Thank you, finally a step towards making Lusternia, a horribly novice-unfriendly game due to its complexity, a bit easier to get into. I hope the quests illustrate various terms that are unique to Lusternia and which often confuse novices, as that would be a great way to get them accostomed to what the heck someone means by a "demesne" or "manse" or the "aetherways" and so on.


My only complaint is that the Halls of the Ancestors is already a location in the game, and quite a nicely written one at that - the underground half of the Hartstone Guildhall.

The names are certainly not set in stone, so feel to offer alternate suggestions for the Seren collegium.

The halls of the naked dancing fae!


wait.. that's the frat house

Well, someone in the Havens did suggest the Hall of Squirrels some time ago...

Foal's Creche, Ancestral Grove, Ethereal Gardens...

Two questions:

Will Champs and Masters be able to help out?

and

The quests, would they be similar to the monk/warden? training in imperian?

Anyone can help that wants. You need to contact your patron about joining the clan.

The quests will be whatever they are designed to be by the players and the admin overseeing each individual project. If you want it to be like the monk/warden thing on Imperian then it will subsequently be the same. If you don't want it to be like that then it won't be.

Sounds like a great idea. Just a couple of questions:

1. Will the novices actually be in the guild once they leave the Portal, or will they only be in the guild after they graduate from their Collegium?

2. Is this 'subarea' going to be a place accessible by all, or just novices and GAs, secs and undersecs?

I think it's a great idea!

Sorry, I mean't about when they are implemented. It says Admins and their staff run them, just wanted to clarify if that included the other leaders

Ancestral Grove is probably the best name for the Seren collegium.

The only thing is that it doesn't give a sense of "school" though like the others do. Hrm. Are there any terms derived from native american culture that we can suggest? I don't know much about it, but Seren culture seems loosely based on it.

I liked the Ethereal Garden...

Everyone.

Wow, thank you for announcing and completing this fix for the major problem of retaining new blood before working on other large projects to please the slowly dwindling base of existing players. Additionally, thank you for not telling us that redoing the newbie system would require too much effort two months ago when we last brought up the novice problem. Finally, thank you for addressing our concerns and correcting such a crucial matter in a timely manner.

/sarcasm

I'm sorry, I frankly can't say I'm happy. I've tried to stay silent, to keep things positive. I realized that my complaining was doing nothing, and while I had enjoyed how easy it was to get a rise out of Estarra, I realized that my method of contributing was nonproductive. So I tried a practice of making sure that my posts were either positive or nonexistent. I held my tongue when the Undervault came out despite the existence of other areas that needed some attention. I stayed my hand when Monks were announced as the Bard guilds slowly died. But I can't hold myself any longer. This, I feel, is a slap in the face.

Now you have time for novices?

Now you have time for attracting new players, no, new customers to the game?

Not before you spent months working on a new area. Not before you spent many man-hours working on monks. But after. I have seen this behavior before. I exhibit this behavior. Estarra, your design pattern for this fully operational, commercial game, mirrors my own design pattern on my hobbyist endeavors on my hobbyist games. I flit around from project to project, leaving gaping holes in design and execution here and there with little comments saying that I'll fix it eventually. I often leave the most crucial flaws fixed until I just can't continue improving the other code, then I slap together a hasty fix and keep the item on my "to-do" list. This is fine in my development pattern, because nobody is actually going to play my game until it's finished. I can take as long as I want, because this is my project that I'm doing for my own personal enjoyment.

Lusternia, on the other hand, is a functioning commercial enterprise. Estarra, as the administrator of this game, you must be immediately focused on what will make the game better (and subsequently more profitable) in the long run. Old players will stop buying credits once they reach their own personal limits on their willingness to spend money on this game. New players, however, are a practically limitless source of potential income. I can firmly state that the game, right now, is good enough for the majority of players. You have us hooked. You have me hooked. I can complain all I want about how the game is run, but the underlying concept, the stuff that was delivered during the glorious days of Open Beta, has me logging in every day to make sure my shop is stocked and the Serenwilde hasn't burned down.

You must now put the correction of existing flaws before the creation of new, shiny things. The newbie problem has continued to drive away potential players and customers while you made the established players slightly happier with something they were already happy with. This is not a good business strategy. This is a piss poor business strategy. How is it not so obvious that each newbie who complains about how the early game isn't fun and subsequently leaves is a bite out of Lusternia's potential income? If this had been proposed and implemented two months ago (and coupled with some decent marketing to get them here in the first place), Lusternia could have been full of fresh blood. There could have been more people here to get further hooked when the Undervault was released with its high-level quests and truckloads of rooms. The Bard guilds could be full of players, and there could even be enough left over to fill up the Monk guilds. With careful planning, this kind of growth is possible!

But it is the lack of this fundamental planning that is going to keep Lusternia in the realm of mediocrity in the public eye, crushed beneath the weight of a slowly shrinking playerbase. The administrative direction seems to be that of the hobbyist programmer, the butterfly that flits between flowers, partaking in only the sweetest of nectars while ignoring the lizard, quietly sitting on the ground while waiting for its time to strike. I have watched in silence, even in quiet support of many of the seemingly random decisions made in the past few months. I have watched this game teeter on the brink of insignificance for too long, and I can hold my tongue no longer.

Estarra, look towards the long term goals. Write a roadmap. Think, for once, about how the immediate change will affect both the overall quality and profitability of this game. Make this game great.

That's not entirely true. It might just be me, but I don't see a smaller pbase now than from when I last had an apocalyptic tantrum.

Not shrinking != growing, I'm afraid. The only new blood are transfers from other IRE games, and they're coming in about as fast as old players are leaving.

Perhaps I should clarify. Magnagora is certainly the same size, but in my walks through Celest/Seren/Glom, the player amounts I see are a little bigger. Mostly unfamiliar faces.

But that could just be me.

Thank god we still have people like Verithr- awwww dammit

Last one - I'd be a little more interested in stopping the Gods from going so nuts with power. Old Fain might have disfavoured Narsrim a fair bit, but he didn't go so far as offering favours for his death. Or random gods giving out two month tdfs to as yet unnamed players.