YAY....anchors

[meepsa]

*Growls about being logged out before she could post this thread before....twice*

Ok....anchors are in, YAY......not

When I saw that anchors were put in again, I was like: "oh joy! something to fight!!!" but I heard allot of crafter friends complain about them.....I soon found out why....

We found 4 Anchors in the past week....1 in Del, 2 in Augh, and the one in Del respawned.....

The first 3 were taken out pretty quick.......but the respawned one...nope, we went to take it down (2 lunus dragons and a ranger (to compare, its first spawn was taken out with the same lunus dragons))....we were easily killed by the spawns....but we kept trying, and then maintenence interfered...

My point: BLIGHT DOESNT HAVE THE PLAYER-BASE TO DO THIS!!!....either it wasnt my day today (very likely) or something is going wrong really fast, the amount of players on blight today was 4 max!!!...it might be my time-zone though, but I've seen allot more players on at the same time...

I have been a full-time blighter for almost a year now.....and I've seen allot of people leave, and no, its not the new players, THOSE are staying now....its the old players that are leaving, most of the time without saying a word, they just leave......

And to be honest, I've started to select games I might like if I'd ever leave Istaria...

But til that day comes I'll still fight to protect the fellow players on blight, no matter how small our community might be

[Shian]

The Epic Anchor that is always in Delgarath is not new. It has been there since the opening of the mine.

It also takes two groups to kill it or one single uberped that has 3 hours seeing as the number of baddies the anchor spits out is based on the number of people sent to kill it. Any more or any less than these two numbers and it gets more difficult.

Order's population over the last few months has plummited as well. We just don't have the people for this anchor or Shaloth. If we are lucky, we can get together for Sog, sometimes Valkor.

I haven't left the game but my playtime has been drastically cut over the last few months as it's now paper season in college and is the final push before the end of the year. Only 4 more papers to go. *sigh*

[Gengel]

* huffs at Shian * It was 1.5 hours. I be just a little Dryad and do not appreciate the dragon gruff. * chuckles *

~< Gengel >~

[Vortura]

*applauds Gengel* That is awesome work.
One day I would love to hear how you went about this mighty tactical effort.

Meepsa, recently I was a part of a group of three (Ranger, Healer, Dragon) that killed the Delgarath Anchor, taking on the role as group healer and assisting to mop up stray mobs.
It took a while (not as long as Gengel solo), but it can be done with a small group.

[Nia]

Well, given my past experiences with the Forums, I have not been throwing my two cents worth into the fray but I have been on Blight since April 2009 (when it was the "Vista" server and not the "test" server) and I can't see someone who I care about as much as Meepsa take a stand without backing her up.

Meepsa and her good dragon friend TigroDra are Blight's own Dynamic Duo... they have both worked so hard over the past year helping many, many players with their RoPs and ARoPs and lairs: they even help gnomes! They post pictures, advertise events and run competitions on their website (www.guardiansofblight.webs.com). The movies that Meeps and Tig have made are some of the best Horizons movies on YouTube. If a naka crafter is having problems transporting materials or is stuck in some other way, soon you will hear the unmistakable sound of draggy wings approaching and you can count on it being help from someone in their guild, Tornado Wings.

Meepsa and TigroDra are *truly* ambassadors for Blight and for Horizons/Istaria in spite of being two of the youngest players on the shard: if *anyone* on Blight was to ultimately get the fabled "Phoenix Shoulder Pet of Appreciation" it should be those two.

Sooooooo - if Meepsa says she's worried about the population on Blight these day then Virtrium should be worried, too. [I've just come from there and there was me and a fairly new hatchie (level 18) on - that's it, just us two...]

*No* our t6 Tavern and our Expert machines are just not going to be built with so few players and so many blight anchors relative to the population to disrupt crafting. Crafting has been hard enough on Blight with the changed spawns of wisps, etc. but the anchors may be the nail in the coffins of those players who primarily choose to craft.

Perhaps I am mistaken but the very promo movie for the game says: Choose your avatar and establish your role, explore the world and use its resources, build the world as you develop your skill, ... you are gifted and now the Empire needs you – what role will *you* play?

When I put my hand up, it holds a carpenter's hammer and not a warhammer... does Istaria *really* have to become an all-adventurer's game???

Nia : Chronicles of the Twisted Guild : Blight Shard

[LOVWYRM]

Nia, dear

You should not be too concerned about the anchors.
The Delga- anchor is a quest anchor- it does not move, will not disturb you.

From the anchors in the past I know,that they were not too hard to kill.
Haven`t met the new ones yet, but will test that asap.
But I understand your grief.
And I miss you wondeful plots in Bris.
It looks terribly derserted atm.

[Frith-Rae]

I'm imaginging you're seeing the new blight anchors because they want to push them live.

Blight has always been for testing, since day one of game creation, it was the test server. It has always been the test server.

So you're going to get test content.

But I BET if you ask really nicely, file some tickets to ask about it and show your case as you have in this thread (I'm saying tickets or other ways because this thread may not be enough or get to the right attention), that perhaps once the blight anchors have been successfuly tested and moved to live you could ask they be siwtched "off" on blight so that hey don't continue to spawn and interfere with your playing on the server with the extremely low population you have.

Just a thought. I mean they spawn to be tested and you guys by killing when you can are testing . Perhaps when they go live you could try and not be hassled by them anymore?

Not sure how it would work with the next patch and the whole "Bligth has to be on the same build as live" as I dont know how the anchors are turned /off or /on to spawn or not to spawn.

But just an idea...

[AmonGwareth]

Some things about Anchors in Istaria:

1. Spawns cannot be enabled/disabled based upon the shard. I am sorry, but if they are to be active on Order and Chaos they must be active on Blight as well.

2. The maximum number of Lesser Blight Anchors was too high, its been lowered.

3. Anytime there was a server restart the anchors were set to near-instantly spawn. That has been corrected for the next patch.

4. The Greater Blight Anchor in Delgarath will have his spawn rate slightly adjusted, but he is a quest mob and Delgarath is a town under siege. So he won't go away and he does spawn FAR more quickly than the Lesser Anchors.

5. The Lesser Anchors can spawn in up to 7 places around the Frontier, not always in Aughundell.

[Shian]

Ummm... Have you even tried cerafting T6? Never once have I had an enemy climb up the mountain to come get me. Nor have I ever been bothered while gathering sapphire. If you wish to point out something that might kill you when crafting, By all means go for the marble golems, the Fire Opal Golems or even the Plat and Mith golems. If anything it is T5 you should be worried about, not an anchor that has been there for nearly a year (at least on the live servers) with no incident.

[meepsa]

Ummm... Have you even tried cerafting T6? Never once have I had an enemy climb up the mountain to come get me. Nor have I ever been bothered while gathering sapphire. If you wish to point out something that might kill you when crafting, By all means go for the marble golems, the Fire Opal Golems or even the Plat and Mith golems. If anything it is T5 you should be worried about, not an anchor that has been there for nearly a year (at least on the live servers) with no incident.

ok, I might have been a little unclear, a biped crafter was having trouble getting to the adamantium near Del because of the anchor (and no, I'm not going to rant about golems and the likes cause they are EASY to take down)

and yes, I have tried some T6 crafting, mostly gathering for those who wish to do quests and end up with having to be level 100 craft to get something (myloc queen quest as an example.....still dont know why we are even trying to do that on blight...)

[LOVWYRM]

cause we all will come to kill the Queen with you

[Frith-Rae]

Thanks for the clarification Amon - I didn't figure that was much of a shot (to be able to turn them off for Blight vs. the others) but thought it at least an idea to try and balance things out.

Good to know things are a bit buggy now, I only hope something can be worked out that is also fair to our blight testers - as I would totaly understand the frustration and ultimate quitting of players (Or refusing to beta test anymore) if anchors are parked in major craft zones weeks at a time because they simply don't have the populace to take them out.

So I hope a balance is reached for those lovely testers of ours!

[Vahrokh]

Thanks for the clarification Amon - I didn't figure that was much of a shot (to be able to turn them off for Blight vs. the others) but thought it at least an idea to try and balance things out.

Good to know things are a bit buggy now, I only hope something can be worked out that is also fair to our blight testers - as I would totaly understand the frustration and ultimate quitting of players (Or refusing to beta test anymore) if anchors are parked in major craft zones weeks at a time because they simply don't have the populace to take them out.

So I hope a balance is reached for those lovely testers of ours!

There's no balance to reach.
The problem is not content being overly hard (apart from bugs) but Blight players being too few.
By extension if 6 months from now Vi release a T6 shard event how can it be tested by those 3 guys in cross?
Why are they in 3 and not in 300? Because of the Ebil playerbase or because coping with bugs and a permanent beta status gets too little incentive?
This and other true and not game content related issues should be dealt with imho, before looking at bandaid fixes like i.e. making content selectively switched off (voiding the purpose of having testers for such new content in the process).

[Dhalin]

Why are they in 3 and not in 300? Because of the Ebil playerbase or because coping with bugs and a permanent beta status gets too little incentive?

It isn't often that we agree with each other, but I think we're in total agreement with this statement here.

I can't say that I'd be too keen in playing on a shard that has constant bugs, unless there was some kind of offer/deal/etc to be made.

Some games I've heard, give you faster XP gains, or significantly less XP required for level gains (for content testing purposes), or make things cheaper/easier to procure (for testing purposes), etc.

Does Blight do that already?

If not, that could a possible incentive for casuals (players who don't have a lot of time to spend) to come in and test the game out (they don't have enough time to spend trying to level a character in a live shard, but maybe if the XP needed for levelup were reduced, they'd be able to feel like they could progress on the beta shard).

Not sure what kind of other rewards could be given for helping the testing effort, but I'm sure the playerbase or devs could think of something surely.

Another issue is the fact that if I spend my precious time on Blight, I'm not progressing on Order/Chaos. I'm not asking for Blight->Live character move, but surely there could be rewards, like, for X hours spent on Blight, the devs could add +% XP to a character's school of my choice or +X money to a character of my choice on Live shards as thanks for using my valuable time for testing their patches? Seems fair to me, right?

But then, devil's advocate, would have to find ways around people AFKing on Blight to rack up hours spent. gah. Maybe base it upon a Blight character's XP gain? Like if a character on Blight gains 5 levelups over the course of a delta, 20% of that XP gained can be given to a live shard's character? I dunno. just ideas I'm tossing out.

[Vahrokh]

Some games I've heard, give you faster XP gains, or significantly less XP required for level gains (for content testing purposes), or make things cheaper/easier to procure (for testing purposes), etc.

Does Blight do that already?

If not, that could a possible incentive for casuals (players who don't have a lot of time to spend) to come in and test the game out (they don't have enough time to spend trying to level a character in a live shard, but maybe if the XP needed for levelup were reduced, they'd be able to feel like they could progress on the beta shard).

I don't think a beta shard is best suited for players who don't have a lot of time to spend.

In every MMO I played, those participating to betas were actually students, retired guys etc. who had so much free time that they could afford to spend some of it in a beta server.

Those who lack of time tend to be unable to test group content, complex content (exactly the kind that requires the most testing) and to produce less detailed reports.

Not sure what kind of other rewards could be given for helping the testing effort, but I'm sure the playerbase or devs could think of something surely

Here's the catch.

What's "reward" for a guy who likes to beta test stuff? Are the "rules" to entice beta testers universal?

In Istaria, beta testers used to be few but "enough", because iirc Blight plots could be purchased without requiring an additional sub. Now this incentive has gone as well (still iirc, I had many long pauses in the game).

But what's "reward" for a beta guy in the end?

Gotta walk in people's shoes to understand them.

A beta tester is the guy who:

1) can afford to beta test (time wise, computer wise and so on)

2) likes to, feels a drive to try new, bleeding edge stuff

3) likes to feel useful and supported

4) likes to feel he makes the difference for the developers

5) likes to be first at knowing new mechanics and generally how to gain game advantage for later

6) Likes to see progress, best if interactive progress (with the developers), to feel like he's in a team

7) likes to be in closer contact with the developers, read their blogs, learn about their strategic plans and their roadmap.


Now, one or more of the above points is not being fulfilled and 1) often fails much easier if others also fail.
If they were fulfilled, you'd see people punching each other in order to get a spot on Blight.

Despite the appearance, this is not a particular accusation to Vi, even CCP lost a big chunk of beta testers when they stumbled upon a nasty, complex bug (fleet lag) and took months to fix it. Testers lost drive and hope seeing the lack of progress.

N.B.
7) Is last but not least, it's actually very important for a beta tester to know there's a roadmap somewhere, that he can look for stuff to keep evolving well beyond "revamps".

[Frith-Rae]

*facepalms*

Because I recognize that Blight is never going to have a huge, or even moderate, population as a beta server.. was why I was hoping for "other" options to balance what's going on with the anchors.

TO me this is a "duh" thing *shrugs* - not a need to get into a discussion of "how blight sucks". Honestly, (though I don't know why) the Devs have often fought against many suggestions you guys have both made in ideas the players have presented over hte years to make blight more "attractive" to testing so that things you know actually get TESTED.

For whatever reason, they don't want to do those things - thusly my assumption that blight will remain a small population server.

And the idea that I hoped the balance could be reached for those few who continue to slog through being "testers" as much as they can, without being overly penalized with unfriendly game mechanics (unfriendly to low populations).

The solution WILL NOT be getting more blight players over there (would be nice, but honestly I don't see it happening) - the solution HAS to come from the mechanic side of things.

Otherwise you get a testing server that won't test squat, because the few players who slogged it out will leave and/or quit as what they were once at least partially able to do - they can't do at all.

[Vahrokh]

The solution WILL NOT be getting more blight players over there (would be nice, but honestly I don't see it happening) - the solution HAS to come from the mechanic side of things.

Otherwise you get a testing server that won't test squat, because the few players who slogged it out will leave and/or quit as what they were once at least partially able to do - they can't do at all.

How do you implement challenging content if you don't get enough players to test it?
What if they needed to test this epic anchor since it got spawns changed?

[Frith-Rae]

Oh dont get me wrong - I wish the devs WOULD allow various options on blight that WOULD get the population up and allow for testing. Because you're right - stuff doesn't get really tested as much as it should/could be. NOt a slam at all to our Blight residents - I know they do the best they can and should be commended for even trying!

But the population at various level ranges just isn't there.

And they've shot down every practical suggestion (I feel) I've seen on these forums. (Doesn't a blight character still count towards your actual charater slots?)

I don't consider "live boosts" for testing to be too "practical" (just due to the math work involved to ensure things aren't being overly exploited or something), though I know costs of things are changed on Blight to allow testing to be easier (i.e. things are cheaper..).

I'm thinking its "free" to copy a character to BLight from Live - but I think that character still counts towards your character limit. And yea, of course once you've copied that character it will "live seperately" from your live character - which means if you levled it up on Live you just have a 2nd copy of your charater to level up on Blight (wee fun? /not) - cuz you can't "recopy" your higher level live character over to test things. (can you? if you were to delete your old character copy off blight could you then copy your higher level same-character back over? not sure..).

But to me until and unless devs open up options to be able to play on blight (plot not counting towards your plot limit, character not counting towards your character limit, being able to copy various levels of live characters for free and at various levels (which may be possible I don't know) - then the population remains small.

Now normaly I wouldn't be arguing for such things as I very much believe in the attitude "hey its beta - you're testers, that's it" - but for most games when they have rounds of testing they only temporarily open up a server for testing and then they shut it down again. They allow free range of copied live characters, or the abiliyt to roll up a fresh character already at the level needed for testing (wether thats 45 or 80 or 60 or whatever), and some even allow (as you know) you to start on the "testing" with full epic gear of your choice in order to test the approporiate content...

But since our "testing" server is a permanent server, it has permanent residences. Yes, they do play with the understanding that "this is a test server, stuff is borked and changes without notice..", but since our population is already low across servers - the few testers we have are cherished precious things =), and I wouldn't put that strict "Hey its beta you knew it so sorry suck it up" belief on them because no they don't have to suck it up - they can stop testing. And then we have NO testers.

Now wether you think testing is better served by a permament server such as we have, or the temporary server as other games used, is another question .

And of course working within the limitations of the engine we have - I just wish the few things I mentioned above were implemented just to open up the testing a bit more and make it a bit LESS "punitive" for live players to help out.

[meepsa]

just a heads up of bonuses you get while playing on blight:

double rewards from quests (coin and xp-wise), double xp from crafting/adventuring and everything is twice as cheap

[Veruliyam]

Double the listed experience for consumed crystals...