This is the beginning of a thread to discuss ways in which Lusternia could function as a "Casual game" for people as well.


I'll be adding my ideas to the thread as I have them.

Thoughts that currently enter my mind:


Is bashing "casual"?
How about quests?

Is there a way to do quests if you ever played non-casaually? (i.e. you've been a combatant at some point, and now you are enemied everywhere)

Is there such thing as "casual" guild/city/commune involvement?



THINGS THAT CAN BE DONE TO HELP LUSTERNIA FOR CASUAL PLAYERS

1. Allow defenses to remain for 4 hours since last login: This can be done as explained by Deschain:



2. Allow for puzzle type quests to exist outside of territories which are regulated by politics. (short, no more than 1 hour to solve, sort of quests)

Bashing is casual if you're only doing it casually... just like pretty much anything.

It's sure not casual if you're putting in 8+ hours a day, while it definitely is if you're doing it for 10 minutes a day (or 10 minutes a week).

Hi, my name is Mike, and I'm a casual gamer..

"Hi, Mike!"

Not sure what you are looking for, but I consider myslf casual. I have alts in every org, most guilds. mostly to test them out. If I'm playing one character, and I get enemied, or pissed at someone/thing, that character goes to sleep, and another pops up in the spot I got enemied/angry at. I don't get involved, emotionwise, in any certain spot. I simply play to play. I have friends everywhere, though they may not know who I am IRL wise.

I just enjoy Lusternia, and the people that inhabit it. That's about it.

Hell if you're going to achieve anything bashing 10 minutes a day. That doesn't even cover for a single death.

If the bashing gains were amped ginormously and limited such that you could only bash a certain amt. of time per day (a la certain MMOs) that would be casual, but that idea isn't even going to be considered.

There's no reason to casually play any IRE game. The primary reason to play the games is social, and if you aren't among the most active in the community, you aren't setting yourself up for the more interesting interactions. You won't see leadership. You probably can't get a family. You'll miss the events. When you log on, there will either be PK that you're going to get drafted into (and suck), or you'll get a little bit of time in working a trade or bashing. How pointless.

Ok, I sort of agree here. Hence, why I was looking for his meaning of "Casual"

For instance, yes, I LOVE being in the middle of events. I try and add something to the game every chance I get, which is why I enjoy creating things. I'v gotten into PK, which I used to avoid like the plague.

Good question as to how you define a casual player. My guess is that for a casual gamer, Lusternia would be a mere game, whereas for the majority of active players, it's a hobby. IC-OOC seperation has little to do with the distinction and from your post I would argue that you're not a casual player because it's more of a hobby than a game for you (as described.)

Hobby?! More like addiction!

I think I am a casual player. I care enough to roleplay and interact when I'm online, but I don't care enough to get into real serious character business. I was once a more serious IRE player, and wanted to attain and maintain guild leader/city leader/princess status. I would get annoyed and resent the time I put into things when they did not go my way. I would feel guilty if I didn't spend at least a few hours online a day working on whatever I had going. One day something clicked and I decided that all the stress, drama and childish antics were past me. So now, when I play it is totally for my enjoyment only. When something happens that I do not enjoy, I stop playing. It's nice to be able to just log on and bash when I feel like seeing text things die, or when I want to visit with text-ish friends.

I don't like to play to merely be social. Being social with people I enjoy being social with is a bonus of course, but it isn't necessary. I don't play Halo to be social, I don't play Viva Pinata or Solitaire to be social. It isn't pointless to play casually, it is just what some people choose to avoid the dramatics and poop-parts.

What's the difference between a casual player and a social player?

Also Bhiele plays Viva Pinata. She's weird

Does Lusternia want to be a casual gamer game? Do casual gamers buy enough credits to help it stay in business? (Then again, do casual gamers make a good seed crop from which to harvest credit-buying gamers?)

Yes. There are far, far more people willing to throw down a hundred dollars for a pretty fun time than those willing to throw down over a thousand to become big bads.

As things stand, buying a hundred dollars worth of credits only does one thing, and that's make you big enough to be the :censored: of the big guys. This thread is looking for ideas to make that medium-level addiction fun in some way.


Me, I duno.

I really consider myself a casual player, mostly cause of how I occasionally have to stop playing for weeks at a time. Plus how none of my characters have ever been over level 66. Ever. Noola might just get higher though.

I don't get into fighting, I don't spend lots of time hunting. I do social stuff mostly with my characters.

I buy credits. Not big bundles of them at once, cause I don't have the money for it - if I did, I would though. I buy 40 here, 100 there. Once a month, maybe every other month - sometimes longer, if I've been away for a while. I spend maybe a third of them on lessons, learning skills I don't really ever use cause I don't fight. I sell about a third of them for gold for manse rooms or just to make up for the fact that my character doesn't hunt a lot. I give about a third of them away for various reasons.

I could be wrong here, but I believe a "Casual gamer" is considered to be someone who plays maybe 3-4 hours a week. Maybe 15 min - 1 hour max at a time.

I'm talking about Casual gamer as the industry understands them.

As Shiri was saying, more of a game than a hobby. i.e., I really want to play Lusternia right now, but I have to leave to go to a PTA meeting in 20 minutes. Can I open up my webbrowser, open up the Java applet, and play for those 20 minutes? (and feel like I'm not wasting my time)

I think a casual gamer is more likely to buy credits. (if they have reason to)

That is, credits basically serve as a giant time saver. You could bash your way up and earn gold and max out your skills, spending 8+ hours a day bashing and doing that, or you can buy credits, and get your lessons and gold in about 15 minutes of putting your credits up for sale.

I think casual gaming is nice and all. But if you think you should get the same outcome as a guy who plays for 10 hours a day when you only play for 20 minutes a day your nuts..

I don't think anybody expects that.

Thats why I was thinking about the quests in the game. A quest can generally, I hope, be done in less than an hour, and they can be fun to figure out.

The only problem is when your character isn't allowed to do quests because of politics.

As far as I'm concerned, the major problem is defenses. If I log in, I have to use up charges, sips and herbs, a good number of each, just to put up defs. I have to put up defs, because if I don't I'll definitely be killed, instead of just probably.

Which is fine, when I'm here to stay. When it's just to check messages, catch up on news and submit a design or something, then it feels like a big waste.

That is a good point. I had forgotten about that aspect.

I wonder if it would be possible to have the defenses stay around for hmm, 12 hours or so even while logged off.

I remember they once said that keeping the defenses in the system was a cause of lag or something, but maybe that isn't true anymore.

I'd really like that. Sometimes I do just log in for a half hour to an hour multiple times in the day in lieu of several hours in one go, even though I don't fit the standard definition of casual, I guess.

Even on days where I can play for extended periods, sometimes I need to log out just for twenty minutes or something so I can cook some supper... but the idea of losing the defs just for being logged out for twenty minutes seems so wasteful!

Or, and this one really gets me.... I like to play on mushclient, but if I need to write something, I much prefer the Nexus client cause of the little pop-up notepad thing. So much easier to edit a typo or edit a sentence that needs rewording or something when you don't have to do that *line # *overwrite mess. But, losing all my defs when logging out means I can't switch from one to the other so I have to use the annoying, hard to edit editor instead of the nifty easy one.