Originally posted by Shami
The fact that I could wait. Knowing some of the large things that would be implemented would be fighting, I realized that this would bring in powergamers like those in other free games, such as Runescape, who are possibly the rudest people I have ever met, would come. Another thing fighting could hurt is roleplay, something that I enjoy alot. Perhaps, in the future, you should have a roleplay enforced server?
Now, for the things I enjoyed in MB: the small roleplaying communites.
Precisely. My expectation for CB was \"OK, there will be fighting, but there will also be a whole lot of other things, like crafting, farming, etc., so it won\'t be just mindless slaughter\". It turned out I was wrong. CB consists of almost nothing but fighting, which is the part I enjoy by far least in any game save in an FPS (and even there I enjoy exploring more after a while).
Fighting has, as has been said, brought to us all the unpleasant and annoying players that plague other MMORPGs, while giving nothing in return. I have stated more than once that I think implementing fighting at any stage but close to final is wrong, a slap in the face of every RPer and an invitation to the opposite kind of player PS supposedly wants to attract: PLs instead of RPers. The duelling system, or in fact
any fighting (not just PvP) system in an MMORPG can almost never be used for RP for the simple reason that it strongly favors PLs and people with the most time on their hands and those who have
less interest in RP, because RP doesn\'t increase stats, therefore any decent RPer will either have to grind or they will always lose to any PL should that PL RP the odd fight. This means that the RP warrior is likely weaker than the PL n00b, unless he forsakes RP or goes to extremel lengths of PLing.
Emotes. This is what I missed the most in CB. I expected not a few, but a
load of emotes. I know that the animation editor isn\'t done, but I think the effort spent on the fighting system would have been a whole lot better spent on the animation editor.
Furthermore, I agree that a close-knit community is more appealing than the high grade of anonymity we have now, even though our population still is ridiculously small compared to other MMORPGs. The variety increases, but the bonds between players decrease. This means that players find themselves less often involved with others, and most of the time with others who they don\'t know, so the interaction will be less deep. This will lead to people considering other options besides logging in, increasing this effect for the other players they may know more well. Add to that that almost none of the players know of RP, as has been said, and that even less have actually read
anything about the settings, and it is clear that trying to get into RP with any newcomer means having to spend at least an hour explaining the basic concepts of RP to them, only to find that they never come back. This is frustrating and means that newbies are shunned unless they do or say something that makes it seem worthwile to spent the effort of teaching them.
I strongly disagree that the crystal hunt was great. It is nice to happen to find the occasional crystal when you travel or explore, but that was almost impossible due to the hardcore hunters. IF anything like that is going to br brought to CB, then it must not be in any way be predictable, and also the chance of someone finding a crystal must not be affected by the amount of other players ingame. Therefore, crystals can\'t spawn, because spawning leads to spawn camping. They
might, on extremely rare occasions, spawn, like one per day. And they must be hard to spot, even for long time players. Thus, there must not be a label, and they need to blend into the background by looking much like a raindrop or dew or leaf until you get really close. Still, they can\'t just pop up everywhere, they should likely appear only when ground is being dug, or in rivers.
I have also stated that the naming rules are not nearly as strict as they should be. Also, the \"enforcemtne\", if you can call it that, is
way too lax. As I stated on my feature request on the BT, there must be mandatory, in-depth information about the naming rules. The pop-up at char creation is a step into this direction. However, it doesn\'t seem to make a big impression.
The randomizer blends into the background instead of announcing itself prominently, leaving newbies who lack imagination or experience or knowledge with no choice but to enter a bad name.
Default name. There should be a default name put into the name field so that people who just want to rush through the char creation will be able to do so, removing the \"need\" for having \"names\" like \"a\". While these players typically won\'t last long, they still are annoying while there, and due to their frequent appearance, there is constant annoyance. Also, some mighjt actually stay. I have seen several people with unnacceptable names who actually stayed.
Given all these, enforcement of the naming rules can be a lot stricter (in fact, it can be instant and without any argument), because there is no way someone can
not know the rules, and also there is no way someone could somehow have had no option than using a bad name. Therefore, any bad name can only be choosen for reasons of being annoying, and thus can not only be changed swiftly, but also a ban for at least some hours could be administered without any doubt.
Also, I was severely disappointed by some members of this community that chose not to adhere to the naming rules. Some of them were and still are GMs, which is not only particularly disturbing, but also quite hipocritic. A GM must set a good example, not abuse their status to get away with bad behaviour. Likewise, some \"oldbies\" do the same, and due to favouritism they also get away with that.
It is also true that I expected more land to explore, but since I know the reasons for the lack of content, this is not CBs fault.
History and background. I expected a
huge expansion of that, and a clarification and correction, removal of conflicting and inaccurate statements of the existing content. This is whyt any RPer needs, to base their char on, and also to create RP opportunities from while ingame. As has been pointed out on other threads, neither the history nor the gods have any direct impact on the every day life of the average Yliaki, so it is not surprising that there are almost exclusively atheists regardless of the gods actually existing. I\'m not talking about maluses, I am talking about ways in which the gods interact with their followers, things they have done or not done for or against them. In short: things that can be told as reasons for following a god, for being impressed by them or shunning the other. We have only a very distant past that for the most part is not even known to any Yliaki. The best one can use this in RP is by adding imprecisions and leaving out important facts and phrasing it as a myth.
The char creation, while nice, presents information that also in part conflicts with the settings. Other information, like the schools of magic (as opposed to the ways) has no foundation in the settings, while other like the months\' names seem to be completely unfitting. So none of the added things in the char creation can be used for RP since it all seems to be temporary filler instead of actual part of the settings.
Only 10 months into CB we actually start seeing a few books appear in the library that address the need for more background and in-depth information.
Race-specific issues: I am not talking about advantages and disadvantages. Instead I am referring to things like culture and cities. I have raised this point in other threads as well: I think having Ojaveda was
very wrong. Likewise, adding the promise of many other race-specific locations in the char creation is bad. These things should be
very rare exceptions instead of the rule they seem to be becoming. How can there be \"a mostly mixed population\" and \"most Yliaki married to a member of another race\" if everywhere except in Hydlaa the races are almost separate? How can there
not be racial hate if there is no universal mixing that has gone on through thousands of years (or even 750)?
Likeweise, there cannot really be the completely independant architectural styles that are being suggested now, because while the races initially will have brought their own, a mixed architecture will have evolved. We may see styles like IRL that come from fashion (gothic, modern, etc.), but these would be common for all races. The houses would differ to accommodate the needs of the inhabitant, which obviously are race-specific in some cases (like added, specialised rooms or exits, tents for nomads), but the general architecture will be the same everywhere.
Likewise, I think races cannot really differ in fashion, because fashion would be universal, at least regional, not racial. Instead, the social stands would differ in how much fashion they can afford or can wear while not hindering them. So Lemurs, being as general mindset more into luxuries, will likely wear a lot of less practical fasion add-ons than most. Still the fashion will be the same as the fasion of luxury-loving members of other races. The same applies to jewelry and decoration of houses. After all, the world of Yliakum is way smaller than ours, and thus there is no real physical separation that could make cultural differenced form or pervail. Like a big empire IRL: due to the frequent travelling, fashion in all aspects will mix and form a unified empire wide one.
Edit: Therefore jewelry and architecture can differ only by style dependant on their
age (and therefore the fashion that existed by that time), not by race.
Speaking of items: there are almost no items besides weapons. No jewelry, no accessories, no nothing. I think the reason is that they can\'t show yet. However, weapons have been implemented, at least \"civil\" things like necklaces, bracelets or rings could AFAICS be implemented without having to change the models as well.
/Edit
I see CB diverging from the settings a real lot in these respects, and also due to the race separation encouraging PvP by giving a justification for racial hate (or more like, by taking away the justification it has given for the nonexistance of racial hate).
Edit: CB seems to be, in all respects, geared towards fighting, not towards RPing./Edit
Edit2: I think the complete fighting and weaponry system should be removed from CB until there are a load of other working, civil, options to earn a living, because only then the added hostility and \"need\" for levelling can be as irrelevant compared to the overall game as it should be. /Edit2
Edit3: I think the people aren\'t wishing for MB because MB was so great compared to CB. Instead, I think the reason is that MB didn\'t have a lot of the problems that plague CB, which, IMO, in most part boil down to the highly premature addition of fighting, which essentially seems to be what CB revolves around. CB is fight-centric while MB wasn\'t. /Edit3
Edit4: My general impression of CB was and is that it betrays PS\'s goal of encoraging RP by catering to the PL while giving almost nothing to the RPer. The community is weakened by the influx of RP-challenged people, which ultimately leads to the wrong sort of people (PLs) supplying the next generation of devs. RP is lessened by good RPers leaving while spotting worthwhile and dedicated could-be RPers is hard. RP is further lessened by PLs clogging the server adding to lag (especially now that performance is extremely bad). From an RP POV, CB has nothing over MB save a few new areas for the RPer, but from a PL\'s POV, it has
everything one needs. /Edit4
