There was an OR in my suggestion....

Great post, agree on 1 & 2 (except tearing it up..)

I really dislike how much upkeep there is. I'd suggest picking a few things and just cutting them out entirely. It's frustrating to RP/quest/hunt/learn/fight/whatever when you have so much to do constantly. We each have our priorities, but so many things can only lead to forced apathy in some areas. Apathy breeds more apathy, and there goes the player for good eventually.

Mentor system, I would agree, is a very good one.

Although... could we get rid of the 50hr cap? I know on my first character, I spent 60 hours in Newton before I was referred to a guild-mentors scroll, and a good number of the 'true' novices I see in the SS are about 55 hours as well, when they discover the mentor scrolls.

Mirami's the character I play (The more I think about it) because of her mentor- she's the first character of mine that got a mentor that was awake/active/intelligent/patient.

So... Lengthen the mentor-able max time to 75 hours?

EDIT: added 'patient'.

Well, by the same token, the best time for a little one to latch on to a mentor that's actually needed is in the beginning. When I first started playing Achaea, I spent my entire first playing session being passed from one set of hands to another. I didn't really understand it at first, but I had fun being dragged around everywhere. We landmarked a bit, we fought off raiders, I met a lot of people, and I had fun. It's been a long time since I've seen an undersec devoted to the idea of teaching "advanced" stuff and having fun in the process. Most of them just point people towards the novice scroll, answer questions regarding the novice scroll, and funnel people into the vanilla (read: crappy PvE) novice advancement path.

Then again, the game shouldn't rely on the people to be interesting. That's an uninteresting game with interesting people who happen to play it.

Hm, quite possibly true that my memory is selective, but more likely that as a newer player, I was simply unaware of these things and was just left standing there when everyone whisked off to some event or other. I just feel like the rate of new releases has been increasing. Whether this is true or not, only you can answer. Also, I didn't start playing Lusternia until its second birthday. Don't worry though, I remember the conflict whine-fest, though X_x. But someone did make a comment that I think rings true: The release of the monk and bard guilds thinned out the existing 4 guilds, thus reducing player density, thus reducing interaction.

Also, I don't think it's fair to say that the players aren't telling you what needs fixing. There are the envoys, for one (but that has its own problems, I hear), then there are all the points people are raising here (too few players to support 24 guilds, HG/XI being rather unpleasant in terms of quest design, etc). I think that if you did a monthly (or heck, even bimonthly) request for things to fix thread (like the one that spawned the forging change, which I daresay -everyone- except monks was happy about) that you'll 1.) find out a bunch more things that people want changed and 2.) be given the interface through which to fix it. Desitrus did a great job talking to people, finding out what made forging suck, and getting the tempering idea put through, which while ridiculously simple for what seemed to be such a problem, worked better than anything I could have dreamed up.

tl;dr: Create a request for ideas thread. But don't fret when consensus seems to ask for a sweeping change! You want ideas, we've got 'em.

I know exactly what Lusternia needs!!


MOAR PWNIES

I agree. The sixty-hour thing is probably a legacy from Achaea, but I think it's easier in Lusternia to hit that limit (or the level limit even more so) without having gotten a mentor and then realize you really should have gotten one.



There are certainly a lot of redundant afflictions that can be eliminated (like Peace and Pacifism, or Stupidity and Broken Skull) but in many cases getting rid of them will require other tweaks because they will break tactics that people in some archetypes depend on (for instance, in the latter case, these use different cures blocked by different things).

But the thing that would make the biggest difference would be eliminating those afflictions whose primary purpose is to make systems much harder to write or use. For instance, the slow-actions-down ones (Aeon, Sap, Choke, etc.), the lock-creating ones (Asthma, Slit Throat, etc.), and the ones whose purpose is to confuse your system (Hypochondria, Stupidity, etc.), and the many masked afflictions. The sheer number of "special cases" a system has to handle (or in many situations, that no one bothers to make a system handle since a system can't do it well so the player needs to learn how to handle them) make this the largest part of the hump you have to get over if you want to survive a group combat long enough to have made even a tiny difference. The "just buy a system" canard fails most obviously here when no system can actually keep you alive (to say nothing of offense).

But we can't just drop these afflictions and replace them with something else because many archetypes are entirely dependent on them for their tactics. No one can say "just replace X with Y"; it's never going to be that easy. It's always going to have to involve changes to skills to give guilds a new tactic to replace the old one you've just rendered impossible. That's inevitable: if the problem is that there's too many ways to be rendered helpless or killed in the first ten seconds, and you have to learn them all, then it's inescapable that reducing that number is going to affect everyone who depends on those methods to get a kill.

If you live in Glom, check out CHELP INVOLVEMENT. It's a new scroll, but I'm working on adding stuff like that, things to bridge the gap between novicehood and being involved in the commune.


That's self-centered of you, and illustrates an issue why novice retention is low. Yes, you can do things yourself, just as leaders of orgs can effeciently do things themselves and end with a result that is quick and "best." However, would you rather have a cosmetically perfect org, with everything done quickly by the leader or one that might not involve a bit more time to get things done, with perhaps somewhat clumsy results - but one that people are invested in because they helped achieve those results? Both patrons and mortal leaders need to focus more on achieving the latter, if they want a populated, excited org.

As Dale Carnegie says, "The best way to earn someone's loyalty is have them do a favour for you." Delegation is vital for truly good leadership. Yes, I could go around and find all the elders that need carving, or compose CHELP scrolls on my own - or I could tell a novice or a quieter citizen that the commune could use their help and tell them about the task that needs doing. Guess which course of action is going to result in people feeling proud of what they've done, involved in the org, and informed of how to help out in the future?

In every mud I've played I've ended up in some leadership role and I always go back to this style of directing...because it works. Not only does it draw people in, it makes things easier on you as a leader.


I know all IREs went through mentor changes recently. Aetolia dropped the cap - didn't Lusty?

I believe we did consolidate peace and pacifism several months ago. I'll look into stupidity and broken skull (they may take different cures which could make a big combat balance difference). If you know of any more like this, let us know!



I'll have to strongly disagree with you on this one. Those afflictions you mention are integral to combat tactics. If all afflictions had easy triggerable cures or offered no skill in use, then afflictions would become almost irrelevant and combat would devolve into who can give out damage fastest. However, that said, my point was that the number of afflictions seem to be large in Lusternia and consolidating them (as we've both mentioned, I believe) may be a way towards some sort of simplification. Of course, combat experts (like Geb) should be consulted as sometimes even simple changes toward simplification could have large impacts.

FYI, I've never heard an organization complain about the methodology we use to have organizations 'add-on' to their orgs. Yes, there may be a time lag as rooms and whatnot aren't added instantaneously, but the results often include little surprises (like surprise denizens and quests) which you wouldn't get from any automated system.

It's not something people will complain about - and my post addressed both patron leadership and player leadership. Regarding the patron, though, in every game I've played, I've always seen people in my orgs who like making stuff. Why deny them the chance to be involved with that process? People feel real pride when they can look back and go "Damn, I made that." In addition, building projects are great ways to give the non-fighters stuff to do during the periods where raiding is high and they feel like they can't contribute.

They aren't denied making things! They just need to contact the patron and have the guild pay for it. There is an approval process but they go through that submitting craft items.

This was was I was replying to, Estarra.

Which means 'I'm Celest's patron, the majorly active patron, therefore the only person they can really go to' and 'Celest generally seems to prefer I do the descriptions myself.' I never deny them the ability to have mortals to the descriptions, and also lay it out quite plainly that it's their choice, and offer up past examples of my work. They tend to appreciate the work - or so I like to think!

Eventru was saying he "handles" (i.e., processes and approves) requests for additions. If the requests don't include descriptions, then Eventru writes them.

EDIT: Ninjaed!

Muaha!

Eventru has been very responsive from what I've seen and great. We have some surprises coming out for our guild and I was able to be part of the brainstorming committee and description writing until I begged off because I am terrible at writing descriptiona thus far!
I've never gotten a sense we couldn't be involved. And there are the mortal builders applications too.

I don't think novices are staying away because they can't create guild/city areas anyway, as a true novice probably wouldn't expect to create an area they have yet to understand and there are so many great areas for creativity and creating to keep them interested anyway.

I like the idea of more mini events on prime that gets everyone involved. I think what keeps people is interaction with others while aspiring towards their personal goals (which there are so many to choose from here) and events that allow all levels to gather and participate create a fun energy that then keeps spirits high while doing the norm: raid, write, rp, etc.

If players have general event ideas, they're welcome to post them to the Plots board! We definitely read them.

While it's fantastic that Celest has someone dedicated towards improving their org, how many of the other orgs have this? (I suspect Glom does, at least, what with the new minor area in there) Also, how many orgs have Gods/Patrons that take a clear interest in the organization itself? From what I hear/see, Eventru is a publicly visible figure, and this probably helps more than any added mechanic possibly could.

Is there some sort of ideas box that we could submit to and get (reasonably) quick responses to? That is to say, some way of contacting admin/coder/builderpeople to hash out an idea? Or is that the Plots board I'm thinking of?