The Bot-hunt

[Cherek]

Laurel: It is higly unlikely each and every myth would be against this. Just pure statistics say this without asking anyone. It sounded on you like it was a fact 1/3 of the population would leave... which most likely isnt gonna happen. My suggestion was to work to remove the boring parts and make the game more fun so that you dont need to bot. Why would myths leave because of that? I didnt say we _need_ to cap sizes, that was one suggestion of many.

The rest of your note I dont understand. Who's trying to forcefeed anyone anything? I suggested a number of ways to make the game more fun, Makfly added a suggestion. The whole point of my first note was to NOT force players into a behavior.

[Irk]

in my opinion the biggest problem of this game is that it is text game. I was trying to invite, show, explain how does it work, but all of them just look at it and couldnt find themselves in this world. They couldnt understand how does it work, what to do, how to move, how to fight. Graphic RPG wasnt a problem for them, but this? WTF? Where am I? damn rat killed me, f..k it. Good move was to create tutorial area, but still in the XXIst century world it is ancient type of game and ppl prefer graphics ones. Most of players are the old one, who started playing in '90s.

Changing sizes wont change anything, still new players will be much smaller than old ones. Even old champion, who was about new rising hero, was a really far size for me in old days, when I was newbie. Without help it is really hard to discover well this world and grow fast, but with it you can reach myth in 6 months, like Maxyz did it for example.

First want to be bigger and bigger, second want to RP, third want to herbing and sell it etc etc. Everyone has his own path in this game. If you have problem with PvP just call someone big

[Makfly]

...If you have problem with PvP just call someone big

Spoken like a true "ubermyth"...

It reminds me of Marie Antoinette telling the people to just eat cake, if they don't have any bread.

[Laurel]

fighter vs caster - Genesis story aka tools and abilities

caster needs to grind less to have the tools and abilities required to take down mobs (best example for me was Trennagin, cleaning out whole eq-areas in minutes) - however s/he needs to bootlick (or whatever RP is required) her/his way to the right spells/abilities
another example of RP vs grind was Ugel - smallest wraith to be ever given the ring

fighter has to RP her/his way to abilitites (guild joining process) that require tools (stats)
fighter however needs to grow the required tools (stats) - not RP into them

in old times RP was required to achieve small perks even in fighter guilds - for example RoG required officer position to be able to become blademaster; nowadays only DA (afaik that is) require any kind of RP to be given slight perks (become officer to improve weapon skill - RoG copy/paste? )

all boils down to:
grind is fighters' way to gain tools that casters acquire by RP

question:
is Gen supposed to be RP ONLY, or is it supposed to appeal to grinders as well?

my answer:
I hate extensive RP sessions to be honest and LOVE to hack'n'slash - been like that in Vampire, Star Wars, Amber, D'n'D, etc. and then in WoW (RP server), Aion, etc. ... so kinda "always" for me
RP vs hack'n'slash for me should be 10-20% vs 80-90% (reason why Laurel was never really attracted by SU or caster cliques)
in the hack'n'slash eq-hunting should be 60%+ over less than 40% of grinding to appeal to me

for others ... well, I don't know, but you can state that for yourself

[Tive]

Remember that 'population' includes the swarms of alts. One myth leaves and you also lose 5+ other characters.

And I don't believe in Gorboth's statistics at all. I dont think i should be counted as 'active' if i log only for 30 seconds every few days but I am suddenly added to the list together with people who never log off

[Laurel]

...If you have problem with PvP just call someone big

Spoken like a true "ubermyth"...

It reminds me of Marie Antoinette telling the people to just eat cake, if they don't have any bread.

being kind of an ass here, or? trying to change something for some people and then trying to depreciate what one of those people say about it?

let's just say for Laurel it's:
RP 15% / killing 85%
grind 40% / eq hunting 60%

maybe for you the RP number is far greater and consitutes your Gen experience, but WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE THE SAME for others now?!?! Genesis welcomed any player so far with any set of RP/killing and grind/eq-hunting - why the f**ck are some of you on a mission to bend over those who like grinding now?!?! has Gen turned into some form of a socialism-based community where everyone else has to be "unified" because others are unable/unwilling to reach the same goals?

[Makfly]

let's just say for Laurel it's:
RP 15% / killing 85%
grind 40% / eq hunting 60%

maybe for you the RP number is far greater and consitutes your Gen experience, but WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE THE SAME for others now?!?! Genesis welcomed any player so far with any set of RP/killing and grind/eq-hunting - why the f**ck are some of you on a mission to bend over those who like grinding now?!?! has Gen turned into some form of a socialism-based community where everyone else has to be "unified" because others are unable/unwilling to reach the same goals?

Calm down.

I am right with you, that people should be allowed to grind to their hearts content.
I also think that if you kill a million orcs, you should become better at killing orcs. Bigger stats from killing NPCs, help you kill even tougher NPCs.

What I don't like, and it seems you don't like either, is if one group interferes with your fun or you are forced to do something you don't want to.
Therefore I suggested that stats, as gained in PvE, only affects PvP very little. That removes the need to grind endlessly to not be completely marginalised if some player decides to try and kill you.

Likewise making more ways to advance through the ranks of your guild of choice would be nice, so you are not forced to kill a bazillion hobbits to gain guildstat. As in, if you want to be a better smith, then killing tons of centaurs won't help but smithing something will.

We're not taking about taking anything away from anyone, except from the few that grinds to myth to go around and kill other players, and those that die repeatedly to more easily gain guildstat.

[Laurel]

those that die repeatedly to more easily gain guildstat.

once Mercade stepped down and asked why there's "Many corpses of yourself." ... well, I had another day I felt like it before recovery was introduced

[Recoba]

Instead of hijacking the other threads about this very popular subject. Here's my view.

I think punishing those who dont play "the right way" is not the right way at all. I dont know how much game design experience the admin has, but I do have some, and punishing players to get them to playing the game in a certain way is a perfect setup for a miserable game that nobody wants to play in the end.

I'd like to apply that reasoning to a rules reform in football/soccer and see with what we'd end up
Or even the laws of society at large

But ok, to get specific, let's throw out some thoughts, it's very very hot here so my brain might not be the sharpest today but here goes...

I agree that the basic problem is that the game rewards grinding with power but punishes it with boredom, which make players want to grind while eliminating the boredom, which leads to botting.
Possible solution? Remove the need for grinding, by removing xp and money and smith item quality and everything.
But whoah, where's the reward system then? What are the goals for players now if they can't work long-term to get richer and stronger?

Money-wise, today in the game there are obvious limits when more cash does not get you any further. For stats, there are diminishing returns, but you can really always get a bit bigger. Perhaps here we should consider making high-level stat improvement even slooooweeeeer, to just make it so boring that not even botting will help you. Or just slap on a STATCAP (boo!) at, say, titan level.

Also, it's a perception thing of course. It's been said before but I'll say it again: Notice how the insane power grinding took off when they changed the mortal titles, and people were no longer content with being a champ among champs.

But to go further than that, let's see...
An advancement system dependent on milestone quest solving, age (ouch idle-grinding warning, no can't have that...) and hmm what else..?
Could be made to work. Will it still be the same game? No, but it might be fun. Now, designing a different kind of mud is an interesting proposition, but I prefer Genesis as it is (though perhaps with more players in it).

Also to bear in mind, every game has its rules and need of regulation. Even World of Warcraft

What about roleplaying? What about harassment? Let anything go there? Want Genesis to sound like a Counterstrike game?
PvP, de-regulate that too? This means choose between free-for all pvp or pve only. Or zoned pvp like in WoW? I don't know if any of those two solutions would appeal to players.

I think Genesis needs to stay with roughly the same rule set, or it's going to be another game, a game that possibly has no niche anymore.
And I think anti-cheating measures should be in place, but also they should not be too much overkill. Definitely let everyone know the rules and punish them effectively if found cheating, but better to free than punish in case of reasonable doubt. I prefer to live with some players cheating than to be repeatedly harassed myself on suspicion.


Alright, to conclude this slightly messy post, and to stick my chin out - I think the easy solution is the STATCAP. And don't put it too high, titan is fine. And keep the rules, but don't overpolice.



EDIT: I just want to add, on a side note, that what I really enjoyed in the Morgul Mages was that an important way to increase my offensive power was to roleplay and work hard for the Dark Lord and thus increase in rank and get better spells. It felt very RP and in-theme and was a lot more fun than only killing scores on npcs for advancement.
Perhaps some kind of quest-driven advancement in general in the game could offer the same thing. What if we reform to make quest xp the biggest part of your xp, with more big in-theme quests, and a cap on that xp so that you will not do all but rather choose those that are most fun for your character?

[Laurel]

I think the easy solution is the STATCAP. And don't put it too high, titan is fine. And keep the rules, but don't overpolice.

I'd let wizards explain how much rework all Genesis would require to make things achievable and enjoyable for titans ...