What needs work?

[MaGoHi]

12 minutes ago, Aethon said:

Exactly. And now look, lucky to find three people in the same location and more than 10-15 online at any one point.

this is also the real problem with the combat system, you cant really train when there are 3 people you can attack in 3 different locations

[lashtal]

36 minutes ago, MaGoHi said:

this is also the real problem with the combat system, you cant really train when there are 3 people you can attack in 3 different locations

If one's goal is to reach Eon's or Lightsage's stats, I agree...

On the other hand, I got more than 1000 wins on my creatures in the past couple of months, most of them with only samon as target and having to deal with balance as well. 

[MaGoHi]

40 minutes ago, lashtal said:

If one's goal is to reach Eon's or Lightsage's stats, I agree...

On the other hand, I got more than 1000 wins on my creatures in the past couple of months, most of them with only samon as target and having to deal with balance as well. 

1000 wins is what i got in 2-3 days when when i had my heavy grinding sessions

[DARK DEMON]

Yeah I also agree the root of the problem is mostly the activity/number of people online. All the 'work' being done may not apply to a 100+ community for example. Imagine if a 100 people suddenly flowed into MD. The way players play would change and the way game managers manage would also change.

I just want to put it out there, in case its being forgotten that the core of MD is interacting with people, not anything else.

[Chewett]

On 8/13/2016 at 5:54 AM, Mallos said:

 

The combat system.

It's been underused and for a while now there has been somewhat of an issue with huge stats (mostly the few players who have them and other players being unable to catch up, which may deter players from using the system entirely). I think a way to fix this problem could be to set a "soft" cap to stats, at which the stats gained afterwards will be incremental and rather insignificant on a small time scale.

 

I think that might be an idea. However when I was spending the  time to fix up and change up the fighting system people didnt really seem bothered. So in the end I stopped.  Are people interested in this?

A word on advertising.

We don't spend money on advertising (unless something changed over the past couple months and I haven't seen it in paypal). When we had a lot of players in the game,we weren't actually seeing a lot of "players" but we were seeing a lot of players passing through. There was only a small set of players that were actually "alive".

The game has problems at the moment and we need to fix them before we spend a lot of money again on advertising. I dont have a concern we can spend the money and get a load more players in the game but I (and I believe Mur agrees with me here) that we need to fix up the problems in the game so that the people we pay for (in advertising) stay.

If those in the game wish to work with me to improve on the parts you enjoy then I thank you all involved.

[Chewett]

On 8/13/2016 at 9:47 AM, DARK DEMON said:

We have been saying this since 'a few years' lol

Saying what a few years?

 

On 8/13/2016 at 11:15 AM, MaGoHi said:

this is also the real problem with the combat system, you cant really train when there are 3 people you can attack in 3 different locations

What would you change?

On 8/13/2016 at 2:10 PM, DARK DEMON said:

Yeah I also agree the root of the problem is mostly the activity/number of people online. All the 'work' being done may not apply to a 100+ community for example. Imagine if a 100 people suddenly flowed into MD. The way players play would change and the way game managers manage would also change.

I just want to put it out there, in case its being forgotten that the core of MD is interacting with people, not anything else.

Read as above

The work being done to the system is not being targeted at the 5 most loud players, but our community (current and future).

Also, we dont have game managers, havent since simply, it didnt work. Although perhaps we might again.

As for the core of the game interacting with people. Yeah I totally agree here, but the problem we had was that you need to keep people in MD for a period of time to get them to start interacting on their own, and you need to ensure that some of those that dont like interacting (as they are as important as those that do) ahve things to do that keep them in the game (and keep forcing them to interact).

Was it not you who said you could play MD without anyone else, by hiding in your lab? I was skeptical and did say then that the core of MD was the interaction. Its good to see you understand this now.

----

Ideally Mur and I would work on this as a job and life wouldn't happen. I would enjoy working on MD full time but we cannot fund ourselves in this way at the moment. Mur has been lucky to be able to partially do this over the years but cost of living is much much higher in the UK and I am not in such a great place financially as he is.

Not to mention that over the past couple years my health has been somewhat poor along with other events have meant I lost a lot of time I would have liked to devote to MD.

Obviously this is quite a personal response to how the game is, but since we are but two coders running working on the game we love, the response must be personal.

----

Im here if people want to talk, I really did love the game and want to make it thrive again but we must address the problems that got us here. Just continually pumping money into MD didnt work over the past years we those people didnt stay.

Hope you are all well
Chewett

[MaGoHi]

23 minutes ago, Chewett said:

What would you change?

idk, its more like the problem to keep players, like you said, i even tried to convince some friends to play it but they said its shit and boring after i showed them, ofc i know that RP games arent the thing for everyone but again like you said there has to be something that keeps people

first step would be the new intro that you already work on, i guess

second step is to give people things to work on or to work towards to, (i thought that would be the new resource system but that got fucked up, it even made my activity drop)

-MaGoHi

[Aeoshattr]

To be honest, I think MD's problem is more fundamental than just 'lack of players'. Currently we cannot even keep players who stuck around for a year, see some of our "rookies", such as Mago who say they lost interest.

We get the odd MP3 now and then, they play for a bit, then leave. I have not seen a new player to 'stay' like some of us veterans to since I returned to the game 2-3 years ago. Not a single one. I suppose you could count Mago and Aethon in here, though Aethon 'retired', I think, and Mago isn't active lately. 

The way I see it, it's a mixture of community issues, management issues and game issues.

Community:

• Absolutely enormous difference in power and accessibility between a new player and an old player. It can be extremely discouraging to some. This is hugely aggravated by the fact that the vast majority of current MD players are veterans (and thus on the upper end of the power scale).
• Toxicity. Let's face it, a lot of us flame (guilty here), use people, insult, etc. If I were a new player, I'd want nothing to do with most of the MD community.

Management:

• Huge number of things that are started and never finished. Extremely disappointing, you get hyped because stuff is happening, then it dies out. For months or years, or never to be heard of again.
• Poor management of conflicts and rules, going back on statements, etc. See the issue with Nad and his grabban, which has implications beyond the fact that he annoyed darkraptor and NoOne.
• Tbh, I think there's a lot of stress on you and Mur, neither of you want to (or are particularly good) at dealing with people and in MD, dealing with people is probably 80% of the job. Interaction. 

Game:

• The game concept, in the first place, is not something that appeals to many people. We have a small target population.
• MD is very confusing at first. You lack direction. You lack people to attack and train with.
• "quirky" things. Sure, some quirk is nice, but for instance, having to get inside Necro  to get a sword shade, avoiding getting killed, spending time and effort to get it 1000 wins and wait 100 days for it to get to level 2... then you realise you need to be MP6 to level it to lvl 3, another 1000 wins and i-forgot-how-many-days. For what, a creature that isn't even that amazing in combat or other aspects. This can be extended to other aspects of MD that require a stupid amount of effort and the reward is minimal or fades within hours.
• Availability of game aspects through wishpoints and availability of wishpoints, but also inaccurate or misleading descriptions, inability to reset spent wishpoints and stuff like  "I spent a WP for graveyard access and now I can't get in NC". Ties in with the above, usually a lot of effort to get a WP and the reward is often diminished when you get it and see how it works.

Overall? I'm not entirely sure we can fix a lot of these issues. We're constantly losing players: few if any join and veterans slowly leave or drift away, and I think it has to do with at least some of the above issues.

[Mallos]

I agree with what they are saying here. The game really seems like it's in beta still once you understand it a bit better, which can give players a sense of want for things they don't have. With all the stuff being added this want can be disappointing if not fulfilled. This can and probably puts a strain on the developers (Mur/Chew) to fix or add new items, but sometimes it can be too much. We need to look back at what we are creating and figure out what's best for the community as a whole and in large, get that done and then perhaps focus more on advertising when MD is ready to "reset" and let a bunch more people in (as well as the vets that have quit if they would join again).

nadrolski

Posted August 7

"MP6."

 

What I remember of mp6 was there were a few players who had it at any given time, and a lot of the time these players might change and let another player take their spot as mp6, letting another person be able to upgrade their creatures or try it out/etc. There were around 2-3 at any time though maybe more. So work on mp6 would be nice as currently we have none.

It only seems like Syrian and Nimrodel are trying to become mp6, both hovering around 20-25 adepts if i'm not mistaken. I've asked a few players if they would like to adept either of them and so far none that I've asked were willing to change to be their adept though players can be hard to find currently. So even if one of them stopped trying for mp6 I doubt the other would be able to reach mp6 or if they did they may not be a very stable one. Even worse if a third would try to become mp6 they would possibly leech adepts from one of the current ones or be unable to gain adepts completely, ruining any of their chances to become mp6. With a higher population I feel these same problems would persist except 1 may still reach it to mp6 while more would encounter something of this same issue.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Mallos

[DARK DEMON]

(not quoting Chewett because this reply includes some replies to other posts too, but this is mainly addressed to Chewett)
___________________________________________

When I joined MD, there were more people online at a time AND there were more people who stayed, along with myself. Since you took it personal, I will make a personal reply as well, because I again believe MD is about personal interaction. When I said I was hiding away in the Lab (still am, to be honest, I haven't left there for months) that is also a form of interaction, even if not direct, because I'm cemented here in MD one way or the other. 

If Sunfire hadn't been in the paper cabin when I joined MD, I probably wouldn't have stayed. If Liberty didn't teach me combat and sit with me for hours on end when I was fighting the Loreroot guards, I probably wouldn't have stayed. If I hadn't met Lintara, Chew, Granos, Ailith, Aeoshattr, and many other important people (I am truly sorry if I forgot your name, you know who you are) I would not have stayed. Heck even dst and No one gave me a reason to fight for something.

And honestly, I'm dead sure, don't even deny it, everyone has similar experiences.

The point I'm trying to make is that people, even one person, online at one time, can make a difference between another player staying or leaving.

And sadly, comparing MD's current state to when I arrived in MD, there are less people online and there are less people arriving in MD. 

We could afford to fix/develop MD so that people stay, IF the activity situation remained the same as when I joined. But sadly it isn't. It is in massive decline. This decline needs to stop, some way or the other. I think that's why advertising was suggested. Consider this as something to think about, Chewy. I'm sure you too will be much more motivated when there are more people to appreciate you.

I can't financially support MD, but I wish I could. Honestly give me a few years and I will. But I really fear MD won't be around till then

Edited August 15, 2016 by DARK DEMON

[dst]

My first impulse is to jump and name things that will affect me on a short term: mp6, crits, items, etc. Let's say those get done. Then what? We'll be 10 people in MD. There is no fun in winning something when you go against one or two opponents. There is no fun in destroying something that doesn't require work and strategy and that doesn't affect lots of people :P.

So at the moment I would say this: priority is to finish the A25 or whatever the tutorial is called so people would stay. Remove the filters or replace them with something more fun and easier to achieve. Set up the LHO or whatever to help new players. Start advertising to lure new players.

I agree, working on the above might be boring and I know from my personal experience that if I have a big project that I am not really found of, I stop from time to time and work on stuff that I enjoy. So between working on fixing the tutorial, other stuff can be attempted (again, enjoyable stuff). But the focus should be on the tutorial.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2016 by dst

[Mallos]

On 8/7/2016 at 8:23 PM, nadrolski said:

MP6.

I tied mp6 into the combat system in a strange way, idk if it works but it's a suggestion from an earlier post in here.

I think Principles need work, as they currently don't have any use asides from tokens. It might be fun to make some connections between those and some other point in MD.

[Chewett]

9 hours ago, DARK DEMON said:

I can't financially support MD, but I wish I could. Honestly give me a few years and I will. But I really fear MD won't be around till then

Dont worry, MD wont die while Mur and I are around. Even if we close it for a couple years to rework it, its not going to disappear

[Chewett]

8 hours ago, dst said:

priority is to finish the A25 or whatever the tutorial is called so people would stay.

I will see if I can work out what Mur actually wanted done with this, I know a vague plan but Im not sure what he has done :S

[Muratus del Mur]

its actually the only thing that matters, above any other work,

right now there is no point to advertise anything because we lose about 99% of all players in the start, due to the lack of an actual beginning and things to do at the start. A25 is something that is needed for the new start to function, at least in an interesting way....but hey, a25 was done ages ago. It lacks access permissions and other stuff, but as it is is fully functional and can do miracles in the right hands. What is truly missing from md, and will eventually kill it, is what i sent you on email chew. IN EXCESSIVE DETAILS. Same thing i sent half a year ago, but now i made it even more clear and to the point.

I find this entire topic ridiculous, even if well intended obviously, it makes me sad you dont see md its dieing, and compared to this (what dst, aethon and others said), md without a way to retain players will die in a few month. Its actually dead already, but there still is a chance to spark some life in it.

The only guilty person in this is me, because i didnt quit any other thing i was doing and do this, ..true.. but somehow i cant do it. One of my dooms in life is that i cant finish things i start, but went arround this by putting myself higher targets. MD is probably the most complete creation (even if some might say the most incomplete)...probably this is the reason why when i prepare to do this part of md, feel quite motivated to do it, then i stare at the screen and do nothing for a couple of days, or end up just reading the forum for hours hoping for my "mood" to come back.

I can;t hire anyone to do it either. md is a mixture of philosophy and code, cant be done by a random coder.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Muratus del Mur

[Mallos]

To work on one thing would forever be futile, spread out and let the others catch up.

This was a nod to Moore's Law if nobody caught that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

Edited August 29, 2016 by Mallos