Necromium

Flood · Admiral Manager Posts: 869 Joined: 28 Sep 2000

I talked to BoneZ recently and he made it clear that he isn't giving code access to anyone else. He has no time to code, and neither does Jaguar. Jaguar hasn't done any coding in several months, by the way. BoneZ says it is time to throw in the towel and give up on all prospects of code development. That's it. End of story. The only good news is that the game stays open.

So the first thing I want to say to you guys in response to that is I'm sorry we ended up in this position. Had I thought we'd lose our coder midstream I would have gone about some changes differently, or perhaps skipped out on some others. All the good plans in the world are useless if you can't get them implemented. And sometimes good ideas are worse than no ideas when the game is stuck with a partial implementation.

To be blunt: things are bad, and with this latest new from BoneZ things will only get worse. With so few players around they rarely get any real EQ runs going. We get maybe one new player every couple weeks, but they don't stay because we're so visibly screwed. We've even lost a lot of imms and builders. There will be no rebalancing of training, no zone ownership, no oldstat fix, no CP bank. We can stop worrying about the big picture or coming up with lots of big code projects.

So what do we do? Obviously I stay and maintain the place. But how do we make this as enjoyable as possible for you guys? Do you have any requests? Do you want hobs back on necro, for example? Do you want to try another advertising drive as a last ditch attempt for new players? Feel free to think stuff up and let me know. But lets be reasonable.

Dream · Mage Avatar Posts: 447 Joined: 08 May 2006

I don't mean to be blunt or rude, but advertising seems pretty much pointless by now. I swept over 5,000 people on MySpace with a necro ad, and we got only a few replies from that, and the few people that did reply got bored quickly. People who are familiar with MUDs already have their own home-mud that they enjoy greatly. Many players have already begun quitting because of the obvious lack of activity ): The only way I could see the fun that so many people have (used to have) being retained is if we were to get a group of people together and start our own MUD where we could code, but SO MUCH work has gone into Necromium so far, it would take a good long time for us to achieve the greatness that Necromium has.

Tigger · Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:49 pm Post subject:

Tijgetje · Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:01 pm Post subject:

And he didn't even bother to post about it himself, like he said he would... Such a shame and imo what an *s*h***e. Excuse my language.

It's cool that you either lose interest or the time to manage a game like Necromium. But it isn't cool to just let it all go to waste the way Bonez did. If he had any heart left for this place he would have given it to someone who did see a future for us. Now he is just a selfish nerd who used this game to boost his internet ego.

If only he atleast had the decency to tell us all himself. Now we still haven't heard why he isn't allowing anybody to develop. And most of all I feel sorry for Flood. All his hard work and dedication even when things were looking very grim. If anything I want to thank you Flood for all that you have done.

But like Tigger said, this might be the final chapter of long lasting story. Too bad...
_________________
I alone am the Prince of Peace! If there is any other, then show us all a sign! Right here, right now! It is a wicked and perverse generation who asks for a sign! But like Christ, Your only sign will be this! Destroy these temples of his holy prophets and the lord will rebuild them in three days!!

Durpe · Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:04 pm Post subject:

I guess I'll throw my two cents in here. This is me throwing the kitchen sink at this problem of ours.

First off, don't quit so fast guys. Nothing has gone away yet. Flood was looking for ideas so instead of flaunting another mud (I think it was much too early for that) or whining I'll be thinking up some ideas.

We have two problems that people bitch about. One that gets alot of attention. What is there for an avatar to do? What about this. What is there for a newbie to do?

Avatars can: Run EQ/Cp/Run Gold/Quest effectively //// Newbies can: Run very minor gear/Xp //// Both can: Mess around in the casino (which never happens because there isn't enough gold out there.)

Hmmm. Okay. So here's something. What about maybe a tiny gold boost? Just throwing it out there since that sounds like something that would be tweakable by you. Obviously within reason. I see pros and cons to both sides of that though. I'm doing okay with gold. It seems reasonable. I'm not sure how a newbie looks at it now though.

I was talking to someone yesterday about EQ running. He was talking about how EQ running was tedious because A.) You can't get people to run all the good zones. B.) If anyone has been playing for an extended period of time they most likely only need a couple pieces of EQ from a zone, and then if they can manage to get a group together to run said zone the odds of that piece of EQ loading are so low that you probably aren't going to get it. Now this may not have been a problem back in the day when we had more players, but I can kind of see his point.

Ways to potentially solve a problem like that? Maybe up load rates slightly? I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. On one hand we don't have many players, so if EQ starts loading everyone will have what they need by the end of the year. On the other hand, it might increase interest enough to get people to run Abyss/Etc.

Actually, scrap that. That's probably not the cause for inactivity. Maybe a small piece, but I'm not sure that upping load rates is the best fix. Supply and demand is a funny thing. Pleasing avatars while keeping them interested in the long haul is kind of tough.

All in all, that should be enough ranting for now. I'll sleep on it and maybe come back with an idea or two more. This at least gives people something to chew on. Maybe collectively we can come up with ideas.

Oh... How about this also. Reboots by request if there are large amounts of people on and it isn't interfering with anyone elses EQ running? Power to the people tends to make them happier.

Tijgetje · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:48 am Post subject:

Durpe · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:39 am Post subject:

Frodough · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:34 am Post subject:

Ada · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 3:06 am Post subject:

You probably can't change how eq runs repop, but you could make them easier! Almost every run should be doable with a group of 2-3, because it's so difficult to get a group of larger than that. Get rid of !class rooms in eq runs; at least those that are only there to force you to use a big group. Get rid of death load so we don't have to spend an hour killing something with our underpowered, too-small group, unless we already know there's gonna be some reward for it.

I think the Astronomical Society is a good example of a zone that is a good difficulty level: a group of three can breeze through it, mostly, and it can be soloed if you're willing to put a few hours into it. The eq at the end is okay and can tweak to be really good. See also Xanhador, the Fortress of; and others at around that level of difficulty.

Get rid of silver globes, or make them 33able. They are way out of proportion with platinum orbs when you consider that there are basically zero newbies online at any one time. And make 'em repop more than once every few days, if you can.

Let us multiplay! It'll look marginally better on who, and it gives us some new challenges (like eq runs with fewer people).

--

I actually like ships. The world just feels bigger when you can't get to Yaaltin quickly, even if it is sort of inconvenient.

The economy is never gonna be great, and minor tweaks are not gonna help. I guess I'm one of the rich few, but, seriously, if you had twenty million gold to spend, what would you buy? Thief maxtweaks that don't exist, maybe a couple of restring tokens. I don't need or want anything else and I doubt the other people with gold do either. That's supply and demand: either an item is a ridiculous tweak and the person who has it is not giving it up, or it has no value whatsoever.

Tigger · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 3:11 am Post subject:

It seems a lot of people took my post the wrong way. I am in no way trying to advertise my mud, considering it is not finished or even running atm. What I tried to do was give the players of Necro an option in the semi-far future of somewhere else to mud with their Necro buddies, so that those friendships you guys forged are not lost if/when Necro dies, and I for one wish it never does. But it's comments like this that will kill a mud:

Tijgetje · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:31 am Post subject:

Ada · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:38 am Post subject:

Tijgetje · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:24 am Post subject:

Flood · Admiral Manager Posts: 869 Joined: 28 Sep 2000

I see what you're saying with zones. I recall months ago Flak was pretty strongly in favor of tweaking runs so that smaller groups could do them. Of course at that time we had coding going on, and I figured we'd get more players (which we did for a while) and so the idea was unnecessary. Maybe some runs, or parts of some runs, can be tweaked. Then again, I've solo'd Asgard up to Tyr but it just took many hours.. I've also run the whole thing with just three people. So it is doable! But yeah it takes forever. So I'll take a look.. it's a tough balance between giving you guys something to do (run a zone) and ruining a zone.

As for multiplaying.. one of the imms suggested the same thing upon hearing this news. On one hand, it would allow people to CP/EQ when we have like 10 people online and all but 1 is AFK. On the other hand, it kind of undermines everything necro has stood for in the past and also creates a lot of problems. One problem that comes to mind is PK and especially CPK. I wouldn't be too crazy about someone logging 20 maxavs to trap someone, and it would be nearly impossible to keep track of who is on who at what time. Another problem is that it is kind of lame to log in, see 100 characters online, and they're all AFK maxavs. Then we'd look even more old and busted than we really are, wouldn't we? I don't know. You guys tell me.

Gold... That's a tough one. The reason gold is so scarce now compared to years ago is that rarity is supposed to create value. Back when everyone had 1, 2, 10, 20+ million coins the gold itself had no value. Nobody wanted to sell any tweaks or rare items because the effort needed to get the item was more than the effort it would take for you to get like 100mil coins. You could just walk into NPK (or non-PK even) and pull out nice amounts of gold, so why would anyone want to work their asses off for rare gear and trade it for plentiful gold? So that is why we are where we are with the rarity of gold. The problem with today's economy is that people with items still believe that gold has no value relative to their EQ, so they want to sell things for 5-10mil when almost nobody even has that money. You have to work your ass off to get lots of money, just like you have to work to get EQ, so theoretically they should be offering EQ at lower prices that people can afford. Of course we have other problems, like the fact that people with money also have EQ so they don't need to buy anything anyway. So will making gold more available actually fix anything? Would you be happy with a larger number in your bank on score, even though the your future 10mil gold is worth less than the 1mil you have now? If so, then I can consider it.

I can't control how many orbs load, or where, or anything like that. I can, however, change globes to be no longer !33. I honestly didn't agree with the original change to make orbs so rare, but I do understand why it was done. Everyone had orbs all the time, and it almost made it pointless to cast sanc on yourself. The WOM at the time decided exp was way too easy with everyone having orbs, and clerics were less desirable. And having avatars go after all those orbs did make it harder for true newbies to get them. But at this point we have no newbies, we won't really be getting many. There is also no real reason to make exp and such a pain in the ass for you all. If having orbs will encourage you all to go out and do stuff, then there we go.

Flood · Admiral Manager Posts: 869 Joined: 28 Sep 2000

A few things I missed.. No, Dream, I don't think you're being rude. I agree with you on the advertising. I recently stopped funding our ads, such as the banner on topmudsites. The ad worked a little, at first, and then got ignored by everyone who regularly visits the site. We're up against muds that are well funded, have active development, etc, and our advertising can't compete especially in our current state. Plus we have to deal with things like newer console gaming systems and WoW, which means a lot of potential new mudders won't even give muds a chance because they play those other games instead. And in the face of all that, dedicated mudders aren't going to leave their muds to come start over in our stalled game. Would you leave necro, let alone leave necro to start over in some game that is in our state? Probably not. Our ads did not and will not work.

As for Tigger's posts, in years past he'd have been smacked pretty hard for even posting a link to his mud no matter what his intention was. We don't want people advertising other muds here still, but that's not what he's doing. Tigger is saying that if Necro goes so far down the tubes that nobody is even here, then maybe you want to keep in touch with your friends over there. A lot of people kind of grew up in necro. I started playing when I was like 15. So we meet a lot of people, and maybe you want to do more than just chat with them. Maybe you want to group up and go kill someone, but your necro friends live too far away or you fear police action for really killing someone. So naturally you kill things in a video game. If Necro is so far gone that you can't do it here, then he's saying you can do it there. I obviously prefer for everyone to stay in necro, but then again I also would prefer code development and new players. The important thing is that we all have fun. So if you find yourself not having fun, and we really can't make things fun for you here due to our limitations, then I'm not going to try and hide info or trick you into staying here and being unhappy when you could be somewhere else having fun with your friends.