A small ranty post. As i feel like it

[AlexRose]

This is what I like to see:

[Korm Kormsen]

everybody bitching about the game.
i can't hold back under these conditions.
just one point:
role play - and those bad, bad noobs.

a friend of mine told me, to change from UO freeshards to illarion, because of the better roleplay.

i launched my first char two or three days before entering the game became free.
i made a farmer. first i had him exploring some parts of the map. (got clouded a couple of times by beasts) untill i found, what i sought. a quiet little settlement where i could farm and interact with other peacefull chars.

that was the lovely hamlet on greenbriar.

i spent about a third of my ingame time to farm and collect herbs. the rest to that, what i think is roleplaying.
when my char wandered to trolls bane, he normally got clouded. but only once by another noob.
when he tried to get in contact with somebody in TB, he most often got shooed away or ignored.

this char's farming skill was allready turkoise, his herblore light blue, while his fightingskills all stayed the darkest blue possible.
(i did not even train him on pigs)

well, than a vulcano appeared...

since then till the bug, that inhibits me to play, my char was training about 80% of my ingame time exclusively on fighting skills.

(and i got to know some other noobs with similar developing chars)

what would be the right thing?

a) say: oh those bad, bad noobs!

b) or to admit, that a lot of the experienced players are powergamers and elitistic.

c) the system is castigating peacefull chars.

korm

ps: on some of those freeshards i had farmers, fishers or carpenters, who for months had no PvP happenings. not to mention PK pleasure...

[Retlak]

You see, Illarion is a game.
We all roleplay because, we would not be here otherwise.
Roleplay alone can make anything happen.
Nothing to look foreward to.
Nothing to gain.
Game gets boring, and people leave.
Skills are quite necessary, people get a stroke of happyness to see their chars get better at something. Happy players = happy roleplay.
Money is quite necessary, gives people something to aim for.
Its merely an accessory for illarion, like any game has

[Gurik Elvenstar]

these are some of the exact reasons why i have not been in game i know the game cant be perfect but honestly and truly 2 or 3 years ago i could not stay away from illarion. When all these skill changes happend and i had to relearn everything i became disintrested hopefully someday things will work properly and i will be glad to come back ingame though i have to say i do miss a lot of you ( who know me) perhaps ill come in soon and have a good ole roleplay like old times

[Korwin]

Taking the stance that skills and items are 'impure' is ridiculous. Both add dimensions to playing the game, and if they're ignored, we end up with a graphic chat-room, and I'm not particularly interested in one of those.

The choice to remove the account system was a good one, because with it in place, Illarion was slowly drying up. Sure, there were no 'noobs', but it was very dry, and I think that showed in the amount of people who were actually going in game. Even an increased amount of chracters in game, regardless of the quality, has the property of drawing other players in-game. Finally, here's a nifty graph! (I don't know what the deal is with those two months...)

Magic sucks?! I think its pretty nice now O.o

That's probably because you don't have a character you're trying to learn it with. The magic itself is fine, but learning it is utter shit.

[Damien]

Sadly, imust admit, when i want to roleplay, i do not go into illarion anymore mainly, since there are a few good roleplay-UO-freeshards around (says someone who usually dislikes UO). Anyhow i stay away from the forums there as far as possible and avoid getting too involved with characters there, because the "we are the elite-uber-roleplayers-" stuff from some of the >bad< roleplayers there really goes on my nerves much more.
I go online in Illarion for playing only if i am meeting a few other players there to play with. And we tend to log out if stuff gets too annoying lately, and usually we stay around the academy or Vanima where not so much bad RP or non-RP happens. Our numbers have decreased though. Lately it's kinda down to Narmir and me waiting for whomever may pass by. Anyhow, Sideon Vilarion and one or two others have become more active lately, which may motivate me to go online more often too.

If we got a new account system, a ten-multiple-choice-questions-and- answer- three- questions - shortly- account system would be the only logically possible solution. That would be done quickly enough, so you wouldn't have to be scared away by the storytelling, and we would at least filter some really bad n00bs or motivate them to read the game rules before trying the account request. Would be the first of two options we have in my opinion, and the GMs would only have to read the short answers to the three questions, and only of those applications which would have got enough points in the other questions.
The second option would be to have one "open" Illarion Server - where everyone can play however he wants without any necessary Roleplay or name restrictions - and an RP Server - where you have to do a tough account system before, and where every race except for humans must have a tough acceptation procedure, along with a race background test.
One would also need seperated Forum parts for those, and make a locked RP part for RP world plawers only.

Of course such a thing must be programmed. Which is both a lot of work, which is the reason why it cannot be done quickly, if people would decide for one of both at all.

[Jeremy Gems Willowbrook]

Do you realise that, based on current settings, to raise carpentry from scratch to 100 would require somewhere in the region of 500,000 clicks.
Thats an awful lot of clicking for a mainly rp game. And magic is far, far worse.

[Aegohl]

The choice to remove the account system was a good one, because with it in place, Illarion was slowly drying up. Sure, there were no 'noobs', but it was very dry, and I think that showed in the amount of people who were actually going in game. Even an increased amount of chracters in game, regardless of the quality, has the property of drawing other players in-game. Finally, here's a nifty graph! (I don't know what the deal is with those two months...)

However, if you look at the second half of the last month there it's been going down again, with only one very short spike breaking that up. That could have been some event or something, probably the war against Stephen Rothman. Then people just fled.

I'm speaking of the average players (light blue) and not the max players for that day (dark blue), but both are showing a bad current situation.

As for the maximum amount of players, as you can see there, you're talking about five more players than we used to have at max. And how much was the instability of the server back then to blame for people being too fed up to log in that tenth time?

[Misjbar]

Alex what do you mean by powergaming. Do you mean going to acually do some work forawhile? Everyone has to PG at somepoint in time. I mean not everyone has loads and loads of copper they can spend. Not having any money means you cant really do a lot. Being weak means you cant do a lot. You can still talk to people but mainly you are left out of the main story line that is happening in Illarion.

^ This little story is why I fear we are too focused upon skills than upon RP, and the last few sentences totally voice my concerns over Illarion lately.

[Gildon]

One would find, that someway... Illarion is getting boring. Now, let us experiment, what will make it fun once more?

[Garett Gwenour]

If you feel that skills are not required in this game, then by all means do not strive to get skills. However some players like to give goals for their characters. These goals can include owning a house or buying something excellent (a lute perhaps) and this requires money. The best way to make money is usually to have a skill, unless you want to steal but stealing can get your character into trouble you may not want to play with.

Now after you thanked the Devs for all their good work on the game, how can you say the skills they implement are not good for Illarion?

[Gildon]

I say make magic much easier to learn, fighting a bit easier and bring it back to the old system of fighting, and we're all happy! ( Doubt it -.- )

[Aristeaus]

If you feel that skills are not required in this game, then by all means do not strive to get skills. However some players like to give goals for their characters. These goals can include owning a house or buying something excellent (a lute perhaps) and this requires money. The best way to make money is usually to have a skill, unless you want to steal but stealing can get your character into trouble you may not want to play with.

Now after you thanked the Devs for all their good work on the game, how can you say the skills they implement are not good for Illarion?

Your twisting words Sammy my son * pats his head *

We all love the devs and think that skills are needed in various ways, yet at the moment alot of the economy and various skills do need improving and working on.

* gives sam a lolly pop *

[Estralis Seborian]

That's probably because you don't have a character you're trying to learn it with. The magic itself is fine, but learning it is utter shit.

Yes, magic itself does not suck, sorry for that statement. The learning system has failed (I guess we all agree on that point) and there is no replacement for it upcoming.

Concerning crafts: Crafting is not really bad in terms of general principles, but some things are really wierd:

-Rates of success differ from craft to craft extremely and are too low in general
-Sometimes, one has to use a tool, sometimes a static item on the map, sometimes a raw material... that is pure chaos.
-Too many actions required from the user (see: casting of ingots)

Concerning skillgain: The old learning curve was not that bad, it just needed a little tweaking. In the old system, almost all skills raised in the same speed, thus, you gained the same amount of skill per action for fighting, casting, talking, harvesting crops,... This system disregarded the fact that some actions (fighting, mostly) happen very fast and require no interaction of the player and other actions happen only rarely (gem grinding), but the skill gain was the same. The new system fixed this problem (hooray) but changed the learning curve (boooo!).

[Juniper Onyx]

I like the way the crafting system is, however not what the crafts are worth. The crafts, and more specifically, Goods are unbalanced. There are major discrepencies.

If you're going to have so many steps in "Cloth" Tailoring:
(collect wool, spin wool, make grey cloth, bleach cloth, make Black dye, dye cloth, make Black Pants) - [7+ Action Steps]
Then it should be worth more than just 3 coppers! Its not worth doing otherwise. This is why there are very few "cloth" tailors.

On the otherhand, Goldsmithing:
(mine copper, mine coal, make copper ingot, smith cutlery) [4 action steps]
Cutlery sells for 3 coppers each and whole lot less work.

Or even better, Carpentry:
(Cut Apple tree, Saw Boards, Make Wooden Plate) [only 3 action steps]
Plates sell for 3 coppers each too.

I think either revamp the prices NPC's purchase things at to reflect the "Action Steps" required to craft an item or,

or another controversial idea I know many won't like......

Just get rid of NPC Merchants altogether and force players to RP with other players to get their wares. I think this would create the 'player' economy several have asked for, and vastly increase RP.

Just some thoughts.....

[Nalzaxx]

Though I agree with removing the NPC's in general, currently it would be disasterous as there are not enough suppliers of products. And it takes a long time to train would be providers.

[Avalyon el'Hattarr]

maybe if so, we will create some sort of trading board where every merchant could enlist exactly what he sells and what he buys as well as the prices

[Juniper Onyx]

It would take time, I know, just as when they implemented the new "Starvation" system. Suddenly everyone was a cook.

But it would be a start and solve several problems our overworked Devs are not able to fix.

Personally, I would like to help "fix" current bugs and discrepencies such as this rather than 'create' new things. I like the challenge of problem solving. But it seems no-one is accepting applications.

[Miklorius]

Removing tne NPC traders completly is Schwachsinn (:))!

It would be very difficult to get (fast) items you want. Sure, it is a bit more realistic than "Hello, Eliza, I wanna 10 Lor-Angur", but such problems can be solved within NPC scripting, I think.

And many, many items would be useless. Nobody will buy e.g. a very bad Serinjah-Sword from the mummies etc., so at least the money-gain base for fighters will be destroyed.

Conclusion:
- debug the NPCs.
- adjust their buying/selling prices.
- maybe move some traders (or their wares) out of TB to other locations.

[Juniper Onyx]

Removing tne NPC traders completly is Schwachsinn (:))!

It would be very difficult to get (fast) items you want. Sure, it is a bit more realistic than "Hello, Eliza, I wanna 10 Lor-Angur", but such problems can be solved within NPC scripting, I think.

And many, many items would be useless. Nobody will buy e.g. a very bad Serinjah-Sword from the mummies etc., so at least the money-gain base for fighters will be destroyed.

Conclusion:
- debug the NPCs.
- adjust their buying/selling prices.
- maybe move some traders (or their wares) out of TB to other locations.

I don't know what Scwachsinn is, but it sounds delicious.

As for fighters, they should be more discriminating on what they collect from the crypts. They don't pick up ornate daggers, why? No-one buys them. But they'll pick up a "Crappy, rusty Serinjah sword" that they would never use themselves, just because a single NPC blindly buys them. That doesn't even make sense. A good NPC, properly debugged, would also have taste and not buy that "Junk". Sorry, the fighter "economy" is artificial. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The issue I was trying to raise is that we have been saying "Debug the NPC's!" or "Revamp the Prices!" or "Move the NPC's!" for as long as Illarion has been around. It doesn't work. There are more important things for the Devs to focus on.

The solution I see is recruit more devs, or downsize the problems. Deactivating NPC's would solve a lot. Just a thought.

[Garett Gwenour]

Removing the current npcs traders would only help a select few, and tho I agree that currently the player trade system is bollocks I doubt it is because of NPCs. NPCs do not sell that Vast of items, the only NPC that sells legitimate items that I buy often is Eliza and her greaves, steel boots and gloves, and that is because I do not know a tailor nor a blacksmith that can make those items and sell them for cheaper.

Every other item (food, weaponry, raw materials ) i buy from players.

[Miklorius]

I don't know what Scwachsinn is, but it sounds delicious.

http://dict.leo.org/?lang=de&search=schwachsinn

(...) A good NPC, properly debugged, would also have taste and not buy that "Junk". Sorry, the fighter "economy" is artificial.

Then it is another point for "debug the NPCs": insert the quality if items in the prices which a trader is paying.

There are more important things for the Devs to focus on.

Mmhh, and what?
Besides whole new aspects like druid magic, the important things are IMO:
- balancing the fighting and magic system
- balancing the skill system
- debugging the NPCs

[Juniper Onyx]

I was not suggesting that I would benefit, but that RP and crafting would increase and players would trade more. Prices would move to more "reasonable" amounts for the complexity of the item created, instead of "fixed" prices by NPC's that are really not accurate.

I was just voicing an idea to alleviate many of the problems on flyspray, which have to do with NPC's. I'll drop this subject for now, I knew it wouldn't be popular, but radical and uncomfortable changes never are.

[Garett Gwenour]

No you are right that it would increase player crafting. However the problem with that will be two things I see. First that we will have fighters being blacksmithers, carpenters and cooks again. And two that currently the crafting system is too difficult to learn and thereby there will be a large gap in time before players will be able to trade what the npc's sell (which again is mainly the blacksmithed items and that skill is already near impossible to learn).

[Juniper Onyx]

Garrett,

I think there are too many fighters and not enough blacksmiths....

Fighters are almost "commonplace" and good craftsmen "rare". I think this is backwards. The focus should be placed back into crafting and less on fighting. I think this is why we have so much conflict, too many fighters.

The player economy is Bollucks because there aren't enough good craftsmen. If focus was placed back on crafting, it may reverse this. Weren't most people in the middle ages peasants, indentured servants or middle class craftsmen anyways? Fighting (unless you were conscripted in an Army or a bandit) was for the nobility and priviledged. Otherwise, there was always the monastery.

[Kevin Lightdot]

It's simply that without stats made exactly for crafting your work isn't worth to much.
Back when quality didn't matter we had plenty of craftsmen who sold their wares to other than npc's.

[Garett Gwenour]

Well I agree with you Juniper,
there are too many fighters and not enough craftsman, but again, it is because crafting is far to difficult to work on at this point.

[Korm Kormsen]

garrett,

not only, because crafting is too difficult. as well, because being a nonfighter is too dangerous.

korm

[Nitram]

But what to do against?

Thievs are and ingame problem. As the members of the temple are.

The fighting system is in a way, that you have your chance to stay alive.

What else kills you? And what shall we do against?

non-pvp Area Trolls Bane? I dislike such a idea.

Nitram

[Cliu Beothach]

Its not that dangerous playing a non-fighter. You can always run.