What is it that draws people to MUDs? Anyone know? What is it we could do better to draw people to Lusternia? Ever since I started playing this game it has always felt to me like a close knit game or some such. Kind of like a small town out in the middle of nowhere where everyone knows everyone. Back when I played Achaea I would always come across someone I haven't never met before. Now sure there were the regulars that were always there but they constantly had an influx of new players. How can we get the same effect for Lusternia? I'd really, really like our player base to be expanded. To be able to see well over 100 people on at any given time. Today I checked the Achaea player count on the login screen: 224 adventurers are currently in the realms. That's pretty well twice what Lusternia has at any given time. Lusternia on QW (I know it doesn't count in people with gems but not a whole whole lot of people have these. Perhaps we could add 15 to the count) (*) Currently, there are 52 Lusternians on this Plane and 34 on other Planes. For the most part these numbers are generally average for the game at all times aside from "off peak" and truthfully, this disappoints me quite a bit because the game is actually a pretty good one.

To add a little more to this, all this that I thought about was brought on due to alts. There have been times I've seen some new characters around and thought to myself "Neat, we're getting new people." and then later on, come to find out that the new person I saw was just another alt from the alt brigade. Yes, Shaddus, this is pointed at you too.

I think if we tried to get the numbers like Achaea has then we would have to change Lusternia until it was no longer Lusternia. It's complicated, we ask for people to RP, we generally shun the idiots and kiddies, and it's difficult to break into. From the impression I get Achaea does none of those and for a lot of people it's game play has really suffered. MUDs are already a niche and when you start asking things from players and make a complicated game then you're limiting even more who is going to play. So I think we really can only have it one way or the other. A large playerbase by MUD standards but a less complicated and rich game or a complicated and rich game but a sort of small game base. Also remember that compared to a lot of MUDs we have a decent sized about of players.

I think a big part of what draws me to MUDs is that everything is so hectic around me, personally. They allow me to relax because I get to do things that I certainly..that none of us can certainly do, in real life. We can be who we want to be and just for a little while, forget about everything else. We could be obese basement dwellers (no offense to those who might be) or even the most beautiful girl in the world, but there, it opens up so many other options for us just to be something different for a while. To do something different. I have played Achaea, in fact, it was the first IRE game I played. Going there from First Age: Avalon which normally has anywhere from 2-20 players online at a time, was really difficult for me. I'm not one to talk about alt brigades, because I have one in every city/commune and sometimes two. Though mostly that's so I get to see the aspects of different sides of roleplay. I think what people like about Achaea is that it's not as wrapped up in roleplay as we are and so many come to Lusternia looking for the quick 'lets pwn in some pvp' action. However, the roleplay in lusternia is so much more developed, thought out and all around better than that in Achaea.

Achaea's playerbase seems to have devolved over the years, becoming less and less into the roleplay and actual reasons for killing people into "Look, I pwn'd a nub, lets go pwn more.". I think that if we REALLY try to make sure that we get the newbies coming in IMMEDIATELY involved in the roleplay, they'll be more apt to stay instead of feeling like they're outside on a cold winter's night looking into a room full of happy people sitting warm in front of the fireplace.

Just my opinion, however.

Achaea was IREs earliest, and Lusternia is the newest (even if it isn't "new" in literal terms) so Achaea will naturally have a larger population than Lusternia. Lusternia's selling point also used to be the heavy RP, which is fading into the background, and that coupled with combat balance in a current downward spiral, people just aren't going to flock heavily towards Lusty.

That being said, I think people come to MUDs over MMOs is the RP aspect MUDs tend to enforce. As a general rule, anyways. Some MUDs don't have any RP, and some MMOs do.

The game just lost its fun, for me. I don't want to make an alt because it's just so expensive, and Alianna herself has been in a slump. With school starting today I'll hardly have more time.

What drew me in? The game was fun. There were things for me to learn, goals to reach. First, when I was learning from Yini, it was cudgel. And then stagstomp. And then narcolepsy. And every step of the way I improved and polished my fighting and became a pretty damn good Druid. Raids were common, sometimes balanced, sometimes not, but I really did have fun.

Nowadays? I don't know. VA has been a bit of a dead end for me. What is there for me to do? Trans Ascendance for a cult I won't use? My Divine is inactive. I'm certainly not fond of my guild. My guild's fighting style is difficult even on its good days and it'd be too expensive for me to switch. And there's no way I'm getting back into the PK business when the numbers appear as skewed as they are today.

Socially, stuff is dead, too. All these novices flooding in, I have no idea who anyone is anymore. All the lovely familiar faces are gone. I could try and make some new friends, sure, but few seem to want to socialize with Alianna, possibly due to intimidation, who knows.

As for Achaea? I'm never going back there, ugh. That's Niche game meets Runescape. While it'd be nice to have 200 people, it's a question of quality versus quantity.

Decent sized, sure, the same old faces are.. well, old. They get into the same old habits and that gets.. old. The game is losing it's greatness that it once had, really, and the pbase was even smaller back then. People have become lazy and I'm sure people get burned out with some of the things that they do. A huge hindering factor to the game when there is never anyone new or up and coming players to do the replacing of said burned out people. Regardless, my main disappointment with alts in this game is, yes I understand people like to try new things, but we're taking from one and just putting it elsewhere. Nothing is coming of it.

Sometimes I DO make alts to try out new skills to see if perhaps there MAY be something I want to do with one of my established characters. Now, there are some REALLY great actual newbie chars that ARE up and coming. There are a lot of alts, though. I have six alts, three I rarely play, one I semi-play and two that are quite established. For me, I get bored easily when I'm doing the same damn thing and slogging through the same damn stuff, but who wants to be like others and just rip off all the established stuff to throw their main(s) somewhere else? For me, that's why I make alts. If I'm burned out from one char or just need a break, if I've had too much of raiding and just want to work on things in some peace, I switch to a Seren alt. If I want to hunt/raid I switch to my Glom alt. If I want to influence/hunt, I switch to my main. If I want to work on rituals and help run a guild, I switch to my second Seren alt. And if I want to write music, work on stage play, do some alchemy, etc, I switch to my Mag alt.

I know that may not make sense for some, but every time I switch to an alt, there's something new or at least different that I CAN NOT do with any of my other chars.

Sheesh, all of these negative comments are making me want to quit playing...

At any rate (and a positive rate), I think that one thing that draws to IRE is that it's run by people that are paid to run it by the players and as such do their best job to keep the game fun/interesting, and thus they try to retain the playerbase.

I actually think that releasing two or three orgs might increase the RP, if people think it's missing- I know I got a LOT less people coming to RP with Mirami when there were 20-40 people awake in Serenwilde at a time, but much more at 10-20. Optimal org size is about 20, five guilds at 4 people per, from what I've seen. 10-15 is fine, though.

Also, I love events where everybody goes scurrying over the basin for stuff. Gnomes/presents are awesome because you don't get 0 gnomes because you're a circle 60 as opposed to a demigod. This even-ness to players in some cases (I think) keeps a lot of players involved enough to become those high-level combatants.

I can't make alts and stick with them. Going from demi with 7 trans skills to nondemi with 0 is rough.

I consider Karel an up-and-coming novice. Sure, I've had other characters, but they've been suicided. I remember the "glory days" and miss them, but I have hope for the future. After all, nothing will get better if we sit on our thumbs and say that nothing will get better.

As Gandhi said, "be the change you want to see in the world." It's why I try to RP even when those around me aren't, for example.

Yeah, there's something to be said for the pbase, and all the old faces disappearing (Amatsemaru, Gavriel...), but on the flip side, we can't just give up. Which, judging by the tone of some'a these posts, people are considering...

You know me, I used to play Achaea, I used to like to PK on Achaea. I'll admit I said "lol" in public places with say or whatever. Sure Achaea has garbage for RP that doesn't mean players won't be willing to RP even a bit if they came to here. I won't say I'm the most fantastic rper but I can say for sure I act better than some people that have been around longer (See: Asmoth). Combat in Achaea was far from "balanced" really. Bards were broke as :censor: when I last played there, runewardens, monks, shaman, whatever. It had a bunch of stupid things that far outdo what some complain about in Lusternia. I recall a time I was fighting Cooper and as a dwarf with over 4k health and I was a priest, he tjabbed me for over 3k health with an non-artie rapier, I probably died I don't remember but I still played the game- it was fun. Every game has its issues so you can't really blame Lusternia's low player count on that. There is something more to it I would think.

I've had hope for a while now.

Keep the faith, brother!

It's not that there is no hope, I love Lusternia. It's the ONLY game where I can have the roleplay I desire, but still be able to have people around to actually roleplay with. I'm not a great combatant IG, because I don't care to be. It's not because I don't know how to cure or other things, but combat isn't my main priority. Sometimes I think newbies feel pushed into combat. So I think if we took extra care with the ones we can tell are TRUE NEWBIES and yes, you can almost always tell when someone is and isn't a true newbie, that we could keep them. You know, that's what undersecs and collegium professors are for. We need to begin spiriting people away into the roleplay, getting them swept up and into the game without just leaving them to fend for themselves.

Weirdly, I AM always this much of a newbie/novice advocate. They're the things that make any game thrive or help to break it. If we keep them occupied, teach them, let them know that we're not just forsaking them...then they'll be more apt to stay (alts included).


@Celina: I hate that too. Going from 87 and well, one trans skill, but at least GOOD abilities in each skill I do have, is REALLY hard. But I make it work. I hoard gold on my alts and buy IG credits because I can't afford to buy them irl anymore. Sometimes it's just the amount of dedication that you want to put into them. Most people make alts so they can start over that I've noticed and I've had several friends who have done so.

I joined Lusternia for the deep, immersive history, and the roleplaying aspects that, quite frankly, gave me what I've seen for a while now as the perfect blend of structure and free form to both allow for individual creativity, and to give that creativity a positive direction to blossom. When it boils down to it, you really didn't need to be a great combatant in order to be recognized in Lusternia. Those who were great roleplayers, great tradesfolk, and great diplomats were encouraged as well.

Just like the introductory quest states, there were so many paths to become powerful, and so many ways to contribute, that Lusternia didn't feel like any other game, it felt like a whole new world.

I've not been playing as long as some people, but I have been playing for quite a while. And even still, there are aspects of the game I can't begin to understand yet. The market system and the political arenas are still new to me. I recently made an alt solely to explore forging and warriors a bit. Literally no other reason, though I put a mindset and a fairly decent description on him, it just didn't feel right for him to be any less of a character than any of my other alts.

Sometimes, I simply think Lusternia is too busy a place. There's always something to do, or someone needed to perform some feat to make sure their org is #1 at whatever, or some quest component that might need attention. When I choose not to log into Lusternia, it is because I think, "gee, if I log in now I should make sure I do A, then B, probably C-U, and a little bit of V. Maybe I should just watch TV/read/sleep early/etc".

Do you have to do these things? No. But it's easy to feel obligated, particularly since these are the things that give your character purpose.

So who cares about that stuff, you say? Just log in and do whatever you want? Okay. What happens at this point is someone logs in, ignores these things... then suddenly finds they have nothing to do and complains about how they are bored.

You could decide you only want to do these things when you feel like, but then you face the reality of having to bounce between RPing apathy and zeal at the drop of a hat, or giving up on that, having no RP at all for the sake of enjoying the game how you want to, even if you'd rather have the RP along with it.

I think a lot of people get into Lusternia because of the atmosphere. What an org stands for, what you have to do, and the unity that creates are major components of that atmosphere. When people are encouraged to actively care less and do whatever, they stop being a part of the atmosphere, and become more like rogues that exist in an organization and just happen to be there. And then Lusternia just becomes another game.

Take that as you will.

I played Lusternia during the beta but was burned out due to the heavy political climate. Went back to Aetolia, burned out there, then a friend and I decided to move from Aetolia to here and restart. They left, I stayed. Aetolia was pretty much the runt of the IR lineup, actually having pretty much the same map as Achaea for well over three years. Even once it started becoming more independant it lost some of it's former charm in the attempt to fix some of it's problems. I like Lusternia for a few reasons. Deep background and history with engaging story, multitudes of quests for people who don't care for pvp to go do, one of the more org balanced pvp systems in IR (each city/commune has a majority of the classes), and dedicated organizational ties that actually make people care about their npcs. Raziela? Touch of perfection. Celest as an organization became actually enraged over what was done to her. I've seen too many games treat the mobs as another bit of window dressing.

So.. For all of it's problems, Lusternia seems to me at least to bring the most to the table. It does quite a few things right, it just seems to have issues with the various details.

When I played Achaea actively I seem to remember it having about 400 people at peak hours. Take that as you will (one option is that my memory sucks)

I wouldn't doubt it, if not 400 then at least mid 300's. I simply wish we could at least get mid 100's - 200 people in Lusternia. Anywhere you go you'll run into some idiot. You can't avoid them all so that is kind of a moot argument. At least some new people to bring the game back to life.