To the Wizards

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luminier
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To the Wizards

#1 Post by luminier » Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:15 am

After having a talk with a wizard today I get the impression that the wizards feel under appreciated by the players!

I will let you know right now that this is not the case! The players love everything you do and people (especially me) would love to have you pick our brains about possible new additions to the game!

I imagine a future of where player and wizard alike can work together to make this game better for everyone who decides to play it in the future!

Down with the us vs wizard mentality! I thank the wizards for their time spent coding and allowing me to have a fun time here! If we are friendly to the wizards they are more likely to respect our opinion as players! I would love to work together with the wizards to make this a cooler and more entertaining place for everyone to play! AWWWW YEAAAA

Who is with me!
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Re: To the Wizards

#2 Post by fernao » Sun Mar 04, 2012 10:07 am

First of, the last sentence probably was meant as a question. Wasn't it?

So... I totally appreciate the work _ANYONE_ be it wizard or player that supports wizards with ideas or descriptions works on Geas.

So yeah, I agree, we players often are too shortcomming when it comes to voicing our appreciation of your work!

The main problem I fear is that criticism on specifics is often voiced in such an unspecific manner that you feel your work in general is not appreciated. At least for me that is not the case and should any of my rumblings, comments or statements have pointed to you feeling unappreciated, please accept my humble appologies. Having been a wizard and even admin in other muds I know the amount of work and "heartblood" put into projects, regardless of their size.

Communication helps a lot, so hey, don't be shy, and if you feel misunderstood or maltreaty, give us a little slap on the wrist or better, talk to us. Sometimes things are said, or rather typed in a mud environment, that are not always fully thought through. :wink:

Hope you keep up the good work.
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Re: To the Wizards

#3 Post by krelji » Sun Mar 04, 2012 11:04 am

luminier wrote:I will let you know right now that this is not the case! The players love everything you do and people (especially me) would love to have you pick our brains about possible new additions to the game!
As mentioned here there is currently a rather huge
project in
development, and while access to this project is rather limited there
wasn't too much feedback yet from non-Masterscribes. Not all of it will
be too interesting for all chars, but the heap of it might.
luminier wrote:I imagine a future of where player and wizard alike can work together to make this game better for everyone who decides to play it in the future!
Some of us are already doing just that.
luminier wrote:Down with the us vs wizard mentality!
Assisting wizards in any way I might is more productive, and I am
already doing that.
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Re: To the Wizards

#4 Post by Yngwe » Sun Mar 04, 2012 12:23 pm

Damn straight.
Wizards are doing an amazing job! There are very few seriously quality muds floating around out there, but Geas is definitely one of them (and the only one I play).
I know I don't really understand the kind of workload and todo lists for making Geas what is and what it's being polished into, so I may obliviously meander back and forth in the game sometimes just enjoying it without saying that I am. But what I see, what I've seen, and what I'm being shown now... It's impressive.
The appreciation has been there (I keep playing) but I agree it's high time it got verbalized more.
Wizzies and Admin - and other players by the way - thank you for all the stuff you do.

Geas is a blast on several levels, and it's 'cause all of you guys made it that way.

poYngers :mrgreen:

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Re: To the Wizards

#5 Post by luminier » Sun Mar 04, 2012 1:30 pm

krelji wrote: What this guy said
this was more of a praise to wizards /give praise to wizards thread.

not a hey krelji you aren't doing enough you lazy ass thread =P
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Re: To the Wizards

#6 Post by krelji » Sun Mar 04, 2012 1:52 pm

I am fully aware of it, but since you seemed to be looking for some work,
I figured that it won't hurt to remind you of a project that you could
have access to - at least in theory. Access would be limited to just the
wiki pages regarding it, but this would still be better than nothing.

I've already seen quite a few rooms relating to it, and we don't want to
spoil the fun for anyone, so it is purely optional. However, I know how
amazing the wizards are here on Geas, and not just a selected few I
work or talk with.

Apart from that it was not my intention to blame anyone here. Knowing
too much can spoil your fun quite a bit, so I can understand if some
players prefer to keep this knowledge locked away from them.
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Re: To the Wizards

#7 Post by Eleassa » Mon Mar 05, 2012 1:20 pm

As someone who has been a wizard on a couple muds in the past, and am now working on a mud that is currently pre-player testing, I know how much work the wizards put in. I appreciate what you do, and keep up the good work.
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Re: To the Wizards

#8 Post by Urlyth » Wed Mar 07, 2012 4:15 am

I just worked very closely with a couple of our wizards on a bug I found. I really appreciated that the problem was solved and worked on by Per and Turian and I hope the feed back I gave them demonstrating the bug helped.

I have worked with Wizards in the past and hope to do so again.

I agree the work they do is much appreciated and the fact they saw through my frustration so fast was more than appreciated.

Now if only .... :lol: just kidding!

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Re: To the Wizards

#9 Post by lanyara » Fri Mar 16, 2012 7:40 pm

I feel that (active) players should be able to vote on every
aspect of the game via polls in a binding way.

In other words, there should be many more polls.
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Re: To the Wizards

#10 Post by luminier » Sun Mar 18, 2012 6:09 pm

I would love that.
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Re: To the Wizards

#11 Post by Urlyth » Mon Mar 19, 2012 4:01 am

I feel that (active) players should be able to vote on every
aspect of the game via polls in a binding way.
I think if I was a wizard and I had an idea or and knew it would work and knew it would be a nice feature for the game or an improvement for the game maybe that few would even notice I would be a bit put off at doing anything if I had to get a vote on every item and listen to endless debates before I did anything.

Our wizards they have a job to do and need a certain amount of freedom to do it. I say let them do it. They work for the good of the game if they werent they wouldnt be here to start with.

A major change that may affect people in a positive or negative way would need approval for the sake of saving whining but otherwise I dont think polls on every aspect would be a good thing.

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Re: To the Wizards

#12 Post by glasp » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:17 pm

(... on giving the current majority of players last word on everything)

That pretty much assumes that wizards are happy the way things are. I for one am not. I see plenty of room for improvement when it comes to the roleplaying standard on the MUD. What is wrong? For one there is too much non-interactive hack&slash sort of play, too much mindless PVP, too much making decisions on information one shouldn't be making decisions on, and sadly too often too much OOC influence over people's decisions. This of course varies heavily from person to person, there are also a good number of RP-stars which I am personally happily enjoy to observe - but on the average level I think it should be improved. Saying that the voting majority alone is the correct answer does not say anything about how well the RP fares on the MUD - it just means that whatever group of people who for the time being happens to be in majority will decide the fate of the MUD. If 20 hack-n-slash DIKU MUDders one day logs on and votes, there won't be any "roleplaying enforced" MUD left.

Secondly, favouring RP is a minority opinion. Most of the total world's MUD players engage in non-RP MUD's. So with time, the fraction of non-RP play would rise. Give it 5-10 years with player-run MUD I doubt there's much left.. I might be scared of ghosts, but I rather think about how we can improve RP. Saying that it should happen through voting just says that it will happen through voting - it says nothing about the actual result. Only that there will be plenty of people who like it, regardless of what it is. To defend this MUD's heavy RP focus, RP needs to be top priority by the core. And in my opinion, this has been on a decline over the last few years (admittedly, I always wish it was higher than it ever was).

Third, I wonder who will take all the tough decisions such as making the game harder. Most players enjoy it when we add that super strong sword or boost skills, but if moderation and balancing is required, some people tend to cry loudly about how hard everything has gotten, regardless what it does to the bigger picture. I believe there are plenty of areas in the game that would benefit from getting harder, such as the economy and other things.

Fourth, I doubt many wizards would care to code at all given this situation. Who wants to sit around and code features that they might even think will make the MUD a worse and just passively serving up player orders? I for one would probably quit if I were to become that kind of slave. If you think that the seats around the table is empty when it comes to taking all the fun decision of how things should be... and then when it's time to code it's everybody is happily hacking away - you're wrong. It's the other way.

Fifth, if we are really to improve the RP on this MUD I think we need to first of all accept that there will be decisions that do not happen to favour yourself in particular. But perhaps on a grand scale make the entire game better - and given enough time and maturity we will see that the balance of the game will remain the same. I rather see that we find a way to give influence to 'givers' of the game. That is, people who make interesting RP for a large number of people, people who amongst the playerbase are widely acknowledged for being interesting. On a secondary basis, give players who contribute with lore, code and descriptions a heavy say.
Luminier wrote: I would love that.
Lastly, you claim that you appreciate what the wizards do and that you want to take down the "wizards vs us mentality". Then in the next breath you want to take away wizards the natural power to decide and hand that over to yourself? I'm sure most people here are serious with what they say, and such praise is always appreciated (thanks to all of those who chose to _not_ whine and moan, and even once in a while say 'thank you'), but this last quote seems a bit inconsistent to me.

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Re: To the Wizards

#13 Post by luminier » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:30 pm

I meant I would love that because I am interested in having the players and wizards work together to make the MUD better, not because I want the players to have "the final say" or take power away from the wizards. I am not certain however what "powers" you think the wizard would be losing by interacting and raising ideas with his playerbase frequently, IMO, that would be a really cool thing.

Having said that, I don't see why me saying that 'I would love more wizard/player interaction on the forum' would foster an Us vs Wizard mentality. Perhaps you can elaborate on that?

Ill say this Glasp. I understand that you think there are problems with the MUD and how people should RP and how they should act. It is reasonable to have expectations of how certain things should be done. I don't think Lanyara meant that we should have a vote on every change, but, on big changes. Something like PVP flags, I am glad was talked about publically and such interactions is the type of interaction and debate that I think the MUD could benefit from.

I agree with you Glasp that perhaps things could be improved, but I also think that improving things based on interaction between a lot of people is very important.

I am sure you have many great ideas, but do you think your imagination is greater than everyone on the forum's and yours put together?
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Re: To the Wizards

#14 Post by glasp » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:48 pm

luminier wrote:Not because I want the players to have "the final say" or take power away from the wizards.
So far that is exactly what you just implied.
luminier wrote:raising ideas with his playerbase frequently
I think the wording was more like "vote on every decision".
luminier wrote:I am not certain however what "powers" you think the wizard would be losing
I thought that was exactly what I just described.

And calling to own the control of making decisions seems to me like only a way of ensuring that you can be conservative of what already exists. You didn't call for getting the right of pitching ideas or submitting content, how we can change bad RP or any such. You just come off as afraid of changes, and I sort of begin to wonder where all this disapproval of RP-improvements comes from. Do you actually disapprove of the RP-line in favour of something else?

You start by saying how much you enjoy all the changes, and then you want to strip exactly those powers that made that happen? For what reason? Isn't that just a disallowance of exactly all the changes that were made? Sorry, but that is just pretty hollow.

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Re: To the Wizards

#15 Post by luminier » Mon Mar 19, 2012 3:08 pm

Im not sure why I am coming off as "afraid of change". Anything that benefits the MUD I will stand behind.

I'm not trying to have a fight with you Glasp, I am genuinely interested in making the game better. I am really sorry if that was taken the wrong way or I presented it poorly.

I do like the changes that were made so far and I can really see that they are trying to make an effort to include everyone in the game and so they have some way to roleplay - which is great... especially for the Asrals.
glasp wrote:Do you actually disapprove of the RP-line in favour of something else?
If you are implying here what I think you are implying, it seems a little insulting. No, I am not interested in just power gaming and mindless PVP. However, I do think the PVP system is great and has solid RP for most conflicts. I can give you many reasons for every PVP encounter I've had. Also I think you might underestimate how hard it is to actually play a Crusader as it is essentially a player that must expect to engage in some PVP sometimes.

If that isn't what you were implying, I apologize, but that is certainly what it seemed like you were getting at.

You didn't comment on what you think might be best for Geas though, and didn't answer my direct questions. I think perhaps now that we see that neither of us want to see this MUD die and that we both want to see it succeed... we can move on from these petty quarrels?
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Re: To the Wizards

#16 Post by Drayn » Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:03 pm

Woah, bad vibes a plenty

*opens a big tub of love and spreads it all over the thread*

Forums, and other text based communication, sucks ass, because you can't see the other people's body language, hear the tone of their voice or see their facial expressions. This is why a topic can quickly change direction away from the intent.

From what I've read, this thread was started by Luminier to offer some much deserved praise to our truly superb wizarding staff. Then suggestions were made where perhaps the players and wizards could work together more closely to work on ideas and this is where stuff became a little polarised.

I think Glasp is worried that working too closely with the players may lead to pandering or the expectation of such (just my take on it, could be wrong, text and all :)) Where as poLumi just wants to offer what ever assistance the wizards might need of him to help them do a difficult job (again, just my take).

I think in general there is room for a little more structure when communicating with our lovely wizzies. I often get a bit nervous when I've sent a commune or a mail if I shouldn't have used some other method instead. To their credit I've never been slapped by the wizzies if they have been annoyed, so if I have, genuinely sorry on that :)

I think the intention behind the polls idea was to give the wizards a better idea of what impact their decisions will have rather than as a way to have players dictate how the game will be built.

Players moan, it's natural, it's human, it's unavoidable. I've been a wiz and I've ran table top games for years and I know very well how it feels when someone looks at your hard work and moans about it. It's just a reaction, deep down we know we'd get bored if there was no challenge to the game, we just loose sight of that short term.

I ran a game once where the players were bitching at me because I had created an impossible situation with a stupidly difficult fight (intentionally as it was part of a plot) that was intended to make them run, they didn't and instead spent the night moaning and banging their gums because they wanted to win every fight. Those kinds of players suck ass.

I've ran other games where the players absolutely loved that they were up against the odds and having to run around by the seat of their pants. It made the victories all the sweeter because they needed to earn it. Those kinds of players kick ass.

In geas, there have been days I've screamed at my laptop and thrown tantrums because I died...again...that day and there were times I considered calling it a day, but I calmed down and realised I loved playing the underdog, everything is a challenge. Being super awesome would get boring quickly :)


Anyway, I digress. This convo to me took a turn for the scary and confrontational and I don't think anyone involved really wanted that. Had this conversation taken place around a table I'm sure things would have gone a lot smoother...or maybe folks would be throwing chairs at each other, who knows.

I feel that everyone here is suitably awesome that chair throwing wouldn't occur though. Just thought I'd try to diffuse the tension a little.

*makes ready with a tea tray in case things get nasty again*

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Re: To the Wizards

#17 Post by luminier » Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:28 pm

Well you got my intention down pat there Drayn.
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Re: To the Wizards

#18 Post by glasp » Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:54 am

Well, for a couple of months there has been a quite heavy criticism from a small, but vocal group of players. It concerned the rogues, the clerics of Taniel, other things and well.. things between heaven and hell, including stuff that did not affect these players.. but pretty much everything I have touched. One of the ideas that were floating around during this time was that is a problem that wizards change things... I can not disclose everything. This campaign has quite frankly made me quite tired mentally.. I'm pretty much at rock bottom for the moment when it comes to discussions with the players and such so sorry if I am not replying to everything.

Then I notice this thread here - and I am not really sure what to believe. For a long time it was exactly the other way around, and then suddenly it's all good. Good, I thought.

And now it's back to that wizards are doing terrible changes and we quickly need player voting council on every aspect in so that we can specifically prevent you from having an idea and influencing what the MUD should be about, especially core stuff such as RP standards... Well, please read my first post in the thread.

I'm also getting a bit annoyed at how we seem unable to speak to eachother, but that is a different topic I guess. Instead of just saying what it is you wish, there is talk about how the MUD should be run, long exchanges in some sort of request for proof when the position is already set and well.. anyway, I'm certainly no expert on how to make that work.

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Re: To the Wizards

#19 Post by glorfindel » Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:59 am

Hello,

Just my personal 2cc, I do not think that players should get into 'voting' of a lot of things. The wizards usually have the big picture, whereas you as player usually only have your own picture. For example... do you as one who has always played as a goodie have in mind how it is to play as a rogue? A member of the order? A member of the Satho clerics? Guildless Lilithian ? Asral Cleric ? Usually I fear that is not the case, at least not for me. I have some idea of how satho clerics usually feel, as I have played on myself, but that was ages ago.

So just my 2cc, I think suggesting stuff and giving profound ideas is a very good thing, as is contribution from our side, but I do think in the end we should trust the people that code this stuff. In my experience they're always open to discussions as long as terms stay friendly and openly. But as Drayn said, getting people to just say that your changes are crap is not something anybody takes lightly. If you disagree, be sure to state your opinion with polite facts and keep the
emotions/anger out of it.

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Re: To the Wizards

#20 Post by luminier » Tue Mar 20, 2012 1:02 pm

I am always willing to speak and talk something out. Talking behind someones back is never an effective mode of dealing with a problem, as I have noticed in real life.

Anytime you wish to speak I am available. I would be pleased to clear up any animosity that might be present.
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