Decline of Illarion

[abcfantasy]

Illarion is made of bad and good days I think.

One day you're totally bored, no one to RP with, no fun.
Another day, it turns out to be a great RPing experience, many unexpected things, interesting twists/encounters and so on.

We shouldn't lose our interest for those few days we are unlucky, because the great days will surely come and will surely keep coming.

[Karl]

Since I'm going to have to stop playing illarion until I'm back to Canada, and probably then, I'll delete most of my chars and start out new, I guess I can reveal some stuff.

Dusty, I don't agree with what you say, and with whoever can't find 'player-quest'. I, for one, try, at LEAST every week to create either a one-time character, either a long-lasting character that will be mainly a plot. For instance, I don't really mind admitting it aloud now, I was the player of the Seer, and left much clues so who it was could finally be found. After a while, I found out it was annoying the players involved (Alison, Troll's Bane, etc..) so I decided to stop it and leave too much clues.

Then recently, the Mercenaries.. That was meant to be all roleplay, it started out very well, I think, but unfortunately I have to leave for a while.

As Thorvald stated there:

I don't know who's character it is but I've watched someone a few days ago who played a squalid, 'wild' boy (I think) who weren't speaking but hissing all the time and being unapproachable. I thought it was impressive how his inventive RP caught the interest of another char and in my opinion it was already quest-like and for sure pretty exciting for the other player.

Arr, also that's me.

Yeah, I don't agree there's no RP in game, Dusty. If you can't find any roleplay to do, delete one of those extra chars you've got, and create some RP, like I do
IT's really easy, let your imagination flow.
Create something you've never seen in game.. Create a character which you'll be sure have 0 skills, like my old, blind char; Eleas..

Seriously, if you want RP, it's not hard finding some. If you really can't find any, then create some yourself!

Here's a few ideas:
Insane goblin that thinks he's an orc, and anything smaller than him in size is a dragon. (I played that once.)
A little bit silly gnome that buys a copper for a silver, because it shines better. (Also played that.)
Now to things I've never done, but could;
Spread a rumor, and see how long it takes for you to hear it from someone else!
Create an old woman that thinks she can read into the future, and go around town telling people's fortunes..
Play a slave/owner and have the two chars go around town, you can be sure that'll attract attention.
Play an insane halfling that answers as a reply to what you've said before you just said! E.g:
Char x: Hello
Insane halfling: *silence*
Char x: Are you alright?
Insane halfling: Hello! How are you?
Char x: I'm.. fine.. thank you... Were you heading somewhere?
Insane halfling: Yes, I'm quite fine thank you..
Char x: Allright.. have you been smoking too much sibanac?

Etc..

See? It's really easy, you just need some imagination, and never ever press that F8 key.

[Nitram]

Time for me ^^

It may just be me, but....

Are we nearing the end of Illa?

Well, i don't think so. There where times with much quests ( players moaned about to much quests ), times without quests ( players moaned that there are no quests ) and times with a few quests, like now ( and the players skill complain? wtf? )

I have noticed that RP has declined dramatically.

I didn't notice that. There is good roleplay around. And there are sometimes characters around who do not roleplay. As usuall. I think its this way at least since... 3 years?

People are harder to find.

Then you search at the wrong places. If i look IG the characters are allways in the same areas. Trollsbane and Greenbriar. Have a look there then you find some to roleplay with.

New people are few and aren't helped.

Yeah. "Few". Shall i tell you how much first time characters login per day the first time? Yesterday: 23
They aren't help? Thats correct. But the point here is that the GMs are not allways around to help those Newbies. The players are. We do not even exspect ( even if we find it good ) that the players help the newbies. But we expect that those players who are encountered by a newbie get a GM at the place by "!gm Newbie needs help". Thats done in a few seconds at at the most times a gm will appear then and helps the newbie. But within the last weeks i noticed that the players didn't even do this. They just told the newbie to get lost. I wonder how we shall keep players that way?

The races tend to be more of the same....nothing special.

Thats this way since a long time. I have no idea how to change this. Exspecially the elves are played like humans. Most of them at least.

Guilds and towns both are in danger of becoming inactive,

Thats a good one. Have a look at the Guilds board and look at the very beginning of the board. There you see how many guilds got inactive allready. Guilds allways getting inactive after some time. Only a few do not. The towns are basically more active then ever before. Greenbriar shows a activity as in the time it got founded. Trollsbane is allways active. In a good or bad way. But its active. Even Vanima is getting more active slowly. When ever i check where the players are. A few of them are in Vanima. Varshikar... well. Was after the time of Darlok never really active and i doubt that will change that fast. But look how long this inactivity lasts. Did you just notice that? And after all. Silverbrand. Is currently hightly active. It reminds me more at a manufactory for weapons and armors currently But its active.

Crafting is difficult at best,

I do not get what you try to tell me with that. Sorry.

and there is no overall "Plot" to the world. There is no great Danger.

Now thats impressive. "There is no great Danger." When ever we put a "great Danger" into the game the players moaned "Oooooh, not again that crap. Leave us alone"

The Devs are discouraged,

That happens from time to time and will change again.

the players malcontented and I believe that this trend will continue.

Some are and were allways.

Aside from the 'occasional' quest, Illa is actually becoming boring. OMG!!

The gms can't make quests 24h 7days per week. ( even if we do, the players would complain thats there are too much quests ). Illarion is as boring as the players make it. Its a roleplay game and the roleplay has to be carried by the players.

Does anyone else feel this way?

Not me.

[Karl]

That, my friends.. is what I call some NITRAMIFICATION.

[Alytys Lamar]

... and I agree and signed to 100 %.

To find players around.. one example:

Varshikar has lost (or only playing occasional ) a lot of good Chars, like Aristeaus, Jeremy, Athian, Mairead, Darlok, Spudrug and so on... but others try to compensate this. Maggie, Kevin, Gryhius and Pellandria -- you can find RP overall... when Varshikar is empty... teleport to TB..

But its useless to recapitulate this again and again....

WE are the players, its on us to make storys and Characters, not the staff..

[Naerwyn]

While I agree that the ingame atmosphere isn't what it used to be, Nitram pretty much makes my main point.

You say you want more active GMs. Okay. I've mostly been starting with small things, to help me get used to all the new commands and tools I must learn to use. So if I go ingame today, some people may have mini-encounters, and some people may never see me. It guess it is the people that never see us that post here with their concerns. I have one larger quest planned, and I know of at least one more big quest out there that's already started.

Why have I not done something bigger, you ask? Because of past complaints I've seen. I would like to make something that people enjoy, but also something that is challenging. I've had many quest/event ideas lately, but you want to know the first thought that comes to my mind? "No, the players will complain if I do that..." The idea goes away, and I don't do anything that day. I don't think people realize just how unmotivated a person can be from their complaints.

Newbies. I've seen lots ingame lately...for a few minutes at a time. When I have the chance, I'll go in, take one aside, and talk to them for quite awhile. Why? Because no one else does anything to help. So where are the GMs? Out helping newbies because people don't want to interrupt their crafting.

As for the other points, I can't say much about them really. I'll just speak of what I know. My advice, and I'd appreciate it if this was at least attempted...make an effort. It's a chain reaction: If you help newbies out and try to lighten up and complain less, the Gamemasters will have more time AND motivation to make quests. I've noticed ingame that the small events do make roleplay more interesting afterward, if only for a little while.

Players help newbies and don't complain so much--> GMs with more time and motivation (as well as more players to add to RP)--> More quests with bigger plotlines-->Better RP overall--->World Peace.

[Dyluck]

It's our job to make quests a reality in game. It isn't necessarily our responsibility to think them up.

Exactly. Which mighty self proclaimed king of GMs decided that the responsibility of GMs were to churn out quest ideas one after another? A quick read of the definition of Gamemaster in the Rules section will indicate that their primary job is to keep order. Anyone who would have you think otherwise is making unrealistic expectations or just trying to get their shots in on some GMs.

Depending on GMs to constantly initiate quests to keep players entertained was never supposed to be their job nor was it ever viable to sustain. Personally, I never thought GMs were picked based on their creativity or ability to execute events to begin with. In fact, those qualities are quite difficult to judge, especially if you don't know the signs to look for. They were picked more likely because they simply exhibited a calm and somewhat mature demeanor, some degree of intellegence and coherency in their posting, and "good" roleplaying. But none of these qualities were ever precursors to creativity and quest execution ability to begin with. So to expect them to have the ability to continuously entertain players with quests is not exactly viable.

This may shock some of you, but Illarion once flourished with entertainment for a long time without much GM intervention in what you call "Quests". It is next to impossible to keep your interest in this game by these "Quests" alone. What makes the Illarion experience most enjoyable is when you are immersed in a world community in which you are involved and care about, and have goals that you strive to attain. It's the day to day relations to others and the IG community that are created while working towards goals which are self sustaining and can keep your interest in Illarion. When you have goals, your efforts will result in friendships and conflicts that seem real, and not artificially created by attempts to create a story or "quest". Almost any goal is better than none. Even if some players' goal is only to gain money or skill, common ground can be found and used to shape the world! I loved the times when there was an excess of money and nothing to spend it on, because a creative entrepeneur could come up with ideas in which to convince people to fork over their money.

Goals that are shared and conflicted with each other will inevitably create interaction. Don't expect all the fun to be gained from some innovative #me sessions with fancy words. Stop trying to look for this "roleplay" like it's a holy grail. In the end, "roleplay" is just a method of presentation. You need to have goals and find others who share and oppose these goals. Only then will stories, events and interactions arise and you will find yourself telling others about your encounters with your friends and enemies, and community networks will be created in which people care about each other. This may sound strange, but when you see people constantly arguing with each other on the RPG board, that is a GREAT sign!

[Theon]

Negative threads like this bring about the decline of Illarion.

[Fooser]

Quests take up about 1-5% of people's playing time, so if you're relying on that for entertainment, then yeah you're in trouble.

[Gryphius]

The only decline i see here is a decline of optimism: I'm utterly serious when i claim i haven't experienced RP, that i wasn't satisfied with, in weeks. Neither perfect ones, of course, but how is "perfect" RP to be defined anyway? If you, Dusty, consider Illa boring, then find yourself a more fun-promising variation IG, or make a downtime. It won't become any better if you linger there, waiting for the entertainment to appear from nowhere, and blame the community, if it doesen't.

And yes, i also find it sometimes hard to distinguish between elves and humans by their behavior - but i had the same problem in LotR. Except they cared more about the woods and spoke a bit more fluently, they behaved quite similar there as well.

Varshikar... well. Was after the time of Darlok never really active and i doubt that will change that fast.

Pardon me, but what do you expect if we need to wait for months for three lousy pigs? If that pace maintains, it will take more than a year until Varshikar at least gets a permanent self-sufficiency going, and the folks might sustain an interet to settle down there. We 'would' be more active if we got the necessary support.

[Enwell van Illdoran]

*descided to continue with Aeghol via PM*

[Pellandria]

Dusty, spend less time powergaming, read more in the rpg and you might notice that there is a lichquest going on, which is the players task to involve people. ..

..jsut wanted to quote this again..

[Elian]

Which was not quite needed, Pellandria. No need to start another flame war.

[Pellandria]

Is there something wrong with speaking your open and free opinion?

[Lianis]

When it is unnecessarily flaming another player directly, yes. The point was made, that's enough.

[Misjbar]

Exactly. Which mighty self proclaimed king of GMs decided that the responsibility of GMs were to churn out quest ideas one after another? A quick read of the definition of Gamemaster in the Rules section will indicate that their primary job is to keep order. Anyone who would have you think otherwise is making unrealistic expectations or just trying to get their shots in on some GMs.

Don't we have seers for keeping orders nowadays? And questers (the ones that people call GMs nowadays) for all the quests? I thought we went away from the system of a GM doing everything?

[AlexRose]

Is there something wrong with speaking your open and free opinion?

Yeah, pity you were speaking someone else's opinion.

[Enwell van Illdoran]

sharing opinions would be the proper expression..

Galdriel: No personal attacks!

[Grant]

No personal attacks!

Arien

[Dantagon Marescot]

Enwell = non-native English speak, so lay off.

And it is spelled bitch and anyway. There is no s at the end of anyway.





And on-topic... I wonder if what PO Dusty is seeing has to do with when he is on. When I get on at that time of night I see very few people actually ig and very few people actually in TB and rping. Obviously I have not spend as much time ig as I should these past few weeks so I have not seen much rp. I am sure if I actually spent more time ig looking, or went about my characters business I would eventually find someone to rp with and have quite a bit of fun.

[Grant]

I'm sorry that I don't want to call a girl I don't know and have never met a bitch.

Personal attack deleted.

Arien

[Enwell van Illdoran]

ditto

[Rothonor Lyralis]

Negative threads like this bring about the decline of Illarion.

I think Cawdor has a good point here........but another is that through the staff are WAY too strict and simple things like the illarion introduction need reviewing. You shouldn't advertise that anyone can become a Mage or that Bard magic is possible when it isn't. For a newcomer to be a mage for instance you need to wait months if not years which isn't fair on true rp'ers who wish to play a mage so people concentrate on earning as much money as possible and forgetting about the true point of the game.

Having said that I feel that with the creation of a tutorial island, all the poor rp'ers will not continue to the real game and realise the illarion isn't for them. This way you are hopefully left with a great game full of true role players and not power gamers......wooo hooooo down with power gamers!!!!!!!

[Damien]

Actually our Devs are working a lot. The lag and restarts on Sunday were not a server problem but work on the server code + debugging which needed hardware ressources (and active players to be online too if i am right). Even in the staff it is impossible to say who is actually "active" or "inactive" usually (since the most GMs also do some other stuff ) - except for some cases where it was obvious (and who have been removed anyhow).
As said above :
If players would be more open to each other and RP more, and teach others (who cannot RP yet or who RP weak) some RP understanding, the atmosphere ingame will raise alot.
Better character concepts and lots of stories about the characters help the atmosphere a lot too, but that got definitely much thinner with the dropping of the account story (but saves the staff members a lot of time).
If the questions in the account system get harder, other people who might learn to RP IF they get in contact with it (through some helpful person, that is necessary) may not get through. On the other hand, less people with less RP understanding would get in also.
The newbie island (when finished) will help alot too, possibly.

Actually, we stopped makig "huge" quest events mainly because of the massive complaints of some people to almost every public quest (yes, there were even hard complaints about the easter eggs in the dragon quest, for example the "broken horn of Gondor", the gravestone and the sign in front of the dragon lair... it obviously "ruined" the character concepts of a few people to find something funny ingame, who also found mating roars as unfitting for the RP of dragons ). Ohwell.

It's an all-sided thing. To improve the atmosphere, we all need to do something. Not the staff alone can change that ! We need you all for that.

[Dash]

Dusty, i think your problem, and mine as well is the timezone difference. A lot of quests, especially them small mini non-announced ones are not during US playing time. Well maybe, i dont really know... are there any questers or GM's in the US?

[Nitram]

are there any questers or GM's in the US?

Yes. At least i'm pretty sure there are

[pharse]

Better character concepts and lots of stories about the characters help the atmosphere a lot too, but that got definitely much thinner with the dropping of the account story

I just want to add there, that there are less chars with *unbelievable* and *uber interesting* background stories and I appreciate this.

[Lance Thunnigan]

It may just be me, but....

Are we nearing the end of Illa?

I have noticed that RP has declined dramatically. People are harder to find. New people are few and aren't helped. The races tend to be more of the same....nothing special. Guilds and towns both are in danger of becoming inactive, Crafting is difficult at best, and there is no overall "Plot" to the world. There is no great Danger.

The Devs are discouraged, the players malcontented and I believe that this trend will continue.

Aside from the 'occasional' quest, Illa is actually becoming boring. OMG!!

Does anyone else feel this way?

If so, what can we do to change it before it is too late?

The reason there are no new plots or quests is that 90% of the Illarionites will complain over it.

[Skaalib Drurr]

Maybe get on and play the game? I say only technical forum and PM's for 3 or 4 weeks, get people re-enthused about THE GAME, which is what it is of course; not a discussion forum.

[Juniper Onyx]

Ok, ok, ok....I get the point.

Most players hate the idea of even suggesting that Illarion is in it's decline, and maybe is does have to do with the time I log in most times.

In the US, during weeknights, there are at most 10-12 people online, sometimes as few as 2. Very hard to find another soul, much less any RP going on.

The German 'log in' times are much better with 30-40 people online most days, but........they mostly speak German. It becomes tiresome to keep trying to translate and I just give up after a while.

Tell you what, since everyone seems to resent 'Dusty' as a Powergamer (Which he most certainly is not), I'll go ahead and retire him. I can't believe the subject even came up since I didn't even mention it in the topic. Just shows how Players tend to mix OOC and IG events (aka Pellandria) Maybe I'll sit back and watch like some others seem to be (Grant, Patric, Athian, Misbar, Aegohl, etc.) But that's not really a solution.

I don't know the solution, maybe there isn't one.