What would make people play LS again?

[Equitant]

I'd like your post if I could Kat!

[Rig]

As much as I hate to admit, Pial and Choen the only people who dung talks me back and then makes everyone stay logged to listen to our very intellectual debates as to why I am terrible.

I see where i'm needed then.

[Firimei Lang]

The Shawling process to me [one who has never had a previous AS] is mostly positive, yes it has been a struggle at time when inactivity bites people in the ass.
Getting the AQP's has been satisfying and interesting when I can do it, interaction is what is needed to get votes. I find it hard to understand inactive players voting on the forum. Yes they trust older and wiser players and influential Sedai etc, but really in game viewing I think is essential. Even if it means going on alts or whatnot to view them in their element [Accepted ].

I feel taking time is a good time to review the Ajah and to make sure its the one for you. Someone people know what they want , before getting to be a Novice. Some pk lots and go Green or Red. I love to RP and I do enjoy pK, ok I am not a Green or Red. I have improved on the dying -ripping bit and learning every time I go out there. Of course you need RP and PK vote, also that the person is a decent non nut type I suppose.

Some clans take longer due to the person being sane and stable, they make it hard as the Tower in the books was an elite force to be reckoned with. In game we are not all one or the other, some are middling, or elite or whatnot. Game mechanics make it harder to be 100% bookish.

I do agree with inactive Sedai and Clans within the Tower we do need some kind of intervention for assessing sure Sedai and even those who wish to go Gray or Blue etc.

All in all the Tower works as it should, the zone is a great area and the Imms have worked hard on making it more accessible.

[arkaza]

Challenging things full of mystery would get people to play LS.

I remember when we had a group of 25 to kill RBM. He was tough back then *:). I think he slew 2/3 of us.

That was fun!

[Mangler]

I think one of the single biggest issues with the mud more generally, but specifically with lightside, is what i'd call 'speed of play'. That's what I'd refer to as the time it takes to log-on, do something, complete that something, and feel rewarded.

There's a bunch of reasons this is such an issue, but the biggest one is our demographics have changed hugely in the last 10-15 years. Most of us have far less time to dedicate to a single gaming session. That means the period of time we need to feel like we've had a rewarding gaming experience in has decreased massively.

Things that take too long on LS: finding PK - this isn't so bad up north with the great addition of narrating scouts, but in the SW It can be a nightmare. It takes too long to get PK going, meet the other person, have the PK, and run around in circles doing nothing (a crucial part of SW PK i've been told ). I do think DS needs a couple of extra narrating mobs added so that LS hvae more chance of finding out a troll is on.

Smobbing - people are too split up, as there is no centralised place to hang out anymore. It used to be Caemy was the most popular, and with our numbers this wasn't an issue anyway. Now we have less numbers, we need a more centralised place that makes sense to hang out. Coaches have helped greatly. If there was someway to have a semi-universal horse ticket that could be useful too - say for example TV, Caemy, Cair, FD and Mara stables all shared a ticket, and EF, Baer, Amador etc.. shared one, then Illian, Tear, FM? Also - take the doors off some smobs. Alternatively, maybe add some sort of super high GC mob that gates people + horses? Say 200 gc to gate you from EF to FD/FD to EF/Tear to Caemlyn/BE to Whitebridge with your horse, assuming you have no quit. Added bonus of making money valuable.

RP - I actually think RP is a crucial part of what made LS great fun to play. I play for the PK, but I like the RP edge of that too in many ways. I feel a lot of the 'WoT' RP has just been abandoned. I'm probably as guilty of this as some other people. The trick is to keep it, but not get in the way of shiny pk!

Self-policing - LS sucks at this, which can make a sucky environment. There's no centralised ramification for poor sportsmanship like there is on DS. I'm not saying DS always gets it right, but they do a lot better at it. That means for example I see lame stuff on LS, like people alting eq from a kill that someone in the PK needed, having to drag scalps out of people in PK, promises to use uniques from a split then alting them, I get a little disenfranchised and stop playing the side for a while. The Lancers are probably the best bet for this kind of policing up north at least. TV is basically pointless at this, beacuse a warrant from there means nothing in the grand scheme of gameplay. Sedai aren't supposed to hunt. Gaidin don't. Valon don't exist. You don't need to go via any TV mobs to be safe ever.

Horse-targeting - you know what's fun, playing a zerk warrior! You know what's not fun? Playing it on LS because of horse-targeting. Even aside from that, while it's possible, it's going to happen. Code away the horse-targeting!

Clans - what Elysia posted the other day. If you've got a master, just log on every now and again and see who is interested in your clan.

[Firimei Lang]

I agree with the Mangler statement.

RP doesn't give a person the same 'buzz' as winning or even loosing in PK. That sense of urgency to not rip and rip the others.

Although great RP can be very rewarding, a lot of people drop it [ I know i can during smobbing when others do, etc] Or mix colloquialisms with proper RP 'language' . The word Hey gets used to much during RP and sometimes that can break the momentum.

I know the Watchers do a bit like mob rp intervention, I was on the receiving end in the Hall of Inferences once and it was fantastic. Being able to RP with a mob is rewarding in itself, but Imms haven't always the time.

A lot of the mud used to be divided, PkERS up north and RpERS south or whatnot. Numbers dropping has messed up the ratio and desire for either. There are a few who keep both alive, we need to all work together to keep it that way.

[pial]

Pft, Mangler is so wrong on the lack of having egomaniancs at the top of a side being able to ruin a char being a downside! SS/DS both have at times had issues with people who shouldn't have power, due to their personalities, having it and making the side worse off.

Anyways, LS has always been the harder side to play on. One of the reasons for this is that in the past, and at times today, the average skill of the pker in pk on LS can be dramatically lower than that of the pker on DS or SS (especially if we're talking about pk that happens somewhere other than up north). It makes leading much harder and it makes getting enough pkers to put up a fight harder. I've always enjoyed this aspect for whatever reason and have enjoyed playing on LS because of this and the lack of having someone like Tzao or Razhak get mad at someone not following their orders on a game and warrant you.

The other problem of course is that it's always been hard on LS to get gear if you didn't know people or are not affiliated with a clan. That problem has become several orders of magnitude worse with the lack of player base. I've never been much of a smobber and probably never will be, so maybe I'm part of the problem due to thinking it's dreadfully boring and feels like a chore.

The real problems though are the ones that people listed earlier in the thread about how people's entertainment has been shifting to the more instant gratification type with the implosion of smart phones. When you're competing with instant gratification on a game like this, you're only going to attract people who've probably already played muds. The people who have already played muds are most likely old and have obligations and time restraints on their time. A big part of the decline is probably the nature of this change in how easy it is to be entertained through a phone at all times these days, the other part would of course be how we've had coding issues on this mud since as long as I can remember.

I also miss being able to start random wars on LS when we had so many active clans back in the day. If I was bored from lack of pk I could start a war with Sword and Hand, Col, Defenders, Illian, Andor, Iron Fist, even started one with the Tower at some point. That type of crazy chaos fun just doesn't happen anymore and makes me sad!

[Elysia]

I just want to let everyone know that I'm reading this thread. Since I'm way busy with the Summer Events, I'm afraid I won't really have the time/energy to reply to individual ideas or points though. I just felt it was rude to stay silent, since you all obviously care.

[langois]

honestly I think we need to re-shrink the mud.

The zone expansion happened when we'd have 100-200 players online. Running through empty zones all the time is not fun.

It's a massive massive world we have. I've logged on chars and run from fd, down spine to tear, over to illian, up to lugard, wb, amador, (the entire world) and not seen a single player on where.

you've got smobs set up to require groups to hit and groups don't exist.

pk rewards reflect a time when you'd have 13 v 13 some nights, when max faceoff was brought in because you'd have these super groups hitting people and exploding in 1 round.

the game is set up from the changes made at it's peak to reflect the size of it during it's peak. It needs to streamline and admit to itself that LS usually has 5-20 players online.

The best map this game had was when winding road was introduced, Maradon didn't exist, nothing west of Amador existed. Illian did not exist, Mayene did not exist and spine wasn't quite so long. It was fast intense pk. Now a troll can lose a fight near camp and flee 10 zones to vial and into troll Stronghold.

humans and ss routinely horse hop and run loops that are bigger than the original map.

it's nonsense. tighten things up, concentrate the fun.

[langois]

And ffs delete SS. We can't support 3 races.

Make them a ls clan, let them keep their rank, just stop watering down the game.