>Are there some magical GM powers that make their events different from player run stuff?

Well, the GMs can create NPCs at random skill levels, respawn at whim, control the city/justice commands, spawn enemies of varying skill appropriate to the story and target players, and in general do a lot of things not possible with/for players. So...yes?

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'

Some good views on here so I'll pop back in with a few things.

Its mentioned that the player base is to low now, and with people being spread out and travelling so far to get to events, they sometimes opt not to. Lets shrink the world. Crush people into a smaller area and there will more interaction. If the population has dropped off to the point the world is now to big, then maybe this should be part of the big 3.0 change and get this matter addressed?

I definitely liked the comments aimed towards more event based GM time. There is a huge difference between a GM run storyline and a simple order run event. There is a different feeling towards it, and its open that anything can happen. Big storylines can often lead to lots of smaller roleplay branches from the player base, but without them, the roleplay tends to be limited.

I have seen that a GM has also commented here, that is greatly appreciated. You mentioned a lot of events had been run in the month but personally I haven't seen any. Do you happen to have a list of what they were and when they ran? I'm thinking its probably just my window of play time doesn't match up, but I'd love to hear about what has been happening and what storylines it has led to.

I completely agree with the comment saying that if GM type events were run more often, I would definitely come running from the mine or hunting grounds. I am part of a Militia group, defending a province from all evil.... I can't remember the last time I had to fight anything away from our gates, and find that even getting people to come train on how we defend the city is tough, as people see it as pointless. Why train for something that never happens?

Regarding the actual afk warnings, I see us on a downward spiral that does need addressing....
The less people have to get involved in, the more they drift off to just watching number....
The more people watch numbers go up, and get into a habit, the more chance they will become slack on watching 100% of the time....
The less they watch the same scroll going up their screen, the more chance of afk warnings....
The more afk warnings and skill lose, the more chance of quitting....
The more people leaving, the harder it is to get people together for events, and less things happen.... and it just gets worse.

Bring back Lyras I say, or some wars, something big, the game needs it.

A few people have mentioned not knowing when events occur.
I know whenever I learned of an invasion I would rush there. I really enjoy them. Normally I would hear about it by an OOC means shortly after they started.

In the past it would sometimes be discouraging when I would travel halfway across Elanthia and arrive at the tail end of it.
That was before the speed of public transportation was greatly increased, and I have also learned enough athleticism now that I can go wherever fairly quick.

Would it be possible that when there is an invasion in Crossing, criers in other major cities can announce to the surrounding areas that Crossing is under attack and is requesting assistance?
I'm not sure how the range on that would work, if there are already mechanics in place that would allow this without too much work.

Now I mostly hunt on Mer'Kresh and M'Riss. The addition of the balloon has made this a lot better for me. Sometimes I'll travel back and forth every other day to go to one scheduled event or another.
I can keep myself occupied on the trip, and am happy with that form of travel.
What I do miss out on a lot is invasions, unless I happen to be on the mainland when I hear about them.

For more remote areas such as the islands and Boar Clan, along with criers to inform people that Crossing is under attack, maybe Crossing/Therenborough/wherever can send an NPC moon mage to major cities. These moon mages would provide a moon gate to people willing to help against the invasion, for a circle-based fee.

This isn't meant to give people a way to travel from place to place easily, and I know it would become that..
I've been trying to think of ways to enforce it so it will really be used by people who want to help with the invasion.
Maybe the moon mages are only willing/able to provide transportation to the first 10 people who arrive.
If the moon mages also provide transportation back, up to 30 minutes after the invasion ended, if you don't go back to where you were then next time you'll have to pay a 10x penalty for their services.
Some people might use it to run to the mainland, run some errands and then return for hunting..still ignoring the invasion.
There isn't a reliable way to detect if a person helps in an invasion.. flagging if a player killed an invader would work for some, but many people are there for triage.

I'm pretty sure the whole moon mage idea would require a lot of work.. I can't think of any existing mechanics like it. The closest I can think of is the Estate Holder ring for going to Fang Cove.. it remembers where you were when you used it and you have so much time to teleport back. In this case the moon mages would function as the ring and provide teleportation to and from, and if you didn't travel back in time you'd have to pay a heavy fine for using the service next time.

I know the GMs put a lot of work in for events.. I'm just trying to think of ways to maximize the number of players that are aware of and able to participate in the ones that aren't announced in advance.
I think the criers themselves would help a lot, letting people know in an IG way that there are events.
The moon mages might or might not be a good idea, or even feasible.

This goes back to my thoughts on a HUB, IE an area easily accessed from all areas, with about ten rooms, for hanging out. Some PVP Rooms and a room with a bin.

- Buuwl

>This goes back to my thoughts on a HUB, IE an area easily accessed from all areas, with about ten rooms, for hanging out. Some PVP Rooms and a room with a bin.

Yep. There's a reason FC portals, and the Droughtman's wagon, both got 'abused' for these functions.

The massive world is a bigger hinderance than anything else at this point. If you want to get lost and hide, you can. There's no benefit to not having a centralized hub anymore, other than it might cut into JJ profits.

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'

>>You're off on tangents.

>insert tongue in cheek

Only if you don't take into consideration that we we are discussing all of the angles of the game that contribute to an ineffective and outdated policy.

The long and short of the whole thread is that a scripting policy exists, it's not very well enforced, when it is enforced it's a subscription ending punishment, and yet the whole game comes down to grinding to gain coin and make the numbers go up because of a spread-out world, a perceived lack of GM run RP events, and a sense that all the "fun" in the game lies in an end game that doesn't exist.

But gosh darn, I want more! I'm such an addict.

>remove tongue from cheek

Seriously though, a lot of good points in here, and I'm glad there are people listening.

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Player of Diggan, Ranger & Halfing of Aesry

>I still think a good end game would be the ability to switch guilds once a year, keep stats, lose skills once a character reaches 150 or something.

Or put the lost skills into experience bits...I mean it's 150+ circle worth of skills, it'd still take months upon months to get back to where they were so it's not remotely gamebreaking...

Taking a huge hit on ranks is probably end of subscription for most people, possibly why we are down to so few players now. For me I opted to stay playing, I worked all the ranks back, but the one thing threatening my subscription to 4 accounts now is the complete lack of anything happening to suit my time of playing.

I have mentioned it before, I'm English, and I do play at odd times, but then I do pay the same as anyone else for my accounts, and feel I'm not getting my moneys worth to be fair.

Now if I was only was only playing for like 3 hours a day, I'd understand, but I'm clocking up over 20 hours each weekend most weekends, and if I can't catch an event or an invasion in that many hours, it leads me to wonder what is happening in the realms.

I managed to convince my girlfriend to give Dragonrealms a go.... she has been playing since May.... never has she seen a single invasion, never once a GM played character, never even heard of a single storyline that is happening.... This is a new player to the game, fresh blood, and this is what new players are seeing, nothing, nothing at all happening, so they don't stay.

I think quite a few people came back to the game after 3.0 was released, but I'd be interested to hear now how many of those reactivated accounts are still active now.

Dragonrealms, as a roleplay game, NEEDS things happening far more often that they are now. It needs multiple stories constantly running, chances of invasions at any time and quite often, random GM played characters making appearances for people to interact with and feel a part of the bigger story.

This may seem a little off topic, but the point is that the game is so quiet right now, people will just script away doing the same thing day after day, which will lead to them quitting from boredom or getting warnings and quitting from skill loss.

In my opinion, if you give people enough to get involved in, then conversations on scripting policy go away, because people aren't scripting anything.

>So you saying that there is NOTHING going on is just wrong.

For what circle? If you're under 100-120th, there's absolutely NO interaction with any living thing. Even just 'Hello' is like trying to talk to a Federal Congresscritter. They're so far above you, you might as well not even be the same species.

Then by the time someone gets a toon up to the point where they're a real character, the player doesn't know anything but watch the numbers go up. It's a vicious cycle.

You either script for huge hours and take the risk of a bad sneeze so you can participate OR you don't and ... go play another game.

I mean seriously. Back when I used to play, at least people would TRY to steal from each other or something. Now it's totally dead. You can stand in the middle of Crossing with plats on you and don't even get that much interaction if you're a peon. The only interaction I've gotten in the past month and a half was loosing the Waermodi Stones I was using for mech! No wonder people just script to death so they can be part of the community.

But by then they have no idea how, since they've spent the whole time in DR scripting like crazy.

Sad, really. Rather a cautionary tale too, I think. (Of course I play to script, so for me I'd actually really rather be in TF if there were players.)

>>1) Start some interactions with people. Gathering spots are great for this.

Throw down with the Arkarms, those chaps are a hoot to play with.

Samsaren

I thought it was common knowledge that to become any sort of 'respectable' circle in dragonrealms - you either A - had to have played for the last 10 years, or B - script like a madman.

I came back after a long hiatus, and to think that these power players whose names I don't recognize with ridiculously large ranks/circles did it all ATK? Laughable.

When I did come back, I gave prime a few days. I would say that about ~80% of people didn't respond to me. And those that did, took a solid few minutes to do it (clearly after I set off some sound triggers or whatnot).

So yeah. I find it rather comical that many prime players act like afk scripting isn't the norm.

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Don't make accounts while under the influence - it may lead to ridiculous spelling errors.

>>When I did come back, I gave prime a few days. I would say that about ~80% of people didn't respond to me. And those that did, took a solid few minutes to do it (clearly after I set off some sound triggers or whatnot).

Or maybe they just didn't want to to talk to you. There have been plenty of times that I have ignored someone simply because I did not feel like interacting with them. Just because they don't RP with you doesn't mean they are AFK, it may just be that they don't want to RP with you.

While this rant was true about a year or so ago, I've found it very easy to find interaction these days. I've actually found more interaction than I've intended at times.

>>When I did come back, I gave prime a few days. I would say that about ~80% of people didn't respond to me. And those that did, took a solid few minutes to do it (clearly after I set off some sound triggers or whatnot).

Roll a necro, swing into a gathering spot with a zombie/mudman. Someone will be glad to interact you into next week.

>>I thought it was common knowledge that to become any sort of 'respectable' circle in dragonrealms - you either A - had to have played for the last 10 years, or B - script like a madman

Solely through ATK play, I've gained 40 circles post the launch of 3.0(in the 100+ range), and I'm hardly a power player compared to the real pros. The knee-jerk attack on folks who've attained a buncha ranks does everyone a disservice and makes you look a smidge foolish. There's plenty of interaction to be had, and many very active groups generally on the lookout for new membership.

Samsaren

>> So about 7 weeks X 7 Days a week X 24 hours in a day = 1,176 hours it took me to gain 530 ranks. The first week I really didn't train anything as i rewrote all my scripts and learned about all the DR 3.0 changes. But for posterity we will just say I started to train it right away.

Not disagreeing with the assertion about 600 ranks a year, but it sounds like you have a bunch of Magic bonus pool. 530 ranks at 8 hours a day is like 147 days, yea? At 4 hours per day, that's be around 300 days which to me does not seem very accurate with base learning rates if you're averaging roughly 2 ranks in 3ish hours at the reduced TF rate.

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IM: Dannyboy00001111

"Fool proof system do not take into account the ingenuity of fools, nor the power of numbers."

Really Apu, it's normal for someone to hit 150th in a year 'easily'? Really? Wow. My apologies, I failed to realise how many of you prime players play this game as a (more than) full-time job. My condolences.

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Don't make accounts while under the influence - it may lead to ridiculous spelling errors.

>>Really Apu, it's normal for someone to hit 150th in a year 'easily'?

I can't personally vouch for having done it "easily", but it ought to be pretty doable for someone who makes that their goal. It won't be easy for anyone who puts their priorities on roleplaying or doesn't log into the game much - but it certainly can be done without requiring AFK scripting.

>>I failed to realise how many of you prime players play this game as a (more than) full-time job. My condolences.

lol yeah because firing up a script and monitoring it is really hard work.

Apu
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Respect. Integrity. World Domination.
https://sites.google.com/site/apucorpdr/

I think these " getting to 150 in a year in prime " conversations are usually exaggerated. It's possible, but requires someone who literally has nothing better to do, and or has a year to literally sell their soul. I'd willing to bet someone couldn't do it on a barb in prime without an AFK warning. Prove me wrong and throw away a year of your life.

Although
Buuwl was made in January of 1997 it hit 150 in 2012, I'm probably not the new model.

- Buuwl

>>I think these " getting to 150 in a year in prime " conversations are usually exaggerated.

Come to think of it, that probably is a bit exaggerated actually. I know I've gained 800+ ranks in a skill in 365 days, but for alot of classes that isn't enough to hit 150th. Also that doesn't account for needing to train a bunch of skills from 0 to 600+, even the ones that are a pain in the ass to train

Year and a half maybe would be more realistic? Anyways really the point was just that skills train MUCH faster now than they used to, and it doesn't require AFK scripting to get really high skills

Apu
_
Respect. Integrity. World Domination.
https://sites.google.com/site/apucorpdr/

>I think these " getting to 150 in a year in prime " conversations are usually exaggerated. It's possible, but requires someone who literally has nothing better to do, and or has a year to literally sell their soul.

I figure it took me about 5000 hours (new exp, no bonus pools) to go from 58th to 150th, give or take a few hundred.

Wish I had kept better track, but I think that's a fair estimate.

I did get side tracked for a while when forging was brand new but other than that my goal has always been to circle up as fast as possible, keeping all requirements going and only training other skills when everything was at high mind-states.

>What we are looking for is more role-playing and less scripting

What does roleplay have to do with scripting anyway? I don't believe I have ever felt restricted or interfered with in my roleplay by someone scripting. Some people do play just to watch their numbers go up and create intricate scripts.

At the end of the day, I don't care. ATK or AFK scripting does not effect roleplaying at all. What I do think effects roleplaying is expecting everything to happen how you plan it out in your mind, harassing or excluding certain charater types because their RP doesn't fit your style, calling others brands of RP 'snerty' or labeling them 'griefers' because again some people just expect absolutely everything to happen within some set lines.

In my opinion, if you want to make strides in the roleplaying enviroment address issues in the roleplaying enviroment. Scripting has nothing to do with that.



You feel a brief sense of unease, as if somehow, somewhere, you'd run afoul of the law.