Well, I've been asked for my thoughts on the matter, and I have many. First of all what this note is not:
-Seeking to get rid of morgue entirely. Obviously that ship has sailed, with zero input from players.
-Trying to rebut silly arguments like "how can you object to a good thing?" I like TwinkMUD and hogs too but I don't want them all the time, that game would get boring fast.
-The opinion of an active player. I'm old and cranky and might be a minority. Consider yourself warned.
The morgue is a huge change. Perhaps the largest I've ever seen in my time here. It fundamentally changes how we play the game, what we risk when we run, the level of difficulty involved. On my psion, for example, I no longer have to watch my weapons or worry about whether we've moved areas or if a stomper has walked in. I just carry three insured sets and they restore themselves when I lose them. I can pretty much ignore everything now.
As a berserker, I no longer need to worry about whether there are enough on for threnody when choosing where to run. As a draconian, I no longer need to worry about anything, really. As a player working IAW I no longer need to worry about tabbing in to threnody when a run goes bad. As an area writer, I no longer need to worry about making my area scary, as stompers, det and corpse eaters no longer mean anything to the players. (Fortunately there are still reanimators, mwa ha ha). As a player, I simply no longer need to pay attention on a run. The worst thing that can happen to me is minor xp loss and a trip to the morgue.
Now, I sympathize with the requests team being constantly nagged for reimbursements. I can only imagine that is what has caused this sea change in gameplay. But you've treated a patient with a hangnail by amputating the limb. The consequences are enormous, and I doubt anyone has given them much thought.
Following are some changes I recommend which would keep the spirit of the morgue without providing the complete "get out of jail free card" it currently does.
The corpse retrieval function of the morgue is itself not a huge problem. It's basically an automated eulogy in the event of disconnection or some other reason. In that respect it should only cover players who are naturally capable of eulogy - eg. they should have it adepted, and it should carry the same penalty. This means no morgue for bzks, no morgue for sub hero 500 in EHA. Instead of (or including) gold cost, the morgue should dock the same stat as eulogy would.
The item retrieval function of morgue is a bigger problem. It is simply too good and with no drawbacks. I suggest it is replaced with a similar but different system, which I will call soulbinding. It could become available at Lord, via a mob on Thorngate, and operate as follows:
-Any Lord player can make an insured item soulbound, which will allow the item to be restored in the event of destruction.
-The soulbound item is also PERMANENTLY BOUND to that character. Players will only soulbind gear they are certain they want to keep forever.
-Upon destruction, the item can be restored immediately, but it will cost a part of the character's soul to do so: they lose a random stat. Again I think it is important that restoration of gear is not trivial to do, because if it is trivial, there is no reason to pay attention when running.
I concur with basically everything Takayuchi warned about, as thoughts of EHA, bzk threnody have crossed my mind as well.
IMO the issue is that the corpse is stored as a single container. It shouldn't. By storing only the items that were on corpse one must insure most of the gear and retrieving it brings cost from frivolous to reasonable, especially for lord items. Some lords bathe in gold and blink at others when people say they honestly don't have a dime to spare, but cashing out millions for a morgue visit is actually not simple for many, myself included. Also the waiting perios should be, IMHO, tenfold.
No mortuary at EHA either - but I'd agree with Takayuchi that most gear losses there result from lost connections - his "pay stat for gear" idea is excellent.
As for soulbinding, I see no fault with the mechanism being available at hero or lowmort as well. It's a good idea, just needs to work out the mechanics of losing gear to corpse eaters - retrieving 15-20 soulbinded items could ruin one's stats.
P.S. Just to make it clear - items should either be stored independently and then require monetary costs, a serious one at that, or the corpse with items should be stored but require eulogy-like price.
"It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion."
Edited by WinterRose on May 18 2012 23:17
A few points I'd like to make before I reply to your concerns.
* I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. Continue to let me know if you think I'm off-base or overlooking something.
* I disagree with the premise that the only reason people pay attention is because they're afraid of losing their gear. Some of us run because we actually enjoy it.
* You both seem to ignore or downplay the penalty that the waiting period poses.
* The intention of this change is to replace the loss of valuable gear with temporary unavailability in most scenarios. That's why I didn't make more exceptions (notably EHA). I realize that this is a big change, and I didn't make it lightly. Pulse & Snikt were both onboard with it.
Takayuchi wrote:
The morgue is a huge change. Perhaps the largest I've ever seen in my time here. It fundamentally changes how we play the game
I agree that this is a big change, but I disagree that it will necessarily change "how we play". What you do on a run is still the same. The only foreseeable change to "how we play" is that some folks might be more willing to run/lead areas that feature det/stomp/eat/etc.
what we risk when we run
I agree.
the level of difficulty involved
I disagree, mobs still hit just as hard as they did before.
On my psion, for example, I no longer have to watch my weapons or worry about whether we've moved areas or if a stomper has walked in.
I'd much rather pay attention than be without my wields for 9 days.
As a berserker, I no longer need to worry about whether there are enough on for threnody when choosing where to run. As a draconian, I no longer need to worry about anything, really. As a player working IAW I no longer need to worry about tabbing in to threnody when a run goes bad. As an area writer, I no longer need to worry about making my area scary, as stompers, det and corpse eaters no longer mean anything to the players. (Fortunately there are still reanimators, mwa ha ha). As a player, I simply no longer need to pay attention on a run. The worst thing that can happen to me is minor xp loss and a trip to the morgue.
You disregard the waiting period. I expect the morgue to be the option of last resort. Again, I'd much rather get my gear back now than in 3-9 days.
Now, I sympathize with the requests team being constantly nagged for reimbursements. I can only imagine that is what has caused this sea change in gameplay.
It is one reason, but not the only one. See note 84 on board 7 for our reasoning behind this change.
But you've treated a patient with a hangnail by amputating the limb. The consequences are enormous, and I doubt anyone has given them much thought.
Believe it or not, we've been thinking about this change and discussing it for literally years.
WinterRose wrote:
IMO the issue is that the corpse is stored as a single container. It shouldn't. By storing only the items that were on corpse one must insure most of the gear and retrieving it brings cost from frivolous to reasonable, especially for lord items. Some lords bathe in gold and blink at others when people say they honestly don't have a dime to spare, but cashing out millions for a morgue visit is actually not simple for many, myself included.
Lots of players consider gold a joke, so I don't see how raising the financial cost will cause the morgue system to go from "too good / easy" to "acceptable / fair". The real penalty behind this system is the waiting period. I included gold just to give players another situation where they actually need money (weird, I know).
Also the waiting period should be, IMHO, tenfold.
You really think it's reasonable to ask players to wait 90 DAYS to get their stuff back? Wow. I already had one player tell me that the waiting periods were too long as is, and that it would inadvertently cause people to drift away from AVATAR while they wait for their gear to return.
I appreciate that Pulse, Mimir and Snikt were on board with the change, and discussions may have happened at high levels of the staff, but no active players were involved or informed (to my knowledge) and the details were not well-known to all staff, either. So whatever consultation occurred, was in my opinion insufficient.
But that is all I have, of course, my opinions. I can't speak to why all players play the game; I can only say that in my experience, part of the fun of AVATAR involves risk, and part of what compels me to pay attention and excel at the game is that risk. Unlike World of Warcraft and similar games, death in AVATAR is not trivial, especially at Lord, and that real risk involved in running is part of what makes it so much fun.
I can also speak to my behaviour as a sponge, and as a leader. As a sponge I pay more attention on runs which demand my attention: Noctopia runs are a good example, where players really do need to pay attention to what is going on. I've been recently playing psion and like a tank, they need more awareness to ensure safe running - this is a good thing in my opinion. As a leader, I do CR runs because I know there is no other option for my groupies. I know people will come out to help a dead bzk, or to fetch a psion's weapons that were left behind. I am certain that this is less likely to occur post-morgue; people will say "sorry, you should have paid attention, they'll be back in nine days, use backups until then". I am also certain that CR runs for EHA are less likely to happen at all. I suspect some leaders which are already annoyed with lowheroes in EHA will be more than happy to let their corpses and equipment go to the morgue, to deter them from running further.
Finally, the matter of the waiting period. Frankly, I think the waiting period is an absolutely horrible idea. Any "feature" which actively denies players the ability to play your game is something which threatens the game itself. If I am leading lord and my ISP goes out for the evening, before the morgue, a friend would loot the rotted corpse and return my gear when my connection goes back up. If that happened now, my tank gear gets morgued for three days; well, the game just gave me a middle finger and told me to do something else for the next three days. If some commander run ended in disaster and all the lords' gear was morgued, lord would be effectively dead for 9 days. Remote a possibility as that is, it's a possibility you have created.
I agree that there is good reason to have a way to restore valuable gear, but it needs to be a serious commitment for the player, and not something that anyone can do trivially. It should be reserved for truly valuable and difficult to replace items, and therefore needs a real and substantial cost.
Just a few comments re: Takayuchi from an old and relatively active player:
0. I agree this is a huge change, though I'm not sure it will fundamentally change the game.
1. I've run lord for years and actually have never lost any gear, apart from the occasional stomp. I'm not actually sure gear loss is that big a fear for people, on regular lord runs.
2. People who afk regularly usually are experienced people who don't really fear an occasional gear loss. Usually they don't afk with their best gear either. EHA runs are a good example. People who afk often run in sub-standard or easily replaceable gear.
2. I have had ISP disconnects in the past, usually someone requiemed it and if I didn't log on, some imm put it on ice. I think this will probably still happen, even with morgue.
3. Bzk threnody has actually never been a problem in my experience, apart from VERY RARELY in the dead of the night US time (I actually run a lot in the dead of the night). Usually enough people come and help out for thren (15 people is not hard). If not, a CR run is usually not hard for regular runs.
4. The worst-case scenarios you mention about the waiting time are quite remote imho. It would be quite a task to get a whole group on a commander run killed. As an aside, I think commander gear room is really crazy nonsense (for non-t1 gear, no less) and should be removed. I think most gear loss is of the detonate, stomp and corpse rotting variety.
A few of my own comments on morgue:
0. Make morgue toggleable for a player by the player itself or an imm. That way someone can get stuff off floor if needed. I don't know how difficult is this to
You really think it's reasonable to ask players to wait 90 DAYS to get their stuff back? Wow. I already had one player tell me that the waiting periods were too long as is, and that it would inadvertently cause people to drift away from AVATAR while they wait for their gear to return.
I believe you took me too literary - my whole points was that IMHO the cost per item and per corpse is still trivial. Weather people are charged more gold, pay stats, have longer waiting periods or maybe some of the other alternatives - is all the same to me. Ideally a situation where people lose gear should still be cringe-worthy, with or without mortuary - otherwise I fear Takayuchi said - people simply won't bother when for 50k and 2 days of playing another alt(s) one can get his old gear back, no fuss at all.
No, 90 days is too long of course, however I see no issues with 2-3 weeks of being without twink gear on a single lord alt. But again - this is just one of the methods to make the gear loss a serious affair.
Thanx for listening.
"It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion."
The last point Elec made i mentioned in a note. It was for two reasons, 1 so you didn't get all your gear back for the cost of 1 corpse, and 2 for the reason he mentioned. If your corpse rots, you could still get your gear back before it all imped and you wouldn't have to wait.
I do like the toggleable idea, or if we don't make it toggleable, i'd like to see a player smacked with something significant. Maybe a lost stat or an uber death of like 10x tnl loss.
Mimir said
You really think it's reasonable to ask players to wait 90 DAYS to get their stuff back? Wow. I already had one player tell me that the waiting periods were too long as is, and that it would inadvertently cause people to drift away from AVATAR while they wait for their gear to return.
I'm going to say most people have plenty of other alts and if one of their hitters gets sidelined for 3 days, they'll just play another hitter, or a tank, or healer, whatever. I don't see anyone leaving because of 3 days, or even 10. You just lost all of your stuff, it should hurt to have to use the morgue.
In the words of Dennis Miller "Of course thats just my opinion. I could be wrong"
-Sep
I just want to mention one quick point. Stat loss is really not that big a deal. I have 2k pracs on virtually every lord that I will never use. Keep in mind that with dc quest insignias and spells/gear to cover shortfalls, you can get your stat quite low where it costs very little to train. For example my spr sor has str to 13 where it only costs 8 pracs to train back. That's just 3 lord levels.
The waiting time (which I think is fine) and the gold cost (if it is per item instead of per corpse - which I don't support) would be much more annoying to me actually.
The only real commodity at lord is, as far as i can see, pgem. I cannot say this would hold for items, but for corpses, this would definitely discourage people from using morgue as an easy way off. Retrieving item cost being a statloss at lord is more appropriate.
In that regard, EHA death should be more costly than regular one imho. Losing a stat for lord might not be important, but for EHA death it would be.
Increasing waiting time would not have the effect WR wants, i think. People who would use it mostly, would have enough equ/alts to run something else or redress the that one precious alt...
I'm okay with a config option that determines whether your corpse spills on the ground or moves to the morgue at decay time. The question is, what should be the default behavior? I'll discuss this with the design team, but I'll take your opinions into account as well.
Some of you believe that retrieiving a corpse full of gear should be more costly. Here are the options as I see it. I don't really like any of them, so let me know if you have any other ideas.
1. Store the whole corpse, but charge per item
People will complain about paying 100k for objects that are easily replaceable. If the cost is per item, people will want to be able to pick & choose what they retrieve from their corpse.
2. Store the contents of the corpse (not the corpse itself)
This approach would cause messier morgue lists. Messier morgue lists make it easier for players to screw up with morgue abandon. Then we're back to where we started, immortals manually rolling back pfiles. In general, I like the convenience of being able to retrieve your body and get all your stuff back with a couple simple commands. Another minor thematic point on this approach: it's a morgue, not a lost & found. Morgues store dead bodies.
3. Let the corpse spill onto the ground and then store everything as it imps
Currently there is no way to distinguish items that were in a corpse from items that ended up on the ground any other way. Sure, almost anything's possible in code, but this would not be a simple fix. We could let corpses spill and then only store insured gear, but then we're moving away from the goal of eliminating gear loss.
4. Give corpses a higher flat fee than single items
This feels unsatisfactory. Imagine paying triple to get your invis fatewalkers back just because you forgot to loot them.
If we decide to change how corpses are handled in the morgue, should this new policy apply to insured containers as well?
Well, in my opinion the following compromise could serve well.
- default config is +morgue. Let people who KNOW what they are doing disable it
- when item rots entire contents move to morgue, not the body
- containers are counted as a single item, and whatever is inside goes with them.
- give the option to sacrifice a stat and retrieve everything from morgue instead of paying (maybe even instead of waiting as well for the cost of 2 stat points - please discuss if this seems viable)
The result of this would be - if the player was meticulous in maintaining his inventory clean - about 13-15 items + 1-2 containers. Via current prices this would be about 800k for hero, double for lord. (Please remember that eulogy at hero sacrifices a stat that indeed costs 800k-1.5M, while the cost per stat at lord is 6-8M)
- If items were outside the body and stomped, imped, or detted while on body then store only insured items - this is the current setup.
- Charge triple for such items - as is now, this part is good.
Finally implementing Takayuchi's idea - if the "get all for a few stats" listed above is not possible/good:
- for any item that is BOUND, like UD girth, or any other such piece, enable aternative, instant retrieval without waiting, at the cost of a stat point. If such an item is a container, everything inside also goes with it, in the cost of the one stat point.
- enable self-binding of items, a irreversible process (as is runing, etching and many other btw), that would enable any person to do this regardless of tier.
This mechanism would enable those that indeed have twink gear and want to run with it before the 9 days are up to get those few pieces and splat them on a backup gear set while the rest of the gear is chilling.
Hope this helps.
"It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion."
Deviating from the direction this thread is headed, I wanted to touch on the second half on the subject.
I like the direction its headed and the giving and receiving of ideas, however... I find the whole concept a little backwards. Imms have essentially said, we're going to do this. They conceptualized it, coded it, implemented it, then started to deal with criticisms.
I don't think the first part of this is going to change. The imms are going to say, "This is going to happen." Wouldn't it be a more efficient use of the designers time if the next step was to open these ideas up to players, instead of having to go back and change what has already been written. Obviously not every one is going to agree, but the bigger concerns of the players can be addressed and resolved/ignored before the time is spent writing the code.
This has been done with other changes to avatar, I'm just curious why it doesn't happen with more of them, or at least pretty major changes like this.
In the words of Denis Miller "That's Just my opinion. I could be wrong"
Mimir wrote:3. Let the corpse spill onto the ground and then store everything as it imps
Currently there is no way to distinguish items that were in a corpse from items that ended up on the ground any other way. Sure, almost anything's possible in code, but this would not be a simple fix. We could let corpses spill and then only store insured gear, but then we're moving away from the goal of eliminating gear loss.
Tell me if this is a feasible idea or if it is stupid and I should feel ashamed for thinking it: when a corpse rots everything that spills out gets a negative timer. Instead of ticking down to 0 it ticks up to 0. Then at the last tick before it poofs, if the timer negative then it goes to the morgue.
Personally I think the corpse as it is seems fine. I have had my corpe rotted fairly often when I have linkloss. Moreover, especially at hero, I don't bother cleaning up my inventory (it's often pointless when I'm farming gear or running). Keeping corpse as a single item seems to make sense to me.
As Takayuchi said before, it's just like an automated eulogy. I don't really see any problem with it. As I saw it, he said that he had more issues with insured gear part.
(Edit: )
Containers should be kept as it is. I would not/could not want to insure everything in all my containers, especially at lord. Also note that the way altof works, I have to insure all of the stuff on one alt, which is only 50 items. One set of hit/ac/archer each and there's very little room left for anything else. I would like to therefore insure the containers separately on each alt.
Edited by Elec on May 20 2012 06:55
SePadre wrote:
I like the direction its headed and the giving and receiving of ideas, however... I find the whole concept a little backwards. Imms have essentially said, we're going to do this. They conceptualized it, coded it, implemented it, then started to deal with criticisms.
I don't think the first part of this is going to change. The imms are going to say, "This is going to happen." Wouldn't it be a more efficient use of the designers time if the next step was to open these ideas up to players, instead of having to go back and change what has already been written. Obviously not every one is going to agree, but the bigger concerns of the players can be addressed and resolved/ignored before the time is spent writing the code.
This has been done with other changes to avatar, I'm just curious why it doesn't happen with more of them, or at least pretty major changes like this.
Perhaps my memory is fuzzy, but I don't remember many big code changes being preannounced. Regardless, my personal development style is to be somewhat tight-lipped about my projects until they're completed. The main reason I behave this way is that I don't like people anticipating my work and hounding me to finish it faster. When people expect certain results from me, it feels less like "I'm doing something nice for you guys" and more like I owe you something. I also feel like we imms have been burned by over promising and under delivering in the past *cough*ranger revamp*cough*. This leads to cynicism and resentment among the player base, so I try to avoid it.
Another reason I didn't preannounce this change is because I didn't want it to effect how you all played AVATAR before the morgue was completed. Imagine if we announced our intentions to eliminate gear loss back in 2010, but didn't actually make good on the promise until now. I'm pretty sure this would have changed how people played AVATAR in the past couple years, although it's difficult to predict every impact this preannouncement would have had.
* Gear loss will occur more as people rely on morgue (more EHA, more det runs, more running det runs with full gear on)
* Coders will incorporate stomp/det etc. into areas and on quests more
* Players who felt the rush of averting a gear loss disaster in a tight situation will experience less edge-of-seat play
* Players who cried when their favorite piece detted by accident will have a real-life day or week that's a little less gloomy
* The game will become even faster from lowmort to lord than it already has been trending, as now what is the best gear on the mud is always increasing over time instead of occasionally balancing out the historically twink pieces with random mud accidents, and also due to players running in areas like EHA that previously compensated the greater loss of gear with higher xp
* What people cry about (gear loss in EHA for example) will shift to something else
* More camping and foddering of gear will occur, as people who formerly did not bother so that they could freely lose gear without heartburn no longer have that as a reason NOT to enchant gear - which will also contribute to the faster leveling as the average quality of gear people wear increases
* As players adjust to the morgue as a tool affecting gameplay and figure out how to take advantage of its features to gain faster xp and have better gear and take bigger "risks" (such as running more in areas which used to be riskier which have been coded with greater rewards compared to other areas) -- as all this happens, the value of coins will increase.
In sum, Nostradamoose predicts that Avatar as we know it has changed, and coins are now worth something. Maybe Avatar could institute an actual lottery - buying tickets to win gold, with some portion going to the winner, and some portion going to M.O.B.A. taxes.
* Players who cried when their favorite piece detted by accident will have a real-life day or week that's a little less gloomy
Actually, I think it will be more than that.
We've had a number of players quit the game because they had permanently lost irreplacable gear that had taken years to attain or had special sentimental value i.e. had been given to them by someone who no longers plays etc.
Before boons, they were completely out of luck.
Even with the introduction of the one off boon per alt, some alts have had multiple gear losses on alts that have already used up their boon. Unless the subsequent gear losses were system issues, they couldn't be helped the following time.
Morgue wasn't introduced just because gear loss was generating work for the Requests team.
As well as stopping people from quitting due to the loss of irreplacable gear, it will have a positive impact in that the time that Immortals were spending on dealing with such requests is now freed up for them to either work on other more fun/'productive tasks i.e. building, coding, planning/running quests, deal with player questions and/or run an alt to relax (having the benefit of keeping them more in touch with the game and their fellow players).
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