Current Game Thoughts

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Velisai
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Velisai »

Hew Keenaxe wrote:If there isn't anyone around to talk to the only way to reduce the skill cap is to run around. Can't take any action that relates to a skill unless you are already maxed in it. So when I reach my gain for the time being, I have to run around.
There is no cap anymore. You do not have to stop powergaming when nobody is around to RP with. And if you really want to idle, you can still do so as long as you move your char one step every couple minutes. Before the VBU, you couldn't even use skills you have already maxed if you wanted to cool down, so your choices were to either find RP, idle or log off. Now it is find RP, idle, log off, continue to grind or do something you gain no skill from. There are more choices. How is this any worse than a hard cap like we used to have?

Jen wrote:I can't see us going back to Trolls Bane times and I don't think we should either, but if something doesn't work, we should try something else and see what sticks.
Why not? Troll's Bane did work for at least half the player base for all those years. I'm not saying it has to be exactly the same again, but the basic concept is sound. If I'm wrong here, I'd sure like to hear some arguments against a one big central town approach as a start, with the possibility to build more towns when the playercount allows it.

Jen wrote:Of course we are all nostalgic about the old times (and while doing so we forget all the problems we used to have back then too, and all the OOC fights we used to get into),... but to say that Illarion isn't Illarion anymore, is nonsense. If it's not Illarion anymore, then that's because you are not ingame to make it just as awesome as it used to be back then.
The occasional ooc drama is a price I'd pay any day for the excitement I used to have on our wild, dangerous Gobaith.
It was great fun to fail terribly at trying to befriend the newly appointed governor, get jailed without trial just because of his paranoia, escape after half an ig year and stir up a rebellion.
It was even more fun to accidentially find your own victim you just gave a viking funeral, alive on Vanima and kidnap her again right from under the Elves' noses to give her a Hellbriar funeral and by some freak chance actually get away with it.
These are just two examples of events that count among my favorite Illa moments. Both happened completely spontaneously without GM involvement. The way things are today, both wouldn't be even remotely possible.

There is also the problem of losing the history and cultural diversity we used to have. Now if you are a Norodaj, it just means you probably like axes and don't read very well. How is anyone supposed to play a proper barbarian if you are forced to live in one of three pretty civilized towns that aren't even all that different? Where is an elf and mage hater supposed to go? Where is a xenophobe Albarian who despises women supposed to live? Even an organization like the Temple once used to be is impossible to play these days. Sure you could spend a year carefully recruiting members, staying hidden from authorities, but as soon as you actually break some laws that go beyond public urination, you will be teleported to the prison mine, banned, branded forever and possibly executed. Game over. So I have to agree, it is not the Illa I once got hopelessly addicted to anymore, but it could be again and might even be better than that. I still have hope, because it isn't going all downhill. There have been improvements and some things got screwed up, which is to be expected with a complete redesign of a game. I also know that our devs are awesome people, who really want Illa to be a great game. The important thing now is to carefully analyze what is not working well, so we can learn from the mistakes that have been made. Sugarcoating the situation may feel good for a moment, but if we continue to do it, sooner or later Illa will be dead.
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Nitram
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Nitram »

The entire thing about the GMs leader is noted and correct.

The GM leader characters were never intended as actual constantly played characters. For that reason they are "normally" a NPC. The original intention was to use them for major events and GM driven quests. Other then that they were supposed to be basically the GM connection for the player leaders to get GM support for the town as needed. Like the master builder we had before the VBU.
As its not the state is bad for everyone. The players because... well you said it. And for the GMs because they are busy answering some PMs send to the accounts of the leader characters that address the daily business. I think the state that was actually intended by the staff before (but not properly put in place) is a lot closer to what you want.

Now we just need to find a way to make this happen.

Nitram
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Mephistopheles
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Mephistopheles »

Jen wrote:I just thought that instead of just pointing out what's not working, it might be a good idea to also add some suggestions, how to make it work instead :D


NPC/GM Rulership:

1. I can't see us going back to Trolls Bane times and I don't think we should either, but if something doesn't work, we should try something else and see what sticks. Instead of removing NPC/GM rulership entirely, how about we at least take smaller steps into that direction and see what happens. First thing, I find, would be try and have the GMs and their NPC rulers step back a little and hand more responsibilities to the players: Officials (however they are going to be elected) with actual power to make decisions, without having run every single thing past the city leader.

1a.) The NPC leader should not be involved in every single minor event in the town. If there is a criminal, for example, he should be sentenced by a player with the appropriate position, not by the npc town leader.
1b.) Remove the NPC guards and get players to play guards again themselves. So what if the occasional monster runs into town? Let players work together to remove it. It's not like being sent to the cross has actually any negative effects other than damaging your equipment.
1c.) Cadomyr: Get rid of the "no outlaw allowed in town" script. If that's a thing, let players enforce it themselves instead of a script.
1d.) Let it be clear that however these characters were established into these positions (appointed by the town leader for example), they can still be removed/overthrown with appropriate actions.

2. GMs need to plot with each other.
I feel at the moment GMs are only looking after their own sheep and don't really care what's going on in the other cities. If you want conflict between the cities, you could slowly stir things into those directions. I'm not saying: Start a war. I'm saying: Get together and set small things into motion that might inspire players to start a war. Let them be suspicious of each other. The Queen is holding an audience? Great, Galmair, you have spies, don't you? Go and send one to the meeting and then let's see what the players make out of it. But it has to start with you guys, talking and conspiring with each other, rather than every city doing their own thing.

Just as an example: A long while ago the queen was bitching in on of her audiences about how Runewick did not participate in the Games. This is great stuff. Rumours spread and eventually that information even made it back to the Archmage himself and inspired a player (*cough* yes, it was me) to try and initiate a player quest/event so that the peace can be kept between the cities (which has not so far come to fruition, because Mas happened.). Minor things like this could really set off things in an interesting direction, if only you give us something to work with <3


So what about that weekly market:

Estralis mentioned this in a post a while ago, when we are discussing how to get players to meet up for RP. So why is there no weekly market yet? Zeph mentioned to me that there was something in planning, something with NPCs, and when I heard that, I immediately shook my head. Why are we overcomplicating things? Why do we need NPC merchants at an event that's meant to get players together and roleplay and trade? Big No-no!
All you GMs need to do is set up a weekly quest in the quest planner announcing the market times at the Neck Hemptie Inn. That's it. No need for decorations, no need for NPCs. The rest is up to the players to grab their stuff and go there and play with each other. Pretty, pretty, pretty please? *big puppy eyes*


And I just want to mention:
Of course we are all nostalgic about the old times (and while doing so we forget all the problems we used to have back then too, and all the OOC fights we used to get into),... but to say that Illarion isn't Illarion anymore, is nonsense. If it's not Illarion anymore, then that's because you are not ingame to make it just as awesome as it used to be back then.
Illarion is great, it was back then, and it is now. We might be struggling a little to get things running smoothly, but the quality of roleplay ingame has never been better. I've gotten to know so many new players since I started playing again and I love every single one of them to bits. I have no doubt that we will get over this dry spell if we experiment a little and if people keep going ingame to add their own unique flavour to it. This is still *our* Illarion, the one that we used to love, and still do.
yay somebody saying he same things as me almost to the letter, seeing all these posts makes me think I'm not insane for saying these same things over and over for such a long period. It's just sad it took this long for something like this to happen. Only when we start to hit rock bottom do we really put effort into changing it seems. Now that we've said our piece (most of which is quite redundant simply agreeing with each other on so many good points) it's up to the staff. I'm sure we're all eager to see these changes but now we need to step back a bit, or help if you have the capacity to do so, I myself am a computer and mathematics retard so scripting and fancy deving isn't my style.
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Achae Eanstray
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Achae Eanstray »

Nitram wrote: Now we just need to find a way to make this happen.

Nitram
A couple of ideas anyway:
First thing is:
....try and have the GMs and their NPC rulers step back a little and hand more responsibilities to the players: Officials (however they are going to be elected) with actual power to make decisions, without having run every single thing past the city leader.
This is already happening in Galmair and has been gradually increased with more power to the chancellors, the Don not near as noticeable. If you notice in the US evening time the town had quite a few players. The question is.. is this enough?

No outlaw allowed in towns simply discourages what can be some great roleplay.. allowing players to be guards again also pushes for player independence. I would also remove the charge to other town workshops.. allow people to go from town to town and RP there without having to pay an exorbitant fee (to some a gold is a lot.. others not).
This also encourages movement from town to town. Quests not per town but by GM's for the entire area would be great and not have them "assigned" to one town or another.

Just a couple of thoughts added.. The VBU is a work of art considering no graphic could be added in the previous "Gobaith" game and there was basically a dead end of possibilities. The VBU has great potential for an even better game and I hope like Drathe to see it as a niche game for those that love to roleplay.. there is no other like it and I wouldn't wish to make it like the other games.
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Mephistopheles
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Mephistopheles »

Bleh just take out npc guards already :D let Hew harass Galmairian's!

preventing any char from entering a town is the dumbest idea, the towns were designed as roleplay epicenters and the wilderness giving no support.(which is dumb too, what of shady groups such as bandits and cultists that work outside of towns? We have all these npc's but maybe we should throw a shady merchant out there who buys and sells stolen goods or whatever) So lets bar people from roleplaying in the centers for roleplay in a roleplay game. (get it? :lol: )

Instead of making it so harsh for outlaw base chars why not give them a little here and there (like a repair npc). These characters are important to the game because it provides a reason to freakin play, One player who recently left illarion for a Uo shard told me "I'm just sick of this Flowery roleplay where everyone gets along and even those who don't are too afraid to fight out the differences." Well that person is off on some Uo shard where there's all kind of lovely char conflict every night.
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Hew Keenaxe
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Hew Keenaxe »

Mephistopheles wrote:Bleh just take out npc guards already :D let Hew harass Galmairian's!

preventing any char from entering a town is the dumbest idea, the towns were designed as roleplay epicenters and the wilderness giving no support.(which is dumb too, what of shady groups such as bandits and cultists that work outside of towns? We have all these npc's but maybe we should throw a shady merchant out there who buys and sells stolen goods or whatever) So lets bar people from roleplaying in the centers for roleplay in a roleplay game. (get it? :lol: )

Instead of making it so harsh for outlaw base chars why not give them a little here and there (like a repair npc). These characters are important to the game because it provides a reason to freakin play, One player who recently left illarion for a Uo shard told me "I'm just sick of this Flowery roleplay where everyone gets along and even those who don't are too afraid to fight out the differences." Well that person is off on some Uo shard where there's all kind of lovely char conflict every night.
:D :D :lol:
You know this has my support.
Not all RP opportunities need to be based in conflict to be rewarding, but some is certainly fun.
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Mephistopheles
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Mephistopheles »

Very true Hew, but conflict is one thing we are sorely lacking right nows :(

Casual rp is easy to come by
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Alytys Lamar
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Alytys Lamar »

I agree - conflicts making the game-play very exciting. We need conflicts, we need argues - we need people who have the courage to make her own secret plots :twisted:

But I tell you this UO Shards you talked about are pure ADULT games ( I have some experience with it :P ) Illarion's law and order can't offer a RP like this.
However I remember in old Illa ( especially with my cynical cold Aly ) we had a lot of conflicts and we did play it out. Even the split between couples caused in bloodshed :lol:
But also we had a lot of OOC flame wars about - a reason why I did put first my Druid Yridia out of game and later stopped completely. I am not really want this back - tbh.
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GolfLima
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by GolfLima »

* is there a chance that we get a GERMAN summary of the discussion
* thanks in advance
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Katharina Brightrim
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Katharina Brightrim »

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Last edited by Katharina Brightrim on Tue Jan 16, 2018 8:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Kugar
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Kugar »

Open the flood gates, gms, open them flood gates... Let the chaos begin. Player run towns, player guards. Do you guys need me to save you from yourselves and have Jefferson start a war again? We took care of that Salk in Trollsbane once, we can do it again... 8)
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Estralis Seborian
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Estralis Seborian »

Hello everyone,
and thank you for the valuable feedback! You can be sure it won't faint unheard and we, the team, are as concerned as you about the state of the game. We will gladly listen to your ideas and conceptions, make sure you also join the Illarion chat from time to time to discuss matters like this. I'd like to address some more or less technical aspects, Nitram said it all about the GMs.
1c.) Cadomyr: Get rid of the "no outlaw allowed in town" script. If that's a thing, let players enforce it themselves instead of a script.
The script itself is just a tool. The GMs can set the guard behaviour for each faction. So, the GMs can allow outlaws in the town or not, same holds for Galmairians ;-). If more power gets transferred to player characters, players can change the guard behaviour, too. This tool was designed for wars and embargos, I think it is useful if used the right way.
So what about that weekly market
Since that was my idea, I still think it is a good idea :-P. I promised the GMs a scheduled script (no NPCs) because they did not want to host a re-occurring event on a weekly base. I lack the time to script this, though. Sadly, not even one event of this type was ever tried.
Also, to expand on Evie's point, crafting used to take a lot longer than it does now, which was actually a good thing.
The crafting times will be raised, this is covered by http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=9873
Last edited by Estralis Seborian on Wed Jul 16, 2014 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jen
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Jen »

Since that was my idea, I still think it is a good idea :-P. I promised the GMs a scheduled script (no NPCs) because they did not want to host a re-occurring event on a weekly base. I lack the time to script this, though. Sadly, not even one event of this time was ever tried.
I think I'll just put this in the quest planer as a player quest, theoretically no GM involvement is needed in an event like that at all anyway :)
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Hew Keenaxe
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Hew Keenaxe »

Alytys Lamar wrote:Well - let see - there is ( in my opinion) a simple solution to find RP if players online who are willing to play.

Instead of showing only the membership of a town show the real place they are. To avoid revealing shady/evil characters just add the number of players.

Wilderness = 1
Galmair = 2
Cadomyr = 4
Hemptie = 3
Runewick = 1
I like this. I'm much more interested in where players are at than what town they call home. Also, I play on full screen so looking at the online list requires logging out. Maybe this list could be made viewable by a drop down list in-game.
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Rincewind »

I like what Alytys propsed as well.

I know NPCs can have diffrent coodinates based on day time. So what about this: Once a week all trader NPCs move to the Nectie Inn, and trade beyond town borders. ?

cheers Rince
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Sammy Goldlieb
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Sammy Goldlieb »

Whats about getting one trader that sells special good, travelling around to a random location on the main map? Would make players have more fun exploring the map :)
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Alytys Lamar
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Alytys Lamar »

GolfLima wrote:* is there a chance that we get a GERMAN summary of the discussion
* thanks in advance
with your rather harsh behavior in another thread you showed that you have really nice english knowledge.
Instead of bickering and talking about *forced to RP* give us ( if you like in german for sure ) your thoughts of improve and help Illa

* thanks in advance
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by GolfLima »

Alytys Lamar wrote:with your rather harsh behavior in another thread you showed that you have really nice english knowledge.
* may be this harshness is my disability to express me in the right way (..due to lack of knowledge and words )
* and if i would totally understand all the post i would not ask for a german summary or translation
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Kamilar
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Kamilar »

Just weighing in as a former very active player if not an old-timer...

For myself, the VBU unfortunately coincided with the death of my old computer and the replacement has never been terribly useful for gaming. I can't walk smoothly in the post-VBU world and lag like crazy. I also couldn't get into the game at all in my last attempt a few weeks ago (though Nitram assures me that has been corrected if I try again.) So those are the technical problems that keep me away. I'm also not really a fan of the UO-style RP chat window. I didn't like UO when I tried it on a UO shard and I surely didn't want it replicated here (since we're airing our complaints.) For me the magical part of Illarion was standing in a group of identical, unmoving avatars with all the action taking place in the text. Magical.

The few times I've managed to get in game and move more than a few steps I found mostly obstacles. Yes, a few obstacles in a game are good but for me the obstacles were too many and too difficult. It's hard enough to simply walk around then I find every time I log in my character gets charged a tax, I go to another town to explore and figure things out and the 3 players online happen to be there and run my character out with too little RP for me as the player to totally understand what's happening (okay that only happened once but it resulted in me logging out and never logging in again - probably not a good outcome in a game with so few players.) There's also the burden of learning an entirely new game set up and interface which doesn't really interest me when faced with the other obstacles.

Illarion was always a time-intensive game with a great divide between hard-core and casual gamers. For the moment I'm in the casual category and I don't see that changing soon. In Gobaith Illarion I was familiar enough with the game to hop in casually from time to time. In the post-VBU world I haven't got a clue what I'm doing, no time to spend figuring it out and it's just too much work to be fun.

So those are the complaints. As a player with little VBU experience, here are the suggestions...

Firstly I'd totally support the suggestion others have made here of making this a one-town game with a limited wilderness. Getting the RP all in one place would lure me back in.

I would keep the single town GM led. Down the line with RP and player base blossoming, add player controlled towns. I agree with other players comments on the benefits of player led towns but I also see the reason to make it GM led at least for the moment.

Generate some benefit for players to establish guilds. Maybe a room of their own or some perk for the leader to share with the guild members (or hoard :wink: ) I don't know enough about the post-VBU world to recommend a specific reward. I can say that some of the best RP storylines I've been involved in centered around conflict between guilds or factions. At the end of Gobaith, my character was commanded to infiltrate Trollsbane (I forget why but the RP was awesome) and for a long time she was hiding and plotting with her friend in Varshikar. None of that had anything to do with official town politics, just character/guild conflict. Support that somehow.

The updates to the graphic capabilities are immense and wonderful. I mean no slight to the team with my remarks. Mostly I'm just wistful about the chat window limitation in the post-VBU game. If there is one thing that I would change, it would be that. The text capacity in the old system was just so great. That's one area that absolutely didn't need improvement and is a little worse for the change.

If it's not obvious, I care about Illarion and hope the best for its future. Hopefully I'll get over my obstacles and enjoy it again. :D
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Velisai
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Velisai »

Welcome back!

It might help if you would elaborate what changes to the chat window you don't like exactly. Maybe my memory of the old one is fading, but I can't think of anything that has changed there, except for the now missing speech mode button.
Same goes for the obstacles. What were the concrete situations you found yourself stuck in? What could be changed to make learning the ropes easier? It is really interesting to read what problems people run into when they log in for the first time after VBU or ever. The ideal game should be easy to get into and offer some complexity for long term motivation, which is not an easy thing to accomplish. Any feedback here can help a lot, as most of us who are still playing aren't able to look at the game through the newbie goggles anymore.

As for having no clue what you are doing, that is simply because you haven't been around after the VBU. The game has become a lot less complicated actually and if you give it a try, I'm sure you will get used to the mechanics very soon. Hope to see you invading space in game again.
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Mephistopheles
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Mephistopheles »

All this talk of reducing towns I think is just simply not going to work, what we need are the current players to be more interested to log in, and that comes from ig plots, I myself have some interesting things lined up to happen, why not start an interesting plot yourself with a char, or maybe if you are already part of a group or guild try pulling some strings to make something happen. Before talking about new players we need our old ones back. As players we can start by making the game interesting ourselves.
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Ufedhin »

Mephistopheles wrote:All this talk of reducing towns I think is just simply not going to work, what we need are the current players to be more interested to log in, and that comes from ig plots, I myself have some interesting things lined up to happen, why not start an interesting plot yourself with a char, or maybe if you are already part of a group or guild try pulling some strings to make something happen. Before talking about new players we need our old ones back. As players we can start by making the game interesting ourselves.

I tend to agree with this, we had more towns on Gobaith . I cant see the 3 towns being a major negative in any way, we do have teleporters .Due to a really bad economy however, and the huge cost to craft in other towns, and of course no outlaws allowed in some, limits the free flow of characters between them.
I for one dont visit the other towns nearly as often as i did since the crafting cost(penalty) was established, therefore reducing my roleplay chances.
This idea of using the necktie as a centre is an even worse idea ,there is even less things of interest there that what can be found in the town tavens.

The towns, the inn are not the real problem, one i do see however, is on Gobaith for example players could strive for individual goals creating variation . It could be with magic gems and weapons and armours ,individual (emoted outfits) differing fight styles, differing powers in mages ,alchemists ,great food bonuses etc right down to owning there own homes etc etc ....we had less graphics yet we had far more variation .Big plots are great yet as i said its the little individual achivements and goodies that are the bread and butter of our game yet these have taken a hell of a hammering in the name of simplicity which has created a blandness even though we have all these really great graphic's.Can we not use this great new canvass and colours to paint a more indepth experience?
Last edited by Ufedhin on Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jupiter
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Jupiter »

Ufedhin wrote:is on Gobaith for example players could strive for individual goals creating variation .
How is that not possible anymore?
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Ufedhin »

Jupiter wrote:
Ufedhin wrote:is on Gobaith for example players could strive for individual goals creating variation .
How is that not possible anymore?
Its not that it is not possible anymore, its just that a lot of things we had that promote a greater variation have gone, they are missed very much .
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Estralis Seborian
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Estralis Seborian »

While we also realised that some sandboxing features got removed without proper replacement, you should name the features you miss.
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Ufedhin »

Well right this moment i can think of the descriptive hotkey emote i miss , even though we have now got very nice paperdoll effects, to add the special personal touch something like that would be very nice .Oh and heres a few others i like the idea of

Gems having differing abilities. Enduring bonuses for constant good diet. Winter shortage of available fruits, berrries etc maybe even skinny beasts that give much less meat aswell.The emote effects of smoking too much sibanac (i can never forget the time i smoked a heap of it and got the emote "you look around you like a lunatic " it was so unexpected i laughed so hard i hurt.) Doing one for alcohol would also be good have it based on consitution could be a lot of fun,instead of getting after one beer "you have had enough to drink" who wrote that script an AA member ?
Donkeys yes donkeys it was alway a nice sight to find someone wandering along with apack donkey on the way to another town or mine.It would be nice to have reasonable roads of relative safety between towns that these would travel on (only on the roads thus preventing any resource gathering abuse).
And of course languages..........so badly missed by us non human players(im a dwarf in real life :lol: )

This is what springs to mind for the time being, there is others but im too tired at the moment to think of any.
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Velisai
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Velisai »

Ufedhin wrote:I tend to agree with this, we had more towns on Gobaith
Sure we had more settlements, some of which have been converted into monster infested ruins even pre VBU, which barely anyone bitched about, but how many were actually continuosly populated? Only Bane was. Silverbrand, Varshikar, Orc cave, Vanima, Nordmark, Farmer's Union and all the rest have seen some activity from time to time, but they were never neccessary for the game to function like our 3 towns are now and could be populated when it promised some fun to do so. With half the player base spending their time in Bane and at least twice as many active players, there was always someone there and always someone someplace else. I know it would be a major change to reduce the towns to one. We would need to redesign a big part of the map and implement a new magic gem system as the current one is so closely tied to the three towns, but it could be done.

Of course the players should be the driving force behind most of the interesting things happening in game, but that is exactly what this trade reliant magic gem system, the stagnant politics and the static map are highly detrimental to. The magic gem system alone is enough to make embargos, wars between towns and even individual vendettas across town borders almost impossible, because the gems are worth shit unless it is a full set of them. Ironically, it is the fighters who would fight a war or otherwise engage in violence, who are most affected in a negative way by conflict due to the need to trade gems additionally to the usual risk of injury and death. And may I ask, what is the benefit of constantly being forced to trade gems across town borders? All it does is bringing some people together for a quick deal. Is this an essential part of an interesting story? Has any fun roleplay at all resulted directly from gem trade ever since the VBU? We traded gems as long as they have existed, but we were never forced to by the game mechanics and it was a lot more fun, at least for me.

Now, even if we want to keep our current map with the three towns, much could be improved about them. It isn't simply the number of them that is bad for the game, but the entire culture and the fact that they are ruled by untouchable GM characters.

Culture first: Galmair is supposed to be the realm of wealth? Then it should have a huge advantage over the other towns in the crafting department, with more and easier access to resources and tools than the other towns. Cadomyr is supposed to have superior military? Perhaps it should be the only town with an arena and only Cadomyrians should enjoy arena fighting rewards (which should be substantial enough to make C. not the only possible, but clearly the best town for a fighter char). It would be even better if the towns reflected the different cultures we have in the background lore. Neither Norodaj, nor Serinjah, nor Lizards or Orcs really fit in well with any of our towns. If we want a cultural melting pot, it can as well be one of them instead of 3. If we want 3 towns, why not make one of them more barbaric, tribal, uncivilized, so it can house that sort of cultures? There is no place for them on the entire map currently.

GM leadership: This was a mistake that could have been simply avoided. The exact same approach has been tried before and failed like it fails now. Some might remember the Salkamaerian prince taking over Troll's Bane, the months of inactivity in the town itself that followed and the ooc drama about the NPC guards. The prince also had player chars to take care of the day to day issues and it was the player chars who made things interesting during that time, simply because they could be interacted with. The GM went inactive after a couple months never to be seen again and the experiment was finally given up, because it couldn't have been more obvious that while we need GMs to spice things up occasionally, we do not need GM chars anyone barely ever interacts with. That entire period in Illarion history is actually one I remember fondly, but only because many players insisted on staying true to their roles, fighting back and later rebelling if only a little. They created lasting conflict between those who bent to the new ruler and those who chose exile. The difference between now and then is that exile means being an outlaw today, which simply sucks because the administration does everything to discourage it. Back then we could very much enjoy playing out either choice.
Nitram wrote:The GM leader characters were never intended as actual constantly played characters. For that reason they are "normally" a NPC. The original intention was to use them for major events and GM driven quests. Other then that they were supposed to be basically the GM connection for the player leaders to get GM support for the town as needed. Like the master builder we had before the VBU.
As its not the state is bad for everyone. The players because... well you said it. And for the GMs because they are busy answering some PMs send to the accounts of the leader characters that address the daily business. I think the state that was actually intended by the staff before (but not properly put in place) is a lot closer to what you want.

Now we just need to find a way to make this happen.
The easiest way to fix this "bug" is to simply get rid of the NPC leader chars, by allowing for them to be overthrown, killed in some quest or some other way. If you really can't generally trust regular players to play a town leader in a responsible way, this game is already doomed to die or become a runescape clone. The problem is not that the NPC leaders are constantly played, but that they are very sporadically played and the average citizen rarely has a chance to interact with them. They are not needed at all to contact a GM. We do this via forum PM or IRC. There is a reason the current state is not working as intended and that is because a leader is expected to lead. It is only natural that many issues are taken to them directly, as they have the last word in everything. Regular chars in their positions could just as well be used for major events and help GMs out with GM driven quests. That is all only a matter of communication. The problem is that the most important person in town is an NPC 95% of the time and played by 2 or 3 different people otherwise. In WoW, this might be okay, but I got hooked on Illa because it was different from any other so called RPG out there, player driven, immersive and had very strict IC/OOC separation rules.
I don't like NPCs, their lame quests that you do only for the reward, OOC features like the marker stones and highscore lists and all that hard coded town rank business. Before the VBU, it was said repeatedly that NPC quests are only going to be added so newbies have some stuff to do for their first couple days while they learn the game. Now every dungeon is supposed to have a minimum of 4 quests and you have to do the town quests over and over with every new char if you want to get something in return for your tax money. There are more NPCs in game than we have players already! I can tolerate much of this, the town leaders however should really be characters you can interact with outside of town assemblies, characters with a well developed personality and as mortal as any other.

After making several arguments against GM leadership, I'd also like to ask again what positive effects anyone could attribute to GM led towns?
Jen wrote:While I understand why the GMs want NPC controlled cities...
I really don't. I'd like to hear these reasons.
Jen wrote:I can't see us going back to Trolls Bane times and I don't think we should either...
Why not? It was so much fun.
Jen wrote:We all know that Trolls Bane was incredibly chaotic and changed rulership every other day, but no one can argue that it was immense fun.
Exactly, so why change something that has been working so incredibly well for a decade? I can't wrap my head around it.


Estralis Seborian wrote:While we also realised that some sandboxing features got removed without proper replacement, you should name the features you miss.
All that Uffe mentioned, plus naming characters yourself without the need for an #i.
The most important issue here in my opinion however is the rigid state of the in game politics and the static map.
Weather and seasons.
Killing and planting trees.
Setting things on fire.
At least some remote chance that a well established guild can get an own building in neutral territory.
Craftable, non-rotting furniture and decorations you can place in your flat or elsewhere.
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Ufedhin
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Ufedhin »

Things i would like to see brought back into or added to the game.(i see Vel has already written a good deal but i will still add this bit to the forum)
Some are repeat requests ;

1)Winter weather.
2)Winter food shortages as mention earlyer would also be good if lesser amounts of crops could be harvested aswell.
3)Propper day and night cycles not this weird flickering ,diming and brightening.
4)Darkness ; propper darkness in caves ,mines at night etc like on the old island so we can use our wonderful lamps ,torches ,lanterns ,candle holders etc .Darkness creates excitement and fears and the different lighting was greatly appreciated.
5)Weather ; rain ,snow but in the correct amounts not the constant deluges we had early illarion.
6)The ability to alter our landscape after all we are the residents of the land ,we just need to figure out a way that this cant be abused ,but removing it all together was a mistake.
7) Personal emotes that allow greater character definition ie appearance etc.
8 )Amusing involuntary emotes to with excess consumption of alcohol and other substances.
9)Weapons and armour need to be looked at again this level thing is not good as it gives the approx combat level of another character wearing them as well as limiting the choices at the various levels in a very artificial way.
10) Magic gems must be given other properties so non fighters can benifit from them .
11)Gm involvement in towns must be altered so they have less impact on town affairs.
12)Guild colours or at least the ability of a greater range of coloured garments available.
13)Open up more dungeons but these dont have to be all full of death dealing horrors ,some could contain nothing more than a labrinth of pure darkness , rats and musty old libraries full of forgotten lore as they used to on Gobiath (minus rats these little darlings are post VBU)
14) Languages.....
15)The ability to own property, therefore a new set of building guides.
16)Donkeys hard wired to major trade routes between the towns .
17)personal lockable chests (ie i suppose mini depots )
18)...................there is more but this for now .I do want to say one thing ,those of us that remain and still play after years do so because of the great fun we had especially on Gobiath as i see it ,and those who had great fun post vbu was due in a large way to the numbers of players who where from Gobiath still hoping illarion would shape up to the old game.
Those of you who claim we cant roll back to the old ideas of Gobiath need to rethink that, we can and we must in some areas because those ideas where solid good material , it would be foolish in my opinion to throw them out just because they are old .The old game had many pitfalls and hardships yet the challenges ,the roleplaying in the facinating framework of the game is exactly what created the hard core players that refuse to fade away.(imagine the amount of GM and dev involvement we have now in the last years on Gobiath ,all of you GM's and DEV"s are really amazing we the players do greatly appreciate you all)
The new game is much more graphic and visual but it needs some of the old true tested ideas to give it a greater soul.
I would ask those of you whom insist on making the game soft and easy to stop it ,it will ruin what you love i promise you .
"Noobs "i hear is the excuse ,make it easy so the noobs dont leave "what utter rubbish that is " sure give the noobs the information they need to survive and thrive and make sure that stuff works in a fool proof easy manner but dont try to hold their hands in the mines and forests you wont be thanked for it ,and it will lose us players .Dangers hidden and visible ,unknown and known ,challenges ,death ,pain ,triumph ,victory ,fear all this is good stuff and needed to hold on to players and interest more.


Just my opinion .
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Kamilar
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Kamilar »

Alright, I logged in to get my obstacles more concretely described. These criticisms are meant as feedback, not as dev-bashing, so I hope it's taken in the spirit it's meant.

The text box: In the old version, the text box was a separate box below the game screen and was just always active. First of all, in this version the text box is smaller than it was in the old version and it covers a portion of the game screen but can't be moved so it has all the worst parts of UO without the flexibility of moving it or closing it. In this version it also has to be activated every single time and if I forget to activate it, I end up initiating some other command. It's a giant pain in the ass. Is there a setting in options to default it to always on instead of always off? I'd rather have to do a ctrl-B to open my bag for instance than have to activate the chat box every single time. It also lags for me. Just me? Mid typing the text box stops responding and random annoying stuff happens as a result.

Along the same lines, many things require mouse input and I can't see them to click on them if characters or most-annoyingly if NPCs speak. It would be much easier if the NPC speech just showed up in the chat box and not on the screen or if speech bubbles flashed briefly then vanished. Is there a way to select the timing in my options?

Probably not much of an issue for new players just joining, but for older characters joining in post-VBU, there's a pop-up requiring you select how to assign your old dodge and tactics stats in the new system. It's really a difficult decision without trying it out for a while and in the meantime there's no way to make that window close. I spent a lot of time moving that window around until I finally asked someone OOC if I could copy off his test.

Then there's the walking: Oh my God, the walking. It's just agonizing. The character runs around aimlessly with no mouse or keyboard input at all. Once I got my character settled, I was afraid to touch anything on my keyboard. I was punching a guy in the tavern by mistake and couldn't stop it. I have to move my mouse to close the randomly popping up commands I initiate by mistake because of not starting the chat box correctly and with the mouse moving, there goes the character running around again. The walking is really, really, really awful.

So, today I just RP'd and had a tour so all I did was walk and chat. Outside of the quality of the RP which was lovely, the walking and the chatting are from a technical standpoint really painful and hard. I didn't try anything else - no crafting or fighting for example, so no critique of those areas but the two areas I did use are pretty integral to a roleplaying format and they were pretty difficult.
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Katharina Brightrim
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Re: Current Game Thoughts

Post by Katharina Brightrim »

Kamilar wrote:In this version it also has to be activated every single time and if I forget to activate it, I end up initiating some other command. It's a giant pain in the ass. Is there a setting in options to default it to always on instead of always off?
There's a setting, yes.
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