Are players leaving?

[Razhak]

Pppfftttt.... Where to start, how to end..

Yes we are definatly are losing players. I might be one of them slowly going towards the exit..

I've been playing this game for over 22 years and booked in huge amounts of playtime in all of those years apart from a short break of 3-4 months during a challenging time for me and my wife. I seen changes, more changes, bad changes, worse changes, good changes. In the end none of those changes really made me lose interest in the game.

That said, the other day I logged into the mud and saw I hadnt logged in for 20-ish days and i thought: odd, how did that happen. I know I had been on my laptop a couple times thinking that even though I had the time to play, I had no inclination. And I wondered why that had happened, and I couldnt really imagine why. I dont believe in this whole losing interest thing after you "achieved your goals". I never bored of playing Razhak, especially because I have reinvented him so many times in the past: ABS, ABS + secondary skill, stabby smob, full combo, etc, etc. Also playing to PK, or to RP with DFs, there was always so much to do. I cant remember a time being bored on Razhak before the past year or so.. I really wish back for those simpler times.

I realised the thing that made me play less and less, is that my options had been whittled down slowly, but steadily in the past: options with DF-RP have been curtailed by more and more restrictions on meaningfull interaction (seeing people DL now without ever a single interaction with me or other remorts I've seen for instance), Chosen being nerved, less and less options as a solo playing to do thing (being an european player I have little options of running around in huge group pk or smobbing), and more things I can't even think about at the moment.

Then there's the recent year of changes back and forth: changes are made, they are overturned, they are reinstated differently, then tweaked in ways I can't follow anymore. Zones are chopped up without much thought or reason and reflexes from 20 years playing suddenly are no longer usefull, weapons get changed, then revamped, then suddenly removed and so on. It just goes on and on for me.

All those changes as seperate entities are no game breaker, but in the end they add up and compound to a mud which I honestly dont really recognize anymore.

Then for something completely different: personal interactions. This mud has a way to get both the best and worst out of people. In itself it is amazing how well people that never seen eachother in real life, can interact, work together in a fast paced environment and with simple messages on narrates can pk together (or do any other activity). Imagine doing that in real life with complete strangers, its actually boggling.

However the mud also has a tendency of dragging out our darker aspects. Petty rivalries can explode to the fore, and digress into full blown grieving campaigns. Honestly I never really bothered to become part of any one's posse. I can communicate pretty well with most people on this mud, only a few I decided no longer to really bother with. I've been part of the Chosen longer then anyone of all the people listed in any of the posts above as being in the Chosen, but I never really was in any of the 2 camps that formed back there. For me the Chosen was a means to RP with DFs and a way to keep DS rolling, never personal.

Yet I've been accused of being in alot of posse's and camps in the past 20 years, and in the end its just ludicrous how much effort people invest in their squabbles. Some people here are like elephants, they remember exactly what you did to turn their panties in a twist back on the 10th of januari 2003, and will bring it up in conversations in april 2022 and act like its all happened just 2 days earlier. People call names, they invent stories, other people react to this and a back-and-forth ensues: essentially they create their own boogiemen that way.

So far I've refrained from naming people, but actually I've never had much problems with most people listed in so many posts in the thread above. Most of them are just fine if you talk to them 1 on 1, and most of them I talk to regularly to semi-regularly on discord. And thats what most people forget: some demonize certain players, but in the end they are just another 30-40 year old guy with 1-2 kids etc, and not some blooddrinking eyeless monster.

Interaction also goes both ways, and I know that all to well. I've not always been the most gracious person to be around. I know that, and I know that has ruffled people's feathers. But in the end we are all playing a nerd game with text, and that means we can be nerds with text!

I rambled to long. You can all start shooting at me now for above rambling.



post-script: One more personal note which I realised on a more personal matter: its also the way people are treated sometimes by immortals, and I dont say this to complain. But as an example. Sometimes its not the music, but the tune of the music that sets the mood. For instance, after 15 years of working with DFs, the DF-Chosen system got nixed. After a while, to entice interaction in the new DF-remort system, awards were added for interactions. A grandfather clause was added for those who had done things in the past, if they could turn in proof. I turned in a massive tome of notes from the past and got a reward, which in itself was a nice thought, but in effect to me was more adding insult to injury because of the amount which was allocated towards me after 15 years. Similar things have happened in the past, and really have made me steer away from much interaction with DFs, because after adding a reward clause after 15 years, a much bigger punishment clause was added to prevent "abuse", which felt so insulting after 15 years of trying to be absolutely honest in DF interactions (like offering a very small carrot, while threatening with an enormously large stick...).

Writing this, thats basically a very recurrent thing: the mud gets fenced off against all kinds of abuse so very much, that much of the fun is being weeded out as well. Look at heralds, player run clans/Chosen removal, etc, etc, etc...

[Raspen]

@Razhak Are your goals mainly dark side driven? Thought of things out of that area? Perhaps you have.

[Sarinda]

I feel like I have a different perspective than so many people here because I have been a long time player, having started in ~2004, but with an extended break from 2013 until January 2022. Like some others, the release of the WoT show rekindled a love for this universe and caused my nostalgia for this game to resurface.

There have been so many amazing QOL changes since I left that I am really surprised at the general tone in this thread. Maybe others take them for granted, but here are some great changes that I came back to after years away:

Personnel trainer - I can relevel from a PK death by killing two easy mobs! Or level rapidly even without an XP modifier active.

An entire expansion to the crafting system, allowing for crafting rare items. And I love that you can buy crafting tokens in exchange for TPs because I can convert those to tokens and sell for hundreds of gold at once. I sold a few and now have a max capacity bank account, something I have never achieved.

Addition of CTF patrols to add dynamic mob support, not to mention entire CTF cities and dynamic events.

Roleplay QPs and ranks with in game rewards that make RP more fun. I am super excited to start working on these.

Although technically a nerf, I love the addition of no-quit checks to Travel, Gate, and Fade abilities. Remember when channelers could run like 4-5 rooms away and vanish in 3 seconds without trying?

Addition of ter’angreal to allow anyone to use portal stones. Change in Ways to make them faster to use.

The actual Discord server itself! This would have been so helpful back in the day. I have loved collaborating with other Tower members there on the novice/Accepted dedicated server.

The creation of a player-curated wiki with tons of info about smobs, maps, game mechanics, and clan info.

The creation of prerolled stats that I would have killed for years ago. In fact, prerolled stats are so accessible and competitive that they were better than my existing stats even after 2 sets of age rerolls that were waiting for me upon my return. Do you know how amazing and game changing this is? 14 18 18 18 14 on a newbie FC? I literally just met a true newbie last week who came here because of the show and I was able to help them level up with no need for statting at all. This still blows my mind.

Yes, the game is much smaller than it was when I played back in 2013. But I still love the community and I’ve put multiple days of play time on this character in the past few months, and now I’m on the cusp of joining an amazing clan (Red Ajah) that I wasn’t ready to earn my way into 9 years ago. This is because jumping into PK and re-leveling and re-equipping when I die is so much easier than it was before. Game changes have allowed me to jump into PK again and again until the point that now I survive more often than I die.

I do agree that having more things you can do in 30-60 minute chunks and daily login bonuses would be great to incentivize people to play more. I spent a lot of my limited free time in the past few years playing a mobile F2P game that used daily and monthly quests and login rewards to keep things fresh and reward me for things I already wanted to do, but even in that game I stayed long past the time I thought I would because of the tight knit community I was a part of. If we want to invest in the future of this game, we all need to make new players feel welcome and desired, find or create reasons for experienced players to want to log on, and remember that we are all here because we share a love of a vibrant and immersive fictional universe (…and because we like to kill each other mercilessly ).

[myzec]

Well said Sarinda, there have been some wonderful changes. Appreciate you highlighting these.

[Khaster]

I sometimes feel like this game should come with an additional warning at startup. Something along the lines of "Welcome to Wotmud, the 20+ year old text based RPPvP game run by mostly volunteers who work on the game in their limited free time. This isn't a AAA game or your favorite MMO. It also has a small community so if you act like a dung-head you will be treated accordingly."

It's hilarious to me that the same people that complain about balance will compare this game to larger ones. As someone who has been in the top-tier of players in multiple big games I can tell you that:
1. Those games aren't balanced and they have teams larger than our whole staff to do so.
2. If balance makes you quit the game, you were just looking for a reason.

If you still feel the need to compare this game to big ones: The single best player I ever played with in any game (top 50 WoW player) played the same thing for 15 years through buffs, nerfs, changes, reworks, everything. When I asked her why she never played anything else her response was that she loved the class and the game. The mud isn't like that though. Let's be real, if you identify as a "med blade" only player or whatever then idk what to tell you. That's weird and stop it (or get insane at it and prove everyone wrong?). Most people I would assume either read the weapons spreadsheet or ask someone that does "Hey what's the best weapon right now?" and reprac to it and move on with their lives. No class is unplayable and that's all that should really matter.

I'm a newer player relatively (I think I just hit 2 years) and I am chortlesnorfling BAD. So idk that anyone should listen to me either. BUT I'm also not jaded, biased (except towards making RE a better clan than it already is) and don't carry 20 year old grudges so do with that what you will. While I haven't really quit, the reason I am not playing as much is entirely on me an no one else (profound). I don't have much time to play after work and the time investment to get, and stay, good at this game is insane. I can play Wotmud for 4-5 hours and die maybe once or twice during 1-2 pk sessions and maybe not get anything in return ... Or play 10-15 matches of something shorter ... or do 5-6 dungeons ... Or an entire raid. It's a slow burn game that requires goals that you really want to achieve in order to stay interested and I just don't have that motivation right now. I think that while Vannor has some epicly bad takes sometimes, he also has some good ones, and I think something along the lines of different rewards is the right answer. If I had a much shorter goal or something that I could spam for a few hours a day and still get reasonable progress, I'd play a lot more. Also if PVE was more interesting I'd do that more but god chortlesnorfling DAMN do I hate smobbing.

I try to be open and honest with everyone so if anyone is offended by what I said, I apologize, but it's still how I feel. Also, very well said Sarinda.

[Aureus]

The desire for more "short" activities is good feedback (across several threads) and it's something we'll invest some imm time into.

[Taziar]

The other (happened before the first point) was the posting of all WB bonuses on the Wiki but not posting all other secret clans at the same time. Definitely felt that was out of line. If you are going to do the freedom of information no probs, just put every clan out there. I really would like to know some secrets of BTs, Kin, or some of the juicer dark gifts out there but alas its not for my eyes. And there was also something in there I hadn't realized and really wished I had the opportunity to find out for myself... From my perspective, it seemed you had an axe to grind and again for no reason I was aware of and more importantly how did you get the information? It was escalated to immortals and noted it was not appropriate to post clan information. Again, from my point, I believe this skewed your view of the staff and wb clan members.

Please let me clear the record.

In 2002 the player of Paikah posted a website with the fore mentioned bonus for the wolfbrother clan. This website went public at some point after that, I do not know when. This website comes up as the second result of the google search: wolfbrother wotmud

On April 29th, 2013 Russ3Z (Thuvia) created the wolfbrother page on the wiki. That page was just a template, with no information... just like all the other page templates he started.

On May 29th, 2014 a contributor added the bonus information to the page. This contributor did so from the information released from the webpage Paikah posted. At this point that website was common information. That contributor's IP address is: (they posted without logging into an account)

From December of 2014 until July 2016 there were five edits of the wolfbrother page, all minor edits (formatting, etc...)

In March of 2016 the account Medakan was created and it was the first time I had ever used the wiki. Russ3Z started me on my way to becoming the second largest contributor on record. He eventually gave me admin responsibilities a few years later.

On November 18th, 2020 a user IP: Deleted the wolfbrother page. This user did not leave a note in the edit notes of why they deleted the page. This user did so not logged into a fandom account. This not compliant with wiki standards.

Three days later on the 21st I noticed the page had been deleted. I looked for notes, and or, user information to as why it was deleted. There was no information. As the sole active admin of the wiki I reverted the edit and restored the page. This is consistent with Fandom admin criteria and with the instructions handed down to me by Russ3Z. Admin of the Wiki are there to protect content and help the community contribute.

Then on the 25th, another user, not logged into an account and leaving no notes deleted the page again. IP:

The next day I reverted that edit and then proceeded to "protect" the page with my admin authority to protect the content from being deleted again. I added the commonly known website where the content came from as source for the content validating it.

NOW... some other information. The wiki is contributor run. It has no affiliation with the staff, nor is it controlled by anyone other than the contributors that... contribute. At the time, I was commonly know as the only active admin of the wiki. At no time was I approach by staff to discuss the page. At no time was I ever told by staff to delete the content. INSTEAD, I was attacked by a half a dozen players, sent pissed off DMs, and abused on Discord. I attempted to explain to the aggressive participants what was going on and it degenerated quickly.

Then I was messaged by a wiki contributor, LyrenT who told me there were a lot of people freaking out over the wolfbrother page. I explained to her what happened; multiple times the page was deleted by (non)-account users without any documentation why. She agreed that this was unacceptable and understood my position. We discussed what to do about it. I granted, under my authority, to allow the page to be edited only by contributors. She made an edit to the page that day removing the bonus content.

On January 27th 2021 Medakan (me) added content to the wolfbrother page that is directly from the help file in game.


All of this is documented on the wiki, for anyone to see, in the history section of the wolfbrother page.

[Sarryn]

Drama and toxicity sums it up for me.

As someone who’s invested way to much time into the game. It’s hard to truly leave. Because I do enjoy the game. Generally that’s by myself only though. Because I just don’t like dealing with some of the nonsense. The game is frustrating on a fair amount of levels. Having to deal with certain players/clans and there egos being one. Before I recently took my break lag was a huge issue. And that was with the best link in my area. It was unexplainable and only on this game.

Now that I don’t have internet barring my phone. It’s mostly pointless to try and play. If anything I’ll log in to level or smob when bored. Pking on this connection is atrocious. Props to porka for pking off phone hotspot. Dying a few times ld was enough to stop that. Specially given some people don’t return and are rude about it.

Other than the above time is always an issue. The amount of time you have to invest. The amount of sucking up to people who are toxic to get in a clan. I have plenty of time on my hands. But it’s just not fun spending ages to get into a clan you’ve already been in etc. Or being denied etc cause of someone’s ego.

And lastly changes. All these changes make me not want to relearn the game. Some are good some are annoying. And tedious to relearn things constantly. Or having the ladder pulled up on this or that. Or having things you worked for removed. It’s all rather annoying. But it is what it is.

Other than that, ya just drama, toxicity, egos, long waits or not being able to achieve things anyone should be able to. Constant changing of zones, weapons, gear, requirements etc. And a few good apples that no longer play doesn’t help. Quick edit, some of us play this game to get away from toxic environments in life. To come into a game and receive toxicity on top of that is never fun. Be kind as much as possible.

[Taziar]

All of this is documented on the wiki, for anyone to see, in the history section of the wolfbrother page.

The IP address that the moderator deleted in my post above are directly taken from the wiki history page and are available for anyone to see.

[Raspen]

So information which was not for public consumption and goes against the spirit of the game in which it was created was automatically reloaded without understanding the noted ramifications? Is there governance applied for sensitive information? Admins assume responsibility of the data they are administrating and thus by default are responsible, hence why its a very cautious topic. Providing a historical accounting as to the uploading and deletion of sensitive data only reinforces a lack of control around the data, which was determined as sensitive and raised as a concern. It is fine to provide public information but providing sensitive information and hiding behind a behind a process for public information is irresponsible. I hope we understand that and it is the crux of the issue. It was not public domain data and should not have been shared nor reshared. And there should have been a review. Additionally it was noted that folks were asking it to be taken down and it was not adhered.

Also, is it standard process to post IP addresses?

This whole response is quite concerning.