What is holding Gemstone back?

[gtakito]

It's been years since I was last subbed, and about that long since I last visited these forums. That being said, I visit the GSIV site every few months or so, just to see if anything has changed. Today, I saw an article about Gemstone IV (http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/04/29/rise-and-shiny-gemstone-iv/) from Massively, a well known MMO blog, which is part of the same blog network as joystiq and engadget.

What a perfect opportunity to appeal to people like me, past subscribers who would be more than willing to resub to an old favorite like Gemstone. Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to do it, since it seems any significant game development was brought to a near standstill after Paladins were released in 2004.

Yes, you can argue that it isn't true, since between then and now X spell was released, Y mechanic was tweaked, or Z verb was introduced, but the fact remains that there is an obvious list of things which should have been out by 2005(actually much earlier), like the unarmed combat system, Monks, and Savants. And now that it's 2012, more than 8 years from the release of Paladins, all the other obvious stuff should have been already released as well, like the thrown weapons review, other reviews, all profession guilds, major demon summoning, other missing spells, and of course the release of other unnamed professions beyond Monks and Savants.

If it's an issue of lack of funds due to dwindling subscribers, why has no effort been made to change the pricing structure of the game? Likewise, why has no effort been made to contact past subscribers and offer re-subscription deals? Like the Massively article implied, the price of this game is ridiculously steep, so steep in fact that people who would love to be playing are forced to give it up because they can't justify the cost. I can think of several ways to drastically increase revenue, the most obvious of which would be some form of free to play on the shattered instance, along with a level cap of 20 or something like that, to encourage people who like the game to pay a (reduced) subscription fee.

All that aside, I know that Gemstone runs off of volunteers, and there are a lot of people who would be willing to donate their time in order to improve the game. Yet for some reason, when looking at the 2012 goals post (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?t=70299), it appears as if only a handful of people are responsible for game mechanics and development. What's worse is that they each seem to be tasked with far too many areas of the game. There is a running joke about how long it takes Simutronics to release stuff, with predictions being off by years. We've all come to expect that from them, but to me, it almost seems as if game development is deliberately being sabotaged. Clearly, nobody at the company thinks it's odd for a new feature in a text game to take ten years from announcement to release. Why is no one looking for the bottleneck and addressing it?

Despite how it may appear, I'm not here to rant, rather I want to ask all of you bitter Gemstone veterans a few important questions.

1. Why has nothing significant changed in GemstoneIV since Paladins were released in 2004?

2. Ultimately, who is responsible for the direction and well-being of the game?

3. What can be done to encourage those in charge to change the game, in order to hasten the rate of development and drastically increase the player population?

[Fallen]

The game lacks paid coders. As in staff hired for the sole purpose to code.

[gtakito]

The game lacks paid coders. As in staffed hired for the sole purpose to code.
What about volunteer coders? Is simu preventing volunteers from working on important game mechanics and features? Or is it an issue of not enough people applying for those volunteer coder positions?

[Kronius]

What is holding Gemstone back?

Apathy.

[Fallen]

What about volunteer coders? Is simu preventing volunteers from working on important game mechanics and features? Or is it an issue of not enough people applying for those volunteer coder positions?

The game basically runs on volunteers, aside from a few positions at the top. You cannot expect volunteers to perform at a level that will produce regular updates and releases. From time to time a few extremely talented ones come along that are able to slog through the training, given a green light for a project, fully code that project, have it pass the QC process, the beta testing process, and finally be released into the game. These people work tirelessly for little to no actual reward and eventually burn out. You can't expect a volunteer to work year after year in a position that should demand an actual paycheck.

A game that charges 15-40 bucks a month should not be primarily supported by volunteers. Gemstone is not a charity. It is not a not-for-profit. It is a business. How can a video game company not afford a single permanent coding position for one of its games? I could speculate on the answer, but I don't really see the point. Bottom line, without permanent salaried coders working on GS the game wont see continual advancement.

[Jarvan]

What is holding Gemstone back?

Simple answer really.

David Whatley and Greed.

He has no reason to spend more money on something he already makes a decent profit off of.

[Luftstreitkräfte]

This is a matter of perception.

Fusion, 340, vanish, hiding group changes and smastery. They're all small changes but they meant a lot to me.

Come back, the game is fun. The advent of Lich has changed it much more than you might imagine.

[Reltov420]

I think they should advertise at least a little...

Luftstreitkrafte, Every time I scroll past one of your posts, I can't help but watch your sig for like 5-10 minutes. Lucky SOB right there.

[Atlanteax]

What is holding Gemstone back?

Apathy.

By ownership and those 'responsible' for game management.

[WRoss]

I think they should advertise at least a little...

Luftstreitkrafte, Every time I scroll past one of your posts, I can't help but watch your sig for like 5-10 minutes. Lucky SOB right there.

he only dodges the first car. The rest of them are shopped in

[gtakito]

The game basically runs on volunteers, aside from a few positions at the top. You cannot expect volunteers to perform at a level that will produce regular updates and releases. From time to time a few extremely talented ones come along that are able to slog through the training, given a green light for a project, fully code that project, have it pass the QC process, the beta testing process, and finally be released into the game. These people work tirelessly for little to no actual reward and eventually burn out. You can't expect a volunteer to work year after year in a position that should demand an actual paycheck.
Why not? There are a lot of successful open source projects being worked on by volunteer coders. Gemstone isn't exactly the same, but it is definitely possible for progress to be made this way. In Gemstone's case, it seems like the top GMs are sitting on important features, like the Monk profession, and not allowing other people to help. There is just no way I would believe that the unarmed combat system, minor mental circle, and the Monk profession are actively(or passively) being worked on. I understand that all three are in a "beta" state, after more than a decade, but it should be obvious by now that there were long periods of time where no one touched them.

Am I the only person who thinks they could produce all code, messaging, and design choices for a new GSIV profession in under 80 hours of work?


A game that charges 15-40 bucks a month should not be primarily supported by volunteers. Gemstone is not a charity. It is not a not-for-profit. It is a business. How can a video game company not afford a single permanent coding position for one of its games? I could speculate on the answer, but I don't really see the point. Bottom line, without permanent salaried coders working on GS the game wont see continual advancement.
You're absolutely right. I'd love to know why that is. Looking at the official site a bit, it appears as if they are only accepting paid staff who actually live in St. Louis, and are willing to work from the building. That seems pretty ridiculous, coming from a company who made HeroEngine, which allows devs from multiple locations to cooperatively build a game using the internet.


What is holding Gemstone back?

Simple answer really.

David Whatley and Greed.

He has no reason to spend more money on something he already makes a decent profit off of.
I'm going to email David Whatley about the future of GSIV and see if he responds. I doubt he will give any honest answers, but it's worth a shot.

[WRoss]

Why not? There are a lot of successful open source projects being worked on by volunteer coders. Gemstone isn't exactly the same, but it is definitely possible for progress to be made this way. In Gemstone's case, it seems like the top GMs are sitting on important features, like the Monk profession, and not allowing other people to help. There is just no way I would believe that the unarmed combat system, minor mental circle, and the Monk profession are actively(or passively) being worked on. I understand that all three are in a "beta" state, after more than a decade, but it should be obvious by now that there were long periods of time where no one touched them.

Am I the only person who thinks they could produce all code, messaging, and design choices for a new GSIV profession in under 80 hours of work?


You're absolutely right. I'd love to know why that is. Looking at the official site a bit, it appears as if they are only accepting paid staff who actually live in St. Louis, and are willing to work from the building. That seems pretty ridiculous, coming from a company who made HeroEngine, which allows devs from multiple locations to cooperatively build a game using the internet.


I'm going to email David Whatley about the future of GSIV and see if he responds. I doubt he will give any honest answers, but it's worth a shot.

Whatley just collects the money. It's Elonka that runs the whole show and she has pretty much stated that she doesn't give a shit about GS. Bubba is the PM who runs all the text based games and he focuses primarily on DR. E-mailing Whatley, while I am not advocating that you don't do it, is likely not going to do anything. Don't get your hopes up.

[Jarvan]

I thought Whatley owned the thing, Simu is a privately held company after all.

[WRoss]

I thought Whatley owned the thing, Simu is a privately held company after all.

Yes. Whatley owns it but Elonka is the one who runs the show.

[Ryvicke]

I think this also has something to do with the success of DragonRealms. All of Simu's text games used to have a pretty decent playerbase and all have died except DR and GS. I can remember even 10 years ago seeing a shift in Simucon numbers that favored DR as having a more loyal and interested base of players. Simu may have focused more resources on DR over the years assuming GS would go the way of their other games and eventually just die no matter what they did.

I mean--how many text-based MMORPGs can nostalgic nerds and returning veterans support?

[Kronius]

I think this also has something to do with the success of DragonRealms. All of Simu's text games used to have a pretty decent playerbase and all have died except DR and GS. I can remember even 10 years ago seeing a shift in Simucon numbers that favored DR as having a more loyal and interested base of players. Simu may have focused more resources on DR over the years assuming GS would go the way of their other games and eventually just die no matter what they did.

I mean--how many text-based MMORPGs can nostalgic nerds and returning veterans support?

Nostalgia wears off in about 10 months (I know, as I am now getting the same bored feelings I did when I quit 12 years ago).

I was able to consume 12 years worth of content in a short period of time and become bored again/ That shouldn't happen. I think everyone can agree the potential to become "great" again is there, it just isn't happening with the current regime.

[Tgo01]

All of Simu's text games used to have a pretty decent playerbase

Modus Operandi?

[Drew]

The game basically runs on volunteers, aside from a few positions at the top. You cannot expect volunteers to perform at a level that will produce regular updates and releases. From time to time a few extremely talented ones come along that are able to slog through the training, given a green light for a project, fully code that project, have it pass the QC process, the beta testing process, and finally be released into the game. These people work tirelessly for little to no actual reward and eventually burn out. You can't expect a volunteer to work year after year in a position that should demand an actual paycheck.

A game that charges 15-40 bucks a month should not be primarily supported by volunteers. Gemstone is not a charity. It is not a not-for-profit. It is a business. How can a video game company not afford a single permanent coding position for one of its games? I could speculate on the answer, but I don't really see the point. Bottom line, without permanent salaried coders working on GS the game wont see continual advancement.


The problem is I don't think that GS with the current subscriber base could pay for 1 full time coder, but let's assume they could. If they did that who would ever code for "free" (or rather, the pittance GMs are paid); no one would be a dev GM when 1 guy was getting paid and they were getting nothing. There's a gallows mentality now for the dev GMs, at least they're all in it together, so I think the current system makes the most sense for the subscriber base.

[Ryvicke]

Modus Operandi?

I never played but I've got a friend in GS that used to be a GM in Modus and talks about it like it was pretty popular for however long she played it.

Dude you could like... buy hawaiian shirts and shoot guns and drive cars.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Wait, are you people saying since what's his name is focused on DR, DR player base is growing?

[Tgo01]

I never played but I've got a friend in GS that used to be a GM in Modus and talks about it like it was pretty popular for however long she played it.

I don't know if Modus ever had its own heyday but back in GS' heyday I tried Modus out for a day or three, I think there was a little over 100 players?

Honestly I have no idea how that game is still around, just proves that it takes peanuts for Simu to keep these games online.

[Fallen]

The problem is I don't think that GS with the current subscriber base could pay for 1 full time coder, but let's assume they could. If they did that who would ever code for "free" (or rather, the pittance GMs are paid); no one would be a dev GM when 1 guy was getting paid and they were getting nothing. There's a gallows mentality now for the dev GMs, at least they're all in it together, so I think the current system makes the most sense for the subscriber base.

Do you think volunteers coded Tiny Heroes?

[Kitsun]

Nostalgia wears off in about 10 months (I know, as I am now getting the same bored feelings I did when I quit 12 years ago).

I was able to consume 12 years worth of content in a short period of time and become bored again/ That shouldn't happen.

The development time(for any product/service) is always astronomically higher than consumption time. People spend years to write books that can be read in hours. Star Wars TOR spent years in development and their subscription base hemorrhaged in a couple months.

In this day and age, I am surprised any MMOG player really believes that there is a magical game that can be developed that you will want to play until you die. There's no other medium of entertainment that people actually expect to keep them entertained on a daily basis for years and decades of their life span. It is actually a compliment to Simu/GMs that people even consider the thought.

People can keep blaming slow development for all the woes of GS, but the reality is that games that do the super churn and burn create different types of problems. Hardcore players that are super deep and on top of the development will sit on top, ride every change and yell how it was awful/crappy/unbalanced/waste of time and demand more change. The larger, casual playerbase is typically left going WTF happened and slowly leave as the game alienates them. It also becomes a challenge to lure players back when the core mechanics have been decimated.

Slow development, while frustrating, means they don't have to pay coders to code for the sake of coding. They can guage the changes that need to be done. Don't have to try to endlessly balance the new stuff. Plus the game is really damn complete as is.

[Renian]

1. Lack of direction

Does anyone at the top know what Gemstone should look like in a few years? What's the plan? What things need to be released? What things should never be changed? What things must be changed?

The yearly goals fluctuate with as much, or more, frequency as the staffing. Why should they? True, Gamemasters should have their own projects that they would like to focus on too. But there should be goals that do not change, things that they must release, because it's where the game needs to go.

Are monks really one of these changes? The unarmed combat system is, sure; brawling is useless unless you're in Voln. But why add another class that we need to focus on, when the other classes, and the skills associated with them, have their own problems that need fixing? Semis are crazy powerful. No one wants to focus on sorcerers. Wizards still can't change attunement, and need dumb familiar runes now. Warriors can't deal with casters. 720 is busted against PCs.

There's other changes that need to be added. Should GoS really require all of your stamina to use its abilities? Why doesn't disarm guarantee that the weapon will eventually come back to you so that high-end weaponry makes sense? Why does it make sense that we cannot hit corporeal undead with standard magical weapons and cut off non-Voln squares from a bunch of mobs they could otherwise hunt? Is there any real reason to group?

2. Unwillingness to change business models/pricing structure to adapt

I think we can all agree that $15 per month for a MUD is going to be ludicrous for most people. We pay it because we know what we are getting: a text-based drug fix.

But new people won't think that way. Even though there's a 30 day trial period, you still have to drop a credit card on it, and they'll charge you if you forget. That alone is a deterrent. Then, if you want to roll another character, you have to pay for additional character slots. No other game does this; every other game (save EVE Online) lets you go on multiple servers, and each server has their own character slots. All of them are active and you can roll up as many characters as that server will allow, for no additional charge.

An exception that I know if is Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine, which does charge you for additional character slots.

Once.

You purchase the slot. And that's the end of it. But there's no monthly subscription; it's a microtransactional game. It makes more sense.

Speaking of microtransactions, why couldn't we move toward them? Why have a continuously running alteration/tattooing/lightening/deepening service that could be paid with both a shitton of silvers to drain the economy, or actual money? Why not have a raffle that you join for real money (or again, a shit ton of silvers) that re-releases a legendary item that was removed from the game because its owner was banned, and if we run out of those, a new or duplicate legendary item? Why not charge money/silvers for a Bounty Point boost, or one additional Gift of Lumnis per week? How about making the Adventurer's Guild recharging-for-silvers thing permanent, but also for money?
Notice I'm always including silvers. This will allow let people feel like they don't have to pay money to get everything out of the game, otherwise it would be unfair. Look at League of Legends. You could just play the game to unlock every champion, and never purchase them. The only thing that you need to pay real money for is skins, and those provide no benefit.

Moreover, keeping silvers in would allow us to create something that actually drains the economy. What do we spend silvers on, that is not things other players possess? Almost nothing, unless a merchant is around.

3. No advertising

No one knows about Gemstone. But people know about Achaea. You've seen the ads for it in many of the good webcomics. They need to replace the population somehow, if fixing the game won't bring them all back. This is a commonly cited point, so I won't spend much time with this.

4. Poor Gamemaster Training

Time and time again, we've railed against Gamemasters for bad customer service. And that bad customer service can reflect on your character's permanent record (oh shit, it's public schools all over again).

I'm sure some of you remember my encounter with Itzel, where I was banned because I was doing something that was not against policy, and adamant that I understood the policy better than she did. Admittedly, the way I handled it after the fact was somewhat immature. (Hell, the way I acted a non-trivial amount of the time was immature. Oh God, my post history.)

But I was right. I did know the policy better than she did. I was running a bunch of scripts, in my premium home, at the keyboard, assisting my own characters, and she wanted to say it was against policy, and it got me locked out for effectively two days. Sirina apologized herself, but why did it happen in the first place? Why do we have Gamemasters running around that do not understand policy, instead of making sure they can answer some sort of policy quiz before sending them out into the wild?

Worse, if a Gamemaster made a bad decision and no one corrected it, your customer service experience degenerates into consistent harassment. Got a scripting warning? Guess I'm going to follow you around for forever and script check the hell out of you, instead of letting you enjoy the game. It doesn't matter how long ago you got the warnings; they never disappear. They'll always try to pull them up against you, instead of letting them decay after a time (say, ~3 years of having no warnings).

Customer service can affect loyalty. They need to work on it.

5. Refusal to hire qualified people due to political reasons

Doesn't Virilneus want to work on this game something fierce? Doesn't he have programming experience? What if someone else wants to work on the game, but they've had a warning?

Simu will refuse to hire you based on who you are alone, instead of at least giving you a chance--even though some of the people they could hire are motivated as hell to fix the game, and they'll do it for arbitrary reasons. Are they worried that someone's going to take their precious position where they don't get paid anything and receive little recognition? Are they worried they are going to break the game, when they could just say, "No, you can't implement that?"

You're hiring devs. Put them in a corner and let them work. If they are actually bad, you can axe them as they are volunteer workers and it's not an issue. I don't get it.

6. GSL

How old is this language? What is the syntax? Is it functional, or imperative? How easy it is to learn? You won't find out until you are a GM--which is incredibly bad. Basically, you can't learn the programming language or its dependencies before becoming a GM. You can't just hire a GSL programmer.

Of course, if they open sourced it, they might have a solution. But can it be used for anything besides making MUDs?

Nevertheless, it's a problem. There needs to be a way for their volunteers to learn and understand the technology that they are using before coming aboard. They have like 50 GMs or something ridiculous and an inconsequential amount of development. I'm sure this is part of the problem.

7. QC

Going hand in hand with GSL is QC. Why does this take so long? Why do things take so long to get green-lit? I'm under the impression that they need to do something to reduce this time, as the longer this takes, the more a Gamemaster's motivation shall suffer. They could be pumped to get something out, but anyone's motivation can easily be eroded by constant frustration.

Still, what does it entail? Are we trying to make sure the project meshes with Gemstone's direction? If so, this is a problem, as I established that Gemstone has no direction. Any reason in this regard means that the decision to stall a project is completely arbitrary.

Well, what if it's actual testing? If that were the case, why not just write tests to ensure QC without having to get it significantly peer reviewed? The question then becomes: can GSL support Unit and Integration tests for the things they implement? If not, no wonder QC takes so long; you can't automatically test to make sure new items, systems, spells, etc, are running properly. They should take the time to integrate it into the language, as Dragonrealms would benefit as well.

8. Focusing on storylines, which are basically just excuses for invasions, instead of dev

It's not that storylines are bad. It's just that Gemstone seems to have an overabundance of them when you compare it to say, Dragonrealms. But Dragonrealms actually has a huge amount of development. I don't know what the difference between Gemstone IV's devs and Dragonrealms' devs are, but I think Simutronics needs to study it.

The DR devs are rewriting just about every system of the game and making it more fun and more newbie friendly. They tripled the amount of experience you can have in your pool to get all of your training for that skill done for the day (or a couple hours, depending on how hardcore you are), and made it so your xp drain rate is constant, allowing you to RP without feeling like you should be doing something. They're rewriting combat because the combo system is unnecessary and very confusing to noobs. They're rewriting skills to adjust for all the new ones they've released as of late. They successfully released a new class, Necromancers, with an incredible backstory. And they're buffing Traders by giving them magic.

Long story short for this point, Dragonrealms devs are fixing all of the problems Dragonrealms has, while Gemstone devs just wish to sweep them under the rug and do storylines instead. You won't find much storyline bullshit in the News of Dragonrealms--you'll find changes. Dragonrealms, at this time, is the correct game to play.

Why can't Gemstone be correct too? They have a similar number of players. How much effort would it really be to use the same hiring tactics and techniques on the Gemstone Gamemasters, even if you don't care about Gemstone? If you don't want to think about Gemstone, let us think about where we would want the game to go as a community, then just order the Gamemasters you hired to go do it.




Did I get everything?

[Kronius]

[B]

Did I get everything?

I agree with everything you said. Well done.

[Asrial]

What about volunteer coders? Is simu preventing volunteers from working on important game mechanics and features? Or is it an issue of not enough people applying for those volunteer coder positions?I have enough coding experience that I could easily pick up the custom language of GSL and even be able to handle the foundation language.

I can't even get into a host position.

GemStone is dead and long beyond the ability to recover to any sense of former glory.

There are three types of people in GS these days...

1) The RP'ers lucky enough to be in a clique with GM's that give them attention (IE: Solhaven and Illistim).

2) The hardcore players that have managed to amass wealth to the point that they can continue to rotate in new high end gear to keep their experience fresh and fun.

3) The casuals that would actually like to cap one day and really only play when a close friend wants to play too, because it's something to do together.

..and really..

Upper management doesn't care.

Teras has a small, but consistent, population of players. I complained for years that we received no attention from GM's. The end result? A couple of GM's cycled through and still no attention beyond a pity world touring festival that started on Teras and ended in Solhaven really (probably where it was intended to start in the first place based on how the event played out).

[Androidpk]

1. Why has nothing significant changed in GemstoneIV since Paladins were released in 2004?

I would call the adventures guild and Sunfist pretty significant.

[AnticorRifling]

And enhancives.

[Androidpk]

I was able to consume 12 years worth of content in a short period of time and become bored again/ That shouldn't happen.

When you go from 0 to cap in ONE year boredom should be expected.

[Drew]

Do you think volunteers coded Tiny Heroes?

Yes, and based off the success of angry birds, if Tiny Heroes became a hit it could have made hundreds of millions of dollars. On top of that I'm pretty sure the programmers were paid relatively small amounts and given equity.

You could hire 10 programmers for GS and get what, 200 players back? MAYBE. It's a known quantity. You could spend 10 million bucks on a really good radio drama but the only people who would listen are people who really like radio dramas. It's a known audience and it's known to be small. I'd be interested in you making a business case where hiring programmers doesn't alienate our current volunteer ones and somehow makes Gemstone more profitable for Simu.

[Jarvan]

Wait, are you people saying since what's his name is focused on DR, DR player base is growing?

Dr pretty much always has more players then GS, also a bunch of GS people have moved recently to DR.

DR has updates to it's systems alot more often. There is an entire revamp coming out soon. It's crafting system is already much more robust then GS, and more is being added.

They do feed off each other in some ways. Alchemy was in GS first, but is being put in DR very similar to GS.

Forging in DR is MUCH more robust, including armor forging.

As to them being able to afford a full time coder.. you got to be kidding me.

They could easily afford a full time coder. If their profit margin on these games is so low they couldn't afford to coder for them.. they should just close shop now. Would the Dev GM's be upset if they did hire a full time coder? Likely. But maybe not, since the dev's play the game, and I would hope, love the game enough to want to see it improve. They could still code things, obviously. But the full time coder could work on major overhauls and updates.

[Drew]

8. Focusing on storylines, which are basically just excuses for invasions, instead of dev

I don't agree with your conceit that storylines are just an excuse for invasions, although invasions are a component. I also don't agree this is an issue. I already have a character, I can already do tons of things in Gemstone, why do I care about a new profession? I'm not going to play it, my character isn't one. The reason I play Gem is for the player interaction, the questing, etc. If they changed the focus to dev they might appeal to more World of Warcraft players briefly, maybe, but they would alienate the core base they have now.

[gtakito]

Did I get everything?
Very well said. Thank you for taking the time to write that. It should be required reading for every GSIV player.

[Warriorbird]

It's things like this.

Rather than make a FB front end or a Mobile Front End, there's a new web based front end without the features of something like Lich or PSInet (no chat or automapping) or with any optimization for, you know, Facebook or Mobile.

It could be awesome. I really hope it is. Sadly, I've got my fears.

Pitch onto that senior management confusing their issues with GMs and then helping lead to a GM culture where they feel "oppressed by the player base." and are going to accuse their customers of being bad customers and lying.

None of that works in Web 2.0.

GS and DR can be the best place on the net to game. Can be.

[Androidpk]

Ultimately not enough people in the GS player population care enough to actually do something about it. Look at the results from April free GS, sure some people dropped but not nearly enough.

[audioserf]

Catch 22. I think the price very much holds the game back in terms of generating new subscribers, but I think the lack of DEV holds the game back in terms of improving the game for existing subscribers. And if they can't afford to hire coders with the egregious amount of money we're already paying for a 1990s text MUD, then I don't know what the fuck they're going to do. Probably suck down the monthly payments until one day the lights turn off and the server gets unplugged.

[gtakito]

I don't agree with your conceit that storylines are just an excuse for invasions, although invasions are a component. I also don't agree this is an issue. I already have a character, I can already do tons of things in Gemstone, why do I care about a new profession? I'm not going to play it, my character isn't one. The reason I play Gem is for the player interaction, the questing, etc. If they changed the focus to dev they might appeal to more World of Warcraft players briefly, maybe, but they would alienate the core base they have now.
Storylines aren't going to bring back old players like a new profession would. When Monks do finally come out, I'm not going to roll one, but I am still really looking forward to it. I believe that release will spike player interest in GSIV again, so when I do resub I won't feel like I'm playing in a ghost town.

[Renian]

I don't agree with your conceit that storylines are just an excuse for invasions, although invasions are a component. I also don't agree this is an issue. I already have a character, I can already do tons of things in Gemstone, why do I care about a new profession? I'm not going to play it, my character isn't one. The reason I play Gem is for the player interaction, the questing, etc. If they changed the focus to dev they might appeal to more World of Warcraft players briefly, maybe, but they would alienate the core base they have now.

Everyone feels the effects of dev. Only people who participate in storylines, such as yourself, get any benefit out of them.

I'm not saying get rid of storylines, here. Just that right now, the game needs more dev than it does storylines. The game news is riddled with news about storylines, but no news about much-needed improvements. Is it too much to ask to find the right balance?

[Warriorbird]

Everyone feels the effects of dev. Only people who participate in storylines, such as yourself, get any benefit out of them.

I'm not saying get rid of storylines, here. Just that right now, the game needs more dev than it does storylines. The game news is riddled with news about storylines, but no news about much-needed improvements. Is it too much to ask to find the right balance?

CE staff is unqualified for DEV, mostly. The two groups are mostly unconnected. I do agree that GS needs more DEV though.

I agree with you that invasion based storylines do seem pretty shallow though.

[Renian]

CE staff is unqualified for DEV, mostly. The two groups are mostly unconnected.

Being unconnected is fine, but I'd like to know why they are unqualified for dev. If they have little dev experience and/or no interest in it, that's one thing. If GSL is a clusterfuck with no manual and that's why everyone chooses to be a CE GM, that's another.

If the CE staff could get into GSL though, we could have better storylines. Imagine a GM coding up new shit on the fly specifically for the storyline that players have to deal with, instead of copy and pasting a renamed BCS creature with slightly different stats and throwing them at you. Once they get used to that, they might want to explore developing stuff in general a bit more. Basically, slowly increase their knowledge of GSL for purposes they are interested in, creating new devs that might not otherwise exist.

[crb]

Why do we need to rehash this all the time?

The problem is Simutronics lacks many professional coders, or anyone with any understanding of business. It also seems as if they'd rather have a smaller less successful game.

Why haven't they adopted the business model of the vastly more successful online game companies out there and more accurately price their game, offer free to play options, more incremental upsells, and microtransactions? One than "because they're idiots" I can't really think of a legitimate reason.

It is like they don't get they're missing out of huge chunks of a market through inefficient pricing, its like they don't even understand what a fixed cost is, and what an incremental or variable cost is. This is like first year stuff.

Many people can't afford $15+ a month, but maybe they could afford $5, or $0. Right? So when tough times hit they downgrade, but they stay a customer, they keep contact, and when good times come back they upgrade again, you haven't lost them as a customer.

Without the cheaper options you force them to go cold turkey, and guess what? Maybe they get over it, and when the good times come back, they don't reup, because why? Now they're hooked on farmville, or whatever, instead.

If I ran the game I would make two new account levels. Free, paid for through incentivized affiliate offers (like, too many free online services to count), and $5. The accounts would be limited by geography, type aheads, or things like say mana return rates or xp absorption rates. No XXX for instance, maybe vaalor only for instance. pures might not get access to spells over 20, squares have cmans capped at 3 or something. no guild access.

I would get rid of the character slot fees, because they are pretty stupid, and someone can easily deactivate reactivate to switch without paying a fee, so you're essentially just charging a fee for nothing. Let people at the $15 account level get 10 characters for free. They cost you nothing, nothing at all, but increase customer satisfaction and retention as people will not feel penalized for trying a new character.

Since these changes would increase in-game population, making it more vibrant and interesting, it would continue to beget more population, growth begets growth naturally. You would also, over time, increase premium subscribers as people who get hooked pay for the upsell.

[diethx]

Gosh how many of these threads have we all read... nothing ever changes.

[Androidpk]

Gosh how many of these threads have we all read... nothing ever changes.

The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

[diethx]

This wheel has been squealing for 10 years.

[Brosif]

Am I the only person who thinks they could produce all code, messaging, and design choices for a new GSIV profession in under 80 hours of work?


Anything to code from the ground up, that involves making design choices and interacting with a large amount of other systems takes far, far, longer than you would think. By time say, monks, get released it will have probably taken 800 man hours (not just for coding, but for people reviewing, documenting, etc). I dont know their system but I'm sure there's some politics involved as well so it's not as straight forward and just typing code either.

[caelric]

but I'm sure there's some politics involved as well so it's not as straight forward and just typing code either.

It's laughable that politics plays a part in such a small time game.

And yet, true.

I guess that when they say all politics is local they aren't kidding.

[HouseofElves]

1) They need a leader who is going to effectively manage the staff, development and advertising.

2) Microtransactions and loyalty points - Remove all sub fees, make the game free to play. Allow for cosmetic only mictrotransactions for alters/features/tattoos/unlocking to basic tiers. You still have to find a merchant in-game for lightning/deepening/unlocking to raffle or auction quality.

Customers have a one time option to purchase character slots, locker space, homes and furniture.

Every month customers can sub 5/10 dollars for "loyalty" points. The collection of these points work like premium/plat points and allow for mechanic benefits with certain amounts after enough is collected ie weighting or enchants.

Reduce plat to 20.00.

3) Recruit for development - There are people who have an interest in this whether it just be to challenge themselves or portfolio building. They need to be willing to seek out new talent.

And I agree with everything Renian said and I hope to god someone who could change these things or even address them would read this thread. I think the GS community wants to continue playing and enjoying this product, it just doesn't seem like the management/leadership of Simu is interested in putting effort into addressing the ongoing problems and concerns of the community.

[Asrial]

Anything to code from the ground up, that involves making design choices and interacting with a large amount of other systems takes far, far, longer than you would think.Another problem is the rotation (I assume) of people actually coding things.

Factor in the time it takes to get yourself up to speed on what the code is actually doing before you start adding to it (and also adjusting to someone else's coding style).

[Rallorick]

agree with most of that. I wouldn't make accounts free necessarily, because that would really end with a bunch of bots in game that are designed to farm silver and gear until they get banned/rinse/repeat.

Like the idea of token or point system. I would expand that to something like WoW group instances that you can use points on, that farm better gear and more experience. But if you could join a queue to run harder events that are designed to require multiple professions to complete - it encourages group activity and is a consistent drain on points, which lead to more microtransactions. It seems like it would also expose the strength and weaknesses across the profession base for utility. From a business standpoint, these are the impulsive activities.

Also use the points for monthly events for GALD and other merchant events.

I think they need better design of story lines - which is probably because it's all volunteer based. Most just seem sort of weak and cliche, like a really bad story I wouldn't read. I probably couldn't do any better, but it just doesn't seem compelling from a player standpoint.

[Latrinsorm]

The squeaky wheel gets the oil.Am I the only one who ignores the squeaky wheel out of spite?

One thing I don't see mentioned often is the concept of grouping. When I played, there was very little incentive to hunt in groups. When I started playing DDO, there was a UI element specifically devoted to grouping, and I was astonished. I can actually play the action part of the game with other people? A fundamental re-evaluation of experience mechanics could go a long way to enriching GS. Look how many people mention social dynamics as a positive, look how vibrant the forum communities are, PsiNet (RIP), Lich, etc.
agree with most of that. I wouldn't make accounts free necessarily, because that would really end with a bunch of bots in game that are designed to farm silver and gear until they get banned/rinse/repeat.Limited free to play is the only way to go, man (or, potentially, wo-man). It's easy money.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Isn't there some guy on here who created his own text game from scratch? Everyone should go there and start paying him nominal amounts of money and recreate Gemstone there and finally have a real game that actually might have a chance at not dying a slow death.

NOTHING will save Gemstone from Whatley if he doesn't change his investment and/or strategy for it. It's dying a slow death and no matter how many threads like this pop up, it will eventually become the new Modus and blow away. As great a memory you may have of it, at some point you must accept it for just being a memory. Or if you currently still play, accept it will steadily go down hill.

[Atlanteax]

As great a memory you may have of it, at some point you must accept it for just being a memory.

The sad unfortunate truth.

[SHAFT]

As great a memory you may have of it, at some point you must accept it for just being a memory.

Unless you're still playing the game and enjoying it.....

Droughtman's last year was a huge success, the last 2 mini-runs sold out, and we're seeing 400+ during peak hours. I'm having fun with the game right now. I'm never going back to WoW, but I will give GW2 a look.

These threads have been popping up for years and GS keeps ticking along.

[Makkah]

Isn't there some guy on here who created his own text game from scratch? Everyone should go there and start paying him nominal amounts of money and recreate Gemstone there and finally have a real game that actually might have a chance at not dying a slow death.


There's a couple of them. CLOK (see my sig) is the shit.

[Telfaahga]

Isn't there some guy on here who created his own text game from scratch? Everyone should go there and start paying him nominal amounts of money and recreate Gemstone there and finally have a real game that actually might have a chance at not dying a slow death.

NOTHING will save Gemstone from Whatley if he doesn't change his investment and/or strategy for it. It's dying a slow death and no matter how many threads like this pop up, it will eventually become the new Modus and blow away. As great a memory you may have of it, at some point you must accept it for just being a memory. Or if you currently still play, accept it will steadily go down hill.

Unwritten Legends?

[Gelston]

I don't know if Modus ever had its own heyday but back in GS' heyday I tried Modus out for a day or three, I think there was a little over 100 players?

Honestly I have no idea how that game is still around, just proves that it takes peanuts for Simu to keep these games online.

I remember numbers in the 100s-150s. For the size of Modus, that is perfect.

[kookiegod]

Being unconnected is fine, but I'd like to know why they are unqualified for dev. If they have little dev experience and/or no interest in it, that's one thing. If GSL is a clusterfuck with no manual and that's why everyone chooses to be a CE GM, that's another.

If the CE staff could get into GSL though, we could have better storylines. Imagine a GM coding up new shit on the fly specifically for the storyline that players have to deal with, instead of copy and pasting a renamed BCS creature with slightly different stats and throwing them at you. Once they get used to that, they might want to explore developing stuff in general a bit more. Basically, slowly increase their knowledge of GSL for purposes they are interested in, creating new devs that might not otherwise exist.

This one I going to answer.

Yes.

I had zero help when I took over plat, so Matt Meyer (aka Melissa/Llearyn) started teaching me GSL so I could make stuff on my own.

Now...

Making a critter is a LOT more challenging then you think, so lets not go there, but as I made simple things to start, it went from skullkeys, to whisper locks, to the skull hilted weapons, was a progression as I got more skills and more ideas.

Having said that, is only so much time to devote in a day/week/month to GS. CE staff has to make feeder items, answer refers/assists, plan events, run events, run the host team, mentors, QC feeder items, etc. The few great coders that come out of CE over the years are few and far between.

While I was prolific, I never considered myself great, I was ambitious and went outside my ability a lot and got a lot of help to make what I did. Still, ambitious and aggressive gets you far in life.

[Sylvan Dreams]

My two cents...

What holds GS back is that they don't HAVE TO do anything. They don't have to listen to the playerbase, they don't have to improve the lack of dev, they don't have to pay their coders. None of it. There's not millions of dollars at stake here. I don't seriously think anyone believes GS can be the moneymaker like WoW or any other game like it. At it's peak GS still only had a few thousand (couple thousand?) logged in at once.

As long as they can make up money by selling out pay events like Droughtman's, why do they need to sink money into those other areas of the game? Sure, the game can (and probably will) eventually die, but almost all games do.

[Kronius]

My two cents...

What holds GS back is that they don't HAVE TO do anything. They don't have to listen to the playerbase, they don't have to improve the lack of dev, they don't have to pay their coders. None of it. There's not millions of dollars at stake here. I don't seriously think anyone believes GS can be the moneymaker like WoW or any other game like it. At it's peak GS still only had a few thousand (couple thousand?) logged in at once.

As long as they can make up money by selling out pay events like Droughtman's, why do they need to sink money into those other areas of the game? Sure, the game can (and probably will) eventually die, but almost all games do.

I think most people will agree with you, they don't HAVE to do anything at all, and that is sad. However, there is much untapped potential for greatness that just doing the bare minimum is so tragic. I wouldn't be surprised if they were to increase efforts two or threefold, to realize exponential gains in both player base and profit. But nobody seems to care about making great money or creating a great game. They seem to content to let GS skate along as an okay game, with a dedicated player base making okay money. It's their company, so that is their right. Like I said, though, the untapped potential is tragic.

[HouseofElves]

No, it's not going to be a legit MMO. But there is a sizable difference between 1,500 active accounts averaging 30 dollars a month versus 250 active accounts averaging 30 dollars a month.

That equates a lot of money for better recruitment, better service and better development. Of course it's not a cash cow, but just doing the bare minimum to keep it alive is really not working out either.

[crb]

Is Gemstone the lazy welfare wretch of the gaming world? Content to skate by on the bare minimum with no ambition for self improvement?

Have they settled?

[Makkah]

Where da monks at? In all honesty, I'll be back when monks come out. I also think Savants could bring a LOT of people back. Completely new dynamic to the game.

[Luftstreitkräfte]

I think they should advertise at least a little...

Luftstreitkrafte, Every time I scroll past one of your posts, I can't help but watch your sig for like 5-10 minutes. Lucky SOB right there.

I didn't know it was altered, thanks Ross.

http://i.imgur.com/hzKW1.gif

I was going to change it to this but I feel bad just stealing all of my gifs from reddit.

[ashronsjunky]

I only want to say this game sucks, its over priced and I would never play it if i couldn't make a dollar off it when i desperately needed to. This is the ONLY game that i know of where time played can be a bounce back cash wise when you need it most. Truth be told.

[4a6c1]

I didn't know it was altered, thanks Ross.

http://i.imgur.com/hzKW1.gif

I was going to change it to this but I feel bad just stealing all of my gifs from reddit.

I love happy endings where the dinosaurs win.

[gtakito]

So Monks are going into beta testing on Friday. http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?t=71698

It's kind of hard to believe, but at least now I can see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Oh well, back to waiting patiently until their official release so I can re-sub. Maybe if enough people return for this we could see the rate of development increase as well.

[Fallen]

Isn't player mail still in beta testing? Definitely don't re-up until they are actually released into the game proper. Still, great to see the code is coming along. It will be a gigantic addition to the game between UAC, Minor Mental, and the new profession.

[Ceyrin]

. I'd be interested in you making a business case where hiring programmers doesn't alienate our current volunteer ones and somehow makes Gemstone more profitable for Simu.

I'd go out on a limb here and say that I think if most of the present volunteer GMs heard that their 'responsibilities for production' were to go down, and they could get back to doing the volunteer work they most likely want to - roleplaying with others, that there wouldn't be a lot of strife or misgivings about having a few coders who are on salary instead.

Maybe I'm wrong... but what if I'm not?

[Drew]

I'd go out on a limb here and say that I think if most of the present volunteer GMs heard that their 'responsibilities for production' were to go down, and they could get back to doing the volunteer work they most likely want to - roleplaying with others, that there wouldn't be a lot of strife or misgivings about having a few coders who are on salary instead.

Maybe I'm wrong... but what if I'm not?

Hiring a single coder is going to cost the company over 100k a year. So if we want to hire 3 you're going to have to spend at least 300k. Let's assume Gemstone has 5000 subscribers at an average of 25 dollars each. That's a total of 1.5 million a year to cover all overhead. Servers, on site staff, taxes, rent, utilities (whatever share of these gemstone pays), staff and then whatever profit GS makes. Do you think that investing 300k for 3 programmers will give them over 300k in return? I sure don't.

[Kronius]

Hiring a single coder is going to cost the company over 100k a year. So if we want to hire 3 you're going to have to spend at least 300k. Let's assume Gemstone has 5000 subscribers at an average of 25 dollars each. That's a total of 1.5 million a year to cover all overhead. Servers, on site staff, taxes, rent, utilities (whatever share of these gemstone pays), staff and then whatever profit GS makes. Do you think that investing 300k for 3 programmers will give them over 300k in return? I sure don't.

If they had 3 full time coders (and 100k for a code monkey is really good in St. Louis) churning out new shit all the time, they could afford to do all of that. If they were to implement new shit and micro-transactions? They'd definitely get their return on investment and make profit.

I think you are way overestimating their overhead for GS.

[Drew]

If they had 3 full time coders (and 100k for a code monkey is really good in St. Louis) churning out new shit all the time, they could afford to do all of that. If they were to implement new shit and micro-transactions? They'd definitely get their return on investment and make profit.

I think you are way overestimating their overhead for GS.

100k is that total cost to pay someone a 50k salary. Companies pay a lot more for each employee than the employee receives because of double taxation, etc.

[Ceyrin]

Hiring a single coder is going to cost the company over 100k a year. So if we want to hire 3 you're going to have to spend at least 300k. Let's assume Gemstone has 5000 subscribers at an average of 25 dollars each. That's a total of 1.5 million a year to cover all overhead. Servers, on site staff, taxes, rent, utilities (whatever share of these gemstone pays), staff and then whatever profit GS makes. Do you think that investing 300k for 3 programmers will give them over 300k in return? I sure don't.

My wife and I were talking similarly as you just described about the business, and in much the same terms (our numbers were less generous with their subscription base though).

We both came to the conclusion, and I agree with you as well, that their overhead is a lot higher than people probably give it credit for.

I think several people have hit on what they're lacking to compete for income - microtransactions. These mini-DR runs are a about as close as they've ever come, and I buy at least 1 ticket to every run because I want to support the idea in their mind that microtransaction-like purchases are the way to go. I don't know if they're even looking at DR from that perspective, but I hope someone's 'got the brain' and using it.

All that said, my initial intention was to focus on the part you mentioned about unpaid/volunteer workers having hurt feelings over the work they do and not getting paid on the same scale as any professional coder who's on salary would.