Critical Point.

[Dónal Mason]

He does. It's just that people don't go along with things. To roleplay, people have to roleplay back. It doesn't work if only one person does it.

[Arien Edhel]

To roleplay, people have to roleplay back. It doesn't work if only one person does it.

An important point.

[Cirindil Atarion]

Bloodhearte, I fully agree with your points. Roleplaying is a group activity so cooperation between fellow players is a must.

Though to clarify, my original statement referred to the way in this game you have a chance of roleplaying such a wide array of characters from a farmer to the traditional knight.

But I am glad that my statement helped in the extrapolating of more profound thoughts.

[Ullyatth Leader]

Critical Point.

Fine! Fine... alright... you win, I will do it...

Many of you PMed me, askign why I quit, acting like you know me, know how I think, many of you think that you know why I quit Illarion, but most just don’t give a shit. Well, I ask for all – stop acting like you know me, stop acting like you care. But if you REALLY want a word by word step by step explanation – fine, as if you didn’t know before.

I hate going-away threads because they are dumb and stupid. They are meant to do 2 things.

1. Grab attention – and I don’t need any more than I have got.
2. Point out critical problems – and I think everybody already knows what Illarion’s problems are.

Yet still, because so many had insisted – fine, once again, I will post my reasons for me leaving.


1. Read Bloodhearte’s, Moirear’s, Nartak’s going away threads. After this, if you still need clarification, read the next points. They will in particular explain why I choose Ultima Online over Illarion.

2. CHARACTER ATTRIBUTES

Right here lays the first fundamental flaw. A character is created with FIXED attributes. This is wrong. Nobody is born that strong and that fast. We become strong, we become fast. A character should be able to grow in strength, agility, intelligence, dexterity, willpower, essence, perception, and constitution. The character’s body should be able to flexibly develop, by use of skills. This way a character would be able to shift his professions throughout his life.

Fixed magery/druidry is another flaw. See Ultima Online, how it manages the problem. It follows in the section below.

3. SKILL GAIN

a. Powergaming

The term powergaming is an utterly stupid concept. Every game is based on skilling up. Instead of being an RPG game, Illarion became an anti-PG game.

b. Difficulty

Making skills horribly hard to gain does not bring nay fun to the game. The people who gained top skills in previous versions of the game now are making fun of newbies, and protecting their position at the top. You people don’t even understand how ridiculous this looks. This is a game, just a game, it doesn’t give you any real power, it is simply a game which should bring fun. Skills should be easy to gain.

c. Prevention of Grandmaster-Everything

What Ultima Online does that Illarion does not – a plain and simple skill cap. Skills are easy to gain, but cannot let you master all skills. This facilitates players interaction and roleplay. Making skills extremely hard to gain – does not. It makes the game boring, not fun. Making the game boring to skill up DOES NOT fascilitate any RP. Illarion gamemasters took the wrong approach to prevent Grandmaster-Everything. It is wrong.

d. Skill loss at death

Illarion characters lose skills at point of death. That is an absolute infinite loop. Skills should not go down with death. The player should only be punished with losing items if he/she is looted. Goes along with point c. If Grandamaster-Everything problem is solved, skill loss at detah is not necessary.

e. Limits versus Grants
Illarion Grandmasters prefer to govern the game using limits for skill, rather than grants. God forbid some player will become too powerful! No! We will make skills so hard, that they cannot hurt us. Wrong approach. Give skills to players to have fun with and easily access.

5. LACK OF ACTION

a. Building.

In Ultima Online, I can go ahead and build myself a house. In Illarion I have to do what Gamemasters TELL me to do. I can only have a chance of building something IF I have a plot behind it that GMs approve. Only what THEY planned – will happen.
Quoting Damien:

“You need to have at least 4 players, each with one character, to work on one building. The complete reconstruction costs are 5 ingots per building square. Only the SMALL buildings can be done NOW. Post Member lists and contact characters here.”

This is bullshit. I don’t have to build a specific building a GM tells me to build. I don’t have to choose one of the options. I want to create an option myself. I am a player, I choose to play the game. My character doesn’t have to have any reason to go ahead and build himself a house. No lists.
@martin: I know the excuses. The client limitations and the lack of map editor are understandable. I am not quitting because the client doesn’t support building. I am quitting because GMs know about it, and it is NOT on the priority list. You guys don’t want to change it in any near future. You are okay with the fact that you hold control of building.

b. Ships.

Illarion does not grant access to ships. Ultima Online does.

c. Successing limits versus grants.

Gamemasters decided to rather rule the game by using limits, instead of giving players fun time:

I. Rock Moving.
Why the hell not give players this ability? Why was it disabled? I say – give players control, give them all the toys, let them have fun, move rocks, use strategical thinking.
You ask: Well, boo hoo, bad players abuse rocks, block exits, trap monsters.
I answer: God Damnit! If players can do WHATEVER with rocks, who the hell cares?
Use the hammer with a rock – to make it crush into bits and disappear, use logs of wood with oil to move them. This would fascilitate more RP, making players have master miner friends, who can easily break rocks and set them free.

II. Water crossing.
Why not let players build bridges and destroy them? Use 10 wood on a water tile to make it a wooden tile. Use axe on it to destroy it. Why not give players power over tiles?

III. Disabled trapsets. No support for rangers. Play Ultima to learn.

IV. No thievery support. No craftable thief gloves. Play Ultima to learn.

V. Inaccessibility of rare artifacts. Loot that Monsters drop is piece of shit.

VI. Invisibility function unavailable to players. Play Ultima to learn.

This simply makes mages rule the game. The only 2 combat ways are: become a grandmaster mage with paralyze or become a grandmaster fighter. The fighting system versus magic system is poor and horribly unbalanced. A warrior stands no chance against a mage.
In Ultima Online even a humble thief has a chance against a mage.

VII. Lack of poison use, which I always protected and proposed. Ultima Online has use of poisons in weapons, drinks, and food.

VIII. Blocked roofs, disabled roof sniping. Who cares if snipers hide on roofs? Chase them! Patrol the roofs! Single them out!


6. RP versus GAMEPLAY

For some ridiculous reason Illarion GMs think that a true Roleplayer doesn’t need technicalities of the game to roleplay. Well, in this case, you guys should have made a non-graphical text based RPG. It would be better than an unfinished graphical one.
Ultima Online makes roleplaying exciting because you can actually do what you roleplay. Whether it is crafting or crime – no matter.

a. Slowed down character movement.

The game already lags a big time, why make jumps even slower?
Travelling through the map is boring.

b. Poor map.

The map is full of dead ends. How it should be – is that no single point has only one exit. Everything must have two exits. At least two escape points.
Secret doors, underground caves, teleporters. I KNOW you guys are capable of all this. The map MUST be made circular, otherwise it’s unfun to play on.

c. AI.

Who ever said that player’s RP must make up for lack of monster Artificial Intelligence.
Even the best Rper will get bored with monsters who pointlessly spawn in same spots and never move around, never drop surprise loot items. You cant constantly come up with a new original reason to go to the same spawn spot every day and kill the same damn type of monster to get the same damn loot.

7. GATHERING RESOURCES.

Nartak is absolutely right. Not going to spend 2 hours on something that is boring. For a year I’ve been clicking my mouse. Enough.

a. Before and after

The bullshit started after “the drought”. How it used to be is mining was available on any rock surface, herb lore was available on any grass surface.
Illarion gamemasters, I tell you – you were WRONG in your assumption that gathering resources was too easy then. It was not too easy. It was challenging enough. It was just fine.

Before, mining was fun, you never knew which stone you will find. Every new gem was a surprise. We tried to figure out statistics, average of certain gem types on certain terrains, and we would talk about it and discuss theories. Herb loring was also fun. You could fascilitate RP very easily, with the aid of resources.

Sample (and I did this myself, ask Morgaine Le Fay, Malinne, Shenruu, Muten):

An elven lady walks through the gates, alone. I am mining. I want to start an RP. I quickly use a sickle on the grass, and give her a flower. A conversation starts. Fun.

I give someone a precious gem I just mined at the gates, and a friendly chat begins.

Now…

To get a flower, I have to walk all the way to god knows where, and by that time the lady is gone. Or I have to drag her with me all the way into the mine cave to give her a precious stone.

b. Resource/Depot Structure.

Illarion gamemasters decided that it is a good idea to do this “strategical planning”. Oh, how cunning, separate stones into mines.
Why, why in the world would you set a specific stone or herb type to grow in a specific place? And you took away the depot by the smithy.

You, you, YOU! YOU killed the very center hot spot of player Rp interaction!!
You did it. That hotspot was like the marketplace, where everyone would stop by and start chatting, attracted by the crowd, or just by the flower, dropped by a stranger.

You took it away.
Your way of thinking was: “Bastards! They are not using the town shop! Let’s make them! Let’s take away the toys!”

Nobody is going to use your workshop, because it’s too damn far away!

The “strategical planning” you make – does not help players. It makes things harder for players.

The map has less and less depots. Now you took away the depot that was on the farm.
And the Bloodskull cave depot – you blocked with guards.

The mines are placed in such a way that they are horribly far away from the depots.
Your line of thinking was: “Ah! That will make people hire carriers!” Well, did it work? No!
Experiment failed. Drop it and return things to their place.

Why do you have to have it your way? Don’t you know the meaning of word “Experiment”? Not every experiment must succeed the way you want it to!
Players refused it, they rejected it! WHY are you making players do it your way?

c. Trees.

Trees are a great improvement in the right direction. This is the toy you finally gave to players. Planting trees/destroying trees. Now if you just make trees not respawn once in half an hour, that would be nice.

Too little trees, too long to grow. To much wood use compared to wood available.
5 arrows out of one log – ridiculous. A master carpenter can make 100 arrows of one log!
You make players waste and use HUGE quantities of wood, yet you give very little space for trees.

This doesn’t help players Roleplay. This makes players stay idle and wait in boredom.

In Ultima Online wood is accessible by at least 3 ways. For fighters, for mages, and for lumbejacks.

d. Realism

Who needs the damn realism? It was an experiment. It failed. You started losing good players. It failed, guys. Realism failed. The very moment you lost Serpardum, you should have recognized that it failed.
Yes, that’s right. He talked to me.

8. CONTROL

Now, we’re finally getting to the warm stuff.

a. GM – master. Player – slave.

Things happen only when GMs make them happen.
Prices are too huge, given how slow work is.
GMs are free to name their price for a certain event to happen, whereas the process must rather be automated with a fixed price. Building is one example.

To make your character possess a special power – you have to spend a year kissing GM’s ass, so they grant you a superpower, which a staff member gave them. You have to play along with their plot.

Caitlin, I, Sian, and others – stole a depot. Quoting Caitlin
“Depot will be placed at *** location. It has to be there ((GM orders)).”

What the smile?! We stole the depot! We put it wherever we want!

b. Means of Service.

Illarion is still treated like a school project belonging to a group of students.
Hello? Wake up! The day you opened this can of worms up – it immediately stopped being your own. You are leaders of a community now! A community that is WILLING to PLAY with YOU.

A Gamemaster’s job is not to command the players. Gamemasters SERVE the players.
These players are here, because THEY CHOSE YOU over a myriad of other different games. It is THEY who make the RP, not Gamemasters. It’s the Player who is giving you their time.

A job of a Gamemaster is to come, and ask “How can I help you?” How. Can. I. Help YOU.

With your current attitude, GMs, can you possibly be any more wrong?

In Ultima Online on the shard I play – there is a single Admin, who is there 12/24, and he listens to the players in terms of what players want. He makes Rp fun, constantly takes control of NPCs, and uses all the flexibility of the engine he possibly can to make us want to play. He doesn’t just do something limiting and then watch us cope with it.

The man actually built us a new level in less than a week! For US. For PLAYERS.

When he decides on a price for something, he asks US, players, is this not too high?

And he comes in and asks, How are you doing, players? What can I do for you on MY shard?
It’s mine, but it’s for you.

I like him better, and I chose him. I choose him to be my gamemaster.
Like I chose Neon, Twania, and a few others.


9. GAMEMASTERS

Oooh, a weak spot. Now, every gamemaster who reads this – probably has sweaty palms. Yes, I am talking about you. I am about to fry your asses right now. I am here to talk about you, like you constantly talk about me.

a. Never available nor accessible.

b. Bad attitude towards players.

c. Favoritism.

d. Covering their own asses and hiding their faults.

Keikan Hiru killed my skills twice for powergaming, and ended up being a horrible one himself. Bash the scape goat to hide your own flaws. The only thing I’m sorry for is that you people banned Muten too. The boy loved this game.

e. False assumption of power.

I would like to elaborate on this one. I do not know what kind of people you are, how you look, where you work, what kind of families you are from, and what insecurities you have. But I got to tell you: Your sense of power in here is ABSOLUTELY abominable.
I can tell right now – insecurities you have a big bunch. Because in every way you can – you try and execute your power. The “Iron fist”, like someone really cares. You are most of the time rude, strict, acting “cool”. This is an online community, guys. There are thousands. No real power.

I am a Super Moderator of hitman2.net. So what? Do I have any power? No.
Do you have nay power outside of this game over these players? No.

You guys are selected to be serving the players. To be watching them carefully and helping them play. Not to punish them, limit what they can do. All you ever do is warning, punishing, warning, punishing. Instead of creating something cool and fun for players to work with.

You give special items and artifacts to your own characters, and to a few selected people.
Here is your mistake. SELECTED people.
You forgot about your damn realism.
In real life – any bastard low roadrat can find and pick up an artifact and create an apocalypse.
In real life – famous powerful people are not chosen by anything. They just do it.

You play multichar, yet no one else is allowed to. I bow to Manuel, who managed to fucking squeeze in a damn load of 15 characters.
10. SVST

Apparently the whole idea of its creation is poor player treatment. For some reason, a bunch of you got the right to think of yourselves as “superior elite players”. You chose others you liked and nominated THEM superior elite. While in reality, this “elite” are just as much a powergamers and power abusers.
God Bless PO Moirear and his loyalty to your SVST, since he is the only shiny spot in that sin pool, it seems.

The fact that you’re so afraid to bring SVST public – is that because you are afraid of people you bashed there. Again, your complex insecurities. Even though you know that these people are miles away from you – you are afraid of them. You feel comfortable talking behind their backs, it makes you feel good and special.

In reality – no. At the forums I administer I have over 1000 members. And I mean a real 1000, not 30 players with 20 accounts each. I have a community, for whom I can open a private board just this very second, and start bashing you, for example.

Does it give comfort or power? No. Instead, I am bashing you here right now. Because the only way to solve anything is to speak up.
And I have been holding a long time before I formed this post.

SVST is bullshit. Otherwise, you’d have no problem bringing it public. Cowardice. Plain cowardice. The fact is, I am not angry, like you may think, I know all the players on Illarion who think bad about me, and discourage players from playing with me. It’s fine.

11. PERSONAL

Once again, I only wrote this post, because I received many IMs and PMs over many channels with questions, well, one question: “Konstantin, why are you leaving Illarion?”

The point is, don’t be hypocrates.
I know what people here really think of me.
If you really care if I stay or leave, I will tell you, that 80% of this community wants me out.

More than that, 80% of this community strongly thinks that I don’t belong here, and that the game will be funner and better without me.
Well, here it is. You made it finally. You did it.

I have no more interest in staying. I will Rp with people who like me in Ultima Online.

From day one I entered this place with one thought: To become the most wanted evil conflicting badass. I wanted to play a thief. But this game is not ready for thieves.
When Neon granted me Thievery Gloves, I got horrible input from, for instance, Kasume:

((Since when did you get a GM item, boy?))

I guess you guys are not willing to accept the idea of free choice. You want GMs to appoint people you like to play roles you want.

Well, have fun. I had enough of it. I am not willing to participate in this.

This game never gives me choice. I was punished for every time I used technical abilities of the client – my last hope. And I am still watched.

That is the personal reason of my leave, and the final one.

And that pretty much sums it up.

Don’t flame me, since I won’t return a single post more on this forum.

Konstantin K,
PO Konstantin, Karmane, Kurtis Kerner, Trogan D. Wolfwood, Groboed Razgrom.

You missed the main crucial point; Ultima Online sucks.

[Kevin Lightdot]

This thread is almost two years old William...

[Ullyatth Leader]

This thread is almost two years old William...

Yeah, well I wasn't here two years ago. I have a right to express my opinion.

[Jeremy Gems Willowbrook]

Shhhh....he wanted to wait till K was well out the door so he didnt get flamed back for his comment

[Ullyatth Leader]

Shhhh....he wanted to wait till K was well out the door so he didnt get flamed back for his comment

Haha, I was thinking that as well.

[Arameh]

God, still I agree with most parts of this.

[Gildon]

The only part I strongly agree about are the GM's having too much power to decide things, and take away other things

[Nalzaxx]

Checking post dates = win

[Markous]

Checking post dates = win

Amen.