Both me and Arman have given you several responses, but you apparently had nothing to say about either reply, and instead continue to state that "you get no response"? Hm?

Anyway, I do think we wizards could also be better at sharing things and letting players know things haven't been forgotten, or why some proposed change or promise has been put on ice. I think we ARE getting better at this though, and that the wizard-mortal barrier is far less "iron curtain" these days compared to a bunch of years ago? Or? I have sure tried to work for that, and many other wizards are also very open about everything they work on, and what goes on upstairs. You may think there is some "inner circle" where all sorts of things are been discussed and held from the players, but there really isn't. There are no secret meetings or hidden agendas upstairs, just a bunch of people who do their best to make Genesis more fun, and have fun themselves while doing it.

With the chance of getting the brownnose stamp here.... I second Chereks note. My communication with the Admin and Wizards has never been better and my suspicions (paranioa - warranted or not :)) has never been lower.

Off topic.

I know where you are comming from Cherek.
I truly do.
But feedback on the bigstuff doesn't cost alot, and important topics like this, topics that make or break game balance, I won't let them be seemingly forgotten.
I know you and Arman both do alot.

On topic.

What's called for isn't a complete redesign of the races.
Just even them out a bit.
Like.. Currently each of the races have different total modifiers with humans being on the lower end.
Also gnomes ironically have the highest amount of bonuses.
My opinion here is.
Give all races equal total modifiers.
How you distribute those modifiers on the other hand I don't care much about as long as the bonuses and penalties aren't completely crazy, like they are today.

Hektor: Nice post, I'll give you a bigger chance of winning in the Christmas lottery. And a very low for Draugor, as usual.:) No, really, glad you feel that way.

Amberlee: I voted that an adjustment is needed in the vote too, I've thought so a long time as well. And it's been discussed many times too, here and upstairs. But like I mentioned earlier, if there is something I have learned since I joined the admin is that various projects and ideas can stall, be abandoned, or be put on ice in countless of ways, for countless of reasons. First I found this extremely frustrating, but now I have come to accept that is just how it is in a volunteer-run game. And the bigger the change, and the more people who have to come to an agreement, and the more people involved, the bigger the risk of. It does not happen because people don't care though.

Here's the list of reasons why various things don't get implemented, or that it takes a very long time, ranked with the most common reasons first (in my opinion):

- The wizard who started the project realizes that it was much bigger than they thought and abandons it.
- The wizard who started the project underestimated the time needed and it takes much longer than they thought.
- The wizard who started the project finds something more interesting/important iRL and abandons or pauses the project.
- Something happens iRL causing the wizard to abandon or pause the project.
- Something happens iRL for the wizard(s) in charge of project approvals, causing project delays.
- Wizards working on the same project struggle with coordinating their efforts due different levels of activity/RL/time zone, etc.
- The admin or other wizard teams struggle with coordinating their efforts due different levels of activity/RL/time zone, etc.
- After carful consideration the wizard ultimately in charge decides to shut down the project.

You get the idea, it's sometimes very complicated and also frustrating to get projects completed in Genesis. And sometimes it goes really smoothly and quickly too. And you never know which way it's gonna go beforehand.:) But like I said, we can probably become better at letting mortals know the status of things, but as with anything, it varies depending on personality too. Some are happy to share and love feedback, others want to work on their thing in their own dark corner until it's ready. We're all different people.

Adjustment doesn't take that much time though.

I call that making the decision takes longer time ;P

Just adjusting the numbers does not take much time no, if that is the best solution. What's taken time on that is mainly that there has never really been consensus about WHAT is the best solution, or IF a solution is needed at all. That, or the people needed to approve such a change has not been around, or not around at the same time, and ideas and solutions simply has never gotten further than the "idea" stage.

And as always what I say is only valid while I've been in the admin, how potential stat modifier changes have been discussed before 2012/2013-ish, I have no idea. I sure remember we discussing things as players, but I don't know how if it was discussed upstairs too. I suspect it has been several times tho:)

I get where you are coming from... where I am coming from is how much information do i want to share about game mechanics? I start walking a very fine line around talking about what is appropriate.

With racial point allocations... the more we have dug into this topic the more we uncover issues that complicate things.

So for the hypothetical about tweaking the benefit "numbers" of the races. Myself and Gorboth thought it would be relatively easy to balance the numbers in a logical way... but the reality was that a bonus of +x points to the racial modifier wasn't balanced by a -x points somewhere else... as due to the nature of the exponential scaling of stats, a negative modifier penalty ends up being more impactful than a positive one. So if we tweak the racial modifier bonuses so that they are 'balanced' numerically, the end result is non-human races have a net penalty to stats. So the simple solution of a balanced formula of benefits/negatives only works if we accept that scenario.

Then there is the issue of the benefits of the different stats. If we provide +x bonuses in strength or intelligence or constitution, is it balanced out by a -x to discipline, which is a pretty useless stat? There certainly is a hierarchy of beneficial stats, although with the expansion of magic guilds in the game the hierarchy is less one dimensional than it was.

Anyway, if you want a status update - we are still on the drawing board on this topic.

Thanks Dhez, I don't take any of the commentary as an attack or criticism. I see it as a frank conversation.

I think I understand your question... when it comes to asking the community for their input on changes it depends on the changes. And we don't always need to go out to the entire community. We do a lot of beta testing now with new guilds... you've probably noticed the Gene* toons on your who list... those are invited players (not wizards) in closed beta. We also have a lot of tools that help with scenario generation that gives us masses of stat and numbers that allow for non-subjective decision making. So consultation and collaboration happens pretty widely... it just depends on the change being implemented. And not everyone is going to have visibility of that. It really is horses for courses.

And that is a good answer.
Thanks! :)
*peers at other wizards*
Take notes people! :P

Also to comment.
YES!
This is a discussion between people and by all means not attacks.
Though criticizms can appear they are normally not malignant.
Regardless your attitude towards it is a great asset and something others can stand to learn from.

You know, you're totally right here, Dhez. I was being very snarky and that didn't have any good impact at all to say what I did there. I apologize for that reponse. It was borne out of my own deep hatred for the game design surrounding guild advancement that came from the innovation of death recovery about 10 years ago. I am grumpy at how it broke things, even though I really though it would help the game. It was one of those "come out swinging" type of statements, which isn't the proper way for we wizards to communicate with our esteemed fellow Genesis enthusiasts who enjoy the game as mortals. So, I really am sorry about that. Reading this thread, I am impressed as always with Cherek's way of providing good transparancy regarding how things work in the wizard world. Arman has done this, too, and has added to it the type of statesmanlike conduct I should be working harder to embody when I post here.

All's to say - oops! That was a dumb post by me. Sorry, and I'll be much more careful with my off-the-cuff moody posts.

G.