+25 to EOL
I guess I'll try to play stupid warder more even though I hate him. LS was fun because it was a challenge. Always a goose or trolloc or thornbush to kill you and get you mad to ho out and kick its ass.
Political Conflict: There is ZERO. That is what made this game great. Not letting people wage war among themseleves may have been the worst thing ever.
For me, the LS political conflicts were what kept me conming back.
Lightside Needs Help
Re: Lightside Needs Help
Actually, I think this is more of a logistics problem. DS has SK a short stroll away, a smob that has no doors. That is an absolutely huge, huge advantage.Loomis wrote:If you want people to start playing LS...BE HELPFUL! Start giving away top end eq instead of hoarding it for yourselves!! Why do you think DS is so successful at pk? It's because you die, you get a full set and run right back out there...this makes you much more useful to your side than dying and all the "well known" or "cool kids" keeping all the good dung for their alts or storage.
Compare that to Fal Dara. Closest smob probably is Forest Brigand Leader, which is behind 3 doors and carries the risk of being ratted/ravened/flocked.
Or Caemlyn. Roland requires a relatively high amount of pick, which not everyone has.
Amador and mercenary commander are probably most alike, although even then you're at risk of being hit crossrace in a door. It's a small risk these days, but even today it's not unheard of.
I don't think it has anything to do with LS mentality per se, since so many northern pkers also play DS. So what is the difference? It is a group of hardcore DSers who essentially forced the LS mentality DSers to play along, or is there something else behind the difference in mentality?
@Santino: agree with you on the rpers, although it's not necessarily just the rpers. It's also the explorers, the smobbers and so on. We've tried to pay some attention to rp clans lately because of this. The smobbers might be the most easily reeled back in, but that would take a major overhaul of smobs. The last time I did that, it took me a 3 months and that was when we had more imms to cover the basics...
@Pulverwise: some other people brought up the donation thing too, recently. Looking at how it works and seeing if it can be applied elsewhere is somewhere on my to-do list.
Re: Lightside Needs Help
Bring back junkyard! Make Caemlyn great again! Seriously though, Caemlyn needs to be a hub. Maybe put all justice clan turn ins happen there to force people to hang out in Caemlyn again?
Re: Lightside Needs Help
In general, I agree with most things said.
I'd say one change that could get people more involved with lowbies and newbies would be fixing the difference in exp when grouped with a person and when grouped with a pet (if that has been already fixed while I was away, sorry about mentioning it again). No amount of new teacher mobs and mob quests is gonna make a newbie feel more welcome (and teach him better) than a more experienced player taking them under the wing for a few hours of exp and adventure. I think it is wrong and supporting the wrong attitude to punish people (make them earn their levels slower) for helping another player and having fun together.
Another thing: do I really play during such weird hours or are most LS clans pretty inactive? I have a few alts I would eventually love to clan. But in a few weeks (at various times), I can't remember seeing a single Lion Warden around (alright, perhaps one, but I am not sure). And those are the backbone of LS. Yes, Lancers are probably the biggest and most important and most active PK clan. But Wardens have always been the clan everyone could aspire to join, while believing Gaidin and Wolfbrothers were never gonna be within the reach. Or the Valon Guard appear nearly dead. The Illianers, Tairens. Why is that? I believe there is in general too little to do for the LS clans and I totally agree with Santino about the need for promoting RP alongside PK. I might be wrong (and please correct me in that case), but I am under the impression the laws of individual nations got standartised too much, interclan wars are pretty much nonexistent (I miss those encounters with Janers and other Whitecloaks), the main difference between the clans is location of the turn-in scalps mob. Laws and wars are not a matter of coding.
There is more to do without any coding. Some things are within our reach, as Santino says. I am no Alayla (thanks Light for her!) but I try to do my part in the Tower and elsewhere, as my free time allows. But it is getting harder as even the Tower is much less about RP and all kinds of interactions with others than it used to be. Novices try to just get out of the Whites and back to the game asap without any incentive to spend time with others, and some are even honestly suprised I could find them not ready for the next rank despite the qps. Accepteds mostly interact with Aes Sedai to acquire the needed number of tasks and some expect to get away with as little RP as possible, or even less, probably mistaking me for another Sheriam mob. I do not blame them much, nor do I blame the imms. I think this is firstly a general attitude that may be too widespread on LS these days. Secondly, I think it is a negative sideeffect of many positive, or in other cases at least well intentioned, changes to the Tower. I don't know much about other clans (I have only one other clan alt, I admit) but I think we might be lacking incentive for people to play together. Yes, being dependent on other people to progress your character in a clan is very tricky (I could tell long stories about that), but I am worried whether we aren't in general removing this dependence too much. And what is the status of IC interactions in other clans, if even the Tower is weakening in this aspect?
What to do about it. With our numbers, it is hard to put together a large smob group during some hours. Perhaps we should have more smaller smobs, doable by pairs or groups of three people who are not all level 40+, so that people have more to do together. Perhaps we should all care more about our clans as there are obviously some changes within our reach, as Santino points out. Perhaps we should call for loosening some of the rules, if those are too restrictive.
For example, it is quite hard to be a normal small criminal these days. I was quite surprised on one of my alts to get a Thiefbane warrant so easily. Really. Do dead mobs tell tales? The dying one certainly didn't shout anything, probably didn't even notice me until it was too late. Yes, it shouldn't probably be too easy to be a criminal but it shouldn't be annoyingly hard either. It is probably annoying even for the Whitecloaks to cause trouble to the Tower, I have no other explanation for the unnatural calm. LS shouldn't be good guys only, there are all kinds of characters in the book.
I agree about the coaches idea. I think the side would be much more lively, if we could get faster to the place where something is happening. Not just PK, any action at all.
This is getting too long, sorry about that.
I'd say one change that could get people more involved with lowbies and newbies would be fixing the difference in exp when grouped with a person and when grouped with a pet (if that has been already fixed while I was away, sorry about mentioning it again). No amount of new teacher mobs and mob quests is gonna make a newbie feel more welcome (and teach him better) than a more experienced player taking them under the wing for a few hours of exp and adventure. I think it is wrong and supporting the wrong attitude to punish people (make them earn their levels slower) for helping another player and having fun together.
Another thing: do I really play during such weird hours or are most LS clans pretty inactive? I have a few alts I would eventually love to clan. But in a few weeks (at various times), I can't remember seeing a single Lion Warden around (alright, perhaps one, but I am not sure). And those are the backbone of LS. Yes, Lancers are probably the biggest and most important and most active PK clan. But Wardens have always been the clan everyone could aspire to join, while believing Gaidin and Wolfbrothers were never gonna be within the reach. Or the Valon Guard appear nearly dead. The Illianers, Tairens. Why is that? I believe there is in general too little to do for the LS clans and I totally agree with Santino about the need for promoting RP alongside PK. I might be wrong (and please correct me in that case), but I am under the impression the laws of individual nations got standartised too much, interclan wars are pretty much nonexistent (I miss those encounters with Janers and other Whitecloaks), the main difference between the clans is location of the turn-in scalps mob. Laws and wars are not a matter of coding.
There is more to do without any coding. Some things are within our reach, as Santino says. I am no Alayla (thanks Light for her!) but I try to do my part in the Tower and elsewhere, as my free time allows. But it is getting harder as even the Tower is much less about RP and all kinds of interactions with others than it used to be. Novices try to just get out of the Whites and back to the game asap without any incentive to spend time with others, and some are even honestly suprised I could find them not ready for the next rank despite the qps. Accepteds mostly interact with Aes Sedai to acquire the needed number of tasks and some expect to get away with as little RP as possible, or even less, probably mistaking me for another Sheriam mob. I do not blame them much, nor do I blame the imms. I think this is firstly a general attitude that may be too widespread on LS these days. Secondly, I think it is a negative sideeffect of many positive, or in other cases at least well intentioned, changes to the Tower. I don't know much about other clans (I have only one other clan alt, I admit) but I think we might be lacking incentive for people to play together. Yes, being dependent on other people to progress your character in a clan is very tricky (I could tell long stories about that), but I am worried whether we aren't in general removing this dependence too much. And what is the status of IC interactions in other clans, if even the Tower is weakening in this aspect?
What to do about it. With our numbers, it is hard to put together a large smob group during some hours. Perhaps we should have more smaller smobs, doable by pairs or groups of three people who are not all level 40+, so that people have more to do together. Perhaps we should all care more about our clans as there are obviously some changes within our reach, as Santino points out. Perhaps we should call for loosening some of the rules, if those are too restrictive.
For example, it is quite hard to be a normal small criminal these days. I was quite surprised on one of my alts to get a Thiefbane warrant so easily. Really. Do dead mobs tell tales? The dying one certainly didn't shout anything, probably didn't even notice me until it was too late. Yes, it shouldn't probably be too easy to be a criminal but it shouldn't be annoyingly hard either. It is probably annoying even for the Whitecloaks to cause trouble to the Tower, I have no other explanation for the unnatural calm. LS shouldn't be good guys only, there are all kinds of characters in the book.
I agree about the coaches idea. I think the side would be much more lively, if we could get faster to the place where something is happening. Not just PK, any action at all.
This is getting too long, sorry about that.
Re: Lightside Needs Help
When we reopened the MUD a little over a year ago, things had changed enough in Flash's life that he could be more involved. At that time arrangements were made for an active email-group-dependent discussion for the 103/104s that he participates in all the time. For the first six months there were also Saturday group calls hosted by Flash and myself for live team discussions, which no longer take place due to schedule issues. In short, Flash is very much more involved as a team leader and an owner than he has been for the prior 10+ years.
It comes down to time, and inclination. Things take a lot of time to vet, then build (or code), then playtest. Often something that starts off well goes to playtesting and we hit a major hurdle, or something that would impact the game in a way completely unintended or in an undesirable way. Sometimes it's that an idea just doesn't resonate with the person who would have to build (or code) it, so it goes on the back burner, especially when more time-sensitive things come up.
One of the things that have been found is that when there were active coders in the game, oversights were made that weren't fixed - they were barely even patched. Flash has gone through sections where the code doesn't match up with things elsewhere and we've ended up with problems. The most recent example of this would be the "rat bug" that got worse, then better, then worse, then much worse, then better... it's because there were things coded in elsewhere and not referenced correctly. I don't know how much time he spent on that but it was quite a lot; I think we worked on that off and on for almost three months.
What some people need to remember is that just like you, we all have other lives. If this was not a non-profit, and it were pay-to-play, then we would be paying our Staff, and that then becomes a job with dedicated hours. As it is, things get in the way.
Personal example: Before my Dad was diagnosed with cancer again this past November 2015, I had never missed a day here since I first started playing in 1995. Think about that a moment. All the vacations I take -- including those overseas -- I logged in every day to check on the game, work on something, fix something, make something, for 21 years. My commitment to this game has lasted longer than most modern marriages. Every time we've been offline I've been actively involved to not only get us back up, but also keep the playerbase engaged. I stayed involved during his illness, but more on the invisible level in game and also on the admin side of things, because I didn't want to be social. Since his death in March 2016 I've logged in every day, but my level of activity is below what it used to be; instead of cranking something out in 3 days, it may take me 3 weeks, and I'm a lot more selective about the projects I'm taking on as well as much more ruthless as to which things I put to the back of the line. I pretty much figure that for the first time in 21 years I'm taking FMLA from the game. If that means a slow down in what I do (as opposed to me trying to force-rush things by doing a crappy job of it) then that's for the best. Even if it was a paid job, I'd be within FMLA to do so. Heck, I don't remember much about the year-end of my RL business, or the first quarter this year, but thanks to my team and my weekly check-ins we're doing what we're supposed to; same around here. Nothing has been balefired, right?
Bottom line: We do listen, and we thank you for your ideas and enthusiasm. Please remember that we're not employees with a paid salary, and we're doing everything we can, as we can, and we will continue to do so for quite a while to come because we love the place as much as you do.
It comes down to time, and inclination. Things take a lot of time to vet, then build (or code), then playtest. Often something that starts off well goes to playtesting and we hit a major hurdle, or something that would impact the game in a way completely unintended or in an undesirable way. Sometimes it's that an idea just doesn't resonate with the person who would have to build (or code) it, so it goes on the back burner, especially when more time-sensitive things come up.
One of the things that have been found is that when there were active coders in the game, oversights were made that weren't fixed - they were barely even patched. Flash has gone through sections where the code doesn't match up with things elsewhere and we've ended up with problems. The most recent example of this would be the "rat bug" that got worse, then better, then worse, then much worse, then better... it's because there were things coded in elsewhere and not referenced correctly. I don't know how much time he spent on that but it was quite a lot; I think we worked on that off and on for almost three months.
What some people need to remember is that just like you, we all have other lives. If this was not a non-profit, and it were pay-to-play, then we would be paying our Staff, and that then becomes a job with dedicated hours. As it is, things get in the way.
Personal example: Before my Dad was diagnosed with cancer again this past November 2015, I had never missed a day here since I first started playing in 1995. Think about that a moment. All the vacations I take -- including those overseas -- I logged in every day to check on the game, work on something, fix something, make something, for 21 years. My commitment to this game has lasted longer than most modern marriages. Every time we've been offline I've been actively involved to not only get us back up, but also keep the playerbase engaged. I stayed involved during his illness, but more on the invisible level in game and also on the admin side of things, because I didn't want to be social. Since his death in March 2016 I've logged in every day, but my level of activity is below what it used to be; instead of cranking something out in 3 days, it may take me 3 weeks, and I'm a lot more selective about the projects I'm taking on as well as much more ruthless as to which things I put to the back of the line. I pretty much figure that for the first time in 21 years I'm taking FMLA from the game. If that means a slow down in what I do (as opposed to me trying to force-rush things by doing a crappy job of it) then that's for the best. Even if it was a paid job, I'd be within FMLA to do so. Heck, I don't remember much about the year-end of my RL business, or the first quarter this year, but thanks to my team and my weekly check-ins we're doing what we're supposed to; same around here. Nothing has been balefired, right?
Bottom line: We do listen, and we thank you for your ideas and enthusiasm. Please remember that we're not employees with a paid salary, and we're doing everything we can, as we can, and we will continue to do so for quite a while to come because we love the place as much as you do.
Re: Lightside Needs Help
Vivienne - I appreciate your hard work and the time you have put into this game. Also my condolences about your father. I know all too well about losing family members.
I know of a outstanding coder that has volunteered multiple times to help. It seems like a lot of issues come down to time and coders, is Flash just set against bringing in a rockstar because he has been burned in the past? Sorry if I am being naive here but it shouldn't be this hard to get people to work on this stuff. I too have a real job where I manage over a dozen people, I work with contractors and organize building out call centers, I also run a non for profit, as well as manage 3 club soccer teams and 1 adult hockey team. I know how to organize and get things done so I know its not that hard to bring people in. I am not trying to beat a dead horse here but man it can't be that hard to get helpers, have a test environment and get stuff done.
I know of a outstanding coder that has volunteered multiple times to help. It seems like a lot of issues come down to time and coders, is Flash just set against bringing in a rockstar because he has been burned in the past? Sorry if I am being naive here but it shouldn't be this hard to get people to work on this stuff. I too have a real job where I manage over a dozen people, I work with contractors and organize building out call centers, I also run a non for profit, as well as manage 3 club soccer teams and 1 adult hockey team. I know how to organize and get things done so I know its not that hard to bring people in. I am not trying to beat a dead horse here but man it can't be that hard to get helpers, have a test environment and get stuff done.
Re: Lightside Needs Help
I'm pretty sure that's also a time issue. From what I've heard, the pair that was hired was working on something, sent their work in for review and/or implementation and wandered away as they waited and waited. Given how approved proposals have been sitting for a while, I can't escape the feeling that these things are related.Protus wrote:I know of a outstanding coder that has volunteered multiple times to help. It seems like a lot of issues come down to time and coders, is Flash just set against bringing in a rockstar because he has been burned in the past?
But people, we've had these discussions at least a dozen times before over the past years. At least we got a major thing like prerolled stats done when Flash was less busy last year and that's a huge thing, if perhaps not the complete fix everyone was waiting for. Maybe some of the good stuff will eventually get done. In hindsight, I wish I had pursued learning C++ in 2006 or so when I looked at it and decided the game would probably be dead before I actually knew it well enough.
I really don't mind people voicing their opinions or asking what the deal is sometimes, but can we please not turn this into the Balance forum? Just saying, because the past few days this thread and another have been pretty sizable time sinks again that actually took me away from doing things in game yesterday. It's really a matter of not being able to have your cake and eat it too.
Also, again, if you have neat ideas for temporary changes, hit me up.
Re: Lightside Needs Help
Seconding this. When I started (on SS, after a failed attempt at LS six months prior) one of the things that drew me was 1) relatively easy good equipment (which for me, was almost unbelieveable) and 2) Very close, doable smobs. RTL was loading full abs/claymore. Guess what I was for a long time? Yup, long blades/abs. Very early on, I was the beneficiary of very close, incredibly good smobbing with a centralized dump location (Charity Square). Because of that, I started doing the same for other people, started smobbing and doing things with other people, and was engaged with the SS community before I had even tried PK.Elysia wrote:Actually, I think this is more of a logistics problem. DS has SK a short stroll away, a smob that has no doors. That is an absolutely huge, huge advantage.Loomis wrote:If you want people to start playing LS...BE HELPFUL! Start giving away top end eq instead of hoarding it for yourselves!! Why do you think DS is so successful at pk? It's because you die, you get a full set and run right back out there...this makes you much more useful to your side than dying and all the "well known" or "cool kids" keeping all the good dung for their alts or storage.
Compare that to Fal Dara. Closest smob probably is Forest Brigand Leader, which is behind 3 doors and carries the risk of being ratted/ravened/flocked.
Or Caemlyn. Roland requires a relatively high amount of pick, which not everyone has.
Amador and mercenary commander are probably most alike, although even then you're at risk of being hit crossrace in a door. It's a small risk these days, but even today it's not unheard of.
I don't think it has anything to do with LS mentality per se, since so many northern pkers also play DS. So what is the difference? It is a group of hardcore DSers who essentially forced the LS mentality DSers to play along, or is there something else behind the difference in mentality?
@Santino: agree with you on the rpers, although it's not necessarily just the rpers. It's also the explorers, the smobbers and so on. We've tried to pay some attention to rp clans lately because of this. The smobbers might be the most easily reeled back in, but that would take a major overhaul of smobs. The last time I did that, it took me a 3 months and that was when we had more imms to cover the basics...
@Pulverwise: some other people brought up the donation thing too, recently. Looking at how it works and seeing if it can be applied elsewhere is somewhere on my to-do list.
DS is similar - very close, very good-loading smobs, centralized dump location. DS also has smells, which allows for more safe smobbing (another feature of SS, pre Seandar nuke) and so you can hit those smobs with a low number of people with very little risk.
Now let's look at LS. Very spread out (PKers up north, smobbers more central), often equipment spread out across lots of cities (no dump spot, and just about anywhere in FD is able to be easily looted by DS), inter-clan politics and DFs (which add flavor, but detract from a unified side) and pretty much no close, good-loading smobs, much less ones you can hit with few people and safely.
Just talking about DS and LS in general, since it's been mentioned: DS on average is more experienced than LS, has more people in a smaller area (odds are good everyone on the wholist is somewhere between Blight and TKD, unless there's active PK somewhere else), and more people that just PK. LS also often has issues in PK because of warrants/CoL-Tower issues. TL;DR - if there's an equal number of people on DS and LS, DS probably has at least a 2:1 PKer advantage and probably has better people too.
Re: Lightside Needs Help
I wouldn't be able to give Flash's reasons, because I am not him. However, I can assure you that each and every time I get an email with someone volunteering to code, it is forwarded in its entirety to Flash and then I bow out, because I do not choose our coder(s). It is also cc'd to the other Staff members so that I'm not the only one in the loop on who has volunteered, and when. What Flash does from there is entirely up to him.I know of a outstanding coder that has volunteered multiple times to help. It seems like a lot of issues come down to time and coders, is Flash just set against bringing in a rockstar because he has been burned in the past?
I'm big on volunteering. I know people want to help out. I personally know several "rockstar coders" who also are Imms (present and retired) here who haven't been given the "go ahead" to help Flash with coding. I have no idea what to say except thank you, everyone who has volunteered their coding services. I personally appreciate you wanting to invest your time and effort in that way.
Re: Lightside Needs Help
So sorry to hear about your father Viv.... My mother's breast cancer metastasized in September and she went this January.... the world will never be the same. Working on zmud scripts and now helping a little with the wiki gives me some time away mentally from the pain, so that has been good for me. Thank you for sharing.
Santino-- we had issues couple years ago, but I am SO glad to hear you say the things you did in your previous post. I agree that we (players) are the most important aspect to making this playground the best it can be. The entitlement issues and whining has an impact just as you describe.
The people who do it know who they are... there is a couple right now that if you look at their last 10 posts on the forums... 9 if not 10 of them are just bullshit remarks or flame another person or their ideas. Nothing constructive, inspiring, or helpful. We can all make this place a little better if we very fine person, gender being but a construct of society less and help more. Heck, bitching less is helping more... two ravens with one throwing spike!
Riley, player of Taziar and Kerryk.
Implement Ebou Dar 2017 campaign! Get out and Vote! *wink*
Santino-- we had issues couple years ago, but I am SO glad to hear you say the things you did in your previous post. I agree that we (players) are the most important aspect to making this playground the best it can be. The entitlement issues and whining has an impact just as you describe.
The people who do it know who they are... there is a couple right now that if you look at their last 10 posts on the forums... 9 if not 10 of them are just bullshit remarks or flame another person or their ideas. Nothing constructive, inspiring, or helpful. We can all make this place a little better if we very fine person, gender being but a construct of society less and help more. Heck, bitching less is helping more... two ravens with one throwing spike!
Riley, player of Taziar and Kerryk.
Implement Ebou Dar 2017 campaign! Get out and Vote! *wink*