Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

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Uhuru
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Uhuru »

Teflon,
in your second situation, if skill A is maxed, then it would no longer be raising MC and would be lowering MC while being worked. So skill B would probably be learned faster... if I am thinking this through properly. Lower MC usually means faster skilling.

Try starting a new account with all new characters who have to learn everything from scratch. Feel the pain.
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Karrock
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Karrock »

Uhuru wrote:Try starting a new account with all new characters who have to learn everything from scratch. Feel the pain.
What a difference if skilling would be easy or hard. Players who only goal is a get highest levels in every skills are not needed, serious.
Attract such a players is simple. Most modern graphic and lack of rp :) Problem is how to attract valuable players.

I noticed that there existed in past and still exist some players who play only with mechanic. And even Mind Cap system don't stop them.

Just perhaps on page should exist good explanation for newbies how MC works.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Drathe »

Just as a throw away, casual note. Illarion (through its charm and player coaching in game) made, developed and kept around some of the best RP'ers from 'power gamers', 'skill gainers', whatever you want to call them. People/players who didn't even know what roleplaying in 'our' context was.

We expect players now to know how to RP to a standard and that pool is so limited and niche. What made the older player base better and we look upon it as a negative was that is was a mix. Sometimes frustratingly so but it added variety and people/players who discovered RP'ing our way and joined in, learned, and weaned off just hack and slash.
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Estralis Seborian
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Estralis Seborian »

Dear all,
 
let me first state that subjective impressions can’t be argued with. Everyone perceives certain aspects of this game differently so I think it is quite brave to step forward, speaking about feelings and impressions with barely any facts to back them up. Games are not always about numbers but about emotions such as fun!
 
So, had Illarion more than 10 players once? Yes, at a time when we had a much, much more strict skilling system. In that system, you could train around ten minutes before the game told you to stop powergaming. You then had to do nothing skill related for around an hour. If you did not follow this strict pattern, you could work all day long without learning anything at all! So if some players bring up the skill system as something that diminishes player numbers, I have to wonder a bit.
 
If a grudge was developed four, five years ago about skilling in general, I doubt there is anything we really can do today, having an completely different system.
  
I think one severe issue is that players think they understood the system entirely and want to “beat it” by applying their superior tactics. They try to overcome a system that was designed to be not overcome at all. So effort is spent in vain and this frustrates.

One very common misunderstanding seems to be that it is best to max out one skill to be able to skill efficiently. That is like you spend two hours to get into your awesome running outfit, running for ten minutes and wondering that your workout is not effective. The time is better spent running!  
 
The system as it is does not encourage or discourage any style of playing. I can fully understand that this frustrates those who are used to overcome challenges by their actions. Skilling was basically taken out of the list of challenges in this game. You just have to play the game and the skill comes basically on its own. It is indeed true that focussing on one skill makes you learn that skill fastest. But isn't this somehow clear and also desirable? You can become jack of all trades, but don't expect the game to favour you over someone who focusses in this class free game.

@Teflon: To have one MC value for each skill would be a very complex change with the result having nothing in common with the current approach. It would massively encourage players to learn various skills and eliminate any motivation to focus on one skill. In fact, it would punish those who e.g. play a smith because a carpenter-glass blower-mage-fighter-farmer-hobbit would learn much more in total in the same time.
 
Edit: An interesting thread concerning skilling and MC: http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... 94&t=40194
Last edited by Estralis Seborian on Wed Aug 10, 2016 7:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Added link to http://illarion.org/community/forums/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=40194
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Juniper Onyx »

I have played a "carpenter-glass blower-mage-fighter-farmer-hobbit" type character for more than 10 years now (Dusty, Rosie & Bernie Bottoms), and I have to say I like the current skill system.

I don't try to 'beat the system', nor do I try to specialize in one skill for days on end. I like to work on 'farming' one day, and then 'mining' another, and then work on 'smithing' the next. Whatever skill I get I get - who cares? I never get bored with it. This may be 'old-school' but in my opinion the crafting supports my 'roleplay' claims to be a trader and craftsman which supports all you fighter types who go out and kill stuff. Sometimes I hire you all out to protect my little butt (which has generated RP and jobs), and sometimes I give/sell treasure maps to you all which provides more for you to do (I get TONS of these). I try to have the best armor and weapons available for trade (can't RP this stuff!), buy any type of gathered resource you all collect (I use it all!), and have given away food, materials to beginning crafters to get them started. The rest of the stuff I craft, I keep or sell to NPC's. I like "Processing" materials into useable items. My characters deal in hundreds and thousands of resources, which is the real wealth of this game! My goal is to RP, become wealthy and see what item I can make next when my skill increases - doesn't matter in what, I just like to discover the next item!

Call me weird, but I don't like the 'hack and slash' style, and am perfectly content to run the other way when danger threatens. My favorite role is support as a supplier and tradesman. My style of play is to gather/craft consistently, with an occasional break when I run into someone. The system accounts for this and I have always skilled a little each time. I don't level very fast, but I know I am working on 3-4 skills at once, so I don't mind. In fact, I was recently amazed by how 'easy' it was to skill a fighter by sitting in the middle of 8 rats and let them beat on you - Armor and Parry goes up.......Armor and Parry goes up again.....Armor and Parry goes up again......(Boring!) No-one seems to complain about that until it gets harder at level 50+ and they have to start skilling at the same pace I do (Haha!). Crafting is far slower because there is only one action at a time, not 8, and you have to gather the right materials, which takes time. However, I play this game to relax and have fun. I am honored to be called a "Crafter".

Also, if you all do not remember, the old system 'penalized' you with a loss of skills when you died! The current system does not seem to. So in that respect, it is much better! I think the crafting system is complete as is (Stop messing with it!), and the Devs could start working on Magic, Priests and even Bards......whatever happened to those ideas? Alchemy is the only new thing in years - need more!!

Just my two coppers! ;)
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Estralis Seborian »

The status of magic is like this. We have a 50 pages concept and we started to figure out the basics of the technical implementation. As manpower is extremely strained these days, progress is slow. I fully agree that we should stop reworking things over and over again but instead, do them right the first time ;-) and add new features that enrich the game. Magic, housing and random events are absolutely mandatory for a game like Illarion. Milestone II will bring around 150 new items to the game while Milestone IV shall mainly fix bugs of the fighting system. Milestones III, V and VI are dedicated to new features, only.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Salathe »

Estralis Seborian wrote:Can you explain why you feel that this game punishes certain ways of playing? As written above, it is important for us to understand how features are perceived. All numbers don't matter if the players feel differently to what is reality.
I understand the staff feels differently and looks at this from a different perspective, but the bottom line for me was that I logged in to train, spent the only 3 hours I had for gaming that day in Illarion to train at a low level, and only got a single level that accounts for less than 1% of the 0-100 experience burden;

I logged in to train my puncture skill. Ran into Kraex and Tyan who had successfully gotten their skill from 0-40 over the weekend using agility potions. I spent 3 hours training puncturing (with agi potions for the exp bonus) and got a single level. That was just about it for me and logging in to skill up. Since I had a limited schedule, and logging in to roleplay with new players and people I didnt know felt like work, so I just stopped logging in. Tyan and Kraex got so many levels because they spent quite a considerable amount of time RPing in the tavern a previous night, and they did this regularly since they were able to play during Illa primetime and just had more time than me. Spending my only 3 hours to game on a sunday to only get 1 level was devastating, made worse by my friends getting 40 levels over ~8 hours, made even worse since I know that 90% of the experience burden is levels 92-100 and I'm only lvl 37. At that time, about 90% of my ingame time was training/skilling, therefore, my effort in those moments was less rewarding than someone who only puts 10% of there ingame time to training. Dedicating most of my IG time to training was also primarily because I was trying to keep up with GM duties after having gone through a big break up and moving to a new state with a new stressful job. But even without all of that, if I was just busy, I'm never gonna spend my video game time on a game that progresses so slowly for me, it's just never gonna happen.

I know the response is to spend more time roleplaying and i'll get that time made up by leveling up faster when 10% of my IG time is spent training. But in the end, when I'm faced with the option to play other games, that reward me for my effort, or log in to Illa and force some roleplay which *may* be fun, I'm just not going to log into Illarion. Sometimes, I like just grinding out levels and having netflix on my second screen, sometimes that is more pleasing to me than forcing roleplay with a player I don't have interest in. I had more RP spawn from my 3 day Game of Thrones/Illarion Crafting binge than I ever did from my final month of forced roleplay. People came to the smithy who were bored and heard me banging away, and long conversations came out, and then groups were formed to go out and do things, or we moved to the tavern, new players showed up who were confused as hell and were able to get good ol' Salathe Kankas tutelage. Simply being in game spawned alot of events over that three day period. Being ingame is the key. Logging in to do things should ALWAYS be worth it, and for me in my final days, it wasn't. I don't like when games try to prioritize how I should spend my time. I'm not logging in ever again to force roleplay so I can try to level at a reasonable rate that doesn't drive me insane or waste my IG resources, it's not fun, and it's a waste of time with my schedule when I have other gaming options that allow me to actually participate in the gameplay mechanics and make progress.

I really think the only way Illarion can get out of this death spiral of being stuck with a small playerbase is to make the game fun and rewarding even when there aren't others to play with. Primarily, that means to stop worrying about balancing existing features and get rid of game mechanics that try to get people to roleplay instead of playing the actual game.

TL;DR: If I want to train and only have 3 hours to play, I want to feel like I actually made progress in that 3 hours. Regardless of the whether or not I've roleplayed at all.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Gishmel »

Salathe wrote: TL;DR: If I want to train and only have 3 hours to play, I want to feel like I actually made progress in that 3 hours. Regardless of the whether or not I've roleplayed at all.
Yup, I felt pretty much the exact same way.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Morbius »

I 110% completely agree with everything Salathe has said above. ^
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Teflon »

But you always have progress. regardless what you do in those three hours IG, you will always have the same progress. If you want to have progress, just play according to your preferences.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Estralis Seborian »

Well, please don't base your assessment of skillgain on just three hours. I fully understand those three hours sucked if you compare against other players. But you really need to take your total time into account, also all those hours before when you also learned a lot of skill.

From what I read, you seem to believe that you train faster after roleplaying or that you learn more if you spend less time for training. Again, you need to take the whole time into account. Assuming you focus on one skill, if you spend 100 hours in the game, you will reach level X, no matter what. The attribute bonus is of course something that can increase your learning success for skills that suit your character. Are the skills you want to learn fitting your character's attributes? But if you spend 90 hours in the tavern and 10 hours training or vice versa does not matter. I fully understand this "does not matter" is a source of frustration. I also understand that if you train a lot, for some time, you feel like learning is getting slower and slower. But "MC increase" and "MC recovery" come almost to an equilibrium if you do not change your playing patter drastically.

I suspect the real message here is that you consider levelling too slow in general. That is actually a completely different subject. We have had the discussion inside the team about how fast skilling shall be three times within the staff with always the same result being considered reasonable and agreed upon. Compared to other games, you can max the level of a set of skills that make up a class in other games pretty fast and with the amount of manual effort you decide to invest. I must say I consider it a very strong benefit of Illarion's skill system that the game does not force any style of playing on you and every single minute spent in the game counts - not the numbers of clicks you perform. Of course, Illarion should become more enjoyable during low player number periods, but at no point do we want to turn Illarion into a single player game.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Karrock »

My first char I was playing by years from 2008 has only one skill (mining) at 100.
My current main char avoids most works because of own codex. He focuses only on farming, baking and fighting.
I don't understand this motive in game like this where skills are not shown to others. I see rather problem in concept of chars.
You should always try create chars which fit to your style of playing and time you have for game. There exist players who log rare, but their concepts fits great though they log not often. Just consider that if skilling would be easier those who have more free time will always get highest levels before you.
And after get 100 levels people stop playing and quit game if they did not have other goals and motives.
This is all games issue, but Illarion has one advantage and here skills are not so important like role you play.

I would rather like to see new system of gathering resources from monsters which I explained here (second post):
http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... 94&t=40901
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Morbius »

Teflon wrote:But you always have progress. regardless what you do in those three hours IG, you will always have the same progress. If you want to have progress, just play according to your preferences.
I feel like the reasoning behind this has already been explained well enough above, but I will try and summarize at least my feelings about it.

To use the above example: Even if I can technically gain a small amount of skill in three hours spent playing (a sliver of slashing for example, if my MC is high - which it is, on all my characters) the time spent in game does not feel satisfying or rewarding.

Sometimes players just want to log in, and work on some skills. Skills are an important tool used to support certain types or role playing, and can not be segregated from role playing no matter how hard you try. There is such a negative stigma surrounding them, but they are undeniably necessary. People should role play because they want to, not because they have to so that they can get the most out of the other aspects of the game.

Another point that occurred to me is this:

Would it be unreasonable or horrendously game breaking if the MC reset after say... 1 month? This might encourage more casual players to log in and train occasionally as well as role play when they want to.

Additionally, would it ever be considered to re-implement an in game message stating when your MC is getting high? As I currently find it very hard to tell, especially when leveling already high skills. I don't like to waste my time trying to figuring it out by staring at an ugly green bar.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Estralis Seborian »

I proposed this: http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=11366

Note that there is no threshold for learning to get slower or less. So a message is not helpful. Also, such a message like we had would imply that it is wrong to train a lot what is not true. The whole idea behind the MC system is that you can train as much as you want or not and the game won't favour nor punish you for your style.

A vicious circle seems to be that some think they need to train a lot to gain skill. So if someone then trains more, the result is less skill per action. So some do even more actions. The player then ends with high MC and each future action feels less rewarding. And then some think they have to rest for hours to be able to start the vicious circle again. The clear way out is just to play in a relaxed way and just do what the character would normally do. You can't speed up skilling in general (attribute changes excluded).
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Gishmel »

The issue doesn't seem to be whether do you get penalized or not for grinding or RPing. It's "Why aren't people joining or still playing?"

For players like myself and Salathe(The best lizard ever...), we didn't feel like 3 hours of anything give us a sense of accomplishment that Diablo or Runescape would. Illarion is THE BEST GAME I've every played because of the RPing, however, I can play DnD with friends or strangers and get something close.

When I play a video game I need to be able to easily defeat 10!!!!!! mummies in a SHORT period to keep playing. Illarion is outstanding because it's amazing without that. Now, I had pretended to be a druid and warrior in my backyard with my friend using sticks and berries as a kid but I wasn't into the medieval RPing scene before Illarion. I remember learning magic and being a powerful sorceress by reading books in the Troll's Bane library. I found a love of RPing in Illarion because I was able to up and join the IG community quickly. It was because I was able to be a character people took note of, which wouldn't have happened had I wanted to play a mage in the current system. I also wouldn't have been able to become a warrior who could save a maiden being chased by a random monster lead near town in the first month or more in the current system. In short, If this community ever wants to see a resurgence in players, it needs to open the gates to the 14 year old hack and slashers... and advertise itself to every back alley hobby store.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Teflon »

I would see our shortcomings rather with missing advertising. We don't even have those 14 year old hack and slasher trying our game. Plus, if we would go this path, I think we would have to compete with graphics and other stuff, which we can't. We, therefore, need to focus on a niche, which we don't see in classical hack and slash.

Regarding occasional players, I think this is dangerous because we want players to reward for playing and not for staying inactive, although I see the frustration you are mentioning. Any system that address this would need to carefully balance that players who still play a lot have a greater reward and that the gap to those who have less time doesn't become to big. No idea yet how to balance this but frankly to say, I would stick to those who play a lot rather than those who play occasionally if don't find a way to balance this, since the former group keeps the game alive.
If we find a way, we should focus on the character instead of the player. This would allow everyone to skill a occasionally played character faster.

And I still think that it would be perceived less frustrating if players could see their progress.
(http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... 94&t=40901)
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Salathe »

Estralis Seborian wrote:Well, please don't base your assessment of skillgain on just three hours. I fully understand those three hours sucked if you compare against other players. But you really need to take your total time into account, also all those hours before when you also learned a lot of skill.

From what I read, you seem to believe that you train faster after roleplaying or that you learn more if you spend less time for training. Again, you need to take the whole time into account. Assuming you focus on one skill, if you spend 100 hours in the game, you will reach level X, no matter what. The attribute bonus is of course something that can increase your learning success for skills that suit your character. Are the skills you want to learn fitting your character's attributes? But if you spend 90 hours in the tavern and 10 hours training or vice versa does not matter. I fully understand this "does not matter" is a source of frustration. I also understand that if you train a lot, for some time, you feel like learning is getting slower and slower. But "MC increase" and "MC recovery" come almost to an equilibrium if you do not change your playing patter drastically.

I suspect the real message here is that you consider levelling too slow in general. That is actually a completely different subject. We have had the discussion inside the team about how fast skilling shall be three times within the staff with always the same result being considered reasonable and agreed upon. Compared to other games, you can max the level of a set of skills that make up a class in other games pretty fast and with the amount of manual effort you decide to invest. I must say I consider it a very strong benefit of Illarion's skill system that the game does not force any style of playing on you and every single minute spent in the game counts - not the numbers of clicks you perform. Of course, Illarion should become more enjoyable during low player number periods, but at no point do we want to turn Illarion into a single player game.
I really don't mean to pigeonhole into a single issue, because even if this received a 100% perfect alternate solution, it wouldn't bring in new player, or wouldn't really help retain new players, but rather help retain settled players after a considerable amount of time. And quite honestly, it is impossible for me to step outside of those 3 hours, because when what I want to do ingame is train, that is the reality I'm facing.

I completely understand the logic and process behind the current system, but I absolutely consider it a "not fun" feature and a dis-incentive to players who would rather spend more time pursuing gameplay aspects rather than roleplaying. I find this distinction important because we definitely should not have an issue with players wanting to spend alot of time diving into the gamepaly as long as they do not break roleplaying rules or are detrimental to the roleplay aspect. These are the people that mostly fill the world outside of towns, and these are the people that don't check whose online and just log on regardless. Perhaps it does come down to the overall leveling process, but I find that kind of hard to consider. Becoming a master fighter should be the same as becoming a master crafter, the current system doesn't support this because combat requires more skills than crafting. Efficiency should be rewarded, not lead to slower progress. For this issue of leveling, I think the best solution for the moment is that a reasonable progression is determined, a rate that at any instance is considered fair and reasonable. This can be a point at which your MC begins to "cap" and you no longer learn slower. This would allow those who spend more time roleplaying to still getting a bonus. Although someone who roleplayed for 90 hours and trained for 10 hours would still lose out to just trained for 100 hours, but that simply seems fair.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Q-wert »

Although someone who roleplayed for 90 hours and trained for 10 hours would still lose out to just trained for 100 hours, but that simply seems fair.
Maybe I am repeating myself, but personally I see the strong point of the system being not like that. You can play the game however you want and get the same result skillwise, and that is super cool. No longer am I punished by having a weakling character if I don't park my character in the deepest dungeon available for every hour I have. Doing so for 100 hours straight will still give an edge (or at least more options) as there will be more money and resources to increase faction gem output, buy positions of power, push forth building projects and support powerful rituals and all the other money and resource sinks. Personally I am rather one of those who spent a large portion of his time farming resources, killing monsters and 'skilling' ("playing the game" some called it in this thread) when I raised Ssar'ney and the character before him to their current skill level and really don't consider myself to have been punished for that. Just do what you do, the skills will come either way.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Achae Eanstray »

Just as a FYI for those that talk of playing a small amount like 2-3 hours a week (I am only mentioning my experience as a player), I have 2-3 major roleplayed characters that I roleplay and skill. I have two rarely roleplayed that I use for those short minutes in game I can't have time to stay long.

One fighter may be in game about 2 hours or less a week and ALL I do is skill, only a little roleplay. In the past few months.. granted 6-8, even that little bit has got the fighter from 98-99 1/2 skill in heavy armor (only latent gems in the armor also). I have been perfectly satisfied with the progress. The other is a crafter played about 1-2 hours a week, a little more roleplay but not much. About the same progress as the fighter. I like to be able to play as I want when I have the time..
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Karrock »

Sakaala Vyshaan wrote:I say once you've done working out the bugs in the game and improved the combat system then you should try to advertise the game on steam or to the community that still has that nostalgia for that type of gameplay.
I respond to this very late, but it's important to say something about in my opinion 'cause I have not seen similar idea before. Yes to add Illarion on steam could be good idea formally, but if game would attract too suddenly much new players who seek free games on steam (especially children) and ignore force to rp it would be a disaster. And I'm not sure do we can ban players if we would be part of steam platform. But I'm only a player and it's only my personal opinion.
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Estralis Seborian »

It's a common feedback we get concerning promotion: "Do not promote the game, you might attract the wrong type of players!". I wonder if this can be the way forward for a multi-player online roleplaying game with (currently) just two or three players online in a given city. See thread title. The concept of Illarion is to make players interact with each other, not to keep a chosen few separated from the rest of the world.

We should all be aware that promotion cannot attract the "wrong" players if the game is set up properly and it is clear to the newbies what the game is all about. It is on the current players to receive new players with open arms and not to reject them because they use Steam(!). I also use Steam and I guess the vast majority of players does - so are we all "not target audience"? Furthermore, many learned the ropes of roleplaying after/by joining Illarion. Do we want to exclude such players from the game for the benefit of... no one?

Anyway, Steam integration and "green light" is not trivial and will require immense effort and also financial investment. There are "low hanging fruits" we should pick first. Some say we should promote Illarion at "roleplaying communities" - just do it! There is only one type of bad promotion, that is no promotion. These days, with a strained manpower situation of the staff, we have to decide whether we develop something neat, fix a bug, promote Illarion or write posts like this ;-). Promoting Illarion can be done by anyone, everytime and everywhere. Just pick your favourite gaming platform and add Illarion or write your review. On the promotion board, there is a huge list of sites:

http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... 77&t=36186
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Kamilar »

I see post-VBU Illarion as cat herding.

Telling players that the outcomes for their character's skills are totally preset and predetermined and that their own input makes no difference whatsoever is not exactly motivational for game playing. Setting the focus for New Illarion to be on ranks and levels but taking player effort out of the equation is quite strange. Overall, it hasn't added anything to the RP from my perspective.

The fun has been drained from the game mechanics in an effort to force people into a play style with less gaming and more roleplay. What has actually happened is that rather than RP more, hardcore players idle more. Casual players barely play at all. A player that wants RP really has to arrange for it OOC because it's not readily available to the average consumer. Starting a new character with no skills is just painful and the whole focus of the game has turned away from roleplay. I would hope that there would be an ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of the systems in place because it really doesn't seem to be having the intended long-term effect.

Couple all of that with friendlier and more welcoming RP communities at other sites and you get the current state of affairs.
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Q-wert
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Q-wert »

I think the game and the underlying design choices are fine. Its maybe not what some envisioned for this game to become post-VBU, but its a decent game nonetheless.

Existing game mechanics and their usability is solid, graphics are vintage but not scarring, game and server barely ever crash (if at all), connection quality needs not hide from commercial European online game servers, playberbase (small as it may be) is stable (in difference to pre VBU-times). That is more than one can say for many roleplay shards out there.

I've been active on varying roleplay-based NWN2 shards around the time when the server-lobby was shut down by the publisher. In many aspects those shards were similar to Illarion: Small communities (some smaller than Illarion), a mostly static and more or less mmo-inspired game world (from game design perspective) and a focus on roleplay. My favourite one even had character progression solely based on online time (sounds familiar?*).
They looked prettier than what we have here, for sure, some might have been subjectively better, but accessibility was blocked by purchase of a commercial product and, after the lobby was shut down, the hurdle to get community-workarounds to work. The later one dealing the death-blow to most shards in a matter of months. And even before the shutdown of the lobby activity slowly but surely declined, not because the shards were bad, but because there were no new players coming in.

A role play game (or shard) needs not magic, housing and sandboxing to be interesting and alive. It does need players interacting with each other and a steady influx of them. If you read through what Nitram posted in this post, that influx is what Illarion struggles with. Not due to gameplay mechanics regarding levelling and sandboxing vs static game world, but due to the process of character creation.

And if you had a look on the development priorities and milestones, that is just where work is put into, with promotion waiting just after that. I think the claims of mismanagement and fundamentally flawed design choices put forth here are undeserved.

*I still think the implementation of this idea is one of the coolest choices made for this game.
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Kamilar
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Kamilar »

An influx of new players is only one piece of the pie. New players seem to be clearing whatever account creation hurdles are in place. They're trickling in no matter what obstacles exist or what milestones are planned.

There are many established players who know exactly what Illarion has to offer and choose not to play. Fooser has been watching the active accounts and he told me yesterday that they have dropped from the 90s to the 60s in the last few months. That's seems like more than a problem with new accounts and character creation. That seems like a problem with attrition.
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Q-wert
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Q-wert »

Kamilar wrote:There are many established players who know exactly what Illarion has to offer and choose not to play. Fooser has been watching the active accounts and he told me yesterday that they have dropped from the 90s to the 60s in the last few months. That's seems like more than a problem with new accounts and character creation. That seems like a problem with attrition.
Active accounts are at 64, to be precise. The information is openly available. Illarion traditionally does have a dent in activity during summer time. Last year (and the year before) at the same time we had about same number of active accounts.
Kamilar wrote:An influx of new players is only one piece of the pie. New players seem to be clearing whatever account creation hurdles are in place. They're trickling in no matter what obstacles exist or what milestones are planned.
Nitram wrote:The main issue here is that we do not have enough new players. Currently around 10 new accounts are created per day. That may sound like quite something, but it is actually pretty low. Most of them never activate their account. Some never create a character. Those groups taken away we are down to like 1 or 2 per day. Now one of them never logs in. Half of the remaining one never moves from it's first location and logs out and never in again right away. So we are done to something about 0.5 per day. The remaining ones mostly get stuck on noobia. The few who make it out rarely stay more then a couple of hours on the main map of the game before they disappear for good. We can't do much against the people who log in, see that the game looks ugly and leave again. There will always be a percentage of players who do that. The main issues for the new players right now is that it is not difficult and unclear how to get into the game.
With only 7.5% making it through the confusing account activation and character creation whilst the player base being the same it has been last year, I do not quite see your point. If active accounts do not go up by the end of September as they usually do, yes. But right now I don't see the numbers to support such a claim.
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Tyan Masines
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Tyan Masines »

Q-wert wrote:Active accounts are at 64, to be precise. The information is openly available. Illarion traditionally does have a dent in activity during summer time. Last year (and the year before) at the same time we had about same number of active accounts.
Since when is performing badly a measure of success, remind me.

Q-wert wrote:They looked prettier than what we have here, for sure, some might have been subjectively better, but accessibility was blocked by purchase of a commercial product and, after the lobby was shut down, the hurdle to get community-workarounds to work. The later one dealing the death-blow to most shards in a matter of months. And even before the shutdown of the lobby activity slowly but surely declined, not because the shards were bad, but because there were no new players coming in.[/color][/size]
There are still online shards based on NWN2 having a constant of 30+ players, often more. Even NWN1 has a server hosting up to 25 characters the very moment I'm writing this.


Does anyone ever wonder why ppl in the forum still 'fondly remember' things like The Temple (which lies waaaay back), but not one quest since the VBU? The game does not have a problem with its technical aspects or development, it has a problem with its story. It's underlying story is completely and totally unrelated to all ingame events and there is no conceivable plot at all -- no red line of events. And apart from that, everything that happens ingame is unrelated, there is nothing for characters to figure out, there is only mindless content fed to them and the most exciting event is gathering supplies for buildings. Would you watch a movie containing no plot at all? No.

I'm not sure if people here actually read the feedback new players post, but the one player who actually took the time ti write some feedback was entirely misundertood. (for reference: http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... 94&t=40581). Don't get me wrong, but that person literally writes 'There's just so little I want to do in Illa... The majority of RP was just stuff I do IRL but in a different voice.' [...] and what happens is that the discussion was dragged to a technical level by the staff. A new crafting system or anything is not going to save the game.
The problem is that a new player gets dropped on a newbie island learning how to craft (again, technical stuff) and then getting presented with a choice between three shallow towns. The only thing to do in ANY of these towns is gaining rank for something nobody was or will be ever related to. -> They leave. Big surprise.

A role play game (or shard) needs not magic, housing and sandboxing to be interesting and alive. It does need players interacting with each other and a steady influx of them. If you read through what Nitram posted in this post, that influx is what Illarion struggles with. Not due to gameplay mechanics regarding levelling and sandboxing vs static game world, but due to the process of character creation.
It doesn't need magic and housing alright. It needs the rest. And what Nitram wrote was that there are enough ppl making accounts, but that the number of people actually staying with the game after playing for a short while is the problem. He never said there was no influx. He said there was a problem with longevity of accounts.


But yeah let's spend our time rebutting people's numbers with silly season arguments and regard every proposal caring about non-technical aspects of the game as spam or ranting.
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Q-wert
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Q-wert »

Tyan Masines wrote:
Q-wert wrote:Active accounts are at 64, to be precise. The information is openly available. Illarion traditionally does have a dent in activity during summer time. Last year (and the year before) at the same time we had about same number of active accounts.
Since when is performing badly a measure of success, remind me.
The point being made by Kamilar was Illarion losing players and attrition being a major factor in regards of player numbers. Which I pointed out to not be the case. Keeping a stable number of active players over the course of years is while not outright sucess but its also not the game fading into oblivion.
Tyan Masines wrote:
Q-wert wrote:They looked prettier than what we have here, for sure, some might have been subjectively better, but accessibility was blocked by purchase of a commercial product and, after the lobby was shut down, the hurdle to get community-workarounds to work. The later one dealing the death-blow to most shards in a matter of months. And even before the shutdown of the lobby activity slowly but surely declined, not because the shards were bad, but because there were no new players coming in.
There are still online shards based on NWN2 having a constant of 30+ players, often more. Even NWN1 has a server hosting up to 25 characters the very moment I'm writing this.
I had a look at the player numbers and available shards just now and yes, there are shards with higher population than Illarion. They are also significantly smaller in number than 3 years ago.
Tyan Masines wrote:
A role play game (or shard) needs not magic, housing and sandboxing to be interesting and alive. It does need players interacting with each other and a steady influx of them. If you read through what Nitram posted in this post, that influx is what Illarion struggles with. Not due to gameplay mechanics regarding levelling and sandboxing vs static game world, but due to the process of character creation.
It doesn't need magic and housing alright. It needs the rest. And what Nitram wrote was that there are enough ppl making accounts, but that the number of people actually staying with the game after playing for a short while is the problem. He never said there was no influx. He said there was a problem with longevity of accounts.
Nitram wrote:I think those are the main reasons why we don't get new players. To handle this issue I started to implement the account system directly in the game client.
Last edited by Q-wert on Tue Aug 23, 2016 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Achae Eanstray
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Achae Eanstray »

Just to insert a player number fact since other game online numbers are discussed...and not sure if this happens in all shards/games but I was a GM in one where typically 4-5 fake names were posted for who's online in order to keep the numbers looking high and get people to sign in to play. This information showed up only on the GM online list. :wink:
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Estralis Seborian
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Estralis Seborian »

Tyan Masines, could you please send your proposals concerning storytelling/lore to the Group "Gamemasters"? Thanks a lot!

http://illarion.org/community/forums/uc ... de=compose
Sinister
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Re: Was there a time when Illarion had more than 10 players

Post by Sinister »

Hello fellow Illarionites.
So here's just... Some of my thoughts on this, as one of the loners online lately:
How about logging in and playing the game with us who are in game, regardless of lack of quest.

The game is only as fun as you make it, quests and GM-lead plot is fun and all but is that really what the game is about?
Does roleplay require a 24/7 plotline going on, and if so, how the hell has this game survived I wonder?
So just, log on. Gather around a campfire, or incite some quarrels.
Gather people to go on an expedition or try to make a profit by haggling with other players in a trade.
Lean on the wall of Cadomyr and see how many end up joining you in leaning there, or...
Well, anything but waiting for an excuse like a GM-lead quest or event for you to get in game.
Be that person who makes others want to get in game and roleplay because they see you on the online list, and start a chain reaction.
The more people online, the more plot will eventually unfold merely due to different character personalities and goals conflicting!

Lately, there has been a severe lack of roleplay interactions for me.
Yet, there are still a couple of memorable characters that immediately come to mind.
Why? Because they actually stopped up to speak to me, introduced themselves and allowed me a chance to build my character, have him place a mark on the world by having them remember him and actually making me feel like I was playing something more than just "Mining Simulator 2016"(Albeit, quite the enjoyable simulator).
Two in particular I will point out: Ssar'ney and S'rrt K'shire.
Both have on several occasions stopped up to recognize and talk to my character.
They both even took initiative, on seperate occasion, to protect my character whilst he was mining, and by doing so creating a minor RP situation for a lesser duration.
Such a small initiative, yet it created a scenario where the characters got to know each other.
Sure, you may say "But it is just trivial chitchat and boring roleplay", and others may disagree.
Though whatever your opinion, one thing some of you are forgetting is, all that minor roleplay adds up.
When a GM, or player for that sake, finally does make some exciting and thrilling quest...
What is it that impacts those characters to make the decisions that they do?
Protect the people they do?
Value your characters opinions?
It's all the accumulated minor roleplay you, as two players, have had together!
WIthout any GM quests or major plotlines to keep you busy, even. Imagine that.
Now, imagine if we all took initiative to do this and created relationships, whether hostile or friendly, across many characters that in the end created its own plot by itself? Sure, we will get more players the better our client, the better our promotion of the game and the better the storyline.
There are plenty of ways you can aid to the game, but don't forget that playing it is one of them!
It seems right now we are stuck in this endless loop of people sticking to grinding it out in game, while those without the patience to "powergame", or for other reasons, resort to whining on the forums.

Be creative. You have been given the platform, use it, or not...
No one is forcing you but, the developers work hard to make this game better and they obviously lack manforce.
A lot of this repetitive ranting will just divert them from their task. Be constructive, or join the developer team. Play the game.
Do any of those but, if you're just going to go on with repetitive ranting with lack of constructive criticism: May as well just sod off.
(No, it is not my intent to say that everything in this thread is repetitive ranting that could've been left of being said just once. A lot of it is, though.)

So how about putting some of all this effort into logging into the game and coming up with some fun idea for a roleplay scenario with everyone else?
Sure, it's a hassle to do it all the time but if everyone does it, suddenly we have a much more lively game.

Just my two coppers,
Cheers.

[The player of: Merek]
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