Poll: Item Level Restriction - bring it back?

[Paul_Kettlebones]

Anyway why was this poll created anyway? It's not like ILR matters past lvl 20? Oh team Phoenix-Raradra-Lliira wants to put more emphasis on lower lvls and encourage teamwork? Well I've got a solution for you: bring Classic server back

1) Poll was created to gauge player opinion on the topic.

2) You are welcome to pay for your own servers and bandwidth to return the Classic server to life if that is your wish.

[raradra]

DM's get one vote like everyone else. As for playing, this is a role play server so I dont play with anyone who doesn't at least make the attempt. (unless it's a crafting session, in which case I tend to stay OOC). We also encourage feedback but that doesn't always mean we'll act on it if we don't feel it 1. Benefits the role playing population or 2. Positively enhances the world in some way.

As noted, not all things are given a vote. Some things were intended from the start, have always been that way, but for whatever reason was broken when we restarted the mod. I'd say we're doing pretty good for a mod that's been around the better part of 11 years, has been borrowed and re-customized hundreds of times (or more) and was the first persistent world of any kind to introduce several now core systems.

Balance issues will rarely be put to vote. Same with economy issues. ILR went to vote because Phoenix is a softy. Fixing training costs that were there from the beginning isn't something that merits a vote. Be thankful you got to level as much as you did without having to have paid the millions the rest of us had to pay.


Some things are just how it is.


There wont be a vote on reducing death penalties/costs or wiping non Nordock items either, just so you know.


We can never please everyone but we always focus on the betterment of the role playing majority. Not aware of this 'inner circle' you speak of but we have always maintained that if you don't like how a role play server works there are tons of action servers available.

I'm fairly certain we are THE slackest RP server available though when it comes to not booting/banning min/maxers, looking the other way on powergaming, and not penalizing people who don't play their alignment.


We are trying to allow the playerbase to have more input these days, something that was never really allowed in the first 10 years, but there is no rule saying we must continue to do so if people can't stay civil and discuss things calmly.

Name-calling, childish behavior, and rudeness WILL result in a forum banning.

As for having a classic server, we had one and it had exactly 2 people on it which just doesn't justify the bandwidth cost. If someone would like to donate for the cost of bandwidth and maintenance time, we would be more than happy to return it.

[Lliira]

Nicely said, Raradra. My post was going to be more like, "You signed on to this forum, just to post these snarky comments?"

We ARE the slackest RP server. The others have many strict rules, such as "No twinking, muling or gifting to other characters", naming conventions, faction conventions, you name it. They will even boot and ban you for breaking these rules.

Can you imagine the horror of our playerbase, if we started deleting mules and banning twinkers?

[Otherworldly]

I haven't seen some of these people in years, and hardly knew them the last time I did, other's I've only met recently. They've welcomed me entirely and been very receptive to anything I've had to say, also completely reasonable whether they agree or disagree with me which is more than I can say for some. The fact that you seem to think there's some inner circle has nothing to do with anyone elses unwillingness to allow you in and and everything to do with your own unwillingness to join in on a discussion in any way other than to point fingers and name call. You've chosen to isolate yourself and come up with a million reasons why it's better that way. I truly believe if you give up some of these preconceptions you seem to have you'll find things aren't quite so bad

[Beard]

I really can't see why people see a VOTE about a TOPIC and somehow like to make it about X versus Y, the DM's and I are not against you guys the players, I've made my efforts and decisions public and asked for feedback. I had no info previously on gold training costs, so I polled about introducing other systems like real estate among other possible solutions, I got feedback. Now, it seems the only feedback I'm to get from some of you is just spiteful ignorant comments about how ILR is punishment for something, I haven't even enabled the damn thing yet, this is supposed to be a discussion on the merits of having it vs not having it, cast your vote, make an opinion about ILR pros and cons, and not speculate stupidly on the reason behind it, I'm ASKING for a reason to enable it or NOT enable it. PLEASE get it through your heads that this is not a bash the DMs fest or a giant "I'm the victim" speech to protest it, cast your vote, list me your pros and cons, or I'm deleting any further posts.

If you can't be constructive, cast a silent vote, because I'll probably just delete your post from now on anyway.

The second option I might consider taking from here on out is not asking you (the players) for your input, I'll just up and do what I want post consulting the DM staff and having their approval alone.

I think it goes to show the amount of respect I have for the players having been one myself for so long, that I even considered giving you the option to post feedback on a large change in the module, but that respect isn't being returned when you're asked to give constructive criticism and cast a vote.

/rant

[Xillie]

The reason why from time to time I have been gone for a longer while is that I am dealing with serious physical problems IRL that often will not allow me to play long enough for just a small adventure. It could even be a source of frustration that leaks into my appearance. Its pure coincidence that this week I finally found the strength and inspiration to log on. Sure, you can take my vote as less valuable than someone elses, just as there is total validity in running a poll and implement an outcome when it has reached a majority. You may know that, for technically detailed reasons which are quite NOT like twinking hastegear, my playing style will be completely nullified with ILR, so things would have a definite ending on this server vault for me if passed. This is a mere detail however. The point is that whatever choices are made at this point that will seriously affect every possible playing style, it will cost players. If you are sure you will only loose me, take your chance and go for it

Tell me, what is against wiping the highlevel characters and their tons of economy-spoiling inventories? Why does someone elses problem have to be made mine? I have my own restriction on items, I leave my haste robes I fairly found in my bag cause wearing my crafted robe feels better. (REVEALING MY PLAYSTYLE HERE NO WAY MEANS SUGGESTING IT TO ANYONE!) Most people I know that vote for ILR now, I know of them of logging into classic server (not their home server) to join our cozy party (more than welcome!) with characters that are always twinked with haste at lowlevels. I understand from that notion why they want ILR, they need it to curb their own low discipline If YOU do not have the discipline to restrict gear to your characters yourself even if you think its necessary, it is YOUR problem in YOUR playstyle. Make no mistake, I have the fullest and deepest respect for whoever logs in, independant of playstyle. And I never feel that other players should not twink haste gear since it is their wonderfull freedom of choice.

I'm sorry I cannot come up with many other solutions for what I still think is the real cause of the highlevel gear flood, namely wiping all imported characters, mostly their gear. You can read it as a suggestion between the lines in my previous posts, there is your creative input although I admit it could also be a playerbase-killing measure. It's the highlevel characters that need restrictions. I am even willing to have my honest lowlevel crafting characters wiped (once, sigh) to get this problem of other people fixed (at keeping database skillpoints). My contructive alternative is to clone the vault to a second server where the basic core rules will not change. I believe most options have been discussed by yourselves as I understood, perhaps think of a vaultwipe again, maybe there are more people like me who are willing to swallow a vaultwipe but not activation of ILR. Which leaves the option to leave core rules as they were when people that did make a new character made their new characters. Im sure you know how hard it is nowadays to inspire people to start with a clean vault, especially if you also allow others that still have bicfiles to import them right? Truth is, I still have some old bicfiles with dozens of bags filled with haste gear ready to be imported by you. I chose not to. The inspiration has been a feeble selfimposed fooling that I just managed to believe in, if you know what I mean, theres very little needed to shatter what inspiration there is left to restart with a clean vault in 2014. I really hope you do not take this explanation the wrong way heh. little fact: people have seen people been given insane, incredible armors with "all stats on them". Now where did that kinda stuff come from? What really is the problem now?

Btw, what do you think Kettlebones suggests would be a fine renting price for your server instance, Phoenix? Is he your business negotiator? If it is ment seriously Im willing to seriously consider it just because I have good experience with the hosting and the development by you. I suspect its not meant seriously, I think its a groce joke. Don't let him insult us both and make you believe I would prefer playing on your server for money rather than respect for you. In fact, it would be quite just if there was a channel to donate, but principally Im here (when I can) out of respect. If I may suggest; explain why people shouldnt make arguments about "have your own server" anymore. If you do not agree, I'd gladly hear how you can be sponsored with money. My suggestion of two servers to be honest is mostly ment as the old proven experiment: run both servers and see which gets most players (which is what its all about right?). I would almost make a prediction here based on years of experience, but I suppose anyone can. I strongly suspect those numbers would NOT necessarily reflect the outcomes of this poll.

I wish I would have been able to stick around more the past half year; I wish you luck in deciding what solution, if any, you will come up with to solve whatever the problem is. I know the decisiontaking process is hard.
Apologies for the stress induction, I dont believe I have offended someone particular if so heres some more apologies for you then.

greets

Xillie

[Otherworldly]

Thanks for keeping the community involved Phoenix, much appreciated

[Xillie]

I've edited this post since I am getting troubles keeping my sight clear. Importing characters may have been a doubtfull decision if you look at it purely from a captain-hindsight technical balance view, but it was one of the best ideas in general to "lure" back old players and I should stick to that.

It was a good idea just as keeping ILR off I think and I think it did contribute to getting more players ingame than with a more strict ruleset. So in whatever view you look at it, it was wrong of me to now call it a mistake, even if I call it a little one. I apologize for that and I sincerely hope noone sees it as a mistake.
I suppose with that I better leave it at the voters and the final decision. I may consider recreating once more if ILR goes together with a vaultwipe, since I see enabling ILR paradoxically as something that promotes people wanting to reach higher levels even more, so inspiration would come from reaching epic level asap I suppose? I'm very welcome to suggestions of ways to look at it differently, though I must point out that where I like playing lowlevel characters, personally I don't like or need a system to tell me which stuff I craft basically is imbalanced, especially not if it gets implemented because others think they need it to restrict themselves.

hope I can be ingame and see you,

Xillie

[Beard]

Xillie, thank god for a post that was constructive, THIS is what we need from everyone. ILR may well be enabled, but so far it's a no go, if it is enabled, and there is alot of complaints or too many issues enabling it, I'll rescind (If it gets enabled) as far as Donating to me, there's no point, I had lots of money and didn't need any, and I'm going off to the military and another hosting solution is going to be provided (One last IP change/move of the server) for everyone, and others will take over the reigns on this restoration. Importing characters is still available, but is subject to review now, I didn't have the man power to check everyones stuff so I just uploaded it, I didn't have the man power to poke through every LKN character from the LKN vault when we decided to use LKN Server Vault instead of a fresh start (hindsight would suggest it was a stupid stupid oversight, but it wasn't a problem until recently) I did not personally vote on the subject as I am no longer a player anymore, I have too much RL shit to do and a future to forge, one day I might return yet again or I might continue development and get a product worthy of a licencing meeting with Wizards to recreate nordock in next gen technologies. I want this to be community driven, not just the agenda of the staff, though this is really just a courtesy, it's a courtesy that I will honor, and I hope it will build a constructive way for people to give proper feedback to the dev team to tackle problems and evolve the module to keep things spiced up for the players. DMs are players too, but ones like me don't deserve a vote in content changes or something major like ILR, hence the poll. The core dev team I expect will follow this trend on anything that impacts in a broad sweep or a major change will offer the community the choice to leave it be, suggest alternate paths, or support proposed changes. Anyway, /rant

TL;DR WE LIKE FEEDBACK! If you're active, your opinion matters, keep it polite and this will be a symbiotic evolution of Nordocks future with the players and DMs, it won't be an elite group of player devs and DMs anymore, changes affect everyone, and everyone gets a say. (Little updates and fixes won't be voted on outside the core dev and DM team, but content changes and major items will be polled from the community) I am releasing all my control and input as I will be gone for atleast a year soon enough, best way to make people happy is to have a proper democracy on issues.

Speaking of which, I'm in favor of leveling costs (that's not a vote, I don't vote remember?) but if you guys really want to, start a discussion, and if the DMs find that they'd like to introduce a poll on the subject for a major change in pricing or eliminated it all together, start a thread under this section of the forums and take the initiative. Make posts about things you want changed, added, altered and start the discussion in a constructive manner. If you want change, you need only start the talks.

[Xillie]

Those Wizards of the Evil Coast will only........well let me not go there and advice not to do business with those.......no I shouldn't go there.

Thanks for the headsup about your plans and the future of the restoration. It's good to know that people know you have positive plans for your future and we can assume there's some order in the way you will (temporarily hopefully) relay your responsibilities, if I may say it probably more formal than it is. This helps quench speculations you know, thank you indeed, for keeping the community involved. I admit that in total I have given less feedback than I promised some time ago I would ("little" things mainly), I still owe that. However, I feel like I need to catch up many hours of playing before posting since I used up and wasted all my opinion and feedback credit in this topic. With not playing my balance is even in red atm I suppose

Personally, I had a plan to slowly build some crafting characters, then seeing which of those (multiple) could eventually go for some form of fast epic career 2014, which would be NOT like original epic where getting one character to level 40 required selling your soul to some cashdevil for an uncountable amount of times, I have heard for many years. So, besides hearing many stories, I have no real experience with the actual levelling costs and how it affects playstyles. So with the introduction of epic levelling costs I have effectively put speedy epic levelling of my current characters to get some taste of epic (im)balance out of my mind, assuming there is not enough time starting in 2013 to hoard all the necessary gold. So I had decided I would continue a "classic lowlevel" reunion playstyle since there is no ILR. With ILR turned on however, I WILL want to go for epic levelling and then I TOO would want a levelled playing field: vault wipe OR I want my army of lvl20 richterms retreat characters with many millions of gps that are "lost". That's more or less the circle of arguments that keeps me stuck with ILR on not wanting to start one single epic career in 2014 when the actual or percieved problem with the vault imbalance remains.

I suspect more people were attracted by the prospective of "trying" epic levels in 2014 in a fast, easy environment so one can easily get a taste of epic without having to sell one's soul to the devil infinitely. People who now got their characters imported, I think they have some but not all the right to say "I payed for my epic levels" since they did get a chance to get their characters imported and others did not get that chance ("I payed too but where are my levelled characters?!"). People with imported characters have gotten a huge advantage and I actually think people who didnt need or have character imports to "get lured back" and find the inspiration to create new lowlevel characters should perhaps get some balancing advantage instead of restrictions. And/or, the other way around, imported characters should perhaps get some form of restrictions. Of course, restrictions in core mechanics that quench anyones inspiration should be very much avoided.

greets and good luck with your plans, hope you can keep contacts warm when you're gone,


Xillie

ps. Did I mention I believe one must sell one's soul to reach level 40?