The problem is this: people want to fight. The community is great for it - on the forums. The forum community of fighters rock, in my humble opinion, because.. I've never had this much of an open resource to write my system. They post trigger lines, help to make a system, curing messages, general info, logs, advice, etc. In Imperian, our combat forums are full of flamewars over how Malignists are overpowered, Monks are skill-less, etc.

However, when you hit the game? The combined blow of the Administration reliably putting conflict in chains by endorsing the whining masses who hate griefing due to a several cases of people who are out of the control, and the general stagnancy or unwillingness of people to discover new venues in which to spark conflict really just crushes the possibility of PK.

My posts are not personal attacks, in my opinion. They're harsh, but really.. if I didn't say it, somebody else would some day down the road. It is better you all hear it sooner than later. I believe my post can have the ideas strained out while ignoring the supposedly offensive wording that 'should be thrown in to the trash': and it should. This is another example of Administrative miscommunication. I make a scathing post as something seeing Lusternia through the eyes of a pseudo-newbie.. and I get an emotional reply about how my post wasn't exactly the nicest.

I'll apologize if anybody was hurt or felt demeaned by it.. but it doesn't diminish the worth of my suggestions whatsoever.

You, sir, are an idiot who has absolutely no understanding of combat. It is amazing you can walk down the highway without dying to a cow. You also have no concept of game balance and your ideas frankly stink on ice. Your ideals of conflict are misplaced, unrealistic and absurd. Ultimately, you are so pathetically unaware of what constitutes good game design that I am embarassed for you.


















Oh, btw, I hope you take my brutally honest assessment of yourself as the constructive criticism it was obviously meant to be.

I do, actually. That's the kind of comment I like to hear from people - even Administrators. It's a lot more honest than some kind of wish-washy 'it's okay' post.

Rodngar - I was going to quote that part of your post that says "an assumed personal attack" and then quote a part of your post that was in fact a personal attack, but couldn't. It definitely came across that way, so it must be something in your tone, I don't know.

Regardless, he didn't say "stupid, incompetant and blind" anywhere. Seems to me that his intention really was just to be brutally honest.

I've collected an audience that I didn't.. really.. mean to. I was merely pointing out the problems that the Administration should be gearing towards fixing - not trying to tear a new one in to them. If I wanted to, I'd put it in rants or something.

I don't really see Rodngar's posts as a personal attack. He's being harsh and honest about some real issues and like it or not, he does make a few points. Valid ones. I especially like what he stated about the Envoy system. I was envoy for a day. One hour into it, I was arguing with Visaeris because he was requesting ridiculous nerfs to Sacraments (though it's been beaten to a pulp) and quit, because I knew it'd ruin what was left to enjoy about Lusternia. The envoy system sucks. Envoys make suggestions based off personal negative experiences and sometimes, with little knowledge of how an ability works. Testing doesn't seem to come into play until after an ability's design or tweaking and usually done by non-envoys. It doesn't even seem as if changes are looked at from every angle before being approved. See: phantom walls. These all-powerful vetoes shut down even basic suggestions and there have been accusations of veto-teaming against one particular side. Envoy suggestions/ideas/skill-fixes should be open for all to read and voice an opinion. What's to hide? I've invested credits into my skillsets, same as everyone else. Why should one group of players have the power to decide how useless or worthless they should be? It's impossible to reach balance that way. Some of the changes that get by sometimes shock me. And I've had an administator come to me in game to state that there has been concern about unnecessary or malicious vetoes against Celest-issued suggestions/changes and that they'd look into it.

On raiding - Remember the 'temporary' change to nexuses, to stop beckoning/summoning into guards off Prime? Well at least let us TELEPORT off our own nexus. It's ridiculous that we can't.

On constructs - Please change the uses of them. If they're supposed to provide optional conflict, why make them so insanely strong for the orgs? (excluding Angelfont. Not sure about Crow's Nest yet). Why make them so expensive to build with maintenance costs? Point blank: No one is going to ignore their construct being attacked, due to those reasons. It's not optional.

In short, I'm not saying that we should ignore one type of player for another but with the way it's looking, Lusternia is becoming a noncombatant's fantasy. I know that most of the players I talk to in game do nothing but bash and chat over ooc clans in game now while we lament the decline of conflict and such.

I think this is more the problem than what Rodngar is saying. No amount of good combat balance or admin nudging will push tons of interest into combat unless people really want it. Even with all the help you can get with writing a system up, there's a large number of people who simply lack the drive to do it on even an elementary level. And while you can attack envoys all you want, it's not just them. The player base as a whole has cried out for this or that, gotten it, and then discovered its not really something they wanted once they have it, or will bicker over the point. I have serious doubts that making public envoy reports would do much more to alleviate "corruption" and "self-interest".

Being largely oblivious to the workings of the envoys and the general OOC scene on Lusternia, though, I can't really comment, and may very well be wrong. I do my best to stick largely to IC venues, I'm not particularly good at any one thing IG, but I have my fun anyways and that's all that matters to me.

Thank you for your support regarding the envoy system. It's appreciated.

It's also pretty outdated by this point-- more recent discussions have, in fact, given an overview of the current system which you do seem to be dramatically overblowing. Feel free to go read them.

Is it the best? No. But I do feel it's pretty effective, especially with the much-weakened veto. Again, go read.

Xenthos, I talk to plenty of envoys in game. If the veto has been weakened, that's great, but don't pretend that you guys don't have a whole lot of say in matters involving our abilities. All I'm saying is that it'd be nice to have it open to everyone to read. Unless...there's some reason this would be bad?

I'm not pretending we don't. I don't really care a whole lot either way on the open-discussion thing-- it's not really going to change how I do my job, because I try to aim for balance. I'm simply stating that I believe he is grossly exaggerating the issue by harping on the "all-powerful veto," when it's really not such a big deal now. If someone, even an entire organization, is backing a veto for political purposes, it's not all that hard to get an override when it's obvious that's what they're doing.

There are, obviously, both pros and cons. People like to know what their envoys are doing, and I'm more than happy to discuss what's going on with those who ask. After all, a lot of my ideas come from comments I get from guild mates or others I'm discussing game balance things with, and running things by the people it affects is a Good Thing. The other side of the issue? There've already been issues with people trying to pressure envoys ICly to "support them," when envoy balance is not supposed to be an IC matter. It's supposed to be aimed OOCly at making the game's skills, overall, more balanced. The admin have to deal with the latter when it crops up. Of course, the admin also set up the entire envoy process the way it is, so it's really their decision either way-- but at the moment, they seem inclined to keep it the way it is (though they have always listened to complaints such as yours, Malicia, and do retool the envoy process when it seems to be getting stuck or factionalized).

*snip*

Same with me, and I'm pretty sure that I don't talk to most of the people she does and vice versa, for what that's worth.

I like the envoys system, and many of the people posting here decrying the horrid state of it really need to actually have been an envoy to comment. I feel that it is unfair for you people to keep insisting that things are just so horrible when you haven't even a concrete idea of how things are or were. Of course, there have been incidents in the past when group vetoing/horrible things/whatever have happened, but new rules and policies have been made to combat that, and I feel it's been pretty effective so far. Am I saying the system is perfect? No, not at all. Honestly, the current envoys in Lusternia are all relatively impartial when it comes to combat matters, barring one or two. Those people however are quickly slapped down.

I assure you, it's a much better system than the other IRE games (from what I've seen, definitely better than Achaea's, since I'm part of the combat council over there too). I make an effort to let my guild know what I've been proposing and why, and I also consult numerous combatants and people knowledgeable in combat about what the current issues in combat are and then subsequently trying to fix them.

Short version: Envoys system is nice, it wasn't so good back in the day, but it's better now, probably one of the best IRE balancing systems, the only drawback is that it depends on a select group of players for input, but so long as the people involved are responsible and mature, then things usually work out fine.

To add on to what Sojiro posted, the concept of balance is different between everyone. What is balanced to a person isn't necessarily so to the others. The envoy process comes to a compromise between both parties, failing which the process of vetoes and overrules come into place. People who are so attached to their classes tend to overlook things, and thus it is up to others to point out the flaws. To say that envoys only nerf skills not belonging to their own class is entirely inaccurate, there have been instances where it was pointed out by envoys who never played the class that various suggestions or skills are too weak, needs upgrade and such. Though I will admit that in the past, we did have the problem of envoys gaming the politics to ensure upgrades for their side and nerfing the other side into the gutter, the situation isn't as bad now though there are times I want to throttle some of the other envoys .... *peer*

The main problem here lies in communication. I also try my best to let my guild know of any changes that impacts the Celestines. A project is very useful for this as they can access it at any time to read it and leave me a message if they have any concerns.

Attacking a city and killing guards without any real reason behind it is not a victory. You have gained nothing for yourself or for you nation from killing those gaurds. A victory is not about the other side losing something, it is about your side gaining something.



It's generaly more along the lines of: "That one guy is cubixing to Nil and attacking demons, then running before we can get up to defend. Let's turn on the powers to keep him out until he's ready to fight for real." or "Oh :censor:. We can't beat 15 guys. Turn on the powers and wait for them to leave."

Discretionary powers should cost power, dpn't get me wrong. They shouldn't be turned on for every raid. I support making the constructs that remove the power costs do something else. But they aren't killing conflict. The lack of good reasons to fight is killing conflict.

Well, if you want my opinion, people are too focused on one form of conflict.

Raiding passes time sure, but I really see it as a wasted effort. We beat them up, we kill them a couple of times, but in the end what's the point? Did we do any real damage? Not really. All you've manage to do is make people cry or angry. There's no real objective. You'll never see Celest fall, you'll never see Serenwilde Burn. All you'll ever really get is a bunch of people calling you a greifer and them restoring the damage through tedious tasks several hours later. Is that really fun? Is it really fulfilling? In some sadisitic, morbid sense maybe... but I would tend to think even in that sense, the feeling would be fleeting at best. We used to raid Celest in hopes that we would have some impact, but after awhile it became apparent that all this really gets is, buffs for the oppposing force and nerfs for your skills. Eventually people left because they saw it pointless, boring, unfair... basically a waste of time.

In other words, making raiding possible or impossible will not make the game more fun. All it will really do is give you another monotnous task to do, wether it be attacking or defending. At least based on the current structure of the game now.

Personally I think the most fun a person gets from a game is when someone is able to immerse themselves into the environment. Through that immersion they are able to enjoy a story and/or live a fantasy. Now stories and fantasies get stale when it becomes the same bloody thing over and over again. A good story would have a good flow, tasks and objectives that people try to achieve because they can and such things would have an impact on the world they are in.

Having seen a different structure of conflict on other games I'll post some differences here.

- The concept of a virtual population:
This is mainly a world view. How big do you think a city or a forest is? Do you think their population hits 10k, 100k, 1M? Do you think the only people involved are just the npcs and pcs combined? If the case is the later then would you really call a population of less than a hundred a city? If it is the former do you really believe a group of 2-10 fighters are enough to blow away thousands of people? From when I played Lusternia it actually seemed to me that the players believe they can take out the entire population of a city by themselves. Sure certain people are damn powerful but to kill an entire city by yourself just makes everything unreal.

(As an aesthetic change maybe what could be done is, soldiers could be grouped as units of soldiers to depict a bigger population for an army, instead of having 10-20 npc guards standing in a room)

Now raiding, by right should be only a form of harrasement, usually utilized to cut off supplies, cause fear etc etc. But if you really wanted to bring down a city you need to come up with something that is bigger in scale. Tactics, political, commercial or warfare are all very limited in Lusternia which makes it very difficult to stir something cool.

- Plots:
Now there have been some cool events in game but one complaint about all of them is that they all seem preplanned to go the way they are supposed to be. They're is almost no player control involved. That and all major events are brought about by immortal thinking. In a sense players are just in the back seat and sent out of their cages to fight over some grain on occassion. They are never given the ability to manipulate their environment. I say plots should be very flexible, through quests (And I'm talking about good quests not the get x amount of something before repop types of quests) and proper thinking playing, RP should be able to move a certain way.

Let's say a soulless attack for example. It should be possible for Magnagora to try and tame the soulless beast and use it against Celest if they chose to do and really strived for it. Meaning someone could spend their time trying to research ways to do it. Give them little quests they can go on, which could span into retrieving a single item from a certain place, or exploring, or capturing a sample speciment they could test on. Tons of hours for the players that is centered around conflict but has nothing to do with raiding. (Of course for this you'll need to have unexplored areas, areas that are not easily accessed, immortal support to help players achieve something that the code doesn't support,, support to help make the world more alive) Of course the grander it is the harder the tasks would be, but in the end it should be that everything is acheivable even if it's reaching for the stars. If not then the advantages of being a MUD isn't really fully utilized and there is no real difference in game play when compared to a MMPORG.

-Losing and winning
Who has actually lost in Lusternia? Can you really say someone got beat or is getting beat. It's an everlasting war that has numerous battles that lead no where. Honestly, after so long the dumbest of characters would have probably realized it by now. There are not that many people who like losing, but there has to be winners and losers. From my point of view, it looks like Lusternia's aim is to have a balance between all the factions. Balance and conflict doesn't really go. The whole point is to become stronger so you can win not become strong so you can be rebalanced to become equal with the rest, yet again.

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Okay, I've spent too much time here as is and I should be going, but the basic point I wanted to bring up was that there are plenty of ways to have conflict without having to raid. Hell, you guys could hold battle tournaments and put stakes in it, like village control, power, comms gold or what not. Of course, for something to really work you need the cooperation of both players and immortals to create something cool. (well and permadeath...)

There's already been a thread made on why completely opening up the envoy process would be bad news. It's not that old. Go necro it if you want to have that discussion. I, for one, don't want to deal with envoys who feel pressured to upgrade already useful skills, especially when a Seren leader has already commented on how frustrating it is to have an envoy who might not be working in the way they want them to be. If you think personal gripes are bad in the insular group of the envoys, I would be happy to post some choice snippets from my messages to show you what the community at large looks like.

My suggestion: Play Lusternia for three years then read your post again. Conflict was much different in open beta and although what happened there would be considered 'griefing' now it was fun back then as everything was still new.

Now however I honestly can't say I find it fun anymore being forced into defending the same mobs for the 1001th time and that 24/7 of my online time. If that is what you understand under conflict, then please try another IRE game.

I also don't know what cornflakes you eat but I have found the Administration in general to care about player input. That too is something you will notice after having played for a while and not being so new anymore.


EDIT

One word: CRM

I can't help but think that's the single most worst suggestion for a business.... Wait, what business? I see none. Must have closed down already with no customers and a horrible reputation for not giving about them.

And I have to admit you're amusing me. In one post you tell people to stfu if something bothers them about the game, in the next you complain about the administration not listening to players concerns.. hrm..

Alger: I don't think IRE is designed to cope with that sort of thing. Maybe it'd be better, but it's not likely to work with the constraints we have.

Xavius: When put that way, it sounds like you're saying "comment on how frustrating it is to have an envoy who might not be working in the way they want them to be" is a bad thing, or somehow unreasonable. The catch is, this is exactly the situation people are talking about as a problem, because the envoys don't always get things right. This is hard to explain without giving names and examples, but you're essentially saying envoy privacy and not getting flak from the populace is more important than knowing what incompetent envoys are doing -wrong- and being able to call them out/get a new envoy somehow (they're Divine appointed, so if they are doing it wrong there's nothing you can do about it.)

You seem to be coming in with this assumption that the envoys are more right and logical-minded than the populace they represent. This is NOT always the case, and orgs can get screwed for representation when it isn't and be unable to fix it.

I've been wondering for some time now whether envoys don't suffer the same issue(s) discussions, arguments, meetings and presentations do: The person / people most vocal win, often regardless of the quality of their arguments or suggestions.