Bring in New and Old blood to MUD

[Choen]

As much as I love wotmud, I won't be inviting my friends to play it. Cause... I didn't even do that when i was 15.

I did think about making some cards up and slipping them into the book covers, that could probably eventuate.

But what a previous posted said rang true, there were big changes coming, and nothing really eventuated out of it. Now that's not a stab at the immortals, they're always busy, too busy sometimes it seems, but why even mention any potential changes. You get excited and then it just turns stagnant. And you get kind of disappointed.

I'd definitely be down to throw some cash into some sort of fund, nothing major, something like $10 a month, something that will fund maybe some advertising somewhere. I don't see why we don't advertise, as I see it at the moment and as much as we hate to admit it, we are on board a slowly sinking ship and a bit of advertising wouldn't go astray. Absolute worst case scenario is we get turned off. That's the absolute worst case. Best case scenario is we attract a handful more players. On the flipside, best case scenario with no advertising is we keep tracking the way we are, and we run this baby into the ground ourselves. As good as getting turned off.

Money is the answer for me There is extremely successful p2p muds out there. And wotmud could be completely obligation free, funded by donations.

[Mantorok]

Yeah, but even just talking to people on messenger you haven't talked to in ages could get em thinkin about it.

[Paj]

The main problem on why we dont keep semi high numbers has alot to do with the playerbase itself. Rather you have a oldbie that comes back or a newbie that tries the mud you have alot of unnesary game drama that just drains the will out of the fun to play this game. This comes from people killing people afk/linkdead, how some clans make insane or unreasonable clanning requirements that alot of clans have. And the amount of times people ask a question and people say fofy!. Now there are some realy good helpers of the mud that go well above and beyond to help the newbies like weir and aira for example but with all the whinning and complaining on channels at times just drains the desire to play this game. So most people just decide to play a graphics game with less hoops to jump through to achieve stuff then to stick around on the mud. I myself havent played in close to 4 weeks and still have no desire to play atm i've only forum lurked and barely am doing that as of late. This isnt something that the imms did its not something they can realy fix its a player atmasphere that the only way to fix it is to have the players fix it themselves

+1

By the way, FTL is a fun little $5 game. Ships and customization and quest lines and way more exciting than waiting on other players in WoTmud.

[Davor]

Game has always had clans hard to get into. Game has always had players that killed LD/AFK. Game has always had players that did lots of drama. I don't really think those are reasons to not play. Having things hard is actually what makes achieving things on this game worthwhile.

Some reasons why I get frustrated and don't really want to play recently are:

I don't understand why the game is laggier today than it was 10 years ago. Ok the map got bigger and we have a lot of mobol (99.9% useless) but our internet and hardware has increased even more if not at least proportionally?

Ta'veran list is broken. Some basic maintenance would be nice.

Weapon choices are far less diverse today then they were 10 years ago.

Nothing is rare anymore or worth going after.

Equitably faded.

We seem to be going backward instead of forward.

I still enjoy killing the occasional bloke but that's because I'm kind of a big deal and it requires very little effort on my part(I'm like really really good)(like so good it requires another statement in parenthesis).

[Choen]

Yeah, but even just talking to people on messenger you haven't talked to in ages could get em thinkin about it.

I don't have messenger, or one that i frequent.

+1 to Davor on rare items and weapon diversity.

[melyssan]

i honestly dont agree with you there davor i mean clans shouldnt be where anyone joins but they shouldnt be as hard as they are to get into. I mean lets face it some people can take 3-4 weeks to find out if they are going to get into a clan they want to be in on a text game or go into most graphics games and be in a clan in 5 min and start working towards the perks of said game clan. i mean perfect example of this is i recently went back to playing neverwinter made a new character spent about 15 minutes to get to lvl 5 joined a clan and am working on making it a top pk clan for guild battles etc. makes it alot more fun then say spending a min of 2 weeks for most clans to try to get into a clan which you might not even be voted in before you can even start to do the end game stuff and thus a waste of there time. what do you think most players nowadays prefer to do. and thus why numbers are lower

[Paj]

Easy, Moderate, or Hard would be still having an achievable task. Waiting on other players is not considered achievable. Thus why some DS and SS requirements for Ta'veren/Seitar/Reaver were removed.

Joining a clan still requires other people which is understandable. But the multiple week wait as a 'aspirant, grunt, apprentice, assistant, squire' is mind-numbing when they could be doing real things for the clan, or doing a quest(s) to join the clan, and likewise be held accountable when they mess up. Instead they're waiting on a vote by half a dozen people that barely play those alts because they obviously prefer playing other alts or games.

And all the FOFY is bullshit when there is no way to find out for yourself because there is so much lost lore, broken mobol, and Easter eggs only known by the zone creators and their friends. Treehouse east of Caemlyn... only knew about that this last year. Hidden dark room in Maradon palace (blackdoor, secretdoor, something), disappeared completely when some imm assumedly used it for something else.

I've gone so far as to remove requirements on my clan because I'm not going to hold back people from enjoying the game. Be it PK, RP, a mix.

[Relaes]

Aren't these the same things we've talked about since...-04?

It was mentioned somewhere (website, facebook or whatever) that a huge update to the game was imminent a while back when that hacker-guy happened. However, as always is the case when people are involved, other things take priority. Which is fine. I enjoyed the game without ogier, blademasters and whatnot.

Early on, when the LS playerbase started shrinking I would say that statting was a problem. Someone said on chats that it was fixed. I haven't seen it. I simply could not wrap my head around the statting philosophy of this game. The cannon fodder side, the side that gets raided, had arguably the hardest time getting competitive stats. Like, WHAT?!? That alone messed up the replay value for returning players. And when someone "fixed" LS homelands they actually made it worse by lowering the con-max on classic dodge/combo homelands years back. Seriously, the disconnect there was staggering. The icing on the cake was when troll homelands were imped and flooded the game with superbly statted troll rogues. Again, disconnect. It's design decisions like those that makes me wonder if player feedback ever really mattered here. Nass or Doyn had an outstanding response in a thread about statting many years back (paraphrasing here) "But human homelands were implemented to make statting EASIER, and it is". Aaaah, good times

Now, pretty much what Ecthus and others have said. With no active LS clans there will be no pk for anyone which equals no players for anyone to play with. With month long trials, any "feeling" of RP for that character is likely fading and you just don't care anymore. The mud is also too big for the small playerbase etc etc. PvP drives this mud whether you like it or not. I looked at my novice log the other day and it was all kind of fun, for an hour, until I found out the sheer amount of hoops to jump through, that I couldn't leave Tar Valon and the time it would take me to advance. I guess I'm not Wotmud material anymore, but that's ok. I appreciated this game immensely back in the day and still have very fond memories of playing. Logging on is kind of depressing now though.

[Naerin]

The best thing to do for numbers on the MUD is play clanned characters on LS.

-No one likes logging on to a who-list of statters and unclanned characters, especially if you're returning from a long absence and want to see friends.
-Clanned characters are trustworthy, as strangers, in a way that unclanneds are not, since there's at least some consequences if you screw over other people.
-Northern PK is always more balanced, over the long term, when LS has greater numbers than DS. The zones and bonuses (mostly fade bonuses) are designed under the assumption that LS generally has greater numbers than DS and that DS needs to be able to mobilize more quickly to the fight (proximity of smobs, exp, and rent to PK zones.)

If this is true, the question is what keeps people from playing clanned characters on LS?

-Lack of remort options or "end game" possibilities. LS has a ton of masters without much incentive to play those masters.
-Lack of player autonomy within clans.
-Lack of activity within clans, but that's really an echo of the main problem of numbers.
-Difficulty in finding DS or knowing roughly what the numbers are at any given point.
-Majority of active characters on DS are either remorts or rogues, which is awful for starting and sustaining PK.
--The more rogues there are on DS at any given time, the less appealing it is to be the one abser in a fight. It's only fun to get screwed over so many times before you either log on a rogue or stop logging on at all.

+1

[Mantorok]

Also, if anyone sees a level 1 on, say hi and find out if they're a newbie. Been seeing a lot of them lately, and trying to make sure they stick around.