Tarquinus

[quote]you just have to look in the right direction, and how you know that direction?[/quote] I would like to thank Jester and Amoran for pointing me in the right direction. Jester says, "MagicDuel is as obvious as gravity was before Isaac Newton formulated a theory to explain it." I concur, now that I have some idea what he means.

Hate to see you go.

I agree. Please close.

Happy birthday, Brother.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Your "solution" is bad because you make a demand while offering nothing in return. You suggest the users of GGG should not use it every other day, apparently for your convenience. Why should we? We are a group of like-minded people using a training strategy. It is understood that some people are simply rude and do not wish to respect this strategy, and come in hoping to break it, or to farm easy wins (which is the point of the thing to begin with). You appear to be offering not to be rude every other day. I cannot speak for the others, but I'll hold out for a better offer. You and others complain that GGG is "flooded" with people and that other areas are consequently devoid of people to duel. Has it ever occurred to you to wonder why? If you show people a way that is more fun, they will come to you. Making the GGG less effective or less fun is not a good way to change the way training happens in MagicDuel. It simply alienates people and causes them to lose respect for you. I do understand that GGG enables a certain free-win-dependent mentality among those who do not ever duel otherwise, but it is neither my right nor my duty to tell other players what to do with their time. The GGG works for me and for many other players who understand its benefits and its limitations very well: to suggest otherwise is to say that the MRs fundamentally failed to understand the mechanics of dueling in MagicDuel in devising this method, and I think that is demonstrably, emphatically [u]not[/u] the case.

That is a non-solution that solves nothing. What the hell is wrong with letting the GGG alone? If you don't like it, [u]don't go there[/u]. If you want to "protest" a popular training ground, expect to meet resistance.

I honor the effort MRD, MRWander, and many others put into making GGG a training ground for the whole of the MD community. I absolutely deplore the lack of respect that has been shown to the MRs and their training ground. As Cutler observed, no good deed goes unpunished. GGG will continue with player support. Let those who criticize it say what they will; it serves a useful purpose to players who know what they are doing, and helps many others, though in a smaller way. To players who wish to see GGG survive as a training ground, I offer the following advice: [list] [*]Encourage players to keep deep defenses stacked while training (and especially idling) at GGG. This is [b]simple[/b] for anyone with a fully grown tree. A prepared player's training rituals cannot easily be broken. [*]Enforce the rules of the training ground by means personally available to you. Don't give the opportunists what they want. Many of them will suffer if mass-attacked, while others can be attack-locked, teleported, or worse. [*]Stay united. The success or failure of the GGG depends on the people who use it. [/list] There is one other thing - teaching. The Dojo never quite managed to effectively train duelists to create good rituals. Remember that. GGG has a narrow utility, as Burns and a few others have indicated, and dependence on it can cripple a character's ability to duel. Share knowledge, explore the limits of your ability to fight, and help MD stay a fun place for dueling.

Happy Birthday!

[u][b]Speaker for the Forest[/b][/u] Friend to bird, flower, and knator, the Speaker for the Forest walks the woodland paths and talks with the trees. He guides Loreroot with a firm but supple hand.

I think this is a tremendous idea. Have you selected a location? If not, may I suggest Willow's Shop?

Thank you, Mur. It seems my faith in you is well placed.

Having the same problem.

[quote name='Burns' date='21 February 2010 - 03:13 AM' timestamp='1266743632' post='54878'] Who am I to claim that the CoE kill people who are evil to their gods and children?[/quote] Just a word on that - the CoE [u]are[/u] religious loonies, and sometimes browbeat members who seem to be falling short of the standard of zeal. Lucius Tarquinus is almost a self-parody, and he and Keith both began their MagicDuel careers as satirical characters. I don't have much patience for people who resent being the objects of satire. Anyone who takes himself that seriously deserves to be parodied more rather than less. Keep up the good work, Burns - by all accounts, your quest was a lot of fun.

I have you in my thoughts. Keep courage, keep hope.

I agree with Orlando. And let us not turn on one another, saying, "you are to blame..." I see some people in this thread failing to communicate. I see others attacking straw men. I see yet others harping on truths that are too uncomfortable for some players to admit, in my opinion a totally pointless exercise. I will openly admit that I have not always been a very good influence on the game of MagicDuel; I freely confess to having been selfish and self-absorbed, interested primarily in entertaining myself rather than trying to work for the fun of others. This is not a confessional, like Awiiya's thread from the Festival of Pain, but a statement of fact. I doubt many others are willing to admit the facts as baldly, to examine what they might have done to harm the game and its community. And I don't care. I still enjoy MagicDuel, I still have friends among its players, and I am very far from the point of despair. I still see more criticism of the state of affairs in this thread, despite its relocation, than discussion of how to "revive" MD. Must we really split hairs over semantics, for all love? There are those who are fearful, those who are bored, those who are frustrated and angry. So what? What are you prepared to do to make it better? Surely the game provides some amount of fun to you, or you would no longer play, no? [b]edited for clarity[/b]

I will yield to His Majesty. 3 silver for the fourth box.

3 silver for the eighth box.

I will sponsor this quest with a Wish Point for the winner and 10 silver for a runner-up. One word of advice, Kamisha - forget about the AL. Just ask for stories to act as springboards for events in the game.

[quote name='Rhaegar Targaryen' date='17 February 2010 - 03:51 PM' timestamp='1266443511' post='54647'] we, as ourselves, need to make few story lines that others would follow. I'm not familiar with rules of dungeons and dragons, but as far as I know they have Game Masters right? so why don't certain group of people team up and create a story that would start series of events, in which other people can join in, making something grand. The 'Game Master' would set the rules at the start, how the events would function (you could use torch system for certain events within those event series, if battle occurs or whatever) [/quote] Yes, that's it exactly. The war between Golemus and Necrovion, which came down to a battle between the Knights of the Bell on one side and the Sentinels and the Eclipse on the other, was player-driven and player-managed. I can't speak for everyone, but I know at least three players who were highly galvanized by the player-sponsored events of this war, and who came away feeling a deeper sense of involvement in MagicDuel and connection to its characters. I take nothing away from Mur, who has given his all and more to MagicDuel: 110%, as professional athletes in the US are prone to say. But I also do not address him - I address you, my fellow players. Don't wait for Mur to implement things! Reach out to each other, organize, plan, and then hang on for the ride. Most importantly of all, reach out to the players of your characters' enemies and figure out a way to use rp and existing game mechanics to weave a story whose starting conditions you control, but whose outcome is in doubt. It'll be fun. I promise.

Good points all, Burns, and I could raise another big issue which, in my opinion, killed 90% of the story in the game. But I don't want to point fingers or feed back on negativity, which really only perpetuates more negativity. I am an alcoholic in recovery. We in recovery like to talk about our problems, yes, but the more experienced among us note and repeat (as many times as we must) that focusing on the problem only makes the problem bigger. What helps us, who used to feel ourselves in a hopeless state, is to focus on what might be the solution to our problem. So let us focus on the solution to MD's woes: story. Right now I am re-playing one of the best games I have ever played: [i]Mass Effect[/i]. This game is a shooter. I hate shooters. So why do I like [i]Mass Effect[/i] so much? Story. The story is amazing. It's well fleshed out, deeply researched, and solidly written. Those of you who have played other roleplaying games and enjoyed them will notice a common feature shared by all of them, which is story wedded to the mechanics of a combat system. This kind of quest is a thing I had hoped to introduce to MagicDuel as RPC, but was too lazy really to implement in time to make a difference. But it can be done. It will take long hours of work, cooperation from at least six people who are willing to be online nearly all the time, and/or who have reliable understudies to take their parts so the "actors" (non-questing characters) can keep the quest running constantly. And it will require a good story. A good story doesn't have to be original. A novel way of presenting a story can be brilliant, but it's just not necessary. While playing [i]Mass Effect[/i] and games like it, I navigate through one over-arching story and encounter dozens of mini-plots along the way. The elements of the over-arching story are familiar: [x] is going to destroy the world/galaxy/universe, and our hero is a rugged, rough-and-tumble outsider who rises to the occasion. Meanwhile, in addition to the corruptions, seductions, and betrayals among the story's principal characters, minor characters are also reporting, and need help resolving, small betrayals, corruptions, and kidnappings in their own minor spheres. Everything's broken; everything needs a hero. You're he (or she). Where you go, change comes, and history is written in your trail. MagicDuel prides itself on originality, and originality is good where it keeps a story going. Where there is no story, originality is interesting for a few moments, and rarely more. Don't want to click to advance? Fine. Learn how to excel in this dueling system, manage the maze of conflicting personalities in MagicDuel, and forge your path in a complicated situation fraught with obstacles and ambiguity. If you don't have the time or inclination to write a story-based quest yourself, create a small one and get some other players to help you. Just remember the three essentials of a good story quest: [list=1] [*]Use the fighting system. All stories require conflict, and in a roleplaying game, conflict must have a system of arbitration. Yes, some people can "roleplay" fighting pretty well, but there is no structure to keep players "honest", reasonable, or in proportion. Solution - take advantage of the existing system. [*]Be true to the setting. Many quests in MD are cool but don't have anything to do with the "story" of the game world. That dissociation, in addition to a generally arbitrary level of difficulty, prevents most quests from seeing many participants. [*]Use existing characters and situations as a springboard. Characters and events that don't happen "in game" don't interest the average player. We want to interact with characters we know and things we care about. Here's the acid test: does a person who solves a quest have an interesting story to tell? If not, the quest is going to be of academic interest at best. [/list] There are lots of players hungry for story who will be glad to help you, and there are several who can code clickables to help automate parts of your quest. Here is my challenge to the MagicDuel community: write a quest that people want to play [i]just for the fun of being part of the quest[/i], where rewards are nice but a secondary consideration to having a fun, memorable experience. Good night, and good luck. [b]Edited to complete a sentence [doh!][/b]

Happy Birthday!

The PL entry in the attached screen-crop is totally unacceptable behavior from a guy who really knows better. This is in-game harassment about something which is, at best, a RL issue related to the game only by the fact that the two people involved both play it. I apologize if I've posted this in the wrong forum; feel free to move it or do whatever you need to do. I just really, really wanted to call this to the attention of at least one moderator.

Thanks for the contest, dst. I had a lot of fun with it!