I really can't attribute it to lack of rants being gone because that was moved back in 2009 and I was comparing forum traffic in 2010 to 2011. Somehow, I think IRE made the right call on that front.

Shiri, why do you keep calling the forum changes a "downgrade"? Other than some migration hiccups the software is a definite upgrade and I can't see any major reason why the upgrade would drive people away.

He doesn't like that it has things that are similar to Facebook. It's a question of "sameness" being a bad thing regardless of whether the specifics are useful or not. Personally, I don't see it. The only bit that's Facebook-like is the Like button and I find that to be a good idea, and stuff on profiles no one even looks at anyway and thus don't matter.

I dunno, I thought he was ranting about the Facebook/Twitter paradigm in general, and the forum issue was separate.

(Shows how the world is changing--people are becoming "old men" in their 20s as the speed of change increases...welcome to the singularity...)

The singularity already happened, and new singularities are popping up at an astonishing rate. It's fascinating.

And puzzles on facebook? Why have I not heard of this? I LOVE PUZZLES! *puts on the Layton hat*

Kiradawea:

The singularity already happened, and new singularities are popping up at an astonishing rate. It's fascinating.

And puzzles on facebook? Why have I not heard of this? I LOVE PUZZLES! *puts on the Layton hat*

well they are not actually ON facebook, the links get posted there as well as, if you can be the first one to comment you get ! also, I am not sure if it is just for the first comment on the website buuuut, at least your first comment gets one free bound credit!

I <3 Lusternia and aside from skill tweaks and minor bugs have found no issues with it. I only ever felt like I had to buy credits when I was to lazy to work in game for them, so that would never drive me away. I only started purchasing credits when i realized I was tired of decaying items and wanted to make my stuff permanent.

The quest system is fun, when the honours quests aren't broken...the combat system is fun but totally pointless since Glomdoring rules and everybody else should bow to us....the player base is every growing....the events are coming more and more often...multiple promotions are given almost every single month....bugs are fixed in a rapid ungodly amount of time...<3 Iosai.......

Any of that sound bad? No? Then go tell your friends that graphics are overrated and that Nothing Matters But Glomdoring...maybe then the player base will grow more.

The reasons the forum changes were a downgrade are primarily due to accessibility issues. It's like with the new website; it prioritises the wrong things. I don't get that handy popup when I get PMs with a preview version, it's harder to tell read/unread topics apart, etc. Nonetheless, I expect I'm in the minority on caring about this. Also I just got a cool update that someone replied to the thread while I was writing this post, so that's an upgrade I was not aware of before! I didn't click on it in time so it vanished and I may have to edit though.

Making everything look and act like facebook/twitter is a related but separate issue, and it's not just a Lusternian problem. Have you seen youtube lately? UGH. The playlist toolbar at the bottom carries half as much information, the front page manages to put all the stuff I don't care about in the way of all the useful information I want that was there before, and then on top of that I went for like 2 weeks without noticing where they were putting multiple uploads by the same uploader, which is retarded on both my part AND theirs. It's not just the nature of the UI though, it's also about the way what it prioritises affects ability and disposition to have useful conversations. Nonetheless, this is a popular thing, so even if you can criticise Lusternia for engaging in it you really can't attribute any downturn in the game to it (even if Estarra hadn't already rendered that discussion moot.)

I am amused at your claim about people getting old in their mid-20s though. I have been feeling like that a lot lately (I'm 23). I don't know how long it took for people to start to feel old in previous generations but one of my friends started work as a teacher recently and listening to her anecdotes about the skepticism of the children about things like floppy disks has been a pretty good example.

Azureus:

Even trades are hard for newbies because people want transcendent and artied craftsmen — or, maybe that's not true. But that's how it feels, sometimes, when you're only an Adept! So even if you're a non-combatant (and I'm pretty firmly a non-combatant) there's a place where you begin to fall behind.

I'm picking this out, because I think this is an attitude shift that everyone can contribute to. All too often do I see people ask "need trans this and that". Before I was a trans tailor, I'd send them a tell if they asked for a second or third time and inquire what service was needed. Surprisingly often, it was mending. While indeed a trans tailor can mend things for the longest, I've had people be quite happy to get their things saved from decaying. Also, some of the proofings are early on in the skillset and I've had people be happy enough to receive just those for the time being.

I'm not saying this is going to work for everything and everyone. But if you need a non-trans service that is not affected by the tradesperson being trans, well, just ask for the skill you need. It's far more inclusive and it will get you sorted faster possibly, so win-win.

Calixa:


I'm picking this out, because I think this is an attitude shift that everyone can contribute to. All too often do I see people ask "need trans this and that". Before I was a trans tailor, I'd send them a tell if they asked for a second or third time and inquire what service was needed. Surprisingly often, it was mending. While indeed a trans tailor can mend things for the longest, I've had people be quite happy to get their things saved from decaying. Also, some of the proofings are early on in the skillset and I've had people be happy enough to receive just those for the time being.

I'm not saying this is going to work for everything and everyone. But if you need a non-trans service that is not affected by the tradesperson being trans, well, just ask for the skill you need. It's far more inclusive and it will get you sorted faster possibly, so win-win.

I prefer to have my mends done by crappy tailors. It means I get to those precious tawdry/shabby/pathetics so much sooner! That's the whole point of mending anyway, innit?

Shiri:
it's harder to tell read/unread topics apart, etc.

I felt that the old forum was pretty bad at that, and the new one is pretty much equally bad. The one thing I most often want to click on is the icon that takes me to the next new post, and it's the tiniest thing on the screen, as it used to be, but at least it's a little more contrasty than it used to be with the "there's no new post" version. Maybe that's a matter of skin choice, though. On the other hand, the "new content" list is better now; if you read some threads but not others, you don't get everything marked read until you ask to, and you still see the list of new content that is marked read. On the other other hand, the "mark everything read" link is far less accessible. All in all, it's pretty much a wash to me.

PhantasmalKiller:


I prefer to have my mends done by crappy tailors. It means I get to those precious tawdry/shabby/pathetics so much sooner! That's the whole point of mending anyway, innit?

Heh, that's something I didn't think of. And no, usually I mend stuff because I cba to make greatrobes from scratch. Things like shoes and all I will just let decay if I don't need to upkeep them for begging. But then again I haven't influenced in a good while :P

I made a post on the Imperian forums somewhat related to this subject, which was stumping for a position I originally made on these forums...

Basically, we've got a game that is at its core a 1v1 game, based on the physical nature of how information in Lusternia is provided to and processed by the player. Team combat is better in graphical games with positioning factors than it can ever be in IRE, while the IRE games can excel in duels or small group combat. Only CCG's can really rival the IRE games for strategic depth in 1v1.
Furthermore, pretty much any other game out there limits team sizes in group PvP to be comparable to each other and fair in terms of team size, but IRE does not do this, which makes the team combat even less interesting.

There is no real reason for it to be this way, Magnagora is supposed to have these huge armies, so why does Glomdoring walk all over them due to "having more people?" Promoting balanced PvP through even team sizes was accepted as a basic component of online games pretty much immediately upon their inception, yet IRE didn't pick up on this for some reason.

I can't tell my friends that they will have more fun in a spam-ridden 15v10 fight, that has a huge requirement of time and money to be competitive in and not just someone else's tool that uses one skill over and over, when they could be playing League of Legends or the Old Republic, for much less time and money, and be having more fun.

I feel that IRE needs to enforce team size brackets at the very least at some point in order to continue being profitable as a company.
Brackets of might and artifacts in some forms of PvP would also be a big help because it would be the only way to lower the bar against competition. High level players could perhaps "power down" by deactivated artifacts in order to allow players to compete in more brackets.

Jello:

I made a post on the Imperian forums somewhat related to this subject, which was stumping for a position I originally made on these forums...

Basically, we've got a game that is at its core a 1v1 game, based on the physical nature of how information in Lusternia is provided to and processed by the player. Team combat is better in graphical games with positioning factors than it can ever be in IRE, while the IRE games can excel in duels or small group combat. Only CCG's can really rival the IRE games for strategic depth in 1v1.
Furthermore, pretty much any other game out there limits team sizes in group PvP to be comparable to each other and fair in terms of team size, but IRE does not do this, which makes the team combat even less interesting.

There is no real reason for it to be this way, Magnagora is supposed to have these huge armies, so why does Glomdoring walk all over them due to "having more people?" Promoting balanced PvP through even team sizes was accepted as a basic component of online games pretty much immediately upon their inception, yet IRE didn't pick up on this for some reason.

I can't tell my friends that they will have more fun in a spam-ridden 15v10 fight, that has a huge requirement of time and money to be competitive in and not just someone else's tool that uses one skill over and over, when they could be playing League of Legends or the Old Republic, for much less time and money, and be having more fun.

I feel that IRE needs to enforce team size brackets at the very least at some point in order to continue being profitable as a company.
Brackets of might and artifacts in some forms of PvP would also be a big help because it would be the only way to lower the bar against competition. High level players could perhaps "power down" by deactivated artifacts in order to allow players to compete in more brackets.

I can't think of a reasonable manner in which to enforce 'team limits' in group PvP (raids on territories, domoths, etc). Can you?

I could see making domoths almost like an arena event, wherein it's initiated between only two opposing nations (need a creative way to do this), and each selects three/four/five people that are flung up to the bubble to battle it out. That said, it would invalidate a lot of other mechanics currently in place, like bubblixes and aethership travel, which could be seen as good or bad depending on where you sit!

I disagree with completely eliminating large group combat, because I enjoy it. Having more variety would be great though.

Lothringen:

I could see making domoths almost like an arena event, wherein it's initiated between only two opposing nations (need a creative way to do this), and each selects three/four/five people that are flung up to the bubble to battle it out. That said, it would invalidate a lot of other mechanics currently in place, like bubblixes and aethership travel, which could be seen as good or bad depending on where you sit!

I rather like this idea, that one divinity issues a challenge to the current domoth holder, and at a preset date, both divinities and their chosen champions battle for control of said domoth. Seems like a much more noble way of doing it, and seems like a rule set that the elder gods might concievably enforce.

foolofsound:

I rather like this idea, that one divinity issues a challenge to the current domoth holder, and at a preset date, both divinities and their chosen champions battle for control of said domoth. Seems like a much more noble way of doing it, and seems like a rule set that the elder gods might concievably enforce.

This doesn't really work in a 6 way conflict. If the challenge system can only be used every x time, allies will continuously challenge each other and keep their own domoths without contest. If it can be used any time it would get old and too annoying to bother really fast.

Meaningful conflict is hard (if not impossible) to balance because add too little incentive and it is not worthwhile; add too much incentive and the losing team will cry unfairness. In fact this was seen with the original incarnation of nexus worlds (which I personally found a lot more fun than the current incarnation). Domoths went through a similar phase which caused a bunch of alterations that imho made them less interesting. As did all the anti-territorial raid mechanics that got added over the time.

At most you can add a multitude of arena like events for groups that will give a decent gain to the winner, but I can anticipate the complaints it will cause when a superior group dominates those games.

Anisu:

This doesn't really work in a 6 way conflict. If the challenge system can only be used every x time, allies will continuously challenge each other and keep their own domoths without contest. If it can be used any time it would get old and too annoying to bother really fast.

The way I would design it is to put it on a cycling schedual. Every sixish IG months a single org gets to make a challenge against a single domoth, with the challenging org cycling through all orgs. (Celeste challenges for Death, six months later Mag challenges for Nature, six months afterward Hallifax challenges for Beauty, ect.).

Anisu:

. . . with the original incarnation of nexus worlds (which I personally found a lot more fun than the current incarnation). . . .

Do share?

Basically, you put constructs on the nexus world, then during a preset time (which you found out via astrology), they weaken, which allows your enemies to attack said constructs with colossi. It was a grand old brawl.

During the Hai'gloh, Glom + Seren managed to destroy all of Celest's constructs (You could only put up constructs once per year or some such and they cost a lot more. Also destroying constructs gave the destroyer power) within one weakening (when previously, they managed to do maybe just one or two max). Once they had figured this out, prepared to destroy all of Mag's weakenings during the next weakening. On that day, the very moment when Seren and Glom launched their invasion force, the admin disabled weakenings permanently.

Then aether rings happened.

I have to admit, I do miss the old style weakenings.