Illarion.org

After reading the new newsletter I couldnt help to have mixed emotions. The major "flaw", so to speak, is this:

At first: who expects that Illarion will be developed to his/her own
point of view will be disappointed soon. No way. All points of
criticism are so controversial, debarring each other and presents the
whole bandwidth of opinions in their variety, discordance and
complexity. And the first of all secrets is diclosed: Illarion is
bringing people together, who never thought - even in their dreams -
to play with each other in a game.

We are proud of our critical player community and understand the
points of criticism as contructive contributions for a successful
further development.
But we have to show you too, that we must rate every issue in our back
of the head about its feasibility, its ranking and much more.

This rings true, when people quit because they "couldn't do this, or couldn't do that" made me pissed. A "I want to be the biggest baddie" is not a earth-moving statement to change illarion as a whole.

Then this:

The value of Illarion is established by its community, the excellent
role play, less because its technical offers - doesn't matter how hard
we try to improve these.
We are looking forward for more interesting discussions but we are
more interested in a real good roleplay. For this we like to spent our
rare spare time.

This is true, but it seems that you are almost taking recent threats of quitting as an attack towards the staff. Although some were, I feel the major problem are some players. There characters consist of fabricated catch phrases from "LoTR" or other quote/actions they deem "cool". This is NOT your fault. You are doing a fine job, but I do suggest you stop kicking yourself for the people who quit for true reasons, such as "the rp is not good enough". You cant control every player.

A solution for this is hard, I admit I use to be one of those "trendy chars". I would say to see how these new "flood" of newbies mature into more multi-faceted characters other then "Heroic Thief". I would also like to commend the "newbs" who came into this game ready and blew me away with their rp. Only a handful do come in like this, but it is refreshing.

Moving on to this:

Preferableness and prejudices

We commit to prefer active players, because they make Illarion living.
Should we prefer inactive players? Prejudices are normal by human
beings, but will try to avoid these.

I see this as a well reason to quit. I do also see this in some gm's. A SMALL example is my Character "Val De Gausse" being banned after his death? I am just curious what was wrong with him. None of my other chars who died have been banned. This is a very minor example of prejudices. As you said they are normal in humans, doesnt mean it should be taken lightly, but just more realisiticly.

More transparency

This problem is known and still in work (see the last newsletter), but
please watch out for news in IRC and the General Board too.

Sorry I did not get this. Could someone explain it?

Overacted realism

That's a complex topic (like the topics above and below). Someone
thinks it's to realistic, others don't agree. What's right? Finding a
good balance is one of the big tasks of the project overall. That is
why we expect a high willingness to compromise in this question.

This is partial technical and players. Player reaction that are unrealistic is what bugs me. Especially interaction between races and between skill levels.

Few control of players inside the game world

Here we need (well) thought out proposals from you. It's not possible
to realize everything instantly, because there is limited time for the
development. On the other hand not all proposals are realizable,
because there is a risk of abusing.

Keep it as it is, just because you cant manipulate things as you wish doesnt make this game bad. Just like you said, it is not a game designed for just ONE PERSON'S needs. The only thing I could suggest is moving rocks, that was fine. Making definable borders could be helpful and fun. As for abuse, that goes into the players hand to report it. Once reported it goes to you guys for your punishment.

Click orgies instead of fun in the game

We are working on a change, but you will see it after the char wipe
first. Nevertheless you need mouse clicks and keystrokes to control a
game. In this case we need thought out proposals from you too instead
the general observation.

I dont believe this will ever be fixed by technical means.



That is all I have to say. I agreed with everything I didnt mention and would like to commend you for your hard work. As you can see my opinions are it is a player problem...not a staff.

Cliu Beothach wrote:A SMALL example is my Character "Val De Gausse" being banned after his death? I am just curious what was wrong with him. None of my other chars who died have been banned. This is a very minor example of prejudices.

This is the normal procedure that applies when a character dies "officially", meaning that his death is declared on the RPG-board and such.

This did not only happen to Val De Gausse, but also to Caitlin Fergus, Aragon, Keikan Hiru and many, many others. We discussed that rather often here in controversial discussions. You should have received a PM or e-mail telling you what has happened and why.
There is no exception from that rule.

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with prejudices, I think I can speak in the name of the whole staff that we strictly reject that accusion.

Martin

Thank martin, it was jsut that my character "Aaron Groveburry" had been announced dead on the rpg boards too and wasnt banned. That is why I was curious.

Cliu Beothach wrote:Thank martin, it was jsut that my character "Aaron Groveburry" had been announced dead on the rpg boards too and wasnt banned. That is why I was curious.

When did that happen?
It can well be that the ones responsible did not notice. In general, this is the procedure.

Martin

A while back, I dont mind him being banned I was just curious. Maybe the post wasnt clear enough, it had a long story...at the end he died.

I would also like to know what the newsletter (staff) means with transparency. I got the newsletter 2 minutes ago O.o.
Furthermore, I feel this newsletter has been very elaborating, and might even bring some players back. On a sidenote, could you let the newsletter be checked for grammar and spelling next time? It has been difficult to read at times, and since some of us are neither natively german or english .

Lysu AKA Erik

With transparency we mean that the players should be informed what we, the members of the staff, are currently doing behind the scene etc., what we focus on currently and so on.

I agree to this grammar thing, the german version was better than the english one, but I'd also have some points which could have been better.

Martin