Need for a change

[Rhaegar]

The ability is given nonetheless.

But not for everyone, which turns Genesis into elitist bitch.

[Dorrien]

Yes for everyone. The ability is there, regardless if it doubles abilities given.

[Draugor]

One more thing I would like to add...

There was some other discussion about alignment and allies and teaming and such. I also totally disagree with leaders forcing their minions to stay only within the conflict inside their realm. One of the greatest strengths that Genesis has is the combination of all these fantastical realms. There are many games out there where you can play a Ranger or Morgul Mage, or Solamnian knight or Dragonarmy soldier, but where have you seen a mud where you have a knight teaming next to a ranger?

It's the combination of all the themes of these realms that is one of the things that makes Genesis unique. We not only have all the realms, but many of them have deep lore and are coded with very high quality. The combination of these themes means that a player can choose to 'bend' certain rules and understandings because they are not longer strictly bound to the lore of their particular realm.

At the same time, Genesis gives you the option of playing only within the realm and the lore you involve yourself it. The point is that the choice is up to the player (and perhaps the guild leadership), not hard coded in a forced way...

Just something to think about...

Agreed, I do however object to dragonarmy or PoT members teaming with filthy kniggets

[Johnny]

Well I was a Ranger and a Herald, yeah I doubled up on a abilities and I for the most part did not leave Middle-Earth. I had fun for a time then I joined the Blademaster then left both guilds ultimately.

[Laurel]

Well I was a Ranger and a Herald, yeah I doubled up on a abilities and I for the most part did not leave Middle-Earth. I had fun for a time then I joined the Blademaster then left both guilds ultimately.

well - worship those who uphold the Rangerhood eventho the guild sux compared to other possibilities out there

[Rhaegar]

Yes for everyone. The ability is there, regardless if it doubles abilities given.

Not for everyone....

Good aligned goblin in Krynn. Show me how can I be 100% krynnish with my guild choices...

[Targun]

Earth
I cannot agree with you. You claim that certain beliefs are shortsighted. At the same time you seem to either ignore or do not see at all a wider context that all the abilities are at one side of the game. It's not about someone wanting an ability, it's about game design, that currently lacks any sense in my opinion. It is completely indifferent to me, whether I socialize with 'good' guys or 'bad' guys. However this game is never going to be succesful, if the very foundation of the balance, which is absolutely crucial for any multiplayer game are non-existant or out of order. What is it that you expect of this game? What is your long term perspective? All players being knights, calians and neidars? This is how you see the game? Who but bots or people that get excited by another v. good progress done by typing kill troll and watching scrolling text will like this. I hate vanillia mud attitude. What can possibly be more boring than everyone teaming with each other regardless a guild? What's the point of such gameplay? Where's the place for roleplay and pvp?

Every multiplayer game is in a certain way rivalization. That's what the gamaes are about- competing. People enjoy rivalry. In games like Genesis there are of course different aspects of it. They influence each other and players fall into different groups like grinding, pvping, exploring-knowledge, roleplay at different level of dedication depending on their preferences. Almost all guilds on Genesis are built around the conflicts that can be found in the sourcers, books etc. They have their place and ideology, which cannot be introduced without an environment. And the enviroment requires to have at least two balanced sides that exist in it and engage with each other.

Genesis lacks this sort of design. To make matters worse, as I mentioned some time ago, I am not convinced if players here actually want the playerbase increased. With current sizes, 30 people is enough to clear all good xpgrounds and most of the magic items within the game. There has to be a very serious thought put into how to change some core game design to allow the game be played by 60 people online at the same time.

Some of you will say that there is noone who wants to play MUDs right now. My reply would be: when TV/Internet appeared did everyone stop reading books? There are two things that need to be comprahended before doing anything. 1. The 'Word of Mouth' type of advertisment is considered (one of) the most powerful for any kind of business- including WoW, WAR online etc. 2. There is a huge target of poeple who will enjoy the mud. You just need to give them a good product. As a confirmation of these worlds I could give an example of a polish mud, built upon a driver and mudlib of Genesis, that had an ever growing playarbase- while everyone on Genesis was saying 'people leave for WoW etc'- up to the peak of 350 players online. With the new wizards and reformative attitude, they managed to cut the playarbase to 25% within two years. Then to 60 players at peak hours. Looked like the mud will be dead. The new wizards got bored, abandoned their game, came a new guy and few others and withing 6-8 months... 120 players at peak hours- thanks to the changes. And I am positive if some other setps were taken, this mud has an absolute potential of hosting 200 players.

It's a one- not such a big country, one language, same foundations that Genesis used to have and for those of you who think that it's a 3rd world country- nope we can afford WoW. There is simply enough people who like to play muds. So it's all about good game design and people will bring their friends to the game, if they enjoy it- which is the only way to get new players. Currently 'evil' guys won't bring new ones, because they feel like they are screwed and the good guys won't bring them, because they are content with what they have and in fact don't want new players. With this kind of attitude Genesis drove almost all types of players but grinders and on rare occasions some roreplayers and explorers (being a part of one group does not prohibit you belonging to another). Pretty much everyone who likes competing and rivalry was driven away and those are the players who get the game going, who are often most dedicated. We need a full spectrum of players, while on Gen, minority became majority, not letting any other kind of gameplay but peaceful grinding preferably on scripts. No chance of success for the game I see with such an approach.

[Cherek]

I agree with everything you say Targun. And I also feel "our kind" of player is a minority. Most of those who remain do enjoy scrolling text and another "fanta". More than anything else. And I also think that type of player has a place, but as you say, most of the other kinds, those who like rivalry and roleplay arent around, or has transformed to the first kind of "grinders".

But I ask as I asked earlier, what do YOU think we should do then?

I think wizards are very open to good suggestions on how to make this a 200 player game again? What did this polish mud do to double their playerbase? Specifically?

What can we do? You say "balance is completely off". Well, If you make such a bold statement you must know what is wrong, and then you should be able to figure out what could make it work too? So tell us.

And honestly, alot of players play atleast both an evil and a good char so I dont think there is all that many "pure" goodies or evils. And from what I know there are more previously "evil" players who now are active wizards so that goodie-biased theory I seriously doubt. Atleast not goodie-biased on purpose.

But you gotta be more specific I think. If you think the game is lacking players because of bad balance, and lack of rivalry, how to make it better? Realistically, not re-coding the entire game...

[Targun]

Well, I've been proposing number of changes throughout the years. First of all I am afraid that withought going a bit radical there is not much 'hope'. There is not too much to loose either. Among these that are rather easy to implement and do not require much coding

Stats: scale down, everyone by 30%- we're too big, Genesis was never designed for such sizes
Skills: alter the function of defence/wep skill so they are not linear, but resemble Gaussian Distribution or geometric series, which will eventually divide players more specificly between tanking/dps/healing classes.
Spells:
*Healing Lower the cost of healing. A healer should be a must be for any team expecting decent xp. Tank, dps, healer is how should things be orginezed.
*Offensive: use the mmorpgs solution. Lower the mana cost/increase mana regeneartion. Spellcasters run in clothes, not fullplates. They do much dmg, but are vurnelable to physical attacks, plus have some interesting 'magical' skills, teleports, some kind of crowd control. Effect: warrior can stand up to a magic user, they are no longer overpowered. Magic user does not have to kill in 1-3 spells. With lowered mana cost/ways to regain mana, he can be casting almost all the time. Way more amusing for everyone.
*Npcs holding magic weapons: It was mentioned already- make them relatively stronger. No more soloing huge badasses. Team being the only way to pry those precious items.
*Dmg/hit rating- increase dmg output from regular attacks by A LOT. This would happen to a point with non-linear skills combat aid, but it can be multiplied by 2 or whatever number. Of course some simulations would need to be ran to judge how new ways of calculating skills affect gameplay.

There are many other changes including crowd control, pvp, pve that may be introduced slowly into the game. These are those that seem to not require many coders. Changes including things like formations, conquerable guild halls, rewards for the war effor in Krynn e.g. and many many others.
Edit:
For specific changes for the evil guys;
*No dragonfear for teammembers of the armies.
*Increased chance of paralyze or make it a dragon special attack
*Increase the dragon flight speed so they are actual bonus- on most occasions it's faster to take a boat
*RDA is dead, and with polearms they will never be tankers- allow them to e.g. lame the enemy for a brief period, or hack their target with polearms while trying to leave making him unable to leave the room for a brief moment
*Recode PoT- unless you're a high priest, you're useless.
General recodes:
*Recode MM and SCOP, ASAP- they are from another league, not fitting the mud at all. It should be a priority since the whole 'balance effort' started and these guild should be balanced in the first place, not with 2 years on the clock and counting.

[Rhaegar]

If I may elaborate some on the polish mud Targun mentioned and the changes made to it. The game has undergone HUGE and DRASTIC makeover which suddenly brought a lot of people in which in turn stemmed its growth unbelievably. When I was playing there, they had like 4-5 racial guilds, 2 occupational guilds and 1 layman guild. There was quite a few people playing even then, to the point where we had wars between racial guilds (can you imagine that on gen?) and racial guild waging war on occupational guild.
The biggest change came when they decided to get rid of the old guild system entirely and switched towards heritage, association and occupation.
Heritage type guilds are similar to Palanthas racial on Gen, they give you a surname, place where you hail from, emotes, language and not much more. There are 25 of them. (example: Elves of Drakwald Forest)
Associations are what can be considered a true guild on Gen, you get your title, emotes, guild item, guildhall etc. Most of politics are being developed around associations, wars waged and alliances formed. They also give you access to occupations. There are 21 of them. (example: Order of Sigmar)
Occupation is something your character specializes in. A set of skills and emotes allowing you to better express your character. There are 30 of them. (example: Explorer)
They've also changed the entire skill system, some skills requiring certain stats to be trained and most of them being a mini-quest for NPC's (think Merc adaptation). They also introduced 'team' skills: covering, orders, formation combat (they're not guild-specific).

Actually, just looking at their wiki page and trying to assess the changes they've made is mindboggling. And they managed to do it over the course of what, last 6 years? From 30-40 to 120 players on a regular basis.
That's also why I think even the drastic and unpopular changes may be beneficial (they didn't fear to kick people who were leading the guild and playing since forever, which resulted in them leaving the game entirely).