Lets go excavate Crazen out of his crater! Then we can banish him somewhere else and have this whole huge crater to explore where anything that lived there would have been twisted by Crazen's prescence!

And none of it would be possible without Aesyra... then she can't quit... right?

I dunno, I'm being optimistic even though I've never encounted Aesyra IG.

Let's be realistic:

First, major game events take EXTREME amounts of planning. Furthermore, they are supposed to be damn special. The reason the Kethuru event was so amazing was because of the massive investment on behalf of Estarra and the administration to design. These are not things can be just churned out left and right.

Second, small personal events are a GOOD things. I'm shocked that so many people think otherwise. I personally am a huge fan of intra-city, order, and other such organization events. Some of the very best times I ever had in Aetolia were do to Niuri (Goddess of Mystery) always being so involved with Her Order and having mysterious/crafty events in Order for us to discover, stress over, and finally resolve.

From an outsiders glance, I see a lot of this happening in Glomdoring. Viravain seems very active there. I think this is important because in an ooc mindset, people are more likely to try more interesting/involved roleplaying experiences when they feel that someone is watching and if necessary, there to back them up (most events need some form of divine help here and there). I used to have this feel with Lisaera in Serenwilde, but she seems distant now (busy coding like crazy, I imagine).

Third, if you want more events then it is really the player responsibility to create them. One thing I don't like about Lusternia is how a lot of players just expect things to happen. They just expect to be involved. If you really want to have something neat happen then design something of your own creation and play with it. That's where most of the fun is and if it is reasonable and if you put up a good effort, I'm sure it will be fruitful.

I strongly do not believe this should be true. There should be things happening in the world above and apart from player-initiated action, things that are interesting and draw our interest. In the tabletop world, they are called 'plot hooks' which draw us to go seeking plot, and in doing so, create a situation and a place for such plot to occur.

There is nothing like this in Lusternia. When nothing out of the ordinary happens, people are not compelled to go seeking things that are out of the ordinary. All falls into a rhythmn that none can break free of without an external push.

When the little events happen, they have no followup, and so we have come to expect no followup. They happen. That's it.

Things should not be this way.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the problem is not that the events "only bring in a skill" but more that they're not that closely related, so they feel way too individual, and not part of any continuing plot. Example: Gorgogs. Real effect, in a new area, skills, etc., but they're pretty minor characters.

I guess that's a problem with MUDs in general though, since you have to expect these to go on forever.

*just musing, since I have figured out my opinion on the issue yet*

Before I write anything, let me make one thing VERY clear. What I am about to write is coming from me, the person, NOT the administrator.

I agree with you on many of the things said here.

Yes, we need more area's. Unfortunately area's don't grow on tree's, they take a lot of time and effort to design, let alone build. All 50 rooms have to be written, all 50 mobs have to be written, all 30 objects have to be written. Anyone care to figure out how big that would be if it were say, an essay? On top of that, all of those quests and quirky little things each mob does and says has to be coded. Some other realms can produce them faster than we do, why? Well here we have an extremely high standard for our area's, we don't want boring go bash it up area's. The other reason, staff. We're the youngest game, and have a fairly small staff that does everything they can.

Yes, we need more events. Unfortunately they too don't grow on tree's. Events take a large amount of design and planning before we can even start to set them up. Coupled with the work on trying to produce area's, and our other jobs (such as coding, designs, issues, libraries, etc) there just aren't enough hours in the day. Events are something YOU, the players, can help with. We have the plots board, which is rarely used, as well as players doing their own RP.

Unlike other games, such as WoW, Lusternia is a dynamic and interactive world. It requires BOTH the players and the administrators to make it function and grow. Do we have that in Lusternia? I don't think so. I see more complaining than anything else. Sure, you can tell the administration what you think is wrong, but nothing changes unless you give some CONSTRUCTIVE idea's to go with it.

I agree some of those skills are over powered, but what I say isn't all it takes. For those of you that are envoys, your job is NOT just to make your guild gods. Your job is to help us, the administration, make a balanced world. Unfortunately very few of the reports do that. I read every single report sent in, and give my comments on every single suggestion. Give me something to work with, so together we can make a better world. I know how every skill works, I've coded or modified most of them by now. You know how they work together, that is something only a player can see. Sure, I can and do try to imagine how things will work, and test my idea's as best I can... but none of that compares to the skill and knowledge you, the players, gain of these skills.

I want to see Lusternia grow to be the best mud out there, it has the potentional. Do you? If you want that same goal, then help us achieve it. Give me what I need, and I will give you my word to do everything I can to make things different.

Clean up these boards, make them into what they were intended to be. They should be a place for players to communicate OOG, and get to know the person behind the name. They should be a place to share idea's, and give CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Do they do that?

Give me envoy reports and skill suggestions I can work with. I will fight for every good idea I see in a report, in an attempt to make the game more balanced. I'm not saying every report is bad, but most reports do have a slight tendancy to lean twords godmode more than balance.

If you know something is working in a way it shouldn't, report it. And when you do, file a report that can be used. Give me detail, I would rather MORE information than less.

I think I have shown I'm willing to put the extra time and effort into making things better, and giving you all new things to play with. Help me do that, and together we can build the game we all want to see.

Well, to focus only on the envoy issue, I think one thing that is lacking in the system is direct feedback about submitted reports. Right now, the only feedback we receive for the most part is when the envoy changes are completed on the skillsets we commented on. And I just think it would be much more easier to produce great reports if we knew exactly where we have made mistakes in the past.

Seems reasonable, at least once or twice anyway until people get into the swing of it.

Yeah, I'm not an envoy or anything but I have to say the information on what is wanted for envoys is -really- all over the place, from this board alone. But it's been mentioned before I think.

I would like to see some unbiased info about assault for example. One assault = 2556 head damage = from no wounds to heavy. I would like to see envoys that mention things as they really are and not try to get the best piece of the cake for themselves. Do you?

EDIT: and no I don't want you to go out of your way to flame me for this.

EDIT2: Ixion went all silent when I asked him about his opinion on wounding, Murphy outright refused to tell me how much wounding he did. Just a simple fact..

I was prolly idle

I agree with Daevos. As envoys there should be more Admin/Envoy interaction. If a new skillset comes out the admins should be talking to the Envoys a couple weeks after, seeing what the actual game balance plays out like, if there is suggestions, downgrades, upgrades, what not needed. I find that we have been trained over the last year to just envoy upgrades for our guilds because if we even suggest a small downgrade it becomes alot bigger than was intended.

Overall the guilds need to talk to their envoys more, and the envoys need more communication with the admins. We have the envoy boards, but I see pretty much everyone running to the forums, because they have learned changes happen here if you cry for long enough.

Hmmn, what if they simply formed a new guild in the city, then?

Simply? How could that be... simple?

Well, I meant as opposed to forming an entirely new city.

Yes. I couldn't agree more.

Its really sad that the people who don't play 24/7 are the ones who notice these great things.

About "over powered skills." I can't say I know much about combat, but I do know what it says on the website.

Power and Feats:
The most spectacular abilities are known as feats and are regulated by a system of power renewal. Power is drawn from the nexus a player is connected to, and some skills require the power be drawn from a specific nexus.

Now, the other IRE games don't have this. So the best Lusternia skills are going to be MUCH stronger than the top Achaea or Imperian skill because Acharea and Imperian don't have power costs, and don't limit how many times a skill can be used during a fight. Even if you always have full power reserves, there is a strict time limit on how often you can use your most powerfull abilities.

Actually, warrior Envoys did get feedbacks Roark regarding our archetype last round, but nothing else. This is the same problem that was presented towards Sarapis with the Classlead Program, there was little feedbacks and the classleads' reports were often ignored. It would be great if the Envoys could communicate more with the admins in charge of the reports.

As for quests, and areas, we have a lot of creative players who would love to contribute to the game but are never given a chance to. I'm sure if the gods would come up with a contest for people to submit new quests and areas, it'd be quite useful and maybe take some of the workload of the admins.

Just a note on this - my character has been attempting to contact Isune or someone from Isune's order to try to join it for quite awhile now and has gotten zilch for a response. I'd love to see her add some new dimension's to Celest's RP but I never see her or hear her and I'm on quite a fair bit these days. It's kind of hard for the city to show enthusiasm when she's MIA! We're only players after all and players usually have the attention span of a fruit fly.