Why can't the game be played as before?

[Greneth]

Here's something to think about though: Those of us who prefer the old style of playing games are the fanatics, the patient ones, the ones with almost endless grit. We're going to be around in another 20 years (hopefully, if I get to stay alive - you never really know). The ones who think that it's more fun to have magical items and super powers after 20 minutes - those are not going to stay just because you give them that. They play and then move on after a couple of months at best.

Well I dislike the old style of playing games. Comparing the Genesis of now to Genesis 20 years ago, ill take now anyday. Yet Im still here. In fact the fanatics you talk about didn't stick around, they left and nearly caused the game to shut down a decade before any major changes were made. But the ones who think its more fun to have magical items and super powers are still here and brought it back.

In fact if you look at games like WoW, Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls. The ones who play the longest are those completionists who hunt after items, achievements or the roleplayers. How hard or easy a game is, isnt even on the table to them.

This is a problem, because they are now the majority of the player base (not speaking about Genesis in particular here). This creates incentives for game developers that are skewed - it makes the devs cater towards a high churnrate of uninvested players who come around, play the game, max everything and then move on. Again, this is (likely) working AGAINST the long term interests of both the players and the devs. Catering towards diehard patient mature players who rather bang their head against the wall than leaving the game would create a stability, unique identity and a ridiculous strong player base over many years (as Genesis has mostly done right, except for maybe past couple of years).

Again youre under the assumption that this mindset is a fact and will create a strong playerbase. It didnt in the late 2000's, Through the chrome store, fresh players and promotion is what made this game stay afloat. Its whats made ALL Muds stay afloat. Those who failed to change and adapt with the times are now gone.

There is a big RISK to catering towards this new kind of player with a short attention span. Actually, let me rephrase that. There's a big risk to catering towards this type of person, in games, in society, in relationships or anything else.

There is a risk no matter which side you cater to. The game catered to the power players in the 2000's and a majority of the roleplayers left because they didnt have the drive to grind like the powerplayers and then couldnt roleplay their character due to a gap in strength. And because we had allowed people to get so much bigger now when you died it actually mattered.

In fact the amount of players not willing to even try our game because we were missing key features like saving EQ that all other MUDs had. Had us being ridiculed across the MUD community. Did changing that cause a few people to be unhappy and leave? Possibly, but we also gained some new players in their stead because of it.

It makes things pointless and it makes everything boring. Otherwise, we should LOTR consist of many books and many, mange pages? Why not just have the final 10 pages to conclude the story? If the goal is getting to the end as quickly as possible - WHY NOT?

You see this in many tech companies as well during scale up (which is an area I've worked within much). They create a strong base with a unique product, feel the pressure to scale up, cater towards new users and dumb everything down, lose their original user base which really loved the product, and then get stuck with high churn users who come and leave, none of which care about the product, the company or its direction.

To you it makes things pointless and boring, to others its enjoyment. People dont play D&D and create crap characters or sit at level 1 for a year. The game progresses and the story evolves to meet the players needs. They dont need to endlessly grind for months on end just to get a level up. There is other things to do and focus on.

Again, I'm not criticizing anything per se, but I think it's important we have a discussion on this with regard to Genesis. Because the game IS moving in that direction - forgetting more and more about the original, strong player base and catering towards new players ("how can we get more players?" without seriously investigating what the answer to that question does with current, old players). Now, there are a few very prominent examples of this, but in general, I think the game is doing somewhat ok. But all these guild rebalances are taking it too far, and there are way too many magical items in the world now. There's a great fun to an imbalanced game as well - not everything has to be balanced in terms of strengths.

The old "strong" playerbase that you envision was not because the game was harder. It was a mixture of a lack of choices, all of us being new to the internet and discovering world wide communication and a popular era of fantasy that could now be played at any time on the computer instead of from a board. It was the perfect recipe for its time.

An imbalanced game has actually been proven to be a detriment to games because it shows a distinct lack of competency from the admin. While none of us are professional game designers and just people offering our time to code for the game. Id much rather the game look and run like a finished project, even if it means we still need to work to get there. Than knowingly create bias within the game.

[Budwise]

Oh, and I didn't say you wanted to go back to the good old days before recode,
'cause those are my good old days. Not that I would want to play like that again.
(But I had hair on my head back then and could stay up all night playing Gen, so what's not to like. )

But it does sound like you would like to turn back the clock on some things
and this probably won't happen or even be enjoyable for the majority of players
if it happened. Not having eq save sounds a lot like regression but maybe that's just me.

Best regards
B

[Goirbagh]

Thank you Greneth and Budwise - both insightful posts with interesting thoughts. Probably it has to do with the choice to do other things, and the conditioning to thinks happening really quickly. I don't think it is nostalgia in terms of wanting things to be exactly as before - or even fantasizing about some greater past. I know for a fact that I used to be really annoyed in Sparkle - and still am to some extent - that every other room was dark because of magic.

[Thoru]

I would be really interested to see numbers on players for what Greneth portrays. The game is mostly sub-55 players at peak times and my "who" list is overwhelmingly Myths. Which leads me to believe it is the dedicated few who continue to play. We can cater to the masses and hang our hats on 100 players logged in but if they play for a week, what has been accomplished? Especially if we continue to change the game for the "week warriors."

[Greneth]

I would be really interested to see numbers on players for what Greneth portrays. The game is mostly sub-55 players at peak times and my "who" list is overwhelmingly Myths. Which leads me to believe it is the dedicated few who continue to play. We can cater to the masses and hang our hats on 100 players logged in but if they play for a week, what has been accomplished? Especially if we continue to change the game for the "week warriors."

And of those you consider dedicated as I look at the who list now with 49 on only 6 are from the 90's - 2000's. Rest are relatively new Myths under a decade.

Im curious as to what major changes were made for the "week warriors" or whats been catered to them in any way whatsoever. Because the only ones that I am aware of was the saving EQ which was quite some time ago and almost unanimously voted for. Most changes are always catered to the old and power players. Ive personally talked about and wanted to cater to the new players so that more of them will stay. But youre going to have to be specific on what was changed just for them.

In fact as I browse through the common board postings its filled with nothing but things which have made the game harder, nerfs or bug fixes. White Hits/Special bug fix in 2018, Guild Updates which consist of a whole lot of nerfs across the board. Shire money nerf, 2011 Imbuements I suppose made the game easier? 2010 giving block to everyone? Anything prior to that and were dipping into the 20-30 players peak and single digits during slow hours.

[Budwise]

I guess imbuements is a free boost for all. If you can find one,
and it doesn't turn out to be the "fireslay gnome"-winnerimbue.

Might I suggest we make gnome deposits robbable btw? Would give it
a purpose. Unless imbuecrazed players are already running amok in whereever gnomes live.

B