Illarion Feedback Survey 2021

[Estralis Seborian]

Dear Illarionites,

Recently, we asked you to provide feedback on development goals. The survey is still open and we will read all of your answers.

English: https://illarion.org/media/limesurvey/i ... 79/lang-en
German: https://illarion.org/media/limesurvey/i ... e-informal

We evaluated the submissions received so far and we could clearly make out a 'top 5' of aspects you would like to see improved or added to the game. For each of these items, please find below the staff's position. We thank you very much for your input, it really helped us to discuss the priorities and upcoming additions to the game!

Magic
Magic was, by far, the most commonly requested aspect in this survey. Illarion only has a very basic wand magic system and magic is seen as a missing key feature by the staff. In other, very clear words: The team wants magic. When the VBU was rolled out, the old magic scripts were not backed up. Hence, we have to start from zero and apart from a concept, implementation has not gone anywhere so far. Magic has the special difficulty about it that the desired system would require client, server and scripts to work hand in hand. As it has become evident that this poses an obstacle we cannot overcome, we will aim for a minimum viable system that might be based on simple yet available methods such as speech to cast a spell. A new UI for composing spells from runes is not within reach.

Magic takes big effort and the current staff has little time. Thus, a modular approach that allows later expansion is favoured. A first version of magic could offer little more than current wand magic but could be extended by new spells comparably easy. One worry we have is that mages might become OP if they get everything (runes, glyphs, portals,...) and current professions could become unattractive in comparison. Careful balancing will be needed.

Paperdolling
To improve paperdolling, the basic models, animations and scripts are available. Yet there is a lack of time and skills within the team. A "buy" decision could be taken but specifying the actual needs are an obstacle. Needs a new staff member, skilled in 3D graphics. A potential toolchain could consist of MakeHuman for modelling, Mixamo for rigging + animating and Blender for rendering, as well as ImageMagick for the 2D work.

Fighting
Fighting, albeit a commonly used system, is regarded as not playing a major role in Illarion's transformation. We intend to perform balancing of the influencing factors such as skills and attributes but no major changes to the principles of the fighting system. For example, the effect of gems in armours needs to be fixed. We can fully understand the wish to have a more dynamic, action oriented system but considering our limited capacities and the general priorities to create a game that is not just an inferior copy of others games, the lion's share of development work will be spent on other topics. We aim to provide you an experience that is less rough around the edges rather than a completely new system that would come with new flaws and issues.

Crafting/Gathering
Further changes to gathering are under preparation. We want to get away from an abundance of materials that at the same time require a tedious grind for gathering. Generally, we do not see crafting as requiring major changes, incremental improvements are what we are aiming for. Crafting and gathering received significant attention in the past and we want to provide different features to you, rather than just more of the same, over and over again. While crafting and gathering are not perfect, with the changes we intend to perform, they will reach 90 % of what we consider sufficient for Illarion. It is noted that gathering and crafting are a good method to stay busy in the game, but they are not its core.

Weather
Former implementation of weather effects came with serious issues that could not be overcome so far. A graphical representation of weather is not within reach. We lack the capacity for client innovations like this. Modernising our deprecated GUI prevails. Instead, a text based weather description appears feasible. This will be an excellent opportunity to contribute to Illarion without coding knowledge as a harmonious description of weather effects will be needed.

Based on your responses and our assessment of impact and urgency, we derived the following priorities list. This top 12 will govern our next development steps. The values are explained below.

1. Rune magic Impact 5 / Urgency 5
2. Troll's Haven 5/5
3. Tutorial 4/5
4. Pets 4/4
5. World realisation 4/3
6. Housing 4/3
7. Priest magic 4/3
8. Weather description 3/3
9. Attribute effects 4/2
10. Gem effects 3/3
11. NPC review 3/2
12. Repairing/restoration 3/3

Impact: What is the impact of this on the game as a whole and how much would the game benefit from this?
Urgency: How quick should this be implemented, considering manpower, constraints and effort/benefit ratio?

Thanks again!
Estralis

Automated German translation: https://translate.google.com/translate? ... 6t%3D42891

[Charlotte-ate-wilbur]

You forgot to mention the structure of the three factions and the need for change in that regard.

There is far too much swept under the rug- Address the problems already and stop avoiding them.


Ps- Responding to requests by implying you cannot do it is just sad, we've had magical interfaces, weather, mules, and many more features on a far more primitive client. How can we call this an upgrade if decades old clients can do more? We had gem effects, diets... if so many features are not possible why are we using this client?

This is why we have so few of our community left- take some responsibility at this point.

[Amelia Rotholz]

Oh my...
What a constructive critism...

1. He listed the points as the survey turned them out.
So, if your points are not on that list, it just means, the overall result of the survey did not put them in the top 12...

2. Just because we had some features under the old client, it does not mean they can be just implemented again as easy as Copy and Past. We do have a new client and that means, bringing all back means an hell of work. It is no secret, that we lack of developers, especially for the client. So they need to priorize. And a lot of time.

3. Pissing people off who put their time and effort in here and saying they are basicly at fault for people leaving doesn't help at all. Personally, I think such toxic behaviour is more of a reason, but that's just me...

4. If you want to help the game to better, then why not contribute? Even without coding, there is still enough to do...

5. I want to take the chance to say THANK YOU, to everyone putting their free time and so much work and effort into this! Whithout you guys, one of the greatest games out there would not even exist!!!

[Charlotte-ate-wilbur]

I've been here for a long time, I've posted countless proposals and talked with countless people about the same things over the entirety of a decade. I've been demonized for things I never did, then I've been demonized for things I DID do.

I have thrown under the bus by Gms, devs, and players alike. Why? Because I'm not afraid to say what needs said. I may have been nicer in the past but you know what karma is? It's not a magical system of Justice- it's the result of how you interact with the world around you. People react to what you do. I don't care about the sensibilities of the weak minded control freaks who've run this community into the ground. You just need to look at the statistics to see how many players are playing since the previous client and how we've declined.

Unfortunately progress is constantly stifled in favor of the sensibilities of a few people who don't want to take responsibility or even progress at all. So ban me or grow a spine- start by being honest. Illarion has needed huge changes- it's about damn time that gets accepted or continue to watch the game fail.