Illarion.org

Oooooooh.
Another entirely pointless post from a developer.

Nitram wrote:Yet you do not know how that will change during the VBU.

You could, you know, tell us?

Grokk wrote:

Nitram wrote:Yet you do not know how that will change during the VBU.

You could, you know, tell us?

Yep, I could.
But would that have any impact here? No matter what I would write here. Some will like it, some won't, and everyone keeps discussing.
What happens if you don't tell you? No one will moan about it and everyone keeps discussing.

Same effect, less moaning.
So thats the simple reason I will not tell you.

Also the VBU is coming one day. Just do not expect any of the stuff you discuss here to effect that update. At the current state of development we are way past community input. Now we are just finishing the stuff we have decided already. If we change our plans on every discussion done here, we will be never done. And while that finishing is basically one of the last states of development. Don't be mistaken by considering this as soon done. Its the second most time intensive part of the development. Surpassed only by the part were the bugs are fixed.

So, discuss as much as you like. Just don't expect too much from it.

Nitram

So the staff doesn't care about what the community thinks, because they have their own secret already decided conclusions to the matter? Gotcha.

Elijah wrote:So the staff doesn't care about what the community thinks, because they have their own secret already decided conclusions to the matter? Gotcha.

Let me rephrase that.

The staff doesn't care about what the community thinks about a state that is going to change with the VBU - would you like someone who spent hours of his time on this to undo everything in order to please a few people who base the correctness of this decision on an earlier pre-VBU state?

Things are going to change with the VBU - old problems might disappear, new problems might appear. Discussing OLD PROBLEMS solves NOTHING. Now, who wants to start a discussion on paperdolling?

Yep, you're pretty much right, but you say that as if it's a bad thing. It's not at all. The community generally can't agree on anything and the staff all have years of experience of this game. We've all seen these threads before and we've been well aware of any system you could come up with and the benefits and negatives of such systems. I think I've personally seen more than 4 threads discussing exactly this.

It's the developers' role to examine the potential systems on merit of how feasible they are and how well they work, choose one, and stick to it. If we had to scrap every system every few months because the community's argument had led them on a separate wild goose chase, VBU would never be released. A lot of thought goes into which system should be in place before it gets made, but VBU is way past the planning board now and there's really nothing left to discuss. You should trust the developers, their aim is to make Illarion a great game. They're not working against you and evilly scheming up horrible systems just to spite you.

Of course they're not. But don't act as though you've even had a 'community' input period anyway. Sure, we've had months and years of threads like these (which have continuously said the same thing over from different eras of gamers and people which could only mean that's the general consensus). The VBU, from what I understand, was kind of sprung onto people from out of nowhere.

What's with the secrecy anyway? I've never really seen such secrecy from any gaming community I've been in. If you claim and are scared we'll whine and scream about it now, doesn't that mean you'll just have dozens of threads all at once about every little issue?

Now, I'm not trying to be rude and I appreciate everything the developers are doing. I would just like some reassurances, if that's not too much to ask. You don't have to reveal everything, but to say "somethings will be removed, somethings will be stay" isn't doing that. Sounds like an incremental update.

Who do you think is developing the game? Its the community. You notice how we always ask for help from the community? Who do you think is giving the input?

I've never really seen such secrecy from any gaming community I've been in.

Oh good, can you tell me what Bethsedia are doing with their latest game? I've only seen the very silly trailer.
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The VBU is a huge update. Its done in secrecy for many reasons - one of which being the ability to impress everyone with a HUGE load of new features. Secondly, its a landmark for the way we're working. Lets put it this way - isn't knowing very little about it the reason you're so interested in it?

I would just like some reassurances

What on?

It takes effort to publicly document stuff; effort that is better directed in making the VBU.

There is no benefit to showing everything to the community early. It just causes more complaining and bickering about something that's past the point of change.

And it's not secrecy. Name any gaming community in which you get told massively in advance every step of the way what the update to the game will be. You can apply this to anything. MMORPGs like WoW bring out expansions which they develop for ages and then show press packs close to release. Published games announce games once they're well into the process and then bring out screenshots every now and then, trailers closer to release, and press packs very close to release. FPS just add updates then announce them (e.g. TF2, CSS, L4D, dlc packs for things like COD). More community based shooters like GunZ release a slight bit of information "We're adding a new prison dungeon" and then show nothing till it's out. Indie developers release their games once they're finished and don't show a glimpse of anything unfinished unless they're really well known, in which case they show a slight bit; maybe a couple of screenshots. The new announcement of TES V shows just what happens with most games. Screenshots were leaked from TES V over 3 years ago, but it's only just been announced, with absolutely no screenshots or ingame footage, just the release date in 11 months. Constantly updated indie games like Minecraft just add updates as they go along, and announce them post-patch (like most mainstream games), but illa can't just add small things right now, there's a whole new client and massive changes to server code.

When a new client comes out, that's a new foundation to the game. It's the workload of bringing out a brand new game, and very few developers publicly chart the whole development of brand new games. That's why you only ever see betas; never alphas. Betas are usually closed too. You never show your first work to the masses, because it's unrepresentative of the final product and people will whinge and be put off by it.

Who said anyone was asking for EVERY single detail? Give us a basic synopsis on everything so we won't have to have these pointless threads. What are some ways the fighting system will be different.. etc? All those games you mentioned, and their respective companies give you some info on the game prior to release. The Elder Scrolls is a completely different story, since that is a reveal trailer and it's not due out for another year. And comparing a free roleplaying game to a developmental giant like Bethaseda and a immense platform RPG world isn't helping the matter.

Flux and Llama beat me so removed.

Well, I honestly don't want to sound harsh here. Like I said, I appreciate everything that is going on and I'm sure no matter what happens with the VBU, it will be excellent. Just would like more hints on to how certain things that are glaring problems in the old client will be edited.

Its going to be an online multiplayer rpg which is focused on roleplaying. As a character in the world of illarion, how will you face your day to day decisions? Should you wear the red dress or the blue dress today?

Fighting system will involve hitting each other with pointy, blunt, or slashy instruments until the other person stops moving, or you are unable to continue.

Crafting system will involve using a tool and another item in order to make useful items from other less useful items.

Seriously, if you're so eager about wanting to know what the VBU is going to be like, grab your nearest NPC maker and start churning them out.

Llama wrote:Seriously, if you're so eager about wanting to know what the VBU is going to be like, grab your nearest NPC maker and start churning them out.

It goes both ways. If you want people to help out, then give them some evidence that they are not going to be just wasting their time contributing to a game that will turn out complete rubbish.

You can't blame people for not having blind faith in the developers, considering the current state of the game.

This is not an attack but trying to understand why your trying to provoke a fight with the dev's who are doing the best they can to make the game the best can for everyone. They are not paid they are not professionals that I know of, They are just like you nothing more, beside that it is a Free game after all..your not losing money like with Wow or any of the other pay to play games.

You complain about the current state of the game then why do you play then?
(( and before you thing that is a sarcastic question it is not, I would like to know because I think the Current state is fine minus the known issues.))

Stop and think your only going to provoke the Dev's and staff...they have enough to deal with trying to get the VBU done. Every time they have to answer or fight back to defend themselves they lose more time to finish it.

You say why ask for helpers if they themselves don't like the VBU after it is done. Well if it was me I would chock it up to a learning experience that ok the game was not to my liking but you know what. I learned to code something or helped with using my creative side that I don't usually use. Or maybe your friend now likes the game more you made them happy.

But I guess that is up to the person that is how I see it. Life is not always fair and some times trying to make things better you ruin something for yourself to enjoy.

my two coins

How long have you enjoyed and played this free game? Illarion is one of a kind, people that have posted here are long term players with a vested interest in the game because they have enjoyed it for a long time yet we need more players and admittedly have our own ideas about skilling though they may not be the same ideas as others. Bottom line is older players can help by working for the VBU as we have helped new players in the past.


PS @Llama .. maybe the blue dress today

Grokk wrote:It goes both ways. If you want people to help out, then give them some evidence that they are not going to be just wasting their time contributing to a game that will turn out complete rubbish.

You can't blame people for not having blind faith in the developers, considering the current state of the game.

Not really. I did post some screenshots a while back, and now my inbox is full of requests to help out. No its not. All we get is excuses and people ignoring. I taught a person to use the simple NPC language in a 1 hour lesson or so- there is no excuse that its too hard. So we must therefore already be up to our elbows in them - since they're so easy to make. Hah. Or books, everyone wants books - also very easy to make.

If you don't like the 'current state of the game' help out and make it better. The team knows about the poor state of the game - it knows what the problems are - and its intending to use the VBU to solve a good amount of them at the same time.

If you want to make this game better, stop complaining - you know the best way to solve things. If nothing it'll give you a sense of appriciation for what the contributors do to entertain you.

If you talk about designing a skill system, principles are nice, but concrete proposals are better. Just one example of things to consider: Is learning curve A or B better? This is the stuff you have to work on when designing a game. Make up curve A and B. Assess them. And: realise one in terms of code!



I'd like to comment on the "you give a shit about what the players think"-statements I read: The very big update is ment to cover a vast amount of proposals and suggestions from the past. However, for very crucial aspects of the game, there never were any reasonable suggestions, so here and there, an educated guess of the developers replaces the input of the community. Actually, this is not 100% true since most(all) developers were recruited from the community!

Estralis Seborian wrote:If you talk about designing a skill system, principles are nice, but concrete proposals are better.

It's called brainstorming. Most of the best ideas are the consequence of such a technique, as it allows one to consider the suggestions and forumlate a decent proposal. Probably the reason why people bother posting them here is to basically make notes, such as in a sketchbook development?

Yay!

We could brainstorm all night, and all day - talk is cheap. Its action that counts.

Secondly, lots of things will change with the VBU - so this skilling problem might change. Maybe we already made changes which the community proposed. Wait until the vbu and the solution comes out, then you can brainstorm all you like. AT LEAST start off with a PROPER basis though.

Estralis, who has a good insight in this subject, has already proposed an actually simple-to-implement solution which I am strongly in favour of. Though nothing has happened and won't happen before the VBU.

So, I really don't want to insult you all, but I believe you don't have enough knowledge to come up with a proposal that could catch up with Estralis' one. Unless you prove your point validly and show some nice diagrams aswell

Long story short: I think this thread is redundant.

Llama wrote:We could brainstorm all night, and all day - talk is cheap. Its action that counts.

Secondly, lots of things will change with the VBU - so this skilling problem might change. Maybe we already made changes which the community proposed. Wait until the vbu and the solution comes out, then you can brainstorm all you like. AT LEAST start off with a PROPER basis though.

This isn't the owned-by-thread

pharse wrote:Estralis, who has a good insight in this subject,

Am I mistaken or did pharse just call me a powergamer ?

Brainstorming must not be mixed up with (my former boss called it this way!) brainpuking. Brainstorming is a well defined method, not "say what you think". First of all, there needs to be a certain question or problem. The current skill system has many problems - pick one! But fighting the flaws isn't sufficient. You also need a vision, you need to say what you want to achieve and not just what you don't want to achieve.

I could show you the algorithm I have in mind for a very simple yet innovative skill system. It's not the result of many interesting thoughts but of one main vision: I want that players can play this game without the engine affecting their way of playing. Anyone with fundamental knowledge in control theory can grasp or make up what I made up to achieve this goal.

I am not going to bother responding to the dev vs players thing, as it is pointless.

On the original topic: skill gain stuff, I was aware that there are many ways of doing things. I was also aware that the VBU may be changing skill stuff so that skill gain is no longer a problem (for roleplayers). In case the devs had not changed anything about skills, I made a simple proposal that could be added to the current skill system to fix the problem.

maryday wrote:@Respen;
The point is: Having a char begin from the bottom of the IG-social pyramid gives chance
to develop agreement/relationship/friendship from the scratch.

The character would still begin at the bottom of the in-game social pyramid, even if the character started with one skill at 50% of max advancement. The character would still have very few possessions upon arriving on the island and would need to aquire what would be needed to even use their one advanced skill. That means that interaction with other characters would still be greatly beneficial.

I tried playing many months ago, but I was frustrated at having to "level" my new character's skills to get to a point where I could contribute something useful. That was for only one skill because I did not want to bother with others. I am not used to pure text chat roleplaying (like in MUDs), so I like to have the game engine help me out with roleplaying. Currently, it hinders the player at the start.

I am aware that the VBU may change this. That is why I still check this game's site occasionally, even though I do not currently play. I await the VBU with great interest. Until then, I guess I will go back to solely lurking about the site since my ideas are not desired.

Stop beating a dead horse, your argument about your theoretical system that isn't going to be implemented isn't worth having.

Whoa, when did everyone start spewing poison over this?

I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that everyone is well aware that the design stage of the VBU is well past, or else they wouldn't be so eagerly awaiting it. On the other hand, I don't expect the VBU will be the final update Illarion sees, so why such resistance to discussion? Certainly a great number of the issues will no longer apply after the update, but some will persist; A thousand monkeys at a thousand type writers...

Having seen Estralis' proposed system a year ago, it should do away with the issues inherent with the skill cap, and allow for the rate of skill gain to be easily adjusted. However, it doesn't address some of the other issues that have been brought up, namely that awkward newbie stage that limits you to playing a character who is terribly at everything.

Perhaps though, there's a system in place that will deal with that concern as well. If that's the case, I'd suggest using a bit more tact. Maybe something like, "Relax, we've got it covered, because..." rather than, "We will disregard anything you post." It's a bit short-sighted to suggest that no one in the community could ever suggest a better idea, even if it can't be implemented until the future.

Nitram wrote:Oooooooh.
Another entirely pointless discussion.

So, people discuss/argue about politics all the time and no one expect their leaders to make any changes based on them.

Respen wrote:I tried playing many months ago, but I was frustrated at having to "level" my new character's skills to get to a point where I could contribute something useful.

We are currently developing features that aim exactly at improving the early stage of character development. The problem you describe here isn't a problem of the skill system but of the low "use" of low levelled characters. Skipping low skill levels by a 50% bonus skill isn't a fix but an evasion manoeuvre!

So, what are the problems of low level characters (this would be a good question for a brainstorming!)?

For crafters: No NPC nor player buys the things they craft because there is no demand (taken care of with VBU).
For fighters: Few low level monsters around, no static quests that allow fast character development by something else but grinding, no NPC nor player buys looted things (partially taken care of with VBU, ongoing development here)
For mages: Fucked up magic learning system (conception exists, we lack manpower to realise it before VBU)
For everyone: Fucked up skill system makes some skills rather easy to lvl, others impossible (conception exists, we lack manpower to realise it)
For roleplayer: There is no overall motivation to play this game beyond grinding or chatting (taken care of with VBU)

Currently, we just have one active server dev who also does the server administration, two active client devs with one also taking care of map editor, easyNPC editor, homepage, forum, (epic list goes one), two active Lua scripters with both being pretty busy for the rest of the year, two and a half graphics artists and a couple of content developers (maps, NPCs, quests, monsters, books,...).

Yes, we do need help, especially skilled scripters to realise all the ideas that were brought up by the community in the past. New ideas... when the old ones are done, m'kay?

To add to your list there is no use for a low level fighter in any sort of PvP, because numbers don't matter.

I also believe this is a big reason for so many PGers. You never hear people complain about PGing fishing, or carpentry skills. People find that they MUST PG their fighting skills to be anything but useless in a fight.

You say things will be better after the VBU so I'll just wait and see. I am feeling really optimistic about the changes with the new update.

I believe Ezor just hit the nail on the head, a begging miner, carpentor, smith and crafting or collecting profession is useful from the beginning. Fighters are NOT. Yet, there are many PG'rs of both fighters AND crafters/collecters. Who do the people bitch about....?

Fighters.