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What do you think would improve the game?
Before I start off, I want to say this, because it always happens whenever this becomes a wide discussion:
I do not care how much money promos are making for IRE. The quality of the game as a whole is going downhill. I am sorry if this seems harsh or upsets anyone in pools, but that's just how it is.
Now, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but we need some stuff going on. By which I do not mean cutscenes that happen months apart. We need events we can ENGAGE with, clues left for us to follow and lead us to the climax, not just npcs shouting and being near unfindable.
It used to be that you could engage with an event outside of these little cutscenes moments. You could investigate things or ping relevant npcs to further the event or story. Shit, sometimes they would come find YOU. That doesn't happen anymore, it's mostly a shout or a scene you can't interact with and any attempt at learning more tends to be blocked off.
We also haven't really had events that encourage interaction much outside of the guild/org that event is clearly being run for. These events are fine, good even! But, there should be an even mix, in my mind. Some of the coolest events I can remember involved usual enemies having to become reluctant allies. Cross tether rp can be hard to get, and these events ENCOURAGE it, meaning you get to find more people to rp with!
We need a lore head. A paid writer. You keep saying it isn't in the budget, but considering you USED to have one, and you keep saying that you guys are "making more money than ever", I have a hard time believing that. Producer has to be an advocate for the health of the game, and I can't help but feel like the health of the story of the game is off the stove entirely while we watch another useless minipet get rolled out for a promo nobody asked for.
Finally: I can't help but wonder if part of the reluctance to listen to the request for events and more story is feeling insulted or attacked by our requests. You shouldn't, really. We just want the game to be as good as it once was. This isn't an attempt at an attack, it's just a hope to get our concerns taken seriously.
I do not care how much money promos are making for IRE. The quality of the game as a whole is going downhill. I am sorry if this seems harsh or upsets anyone in pools, but that's just how it is.
Now, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but we need some stuff going on. By which I do not mean cutscenes that happen months apart. We need events we can ENGAGE with, clues left for us to follow and lead us to the climax, not just npcs shouting and being near unfindable.
It used to be that you could engage with an event outside of these little cutscenes moments. You could investigate things or ping relevant npcs to further the event or story. Shit, sometimes they would come find YOU. That doesn't happen anymore, it's mostly a shout or a scene you can't interact with and any attempt at learning more tends to be blocked off.
We also haven't really had events that encourage interaction much outside of the guild/org that event is clearly being run for. These events are fine, good even! But, there should be an even mix, in my mind. Some of the coolest events I can remember involved usual enemies having to become reluctant allies. Cross tether rp can be hard to get, and these events ENCOURAGE it, meaning you get to find more people to rp with!
We need a lore head. A paid writer. You keep saying it isn't in the budget, but considering you USED to have one, and you keep saying that you guys are "making more money than ever", I have a hard time believing that. Producer has to be an advocate for the health of the game, and I can't help but feel like the health of the story of the game is off the stove entirely while we watch another useless minipet get rolled out for a promo nobody asked for.
Finally: I can't help but wonder if part of the reluctance to listen to the request for events and more story is feeling insulted or attacked by our requests. You shouldn't, really. We just want the game to be as good as it once was. This isn't an attempt at an attack, it's just a hope to get our concerns taken seriously.
3
Comments
I think the key element of a lot of complaints over the last eight months eventually settle back upon this request.
It keeps coming from the same players, sure, those players are entrenched and invested individuals with a lot at stake. They've proven they want Aetolia to succeed - they have a vested interest in it doing so, as it is a source of entertainment for them. It's a lot like they are regulars at a restaurant - they keep giving the owner the same complaint. At what point does the owner make a good faith attempt to investigate the claims and act upon them? What purpose would a regular have to lie about this? They want to keep coming back.
I think the challenge might be that the 'owner' in our restaurant scenario is not an independent operator. The 'owner'/Producer is running a franchise/branch/chapter and everything is handled down to them. They can't make this call without corporate's approval; I would hazard a guess that it would have already been done by now.
What do the 'restaurant's regulars' have to do to convey their pain points to 'corporate'?
See, on one hand you have the idea, since we hear so little lately that 'We are working on stuff that you don't know about yet', and then you have the alternative idea that 'They arent doing anything, we haven't heard or seen anything for a long time', and you have either one of these being right, or you have something in the middle.
The problem is that we don't know because it's not communicated. There's no more roadmaps, either, as I've said a million times lately. There are three paid staff on this game, and we have no idea where the game is going, other than downwards from most of our perspectives, because we don't hear about what the big plan is. All we see as players lately is that less people are logging on, and big content lately has been us either spending more real money. Promos are not content, and should not be content. They should be a metric by which we reward Iron Realms Entertainment for doing a good job, not the entire regular piece of content that we see posted about.
How about when we see the big monthly promo post, it's accompanied by what is being worked on right then for that coming month as well? How about along with the big monthly promo post, you hold yourself accountable and remind us what you did the previous month other than just a promo?
I know this sounds super aggressive from me, and I genuinely hate being negative, but man from our perspective, from the player's perspective, we just want this game we all love to meet its potential.
I am biased because I was directly involved in it, but I think the Q&A we did with @Tiur on the podcast in 2020 was an incredibly useful thing. Barely anyone took advantage of it at the time, but it was the sort of thing I think we should see every month, or every few months perhaps, instead of once every couple of years. That being said, I am also sympathetic towards the idea that there is only so many hours in a work week. There's things you can do though, avenues you can take to foster good will and improve the game. Just, please, start somewhere instead of remaining inert(in our eyes).
For me, just some roadmaps and community checkins would be great. I'd say we need checkins more than the roadmaps, as you don't have to worry about deadlines if you're just saying "this is what we're working on now". If a monthly checkin is too much, quarterly could be done, at the very least. That said, I think it's important to note that there's plenty of work being obviously done. I don't really bash, but I'm aware of 3 new 99+ bashing zones in the past couple months, for example.
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
I will start off by saying that Rasani is absolutely right and Aetolia -could- have a paid writer to help streamline events more, a position who's sole focus is content creation, events, and storylines. However, and this is where the button smashing is going to happen, the playerbase of Aetolia doesn't deserve one.
Time after time, event after event, storyline after storyline complaints are made. You can scroll through pages of the forums and find people's aggressive/passive-aggressive complaints about all types of events ranging from org specific related to Apocalypse Now events. You can ask an increasing amount of players about the emails they sent Tiur, Oleis, Razmael, Galleus, Matt, Jeremy, and others about their absolute negative thoughts on various events. You can ask about the overly negative communication people have had verbally in webs/clans regarding a plethora of events that all it amounts to is hating on the event that VOLUNTEERS spent weeks building to accomplish. Even to this day, there are people who are crying out about the whole Bloodloch Rebellion arc going on because "it's taking too long to accomplish". And this is just against the volunteers.
Let's not even get started about the fact that even if there WAS a paid position for a story writer, half of you wouldn't even respect them either. This is held up by the fact that the Celerity change back in 2020 done by Keroc (who made a change based off massive player complaints about people running away from combat) and he stepped down as combat head IN PART due to the players blasting him PERSONALLY via messages and emails about the experimental change. Rumor has it that Keroc was even sent death threats. Come on, people, really?? If you can't respect a long term paid admin about an experiment, what makes you think you're going to be respectful enough for a paid storywriter? If you can barely respect volunteers that DO hold events for you, what makes you think you're going to be respectful enough for a paid storywriter?
In the end, paid admin have stepped away because of the playerbase. Celani have stepped away because of the playerbase. PLAYERS have stepped away because of the playerbase. The players complain about a lack of storyline and content creation and by all means that is true. What the players fail to accept or realize is that they are the reason why storyline and content creation has been dwindling. So much like an unruly child, the players are being punished with the very same thing in which they complain about. And much like an unruly child, you don't get to come out of timeout until you've learned your lesson. A lesson the playerbase -still- hasn't learned.
Where is any of the support we give going? Why are promos the only content we get about 90% of the time in a given a year? The same playerbase you deride in your post(and rightfully so, again, I agree with a lot of it) also has the ability to just finally give up, and I really, for one, and you know this too because I know you were there too, do not want to see this game end up like Imperian.
It really will be hard to have a playerbase that's the opposite of what you're saying if the entire playerbase is gone. Just look at the other game, like 9 people on. Do you want Rhyot to be in a 9 player world? I don't think anyone wants that on any side of this game, either of the tethers, the players, the Pools, etc etc etc.
The game cannot continue to languish like this though, and the only way any of us feel we have any way to change any of it is to bark and be loud, because being quiet largely hasn't done much. The barking and loudness can, and should be measured though. It's also hard to take context/tone from forums and DMs and emails though. That is 100% why I made our literal voices be able to be heard through the podcast, and now the Twitch stream. It's seriously all I can do individually to try and be balanced and measured and like, a decent person to try and get our points across. I don't want to have to read threads like this. I don't want to have to complain like this. But what is the alternative? Just do nothing? Just be like everyone else and go play FFXIV? Like, I don't want that to be the case. It shouldn't be, either, we have a lot of potential in this game. It's just not being met, and it's not being communicated as to why that is. Not even with vagueries most of the time anymore, it's just silence these days.
We're all getting older, and those of us who are getting pushed away by the silence can literally just go do other things, and if that happens enough, it is a -proven fact from Imperian's example that it will kill the game-.
258 Anonymous Of blood, shadow, and Ayukazi: 10/18/2020259 Anonymous The price of freedom 11/7/2020
260 Anonymous The Adherent of Malevolence 12/7/2020261 Anonymous The return of Varach Scolrys 2/3/2021 a
262 Anonymous The Revenants and the Wardens 4/6/2021 a263 Anonymous The Den of Shadows 7/11/2021
Discounting the mirror classes and level 200 events, that's still 3 Events, one of them rather big. For all the people who note that other IRE games get at least one big event every year, that quota has been filled. It just so happens that our big event was lambasted by the playerbase for (imo) no good reason, and had to end early. None of that would change with a paid Lore head, either.
Moving on to Announce, we actually just recently passed a somber milestone: Keroc stepped down as Combat Lead just over one year ago. Rhyot already made the relevant points about that. Anyhow, here's the Announces:
3131 Tiur, the Gnosis Year 490 of the Midnight Age! 8/24/2020
3132 Tiur, the Gnosis Year 490 Rescheduling 8/26/2020
3133 Tiur, the Gnosis September 2020 9/1/2020 a3134 Tiur, the Gnosis Idea Day P1 9/16/2020
3135 'Mutineer' Tiur, the Gnosi Fine, I'll do it! 9/19/2020
3136 Tiur, the Gnosis Question Thread 9/23/2020
3137 Tiur, the Gnosis Delayed Promo 9/30/20203138 Tiur, the Gnosis October Promotion P1 10/2/2020
3139 Ere, the Celebrant Storytelling y490! 10/11/2020
3140 Chef Elaheh Adan y490 Iron Epicurean Winners 10/17/2020
3141 Ere, the Celebrant City Champs 10/17/2020
3142 Tiur, the Gnosis November 2020 11/1/20203143 Tiur, the Gnosis Cursed Event 11/25/2020
3144 Tiur, the Gnosis Thanksgiving! 11/26/2020
3145 Keroc, the Starborn Cyber Monday Sale! 11/30/20203146 Tiur, the Gnosis Diciembre 2020 12/1/20203147 Keroc, the Starborn War Ministry and Troops 12/2/2020
3148 Ere, the Celebrant Storytelling crystals/Epicurea 12/8/2020
3149 Keroc, the Starborn Djeirani race 12/13/2020
3150 Tiur, the Gnosis Celesmas 2020 12/16/2020
3151 Keroc, the Starborn Tsinkin outcast village 12/17/2020
3152 Tiur, the Gnosis Classlead Changes 12/18/2020
3153 Keroc, the Starborn Celesmas Games 12/19/2020
3154 Tedrunai Anonymous Encounters 12/19/2020
3155 Tiur, the Gnosis January 2021 1/1/2021 a3156 Tiur, the Gnosis Classleads January 2021 1/1/2021 a
3157 Razmael, the Synthesist Clawhook Range & surrounding a 1/2/2021 a
3158 Tiur, the Gnosis End of Year 2020 1/4/2021 a
3159 Tiur, the Gnosis Multiple Artifacts 1/10/2021
3160 Tiur, the Gnosis Classleads Submissions Closed 1/14/2021
3161 Tiur, the Gnosis Celebrating January 20th 1/20/2021
3162 Ceraen Interactive timeline of Aetoli 1/24/2021
3163 Razmael, the Synthesist Banned player 1/30/2021
3164 Tiur, the Gnosis February 2021 2/1/2021 a3165 Razmael, the Synthesist Command rate limit 2/3/2021 a
3166 Nalus the Liaison Classleads January 2021 - part 2/6/2021 a
3167 Nalus the Liaison Classleads January 2021 - part 2/9/2021 a
3168 Keroc, the Starborn The Duel 2/10/2021
3169 Tiur, the Gnosis March 2021 3/1/2021 a3170 Tiur, the Gnosis Credit Loans 3/7/2021 a
3171 Tiur, the Gnosis Where's Mining and Mirrors? 3/11/2021
3172 Tiur, the Gnosis April! 4/1/2021 a3173 Tiur, the Gnosis Revenants 4/3/2021 a
3174 Razmael, the Synthesist Wardens release! 4/4/2021 a
3175 Tiur, the Gnosis Artifacts! 4/9/2021 a
3176 Tiur, the Gnosis Aegis and PK 4/9/2021 a
3177 Tiur, the Gnosis 2021 Celani Call! 4/9/2021 a
3178 Keroc, the Starborn The Duel 4/13/2021
3179 Keroc, the Starborn The Duel 4/14/2021
3180 Tiur, the Gnosis April Refresh 4/16/20213181 Keroc, the Starborn Class tweaks 4/21/2021
3182 Keroc, the Starborn Shamans 4/28/2021
3183 Tiur, the Gnosis May 2021 4/30/20213184 Keroc, the Starborn Back from the dead? 5/4/2021 a
3185 Tiur, the Gnosis What's Aetolia Doing Ep 2 5/8/2021 a
3186 Tiur, the Gnosis Mother's Day 2021 5/9/2021 a
3187 Tiur, the Gnosis New Server Test 5/25/2021
3188 Tiur, the Gnosis June Promotion 5/31/20213189 Tiur, the Gnosis June Promotion Try #3 6/1/2021 a
3190 Tiur, the Gnosis Niuri Stones 6/1/2021 a3191 Keroc, the Starborn The Duel 6/12/2021
3192 Tiur, the Gnosis Father's Day 6/20/20213193 Tiur, the Gnosis Guild Rankset 6/28/2021
3194 Tiur, the Gnosis July Promotion 7/1/2021 a3195 Tiur, the Gnosis Classleads Jun...JULY 2021 7/13/2021
3196 Tiur, the Gnosis Room Credits 7/14/2021
3197 Keroc, the Starborn Treaties and relations 7/16/2021
3198 Tiur, the Gnosis 2021 Auction 7/20/20213199 Keroc, the Starborn More treaty terms! 7/27/2021
3200 Tiur, the Gnosis Classleads Closed 7/28/2021
3201 Keroc, the Starborn More treaty terms 7/28/2021
3202 Tiur, the Gnosis Auction II 7/28/20213203 Razmael, the Synthesist Minotaur playable race 7/29/2021
3204 Tiur, the Gnosis August Promo 8/1/2021 aNow I feel bad about asking for quarterly checkins, because that's also a quota that's all but been filled, with 3 bolded checkins in the past year. I think some consistency would do a lot for community trust. In other words, if we can't do classleads at the start of every quarter, maybe we can get a checkin. That said, it's not actually been that bad.
As for "90% promos", I actually see a lot more than just promos. There's a smattering of events (ma490, CTF, Duels, seasonal freebies), a decent amount of combat balancing despite not having a Combat Lead any more, and a whole host of new features. Most notable among the new features are a lot of things that help the players tell stories in unique ways (Anonymous Encounters, Treaty changes, troop movements).
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
While we have had a decent deal of mechanical events, when I joined Aetolia, we really didn't go very long in between narrative events as well. The curse event, the one I think you're referring to, is claimed to have been an "ooc event". I don't really consider it narrative (and I sort of consider it to be poor timing, it might've done better during a year where people WEREN'T cooped up in their own homes already, having to avoid contact with others). Heck, I joined at the start of a narrative event, and I remember barely having a month before another big narrative event was happening.
That's what feels like it's missing from Aetolia. As for Rhyot saying this is, uh, "punishment" I guess? For harsh customer feedback, problem is that wasn't what killed narrative events, the removal of a permanent lore head did that.
Tiur at one point said to me that he felt they couldn't have events without something to release with them. I think THAT is the worrisome mindset. And I imagine part of that stems from the clear drive from IRE to have a lot of promos (more money to make and all). They're all busy coding, absolutely, but a narrative event doesn't NEED a promo or a class release or anything like that. There's already so many playthings in the toychest of Aetolia. What narrative events need is someone whos focus is narrative events.
We might not agree, and that's chill. You may feel the playerbase doesn't deserve one, but the reality is we're paying customers. I've said it before and I'll say it again: We're either a community of people building a story together, in which case the concerns of players should be taken into consideration and we should have SOME way to impact the world in which we play, or we are paying customers, in which case it falls to the people we pay to listen to our feedback. Out of all of this, the one thing I've experienced most of all is admin, even ones I've spoken to personally one on one, not really listening to the customer feedback offered. Game studios that make bad games to spite consumers don't last long, and the idea that it's any different for Aetolia just because it's a text game is kind of redonk.
That said, hey! If you're chill with how stuff is, that's fine! All I am really hoping for is for the game to have the same interesting narrative it did when I started playing. I'm not here to dunk on anyone who is still having fun.
EDIT: It galls me that "harsh customer feedback" is how the playerbase's actions are described. I just wanna say, in no uncertain terms, that some of what Tiur and other game runners have allegedly had to deal with has not been okay. No amount of money changing hands would make it okay. Any who feel their purchases should justify abusing another person should reevaluate their worldview.
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
Combat I can't really speak to. I know there's always a lot of high tensions around combat stuff, but I don't really understand it and it's not my wheelhouse, so I don't want to speak to anything I'm not SUPER familiar with, that seems dishonest. However, the outright abuse thing is easy.
If people abuse others, you ban them. Maybe a temporary one at first. And I get that our player base is small. But if it is genuine abuse (and not just people saying they disagree with something you did. There is a difference and there are different sets of people that have done each one. I've had a polite, yet honest and blunt conversation with Tiur, for example. But I'm also well aware there are some folks who have been abusive) then you punish them. Unfortunately, it's not just admin some players are abusing. It's also each other.
I've, in the past, absolutely been a victim of player abuses. I've seen logs belittling me, people have called me a f*g in webs they didn't think would find their way to me and people have talked in discord channels about trying to run me out of a shop and renaming it something offensive just to get at me. I'm WELL aware of how abusive the player base can be. However, how do admin expect abuse against them to stop if they remain unwilling to stop abuse against other players?
Rhyot is right in that the player base can be abusive, but they'll either stop or they'll be banned if we actually start PUNISHING people who ARE abusive. But, I think it's a fair thing to worry about! However, that doesn't mean it's still not worth doing. It means, while we fix the narrative problem, we have to fix the abuse problem. They don't have to be one or the other!
The game can only improve when the playerbase improves, and I just don't know if we're on the right track. A goodly number of reasonable, non-toxic players have made very vocal departures in the past months, but I haven't seen anyone go and thought "good riddance".
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
I sent an email to folks at IRE today, 50 players, some of those good actors who left, asking for something to be done for the sorry state of storytelling in Aetolia. I've spoken with a lot of folks who have left that, even if I didn't always agree with, I still knew were good for the game who have said a lore head would bring them back. We as players can continue to call out bad actors, and we should even do it MORE, but the only one with a permanent solution to bad actors, at the end of the day, is admin. If they are unwilling to ban people, there's not a lot we can do. If they're unable because of like, IRE policy or something, then that is absolutely something I would back admin up on bringing to their bosses. Bad company policy shouldn't permit abuse.
Absolutely no one deserves to be abused or otherwise harassed, purposefully pinged, etc. and so forth, just because customer satisfaction is lagging. No one is arguing that they do. Criticism like this (the original post), while may sting, is geared to be constructive. It is done from a place of wanting to see genuine change, and if you want to nitpick on what an event is, or are otherwise happy with where things are with the game, that's great! But you can't really argue that a fair number of people are not having fun and see massive room for improvement, and the only thing keeping them around is sunk cost and pipe dreams/nostalgia.
It's not about 'deserving,' as if this is some moral argument. This game is a product, even if the product is merely a passion project for some, and paid work for others. Work still needs to be done, forward momentum still needs to be achieved or at least strived for in a meaningful way if you expect it to pull out of or at least not continue its steady decline, and in the end, it's become kind of a chicken or the egg argument: are players acting out and slinging abuse to admin because they're unhappy, or they're bored and aren't seeing resources put to where they think resources need to be, so admin are burnt out and not adequately meeting the players' needs...or are the admin not adequately meeting players' needs so the players are acting out and slinging abuse etc. Again, both can be and are true. It would be great if something could break that cycle--even if you're happy with the state of the game, I'm sure anyone could agree it would be great if more fellow players felt heard and were happy with the product they pay for, and consequently the admin get more or any encouraging feedback--and that's the purpose of this thread, I imagine.
Many players perceive a difference and a decline in the quality of the product. Particularly--but not only--players who have been around long enough to see more than a few of Aetolia's many phases. Those players know what it looked and felt and played like when we had an actual lore head, and/or people up in the Pools specifically dedicated to and passionate about lore and events. And they (we) know what it feels like now. The discrepancy between the two is where the grievance lies, and it's fixable, but it's up to people smarter (and/or more paid) than me to figure out how. Or, nothing has to change and a thread like this or the 'final goodbyes' can keep cropping up every few weeks until the game is dead in the water.
Coded updates and editions are great, and deserve much appreciation, I just want to hammer that in along with Seurimas' enumeration! The work Keroc and Razmael and Tiur and other less visible Celani and admin put into coding is vastly appreciated. But that's not all there is to the game. That's what they enjoy and are good at, and there are other people that enjoy and are good at lore and creative arcs. Right now, to me at least, it feels like they're trying to juggle all of the balls, and half of them (the coherent roleplay and world arc half) are getting dropped because of it. That's where the posited lore producer comes in.
I actually went through and categorized what these posts are about. Here's what I found:
Holiday related: 8 including new years update post and the post about the Curse event
PVP Event related posts: 5
City/Guild related: 5
Major Rules PR/Reminders: 2
Race/Class Additions: 4
Credit/Artifact related: 5
Infrastructure/Production: 2
Classleads/Mechanics: 10
Prog related projects: 3
Year 490: 6
General PR: 2
Of those Classleads/Mechanics updates, 4 of them were announcing the beginning or end of classleads.
Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Rules reminders: 1
Year 490 games: 6
Idea Days: 1
Talk Like a Pirate promo: 1
Question Thread: 1
Curse Event: 1
Thanksiging double milestones: 1
War Ministry/Troop update: 1
Djeirani Release: 1
Celesmas Stuff: 3
Classlead/changes Related: 8
Anonymous Encounters Release: 1
Clawhook Range and Surrounding updates: 1
End of 2020 post: 1
Multi Artifact Update: 1
January 20th celebration: 1
Interactive Timeline Release: 1
PR Regarding Banned Player: 1
Command Rate Limiter: 1
Duel: 4
Credit Loans System: 1
Mining/Mirrors Update: 1
Revenant/Warden Release: 2
Artifact Post: 1
Aegis and PK update: 1
Celani Call: 1
CTF: 1
Mothers Day: 1
New Server Testing: 1
Rankset: 1
Room Credits: 1
Treaties Changes: 3
Minotaur release: 1
Make of that what you will. But I think it's fair to say that there is a bunch of stuff there that is viewed as pretty obligatory.