How many people hang out in Solhaven?

[Tgo01]

Someone on the officials claim between 30 and 50 people hang out there. When I was doing CoL there on my sorc about a year ago I never saw a single person there. I ran over there just to see if the town had been given a jolt of life recently and I saw exactly two people there.

I guess it's possible the other 48 people were all in the bathroom when I went over to check it out but I'm finding that hard to believe. Are there really 30-50 people who hang out there?

Are there also between 30-50 people who hang out in Illistim and River's Rest?

[Tenlaar]

The most I've seen in one room at one time in RR has been about 6 characters, not counting mine.

But I was busy being a dirty scripter and rarely socializing.

[Tgo01]

But I was busy being a dirty scripter and rarely socializing.

I hope those 6 people reported you!!!!!

[Silvean]

The someone you are referring to wrote, "In broad strokes, there are 20-60 people in any given nuclear community." He identifies nuclear communities as: "River's Rest, Solhaven, Ta'Illistim, Icemule, Teras, Landing."

I think he means that if you stayed there all week you might see 20 to 60 people pass by and that's the total of the town's residents.

[Palcron]

There are probably 10 different places that people seem to congregate in Illistim, so if you average only 3-5 per room, then I could definitely see 30-50. How many of those belong to the same person, I don't know, but there are definitely people around.

Last time I was in Solhaven, I saw a grand total of about 5 people, so if they're around, they're all hanging out in one of the spots I'm not aware of.

[Tgo01]

The someone you are referring to wrote, "In broad strokes, there are 20-60 people in any given nuclear community." He identifies nuclear communities as: "River's Rest, Solhaven, Ta'Illistim, Icemule, Teras, Landing."

I think he means that if you stayed there all week you might see 20 to 60 people pass by and that's the total of the town's residents.

You're right he did say between 20-60 people but then later on said:


30-50 people, either in "the whole game" like I remember, "the whole game " like in Platinum, or "just in my town", is a nice-sized group of people to deal with.

So he just keeps changing his figures.

Regardless he also said:


In broad strokes, there are 20-60 people in any given nuclear community ([B]the die-hards who just will not leave, or who hunt at-level through GoS, or whatever).

To me that means he's saying there are between 20-60 people who hang out in each town pretty much exclusively. Granted maybe not all at once but are there really 30 people who hang out in Solhaven? Even if there are, if the population at any given time is anywhere between 0-5 does that really mean much?

[Fallen]

Solhaven, outside of storylines, was always a ghost town whenever I passed through. No more than 1-3 people in a major gathering spot for any length of time.

[Wrathbringer]

The most I've seen in one room at one time in RR has been about 6 characters, not counting mine.

But I was busy being a dirty scripter and rarely socializing.

Reported.

[Jeril]

Solhaven has been mostly a ghost town for years.

[Tenlaar]

Reported.

Reported for reporting.

[Fallen]

What are the populated areas these days? Landing and Icemule seemed pretty popular, then you have middling levels of people at Teras and Illistim. I honestly can't speak to Ta'Vaalor.

[Tgo01]

What are the populated areas these days? Landing and Icemule seemed pretty popular, then you have middling levels of people at Teras and Illistim. I honestly can't speak to Ta'Vaalor.

I can only speak for Solhaven, Icemule and Landing.

Landing seems pretty busy, relatively speaking.

Icemule can be crowded but in TC I usually just see between 0-5 people. On rare occasions I'll see a couple more.

Solhaven is of course dead. Murdered and long forgotten.

[Silvean]

Was the point of this conversation to get Simu to reduce travel times somehow? And you argued that one of the reasons people quit Gemstone is because the game is too big? And the GMs replied with something like: "We don't necessarily want to reduce travel times and we don't have the resources to address a lot of issues" and "we disagree that the game size is a reason people quit Gemstone."

Reading through the threads, I think it would make sense to speed up the Teras schedule even though most people have carousels and, I believe, house items that let them teleport once a month for free. It doesn't strike me as a major concern. Fixing the treasure system and making it exciting ought to be a priority project along with making some kind of FTP newbie area in my opinion.

[Tgo01]

Was the point of this conversation to get Simu to reduce travel times somehow?

Yes.


And you argued that one of the reasons people quit Gemstone is because the game is too big?

I argued that people quit GS because the population is spread too thin across the giant world. People used to go to players for locksmithing, raising, healing, etc etc and now a lot of times NPCs cover those duties.


And the GMs replied with something like: "We don't necessarily want to reduce travel times and we don't have the resources to address a lot of issues"

Something like that.


and "we disagree that the game size is a reason people quit Gemstone."

Wyrom said he never saw someone give a reason for quitting being "The game world is too large."


Reading through the threads, I think it would make sense to speed up the Teras schedule even though most people have carousels and, I believe, house items that let them teleport once a month for free. It doesn't strike me as a major concern. Fixing the treasure system and making it exciting ought to be a priority project along with making some kind of FTP newbie area in my opinion.

But these are such simple changes and I've seen people complaining about them for years. They even devoted resources to creating an entirely new system of travel (Chronomages) rather than just giving prime portals like the ones that already existed in Shattered and Platinum.

[Methais]

Last time I saw 50 people in Solhaven was in the late 90s.

And by 50 people, I probably mean 30.

They really should either convert or expand on the shan area for a capped hunting ground. Same with Broken Lands. Shan were always fun to fight and the Broken Lands is an awesome area with awesome critters that is being completely wasted.

Most of Krakii's posts on the officials are garbage btw. Sometimes I wonder if him and Latrin are related.

[Tgo01]

Most of Krakii's posts on the officials are garbage btw. Sometimes I wonder if him and Latrin are related.

I was thinking Doug and Latrin were the same person. Krakii must be Doug/Latrin's brother.

[gilchristr]

I like hunting in zul, but hate traveling there. Especially when I fall off the rope bridge, which seems pretty common unless I do some planning to lighten my load before I make the trip, which contributes to hating the trip...

I would like to hunt in RR or Teras, but won't because of the hassle involved in getting there and back to the landing.

Its probably hyperbole to say that lots of people quit because of travel times. However, I think its an indisputable fact that travel times are an impediment to many folks accessing some cool areas. I didn't know that portals exist in shattered and platinum, but if that's true, it seems to be an acknowledgement that somebody else realized that travel times are an impediment to many folks accessing some cool areas.

[Tgo01]

I didn't know that portals exist in shattered and platinum, but if that's true, it seems to be an acknowledgement that somebody else realized that travel times are an impediment to many folks accessing some cool areas.

Yup. When I mentioned this on the officials Wyrom tried to explain it all away by saying Shattered has such a low game wide population that it basically needed the portals. He also basically said platinum needed it because players drop their stuff when they decay in that instance so portals make it easier to rescue people.

The reasoning just doesn't make sense though. Are the GMs going to wait until prime's population drops down to 20 people before they say "Gee, maybe we should do something about how large the world is compared to the population of the game..."

I also made the same argument that the reason I don't travel to a lot of places is because the travel time is just too much and someone said that's a good thing because if travel times were shorter then the afk script treasure farmers would just easily move to whichever area has the best treasure at the time.

Well then let's get on Simu's ass to fix the stupid loot pressure system too. This was my original, original point. What the fuck is Simu doing letting very obvious and very fixable systems go broken for so fucking long?

[Wrathbringer]

Yup. When I mentioned this on the officials Wyrom tried to explain it all away by saying Shattered has such a low game wide population that it basically needed the portals. He also basically said platinum needed it because players drop their stuff when they decay in that instance so portals make it easier to rescue people.

The reasoning just doesn't make sense though. Are the GMs going to wait until prime's population drops down to 20 people before they say "Gee, maybe we should do something about how large the world is compared to the population of the game..."

I also made the same argument that the reason I don't travel to a lot of places is because the travel time is just too much and someone said that's a good thing because then the afk script treasure farmers would just easily move to whichever area has the best treasure at the time.

Well then let's get on Simu's ass to fix the stupid loot pressure system too. This was my original, original point. What the fuck is Simu doing letting very obvious and very fixable systems go broken for so fucking long?

It's what they do.

[gilchristr]

Correction - I did hunt in RR at one ppint. It was back when the crystal amulet - boot portal was there. It was a lot of fun.

I haven't been there since that portal was removed.

[Tgo01]

From the officials:


heck, when I logged out a bit ago at 2PM Eastern there were about 6 folk in the commons actively RPing

A whole 6 people in River's Rest? Well I do feel silly now; that place isn't a ghost town.


but the population of RR has really been pretty stable overall since around 2002 and is definitely much larger then it was when I first discovered it on the mid 90's.

This dude on drugs? I remember visiting River's Rest in the mid 90's and that krol ship or whatever was always packed full of people hunting. That was just one hunting ground. There were even more people hanging around at the main gathering spot.

Does everyone on the official forums just make up their argument and hopes no one will catch it because everyone else is too busy making up their argument too?

[Tenlaar]

Does everyone on the official forums just make up their argument and hopes no one will catch it because everyone else is too busy making up their argument too?

http://static.fjcdn.com/comments/Its+like+having+a+higher+consciousness+because+we+ know+that+_29fb6f292a7723b90f3fff9626e9f2e0.png

[subzero]

Last time I saw 50 people in Solhaven was in the late 90s.

And by 50 people, I probably mean 30.

They really should either convert or expand on the shan area for a capped hunting ground. Same with Broken Lands. Shan were always fun to fight and the Broken Lands is an awesome area with awesome critters that is being completely wasted.

Most of Krakii's posts on the officials are garbage btw. Sometimes I wonder if him and Latrin are related.

I used to kick it in Solhaven back then. Seems like it was fairly populated before they changed the laws down there (not saying that was the reason people left), though I don't really remember when that happened. I always thought making a higher level Shan hunting area would have been awesome.


I didn't know that portals exist in shattered and platinum, but if that's true, it seems to be an acknowledgement that somebody else realized that travel times are an impediment to many folks accessing some cool areas.

They could have been added since, but last time I was in Shattered, there were no portals. Not sure why people always assume there are.

[Tenlaar]

I was wondering when they added portals to Shattered myself.

[Neovik1]

When I came back to the game 3-4 years ago I went to River Rest to hunt Tomb Trolls. Probably the best decision I ever made. Met good people there and it gave me a reason to stick around. If I didn't go there... I probably wouldn't be playing today. I just wish there was a capped hunting ground to give me a reason to stay there. I know warcamps are an option... But I would never leave Voln.

If RR had a capped hunting area it would probably bring back some of the old timers.

[Gelston]

When I came back to the game 3-4 years ago I went to River Rest to hunt Tomb Trolls. Probably the best decision I ever made. Met good people there and it gave me a reason to stick around. If I didn't go there... I probably wouldn't be playing today. I just wish there was a capped hunting ground to give me a reason to stay there. I know warcamps are an option... But I would never leave Voln.

If RR had a capped hunting area it would probably bring back some of the old timers.

Second account, get alt to 3, join GoS, open paths for other char.

[Roblar]

Probably don't even need a second account.

Get second character, sigil twice to open a path instead of air, login and go path.

[Tgo01]

They could have been added since, but last time I was in Shattered, there were no portals. Not sure why people always assume there are.


I was wondering when they added portals to Shattered myself.

I've never played Shattered but here is Wyrom's post on the matter:


The reason for the Platinum Portals are because death has a serious meaning. There is droppage on decay. There was droppage on death, where you dropped what was in your hands, but we removed that, because in today's modern playing, it was just something that added too much stress to the game, and in turn, people probably stopped playing over it. Platinum doesn't have a lot of people on at any given time, we usually peak around 30 on a day something is happening. More if there is a big event happening. So someone hunting in the jungle in RR might be the only person even in RR.

But Prime has a lot of cross-realm travel these days. Premium Portals for a price. Chronomages for a price. SimuCoin items. Tons of x/day items out there. I don't think world size is the culprit. If we could cut out a few towns, sure, it would get people closer together, but at the same time we'll also be killing the reason some people like to play. If we turned off droppage in Platinum, we would likely remove the portals.

Shattered got it because they have even less players than Platinum.

Either Wyrom is wrong or portals were introduced in Shattered recently.

[Gelston]

Probably don't even need a second account.

Get second character, sigil twice to open a path instead of air, login and go path.

You can do that, since the path lasts a little bit, but those times you just barely miss making it onto the path... And the hassle of switching characters every time you wanna get in. Two accounts for sure.

[Neovik1]

Ah yeah... I've only been in a war camp once and I do recall them spawning at my level at the time... Shit. For the longest time I was thinking about capping a second character to open them up for me....

[Methais]

Doing warcamps as Voln is great.

Symbol of Sleep is all you need to CC a room and I'm pretty sure it doesn't count towards the aoe backlash. It hasn't for me yet anyway.

[Fallen]

Doing warcamps as Voln is great.

Symbol of Sleep is all you need to CC a room and I'm pretty sure it doesn't count towards the aoe backlash. It hasn't for me yet anyway.

I imagine you can faceroll pretty easy in troll camps with your build.

[Methais]

I imagine you can faceroll pretty easy in troll camps with your build.

It's like hunting rats with a cleric casting Bind and then hitting you with 117 for every swing.

Well not quite, but it is a faceroll.

I've been hitting camps with a claidh lately it's pretty nice with 1 second RT. I just wish shit spawned a bit faster.

[subzero]

I've never played Shattered but here is Wyrom's post on the matter:



Either Wyrom is wrong or portals were introduced in Shattered recently.

Booo! Never liked that idea, but I'm probably a little biased as I tend to favor sorcerers.

[gilchristr]

"If we could cut out a few towns, ... but "

Strawman argument (if nobody was arguing for cutting out a few towns, not reading the officials right now)

[Tgo01]

Booo! Never liked that idea, but I'm probably a little biased as I tend to favor sorcerers.

I argued to make 740 better or to put a new spell in its place.


"If we could cut out a few towns, ... but "

Strawman argument (if nobody was arguing for cutting out a few towns, not reading the officials right now)

At the time no one was arguing to remove any towns or areas. After Wyrom made this post Doug the smartass started arguing that we should remove all of the nations and sol haven and rivers rest. And people call me a troll.

[Fallen]

I'm fine with portals rolling out as long as it came with a new 740 spell. Let sorcerers keep the ability as a "sacrifice" type skill, and put something else in the slot.

I believe there are benefits to having some "distance" between towns, in terms of time/resources spent in order to travel back and forth, especially many times in a short amount of time. That being said, those benefits begin to fail to measure up to the problems of an increasingly shrinking, highly dispersed community of players.

Plat is RP focused and they do fine with portals. One can't argue it would damage Prime's roleplay environment too much if plat can maintain their standards.

[Donquix]

It would make more sense if there were compelling, competing reasons to stay in any given town. i.e. multiple storylines ongoing at the same time, capped hunting areas, etc.

It kind of sucks now if say, you hunt in teras/nations and want to be involved (lulz) with the landing storyline, having to go back and forth, etc.

[Fallen]

People don't like the idea of "quest whores" running from one town to another, but if the population shrinks enough, you'd actually WANT all hands on deck during a storyline just to make it worthwhile.

[Jeril]

People don't like the idea of "quest whores" running from one town to another, but if the population shrinks enough, you'd actually WANT all hands on deck during a storyline just to make it worthwhile.

Quest whores will be there anyway. The easier travel would mean those who are interested for other reasons might actually show up though. Of course the lack of rpas lately has been a major turn off for people too. And another major turn off is having to listen to people spew out their "RP" and the back and forth that takes an hour or more. At times things are like a bad play too, you hear the same people saying the same lines over and over until finally something different happens.

[Ceyrin]

I've never had a problem with travel times between areas of the game. I will say I liked the glasen star update, since that trip was prohibitively long.

One of the mistakes I think a lot of people make is that they assume their problems with the game are the same as everyone else.

The other problem is that because go2 rather efficiently and effectively transports players from one area to another, and scripting hunting has become generally more common, the remaining playerbase is largely impatient. Gemstone at it's core is a game of patience. You can't continue the role-playing interaction until the other party responds. You can't immediately get to the endgame without a substantial time commitment. Even scripted 24-7 in shattered, I understand it takes like 3 months, and without it usually takes a year (of hardcore grinding). No modern MMO would ask this of a player, and rightly so. Modern gamers are less patient.

Time is built into Gemstone on a fundamental level. Everything requires it, and the more it is attempted to shortcut these time sinks, the more the game becomes something it wasn't meant to be, and something it could never and should never attempt to compete with.

[Roblar]

Red rep:

yeah you know all the tricks....

I'm in Icemule and have no need for Grims and they seem poor as shit nowadays anyway...so lol

[Candor]

People don't like the idea of "quest whores" running from one town to another, but if the population shrinks enough, you'd actually WANT all hands on deck during a storyline just to make it worthwhile.

Why would someone be bothered by a character running from one town to another to participate in quests? Isn't that simply part of the game?

I can see the problem if a capped character is out killing everything in a kobold invasion, but beyond that sort of thing...who cares?

Some people just need more things to worry about.

[Kerranger]

Why would someone be bothered by a character running from one town to another to participate in quests? Isn't that simply part of the game?

I can see the problem if a capped character is out killing everything in a kobold invasion, but beyond that sort of thing...who cares?

Some people just need more things to worry about.

Because its not "a character". Its mobs of characters. The same motherfuckers every time. I will edit this to say that it really isn't that big of a deal to me nowadays because of the lower population of some towns, but in the past, it was annoying as shit.

[Candor]

Because its not "a character". Its mobs of characters. The same motherfuckers every time.

I see your point.

I also don't see an obvious way to handle the problem, beyond expressing the concern to SIMU.

[Kerranger]

I edited the post, and ....we all know how quick Simu is to handle concerns.

[Androidpk]

Fucking tourists. SMH

[Tgo01]

Red rep:


I'm in Icemule and have no need for Grims and they seem poor as shit nowadays anyway...so lol

Hey who is messing with Roblar? I'll kick their ass!!

[Gelston]

Hey who is messing with Roblar? I'll kick their ass!!

I bet you won't, pussy!

[Androidpk]

I bet you won't, pussy!

He won't but his script will.

[Roblar]

Hey who is messing with Roblar? I'll kick their ass!!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmUYXSkZMsk

[Tgo01]

I bet you won't, pussy!

:(


He won't but his script will.

:(

No wait.

:)

[subzero]

Why would someone be bothered by a character running from one town to another to participate in quests? Isn't that simply part of the game?

Hahahahahaha. Oh man... it's like you don't know any of these people or haven't read these forums at all.



Some people just need more things to worry about.

Indeed.

[Laviticas]

Quest whores will be there anyway. The easier travel would mean those who are interested for other reasons might actually show up though. Of course the lack of rpas lately has been a major turn off for people too. And another major turn off is having to listen to people spew out their "RP" and the back and forth that takes an hour or more. At times things are like a bad play too, you hear the same people saying the same lines over and over until finally something different happens.

This is why I have been doing my own gig, if I wanted to listen to people bicker for attention I could just go visit the x-wife at 11:00 pm, watch recordings of my kids 3rd grade Christmas play, then whip out the high school yearbook and take a stroll down the clique lane.