Lately I've noticed Lusty slipping in the TMS ratings. What I think Lusternia needs right now in order to stay relevant:

1) Builders. Lusternia needs an area expansion. Not necessarily for the sake of 'we don't have enough areas', but because it just seems right to expand on the Basin at this point. It doesn't have to be on the scale of the Undervault, but a couple substantially larger areas would do. Players want to be excited about new parts of the world opening up for them, exploring them together, discovering their secrets, etc. End-game content.

2) Conflict Quests, similar to the Throne. These could become an axis of change for political alignments. What benefits one org, won't always benefit another. Something one org wants to accomplish may directly impact the world, and consequently, create less than ideal conditions for another org. It would make alliances reevaluate their partnerships for superficiality, and create a more fluid political climate.

New areas and quests generally go hand-in-hand, as luck would have it. :_

I personally enjoyed the curio stuff this past week. It was refreshing, even if it was very credit/gold-centric. It's amazing how small things like that really impact the atmosphere of the game.

Hmm, a potential issue with introducing quests and mechanics that directly harm one org but benefit another is that those quests will never get done, unless they are of very limited range. For instance, if there is another quest that helps cities at the expense of forests, unless the basin developes a third faction, that quest will never ever be done. In such a case, the two forests will almost always be against each other (on the two sides), and will forbid their allies (whoever they are) from doing that quest. I like the idea of some cool conflict mechanics, but including them counter to current politics or with the idea being to change the way politics works won't (work)!

I kept that in mind, because things could become very static. Unless the quest is ostensibly rewarding for that org, in which case there is a high incentive to complete them.

What I was thinking was something along the lines of the finks/gnomes, or kephera/illithoid.

Example: Domothean Faction vs Soulless Faction - Race to Empower the Nine Seals

Edit:

The Domothean Rifts are overrun with Soulless/Domothean creatures. Slay them to increase influence over the Domothean Rift, depending on which Faction you joined.

The more creatures you slay for your faction, the more influence they gain over the Rift.
Killing Soulless empowers the Seals and benefits the Domothean Faction, while killing Domothean creatures corrupts the Seals for the Soulless Faction.

The creatures drop Imperial Currency, which can be traded in for rare equipment, rewards, etc at a special merchant, but only the Faction that claims the Domothean Rift at the end of each game year can freely hunt the Rift and deal with the special merchant.

So that Faction gets:
1) Amazing hunting area for experience and gold, exclusive to them
2) Privacy, which means no griefing
3) Rewards for their city/commune.
4) Generation of power or possibly vital commodities for said faction.

Well I haven't much time to give a lot of input but I would like to say, that in regards to 1, players can always apply to be mortal builders - this application is open ALL THE TIME - and thus actively work to release new areas. If there's not enough manpower to write those new areas up, the longer it takes for those areas to be released.

Where do you apply?

According to the help file (mortalbuilders) they are always taking applications for such. whether or not they are taking builders on the team is another thing although.

Major ninja'd

Good to know.

I just want to know what you all think about having a higher-tier faction conflict.

To me, an instanced hunting ground seems like the most balanced way of rewarding players without kicking someone else in the shins.

What are my suggestions for things that would benefit Lusternia?

1) Stop with all the silly promotions--especially the ones that masquerade as IC events. Nothing in the game right now annoys me more than the corporate lunacy that is being shoved onto all of the IRE games. Events and new things should be just that--cool events and cool new things. I despise that half of all recent news posts have been OOC promotions. It is ruining the game.

Unfortunately, from what I have been told, this is not up to the awesome Lusternian admin (that's not sarcastic, either--I do love you guys), but is imposed by IRE. Instead of fixing the problem, they are compounding it. When you lower the quality of the product, less people will stay with it, no matter how many OOOOO SHINY things you do. The policy of constantly doing OOC promotions to make the game more popular is only working against the company. Focus on better games, not more people.

2) More IC interaction between patrons and cities/guilds.

3) Less new skills and abilities. New areas are awesome because they add to the game without really imbalancing it (aetherspace excepted), but every time a new skill, guild, archetype, or ability is added, it throws everything out of whack and the envoys spend the next 3 years trying to figure it out.

Eh, so everyone picks Domothean, it wins, and everyone on that faction (Domothean) gets to hunt the special hunting grounds? And what the nil would special items be? If they are anything like temporary artifacts, they'd have to be on the side of toys or you run into both winning faction momentum and them unbalancing all the other things. Kephera/Illithoid as they are get pretty static, running into politics where each side has one of each type of monk guild, so no one really does the actual quests there. The sort of "Good/neutral vs. Soulless" paradigm won't work, and neither will something where you pick a faction and everyone on the winning faction gets x,y,z because then everyone will pick the same faction. That's sort of how lvl 100's work in Imperian, the more of a type there is, the more powerful that type gets. Consequently, the vast majority of players pick the same side regardless of some RP factors, because it gives the most benefit, which draws more people, and so on.

When I use the word static, I'm referring to "side A always winning against side B", not each faction belonging to specific orgs inherently. And yes, they would most likely be locked into each org to prevent that.

Domothean vs Soulless isn't the best example because nobody wants the end of creation. Like I said, it's an example. Let's deconstruct the concept as opposed to the theme.

Special items like the Czigany Wayfaire? They sell exclusive pets and other random things.

I disagree that kephera/illithoid conflict is "static", mainly because it generates conflict. When players are jumping each other because they are bashing the Undervault, that's conflict. That's fun. Saying most people don't do quests so we shouldn't implement more is kind of a baseless argument, since Lusternia pretty much revolves around questing and exploring. Edit: typo.

I always liked the idea of an influencing area that is peaced and sort of revolves around the same principles of faethorn, you go and influence a bunch of stuff, take them to your org's side, whoever has the most of whatever it is wins the nifty prize at the end. I don't have a concept, a prize, though I think the prize should be negligible but enough to help out, perhaps give some gold to those who turn the little critters in. Kind of promote the idea of debating/influencing in a place that isn't village revolts, and could be done at any time. Plus it's a form of conflict that doesn't make you die and lose EXP it's just you lose time, and if you get burnt out perhaps you lose all your little critters you were gathering. It'd be a place that would make influencing a little less mind-numbing. That's my thought for a generic idea of a place I've always wanted to see implemented.

Eh, I'm referring to static more to "it won't ever get done" more then one side always wins. Stuff like Hai'Gloh which only goes through when admins FORCE it, or soulforge, which if you have ANY allies, you shouldn't be raising. TBC is another conflict quest that doesn't ever get done for the same reason.

Any way you look at it, it will be very hard to come up with factions (especially if you lock an org into them) that won't run into player politics. If say... Magnagora and Serenwilde are fast friends, but Serenwilde is on side A permanently and Magnagora is on side B permanently, and perhaps Hallifax on Side C. Their enemies are Glomdoring on side C, Gaudi on side B, and Celest on A. How do the two sides do anything without either helping their traditional enemies, helping their ally's traditional enemies, or helping their player political enemies. It seems like a big giant hairy mess.

Yeah, it would have to be toy/joke items.

You don't get jumped in the undervault because you are hunting someone's RP protected territory. You get jumped because someone on the other side of player politics sees that they can. For the most part, we don't attack anyone hunting kepheran hives because it's a waste of time, and only tenuously connected to one of our lesser populated guilds. And the actual quest mechanics of the UV hardly ever get done because you have a big chance to be allied with someone who would object, which raises lots of red tape. Coming up with a mechanic that try and force player politics is sort of a waste of time imo, because either a) the admins won't do it or if they do, player politicians will totally ignore it.

1) I'm not sure which specific promotions you are talking about, but I think most of the promotions we've had haven't really ruined the game. I think the increased opportunities for people to get credits/lessons through stuff like the Wheel or Iron Lotteries are really great, especially for people who aren't omnitrans/artied out to get access to some of that stuff that they otherwise don't get to see.

2) Sure, but be careful what you wish for. When Viravain was involved with Glom everyone complained about how the admins were controlling. People make the same complaints about Elostian in Hallifax. If I was an admin, I don't know that I'd want to open myself up to that sort of complaining.

3) I think it is a little late to say "No new guilds" when two of the orgs are still missing two entire guilds each. I think that itself is a huge imbalance.

*cough* Change the website. *cough*

1) It's not necessarily the promotions themselves, it's the sheer number of them. There is ALWAYS an OOC promotion running now. Sometimes there are multiple promotions going on at once. I know people who do nothing but log in, get their free daily X, logout, repeat. In my opinion, it gives off the impression (much like the website) that IRE is desperate to get anyone in the door, and is focusing on that instead of the quality of gaming it is known for. The population of the game has definitely gone up--votes should have as well, but instead, have dropped. I'm presenting my theory on why that is.

2) For the brief time I had an alt in Halli, I never felt like Elostian was controlling. And I remember a post waaaay back when Charune chewed out the Serenguard for something. That wasn't controlling, it was being involved. I suppose the argument could be made about Viravain/Glomdoring, but there were lots of other factors in there.

3) Yeah, unfortunately, that is true.

Clearly not on the BoD.

I'd like to see village revolts re-addressed.

Village revolts are one of the most entertaining aspects of Lusternia for me. But recently they've become a joke. Village feelings give orgs an extreme advantage when they revolt and are often won in a few minutes. In place of 5 hour revolts, we now have 2-10 minute revolts. Is there no middle ground? I think it should take at least 3 rounds to sway it. Villages won in a single round will not give other orgs a decent chance to take the lead, especially when it's easy enough to build feelings to level 3 between revolts and keep other orgs out with statues, distort and all the other fun deterrents when it comes to Prime raiding. Nothing else worth winning is concluded in such a short time, ex: domoths, wildnodes, aetherflares, etc... So, slightly longer revolts, please!

I'd like insanity removed from Astral or Muud. *hum* Insanity on Astral wasn't something that pulled me in to Lusternia in the beginning. It's just annoying. I don't need 10 people to tell me that this won't happen, as I realize this, but I thought I'd share my hopes and dreams.

Distort should be downgraded some. Reduce the wait time on org/cubix use. Should at least be able to transverse a rift/gate. Raiding really sucks now. Especially with tankier smobs. I really don't agree with the buffing of supermobs. 5-10 minutes to kill one smob? In distort? In ripple/liveforest? With defenders? And shrine? Yeah right.

Lastly: Phasing out Ascendants.

Quests being fixed within 1 RL year of being bugged.

That too. Nydekion has been waiting forever to finish his aether epic. Hmph.