Several posts have brought up 'burnout' in Lusternia because of the high degree of conflict inherent in the design. Of course, I don't want the pendulum to swing from so much conflict that players burnout to gutting all conflict systems so we stagnate. It is my continued belief that conflict makes for a dynamic game, but I also don't want to overburden or overwhelm players. Thus, I'd like to find a middle ground.

player looking for exciting gameplay --> <-- excitement in Lusternia?

I'm a fan of internal conflict to get the juices running but keep the burnout down.

Something that pits the aquamancers against the celestians against the paladins.

Also, conflict does not always have to mean that one outcome is bad while the other is good. There is conflict in decideding if I want to get +2str or -1 int +3str.

Avoid landmarking syndrome!

Meaning, don't put things in which ICly are SUPER SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT DO IT NOW!!!111!!!11oneone, but which are OOCly mindless repetitive and seem to never end. 6 hour influencing was very close to this. From Achaea, I'm sure you remember people sitting in one room doing nothing but GET LILY 700 times per second. That will burn people out -really- fast.

I honestly never burnt out. I've enjoyed Lusternia from the very beginning, never once had a dull moment, and never once felt "burnt-out" because I'd simply take a break. All those people who feel burnt out, should simply not do 12 hour long marathon sessions, sheesh.

Also, conflict is a choice, you do not have to engage in it, take some personal time. If you are forced to participate in conflict, you are in the wrong position, and it may be perhaps time for a change. I know Serenwilde never forces anyone to take part in combat, and it is entirely voluntary.

Does village influencing as it is now fall into this category?

Ok, the 6 hour long influencing could do it. I was in Dairuchi alone, for many hours, and that was quite horrible. But that was quickly fixed and remedied, influencing is now fast, and interesting. I like it.

I think influencing is fine, as long as demenses and Avenger/peace/grace gets/got fixed.

I'm sure if many quests didn't take 12 hours straight to accomplish, they wouldn't be doing them for 12 hours straight.

I think most burn out comes from Magnagora, where if we don't kill things 24/7 bad stuff happens to us.

I find most of my goals that don't involve some wierd RP I came up with on my own, require me to kill things. The fact that our number one source of allowing us to kill things is in another community, and that now, that community will intrisicatly not allow us in there makes it worse. I.e. I need vials to kill things, I need to go to serenwilde to get those vials, which means if I want to get vials, I have to kill myself twice if I don't want to be yelled at. And all this so I can help give money to an arena fund, or make flails for someone, or help the city get power. None of which harm serenwilde in any shape or form.


So actually, I think the thing that would most tone down the conflict would be Glomdoring. The concept of Glomdoring is one reason many people came to lusternia as far as I know.

Yes influencing, especially the recent changes, adds lots of extra tactics with debating and crusades/sanctuary and its not overly long so in all that makes for avoiding burnout.

I am with Tuek on this one, the reason most people tend to burn out, is 12 hour marathon sessions everyday, if you start to get bored and find nothing to do, dont sit there saying you are bored, d/c for an hour and you will usually come back refreshed and ready to go.

More small events.

Everyday things that anyone can participate in, and that do not require large amounts of planning. God-enforced character-driven RP, requiring player participation. I'm always open for elaboration and/or collaboration.

Some lotteries maybe, like Aetolia had every once in a while.

Also, to prevent burnout, hand Richter an orb of creation, and watch him dissappear for a month, returning with large, new areas, and easing the workload of the Divine.

I'm only half kidding. *showoff Deepnight plaza*

I am not sure how the majority defines conflict, but I do hope it is beyond PK. Daganev's idea of having internal strife instead of some international conflict is always good, it doesn't necessary mean a civil war. Also, maybe somekind of conflict that involves adventurers against outside forces would be a change (the Souless suddenly making an appereance), avoiding person vrs. person conflict (normally, I think that soon enough this time of conflict normally climaxes into bloodshed). The most likely reason for many to probably claim that they burnout is probably based on considering themselves suddenly being strangled by a routine. Though routines are unavoidable, maybe those routines shouldn't be as necessary to be top priority. People probably would feel loosen up, knowing that they have somethings to do but don't have to do anything right away. Another very important factor to reduce the "burnout" is simply to have conflicts with a clearly defined purpose, and not have it overextend itself. Normally, it is the amount of time that causes people to stress out, not much the actual conflict.

Yeah, artifact auctions are always a good way to cool down some thing.

Amen on the auctions.

And about the soulless... are we progressing the story line that far already? Sheesh, we can't have everything happen in the first chapter of the story, hmm? At the same time, let's bring back all the elder gods, all the soulless, defeat the soulless, and bring peace to the basin. *chuckle*

More small events. And that underground area I wanted to submit, but didn't have the time.

Whenever the admin asks a question in any game, people always answers "more events". That's not really the type of feedback I'm looking for; rather, what in the current design is causing burnout?

I think something new in short period of times.

Instead of having something entirely huge, like return of Gaudiguch or Hallifax, just put little tidbits in. This will keep the player entranced and wanting more. Like drugs.... only not fatal.

BTW Estarra, your Avatar always reminds me of my aunt... for some very strange reason. Are you my aunt?

from my perspective, the main source of the burn out was the crow quest, combined with influencing, combined with spikes, combined with spectres being needed for many many things, such as weapons, colts, spikes, and other quests. Then when that mess was seemingly over, serrenwilde got a distaste for liches, which means for me atleast, any hope I had of getting refills in a nice normal fashion has gone away.

Most of those issues appear to have been fixed, but its all been so close together, with no fun breaks or radically new changes.

I think one of the problems is how celest and magnagora are always polar opposites - and serenwilde to a certain extent. If you take like, US and Canada, we don't agree on everything, but its not like we hate eachother entirely. However, 1) Celest hates magnagora, 2) Magnagora hates celest, and 3) Serenwilde hates them both, causes lots of violence. We need some neturality in there.

I most honestly beleive that work on Glomdoring should be the first priority. Its such a unique aspect to the IRE Games, that I think it would bring in many more players who want to play "Evil Druids" it would also create more than just 1 entity that is Taint and give everyone a better sense of role.

Thats my opinion based on the numerous posts I've read.

Unfortunatly, anytime anyone talks about Glomdoring, then they also start talking about Glorania, and Ackelberry, and Halifax and any other "cool" thing from history they can think of, because it would be cool to play. But I think that takes away from all the advantages such an advancement in Lusternia history would bring.

My bad.

The current "burnout" trend comes from:

1. People who create conflict and are persecuted for it, I.E. Visaeris. Note that some, not all, of these people could have gone about it in a way that would have made them less, well, dead. In my case, I just laid low for a while, so that Serenwilde would stop hunting me, and Magnagora would get it's head out of it's collective rear.

2. People that do the same thing over and over again, like the Seekers and the Guardians (and to some degree, villages). This is how it went, isn't it?:

Estarra: Wtf? They did the quest?
Fain *eyeshift*
Raezon: Well... We need to give them something to keep them occupied...
Estarra: How does a quest that can never be completed sound?
Pantheon: Great!

Now, if this was even somewhat the case, I do understand. Quests are long and hard to think of and code, and the two cities weren't meant to come out right away. Just that we wanted reasons, and I've seen Guardians and Seekers going about thier tasks with the enthusiasm of a roll of wet toilet paper.

3. People that PKed too much, and got bored with it. Self explanitory. Some people actually realized there was more than jumping people 24/4. Some people, like Aris, are blissfully unaware of this, and will continue to play Lusternia. Except when they go off and play Neopets for a bit.

4. People that never take a break. Isn't Daevos on all the time? Why isn't -he- burned out yet? Stop those ubergaming sessions! All of you!

5. People that devoted thier lives to a cause and get no thanks for it. I've had several people tell me just how much they spend of thier own money on guild novices. Staggering.

I'm sure there are more reasons for burnout. But you know, I have a job (about time), a girlfriend (finally, thank god), and a prospering e-commerce business. I keep myself busy outside of Lusternia, and I'm actually amazed at the number of posts I've amassed. In short, I have a decent life that keeps me occupied.

Just a few ideas.

I don't get burned out, and I've been on 25 or 26 hours this week....

I do, however get pissed. Very, very easily.

Also, I don't JUMP PEOPLE. It's ROLEPLAY ORIENTED NINJITSU.

Psh.

Although now, I'm trying the other IRE games to see if me 1337 PK strategies transfer over....Aetolia and Achaea DO suck.

I really think things are going much better now that spikes last longer and power is more easily acquired.

I wouldn't mind more events, just nothing on such a large scale as the last one. I would prefer a shorter event requiring a bit more effort for a few days rather than an event that seems to drag on and on. I'm really not a big fan of pk when it gets to the point where you really have no reason to kill someone, other than the fact they're an "enemy" and potential threat. I know my "burnout" was from having to fight constantly. I know I don't really have the ability (aka, applications, and I'm on a Mac so I can't have Zmud) to fight as well as some, and in all of my years from Achaea I never -once- PK'd someone because I just didn't like it. But to resolve that I just took a break, and when I came back to Lusternia I spent my time on guild matters rather than city matters and now I'm back to normal.

And personally, I love influencing, especially how it works now. Granted I'm not on every single time a village revolts, but I did spend many hours influencing when it took hours, and I love the idea of it being a "race." It really never gets old for me.

So let's see, to sum that up, I think shorter events would be good. That's not to say that larger-scale events wouldn't be fun, but maybe they could have parts of them that won't automatically lead to fighting and physical conflict.