Town Hall log and discussion

Razmael

Hey folks,

For those of you that missed it, or had to leave during it, here is the full log from the Town Hall meeting today. If you have any followup questions, please ask them in this thread and we'll do our best to accomodate.

You say, "So the way this works."

You say, "Is that we've implemented a queue system. You can add yourselves to the queue if you have something to ask, and we'll rotate through the queue. When it's your turn, we'll let you know, and you can ask us whatever is on your mind."

You say, "If you enter TOWNHALL by itself, you'll see the relevant syntaxes."

You say, "Please try and cut down on any sort of unnecessary spam during the meeting, such are deffing up and so on."

You say, "Okay, so let's start. Add yourselves to the queue."

You say, "Okay, Meltas has the table."

Meltas says, "First, Thank you for this form, I think it is really great! I was really curious to know about the events of the shadow mother, which direction the event is going or if at all. I know it is an old event that has really been building up over the last couple of weeks. and I was really just curious to know if it will come to a close and the direction it will have on the game if any."

Oleis says, "This bears saying early: If it takes us a moment to respond, it's because we're all consulting back here to make sure you get the best answer."

Oleis says, "Your answers will come through Razmael and I, but the entire god team is weighing in and providing insight."

You say, "It's no secret by now that the shadow mother is really the Albedos God Ohlsana, and She is definitely one of the scariest powers in Aetolia right now. She has her touch upon various places, some of which will become visible soon. We predict she's going to play the role of an antagonist for a very long time, both to mortalkind and Gods alike."

You say, "We can't really go into too much detail on present-day lore related questions, because of spoilers and so on, so keep that in mind for future questions."

You say, "Okay, Trager you're up."

Trager says, "Guide calls! I've poked a few times over the past few months when there was a noticeable slump in these, and I've gotten the, "We will open soon," kind of message. I realize people get busy and it is not the most important of topics, but I'd really like to stop spamming your inbox."

You say, "Okay, yes, we actually really do need more guides. I'll post an official guide call sometime after this meeting."

Trager says, "Perfect, much appreciated."

You say, "Areka, your turn."

Areka says, "With the debate and catfight with Enorian of late and concerns with communication - can we get clearer lines drawn for which things are admin mandate and which things are gods simply roleplaying and providing opportunities? I understand that there is some room for blurry lines between the two in terms of how we make choices, but the lack of clarity is often times paralyzing as no one wants to get in trouble/start ventures that are pointless/cross Admin stances."

Oleis says, "This is something we talked about pretty extensively in our most recent God meeting. Generally speaking, an Admin mandate will come from Razmael or me. That hasn't always been the case and we're trying to do better about that. The actions of a role-based God, unless they're an explicit OOC message, should be roleplayed just as anything else, and the repercussions are entirely in-character."

Areka says, "Alright. Thank you, that helps with some future things I'm going to push."

You say, "Kelliara, your turn."

Oleis says, "For Enorian in particular, we've recognized that our events tend to reside in the gray area, morally and ethically. That's very interesting from a story level but it puts Enorian in a tough spot. That's another place we're striving to do better."

You say, "Oops."

Oleis glares angrily at you.

Oleis says, "Just kidding."

Oleis says, "You tricks know I'm long-winded."

You say, "Okay, it's really Kelliara's turn now."

Kelliara says, in a feral tongue, "My question goes to the future of the packs. Is the end goal to have packs something comparable to say, one of the Houses, or a Mini-guild of some sort? Or something different all together?"

Oleis says, "Packs are very much a social construct. Houses and guilds explicitly separate the population, which is why we have such a hard limit on them (and could arguably benefit from having fewer). Packs, on the other hand, are a way for like-minded and like-bodied Shapeshifters to get together. They mean exactly as much as you roleplay them to mean. We had high hopes for the release of an updated pack system which didn't quite pan out at the time, so we're using this interim period to see what players choose to do with them and expand from there."

Oleis says, "Alexina! Let's hear it."

Alexina says, "So! I wanted to ask about statpacks. It's been a while since they were reworked into the current system with statpacks plus enhancements, and I was wondering if you've reviewed these changed and we're currently having at the finalized statpacks? Some of the bonuses still feel a bit weird, the most glaring one +1,5% crit strength for augmentics. A 50,000 annihilating crit will deal 750 more damage, but the mob will already be really, really, really dead. Also, tangentially related, have you considered adding new playable races to the game (endgame or otherwise)? We have a plethora of sentient races out there that could be interesting for players to take on the roles as: liches, orcs, dryads, nazetu, and so on and so forth."

You say, "So overall, we're pretty happy with how statpacks stand at the moment. I agree that the crit strength augmentic is pretty underwhelming, and I think we will change that so it's a +% chance to upgrade your critical hit to the next level (e.g. staggering -> crushing)."

You say, "As for new races, I'd love to add some more, but there's also a couple of logistics issues. For example, with the way our endgame race system works at the moment, it makes non-endgame races pretty pointless once you hit Tekal, and I'd love to explore new ways of making those relevant to endgamers again before we add more races. The other issue is that IRE isn't allowing us to add any new races to character creation at the moment, because new races needs new artwork for our client."

You say, "Yes, I know Imperian added new races. Those races are not available through character creation."

You say, "They're races you pay credits to become."

You say, "And I mean, if you guys want to pay credits for special races, and there's enough support for that, let me know."

Alexina asks, "Will we have anything like that?"

Alexina says, "...I'll send you an email."

You say, "Okay, moving on for now."

You say, "Killien, you're up."

Killien says, "While many of us realize that events continually expand upon the story of Albedos and the growing world conflict between both mortals and divines, but what is to come of Meropis in the interim? I have heard that expansion is directed more toward the continental shift, but many of us would still like to see Meropis expanded so the world fleshes out around us. Will nooks and crannies of our world be brought forward, or will the focus on building remain toward the story shift as a whole?"

You say, "Sorry, we're pretty confused right now. What's Meropis?"

Killien says, "Misread the name of the main continent. Mainland of Aetolia, for right now."

You say, "Oh, Sapience."

Killien says, "That, yes."

You say, "We're still very much focused on releasing new areas for Sapience. We just added a 400 room island, for example and we also have several more areas currently being built for Sapience. On top of that, we also have a lot of plot points still running in Sapience that we will only continue to expand on, such as the Dehkay Plateu, and we've been making a concentrated behind-the-scenes effort to flesh out a lot of Sapience's pre-history from the first couple of epochs."

You say, "I also want to emphasize here that while a lot of our building priority goes to Albedos, we are not planning to abandon Sapience at all in the interim. Furthermore, a lot of you seem to be under the impression that we are halting work on Sapience, releasing Albedos all at once, and moving everybody over to to that continent. This is a good time to let you know that was the plan of the previous administration, and not something we're planning to move forward with at this time."

You say, "Okay Moirean, you're up."

Moirean says, "Toz addressed this in his post on forums - overall, there don't feel like there are very many long-term goals - combat is a one-off with lessers, cities can't make meaningful impacts so leadership is just really holding down the fort, bashing doesn't really achieve much after a point. I could cite more examples, but in short, there doesn't feel like there's much to aim for long-term in a range of areas. What plans are there to fix this?"

Eyelashes fluttering, Moirean says to Oleis, "Also. Pony?"

Oleis says to Moirean, "Only pony I have got fed after midnight and is therefore bloodthirsty."

Moirean says, "I'm not picky!"

You say, "So we do have a lot of things coming up that you can work towards, and this is a good as time as any to mention our plan going forward."

Moirean says, "Oh and thank you guys for doing this. I'll stop abusing my ability to talk now."

You say, "We've been pretty focused in trying to work through revamps as our number one priority, and ultimately this led to a roadblock on other features for the game. Moving forward after the Carnifex revamp, we're going to be shifting revamps away from our main priority, and start focusing on content releases. Revamps are nice, but unfortunately they typically only appeal to a small subset of players, and the rest of the game remains bored in the interim."

You say, "So after the Carnifex revamp, we have two big priorities that we're going to focus on: Major foci, and a new war system. We will probably be trialing out some new ideas for a proper war system in the near future. This trial will be based on an evolution of the same system used during the Juxa event, but the final war system may not resemble anything like that based on feedback and observations."

You say, "We've also made some recent internal changes to how we handle projects, focusing on teamwork over everybody working on their own projects."

You say, "Which should result in a higher turnover of content."

You say, "Okay Maite, you're up."

Maite says, "Most of my questions have been addressed, so I guess I will ask this out of curiosity. There was talk on the forums about how this is volunteer work, and there are times where there is more work than people able to do it. Do you plan on taking in more volunteers anytime soon?"

Oleis says, "Our biggest issue when it comes to volunteers is coordination rather than raw manpower. We actually have one of the most robust volunteer teams I've ever seen. Probably the biggest in Aetolia's history. The difficulty, aside from the usual stuff about dodging real life complications and commitments, is getting everyone on the same page and working efficiently."

Oleis says, "That's something we've had especially big problems with previously, and we're doing our best to get on the up and up with management and project development."

Oleis says, "THAT SAID."

Oleis says, "Mortal volunteer opportunities like Builders and Guides are a great way to help us out. We mentioned Guides earlier, but Builders don't get nearly enough love. We pay our builders an -insane- amount, especially compared to other games. We're working on some backend changes to promote smaller projects with faster turnaround, so this is a great time to get in and get started."

Oleis says, "Rashar! What've you got?"

Rashar says, "I get that this probably applies to a small segment of the mud and may be irritating / not a priority. Is there any intention of creating another option for 'good' or (more desirable for me anyway, and it's my question) at least a 'neutral' location, city-wise? Delos seems like the perfect example for people who don't want to wander or, to be frank, be without Ylem perks/city blessings/etc but for one reason or another aren't jiving. Conversely, if it is such a small portion of the populace and so not worth bothering - why not an artifact or option to 'tap into' another pylon, maybe for a fee, to make it not so crippling to take your character 'rogue'? Also - I want a spear. Pls."

You say, "So short answer is no, we're definitely not going to be adding any more player-run cities for you to join. We may explore the option of joining or aligning to a NPC city in the future, but if we do those will not receive anywhere near the level of support or mechanics that a player city gets. A glorified clan, if you will. I also want to emphasize that no one is forcing Enorian or Duiran to be the way they are, cities dictate their own RP culture for the most part. We can also definitely explore the possibilities of new artifacts relating to ylem, but I'm not promising anything there."

Rashar says, "Fair enough, then."

You say, "Zezi, your turn to speak."

You say, "Okay uh."


You say, "Zezi is not at the townhall apparently!"

You say, "Tina, you're up."


Tina says, "I have a two part question, both related to divine orders. Currently, unlike all the other orgs, when the leader stops playing, this being whoever is the god at the time, you can't replace them quickly. No way to contest a god as leader of an order. The order always suffers. You can't promote people past rank 1. You can give boons, but not favors or blessings. RP can only keep the order alive for so long, especially over extended absences with no advancement or benefits. Will orders ever be worked on, anything to improve how orders function without their gods being around. The other part is on conflict between orders. We've had the same holy war system for a while now, and most people don't seem to enjoy engaging in them. Often times though this is the only method open to resolving conflict between orders, without direct intervention from the gods of both orders, or just ignoring the issues entirely. Will Holy Wars ever get an overhaul into a more enjoyable activity to participate in? Or an alternative created for issues between gods and their orders."

Oleis says, "Well, this is kind of a tricky subject. Orders of dead or dormant gods tend to become a bit of a clubhouse for the remaining players. Without an active deity to drive it and without a purpose for the collective essence, the Order has no more inherent value than a well-organized clan. But, in general, Gods eventually do come back unless we unequivocally kill them. In general, I'd suggest getting in touch with Raz and me if you're involved in a completely dormant Order and we'll talk about options."

Oleis says, "For order wars, I'm going to defer to Razmael."

You say, "Okay, Holy Wars definitely suck, no doubt there. They're currently not on the table to be worked on, but we have discussed and explored ideas internally for how to improve them. One idea for example is letting an Order form a 'militia' during the pre-war period, drafting people from outside their order at the expense of shrine energy. Again, I want to emphasize that this is an idea, and nothing we've committed to at this time. If you folks have any ideas you'd like to see happen in Holy Wars, feel free to start a thread on the forums and I can promise we'll give it due consideration."

You say, "Okay, Stathan."
Stathan says, "I've got two questions, one of which I feel will be simpler than the other. That's, simply put, what is the direction that the mage guilds/mages in general going to be taken in for future points, changes to skills possibly. I'm also curious if a solution for the issues about "neutral" classes that keeps coming up is either dissolving the guilds or, simply put, making them fully tethered to one side or another or possibly removing tethers entirely. As a person who mains monk, I could happily see them go undead with some minor work to Kaido simply to keep the balance between Daru and Sentaari. Zealots and so on. Minor tweaks could change the Sentaari to fallen monks and define them on the shadow tether rather easily. It would open up RP arcs like a Cabalist attempting to redeem their necromantic ways in Enorian or Duiran and so on. It would also allow for said persons RP to be expanded and developed in ways it's not currently allowable due to the tethers. On a side note, would it be possible to get a sea dragon that wouldn't eat me?"

Oleis says, "Like most of our legacy classes, we do have the core skeleton of a revamp designed and laid out for each Mage class. We have no set in stone plans for the guilds at this time. We've talked a lot about neutralizing a few classes which are currently tethered and handling combat balance issues on a small-scale basis. That's a possibility. Keep in mind, too, that Sentaari are not tethered right now."

Oleis says, "It's also very likely that we'll be implementing a class vendor for neutral classes, with the option to expand that vendor to all classes. Neutral guilds are stuck in an awful spot where they're torn between offering class to people and upholding their own guild-based role. City-based guilds have the city leadership as a sort of facilitator to help make class exchange easier and more accessible. Neutral guilds have to navigate that on their own. A class vendor will allow them to do their own thing and adopt a strong guild identity without hampering the fun of other players."

Oleis says, "Also, no dragons."

Oleis stomps about angrily.

Oleis says, "Did I miss anything there?"

Stathan says, "I think that's all of it. Sans dragon. Thank you."

Oleis says, "Killien, did you have a question or did you still wish to pass?"

Killien says, "The relic system that was released slightly reminds me of Lusternia's curio system, which was well-received. Will there be a greater expansion of the relic system and, if so, will relics be incorporated into more rewards, such as quests, the Wheel when it is available, and giftbags? In regards to promotions, as well, how much does IRE oversight influence how and what promotions are offered and how can we, as a playerbase, influence the promotions offered to us within Aetolia?"

Oleis claps His hands together merrily.

Killien says, "And can I have a cupcake?"

You say, "Regarding relics: Yes, yes and yes. We intend relics to be pretty freeform in their purpose and handout in the future. We want them to be permanent or temporary, and we want to them to be available in a variety of ways. As far as the Relic system goes, it's entirely our own and IRE has little to no say in it. As far as promotions in general, yes IRE has the deciding vote on what promotion we have each month. We (Oleis and myself) get to pitch in our thoughts and ideas at our weekly IRE meetings to influence things, but the end decision rests solely on Matt Mihaly and Jeremy Saunders deciding what they think the best promotion will be for all five games."


You say, "For those unware, Matt Mihaly is the founder/CEO of Iron Realms Entertainment, and Jeremy Saunders is the President."

You say, "Haven, your turn."

Haven asks, "The removal of the war system gut the game pretty hard. While I know there was a mini-testing run of a system of players VS NPCs some time ago, and it's good to hear major foci and a revised war system may come into play, will the admin team shift their attention to reinstating a proper conflict system before revamps are done? Is this system you're alluding to the factions thing mentioned a while back? And if it is being made a top priority (I personally think it should be a #1 priority), what is or will be done to see that it is released in a timely manner?"

You say, "Well, we've pretty much covered all of this already, but I'll reiterate. Revamps are being shifted away from the main priority, and major foci and war system are taking the front stage. In general, we've let revamps take too much priority, and general game content has suffered as a result."


You say, "Okay Phendegwen, you're up."

Phendegwen says, "I got in a bit late, so if this question's been asked, apologies. A few months back, there was a mention on the forums of an upcoming Fishing skill- I believe it was by Omei. Ever since then, I've been hoping for more news. Is this still in the works? If so, any details, or estimate on when we can look forward to Fishing? Are there any other 'resource gathering' type skills considered for the future, such as Mining for gems/stone/metals? Any way for a volunteer to help make Fishing happen faster? I know this isn't a pivotal game issue, but often it's the 'small' additions that add the most fun to the experience. And since we're all asking for things- can I have a fishing boat? With a neverending cooler of beer?"

Oleis says, "Frankly, fishing was announced prematurely (like many, many other things in our history). Our volunteer has been doing an AMAZING job at creating content to make the system rich and deep. That said, there are some mechanical things that need to be laid in place. As Razmael mentioned a bit ago, personal side projects are taking less priority in favor of the big content releases we desperately need."

Oleis says, "Individual resource gathering as you described it is not likely to make an appearance."

Oleis says, "Mephistoles. Let us have it."

Mephistoles says, "I have two questions, the first is "when could we realistically expect a cabalist revamp"? I think the class is one of the weaker ones in terms of one on one PvP, and it could really use some help. My second question is, about racial relics specifically. Are you planning on making more of them? If so, is there a timetable for when we might see them?"

You say, "I can't give you a timeframe for when Cabalist will be revamped, as revamps are taking a back seat to other content now. That said, we honestly believe Cabalist is one of the most mechanically limited classes out there atm, and is next on our list for revamps. We also have a good design framework for it. For racial relics, yes, I'd love to see more. I can't tell you when that will be or what they'll be."

Mephistoles says, "Oh, what about the teradrim torq thing that got released and then removed?"

Mephistoles says, "Is that coming back?"

You say, "Yes, it will be."

Mephistoles says, "I suppose asking when might be too much, thank you."

You say, "Also, if you have ideas for racial relics you'd like to see in the future, be sure to let me know either through forum idea threads, or just messaging me directly. It's hard for me to know exactly what people have in their descriptions that they'd love to be able to express mechanically."


You say, "Okay Soramizu you're up."

Soramizu says, "I queued up by mistake. Just skip me!"

Oleis says, "Solaria also gone."

You say, "Solaria you've kicked Soramizu off the stage. Let's hear your mind."

You say, "Darn it."

Oleis shakes His fist angrily in the air.

You say, "Alexina!"

You say, "Please be here."

Alexina says, "This is not exactly as much as a question as it is a request, but feel free to offer your opinions on the matter anyway. So..."

You say, "And not joined accidentally."

Alexina says, "I wanted to bring up something I mentioned in a forum thread recently: player groups. Currently, there is little reason for players to band together for a few hours to kill monsters or complete quests. Other game offers better experience gain, better item rewards, or other incentives for them to actually play the game together. I realize that it -is- possible to go bashing with your friend, but not without getting much less experience for the time spent hunting than if you would do it alone. I personally feel like I felt a stronger sense of community in muds/mmo's where I'd make friends that made progressing easier -and- faster -- in Aetolia, I feel like this is sort of lacking."

Alexina says, "Lesser ylem extraction is the only real group activity and it happens once every three hours and last for something like ten-fifteen minutes, so that doesn't really count. Please add some sort of features that encourages all of us to grab a few city or guildmates and just go out together to reap some rewards that surpasses (or at least matches) what we would gain on an individual basis. So. That's it!"

You say, "Okay a few things here. Webs actually grant 5% extra experience. Whether or not we need to adjust that formula to be noticeable is something to explore. Furthermore, one of our volunteer coders has been working on extensive behind the scenes rework of how mobs are handled in the code, making it easier than it ever has been to add new mob content."

You say, "We also have major foci in the work, which will be a big group effort, and raids that will require multiple people to complete, the latter of which is being mostly handled by volunteer labour (The Sterion raid has recently picked up by another volunteer to try and finish), so I can't give you any sort of idea when to expect that."

You say, "I think at this point in time, our PvE compared to the other IRE games is pretty boring, and is something we're going to be working towards improving in the long term."

You say, "Okay Areka, you're up again."

Areka says, "ONE: When 'THE MOVE (tm)' takes place, will player housing rooms get reset, and by that I mean be able to re-name and re-describe rooms without paying the fee as if they were a new room? TWO: Is there any chance housing prices could be negotiated? Right now havens are more financially savvy for somethings, and wilderness just not practical for others. I really feel that housing prices need to be reassessed - they are a great financial sync and encourage roleplay on the physical plane. THREE: Any chance new talents will be released? I really lament that we have no percussion talent to go alongside strings and winded things."

You say, "I brought this up earlier, but THE MOVE (tm) has been shelved."

Areka says, "I know, but house handling's still on my mind so I thought I'd ask."

Areka says, "Because I'm looking at my village going "Damn, I've referenced Pash Valley, whenever the settlement moves, it's going to be a unicorns to re-describe.""

You say, "In the event that something we do makes your house inaccessible in some way, we'll move it and let you redescribe accordingly."

You say, "2: We can potentially discuss a readjustment in price of some housing features, although we will not be giving out refunds to any purchases made before that, within reason. If you blew 500cr the day before we decided to lower the price to 400cr, we'd refund you the difference."

You say, "3: There's always a chance for new talents, but we have nothing on the table at the moment."

You say, "Mongoro you're up."

Mongoro says, "I just wanted to start by thanking you for your time and letting you know I appreciate everything you guys and gals do to make Aetolia a pleasent experience for us. Which is why I just had to bring up a small annoyance, we should be much higher in the mud rankings, I don't have a solution persay, maybe a new small insentive for voting , maybe you could run months where you do voting drives. But Aetolia is way too good to be so low, I have played a few of the muds that consistently beat us and they are garbage ... I know you guys don't want to bash other muds , so I don't mind doing it for you. We do decent in the list but it kind of feels like we are settling. I understand content is a big priority, but it all starts with bringing in players right? I just don't think voting gets enough love."

You say, "It's actually against the rules to offer incentives for voting, and doing so gets us banned from the listing."

Mongoro says, "Shame."

You say, "Best we can do is appeal to you guys with puppy dog eyes."

Mongoro says, "Just seems there should be something else we can do, I might start bribing people out of my own pocket."

Mongoro says, "Heh."

You say, "Best thing you can do is ask your friends to vote. Even a player offering rewards for voting can come back badly on us."

Mongoro says, "Understood."

You say, "Okay Ishin."

Ishin says, in a feral tongue, "In the past when I was a liaison, I did some work on a possible revamp of the Syssin class to allow venom to become a concoction/forging type of skill. Is that still on the table at all, or is that one of the 'long time coming', like the other class revamp points? We sorta touched on this a little bit the other day during our guild meeting, so I'm curious if it's going to change ever, or if we're in a pretty solid spot?"

You say, "Okay, firstly, yes, Syssin will definitely be losing the venom skill, and it'll definitely be showing up as Mercantile skill when that happens."

You say, "But yes, revamps are taking a backseat in priority so it may be a while before we see that happen. Classes with future Mercantile skills like Venom and Enchantments will have a higher priority than (most) other classes when it comes to revamps."

You say, "Okay Mael, your turn."

Mael says, "My question is largely about product management. I find that often in IRE games things get announced early, or with little to no information as to timeframe. Is your product management moving to a more deadline based system? Also I find as a player, I tend not to get feedback on bugs and ideas, most likely because there are so many duplicates. Is there any plan to make ideas and bugs public with a 'voting' system to be able to show how many people agree, or are hitting this issue. Is there any sort of exception handling that happens to report issues when they happen, and count the occurrences of such."

Oleis says, "I've made a reference here and certainly a number of times on the forums about Aetolia's serious issues with releasing information and big plans early. It has probably contributed more to the negative perception of the admin here than any producer or staff member ever could. So yes, we're really tightening up. Announcing stuff when it's in testing or almost complete and putting the bulk of the deadline work on Razmael and myself, since we're the paid staff and therefore the accountable figures."

Oleis says, "There is already a public idea support system."

Oleis says, "For bugs, duplication is a problem, as are accumulated bugs that are invalid or no longer relevant. If you'd like to draw our attention to a particular bug, you should mark it as your one player priority bug. We check that list first in doing bugfies."

Oleis says, "If you cause an untrapped error (which we see by default) and file a bug within 15 minutes, the backtrace from that error will be included in the bug."

Oleis says, "Making the bugs themselves public would open up far too much potential for unscrupulous players to exploit vulnerabilities or see privileged information."

You say, "Just a quick note before we move on."

You say, "I've turned off the queue command now. We'll finish going through everybody in the queue, and after that we'll bring the Town Hall to a close. We highly encourage anybody else with questions to post them on a centralized town hall thread on the forums."


Moirean says, "Hiiii."

Moirean says, "Is this current trend of PK favoring AI something that is now Aetolia's new PK standard? I brought up concerns about this shift when I was a liaison and it sounded like this was a desired/liked change in direction, at least at the time/among some of the liaisons/gods. If this is the goal of PK development, are there plans to incorporate more higher-level tactics in, such as more options for things like area control, tactical overextension for rewards (eg things like shatter and recklessness) or objective-based conflicts, for those of us who don't really enjoy heavy AI and coding? If the shift towards AI is something you don't like, what plans are being considered to change it, especially regarding ease of access to new players/new fighters and how much coding Aetolian PK demands?"

You say, "Moirean it's your turn!"

You say, "Oh my."

Moirean says, "Oh! Partially answering my own question - stuff like the weapon swapping with the carni revamp, that stuff is great for minimizing coding reqs, so I guess I'm asking for more stuff like that."

You say, "We've had frequent discussions about the state of combat internally, and I think the general consensus is that information is too perfect right now, which has slowly gotten to that point over the years through feature creep. This has led to the situation we're at now where combat is essentially AI vs AI. Unfortunately systems are an unavoidable evil in a text game, where it's considerably more easy to create one than any other type of game. We've been experimenting with ways to reduce our perfect tracking is, or find new approaches that favour tactical choices, to increase the amount of input a fighter needs to actively to do. That said, we haven't committed to an approach yet, and it's still very much in a discussion stage, so I can't share anymore details than that."

You say, "Okay Kerryn."

Kerryn says, "Oleis mentioned earlier about a class vendor for the neutral guilds, which I think is great. It will hopefully stop people from joining a guild just to sell a class for their own personal gain while ignoring the guilds teachings. My question is what will be done in turn to help those guilds in the long run? The guilds rp is great and a lot rides on the GM and the members, to keep it interesting. However, those guilds are going to need more help and truthfully the guild system as a whole is woefully lacking."

You say, "We have ideas for the guilds that will be released concurrently with the class vendor, but I cannot reveal the details on that yet. We're also willing to support guilds, and you can work with us through your patrons to create more features to make your guild appealing."

You say, "Okay Pearle, step up to the podium."

Pearle says, "I'll pass, thanks."

You say, "Okay Rashar."

Rashar says, "Shops. I've heard it asked, and I don't recall seeing any admin answers. Why the limited number? Do you not feel like you would sell more artifacts (credits) otherwise? Aside from maybe curatives/venoms, people seem to shop where they want, usually. I'd guess most people are more interested in RP than profit, and I don't know that there is any real Aetolian economy to speak of (or damage), so I guess I lump it with haven points, where the question is, 'What would be the harm?' I'd buy globes or bashing arties and bash right now if there were more neat things to do with haven points, and I'd probably buy a shop because, eh. Why not? I know others are far more interested than I am, and as questions are limited and I have no other real concerns, I figured I'd ask."

You say, "Okay, you raise a good point, and one I don't have an immediate answer for. It's definitely worth further discussion internally, and has already started a flurry of debate amongst us. All I can really say about it is that we'll look into it."

Rashar says, "Appreciated, thanks."

You say, "Rou?"

A cloaked figure (Rou) says, "My question is about inks and making them more accesible. Currently you have to run from room to room and you only get one rock per room, while the respawn rate is pretty quick, you still have to move from one room to the next and sometimes searching over 600 rooms only yields a couple hundred inks of the one you really want (primarily gold) because it's random on which one you get. Concoctions and Slices have artifacts that double their output and you can specifically target which organ or plant you want to gather. Is there anything we can do to make inks easier to obtain, either by adding them to a craft or skill set, or a way to target inks to get the corresponding rocks?"

A cloaked figure (Rou) says, "Not to mention you either need to be Endgame, Teradrim, or a combination of races to Harvest and Produce."

Oleis says, "Inks are already pretty easy to get. If we were to make a change to gathering skills like that, it would be MORE restrictive, in the interest of equalizing our economy a little bit."

You say, "Right, making things easier to obtain is probably the opposite direction we want to take. When people become too self-sufficient, there's no reason for them to go out and buy anything."

Oleis says, "Haven, have at it."

Haven says, "Another issue that's cropped up on and off in regards to the game throughout Aetolia's history is the Admin/Dev Team-to-Player communication. After this townhall meeting, will we now see a return to forum postings about what's being worked on/what was released/and what's "next"? Perhaps a post once every 3 months or so on where Aetolia is at as a whole and where we hope we will be."

Oleis says, "We've actually started a weekly internal roundup of many of those things, which has been staggeringly helpful. One of our volunteers has a project almost complete that I didn't even know about! I'm certain that players will get the benefit of those information dumps, though naturally we'll remove a few things and redact parts. "What's next" is likely to be a very, very small part of those reports, for reasons we've stated a few times."

Oleis says, "Lyl, please."

Lyl says, "I have a question about guilds' connection and/or independence from the city they are tied to mechanically. For example, if my guild member is enemied to the city, they can not use the guild sparring room. Also, the guild has no power to remove the guards the city can send in. Would it be possible to give the guild those powers, to eject the city's guards if the guild does not want them? And shouldn't being a guild member override the enemy status placed by the city, while within the guildhall? After all, the guildhall is the property of the guild, is maintained and paid for by the guild, and should be a more than a mere extension of the city, in my opinion."

Oleis says, "Well, here's the thing. By their design, city-based guilds are inherently subservient. While we don't allow cityleaders absolute power over the guilds, there's no question that guilds have to work hard to justify their continued support and existence. Allowing guilds too much latitude in that regard would undermine the cities and, in my opinion, stifle a lot of really crucial political roleplay."

Oleis says, "Mephistoles. Welcome back to the floor."

Mephistoles says, "Well, my own question essentially got answered a while back. So...Raz, how did the fabled chicken turn out? Was it decent? It didn't look like it would be very good. Did your sister eat it? I feel like that story lacks closure."

Oleis says, "I'm not joking. He just got up to make lunch."

Oleis says, "Expect an MSPaint diagram of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Oleis says, "Ixmi! Hit me."

Ixmi says, "My concern was already addressed by Moirean's question."

Oleis says, "Excellent."

Oleis says, "Zaephlyn, please."

Zaephlyn says, "Awesome, it's two questions since I've only queue'd up once and I'm last.. don't beat me."

Zaephlyn says, "My first question is rather small and Mael kind of touched on it and it's to ask if anyone actually checks the IDEAS that're input into the game and not onto the forums? I've noticed a lot of work gets done for posters on forums but no feedback ever generally gets given for those who enter it into the game. After having looked over my ideas I notice they're all still "unassigned" too, who changes that? My second question is something I've been curious about for a long time. Has IRE ever, at any point, considered allowing players to transfer artifacts that they've purchased with their own money between characters? I ask because I've an idea out for it with a little bit of support and how we could try to make that a perk for those who have Membership. I also feel it might help us retain people who get "tired" of playing the same character and wanted to switch to "new blood" without having to toss about 6grand into the game to be worthy for PK or feel shiny and pretty with cosmetic artifacts. In many larger games, especially MMORPG's, you have a bank that you can transfer most, if not all, your items between characters on. Some do get bound to one specific character but it's widely a very open system."

Oleis says, "Gonna go down these in a couple different points to avoid the wall of text."

Zaephlyn says, "Sure."

Oleis says, "Let me know if I get to the end and overlook something."

Oleis says, "We don't really touch the IDEA database much. In theory, if we're ever short on things to do, we'll be able to go there for neat small tweaks. As you may have guessed, we don't really ever get to that point. The biggest ideas are presented in liaison reports, typically, or collected through one of us in a forum thread of quality of life tweaks, things like that."

Oleis says, "IRE has considered a resurrection system or artifact transfers and categorically rejected it, unfortunately. It's one topic where we're unable to stray from corporate decree."

Zaephlyn says, "Bummer."

Zaephlyn says, "Thanks."

Oleis says, "No problem."

You say, "Alright, with that we've reached the end of the queue. Thank you all very much for attending and speaking your mind."

You say, "If there's any further questions, we'll have a thread up soon with a log from this meeting."

You say, "And I highly encourage you to ask them there."

Zsadist

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to get internally mocked by a few players for asking this....

But are there any plans for future gold sinks? I understand that there are havens and cryptic chests, but some of us don't really spend the money on a room descrip for havens as some people don't really care and no one really sees it but the player anyway, and most have stopped buying cryptic chests because of all the free useless "fluff" (as I like to call it).

Riluo

With the economic climate globally at the moment and the desire of so many to support and purchase from the game what is being done to ensure artefact costs are reduced to ensure further growth, whilst bringing the cost down to supplement peoples incomes.

In layman's terms if you sell one apple for a dollar you will not sell many, yet if you sell an apple for 50c you will sell several and increase you profit margins.

Currently this is a huge concern for people as the prices are far to high, forcing those who would spend cash not to do so. After all these are digital items and can be produced for nothing!

Thank you

Aishia

I've had things I IDEA'd implemented within MINUTES before. I think you're more likely to catch someone SITTING there with a spare minute if it's something relatively small. If you have a BIG idea it's best to save it for a liaison submission. (Realdog and edible leeks were IDEA's)!

Aishia

I guess I have a question! Will any/some orgs be moving to Albedos eventually? Will points of future conflict/war/etc be based around there? I probably go there more often than most, but in general it's pretty much a ghost town. There ARE cool things, there. Neat items and few cool areas and secrets and stuff, but the disconnect from the rest of the game makes spending any time there like logging on a different MUD.

Alexina

I really want more group stuffs.

Like, if I go out bashing for two hours and earn 35,000 experiences, I just want so that if I went out bashing with two other endgame people, I'd have earned 40,000 experiences in that time instead. Or something like this.

Anyway. Lots of neat questions!

Moirean

Yeah, Razmael's comment about webs giving more xp doesn't seem to factor in that xp gets split between the people in the room. I think even if Alexina, Ezalor and I were bashing together, we'd net less xp than bashing alone. You can only kill mobs so fast, and a large number of our kills come from overkill and crits - you actually end up bashing slower with other endgamers because of overkill stealing and wasted attacks (ie if I do an annhi and kill a mob, Alexina hits another mob, and I then one-shot that mob with overkill, her attack was not only wasted, we're stuck waiting for her to get balance back).

Milian

For fear of getting flamed (the townhall meeting was a bit late for Europeans but you can never find a good time to suit everyone) I'd like to bring up the bugbear of bad alting and the lack of new blood to the game - I feel one of the things which started to cause significant problems with the guild structure was the advent of the supernewb (aided by making EG far easier) and whilst these always existed back in 2007 or 2008 you saw significant enough new blood to make the whole guild structure 'interesting' - By that, people needed teaching, people needed education and you genuinely had to do the full guild intros over and over. I think there was a period where the game was perhaps less tolerant of new players for a period (rightly or wrongly thats how I and I know a few others see it) and certainly there have been some very cliquey periods this last couple of years within orgs at guild and city level where a new player would find it incredibly difficult to progress in certain areas of the game whereas a supernewb would find it very easy (not naming names, but again, we all know it happens).

In the recent guilds I've been in, often the players are running up to circle 80+ before you've even noticed them and its not uncommon to see people endgaming within an IG year or two due to the current mechanics of bashing. So, do the admin have any plans to try and rebalance this - even if it is purely through issuing better guidance to alts in order to at least try and 'encourage' role playing? From a business side of things I can understand the willingness to show some apathy to this as a % of these players drop cash for credits which helps keep things moving, but there ought to be a willingness for this to be done to a higher standard across the whole player base.

---------------

In addition to this question there is the fact that we talk about MUD voting but clearly voting isn't that productive in terms of gaining new players and genuine new blood to the game.. if it was, we'd see far more people playing and far more people are who pure newbs. I suppose the natural next question is what are the current admins doing to 'market aetolia' to a wider, but relevant audience and where does this fall on the priority stack? The reality of it is if we rely on recirculating the existing player base through alting then drop-offs will occur and over time this will become seriously detrimental to the game. My suspicion is, for a while, IRE have relied on moving players between Aetolia, Imperium and such so its more 'internal' recirculation - Dev progress, revamps, content mean little if we cannot drag people in to see them.

-------

Finally are there any economic changes coming? City comm production, shopkeeping, trading etc is all very 'thin', has practically no consequences for a city. Is it time we maybe looked at something like currencies for cities or similar which have fluctuating rates of exchange to the gold standard based on the prosperity of the city as a whole?

Ilyon

Any plans to bring the Merchant's Logbook back as a regular artifact? While I understand the problems with self-sufficiency, from a purely personal and very much selfish standpoint I must say that I'm not really looking forward to the "one mercantile skill only" future.

Moirean

Pleaaaaaase. I want to forge for RPs and creative stuff and to make my guild cool items, but if I have to choose, I'm always going to pick the profits.

Stathan

My question about the neutral classes was more geared towards pushing Sentaari over the tether into being the shadow version of Daru since Daru were supposed to signify everything right in the light for monks.

Lim

Regarding the AI arms race and things done to mitigate it: I'm a bit concerned that this isn't entirely possible in a text based game. Short of banning access to programmable mud clients, anything done to try and solve it might simply push up the bar for coding, or else make it uncodable and random. Even introducing more risk-reward cool down abilities like recklessness can be coded for (if x y conditions, then recklessness and behead - just a matter of tracking the right factors), or putting in geographical tactics (would just introduce mapper coding, vnum intelligent code) would simply push up the bar to coding, rather than make combat more accessible. The alternative is to make things less predictable with imperfect information (hidden affs, hidden targeted limbs, random proccing of afflictions/cures), but this reduces to put combat in the hands of RNG gods (proccing hidden at the right time), or just shifting the decision making (if x number of hiddens, do a diagnose/check explicitly for that hidden aff). If anyone has a clear idea of can how to bring down the AI arms race, would you explain it to me? It's entirely probable that I simply don't understand and therefore can't see it. It seems to me the reason there is an AI arms race is because text is easy to code for, not so much because of the mechanics of how things work now.

Lim

What I think -would- help is to introduce tools that take away the technical knowledge requirement to coding. Things like queueing (removes the need to track when balances have returned before sending a command), in game mapper, or in game targeting, aliases. Those need a lot more work. We will also need triggers that help people do a simple 'if x then do y'. What's daunting isn't understanding the logic of coding, but the technical knowledge required ( how many brackets to use, when to put in a comma, how to use a function, pull the right layer of information from a table, etc.) just to do a simple command. 

Maghak

Aishia said:

I guess I have a question! Will any/some orgs be moving to Albedos eventually? Will points of future conflict/war/etc be based around there? I probably go there more often than most, but in general it's pretty much a ghost town. There ARE cool things, there. Neat items and few cool areas and secrets and stuff, but the disconnect from the rest of the game makes spending any time there like logging on a different MUD.

This was touched on during the town hall, but I'll reiterate it here: the original plan to move the entire playerbase and orgs to Albedos has been entirely scrapped. We're still considering the best routes to take regarding content releases and conflict arcs, and I am of course not going to drop any specifics, but Sapience is not going to be neglected or ignored in favour of prepping Albedos for a player dump.

However. The lore head handling the majority of Albedi lore has put a lot of very, very good (in my admittedly biased opinion) history and character into the continent, and you can absolutely expect it to be used as the axis of conflicts in the future. Any further releases are being handled carefully to avoid simply exacerbating the problem of disconnecting the entire region from the rest of the game.

At the moment, so far as I am aware, there are no immediate or even long-term plans to move existing orgs to Albedos.

Razmael

Zsadist said:

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to get internally mocked by a few players for asking this....

But are there any plans for future gold sinks? I understand that there are havens and cryptic chests, but some of us don't really spend the money on a room descrip for havens as some people don't really care and no one really sees it but the player anyway, and most have stopped buying cryptic chests because of all the free useless "fluff" (as I like to call it).

We're always looking for ways to put more gold sinks into the game, and we hope some of the systems we have in the works, like the war system, will offer more gold sinks.

Riluo said:

With the economic climate globally at the moment and the desire of so many to support and purchase from the game what is being done to ensure artefact costs are reduced to ensure further growth, whilst bringing the cost down to supplement peoples incomes.

In layman's terms if you sell one apple for a dollar you will not sell many, yet if you sell an apple for 50c you will sell several and increase you profit margins.

Currently this is a huge concern for people as the prices are far to high, forcing those who would spend cash not to do so. After all these are digital items and can be produced for nothing!

Thank you

We can look at prices of individual artifacts and adjust them down if no one is buying them, but as for the prices of artifacts overall, they'll be staying at their current range. We do offer periodic credit sales and artifact discounts, and I encourage you to take advantage of those when they occur.

Milian said:

In the recent guilds I've been in, often the players are running up to circle 80+ before you've even noticed them and its not uncommon to see people endgaming within an IG year or two due to the current mechanics of bashing. So, do the admin have any plans to try and rebalance this - even if it is purely through issuing better guidance to alts in order to at least try and 'encourage' role playing? From a business side of things I can understand the willingness to show some apathy to this as a % of these players drop cash for credits which helps keep things moving, but there ought to be a willingness for this to be done to a higher standard across the whole player base.

In a game like Aetolia, we have to strike a careful balance between realism and fun gameplay. If I'm understanding your question correctly, you'd like new characters (of experienced players) to bash poorly and progress through the learning process as a way of presenting a realistic journey. In reality, this needlessly burdens the player for almost no gain. Roleplay is still alive and well in character interactions and organizational dynamics

Milian said:

In addition to this question there is the fact that we talk about MUD voting but clearly voting isn't that productive in terms of gaining new players and genuine new blood to the game.. if it was, we'd see far more people playing and far more people are who pure newbs. I suppose the natural next question is what are the current admins doing to 'market aetolia' to a wider, but relevant audience and where does this fall on the priority stack? The reality of it is if we rely on recirculating the existing player base through alting then drop-offs will occur and over time this will become seriously detrimental to the game. My suspicion is, for a while, IRE have relied on moving players between Aetolia, Imperium and such so its more 'internal' recirculation - Dev progress, revamps, content mean little if we cannot drag people in to see them.

Advertising is solely IRE's job and not something Oleis or myself touch for the most part. We're always constantly discussing how to bring new blood to the games at our regular IRE meetings.

Milian said:

Finally are there any economic changes coming? City comm production, shopkeeping, trading etc is all very 'thin', has practically no consequences for a city. Is it time we maybe looked at something like currencies for cities or similar which have fluctuating rates of exchange to the gold standard based on the prosperity of the city as a whole?

We'll probably never have different currencies, but the economy is definitely on our list of problems to tackle.

Ilyon said:

Any plans to bring the Merchant's Logbook back as a regular artifact? While I understand the problems with self-sufficiency, from a purely personal and very much selfish standpoint I must say that I'm not really looking forward to the "one mercantile skill only" future.

As a regular artifact? Definitely not in its current form.

Sarita

I, for one, would really like to see @Razmael‌ answer the question @Mephistoles‌ had about the chicken.

Mephistoles

That chicken is one of the enduring mysteries of Aetolia. It has become legend.

Zsadist

Razmael said:

We're always looking for ways to put more gold sinks into the game, and we hope some of the systems we have in the works, like the war system, will offer more gold sinks.

I guess my question in return to this is this. Do you have any systems or plans in place that will allow player gold sinks, as I'm assuming the war system will be geared more towards city gold sinks? Also, not the answer I was expecting. Kinda surprised really. Hehe.

Also, are there any more instances or bashing area in the works? Preferably more instances?

Ishin

I cannot express just how much I am looking forward to a new war system. You guys have like. No freaking idea.

Angroth

I was at work and then school all day, so I didn't get a chance to participate. But just a quick question on what Ishin had asked: are there any ideas on what will replace Venoms? I know it's a good ways off, and I'm not really asking for exacts or anything stupid. Maybe just a few concepts you guys are kicking around?

I know in Imperian, they kicked Venoms and gave Saboteurs and Phantoms a skill called Spatium which basically ripped wormholes from Sabotage and expanded it into its own skill. Which sounds cool, but the execution on it there seems kind of lame.

And like I said, I'm not asking for definites or time tables, just concepts (I'm easily excitable about that kind of thing). Cheers!

Moirean

Lim said:

Regarding the AI arms race and things done to mitigate it: I'm a bit concerned that this isn't entirely possible in a text based game. Short of banning access to programmable mud clients, anything done to try and solve it might simply push up the bar for coding, or else make it uncodable and random. Even introducing more risk-reward cool down abilities like recklessness can be coded for (if x y conditions, then recklessness and behead - just a matter of tracking the right factors), or putting in geographical tactics (would just introduce mapper coding, vnum intelligent code) would simply push up the bar to coding, rather than make combat more accessible. The alternative is to make things less predictable with imperfect information (hidden affs, hidden targeted limbs, random proccing of afflictions/cures), but this reduces to put combat in the hands of RNG gods (proccing hidden at the right time), or just shifting the decision making (if x number of hiddens, do a diagnose/check explicitly for that hidden aff). If anyone has a clear idea of can how to bring down the AI arms race, would you explain it to me? It's entirely probable that I simply don't understand and therefore can't see it. It seems to me the reason there is an AI arms race is because text is easy to code for, not so much because of the mechanics of how things work now.

Obfuscating coding is one answer, and as you point out that will just lead to more complex code. AI, however, crops up because manually choosing stuff is far inferior. That isn't just a matter of efficient attack choices - speed and range of attack options also matter. Due to skill creep and bloat, Aet combat has become a lot faster and there are a lot more things to track. We've seen the addition of new venoms, new afflictions, new conditions, all of which make things more complex and push AI as a better choice. MUD combat (ignoring gear/skillrank bashfests) is about the flow of offensive and defensive choices. IRE combat, in its pursuit to make that choice more complex by giving more afflictions and conditions to hinder defence and augment offense, has instead become all about those afflictions, instead of the core choices of when to attack/defend with what, so of course AI is going to be far superior.

Re: the overextension and area control/movement concepts. For one, you can't reckless and behead together - reckless is a (admittedly buggy and now-useless) skill you pull out to help augment a setup to a kill, not to seal in the kill itself, so it's all about making that choice yourself of when to use it. Yes, I guess you could automate it, but it's got a long CD and downsides to using it, so it appeals to the more tactical aspects of combat, of gauging the overall fight's progression to make the choice when to put it in. Area control is doing something like moving the fight into a long stretch of LoS to exploit a build-up-over-distance-attack like a joust or powershot, penalizing movement around an area with something like totems/staves and then repeatedly forcing movement (or in the defender's case, blocking down movement), or setting up traps in another room and eventually pulling the fight towards there, either by getting the target moveable (not something Aet's current combat really has much for, you can't use afflictions, for example, to make someone vulnerable to be pushed into another room) or by simply overemphasizing a "panicked" or "flailing" offense before "fleeing" and getting someone to recklessly chase you into a trap you have set up ahead of time. In Aet, you pretty much just fight in one room and it's boring as heck. Area control also factors in things like using skills that temporarily affect the room - for example, someone dropped an effect that makes everyone there dismounted, for example, which makes everyone there vulnerable to things that only work while dismounted, while cancelling out skills that only work while mounted. You then can focus on destroying that effect, moving to a new room, exploiting people being dismounted - your choice will depend on who you fight, what they're doing, your own preferences, etc. Maybe someone could code a super-great movement AI, but to me that sort of thing seems way more encouraging to manual decision-making.

In short, hindering AI isn't just about making AI harder. It's also making manual choices easier and more attractive, focusing less on juggling a ton of conditions and more on making tactical choices.

Lim

In making any decisions, we follow a basic structure:

1. Receive information, i.e. tracking affs
   
2. Process information, i.e. deciding what conditions to react to, and what the right action should be in each case
   
3. Execute, i.e. sending the command
   

Muds allow us to do all this near perfectly, at least more than any other game (LoL, WoW, DotA, etc.). Because information is fed to us in text form, It is easy to capture this information for processing (step one). Since this is easily done, it isn't difficult to programme an AI to do steps two and three. We think of myriad possible outcomes, decide which is the optimum decision at any point in time, and lock it in. Now, this isn't possible in LoL/DotA, for example, because of its visual medium + locked access to script. For example, we can't do: If the other guy approaches to last shot a creep, we move in to trade. We move in to trade if he is X and Y hero, but not A and B hero because they would easily out-trade you. He would easily out-trade you if he has C and D items, and is Z levels above you, etc). This process cannot be mapped and executed in these games, and players are forced to do it manually there. Here, because we have everything in text, we can. That's why AIs exist.

I think 'making choices more complex by introducing more afflictions' and 'the core choice of deciding when to attack/defend' aren't opposing directions, as if emphasising one neglected the other. On the contrary, I think the relationship is causative, rather than dichotomous. The 'core choice of deciding when to attack/defend' has always existed. The problem is where this 'core choice' can be easily mapped, optimised, and coded in, and the game becomes boring. Then, the response has been to make the game more complex so that these choices are harder to map. This has been done by introducing more kill routes, more afflictions. It make it more difficult to decide what makes 'the optimum decision'. Unfortunately, all these can be mapped too. It just takes time to learn what each new affliction does, and then factor them into code.

This is the same issue that will be faced even if we introduce over-extension and movement control concepts. These can and will be coded in too. All it takes is effort, and figuring out how to track the information received from the mud. Instead of the 'if x and y affliction, then do a and b attack' we have today, it becomes something simple like 'if target has moved to a line of sight area, anticipate a trap and do not rush in', to something complex like, 'if target has moved into vnums a and b and c, and if a and b and c form a triangle, do y instead of x' (made up example). The reason why you see this as a 'super-great movement AI' right now is because we have no need for one today, and therefore no other vnum-based AI has been created (aside from mudbot mapper, and maybe some auto-walk-bashers). Years ago, before someone created the first combat AI that we see prevalent today, it would have blown the minds of people then, and it did. I think it was Xarian AI'ing a bunch of forestals to death. By logical induction it isn't difficult to see how shifting game mechanics to a different set of rules simply shifts the need to code to a different set of rules, but doesn't reduce the need to code.

Therefore, I think introducing movement control and tactics will have no different effect on the AI arms race than introducing newer afflictions. All you'd be doing is shifting the goal posts. Instead, what I think goes to the crux of the issue would be to try and mitigate and eventually kill the technical requirement to combat, shifting the game's emphasis to a test of their decision making ability. Read this last sentence. We actually have the same aim - we both want less emphasis on the technical coding, and more on the problem solving/decision making aspects to combat. We just have differing views on how this is to be achieved.

Should I use clumsiness, or lethargy to hinder? Is my target a luminary/shaman with uber good passive aff cure rate? Should I sacrifice this round to hinder his tree curing, or should I rush for the kill now? These are all decisions that already exist in combat today. The difference is that many don't get to see that side of the game because they are kept out by the barrier of learning some coding language or other. Some say all you have to do is buy an AI and type 'kill' - but I, with utmost respect, think this is overly simple. You won't get far at all unless you have learnt the tricks inside and out, and know to react ad hoc or augment the system by understanding the underlying mechanics of combat.

Therefore, I firmly believe the solution to improving combat in this game is an API that makes it easier for people to participate. We need to make it easier to tell your system "I want to do X when Y happens, rather than Z, because I don't think Z works well". Because, even if the goalposts are shifted, we're still stuck with people who don't know how to code in lua/c script, who find it impossible to counter other players who have figured out how to optimise and automate movement tactics. Whereas, by making it easy and intuitive to come up with an AI of your own, it gives you more of a chance to learn combat theory and mechanics, and focus on decision making, rather than spending time learning how to code those decisions to life. This would hold true regardless of whether we have the afflictions and kill routes of today, or movement tactics of tomorrow.

Moirean

The decisions you cite - what class you are fighting, what hinder aff to pick - are really just more stuff AI does better than a person.

Tactical decisions aren't just a linear assessment of what to do at a specific point in time. You are making a decision at one point in time to set up future conditions - and you can code for that, sure. The difference is that coding, at that point, is reaching the bleeding edge of "is it really worth this coding time to code something I can process better in my head?" Humans are better at that sort of subjective decision making than machines, especially when you give people ways to psych out or trick an opponent - you might be able to code personality into your combat, but if so, you should probably be working for an AI lab and not playing Aetolia. In Avalon, there were bots. AI's not a new thing. The thing is, there were a lot more options to fight them. You didn't just have to try to beat their coded curing with afflictions. There were more options, options that are clearly lacking in Aetolia.

Here's a really simple example:

You could set up a super-heavy delayed damage attack out of room, and then use a movement skill to flip yourself into the room to land it. Target learns to expect that coming when they see you flip in, so they begin to shield or offensively defend. You then exploit that and feign a damage setup by leaving the room and instead laying a trap on entry, for a few adjacent rooms, while subtly working to make them moveable through other methods, all while keeping up the "I'm whoring this damage attempt on you". Finally you take advantage of them reacting in a predictable way to instead use them being off-eq/bal to rapidly move them through several rooms, eating multiple traps.

Defending against this isn't just a simple if/then - you can choose to try to hinder the in/out movement, focus on shoring up your own movement defences, drop some area effects to make the movement more punishing, move on your own to eat the traps before you've vulnerable, etc. The idea is that there's not just one answer, and humans are way better at easily assessing who they are fighting, where the pace of the fight is, and what ramifications the decision you choose will have, as well as your own capabilities (I'm good at tanking and I can bust out a self heal, so I'll eat that trap) in order to pick what answer is best at a specific time.

Trying to make AI impossible isn't going to work. Trying to make human decision-making have its own rewards will work, though.

Edit: Regarding making stuff more accessible - sure, that'd be nice. I can code cmud pretty well, however, and my turnoff to PK isn't that the coding is hard. It's that in the current system, coding your decisions is the optimal solution. I'm bored of that, so I mostly avoid 1v1.

Lim

Moirean said:

you might be able to code personality into your combat, but if so, you should probably be working for an AI lab and not playing Aetolia.

This is the crux of my concern.

It seems to me that quite a number of people who play muds are incredibly code literate, whether they are com sci students, or system administrators, or are actual code monkeys for a living. For now, I am able to keep up as a hobbyist, but not if it grows beyond that. The problem is worse for people who don't have the time or inclination to learn the basic code that you and I have, and they are kept out.

This is the main reason I'm pushing to make code easier for people, rather than introducing new and different mechanics for play. The two aren't mutually exclusive, actually - we can and should do both - but I think emphasis has to first be to lower the barriers to entry first to decrease the coding ability divide, rather than create dimensions that potentially create even more of a divide.

Moirean

If someone can code that well, let them. The idea isn't to punish people who can code exceptionally well, but instead let people who want to manually select their choices compete at the same level. For linear affliction-based combat, you're never going to see those two on par.

Also, since you probably missed my edit:

Regarding making stuff more accessible - sure, that'd be nice. I can code cmud pretty well, however, and my turnoff to PK isn't that the coding is hard. It's that in the current system, coding your decisions is the optimal solution. I'm bored of that, so I mostly avoid 1v1.

Ilyon

Ultimately the problem with AI-central is twofold - one, in nearly every situation there exists an optimal attack to choose, and two, the optimal choice needs to happen -fast-. You cannot afford to spend even a second making your decision, and this decision can change fast (if say, someone cures something 0.3s before you get balance back. Any attempt to make combat less automated would need to address these factors.

Moirean

Pretty much what Ilyon says. My posts are mostly just illustrating ways to make that happen.

Valingar

Moirean said:

You could set up a super-heavy delayed damage attack out of room, and then use a movement skill to flip yourself into the room to land it.

This is exactly, word to word, what tactical value Firebomb used to provide, before complaints from players led to it being toned to being pointless at leylines.

That said, I think that slowing down combat overall - all balances, cures, passive tick rates, increasing affliction durations - by at least twice would allow a lot more room to think on what attack you are going to use instead of an AI doing it all for you. If I remember things right, slowing combat was the plan at some point, but I can't say if it still is in the cards.

Lim

Ilyon said:

Ultimately the problem with AI-central is twofold - one, in nearly every situation there exists an optimal attack to choose, and two, the optimal choice needs to happen -fast-. You cannot afford to spend even a second making your decision, and this decision can change fast (if say, someone cures something 0.3s before you get balance back. Any attempt to make combat less automated would need to address these factors.

I can think of two ways for there not to be an optimal attack.

First, to make the information received so imperfect that you aren't sure what's best, and so you either have to leave it to chance (guess a hidden aff), or obtain perfect information (diagnose) (step one, above). Another way is to make the command output imperfect so you aren't sure what comes forth (inflicting random affs) (step three, above). The solution of randomness and the simplistic deferment of diagnosing makes this not a very appealing solution. It is why I respectfully disagree that discernment tweaks will serve to help our combat situation.

The second way is to introduce greater difficulty into processing information (see step two, above): to introduce more than one optimal solution. A trade-off where you can go for route X or Y, where each has its strengths and weaknesses. This already exists, albeit in limited form. For most classes, there is only one route to kill. For others, they can swap between affs or damage or limbs, etc. I do think that we should have more routes, rather than less, and I'm all for more dimensions such as movement tactics. Still though, the fact that each route has its strengths and weaknesses means that there will ultimately be optimal solutions. It just depends on which situation. Thus, we run back into the problem of AI-central.

Are there others ways to remove the optimal solution?

Ishin

The thing about an AI isn't that we couldn't do it without the AI. Clearly if we can make an AI, we could make smart aliases and such etc that would still pull from tables, and simply manual back and forth based on stimuli of varying types based on what we wanted to do/who we were fighting.

The issue is with our ability to process things. An AI will almost always be faster, simply because of the way the human brain works. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm certainly no Patrick Jane and my brain isn't a computer. Having mudlet track my affs and my target's affs and display those to me will always be more effective(for me) than to even attempt to do so myself.

I used to manual - in fact, I once beat Yos manually, and it's probably the most proud pk-moment I have in all of my Aetolian pvp history.

It's just..with how close most classes cure out of things compared to the window we have to re-afflict them with whatever's going to get the kill, an AI is almost necessary.

Moirean

As long as choices are a simple if/then, an AI is going to be better, and there's nothing wrong with that. Trying to remove that is just going to make combat frustrating. I guess, for me, it's not so much that the AI is there as it is combat being that simple linear thing. We've gotten really complex as far as what things we can do, while the fundamental concepts have gotten really simple. Nearly all wins these days are about getting a vlock in some form or getting multiple resto breaks.

@Valingar - I don't really want to get in a huge side-debate about this, but firebomb wasn't the same at all because you couldn't reliably interrupt it or defend against it in a team setting. It was just pre-load damage and walk in, and it worked on an AoE level. There were issues to the skill that needed fixing. I could see a few tweaks making it work similar to what I laid out, though. I was pulling an example from Avalon that was a semi-channeled skill that was easily interrupted and only worked with very specific sorts of movement, which made its use very easy to detect. Think of it like shatter, if you could start a shatter out of room and mount leap (and only mount leap) let you then move to finish the strike - you'd start reacting accordingly to that combination of things, people might move and spoof leaps in, etc.