The Fat Lady Sings

[Mesha]

Please refrain from posting about banned characters or players. Even if it were 'funny' pictures. And also watch out with existing players, because we wuv them and want to keep them forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

Perhaps share these pictures and stories with one another on MSN, where the fun can really continue and the laughter can be endless. But here, you should try and be aware that other people have feelings, and that other people might not enjoy being ridiculed or the likes.

Mesha

P.S. If you do want to ridicule someone, try and ridicule one who can't get hurt by it, or doesn't really mind. Like Flux or me.

[Kevin Lightdot]

When did Iris get green hair? I was never informed...

Actually, that's the head of the staff.


PS:

[Flux]

Anyway, guys Q&A session now

Other than, because I know myself it was overly ambitious and handled badly, the overuse of questchars and slow start due to the delay on maps being implemented:

Best bits? Worst bits? Ways each bit could've been improved?

Did things like Macek's bickering in Irundar, the Perceiver saying really un-funny things and finding it hilarious, Akormal snapping at everyone about prejudice, needing a translator to speak with the Peak, "I'm a hedge", Mandrel's "Here's your ring... and your necklace... Stanley Young.." and ".. Oh and by the way. Next time just ask for it", horrendous puns about eyes, everytime you enter a room there's always some massive monster behind you that you can't see until you light a torch, random commentary from Zyarn and Karitch etc. add to the fun or were they just not necessary?

[Rhombus]

I think one negative thing, although something I didn't experience, but other players probably did experience, was that the quest was very unclear. Most of the time, people had no idea what was going on, and I think that sort of caused them to receive the quest negatively. But in my opinion, things were meant to be kept unclear to a degree. Aside from that, I thought the quest was great. The humorous parts, like the puns and odd character behaviour were perfect. I think they added a lot to the quest; made it very fun and personable. It was never anything TOO absurd. All in all, great quest. I understand it's hard to involve many players when a lot of players seldom choose to RP and instead choose to ctrl click, and get upset when they can't defeat a horde of demons. In any case, I was pleased, keep up with the quests and I hope the next one is better and well received. Cheers.

Edit - I forgot! I believe the story was the best part of the quest. It had such depth and history to it, I really liked it. Nice work. It really felt like it belonged and was a part of the whole Illa universe.

[Kevin Lightdot]

Zyarn was the best, the person who played him was so freakin' awesome.

[Dronrul]

Zyarn for president!

[Flux]

Something else:

I think spreading word by the players is handled really badly nowadays.

Previously the RPG board was full of posts from anything as small as "There is a mummy in town" to battle tactics against huge threats and things.

There was no real good way of me spreading the news, since the Nocturne were pretending they were against the demons, and Akormal and the demons couldn't reveal anything about their side to anyone they didn't completely trust because they were secretly against the Nocturne. The circumstances of the quest made it extremely difficult to get the news across to anyone who wasn't informed by the Nocturne, Mandrel or one of the main people involved. I'd like to see more players using the RPG board though, when you have all your information up there it's pretty interesting and people have fun discussions etc.

[Radu]

Knowledge is power and without a way of learning what is happening most of us are powerless. I tried to follow the story with all my characters( without, of course without crossing paths) but it was very difficult. Players kept information very close and little or nothing was ever posted about the goings on. The final result was that the endgame was a private little affair even though it was posted as an OPEN player quest. It may well have been a good story and even well thought out but perhaps a bit too convoluted for the general population to follow. Tailoring a story-line to the serious Rp crowd is a good idea. It must be insanely frustrating for a Gm to write and implement a story only to have the final scene flooded with idiots running about waving weapons and not really understanding what is happening. I was at the first battle when the Prince tried to take the city and the server crashed mid-battle. For me it was actually a good thing because I was frustrated to the point of growling at my monitor because of the generally poor behavior of the people in attendance. I didn't bother to try to come back because I saw things were out of control and it just wasn't fun. On the other hand if players are trying to follow the story and participate as well as they might with what information they can glean and are treated very poorly when they appear for the ending... bad form. All the camaraderie that developed in earlier battles against the demons just evaporated and the a few that were privy to certain details just stood and watched a skeleton ramble ooc and basically act as if it were throwing a private party. On the whole I enjoyed the demon game and had a great deal of fun as it played out. Good job overall. No hard feelings.

[Alli Zelos]

The reason, I think, that it became a private ordeal was because of the order to "end the quest." We were told not to RP with anyone not already involved in the quest, due to the whining of players. A sad fact, but it happened.

This also might've caused the general confusion about the quest... If we can't RP with you, you have no way of knowing what's going on.

A helpful tip: Don't rebel against something just because you don't know every single bit of the plotline OOC.

[Radu]

No rebellion here at all. As I said I had a pretty good time overall. Running something like this has to have a pretty tough learning curve. I have confidence they will get better and better.

[Grim_banned]

As it started, the quest was meant to be open and public for everyone, thus the demons running around and trying to interact with as many people as they could. Sadly, like Alli said, there was that "specific" group of players that like to whine about everything, that started ruining the fun for everyone, even for the GMs involved. As a decision, the quest was continued only for a certain group that was already involved, enjoyed and appreciated the huge effort that Flux and the others have put into this quest.

On an other note, as a personal opinion, I am sure that this quest will be remembered forever, right next to the lich wars Good job Flux, you impressed many of us. Keep up the good work <3

[Q-wert]

There was little I learned about and saw from the quest everyone is so exited and happy about, but that little did mostly leave a bitter taste.
It always is easy to complaint about something someone else works hard on, so please consider it a complaint that tries to be constructive.
And before I turn this post into a huge rant I´ll try to sum it up relatively objectively:

Did not like:
- total language restriction to English

- the change from public to private quest
The super-dangerous demons simply vanished from one day to the other as soon the change was made, though somehow still something somewhere was going on.
And that without a chance to do something for those not in that private group, leaving them just a little puzzled.

- the behavior of the demon-fraction in public
Weird would be my description of the behaviour of the demons, they ran into settlements like "Muhaha, we are sooo evil." but then did not do any serious harm at all.
Some redshirts, blood, tortures, fires (or other stuff one does expect demons to do) might have saved the atmosphere. And one or two killable demons might have cheered up frustrated players.

- (major) involvement of a certain character without knowledge of the player
A single case not concerning myself (I hope), but the mentioned char should be mostly unplayable now, if people play their character correctly.
Maybe asking before might have been a nicer choice.

- major map-bugs since that tower did appear

Did like:
- the atmosphere the quest did generate when there were no demons around, especially if there was gm-made weather

2nd Edit:
If I had to give a rating about the parts of the quest seen, I´d give: 3/10.

1st Edit:
If there is one thing I really don´t like it is pk-ing. Causes immense amounts of bad blood thanks to equal loss of time one has to spend to regain the lost skills.
There are so many ways one could bring fear to those behind the screens...
Cool messages like "The air is getting cold and it feels like the almost living seeming fog would not only absorb almost all sounds around, but you have the feeling that you have difficulties to concentrate on a single thought, too."(in better English of course), cruel roleplay done to redshirts, and all the subtle and faint stuff you find in good horror-books. And if nothing does help a little, little, faint bit of forced rp at the right places to move the mood into the right direction.
Sadly there was almost nothing like that in the few scenes of the quest chars of mine were involved. Please do that the next time.

[Grim_banned]

You are very right, q-wert, very very right, but like I said, it was not the original idea of the quest to turn like that and it only happened because of the certain group ego-centric players (and i say this respectfully) that come with ideas like "you demon can't be here, this forest is protected by the spirit of my dead, drunken grandfather" and the idea that somehow, the game is centered only around their chars. At first, the demons were not permitted to Pk anyone, unless really provoked, then they weren't permitted to attack at all, since again, the ego-centered group of players (again, respectfully), did not like to be disturbed from their RP or PG'g .. and yes, there were actually some that complained that teh demons do not let them PG, if you can imagine that.. no name giving though.
Soon, all turned into a huge flame-fest, and sadly, people that didn't know much about the quest, let themselves be influenced by what that specific part of the community said. And thus, we arrived at the point where the demons were not even permitted to log into the game.
Weren't the days nicer when GMs were strict and didnt give importance to whiney players? I remember a time when my char was res-killed 10 times in a row at a cross by an army of dwarves spawned by Damien. At least then, people learned how to play fear on their chars, not whine about every little detail that does not go their way and enjoy the game more.

Like q-wert said before me... this is not a rant, it is a constructive criticism
Cheers

[Rincewind]

Sadly I wasn't available at friday. Surely My orc never followed the whole storyline, but interacted with the deamons as well. I liked. So uhm.. yes...
I propose Flux as GM.

...

Oh... he's allready!

Thank you and your helpers for the quest.

Edit: I liked Grim and Q-wert smart words most.

[Athian]

@Alli and Grim

If their were complaints about the quest to the point where you were told to "end the quest" then something was wrong; the end. perhaps whatever was wrong didn't merit such a heavy handed response as "End the Quest" but that doesn't change the fact that people had issues. You can blame other people if you want and pretend that it was a perfect job and other player's complaints had no validity, and in response we can pretend you aren't being bias and asinine. That approach however is exactly the opposite of what a Quest GM and Quester's need in order to be successful and improve quests for the future so that they can appeal to a larger audience.

Anyway, criticism time

Things i felt that kept people from wanting to be majorly involved with the quest:

Disorganization and behavior of many involved player characters:

Not quest characters in this case but the immature player characters (this does not include all of them;they know who they were)who went around causing havoc or being generally bratty in the name of the 'demons' or using the demons for personal gain while providing little to the substance of the quest.There were some specific players whose behavior made you think this was going to be a repeat of of old temple nonsense wrapped in a the guise of a 'quest'. I'm not going to name any names in any case. These mood killing characters had players running well before the quest had even gotten into full swing. This is a difficult thing to control so you can't really 'blame' the GM, still its pretty sad to see.

Poorly handled Role playing environments:

At no point do I think it was appropriate for the Mandrel and the demons to do things such as, sit around at the fire in town or act nonchalantly about wandering through the cities of people that see them as enemies. This had two effects, the first was that it caused the quest to lose a lot of its serious overtone while showing that your quest characters have no care or fear of these supposed enemies, which can give a lot of players a sense of hopelessness. the first few weeks of the quest seemed to involve a lot of useless/idle activity on the part of the demons which did little to inspire fear or awe in the demons and instead just made them seem like an unstoppable nuisance. it also had effects on the first mentioned problem, as the player characters involved with the demons were led by example to just hang out and do as they please and yet still disagree to their characters suffering harassment, physical harm or exile (the last being pointless because they simply came back regardless). However this was corrected quickly as i think the battle with Silverbrand highlighted, questers and GM proved they could "lose" (something the GM must allow). It didn't really offset the first few weeks but it definitely helped.


More information:

I feel like using the quest tracker on the main page more then just at the end of the quest would have been more helpful. Even if the time presented could not always be met or handled it would have given the quest in whole a bit more of a semblance of order and helped to keep players informed. New players to the quest would have known when any of the many unappreciated events were taking place and could have tried to become more involved. Players that did not want to be involved also could know when to avoid the quest or which areas not to travel through until the quest part was over.

Too much empty time:

The quest dragged on to lengths that were unreasonable. The largest quests are always the toughest because real life takes precedence but when quests like this drag on they start to degrade. People lose feeling for events, Players of NPC's get bored and do things that may or may not detract from the feel of the quest and player characters that don't like the quest have more ammo as to why the quest is 'fail'.

okay enough of that

Things that were good about the quest:

I did not get to see every part of the quest but i was present for several events on various characters and i must say that when the quest was actually flowing it was excellent. The events went together very well, and many of the involved players kept the tempo and feel of a quest event going for days after the event had taken place. Rarely if at all did you ever see anyone break character which is admirable considering how much time the quest took overall.

Another thing i found excellent was the core group of NPC characters were played very well and with a commendable degree of restraint. I enjoyed having an RP battle with one of the demons at Zzyathis (my favorite example but not the only one for sure) along with Ssar'ney, it was well played and left me feeling very hopefully about the quest, if anything changed my initial feelings toward the quest this event and others like it were key too my change of mind. On that note, there was a minimum of 'pwnage', accidental deaths, pk'ing, over spawning of monsters and all the other things that make a quest seem rushed.

Also the events were cliche in creative ways ^^. How many times have we gathered essential elements to pwn something? the answer is A lot. The execution behind it however far separated these events from boring generic "kill the monster, gather the item" quests. Events were creative and fun for those involved. The concept of the quest did not falter or skew at any point and managed to stay on course right until the end.

Long story short I'd give this quest..

8/10

Nice work Flux team.

[Grim_banned]

Thank you Athian, a very good, detailed insight. It's always nice to read what you write, you have the gift, man, hehe. And you are right about what you said as well.

[Flux]

Did not like:
- total language restriction to English

Unfortunately, this is something I can't improve on since I don't speak German. The other problem is: GMs who could possibly translate have lives too. The quest events all lasted several hours and happened semi-spontaneously whenever the people involved had enough time. It would've been unreasonable to have asked for translations.

The super-dangerous demons simply vanished from one day to the other as soon the change was made, though somehow still something somewhere was going on.
And that without a chance to do something for those not in that private group, leaving them just a little puzzled.

Anyone was able to get into the private group, just with a pm to me, and people I noticed were actively against the demons were brought in too. People who were really pretty much on the fence or not caring were just not contacted by the Nocturne, since the demons were "not supposed" to find out what was going on (even though they really knew all along), but people had to be tricked in that way.

As for the vanishing.. well.. I had been told that loads of people were complaining, people were boycotting illa due to the quest, that the playerbase dropped etc. etc. and I had been told that if things continued the way they were then the quest would be shut down completely. I didn't want that, so I pmed every demon player and told them they were no longer allowed to play their characters outside of quest events. Unfortunately, since the whole "demon side" portion was actually: "We are waiting for the Nocturne to do their thing and biding our time", there weren't good opportunities for that to occur. Hence.. the presence of the demons from that point was very, very limited. There was nothing I could do about that, it was down to player complaints.

Weird would be my description of the behaviour of the demons, they ran into settlements like "Muhaha, we are sooo evil." but then did not do any serious harm at all.
Some redshirts, blood, tortures, fires (or other stuff one does expect demons to do) might have saved the atmosphere. And one or two killable demons might have cheered up frustrated players.

Problem with "killable demons" is that that means there's actually no point whatsoever in the quest at hand. Why spend 2 months gathering artifacts and secretly working in dangerous conditions to this cause, when you could just get a group of people to kill them one by one?

They did no serious harm for two reasons, an ig one and an ooc reason:
IC: Mandrel never intended harm anyway.
OOC: I remember when I was first playing, I attacked a dragon and the GM typed "#me bits his head off" and instakilled me. I was fine with that, it was fair enough. Nowadays, you have to go through this whole ridiculous process of "#me attempts to do blah".. "#me keeps attempting to do blah..", maybe slash at them once as a warning.. never coup de grace. See, people get annoyed about skills and all sorts now and complain. When we first came into town we expected a bit of a response but what we got was "lol demonz", which really brought down the atmosphere and disheartened us, and there was nothing we could really do because pking in that situation is so frowned upon now.

There was one scene actually completely stopped for like 5 whole minutes because three demons had tried to stop this one char. Basically, I gave him time to emote, and he used his emote to do lots of things, pretty big things in one go. e.g. draw a blade, pull it up to someone and slit their throat or something. There were three demons there right next to him and in that situation two of them would've instantly paralysed him, but the person refused to budge and just started whispering in ooc to the player he had assaulted that they should respond. That player was extremely confused, didn't know what was going on and wasn't reacting, I then tried to interact with the first player, but he wouldn't do anything until the second player, who wasn't reacting, had done something and so the scene just stayed in place for like 5 minutes during a previously climatic scene.

- (major) involvement of a certain character without knowledge of the player
A single case not concerning myself (I hope), but the mentioned char should be mostly unplayable now, if people play their character correctly.
Maybe asking before might have been a nicer choice.

Uhh.. what? Clarifaction, please?

major map-bugs since that tower did appear

I can't upload maps to the server etc. so that wasn't something I could do anything about.

@Athian: Cheers for the feedback:
Yeah, a big problem was that before the maps were implemented (particularly the catacomb).. there was not much we could do, and we didn't really want to grief players but we didn't want them to forget what was going on either, so that was pretty tricky to approach.

In future I think I'll steer clear away from letting people into the "bad" side, or if so only one or two who I know would play it out well.

[Kevin Lightdot]

When we first came into town we expected a bit of a response but what we got was "lol demonz"

And with everyone going "LOL DEMONS U WONT KILL ME."
It sucked ass, and not being allowed to attack anyone combined with that while they continuously refuse to acknowlage that demons are in any way stronger than bunnies wasn't quite do-able either.


At one point there was the "Zyarn gets knocked unconcious by a giant dwarven cannon-thingie." where there was supposed to be a small rp quest with a few people killing a few skelatons and rping the rest, on came a bunch of people crtl clicking, including a gm who forgot to un-equip his swords with lvl 10 blackstones in them and pretty much insta-killed Zyarn.

He quickly rezzed after his accident and immediately people went crtl clicking again, including a certain retarded dwarf that refuses to listen or even stand still for five seconds even if a giant demon named Jenkins has spawned infront of him.

Afterwards people cried "DEMONZ UNKILLABLE I COMPLAINZ IR NOT STRONGEST CHAR IN GAME RAGERAGERAGE." "HE GOT KILLED BUT REZZED HIMSELF (-->impossible) HE CHEATZ!!!11"

This, my friends, is the kind of behaviour that led to demons being able to do nothing at all for such a long time. If we did anything else but sit there people usually went QQ or a certain mage starts abusing a giant spam of kel yeg, generally ignoring the fact she isn't the master of the world and can't immidiately sense a powerfull demon that has disguised himself, and instead just goes on crtl click rampage together with some retarded dwarf.

PO's of demons get pissed, try to find other ways to play, people go RAGE again and now completely ignore the fact that demons are demons.

A little cooperation together with some waiting and seeing instead of "LOL DEMUNZ" or "QQ U DISTURBIN MAH RP BRO" would have easily avoided the sudden dissapearance.

Wake up, your characters are not immortal and the entire world isn't centered around them.

Quests are executed a ton better if all the people behind the characters who are there are willing to cooperate.

[Kevin Lightdot]

Dear PO Drakon Gerwulf,
please be so kind as to note that 1: There are no names in my post, 2: You seem to have no idea what you're on about and finally 3: refusing to take part in a quest =/= QQ DIS QUEST HASTA END

Kind regards,
Me


PS: Getting the message across kindly never works --> This.

[Sonara Stone]

Zyarn for president!

Ditto.

[Zot]

Well i guess everything has been said, if anyone wants to thank flux send him a PM.
Topic closed because of toooo much bleeh.