Yea, I'm not complaining or anything... I love being in Celest, it just sucks to see all of the people I worked hard to build relationships with leave suddenly.

The goal of any game is to ensure its players have a good time, no matter its nature. Conflict is good. Too much is not good, as well as too little. I think most of us have established that, and I also think its one point that needs to be worked on. I agree, it seems high conflict is a major part of Lusternia's nature. We even have conflict for who can churn out the most books for crying out loud! I don't know, but I think when I first heard of Lusternia, I had my own visions and fantasies. I'm sure some people came here with different ideas as well. I've been here for a long time and it saddens me to have to leave now because I can't handle it or whatever (well actually it's more because of school). Actually, I'm not even thinking about combative conflict. You have to remember that Lusternia is a lot more than just a PvP MUD, or at least I think it is anyway. Conflict is on almost every level of the spectrum, and its all a game for power. And it'll continue forever since one side can never be victorious (I've always wondered about that... will some kind of resolution ever come or will we be in a continual cycle of strife for all eternity?) And also... is Lusternia a 'game' or is it a world to live in? A lot of people just want to come here and enjoy themselves, to 'escape to another world' and whatnot. (the banner on TMS also says 'Play it, Live it' )

Well I hope this didn't go off on the wrong note. I really do like Lusternia, it's a great place, with good people. The mechanics, history, it's well prepared. There is a circle of loyal players that will always be here, and that's all that matters.

Okay, I'm just going to throw in my opinions on this for whatever it's worth.

The game was more exciting a couple months ago. Now, everyone knows I will probably not leave this game (voluntarily) for years and years RL, specially since I play more for the people than for the game itself a lot of the time.

But I remember being on Faethorn with Mali and a team of others vs Alger, Eiru and company, dying several times and kicking ass (well, not me personally obviously, but the team did with my help) and it was FUN. More fun than sitting around. Villages are scarcer these days. Peaced villages were pretty fun but they barely happen at all, and Rockholm took 8 minutes, not like the hour I'd prefer.

I remember the time months ago where Magnagora (Daevos, Valek, and company) were raiding Serenwilde, villages, and Etherwilde like CONSTANTLY, making everyone complain and complain. It was FUN. I remember talking with Eiru after one fight when he was complaining about why everyone targetted him and telling him that I'd told everyone to gank him first since he was less tanky than Daevos and the others. That was fun too. I realise I'm one of the few people that enjoyed the game for that, 'cause it was making a lot of my friends really depressed. But that was when the game was best. Of course, since then there've been tonnes of fun things, battles in villages, fights in general, defending against Faethorn raids, and the stuff that doesn't involve combat at all (sitting and chatting with friends is fine by me.) So it's not as though I'm not enjoying the game.

But that time appealed to me most, even when I was just sitting on Faethorn for like 16 hours in the half-term holiday talking to friends on the SEG while waiting for a raid. Maybe it's just because it brought everyone together on our side? I don't really know.

Anyway, something happened and I forgot the rest of what I was going to write, but the point is, maybe I'm the only one, but are more people actually liking the newer, "grief-free" Lusternia, or are they like me and enjoyed the olden days more? I know people complain, but they complain either way, so it's hard to tell, you know?

This post would have made a lot more sense if I'd remembered the middle bit, bit uh, I hope it makes sense anyway.

Yeah.. I remember that time. Back then I hated it. Valek would tell us to be around and then the Mag council would call -everyone- to come to the Megalith or quit the city.. loathed it. Especially when he lead us to kill White Hart and those 30? 40? guards killed me in no time and I had to pray.

But looking back now.. yes those times were fun, I agree with Shiri there. There are raiding, there was something going on, there was a constant challenge.
But now? Why raid if you have to fear Avenger? Why kill anyone if you have to fear that you will have 5 suspects at the worst moment and thus be unable to defend or kill someone who did something stupid (and you would have to be the aggressor in this case). Better to just sit around and twiddle your thump.

See, I always liked the idea of raiding villages for dwarf miners. I think the whole idea of "run in, kill miners, run out" is great. The problem started when you couldn't get /in/ and /out/ of the damned place. The risks are too great to raid (XP loss sucks complete ass), totems outside and guards inside areas make it a pain in the ass to get back out again.

This stuff should go on. Villages are just too locked down. I know we're changing our tune from months ago when we whinged that people were able to get out too easily but, damnit Admin: there's nothing to do.

There's always lumber. Running in and out of forests is pretty comparable.

But don't you get wisped and flowed to with guards? OMG, it's like, IMPOSSIBLE.

/sarcasm.

I hate the mines, because I don't have a shot in hell of ever getting in or out. Acknor would almost be the same, if Mag was smart about it. Well, I could get in, but not out with furrikin, since I'd need to fly.

So you just raid Northern Serenwilde instead, since it's a seperate area we can't do any of that! >_<

(And I take it Aesyra and Ibby agree with me on that earlier point, so I'll assume my point got across anyway.)

I agree completely. Now it's like I log on and sit on my ass waiting for something to happen, a village to revolt, an ffa, a wargame, raid, anything. But most of the time nothing ever happens and I have to go over and camp at the gorgog caves to wait for them to respawn (since they are ALWAYS bashed out).

I am quite disappointed and sad that Lusternia is curbing pk more and more, starting with karma, then there were the archways on faethorn, then faethorn itself, then protection against village raiding, extra xp loss, then peaced village revolts, then it takes ages for them to revolt, and the latest five plus suspects change. While not all of them affect my style of gameplay (I don't raid aggressively), they are all changes of policy to discourage pk in general.

Lusternia was brutal on the players for much of its life, and we complained about it constantly upon the 'Idiots!' board. But isn't that how the game is designed? Isn't that the Lusternia we all love? Despite the complaints, despite the whining, despite the flamefests, many of us DO love it. We whine here on these forums because we were angry, we were frustrated, but we weren't bored. If we really wanted it to stop, we would have actually left, instead of just threatening to repeatedly. I feel bad for my part in the whinings which probably helped with the Faethorn nerfing, but I had to. I needed to release the anger and the frustration before it actually started to bother me. It was all part of the game, I guess. Not that the Admins had any way of knowing that.

Lusternia isn't causing blind rage or hair-removing frustration anymore for me. Nor does staring at a blank wall. Lusternia isn't causing triumphant shouting or maniacal giggling anymore for me either. Nor does staring at a blank wall. Lusternia should be fun, it shouldn't evoke the same emotion as a blank wall - boredom

I think the Admins should decide how Lusternia should be, and they should stick with it. Is it a brutal game? Is it a grief-free snugglefest? Just decide on a clear vision of what the game should be, and stick with it. Ignore those who complain - as was said, people will always complain. But right now, Lusternia feels like it has a huge identity crisis. Please, pick a path, and walk it, Lusternia.

I agree with Shou. It's supposed to have a balance.

Regarding Avenger and Karma--those systems are designed to make you think more carefully about PK. Ideally, people who want to PK with each other will, and those that don't will use these to protect themselves. If you're getting Avengered or Cursed, you maybe should tone things down. I think the only problem is when people "meta" Avengers and Curses for tactical advantages.

Lusternia is ultimately a world and a game. The game part factors into how much PK should be done. You need to give the other side time to rest and recoup, from a game perspective. I think the problem is people think one can "win", and you can't really do that, so stop trying to think that way.

Honestly, I think part of the problem is some individuals play a little too much, and that's the problem. When I hear stuff about people spending 8-16 hours a day in the game on "guard duty"...well, I don't think the game was intended for that style of play. I suspect many of the players the admin's are concerned about spend so much time here that either PK is done to combat bordom, or they end up waiting for the time when the other organization is at its lowest ebb.

A player who spends that much time in game is IMO going to burn out in a relatively short time. I'm wondering just how young the player base is right now, since I don't think people outside of college (or even in college) could afford that level of play. I would like the game to appeal to the older base who have less spare time because they will probably contribute to the game for months or years.

I'm just hoping we have an event with the pull of SWR: LOTJ's end of era last year, Basically they killed of the entire pbase, then when you died you got to be a bad guy, get equipped and go off to kill all your friends. even though this wouldn't happen here this is the sort of thing that had their relativley small pbase on for nearly a full day waiting in anticipation for the next wave of attack.

(My character was given charge of a capital ship went in to rescue some people on Coruscant and Died in the process of course taking the crew with me)

erm now for the point... ... umm more events? (be they player or divine run)

Shiri, the faethorn conflict was fun, but those 8 hour raids pissed people off. I'd love to see that quest fixed so that there's something to do there. Let's face it. Once they made it so that the Geos couldn't meld on Faethorn, the raids dropped in that area dropped drastically. I don't like that there's little to do but you get all of these complaints from people who believe that they should never die and that every action is a random and unnecessary one. I think we can define cruel and excessive actions without completely curbing pk and bringing everything to a dead stop.

More village revolts would be neat. Not -too- often so as to make it a pain. I mean..it's nice actually holding these villages under our belts for awhile so as to profit from it, but right now, revolts are becoming so rare.

Faethorn should become a village that only Glomdoring or Serenwilde could influence.

I think something that would help a lot of people in the game, especially Celest and other people who complain about griefers constantly is to suck it up and do what you can. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but the other day when Daevos was constantly popping up on Water and Celestia, it was a hell of a lot easier just to organize at least a small group of fighters to fend him off instead of complaining.

Make it brutal: throw the Basin into chaos and war, make it so that wandering outside the protection of town and village is an adventure in itself. Make hunting parties from cities that roam looking for innocents to prey upon, roving bands of rogues, intense "nationalism", backstabbing, diplomacy...err, you know.

Do all this, but make city/communes themselves easier to defend, and harder to raid.

I think what this would do is put some sort of purpose back into the game other than making it to demi-god.

That's pretty much how it is already.

I think Lusternia should let people choose wether they want to be involved in conflict or not, individually. The Avenger system means you can get jumped randomly by someone in a highway; dying to that isn't fun. It's frustrating, because you don't choose to engage in combat; frequently it's not even retribution for something you've done. The game shouldn't force people to engage in PvP; letting people choose by themselves wether they'll engage in combat or not would probably satisfy everyone: Avid playerkillers, occasional fighters, and people who don't fight.

Also, the credit whores who rise to obscene levels of power should be seriously nerfed. One of the things that attracted me to Achaea the first time I played it was the promise that combat was driven by the player's skill, not by how tanky your character was. It's not fun engaging in combat if you know you'll lose because you're fighting Kaervas/Murphy/Narsrim, and have no chance against their transed skills and expensive artifacts; make it so that people with class skills between Virtuoso and Skilled can still engage in combat, at least group combat, and have fun. Right now, it's impossible to have fun fighting if you don't buy some 500-800 credits, and that annoys people to no end, who end up buying no credits because there's no point in purchasing just 100. If average characters actually mattered in a fight, we'd have a bigger credit-buying playerbase. When I get jumped, I'm told to 'suck it up and do what I can', but all I can do is helplessly hold to the suspect and hope they don't kill me again after it expires. Unless you've transed a guild skill and raised the others to virtuoso, at least, you're pretty much a sitting duck every time you leave your city/commune, which makes the game painfully boring to anyone who's not powerful enough to fend for himself.

Finally, we need neutral orgs. Right now, everyone is firmly aligned against everyone else, which makes the game downright boring at times. Feeling like everyone else is your enemy isn't fun, and just contributes to push people away from the game.

As far as I know, Narsrim doesn't have expensive artifacts, or any that I can think of.

And really, the way the world is designed, choosing not to be part of the conflict is stupid. It'd be like me going into the middle of a gang war and saying "don't kill me just because I belong to that other gang, I don't like to fight!" In conflict, innocent people die all the time. That's part of the draw of Lusternia, is that we actually have conflict. The easier it is to just turn that off whenever you want, the stupider things become.