The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again.

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Dovakin Ken Kapsalot
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The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again.

Post by Dovakin Ken Kapsalot »

Let me preface this by stating the most obvious points;

This is not a post for you all to go out and fight each other like drunk orcs. This isn't meant to be inflammatory. This isn't meant to be any more then a collection of feelings publicly aired so that the community (which is what this game is or should be about at this stage imo) can have things to think about, and maybe try to improve upon.

Let me also state, that almost everyone I met IG have been excellent roleplayers, especially Cadomyrians. I'm not sure if I'm going to leave the game *again* or not yet. But you people are great and alot of this post has more to do with the community and technical side of things then it does with RPers, so I don't want any one of you to take it personally.


Lets start with the boring story of why I started playing over a decade ago. I came to illarion as a young nooblet who was entirely crap at RP. The great people I met and those who helped guide me to be a better RPer also helped alot in my life, which until a few years ago, was a drugs and alcohol fueled mess. I want to see this game succeed. I want to see it grow. I leave it, and come back, and its still a stunted mess. Full of the same people like me, who just can't quit. Although many do, eventually and also new people, and new trolls, and in general, a mess of a community.

The Forums

I want to start here. The forums are one of the first places a new player sees. These forums are almost dead, and although the RP posts are okay, they aren't really stimulating many people. The rest of the forums is often boring and marred by the same kind of people doing the same kind of things which drive new players away.

One of the biggest problems with the forums is that everyone is so damned gunshy over overmoderation, which was a problem in the past, they are undermoderating now. Theres very little initiative to start handing out warnings or bans. The CM's usually make a little thread in the private board and talk about it, while it continues, for some time. Step up and take the garbage out.

I stayed with this account and not 'Manny' for two reasons. The first reason is, I didn't *actually* expect to stay on forums very long. The second reason is, when I did, I wanted to push boundries with a name that draws attention and make posts that draw attention. I expect to be warned for my actions. I expect slaps on the wrist. I don't think some people here do.

This kind of toothless moderation is from the personality types involved. This is not an insult to those people, its just a matter of saying; you're probably not fit for the job if you can't take on the hard things about it.

Years ago when I did the whole 'turny for gm' thing and then melted down and left (for many of the same reasons I'm making this post now and considering leaving) I didn't expect to be a GM. I would have done it, but I didn't want the job. What I wanted is the people in charge to look at the people whose jobs are to run this community and be looked up to as community leaders and select people capable of doing that. Every day. As a volunteer. Thats really hard isn't it? But there's lots of people here I can see who are probably capable of it, and won't be given a chance to do it.

The Game

When I first came to Illarion, it was a student project. It wasn't much of a game at all. There was some RP and it was pretty mildly enforced. Most of the playerbase was german. But the game was fun and it managed to keep hold of some people. But then something strange happened. People stepped way over their bounds when the game actually got popular, and completely destroyed it almost eight years ago. Losing a ton of playerbase and hemoraging developers, who don't need to keep working here because (Presumeably) they are well out of university.

So at some point, Illarion needs to try to either stop being a project and start being a game. Or stop trying to be a game and go back to being a project.

I'd like to see it become a game, but here are some core issues with that;

-Nobodies found a simple and elegant way to balance skills and skillgain with RP. Its been tried. So many times. But its been tried by the logical minds of programmers and such and not expanded on by the minds of other individuals. You don't need caps. Or colours. Or a food bar. What you need (imo) is a char creation which allows you to create a character already proficient at skills he/she would reasonably have. Not just the usual charsheet skills, but the actual ingame skillset. There should be decided on a fair amount of points at the char roll to decide how much points a given character should have. With a character already proficient at that characters craft, theres less of a need to hide in a corner and skill up to that point before playing with alot of people.

-The map is too god damn big, its been too god damn big since they blew up the island, its still too god damn big after they blew up the island. Shrink the map. Illarion has a small playerbase, and making the map bigger expecting a larger playerbase is crazy bad judgement. Since we've been 'expecting' more dedicated players since 2003, and its only ever happened once, and that was destroyed by an over-long, depressing, gm fueled quest. The map needs one good sized city, a couple nice big and well designed dungeons to explore in. That's it. The focus on illarion is the RP, not how big you can make an isometric map. With three cities on a giant map with a million places to go, and an average people online of like 20, theres nothing to do most of the time except skillgain, and as a result, there's nothing to help noobs along when they come because most are too busy skilling or just never actually run into one. Exploding the island was silly, and I've seen the reason for it, and that was silly. Nothing was wrong with the layout of the original island. Exploding it to macrosized was like, what? And then deciding instead of shrinking it back down for VBU and redesigning it to make more sense with a charwipe, they blew it up.

-Too many npc's, not enough things they do. Illarion is in constant development, but theres a test server for that development. Non-quest essential npc's should only be implemented in not very dense areas. Non-merchant npc's in dense areas should give you something to do. Just having npc's standing around repeating themselves on loop without alot to do with them is kind of...pointless. Also I've been a longtime supporter of playerquests, not NPC quests, we've never needed them before, and we still don't now. At least not until the playerbase starts to actually exceed the expections of the game.

-Not enough ingame lore-interest. Back in the OG days, Fall was usually marked with a million attacks on trolls bane. The villains that came might not have been great RPers, but they provided interesting distractions. Now since the last wellplayed Villain (essentially, Darlok) there hasn't even been one interesting average or badly played villain that provided much. Even with threads on the subject. Theres your shadey characters in game. Infact 90% of the characters I met were somewhat 'villainous' but there wasn't one that was *A* Villain. That's a shame, because a good good v evil dynamic helps alot to keep a game going.


-Stop perpetuating the 'more people are coming' rumours. More people aren't coming. Its not because VBU is incomplete. Its not because the Magic/Fighting system (Old client) was incomplete, its not because the old client took too long to develop over the even older client....People aren't coming here, because people don't want to come here, nobody has a reason to come here. Who cares if VBU is incomplete? The client isn't the game, its just the means of playing the game. People aren't coming here, because people aren't talking about here, and people don't want to stay here. Period. End of. Get out there, and drag RPers in. Find P&P communities and friends, find MUD communities and friends. This is a hobby that isn't nearly as popular as it once was, and even then it was difficult to get people to play the game. Come on. Get out there and MAKE illarion get more players. Maybe it'll actually save the bad, bad, bad decision to have a giant map. (By the way guys, you know you can keep a giant map and simply lock sections of it away until you get more people right?)

-Try to keep one main character and really expand on him/her. Self explanatory. When your jumping around half a dozen different characters, your going to drag personality quirks across all of them. Its invariably going to happen. You're going to have that character develop feelings they normally wouldn't. Its not on purpose, and its usually subconscious, but trust someone whose played a gerzillion RP characters; just work on one at a time. Its much more rewarding, you get much more time in game with that character, and he/she will grow much faster as a character.


*nods* I think thats a pretty good base for this post.

I was going to bring up alot of these points in stealth using mantis and sending them directly to certain people. I think an open community discussion is better then that, and I think certain members of this forum are better then that. So why don't you all try to improve the game, instead of relying on the devs to take certain informations from the stickied thread on the forum and magically develop the game.

Remember this is just a collection of opinions. Its okay to disagree with them, but at least disagree with them without being a jerk. I would respect your opinions and thoughts too and not expect you to be a jerk.
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Flux »

I think some of what you say is completely redundant.

Like "shrink the map, get rid of skills", you're essentially saying" rewrite the past 4 years of development and the original illa idea from scratch.

Forums.. I didn't like the overmoderation.. I think it's pretty chillaxed now.

And.. I see where you're coming from with the one char front, but just because it's something I always did.
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Dovakin Ken Kapsalot »

I didn't say 'get rid of skills'.
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Flux »

Get rid of skilling then.

Which makes.. every dungeon, monster etc. in the game redundant because there's no point training. Each dungeon would be like "Oh yeah, the high level fighters can go here. Noone else. And they never will be able to". And on day 1 you'd walk in fighting bone dragons or whatever. Everyone would run around with clone builds of skills and atts.

Illarion is not some RP MUD. It's a game. Doing that to the skill system would ruin it. Getting rid of the food bar breaks the balance of fighting etc. etc.

I don't even know what you mean by "or colours".

You are essentially saying, "I know you're in the middle of expanding your new massive update you spent years on, but actually destroy everything and do it again completely differently".
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Fooser »

What overmoderation has there been?
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Flux »

Uh.. when Bei and Hermie and half the forum got banned with even Korwin wandering down with a yellow dot that he still bears on his avatar today? I think Donál disappeared forever too around then.
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Fooser »

What isn't moderated that needs to be?
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by rakust dorenstkzul »

I got banned for a year for poking fun at Aegohl's drawing.
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Qeewee
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Qeewee »

The skill idea would never work due to how people are, though I see where you're coming from with that idea.
I really agree with the map being too big, it's really difficult to find people at most times which does result in most people skilling in each their corner of the map. Enclosing the map to one city to later open up others ~if~ the player base actually does grow seems like a great idea to me. (Did I just hurt the feelings of the devs saying that? :o)
Pre vbu, that was an issue, though then we had Bane to gather in. Being split across three factions though, and a giant wilderness between, that just makes it impossible to find each other most of the time unless a player/gm quest is going on..?
Oh and to finish my thoughts, factions being gm controlled and there not being an option anymore for player characters to be in charge.. Well it might've brought more active leaders and more town quests and all, but it also ruins for a lot of interesting RP that has come out of earlier events where player characters have been in charge and uh.. I had something more to point out about it, but I forgot.. :?
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by PurpleMonkeys »

I live in New Zealand and I find players almost every time I log on. The rare times that I don't, I go do something productive like getting food, training, etc.
We have LESS towns now. Can't find anybody in Galmair? Visit Cadomyr or Runewick.
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Dovakin Ken Kapsalot »

Flux wrote:Get rid of skilling then.

Which makes.. every dungeon, monster etc. in the game redundant because there's no point training. Each dungeon would be like "Oh yeah, the high level fighters can go here. Noone else. And they never will be able to". And on day 1 you'd walk in fighting bone dragons or whatever. Everyone would run around with clone builds of skills and atts.
You can already exploit your char rolls using formulas as it is. What difference is there with another system?

You're completely missing the point; When a character starts the game in an RP enforced game, he has a history of doing *something*. If he can't do it, he has to either PG up the skill, which isn't conducive to roleplay. Or find an excuse, which is conducive but not preferable.
Illarion is not some RP MUD. It's a game. Doing that to the skill system would ruin it. Getting rid of the food bar breaks the balance of fighting etc. etc.
If illarion is not 'some RP mud' (Which is EXACTLY what its always been) you might as well ask what few skilled RPers that remain here to leave. Because that's next to everything this game has going for it. If you think you can make a game better, technically, then other games with skill systems, your going to get a lesson in what its like to go up against every mmo ever.

Illarion should go back to its roots as a roleplaying game (imo), where you don't NEED the skills and the PGing to succeed. I've only ever pg'd one (now two, because lute spam.) character here. Ever. In over a decade. It should not be a game of "Lets go on a raid!" If I want that, theres eight million choices, and all of them are better and by better developers then here. This is not a knock on developers here, but look at the competition in that market. Can you beat Everquest? Can you beat Conan? Can you beat even UO in backend game? No, you can't, if you could, you'd be working for a company other then here.
I don't even know what you mean by "or colours".
There was a long period of time where skills were represented by colours, not by numbers.
You are essentially saying, "I know you're in the middle of expanding your new massive update you spent years on, but actually destroy everything and do it again completely differently".
The problem with an overdeveloped game that lost its identity is that bad choices are made, and you need to start cracking eggs to get it back to a workable state. You're not going to keep the playerbase you already have if you don't make it easier for people to play with each other. By that, I also mean strangers, not just friends.

There needs to be more to this game then "Lets go kill things" or "Lets get carpentry to eleventy". There needs to be dynamic involvement. If there isn't, the serious RPers will get bored, and they will leave. I know this, because I've known dozens of them from here, and I *am* one from here.
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Sammy Goldlieb
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Sammy Goldlieb »

The map is NOT too big. It is perfect! You gather people around you intown thern you say "Hey, lets go exploring!" And there you have fun, rp and it is quite exciting to investigate unknown land, see beautiful landscape and explore dungeons. I actually like it as it is.
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Nitram »

Okay so I read this topic and as one of the persons always looking to improve Illarion in any way possible I have to say:

I don't have the slightest idea what I am supposed to do with the contents of this topic.

So what we got here:
The forums are one of the first places a new player sees.
I really hope that is only true for a minor part of the new players. The most will dive right into the game. I actually could check this, but I did not do this yet. Its just what I would do. During my time as a player I stayed out of the forum and in the game. I used to board once to request some support but that was it. During the first two years I played, I didn't read the board and never felt the need to read the board.
After all I barely consider the forum a part of the game at all. If it would be my choice, the forum would be removed entirely with exception of the support board. But its not my decision and also yes: I can imagine the flame-war that would be triggered by this action. :wink:
But there's lots of people here I can see who are probably capable of it, and won't be given a chance to do it.
We are already selecting the people for staff positions who we consider able to do so. In case the want to and in case they got the required time to offer to fill the position those people get in the staff. But don't mistake Illarion for a democracy. The community does not vote who gets into the staff. And the community does not press the staff into accepting a new member. The staff selects its new members. We select the people we consider able. We select the people we think we can work well with. That it just the way it is. People we consider harmful for the efficiency and the team play within the staff will never join it.

Now to your game issues...
Nobodies found a simple and elegant way to balance skills and skillgain with RP.
Yes. The problem was that we tried to do that. There is no way to balance both. Skills and the aspects of the engine are one things, role-playing the other. The engine gives you the boundaries of what your character is physically (and if you play be your attributes even mentally) able to do. Not the other way around. The role-playing part is the responsibility of every player to ensure that its sound with the limits of your character that is set by the engine. You can't role-play to do something that is clearly impossible for you to do by the engine. Surely there are things that are in general always impossible by the engine. These are are things left to your imagination and sense of boundaries. And in the end its the job of the GMs to ensure that your boundaries are narrow enough. :wink:
The map is too god damn big
That's solely your opinion. Some like the size, some think it too small, some too big. You can't make it "perfect" for everyone. The majority of the developers approved of this size.
Too many npc's, not enough things they do
There are no useless NPCs on the map. Every NPC has a purpose. Some are part of quests, some guard the towns, some trade. There is not a single NPC that does nothing. The quality assurance for game content that is moved from the testserver to the gameserver does not allow any NPCs to be transferred that have no purpose.
Stop perpetuating the 'more people are coming' rumours
There are no people coming because WE do not want them to. They don't come because we don't promote Illarion in any way right now. We'll start doing so once the game is in a playable state. We'll talk about this topic again then. :wink:

Nitram
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Achae Eanstray
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Achae Eanstray »

I haven't said anything until now but would like to place my thoughts here and hope they are interpreted the way intended .If you don't like something about the game, quit whining and do your best to help working with the team of other helpful volunteers. No, not all your ideas will be used or even liked by the team but every volunteer here has the game's best interest at heart even if they don't always agree on method. You don't have time... there is still a place for volunteering even in a small way. Find places to advertise the game and send to the Promoter, learn scripts and help with other dev's, even make player quests. This may not be what you wish to do.. yet is still a contribution..YOUR contribution. Gripe threads will never help, nor hinder and will eventually just fade away. You keep coming back to the game and I think it means a lot to you..contribute if you wish to add your ideas, if not, even the ones that just come to play contribute with their roleplay. How many games do you know that every single player is important no matter if they volunteer or not? Enjoy the parts you like, attempt to change working WITH others, the parts you don't. ( I may add more later once the caffeine sinks in )
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Cain Freemont
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Cain Freemont »

Nitram wrote:There are no people coming because WE do not want them to. They don't come because we don't promote Illarion in any way right now. We'll start doing so once the game is in a playable state. We'll talk about this topic again then. :wink:
So are you saying that this game has been in an unplayable state for the past 13 years, Nitram? :P
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Nitram »

Cain Freemont wrote:
Nitram wrote:There are no people coming because WE do not want them to. They don't come because we don't promote Illarion in any way right now. We'll start doing so once the game is in a playable state. We'll talk about this topic again then. :wink:
So are you saying that this game has been in an unplayable state for the past 13 years, Nitram? :P
Yes.
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by rakust dorenstkzul »

rakust dorenstkzul wrote:I got banned for a year for poking fun at Aegohl's drawing.
Could someone address this?
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Dovakin Ken Kapsalot »

Finally, the cracks appear.

For one, +1 Cain.

Now...
Nitram wrote:Okay so I read this topic and as one of the persons always looking to improve Illarion in any way possible I have to say:
If your looking to improve the game, then don't disregard people like this;
I don't have the slightest idea what I am supposed to do with the contents of this topic.
Read. Consider. Think.
So what we got here:
The forums are one of the first places a new player sees.
I really hope that is only true for a minor part of the new players. The most will dive right into the game. I actually could check this, but I did not do this yet. Its just what I would do. During my time as a player I stayed out of the forum and in the game. I used to board once to request some support but that was it. During the first two years I played, I didn't read the board and never felt the need to read the board.
That's surely a minority statement. A RP enforced game with an established lore would more often be checked out thoroughly by serious players. Which is why I made the discussion; How can we keep serious RPers. If your trying to make an MMO full of people who aren't serious, because game, good luck, but you WILL eventually lose the serious players you have.
After all I barely consider the forum a part of the game at all. If it would be my choice, the forum would be removed entirely with exception of the support board. But its not my decision and also yes: I can imagine the flame-war that would be triggered by this action. :wink:
Completely removing the outside social aspect of the game would be a mistake on so many levels, that I can barely comprehend this statement without my brain exploding, sorry.
But there's lots of people here I can see who are probably capable of it, and won't be given a chance to do it.
We are already selecting the people for staff positions who we consider able to do so.
Problem.
In case the want to and in case they got the required time to offer to fill the position those people get in the staff.
You don't approach people who don't express an interest in being a staff member...why? How do you know perfectly capable people will NOT be willing to help?

But don't mistake Illarion for a democracy. The community does not vote who gets into the staff. And the community does not press the staff into accepting a new member. The staff selects its new members. We select the people we consider able. We select the people we think we can work well with. That it just the way it is. People we consider harmful for the efficiency and the team play within the staff will never join it.
Theres *Your* answer Achae. I can't join a voluntary development team that says "Screw you, this is our baby, and we will run it into the ground without mercy before listening to ANYONE WHO PLAYS IT unless *WE* like them."
Now to your game issues...
Nobodies found a simple and elegant way to balance skills and skillgain with RP.
Yes. The problem was that we tried to do that. There is no way to balance both. Skills and the aspects of the engine are one things, role-playing the other. The engine gives you the boundaries of what your character is physically (and if you play be your attributes even mentally) able to do. Not the other way around. The role-playing part is the responsibility of every player to ensure that its sound with the limits of your character that is set by the engine. You can't role-play to do something that is clearly impossible for you to do by the engine. Surely there are things that are in general always impossible by the engine. These are are things left to your imagination and sense of boundaries. And in the end its the job of the GMs to ensure that your boundaries are narrow enough. :wink:
So what your saying is, you gave up.

There are a million elegant ways to handle skill systems. Theres a million elegant ways to handle RP. Some experiments in the past were great ideas, that ended up failing because you shut out the community and didn't give a damn. This is *NOT* a university project anymore.
The map is too god damn big
That's solely your opinion. Some like the size, some think it too small, some too big. You can't make it "perfect" for everyone. The majority of the developers approved of this size.
My opinion is backed by most people who come to RP and play the game, not by people who come to get fighting skills leveled up.

Too many npc's, not enough things they do
There are no useless NPCs on the map. Every NPC has a purpose. Some are part of quests, some guard the towns, some trade. There is not a single NPC that does nothing. The quality assurance for game content that is moved from the testserver to the gameserver does not allow any NPCs to be transferred that have no purpose.
I disagree.
Stop perpetuating the 'more people are coming' rumours
There are no people coming because WE do not want them to. They don't come because we don't promote Illarion in any way right now. We'll start doing so once the game is in a playable state. We'll talk about this topic again then. :wink:

Nitram
So what you are saying, Nitram, is you don't want people to play the game because you want to run this community like a dictatorship.
Achae Eanstray wrote:I haven't said anything until now but would like to place my thoughts here and hope they are interpreted the way intended.
Sure. Unlike Nitram above, I'm actually willing to work with ALL of the community.
If you don't like something about the game, quit whining and do your best to help working with the team of other helpful volunteers.
I've already tried that. Now I can't try that, because who is going to accept me as any kind of help? According to Nitram, they only select people they want to help, not just people who can.
No, not all your ideas will be used or even liked by the team but every volunteer here has the game's best interest at heart even if they don't always agree on method.
For a game that's just been a playground for 12 peoples, theres been no improvement in playerbase in 8 years. If illarions BEST interests were at heart don't you think the situation would be better?
You don't have time... there is still a place for volunteering even in a small way. Find places to advertise the game and send to the Promoter,
Why would I want to promote illarion? The developers don't want new people. According to Nitram, they don't want community members even getting involved up in their business. So why would I advertise a community like that? Hell, one of the admins just said "If it was up to me, I'd kill the ENTIRE OUTSIDE SOCIAL ASPECT of the game."
learn scripts and help with other dev's, even make player quests. This may not be what you wish to do.. yet is still a contribution..YOUR contribution.
I don't have time to script anything, and can't work in an elitist enviroment that cares nothing about the people its working for.
Gripe threads will never help, nor hinder and will eventually just fade away.
This is NOT a gripe thread. There are *MANY* more gripes I could air here. Believe me. I have almost 13 years worth of gripes.
You keep coming back to the game and I think it means a lot to you..contribute if you wish to add your ideas, if not, even the ones that just come to play contribute with their roleplay.
Its hard to contribute to roleplaying when someone wants to play a non-specific combat character. According to Nitram, thats by design, with such a poor design philosophy in regards to RP and community there is no reason to continue staying.

Illarion *did* mean alot to me. What it is now, doesn't. I come back to check up on it hoping that in the back of someones head for the time since 2004-2005 something finally clicked into place and someone working here says "Wait a minute....we've been wrong."

Eventually I will stop coming back. My lengths of time away have been growing longer and longer.
How many games do you know that every single player is important no matter if they volunteer or not? Enjoy the parts you like, attempt to change working WITH others, the parts you don't. ( I may add more later once the caffeine sinks in )
According to Nitram, nobody is important except whom the management decides is important.
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Tyan Masines
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Tyan Masines »

I've taken my fair breaks for various reasons, more personal than game related, but I have to say what keeps me going back is the chance of a game where Roleplay and MMOPG (or Dungeon Crawling. Or Skilling. Or whatever you want to call it.) which I've always seen here. I will shortly try to put together what I want to say using examples, and impressions of other players.


During a discussion with another player, that player said "I can't understand why some people don't want to play the game.", meaning, not using the crafting / fighting / skill system. While I am sure it is possible to do that, you can't blame people for actually 'playing the game' as it is. Neither will anyone really blame you for not skilling at all. Can't you go to some places then? Yes. Can you sit in town all day, and admire heroic stories of people who do? Yes. That's a choice everyone has. I can see nothing wrong with that - and I say that as someone who's once witnessed a Char-wipe and left mainly because he wasn't feeling like skilling up again.
Leaving then in a civilized manner was my decision, and not anyone's fault. Not the other player's fault, not the game's fault. Simply my personal decision.


In another discussion I quite recently had, I addressed the issue of the big map. I can't second that it is too big, although I have always been concerned with that topic as well. It was funny just yesterday, and today again: I was in the smithy, working, when someone approached me to Roleplay. That was nice, since I could do my work, and also talk with another character. Later then, I ventured out with a comrade, and we surprisingly bumped into two other chars, roleplaying in the wilderness. This happens to me quite often, I never see the need to search long.
If at difficult times due to timezones little people are ig, and maybe the three that are, two of them want to craft, that can be frustrating, but it is natural. This is not some highly advertised game like, say, LoL, and it consumes much more time and also a special kind of gamer. Illarion gamers are pretty special, and we're surely not Legion. ;)

Some time ago, it was in a German thread like this, I believe, I wrote that people also don't go to a Party and yell "Entertain me!". To a part, you're responsible for that yourself. The snacks provided, the music played, that might rise or lower your mood, but the company or your general attitude can make up for that, or the other way round. There is never a perfect moment.

I kind of understand you, since I had trouble letting the 'old times' go as well, and probably tried to copy them, which didn't work. Past is the past, I kinda got a book ingame closing with the lines "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened" to say my personal Goodbye to good ol' Gobaith (or was it Gobiath? omg), since I totally missed its destruction. But it is gone now, maybe it went down a little rough, but it didn't destroy the game's potential with it.



PS: Just two more cents, 1. on Teambuilding, you build your team by people you want to work with, everything else is bound to horribly fail, I doubt Nitram wanted to sound harmful when he explained that, 2., please make it stop raining in the desert all the time at some point. ;)
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Dovakin Ken Kapsalot »

Tyan Masines wrote:I've taken my fair breaks for various reasons, more personal than game related, but I have to say what keeps me going back is the chance of a game where Roleplay and MMOPG (or Dungeon Crawling. Or Skilling. Or whatever you want to call it.) which I've always seen here. I will shortly try to put together what I want to say using examples, and impressions of other players.


During a discussion with another player, that player said "I can't understand why some people don't want to play the game.", meaning, not using the crafting / fighting / skill system. While I am sure it is possible to do that, you can't blame people for actually 'playing the game' as it is. Neither will anyone really blame you for not skilling at all. Can't you go to some places then? Yes. Can you sit in town all day, and admire heroic stories of people who do? Yes. That's a choice everyone has. I can see nothing wrong with that - and I say that as someone who's once witnessed a Char-wipe and left mainly because he wasn't feeling like skilling up again.
Leaving then in a civilized manner was my decision, and not anyone's fault. Not the other player's fault, not the game's fault. Simply my personal decision.
But theres no dynamic involvement. When I get with a group, lots of fun stuff happens. When I get with a group. But if that group wants to go stab things or mine things, my character is completely unviable, and if I make a new character thats supposed to have that skillset, HE is unviable because he can't fight and thus needs to find an excuse to go stab bugs for six hours at a time.

Illarion can still be a game if it helps with RP, but it needs to remember how to do that. This is not specifically an 'old times' post. There was stuff back then that was a problem too. Hell there was stuff I have fond memories of, that was an entire mistake. But thats in the past. There are some elements of the past you can learn from, and some that are just fun to think about but no longer valuable
In another discussion I quite recently had, I addressed the issue of the big map. I can't second that it is too big, although I have always been concerned with that topic as well. It was funny just yesterday, and today again: I was in the smithy, working, when someone approached me to Roleplay. That was nice, since I could do my work, and also talk with another character. Later then, I ventured out with a comrade, and we surprisingly bumped into two other chars, roleplaying in the wilderness. This happens to me quite often, I never see the need to search long.
I haven't had this experience yet, but my hours of play are wildly different then most :/

I'm glad when I see posts like "I ran into people today and we RP'd and it was really fun". Thats part of the reason I tried again to begin with.
If at difficult times due to timezones little people are ig, and maybe the three that are, two of them want to craft, that can be frustrating, but it is natural. This is not some highly advertised game like, say, LoL, and it consumes much more time and also a special kind of gamer. Illarion gamers are pretty special, and we're surely not Legion. ;)
Theres not anything special about illarion gamers except that some of them are ace at roleplaying, which though special, doesn't make them unique. What makes illarion unique is that its an open server roleplaying game with enforced roleplay and people that try to get others into roleplaying. For the past eight years, its been getting dumbed down from that, to a point where the quality of EVERYTHING is suffering.

For example, most of the players from the old client, or indeed, most of the 'old' players from the past eight years, stay in Cadomyr, where the standard of RP is incredibly high.

Runewick is okay and Galmair is....well, yeah.
Some time ago, it was in a German thread like this, I believe, I wrote that people also don't go to a Party and yell "Entertain me!". To a part, you're responsible for that yourself. The snacks provided, the music played, that might rise or lower your mood, but the company or your general attitude can make up for that, or the other way round. There is never a perfect moment.
This is true, but when you can't find the party, or the party doesn't want you, there is no party.
I kind of understand you, since I had trouble letting the 'old times' go as well, and probably tried to copy them, which didn't work. Past is the past, I kinda got a book ingame closing with the lines "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened" to say my personal Goodbye to good ol' Gobaith (or was it Gobiath? omg), since I totally missed its destruction. But it is gone now, maybe it went down a little rough, but it didn't destroy the game's potential with it.
I don't want to relive past times. I did once, but thats silly. I want the game to grow into the future using lessons learned from its past. This "New players come when we say so" and "Screw you, we're developers developing" attitude here is a problem the last long time. Overmoderation was a problem, but then they just made friends with established trolls in the community and let almost anything fly until someone pokes an eye out. Its not a very good community that won't draw alot of people, and this might just be an opinion, but like I said, this is a very educated opinion from someone whose been here.
PS: Just two more cents, 1. on Teambuilding, you build your team by people you want to work with, everything else is bound to horribly fail, I doubt Nitram wanted to sound harmful when he explained that, 2., please make it stop raining in the desert all the time at some point. ;)
When a developer goes out of his way to rub in how undemocratic the community is and how he directly wants to kill it, its very difficult to determine if not wanting to sound harmful.
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Jupiter
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Jupiter »

I wanted to post an answer. Actually, I already wrote it. But I have resoncidered it.

I just want to say: The devs are very friendly and helpful guys. I had no experience at all when I started to redo the alchemy system. But there was always someone there to help me with my questions. And, of course, do the players opinion matters. Whenever somone has something to say about my work, I answer their PMs or chat with them in IRC. And if you know how to behave and how to communicate in a proper way, the others will also. So stop acting like a small child, Dovakin, and just enjoy the game.

Love, peace, freedom and all the best in the world to all of you! Yes, even you, Zot.
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pharse
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by pharse »

"Screw you, we're developers developing" attitude here is a problem
Whoa, that's just wrong. I recommend to mind your own advices:
Read. Consider. Think.
Apparantly you either have no idea or you ignore the staff's effort to include willing players into the developing process.
Maybe you just misunderstand the "We get things done"-attitude of the staff, which is necessary in any team that wants to, well, get things done. You pop up here and present your ultimate solution, whis is very biased to be honest. Be assured that all decisions about the basic concept, the "vision of Illarion", were discussed, considered wisely for the best of the whole of Illarion and not only for a small player niche. If you think that this niche is actually the main part of the player base and the game should be pushed in a completely different direction, then I'm afraid I have to say: you're too late. You should have helped the staff some years earlier.
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Cain Freemont
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Cain Freemont »

A few years ago I would have been all over this thread, diving headlong into the argument on one side or the other. But I really think this thread is getting a bit too personal on both sides. There are horn-locking ideals being displayed here, but it doesn't really need to be that way. I'd like to see this thread continue as an open dialogue since I don't believe there was any other intention beside that.

In the interest of thread relevance and unbiased discussion, I would like to ask about something Nitram said in particular because I thought it merited more discussion.
Nitram wrote:There are no people coming because WE do not want them to. They don't come because we don't promote Illarion in any way right now. We'll start doing so once the game is in a playable state. We'll talk about this topic again then. :wink:
I am really interested in knowing why this is so. Wouldn't actively promoting a game without any pretenses about how developed/undeveloped it is be more encouraging to the kinds of people we actually want? With fresh eyes, you may find more people capable of helping the game develop both technically and in other areas (community-building, in-game event coordinating, really the sky is the limit here when you have healthy levels of growth). I am interested to know your opinion about keeping the playerbase as it is rather than actively seeking to expand it. If you don't want to speak of that here, you can PM me instead when you have time (or not at all, I suppose), but I am interested first and foremost in open discussion about these kinds of issues.
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Dovakin Ken Kapsalot »

pharse wrote:
"Screw you, we're developers developing" attitude here is a problem
Whoa, that's just wrong. I recommend to mind your own advices:
Tell me where I went wrong. Its hard to ignore "The staff choses people they want" and "illarion is not a democracy" and "If it was up to me, I'd kill the forums" and "Stop whining with your perfectly legitimate concerns"
Read. Consider. Think.
Apparantly you either have no idea or you ignore the staff's effort to include willing players into the developing process.
Maybe you just misunderstand the "We get things done"-attitude of the staff, which is necessary in any team that wants to, well, get things done. You pop up here and present your ultimate solution, whis is very biased to be honest. Be assured that all decisions about the basic concept, the "vision of Illarion", were discussed, considered wisely for the best of the whole of Illarion and not only for a small player niche. If you think that this niche is actually the main part of the player base and the game should be pushed in a completely different direction, then I'm afraid I have to say: you're too late. You should have helped the staff some years earlier.
What efforts? Would Nitrams response or Achaes response make you jump up and say "LETS DO THINGS IMMEDIATELY?"

I posted some opinions, which were counter-opinioned by both Sammy and Tyan, and expanded on by Qeewee. The coloured names here basically say "You're worthless and biased and don't matter" and not one poses a response to the arguments, except that my opinion doesn't matter.

Does that scream a community willing to work together? Does that make me think the developers care about the game? Hint; It doesn't.

And you know what? I would have loved to help the original staff, much earlier. I would have loved to go to their university and worked on this project back then. I think that would have been really cool, because most of them were really cool people. What happened to them Pharse? Most of them packed up and jumped ship and went on with their lives because *they* didn't want to deal with it anymore.

That's pretty sad, when you think about it.
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Miriam
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Miriam »

@:Dovakin Ken Kapsalot
This is an answer to the post you wrote at 5:23 pm. There already have been other added*. I'll ignore them in this post.
Edit: Because i wasn't fast enought writing a response.


Reading you last post made me feel like I should post here.

While I agree with you, that the VBU has 'not so nice and disireabel' side effects regarding the rp I do not share your thought about the devs.

On the VBU:
One problem is that Illarion is considered some kind of mix between mmorpg and roleplay chat. The gamers and the roleplayer want diffrent things. And maybe the tendency goes more towards the gaming aspects now... But I belive this will change one day.
I belive thast it's hard to encourage roleplaying throug an game engine, but still I'll think of ways to do so. (If anyone has an idea, please let me know. :D )

On closing the Forum:
That Nitram want to shut down the forums does not mean all of the staff want to, right? Communication is key aspect of roleplaying, and even Nitran knows this. ;)

On Balancing
Its hard to contribute to roleplaying when someone wants to play a non-specific combat character.
Agreed. I play a pupeteer and a little elven child. It works, but it's not that easy. On the other hand creativity will always get the engine to it's limits and beat it.

On useless NPC:
If you find one, please report so it to mantis can be fixed.

On helping the Devs:
I've already tried that. Now I can't try that, because who is going to accept me as any kind of help? According to Nitram, they only select people they want to help, not just people who can.
I don't have time to script anything, and can't work in an elitist enviroment that cares nothing about the people its working for

I do not share this opinion at all.
Maybe that Nitrams answer sounded rude towards you, but I think it's a misunderstanding. I'm sure no one wants to exclude someone willing to help.
How I got to help: There were post in the forum that asked for help post-VBU about a year ago. That's when I said I'd like to help. I was given some NPCs to translate to english. Of couse the important parts about Gobaith beeing destroyed were not shown to me at first. Later on I was given acces to the testserver and all the scripts, and I felt quite proud of it, because I realised that not giving up on something, but continue working can lead to a good result.
In the illarion-vbu IRC channel the people working on the VBU were alwasy very helpfull and patient to tell me how to things. And I was very happy, because working in a team is fun if you feel like your doing usefull stuff. The best thing was the feeling like I could always ask for help, and i often had to ask how to upload the scripts for the testserver and such.
Honestly, I had some doupts about how the VBU would turn out. And I feard that it would be making Illarion loose it's speacial magic it had to me before VBU. But I felt like throwing this into the other people faces just wasn't right like saying: „Hey, that's a nice try and you've been working on this for 3 years, but you failed.“ Would you like to hear that? Would I? No. So I might have mentioned some points here and there as a comproise thinking "Trying to slove what's left of it".
For a game that's just been a playground for 12 peoples, theres been no improvement in playerbase in 8 years. If illarions BEST interests were at heart don't you think the situation would be better?
And the Devs do not make choises like Nargunfollowers by throwing dices, they try to consider all aspects and choose the thing they consider right for illarion. And if things do not turn out as planned I'm sure they will be reconsidering.

All in all I think Post-VBU development is like before the VBU, there are bugs that needs to be fixed and a magicsystem to be set up and lots of things to do.

On beeing left out:
nobody is important except whom the management decides is important.
That's also not true. Feedback and construtive critisism is always neede to improve something, as well as people willing to spend their time and energy to make things work better. You can always write request for a feature in Mantis (the more details the better). It may sound unconvient not t obe able to write them in the forum anymore, but in mantis they can be handled/orgnised way easier.

All of this is not about THE players again THE devs.
In my own opinion, if Illarion shall improve we all should be working together, and very importantly we should not forget that there are persons (humans) sitting behind a PC-screen.
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by pharse »

Dovakin Ken Kapsalot wrote:And you know what? I would have loved to help the original staff, much earlier. I would have loved to go to their university and worked on this project back then. I think that would have been really cool, because most of them were really cool people. What happened to them Pharse? Most of them packed up and jumped ship and went on with their lives because *they* didn't want to deal with it anymore.

That's pretty sad, when you think about it.
I don't think that this ends in anything constructive, so I'm out. Just want to say to this last paragraph: I think it is pretty amazing that they went on with their lives and I'm not sure that I or you or anyone here knows why those first devs (actually don't know exactly who you are talking about) stopped working on Illarion. In general it's cool to go on and do even something completely different and new in life.
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Dovakin Ken Kapsalot »

Miriam wrote:
On the VBU:
One problem is that Illarion is considered some kind of mix between mmorpg and roleplay chat. The gamers and the roleplayer want diffrent things. And maybe the tendency goes more towards the gaming aspects now... But I belive this will change one day.
I belive thast it's hard to encourage roleplaying throug an game engine, but still I'll think of ways to do so. (If anyone has an idea, please let me know. :D )
It can't compete in the mmo market, not even in a niche of the mmo market, In the condition as it has been, for the past decade, VBU's fancyness isn't going to fix that, ever. It doesn't matter how much 'game' you put into this game, its not competitive.
On closing the Forum:
That Nitram want to shut down the forums does not mean all of the staff want to, right? Communication is key aspect of roleplaying, and even Nitran knows this. ;)
Am I the only one the least bit worried that someone with the amount of pull that Nitram has saying what he did can do so completely unchallenged by his peers?
On Balancing
Its hard to contribute to roleplaying when someone wants to play a non-specific combat character.
Agreed. I play a pupeteer and a little elven child. It works, but it's not that easy. On the other hand creativity will always get the engine to it's limits and beat it.
But something in the meantime between that would be great. There was a time when I did contribute, for several months, in a GM supported player quest group. What happened to that?
On useless NPC:
If you find one, please report so it to mantis can be fixed.
I'm not sure I'll be playing again for some time, but if/when I do, I'll keep it in mind.
On helping the Devs:
I've already tried that. Now I can't try that, because who is going to accept me as any kind of help? According to Nitram, they only select people they want to help, not just people who can.
I don't have time to script anything, and can't work in an elitist enviroment that cares nothing about the people its working for

I do not share this opinion at all.
Maybe that Nitrams answer sounded rude towards you, but I think it's a misunderstanding. I'm sure no one wants to exclude someone willing to help.
My point is twofold though. Nobody also approaches those they think could be helpful. People would be willing to help more if someone came up to them and said "Hey your pretty good in the community, do you want to help with being a community manager" or "hey I saw this thread of yours and thats a skill we could appreciate" instead Nitram maked it sound like people need to be on a specific schedule with a specific frame of mind and be liked by the developers specifically in order to even be considered. Which although comradery can be good in teamwork, the main part of teamwork is working together as a team, and even if you don't 'like' each other, you can still work 'WITH' each other on different aspects of the game and the sharing of ideas.
How I got to help: There were post in the forum that asked for help post-VBU about a year ago. That's when I said I'd like to help. I was given some NPCs to translate to english. Of couse the important parts about Gobaith beeing destroyed were not shown to me at first. Later on I was given acces to the testserver and all the scripts, and I felt quite proud of it, because I realised that not giving up on something, but continue working can lead to a good result.
In the illarion-vbu IRC channel the people working on the VBU were alwasy very helpfull and patient to tell me how to things. And I was very happy, because working in a team is fun if you feel like your doing usefull stuff. The best thing was the feeling like I could always ask for help, and i often had to ask how to upload the scripts for the testserver and such.
Honestly, I had some doupts about how the VBU would turn out. And I feard that it would be making Illarion loose it's speacial magic it had to me before VBU. But I felt like throwing this into the other people faces just wasn't right like saying: „Hey, that's a nice try and you've been working on this for 3 years, but you failed.“ Would you like to hear that? Would I? No. So I might have mentioned some points here and there as a comproise thinking "Trying to slove what's left of it".
Its not always good to hear "This failed" but look at the facts, in eight years. No improvement. Fancy VBU, no improvement. The game has *NOT* progressed. Its always been promised, but never delivered. Thats an undeniable fact. There is a tiny playerbase and a development team here unwilling to expand it until the game is 'done' or something, and that makes entirely no sense. Neither did blowing up the island, neither did deleting half the history of it, neither did going against obvious established lore geography with the VBU, nothing in the past while made developmental sense in a manner that correlates to trying to improve.

Maybe theres some grand plan for improvement, but its not being shared.
For a game that's just been a playground for 12 peoples, theres been no improvement in playerbase in 8 years. If illarions BEST interests were at heart don't you think the situation would be better?
And the Devs do not make choises like Nargunfollowers by throwing dices, they try to consider all aspects and choose the thing they consider right for illarion. And if things do not turn out as planned I'm sure they will be reconsidering.
They need to pay attention to their surroundings. I don't want to come back and say "The game sucks" anymore then they want to hear it. But its hard to accept and move foreward when you have posts like Nitrams and Achaes which just do not help, at all, with reasoning.
All in all I think Post-VBU development is like before the VBU, there are bugs that needs to be fixed and a magicsystem to be set up and lots of things to do.
So nothings changed.
On beeing left out:
nobody is important except whom the management decides is important.
That's also not true. Feedback and construtive critisism is always neede to improve something, as well as people willing to spend their time and energy to make things work better. You can always write request for a feature in Mantis (the more details the better). It may sound unconvient not t obe able to write them in the forum anymore, but in mantis they can be handled/orgnised way easier.
The current developers have been mostly here for the past five or six years, some a couple more, some a couple less, but one thing is consistent in their choices; "We don't WANT players until <___________>" and often a disregard to posts like these from players who are concerned and voice concerns about the game.

I cant script npc's, I can't contribute much, I might can be a quest char between the hours of 1am and 4am in my timezone. Thats not a heck of a contribution, but its quite literally the only one I can offer, besides observations about the game. But if simple opinions and observations are only going to end with "help or shutup" or something like that, thats not open discussion. Thats not a fair bias in favour of the community.
All of this is not about THE players again THE devs.
In my own opinion, if Illarion shall improve we all should be working together, and very importantly we should not forget that there are persons (humans) sitting behind a PC-screen.
This. A million times this. Thank you for your post.


Edit: I'm going to step aside for a while and let this continue without my specific input.
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rakust dorenstkzul
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by rakust dorenstkzul »

rakust dorenstkzul wrote:
rakust dorenstkzul wrote:I got banned for a year for poking fun at Aegohl's drawing.
Could someone address this?
Guys this isn't a joke.
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PurpleMonkeys
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by PurpleMonkeys »

rakust dorenstkzul wrote:
rakust dorenstkzul wrote:
rakust dorenstkzul wrote:I got banned for a year for poking fun at Aegohl's drawing.
Could someone address this?
Guys this isn't a joke.
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Miriam
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Re: The State of Illarion from a crotchety old player. Again

Post by Miriam »

All in all I think Post-VBU development is like before the VBU, there are bugs that needs to be fixed and a magicsystem to be set up and lots of things to do.
So nothings changed.
It's meant in a positive way, like a challenge: "Hey there will be always something to work on, something left to improve." :D
(or something to complain about...) :wink:
I cant script npc's
I couldn't either. It's really simple, if you use the easy NPC-Editor.

Code: Select all

english, "Hello" ->  "Greetings"
This makes an NPC respond to "Hello" by saying "Greetings".
That's basically all the magic about scripting NPCs with the easy NPC-Editor. It's really not hard to learn, thoug it takes time to write all the NPC's responses.
There may be some old post in the forum where Estralis explains how NPCs can be written, I think.

There are others ways of helping:
- making screenshots for promotion or for the homepage.
- writing ingame content like books.

I guess there's more I just can't think of it... ^^"
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