How I would "save" the game.

[Larsa]

I think it's no secret that the game - as it is today - has some problems: there are technical problems, a good number of game mechanics is still not implemented, some game mechanics are prone to exploiting and some (many?) people already ran out of things to do. Here's what I would do to "save" the game.

Might be a longish read, so be aware and no, there's no tldr version of it. Be also warned that I suggest another wipe of the database. Yes, I suggest we start over again with an altered ruleset and altered game mechanics. I believe it's inevitable because some of the current game mechanics don't work that well and I think we'll be better off facing the fact than to screw around with the current setup.

The map

I suggest to return to the map we had in beta, before the first attempt to launch the game in february. That means that all junkpiles that have been placed into the wilderness in the map-update get removed and we only have junk piles at the real-life population centres of the Lake bassin again. The main reason for this suggestion is to have to trade again: fewer tribes should be self sufficient. It's currently far too easy to have a junk pile and food and other natural resources within the land of a tribe, especially when it's one of the larger tribes with more than 20 members.

Along with this goes the restriction that no fish and no plant should be found within 50 meters of a junkpile. Let people decide whether they want junk or food but don't give them both easily. Likewise, there should not be much grass or branches near junkpiles. After all one cannot find a lush green meadow in the middle of a city.

Terraforming

I think that terraforming is one of the main culprits for the current low performance in crowded zones. I also think that terraforming in it's current form creates an ugly landscape and makes building walls from stone or barricades from wood more or less superfluous. Why build a wall from stone when I just can raise the terrain to laughable heights. Therefore the amount of terraforming in the games needs to be limited.

My first suggestion is to have a piece of road needing 10 granite bricks, that should limit the amount of roads built. Furthermore, lowering, raising and levelling terrain should be an exception and not the rule. Therefore I suggest that a shovel breaks after a set number of terraforming operations (let's try with 50?). Should make people think about where they terraform instead of just digging bottomless pits.

Crafting system

Currently there are only two crafts that don't need any junk: masonry and woodcrafting. Both of these crafts do not produce any useable item. Basketry needs a few junk items, all other crafts need copious amounts of junk to produce anything worthwhile.

This should be changed, we should have two nature-centric crafts (basketry and leatherworking are the obvious candidates) that need only few items from a junkpile and three junkpile centered crafts (weaponcraft, toolcraft and tailoring) that need only few materials found in nature. Bonecraft should be in-between the two needing both nature and junkpile materials. Woodcraft and masonry can stay as they are, architecture needs recipes that can be built without large amounts from a junk pile, for example grass huts, leather tents, wood barricades, etc.

To make this work the amount of leather and fur (what's fur good for by the way?) that can be found in junk needs to get reduced by a large number, say by 90%. Also, both masonry and architecture don't have enough meat to the craft. I would combine these two crafts into one.

The reason for these changes again are to introduce trade and to require people to travel the map in search for materials and crafters instead of having everything just 20 meters away from their totem.

Resources

As far as I know there are currently very few natural resources that are somewhat rare, I know of only three: tar, obsidian and chalk. Additionally, these resources are not in high demand.

I suggest to have at least three times the amount of rare (and/or regional) resources and to have more recipes that need those, especially when it comes to high-level recipes.

Alignment

There is currently no alignment system in Xsyon but I think that we desperately need one. Here's my suggestion:

All players start blue. Players turn red when they initiate attack on a blue player or when they are member of an evil tribe. Leaders of good or neutral tribes can determine whether they want their tribe to become evil when a member becomes red or whether they want to auto-kick the now red player from the tribe. Tribeless red players auto-switch to blue after visiting 12 different map zones (zones with only water don't count) without attacking another blue player.

PvP and laws

Difficult section because so many people have strong opinions about PvP, either for or against it. Personally I always prefer faction-based PvP but I cannot see how that could work in Xsyon. Here's my suggestion:

All land outside of tribal grounds stays FFA PvP. Tribes can have their local law that determines how PvP is handled on their tribe land. There are three settings for each tribe, depending on the tribe alignment.

For good tribes: no PvP on our land at all, red (evil) players can be attacked, FFA PvP
For neutral tribes: no PvP on our land at all, red (evil) evil players can be attacked, FFA PvP
For evil tribes: Blue (good and neutral) players can be attacked, red (evil) players can be attacked, FFA PvP

All tribes that have flagged themselves as warring tribe can be attacked by members of other warring tribes without any alignment hit and without any respect to local law.

Please note that this setup allows tribes to protect blue players on their ground, no matter whether they are member of that tribe or not. Thus if a blue player enters the land of an evil tribe he's fair game if the tribe wants it so. If a red player enters the land of a good or neutral tribe he can be fair game too, depending on the local law. If a blue player enters the land of a good or neutral tribe he can be protected if the tribe wants it so.

Enjoy ripping this piece of text apart.

[Haunt]

After all one cannot find a lush green meadow in the middle of a city.

Central Park

I stopped reading there.

[blake378]

how about dont change the junkpiles back and just fix the animal spawn and other issues such as fixing the combat system.

[joexxxz]

My suggestion is this, make crafting much harder, and if the evil player likes to attack allot, his/her armor will digrade much faster, and the good tribes shouldnt trade with an evil player. That way he/she will have the disadvantage most of the time when going into the combat. Now if the evil player loots something, the items needs to be in damaged status, not in good status.

[ColonelTEE3]

Some good ideas, some less good. I'll put my 2 cents in.

Ill bold the topics to make it easier to read my replies

Server restart
Might be a longish read, so be aware and no, there's no tldr version of it. Be also warned that I suggest another wipe of the database. Yes, I suggest we start over again with an altered ruleset and altered game mechanics. I believe it's inevitable because some of the current game mechanics don't work that well and I think we'll be better off facing the fact than to screw around with the current setup.

This will be the death of xsyon. I will tell you that right now. The players are more than just a little frustrated at this point with what they've experienced. The launch was a disaster, totems were lost and replaced and many feel robbed of their time and effort. Many hours and days have been unplayable. There is nothing left to do in game except grind. Take away the progress the players have made in this world and i can guarantee there will be no one to populate it a second time, people are sick of this.

Scarcity of resources
I suggest to return to the map we had in beta, before the first attempt to launch the game in february. That means that all junkpiles that have been placed into the wilderness in the map-update get removed and we only have junk piles at the real-life population centres of the Lake bassin again. The main reason for this suggestion is to have to trade again: fewer tribes should be self sufficient. It's currently far too easy to have a junk pile and food and other natural resources within the land of a tribe, especially when it's one of the larger tribes with more than 20 members.

Along with this goes the restriction that no fish and no plant should be found within 50 meters of a junkpile. Let people decide whether they want junk or food but don't give them both easily. Likewise, there should not be much grass or branches near junkpiles. After all one cannot find a lush green meadow in the middle of a city.

Believe me I don't like that the extra junkpiles that got added in the forest, and scarcer resources would promote tribe interaction and conflict, which i believe promotes a healthy and interesting game community. The only problem here is that you will severely limit the expansion of big tribes away from the starter areas, which are already over-populated and laggy. We didn't split the servers which means we have a good sized population in this game, but condensing it down to that small area and not letting tribes afford to lose junk will cause an extreme over-population of the area directly surrounding the lake, which will cause performance problems and also just limits the game more. As it has been said many times, we need to be given more options, not more restrictions.

Terraforming

I think that terraforming is one of the main culprits for the current low performance in crowded zones. I also think that terraforming in it's current form creates an ugly landscape and makes building walls from stone or barricades from wood more or less superfluous. Why build a wall from stone when I just can raise the terrain to laughable heights. Therefore the amount of terraforming in the games needs to be limited.

My first suggestion is to have a piece of road needing 10 granite bricks, that should limit the amount of roads built. Furthermore, lowering, raising and levelling terrain should be an exception and not the rule. Therefore I suggest that a shovel breaks after a set number of terraforming operations (let's try with 50?). Should make people think about where they terraform instead of just digging bottomless pits.

Terraforming is a unique and fun aspect of this game not equally found in many other games. Many, many hours have been spent by a number of tribes terraforming. You can construct very individual and unique structures out of the ground with terraforming. You can't get more sandboxy than this. Limiting it won't help the load on the server, because it will still happen. All it will serve is to discourage players from being very creative and making marvels of cities. Again, less restrictions - more choices.

Crafting system

This should be changed, we should have two nature-centric crafts (basketry and leatherworking are the obvious candidates) that need only few items from a junkpile and three junkpile centered crafts (weaponcraft, toolcraft and tailoring) that need only few materials found in nature. Bonecraft should be in-between the two needing both nature and junkpile materials. Woodcraft and masonry can stay as they are, architecture needs recipes that can be built without large amounts from a junk pile, for example grass huts, leather tents, wood barricades, etc

I don't believe this is a very needed change overall. This seems to be an idea based more out of opinion than anything crucially wrong with the game. There are much more important aspects of the game that need change, development and implementation.

More on crafting
To make this work the amount of leather and fur (what's fur good for by the way?) that can be found in junk needs to get reduced by a large number, say by 90%. Also, both masonry and architecture don't have enough meat to the craft. I would combine these two crafts into one.

Fur is used at least in Cedarrat collars, as well as other leather armor i can't name off the top of my head. Fur scraps are needed in Angora leather skirts and probably more.

I very much agree that masonry and architecture could be combined into one. They dont have a lot on their own. However, this is not a big detriment to the game right now and its the kind of thing i hope theyd only turn to after many other things are fixed and implemented.

Resources

As far as I know there are currently very few natural resources that are somewhat rare, I know of only three: tar, obsidian and chalk. Additionally, these resources are not in high demand.

I suggest to have at least three times the amount of rare (and/or regional) resources and to have more recipes that need those, especially when it comes to high-level recipes.

No one knows what tar will be used for. No one knows what (specifically) Obsidian rock will be used for. They have a purpose, no doubt. Let those come on their own, after other things.

Alignment

There is currently no alignment system in Xsyon but I think that we desperately need one. Here's my suggestion:

There is an alignment system, its just not turned on and fully developed yet: religion. They have a plan for it. Let it develop.

More on alignment
All players start blue. Players turn red when they initiate attack on a blue player or when they are member of an evil tribe. Leaders of good or neutral tribes can determine whether they want their tribe to become evil when a member becomes red or whether they want to auto-kick the now red player from the tribe. Tribeless red players auto-switch to blue after visiting 12 different map zones (zones with only water don't count) without attacking another blue player.

This wouldn't deter anyone from being red. The whole idea behind staying blue is that there is some added benefit or some negative consequence to be avoided. If you're referring to the safety of tribal area as red, that shouldn't be an alignment based decision at all.

PvP and laws

All land outside of tribal grounds stays FFA PvP. Tribes can have their local law that determines how PvP is handled on their tribe land. There are three settings for each tribe, depending on the tribe alignment.

For good tribes: no PvP on our land at all, red (evil) players can be attacked, FFA PvP
For neutral tribes: no PvP on our land at all, red (evil) evil players can be attacked, FFA PvP
For evil tribes: Blue (good and neutral) players can be attacked, red (evil) players can be attacked, FFA PvP

All tribes that have flagged themselves as warring tribe can be attacked by members of other warring tribes without any alignment hit and without any respect to local law.

Take out the alignment part and i think you've got a great idea. I had a very similar idea. Let clans choose (right now, not in a few months or years, but within a few days or weeks) to be warring clans, so that they can fight other warring clans in their own tribe land. The exchange requires that peaceful tribes or neutral tribes (or untribed) cannot do damage to warring tribes inside a war tribes home.

We don't need to complicate this issue with alignment at all. Keep it simple - war vs peace tribes.

[Sorakin]

The map

I suggest to return to the map we had in beta, before the first attempt to launch the game in february. That means that all junkpiles that have been placed into the wilderness in the map-update get removed and we only have junk piles at the real-life population centres of the Lake bassin again. The main reason for this suggestion is to have to trade again: fewer tribes should be self sufficient. It's currently far too easy to have a junk pile and food and other natural resources within the land of a tribe, especially when it's one of the larger tribes with more than 20 members.

This is only half the problem, they doubled the number of times you can pick from a junk pile as well. We need to reduce the junk and go back to 4 picks per spot instead of 8.

Along with this goes the restriction that no fish and no plant should be found within 50 meters of a junkpile. Let people decide whether they want junk or food but don't give them both easily. Likewise, there should not be much grass or branches near junkpiles. After all one cannot find a lush green meadow in the middle of a city.

I like this idea a lot. While Haunt pointed out your poor analogy, he showed his immaturity by being unable to read past it. The idea isn't that the junk pile is a big city, it's a trash heap, the devastation left behind from a war. God knows what chemicals are permeated into that soil, killing off the wildlife and flora. It also makes people think twice about homesteading on junk piles, good way to combat that.

Terraforming

I think that terraforming is one of the main culprits for the current low performance in crowded zones. I also think that terraforming in it's current form creates an ugly landscape and makes building walls from stone or barricades from wood more or less superfluous. Why build a wall from stone when I just can raise the terrain to laughable heights. Therefore the amount of terraforming in the games needs to be limited.

I agree that terraforming is stupid and ugly right now, but as someone pointed out it's an important part of the game. I think reality also has natural solutions to this. Piles of dirt wash away and get eroded. There is no vegatation left on the terraformed land, it should erode. Also I think starting with all the terraforming recipes is stupid, it should be specialized. That way only those dedicated to terraforming can build giant mountains of dirt.

Crafting system

Currently there are only two crafts that don't need any junk: masonry and woodcrafting. Both of these crafts do not produce any useable item. Basketry needs a few junk items, all other crafts need copious amounts of junk to produce anything worthwhile.

So we have too much junk and crafting requires too much junk? I don't think both can really co-exist. I would take leather out of junk piles altogether and let hunters get more leather. I agree with combining arch/masonry, although it would have to be so you can only learn building recipes from making buildings.

Resources

As far as I know there are currently very few natural resources that are somewhat rare, I know of only three: tar, obsidian and chalk. Additionally, these resources are not in high demand.

I suggest to have at least three times the amount of rare (and/or regional) resources and to have more recipes that need those, especially when it comes to high-level recipes.

There are a few issues with resources that speak to rare resources not being in demand.

1. No item decay. You get one piece of chalk, make your "chalk" tool and you never have to go get another piece of chalk ever again.
2. No use for Quartz
3. Flint is used, however there is no point for leveling firemaking right now, so I basically say its not used.
4. There is an unlimited supply of rare resources... if you stand on dry limestone long enough you can get infinite number of chalk, on sand infinite number of shells etc. etc. It requires nothing more than standing in one spot and waiting. Rare items through scavenging are implemented MUCH better than rare items off resource locations.

So basically... we need item decay... we need more uses for "rare" items... and we need a better system for obtaining chalk, flint, obsidian whatever. Maybe chalk/flint/obsidian should be rare scavenged/foraged finds on those resources. Anything that can't be done sitting in one location waiting.

Alignment and pvp just need their combat system to be finished and safe zones removed, I don't think any real complication of the system needs to be made, just go with what they intended.

[Delvie]

We don't need to complicate this issue with alignment at all. Keep it simple - war vs peace tribes.

This is a very good idea.

As to the OP a couple of points.

A wipe would enrage me at this point - that would require another totem placement nightmare (land grab races are always lagfests).

Leave the mountain junk piles alone, they are a hobby of mine to find when out exploring, especially with the snow. Besides the fact many tribes are up and moving to the mountains to get out of the mess in the lower areas.

Regional resources in Lake Tahoe is just flat out a weird idea - we want the devs to spend time working on micro regions? Because in real life Lake Tahoe is a small area. I think Regional resources start making sense once the green mist pushes back - parts of California and Nevada are mining hotspots, parts are lush fertile farmland, etc. I expect that what the Lake Tahoe region is known for resource wise is lumber

Combining Masonry and Architecture is a great idea. Personally I think adding some carpentry (as in furniture) recipes to woodworking will flesh it out nicely. I expect they should add an Engineer skill at some point for making equipment such as stoves, ovens, looms, spinning wheels, etc.

Not sure that I understand the current Alignment system very well. Would prefer that it be based on the players actual actions rather than their planned actions.

[Salvadore]

I had planned on posting retorts in this thread when I had time to actually address it...

But the Colonel has already perfectly covered anything I would have said ;]

I dunno that guy, but he "gets" it!

SOMETHING needs to be done to save this game...doing nothing with no hints to the community makes one realize that the horse could actually be dead...

[jokhul]

What makes you think the game needs "saving" ?

Afaik Jooky was planning on launching the game with around 500 players. We've ended up with considerably more it seems, but I doubt that Jooki is going to redesign the entire game just to try and keep them all.

It's a very small team, fixes and new features are going to take time. Think in terms of months, not weeks. There's a very good reason why Prelude was set at 6 to 9 months. That's how long Jooky estimated it would take to implement the bulk of the features intended for the game. Provided nothing goes seriously wrong, such as the current lag and server stability issues. The latter have probably added a month to the estimated Prelude duration already.

[Salvadore]

What makes you think the game needs "saving" ?

Been here numerous times. By "here" i mean the launch of an MMO. The majority of MMO's drop the ball on release...these guys (so far) have pretty much done it worse than anyone else I've seen. The main difference between them and the rest is the fact that other's always had more to fall back on...such as working mechanics, help, financing, and all other things that keep the bandwidth alive.

These guys don't. They need all the help they can get to keep people interested in THIS game...not going to others and potentially coming back in 6-9 months. Thats suicide in terms of MMO's. Also leaving the community out to dry with no contact from the devs is also simply letting a wound bleed out.

Afaik Jooky was planning on launching the game with around 500 players. We've ended up with considerably more it seems, but I doubt that Jooki is going to redesign the entire game just to try and keep them all.

It's a very small team, fixes and new features are going to take time. Think in terms of months, not weeks. There's a very good reason why Prelude was set at 6 to 9 months. That's how long Jooky estimated it would take to implement the bulk of the features intended for the game. Provided nothing goes seriously wrong, such as the current lag and server stability issues. The latter have probably added a month to the estimated Prelude duration already.

Thats all well and fine, but what happens when they get to that 500 player mark? We all know there is a surge around release time, then the pop tapers off...but judging by content/projected planning/current accomplishment/everything overall involving this game, i HIGHLY DOUBT they can even retain that number at this current pace.

People have been burnt too many times. I really doubt anyone would consider coming back 6-9 months down the road regardless of how much more "promise" or "potential" is in game...NOW, on RELEASE DAY, is what matters in MMO's. Not 6-9 plus down the road.