11th April Q&A Video & Transcription
On the 11th April, Aonia and Orael held a Q&A livestream on Twitch!
For those of you who weren’t able to attend, the recording is here, along with a transcript for those who require or prefer one. We apologise for some of the audio quality – we have done our best to rescue it in this recording, and will make sure future streams are better.
Please be aware that some parts of the transcription may seem to lack context due to the fact that Aonia and Orael were responding to questions and comments from the Twitch chat.
Aonia: Brilliant! So welcome everyone, to our Q&A stream. We are trying to stream semi-regularly, and this is a format that people have liked in the past. Estarra did it in the form of Ask Estarra videos; we’re doing it a little less extravagently than her, because no one could ever hope to top the Ask Estarra videos. So we’ve got some questions that you’ve all submitted.
If you have not heard my voice before, I’m Aonia, and I’m one of the co-producers of Lusternia. I’m here with Orael, who is our other wonderful producer, and so we’re going to answer some questions for you today! We’ve had quite a few submitted, I’m afraid we’re not going to get through all of them, but we will do our best. We’re hoping to run for about an hour, so maybe we’ll have a chance for some questions from the chat, but we will see how we go.
So our first question, we’ve sort of answered already. Because the first question is from Esei, and the first question is: ‘How do you pronounce Orael ((Oar-ay-l)) and Aonia ((Ay-oh-knee-uh))?’ Like that! Orael, how do you pronounce Orael and Aonia?
Orael: Well, I never…I never actually pronounce anything right, so I’ll just go with what you say.
Aonia: laughs
Orael: Everything that I have in my head is all different than how other people say it, so…
Aonia: Yeah. We also answer to ‘Oreo’ and ‘Vowels’, so that’s the alternative pronunciation, if you prefer a different one. laughs
Okay, so we’ve grouped our questions into two main categories, although one of them is ‘everything else’, so our first category is sort of our “Roadmap 2020” – our immediate plans and things related to those projects. So we’re gonna go through those together, and answer all of the questions related to that.
So we first of all had a very general question from Uzriel of – and I’m going to pronounce all of your names, so you can tell me if I’m pronouncing your own names wrong. Uzriel has asked us: ‘What is on the Roadmap for 2020 and beyond?’ So, Orael, do you want to start off by talking about what you’re doing right now?
Orael: Yeah, yeah, I can start. So right now, my big priority is end-game part two, which involves the ability to purchase levels, to get the perk system in place, the passive generation of essence; all that stuff that comes along with it. Hopefully it should be pretty quick, I’m pretty…pretty far into it already, so it shouldn’t be too much longer, but. You know, sometimes things pop up and surprise me, so I don’t know exactly how much longer it is, but that’s the next thing to finish off.
Once we get that released, what I do want to do is open up reports again for everybody, since it’s been about six months since the last time. So you guys can start getting your reports ready to go. We’ll get that done, and then…yeah, I mean, I can stop there for now.
Aonia: laughs Yeah, so that actually also answers a question from Misericorde, who wanted to know when the next round of envoy reports will be open. So yeah, it will be after that; we don’t know exactly when. Concurrent to that, we also have a couple of things going on. As you can imagine, Orael and I are often working on separate projects concurrent to each other, so one of the big things that I am looking after at the moment is Ascension.
Obviously we’ve had the ongoing events that are leading up to Ascension, thank you everyone who has gotten involved in those and for your wonderful feedback; watch out for the last weekend of this month! I understand things…you know there might be some dragons, I don’t know! As…In terms of the Ascension event itself…so Ixion has asked if you can get a general idea of when Ascension is going to be. I can tell you that the Seal events for Ascension will be through June, and the final Trial will be in July. We will be announcing all of the dates for those on the first of May.
The events will be in a slightly different order this year: they will still all be on weekends, it will be the normal format of generally we’ve got two events a weekend, but what we’ve done is order them so it’s a bit better for us basically. We’ve got the events in an order where we’re not overwhelmed, so you might find them in a slightly different alignment to what you’d expect, but we’ll release all of that for you on the first of may.
In addition to Ascension, we’ve also had some questions – we had quite a few questions from people about late game bashing, end-game PVE content, and we’ve had various different versions of this question, especially related to Astral being particularly strange right now because there’s lots of people in there bashing because you all want essence for your new powers.
So, the other thing that we’re working on – and the thing that I’m starting work on soon and that Orael will be working on once the second phase of the demigod changes is in – is what we are calling End Zone. We’re not going to reveal everything to you about End Zone right now, I will say we’re incredibly excited about it. It’s going to be a very, very different way of bashing. We want it to be genuinely challenging, you’ve asked for a long time for something that can really challenge people who are into PVE and will be a bit more dynamic and interesting. It will completely turn everything you think you know about bashing in Lusternia on it’s head, and that is something that we’re very excited to bring to you. I don’t have a lead time on it…laughs Yes, it’s turn-based hunting.
Yeah, so I can’t tell you how long it’s going to take. We have been slightly delayed on starting it; whilst fortunately by the nature of all of us being remote COVID-19 hasn’t had a HUGE effect on us, it does effect all of us individually, and unfortunately where I’d hoped that we were going to start that project a few weeks ago we are a little bit behind. But we are now in a position where we can get picking up on that, and get going with building what is going to be a really exciting area. So yes! We are absolutely looking into…you know, new options for end-game hunting, and that’s something that we’re very excited about. I don’t know if you want to say anything else about that, Orael.
Orael: No, I think you…I think you covered it. I think the exciting thing is that it’s going take everything you think you know about bashing and turn it on its head. It’s going to require a lot more choices and reactions and fun stuff, so…it should be good.
Aonia: And I will say that it…we are aiming in this instance to release one area, but we’re designing it so that it’s something that we can build more versions of in the future. Both in terms of a lore capacity, as to what the area is, and also in a function capacity. So it’s absolutely something that we think that we can do more with in the future: for example, doing versions you are required to go through with a certain number of people or…you know, different challenge versions…
Orael: Or solo…you know, solo challenges-
Aonia: -Yeah, yeah-
Orael: -or groups. Everything, the whole nine yards.
Aonia: Exactly. So…but in this instance, it is just the one. So we’ll have more news on that for you in the future! The…what were the other things we had here?
Okay, so I did want to…so in terms of looking at our roadmap as a whole, we do have some stuff that we…laughs I was going to say secret things, but it’s more background things that aren’t relevant for talking about. We have a bunch of things that we need Orael to do, basically, that don’t necessarily have an impact upon you directly. They are sort of background things that help our volunteers out, or help us, you know…sort of…underlying stuff to help us work on other things.
So we have got that as well, and I mention that…I realise that it’s a weird thing to mention, but mostly so you can bear in mind that…you know concurrent to these major projects, we have got other, smaller things going on as well. Whilst we’re really lucky that we’ve got Ianir around helping out still, it’s…there’s a lot that we need to get done, basically, and we’re very keen to ensure that we don’t try and take on too much at once.
There’s loads of things that you want that we’d really like to give you, but we think it’s most important that what we give you is good, and that it’s completely finished, and that we give it enough time to settle once it’s released so we’ve gotten all…any bugs out of it, any changes we need to make balance wise, anything like that. We don’t want to rush, basically. So where things take a bit more time, like Orael was saying earlier: sometimes we go to do something and something crops up and laughs suddenly it takes a little longer than we expected, that sort of thing.
One of the other background things that I actually do, and this is actually the thing that is my primary focus outside of events and lore work: I’ve been working really hard to make sure that our volunteers have the capacity to…do really cool things.
So you’ll be aware that one of the things that our volunteers do is help us with administrative stuff behind the scenes, but we’ve been working really hard to make sure that they’re not overworked, that they can focus on the things they want to, that their workloads are manageable. Because we believe that that’s going to make them be able to stay around longer, have a lot more fun, bring you guys a lot more fun, as well, be able to focus more on things like…patron work, and stuff like that. So that actually occupies the vast majority of my time; is looking after them. Because the only…you know…they’re, they’re…amasing, basically.
Orael: Yeah. Yeah, and we want to make sure that they have the time and desire to do fun stuff for you, too. Because they love…they love doing it, so we want to make sure that they’re not drowned in other stuff. So they can focus on what they enjoy, too.
Aonia: Exactly. And we’re hoping that that means that you get to see more of them as their godroles, and…you know, have more fun interactions with NPCs and things like that. But they can’t give you that if…you know, they’ve been overloaded with work. So that’s…we think that’s a really important thing that’s a really high priority for us, as a…as a team.
The only thing I missed in there…that’s related to all of that… Oh, we have got a follow-up question. This new hunting area will be attached to the main game, but instancing is something we’ve considered and talked about. That’s about as much of an answer as I can give you…in terms of whether we’re using instancing or not. Yeah, it…it is something we’ve looked at.
And actually, this last question is also from you, Nelras. So Nelras has asked: ‘What would be an appropriate in-character explanation for the range of demigod powers opening up to everyone, and will the next phase of the demigod overhaul be tied to an event or will it just be released as a mechanics change?’ So that’s two questions.
So the first question: in terms of roleplaying, your demigod powers…erm…every demigod, whether they’re a demigod or an Ascendant of any kind, has an att..attachan…attachment, pardon, to the Domotheos realms. I think it makes absolute sense to roleplay that you have an affinity to a Domoth, if, for example: you picked up a power from the Harmony Domoth, you might want to roleplay that you have a stronger affinity to that one. Really, you can pick it, because the Domoths are as fundamental a part of…of demidivinity as a whole, they’re not just a thing for Ascendants, otherwise…you know, demigods wouldn’t be able to challenge and hold Domoths and things like that. So I think there’s a really strong link there that you can play on in terms of roleplay.
Aonia: And in terms of events related to the demigod overhaul. So, events take a huge amount of time and preparation. We likely won’t have an event for phase two. We didn’t have one for phase one, because we actually…had six weekend long events in a row, over a period of six weeks! laughs We are partially still recovering from that; a load of those were player organised that there was a lot of admin support for. But basically, yeah, we’d love to do millions of events, but we can’t, laughs realistically, for these things. No, there won’t be any event attached to them.
Aonia: Orael, we have one more follow-up on End Zone which is: ‘How many people will the area be able to handle?’
Orael: Well…I don’t know.
Aonia: laughs
Orael: We’ll have to figure it out. Once we start diving into it, we’ll…we’ll kinda get a good group feel, and this first one we’ll probably try to make it so it can handle any size group, right? So…
Aonia: Yeah, and I think our idea for-
Orael: Future ones will…-
Aonia: -Yeah, exactly-
Orael: We’ll kinda gear them towards group sizes and individuals, but this first one is…like a…just to get our bearings on everything. We’ll see, we’ll just make it so you know, if you’ve got 30 people good, if you’ve got 10 people, it’ll work out. That’s probably the goal for the first one.
Aonia: Awesome. So obviously, that’s our…our immediate road map, we do have what we call a star map, which is things going further than that. Our aim is basically, once we get the next round of envoy reports open, we’re going to start seriously looking at what our next big road map project is going to be. By our project, I really mean what Orael’s… laughs next big project is going to be. So we’ll look at that then, and we will try and keep you guys in the loop as to what we’re doing. We just want to make sure that…you know we…as I said earlier, we get one thing really sorted before we start pushing too far ahead.
Orael: Yeah.
Aonia: So…well, then, that’s our first group of questions. We’ll now move on to…what can best be described as all of the other questions. laughs
Orael: Yeah. small laugh
Aonia: Do you want to…well, actually, we’ve alternated them. So you get to alternate between who you’re listening to, so I’ll…I’ll leave you to it, Orael, the first question is yours.
Orael: Okay. So this question is from Xenthos, and he’s talking about: ‘We [the administration] previously said that alliance mechanics were on the table after the demi rework. Is this still the case, and if there…or…are there any details on how it works in regards to the alliance situation?’ Erm. The alliance mechanics that we talked about were on our star map. They were always kind of…one of those…distant things that you know we would consider looking at at some point in time. It wasn’t ever an immediate, like, “Oh, we gotta do this right away.”
So it’s still…it’s definitely still on the star map, ’cause…alliance mechanics can certainly help these situations where it’s 4v2, or whatever. It could kinda help mediate stuff, and alleviate some of the pressure, and whatnot. There’s always a risk that alliance mechanics just…fundamentally stick the alliances into two different factions permanently.
But you know on the other hand it could make it really flexible and really fun, on the other side, you know where…you have…you know Gaudiguch declare that they’re helping Glomdoring capture a village, or helping Magnagora capture a village now, or something like that. So there’s definitely stuff we’ve talked about, but there’s nothing concrete as to what the details would be. But the goal would be…just something that would…you know make the game feel less empty, and help people…you know…with the group stuff, I guess is the best way to say it. I don’t know, I hope that that answers your question.
Aonia: I think the important thing for us is that it adds something. That you know…that it-
Orael: Yeah, yeah, it’s gotta add something that helps, right? It’s gotta be something that we feel is gonna be a valuable contribution that allows you guys to have more power and… more flexibility to do stuff within the game. So…
Aonia: Er, cool, so the question I’ve got is a bit related, actually. And this question is from Maligorn, which is…so his question was a lot longer, but it is generally, ‘How do we, as the administration, feel about the current alliance’ which is set up as a four versus two in terms of org numbers.
So first of all, we know from a PvP perspective, this sucks, right? Realistically, unless those two orgs have the same number of people, or not just the same number of people, but the same number of…you know, people interested in PvP as those four orgs? Unless you’ve got that balance, then it’s gonna be imbalanced, and it’s going to be unpleasant for the people who are the minority. And we are very aware of that.
We really believe that Lusternia is a player-driven game, and this is especially in terms of the political environment in Lusternia. We think that the power to change things is yours, and the…erm, to an extent, the responsibility to change things is yours, and that’s a power that we don’t want to impinge on unless it’s ABSOLUTELY necessary. Right now, we’re really hopeful that things will change in-character for you, and that we won’t need to do that.
The one thing that I would add is a reminder that there is a concept of positive metagaming. Erm. So we think of metagaming as awful…right? We think of metagaming as Person One logged into their alternative character to use all the information they gathered on…you know, that sort of thing? Where you’re abusing the knowledge that you’ve gained out-of-character. But technically, you’re metagaming…if you know someone’s having a bad time out-of-character, so you don’t bother them about those guild tasks they still haven’t completed? That’s technically metagaming. There’s a way to use your knowledge for…the positive benefit of people, rather than…you know, to abuse that knowledge.
To that end, it isn’t inherently bad to decide to change your alliance because you know the game isn’t fun for a bunch of people, or the PvP isn’t as good. Obviously in-character you’d be like…no, most characters would be like, “I know it’s great. It’s peaceful, we’re getting everything!” But you as an…out-of-character, might be like, “No, I’d like some people to fight. I’d like a more interesting fight.”
And if that’s your reason…on an out-of-character level for changing an alliance? That’s absolutely fine, as long as you roleplay it out in-character, you have an in-character explanation for everything at the end, and it’s a positive use…not an abuse…yes, exactly you use those powers for good and…think about the fact that, you know, this is a game? We’re all here to have fun…erm…and…that, I think is our…erm…our overall stance in terms of that. So I hope that answers your question, I know that was a bit long. And Orael, you have another, slightly related question.
Orael: Yeah, you know there was a question about revolts and flare timings…in regards to that, right? And I think the question, I don’t have it pulled up, exactly, right here, but…the question said something like 95%…98% of all revolts and flares are falling within a certain time period and they weren’t very random. So I put together a bit of stats on it, I did notice that somebody else, I think it was Kali, put together like…the stats per hour for the last seven hundred some revolts and flares, and it really just backs up what I saw. I just did the last two years, erm…because that’s what the question was.
If you break it down by like a four hour period, for revolts and flares, you know from like…12 to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 12, etc. Like they all, it averages out pretty well. We’re talking…you know, for revolts it’s we’re…having an average of 17 revolts that happened each four hour period in the past two years, for the total. And same for the flares, the flares are actually even better where it’s…you know, like 11 flares for 12 to 4, 12 flares for 4 to 8, 12 flares from 8 to 12. Erm…so the…the data doesn’t back up that it’s all happening at one certain timeframe that helps one org or another…you know because they can plan it out better. It’s actually pretty random, and it’s actually working.
Now, I did notice, and the caveat to this…is that…erm. I did notice when I was putting this information together that sometimes there will be a week or two, or like three revolts in a row, that all happen at the exact same hour like three weeks in a row. So for three weeks in a row it will happen you know…from 8 pm to 9 pm, and then it will go back to being more random. So sometimes it may seem like it is, because you’ll have short little stints where it’s all like…it happens at noon for two or three revolts in a row, or something like that. But for the most part it’s definitely random enough that we’re not really worried about it. And there’s nothing…for us to do to really change it at this point, though.
Aonia: Yeah, we have…we have changed some timings in the past. We did tweak. Erm…so we had a problem where wildnodes…so wildnodes operates in a different way-
Orael: -Yeah-
Aonia: -and wildnodes was basically always happening right at the end of that weave. And that was happening because it was based on the number of players online, and it looking for a certain number and it was never hitting that, so it was firing it at the last possible moment. And we dropped that threshold, and since then it’s definitely…seemed that wildnodes have been a lot more random, well not random because they’re not meant to be random, but a lot more varied in when they are firing.
Orael: Yeah, on that Sunday.
Aonia: Yeah. Okay, now for something completely different. laugh So we had a question from Jaspet. So apparently there are two baby adders in Oleanvir that spawn dead with no poisons. So I think the reason they spawn dead is related to the quest, but there are a load of baby adders in the area that…don’t have any anatine in them. That is a bug, and I will look at that in the next few days for you, but I also…erm… So we addressed…anatine was scarce for a while because it’s locked behind a quest, which is not ideal. You know…no herbalist has to go and quest before they can harvest some…I was going to say earwort, but that’s a terrible example. But you get…laughs you get the idea.
So yeah, the problem is they don’t respawn because it’s locked behind a quest, the numbers are off…so I’m also going to look in the next few days at the numbers that are spawning. Whilst anatine isn’t…I understand, as vital to PvP as it used to be? It’s still necessary and the…like…yeah, the quest is a problem, and there’s not that many…so likely my fix will be what Ixion has just suggested: which is that I will just…throw some adders in there. But I’m going to look at it, and I’ll look at that quest properly while I’m there, and hopefully I should be able to look at it properly within the next few days, the next week, so…yes, it is a bug! Partially. And it is also just a general problem, so I will have a look at that for you.
Orael: There you go. So…then the…you know, moving on, the next question. And this one is probably gonna be…a little dramatic, but the question is about commodities. And, you know, there’s been some talk about how they’re scarce and people are missing out on commodities, you know…to the point where people are saying noobs are leaving, new players are leaving because they can’t get the commodities that they need? And you know, I was saying that there isn’t really a scarcity of commodities and the reason I’m saying that is because…the numbers we have don’t really reflect that.
So…if I take a look, just for…you know a guessing game, kinda fun. If I told you right now, looking at things, we have…this commodity, there is…roughly 200,000 of them, sitting in six org stockrooms. And additionally…ah…additionally there’s another 75,000 sitting in player shops, and another 231,000 sitting in the rifts of players who have logged in in the past two weeks, what comm do you think that would be? So there’s roughly…4-500,000 of these comms in game right now. Commodities, not herbs. Coal. Gems? Gems are abundant. Steel. Any other guesses? Is that pretty much it?
Aonia: My guess is salt.
Orael: Salt? Salts aren’t comms either, yo.
Aonia: laughs
Orael: Gems were big. Silk. Cloth. Wood.
Aonia: There’s a couple of guesses for wood there.
Orael: Yeah. Now that…the…the answer’s eggs. The answer’s eggs, and eggs happen to be the least popular comm in the game, or commodity. Everything else is…much, much more abundant than them. So when we sit here and say that, “Hey like there…you know, there’s tons of comms in the game.” Like someone said steel? Right now there’s 841,000 steel between all six orgs in their reserves. Platinum? There’s over a million. Wood? Is…erm…500,000 wood. Silk? 832,000. And that’s just in org stock shops.
So between the orgs, I mean there’s…so you guys are saying that it’s scarce, but to us it looks like it’s really being scarce…erm because the players are just holding it back. And maybe it’s because you know the Trade Ministers aren’t…releasing it fast enough, or it’s too cheap so people are buying it out a whole bunch, or whatever it is. But there’s definitely enough comms in the game to cover everybody. I mean, if we look at player rifts for people who have logged in in the last two weeks, there’s over 200,000 for pretty much every single comm. Just sitting in player rifts. And that’s players who logged in in two weeks.
So…I will say that between all the orgs, it looks like Hallifax is probably the least…stocked of orgs? They’re the ones most likely to run out, they have less than 100,000 of everything. So they’re pretty low…I think Celest is probably the second worst off at this point. So… So that’s why when you guys are saying…er…when we’re hearing that it’s scarce and we’re telling you it’s not…that’s why. So. ‘The outflow overpowers the income’. Well, I mean…you can raise the prices in your shops to help slow the outcome, but when you’re sitting on over a hundred thousand of something, it’s hard to say…that’s the…the issue.
So, anyway, that’s kinda where we’re coming from when we say that stocks aren’t really, or commodities aren’t really scarce. That there’s…there’s quite a few of them in the game, available. I mean, we can look at the village things too, and there’s plenty of stuff in the villages as well. I mean most things, especially for the newbies who need stuff? Like they’re not…they’re not looking for thousand of comms, they’re looking for maybe hundreds. And it’s definitely, readily available, pretty much everywhere. So…
Aonia: Okay, so…erm…the next question is from Misericorde, which is about the quest system and adding quests to the quest system. So if you’re not familiar, quests aren’t…especially older quests are not all in our modern quest system, and I use the word modern. laughs It’s existed since before I joined the Havens, so it’s…it’s modern in a relative sense. And basically, Misericorde is asking if there’s anything that all of you can do to help us with getting quests into the quest system.
So basically, what it entails for us is that we have to go back through the entire quest, and make sure that you receive the quest at different points. Especially ’cause you can pick quests up when they’re midway through, so we need to make sure that it’s not just you get the quest added at you the start, but it’s at multiple points through it…we make sure at that point, because it’s effectively. What we’re doing is auditing the quest? So at that point, we also make sure that the rewards are good, and the quest as a whole…you know isn’t…it doesn’t have any big, underlying problems that we can easily fix at that point.
So it’s not quite just a question of adding the write-up and…it’s not a simple process. It is something we are steadily working through, and slowly more and more are getting in. We have a lot of quests, which is an awesome thing, but obviously for this sort of thing it just means it takes some time. The thing you can do that can help, erm…there is a pinned thread on the forums called Project Quest. If you find a quest that is not in the system, please post it there. If you do want to give us a quick explanation of the quest that we might be able to use, that would be fabulous. Please remember that you’re not allowed to give out solutions to quests on the forums when you’re doing that, but if you want to, you know, write us a description, yeah, that could be helpful.
But the important thing is to put it on there, so that we remember that quest exists and we can add it to our list of to-dos, and we have…several volunteers who have slowly and laboriously been working through all of them. There are so many, and it will go on their quest and then it will get tended to as soon as we can. That is the small thing you can do, it’s not-there we go, we’ve got a link to it, thanks Mysrai. That’s unfortunately, though, the most you can do to help us with this particular thing. But it’s still pretty useful! Yes, so that’s me done on that one.
Orael: Okay. So next question is: the Wondersaddle! Why it was made the way it was, and why we released it so early. So the thing about the Wondersaddle is…it’s obviously a promotional item, right? And the fact is, is…as far as our priorities go? Like, our promotions are pretty low on the priority scale. So we don’t want to spend, you know…a ton of time working on saddles and working on different promotion items to give out to you guys because we’d…we’d rather be focusing on these big ticket items like the endgame stuff and these new End Zones that we just told you about.
Those are our priorities, so we’re not spending a whole lot of time on the Wondersaddle you know…to come out…and when we were doing the Wondersaddle, the big goal here was we wanted something that was nice, that you know…it’d be a bonus to have? But it wasn’t a must have. Because if we made it a must have, then the question we’d be getting now is ‘why are we contributing to the power creep?’, and ‘why are we releasing things that are overpowered?’.
So we just wanted something that you know…yeah, it’s cool if you have it, but you don’t necessary need it. And you know, as far as like…the regen and that goes, like nobody…I didn’t once think that somebody was going to buy a wondersaddle because their empathing was twice as effective for mana. That wasn’t…you know, that wasn’t anything that we were considering. It was padding, just to make the thing better. Most of our wonder items have padding, you know, like the Wonderwands have got all the different damage types, the Wonderwings have all the different insanity reductions for different spheres. They’ve got…they’ve all got some padding to them.
So we just, I said we wanted an item that was nice to have, but it wasn’t a must have. So something that people might enjoy, but not something that people needed. So…and I think that’s okay. And that’s kinda what…we would have done. ‘Adding celerity when it was mounted’…I mean, yeah, maybe it would have been better as a 10 crystal item, but there’s already too much celerity in the game, so. laughs Everybody’s got celerity. Celerity off the wazoo. So I don’t necessarily know that we need that, but anyway that’s why…that’s why it was. You know, and so…it wasn’t you know…we weren’t trying to be lame or whatever, we just…we wanted something that was nice but not amasing. And…yeah.
Aonia: We also, we don’t-
Orael: -That was it-
Aonia: -expect every wonderitem or artifact in general to be universal? I mean aside from the obvious thing, that not everyone has a beast? Though…the vast majority of people do, you know it’s…it’s not going to be as useful to everyone? And that’s…that’s okay, and that’s always going to happen with anything that we release, so erm…that’s a thing to bear in mind as well. Er…so…
My next question is from Maligorn, and is about Astrology and the stars in Lusternia, so: ‘How do the stars tie into Astrology? How does everyone draw power from these constellations?’ We had a question, might have been from Esei, about what the constellations look like? Where do meteors come from? What is the habitable zone of Lusternia’s systems? These are all really interesting questions. And you know…maybe one day they’ll get answered.
Orael: chuckle
Aonia: One of the things with…lore is that…we have a lot of things set out, and we have a lot of things that are open. Yeah, I’m not just completely trolling you by pretending to answer this question and then not answering this question. It’s…the question…is a really good example of…you know, lore that we don’t necessarily release?
By not answering this now, one day we can give you a really awesome event that’s all about the other planets, or whatever, and I think one of the really cool things is that you can…like in terms of what the constellations look like? You’ve got their names. You want to do art of them, you decide! You know, you…you can fundamentally, it’s stars in the shape of a skull or whatever it is, that’s…laughs That’s a good pun, Kali.
And er…yeah, so it’s er…and yes, meteors do come from dragons. If you’re…unpleasant to them, or if you’re too nice to them. As was poor Hallifax’s fatal flaw. Yeah, so that’s one of the things that I love about Lusternia lore is how open it is, how much there is to it, and how…you know how much there is to explore even after this many years. So much has been explored, and there’s still so much that is there to learn. So yeah, that’s my sort of…non-answer answer. laugh So, Orael, you had a question about squad xp gain and the tiers in that.
Orael: Yeah, I’m actually trying to look it up right quick so I don’t tell you something wrong…
Aonia: laughs
Orael: …and not finding it…
Aonia: Do you want me to answer my next one, and then you can answer afterwards?
Orael: No, I can, I can answer it, it’s pretty…it’s not super complicated. So basically, you know, when we made the change about…it was about a month or two back, it was…so the initial squads was that, anything, you know, one to three people just had the experience divided among the group. So if it was three people, it was divided by three. Then anybody over three, had…the experience was just divided by three, for the rest of it.
So if you had thirty people, they were all getting 1/3 of the xp, which was increasing the amount of experience by huge amounts, overall, as a whole. So we changed it to be…you know, after ten, it stops at ten instead of three. Which, you know…the big complaint there was that you know…midsize groups kinda suffered more, groups of ten or whatever suffered more, but a big group was still going to benefit from it.
So what we did was instead of having it per person, we did tiers of people. So if your group is anywhere from…I think three to six people, it’s now divided by three. If it’s seven to ten, it’s divided by five. And if it’s 10-14, it’s divided by 7, and anybody 15+ it’s…the experience is divided by ten. So now it’ll just be kind of…tiered in that way, so midtier groups will still benefit from getting more exp overall, but you still won’t have the crazy top-end gains for groups of 30+ or whatever.
So…’can I get those tiers again for notes, please?’ Yeah, so it’s from…er…what’d I say, from three to six, it’s divided by three, so if your groups is three to six people, the experience you get from a mob or whatever is divided by three. If it’s seven to ten, it’s divided by five. If it’s 11 to 14 it’s divided by seven, and if it’s 15+ it’s divided by ten. So the goal there was to make midsized groups just…better, overall. More worthwhile. Encourage teamwork, that kind of stuff. So…I think that answers that one.
Aonia: Awesome. So, I have a question about why we changed the rules on automation. And…so there are two main reasons that we did this: which is for clarity, for making the rule a bit clearer, and for enforcibility, as you can imagine it is quite difficult for us to decide if someone’s…you know, we’ve got to observe someone for a LONG time to work out if…their…er…system was just running indefinitely. It’s relatively easy for us to work out if someone’s AFK, but it’s about…you know, judging how long someone’s system can run for is a lot harder. And as you say, like, it’s not…it’s not 100% clear.
So prev-the previous version of the rules was that as long as your triggers, and this is all kinds of automation: so this is bashing, influencing, gemcutting, aethertrading, anything. As long as at some point, it cut off; so for example, if you’ve got something that lets you go around and influence an entire area. If your system cut off when you finished that area, it was fine, but if your system then ran you to the next area, and had you do that one, and then on to another area, and you know…indefinitely, under the previous rules that wasn’t permitted.
That’s hard to enforce, it’s a bit hard to understand, so the new rules are…erm…you can do…you can automate those things, as long as you remain at your computer at all times. As I say, it’s quite easy for us to check if someone’s AFK. If you’ve never been AFK checked, an administrator will pop up and say, “Hello, are you here?” and you’ll say “Hi,” and then everything will be fine.
Nothing has changed in terms of the punishments for either: the punishment for automating any kind of…well, anything in this instance, is…will remain the same. Yeah. laughs Pretty much the rules are what people have been using for a long time. I…you know, I think the thing with having a rule that isn’t clear is that people do push it, understandably. So yeah it’s…to make it clear, to make it enforcable.
The reason it’s come up now is we actually had several queries about automation or different kinds of automation all come in within a couple of weeks, and so we looked over it and…that’s…that’s why the rules have changed in this instance. So yeah, hopefully that answers that question.
Erm…we have…a question for both of us, which is whether we play other MUDs because we can’t play characters in Lusternia, and if so has being a builder and coder and then producer altered our perception when playing other games? So I have played other games in the past, I actually came to Lusternia originally having played Achaea, I also played Midkemia when it was out, and I played Aetolia….I played, you know, quite a few different ones.
I don’t play them anymore…but it is really useful for spying on how other games work, and we do talk to the producers of the other games quite often to knowledge share if a game does something really well, then we, you know talk to them and ask their advice about things and that’s been really beneficial in…you know, all sorts of instances. So yes, and no, I guess is the answer…the answer to that question. And…and I think, I think it’s the same for you, Orael, where you have done in the past?
Orael: Yeah, Yeah, I’ve played…I’ve played other MUDs. You know, I’ve played Aetolia, I’ve played Achaea. I don’t anymore, I don’t have enough time to do it all.
Aonia: laugh Yeah, time is…time is a valuable commodity. laugh
Orael: Yeah, between work and life and whatnot. Yeah, I don’t really have enough time to devote to…to playing other characters on other games and whatnot. But I have noticed that ever since stepping up into this kind of role, that I definitely look at…even just like video games and stuff a lot differently. You know, and I try to take inspiration and stuff from how certain things are handled, and…I don’t know, try to learn and see what I can bring to the table here. It has definitely has altered my perception and viewpoint when playing other games.
Aonia: It’s very hard to turn, once you’ve been any kind of game developer. It’s very difficult to look at a game and turn your erm…yeah, turn that brain off. I definitely do now look for what I can steal from other games…laughs It’s a fun way of putting it.
Orael: Yeah.
Aonia: It’s what I can take inspiration from, let’s put it that way, that’s a bit better. And it’s…yeah, it’s definitely something that we do on all sorts of levels, be that from like…a puzzle design to just…roleplay influence and that sort of thing. So our last question is for…you, Orael, which is what can people brush up on if they’re interested in becoming a mortal coder?
Orael: Oh yeah, er…You know, Rapture, I think is…it’s C based, so C’s good. I mean, just your general programming knowledge…you know, datastructures and whatnot. The…you know, the big thing is, too, is some of the secondary stuff. Like I use VIM a whole lot to do all my coding stuff, so you know, kinda brushing up on that sort of stuff would be good. Other than that, I don’t know, you know probably…to be honest, Ianir would be better at answering that qeustion than me.
Aonia: Yeah, I mean if…
Orael: He’s much more knowledgeable… ((in regards to which coding languages are best brushed up on))
Aonia: If people are interested in becoming a mortal coder, they can email us. Erm…don’t email me, there’s no point. laughs But you can email Orael, and you know, if you’ve got queries about it would entail…it can be a lot of work, so we completely respect people saying, ‘Can you give me an idea of what the expectations would be’ or things like that. You know, if you want a more involved answer, we can consult Ianir and give you any other advice.
Orael: Yeah, definitely.
Aonia: Yeah, so that…that is all the questions we picked out. I’m aware we didn’t get to everyone’s questions from the thread. Some of them were duplicates, so…erm…you may have gotten a lot of things answered. We do have ten minutes left, if anyone would like to…ah, I can’t promise everything, because some questions might require us to look things up. Whilst you’re thinking of questions…ah, yes, Omega, it would be orael@lusternia.com, erm…
Orael: But spelled correctly.
Aonia: Yeah, but spelled correctly. laughs The one thing I will mention whilst you’re thinking of questions, so…we think these streams are a great way to get in contact with you, and we’d love…we’re potentially interested in doing more. Something that is relatively small that you can do to help support us in doing that is, if you haven’t already, follow us here on Twitch.
If we start doing this more, then…becoming a Twitch Affiliate has a certain number of requirements, one of those requirements is that we have 50 followers. Becoming a Twitch Affiliate will mean that we can do certain things that we can’t now. It will do things like…meaning that our streams, when they stay on here last for longer. So definitely do give us a follow if you haven’t already, because that will really help us out. It’s a way you can help us get to streaming more, we can get custom emotes if you…laughs If you get us up to Affiliate. So, something to consider.
Okay, so questions…laughs
Orael: How much time does every…that was a good one, I like that time question about: ‘How much time does every org have in their stockrooms’ and the answer is not enough.
Aonia: Yeah, no one. No one has enough time.
Orael: laughs
Aonia: Er…Mysrai, you know you’re our favourite shapeshifting chaos Elder. Obviously. Erm…Jonesey, we talked about the alliance situation earlier on, so you can…once we finish streaming here, there will be a VoD immediately on Twitch. We are also recording, and we are hoping that if the recording comes out well, then we can put that up somewhere for you. I don’t have details on when exactly that will be, but keep an eye on our social media and we’ll let you know…as that…appears.
Okay, so: ‘Estarra said she’d never release an area without some sort of lore. Has this changed with me now heading Lore? Areas that exist without some secret plots.’ So…all areas will have some sort of lore. With End Zone, there will not be a quest in End Zone. So there is…that is a slight change in terms of…erm…the concept we have, and I am so excited about the concept that we have that I wish I could talk to you about it now. But it will be better as a surprise.
It…has a really deep lore basis, the area is fundamentally steeped in lore. It isn’t…whilst it is just a bashing area, it is not just a bashing area, it’s something much cooler than that. But there will not be a quest there, there will not be NPCs that you go to talk to, there will just be things trying to kill you. So it is a sort of balance, between the two, to answer that one.
Orael: As far as aethertrading and gold, we…I am still looking at it, but you know we made a couple changes recently to it. So we’re kinda…our big theme lately is incremental change. So we made some changes, we’re going to let it sit out, and kinda see how it goes from here, and then we’ll look at it again. So…
Aonia: Hopefully as Ixion said, the changes we just made will address any gold issues, as well. Pysynne, that sounds like a really good thing to do with envoy reports, which will be opening after we release the next phase of the demigod changes. And once they’re…you know, any bugfixes done on that and everything settled, which we don’t have an exact date on, but I would-
Orael: -Yeah-
Aonia: -that sounds like be the sort of thing that would be really good to put forward then. Er…warriors are on our star map.
Orael: Star map for sure.
Aonia: Kaizynne, we answered when Ascension is earlier. Erm…it’s the…Seal challenges are in June, the Trial of Ascension is in July, the dates will be released on the first of May. Erm…combining brooches or bubblixes would be quite hard, I think, just based on how they work.
Orael: I suppose we could just put together an omnibix, that goes…you just specify where you want to go.
Aonia: Benefiting from brooches without the stole effect…
Orael: Yeah, I’ve…I looked into doing that, the…like being able to choose your effect and I know it’s something that people really want, but…it’s not exactly easy, though. There’s a lot of stoles and a lot of stuff and a lot of different things to do about it, so…we can keep looking at it, but erm…it’s not a high priority.
Aonia: Potentially, again, something you could put up as an envoy report, depending on the scope of it. We can then look at it… The difference in Ascension is just that it is occurring in summer. The events themselves, we’re not doing things like with the Ghani Ascension, where the format will be different. The difference is that Ascension is occurring in June.
Orael: Yeah, instead of February.
Aonia: Yeah.
Orael: I think there were mixed reviews on the last time we changed up Ascension-
Aonia: -Yeah-
Orael: -so if we do it, we want to put more…more time and thought in it.
Aonia: And yes, the order of the events is slightly different, when we release the dates on the first of May you’ll see that. But basically, the way they paired up before, we often got two events that required a lot of preparation on our end all on the same weekend, so just to make it easier on us so we can make those events better, we’ve now got one event that’s a slightly lighter load with one that’s a heavier load. That sort of thing.
Anyone else? Got any last minute questions?
Orael: I think the Mastercrown works because it’s a separate item, so we’d have to create something-
Aonia: -Yeah-
Orael: -to accept the different bixes and whatnot. So…if that makes sense.
Aonia: We are-
Orael: -A Lyyra bubblix?-
Aonia: -actually looking for artifact ideas right now. We do know that the Lyraa bubblix is one that you want, so do throw…if you’ve got any artifact ideas, do throw them up on the thread on the forums. We are specifically looking at them in the next few weeks, so that would be great.
Orael: Yeah, you can submit the idea again, that’s fine. That works. inaudible
Aonia: So balance…balance times on trades…er…trade things is what I suggested, yeah. It wasn’t Shaddus, it was Pysynne, and that was what I put in envoy reports for. The one…Orael would you rather they put that in as a single report for all trades, or to be specific to, for example, gemcutting…
Orael: It’s probably better to be specific.-
Aonia: -Yeah-
Orael: -We want to really stay away from people doing…using one report to get fifteen different changes in. So, we want to be really specific to what we’re doing. So…
Aonia: Ways to tend to astral nodes’ health. So…we’re hoping that End Zone will give you some more options in terms of where to go for PvE, and we’re hoping that that will improve things so that you’ll…you know, you’ll have more options so that you won’t have everyone in one place. We’ll see how that goes, then.
Aonia: laughs Mysrai, you can’t say Shikari doesn’t count and then pick Shikari anyway.
Orael: More bug streams, huh? We can do more bug streams, I just…we’d done two of them, and…I don’t know, I figured-
Aonia: -Yeah, we wanted-
Orael: -I can do another one. I might do another one.-
Aonia: -to do some different formats of stream, as well. I am planning, and I don’t have a date for this, I’m planning to do a…an NPC creation stream at some point. Where you all get to pick different things about an NPC that then will actually go in the game. This could be actual chaos so…laughs We’ll see how this goes. laughs more But you’ll get to pick the race, and things like that, so…er…and no promises about when that will be or where that NPC will end up. Erm…laughs But that is something I’ve got planned for the future.
Orael: Artefact balloon have new areas…erm…like what areas do we need to add to it? That might…be a bug…where does the balloon go now? Does it just go to…Icewynd?
Aonia: Gosh, I don’t even know what that is.
Both: Only goes to continents.
Orael: Icewynd, Lirangsha…
Aonia: Well, does it…are there any continents that it currently doesn’t go to, or does it go to all currently existing continents? Because it’s quite rare that we add a new continent, so it may be that actually it goes…if it just goes to continents specifically, that it already goes to everywhere.
Aonia: Okay-
Orael: -It goes to all of them now besides UV. We’ll have to look into it-
Aonia: -Yeah-
Orael: inaudible …if it goes to all open continents, where lse would you want it to go?
Aonia: We do not have any new races, currently in the works. We’ve got tons of races, they’re all pretty cool. Okay!
Orael: inaudible
Aonia: Well, thank you all so much, everyone, for coming. We have hit the end of our time. It’s been amasing to have so many of you here, we’ve actually almost hit fifty people at points, so that’s…really awesome. We will have the VoD if, for those of you who joined late, the VoD will be up pretty much immediately as soon as we end the stream here on Twitch. But as I say, we’re also going to try and put the recording we’ve got up somewhere else for you. And…we’ll let you know, I’ll have the Twitter Gremlins let you know about that, when it appears. Thank you all for your questions, and-
Orael: -Yeah-
Aonia: -I hope you are all taking care of yourselves. And staying home, if you’re able to. If you are an essential worker, thank you very much for everything you’re doing, and we’re glad we can provide somewhere for you to be…you know, where you can get some rest and have some fun. And er…spend some time with our awesome community. So thank you all very much, and it’s good-bye from me…
Orael: Yep! We’ll see you guys later, thanks again for everything. And…erm…yeah, we’re good.
Aonia: Thanks.
