State of the Game: 2012

[zohlor]

Hey all!

I'd like to discuss the state of the Game as of now in this topic. Bring up issues if there are any. Let's keep the conversation civil.

I'd like to raise up two issues that are unfortunately present in the Game as of now:

1.) Lack of Wizards
- There's a horrible lack of wizards in the game at the moment. People move to different things and life brings changes,
so it's understandable that the current Wizard staff find other things to do and/or don't have the time to put into the game.
It's okay, things change!

- What's unfortunate is that we haven't had a single new Wizard in some time.
I have heard that there's a few people who have wanted to wiz, but they haven't been
answered to when asking about it.




2.) Ascension
-What's the current situation with the Ascension mechanism? Almost everyone likes the idea and are
looking forward to it! Lots of of the lvl 100 players are more or less just waiting for it and
there's the risk of people just ..drifting away.

- It's a brilliant idea and I'm definetely just idling until it's here. Not every Heritage has to be ready, just roll it out!


I'd like to point out that everyone here appreciates the work the current Wizards have put into the game.
No doubt about that, we owe you all a big 'Thank You' for all you have done for Icesus!

[douhnin]

I think you bring up the main issue with your first suggestion.
A lack of wizards, or a lack of time invested by the current wizards, will most always be followed by unresolved issues.

I also understand that life happens, or perhaps a lack of inspiration/willingness happens.

My issues with the state of the game, currently, are as follows:

1.) Incomplete or unfinished material already in the game.
- While it's fantastic to get new stuff coming into the game, I feel that there are already extant a number
of things in the game that could use finishing touches or reworking or tuned-into-working.

Examples are things like non-functional antidote salves, maybe apartments could be put into this category,
and a myriad of small typos throughout areas, items, and the world in general.

(I'm not sure how it'd work, or be implemented, but perhaps there is a way that, in the future, certain players (who have earned a level of trust)
could be given limited access to fix small things like typographical/grammatical errors only on items/objects/rooms with which they've already interacted.
Any changes made could might have to be approved before anything noticeable is altered game-side, or just have the changes go into a log for later observation.
Could shave some of the workload off of wizards, who knows. Just an idea!)

2.) Lack of content to "round-out" the world
- In explanation, there are very few and very limited ways in which players can have a "real" impact on the world of Icesus.
There are also very few things, when boiled down, that there are to do in general.
Basically, I feel that currently all players can really do is grind exp/cash, so they can get bigger and grind eq,
and in the process are grinding masteries, so that ultimately they can do all of the aforementioned faster, better, stronger.
And that's it.
(a small exception being carpentry where you can put a hut somewhere and lose all your stuff in it if the game crashes)

Ascension doesn't address the above issue, it simply restarts it with some perks.
Not that I don't appreciate the ascension idea, just stating a fact.

I'm just one player, so I don't have all the answers where the above issue is concerned.
Obvious generalized categories come to mind, like crafting, building, etc.
Something separate from killing mobs, or fishing for exp, that players can do with their time
and something that could potentially alter the world (slightly and not negatively) in which we live/play.
I'd be interested to hear ideas from others concerning this sort of thing.

End rant.

[solar]

And now for my 2 cents.

First of all, yes, there is a shortage of wizards and a declined playerbase.

I'd like to see more new players make it to the game... and staying. People should recruit new players themselves, or at the very least bother to push that vote button link on the Icesus homepage daily. A steady trickle of new players into the game might not help us immediately, but it will, if not help in the future, then at least mitigate potential upcoming problems.

And how do new players stay? I think it would really help if they had someone to play with, party with. Become friends with. Someone near their level range. But right now it seems that most of the active players are, if not above lvl 50, then close to being lvl 70. In short, to make new players stay, we need new players!

Idles himself said back in the day that there was a noticeable increase of new characters being created when Icesus was at top-10 on daily basis. And that was a good thing.

I proposed that a matter of some kind of recruitment-related stuff be brought up in the annual meeting of the board, and hopefully something will come of it. (refer a friend type thing, maybe?)

There is also a noticeable decline of some in-game services being offered, due to less players, or less popular guild choices, or general can't-be-arsed-attitude of the people that could offer such services - Solidarity, what's that? Core feature service, such as reincarnation, might still be (too) hard to get, especially so outside primetime. But maybe this is just how it looks like from my ostracized point-of-view.

As for ascension... I feel like this is really something that should be well-thought out first, before starting to gradually implement. I don't personally really expect to ever ascend, since I don't want to go through experiencing excessive amounts of butthurt that is also know as the exploration prerequisite, but I'm not jackass enough to actively keep others from going through with it, since the game is about entertainment to most of us. Meh, do what you will.

[odovacar]

I agree with all previous rants, especially the declining playerbase part. Push the vote button.

In addition, I think area creation contest is pretty easy to kick off and will bring a fresh breeze to the game.

[dracu]

Odovacar wrote:

In addition, I think area creation contest is pretty easy to kick off and will bring a fresh breeze to the game.

Wizards are busy busy busy. Honestly, even if area creation contest would be for "fun" or stuff like that. People are still missing area creation contest rewards from year 2010 and we still haven't had the chance of voting for the best area for that contest either.

Though, if you really want to code and you like it, then it's a good idea (and you can do so in ice-dev too).

[ity]

Obvious generalized categories come to mind, like crafting, building, etc

Are you suggesting bringing back artisans guild?

[douhnin]

No, not exactly suggesting anything so specific as that.

Do I think artisans should exist and be available? Yes.
If the system were implemented in a way that's fair, balanced, reasonable, etc.
Player Artisans should, eventually, be able to produce some nice stuff.
Perhaps not so nice as some rare stuff you can find by killing
things, but better than what the smiths in the game can make.

I was suggesting, or rather asking for suggestions, concerning other
aspects of the game that are unfinished, or incomplete.
As players we're constantly wanting more and more new stuff, when some of the foundation isn't even complete yet.

Cooking, inoperative antidote salves, guilds with masteries gone unimplemented, areas with funky inconsistencies, are a few to be mentioned.

I guess my bottom line is this:
People play games because it's fun, or entertaining, or educational, or all of the above.
When boiled down, all aims in Icesus can be narrowed to a point.
You get bigger, stronger, faster, better so you can kill things with eq you want.
You wear the eq and continue grinding masteries so you can get more eq and be bigger, stronger, faster, better..
Perhaps my point is made by now..

I'm just asking for suggestions that can round the world out and give people more options or things to do.
Not that there's anything wrong with the game, mind. Just a viewpoint.

[khade]

Lack of active wizards is, as everyone has said, a major problem, not sure if it's bigger or smaller then lack of new players.

The biggest thing I've noticed is that our playerbase appears to be self destructive and hate themselves and each other, and we don't have a good rate at keeping those who do visit. I'm willing to try to be less cynical, but I think we all need to be nicer.

I do have some ideas for how Artisans could work, given the post conversion system, but an actual economy needs players.

EDIT

Oh, and we need to update the documentation on the main site, and maybe convince people to use the forum again.

[dracu]

Douhnin, balancing artisans when making equipment is concerned is if not impossible, extremely difficult to balance out. As smiths can produce equipment on par with eq-mob drops because of shards and even without if you roll majorQ.

And shards in general hinder this system imho, since one slot items are readily available to being sharded to on par and beyond of those eq-mob drops.

I'm not sure eq-crafting artisans would actually fit in, as long as smiths and shards are available.

I don't have suggestions of my own, tho. Just expressing my viewpoint.

[solar]

Douhnin, balancing artisans when making equipment is concerned is if not impossible, extremely difficult to balance out. As smiths can produce equipment on par with eq-mob drops because of shards and even without if you roll majorQ.

And shards in general hinder this system imho, since one slot items are readily available to being sharded to on par and beyond of those eq-mob drops.

I'm not sure eq-crafting artisans would actually fit in, as long as smiths and shards are available.

I don't have suggestions of my own, tho. Just expressing my viewpoint.

+1'd.

However, armour resizing (metal armours) for cheaper-than-NPC-prices could be something artisans might still do, should they ever make into the game. And gem-cutting... but there really isn't that much work to go around to support more than one player, so the one who undercuts the prices the most gets all the work, right?

Well, topmudsites resetted their votes today, so active voting + active player recruiting ftw. We'll get out of this ditch yet.

[torvus]

I don't consider the one slot items to be as much of a problem maybe. In the short term they present a way for higher end players to upgrade their eq by gathering/hoarding decent quality shards.

Aside from skills and special stats, (Perhaps more so for casters) a lot of those stat shards are pretty useless when compared to eq. What would you do with a 2int/wis/spr shard when every slot in the game has better stats and is affordable at a low level?

For an off or def, at least you're sharding your smith/dragonscale crafter made equipment and getting the benefits of increased protection, but such a thing doesn't exist for the back row.

So yes, in the short term I see a lot of the higher end eq being phased out and replaced by sharded single slots but with ascension coming out (hopefully) we'll see that get reversed when we are presented with the heritage sets and the ability to use them.

[riley]

I'd suggest upgrading the wiki software so that players can contribute without the "recent changes" list being filled with spambots.

[zohlor]

I'd suggest upgrading the wiki software so that players can contribute without the "recent changes" list being filled with spambots.

Fairly sure the IceWiki is maintained by a player and not the Icesus staff. (Uzriel?)

[dracu]

Torvus, i agree up to a point. However that's a long way from coming true, firstly we'd need ascension. Then we'd need to get lots of exp and then we'd need to slay even bigger mobs than Yirica, Crimson death and Frost beast to even have a _chance_ to get the critical drop that contains heritage eq. And that's only one item.

What i'd do with 2int/2wis shard? Buy +3infusion earring for few hundred k's and shard 2int to that, there you go. Much better choice for mage than any other earring. And that leaves room to skills. For spr i'd use them on single slot items, there you go. Much better choice than any other spr item from mob drops.

For non-single slot items i agree, tho. Not many choices, because other stuff is much more affordable and good, but that's a good thing right?

For caster, you can't get the extra protection unless you're sharding resist to head/torso, but nowadays trend seems to be getting more hpmax since life boosts were tuned and that gives survival to both backrow and frontrow for a caster. And you're losing only few stats against gaining possibly many hundred hpmax. I consider it a pretty good trade.

However if you're not into minmaxing a lot, you may find regular 2stat stuff more than enough and that is ok. But this is about getting the most oomph out of your items, to catch up with let's say Loffie by even 1%, atleast that's what drives me on. Ascension may just do that, but it's safe to say it's far away from now. But i look forward to it.


Zohlor wrote:

2.) Ascension
-What's the current situation with the Ascension mechanism?

I'd like to know this aswell!

[douhnin]

I'm really not on the bandwagon crying for old artisans to be brought back.

All I'm trying to convey is that some players want more options, insofar as "things to do" is concerned.
Artisans don't have to be limited to weapons and armours.
I agree that with shards and current smiths you can get all you want out of your items.

What I had in mind is more like blacksmithing, masonry, carpentry, farming, mining, etc. Trade jobs.
Set up trade along roadways, build your own house (mansions) and upgrade them.
Just a lot of small, possibly helpful, things one can do aside from slaughter mobs for platinums and loots.

That opens a whole other can of worms, though.