The death of a REAL Istaria.

[CallakDW]

OK, Callak, if we hide any quests, we won't announce them

*wonders if there is an ironic tone undercurrent here that I'm not picking up.*
You can hint, mabe a riddle or somthing. Just don't give it away easily. In some cases mabe nothing.

[LaughingOtter]

Not ironic, just teasing. :-)

[Dhalin]

Helians do get the one to two hit kill on Lem. Lem is relatively easy to solo, honestly, though I usually die after he does when I do that. It's Kaa they don't get to use a phylactery for, but considering how hard he is to get to anyway, whatever group you used to get to him should be able to kill him. If you have him pulled out, a single level 100 ancient can kill him easily, so it doesn't really make much difference.

Okay I stand corrected there.

Still, though, instead of Lem, let's look at Kaa.

EARNING your RITE of Passage should not involve a bunch of people holding your hand. It should involve YOU killing something Big and Powerful. For Helians, this is NOT the case. I highly doubt one lone Helian hatchling is going to solo Kaa. I wanna a youtube video of a Lv50 Helian Hatchling soloing Kaa with NO outside help.

[pevil2000]

I made it through the first 2 pages then stopped reading. I never played pre-merge. I love the Istaria of now. It's a beautiful place and nearly everyone rp's, even to a tiny extent, that I have found (and this is on Chaos) which truly turns it into a living, breathing world for me. But at the end of the day, it is a game and the devs need money. It is a niche game and I appreciate (and am glad of) that, but it still needs to be mildly appealing to new players in order to suck them into the addictiveness and make them stay Tiered areas are fine for doing this, no point in scaring people away because they find things 'impossible' to do.

My real problem with mobs is that they're all the same in an area. I used to love wandering round UO and finding deer, bears and wolves wandering round in the forests, with the occasional ogre wandering about, or small orc camp. It made it feel real. Whereas in Istaria (and pretty much every other mmo) you'll find a small area with wolves in, then a small area with beetles, then a small area with golems... I'm not 100% against this (there isn't much that would live in a quarry, or at the edge of the water) but it's nice to have some mix sometimes.

To me, Istaria is the closest thing you can get to the best MMO out there, UO. That will forever remain my favourite, as much as I love Istaria (and tbh if UO wasn't my first, Istaria would have probably been equal top, if not taken that position on its own). In these current days of 'click target, hit button, sit back and let code do all the work for you before running to next target' (or even the amazing crafting of 'take two items, hit button, always create item that is worse than anything you already have')... it is refreshing and frankly wonderful.

We can shape the world to look as we want through lairs and plots. It is still a static world, none of these stupid instances where suddenly no one else in the world exists except you and a couple of friends. People come and people go, with the smallish community you bump into old friends and yet still constantly meet new travellers. We have 'hotspots' to hang out and meet up with others, carry out real time trades or set out on a huge hunt. We can become anything we want to be, instead of being forced into the same 6 or so templates, all with the same skills and gear. We don't HAVE to go out and kill a few thousand enemies before we're allowed to craft that 'Beginners Knife'. We don't HAVE to go mine up a few thousand pieces of ore before we can wear certain armour. The game may not be as real as it used to be (I wouldn't know) but it is certainly more real than most of those out there. Since having to leave UO (community died on me, lost my char and have tried to restart many times but can't seem to) I've been on a neverending search for something to quench my UO thirst, and while I still haven't find it, this game is the only one to hold me for more than 3 months... it's now 3 years after I landed as a hatchling in Skalkaar and it will be some time before I fly into the horizon to never be seen again.

[Shian]

...or the labyrinth.

Speaking of, someone mentioned it was under 'lock and key' I went out to the far reaches of the eastern deadlands today and thought, "what if it was behind that gate?"

Well, going along with the thrill of exploration and hidden patchnotes, why not release the "entrance" on blight somewhere, then put it somewhere else on the live shards. Players would have to hunt for it by not knowing where the new location is. That would certainly re-spark that "new" feeling.

Unless it's quested for like the dralk portal, in which case ignore this, but yeah adding some hidden stuff would be neat too.

If we got to keep our stats in addition to the delay fix (or as I think Callak has suggested, lose points in Primal and T&C instead), I'd definitely be shifting everytime I went to a biped-oriented place to craft, because then I wouldn't have to take an efficiency hit....

Why are there stat reductions at all? I'm just curious. Is it some game (or lore) breaking thing that we cannot be khutit more often. I'd think a dragon going into combat in khutit form is at a pretty big disadvantage just on it's own because of the lost wings.

[Dhalin]

If we got to keep our stats in addition to the delay fix (or as I think Callak has suggested, lose points in Primal and T&C instead), I'd definitely be shifting everytime I went to a biped-oriented place to craft, because then I wouldn't have to take an efficiency hit....

Eh, with all due respect, I was the one who posted that suggestion.

[Vandalin]

EARNING your RITE of Passage should not involve a bunch of people holding your hand. It should involve YOU killing something Big and Powerful. For Helians, this is NOT the case. I highly doubt one lone Helian hatchling is going to solo Kaa. I wanna a youtube video of a Lv50 Helian Hatchling soloing Kaa with NO outside help.

This brings up a whole different issue though of "when to start your ROP". As there is no set level limit only a minimum level as to when to start, a lone Helian hatchling could solo Kaa if, for instance, they choose to hold off their ROP (as I am doing) until they reach a higher level (say 70's). But let's not derail the thread.

Personally, when thinking about immersion, my problem stems more from outside distractions than in game. Being directly under a major airport flight path for instance with a huge plane going over head at least once an hour, more during peak hours, is, to me, a lot more distracting than poor naming or RPing. Sure the "destruction of Kion" in channel can be a little distracting, but then I think of all the "realists" who have to walk past a comic convention. I take that kind of view "silly people, get real" and ignore it. I have more technical problems lagging bringing up "unnamed characters" and "hey! there's a mob right on top of me" then I have problems with the asthetics(sp) (although I've never run into a dragon with a neck slit).

I agree a bit though with Callak on the mixing of mob tiers, to an extent. I, including my low level chars, don't mind when the huntress comes creeping past the bronze mine and sandstone pit near Kion. That does put a bit or "realism" into the game, but I don't think that we should be doing a constant "run or die". As is their timing/schedule is pretty good. With a quick look around (find nearest enemy) you can keep digging or scoot your butt over to the mountain side, duck down and hide (stay out of aggro range) until the danger passes.

But like I mentioned, outside distractions tend to be more immersion destroying than in-game issues. Biggest example is the 18 month old who made this post take about an hour to write.

[lightning claw]

Now, there is no more unknown left to explore.

There are still triumphs to be had, but the great days of exploration and discovery are past.

Pleas correct me if i am wrong Laughing Otter or any dev out there

are you saying the blight and withered ages will not rise up and try to over take our city's

What of the epic struggle to purge our land from this threat you must have a Enemy in this game and the blight and withered ages are it. If they are Inactive than so is the game in essence.

also

what about adding new land to explore ? would that be a possibility ?

the thing about istaria that i love the most is you can always change it there is new content nearly every month

i have been a advocate of the raids being put back in for many of months now I understand that the devs are busy how bout offering a Game sage Possibility to players that have been hear since the beginning so they might be abel to spawn weakened raids ?

[AmonGwareth]

What he is saying is that when you first start a new MMO the entire world is new. Over every hill is something exciting because you don't know what is there. But now, everyone has explored the world so there is no more exciting places to be had. Unless they are added. And players can always explore them faster than we can add them.

[CallakDW]

What he is saying is that when you first start a new MMO the entire world is new. Over every hill is something exciting because you don't know what is there. But now, everyone has explored the world so there is no more exciting places to be had. Unless they are added. And players can always explore them faster than we can add them.

This is why I think somthing like rare quest givers that spawn at different hidden locations all around Istaria for a sertain length of time despawn and spawn elsewhere would be a great thing since they would have to be rediscovered each time there are so many buildings and hidden places, rocks, caves this could be done. Is this possible?

[AmonGwareth]

Currently? No, a NPC that spawned at random points could not be done. Something to look into though.

[Zexoin]

Currently? No, a NPC that spawned at random points could not be done. Something to look into though.

Weren't the Vielos spawning I different places before moving to Bristugo ? I wasn't there at the time, but I was told that.

[AmonGwareth]

Sort of... They spawned in different places after a patch cause we moved them. Heh

[Zexoin]

Sort of... They spawned in different places after a patch cause we moved them. Heh

oh... It wasn't random then ? hmm... wouldn't be easy to randomize a NPC position then I guess :/ would be a very interesting feature though.

[Kumu Honua]

And even that didn't last more than an hour.

It was rather easy to find them. As big as Istaria seemed. There was only so many places to really put things.

Also remember that if the quest reward isn't "Worth it" then they will largely go unused. And if it is "Worth it" then you have to fight power creep witch is something that Istaria has always done poorly against. In fact it's core design is power creep.

[LaughingOtter]

And if it is "Worth it" then you have to fight power creep witch is something that Istaria has always done poorly against. In fact it's core design is power creep.

Power creep, or MUDflation, is pretty much universal in MMOs. Toontown Online might be one of the very few exceptions.

[Kumu Honua]

You are right. It's pretty universal. I was just saying that Istaria has a horrible track record against power creep. Especially when power creep is hardcoded into the game.

[CallakDW]

Currently? No, a NPC that spawned at random points could not be done. Something to look into though.

I wouldn't make it absolutely random. I would make it in specific hidden places. If you like I can explore and formuate a list of possibilities or you can look around istaria yourself, but there are many caves formed by rocks, abandoned buildings and blight artifact buildings that would be ideal spawn locations for somthing like this.

[AmonGwareth]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. NPCs can only be set to spawn at a specific coordinate. They can't even spawn from a list of locations.

[Theramin]

The npc in new Trismus walks. Can the npcs be set to wander between two points?