The Exodus

Alytys Lamar · Post by **Alytys Lamar** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:28 pm

As I searched for a free MMORPG last year I decide to play Illarion due to the fact that I have to write a little story, Nitram.

This was the beginning and why I like to play this game so much.

It is very very difficult to play and do a good RP when you get attacked some times, yelled ( FUCKING GAME or so .. ) or something else in this case. And the new ones which was good have been scared away, because they are *slaughtered* from the others.

So I agree with Hadrian in this point.

Fianna Heneghan · Post by **Fianna Heneghan** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:33 pm

Estralis Seborian wrote:But that is not the issue here, the tone in the community and of the staff is. We all know that the dot-affair wasn't a magic moment for the community as well as the harsh tone of players and staff alike here and there. Maybe you can write down 10 "do"s and 10 "don't"s for the communication?

I really like this idea. I hope it catches on. Suggestions are much more productive than complaints. So, here's mine:

DO
-consider the other person before posting - if you wouldn't want to hear it said to you, it's probably best left unsaid
-give yourself time to cool off before posting if you are angry
-try to acknowledge the good points and focus on those
-make discussions about the problems, not about they way they are stated.

That's all I can think of right now and I have to go to work. I hope people add their thoughts along this line.

Fooser · Post by **Fooser** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:34 pm

Nitram you forget most people here are more concerned with getting rid of players than bringing them in

martin · Post by **martin** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:37 pm

Fooser wrote:Nitram you forget most people here are more concerned with getting rid of players than bringing them in

Thank you for speaking out what I was thinking for nearly a day now.

That's the main problem:

Established players want to get people out rather than in.
Established developers want to get people in rather than out.

Martin

Llama · Post by **Llama** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:43 pm

- Do read all the thread before you decide to post (in case of discussions)
- Do respect other people's opinion.

-- ^ addition

Post by **Estralis Seborian** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:46 pm

Hadrian_Abela wrote:A characterwipe would be the best idea in my opinion, people who spent hours pging their character will just get angry and leave. However we also need an account system.

The last charwipe scared away dozends of beloved players. Charwipes are the worst things that can happen to a game like Illa.

Hadrian_Abela wrote:The old essay system was allright in my opinion, it filtered those who REALLY knew how to Rp from those who didn't give a care. The only problem is that it took too much time, but I think we should have a group of volunteers to check it instead of letting just the Gms do it. I think anyone who's been playing for a year now, and is responsable enough should be able to check them.

As Nitram stated, it didn't work out. 80% of all new accounts did not even submit a application. So we lost 80% of potential new players due to this system. And believe me, among those 80%, not all of them are "retarded r|_|n3q|_|3st@z". Other games, in special UO freeshards, can feature such a system for it is known how the game in general looks and works. Illarion is unknown to most newbies and there has to be a fast way to check it out.

Hadrian_Abela wrote:Obviously, the gms should track those who don't Rp, and PUBLICALLY ban them (its a good example to others).

Witchhunt, anyone? A topic in the general board "Another player to kill"? Or "Public pillory for the kind of player that should get the smile out of here"? I thought this topic was about improving the tone in the community.

Hadrian_Abela wrote:I also think, that good Rp should be rewarded.

I agree! Not that I would award good RP with skills and items, but with small medals in the online list. Vanity can be quite a driving forcs

The solution to the problem that new players disturb the atmosphere and don't get the help they deserve and need is a newbie island. I have no information about the progress of this, but some months ago, it was top priority. After scripting the flu and wildfires...

Kevin Lightdot · Post by **Kevin Lightdot** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:55 pm

Hadrian_Abela wrote: I also think, that good Rp should be rewarded. A Gm should check the server logs casually, where s/he sees some good Rp taking place, give him/her a skillboost in one of the skills, or for very good Rp allow him/her to learn stuff lyke a language, or magic without needing a teacher (as in a sorcerer).

Too little gm's for that, so much rp would be missed, it'd only make this 'people feel unfairly treated' thing bigger in my opinnion.

A little thing about the quests though:
I personally never had a problem with something big going on that affected everyone, it gives a special atmosphere to the game, on wich I agree with Nitram, we are missing most of the time.

Oftenly for me(And I assume others) the problem with larger quests would be, there where quite a lot of those who where obviously just trying to be nice to the quest char, or superheroes if the questchar was evil, they don't seem to really have their own personality. Quite possibly this is for one reason the chance of getting fat loot. Wich I assume just can't really be changed, and then there is that they tend to be at several times, and some of them can't come, that messing with quite a lot of it.

But all in all, aside from mostly the big heroes, and noone giving a shit, ignoring the quest, I enjoyed bigger ones, lotsa people will likely disagree with me here but I liked the so called 'Rothman wars' too to an extent, it gave that strange atmosphere, I liked it.
Lich wars.. I liked it, exept for the part where, Kevin, Alexander and Lennier(I think?) got rid of a lich(Kevin hadn't learned the proper use of molotovs back then

), and basicly everyone was like... And? So what? Personally I think in such things the people should atleast be known for it. On the road back, I felt good, this "Whoohoo, I'm the hero for once!" kinda feeling... then when noone bothered to actually care, the atmosphere was gone again.
Back then I was far from good at rping in my opinnion, but I still loved it.

Negros... well, wasn't really part of it, mostly bad timing, and just not in my mood to play.

Darlok, well, I tried to be actively part of it, and to some point I was, but then the whole thing just got halted.

So yeah, as a summary of my opinnion, Big quests are nice(Even though the skill level needed for chars contending got too high for me to join in I think >.<), atmosphere basicly non-existant indeed, player behavior, well we all can see that I think, player-staff stuff, don't really know there.

Llama · Post by **Llama** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:55 pm

Suggestions RE: Newbie island.

Established players should be given 'special' permission to go to newbie island and stay there for as long as they like, to help the players themselves (example explain the concept of Rp and the like to them).

It'd work better then a fully automated system.

Kevin Lightdot · Post by **Kevin Lightdot** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:14 pm

Hadrian_Abela wrote:Suggestions RE: Newbie island.

Established players should be given 'special' permission to go to newbie island and stay there for as long as they like, to help the players themselves (example explain the concept of Rp and the like to them).

It'd work better then a fully automated system.

Dunno if many people will go there...

Pellandria · Post by **Pellandria** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:27 pm

abcfantasy wrote: I think in the current state, it will be extremely hard to achieve the atmosphere of a tight community again. As it's already been said, there barely is any RP atmosphere in the game. Evil guys are rarely ever feared, towns are all neutral and all people roam about any town, knights are taken as a joke with no respect at all, even those people in high positions...

I just yesterday had a lovely rp with Aley, we just were in Varshikar and told storys, you don't need to have a full scale war to have a "atmosphere", if you want some kind of atmosphere you should try to create it yourself, strange to hear these words from you in the past I allways enjoyed the rp with you and it was just "little" things like normal talking or such.

I don't know, but I think applications for creating an account is needed. We need to make sure players know how to react to evil chars, to those that are due respect, etc... Maybe there would be the need to even make evil chars, since people may get bored with many such chars, so they will drop the 'fear roleplay'.

No, then we have many people in the newbie section, which will ask "what did I wrong" or "Can you help me", in these times I helped several people..but somehow it doesn't pay off in the end, and the question is..can anyone play a "real" simple minded Char, who actually fears such things, many of us, including me, have chars, who don't fear greater and evil Lifeforms.

Another thing, would a time limit for skill gaining be any better? Like...you can train a maximum of an hour or two a day (and maybe make skill gaining just slightly faster)? Or maybe a way to make a (selected) character teach to another character, which would be a faster way to gain a skill (but still limited). This would encourage training classes and hopefully more roleplay.

I actually like the lessons from Athian, but even I catch myself going online, casting untill my spells untill I hit the cap, I don't like it this way, but when nearly noone is on..or noone is around my char at this time you can just do this..because still some rp simply depends on skills and this yeah sucks, but can't be changed in any way I guess.

Sometime ago I had this idea of perhaps making a new (smaller) map, where only experienced players can reach (with specially created chars). There would be stricter RP rules there, and maybe only able to log in between certain times (to increase the number of players who log in in that time period, and to let those players log into the old map). Knowing this, players may thrust each other more and improve the community-like rp. I'm not so sure though, it may cause unintended consequences.
.

Very very bad idea, we would split the community apart, the normal people who rp and work will change between the servers, but newbies would be stuck on the bigger Island, thus just having the normal player, who would work at this time and the pg'ers, who work anyway, how could they learn to rp, when all "hardcore" rp'er are in a seperated Island, where they can't go because they not yet learned to play?

Newbie Island with player help, would be atleast better then staying around for nothing and walk around sensless, bad thing is, when you actually find someone to play..you wouldn't want to go there "just because of newbs"

I think this is the first topic I saw in some time, where no flaming was done and we are allready site 3..way to go ; ).

Miklorius · Post by **Miklorius** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:32 pm

This whole discussion is indeed valid, the actual overall status of Illarion is not very good. There was a lot said above so I only post some ideas and thoughts:

- New players: If you newly arrive in Troll's Bane and no one is there, it's bad. So, the newbie island is needed to teach game mechanismen (I guess not many people read the manual; and older players don't wanna always spend much time helping newbies who will never come back anyway).
When a newbie then leaves the tutorial island, maybe he should get dynamically teleported to the city with the actual most logged-in players?

- Few players: It is correct that a lot of veteran players left and maybe only a few new ones stay. The former main city TB is often deserted. I think there is some kind of vicious circle consisting of summer time, server problems and...

-IG happenings/atmosphere: At the moment there is hardly any interesting "big" action, no major quests. Almost all recent wider plots were IMO not that exciting, take ages to come to an end or just petered out ("im Sande verlaufen")!
("Miklorius, make it better then yourself!" - "No, I am just pointing at problems."

)

I agree with Nitram that Illarion needs now some conflicts between cities/guilds, not always some roaming bandits or another Lich. But to realize this, planning is needed and there has to be working instances, so in my eyes the last merely peaceful months were a time of restoration to strenghten the different towns (although it did not really work when you think of the few players). Estralis' wish for more background-based player-driven quests/conflicts fits in here (BTW: The background information about the current world of Illarion is not good: There is no short summary which lands and powers are beyond Gobiath).
Another problem is that only a very few amount of players really wants to take IG responsibility combined with regular activity (I don't mean RPing). And if there is no positive IG reactions on such effort, even these players get demotivated (e.g. the non-working town guard of TB). Every active guild or settlement is driven by only one or two players...

An "individual" or more familiar IG atmosphere isn't possible in a big and growing player base. To have this, you probably will find a small group of players (guilds etc.) and make more intense RP only with them. This leads to diversification but also to separation.
You can't fundamentally change this evolvement, not with a char-wipe, not with a re-enabled account system and not with making Gobiath smaller again.

-Staff: I really appreciate the staff's work! But the main communication to the players is not that good: News on the homepage are seldom and often late (well, the homepage is outdated a lot), the staff itself is not very transparent (who is in the staff, who is active?), the very good development information thread isn't updated anymore (no need for always great details there).
Sometimes the game update philosophy is a bit strange ("let's dump balancing and bugfixing, update immediately and see what will happen - oh, crash"); bugfixing in general seems to have a minor priority in favor of fancy new features...

It is right that positive replies on the staff's/dev's work is hard to find on the forum but this is the same everywhere. In Forums you get criticism - everything what is not criticized is good

.

-Crafting: I am not sure if the in general good new crafting system supports either RP or PG. Someone said that the obligation to work on stationary tools could strengthen this impression because you just see now more crafters.
It is easier now to PG (look at the amounts of resources which are traded these days: 1.000 this, 2.000 that etc.), but I guess there is no system that can combine comfort with RP and suppress PG; the actual system is a very good compromise because you can talk/RP while crafting - that does not mean that the system (or the economics at all) is already perfectly balanced yet (maybe the same for the fighting system, but that's a whole different story).

Well, nuff said for now.

Tinuva Geogroda · Post by **Tinuva Geogroda** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:42 pm

Miklorius wrote: I agree with Nitram that Illarion needs now some conflicts between cities/guilds, not always some roaming bandits or another Lich. But to realize this, planning is needed and there has to be working instances, so in my eyes the last merely peaceful months were a time of restoration to strenghten the different towns (although it did not really work when you think of the few players). Estralis' wish for more background-based player-driven quests/conflicts fits in here (BTW: The background information about the current world of Illarion is not good: There is no short summary which lands and powers are beyond Gobiath).
Another problem is that only a very few amount of players really wants to take IG responsibility combined with regular activity (I don't mean RPing). And if there is no positive IG reactions on such effort, even these players get demotivated (e.g. the non-working town guard of TB). Every active guild or settlement is driven by only one or two players...

^ True, we need some active guilds, and not loads of guilds with 4 players were 2 are just inactive. And we need maybe rivalism between 2 guilds, that could make it exciting.

I must say the RP in a conflict/war is too way better 0.0!

But well, how we gonna do it indeed? =/

Llama · Post by **Llama** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:51 pm

Sometimes the game update philosophy is a bit strange ("let's dump balancing and bugfixing, update immediately and see what will happen - oh, crash"); bugfixing in general seems to have a minor priority in favor of fancy new features...

As any programmer will tell you, bugfixing is irritating. If the devs have low morale because everyone is complaining...
-

I agree with a guild fight, but we need OOC rules, otherwise it turns into a PKing fest.

Tinuva Geogroda · Post by **Tinuva Geogroda** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:55 pm

Even more important: we need 2 active guilds >.>

abcfantasy · Post by **abcfantasy** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:56 pm

Tinuva Geogroda wrote:I must say the RP in a conflict/war is too way better 0.0!

Unless it would resort to poor, continuous, repeated ctrl+clicking and clouding.

And right now, I think manyyy warriors are independent. I kinda dislike this. I think people in guilds should be given some advantage (maybe for learning). This way, the people would be encouraged to join guilds, and perhaps gives rise to new guilds, which in turn may cause some conflicts between guilds.

But there has to be the motivation and the advantages of joining a guild first.

Tinuva Geogroda · Post by **Tinuva Geogroda** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:57 pm

abcfantasy wrote:
Tinuva Geogroda wrote:I must say the RP in a conflict/war is too way better 0.0!
Unless it would resort to poor, continuous, repeated ctrl+clicking and clouding.

And right now, I think manyyy warriors are independent. I kinda dislike this. I think people in guilds should be given some advantage (maybe for learning). This way, the people would be encouraged to join guilds, and perhaps gives rise to new guilds, which in turn may cause some conflicts between guilds.

But there has to be the motivation and the advantages of joining a guild first.

Well, I admit sometimes there are just ctrl + clickers, but when some town gets besieged and you are in it you get such tons of good rp =/

Miklorius · Post by **Miklorius** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 3:03 pm

I don't mean just open fighting wars: Political or diplomatic conflicts could be cool, too.

Hadrian_Abela, I know that bugfixing is not funny, but it's IMO more important to get rid of some (old!) bugs instead of put in another feature.

PO Stephen Rothman once posted some OOC war rules.

Tinuva Geogroda · Post by **Tinuva Geogroda** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 3:08 pm

Miklorius wrote:I don't mean just open fighting wars: Political or diplomatic conflicts could be cool, too.

/agreed, kinda cold wars =/

Christiana · Post by **Christiana** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:38 pm

Pellandria wrote: I'm sure I don't make any friends now, but some pseudo rp'er are really destroying the mood

maybe some pseudo rp'er are destroying the mood, but maybe some hardcore pro rp'er also destroy the mood. it's anoyingif you hear on every corner "xy is a power gamer... bla bla" and its also annoying if you write "#me grabs the arm of xy" and the answer is "((you can't do this! thats forced rp! you have to attempt it!))". i ask me in this case, if it is so difficult to say "#me breaks away from the human".
i think we all play the game just for fun or to relax from rl, so i ask me why do we have all this hair splitting? if someone works a lot, let him go with this. maybe he plays not very well, but its better than a npc trader instead. if someone has the name (or a part of a name) you know from a book that is not well known, let him go (i mean not gandalf or so

).

i think this is the right way to get more players. sorry, but i am really annoyed by this damn hair splitting all the time. i think we lost a lot of players by this...

Post by **Nitram** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:58 pm

I have to sign what Christiana says.

That elitist roleplay some try to push in the game, destroys more of the fun then it offers.

If i read "this is a serious game" i only think. Thats plain crap. Illarion still is a game. Its mainly for fun. I love to see lighten up roleplay and some more run instead of this.

I don't say no more roleplay. But a way between the hack and slash style and the strict elitist rp style we have now.

Nitram

Korm Kormsen · Post by **Korm Kormsen** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:02 pm

well, such a long thread, needs me ranting along a bit...

i read it all, and one positive thing was, aparently all, who touched the point of good roleplayers agreed, to call themselves not so good ...

but in earnest:

one thing, we need is to accept the status quo. we should not try to compare with better times in the past. - leave that to the old people...-

we got illa, like it is now. let us go on from here!
---------

one thing mentioned: the problem for english speaking players to find enough other chars for RP.
the different languages are a problem. now there are english players, who feel lonely among a german mayority. (some months ago some german players started the nordmark, because they felt left beside by an english mayority - so this seems to be a fluctuating and changing "problem") but just these different languages are something, we got, that could be a plus!
we really should find a way to use it!
(maybe different towns with different languages?)

--------

But something like this misses the game completly. Instances ( guilds, towns ) that are respected. Players that are respected. Is there something like this? I don't think so. Everyone is everyones dude.
There are no tensions between the city. You won't meet anyone in Trollsbane ( if you meet one ) who tells you "Up there in Varshikar, there are only bloodthirsty murderers". And in Varshikar you find noone who tells you that Trollsbane is filled with wimps. Just as example. Something like this misses the game really. And those differences make the game interessting.

Something like this can't be established by the staff members i think. Only be the players. Only they are able to make something like this possible. And those players who are in the leader positions are in charge to try to change something.

as nitram stated, he did not go there. (to the "dangerous" and unknown Varshikar)

we would need more "distance" between the different settlements.
1) physical distance. disarm the teleporters. let people go to other towns.
2) mental distance. make different cities and settlements for different races. (good, tol vanima - just elves.silberbrand - just dwarves. bad, greenbriar - elves, humans, and even one or two halflings.)
3) pronounce more the economical differences.
(maybe, the stationary tools in the different towns produce different quality products. or something similar)

aaaand.....
the staff should think seriously about something, that sure as hell will bring protests from a lot of (not "benefitted") players:

the staff should search among themselves, and/or among the players some, who get pushed chars, to act as townleaders and other "special" points of focus.
(i simply don't see democratic systems working in illa)

greeting,korm

ps: and, maybe, make the forum accounts dependent to active game accounts.

Kevin Lightdot · Post by **Kevin Lightdot** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:14 pm

Korm Kormsen wrote: aaaand.....
the staff should think seriously about something, that sure as hell will bring protests from a lot of (not "benefitted") players:

the staff should search among themselves, and/or among the players some, who get pushed chars, to act as townleaders and other "special" points of focus.
(i simply don't see democratic systems working in illa)

Well, honestly said, some stuff with the politics, mainly in TB is soo horribly crappy(or atleast was before I stopped bothering to read it all), it didn't work indeed, but also taking away the chances of working out stuff ig, becomming leader of something, it would take away chances of rp, plus as you say, a lot of people will feel unfairly judged, and to a part, they may be right, a gm can not look at all the rp of a person, know his thoughts, whatever. I really think we should stick with politics, it may need some work, but I would be against taking it away.

Just my comment.

Pellandria · Post by **Pellandria** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:23 pm

Sorry the line is, when someone throws a freaking cake at someone and he answers "Hey there is a cake on the ground, want a piece". This is what i don't like, people who turn your rp into the mud and such things, I don't mean this "#me attemps crap" which kinda is going on my nervs aswell, you need to get used to others peoples rp thats ok, but people who turn logic around so that their chars aren't harmed in anyway..thats just annoying.

Post by **Nitram** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:26 pm

And what do you want to say us with this, Pellandria?

Pellandria · Post by **Pellandria** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:29 pm

Nothing, just eyplaining my point more clear so it won't be missunterstood and well I don't think we have that much hardcorerp'ers here anyway.

Post by **Nitram** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:31 pm

we have not many but the damage caused by the few is not really less.

Fianna Heneghan · Post by **Fianna Heneghan** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 5:16 am

I thought this was an idea that was worth considering. Maybe have a more private place to air complaints moderated by people that can remain neutral and patient when people start to get a bit unreasonable.

Juliana D'cheyne wrote: I also think it is not so much ig discouraging people from staying, but the forum. Suppose part of the forum was public and for new players, and part was private for those here a certain time? Would that help at all? Also, possibly those with non-active chars over a couple of months only be allowed to post in the public part of the forum which would have strict rules on posting written?

Nitram wrote:
That elitist roleplay some try to push in the game, destroys more of the fun than it offers.

And I thought that one bore repeating.

I wanted to thank everyone once more for reading and posting their thoughts. It was nice to see everyone talking about this so reasonably. I think it was a positive first step.