Was fun, I guess.

[samag08]

I sort of like Reccum's idea.

[mmajunkie]

This could be a pretty interesting thing, depending on how in depth you wanted to make them.

Warrior mercs gaining levels with you...get dirt kick @ 10...2nd attack @ 20...third attack @ 30...

Healer mercs gaining levels with you..get armor @ 10....cure light @ 20...cure serious @ 30

Or maybe they gain a set of selectables in which you can customize your merc. Abilities they do at random, you can't order merc spam cure serious or anything.

[Cephirus]

Reccum does have an interesting idea, however, the only real issue I can see from it is them being used for PK. Obviously that would be a huge problem. However, perhaps it could be coded so that they only fight against npc's (not sure how realistic it would be to implement something like this into the code) or have them come with a very strict warning and if you are level 50, they cannot be picked up at all.

[mmajunkie]

This was Zavero's idea. From before this thread even existed.

edit: and the code wouldn't be hard for npc only combat. there are charmies already that have something along those lines

[Cephirus]

@ mmajunkie: 5 hours a week is pretty minimal, I hate to say it, but maybe stay away from mage classes until you find you have more free time to play in your life. One of the hardest things about this game is when your char may reach that point where they are 50, and just got cleaned out and have to build up everything from scratch gear wise, that sucks up a lot of play time real quickly for you. With a mage class, unless you happen to have some in-game friends around, it makes it a ton harder, particularly if you are not good, then you have to kill every mob to get something.

[mmajunkie]

In my opinion we shouldn't have to tell people that they can't play the class they want to play, with the time that they are willing and able to give to play here, just because our game model doesn't support it.

So I can't say I agree with your point, Cephirus. I'm used to regearing with a cleric or a bmage. It's not that bad. And time isn't so much an issue as motivation is. I could easily play 3 hours a night if it was worth it. But 3 hours a night grinding solo hunting/questing zaps the will out of you pretty quick when you've got a social life you choose to neglect to play, poker invitations, gym time, etc. I've never been of the belief that people should cater to this game to play, rather than the game should cater to the player.

I've always looked at FL like I do business. Do I want my customer to have to bend himself to come do business with me? Or should I do what I can in order to earn his loyalty?

There are obvious limitations to the example as it pertains to a game, but the core aspects are the same. At least in my opinion.

If you want people to want to come here, stay here, and be loyal patrons...then you have to give them an environment in which they gain. For years what kept people here was the challenge. The PK ability and the RP.

Things have changed a lot of the years in terms of skill level, size, RP, etc. But our business model hasn't adjusted. FL has been stagnant for a long, long time. When is it time to say something dramatic has to change?

I could go on and on but those are all thoughts for another topic. I've been here almost since the beginning and my opinions have never been taken seriously. Even when the game started first to go downhill and I was very zealous about something needing to change. That was years ago and I was told I was an idiot and didn't know what I was talking about. Here we are, right where I predicted we would be.

Just my 2 cents.

[Mali]

Same old, same old, and more of the same. I'm not buying it. I think you are just finding things to bash because you personally do not have time or patience to play right now.

You are welcome to play here when you can have fun and enjoy the game for what it is.

More playing, less whining, please.

Seriously, see you in game

[mmajunkie]

Pity you feel that way. Do you have anything constructive to add or are you content just trying to sum up my argument by saying I'm just whining? If you're happy with an avg of less than 10 ppl playing this game at a time...then by all means, try to make this seem like just another rant from a disgruntled player. What exactly do you mean by enjoy this game for "What it is" ? i remember what this game used to be and what it still CAN be. If you're happy with it's current state then kindly ignore this thread.

I have the time to play, I have the patience. That's not what this is about. So unless you want to get in depth with your replies, I'd ask you save your one liners for a PM, since apparently you don't seem to interested in finding ways to improve the experience here.

edit: heh...seems you felt your one liner comment wasn't too appealing as well.

[Mali]

Honestly I am open to receiving ideas about game improvement. You should make a poll or an idea thread where it can be discussed constructively. I am not insulting you as a person and I hope you continue to play here. However, the first post was very negative and I would like to stomp out all "i'm unhappy with this, so i'm leaving, only i'm not really leaving, and i'll post another unhappy thread in a few weeks" type mentality.

What I am saying is that you should put your ideas in the other forums and not attach your personal sentiments regarding stagnation to them.

I know you havn't been here for awhile, but the IMMSTAFF has been doing quite a bit lately to improve the gaming experience, and are receptive to your ideas provided they are presented nicely. We have the benefit of a very active coder right now...

[mmajunkie]

I never meant to step on anyone's toes with this thread. It has turned into an ideas/suggestions discussion, but that is not what it was meant to be originally.

Personal experience is a legitimate addition to a debate, isn't it? The decline of FLs pbase to what it is now, or more accurately, what it has been holding on at for the past couple years, isn't exactly just a personal sentiment. It's a mathematical fact. It shouldn't offend anyone, that's not what I'm trying to do. But you can't ignore the facts.

I am very happy to read through the notes, posts, and changes and see all the things going on to help this MUD continue to evolve and help its growth. My original post doesn't sound very negative going back and re-reading it. I was and am very happy to have come back and seen the MUD still here, even despite a less than favorable experience. What followed after that with the ideas/suggestions was just a natural occurrence.

I'm not here to put down anyone or anyone's efforts. I just want to share what I've seen since my time back and offer my opinion/suggestion. You're obviously free to do with it what you will.

[Mali]

So are you going to keep playing?

[mmajunkie]

I'll always be a player here. But until I feel motivated to play a character (warrior, hunter, etc.) that isn't going to zap the motivation out of me, no I won't be playing. Tinkering maybe...like today when I got home from the gym I made a little illithid and thought about what fun it would be to play a illithid psi (who was the last one anyway?) and then deleted when I died at 6 after stone golem failed to rescue 2x, then rescued but I got hit immediately by the mob it rescued me from. Then I had to go meet someone for lunch

Good times

[Mali]

Did you notice there is no exp loss for dieing before level 30 now?

[mmajunkie]

Yeah, I had read that awhile ago. I would have deleted him anyway when I left to go to lunch. More just something to do to pass the 20 minutes I had than anything else.

I could put the countless hours into solo grinding and questing, etc. Would take many, many hours. - I - can do that. And so can a lot of you. But can a new player? Does he know to go buy a katana? Alsatian @ 8? Stone golem scroll? Does he know how to get 10k gold easily? And over and over as he takes newbie deaths?

Back when we had 40-50 people playing, this learning curve was much easier to overcome. People were constantly asking you to hunt and you could learn from them. Now when you log on and see 5 people on...you're lucky to even get a reply from someone.

Like I said, this isn't really about the experience I've had since I've been back. Sure, it did suck and zap the will to play the character I wanted to play right out of me...but it also made me realize something that more than likely is turning new players off right from the get go if the lack of anyone on hasn't done it first.

That's where it has to start. If you have a game with 5 people on and a new person logs on. Their immediate thought is going to be "Screw this who is my badass character gonna interact with?" Not much you can do about that but hope they give it a chance.

Once they do give it a chance, that is where you have to keep them. Our current leveling system is built to cater a large pbase where you can have multiple roles and multiple people in your party. Unfortunately we cannot support that anymore. If someone comes here and wants to play an invoker and they don't know about alsatians and katanas and stone golems....you can bet your *** they aren't going to last very long unless they are so lucky enough to stumble across a few other lvl 1s of the same align that know what they are doing. And then you better hope the next time they log on, those two OOC buddies ranking together aren't 20 lvls ahead of the newbie.

[Pali]

I think Zro's bringing up some valid points here. The game has to be fun to play at all points, else people will not want to play it, and nearly everything that used to make leveling fun (which is pretty much entirely focused around the interactions with groupmates) simply does not exist within the game anymore - leveling has gone from being a large part of the fun of the game to being a grind where you work hard to earn yourself that level 50 character.

The only two positive things I can think to say about leveling is that the time spent forces some level of investment in your character (though I think it is important to note that this isn't necessarily because you like playing that specific character, but often it's just because you don't want to go through the trouble again), and that if you're enjoying yourself doing what you're doing the reward of new levels and new powers is enough to keep you doing it longer than if you got them at the start (newer multiplayer games like Modern Warfare are starting to learn this lesson as well and are benefiting from it immensely).

The problem is that the first reason doesn't really enhance the fun-factor of the game - it just ups the investment level you need to be willing to put in to really enjoy this game - and the second only applies if you're already having fun, and right now leveling is just not that fun. You can do the exact same thing playing any other RPG on the market, and they reward you with pretty graphics and explosions. They also tend to be designed around mob interaction being the high point whereas FL is designed around player interaction being the high point. We need to do something to alter that design, because the simple fact is that we don't have the players needed to accommodate our design - and that means that leveling is just not fun at all (edit: to many people, anyways - but particularly to new people). It's a chore, nothing more.

[EyeSeeU]

Lets just clear a few things up, there was hardly ever a time when 40-50 people were online. In the begining it was like it is now and has been for awhile. I'm ready to face the facts that this and games like it are dying(days are numbered). Unless we collectively link our brain waves and come up with a groundbreaking new (plot? twist? spin?) Making it easier to rank then it already is wouldn't really help people stay here. Satisfaction comes from things earned not given. That is all I have to say about that.

[mmajunkie]

I may be rounding up...but it's been 10 years or so, so forgive me. But yes, there used to be ~40 people online a lot in 2.0

We aren't talking about GIVING anyone anything. We are talking about reinventing some mechanics to suit a smaller pbase. As far as I can remember, the online count was higher than an avg of 7 in 1.0...

[Pali]

I seem to recall 30-40 being the more common range for late 1.0 and early 2.0, with spikes in either direction.