I started playing Lusternia a few years ago, in Glomdoring as a Nekotai monk. This happened to be a fortunate choice because I could pretty easily kill anyone in the game as this monk without much effort or without any real in depth knowledge of how combat worked.

During this time, Glomdoring was by far the worst org around, being curbstomped pretty much daily by someone, for hours on end. When I say hours on end, I literally mean there was a group of enemy combatants within Etherglom or the Nexus realm for hours. There were days I would log in, die a dozen times defending for an hour or two and then log off. People like Narsrim would use little abuseable tricks to pick people off, hit and run aspects and daughters, kill anyone he could whenever he got the chance. People would sit in our nexus world completely melded, against our relatively inexperienced group of fighters and people would die left and right. Anytime we got close to fending off a raid, a grip of more people would run in and kill us all.

I 'grew up' so to say in an environment where we regularly got our asses handed to us , our constructs would be destroyed, all our daughters dead, elders being chopped, whatever you can think of. Every instance that people complain today about griefing was done to us daily, if not hourly.

Now, I took an approach of 'how can we beat this? What do we need to do to get around this? What can we do to encourage morale?' It started off tiny. 'Lets kill so and so this go.' Lets take a group of 3-4 of us and try to destroy a construct in the early am (for me). Lets steal miners from Rockholm for our villages. Then Glomdoring got lucky in the experience department, and we had a few people join us, with lots of experience. It was still rough for a bit, but we kept aiming for small victories. We had a good group of people that were sincerely interested, and it was tough to get around the people that had settled for defeat, but little by little, we'd win something here, win something there. Next thing I knew, we controlled all the domoths, all the villages, at one point we had the entire basin fighting against us and we'd still manage to squeak out victories here and there, but when we lost, we lost hard and harshly.

I bring this up because of a series of tells I've seen, of people rather than being willing to rise to the challenges they face, they'd rather just qq forever and cry and whine and complain about how things are 'unfair.' One person recently was so upset, they were insisting that the admin should just 'delete Serenwilde.' Another one, instead of trying to figure out how Flares works and try and be successful in them, just raided and killed daughters and aspects and chopped elders. Flares isn't rocket science. Yes some skills are more powerful than others. But I firmly believe that all orgs have access to reliable synergistic skills that they can use for great success. Some people ask for suggestions, and when myself, or others have presented them with several options, they proceed to argue how those are 'unusable.' Instead of accepting advice about how to deal with things, They'd rather just argue and continue to complain.

Welcome to Lusternia, a game that is challenging. What I don't understand is why people expect things to not be challenging. One person literally said that they hate that their enemies fight and kill them and try to 'win' things within the game. What's the point if things are just handed to you? I know the admin do the best they can to make sure things are balanced and fair. If you have a hard time dealing with something, then take it as a challenge and try to get around it. Learn from deaths, they don't mean anything anyway. Someone started a thread about praying, saying it was 'too harsh.' Someone else said they'd rather spend $1000 to get demigod than work for it. I personally haven't bought credits in forever, really since I started playing pretty much. I enjoy working at things and winning events or finding gnomes and getting credits/dingbats/whatever. I don't find buying victory to be satisfying. There are consequences to dying, including exp loss and damage to ego, but that isn't the end of the world.

Nothing that's being done today, hasn't been done before.

It's a sad state of affairs when rather than rising to the challenge that presents itself, people would rather whine and qq because it's too hard. There isn't a single org that's really bad off. There isn't really another org that raids another for hours on end. Those days are over and today is a lot easier than it was. For the sake of Lusternia, in the words of Murphy, 'Harden up Princess.'

As the vast, vast majority of this rant has been made by various people since the game opened, I won't address most of it. This point though struck me:


And the answer I have to that is that the game has been made as such. In the effort to attract as many breathing bodies as possible, the game has been dumbed down to the breaking point. In my opinion.

All I can say about this subject is that there are many avenues to pursue to lessen any IC hardship experienced. You don't necessarily have to be the best/strongest/awesomest org ever to have a good time in Lusternia.

You have never felt any joy when you buy something new and shiny? You have never 'gamed' a system? Both of these give a level that is satisfying to some. I am in the boat of I would rather just be able to buy levels with credits. Way back in the day I enjoyed hunting. I enjoyed manual influenced. I even enjoyed manual aethercraft back when we had specs. The fact that you basically need a system that does some level of automation to do anything effectively now is what turns people off and makes them want to buy victory.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm very guilty of complaining about things. A lot. But I do go out there and try pretty hard to do what I can, even if I fail miserably later. One of the things about losing to me is that it usually doesn't matter as long as you have a group of people who were by your side, trying and doing their best too. It's always fun to play with people who care and try to make things better. However, it always feels like pulling teeth to get people in Serenwilde to participate in anything, and while we do have a solid core group of people, we can't always expect them to be around. For the very least, Glomdoring has built its people up to the point where they're at least confident to try to fight, despite odds, and try to see where they can improve if it ever went south. I'm honestly a bit jealous of this sometimes when I see you guys constantly come back over and over no matter what, and after we lose once we usually retreat and do nothing. There's been countless times where we could take on your numbers and people go "don't bother, not worth it". It's frustrating when we HAVE numbers but they'd rather do nothing. There's very little drive to improve. Even when we win little things here and there, it just seems like very few people were ever even receptive to whatever morale that was intended to boost.

I won't name names, in the fear of leaving someone out, but for the people who at least respond to every raid, domoth call, cry for help - thank you. You're the people who make Serenwilde worth staying in, because the apathy and bitterness gets contagious and can really rot you out.

I don't think this is true at all



Of course I feel joy when buying something shiny and new, Demigod is more like buying a new car or a house. You take out a loan and work hard to make the money to make the payments for however long and when you finally pay it off, it's even a more exciting feeling than when you first get it (I just paid off my first car after 5 years of payments a few months ago, it's quite an awesome feeling). That's how Demigod is, except you work hard and pay for it a bit at a time (hunting/Influencing) and then BAM rewarded with demigod. That's a good feeling.


I think that's a great comment Rivius, and don't worry, everyone complains (myself too). It happens, it's just about what you do afterwards that matters. Keep trying to get by the nay-sayers, they'll fall by the wayside and you'll attract even more people eventually.

I agree with most of this. There are many opportunities where one org continues to lose or be curbstomped because of some sort of inadequacy in their ranks, be it a lack of skill, lack of population, or lack of effort. Of course, these are problems that compound themselves, and at a certain point I think they will progress beyond being fixable, but that's another story.

The response I have to this is that I am most disheartened looking at how some of these systems work and realizing that there just isn't any way to win. Generally if we (Serenwilde) loses a village, I can see how we could have had a better chance, by sneaking in for village feelings, by having a better debate strategy or by luck, having more people. I run into a lot of the other category when I consider myself as a druid (which is bad as I'm an envoy). There are some hardcoded issues with Druid that I don't see ever being able to overcome as the envoy for my guild. I can't see any way to combat in groups as a druid effectively (compared to all the other guilds I've tried out), my main offense is useless in group combat and without it, I'm honestly very subpar. I look at skills other people have that either make me obsolete as an affliction class (Illums, for instance) or are designed specifically (I say this having read envoy posts to that effect) combat druids that hail from the heyday of demesne that aren't going to go away no matter how hard I try to logic it out, and I feel a great despair for the future of my class. Generally, that's my feeling when I look at Serenwilde in general, we have a lot of really shining gems in our skills, structures, and people, but they don't really work together or help each other out and worst of all I see no real way to fix it, and feel no support. When something like the Crow/Stag druid melding thing comes up, it kind of puts another bucket of cold water in a sinking ship. I can't really explain how much of a downer it is, and it would take me forever to go through my list of things.

You don't have to be the biggest org to have fun, but it helps that you see that there is that possibility there, which just isn't something I can say to incoming newbies with any real sense of truth. I believe that who ever ends up being on top will have a strangle hold on it for a long time, and there won't be any way to unentrench them. Admins have made steps to try and combat this, so I don't think they are unaware of it (see the changes to domoths), but there are still some fundamental problems that are going ignored (as far as I can tell). Hopelessness combined with pointlessness (see trying to defend a god realm) isn't a good mix. Even if nothing is actually changed, I feel that this needs to be addressed somehow, there needs to be some evidence that SOMETHING can be done.

(Also, didn't Glom get buffed nicely and a huge amount of big fighters from every other group flock there help fix things?)

EDIT:


Then you realize that you don't get custom entrance/shout/zap without more grinding and don't really get to participate in the endgame very much anyways. I like a lot of things about the new demi-thing, and really dislike the rest.

I disagree about being a druid, I've been one for all of 2 months and I think it's fantastic. There's so much potential with them that I can't even begin to say. I think there's a few things they need (like a general timing line that is seen without enemies in the meld), and I think they'll be set (besides needing a tert that can be used outside a meld). Druids in groups are awesome. I've held the meld in a couple of big raids and now that I've come to grips that I'm not EG anymore and squish easily, it's been a blast. My sap timing is horrid, and even worse is my maintenance (I think I need to use more faeriefire), but it's awesome in groups and awesome for seperation.


and Glom didn't really get buffed at all (while I was playing), but I feel the influx of people is greatly exaggerated. Shuyin came and a few others, and I'd like to think it was because we had started fighting back and being more competition. That influx was what I was refering to when I said we got lucky in the experience department, but trust me it was a group effort.

Bold word for key. This is something that bothers me. I -hate- taking out loans. Example, my undergrad, I have not taken out a single loan yet and I'm in my senior year. Sure not taking out loans does take getting a good number of grants but its there. I don't like waiting for something, unless it is some costly thing, I normally buy something if I need it (given I'm not really on my own yet).

Sure I could take out a 'loan' for Demigod, but at 91 the hard working just doesn't feel worth as much from what you actually get from the amount of work put into it. You still have to do even more work to keep Demigod unless you just want basic demi and don't do anything dangerous. I have always found that just buying something straight up to be more time saving. Maybe I just an odd view of the world.

The problem with this is that no matter what Estarra and her team does, the ultimate balance is skills and training, that is, your best and motivated have to be part of the group--they can't fix that problem, because it is up to the player base. Multiplayer games that are GUIs are usually designed to be short term, only lasting X amount of hours. The general gist of Lusternia however is that it's a persistent world, heavy in both RP and conflict.

The only thing I can suggest is that players consider this. One thing I am very happy about is that two of Glomdoring's former prize combatants have entered Gaudiguch, and they seem to have been a boon to both the conflict and the morale. But then again, I don't think players can be forced to move in this manner, as some really like the RP. We have some people who move from org to org, but I can't see the ones who have been a bigger part of the orgs personality to leave--I can't see either, for instance, Xenthos or Malica jumping to another place, at least not without a ton of RP-level stuff to do that.

Perhaps the only thing the admin can consider is one or two elements.

First, intervene with some conflicts and alliances where needed.. IMO, the one thing the admin could have done to improve morale is break up the Celest-Glomdoring alliance by having their gods go to war or something like that. The combination and cooperation of the two best organized and combative orgs I think hurt a lot of things--you get into an overwhelming winning streak, it can break morale of the losers. Also, from a combat perspective, why would the two best orgs want to team up against the weaker ones--I would think the people who love conflict would want to face a similar challenge. Hopefully, with Shuyin and Vinyain moved to Gaudiguch we'll get a better dynamic. But players need to at least understand--on a metagame level--that being a winning org for too long might hurt the rest of the world.

The second thought is way out of left field--but rather than try to "evenly balance" things based on some semblance of perfect equality, gradually buff/nerf losing/winning teams until they are equal, and constantly change things to go with politics and the player base. This is likely to be controversial--but in effect, I think the benefit of a MUD is the RP. In other words, balance the game dynamically based on the player base's makeup. Think of this as the game's equivalent of "auto-balance". You tweak stuff to benefit underdog orgs, and then hopefully if more players join another, you nerf them. Again, this might not seem "fair", and I doubt it would fly, but it might be the idea to embrace.

I'm laughing at you. We can talk about this later, but I'd like to point out that your demesne has 6 afflictions mine doesn't have, that sap is impossible against an enemy group that has a single echo line coded in, and that there are skills that cancel out treelife for separation. Outside of demesne, we mean nothing, inside our demesne we don't have as much power as mages, and we have to focus on a single target to be effective, lacking the powerful group afflictions and hindering of mages. Druids don't stack with each other as well as mages, and don't have any real area control effect, unlike everyone else (but aquamancers). The reliance on sap (which doesn't actually work against most groups now-a-days) means that druids won't be buffed (kind of rightlyso) which means that times that sap can't or won't work the druid serves to give paralysis (or one of the rune afflictions, which are better) to a group every ten seconds, which is... subpar. And I don't see most of that changing, by the timbre of responses to reports.


Edit:


Of course, that's really the same meta-org, so nothing has changed except that more powerful players have access to newbroke skills. I also heavily disagree with gods getting involved with politics.



That seems interesting, but I'd like to point out that generally the winning/larger orgs have more voice, so it's kind of unlikely to work out in this sort of system.

It's good when I realize that this is just a game, and the little text numbers don't mean much of anything. We die, we go on, no problem. It's bad when I become the monster and act like the ones I try so hard to fight (or avoid). People can only be bullied so much and can only put up with apathy and inequalities for so long before they snap. There are so, so many reasons I get little joy out of the game itself any more that I won't go into listing them. (Getting feedback from the other side is generally less helpful than they'd like to think, especially when it comes in the form of sarcasm or insults.)

Congratulations are due to the winning side. You've put together good teams. You've pretty much demoralized us to the point of not wanting to challenge you on the battlefield. That's how you "win" the game, ultimately.


As for Shuyin and Viynain moving to Gaudiguch, that just opens up the Domoth realms a bit more, splitting it three ways to keep from hitting that 'no entrance to the opposing Domoth' problem. They're still playing for the same team, from what it appears.

See, you're one of the people Rivius is trying hard to move around and you're straight up cock-blocking him. This is just an assumption, but I'm guessing you're one of the most influential serens out there and one of the most capable (especially coding wise), and instead of trying to rise to certain challenges (like figuring out how to compete in Flares), you'd just rather sit back and complain and make posts like this that just hammer down my point. You talk about being bullied, you talk about apathy, yet you forget that the org you accuse of this was once the org that was bullied, that had so many apathetic people with so very few motivated people and they still managed to get somewhere. I realize you weren't the bully, but your org was. You have so much potential that you straight up ignore.

No. Just no.



If we're comparing demesne afflictions, Aquamancers have chills.(I don't consider prone/stun as afflictions)
If we're comparing tertiaries and secondaries along-side demesne afflictions, then group afflictions is raised to two. chills and reality.

I love coding. I don't care as much for the fighting, honestly. And, I sure as hell never wanted to be a leader of anything. It's great that they look up to me, but I don't want the job because I'm an excellent follower.

I suspect the first will happen at some point if it is "good for Lusternia", as it has happened in the past. I agree involvement should be lower key, but I also think that our characters Fates are in the hands of the owners of the game, and that will happen from time to time. The only suggestion I make is that at times it be considered if there's a huge disparity between orgs because of this.

I didn't think the second proposal would fly. I'm just trying to see what would solve the psychological problem that exists when a heavy conflict game also has RP elements as is designed to be somewhere between "beer and pretzels", and a "second life".

EDIT: Actually, the entire argument in this thread has been beaten to death over the past 7 years, so in retrospect, there's not actually anything to be said.

Nevermind...(double post).

Be careful guys not to turn this into a "rant".

It's not just Iasmos, it's actually all of us. We don't defend god realms because it's pointless, we don't defend EthSeren if enemies are camped at Among because it's pointless, we don't defend Moon because the ents there attack us when we try to defend them, and it's totally pointless. He's not the most influential person, but it's in no way confined to him. I support at least trying to defend, and trying to make a showing because I feel that we lose RP for not defending, but it's really an uphill battle. I feel that you are making these accusations and pointing out 'the problem' from the outside, which isn't somewhere that deserves to do so, honestly. What can we do to win, if we win a skirmish or village or domoth we instantly are aware that the enemy will just come back with more people, or steal our commodity producers, or absolve our domoth away and there isn't anything we can do to stop them, so why try? Small victories followed by big defeats don't make for good press, no matter how great your propagandist.

Everybody should always remember something:

...this too shall pass...

To clarify, if you've been here long term you've seen the status quo change several times. Bad situations will pass, being on top will pass, being on the bottom will pass.