MB vs. CB

[Draklar]

Originally posted by Moogie
The tight in-game community. People would regularly gather in popular spots such as the temple foyer and tavern, for the sole reason of chatting. Not for leveling skills or hoarding Tria or hunting monsters. Friendly faces were regular visitors. You really felt like you knew everybody around you, and there was no sense of urgency.

I meet familiar faces basically everywhere. Tavern, various roads, Hydlaa\'s and Ojaveda\'s streets, magic shop, even arena. But I guess that\'s because I still hang out in there and get to know some of the new people :P
I don\'t need large groups, in MB those often turned into pointless (ooc) discussions. Sometimes it\'s just better to talk one-on-one. Makes friendship much tighter than what you get from large gatherings.

Originally posted by Moogie
Labels. In CB your screen is *filled* with labels. Item labels, character labels... and they\'re huge, and ugly. MB labels were fantastic- they were not visible untill you mouseover\'ed them, and then they were very small, neat, and out of the way.

You can set your options for labels to appear only when dragged over. Did so myself. It\'s just like in MB actually... Only prettier.

Originally posted by Moogie
Crystal Hunt. It was something to do, and SO much more fun than killing things mindlessly. Even when crystals had hardly any worth at all, people still spent *hours upon hours* every day running their pre-planned routes through Hydlaa, again and again, picking up every ruby and emerald and diamond they found. Just to own those rare, fantastic symbols of status... Weapons.

So you\'re trying to say running after crystals wasn\'t mindless?

Originally posted by Moogie
Roof-hopping. Another of MB\'s charms was being able to cross the roofs of Hydlaa with the grace of an Enkidukai. You could see the world from a different angle, and watch the odd person below struggle to find their way up to you. A nice solitary lookout for those who liked to roleplay the loner, or the bereived.

In CB I\'ve been roof-jumping all the way from tavern roof to the roof by the edge facing the plaza... Or from the brown tower to the wall. That is still here.

Originally posted by Moogie
Roleplaying. Actual, proper roleplaying. We had no \'devices\' for roleplay in MB, which made everybody really think with their mind when they interacted with one-another. People of CB are too busy to roleplay, too many monsters to kill, too many n00bs to address to stop them shouting \"CAN U GIV ME FREE MONIES PLX!!1?\"

Ehh... It\'s very easy for me to meet a role-player nowadays. There\'s more of them than there was in MB actually.

Originally posted by Moogie
Ah, and of course, lack of Noobs. Sure, MB had the odd one or two. Compare that to CB, and we were in heaven in MB. It was lazy, it was laid back, it was tight-knit, it was friendly, it was fun.

In CB I don\'t see people running around me talking about raping me or using /shout to state their disaproval for Planeshift in vast number of vulgar words.

Originally posted by Moogie
You may or may not be aware that there have been 3 or 4 attempts at setting up an MB server already, you know. The people who have tried this understand perfectly the licensing issues, but MB is just too attractive to let die forever. If we had an official server, nobody would have to break the rules, and we\'d have a server that really works! ;) (unlike the others).

I was on one of such servers... It only reminded me how boring MB was...

[leuxast]

I agree with jekkar and Moogie...The community was so much tighter. You could argue that you can just keep little tight groups of roleplaying going, but it\'s not the same as having everyone knowing everyone. I feel that so many people are treating CB as a single player game. They level, and level, and level....
I\'d swear that half the people who play the game aren\'t even involved in the community.
I also love Moogie\'s idea of a seperate server...though that might be bad, because all the proper oldies who know what to do would play on that...and let CB deteriorate even more. But please do.....
Just my (strong) opinion.. Bring it back.
PS. Can someone set up a poll on the matter of having an MB server please?

[hitancrias]

Originally posted by lynx_lupo
(...)
I know it\'s not entirely on the topic, but the mb whines are just whines. People like to whine when they\'re not pleased and internet makes this very easy and without (m)any consequences.
Keep up the good work! )

This is exactly what I think. People seem to have forgotten the bad things about MB. I don\'t think the community is so much worse now either. Back in MB there were also hordes of people who only stayed a few days and didn\'t do anything but asking the whole FAQ without reading it and shouting how much the game sucked after all their questions were politely answered.

I have the feeling the GMs had to kick way more people from the server back in MB then they have to do now. People often were so bored that all they did was annoying others. Moogie used to have a sig with something like: \"I takes you 2 minutes to create a new account, it takes me 2 seconds to kick you back out.\" Also, the people who frequently played weren\'t all that great roleplayers (including myself by the way), exactly like it is now.

The last thing I\'m going to say (but I already regret it): I have the feeling that shouting that everything used to be better before, is sometimes just bragging about how long you have been around already. In MB people called the last year or half year of MB the \"Dark Ages of MB\", because the community and the roleplaying was supposed to be not as good as it was in the beginning of MB. Sounds just like what people are saying now. Let\'s keep it at: \"people merely remember the good parts of the past\"

In my oppinion, the only thing that was significantly better in MB then it is now, is the movement system. I really loved to run and jump around.

Keep up the good work devs! )

[Ralas]

I missed MB by about two months.  If I\'d tried harder to get it running on my first attempt six months prior to that, I wouldn\'t have missed it.  I am saddened that I did not make it in time.

The way things are now, it is hard to get into RP, because RPers tend to ignore newbies who don\'t immediately make a good impression.  I was frustrated by this as I struggled to learn, but now I am guilty of perpetuating it.   Sadly, this is by necessity.  I now am in the habit of ignoring people I don\'t know, because they usually have nothing better to say than \"lol i\'m a n00b.\"  And when I ask them to keep such Out of Character asides in parenthesis, they usually just mock me and run off.

So I agree with Seytra.  Despite the fact that I do some grinding when I\'m bored as it is _kind_ of fun, I think combat should be removed for now.  Sure there will be fewer players, but won\'t those who stay be the kind that we want here?

[Sangwa]

Sure, MB had the odd one or two.

Are we speaking of the same pre-alfa? I was alot more bothered in MB than I currently am in CB. Most times I get someone asking what to do, not whining about how there is nothing to do, how the game sucks and how its players must be complete idiots.

I agree with Seytra when he claims implementing the fighting system now was slap in the roleplayers\' face. This means we will have to tolerate brainless hack and slashers all the way to the final version, instead of just having to deal with them after it or near it.

However what\'s done is done. And I\'d rather have a noob asking me where to get a sword than having someone frustrated shouting injuries at me just because I happen to be in their /say reach.

As far as roleplaying is concerned, the roleplaying opurtunities have been improved with better systems and a more detailed setting. The powerlevelers hold no importance and if we can\'t roleplay with them we can ignore them. Like we ignored the people that ran by us hunting for crystals in MB (while I\'m at it let me add I enjoy fighting mobs better than crystal hunting: feels less pointless, since there are more rewards)

Lastly, let me say I\'m with lynx_lupo and Hitancrias when they say and quote (repectively): \"[...] the mb whines are just whines.\"

[leuxast]

In answer to Hitancrias\'s post, I don\'t mean we should let planeshift be stuck in the past, but I aslo think that if someone feels that MB is better, they should be allowed to play it.
Back to the community debate.
Here are some facts.
17370 people are members on the forum.
7560 people have 0 posts.
Of the 9810 people who have over 0 posts, almost half have under five.
That isn\'t good.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by leuxast
In answer to Hitancrias\'s post, I don\'t mean we should let planeshift be stuck in the past, but I aslo think that if someone feels that MB is better, they should be allowed to play it.
Back to the community debate.
Here are some facts.
17370 people are members on the forum.
7560 people have 0 posts.
Of the 9810 people who have over 0 posts, almost half have under five.
That isn\'t good.

How many people have over 50 posts?

[Karyuu]

I don\'t see why the forums have anything to do with anything? The forums have been available for three years now. Three years is a long time for people to come in, check things out, find things not to their liking, and leave without a word. Forum statistics mean very little when it comes to looking at the community, for there are many amazing people that simply do not come here.

If we make an MB server for the \"oldbies,\" what will CB become? Exactly what they fear - overrun by new players with no one to guide them, to show them how things really are, or should be. Except of course the MB-players would soon realize that there is nothing for them in a private server - the crystal hunt, while amusing, is repetitive, and the true community (and many of its members) that people miss will never be as it once was. MB is a pleasant memory. Don\'t revive it and destroy it completely with \"Oh yeaah... there\'s really nothing here afterall.\"

I think it\'s the people that we miss - not the game itself, not the closeness of the community, but the people that made up that community, who left for whatever reasons (whether against their will or willingly). This is the only reason I really think back to MB. But it\'s not something anyone can bring back, so instead of separating the community further with \"old\" and \"new\" servers, we should stick around and try to make each other happy.


Except the movement system ;) MB rocked in that regard.

Over and out!

[Watcher]

Well I havn\'t left so I am one oldish person from MB.

[Keyaz]

thinking about it... put in the old MB movement system, and add in crystals again, an we can do everything we did in MB with some new places and things to play with..

still even if some of you have been on the previous failures of MB servers and didnt like it, doesnt mean you get to decide for everyone else, let them see for themselves, and maybe some of the people who never saw MB would liek to try.

[steuben]

i think part of it is that the community of mb was \"shattered\" by the introduction of cb. i spent a couple of months in mb, before i went home and lost the sweet comp that i had. and it was a community. it was kind of like when i was back at school.

then there was a haitus, i seem to recall, as the devs worked to get cb up and running. some of us banged round the fourms, others on the channel, and others simply wandered off. then cb came along, and alot of us came back. and despite it\'s birthing pains, we hung around.

but, then all that is nothing new.

the new environment basically dictates a new community. how long after the introduction of mb did it take for the community to restructure itself? (is there anybody here that was around at that time?) and all that the ab-mb transitition did was introduce crystal hunting (hand waves aside the various bug fixes and other such stuff).

the point here is that the ps community has undergone a major change of its core. it will take time for it to figure itself back out. disabling features or going back to mb will not solve the problem. it will only postpone the resolution. and we will just simply drag things out even longer.

but with the introduction of combat, it may be that the exsistance of a second community within ps. those who see ps as the game rather than the vehicle for other things.

[zanzibar]

There isn\'t just one community in PS.


There are countless micro-communities,


And people are members of more than one micro-community at a time.

[Nikodemus]

Originally posted by Seytra
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.

I think you are going too extreme. While architecture of different races should be similiar. Each race would keep their own style to exist in chaged with time form, but still unique in some details. Afterall each race have different needs, sometimes very similiar but also more different, like Krans. They would keep differences because of practical reasons. Also the geography and climate is reason of architecture differences. Like I see Hydlaa as clasic subarctic european city, Ojaveda is desert like city, only the area outside city is full of grass and huge bambus forest.....
Each race, when arrived at Yliakum had their own preferences of region. So these capital cites grew in their own style. Of course the differences decreased with time as population mixed, but the old buildings stayed and the new ones was still a bit unique due to the climate and material in the place.

I can agree with the other most part what you have said.
The background should be developed really a lot more than it is now. Mistakes corrected, like some npc tells about north/south/west/east directions, when none of them tell about compass. Also, why the suggestions on that matter wasnt used? I get a feeling that most what we write is kind of pointless.
I can\'t know all as some informations should be hidden, but the story team should think a bit.

edit: and i don\'t like taking out features which we already have. There are too few of them to take them away. Maybe stop developing combat system, but start the other things.

[Sangwa]

what will CB become? Exactly what they fear - overrun by new players with no one to guide them, to show them how things really are, or should be.

I think you\'re overestimating the importance of those who would forsake CB for MB.

The main problem I see with having a MB server is the fact that it serves no purpose for the game itself. Currently all players are testers as well. In the alternate server that wouldn\'t happen...

[Karyuu]

I meant that from a hypothetical perspective of someone who would leave CB for MB, Sangwa :)

E.g., \"Woe and alas, I and others like me have left, the better of us are here, while CB will continue to spiral downwards.\"

But that\'s mean ;)