed to pull all the resources and people together.
There must be other ways to keep Illarion interesting other than on the edge of a blade.
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Blay
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Post by Blay »

From my experience, I think it would be better to speak to the specific quest gms instead of making a post here.
Posts like this often turn into a giant discussion with flaming potential and eventually get closed then, without having changed anything.
Anyway, I agree in some of these points you mentioned.
People can't really fear demons etc., because there are just too many of them coming to Gobaith, claiming the land and getting destroyed afterwards.
Still, I really do appreciate the work of all the quester gms. Don't get me wrong.
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Post by CJK »

I'm not entirely how to explain this (especially because all my characters are primarily fighters) But it really depends on how you go about things. Its like a war in reality if you ask me.... or at least i wish it would be. And it could be. Just like there is the home-front in a war, there' the non-fighters in Illarion. When a quest comes along, reach out and see how your character can help. You may end up having a lot more fun than the guys hacking and slashing at brainless AI monsters.

As for when there isnt quest around, your characters will then have LOTS they can do without fighting and without having to hide and such. The crafters and traders in illarion are IMHO the most important part of the game. I just dont personally play one. But look at the likes of Bernie Bottoms and the Gobaith Chamber of commerce for a very filled job outside of quests (and he sometimes even pays you well! :wink: )


As for the quests you mentioned... the plague would be much to difficult to do without 'forced roleplay' And farmers only can grow wheat, carrots, hops, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, etc. and so unless there are any plague remedies requiring hops (Considering what hops are for.... I'd sign up to take THAT medicine!)it would be essentially impossible.


AS a side note, our developers and GM's are all volunteers so they have real lives as well...




Edit: Blay beat me to the first post when i was typing :(
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Post by Flux »

In my big quest, the player who was most active in it had NO fighting skills and one of the main bunch was a druid.

I personally very, very rarely do any monster spawns in quests, and encourage situations to be solved with roleplay.

@Blay: Just because things come and go doesn't mean they can't kill you. Even in the modern day, people get scared of pandemics of swine flu etc., even though we know that bird flu came and went and nothing's even going to come of it. There's a difference between maintaining hope because you believe good always prevails, and walking up to a demon like "Can't touch this; hammerzeit". Considering the amount of monsters we have now, there isn't much you can work with without someone whinging. Some monsters are supposed to be good and wouldn't have a reason to actively go against the people of Gobaith, most are considered not to be a threat, and player races just get players whining about the staff trying to take over player towns or whatever. I played Mandrel for 2 months before I revealed what he was because I hoped that getting someone familiar with the people first, and THEN revealing that he's a "bad guy" would get more of a real reaction from people than "Demon 36 comes to town".

It also doesn't help that you can't MAKE players be scared or they cry. There's not much you can to do to menacing, because making an example of people does nothing. In real life, if something came and killed someone, that'd have a pretty big impact, but on illa, they go to the cross, they're back immediately, so all you can teach people to do is to stop being cocky, but you can't actually give a sense to the player that their character might ever be in any danger. It's hard to work with people when you put 150+ hours into a quest and people are just like "Oh, a demon, I don't care".
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Alli Zelos
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Post by Alli Zelos »

Disclaimer: All words in this post were typed in good humor. No type of flaming/insulting is intended.

There have been more creative quests in the past (Wasn't there a plague, of sorts, once?)... And the most recent quests, from my knowledge, didn't/don't require any kind of fighting skill.

The last demon quest was all a puzzle... All it took was some brains behind the computer. In fact, the main players in the quest (again, to the best of my knowledge) had next to no fighting skill-- It wasn't needed.

The current one I can't be too sure about, but it doesn't seem like killing the Goddess by ctrl-clicking will solve anything. To be honest, I'm fairly sure most GMs only get annoyed when ctrl-clicking is involved. There's likely some sort of ritual to perform, or perhaps a weakness of the Goddess to be exploited. I've NEVER seen the solution of a quest be through ctrl-clicking.

As Blay said, though... Contact a GM about ideas.

(( Ninja'd by ltgmkay and Flux >.< ))
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Post by Achae Eanstray »

Major quests that have been done without the need of fighters: Plague ( was wonderful times for my druid btw ), Druids saving the trolls, saving the old treaty with the dragons, the genie with the lamp turning everyone into mainly bunnies (hilarious!), the mysterious ghost (a mystery quest), the droll quest......I had a crafter, fighter and mage char and they could all participate in any quest named....even during the lich wars. If there was a major quest all of my chars couldn't be involved in, I totally missed it.

PS the Goddess quest can be anything your char would like. My druid spent her time adding flowers to the altar to cover it calling it "ugly" :wink:
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Post by Pugnacious »

Well so far in this goddess quest my crafter character, who is unarmored and has no fighting skills, has been seriously injured once and ghosted once by cultists, So I did the only thing I could, I left Trollsbane, self exiled to another town, do to the small population base. I wake up today to find the quest is moving to all towns, no place to run. This does not seem to support the claim that you can live in Gobaith as anything else than a fighter.

I also meant not to bash the Gm's that work so hard to bring us this game, just a suggestion that there may be other ways to involve the populace.
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Post by Elijah »

If you were killed by a singular cultist, I don't think that the gms or the people who lead the quests are responsible for that.

That seems to be a player decision.
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Post by CJK »

Pugnacious wrote:Well so far in this goddess quest my crafter character, who is unarmored and has no fighting skills, has been seriously injured once and ghosted once by cultists
You need to think about it.... there's a bunch of zealous cultists running around, maybe speaking diplomatically to them can save your skin, rather than being one of the geniuses hitting the altar with a pick axe?

Illarion is a wondrous place to work on talking your way out of situations. :wink:
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Post by Pugnacious »

Who said I did anything so stupid. Once I was at my depot, the other plying my trade in the workshop. Both times I was given the option join or die, both times after much talk I tried to flee. But this isn't about that, those PO's were playing there characters as they thought this quest led them. However, there should be a way for those with a different lifestyle to opt out of all this, hence the move I made. Being ghosted is a serious thing for the trades person too. I put lots of work into advancing my skills, same as a fighter are mage. Being forced into this Rp, makes it hard to enjoy Illarion like I want to play, as a peaceful citizen, a backbone of society.

I once was far out in the woods with a bard character, practicing my musical instruments. A GM, wisked me off to a room and told me to stop PGing. I said music takes much practice. I was told to stop or be kicked out of the game and banned. But I can spar outside the gates with my fighter character everyday till I am exhausted, not considered PGing. This is what I was trying to point out. The balance of the whole game is off, if preference is always given to the fighter caste. This game would be much richer if the common townsman was more central to the plot of life.
Last edited by Pugnacious on Fri Jul 09, 2010 4:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
Grokk
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Re: Is Illarion doomed to being another hack and slash?

Post by Grokk »

Pugnacious wrote:"...real role playing in Illarion."
They just say that as a joke.

I think Flux identified the real problem. The reason these quests become so lame is because no one is ever affected by the 'evil'. For some messed up reason, the GMs can't do anything to anyone without causing an 'OMGFORCEDRP!!!1!' uproar. So, players refuse to have their characters show any sort of weakness, knowing that they will suffer no consequences. I would love to see a quest where a GM ghosted characters, stole most of their belongings, stripped them of skills, and even perma-killed a few.

If people are unable to properly roleplay something as simple as an evil demon terrorising the land, they sure as heck won't be able to deal with the complexities of something like a famine or plague.

Pug, your problem (which the majority of other players seem to share) is that you are not separating yourself from your character. It is clearly possible to PLAY a character who does not fight. You are doing it. I played Edric Galthor for almost a year, who did not have any skills at all. But to actually BE that character will obviously not be without difficulty. The character will have to find a way to peacefully deal with violence. They will often be the victim of threats and maybe some roughing up too. They will be ghosted. They will lose items. They will lose skills. But these are IC problems. They are not stopping you in any way from playing a non-combat character, which is an entirely OOC matter.

And what you have just described does not sound in any way like forced RP. Unless your attackers refused to RP with you, in which case you should report them via !gm.
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Post by Elijah »

Hopefully what I'm about to say doesn't sound offensive to you, because it's directed more towards the entire base of people who it belongs to.

It's a game. Getting ghosted isn't going to end your world, or end your character's life. That's not to say not to fear it, which is something that everyone should do ig. Still.. if your character loses his status as the leader of a guild IG, gets ghosted, or even gets perma killed, your still going to wake up tomorrow. Roll with it, adapt, rp it out. Role playing defeat is hard for a lot of people, but I think those that are able to do so are some of the best. It seems like a lot of people want to come to the forums and complain if they lose something IG.

I understand what your saying though. You should have a clear choice not to involve your character in quests if you want to.
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Post by CJK »

Just to reinforce what Grokk is saying about separating you from your character, I've had my main character long enough and played him enough and such that it hit the point of being like the character is a separate entity. Cant usually tell what will happen next. A few times I've described it as "Jon does the thinking, I press the keys to make him walk in circles"


Which I'm sure this post seems very out of context at first, but what I'm trying to get at is to just keep playing until your character becomes interesting enough to not get worried about quitting when something happens like getting attacked as part of a quest, or even having nothing to do with a quest (We have a few robbers running around still)
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Post by The great one »

Well, well , well..

I see we have another one who thinks they know the best way for a-b-c. Listen, I don't know how long you have been playing but I guess it has not been long, else you would have realized that most of the quests in the game recently ( last couple of years), have been mostly based around role-play rather than the 'condemned' ways of the ctrl+click. If you are attacked by another PO and you don't like it then I guess it's just tough luck buddy. This a multiplayer game not a single player game. You cannot dictate what goes around your character, only influence it. If your char was attacked by a cultist during a period of time in said quest where a demi-goddess has formed a cultist group on gobaith and you happened to feel the side effects ((allbeit probably from unrealistic talk back), then that is simply too bad. You think you are the first to be attacked by another PO? Seriously, you cannot control what mindset the PO's choose to have their chars in. There are psychopaths in every walk of life, even in illarion, and I am afraid my son you will just have to deal with that and stop complaining.
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Post by Silo »

Ehh. What I'm getting from this:
  • Character's given the choice of "Do this or die."

    You choose to say, "I will not do it, because my only consequence will be a maximum 3 point skill loss and an hour long penalty!!1!"

    ...You get owned.
>.>

This is definitely in line with my "Respond Realistically" thought process. Note: When your character is clouded, he/she is killed. Respond to situations after having your character think: "Oh! Cherga might not be so awesome this time! I might not get resurrected, because Cherga's not a nice guy!"

Just because Illarion's description says, "Your character can live his/her entire life without picking up a sword." does NOT mean they're immune to physical damage.

...GMs are awesome. Don't be angry with them. Give them love!

Please note: The above is an overdramaticized display of annoyment, and is not at all an appropriate response to the first post. Please excuse all offensive sentences, diction, and otherwise condescending grammatical structure. Below this short disclaimer, you will find a more fitting answer to the subject matter.

Seems like you feel left out. Get a fighter character? :|
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Post by Grim_banned »

Silo wrote:Seems like you feel left out. Get a fighter character? :|
Or get friends in the right circles.. :P .. I know of quite a few shite fighters that no ones messes with because their uber, maxed out, fighters friends will get them later, hehe.
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Post by Djironnyma »

Well if you play active about such a long time as me there isnt much what you havent seen once, serious i feel about the most quest like "oh god, not again...". Example givin - "A bad guy who search followers to become a good" - yeha well have we all forget Nalzaxx?

But thats nothing but my personal opinion and no one force me to care much about these quest. There are people which like these quest and which play it - thats fine so. If you like the quest take part of it if not avoid it - but no reason to complain about.

If you thing you have a better idea for a quest contact a gm and just do it. The most of our GMs are very corporative if you have own ideas which make illarion more fun.
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Pugnacious
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Post by Pugnacious »

Well I am very glad I made this post as it has been very enlightening.

As to the several suggestions that I get a fighter character, I have one and Illarion is very kind to him.
The original purpose of this post was to suggest a broadening of the way we play, the next great evil is not the only way to have fun. Just before the goddess quest started there were many posts about the gods and if they interact with the player base. So then here comes the goddess. A GM's way of satisfying us? But was there ever any thought to it being a good goddess? One to help and promote peace on Gobaith? We get an evil threat to the land, right on the heels of the last demon threat. Now while this is not what I would wish for, I am not opposed to it either. What I don't care for is that it must be played out in every town on the island. Trollsbane is a dangerous place, great. But can there not be a place of peace? How many people are active in this quest, a dozen maybe two dozen? Why must the whole of the island be threatened to satisfy these few players?

Maybe the players of Illarion have changed since that promotional piece was written. It does seem certain that all are happy with the way things are. It is too bad though as little separates Illarion from other RPG's with this narrow view.

Thank you all for your responses,
I think I will log on to battle net, after an hour of that, Illarion will be sweet again.

Now I will take The Great One's advice and just accept that things won't change and quit complaining. :D
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

Just as a sidenote, without taking into account the discussion above:

Every player may initiate quests on his own. GMs can support these player quests, but the less "fancy" things you plan, the better the quest (matter of experience).

So, if you have a good idea for a non violent, non demon-pwns-us-all-but-we-defeat-him-anyway quest, feel free to contact our quest GMs, such as Flux or Zot.

Illarion is a game that currently relies on player to plot the story of the world. GMs are nothing else but players who are a bit more motivated to shape the world than others. But they are no paid entertainers; they are volunteers.

So, this game needs you, the Illarionites, to make this game more interesting!
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Post by rakust dorenstkzul »

This entire thread is why i should be a GM.
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Post by Flux »

And on an off note, having played only one char for 2 years who had 0 skills, I can safely say it's very possible to get by and have fun without skill ;) .
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Post by Damien »

I would love to see a quest where a GM ghosted characters, stole most of their belongings, stripped them of skills, and even perma-killed a few.
Usually, even ghosting very silly and uber-greedy acting player chars causes so much complaining and discussions afterwards that you just get so annoyed by the consequences to stop doing that and any small action-related events where anyone MIGHT accidentally run into the middle of the bunch of mummies you spawned.

Because of such behaviour, and because of all the whining, being a GM in illa is not fun at all anymore. Of course there were times when everyone just laughed about someone getting ghosted when he behaved stupid, where even funny deaths were a kind of contest for a few players, and when everyone just had fun or went elsewhere when a GM just made a series of tiny, but more or less senseless action quests. Nowadays, each tiny action that is not liked by one or two players causes a huge ruckus, and said ruckus gets so annoying that you just don't see any sense in putting any more effort in it.
Players in illa write GM abuse - emails because the non-seriousness of easter eggs on quest maps destroys the "serious and tragical RP of my serious character" ! No matter how much effort you put into it, there will alwaya be someone who complains, or who just complains too because someone else complained, even if he did not witness any of the happenings.
As long as that attitude in the community does not change, illarion will always run low on quests and questers.
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Post by Flux »

Hats off to Damien, that's a post and a half.
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Post by Lord Arcia »

Bring back the application!
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Alli Zelos
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Post by Alli Zelos »

Agreed with Flux.
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Post by Sirith-Rym »

Double agreement with Flux! :D
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Post by Sonara Stone »

Triple agreement with Flux!
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Post by Blay »

Enough agreements with Flux!
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Post by Flux »

I think if everyone just changed their location to "I agree with Flux by default", then most of the posts on this forum wouldn't be needed.
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Post by Llama »

Flux wrote:I think if everyone just changed their location to "I agree with Flux by default", then most of the posts on this forum wouldn't be needed.
And Sigma(IQ) would become negative.
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