8 minutes before I got slightly neurotic...

I suggested something else as a means of addressing the "one person can screw up astral" problem, and then mentioned the old insanity idea as a second, less preferable, way to do the same thing. I'm not going to comment on how much or how little this resembles my original proposal, because I haven't been there to see it, and because I think I've spoken enough times on what tends to happen to my proposals. And please, of all the people not to mix me up with, Daganev is at the very top of the list.

Okay, okay, I admit it....Astral IS fun now....would be nicer if I could pay my healthvials with it at least, though.....make a refiller mob who refills for corpses?
Only... I still have to look into the whole neurotic thing.
Sparkleberry is supposed to stop it until you drain a node?

The sparkleberry thing was just something Xenthos was hoping for I like the changes myself, I can get a good few kills in 30-60 minutes before I leave to become sane again.

This neverending health vial is looking much sweeter these days

That's a very good question. Players roleplaying out attempts to change the world are likely to fail often under the best of circumstances, because resources like coder time are very limited, and because of conflicts with the "master plan", and so on. At best, we can hope for a very low rate of success. And in fact there are a few successes one can point to -- the emergence of Glomdoring ahead of schedule being the obvious one, though I must reflect on a previous irony about the adders as another.

However, it's also easy to point out dozens, maybe hundreds, of other examples where the admins were handed sterling opportunities like this, even in some cases opportunities to establish changes that were coming, and not only didn't take them, but outright quashed them, often in essentially OOC ways. I could list attempts I made, which were many and varied, but that'd come off sour grapes, and besides, I'm far from the only one who did such things, and far from the only one who got dispirited by the way these things were handled.

Lusternians have every right to have a sense that for every time they might have an impact on the world around them based on their roleplay, there will be scores of times they'll be pouring their energies into a bottomless pit and getting nothing but discouragement and grief for it. And that they are a hundred times more likely to have an influence by posting on the forums. We do what we're taught.

If the admins want changes to happen through roleplay and not in the forums, they should make that change through roleplay and not in the forums. Instead of standing here telling us "go do this IC", they should be in the game, IC, giving people reasons to do it through their own roleplay, by being more encouraging when people try to change the world around them, even in the many times when that change is going to be impossible. For instance, give an IC reason why it's not possible, instead of just having things get dropped, and NPCs forget to return their phone calls. Find times when the change is tiny and easy to do, and letting some of them actually happen when there's no reason for them not to happen. Allocate one hour per week to facilitating player-initiated world-affecting roleplay. Give people reasons to do it. A tiny bit will go a long, long way.

Just another question. There randomly ARE two spawned, yeah? Otherwise, I can't explain it...

I'm not quite sure how to RP my little thing, either... do I go hopping back and forth to Astral, squishing berries to see if I can determine exactly what makes them resistant to Astral's warping qualities? It's something small, extremely easy to overlook, and likely wouldn't even get noticed, leaving me stuck with stupidity for nothing.

I mean, I can give it a shot, I just don't really see much of any change coming from something so minor, just a lot of a headache trying to deal with yelling about goats and cheese.

Well, after around 40 minutes on Astral (and getting killed by two obesefessors, ftw) I can still hunt merians pretty easy...I suppose the only hard thing would be gorgogs. And do it! I'd so help you! ...and later get a share from the margin.

Mmm... force feed Ashteru sparkleberries prepared in a delicate wyrd sauce, and make the second Wyrm which protects me from Astral's madness. Muahaha.

Shh...I'd so own then! I could bash Astral and then I'd become the Demiwyrm.

Perhaps you have some grudge that makes you so bitter towards everyone, especially the administration, or maybe you just honestly believe none of us work, or offer any possible chances of roleplay. You're entitled to believe that, but the simple fact is that a belief is not always truth, and an out of date belief is even farther from the truth - unless you've started playing again, I don't think you can play an efficient judge.

I've seen every single admin offer chances to players for change - but if you want player interaction, we can't do it alone. It takes a player to respond, or even better, start it. You don't need a divine to start something, with drawn up plans saying we need to do this this and this. Simply start it - and who knows? It might just catch on.

Whether I have a "grudge" or am "bitter" etc. not has nothing to do with the value or lack thereof in what I say. That's just an ad hominem way of dodging the point. Do you argue that a person who is dissatisfied must necessarily not have cause? I would certainly agree that dissatisfaction does not imply cause, but it's ludicrous to suggest it implies its absence. At best, it implies nothing at all; realistically, it implies a higher likelihood of cause. In any case, pointing out dissatisfaction is just wasting time. Unless your only goal is to distract those people who don't understand critical thinking from the actual point.

But since what you're answering is not what I said anyway (like the part about where "none of you work"), I suppose it doesn't matter.

Still, I do look forward to answers to my post that are answers to my post. I can't say I'm surprised that this one entirely wasn't.

Do not mock the meals of the Divine, oh puny mortal.

That aside, and in regards of denizens and monsters well...you'll have to wait and see.

You always give me hope.

I enjoy the new changes, it makes Astral a lot more interesting to bash, though it'd be nice if the rate of insanity going up was reduced and the rate of recovery was sped up.

I've also noticed that there are times when I would get 2 instead of one creature linked, but one would be the super strong, the other fairly weak like before. Would it be possible for the weak ones to drop some gold again, even half as much as before would be something.

I thought it was rather obvious from what I had said, but I suppose not. So, I shall say it again: if you say 'they (in reference to admin) should be in the game, IC, giving people reasons to do it through their own roleplay', and chances are offered but they're ignored by players, or players don't wish to start something on their own, well, we can't help that.

People ask for more player-driven, world changing events. We even opened up the news for suggestions so we could help do that more, beyond what we do now. The fact of the matter is, however, more people want a set script that only benefits or includes a small group/hurts an enemy group rather than a player-influenced event that affects the world.

If we're going to be quoting ourselves, let me offer you my first post again, since you are talking about players responding to admin-initiated roleplay, and my post was all about player-initiated roleplay, in response to Estarra's post about player-initiated roleplay, and Shiri's responding comment about player-initiated roleplay. Really my whole post should be here, but I'll try to pick out some key points to clarify the distinction.



So now that we're clear about the topic being encouraging players to use IC means to make changes in the world around them, the point is that if you want someone to do something, hitting them with a stick 99 times out of 100 when they do is not a good way to encourage it. Put down the stick.

Of course if your assertion is that no one is doing that... well, maybe no one is now. Wouldn't surprise me in the least. Maybe everyone who tried got frustrated at those 99 stick-beatings and either gave up or left. Though if you're suggesting that no one was ever doing that... Well, I'll wait for you to suggest that before I start laughing.

Viravain asked why should monsters drop gold. That is indeed quite odd. Of course you can explain it with eating stupid adventurers but that gets difficult with for example moose, except they are carnivorous.
In my first mud that I played for many years monsters didn't drop any gold. There was no need because there were sentient beings like some pirates on a shipwreck or a giant village and those creatures had equipment that could be sold in shops for good gold. But here we cannot sell to shops and mobs don't really drop stuff. So the only two ways to produce gold are by solving quests or killing mobs that drop gold.
The problem with the quests is, now that astral has become uninteresting for many people, more will try to get gold by questing, that will lead to less quests being solved as someone will spoil the quest or someone else by trying to solve the quest on their own and taking stuff, etc.

That leaves hunting. Those with a cubix will do fine as they can hop from sphere to sphere and kill the respawns. All others can with luck snatch a few hundred gold coins from Astral and then be happy when they get a gorgog or two.

Therefore my suggestion is the following. Let the mobs drop gold again. With the insanity and increased toughness noone will be able to hunt a lot there anyway, so noone will get any insane amounts of gold anymore. But at least you will still be able to get some decent gold.

I hunted a bit on Leo, for about 30 minutes. Hajamin mentioned that one should be able to survive on Astral for at least an hour until the insanity becomes a real problem...well, that might be but as soon as you become highly neurotic you really should stop hunting there as far too many commands go wrong and that was less than an hour. In my eyes becoming insane should take a bit longer. Keep in mind that only very few people have a cubix, the rest has to wait for spheres to connect and that takes time, especially when you want to leave and have to cross a sphere or two.

But all in all I like the changes, especially the part when you start seeing people that aren't there. At first I didn't realize it and just thought 'Wow, a lot of traffic here in the swamp.' But then it felt odd that those people left without any message and they weren't shrouded.

Just have it take less time to wear off after becoming insane and I'll be happy. Having to stand around doing nothing for ages is annoying. Love the change besides that.