Alright so I have not been back but a month or so but it seems that most people are either leaving for imperian or just slowly becoming inactive. I was wondering why this is so, and if maybe it was voiced that somethings could be addressed or put in action to be fixed. There has to be a reason why other games are more appealing. I personally would like to see Lusty stay afloat and not slowly die but it seems to be going down that path.

To me, Imperian administration has a different way of dealing with people and introducing new stuff in teh game, that to my tastes makes it a nicer place to be than Lusternia. I'll repeat, to my tastes. They seem to be more into balancing things and focusing on what players want done (it might be that what they want done is the same as players want done). The fact that there seems to be more people around in all the guilds also helps, like you don't feel alone in gt even if you're not in a prime hour. That migth be solved with having less guilds/orgs but it's too late for that, or maybe it's just that having so many planes makes the population seem dilluted. In exchange, you have a bigger world to explore in Lusternia, specially if you have a ship.

About general environment and the "world" itself I think Lusternia has more possibilities than Imperian, though, Imperian can get a bit too standard fantasy sometimes with the magic vs no-magic vs demons becoming evil vs good. The fact that you're not raided frequently also is a bonus FOR ME who is not a combatant.

Well I posted my own take on the subject.

It makes me sad if you think the Lusternia admin aren't up to par! It's really tough whenever we try to get together with players and so many seem to want diamatrically opposed things (more conflict vs. less raids, etc.). It leaves us in a position that whatever we do is unpopular! But tell me what you'd like to see us do that's different in terms of how we deal with people or introducing new things? I'm certainly open to change.

I've asked what players want before, and 99% of the answers were to "balance" skills (with specific suggestions on how this could be achieved) and adding new areas. We are always in the process of balancing per our ongoing envoy process (which I think is working better than I had thought!). And new areas also are ongoing, though this is something that takes time and can't be rushed. But certainly I believe we've implemented new ideas and systems spurred by player ideas and suggestions, like the nexus worlds and construct battles I believe were originally player inspired to reduce raids and give goals to conflicts--and as you know we've done a lot of work with this and we aren't finished yet!

Hmm. I don't see this exodus of players in the orgs I'm part of. We seem to be growing actually. Maybe it's less of an admin/game problem and more of a stagnant organization problem?

I believe this is somewhat a sad truth. There's always going to be an outflux of old players leaving, some may leave in significant groupings or quickly. But it's rarely as world-shattering and harmful to the game as a whole as it may seem to you personally. But it is also the sort of situation that if certain other players don't step down or leave the limelight or simply leave the game, it leaves little opening for newer players and up and comers to grow and progress to positions of power, making the game less and less appealing to new players. As it turns out, those with longevity and loyalty to the game and certain organizations do tend to win out as far as political jousting and positioning goes, for good reasons and bad.


I don't want to turn this into a thread about new players, but rather then worrying and over concerning one self with the loss of old players moving on, embracing and bringing new ones into the fold is usually, but not always much more important in my opinion.

Because after so long the game gets boring and there is no real way for the admin to constantly provide updates to please and interest the majority of long time players. It just gets stagnant, there's only so much you can do in one game so people shift to other games with newer concepts and ideas. People will get bored of anything after a while if it dosn't change drastically.

That is patently not true. Many if not most regular chess players play chess throughout their entire lives; many other games retain players for much longer perods of time than Lusternia seems to. But Lusternia's problem isn't that old players are leaving, it's that new players aren't staying.

Chess is bugger all like lusternia. Chess is a straight game with straight rules, it dosn't change and it dosn't need to change. Lusternia is more of a story and a game. The story dosn't progress much so people learn the majority of the story then get bored after trying out the other aspects of the game. You'd be better off comparing lusternia to a book or something than to a game like chess.

Only reason I am not around as much is because A) I now have bills to pay, and I'm in the process of planning a wedding.

There are plenty of people who've played Magic since the very first edition of it, over ten years ago. And Magic changes periodically (Every three to six months or so). There are further examples of people playing role-playing games since the 1970's. And, Lusternia isn't static like a book - The story is on-going, going a bit further with every event; it's more like a television show (And plenty of people watch the entire run of a television series).

No, the difference between Lusternia and those things that is relevant to this discussion is the sheer amount of commitment Lusternia asks of its players. It forces you to be around regularly (Daily, or almost daily). Most other games are things you pick up and play ever week or so, or when you feel like it, or which you buy and play a lot for a couple weeks then drop them. Lusternia's players eventually find themselves unwilling or incapable of giving it the amount of time it requires. Other players get angry, or jaded. And some players, of course, run out of things to do - Which is a vicious flaw in game design, of course. Big open-ended games should never become so repetitive that you've seen and done it all; combat, for example, being a very game-oriented aspect of the game world, shouldn't become repetitive but it does, and quickly.

Well for one, I love Lusty, but I have been so bored lately. As it has been said before men, stagnancy kills. I am not into being a little miss chatty cathy. I like to raid, etc. But that gets boring after a while, and you hardly ever find 1v1 conflict. It is mainly 1 vs 10.

There are 2 places that are decent bashing grounds for my circle. That being Astral and Catacombs. One is just so so redundant, the other you can bash for 30 mins or so (and at my circle, kill maybe 10-15 mobs) before you are insane. Then you have to come back down, wait at least 45 minutes before you can go back up again and do it all over.

On top of that, you suddenly have a raid on your cosmic plane, and you are insane, that makes it really suck. Since you know you will miss half the things you try to do, and if you need to redef, forget about it when insane, you are guaranteed to miss a few.

That we don't have enough bashing areas, to support novices and even the older players makes things a big problem. If lets say we get 20-30 new players, and they are bashing moors/gorgogs/merians... They may get bored and not play solely because they have to compete with so many for such few monsters to help them gain circles.

I also dislike that the only warriors here are now purely wounding warriors. I love playing a warrior style in most muds, but I like different options of warriors. (And I don't mean Paladin/Ur'Guard/SerenGuard/EbonGuard) I mean for ex. Imperian has warrior style classes that all arent "knights" Sab's, Hunters, Marshals, Wardancers, Monks. All are non mage/cosmic style and use weapons (save for monks). I am just so bored of being steered into only having one choice. Wounds Wounds Wounds. And even if you put up enough wounds, they can easily be taken away because warriors have no real passive afflictions to keep people down here. They can't swing their blade in an attack and cause people to be mesmerized by the style of attack they do, and the definatelly cannoth hit any thing for damage like a mage can, who can stack that with afflictions and a demesne.



Granted we probably have more areas, being cosmic, nil, astral, etheral, aetherspace and prime. But our bashing areas are not as big as our playerbase right now, which I think will cause players to become frustrated and not play. Not every area needs to have an in depth, super RP background quest to it. You could have to walk past a swamp to get to Glomdoring. Or you could throw a bunch of mobs in the Moors, since the only 2 places you bash in the Moors now are Krokani/Aslarans. You could have all types of mobs in the mountains, etc.


That is just my thoughts though. No offense to Lusternia at all, just stagnancy drives people off.

I think things get caught between more conflict and less conflict, because there isn't enough conflict to keep those who are interested in it around, and there is too much conflict to keep those who don't like it around.

What I mean is, there's an obligation to defend the cosmic/elemental/ethereal planes, and an obligation to participate in villages, and a great deal of organizational conflict stems from these events, which results in people being pressured into participating (Implicitly or explicitly). This can be annoying to someone who doesn't care about organizational power struggles, or who doesn't like that sort of conflict.

At the same time, conflict (in the forms in which it exists currently) is very repetitive. Raiding and villages, are very similar, and there is not much you can do to hurt another organization outside of these two areas (I realize things like the library exists, but I don't really consider writing library submissions "playing" the game).

Also, although new ideas like figurines, constructs, and aetherships have been introduced over the past year or so, I think it's a bit too much, and that the focus should be on improving what we do have, and that does work before we introduce new toys that everyone then has to learn to stay on top of things.

I think if there were a tighter focus to the game, and a lot of work done on environment, this would please the people who are here for the Lusternian "atmosphere". At the same time, expanding current areas, and fleshing out the cosmic/elemental planes (right now they're kind of sparse) will make it so that the playerbase is spread throughout the world, and not concentrated in the same 5-6 areas (city, elemental plane, krokani/aslarans, inner sea, astral plane), and give the game more of its own "feel".

I also think a lot of work can be done on the Lusternian economy. Commodity quests and village raiding can be reworked, I think, and I think that village raiding should be a greater focus of the game (in general, I think villages can be much more than the power-producing, comm-generating things that they are, currently. Some ideas include: player governors of villages... intrigue quests that can be done by players within villages...) all of these changes can make Lusternia a much richer environment to play in.

As to combat: please reduce the disparity between those who have bought artifacts and those who have not. With warriors in particular, not having runed weapons and having runed weapons is like comparing night and day. Compared to the other archetypes, no other archetype is so heavily affected by artifacts as the warrior is.

Finally, I think some organized combat would be a great addition to the game for those who are interested in combat. Perhaps god-sanctioned tournaments with prizes? Perhaps allow the people watching in the arena to be able to truly spectate, and see abbreviated versions of what the players do to each other? If people were allowed to watch, these tournaments could even be opportunities for roleplay (you could have people betting on their favorite fighter, concession stands rented out to players).

And rankings. Competitive people love rankings.

These ideas aren't very fleshed out, but I am kind of in a rush. If any of these sound good, I can expand on them later when I get home.

The whole argument between more conflict and less conflict is moot, I've come to realise. There are people who want a very conflict-heavy, dangerous environment, and there are people who appreciate a more placid game. The only way to make the game enjoyable for everybody is to make both available, probably by making the planes outside Prime matter more; right now they're meaningless to most players, except as bashing areas.

Additionally, the game needs more features that are fun and have a low barrier of entry. I understand that expensive things like aetherships are good for the game, but nobody will buy them if they don't stay in the game in the first place. Newbies in Lusternia can either participate in some of the half-hearted roleplay that goes on (Not very often) or grind bashing finks and gnomes. This might be somewhat fun, but it's not different from any MMO out there; it gives newbies no reason to stay on Lusternia while they could be doing the same thing on a 100% free Diku MUD.

I trained novices on four different guilds, and in all of them the last thing I said was something like "Off to Newton you go". That's not very promising; I always tried to impress upon novices the possibilities that Lusternia has, but right when novices get into the game, there's one thing they can go do... they can go to Newton.

Good stuff, Verithrax.

The quoted portion above is something I wanted to focus on.

When players run out of things to do, part of the equation is new additions to the game, itself.

However, part of the equation is that players also need to get to the point where they will take their character's story into their own hands and pursue these things out of their own creation and their own initiative. Everyone doesn't need to start the rogue, mercenary clan that becomes the wildcard in org conflict (although that certainly would be interesting), but everyone can - perhaps (or even ideally) in cooperation with others - brainstorm what comes next for their character in terms of their character's development and story.

There are a number of pre-defined "channels of development" in IRE games. There are pre-established orgs and mechanics. It's very easy for someone to completely define themselves by these channels. The problem is, once you've gone as far as you can or care to in these channels (City/Commune politics, combat and/or influencing, Order, bashing, etc.), it becomes easy to get bored. There is no next thing, and most people deal with this by reshuffling the channels (i.e. leaving one org for another, one class for another, etc.). The allure of this will also run out, eventually. This is a misfortune that befalls even very creative, motivated, and talented players.

I just wanted to highlight that hitting the End of the Road is an inevitability if you (and I mean "you" in general, not you, Verithrax) rely completely on the pre-established channels for your gaming experience, and this includes Divine-initiated events. Although you (and I mean you, Verithrax) have pointed out that there are obstacles to this process, players are capable of writing their own stories and creating their own next thing if they choose to do so.

There is a big paradigm shift between "The Admins and the Game Mechanics are Responsible for My Fun" and "I am Responsible for Creating My Own Fun with the Materials I Have Been Given," and I encourage people to dip liberally from both of those pools. Think of an idea and run with it. 90% of the fun I've had in Lusternia recently have been opportunities I've created for myself, and I'm not an overly remarkable player.

I just want to know why people complain about stagnancy yet I don't see that many elections going on.

In the other IRE games, I remembered 30 years as a leader being a really long time, here it is like a minimum term.

If you are bored, then run for office, and if you don't want to run, find somebody who does and prop them up.

Actually, I was more pointing out issues with mechanics... The thing is, the games that can emerge from relatively simple rules can have extreme longevity. Chess is the obvious example here; one doesn't get tired of chess, even though the rules are very simple and constant. Games, and in a complex interconnected meta-game like Lusternia, can very well have a degree of depth that leads to them lasting as entertainment for years... but in Lusternia, they don't seem to. Combat for example seems to have a very small number of winning strategies, to the point that players instantly move to whatever the winning strategy right now is whenever mechanics or skills are changed. Debating has no winning strategies at all; even with the added layer of complexity with Dramatics, it still fails to be an interesting sub-game for most people.

ETA: Having a new org leader, or being elected as an org leader, would not improve a player's enjoyment of the game 90% of the time. This has little to do with the discussion. New leaders also don't necessarily shake things up or make them different, and messing with an organization that's working in the name of de-stagnating things seems kind of silly, unless you have a big, entertaining conspiracy going on.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to give all the Lusty admins my biggest congrats. I think you're doing a wonderful job, and personally, I think Lusternia is the best of the four IRE games. Achaea has completely ruined itself with the House system, aiming for more diversity and freedom but essentially making things too complicated to handle properly. Imperian and Aetolia just don't have the right feel (IMHO), and I found myself a perfect game in Lusternia.

Anyway, I understand why people stop playing/move on to other games. They crave for more. But personally, I think there's really a lot that Lusty can offer, a lot more than most others. I suppose that depends on taste, but anyway - I believe that Lusty is very easy to get into, which newbies like. For example, just recently I tried creating another character in Achaea, just to check how things are... It was utter chaos. You are immediately bombarded by a dozen channels, twenty-or-so scrolls about the different aspects of your city/house/class, etc, etc., and essentially there are so many elder players busy with their lives that you just feel lonely - as a contrast to Lusty, where I think everyone feels like there's always room for progress.

Well, what I'm basically trying to say is that you should just keep Lusty simple, but brilliant in its simplicity. Introduce new areas, expand the mythos, but don't make the same mistakes Achaea did.

By the way, if you think this post's a bit incoherent, I'd like to point out that I just got back from walking my cousin's dog on a cold, cold evening. Brr... My fingers are frozen, and so is my brain, so...

Is there going to be a Mrs. Daganev soon?

from playing many graphical mmorpgs and a few text based ones I must say that all games get a point where you say, crap what am I wasting my time on. All these games are repetative. Really bashing in WoW, Vanguard or Lusternia are all equally monotone. It all involves hit hit hit with the same skill and curing with the same cures. PVP in general becomes more interresting, only in text games PVP in general does not only require tactics like a graphical game, but rather demands you have basic coding skills.

The thing that makes me, and I suspect many other people, play a game is the immersion in a story. The gods have set a basic story, early players have elaborated on this story and created their government on it. However if I look at the orgs from when I joined 2 years ago and now, they have not changed that much. Administration has done it's best with some interresting events, but the daily RP never really changes and this gives a stagnant, boring situation. This happens in all these games, and this is why you either create an alt or go play another game for a while.

It should also be noted that as a novice, it's sometimes hard to get friends in lusternia. Where as in other games you are often forced to group for certain quests (like dungeons) and thus you automaticly open a friend circle, in Lusternia the step to contacting other people is a lot bigger. I've once tried to make contact with some 'higher' ranked people in an org with a novice and I must say I was rather dissapointed how it's frequent how people just brush you off rather then playing things out.

In Lusternia, people are also a lot less forgiving in you making mistakes. One mistake will generally get you repeatetly killed in game and enemied to 3 different organisations at once, if they are really into it you will also get a topic dedicated to your character in the idiots section.

Now since I already pointed out the player mistakes, some administration ones!

I personally think the penalty for raiding on prime is rediculous. I can understand you wish to lessen conflict due to the constant whining of us players about it. But it has totally destroyed the village conflict quests that would of given atleast some variation. Further more there are no quests to really harm an org without really just focusing on harming that org's novices. (like gorgogs harms novices to much to my liking)

well this are just my opinions, I'm known to be odd though so I wouldn't use it as a basis of what to do.