Warden: Cheers, mates

[graysun]

Late last year I took a short LOA as a unique job opportunity led to moving my family across the pond for a few years. However, after settling in, the combination of my increased job requirements plus significant increase in Daddy Duties (TM) as the wee lad has become more active (aka, up with walking, down with sleeping!) have made it clear to me that it's time to turn the reins over for good.

It has been a great joy to work for you, the GemStone players, over these past 11+ years on staff. I especially appreciate the many friendships that have come through this opportunity.

Thanks to each of you for your part in what has been a long, rewarding journey.

Warden

link to post (https://www.play.net/forums/messages.asp?forum=102&category=13&topic=10&message=3002)

[Stanley Burrell]

Maybe he'll post on the PC.

[thefarmer]

lawl

[Archigeek]

I am sure some of you hate the guy, (some of you hate everyone) but Marty is a standup guy who did a lot of great work for Gemstone. Hope he has a great time with the family.

[AestheticLife]

FREE CRIT WEIGHTING MERCHANTS FOR EVERYONE!!!1!!SHIFT+1!!!

[kookiegod]

Marty was by far one of the visionaries of GemStone's successes. He always had since I became a GM the hardest job in GS which was saying 'No.' Whether it was too much, too powerful, too underpowered (yes, he did say that too), and knew everything about everything mechanical.

Wow, I'm blown away with him leaving. I'd expect Coase to take over as head of development, he's got some great skills and vision, and can code like an animal.

Just wow, a post Warden GS...who'da thunk????

~Paul

[Skeeter]

the man who killed gs is gone

[Androidpk]

I am sure some of you hate the guy, (some of you hate everyone) but Marty is a standup guy who did a lot of great work for Gemstone. Hope he has a great time with the family.

I honestly can't think of a GM or GH that I haven't gotten along with. Even Emeraden, he answered a question of mine while I was in Darkstone once and he started killing all the roa'ters attacking me. :)

[Wrathbringer]

FREE CRIT WEIGHTING MERCHANTS FOR EVERYONE!!!1!!SHIFT+1!!!

lol :yeahthat:

Unnerf padding and damage weighting now too. Someone get on that.

[zhelas]

He always had since I became a GM the hardest job in GS which was saying 'No.' Whether it was too much, too powerful, too underpowered (yes, he did say that too), and knew everything about everything mechanical.

Having to make those decisions does stink. He walked around with a huge bulleyes on his back for criticism.

I wish him the best of luck.

Hopefully whoever replaces him will loosen the tight grip a little bit on the game. Maybe some of the things that are being held up might get rolled out.

Peace

[Mathari]

I always thought Warden was pretty cool.

Now, END OF GEMSTONE?!?!?!1111ONE!?

[Drew]

Wow. When I was just starting back up I didn't like Warden much because of how hard it was to get anything nice in Gem. Now that I've worked hard over the past 7 years and have a lot of nice stuff I appreciate his jewish attitude. I'm old and the future scares me.

[Mistomeer]

the man who killed gs is gone

He ran it into the ground. Now that he's done that, his work here is over.

[Ardwen]

Warden had little to nothing to do with running it into the ground

[Durgrimst]

Warden had little to nothing to do with running it into the ground

Neither did the fetus in your pic, but we all have to blame somebody.

[Makkah]

RIP Gemstone :(

[Mistomeer]

Warden had little to nothing to do with running it into the ground

Every major change in the game came under Warden's and most with his approval, but no player ever quit because of changes made to the game.

[Latrinsorm]

Cheers Warden! I think you had the right of it.

[Skeeter]

I'm surprised so many people liked his nazi regime.

[larktrill]

Warden was pretty amazing.

He read our posts, he considered our concerns and he made the best choice he could. And considering his knowledge of how things worked rivaled an encyclopaedia, his choices were usually pretty right on.

I am sure someone just fine will step up, but Warden will be missed.

Larktrill

[That Jay]

Its hard to tell whether he will be missed or not yet. He influence was so comprehensive that its almost impossible to tell whether things would have been better or worse without him. Time will tell.

I had no major problems with his reign. Somebody has to say no. Although, I do find it ludicrous the notion that it is hard to say no. Ophion proved it was easy. Now to say no and still be liked, well, that may be difficult. :)

Granted, he and Andraste (both pre-GM), with obvious bias, ripped me on the GS III boards once for having the nerve to suggest that the Silver Gryphon monopoly on forging testing was favoritism and inappropriate. But we all have our dick-ish moments.

I do wish him fair winds and good fortune.

[Methais]

I honestly can't think of a GM or GH that I haven't gotten along with. Even Emeraden, he answered a question of mine while I was in Darkstone once and he started killing all the roa'ters attacking me. :)

Should have reported him for poaching.


Having to make those decisions does stink. He walked around with a huge bulleyes on his back for criticism.

I like Warden overall, but damn so many of his nerfs have sucked so much fun out of the game over the years.

I vote Tsin to take his place.

[Mistomeer]

I'm surprised so many people liked his nazi regime.

I don't think it's a matter of people liking it; I think it's a matter of indifference. Hardly anyone plays the game anymore so people on the PC don't much who's still on staff.

I can tell you this - from a mechanics standpoint, broken game or not, the game was alot more fun before they started "fixing" all of the broken things and bringing in game balance.

[Celephais]

My biggest issue w/ balance in gemstone is that the game isn't setup to be based on a players skill, a balanced FPS for example will result in the player with the most skill winning, a balanced game like Chess will result in the most skilled player winning. Gemstone is neither of these. You can't plan 10 moves ahead, and you can't beat the reaction time of a script. The only "skill check" left is for people who write scripts, and enjoy it (the last stint of playing for me was based entirely on enjoying the skill test of writing scripts)

It used to be that there was a possible tradeoff a person could do, trade in being weak early for being strong later, there was a sort of balance with imbalance. Fixskills, and being able to 'make up' training has ruined that (by 'make up' I mean the fact you can not train in climbing the first 40 levels, then train in it 20 times at level 41, all at the 1x cost).

[Kuyuk]

I disliked the disneyfication of the game.

You can't kill people.
You can't swear.
You can't use some of the spells in the game because, well, just because.
Interactions between people are usually lame and no one RPs anymore.


Also, the fact that doing some things without scripting is absofuckinglutely retarded (travelling from EN to landing, etc).

Also, what Celephais said.

While I dont play anymore, I wish Warden the best, as I dont know what he did/didnt do for GS

Someone should make a table of things he did, and we can all democratically say if it's good or bad he's leaving.



I love lamp.

[Atlanteax]

Gemstone probably would had been a lot more fun if "hunting" was a far more engaging experience.

ie, no 1-shot kills of critters, or them of you ... stretch the avg of hits to kill from 2-3 to 4-6.

Maybe some sort of universal DFRedux that all classes benefit from (but obviously Squares and Semis benefiting more) and provide similar padding to critters.

But that is just one element of many that would have to be revised, so as to allow truly powerful items to be prevalent in the game again.

As without any such modifications, allowing players to be more potent in dishing out damage leads to mindless 1-shot-ing everything.

[Kuyuk]

But hey, an arrow in the eyeball will most certainly kill anything in one hit. Specially if the roll ends in 200++

[Mistomeer]

It used to be that there was a possible tradeoff a person could do, trade in being weak early for being strong later, there was a sort of balance with imbalance. Fixskills, and being able to 'make up' training has ruined that (by 'make up' I mean the fact you can not train in climbing the first 40 levels, then train in it 20 times at level 41, all at the 1x cost).

Couldn't agree more. You combine that with things like the redesign of the CS formula, fame, and the nerfing of Symbol of Dreams, raising, healing, enchanting, ambush, skinning etc. and all of the sudden you've alienated a huge percentage of the player base. Take enchanting for example. You had players that put in alot of work so they could enchant 10x gear and then take it away and give a nerfed version of enchant that's much easier to attain with the implementation of fixskills. Or take a look at skinning. You had players training First Aid from level 0 so they could one day make silvers and then the skin system is nerfed and then made available to everyone with fixskills. Fixskill into a skinner, make 20mil, fixskill back to a power hunting build.

In the end, what happened was that any uniqueness to character builds was wiped out and the hard work that some players had put into their characters was for nothing. So yeah, while Warden did some good things (redux, hunting grounds to name a couple) I think that the changes he was in charge of did more to run off players than to keep players interested or bring in new players.

[Mistomeer]

I disliked the disneyfication of the game.

Also, the fact that doing some things without scripting is absofuckinglutely retarded (travelling from EN to landing, etc).



Or the retarded implementation of archery or thrown weapons.

[Parkbandit]

You can still kill people, you just need an in character reason to do it... and a non-stupid GM to know the difference between PvP and CvC. Adraste was one that could never tell the difference.. especially if you killed one of her friends.

[Celephais]

But hey, an arrow in the eyeball will most certainly kill anything in one hit. Specially if the roll ends in 200++
Realism is out the window already though, massively redux'd warriors seem to be okay with 200+ endrolls to the eyeball. That and what exactly is a 200+ endroll in realism terms? I don't care if you fired an arrow at my eye and got a 101 endroll, in real life, you fired an arrow from a bow, and it hit my eye... I don't get a "Bonk to the eye, might bruise up tomorrow"... I fucking die.

Gemstone's combat system as compared to any other game I've played lacks attrition, as Atlanteax said, combat is a series of instant kills, it's kind of pointless, there's no time to develop strategy in combat, you simply massacre things.

If they made combat a bit more drawn out, but balanced the exp so that leveling doesn't take even longer (hopefully balance it so it takes a hell of a lot less time), I'd be tempted to reactivate. There's no point in me playing when I never experience that satisfaction of doing a good job in the face of danger, as a wizard it's just a situation of either I'm dead or I'm untouchable.

[Methais]

Someone should make a table of things he did, and we can all democratically say if it's good or bad he's leaving.

WARDEN TABLE:

NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF

[Endaar]

Wow, a lot of bitching going on here.

Start playing the game again (I'm just enjoying my renaissance as we speak), bring up the community numbers, start posting intelligent and constructive content on the officials as opposed to the elitist crap that typically keeps me away from ever dreaming of posting on there, and lo & behold, a difference might be made.

Community breeds development. Who wants to develop for a playerbase that only ever declines? I know I wouldn't.

I suspect (based on the typical reaction that seems to pervade this non-playing community) I will be heavily neg-repped for this sort of post. Go right ahead. If writing things like this convinces even 1 person to come back, over the long haul, I've done my job.

Also I don't understand how so many people are saying how FIXSKILLS (not just in this thread, obviously) has ruined the game. The process doesn't grow on trees, you know. You get ONE PER CALENDAR YEAR. And then one for every quarter-million BPs you want to drop on it (and come on, I don't care how uber-leet you are at this game, you can't just earn that overnight). That's hardly game-breaking or system-breaking. It's almost as if you don't WANT people to experience different things -- seriously, that's what makes this game fun. Maybe I don't want to be a swinging cleric for ten years? How boring would that be? Or a wizard that only is good for enchanting, or good for warmag'ing. For ten years. Right. Have fun with that.

/end-rant.

Just have fun! The way other people have fun doesn't impact the way you do.

Cheers...
-E.

[DCSL]

I like how the self-righteous new posters make it seem like they're doing something good, a favor, when they expound like this. "Done my job," huh... What are you, a missionary sent out to the cold, friendless jungle to improve the world of savages who never thought there was anything wrong with it to begin with? So noble. We thank you.

[AnticorRifling]

LOL

[Archigeek]

I like how the self-righteous new posters make it seem like they're doing something good, a favor, when they expound like this. "Done my job," huh... What are you, a missionary sent out to the cold, friendless jungle to improve the world of savages who never thought there was anything wrong with it to begin with? So noble. We thank you.

Unlike the self-righteous old posters? Nah, there aren't any of those. All a bunch of angels here who are only thinking of the common good. Piety and humility abound....

[Latrinsorm]

My biggest issue w/ balance in gemstone is that the game isn't setup to be based on a players skill, a balanced FPS for example will result in the player with the most skill winning, a balanced game like Chess will result in the most skilled player winning. Gemstone is neither of these. You can't plan 10 moves ahead, and you can't beat the reaction time of a script. The only "skill check" left is for people who write scripts, and enjoy it (the last stint of playing for me was based entirely on enjoying the skill test of writing scripts)I think it's a question of what the game is fundamentally about, and I think the answer is that the game is supposed to be fun for casual players. Also worth pointing out is that many games (e.g. every major organized sport) do not necessarily result in the most skilled winning, but skill still plays an important role. Any game where luck is a factor (e.g. GemStone) logically has to rely somewhat less on skill.

I think it's also worth considering that GemStone III was just that - a sequel and extension of an original theme. It is conceivable that the environment some of us remember fondly was the aberration, or a game that GemStone was never intended to be.

[4a6c1]

It's the end of the world as we know it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eyFiClAzq8

[DCSL]

Unlike the self-righteous old posters? Nah, there aren't any of those. All a bunch of angels here who are only thinking of the common good. Piety and humility abound....

Exactly.

[Celephais]

Wow, a lot of bitching going on here.

Start playing the game again (I'm just enjoying my renaissance as we speak), bring up the community numbers, start posting intelligent and constructive content on the officials as opposed to the elitist crap that typically keeps me away from ever dreaming of posting on there, and lo & behold, a difference might be made.

Community breeds development. Who wants to develop for a playerbase that only ever declines? I know I wouldn't.

I suspect (based on the typical reaction that seems to pervade this non-playing community) I will be heavily neg-repped for this sort of post. Go right ahead. If writing things like this convinces even 1 person to come back, over the long haul, I've done my job.

Also I don't understand how so many people are saying how FIXSKILLS (not just in this thread, obviously) has ruined the game. The process doesn't grow on trees, you know. You get ONE PER CALENDAR YEAR. And then one for every quarter-million BPs you want to drop on it (and come on, I don't care how uber-leet you are at this game, you can't just earn that overnight). That's hardly game-breaking or system-breaking. It's almost as if you don't WANT people to experience different things -- seriously, that's what makes this game fun. Maybe I don't want to be a swinging cleric for ten years? How boring would that be? Or a wizard that only is good for enchanting, or good for warmag'ing. For ten years. Right. Have fun with that.

/end-rant.

Just have fun! The way other people have fun doesn't impact the way you do.

Cheers...
-E.
There are a good number of people who do play who post and read here, and I think the points brought up by those who don't play anymore are extremely valid in the line of trying to accomplish that "bring the community" back. Personally I'm an off and on player, having just canceled my account last month.

The being "stuck" in one mode thing is very important to allowing people to establish characters, cheaper/free multiple character slots would fix the issue of boredom, what you seem to be missing from my point is that people could become extremely powerful if they were dedicated enough to go through the low end. The best example I've heard (dont' know his name) was the cleric who managed to 3x spells for his entire life, and had an INSANE clerical CS, but had a very difficult starting life (couldn't afford other combat skills). Because anyone could just fixskills to that power level, they had to 'balance' that power level.


I think it's a question of what the game is fundamentally about, and I think the answer is that the game is supposed to be fun for casual players.
The leveling system would make me think no it's not for casual players. The time sinks are massive.

Also worth pointing out is that many games (e.g. every major organized sport) do not necessarily result in the most skilled winning, but skill still plays an important role. Any game where luck is a factor (e.g. GemStone) logically has to rely somewhat less on skill.
I wasn't saying gemstone should be based on skill, I'm saying they need to embrace the fact they are NOT based on skill, they're based on luck. I don't want to flip a coin for hours on end, so strategy becomes a viable 'player input', strategy is severly lacking in one-hit-kills combat.


I think it's also worth considering that GemStone III was just that - a sequel and extension of an original theme. It is conceivable that the environment some of us remember fondly was the aberration, or a game that GemStone was never intended to be.
I absolutely agree that my memory of gemstone is much better than it was, the novelty of it, etc. I just don't think the game has grown with it's player base the way it needs to.

[Latrinsorm]

The leveling system would make me think no it's not for casual players. The time sinks are massive.Think of every Zelda game you've ever played, if you will. They are all awesome, but they are all finite, they always leave you wanting more. One response could be to make a game that though still finite is functionally infinite; that is, a casual player probably never finishes it.
I wasn't saying gemstone should be based on skill, I'm saying they need to embrace the fact they are NOT based on skill, they're based on luck. I don't want to flip a coin for hours on end, so strategy becomes a viable 'player input', strategy is severly lacking in one-hit-kills combat.I don't follow. What do you mean by embracing luck and strategy input?

[Mistomeer]

Wow, a lot of bitching going on here.

Start playing the game again (I'm just enjoying my renaissance as we speak), bring up the community numbers, start posting intelligent and constructive content on the officials as opposed to the elitist crap that typically keeps me away from ever dreaming of posting on there, and lo & behold, a difference might be made.


You do realize that many of the posters here have been very involved in contributing to Gemstone over the years, right? People that post here aren't just a bunch of malcontents that only come here and bitch. Sure, that happens, but the many have contributed a great deal to the game over the years.



Community breeds development. Who wants to develop for a playerbase that only ever declines? I know I wouldn't.


And apparently no one else does either. Monks RSN! Zing!



I suspect (based on the typical reaction that seems to pervade this non-playing community) I will be heavily neg-repped for this sort of post. Go right ahead. If writing things like this convinces even 1 person to come back, over the long haul, I've done my job.


You sure you don't currently hold a marketing job with Simu? That sounds pretty close to their strategy. Run off 20 players, add 1 re-activation by posting on the PC.




Also I don't understand how so many people are saying how FIXSKILLS (not just in this thread, obviously) has ruined the game. The process doesn't grow on trees, you know. You get ONE PER CALENDAR YEAR.


You're missing something there. Every single characters gets 1 FREE PER CALENDAR YEAR. Otherwise, there's an endless supply available in game for about 9mil/shot. The process absolutely grows on trees. Basically, you can buy a fixskill potion for about the monthly cost of 1 Premium Account + 1 Basic Account.



And then one for every quarter-million BPs you want to drop on it (and come on, I don't care how uber-leet you are at this game, you can't just earn that overnight).


You can absolutely earn the 9mil or so the potion costs in about 24 hours IG. Or you can just spend the $60 or so to buy one.



That's hardly game-breaking or system-breaking. It's almost as if you don't WANT people to experience different things -- seriously, that's what makes this game fun. Maybe I don't want to be a swinging cleric for ten years? How boring would that be? Or a wizard that only is good for enchanting, or good for warmag'ing. For ten years. Right. Have fun with that.

/end-rant.


I think you're missing the point. Who was it, Greentide, that 3x'd sorc spells from level 0 to create a massively powerful character at later levels? And then, the CS formula changed, which resulted in the character being less effective. Later, Fixskills is introduced and now the player that had a near impossible time getting to level 20 in order to get that payoff now had a character that's a common commodity.

In the end, what Fixskills did was eliminated many of the player-based goals that people had set for themselves. You look at the game now with all the tweaks to things like societies, CS formulas, stat generation and combine that with Fixskills and the ability to build unique characters is all but gone. For example, if you were to take 5 50 train clerics today what you would see is a group of characters that are nearly identical. They would all have roughly the same CS, would advance the same way (hunting) and would all hunt using the same techniques. In the past, you could have 5 50 train clerics and some would swing, the CS could be vastly different and some would just advance through raising.

So yeah, I do think Warden ran the game into the ground. You can't discount the fact that he was in charge of developing the game and in that time the player base dropped about 75%.

[HSB]

My 0.02...

I think Simu has had to make decisions along the lines of appealing to the larger numbers. If they were to skew things in favor of the (admittedly few) power-levelers from back in the day, then the broad masses never would have gotten to experience some things. I remember back when I started out, I was all about setting short-term goals... "Man, I can't wait until I can pick SILVERBACK boxes!" "Man, I can't imagine how cool it must be to be able to go on fog rescues." "Man, how awesome would it be to be able to have a familiar following me around?" Those sorts of things. So when they did things that made it easier for me to advance to that point, or made it possible to fixskill over to a build that allowed me those experiences, I was a happy camper. Of course, then I started looking for the next challenge. If they had designed a system wherein I would have had to start from zero, play a wizard up through the hellish nightmare that used to be the first 20 levels for the class, just to get my familiar... I might have said no thanks. As it was / is though, I can swing a claidh for the first month and I have said familiar. Of course, now I have other goals that I'm working towards, but I've stayed engaged / interested. Have some of the older characters suffered / been made less special? Sure, but I don't know how they could have made the game more fun for everyone else, and opened up those 'cool' experiences to a much less exclusive number without that kind of an approach.

[HSB]

Also... as someone who doesn't follow the officials at ALL... has there been any talk of a successor from the powers that be? I'm completely ignorant of any possible candidates for the position (if it hasn't already been made by Warden/Simu), and what their agendas might be. Anyone have any insight as to what sort of changes we can expect / be rooting for based on a forthcoming successor?

[Kuyuk]

The next successor will release monks within the first week in position.

[Latrinsorm]

Who was it, Greentide, that 3x'd sorc spells from level 0 to create a massively powerful character at later levels? And then, the CS formula changed, which resulted in the character being less effective. Later, Fixskills is introduced and now the player that had a near impossible time getting to level 20 in order to get that payoff now had a character that's a common commodity. I think Greentide was the guy who was made literally unviable by a change early in III or maybe even in II. Malokii is the quintessential hard-road-early character that FIXSKILLS made unnecessary. I think we disagree on whether that obviates hard-road-early characters, though. I made an empath that only healed from level 1, a sorcerer that only casted from level 0. It is totally accurate to say that other people obtained the same levels/abilities with less effort, but I don't play the game for other people, I play the game for my enjoyment.
For example, if you were to take 5 50 train clerics today what you would see is a group of characters that are nearly identical. They would all have roughly the same CS, would advance the same way (hunting) and would all hunt using the same techniques. In the past, you could have 5 50 train clerics and some would swing, the CS could be vastly different and some would just advance through raising.If they really wanted to, each of those five clerics could have a unique primary experience method. I think the most accurate description of the changes are that we have gone from a few strong paths for each profession to lots of viable paths for each profession. It is inevitable that one of these viable paths will be the "strongest", and it is inevitable that powergamers will gravitate towards that path.

I also think we have had this discussion before, and I have not yet convinced you. Someday! :)

[Drew]

The best example I've heard (dont' know his name) was the cleric who managed to 3x spells for his entire life, and had an INSANE clerical CS, but had a very difficult starting life (couldn't afford other combat skills). Because anyone could just fixskills to that power level, they had to 'balance' that power level.



Right, they were in above level 40 with 14 HP. But they could overhunt like crazy. I forget the name. Fixskills did make these guys generic again, but honestly I think it was an improvement for the average player. As a power player I sometimes miss the chance to make a real powerful mutant, but you can still do interesting things. For instance Teffor is a warrior around the mid 40s who solely uses bolt spells he invokes off scrolls. Droit is insanely powerful only because you could fixskill, the old training way would have made it impossible (trust me I know I played a mutant 2 handed ranger before GS4, it wasn't easy or - really - viable).


Although there were cool things to do before fixskills people should remember that 99% of all players were sword and board. Now players swing all types of weapons and there are so many more options in how you can train and still be viable.

[Celephais]

What do you mean by embracing luck and strategy input?
So what I "input" into the game right now is simply the same thing over and over, I don't have to make any strategy based decisions, because I don't have a chance actually responding to a situation. As it is right now my strategy is to make sure I'm not in a swarm, if so leave, then just attack in order of priority. There is never a combat evolved strategy that I need to employ. I'm returning to fight the same things over and over, and I can overcome them with a very simple 'spam this spell' until they're dead.


My 0.02...

I think Simu has had to make decisions along the lines of appealing to the larger numbers. If they were to skew things in favor of the (admittedly few) power-levelers from back in the day, then the broad masses never would have gotten to experience some things. I remember back when I started out, I was all about setting short-term goals... "Man, I can't wait until I can pick SILVERBACK boxes!" "Man, I can't imagine how cool it must be to be able to go on fog rescues." "Man, how awesome would it be to be able to have a familiar following me around?" Those sorts of things. So when they did things that made it easier for me to advance to that point, or made it possible to fixskill over to a build that allowed me those experiences, I was a happy camper. Of course, then I started looking for the next challenge. If they had designed a system wherein I would have had to start from zero, play a wizard up through the hellish nightmare that used to be the first 20 levels for the class, just to get my familiar... I might have said no thanks. As it was / is though, I can swing a claidh for the first month and I have said familiar. Of course, now I have other goals that I'm working towards, but I've stayed engaged / interested. Have some of the older characters suffered / been made less special? Sure, but I don't know how they could have made the game more fun for everyone else, and opened up those 'cool' experiences to a much less exclusive number without that kind of an approach.
Would you have them let you fixskills your class, race, etc? It's one thing to have a goal and work towards it, it's another thing to be able to jump from whatever style to another with just waiting. There is absolutely zero play barrier right now to go from an enchanting wizard to a claid swinging wizard, set the skills, leave your character AFK online for a while and they'll eventually move over (I know this gets less practical and then the fixskill becomes necessary, but they're not exactly difficult to get, especially free once a year).

I think it's perfectly appropriate to set a goal, say familiars... from the ground up you'd be looking at 20 levels on a new character... if your character happens to be a wizard then you've already started 'working down that path' even if you hadn't gotten any wizard spells (??) under the old system you could accomplish getting 920 in 7 levels, but you couldn't just say "I haven't used my fixskills yet this year, I don't have to do anythign and poof, now I've got it".

[Archigeek]

What Warden did, was take a game that was dying from it's own inability to control growth, imposed an order, and in the process freed up a tremendous amount of development time to implement hundreds of new things: such as the cman system, new spells, more easily created and implemented story lines, new attack methods, (ranged, thrown), etc, etc, etc.

There was a reason Growing Pains was called Growing Pains. You can't design anything in a game when your potential range of character ability is infinite.

Put yourself in the shoes of a GM who's trying to design something under GS3 once we had people pushing into the level 200's and higher. There you are trying to design a system that has to fit into a range that you have zero control over. This took giant amounts of time that couldn't be spent elsewhere, and in many cases flat out caused GMs to give up in dispair. Many things we all wished for were left on the scrap heap as a result.

All of the new systems, toys, abilities are a result of the clear, understandable parameters created by GP and GS4. A tremendous burst of new development resulted from Warden's vision and his ability to see that a new framework was needed. Thank you Warden for "running the game into the ground."

As for lamenting the loss of the hard days of never being able to change your mistakes with a fixskills, and having to live with them for a decade: no thanks. The end of the "re-rolls will never happen" era was one of the best things that ever happend to GS.

[Celephais]

What I feel would have been a good middle grounds with regard to being able to fix unviable characters would have been to use something like a generic 'cookie cutter' template (or set of templates) for a given class, and if you are made unviable through your own fault or fault of a change (Armor hiderance for example) you could, with a use of a fixskill like potion/yearly thing, migrate towards that template.

What I mean by that is if you take for example a baseline template for a casting wizard being something like:
2x SA, 1x HP, 1x EMC, 2x AS, 2x MIU, 2.25x Spells.
Now the 'balancing' guilds would account for this layout.
If a level 20 wizard unknowingly trained 4 ranks of Blunt Weapons, and only 18 ranks of Spell Aiming, they could use a fixskill/migration/whatever, to recover the points from blunt weapons and put them into the missing spell aiming points. They could not however use those points to overtrain spells past 2.25x.
Anyone who was able to train 3x from the start would reap the benefits of the dedication, and anyone who 'messed up' would be able to fix their characters.

[Endaar]

You do realize that many of the posters here have been very involved in contributing to Gemstone over the years, right? People that post here aren't just a bunch of malcontents that only come here and bitch. Sure, that happens, but the many have contributed a great deal to the game over the years.


My sincerest apologies to those that my initial remarks were NOT targetted to, I'm sure you can figure out if you are one of them or not based on the post. Basically if you don't care as much as this guy, you probably aren't one! :-)



And apparently no one else does either. Monks RSN! Zing!


Yeah, this is lame. Gotta give you that.



You sure you don't currently hold a marketing job with Simu? That sounds pretty close to their strategy. Run off 20 players, add 1 re-activation by posting on the PC.


Not sure how I'm driving off 20 players...



You're missing something there. Every single characters gets 1 FREE PER CALENDAR YEAR. Otherwise, there's an endless supply available in game for about 9mil/shot. The process absolutely grows on trees. Basically, you can buy a fixskill potion for about the monthly cost of 1 Premium Account + 1 Basic Account.




You can absolutely earn the 9mil or so the potion costs in about 24 hours IG.

This is elitist. Sorry, not everyone runs around with a ten-digit bank account with which to drop on fixskills potions, nor does everyone powergame for 6 hours a night with fully twinked-out toons to earn 9m in four days. Good for you, though, that you do, and that you are able. Can you send me 2m for the mace I so desperately want to buy?



Or you can just spend the $60 or so to buy one.


Actually, this is correct. If I decide to spend $60, I better damn well get at LEAST a fixskills potion. I don't see how this is in any way game-breaking though -- you pay a premium for what you want.



I think you're missing the point. Who was it, Greentide, that 3x'd sorc spells from level 0 to create a massively powerful character at later levels? And then, the CS formula changed, which resulted in the character being less effective. Later, Fixskills is introduced and now the player that had a near impossible time getting to level 20 in order to get that payoff now had a character that's a common commodity.

In the end, what Fixskills did was eliminated many of the player-based goals that people had set for themselves. You look at the game now with all the tweaks to things like societies, CS formulas, stat generation and combine that with Fixskills and the ability to build unique characters is all but gone. For example, if you were to take 5 50 train clerics today what you would see is a group of characters that are nearly identical. They would all have roughly the same CS, would advance the same way (hunting) and would all hunt using the same techniques. In the past, you could have 5 50 train clerics and some would swing, the CS could be vastly different and some would just advance through raising.


You're right, I don't understand at all the point you are trying to prove here. If you're trying to show that there is only one true vanilla path to greatness due to the changes that fixskills has brought, this is a complete fail of an attempt. Like an earlier poster said, you can still advance in numerous ways. Who cares if they're not all the most "optimal"? I'm playing this game for my own enjoyment. What's it to you if it's not the same way you want to play? My fun <> Your fun. QED.



So yeah, I do think Warden ran the game into the ground. You can't discount the fact that he was in charge of developing the game and in that time the player base dropped about 75%.

I have nothing for or against Warden, as I was only around for... I dunno... one-third of his so-called "reign", if that? So I can't comment either way.

However, to say that the skill-system in GS4 is not superbly well-done is just a farce. The customization possibilities are nearly limitless. My cleric COULD do any of these things if he wanted:

- swing
- swing two-handed
- brawl with voln-fu
- use ranged weapons
- dual-wield (versus like-level only, but still)
- use a runestaff
- use bolt spells
- use warding spells
- raise
- skin
- use alchemy
- make imbeddables
- make deity gems
- or, gasp, even roleplaying their religion!

Did I miss something?

Just do whatever you want to do that enables your fun. I see a large list. Don't tell me on the average there are going to be five level 50 clerics running around all doing the exact 2-3-4 things.

[AnticorRifling]

Did I miss something?

Being viable?



Just do whatever you want to do that enables your fun. I see a large list. Don't tell me on the average there are going to be five level 50 clerics running around all doing the exact 2-3-4 things. You'd be surpised. Cookie cutter builds are called that for a reason. You can have some minor tweaks and changes but for the most part you're going to follow a straight forward path.

[Archigeek]

If a scroll-bolting warrior is viable, and a THW ranger is viable, I've got to believe there is more viability now than there ever was. Sure there are cookie cutter paths, but there is also tremendous variability, and people have the chance to try things and see if they'll work, without destroying their character's long term viability for all eternity.

Whether or not fixskill is a good thing or not is really moot, since it had to be implemented, at least on a temporary basis, with the new systems that were added. It's here and it's here to stay, and most people like it.

[Latrinsorm]

There is never a combat evolved strategy that I need to employ. I'm returning to fight the same things over and over, and I can overcome them with a very simple 'spam this spell' until they're dead.I see. If you had been Warden, what would you have done to address this? I'm genuinely curious, I'm not sure how to without radically altering GemStone.

[Mistomeer]

Not sure how I'm driving off 20 players...


Not you, Simu. Simu drives off 20 players with changes...



This is elitist. Sorry, not everyone runs around with a ten-digit bank account with which to drop on fixskills potions, nor does everyone powergame for 6 hours a night with fully twinked-out toons to earn 9m in four days. Good for you, though, that you do, and that you are able. Can you send me 2m for the mace I so desperately want to buy?


I no longer play. I think the most I earned was about 15mil in 24 hours when I did play. Not everyone does, but it is available to anyone for what is a fairly small amount in GSIV terms.



Actually, this is correct. If I decide to spend $60, I better damn well get at LEAST a fixskills potion. I don't see how this is in any way game-breaking though -- you pay a premium for what you want.


I didn't say buying fixskills potions was game breaking, only that they're commonplace within the game. I think we can both agree on that.



You're right, I don't understand at all the point you are trying to prove here. If you're trying to show that there is only one true vanilla path to greatness due to the changes that fixskills has brought, this is a complete fail of an attempt.


No, Fixskills combined with all the other changes (minor and major) that Warden was ultimately responsible for.



Like an earlier poster said, you can still advance in numerous ways. Who cares if they're not all the most "optimal"? I'm playing this game for my own enjoyment. What's it to you if it's not the same way you want to play? My fun <> Your fun. QED.


Many of those "numerous ways" have been removed from the game. You can technically advance by numerous stupid ways in the game that could yield all of 500xp/year, but I wouldn't consider that significant. You can't really advance a cleric through raising only anymore. That was removed from the game. Also, it's hard to make significant progress dedicating yourself to only picking or only healing too. There was a time when a player could logon, play for 8 straight hours and stay fried the entire time by just raising or just picking or just healing. All of that was removed from the game through a combination of system changes, town expansions, players leaving and players leveling.

So no, you really can't significantly advance in the game without hunting. Again, that's part of what was changed while Warden was in charge. It's also another system that was promised and never released. I forgot that name they had for it (Windmill or something?), but a system was in the works at one time to provide EXP without hunting. You could argue that escort tasks aren't hunting, but you kill bandits to complete the task so you still have to maintain a certain character build.




However, to say that the skill-system in GS4 is not superbly well-done is just a farce. The customization possibilities are nearly limitless. My cleric COULD do any of these things if he wanted:

- swing
- swing two-handed
- brawl with voln-fu
- use ranged weapons
- dual-wield (versus like-level only, but still)


Up to a certain point and then without some uber gear you can't generate enough AS to continue this path. Even with uber gear, I'm not sure you could do this all the way to cap. A cleric can only 1x weapons, 1x CM and gets no redux. The character hits a wall and can no longer effectively hunt using any of those. At level 5 any character can do anything. At level 85, you don't have many options.



- use a runestaff
- use bolt spells
- use warding spells


All of those paths above are basically saying that you're advancing as a pure. Even so, clerics don't really have any bolting spells that pan out at older levels. Too hard to generate the bolt AS and the two spells they have cost alot of mana. Using a runestaff is viable, but at the end of the day you're going to see 80 train clerics hunting with warding spells to advance.



- raise


An 80 train cleric playing 12 hours a day might get enough raises to gain a level in about a month. Or that same cleric could hunt 12 hours a day and definitely level in about a week.



- skin
- use alchemy
- make imbeddables
- make deity gems
- or, gasp, even roleplaying their religion!


None of these things actually leads to advancement in the game.



Did I miss something?

Just do whatever you want to do that enables your fun. I see a large list. Don't tell me on the average there are going to be five level 50 clerics running around all doing the exact 2-3-4 things.

If any of those characters want to actually gain a level they'll all be doing exactly the same thing.

[Latrinsorm]

So no, you really can't significantly advance in the game without hunting.This is definitely not true for healing. I have no information on lockpicking or raising.

[Archigeek]

Many of those "numerous ways" have been removed from the game. You can technically advance by numerous stupid ways in the game that could yield all of 500xp/year, but I wouldn't consider that significant. You can't really advance a cleric through raising only anymore. That was removed from the game. Also, it's hard to make significant progress dedicating yourself to only picking or only healing too. There was a time when a player could logon, play for 8 straight hours and stay fried the entire time by just raising or just picking or just healing. All of that was removed from the game through a combination of system changes, town expansions, players leaving and players leveling.

So no, you really can't significantly advance in the game without hunting. Again, that's part of what was changed while Warden was in charge. It's also another system that was promised and never released. I forgot that name they had for it (Windmill or something?), but a system was in the works at one time to provide EXP without hunting. You could argue that escort tasks aren't hunting, but you kill bandits to complete the task so you still have to maintain a certain character build.

There are several pickers who have reached cap gaining nearly 100% of their EXP picking, all or nearly all in GS4. Clearly though, when you equate being able to "play for 8 straight hours and stay fried the entire time" with viable, you're never going to be satisfied with any system that isn't rediculously overpowered.

The same goes for earning 15 mil in 24 hours. Yeah, lets make that our standard for viability. If you did it, more power to you, but if that's your threshold for success, you're just going to have to learn to enjoy failure.

[Methais]

This is definitely not true for healing. I have no information on lockpicking or raising.

Technically healing requires hunting too. Just not by the healer.

They gotta get those injuries from somewhere though..

As to everything Endaar said...people have been suggesting well thought out and totally reasonable things on the official forums for several years. 99.99999999% of them get shot down, usually for some reason that makes no sense. Granted a lot of retarded ideas are posted too, but it's not exactly hard to tell the difference.

One thing that annoys me, even though my character actually benefits from it, is that almost every class has a "Dark Catalyst" type spell now -- a CS spell that hits multiple times for lots of pwnage.

I love having Immolate + 202 fire lore, but I also remember thinking back in the day "Holy shit sorcerers are sick, look at Dark Catalyst!"

Not to mention how badly sorcerers got nerfed over the years under Warden. Wizards took a hit too, but not really in the hunting department at least not that I can remember. The 516 and 517 nerfs will piss me off forever though :(

Remember when Simu went on a big nerf spree in the name of "realism"? Yeah, I don't remember that making the game better either.

I think the fact that a huge majority of the playerbase has left the game under Warden's reign should tell you something about all the nerfs and dumb changes. Simu is too blind and arrogant to ever acknowledge it though, assuming they'll come out of denial of it.

[Celephais]

I see. If you had been Warden, what would you have done to address this? I'm genuinely curious, I'm not sure how to without radically altering GemStone.
Not sure really, and I'm glad I'm not in Warden's position, I'm definately armchair quarterbacking it. Attrition is the biggest thing missing from gemstone to allow for strategies to form, adding attrition may be a 'radical' alteration but it's how I would go I think. If I had some time to think it over I could probably come up with something a little better than this, but here's some quick thoughts.

In an earlier post someone said something about increasing creature combat from 2-3 attacks to 4-6, and I completely agree with that, combat should take longer. High end crits should be reduced significantly, for both creature and player. I absolutely loved the first time I got 910 and got to see some nasty crit messages by going back to the catacombs, so they should decouple crits from the endroll. If you're fighting a creature with 100 hit points, and you get it down to 5hp and get a 130 endroll, I see nothing wrong with "turning the head into glass". Basically they should determine the combat outcome first, and then select an appropriate crit message. Saying "Tummy barely scratched" and then the creature dies is kind of stupid.

Creatures could have health thresholds that effect the chance of de-abilitating effects, if a creature is at 100% health, outright death shots should be much more difficult, under 50% the chance a knockdown should increase. Same with wounds forming, a strong hit can form a wound right away, but if you're at full health wounds could be better resisted.

That way you can start to allow players to get hit, make most spells casters rely on for defense focus more on reducing attacker DF (or increasing player redux), instead of increasing DS.

There's a motto I've seen a lot of power hunters use, myself included, of simply "don't get hit", the fact that players are able to put themselves in the position of literally not being able to get hit is ridiculous. No risk means no need to form a strategy.

Now if players start to get hurt and eventually have to make choices based on if the risk is worth the reward, have some spells/abilities work better when you're health starts to get low, etc.

[Celephais]

Technically healing requires hunting too. Just not by the healer.
You're lucky if Bob doesn't see this, because he'd get all symantecal with you about the word Technically... and tell you you can get injuries by jumping out of the treehouse.

[Sean of the Thread]

I'm not one to bitch about GS that often but I do think Sorcs got it in the ass a tad bit more than others since Warden.

DC was awesome back in the day. :( More defining that 720 imo. (maybe I just enjoyed it more)

[Methais]

You're lucky if Bob doesn't see this, because he'd get all symantecal with you about the word Technically... and tell you you can get injuries by jumping out of the treehouse.

That would be considered game mechanics abuse, pwning Bob's argument in the nutsack.

[Celephais]

That would be considered game mechanics abuse, pwning Bob's argument in the nutsack.
Abusing game mechanics is a real thing though, technically.

You could also just heal people who accidently fell out of the treehouse, it'd be a slow process, waiting for the next idiot, but you would not be abusing game mechanics, and you technically would not be relying on any hunting to occur.

[Imp]

I'm not usually one to post in these kind of threads because I am more of a buyer and seller than anything on this board (I am looking fora deal on 2 sets of 5x Double Leather by the way) but I must say that I think one of the problems with Simu is that it seems to me that they are trying to do a kind of grab bag of tricks to please everybody at once, which is not ever going to work. I am also posting in this thread because it was created by a GM which means that other GMs might just be reading it which means that some of the info here might just reach the right people. Or not. But that's what I'm hoping, that I'm not wasting my words here.

They have to start at the very top and work their way down. I've been reading about the different ideas posted here for promoting the game, and I think some of them were very clever. Let's look at this like a pyramid of problems. At the very top of the pyramid is the player base. This needs to be brought up first. Even if it remains the same, that is a step in the right direction, but if the player base crumbles than the game begins to crumble and a house of cards tends to fall all at once. So the player base should be their main concern at the moment.

Next and second on the pyramid of problems just under the player base tip should be finding different ways to please the highest leveled players in the game/the ones who have put in the most time and money into the game and who are most likely the ones who are the most devoted to it. These people should be of prime concern for the Simu staff. Now whether this means doing a complete overhaul of the game in order to add more hunting grounds for these people, or giving them new things to do and new ways to keep themselves busy, whatever it means, it should be the second thing on Simu's list of problems to tackle. And nothing else should come before it.

I would even have a freeze on everything else the staff is doing at the moment and even cross over people from different tasks and put those people all into the same task of creating new hunting grounds for level 100 and over. Just spend 6 months time creating new creatures with new abilities that would keep these people busy for another 100 levels or so. I don't know how long it takes to create 1 kind of creature in Gemstone 4, along with it's respectable hunting ground, but if 6 months isn't enough time to start pumping them out then make it a year. Because the younger levels in the game are going to be busy trying to reach level 100 anyways, and so nobody will really be hurting while this process is taking place.

The next and third level on the problem pyramid for Simu to tackle should be anything they have been trying to implement for the player base that the player base has been desperately waiting for and which Simu has already promised. This includes Monks, Savants, etc. But this should only be the third thing on the problem pyramid in my opinion, and not the first as I mentioned before. Once the first two things have been taken care of, then there will be plenty of time and room for taking care of this level of the pyramid. And this level is just as important as the others, because it creates happiness for everyone who plays the game. Regardless of their level. But if the first two problems above have not been taken care of yet, than working on this level of the pyramid is only a waste of time in my opinion. Only after the first two problems have been tackled could taking care of this problem really have the greatest benefit on the player base.

And the fourth and final level on the problem pyramid in my opinion should be anything else that's wrong with the game that both the staff and player base can come to an agreement on. This includes basicly everything else that has to do with the game. Improvements on existing things in the game, and the implementation of new things for the game. This should be done last in my opinion. But this at the moment seems to be what Simu is working on the hardest right now, almost like they completely forgot about the first 3 levels I mentioned above. And almost as if they are doing things backwards. Literally.

So anyways, that's my little problem pyramid for you guys. And I really do hope Warden is reading this too, because even if he is no longer going to be with the game, perhaps he can at least take some of these ideas seriously and pass them on to someone who might be able to work with them.

By the way, this pyramid is not an easy one to tackle. It could take years to take care of all of these problems. But I believe we have to start somewhere, and the pyramid is never going to be conquered if all the staff does is sit at the bottom and never looks at the top.

[graysun]

Holy wall of text, Batman.

I'm with ya on developing more post-cap hunting areas, though it was recently posted on the officials not to expect it any time soon.

As a final note of clarification, the thread was started by me and not by Warden.

[Methais]

Holy wall of text, Batman.

That wasn't a wall of text. A wall of text is not two sentences its 300 without any form of punctuation to emphasize this point i will show you a wall of text even though most walls of text are far more intersting and complex than the following walll i feel it will do a good job of explaingin what a wall is much like we saw numerous times in numerous other posts by a wide array of various people who felt that walls of text were a totally and completly soiceltally acceptable posting form on an internet forum which can already be hard to read for some people depending on their monter you see blizzard suicks and wants people to die and the naurru are evil and illiditan shouldnt die and i think mages need to be buffed cause werenot the best thing since sliced bred extecpt in pvp when were overgeared and can oneshot another mage not a decent other class mind you since most classes should easily be pushing 10k health given that mages can do it with a bit of a buff infact we have to in arans fight in karazahn or hell pyro us all todeath but actually it turns out you can los that if your by the colunmn instead of in plain site i was very happy about this it makde the fight much easier and yes for those of you still reading this is a wall of text and said wall of text will now repeat to underscore my point a wall of text is not two sentances its 300 without any form of punctuation to emphasize this point i will show you a wall of text even though most walls of text are far more intersting and complex than the following walll i feel it will do a good job of explaingin what a wall is much like we saw numerous times in numerous other posts by a wide array of various people who felt that walls of text were a totally and completly soiceltally acceptable posting form on an internet forum which can already be hard to read for some people depending on their monter you see blizzard suicks and wants people to die and the naurru are evil and illiditan shouldnt die and i think mages need to be buffed cause werenot the best thing since sliced bred extecpt in pvp when were overgeared and can oneshot another mage not a decent other class mind you since most classes should easily be pushing 10k health given that mages can do it with a bit of a buff infact we have to in arans fight in karazahn or hell pyro us all todeath but actually it turns out you can los that if your by the colunmn instead of in plain site i was very happy about this it makde the fight much easier and yes for those of you still reading this is a wall of text and said wall of text will now repeat to underscore my pointa wall of text is not two sentances its 300 without any form of punctuation to emphasize this point i will show you a wall of text even though most walls of text are far more intersting and complex than the following walll i feel it will do a good job of explaingin what a wall is much like we saw numerous times in numerous other posts by a wide array of various people who felt that walls of text were a totally and completly soiceltally acceptable posting form on an internet forum which can already be hard to read for some people depending on their monter you see blizzard suicks and wants people to die and the naurru are evil and illiditan shouldnt die and i think mages need to be buffed cause werenot the best thing since sliced bred extecpt in pvp when were overgeared and can oneshot another mage not a decent other class mind you since most classes should easily be pushing 10k health given that mages can do it with a bit of a buff infact we have to in arans fight in karazahn or hell pyro us all todeath but actually it turns out you can los that if your by the colunmn instead of in plain site i was very happy about this it makde the fight much easier and yes for those of you still reading this is a wall of text and said wall of text will now repeat to underscore my pointa wall of text is not two sentances its 300 without any form of punctuation to emphasize this point i will show you a wall of text even though most walls of text are far more intersting and complex than the following walll i feel it will do a good job of explaingin what a wall is much like we saw numerous times in numerous other posts by a wide array of various people who felt that walls of text were a totally and completly soiceltally acceptable posting form on an internet forum which can already be hard to read for some people depending on their monter you see blizzard suicks and wants people to die and the naurru are evil and illiditan shouldnt die and i think mages need to be buffed cause werenot the best thing since sliced bred extecpt in pvp when were overgeared and can oneshot another mage not a decent other class mind you since most classes should easily be pushing 10k health given that mages can do it with a bit of a buff infact we have to in arans fight in karazahn or hell pyro us all todeath but actually it turns out you can los that if your by the colunmn instead of in plain site i was very happy about this it makde the fight much easier and yes for those of you still reading this is a wall of text and said wall of text will now repeat to underscore my pointa wall of text is not two sentances its 300 without any form of punctuation to emphasize this point i will show you a wall of text even though most walls of text are far more intersting and complex than the following walll i feel it will do a good job of explaingin what a wall is much like we saw numerous times in numerous other posts by a wide array of various people who felt that walls of text were a totally and completly soiceltally acceptable posting form on an internet forum which can already be hard to read for some people depending on their monter you see blizzard suicks and wants people to die and the naurru are evil and illiditan shouldnt die and i think mages need to be buffed cause werenot the best thing since sliced bred extecpt in pvp when were overgeared and can oneshot another mage not a decent other class mind you since most classes should easily be pushing 10k health given that mages can do it with a bit of a buff infact we have to in arans fight in karazahn or hell pyro us all todeath but actually it turns out you can los that if your by the colunmn instead of in plain site i was very happy about this it makde the fight much easier and yes for those of you still reading this is a wall of text and said wall of text will now repeat to underscore my pointa wall of text is not two sentances its 300 without any form of punctuation to emphasize this point i will show you a wall of text even though most walls of text are far more intersting and complex than the following walll i feel it will do a good job of explaingin what a wall is much like we saw numerous times in numerous other posts by a wide array of various people who felt that walls of text were a totally and completly soiceltally acceptable posting form on an internet forum which can already be hard to read for some people depending on their monter you see blizzard suicks and wants people to die and the naurru are evil and illiditan shouldnt die and i think mages need to be buffed cause werenot the best thing since sliced bred extecpt in pvp when were overgeared and can oneshot another mage not a decent other class mind you since most classes should easily be pushing 10k health given that mages can do it with a bit of a buff infact we have to in arans fight in karazahn or hell pyro us all todeath but actually it turns out you can los that if your by the colunmn instead of in plain site i was very happy about this it makde the fight much easier and yes for those of you still reading this is a wall of text and said wall of text will now repeat to underscore my pointa wall of text is not two sentances its 300 without any form of punctuation to emphasize this point i will show you a wall of text even though most walls of text are far more intersting and complex than the following walll i feel it will do a good job of explaingin what a wall is much like we saw numerous times in numerous other posts by a wide array of various people who felt that walls of text were a totally and completly soiceltally acceptable posting form on an internet forum which can already be hard to read for some people depending on their monter you see blizzard suicks and wants people to die and the naurru are evil and illiditan shouldnt die and i think mages need to be buffed cause werenot the best thing since sliced bred extecpt in pvp when were overgeared and can oneshot another mage not a decent other class mind you since most classes should easily be pushing 10k health given that mages can do it with a bit of a buff infact we have to in arans fight in karazahn or hell pyro us all todeath but actually it turns out you can los that if your by the colunmn instead of in plain site i was very happy about this it makde the fight much easier and yes for those of you still reading this is a wall of text and said wall of text will now repeat to underscore my pointa wall of text is not two sentances its 300 without any form of punctuation to emphasize this point i will show you a wall of text even though most walls of text are far more intersting and complex than the following walll i feel it will do a good job of explaingin what a wall is much like we saw numerous times in numerous other posts by a wide array of various people who felt that walls of text were a totally and completly soiceltally acceptable posting form on an internet forum which can already be hard to read for some people depending on their monter you see blizzard suicks and wants people to die and the naurru are evil and illiditan shouldnt die and i think mages need to be buffed cause werenot the best thing since sliced bred extecpt in pvp when were overgeared and can oneshot another mage not a decent other class mind you since most classes should easily be pushing 10k health given that mages can do it with a bit of a buff infact we have to in ar

[graysun]

Damn....I stand corrected.

[Smythe]

Ya got 25 bad spells der, 8 times over. Good stuff!

Don' agree wit' da wizard buff, tho'. Don' make no matter how many times ya repeat it.

- Smythe

[m444w]

Ya got 25 bad spells der, 8 times over. Good stuff!

Don' agree wit' da wizard buff, tho'. Don' make no matter how many times ya repeat it.

- Smythe

Why the fuck do you post with an accent?

[AMUSED1]

I was about to ask the exact same thing. Do you RP a retard in RL?

[thefarmer]

http://www.modaruniversity.org/sca4dum.jpg

[Mistomeer]

This is definitely not true for healing. I have no information on lockpicking or raising.

I didn't say you couldn't advance through healing. I said you can't sit there fried from healing 8 hours a day like you used to. Sure, you can make some decent EXP from healing, but with only 350 players on spread out across 7 or so towns and more healers around, it's going to be hard to stay fried. Add to that the fact that you're competing for business with other healers and you're going to make way more EXP hunting. Heal 12 hours a day vs hunt 12 hours a day and the hunter will win every time especially with the AG and saturation.

Lockpicking and raising suffer from the same problems, but both of those are move level dependent whereas healing EXP is from wound severity not player level. A capped cleric raising a level 20 person gets hardly any experience just like a capped rogue picking level 20 boxes gets next to nothing.

Before EN and before the changes to 130 and the nerfing of Voln (all changed under Warden), a healer/cleric could sit at the North Gate or at Voln and remain fried all day without hunting once. Now, a cleric can only even raise once every 10 minutes or so because of the nerf to raising. Also, locksmiths could sit in the Tower all day and remain fried without leaving.

So yes, you can advance through those things without hunting and have some stupid, non-viable hunting build, but your advancement will be much slower than someone who has a cookie cutter hunting build.


This is definitely not true for healing. I have no information on lockpicking or raising.

There are several pickers who have reached cap gaining nearly 100% of their EXP picking, all or nearly all in GS4. Clearly though, when you equate being able to "play for 8 straight hours and stay fried the entire time" with viable, you're never going to be satisfied with any system that isn't rediculously overpowered.


That's my entire point. There was a time when you could stay fried just from picking. Sure, you can cap just by picking, but these days without people you know or another character bringing you a steady supply of boxes it will take forever. Malok made tons of levels just sitting in the North Tower all day long.

Also, no character I know of gained 100% of their EXP picking especially since it's near impossible to find enough kobold boxes without you hunting to get those early levels.

Again, my point is there was a time when you could make a stupid build and never hunt and advance at the same rate as a hunter, but those days are gone. Sure, you can still advance without hunting, but it's much slower because of all the changes made under Warden.

[Methais]

That's not so much due to any changes so much as just the population sucking ass now. Which is still indirectly tied to all the stupid changes made by Warden. Oh well.

[Latrinsorm]

I didn't say you couldn't advance through healing. I said you can't sit there fried from healing 8 hours a day like you used to. Sure, you can make some decent EXP from healing, but with only 350 players on spread out across 7 or so towns and more healers around, it's going to be hard to stay fried. Add to that the fact that you're competing for business with other healers and you're going to make way more EXP hunting. Heal 12 hours a day vs hunt 12 hours a day and the hunter will win every time especially with the AG and saturation.I didn't say that you did. Your comparison of the experience garnered between the two is accurate, but not to the degree you seem to suggest by "significantly" and "way more". For instance, I have a log* of my level 23 empath getting 1k per hour for 3.5 hours (non-XXX), and another at level 47 getting 1.3k per hour for 1.6 hours. This is pretty close to 25 per pulse -> 1.5k per hour, plus my healer was always in 0 danger. A character who dings every bounty in a snap, finishes a hunt in 2 minutes, and catches every saturated pulse grouped on a supernode is obviously going to do better, but now we're comparing significantly different levels of effort. Just hunting to just healing is pretty much a wash.

*I would have more data points if I hadn't played four different God damn characters with Wizard logs.

.

And while picking through logs:

Myrkate raises an eyebrow in Narcissiia's direction.

!!!!

[Parkbandit]

I was about to ask the exact same thing. Do you RP a retard in RL?

That's not roleplay.. it's the real deal. I used to get annoyed at him, but then realized he doesn't know any better.

Just be thankful you aren't "special" like he is.

[Atlanteax]

Lawl @ whoever hit me with this:


Warden: Cheers, mates (grey) 02-02-2010 08:27 PM
you are a dumbshit - universal DFREDUX - ok give warriors Sorc spells just a little less powerfull... idiot

[Numbers]

Warden sucked all of the fun out of the game in some misguided attempt at realism.

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

Myrkate raises an eyebrow in Narcissiia's direction.

Ah the good old days.

[Skeeter]

Warden sucked all of the fun out of the game in some misguided attempt at realism.

agreed.

The fact that 4x gear was now the gold standard and the opportunity to win something truly special for your character was now relegated to fluff was a major death point to me.

There's no good reason to take all the high powered stuff out of the game. Why does Warden hate if I kill text more efficiently.

Everyone plays this game for 2 reasons. 1. Social aspect. 2. Hero aspect. People want their heroes to have hero type gear, taking this away detracted mightily from the game.