Thank you for that. Forgive my desire to eliminate the habit that some people have of leaving wombats, ponies, mammoths, hounds, and all manner of retardedly inappropriate animals at the city's most sacred grounds. I'll be sorry to see you leave the city over such a small issue.

In any event, I've only been playing for a little bit compared to some, but I've found that the game has a lot of potential, just hidden away in little corners that not everybody can find. Just my 2 cents. Someone that I'm too lazy to go back and quote mentioned that a lot of the game features were very expensive - aetherships and manses, especially. I agree that some interesting features should be made available to newer, poorer players.

Shameless plug! The Cacophony needs smart people! Come play with us! And I don't mean make some alt then leave after we teach you. If you stay, I can pretty much GUARANTEE you'll go somewhere and have fun along the way!

I've had a few periods of inactiveness in the past (and I guess sort of now too b/c of school), and have tried other MUDs. I've met fantastic, nice people (maybe a little too nice), but I always find myself returning, though I feel a bit bad for leaving the people I've met I can't put my finger on what it is. I think there's a great potential, and the Admin sometimes hint at exciting things to come so I wait for those. At the moment the biggest thing for me is having a new system so I might get into PvP, and also the possible return of Isune. I think when we are able to release Hallifax/Gaudiguch it'd make the environment much more interesting. Maybe more staff/volunteers would help pick up the pace too (e.g. bring back Lisaera!). I've seen a lot of Ephermals but how many of them go on to higher positions?

Main reason I'm going insane is that there is absolutely nowhere to bash. People will reply to this post with:

Astral.
Gorgogs.
Sharks.

Is bashing everything? No, but it is definitely something. Being a member of Celest, two or three areas are trimmed out AUTOMATICALLY from my selection.

I can name about 15 high level bashing areas in Imperian, with mobprogs, but not necessarily events to introduce them. Lusternia does seem to be growing, and it's evident because I can't get to a damn bashing area without at least 3 other people there, no matter where it is. I came the opposite direction, and I'll be sticking around. The combat and rate of balance/implementation are very exceptional here. Imperian has classleads once a year, whoever thinks it's anything like envoys is crazy. I could go into severely long detail about why I feel Lusternia is more entertaining and will last longer, but I could also list a few reasons why Imperian has a little more "polish". The main problem for me, as stated though, is land mass. Not enough bashing areas at all.

You proved my point.


And I wasn't going to say your name. But yes I have reasons for why my hound sits where I want it to. And I am glad you and I have come to the agreement my hound will not be moving. But honestly Okteb, it isn't just you, its the frustration in some aspects of Magnagora in general, which some of us are not coping well with. But the hound thing is kind of like the "straw" if you know what I mean.

Desitrus, Yes I agree with you, I love Lusty, just wish I didnt have to have only astral to bash, our land mass has to be at least the same size as impy's if we include astral/cosmic/eth/elemental (I wont include aether because alot of people dont have ships to be able to get there) So we should have tons of areas to bash in, I mean it is wierd to be bashing alongside a celestian in the moors, because that is the only place you can bash.

edit-
Another thing, is the damn lag, it seems to have gotten worse since we switched servers. And it is all IRE games that seem to suffer in this. Is there a problem with the new ISP?

People will leave the game. That is a fact. Either eventually or upon testing out the game. Our main problem solely lies in the fact that most humans are creatures of comfort, we take pleasure and comfort in seeing things we know and understand often. So we form attachments to our fellow players and become used to certain things as being the NORM of the game. So when changes occur like a player leaving, discomfort ensures. This affect our view point of the world as it is. I, myself, is guilty of this at times too.

For example, Daevos being the leader of Magnagora for so long, imagining him stepping down and making way for fresh faces inevitably leads to delusions that the new leader will suck and can't do anything right.

The same goes for electing leaders and getting new wave of ideas in applies to all other organisations. More often than not, I tend to see old leaders get re-elected over new faces on the idea that he/she has done this before, he can do it again. (Even if the person has done several questionable things, they magically get forgotten.. gee sounds familiar doesn't it?) You can hardly expect to move out of this stagnant phase without a major overhaul in player mindset as a whole.

No it wouldn't. It would lead to delusions that something might get done in the city besides the city leader hiding off-plane or fighting.

That's what ministers are for, whip them into work!

I'm not going to take the time to read this entire thread. So, if I repeat something, don't thwap me too hard.


I have to echo that bashing areas is a huge problem. I've personally found very few. And what little I have found, you almost have to fight the other players for one kill. That severly henders growing stronger unless you have the time to spend hours per day waiting for them to repop, and running to get the denizens before anyone else can.

Our bashing areas are in different planes, you say? Well, some of those planes are hard to get to unless you're a member of a certain organization, have the skill in planar, or have group backup because of the open pk.

I'm sure the admin here do a lovely job. But, I've never stayed in a game that I couldn't properly advance without it taking up my entire life. Sure, the game needs depth, but shouldn't be so time consuming.

Personally, I've never noticed this sort of thing happen to Lusternia. If anything, it tends to be Achaeans migrating over here.

And, as old players are, well...old, they get tired of the game. If you feel there's nothing left to do, no more fun in it, then playing the game becomes a chore- the exact opposite of what you want it to be. When that occurs, you go somewhere else for a new experience.

We are definitely aware of the problem with a lack of bashing areas, and are working to compensate for that. We actually have a fairly detailed list of our areas and their rough bashing level targets, so we do notice where there are gaps to try and fill those in. You can expect more high-level bashing areas in the future, though I won't promise when (ultimately because I don't want to promise you something that we can't deliver on time!).

Lusternia has, in my opinion, the strongest areas of the other IRE games simply due to the quests, depth, and history offered by each of our areas. However, we are the youngest game, and thus our world has had the smallest amount of time to develop. This is a problem that will only continue to shrink as time goes on, and Lusternia grows larger and larger.

Is Lusternia growing larger and larger? You probably can't give out the stats on that even if you have them but it's just a casual observation that Lusternia stays about the same size, but with different players over time.

I meant in terms of world size! Only Estarra and Roark can give out specific numbers related to the size of Lusternia, so I'll defer that question to one of them.

It was also noted by someone earlier in the thread that not all areas need to have quests/history/etc, but while that may alleviate some of the problem in the short-term, it ends up making for crappy, bland and boring areas in the longer run. Not every area in Lusternia has, or will have, an honours quest, but all of them are at least more interesting than just a bunch of non-responsive mobs, or a generic "kill all of x and bring me their corpses!" quest.

You're kidding, right? My problem is I usually can only bash for so long, and then I suddenly need to take a long nap to recover 8000+ endurance. I actually have to stop and think about what's the most efficient way to gather experience, as there's just too many options and too little endurance to do it all within! Of course, that might be because I play during relatively quiet hours, but still...

Other places you can try that don't require an aethership (and if you can get someone to take you out, do try the bubbles! They're fun.):

Snow Valley - Sabre tooths and mammoths (Eagles, if you can fly)
Skarch - Sandojins
Observatory - Freaks and spiders

And if all of those fail, there is some half decent stuff to kill in Carai Caroo (and no, not just the kelpie warriors). Zoaka isn't too bad either.

And this is disregarding stuff that would be very difficult/dangerous for you to bash as a Celestian.

Granted, none of these net quiet as much gold as astral/gorgogs/sharks (though freaks come damn close), but still... anything I'm missing that other bashaholics can point out?

Sandojins, the carai caroo things etc. just aren't even noticeable experience. You could hunt there for hours and need to regen endurance, but you wouldn't get anything out of it. I bet you could waste that much endurance on rats too. (Snow Valley and Arthar'rt are good though.)

@Morgfyre: Ok, fair enough!

Yeah, I don't know why but I don't have the same drive I use to. Maybe after my break I can continue with my 8 hour lusty days though for now I just can't enjoy it.

I agree it has great depth, and quests. And to the response about having non quest RP bashing areas. I think you didn't get what I meant.

I mean places like Balach Swamp, which doesnt have some major quest associated to it. Little places people have to walk through, like the Grey Moors. If the Moors had good exp things in the fields that are in between camps, people could bash those too. So say I wanted to walk to Southguard, maybe I would walk around the mountains but there may be a valley in between here and there that have phoenix's that can be killed and sold to someone for gold or something. But they don't have to have some serious in depth RP reason that they are there, they wouldnt need a book dedicated to them. That was all I meant by having a few bashing areas without such in depth RP background.

Seas have sharks, there is no real in depth reason except that sharks live in the ocean, so maybe alot more marine life in the oceans will cause people to hunt those type of fish too. Maybe sea snakes that can be used for hunters, or giant squid in the deeper waters, whales, etc. Just some filler for some of the areas we already have that give decent experience for people so that they are not all sitting at moors/gorgogs.

But yea Imperian looks larger on a map, but Lusty by far is much bigger, only people don't see it since there are several different planes to Lusternia.



And I still hope we get an archetype warrior that can only use up to chain or leather armor, and can actually cause damage instead of relying on wounds. That would be such a beautiful thing to make warriors be what they should have the chance of being.

Thanks for fixing the problem. I am so glad you guys are going to make areas worth people's time and actions.

I don't imagine it's easy to dish out new areas, especially with a population as small as Lusternia's.



They can and likely will at some point. Clementius from Achaea often gave out information of who was what class and what race to prove points.




Lusternia by far has the best history, I think. Achaea's was boring and no one really went into it. Lusternia's world is so new that the history and all is still fresh, which is nice.

I expect that my perspective is significantly biased by being relatively new to Lusternia, but I rather like it here. I like the depth of backstory in the areas, most of which remain unexplored by me, and I have liked the people with whom I have interacted. The library and culture system is simply remarkable, and affords extraordinary opportunities to deepen the history of the Basin. The envoy system is a model of its kind, and there does seem to be less killing merely to kill - as opposed to fighting with a purpose - than elsewhere, though I expect and hope that more can be done to shift the ratio.

I would suggest that there is a cycle to these things, a natural turnover of the playerbase, and that it can seem to players of a certain tenure in Lusternia that more people than usual are leaving because of their position on that cycle. Alternatively, I can readily imagine that the Ascension event somewhat disturbed the usual pattern, and so that we are seeing two month's worth of departures concentrated in one. Unless Estarra confirms that long term retention is an issue, as she has novice retention, I do not think that we are actually seeing an exodus.

You mean large? Our playerbase has grown alot, especially in the past few monts. I remember a time when the max amount of people on at peak times were 60-80. It is now 100+ sometimes as much as 120. And we keep a large amount on at off-peak times too.




Yes, the history here is great, along with the complexities of combat. I am glad they do so much here. I have much respect for Estarra, Roark and of course the builders who put so much into this place.