I understand some of you are upset at losing the nexus world conflict system. Some people think I don't listen to players, make "knee jerk" decisions, don't foresee issues that 'obviously' should be foreseen, and am generally a pretty awful admin. While I like to think I have a thick skin, I cannot help but feel hurt by some of the more rancorous and spiteful comments. Honestly, I am not out to prove anything or bully anyone. However, at the end of the day, I have to ultimately make the executive decisions and not give in to mob rule. If nothing else, I hope you understand that Lusternia means everything to me and I will always strive to make it the best it can be. Maybe no one cares what I feel, but there it is!

Okay, well, I don't mean to wallow in self-pity or gain your sympathy. What I do want to know is what do players want next? If we could do only one thing this month, what would you like it to be? Be specific! (Don't be cute and say 'balance all combat'.) Family system? Look at domoths? Ascendant system? Make aetherspace a priority (though there are some really interesting things in store for aetherspace already)? You can only pick one!

Let us have a civil discussion and see if we can find something this month to focus on that players really want.

Ascendants and Ascendancy. I want cults to be useful please, and have more use to ascendancy skills beyond a couple of them.

One issue that we always smack up against with Ascendant powers (and, to a lesser extent, demigod powers) is how to not make it overly impact combat. Too often, the ideas for powers or abilities affect combat. (Maybe it does too much already?) Thus, we hear, give them more RP powers or powers that don't effect combat but effect the world in other ways. Unfortunately, there's a dearth of what those powers actually would be! (Maybe someone can start a separate thread on this.)

Honestly? Even though it doesn't impact me in any way, shape or form directly, I'd like to see a few of the leftover wrinkles from previous adjustments ironed out.

Specifically, make Merians worth playing so Celest's iconic race is worth playing (their int score has been shown to be demonstratively near inconsequential, and their vulnerabilites are now far out of skew with any meager advantage the race has), And maybe a strength increase to shadowlord faelings so that they can actually not be horrid in player combat.

I mean, at least the iconic races should be desireable. Elfen are still a block of nice stats, and Viscanti have that massive truckload of resistances on top of the powerful but situational regen (which all iconics have, of course).

And yes, there is the "what about my race" problem, but at least fix up the iconic races!

I'd kinda like Aetherspace, you're correct to say there are interesting things already in place but at the same time the cost and needs associated with just getting -into- aetherspace is difficult for some players, first there is the cost, then there is the crew needs. Most people view it as an unnecessary skill because the rewards there have on and off been worth it, or worthless, so finding enough people who have the time and ability to help is another of the difficulties.

At the same time, the family system has gone through review but things remain a bit.. out of wack. I think someone who works with it often (or did and now just plainly ignores its existence ) would be better off being able to explain the major issues.

It's kinda a juggle for me between those two because those I can for sure be involved in.

Ascendants and Ascendancy I can't comment on, nor Domoths as I'm neither Ascendant or DemiGod so I can't participate.

Not sure what other issues might be revolving around the table.

I'd like to see these monk changes I've been hearing so much about for so long. After that, I'd like to see the aetherspace committee get some good things going there.

I think monk changes will come whatever we do this month, but for the sake of argument, if you had to choose between aetherspace and monks, what would it be?

The Aetherspace Committee is certainly working to address the concerns of making aetherspace worth it (in terms of experience or gold or power) and fun (in terms of combat with aether monsters or other ships). However, nothing we do will make it a "necessary" skillset and the costs will most likely always be high.

I think out of fairness, if you're going to devote a month to something, make it be forging. I'm not a forger, but it's still incredibly disheartening to see a issue with this much impact on individual players and classes go unredressed for years because it's "too hard to fix the code for" or because "it doesn't impact enough people."

I myself think that as a purely philosophical "game admin style" type thing, it's better to fix major bugs that people clamor for the fixes for, than to institute shiny new mechanics, and unfortunately IRE (as a whole, though it's better here than elsewhere) has a bit of a reputation for putting in shiny new things instead of fixing what's broken.

I don't think I'm explaining myself well here, but I would think a lot better of the admins (not that I think particularly poorly of them now) if y'all hunkered down and made fixing forging your next big fix.

Hmm. There are lots of things I would like looked at, but many of them aren't all that serious.

In my opinion, Lusternia has gotten bogged down by all the new things that have been added. From what I've seen, either the population isn't big enough, or the game design (RP, history, culture, whatever) wasn't yet ready for a ton of major additions without equal expansion in other areas. What was it that made the game good before, and why hasn't it worked out the same now? Since I've started playing, I've seen the addition of Bards, Monks, Aetherspace, Aetherships, God Realms, God Wars, new trade specializations, the complete overhaul of some guilds/classes (two for Monks), the Undervault, Kephera and Illithoid, a total racial rebalancing, DMP retooling, Nexus worlds, new areas, new quests, and probably lots of other things.

Most of these things were added without any trouble-- even the Undervault, big as it was, seemed to fit just as well as the Snow Valley, Observatory, or Clarramore did. Nexus worlds themselves were a nice addition. But some things were not added so easily.

Aetherspace, a vast new area full of potential, is limited only to those who either 1) Buy enough credits to get their own ship, or 2) Are lucky enough to know someone who owns a ship and need a crewmember. This whole huge area benefits only a fraction of players. In an ideal world, anyone could take any specialization and there would be a place for them on an aethership. Reality has taught us otherwise. This is not what was expected to happen, but it did happen, and little patches aren't going to fix that.

Monks and Bards-- I still don't think Lusternia was ready for these brand new classes. New guilds with the old classes? Maybe. If the population had been big enough I think Hallifax/Guadiguch/Ackleberry would have fit much better. Combat may not have been balanced with 3 guilds/5 classes, but it was simpler, more efficient, and more effective. The world of Lusternia, as I perceive it, was not ready for 2 completely new classes that brought with them a veritable ton of new afflictions. The combat system of Lusternia has always prided itself on being complex, but with complexity must come continuity, intuition, and compatibility. I do not think combat in Lusternia has those qualities anymore-- it is overloaded with afflictions and abilities, and the scope of Lusternia combat has become so muddled it cannot support itself.

Players do not help in that area either-- everyone demands that they be able to take any other person 1 on 1 and win, when in reality, it is unreasonable to assume that every class, if it is to stay unique, should be able to do so. Yet combat keeps getting rebalanced depending on who is complaining loudest at the time. I remember you once reaffirming that dreamweaving is not a primary offensive skill. I think this approach, that certain skills are for certain things, needs to be taken with others as well.

These are examples of things that were added that didn't work as planned. So my suggestion for the near future is this-- there may be things that are really cool that you want to do, things that you've been planning for a long time now to introduce. But I feel that Lusternia has been added to in the wrong way-- we are like an upside down pyramid, and we keep adding bigger and bigger things to the top. Eventually, it will all topple over. Let's take a break on adding "new and exciting" features. They may bring in more players, but the system is so overloaded that it can't retain them. Player retention is key to Lusternia's survival. What we have draws players, but then it also chases them away.

There are things in Lusternia that have not worked the way they were supposed to for a very long time. There are still issues with the Family system, or with influencing, or with forging (had to, sorry). Things people have waited a long time to see addressed. Lusternia has gone through periods before where we focus on fixing what needs fixing instead of adding new things. I think that if we start with this, we are on our way to improving the Lusternia experience.

So, although I can't specifically recommend one thing to work on, I can recommend one thing not to focus on, and that would be adding new features.

I realize it will never be a necessary skillset, I was listing why it's hard to get people, it's because they're focusing elsewhere.

As for the other bit, if the committee can get it to be on equal footing (i.e. large cost at the beginning but like any investment that works you'll be able to see rewards that add up to the cost) all the power to them.

A small comment about the Domoth system (aside from personal looks on if the system is currently a success or failure), I would it more of this 'only demi/ascendant', that is only they can claim them. (this is not to say I personally am a combat person as I'm not at all, but it might be nice to see.)

Aetherspace, In terms of skills. I would like to see more that help with PvE (a good number of the Empath skills are for ship-to-ship fighting). Although if some how more ship-to-ship fighting (even duels) were encouraged, it would somewhat make those more useful.

The little Aetherspace I do(mainly was trading particles for spheres after weakenings), I enjoy. I have put about 600 lessons into the skill, specializing in Empath. While yes the rewards are not much for the time you spend, at least if you just have people with the basics skills, as you would hunting somewhere else. Aetherspace also lets anyone do it, and is rather simple in terms of combat in regards you only have one skill instead of the three guild skills plus common ones that are involved in normal combat.

I think everything that's been talked about in this thread is to work on existing systems and not put in anything new (at least so far). I'm not sure everyone would agree that if there's only one thing that should be looked at, it would be forging. (But I could be wrong! Let us know!)

Everiine said it better than I could. (and I'm not saying that everyone else would agree that forging should be the thing, but it is what I would like to see fixed, because so far as I know, it's what people have been asking for -- and not getting -- the longest EDIT -- and because it's more of a "core skillset" than aetherspace, domoths, etc, which all began as "shiny new things" whereas forging is something that we started out with.)

Forging/weapons retool, please.

Gaudiguch and Hallifax. That is all.

I've said for a long time that Lusternia has too many afflictions. Maybe that could be something we could focus on in for the month!

I understand that some people feel that we shouldn't add anything until the population is bigger or that we fix what we have already. It's not like we don't hear that--remember, we went through most of last year focusing on combat skills! However, I don't agree that adding new areas, skills, systems, etc. is a bad thing or makes things muddled. We always are looking to evolve. Sometimes it may not go as we would have hoped but sometimes it does. In any event, we're asking the one thing you'd like to see worked on this month!

Alas, that wouldn't be possible to do in a month.

A fail quota that lets you change orgs as an ascendant if your org is el poopo.

On a more serious note, just even out planar inconsistencies and make it a level playing field. Take a shooter, for instance, if the game physics allow rifles to fire 100 extra feet if you're on an incline, and team A always spawns on top of the hill with rifles and team B spawns on the bottom with rifles, it's "theoretically" possible for B to win, they have the same number of people and the same gun, but the terrain isn't balanced.

Momentum report, needs to be done asap. You could really change a few afflictions/costs for each of them as a band-aid that's not kneejerk that would bring them into line, but in reality it still needs the overhaul.

I may be one of the few who thinks ascendancy isn't that bad. Maybe open up the cults to more members outside the order, that's about all I could think of. Portability of ascendants too plsplspls.

Edit: Almost forgot.

FORGING