Shorlen's just upset. I know you all put a great deal of time and effort into this game, and I love you all for it. But I sympathize. Accusing you of doing it for money reasons is poor taste and I don't agree with it.

But I and many others really do feel like the admins just gave us all the bird. It just seems like they're tired of trying to cater to the playerbase, and have finally snapped and said "Screw it, we're doing it like Achaea."

The thing about Conflict Quests was that they were like global events, made Lusternia dynamic, and kicked relative arse. They were unbalanced, and we moaned for years about some of it, and when we finally get our wish...

A kid wants a cookie. He finally gets it after many hours of moaning and whining, but mom made it a tofu raisin cookie or something gross like that.

We wanted it to be balanced and fair. Not gone.

And in addendum to that - a lot of us just got really upset that we were told there was no option, no arguement, no nothing. Conflict quests were being removed entirely - not conflict, just the quests.

So what was a major selling point to Lusternia was just removed. A lot of us feel cheated and ignored and hurt, just like you do over Shorlen's accusation.

Please realize we're not trying to attack anyone, we're trying to tell you what we and just about everyone else wants - and please don't tell us this isn't an accurate representation, because I've not heard ANYONE say "YAYCONFLICTQUESTSAREGONEENTIRELY" except for the people who hate conflict period.

I honestly feel like we're being told the only acceptable conflict is the one that involves a sword, and slipper-slope suggests we won't even see envoy changes that often soon.

Alright. I just have to say this. Ignore me if you like, but hey.

When Shorlen explodes like this, it's because he's dramatic. I would not be surprised to find he was a method actor in real life. It's also because he cares. This whole set of forums is because we all care. Lusternia is a world that we've all been able to take refuge in, to make our own stories in. I play to (try) be a cool leader and be able to act all dramatic-extreme like in a way I can't be in real life. Same with Narsrim - bet he can't kick as much ass in RL as he can is Lusternia, just because of nasty things like murder laws and firearms restrictions. Same with EVERYONE. We're all here to enjoy ourselves, and we're passionate about it. Passion breeds extremes. Extremes breed anger and frustration. But those are merely natural side-steam to the massive engine of joy that is Lusternia.

I don't get paid to be here. In fact other than my love for Lusternia and wanting to make it better for everyone involved, I have zero reason to be here. Posts like this one just reinforce the fact that I could be out doing much better things than working hours on end to make a game enjoyable only to receive insults.

Ugh.

I, and many others present, really appreciated the opportunity to be heard. I can't really believe anyone would feel the need to be so angry and insulting to people who are volunteering to make the game more enjoyable for people. Please stop taking everything personally.

And again, thank you for the chance to give our input. You don't have to, but you do, and it's appreciated.

Except that they refused to listen to an entire direction of input; that being keeping conflict quests, but simply tweaking them?

Didn't you get the *slightest* hint that the conflict quests decision was out of their hands?

Then obviously Estarra wasn't there? In which case the whole summit was, to a degree, pointless. The point of a summit is to meet with the people who can actually make the changes.

Please don't count me among those trying to be insulting - I'm really glad they gave us the opportunity for input, but it seems like nothing was honestly accomplished. If the shackles things come, I'll be happy and it'll have been worthwhile - but the fact we kept being told the Faethorn quest was being gutted, irrelevant of popular or even the entire opinion of the playerbase, because it was a 'macro decision'.

It's like, okay. We own a gay club. We always play techno and do drag shows with our resident drag queens, and people love the shows, but they want more dance time and less drag show time - but instead we just yank the shows entirely.

When you take away part of what attracts your customers, you're screwing yourself. And a lot of us feel like Lusternia is screwing itself. They're taking away something we love, instead of making it reasonable.

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps it was out of their hands?



Sounds like a decree from on high to me. I think it's very unfair to snap to judgements about what they "refused" to do.

Edit: And when I say "on high" I mean Sarapis, not Estarra. IRE is still a business.

and if Sarapis is making decisions for a player-base that he doesn't interact with on a regular basis... that's even worse, and hardly anything near good business practice.

I don't think it's Sarapis - Estarra's asked in a couple of threads if She should just cut the quests, and I think that's what she decided to do.

If it is coming from higher then Estarra, she needs to say something. Because we'll raise hell to Matt, not here, where our admins are suffering for something they have no control over. Honestly, if he's not a divine here, he sholdn't be making such decisions.

But, meh. I'm so tired of the crap. I have half a mind to follow Shorlen.

Thankfully, college starts again in 3 weeks, and I might just go away with that.

Usually I don't vote in or comment on these polls because, as a no-longer player, I don't think my opinion should skew the resuilts of any poll that's intended for still-players. However, this one hits right in the area where maybe I should. After all, the only way I might ever come back is in the case of substantial and systemic changes... just like the ones being discussed.

However, none of the poll options quite hit what I'd vote, which is this.

Simply removing conflict quests is not a good solution. It's just jerking from one extreme that displeases a lot of people to another extreme that displeases a lot of people. However, it could well be one step towards a solution.

If removing dull, repetitive, mysteryless, burdensome conflict quests is one step towards making a more interesting, new, sustainable, lower-level, perhaps less frequent or more time-limited, form of conflict, then it may well be a very good step and a necessary one.

The problem isn't the idea of conflict quests. It's the way the existing ones transformed with familiarity, and with increasing power level of the player base, into a griefing chore. Maybe now we'll see new conflict quests based on a new phase of the evolution of the power balance of the game or the progress of the story (for instance, conflict quests based around the progress towards Vernal Gods, now that power levels are way up? just as an example of what I mean). Maybe we'll see new kinds of conflict that aren't based around quests; maybe even something that's more rooted in the player base so it'll be more dynamic (and thus sustainable) without as much admin involvement or building required.

I'd say it's way too early to decide whether this is a mistake, or the first step to the salvation of Lusternia. I'm going to be still watching to see.

Unfortunately, I *do* have a reason to keep playing, that being the players who care about me and would be really sad if I vanished. So, even though I feel depressed and angry every time I log in, I can't say goodbye. I'm not trying to be a drama queen here, I was honestly upset, and am still torn between quitting and not quitting enough to make me physically ill all last night.

But who *wouldn't* feel like shit if they were told, "Your opinion doesn't count. Noone's does but ours. This meeting is just here because we're condescending. We don't care what we advertised the game was about. We don't care to maintain or keep the heavily advertised features that drew you to the game."

And Charune/Viravain, where the heck did you get the impression I was referring to you? I meant the people who make the random ass decision, Estarra or Sarapis, or whomever the griefer is.

And though I may harp on Viravain a lot, I'm actually quite fond of her. Especially when she does awesomely evil things like start an avenger FFA while game changes are being implemented, resulting in massive lag spurts

Mm. Viravain is wicked. No other Elder God silences people with over-sized baked goods.

And Charune is cool, if only because He shot down Celest's wall.

Yes, stay. Else Im doing what I threatened to do as Dia, maybe. Bah, I need more friends.


Maybe, and please excuse someone being extremely hopeful about the situation, what theyre doing is going over the mechanics of a quest while just saying theyre going away from them so that theyll look into making it a bit more interesting and less dramatic consequences? Maybe?

*point sig*

I'm not a big fan of quests at all really, they all become meaningless, repetitive and dreary. I can understand the drawcard for some people though.

But with all the work being put into removing them, there's no reason that the Admin couldn't periodicially redesign them a bit. That would take a lot of those problems out.

For instance, in Faethorn. There could be a little event where the Falconer gets a cage made for his bird, and rather than candy, you'd now have to get the cage repaired by taking it to someone who buys chickens(?) and then use it to catch the bird similar to frogs in Lolliprin by using the cage.

They'd be little changes, but over time you could see the quests completely evolve and change, which, I think, would definitely keep them from getting too dull, because you'd never know when something might not be the way it used to be any more.

I don't think the admin do have the time to be doing these things constantly. They take the time out now to try and keep the players happy and do what they think is wanted (even though it does get thrown back in their faces). Estarra has said that there is a pretty structered timetable for things to be done, which gets added to and amended as need be, but to add a whole schedule of readjusting quests periodically would eat up a lot of time I think.

If it would keep the players happy, sure, it would be worth it...but I don't see how it will. The ideas will still became stale eventually. Lusternia only has so many resources - people hours - to throw around.

They've been ding it anyway though. People complain and they go in and make drastic changes every few weeks. I really don't see the difference.