Geas

Howdy, people!

Well, you see... From July to now at the ends of September, I have been feeling that the game has been turning pretty slow overall. Plots finish, tentatives of new conflict end up in failure, players gradually feel less engaged and log on for less time, the who list feels more empty, other players play less because of this emptiness, newbies drop off quickly because there is barely no one...

In order to try to stop this vicious circle, I have opened the topic for us players to talk about how to inject more life into the game. Do you have any thoughts? Any suggestions? Specific ideas?

EDIT:

From now on I will update a list of observations to keep track of the topic.

→ It is shared that non-combat activities such as crafting, trade and resource gathering would create a renewed interest in the game as there would be more reasons for char-to-char interaction. Some even support to make use of a player-and-wizard cooperation due to the magnitude of the project.

→ Guild management in general appears to be another issue in certain Guilds because the inactivity of characters in high positions makes it annoying for the ones in lower ones to progress. Suggestions for that are to allow autojoin/promotion measures.

Usually the game flutuates quite a bit in its numbers. My best advice would be to just take a break for now and play something else, check back in a a few months when people are less busy. usually around christmas it picks up a bit again

Ah. Is that so? I heard the same argument for September and it didn't seem so but maybe I am the impatient. Thanks, Lumi.

Instead of big conflict points or grand plots I think Geas needs very simple and common reasons for characters to interact.

Like reasons to trade, uphold established trade relations and to seek new ones.

Simply put, someone has to have something that someone wants. This is much more complicated than it sounds though.

Well anyways if there was a pervasive need for multiple characters to regularly come together in pursuit of same goals and resources(I really cannot stress the word resources enough), something interesting is bound to happen.

I hope that the plan to extend the crafting-system will reach a state so that parts of it, can be implemented. For some 'crafting' new crafting guilds will be needed for other we will need a new skill (only then no fitting exists).
I it fits new crafts guilds can be joined with race-guild-slot. As example bow maker for elves and cooking for half-lings. So a character can be full-member of two craft guild.
Hoping then the economic between the player will increase a bit.
Unfortunate the current concept is only a big patchwork there only some frazzles exists. So it it will need some time for it can start.

Instead of big conflict points or grand plots I think Geas needs very simple and common reasons for characters to interact.

Like reasons to trade, uphold established trade relations and to seek new ones.

Simply put, someone has to have something that someone wants. This is much more complicated than it sounds though.

Well anyways if there was a pervasive need for multiple characters to regularly come together in pursuit of same goals and resources(I really cannot stress the word resources enough), something interesting is bound to happen.

Yes, indeed. Player interdependence would be a way to go and crafting and economy the key. But in order for this to stop being a big patchwork as Turian says, it would be needed to do a research of how the current implements work in the game, use that and other information to design an specific concept with details, recipes and helpfiles and then see how to code it, which would take a bottleneck of time.

On the other hand, topics like "Let's discuss GEAS economy", "Discussion: Interdependence" (in the Roleplay section) and "Crafting system design" (in the Ideas section) do adress these issues already. Maybe post there and organize the information into a concept would help to have these projects going on in an active way.

EDIT: Correcting ortography errors.

I think more non-combat related activities like crafting (as well as trading, resource gathering, item customization, etc.) would go a long way towards creating renewed interest in GEAS, although this is easier said than done since it pretty much relies entirely on wizards at the moment. But as it is, there's probably enough combat-related content in GEAS that it doesn't really need more of it. After a point, I think older players will eventually get tired of getting drawn into the same conflicts over and over- especially if they tend to have the same outcome every time.

That being said though, it might help if players and wizards could tackle big projects like crafting together- players could help brainstorm ideas, write descriptions, etc., and wizards could oversee the direction of the project and implement the code-side of it. I might be wrong, but I think the magic system was handled similarly, and it seems like it was pretty successful at making a detailed and fleshed out system.

Allurana wrote:After a point, I think older players will eventually get tired of getting drawn into the same conflicts over and over- especially if they tend to have the same outcome every time.

Yeah I can think of a few people this applies to.

I might be wrong, but I think the magic system was handled similarly, and it seems like it was pretty successful at making a detailed and fleshed out system.

Oh, really?

If someone could confirm this and give their two cents about how did that go it would be wonderful. Mentioning any forum threads related to if there were any.

I was talking with a new player who pointed out that it seems very hard to get in touch with leaders of guilds in order to join. And I realized it's not just a Scribe/Mage problem, that yeah, with people playing less there has been a dearth of players of certain guilds--quite a few guilds actually. How does one go about joining a guild if no one is there to speak with them? It leaves quite a void to have some of these guilds unrepresented, and even if there are players who want to join, there's currently no way to, so they end up joining some other guild or giving up.

I think most guilds in Geas have an autojoin system.
I can only speak for the warclergy, but there you can ask the guard to join and in none of the leadership rejects that request within a given time, the npc joins the player into the guild

Well, Aslak, yes. Most do, but the cases where you need face-to-face contact can be annoying.

For the one part I understand this mechanism because it is intended to increase player to player interaction and to undermine carefree Guildhopping - and, in part, it does fulfill its role. But I don't know if we have enough playerbase nor means of contact to make it work so well, specially since now its impossible to mail unknown people.

I can see reasons why face-to-face interaction should be required, particularly for "secret" guilds. Though it does make it difficult when there aren't any active members of that guild. Is there a way players could contact the admin to see about jumpstarting a guild if it hasn't had any active leaders in x amount of time and there's no other way to join?

This is an issue not only with guild joining, but with guild management in general.

There are a lot of systems like promotions/votes/upkeep of certain guild features that simply fall apart without critical mass. This is specially aggravating when it affects people's daily play or character progression, which in the case of guilds, it's basically every time.

Something should definitely be done about this. I suggest greatly relaxing the rules for autojoining and receiving promotions from NPCs. If the current leaders don't want to play, let the active players rise up or the game will die. At the moment, the management of many guilds and with it the access to many advanced game features is in the hands of inactive players.

Okay then. With this we've got the topic of non-combat and the issue of guild management.

People, I think we have tackled a couple of important points now. Do you want me to try to write a list of general suggestions to keep track of the topic?

Please do. I have to second the autojoin/autopromote thingy. I think it would do good for Geas as sometimes, try as you might, life gets in the way and managing a guild as the lone master is just not possible. Negotiating between multiple timezones/life situations does not make it very easy either.

Said and done! The new list has been posted in the front page.

Any corrections - post here =)

With people bringing up inactive guild leadership, that has me wondering how the election system treats inactive leaders - is there any point when votes become invalid if the voters/the person voted for haven't logged in for months? I kind of feel that there should be, because it would take a lot of guild newbies votes to overthrow the inactive leader, especially because their votes tend to count less than those of older members? (not sure if it works the same way in different guilds though).

Normal wise the votes of inactive player should be removed.

OK, that's great then, if that is already the case.