Offline issues caused me to miss the start of the town hall meeting entirely, and kept me hopping to much to keep track of the conversation, much less offer feedback at the time. So here's what I wish I'd been able to say.

Aetherspace first.

* Ship vs. Ship Combat: right now it IS non-existent, which I'm not complaining about personally, but do see how it's worth thinking about how to change that.

* Ship Prices: lowering ship costs would be like lowering the amount of experience it takes to become a demigod, or like dropping the credit cost of artifacts, or the amount of lessons it takes to trans a skill. The basic laws of game-play demand that there be things out there that not just anyone can max out on a whim. As play continues, more and more aethercraft will enter service. Problem solved. For now, it's something to strive for.

* Aetherbeast Experience: a tricky one. Right now, they can yield TONS of easy experience for a low-level character, who can man a gun just as easily as a high-level character. I can aetherhunt for hours, blasting dragons by the dozens, before I'll see my experience ratchet up a single percent. But in that same time I may have a protege burn her way through level after level in sublime safety (yeah, I pilot a safe ship). So, what would make the experience worth it for me would make it waaaay too easy for some. Pick your poison.

* Aether Commerce: Yeah. It's worth it.

* Solo Aether Commerce: Please, no. Aether trading is the only worthwhile team player-vs.-environment activity I know of in Lusternia. Yeah, it can be frustrating getting a crew together. And, yeah, I could be making a mint off of it. But for me, that misses the point. Aetherspace was introduced as a team sport, and if you kill that, there will be no way to replace it for those of us who hate PvP.

Some reason you didn't comment in the other thread?

I saw a "Town Hall Transcript" thread, which some people were offering feedback in, not a feedback thread. No idea if the divine were even reading that. Wanted to make it obvious this was meant for them, and not players who needed a meeting log.

Alright, makes sense.

I'd like to state my disagreement with you about 'no solo aethertrade', though. I really enjoy trading in commodities - like the game Tradewinds - and because of the way most commodity shops are run, I pretty much can't do it in the Prime Material.

I liquidated my aethership for a simple reason: there was nothing for me to really do. There was a certain 'cool' factor from being able to say I owned one, but that was about it. As much as it's nice to have a non-pvp 'team sport', so to speak, it really is too inconvenient, at Lusternia's population level, to have to find a team to enjoy aetherspace. If there was solo aethertrade, I'd buy one up again in an instant.

Cant be easy finding people in certain organizations regardless, since the higher population ones have trouble finding crews. Aetherspace would be so much more fun if more people were willing to join in but sadly some just dont want to or would rather do other things.

The way I see it, is its more like the California gold rush.

Traveling to Aetherspace is a big ordeal for most people, especially because there is likely to be a 3 to 4 death learning curve. (based on deathsight and my own experience)

When there are rumours of riches beyond what you can get elsewhere, more people will flock there, and they will over come any hurdles they find. Just like people in the 1800s going to california despite the giant mountains in the way.

Exarius the solo trade idea would be different than the current team model. With the team you can go out and basically create your own merchandise and then go and sell it wherever you can get the highest profit.

With a solo effort you would basically bounce around the various merchant ships buying commodities with your own gold and transporting them to some place else. You only make a profit if you find some place that is buying for more than what you paid.

A dedicated solo trader could make a lot of gold if they put forth the effort to price the various ships but the team aspect would always have the potential to make more because they don't have the initial outlay of gold to purchase the commodities to trade.

I really enjoy the team aspects of aetherspace but if we want it used more, I think there has to be more things to do solo. One doesn't really negate the other as long as there is benefit to doing both.

ANNOUNCE NEWS #712
Date: 1/9/2007 at 1:16
From: Roark Libertas
To : Everyone
Subj: Aetherbash XP

XP gained from blowing up aether monsters with your ships should be
greatly increased.

Penned by My hand on the 1st of Avechary, in the year 166 CE.


Lets see if my theory works.

Anyone have any rumours of great riches to spread?

I don't think the solution is linear increasing of XP.

Aetherspace bashing is completely independent of level, and that means it simply can't work like normal hunting, which is.

Like Exarius pointed out, either low-level people get too much, or high-level people get next to nothing - quite likely both of these occur at the same time.

Two possible alternative solutions:
1. Set a 'unit' of noticeable experience gain for each level, so that killing every creature gives you one of those units if you are locked in. Level 5's might get 500 * monster level, level 80's might get 500k * monster level. For every crewmember above 3 you might gain 20% less experience, or something. (I'd also like to note you shouldn't be penalized for at least a basic crew, teamwork is GOOD in aetherspace, you shouldn't be discouraged from inviting crewmembers because they steal 80% of your xp)

2. Weight individual experience gain by level, so that every creature gives a static amount of experience to be shared among the crew, but the amount johnny the gunner receives is divided by 400 because he's only level 20.


Also, I don't like the idea of auto-modules AT ALL. It will only act to make commander specialization even more obviously superior to the other two (already it has -by far- the most usefulness in restricted crew situations), while decreasing the very teamwork ideal that is so wonderfully expressed in the design. I think we should be making Empaths and Combateers MORE helpful, not less. Rather than implementing more reliance on automation and grind and pushing aetherspace even further towards single-transport, why not look at the enjoyment and achievement possible with team ships?

If the problem is that aetherspace itself (not the bubbles) is not interesting, immersive or rewarding enough for sufficient skilled crewmembers to be found, the answer is NOT to further reduce the need for them.

Perhaps like the gold rush, but note a few things. One, a great many people went broke and dissapointed in the gold rush. And two, there was actually gold in California - depending our your tastes, there may not be gold in aetherspace.

This really deserves to be repeated for emphasis.

New ship designs more suited for single-person use but with significantly less functionality would be better than diminishing the need for a crew to man large ships.

Oh and one more thing. It would be really great if there was a new config option like "config flightdetail off", which means that instead of seeing every movement of the ship you'd see a starting message on the first move, then if the pilot hasn't moved in say, 5 seconds, you get a stopping message.

That is, instead of



You would see

Yes, and I agree that automodules are bad and increased small-ship versatility is good. Give one man things to do, and give the whole ship bigger things to do.

Yes. Implement this please.

Aetherspace is a team thing. Keep it that way. Please.

With automation, you would not be able to fight or protect yourself from other ships, only aether beasts.

What fighting? What other ships?

EDIT: There has NEVER been a ship to ship battle, nor a need for one, yet

Trans combateer here.

Used my skill (not skills) a whole once so far. It didn't work because the other ship had left.

If there was a reason to fight over aetherspace, trans combateer + trans commander would be cool. Seal is a great skill (blockade dock/rift until your ship is destroyed).

Actually, I don't find the idea of auto-modules that terrible. I think they would be reasonable if the usefulness/skill of the "auto" module was MUCH worse than what any player could do. This way it would be much more beneficial for someone to find an actual crew, but in the event that they couldn't they could still go enjoy aetherspace as they would with a crew (well, maybe less because the modules would be less efficient).