double exp during week days

[Chiron]

I wasn't suggesting an imm get up everyday to set 2x.

I was suggesting, before the game continues to die, players and imms getting cranky with each other, we revisit permanent 2x in some form or fashion. Weekdays, weekends, all the time. Something. This is the easiest of changes for a coder/Flash. It would alleviate the useless attention the mud puts on XP.

Most of the NWIH are obvious coding hell or a move to keep the game from being like other games. This one is not.

Know how stores get more customers? They put on sales. Then they buy other items. Stores eventually just have sales all the time. "It is painful to XP on WoTmud" is the common rant.

It takes over 100 million XP to get level 51. Most of that in the last 21 levels at 3-5 million a level. It roughly takes an hour to get 3 million for average Joe/Jane. So why can't we cut down releveling and XPing from a 20 hour stint to a 10 hour stint so we can spend those other 10 hours PKing, Smobbing, and going on daring raids.

Not every player, or imm, wants to spend time grueling through XP for themselves or other players. So let us not. It makes Imms lives easier so we aren't begging to turn in chits or asking for XP. Plus 2x, 3x, 5x 10x and 15x will all be much more for players.

PKing, Smobbing, raiding, and questing are already challenging, XPing is not but a fruitless venture. A few more pracs after almost two hours of hitting K animal. That was SO exciting. Don't talk to me, must XP. Can't take time to chat, must XP. Sorry, can't smob/PK, have to XP.

[Lyren]

I tend to prefer 5x and 10x for a short amount of time. People get a few million in a short time and normal gameplay interruption is minimal.

Obvious downsides are obviously that there's a bigger chance you'll miss it, but that could potentially be addressed by announcing them beforehand. That would require people actually reading Announcements and FB though, which some people obviously don't do frequently enough - I still get questions about the reset I did over a week ago.

I'll give it a test run soon.

And for the people that are on, most of them are on the wrong character, because, who wants to xp without a multiplier, really?

[Vivienne]

You're right, I do tend to get on with what I affectionately call The Morning Crew(tm) and I do something to make it rain and get players on. The reason is because when I'm waking up and I'm bleary-eyed with coffee in hand it tends to be an in-between time for a lot of players, and if I give them incentive (such as a live raid, or I bump up a smob, or I put on very limited xp multiplier, or I do double scalp awards, or whatever) we see the numbers increase, and pk also tends to happen more often than not. Meanwhile I can set that, spend 30 minutes doing bug reports, drinking coffee, or grab a shower and hope the game doesn't crash in the meantime. However, that is my choice both by business plan design and also because of the level of commitment I have. That said, I've been here for 17? 18? years and I have never gotten up at 2am my time to do something. Heck, I don't even do that for my RL business. If I had a client try to tell me that I signed up for that just by choosing my career, I think you can predict with great reliability and assurance what I would say to that client.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook know why I'm not around right now, haven't been for most of two months, and that if I do log on I'm working invisibly because while I appreciate you all, I am not the most social person on the planet and my time has been consumed by something a lot more serious than WoTmud. I will be back sooner rather than later as my normal vivacious, sassy, inventive self. I'm sorry that my lack of attention is creating a boring, tedious, barely-to-be-tolerated game life for you. (See, right there, you see me bouncing back. Take it as a good sign.) Elysia and I have been in daily contact regarding game related issues, and so far, I haven't seen any balefire on the server so I'm fairly certain we're okay.

But seriously - I'm going to tell you something that used to be common knowledge but seems to have fallen through the cracks when it comes to exping and its value. Each zone is populated with a range of available exp if you kill everything in it, with a set low and a set high. A lot of people think only hitting the high-end stuff is worthwhile, so they spend time bouncing from zone to zone (and getting frustrated) looking for trees, predators, whatever and that takes up the player's time and erodes satisfaction because the player can't find what they think they want. Those high-ticket items are in the zones as a low-level-boss perk, and were never meant to be the gold rush, let alone the standard. Some zones are set to be more low-level friendly than others, and some will be very dangerous because of the aggros in it, but the exp value balances out with the exception of some very specific zones with a very specialized reasoning. This is why some zones are crawling with lower level mobs, while in others you can't find a rabbit to save your life. I will tell you this: On those rare occasions when I am on a mortal that needs exp, and someone has turned in a chit or a multiplier has otherwise been set, I'm the one clearing every zone down to the mice. I get more exp by clearing each room of a zone for the time spent vs racing all the rest of you for high-end mobs.

I don't have the time these days to read every post around here, so please don't feel slighted if I'm not addressing every question, suggestion, idea, or whatever in this or any other thread. See paragraph two of this post.

Less than three,

Viv

[Elysia]

And for the people that are on, most of them are on the wrong character, because, who wants to xp without a multiplier, really?

That's why I've been letting them run for longer, so alting same side is at least beneficial.

[Rig]

Everyone should stop bitching at the limited amount of imms!

[Mangler]

I'm not sure this constitutes bitching. We're making a suggestion and giving our reasons. We appreciate Imms volunteer their time to a game we all enjoy. If this isn't viable we're not bitching about that.

[Vivienne]

Another thing to consider is this. In my opinion, the desire for double exp or other bonuses is because you (and I mean not one specific person, I am using the generic here) want this faster. By going faster, you could arguably miss things that are glossed over because the drive for your gamer type is the one that likes to level up fast - you're not necessarily the social gamer, the adventure gamer, the storyline gamer. That's okay, we all have our styles. However, if we were to change one of the NWIH things of almost 20 years to permanent double exp then it becomes an expectation instead of a bonus. Then the bar for your expectation is raised, and suddenly you want more because the speed of 2x is now normal, and then it's 3x, then it's 4x, and on and on. Then it's that getting to level 51 is too easy, and you want more levels so you can say you worked for something more. Then the game becomes even more inaccessible to the casual player, creating a higher level of elitism, as the exp needed for those levels would be astonishingly high. The inflation caused by such a move is daunting and not necessarily one that I want to see come about, personally.

The reason I implemented chits so many years ago was so that you, as a player, can have a bit more control (or, if you like, cause and effect) for your game play. If you get a chit for exping then it's in your hands, and you can say "Hey, I have Wednesday off, I'd love to spend this that day" and you share your largesse and good fortune with other players. We all appreciate it when someone else treats us to something, right? I can think of only one time I told a player I wouldn't accept a chit, and that was because the player didn't realize that the day was already scheduled for a multiplier to come on a little later and I didn't want to rob them of it. I have absolutely zero problem with turning on the multipliers for chits, and I am fairly free with putting them out as bonus items in quirky ways (someday you guys will learn to loot all minions instead of just popping bosses, I swear!). You can earn them via game play; you can share them when you feel like it.

Have a good day out there in Randland, folks. Adventure, and level up as you go - kind of like real life in that way.

Viv

[Eol]

The reasons keep sounding like "you have to be 51" and I just don't think that's a real reason.

[iria]

Remove the exp cap for lower levels(below 30) or raise it significantly from 500k to 1 million for level 31+ - I assume this is all coding, but it would make it way easier for people who have been here for ages, who don't need to learn how to exp, zones etc. but just want their new character up to a decent level, so they can do what they actually want.

[Iskveri]

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed huge downsides to multipliers?

No pk, no smobbing, the days after a multiplier it's frequently more quiet because people already spent x hours on the game recently...

Besides the fact that putting on any multiplier every day isn't going to be physically possible because it has to be set manually by an imm. I couldn't do it because of the timezone I'm in and no, we're not going to leave our computers running all night... imms are investing quite enough already.

You do realize if it's the norm, then no, that's no longer the case, right? People rush to xp when multipliers are on because they rarely are on (Especially if you live in an off timezone. Hells if you play during American night times and early mornings you probably have no idea what a multiplier is since the server boots and imms don't bother turning it on since they're not around, often.) So many things in this game are keyed to american peak times, it's silly and if you're not able to play in them, the game is a real drag.

If the 2x multiplier were coded to just be the norm after every boot, people wouldn't feel the need to take advantage of it because it's always on and not going away.

The way XP is normally is atrociously slow in a game you want people to take risks. Take a risk, die, lose 5 million xp and sit around waiting for some imm to turn 2x on. If you're a human ABSer, it's sadomasochistic in the extreme since there's not much you can even kill without losing half your hp unless you waste qp on trees.

You're in an era of casual gaming and we're playing a game that takes you all day of "not getting up unless it's to pee or eat" grinding to get one level when most of your playerbase now is aged to the point they have jobs and kids and other responsibilities and you're wondering why nobody bothers to waste 10 hours killing mobs for 1 level and have to sit around waiting for multipliers instead.