Is This Game Too Hard?

[Venalan]

I've read over this thread and let me make some comments on the part of the game I have direct control over.

(2) The disappearing NPCs allegedly add realism, a point I will not debate (I am a stone creature that rides a fish - REALISM?), but a player who may have only 1-2 hours a day to play may simply not see some NPCs when they do play. That needs to be dealt with, or we can't really attract players so that they can sit around and be frustrated.
(3) Running. The quests require some silly amounts of running that used to be much more interesting with mobs attacking along the way. Going to Bronze Doors the first time, way back when, was a group adventure. Now it's a long solo run that would eventually bore even Forrest Gump. Getting people to the game so that they can press an arrow key for half an hour at a time isn't really a selling point.
(4) No spoilers vs. Reporting bugs: I've done at least a few quests where I thought I should get a glyph but I haven't. Is it a bug? I don't know. Honestly, I sort of gave up on that and I pity anyone that is starting off on the quest chain simply to get access to the Winch so that they aren't handicapped characters. And access to the Winch requires a level of potentially OOC decisions, as do some glyphs. "Sure, I'll run back and forth to Bronze Doors 6 times so that you can give me a glyph" is somewhat sadistic. Oh, and that anvil quest? With the newer system, that seems kind of silly (no more said to avoid a spoiler).

2 - After the last dev meeting I'd like to make the first 40 or 50 levels trainable at npcs which are persistent so new player always has at least one trainer available. Will have to wait and see how that works out.
3 - It has been asked we add a pterosaurs to the BD, which we are looking in to. But be warned, if we add this you will still have to run out there a few times before you are 'awarded' access.
4 - If you think you should have got a glyph file a petition which only devs/gms can see and I will look at it. But as it stands, if you should have got a glyph you would have. Many player use spoiler site which are well out of date and expect things to work/happen which have been changed. But when it comes to glyphs I have finished a project that complexly reorganizes all glyph rewards so every one is questable in at least 2 quests (this includes currently unreleased glyphs). Now some quests may be 'ooc' to do if you just go for rewards as its just impossible to make everything 'IC available' to everyone as there are just too many different possibilities. And before you ask many of the quests will be reset so that changed quests can be repeat by everyone.

There are a few comments about more indepth quests which take advantage of mechanics. We have some that start to do this and are already written and waiting to be released. They are not as complex as "you get sent from Point A to Point B to deliver an item, and it looks like it's only going to take a minute to get there, but - GASP! - an mob ambushes you on the way there and steals your Shiny Dagger of the MacGuffin! You have to aim and throw a net you conveniently find at just the right moment to catch them and retrieve the item," but they are more immersive. Being asked to poison food which involves you actually finding the right crate and clicking on it to replicate the act of poising it. And the comment about making a quest line for warriors similar to the mages is being worked on.

[Bonifarzia]

[...] And the comment about making a quest line for warriors similar to the mages is being worked on.

Hey, that could bring lazy me back to actually doing some quest.

[Roled]

Been reading this thread and I especially appreciate Candy's specific examples of what she means by engaging.  At this moment, I have only one relevant comment, in response to the BD run issues.

Venalan, you said:

3 - It has been asked we add a pterosaurs to the BD, which we are looking in to. But be warned, if we add this you will still have to run out there a few times before you are 'awarded' access.

I suggested in gossip one night that a pterosaur flight to BD might be cued in to some other attainable achievement ig. I suggested that the only place to take a flight to BD and return to might be in the Winch, overseen by the pterosaur trainer there. It would offer an enticing reason to do all the winch quests.

Thanks,
RR

[Pierre]

Wow.  Big YES to the impossibility of playing and having fun quickly.  Quickly means within a day/week/month time period.  Totally agree with Suno - I had a new character who dug dug dug dug and some extremely nice player gave her a million tria for what she dug up and a bunch extra.  Just a super nice oldbie who didn't know me, saw a new char struggling and seriously stepped up.

With a million tria, still a giant drag to get pp and to feel a bit of strength and competence.  It is honest to the gods harder than real life to achieve things in this game, and that sucks.  It sucks because the land is awesome, the players are awesome (yes, even though I met many I didn't like, I met so many I adored, and that balance felt totally ok and good) the quests are clever (yes I am serious, I always liked them and did them) and I just like the whole scene, and it improves all the time.  The mounts??  Love them.

Speaking of mounts, I cannot see how sticking a brontosaur in the Winch is going to make the Winch more enticing - good gods, everyone wants to get in there and badly, just so not to have to run around all the time.

Plus mounts are cute and fun.  So sticking a bronto to the Bronze Doors Fortress in the Winch sounds cruel.  Please don't.

Love Venalan's idea of making the lower level NPC trainers persistent, that would help.

The whole game is non-stop frustration initially, way to hard to level, way to hard to have fun by yourself while you are waiting to (or overcoming shyness to) meet people and roleplay.  If the game had been like this in 2008 or so when I started, I would never have gotten into it, would have left. 

I like to get stronger and accomplish things IG, effing life is a grind, it just is.  Bloody hell I don't want to repeat that here. 

When the player numbers were up, it was possible to max out before a RL lifetime.  And we dueled and we warred and we rp'd the hell out of the taverns, for me this was awesome.  Even the weird twisted rp's I fell into were funny and fine, even if I scooted out first chance I could.

I just fell in love with the whole world of Planeshift.  I still am in love with it, would come back in a flash.    .

[Bonifarzia]

With a million tria, still a giant drag to get pp and to feel a bit of strength and competence.

This has been discussed a few times, and I know that PP can be obtained in many different ways. Yet i wonder, could it help to have characters start with a few more PPs than they do now, maybe via even larger experience rewards during the tutorial?
By the way, oldbies can not only help with tria. I will gladly take an unexperienced character to a little hunting trip - just take care not to get hit, and it will be a rewarding experience

[LigH]

Questing should provide a good amount of PPs. But also another level of frustration: Most quests seem to be designed on purpose to run the longest distances between NPCs. And then they are asleep when you arrive, or unpredictably strolling.

[mbr1110]

I have returned after one year gone. Many things that frustrated me before are not there, but there are equally frustrating and down-right discouraging things that exist now. I spent two hours looking for an NPC that should have been located in the BD fortress. I considered taking another year off again. Seems it is a wash between changes I like and new frustrations... I may need to take another year off. 

[Sen]

You talk of frustration_s_, but mention only one and with a single example. What in particular are the problems? And as important, what in particular are the things that improved?

[bilbous]

The dark wanderer is hard to spot sometimes but he is still in the same place generally. If you see the gorweals (tree monsters) you are close. The BD NPCs do not move around or disappear.

[Pierre]

With a million tria, still a giant drag to get pp and to feel a bit of strength and competence.

This has been discussed a few times, and I know that PP can be obtained in many different ways.

None of the ways for new characters to get pp is satisfactory.  There is no way to get enough pp to train within a reasonable amount of time.

By the way, oldbies can not only help with tria. I will gladly take an unexperienced character to a little hunting trip - just take care not to get hit, and it will be a rewarding experience

My experience is that because my weak char does little damage, I get almost no pp.  Maybe 1 pp.  So going along with a skilled hunter - which a couple of different oldbies did for me (oldbies are awesomely helpful, did I already say this?) - did me no good.

Boni, did you have a different experience?  Can you actually help weak chars gain pp in this way?  I think the days of standing on...what's her name, Guile's tent while she get hit by rocks by strong chars and getting enough pp to hope to become strong yourself...those days are gone.

Correct me if I am wrong.

[bilbous]

You can get  a fair bit of experience via the harvesting, mining, and fishing skills which give more pps each level up to about 20, I think. It is kind of boring though. Stop training them around 10 and the pps will accumulate. Giving someone a million trias is no favor I think as they will expect to train with it all at once causing this need for the pps that cannot be fulfilled. Don't train anything for a while but one of these skills and try different product as each particular type of produce gives a different amount of experience. For mining, the tin mine by the river or the copper mine by the outpost are good places to start as they have a fairly good success/reward rate. I am not as familiar with which herbs or fishes might be best but eyebright seems a good bet as it is among the most valuable plants, you can get rich just using /pickup when you get bored of /harvesting. Carp seems to be the easiest to fish but you might be better off somewhere there are no critters to harass you, you are unlikely to find players that will want to buy them regularly. The quests to get the cooking books are rather onerous and the craft itself is quite hard to master. Herbalism is easier to do but the most useful plants are among the least valuable to sell to npcs. I sell virtually everything I gather or make to the npcs.

Now that critters often have a range attack hunting is a more problematic way to generate experience.

[Roled]

Roled suggests.. QUESTING! QUESTING! QUESTING!

Thank you for your attention... 

[Rigwyn]

+1 on questing. The glyphs you score can be used or sold - some for LOTS of money. You also gain knowledge of the game's settings and location of NPCs.

[Pierre]

Giving a million tria does not cause the pp crisis.  Without the million tria, there is a tria and pp crisis.  Thus taking two eternities to become strong and be able to fight/make/be what you would like to be.  The million tria cuts this down to one eternity.

I'm gonna hop off this thread as the oldbies who love to say "there is no problem!" are creeping up on it.  But as I mentioned before, quests do not give sufficient pp to level. 

Let people who are actually making new chars and trying to advance them have a say here.  Not oldbies who are quite strong and perhaps not sympathetic to newbs or psuedo-newbs who want to be strong, and neither oldbies who find it a BONUS that it takes an eternity to get strong because they are happy with one level per year (Bilbous ).

Anyway, cheers, love the thread.  Hope it gets sorted sometime in the future, love the game.

[Venalan]

A little point about hunting to gain PPs. Do not do it grouped. If you are grouped and an older player does 99% damage and you do 1%, you get 1% of the PP. If two players go hunting and one player does 99% and then runs off, and you then start attacking and give the killing blow you get 100% of the PP. a newish character giving the killing blow to guile will get 150+ PPs. But its a little risky.