Discussion for Blight Character Slot Change

[Silverblaze]

Not exactly, but sure that works too.

[Theros Ironfeld]

With the removal of multiple log ins ( now you need multi accounts for blight to do so ) and the new toon limit , it looks like to me blight is turning into a regular everyday shard

[LOVWYRM]

Theros-I would never reduce the uniqueness of Blight to a toon limit or multiple log ins.

one of the best thing in Istaria is the fact, that we work together and discuss probs of all kind (shards / devs/ management).

But when it comes to cost-effectiveness & feasibility we, the players, can only make suggestions. We do not bear the responsibility, we do not have the background to judge certain things.
Its unusual and much appreciated that they (VI) explain decisions to us.

In this case their decision is easy to understand.
Why don`t we say:
WE can`t affort to have unlimited chars on Blight ?

[Kodey]

What kind of time-line would there need to be exactly for something like this?

People aren't mad and even understand from the technical point of view, but they're mad at not being given a time-line before this change? I can't even understand the logic behind this statement. Giving you a time-line to think about what you're going to do with your characters, and going ahead with the changes giving you forever to think about your characters is, well, completely the same.

The only difference with a time-line is everybody would be able to create more alts before the game-breaking () character limit change went into effect, resulting in the exact opposite of what the developers wanted to begin with. Creating alts in an "in-before-no-more-creations" fashion, further bogging down the server in whatever ways were undesired.

They obviously are having problems that could really be game-breaking for blight and to me, they've handled it better than most companies would. They're a small company. Also comparing them to much larger MMO's is really unfair.

Vitrium could have locked your characters until you deleted some to even be able to play again. Or let the server congest with countless newly created alts before this dreadful time-line and then the server becomes unplayable. Then you'd have something real to complain about.

And I have to agree, this was mostly done for people with 79503540 copies of the same character on Blight.

[Nambroth]

Not that I assume that VI wants to compromise, but...

There are those that have full character slots on the two live shards that they actively play and would not want to delete (I know I am one of those that has player slots maxed with actively played characters).
These players, that have not already copied to blight, now cannot copy a character to blight to test without deleting one of their actively played characters.

I don't know how few or many fall into the above slot, but a good compromise might be:
"No more than 7 characters on live shards per account and no more than (3? 5?) characters on the test shard per account"

This would allow a player with full character slots to test, but would require them to delete blight copies if they wish to copy again. Right?

This would also eliminate those that make gajillions of new character copies to blight, which is the main problem here, unless I am misunderstanding.

[aine]

That would work well for live residents who wish to test...but for Blight residents who do not play live at all, it would not be helpful. If there are to be character limits, then one limit regardless of server is probably more fair.

Frankly, it seem a difficult thing to reconcile...the need for fewer alts on blight due to storage, coupled with the desire of players to maintain original characters yet still have testing alts. I am really not sure there is an answer that will please us all.

[Teto Frum]

Seven character slots seems plenty to me regardless of where you play. Now i'll admit i'm not an alt kinda guy, but regardless seven slots is as many as i can remember in any game ive played, and i'm not looking for a list of ones that have more.

Being allowed to play on the test server is also a privilage not enjoyed in too many other games. Blight was set up as a test shard not a residence, the fact that its become both has not hurt in anyway, but if the fact that it has become a permanent home for many has now brought about the neccesity by the sounds of it for character limits that the shards designed for residence have always had. They are not changing anything like people are complaining, they are simply making it so that people that dont want to be limited to the same restrictions as the rest of us from choosing blight because theres no limits, not because they care about testing. Its a test shard any objection that doesnt have anything to do with how this will affect testing is irrelevant to me.

VI couldn't handle it better if you ask me, they arent deletiing at will, they aren't even asking anyone to delete any characters. If youve got 14 dragons im not sure why youd want to run through NT a 15th time, and bipeds dont get to continually start over like you speak, thats a statement that totally ignores rating vs xp or how much tougher each added class makes you.

I for one feel if VI thinks they are wasting time needed eslewhere restarting a shard because theres to many characters on the shard with the lowest population then a cap is both needed and should be fine.

[Steelclaw]

"No more than 7 characters on live shards per account and no more than (3? 5?) characters on the test shard per account"

I hope you're confusing "account" with "subscription".

Anyway...

Based on what was said so far, it looks like people have characters on Blight for one of two main reasons: playing on Blight and testing on Blight. Now, sometimes the distinction between the two is a little vague, but for the purpose of this discussion, I'll suggest making the following distinction: if a player is willing to delete a given Blight character at any time, then that character is a test character. If the player is unwilling to delete a given Blight character at any time, then that character exists for play, rather than testing.

Now, with a distinction between play and testing defined, I argue that those characters that exist for play should count against a subscription slot, just like on any other shard. I can't think of any reason to exempt such characters on Blight, especially since those characters carry a cost for storage and maintenance just like on a live shard.

However, as many have and will point out, testing has value, as that helps improve the quality of the game before it goes live. That value may be sufficient to offset the cost of storing and maintaining a character used for that purpose. Unfortunately, I don't see a way for VI to automatically track, let alone quantify testing -- at least, not in a fair manner that doesn't promote "busy work". Thus, we now have a problem: who is testing and who is playing?

The solution up until now appears to have been to assume that everyone on Blight is testing. Because of the "free" status of Blight characters, some people decided to take advantage of the offer and make many play characters. Others created characters for testing but never bothered to clean up when they were done. At some point, VI decided to shed some of that "dead weight" -- and assume that everyone on Blight is now playing, rather than testing.

Of course, that doesn't mean that testing doesn't happen on Blight anymore. I can also understand why someone wouldn't want to pay for the purpose of improving the game. There must be some compromise that promotes testing on Blight and accommodates those who want to test without paying for more character slots.

Perhaps the easiest compromise is to offer a limited number (four?) of free character slots, upon request, that the account holder agrees to only use for Blight test characters. The catch being that since those are test characters, the account holder will need to delete one if they want to create another Blight character when they run out of slots.

Detection of abuse in the above case is pretty straightforward. If the number of characters on an account is higher than the number of non-free slots, and the number of Blight characters is less thanthe number of free slots; then at least one of those free slots is being used for a live character and the account holder is abusing their free slots.

[Nambroth]

That would work well for live residents who wish to test...but for Blight residents who do not play live at all, it would not be helpful. If there are to be character limits, then one limit regardless of server is probably more fair.

Frankly, it seem a difficult thing to reconcile...the need for fewer alts on blight due to storage, coupled with the desire of players to maintain original characters yet still have testing alts. I am really not sure there is an answer that will please us all.

A very good point, and one I did not think of. Thank you!

Steelclaw> Yes... I am easily confused. XD Thanks for the clarification.

[Dakoren Ironhand]

Perhaps the easiest compromise is to offer a limited number (four?) of free character slots, upon request, that the account holder agrees to only use for Blight test characters. The catch being that since those are test characters, the account holder will need to delete one if they want to create another Blight character when they run out of slots.

Detection of abuse in the above case is pretty straightforward. If the number of characters on an account is higher than the number of non-free slots, and the number of Blight characters is less thanthe number of free slots; then at least one of those free slots is being used for a live character and the account holder is abusing their free slots.

That sounds like an idea to me.

[Kodey]

If people would be granted slots for testing, which is a good idea, maybe they could open up "premades" in the exact level of content that needs to be tested.

A select amount that the developers could make and let people log into and can be scrapped after new content was tested and put on live. That way they have a dedicated set number of data that can be managed to test and scrap it afterwards like any test server in most games, as an example. People wouldn't be tempted to level them too much because they would be deleted. And nobody would have to level themselves TO the content and miss testing it. Like when tier II comes out.

Nobody would have to worry about misuse of a testing slot because it's a premade.

[Soraii]

Mentioning character slots, how about a 7 and 3 option, The sub allows 7 characters, but you are provided 3 bonus characters for the test server if those 7 are used on the live server. Conversly if those 7 were created on test server you would have3 available to make on live.

That way the subscriber could focus on whichever server they wanted for their main play server, live or testing, and even if they filled up that count, would have 3 slots on the other side.

I imagine it could be a sliding rule, 4 and 6, 5 and 5, however never greater then 7 on one sub on either the live or testing servers to go with the "7 character slots for gifted subscription" it would be a "7 character slots for live play, plus a bonus 3 for testing" type setup.

Soraii

[Creme]

How about just increasing the # of chars/sub to 8, used whereever you choose. Let's not forget this Halls of something or other server that doesn't have a purpose yet.

[Galdethriel]

Seems like a daft idea to me. If you're not a regular player on Blight and are stingy with your number of character slots (ie. like me) then I bet you stop checking out Blight entirely (ie. like me). I was already always disappointed with the measly number of characters you get for your money... if I was currently playing, I'd be really let down that I couldn't do what I otherwise occassionally did with Blight (check out some of the updates, mess around during maintenence, test character designs (usually during maintenence)) etc.

So yeah. Saw it coming for at least a couple months. How predictable. >.>

Why not have Blight have it's own character limit instead? Say 2 or 3 allowed per sub. (Incase this isn't clear: you get 7 character slots, and then an additional 2-3 which are exclusive to Blight, perhaps.) That way, you'd have a much smaller database, Blighties would be super chuffed about having the extra slots, and non-Blighties wouldn't have to essentially spend money on testing the game. (They don't need to help, it's not their responsibility to help, and yet helping is gonna cost them money. Doesn't seem right.)

~Galde