The beauty of the veto system is best seen then. Compromise is key.

You know, it's seeing a post like this coming from an Admin is what totally ruins my experience of a game. Even when it's not even directed at me. Page 7 was the first page I read (since it was the last page) and this was up at the top of the page.

I have been an Admin in other Muds (non IRE) but honestly I think this uncalled for in a public setting.

Was it warrented? I don't even care anymore.

Have fun and goodbye

Fail.

Victories are achieved by the opposite side losing something, not your side gaining something. While it can be slightly more complex in the real world, IRE combat is rather limited, as Rodngar has already said.

To be honest, this has already been said. It's late, and I simply don't feel like reiterating several points because one person can't understand basic English.

You're just overreacting now. It was a parody of a post made just a few before it. And the admin can see your other forum accounts, by the way, so making a new one is kind of pointless.

EDIT: And to the guy above me, for making disparaging comments about "basic English":

Victory
...
3. Supremacy, superiority, triumph or success in any contest, struggle or enterprise.

So instead of going "fail" and making comments you can disprove simply by pulling up a dictionary, try to politely attack the idea itself.

Because everyone is being just warm and polite too?

I don't mean to be rude, but Rodngar basically pimpslapped Lusternia's administration with the explosive force of a gas tanker, yet you're speaking to me because I pointed out how incorrect someone's post was and wasn't entirely polite about it?

No, I disagree with Rodngar's way of handling that too, but Estarra responded herself so I wasn't going to bother.

Particularly because you were wrong (their post wasn't incorrect), the snarkiness was a bit unnecessary.

That said, some more warmth and politeness here in general would be nice, but there you go.

EDIT: Also because you didn't actually give any evidence, just "fail, but I'm too tired to explain why." If you look at it objectively I'm sure you can see why people would find that hard to just stand and take.

You know, I think this whole thread has slowly become exactly that. Fail.

It seems to me like the people who say most of the game who don't find being jumped or raided everyone hour or so to be excessive are wrong. If there really is such a large number of people who don't mind that level of conflict, what is stopping them from just PKing each other for fun, while leaving the people who don't want to PK as much as that alone.

Just as the admins don't govern every aspect of our RP, why should they need to change things to govern what form, and how much of this conflict we should get?

I had to lol at Rodgnar. Sorry but seriously.

Conflict quests: Stupid stupid stupid, these had counter-quests which you HAD to do to stop the effects. From memory they were made harder but people were still doing it on a consistent basis. If you think they should be simply brought back please set up a map in an rts with some rule that simply restarts the map everytime you hit a win condition and see how long it takes for you to give up.

Envoys: I must be lucky cause most of the envoys I remember kept their guild informed and had files up about the changes they were trying to get.


It would be nice if sections of prime weren't under avenger watch (like the entire undervault as opposed to sections) with objectives that could be fought over. There seem to be ideas along this vein cropping up as they allow for combat and "win"ness but you don't have to deal with the negatives of defending unless you want to.

Also if players could have event requests or something that would be cool, yes extra work but it could allow for people to feel like their work has more meaning. Ideally just notifying that you might be performing a ritual for x at a certain time, so they could come and play along maybe even start events via these player initiated rps

No, I wasn't wrong.

In IRE combat, there's nothing to gain that determines a victor, which leaves only one possible solution. Whichever side gets the piss beaten out of them the most loses.

If you're going post back and contradict me, actually back up your argument, instead of saying "No, you're wrong" or trying to apply how the real world works to IRE combat.

The latter isn't going to work, either. Lusternia isn't the real world.

However if conflict was about gain rather than loss it would be less soul crushing and, I believe, therefore more likely to succeed, for example you have a small loss from some form of conflict but both sides have a chance to benefit therefore desire to participate and no requirement to do so

Wait, what? No! The free-PK areas we do have are already obnoxious. Since most of the worthwhile things to bash (read most, not all) are in free-PK zones, they're ideal spots for people who want to gank people without any personal repercussions. We certainly don't need to add any more of them.

Ostensibly constructs served the purpose of "with objectives that could be fought over" but taking them down is a pain, especially since the times were lengthened, their effects are probably too large, and getting there is such a pain in the arse (thank god I have haven tess so I don't have to put up with that anymore) if you die even once that fighting there has become impractical.

I say "the effects are probably too large" as relevant here because, especially since they have no power cost, it makes it required to defend them. This is the main one of course, which happens to be the one people are most insistent on taking down (for the same reason.)

Risch: wildnodes, for example. If you win, your opponent's org doesn't "lose", you just get power. Pretend it gives something more worthwhile than power and you'll see how you can have victory be something you win rather than just your opponent losing.

You know, I bet if the admin said "there will be no vernals draining nexi ever, nor anything that uses massive amounts of power at once, so no one needs to bother hoarding it" and made constructs require power to maintain rather than -gaining- an org power...

It's more aimed towards a conflict place where you can feel like you've won against your enemies(the quests whatever), the avenger free places are either linked to an org, faethorn, astral or the aetherbubbles. There are three? bubbles that have some conflicting quests that don't relate to an org, faethorn was changed to remove the conflict and astral is astral.

More "Yeah woo we won, and we get this cool prize" and "Meh we lost but it didn't really cost us much and we got to fight Woo"

I'd suggest actually listening to him instead of screaming about his posting style. He makes very good points.

Just for clarity, the admin can't be blamed for the envoy debate and reports not being public. That's my 'fault' - I set that up when I was first an envoy, and have hosted it since. I choose not to make it public, and I don't intend to in the near future. Reports can and should be visible in game when they're finished, and most are - but not every discussion or comment.

Don't blame Estarra unfairly for that particular envoy issue. (And if the wiki is no longer optimal, I can remove it in favour of some alternative forum that is set up by someone else. No worries.)


On a related note, I think this thread shows more about how the average player has little understanding of objective game design beyond their own benefit than anything else. I'm referencing particularly Rodngars post, which made me do quite a double take - bashing npcs and knocking over defensive statues as the most satisfying 'victories' in a PvP game? I mean, I'm not even that overly interested in competition and I can see that is rot.

Not to say there aren't problems to be addressed, but thank goodness we have admin who for better or worse at least try to make the best world for everyone.

He makes a couple of valid points, hidden behind his attacks. The vast majority of his points, though, are made from ignorance. He makes assumptions about what the majority of Lusternians want, how the envoy process works, and how conflict should work. While he can go on and on to say it doesn't matter that he's new, it does - he's wrong on all three of these, which he would know if he stayed around for awhile before making too many accusations.

He has some valid points about the envoy process, but from what I've seen it has improved dramatically. He also recognized that conflict is diminishing, but he has attributed it to the wrong thing. You have a clan where people can join and PK anyone in the clan freely; that basically means the divine protection on prime does not apply at all. Anyone in the clan can kill anyone else at any time - it basically demonstrates what Lusternia would be like with no avenger system and no divine intervention into combat. How many people do you see out killing each other for fun?

The problem is not with the admin, it is with the player base. We do not organize our own conflict; a lot of people do not enjoy combat at all, but there is also constant complaining on the forums whenever political or social conflict comes up. There is the very easy solution of saying "the admin should do it my way, and everyone else should leave" - which is great, until you realize that you are not the majority and it is not the admin's fault.

If you want a different game, go play a different game. If you want to suggest tweaks to improve Lusternia, by all means do so, but make sure you understand the game and implications first.

I was actually a little shocked to see this, as well as the post you made before it. You just shattered the last bit of illusion I had regarding your maturity and ability to ignore flames. Rodngar made some fairly valid points about both the way the game is run and about who's running the game, and to disregard them all because you don't like his tone is irresponsible. If Rodngar was trolling (he wasn't), congratulations, troll fed. If I was a new player or potential customer and saw someone get this kind of response from an administrator, congratulations, customer lost. No amount of great gameplay will make me tolerate an admin that flames his users.

I've said this many, many times before when these kinds of posts come up, but you are the public face of a large part of a corporation. It is therefore imperative that you behave in a clean, professional manner in all of your communications with your customers. Smartass remarks make your company look, well, stupid, to say the least.

What were these valid points, out of curiousity?

First, I do not think Rodngar really had any valid points, or knew much about what he was posting. I agree with Estarra's point in that he was simply speaking from ignorance, and attempting to make his point through accusations and fiery words rather than any actual substantiation. In other words, he is wrong, but attempting to convince people he is right by using "flair" tactics.

That said, I also have to agree that the Estarra's response was inappropriate for an administrator. You do not have to coddle people, but you do always have to be respectful, even if they are not respectful in return. You could have easily ignored his post, locked the thread, or even deleted the whole thread - any of those would have been okay. I also appreciate the humor and irony in your post - had it come from any of the other players, I would have laughed and quoted it in my signature or something. However, the administrators should be above such things, and I agree that it would be a turnoff for me if I were a new player to Lusternia to read posts such as those.

It's extremely hypocritical for people who like to be rude and disrespect to the administration to expect them to be akin to customer service people in a bank, unable to ever lose their tempers or get angry or be human. Especially when this "business" has a lot of people playing for free and never ever buying their products.

Sometimes a little rant might be needed.

Granted, I wouldn't expect it to be the norm, but a lot of people are living in the age of "transparency", and want to freely rant on blogs. I want and expect people to be polite and civil as the norm, but I also believe in Carl Sagans revised "tit for tat" rule, where you use kindness first, but respond in kind when treated poorly.

There is no problem with responding by telling him that he doesn't know what he's talking about, but it should always be done respectfully. It is similar to customer service at a bank - the administration is the public face of IRE. Anything and everything they do reflects either positively or negatively on the company and on this game. I agree 100% with what Estarra was saying, but I think that the way she did it reflected negatively on Lusternia.