Yes. I feel like the role I intended for Tuek is shifting, due to people trying to shift the intended path of the Serenwilde, to their liking. That is my biggest pet peeve. With the whole new anti-Lich law, and the Serenwilde shifting from what seemed like a Pro-Serenwilde/Anti-City stance, to becoming a "Forest of the Light". This irritates me. And no, bringing about Glomdoring would not solve this, it will instead permanently bind Serenwilde to New Celest, and polarize both sides. It would just be more of the same in my opinion.

What I would like to see, is something to break Serenwilde away from New Celest, and forcibly placing us into the roles set out for us in the histories. Not more of this.. the forests suddenly hates Liches, the forest suddenly hates whatever, nonsense.

The war between Magnagora and Serenwilde put us on a path that will most likely be impossible to deviate from now. People in Serenwilde had a pre-disposition of liking towards New Celest, and I was thankful that there was the fae "incident" since it balanced the Serenwilde between hating both sides equally.

I'm not necessarily totally burned out yet, but moreso irked at the way things are going than anything. We charged out of the gates and everything was new and shiny, but that luster has worn off. As I've posted a thousand times, I don't think it is all on the admin's side of the burnout, as many people are just getting fed up with idiots in the realms as well. But as said, I will post a few ideas:

1. If you aren't going to open a new city, which I can fully understand is a huge project (even with mortal builders, Kidhendrix, the gods will still have to proof all the rooms written up which takes a long time in itself). Perhaps, you can open a new guild or something as a bit of a teaser for a new area, perhaps a dark forestal type guild in the Glomdoring that is able to use the nexus there to a degree (guards) but lack the whole foundation of a commune yet.

2. I think at the moment, the Celest vs. Mag thing is fine, but I would really start limiting the divine influence in turning the Seren on the Mags. Perhaps a nice smaller event that pits all three cities against one another, or one that keeps Serenwilde occupied for some time to come.

3. Most of the boredom of just sitting around at times will be alleviated a bit when the cities start buying arenas, so perhaps a few more events in the arena until that time.

4. I still (yes, ranting again) think something needs to be done to stem the tide of random killing going on. It's not as horrid as during the war, but I still see people tossing up their hands and saying "Forget this"...and never coming back. Off plane and enemy cities/villages is great, but can we get some better protection for those just walking the highways or doing a little hunting?

5. Break events down even further than you have now, making them at guild levels and such. I would love to see a cool Ur'guard event, and I'm sure the other guilds would jump head over heels to get their own as well. Something very small probably won't take a huge amount of time for the patron/participant to toss together.


I'm sure I'll have more later, but that is it for now.

That's exactly how the tainted Fae event started out, just for the Ur'Guard, but somehow it got blown out of proportion.

The room building isn't the physical limiting factor at the moment, it's the hard coding and programming that would take time (Glomdoring would need relatively few extra rooms if it was open anyway).

How many coders do you guys have? Do you need more? I'm sure there are several players who have coding experience or the inclination to learn.

My main problem regarding burnout in Lusternia is that
a) You're really really really good and enlightened and follow the Path of Light as defined by New Celest

You're evil, randomy summon people you don't know, and follow the Path of Taint designed by Magnagora

c) You're a forestal. You've still no path designed, but step back and forth on the same place.

Please, make somewhere more neutral that can be anti taint without having to hug everybody, adore Raziela and have priests all around, yelling "WE'RE THE LIGHT!!"

Or a forest where you can be evil and really seek to destroy civilization, instead of cooperating with them when it suits you.

Yeah the whole Serenwilde vs the Taint thing is starting to get on my nerves too... When most of us joined Serenwilde way back when it was the ideal of not being aligned on either side that drew most of us. I can attest that the Serenguar themselves still try to play the nuetral ground, but its a futile effort when lame events start pushing in on direction, such as the events that brought about the mandate against the Liches. Im how this event was decided on, but many of us resent being shoved violently closer to New Celest everywhere we turn.

Burnout is overhyped.

Its a condition that happens to players who spend way too much time playing the game, players whos RP ideas have fizzled and now they are stuck in a role they didnt intend and cant get out of. PK'rs who kill kill kill, then get tired of it and want to just do their own thing but cant because they are constantly hunted. Players who go for political office thinking they want power but are bummed out when they realize power in Lusternia means you actualy have to be a leader and work in your position.

Burnout is a self imposed condition and doesnt have to happen. Theres plenty of things to do and if your char is at a dead end RP wise or your just bored in general try an alt, figure out a quest. I cant stress how important having an alt is in curing burnout. If you just cant stand having an alt then leaving the game for a rl week is usually best to get some perspective and relax....its just a game after all.

Burnout happens to people who generally try too hard at the game and then get frustrated when events or progress doesnt happen immediatly or in the direction they intended. Its the but I want it NOW!, attitude that causes it.

Ive never gotten burned out but thats because I have multiple chars and each one has its own thing going thats completely different from the others so I can unplug and go do something different if If I need a break from a routine or an annoying person or group.

In short the world is fine and if anything the people who are complaining of burnout are those who are so immersed in the game they are drowning in it. Which in a warped way is a compliment to the designers that you have created such an addictive experience.

I don't think adding a new organization that has reasons to be enemies of and/or allies of the existing organizations is a very good way to reduce conflict. All it'd do is redirect it. You'd either have Celest versus Magnagora on channel 1 and Serenwilde versus Glomdoring on channel 2, which is bad, or three-on-one fights, which is worse, in terms of tempering conflict.

Frankly, at this point, I want there to be another alembic just to shut up all the people who insist it's the world-breaking, be-all-end-all power in the world. Of course, the fact that it's never really been that hasn't stopped them, so the fact that nothing would really change that much after a second alembic came in wouldn't stop them either, but it'd be nice to at least be able to save some room for discussions that don't all descend into that. (Either that or we could go back to whining about the crippling of totems et al., since they didn't hold their end of the bargain and stop their end of the whining.)

As for how to avoid burnout, I liked the idea of more small things that aren't repetitive and encourage roleplay. I don't mean events as such, but maybe just more chances for player-initiated things to have some administrative/divine response. I know that time is scarce up there, but just a small shift in the amount of time spent on responding to players on city/commune channels, talking to denizens, etc. could help a lot, since even a small amount of response goes a long way.

A very simple thing that no one has brought up is using the Arena. A simple free FFA now and then helps break things up, especially during a time when duty doesn't prevent us from using it. And slightly more interesting uses of the arena go even farther. Organization-versus-organization FFAs, circle-hunt FFAs, round-robin tournaments, prizes (even just honor prizes like a painting of the winner in a Hall of Heroes, or a new HONORS line), etc. can also help and don't require a great deal of time invested to prepare them. To me it seems the Arena is vastly underutilized.

I agree. I haven't seen a FFA for the last several in game years.

I just entered a FFA, which I enjoyed greatly. I don't think anyone can complain about 'too much PK', because there really isn't that much. What there is tends to be mostly unskilled battles where a few good fighters lead the biggest possible group of non-fighters who web, headslam, etc.

What Lusternia is missing seems to be individual conflicts between players. This is what attracts the majority of people to in-depth gaming like MUDs. Whether it's political, trade, combat... conflicts decided by wit, skill and the odd bit of luck are the most exciting. I love Lusternia, but it seems that nearly everything that happens is 'epic' as supposed to the smaller-scale conflicts which are a common part of the other IRE games (I think, only played Achaea). A combination of both small, everyday conflicts and huge, involved conflicts should make it all more satisfying.

I think burnout is the result of people whom find themselves in the posisiton of being enemied by two organizations, afraid to leave their home for fear of being ganked by 5ish other people, and thus can not participate in all the world has to offer. Want to go to a village? It better not be one that has sworn, in play, or in anyway that involves a quest that might limit that villages power or you will be jumped. Then enemied. Want to go to the Arena? One the way there you will be attacked, inside you will be attacked, and when you come out you will attacked at the most convient moment(ei. Grace goes away). Want to go to a so called neutral bashing ground? Better not, since someone else has claimed and will kill you for being there.

Actually the avenger takes care of most of that, often it's always the same people that randomly summon and jump, like the one with the huge signature . But actually it's more like Ethelon and Narsrim, Amaru generally challenges for duels instead of jumping...then there's a bunch of Magnagorans of course, don't think I've seen many Serenwilders do any random jumping or summoning, not on me anyway.

Unless your doing something for your city in enemy territory in which case they can attack you but you can't attack back.

Mostly, I'm on the side of the people saying that burn-out is self-inflicted, not up to the admins to cure. If there are people wandering away from Lusternia now, it's a natural phenomenon, where players came in a rush from IRE games in search of something new and exciting. Now the first blush of infatuation has worn off, and the people who're leaving are the ones who came in with unrealstic expectations.

That said, though, there is still some validity to the complaints of the Magnagorans (who are, I believe, a disproprotionate part of those expressing burn-out).

True, it sounds funny defending a bunch of sociopaths who control half the world yet claim they're being picked on. It sounds doubly strange when you consider going Magnagoran is almost invariably a conscious decision to play a nasty creep who wants to (1) win by any means and (2) doesn't give a fig what the rest of the world thinks of him; yet the Magnagoran players chiefly complain about (1) not being treated fairly and (2) being ostracized from the rest of the world.

Personally, I think Magnagora taken as a whole is the biggest design mis-step in the whole game. Yet it's offered up as an equal and valid choice, so it really should be (I can't believe I'm saying this ) an equal and valid choice. But it ain't, where it might be in any other MUD, because in Lusternia, you've built a better, more naturalistic role-play environment, and any society built on being anti-social is unnatural as things come.

So, yeah, Serenwilde was meant to be the neutral balancer between the cities, but it's going to side with New Celest every time because New Celest may count as a potential danger, but Magnagora is the wolf who never stops howling at the door.

There's no easy solution to this one. All I can suggest is to focus your long term plans to make conflicts less about ideology and more about the resources.

deleted to stop myself from hijacking.

As far as the burn-out complaints from conflict taking place in unpredictable (and usually extended) flurries of activity, you might consider setting up more conflicts to be resolved through long-term strategic decisions instead of tactical combat. Think chess game, with moves timed in days; not just chaotic brawls with moves timed in seconds.

To say that burnout is self imposed, is really quite silly.

If somebody loses intrest in a game because of false expectations, or just general lack of interest. Then that person will leave quietly, with perhaps a nasty comment saying "you suck, this game was not what I expected"

If a player complains, that the game is too hard, requring too much of his/her time, giving them stress etc. It tends to be that the player on a whole appreciates the game, likes the game, and would like to see the further development of the game. They probabbly even liked the game it was when it started, but now are finding things going terribly astray.

To say, "everyone who isn't having fun is an idiot and should just leave" is, in my opinion the worst possible attitude towards any gaming environment, especially if you care about it.

The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to say that only having choice A or choice B in many different aspects of one's life in lusternia, is a sorce of burnout. Because burnout, means your doing the same thing too many times, and not progressing.

I think it started when I read the Magnagora help file that said it was bent on conquest on domination...

Anyway, you're talking about the choices of individuals. I'm talking about the calculated image for the society as a whole.

My burn-out was caused by an insane amount of bugs.

The last event or action I was in before I left was an influencing season, the one right after they put in sanctuaries and crusading. I had a bug on me where I had to use allheale to cure broken legs caused by Tainted demesnes which normally only needed mending. So angry how much that cost me in fighting there, allheale has a real bad balance y'know?

Other things were groups of people killing me and my only gaining revenge rights on the one who got the final blow. Really, really nerve wracking.

It made me want a refund button and to forget the game existed. :P

Oh, I also wanted a certain Divine to stop meddling in Paladin affairs that were deemed closed and not to happen. Cranky.