Illarion.org

In the four hours I spent today, I had half an hour of time with other players.
I understand why the skill limit is in place. If I am the only one oneline, or the only one willing to roleplay. Why am I limited on skilling, in the name of rollplay, when no one else is available to do so? I searched for near an hour before finding RP, then shortly after hit my skill limit. Then need to wait some two hours IG to be able to advance my skills again. Or I could just log off for four hours. This does not seem to reward playing this game.
I can only be rewarded if I take time from work an play on the GMT time.
With so few players, 30 max on line at a time, and most hours of the day much fewer, why is this limit in place? Am I expected to spend hours RPing with NPC's? Or is my time here limited to just a few minutes?
I think the skill break should be prorated. 10 players on- the full wait to skill, 5 players on half that time. 1 player 10 %, none, skill as long as none play.
It is a game, what is wrong with trying to have some fun?

And it is sad that I had to place the high limit at ten players, maybe this game is ready to see it's final days. None play here on a regular basis anymore.

I think this will be changed in the VBU. I heard they might have found a better alternative.

I'm only speculating though.

I think the present system is quite fine, as it encourages `younger` chars to develop a wider base of low/medium developped skills.

Fighters may simply change their weapon or equipment to adjust where to get the xp.
"sword<->mace" affecting the active combat style(-s) directly and
"plate<->silken dancing pantalons" affecting a whole bunch of the passive ones.

Crafters can do something similiar by mixing their main work with other ways of spending their time.
"farming<->wood chopping" does well for me or i can also imagine
"cooking<->tailoring".

From my view this does not necessarily lead to the development of a "jack of trades"
as char behaviour (on secondary skills) is not constant.

Only the very regular used (primary) skills will become high in the end.

To be honest i have to say it takes me about 8hrs of RL time to get a swirly on secondary skills
and like 1yr of IG time to proceed on a primary one.

From my judgement skills are only a direct link to the chars background.

Also i am very sure that the dev-section will improve the existant game-content in a fitting direction,
as mister Karl here is already speculating.

After all it is also the time of the "playerbase" invested into making their/our voice heard.
Just imagine there were k`s of players...
Would "they" also spend a similiar ammount (in percentage) of individual time in reporting their game experience to the staff,
in effort of helping to acheive improvement(-s)?

Well...

Have fun.

Without a somewhat limit, you'd end up with everybody just PGing also when tons of people were online.
When only ten people are online, there is no RP to be found because most of them might be powergaming or cybering instead of RPing.
Think about that.

Damien wrote:cybering

Nope.

Worst case scenario

Well, if you're that desperate, you could always have up to 5 characters, PG them in turn

Its what I used to do when nobody was around and I really wanted to play.

Personally, I hate the skill system. You don't know how happy I was when they finally added in the skill counter. I started 4 years ago with Dan, been playing maybe 3 worth of that thanks to school. Despite everything, I can be beaten by characters who may have only been in play for 2 weeks if the player behind the screen knows how to play the system. For the rest of us who have spent hours fighting creatures, sometimes not knowing what raises our skill the best and hearing ten different ways from other people, well, we are all just a tad bit lost. I don't have the time or will, especially now, to sit there and skill. The best I have gotten is to go on at 1 or 2 am here and kill things while I am studying. In a world where everyone has to have the biggest, most bad-assery character that is undefeatable, you're kind of screwed if you have the rp, but none of the skill to back it up.

Personally, I hope the skill system changes in the VBU. I hope everything transfers over and few, if any, will have to rebuild their characters. If people have to start over with their skilling and the system to skill sucks just as much, then there won't be many people left to play.

^same here

I know I've said this once before but I'm pretty sure no one paid attention to it so I'll say it again.

I've been in many roleplaying games (our definition of roleplaying) and the best skilling system I had seen was as such;

You got "roleplay points" to spend on skills. No grinding involved. The way to get roleplay points was primarily by roleplaying. The code would calculate your #me's, your speech, etc. Speaking in OOC would reduce your OOC. You would get your RPP every hour or so. The quantity, as I said, would depend on how much #me's, speech, etc.. you've done. Gamemasters would reward players with RPP for contributing to the game either technically (as in, new additions to the game graphics/descriptions/etc wise) or for coming up with quest ideas that went through, as a reward for helping out new players, etc.

That was honestly the most fun I had ever had roleplaying.

#me coughs
#me talks to themselves
#me goes "Hmm"

There are three very things wrong with that suggestion.

1. ) Any skill which can increase by #meing or talking, will be broken very quickly. Just like the bard skills, and language skills. Find somewhere quiet and talk to yourself. Skill Points GET!

2. ) You are assuming that the more enters a player presses, the better roleplayer s/he is. You can't quantify roleplaying in this manner. You can't really quantify roleplaying as 'good' or 'bad' in an easy way. Especially not in this manner. There was a game I played where GMs would sometimes give you points if they saw you rp very well. Trying this in this game will cause a lot of "BUT THE GM DIDN'T LIKE MY RP!' 'WHY DOES X GET MORE POINTS THAN ME?!' 'GM FAVOURITISM!'

3. ) Trading OOC work for IG gains is the first step towards "lets give skill points for donating to the society", "Lets give special items to peopel who donate" ----> Freemium game.

No offense but this isn't WOW. It's supposed to be about the role play not going around leveling up. If no ones online and you are at your skill cap go play something else. This game is supposed to be centered around the character interactions.

Ezor Edwickton wrote:this isn't WOW.

Then why are the skill systems so similar?

If I write a book for Illarion can we know how the skilling system will change for the VBU? =D

Hypothetical question: What would the game be like if people -didn't- skill, and you simply had a set number of points to add to your make up. Say 30 points to spread between all your skills, etc. Maybe you get one point everytime you are involved in a player quest or something. Killing monsters might spawn loot or such, but doesn't level you up, or maybe training gives you a day long bonus to said trained skill? Hypothetical answers?

@Grokk;
Because of Lord British?

Exactly. Only it doesn't make sense for Illarion. At least not in the way that it is currently implemented.

"Hey, those other games are successful. If we want our game to be successful, then we should try to make it as similar to those other games as possible. Do you think it matters that we are claiming to offer something completely different to those other games? Nah, it's up to the players to play the game properly. We can blame them if they don't play a game that is the same as those other games differently than they play those same other games."

Grokk wrote: "Hey, those other games are successful. If we want our game to be successful, then we should try to make it as similar to those other games as possible. Do you think it matters that we are claiming to offer something completely different to those other games? Nah, it's up to the players to play the game properly. We can blame them if they don't play a game that is the same as those other games differently than they play those same other games."[/i]

Go play on a WoW roleplaying server if that's how you feel... Oh wait those suck.

Llama wrote:#me coughs
#me talks to themselves
#me goes "Hmm"

There are three very things wrong with that suggestion.

1. ) Any skill which can increase by #meing or talking, will be broken very quickly. Just like the bard skills, and language skills. Find somewhere quiet and talk to yourself. Skill Points GET!

2. ) You are assuming that the more enters a player presses, the better roleplayer s/he is. You can't quantify roleplaying in this manner. You can't really quantify roleplaying as 'good' or 'bad' in an easy way. Especially not in this manner. There was a game I played where GMs would sometimes give you points if they saw you rp very well. Trying this in this game will cause a lot of "BUT THE GM DIDN'T LIKE MY RP!' 'WHY DOES X GET MORE POINTS THAN ME?!' 'GM FAVOURITISM!'

3. ) Trading OOC work for IG gains is the first step towards "lets give skill points for donating to the society", "Lets give special items to peopel who donate" ----> Freemium game.

We have Game Masters that are very able.

I have played a game you can max skills in two weeks, then go on monster hunts to get tickets to make that max slightly higher. The monster hunts also give some very nice loot and the non-enforced RP was fair depending on who you ran across ig. I have also been skilling and roleplaying a fair amount of time on Illa...not as long as a lot of others. If you aren't interested in maxing your skills (and even if you do there will be others with better armor/gems etc that can beat your char btw) then the skilling system as it is IMO is fine except for some minor adjusting.

As an example.. when picking herbs the five second delay before you are interrupted that supposedly allows more RP does nothing for RP unless you are a lot faster typer then I am...It is about the same as the previous click/pick system. The drag and drop of each herb on the belt is a pain also and can easily be adjusted. The fighting system is good except more monsters are needed and it would be nice to actually use the distance skill. The mage system requires some minor adjusting but is good. The druid/craft system hopefully will get an update so is less grinding and crafting can earn coin.

I have read the site of one game that allowed RP "points" from GM's etc.. also read the complaints of "why didn't I get..." and decided I wanted to RP for fun not for points so didn't join.

While googling some stuff on RP oriented games and their skill systems, I came across this:

http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.ph ... ic=18874.0

In no way do I endorse the content within, but some of the stuff still remains from a post made 5 years ago. I just thought I'd bring to everyone's attention, considering the VBU is around the corner and some of the criticism might help build/edit the new system that is being brought forth.

Elijah wrote:the VBU is around the corner

lolno

Lrmy wrote:Go play on a WoW roleplaying server if that's how you feel... Oh wait those suck.

I don't think you quite grasped my post.

There is, indeed, a sophisticated solution to this available, however, we lack the manpower to implement it. It is unquestioned that the current system has good intentions but fails at a certain point. The alternative solution has even more good intentions, does not fail where the current system fails but might have other aspects you do not like.

So, in conclusion: The current skill system will be active until we find someone who supports vilarion as a server developer.

Meh, as a simple solution how about this:

Your first X actions of the day will net you 10 times the learning curve, then it goes back to the normal amount, which doesn't decrease. The amount should be pretty much what you'd get from 10 minutes of heavy-duty skilling.

That way, if you're a casual user who logs on once a day for 20 minutes, you will progress at around half the rate of someone who logs in once a day for 120 minutes - and if you want to spend hours pging, you'll still skill up - though not enough to create a giant gap, or allow people to max out their skill in a few days...

Please read the corresponding threads on the developer boards.

The bottom line, is to reward rp with skill...
How we can do this..? Umm, give some nice shiny skills to those chrevters heavily envolved in quests, or who are valuble members of guilds, and who are expected to have the skill to support their possition. Example: Captain of the guards gets given skills for his wonderful role playing. If it suits his charecter of course.
Just a thought.

Giving out skills to playerchar by seer/gm migth be encouaging at first, yet i think it adds to competition.

PS;I could also have mentioned "Elder Scrolls" in that first post of mine in this topic...

@Grokk; Independant from any subjective perception, i`d suppose that Lord British is an epic person,
who did/does his work because of a goal set by himself,
and not as a subordinate of a commercial instition.
There are little people who can be looked upon from different angles as him.

May he is a spoiler of minds or a hero of phantasy,
in the end it is not up to us individuals to finally choose.

Giving out skills to playerchar by seer/gm migth be encouaging at first, yet i think it adds to competition.

That may be true, however i do believe those in higher powers in game deserve to be rewarded in some way or another. And i think it'd just encourage people to want to really make a name for their charecter instead of hiding away with the demon skeletons for several month before appearing with super epic skills. So the resulting competition created would in my eye, be worth it. Nothing wrong with some friendly competition.

Once again though, just a thought.

Morbius wrote:The bottom line, is to reward rp with skill...
How we can do this..? Umm, give some nice shiny skills to those chrevters heavily envolved in quests, or who are valuble members of guilds, and who are expected to have the skill to support their possition. Example: Captain of the guards gets given skills for his wonderful role playing. If it suits his charecter of course.
Just a thought.

So why would "high ranking" chars deserve more skills? and what about those who can't make it on for certain quests? Some people can only make it on during slower online times, and this would require multiple gm's to be watching players 24/7, I don't think that will ever be possible.

Hm, good point Ezor. But what i meant with the "higher ranking" charecters, was just a was for the hardcore rpers to get some skill to play with more then anything else, i know a handful of players who like the rp that comes with decent skills. I'm not saying max them out or anything, just give them a little reward for their work. The quest idea was... crud though, i'll admit that. A lot of people just don't have the time to power game, as i'm sure we all know.