Dear Players:

As I did last year, I wanted to post my thoughts on the year gone past. Overall, I believe Lusternia has had a fabulous year in 2007--indeed, I think it has been our best year ever! From growth in the playerbase to expansion of features to satisfaction among the volunteer staff, Lusternia has been a true joy to work in (and I hope play in!).

Personally, however, 2007 has been a challenging year for me. The death of Patchouli, my cat who had been my constant companion for the past 18 years, hit me harder than I ever imagined it would. I still miss that darn cat and often think of her even 6 months after her passing! Further, two good friends of mine passed away. They were very close to each other and died within a month of each other, which was both slightly spooky and somehow moving. Such events make one more introspective and reevaluate what’s truly important in one’s life.

Lusternia is one thing that is important in my life! We started 2007 with a bang with the first Ascension Event. It was a fierce competition with prizes galore and it ended with Soll rising up to become Ayridion, the first Ascended God. Unfortunately, it also turned out to be the last Ascended God! Our idea was that Ascended Gods would only focus on the roleplay of being a god and throughout the year, we threw around ideas on how to make this an interesting role. In the end though, we concluded that it just wasn’t a workable idea. However, I am very excited with the new Ascendant System that took its place!

I’d like to make it clear that Ayridion was a superb god, and we offered to turn his role into an admin position after one year. However, no one but those who walk in our shoes know how challenging it is to be on the other side of the curtain. The number one reason ephemerals don’t become gods or gods retire is because they miss being a mortal, and I think this was a large part of the case here.

After last year’s Ascension Event, the next big project was the introduction of Nexus World Conflicts. As you may recall, the genesis of the idea was from discussions on these very forums. The aim was to move conflict off the prime plane (as well as the ethereal/elemental/cosmic planes), and the system was one where cities and communes could opt into (and not feel forced to participate). Admittedly, it had a bumpy start and we have been tweaking the system throughout the entire year. The last set of updates (which included auronidion particles) were inspired from the input with a player we approached who was very experienced in both Nexus World Battles and in aetherspace combat.

The big event that came mid-year was the release of the Undervault. I had a lot of fun during this event, and I think players did too. The Undervault is intended to provide bashing for high level players (as an alternative to the astral planes), as well as an area for high level influencing and questing. (I know the major quests are difficult, but they have component parts which generate a lot of gold--especially if you bash there.) I have heard anecdotes that some players hate bashing the Undervault, whereas others are extremely happy with it (maybe because so few bash there!).

With the Undervault came the release of two new races, the illithoid and kephera. They are extremely unique both in their abilities and their roleplay origins. Along with the races came the announcement of monks. There were concerns that the playerbase wasn’t large enough to support more guilds, but I think monks generated a lot of excitement.

For monks, we decided that this time we were going to do something different and form a committee made up of players to help design the monk skills. Truthfully, I thought the results were a little uneven. There is an inherent problem with trying to develop a skillset in the much maligned “design by committee” approach: factions develop within the committee, compromises are made by constant tweaking to satisfy everyone’s input, and the result can tends toward mediocrity. While this vetting process may work in the envoy process, for skill design it can be problematic. In the end, I think we did pretty well by the monk committee. Even so, I think the strongest skillsets (i.e., creative, holistic and balanced) end up being designed by one visionary person, who is allowed the freedom to pursue his or her vision. It takes a special such designer (in all modesty, I’m one), and, although sometimes this approaches misses, more often than not the result is a homerun.

Throughout the year, we released three monk guilds: Shofangi, Tahtetso and Ninjakari. By the time we were came to the Ninjakari, we had rethought how monks could work (i.e., rupture system), and will now have to backtrack and redesign Shofangi and Tahtetso. There still are admittedly some kinks, but we recently held a monk summit and are addressing the main issues.

Another feature released is the collegiums. I really like this new system of introducing newbies to communes and cities, especially the collegium channel and collegium quests. I think it is important that new players identify strongly with their city/commune and this certainly helps reinforce that. Especially for small guilds, it is an important part of helping players establish a community and support.

Also released were the illusion specializations, Glamours and Phantasms, which I think most people appreciated. Also released was the theater feature (a clever design by one of our volunteer coders), along with the world stage. The healing skillset was revamped, and the Bombard! game was released. We also made big changes to damage modifiers and statistic formulas, which were well needed and I think overall rebalanced many aspects of the game that sorely needed it.

There seemed to be a lot of celebrations this year, with Iron Realms celebrating its Ten Year Anniversary. I’ve been with them the entire ten years, first as a player, then as a volunteer admin god, and finally as producer of Lusternia. Oh, the stories I could tell! Lusternia’s Three Year Anniversary followed closely afterwards, which I think is quite an achievement.

Whatever you may think about the envoy system, as I look through all the envoy reports we address in a year, I can’t help but give ourselves a pat on the back. Sure, some of you may complain about the speed in addressing or prioritizing the reports, but from my vantage point, we have a pretty darn good record. Kudos for the past and present players who serve or have served as envoys. They do a lot of work, more than some of you may imagine!

Not everything was smooth sailing, of course. Glomdoring again had issues, and I felt we had to step in as there were just too many reports of a toxic atmosphere and established players feeling they were driven away. I think we did the right thing, as by all reports say that Glomdoring is a much better place to be as a player than what it was. However, it still suffers from poor membership and that is something only time can cure. At least, the players there are happier and there aren’t any reports from players feeling unwelcome to the point of leaving--and that counts for a lot!

Another challenge has been the small volunteer staff that we have behind the scenes. There’s no denying we’re stretched thin, but I have to tell you that right now, I’m extremely happy with our volunteers. I have come to the conclusion that a harmonious atmosphere is the most important thing in the havens. I am proud to say we are as drama free as we ever have been and it’s wonderful!

Undoubtedly, one of our best moves this year was hiring Morgfyre as an Associate Producer. He has been a tireless worker, a superb coder, and a real leader. He’s a joy to work with, and I’m proud to count him as a good friend. As usual, Roark is the strong, silent and dependable type, and his coding skills remain transcendent. Also, Lisaera has proven to be an extremely capable leader, and Fain has been a dynamo behind the scenes. Further, Terentia, Charune and Elostian are our stalwarts, and there are some very promising ephemerals working in the background. All in all, I couldn’t be happier!

I’m not sure what 2008 will bring us, but I feel the winds of momentum are at our backside and pushing us forward. I can’t thank you enough for being a part of Lusternia!

Love ya all!
Estarra

why no mention of Glomdoring monks?

It makes me nervous

Because this is for '07, its now '08?

EDIT: Any hints or sneak peaks on whats coming for '08?

I don't think you're giving the monk committee quiiite enough credit. The issues you named are fair, but the fact we actually got to point out issues and test things and remove bugs/ambiguous issues before they came up in real is a definite bonus to that approach. It's not exclusive to the committee designing the skillsets, so I think we can learn from that and apply it to other things.

Good post... A good review on what happened, with a bit of analysis.

Is there any chance we could get something similar that looks towards the future of 2008? Perhaps laying out some of the grander design plans and some of the things we can look forward to..

A lot of the other IREs do updates, and I feel there's a little too much emphasis on surprise.. I think it'd be great to give us fewer surprises and more things to look forward to..

Just a thought

I don't like giving sneak peaks! For one thing, you don't know how terrible I feel if I can't deliver on something I say we're going to do. The other thing... I like suprises!

However, that said, I have mentioned several times that we were going to look at races after all the monk guilds are in. I know some peole like the "stat pack" pioneered by Aetolia, but I've been looking into it and not sure if it fits in for Lusternia. Also, we do want to do the monk guild for Glomdoring, and we want to revamp the Shofangi and Tahtetso to enfold the rupture system in it.

Can't we just remove monks and downgrade bards and be happy? =(

I didn't mean to come across like the monk committee didn't work out! We wouldn't have the monks we have without the committee.

However, for design, I think I much prefer to have one extremely creative visionary who understand the game mechanics and is unbiased to be the designer (or at least head designer who is absolute dictator in a design team). As far as testing and feedback goes once we had something coded, you are absolutely right that the committee really shone.

Oh, then we're in agreement I suppose!

Looking forward in the future, currently though that with the rapid changes happening I feel outdated so not much into conflict now, I hope that there will be new changes for non-conflict ones like maybe more games to pass time? That way, there's another way to have fun in Lusty other than 'farming' for experience and gold and 24/7 conflict.

And dang, 2 years already in and out in this game.

I agree that the monk skill-sets should all have been designed by one person, allowing that person to compare and contrast the skills being given between the various specialties. I personally was leery about the prospects of what would happen when players were allowed to create their own skill-sets, and seeing the outcome so far has not diminished my concerns. There were too many different views on what is balanced and too many varied levels of competency when it came to what is needed and not needed to be successful. Also add in the fact that players are notoriously biased, and frankly I feel it all should have just remained in the hands of people who are not going to directly experience using or defending against the new skill-sets (i.e. Admin).

Also, I would like to suggest that Lusternia slows a bit down on the creation of new game mechanics, instead focusing on house cleaning (i.e. fixing bugs, balancing classes, etc). Change is good, but measured change that takes time to get it right is what I would rather see. Right now, the pace of change in Lusternia to me seems a bit manic, instead of measured and well planned.

One reason we went for the monk design committee of players was to generate ideas. Though we had what we thought was a neat, unique design concept for monk combat, there was a dearth of specific ideas. For whatever reason, I have mental blocks on designing "mundane" (i.e., non-magical) skills for fighting. Also, because we heard grumblings about how the bards were designed and released, we thought giving players the opportunity to be part of the design process would address similar issues with monks before they happened. In hindsight, there may have been a better way.



We are planning on doing just that after the Ascension Event! (This would include the review of races and extraneous monk issues.)

I am curious as to what this way is. I know simply asking this will get a "there won't be any more classes for 5 years we already have too many etc. etc." response from other players, but on the principle that adding this stuff over time can only make Lusternia more varied, which is one of its draws in the first place (skillchoices are awesome) I can't help but wonder how you plan to do it next time.

The issue discussed doesn't look like an issue of number of archetypes. It looks like having multiple player designers instead of one or two admin designers.

If that was directed at me: yes, I am aware of that. The question is on what the "other way" is for next time it comes up is; it mostly comes up for classes or archetypes so I threw that other thing in as a disclaimer.

The other way would be one or two admin designers instead of the group of players.

Eh...maybe. Doesn't look like that's what was being implied though, as I'd've thought that the one or two admin designers thing was a given as a "non-other" option (if that makes sense to you.)

I think she is refering to the race redesign.

Honestly I understand the need for surprises, and all the other games do it, but it'd be nice if we had more detailed stuff to look forward to besides "more monks" and race balancing..

Donno, maybe it's just me. Any chance we could have a poll about how people would feel in terms of the options.. (More info and a risk of not getting them in a given timeframe vs less info and the surprises)

I think the idea is a combination of the two. The skills should be designed by one person who is creative and familiar with the mechanics and balance of the game. They should then be tested and double-checked by a group of players who are relatively unbiased and can point out specific issues before they're released.