Ixalite
Outer Rim Colonies
Posts: 373
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Post by Ixalite on Feb 9, 2015 22:16:17 GMT
Server Direction: What the Players Want. For those who do not know me, I am Ixalite, former lore-keeper/founder of the server. I have kept an eye on things, but have stayed hands off, and plan to continue to do so. I do, however, have some things to say in answer to AcidLies, HerrSticks, and others. When originally created, StarMade was a very different game. The combat system was skewed towards battle-cubes and against role-play. There was less control over AI factions, and the economy and crafting systems were far worse than they are today. T.C. was created in an attempt to address these and other concerns, and create a home for Role Play within the game. What ended up happening was an inward-spiraling series of artificial rules and game mechanic tweaks trying to get everything just right, and it got so absurd and idiotic that it made most players sick. It was at that point, shortly after the first hyperspace release (when the game was quite unstable) that players and admins alike expressed disagreement with the state of the server, and I left. I have, however, kept an eye on the state of the server, checking in from time to time, and I see that it is having a spot of trouble. Posts by admins regarding lore or involvement with players are very low. Player involvement with lore seems rather low as well. StarMade is not a great action game. It is not a great construction game, or adventure game. StarMade is, however, versatile enough to make an acceptable sandbox for Space RP, and that versatility grows with every new update to the game. TC is about story, and that story, as read through the forums, seems to have trailed off into mumbling. No one has new ideas, or direction. That is my guess as to why player involvement is decreasing. That is why players log in and wait for hours (days?) to see another player. Suggestions: Admins: Bring back missions. In the old days, there were supposed to be a minimum of one RP mission for players to do per player online per day. In that way, players were dragged into the story, and forced to interact in a way beyond combat, mining, and crafting. The rewards for these missions were kept separate, and I don't know how you would reward players for their involvement, as economy has little to do with RP. Admins: Be involved and driven. Have a plan, and push it forward. If the players go in a different direction, roll with it. Players: There is (or should be) more to be gained by working together and engaging in RP than in solo Grinding. If you find that you have ground your way to a battleship, then you have FAILED the server, or perhaps it has failed you. This is not a game to slaughter a million AI enemies, nor is it a game to mine a thousand worlds. This is a game to play together with your friends. It is true that there is a magic number of players, just enough to interact with each-other but not so many that it crashes the server. I suggest that this number is between six and twelve. This means that for the best RP, there need to be that many players online at once. This can possibly be achieved by my last suggestion: Bring Back Weekly Events. If the forums become once again a hub for RP, and people check them regularly, then they will see that if they are online at a certain time, SOMETHING is sure to happen. Bored players will plan ahead, for thursday night or sunday afternoon, or WHENEVER so that they will be able to get online, and meet people to interact with and not be alone. The player-base will snowball as people get online, see that there are other players playing, and stay. It may be too late to save the server. I note comments in the shoutbox about players 'taking a break' which is relationship talk for "I am not happy" and wondering where certain players are. Still, the backbone of the server is the players. No amount of artificial changes can help the server if the players aren't there. If you wish to have a community, you must all come together to build it back up.
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Post by kelesith on Feb 9, 2015 22:35:31 GMT
1. I don't speak for the other admins, I most assuredly wouldn't be all that good at getting us out there, and in a good light PR wise, nor do we have someone who actively works the PR angle. I would say if you can get other admins to agree, if you want to advert the server I'd say go for it, but that is not my call alone to make (and I repeat, ASK the other admins FIRST).
2. It's true, (as an admin, that is bad for me to admit) but there is definitely an deflation problem, we need more Tender, and less readily available materials. but again, that is something all the admins should come to an agreement on, as that affects EVERYBODY, and no one person can pass that and make the changes, it's too big a game changer.
3. the PVP aspect might be a bit difficult to pull off. I doubt in the RP sense players would go into an area just to fight each other with their RP ships. not to mention, with said ships and their insurance, the admins would constantly need to go in, make sure their actually VALID claims and then bring their BP out and spawn them in. that is a lot of maintenance if that becomes a casual occurrence. if we start doing a PVP thing, I think it should be easily handled, kinda like a Gladiatorial thing, or like a demolition derby. would make the clean up easier, and would make the PVP make sense, as well as the prizes for the hard fighting. again, that is something all admins would have to agree on possibly.
Thoughts on 3.? I just pulled all that out of my irritated husk of a mind so not entirely sure I am in the right mindset.
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HerrSticks
Outer Rim Colonies
The beatings will continue until moral improves.
Posts: 41
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Post by HerrSticks on Feb 9, 2015 23:08:55 GMT
"judging subjective contests like that have challenges to the integrity of judge and contestants" True, however we already trust the Admins in regards to other decisions. I don't see why the level of trust players have would change. The concern about integrity is justified if we use player judges. For a "King of the Hill", "Conquest" or even "SOB killer", it would be "true" or "false" (controlled or not), there would be little room for interpretation, its no more subjective than a Halo game. You either gain a control point or you don't, you either turn in chips or not. I'm not suggesting a "building contest" which would be much more subjective.
"The reward system can't just be arbitrary ranks" I agree, ideally it would not be. However, why not? That's all leaderboards are, arbitrary statistical rankings usually for the sole purpose of bragging. People would be able to check the rankings and see who killed the most SOB that week, if SOB ships are equipped with differing chips, you could even qualify the ships the were killed. If you really wanted to, rewards could also be put in for different kill tiers(IE credits or hard to manufacture items)(tiers as in 1-10 chips, 11-20, ect ect).
"Plus it's a fact that people with more time have an unfair advantage" It definitely is an advantage. However I do not see it as "unfair". If they are willing to invest more time, they should be rewarded more. If I choose to stay up late farming all night, that's more unfair to my employer(because im tired) than it is other players haha. However like I said, should it get out of hand(1 player farming every asteroid in another players system, to be a dick) that would be addressed There could be daily or weekly limits placed to prevent abuse. IE, a maximum of 10 SOB chips per day, not 70 in a week, but per day. Think of these as "dailies" which are a really common strategy to get players online consistently. " If you have lesser time, you still get a return on your time/effort investment." Totally agree, players should not be punished for having too little time, or too much time for that matter. Minimums and maximums can and should be put in place to regulate it to some degree.
"The only way to avoid exploiting the game economy is to tightly control both the amount of shop inventory and the cash on each shop" That's a shame, it would be pretty easy to set transaction limits, maybe ill post a suggestion on the official forums. The current system in no way prevents a player from taking advantage of the shops, while at the same time punishing everyone who got there after. I think controlling both is too heavy handed and requires too much attention and micromanaging from Admins. Inventory should be heavily controlled(start at 0) which would promote crafting and trading, but funds should be readily available, especially at the rate in which they are converted into assets(deflation).
Would it be beneficial to designate a new "Events/Lore" admin or moderator? The current Admin team seems stretched thin, I really don't want to pile more on them. I mean, the spot left by Carnasis? is still vacant is it not?
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Post by TIME on Feb 10, 2015 14:31:04 GMT
Let me say I am very happy to see everyone is so interested in keeping the server up and running, make me feel like the admin staff here has done something right. Thank you all for all your support That being said I appreciate all the ideas people have tossed out there, some of those sound really fun, but they won't solve the servers current issues. We are very limited by what we can do with the game, and admin involvement. As we all can see, loses one admin, and things come to a halt. The server needs to be able to run smoothly with little admin involvement. Right now the game simply doesn't allow for that, at lest the way we are trying to run the server now. The answer is not to add more stuff for the admins to manage. My original plan for the server was it just to be Everyone vs the SoB and develope RP factions and such out of that. But even that is no longer possible with how terrible the AI has gotten over the last couple of updates. I will keep all your suggestions in mind as I figure out what to do next.
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HerrSticks
Outer Rim Colonies
The beatings will continue until moral improves.
Posts: 41
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Post by HerrSticks on Feb 10, 2015 19:54:56 GMT
" As we all can see, loses one admin, and things come to a halt" - Thought about trying to get more Admin?
Not be sound a like a jerk, but,
"The answer is not to add more stuff for the admins to manage."
"Our server will of course remain up, but until I figure out where to go with it, I won't be supporting it much RP wise"
You sound like you've given up. If that's the case, the server is dead. Nothing we can do as players will change or fix anything if Admins have moved on.
Its a huge bummer i found TC so late. I really really enjoy this server.
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Sarah
Outer Rim Colonies
Posts: 88
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Post by Sarah on Feb 10, 2015 20:00:54 GMT
That sounded pretty Jerk like, I can't see any signs that TIME has given up yet~
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Post by TIME on Feb 10, 2015 20:24:07 GMT
I have not given up, even though I understand why it may seem like that, but I do need to figure out a better way to do things. I can already see that I need to do more work on the outward apperance of the server. Website ect.. That alone brings more people in then what's actually on the server.
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Post by invadr on Feb 11, 2015 2:30:34 GMT
Herr - Don't start jumping to conclusions. I am discussing ideas with the admin team and we're going to figure out what to do. Whatever happens, there will be changes however. We have to make this work for everybody.
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Post by kelesith on Feb 11, 2015 2:42:38 GMT
yeah herr, I am not exactly about to just up and quit on this.
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Post by Kylo Mortis on Feb 15, 2015 11:21:52 GMT
Ixalite made some really good suggestions, and I have to agree with him. I noticed straight up when I started getting into the server a lot, that missions are few and far between, and theres basically always admins online when I'm on. Weekly events and missions sound like a really great way to get more interaction and yes, players are important but even recently, there is still a large amount of players on and PLENTY to do missions with. The story may not be advancing but at some points, it won't. Real life isnt always a mass event it has lower points, daily 'life' in the game will happen. If the server is to go on from this point, It needs those things and thankfully we have some pretty great admins on the server. The involvement is there, maybe the story might be a struggle to work out in the future but Ixalite's suggestions will make the server more active and the RP strong.
QUICK EDIT: Also where the F is Carn at these days? Havent seen him since after I joined the brotherhood..
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Post by kelesith on Feb 15, 2015 22:36:16 GMT
Kylo, this entire discussion started, pretty much because he went AWOL, at least it's one of the reasons.
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Jay Armenov
Outer Rim Colonies
Steam: CypherX
Posts: 31
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Post by Jay Armenov on Feb 15, 2015 23:06:36 GMT
This thread is a lot of talk and not a lot of action. I've logged in to the server a couple times in the last two days, being on for a couple hours at one point with zero activity.
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Post by kelesith on Feb 16, 2015 1:55:01 GMT
Jay, We can't necessarily DO anything until something can be agreed upon. if you have forgotten, were trying to fix problems have have essentially crippled parts of the server.
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Post by invadr on Feb 16, 2015 16:17:45 GMT
Yes, just to recap guys. The admins are taking a breather atm. With the apparent loss of Carnasis (we have no idea what happened to him) we are down an important admin and figuring out how to adjust. It takes A LOT of work running an interactive rp server. So we need to figure out how to manage that and improve what we've started. Any and all suggestions are welcome for moving forward.
Thanks for being patient.
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Post by TIME on Feb 17, 2015 13:42:20 GMT
Thank you invadr After playing for a few days in Ragnarok's galaxy a few things have occurred to me, and a few ideas have popped into my head based on what I have seen there, and what people have suggested here. -The biggest thing I would need to do is to set up a website for TC. I feel that a nice looking website can bring in more people then anything we put on the server. -I need to get back to focusing on creating a fun play environment vs a RP environment. I already have a bunch of config ideas in my head I am going to try out. -Players need to lead the RP, not the admins and players need to be empowered to do so. There were a lot of things I never got to finish such as the drug trade and reward system because I got stuck having to manage the RP. -The server needs to fit more so with the state of the game. Which means there has to be more of a focus on building, crafting and fighting SoB(pirates) I will go into more details later. But in the end I want to overall spend more time building then Role Playing. AND I want to provide an awesome place for everyone else to play. Though I DO NOT see Ragnarok as a permanent home for myself, I have had an immense amount of fun just building a little underground complex with Numinak. I would really like to focus on doing more stuff like that for TC. I still have a lot to consider and will keep everyone up do date.
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