This is the real Hastur, no VPN user here.

Well I landed a job ... finally ... that allows me to work from Australia for Atari. With this job comes the angle of time vs reward. Unfortunately when I look at Carrionfields and compare it to many other aspects, Cf just doesnt cut it. This post is more of a curtesy and a Hey Immstaff you should consider this, than a post of YOU ALL SUCK & cannot do anything right.


I started cfing in 94, Back then it was a impressive game, human interaction and a test of my skill and knowledge against other players. Nothing of the sort was really about to compare with it. Sure it didnt have graphics but game players rarely do care about graphics as long as they get to test themselves against others of the world. Sure graphics are appealing, any one who remembers X-Crossfire will have fond memories of playing a primative graphics game with their friends. However if you look at the fundamentals it comes down to a few simple aspects.

Do you have fun playing the game.
- How fun is it in comparison to other things that you could do.
- How much time is required for you to have fun.
- Will the fun last.

Simply put; A game needs to be fun, it needs to be quickly achieved, it needs to be versatile to maintain the fun.

I will use the pcgame X2 as a example. This pcgame was released and many of the people who played it instantly thought it was a piece of #### space game. However all those dedicated die hard space game lovers pluged away at it. The game creators and the millions of forums spammers all commented on how the game soaked up atleast 10 hours to even grasp how everything worked. How you then had to spend a good 50 hours before the game started. This time consuption was a massive drawback to X2, so much so it was classed as a failure at launch. It took months and months before it was recognised as a good game. Then sales picked up some but sharply dropped again as many of the people who waited bought the game and discovered how much time was required to get it up and running.

I will now defer to a PC game that I worked on. Freedom Force. A small niche group of fans existed for this game, all you comic book lovers. Sure the game design and LD was done by some kickarse people, but the fact remains that it was aimed at a tiny audience. It was a game that took a few minutes to adjust to before it returned fun & lots of it. Freedom Force went plat so fast it wasnt funny. Surprising us and the company (sure we got all cocky and said - Course it did, we made it). The niche audience expanded to many game players who loved it purely because it was fun to play.

The single aspect that this displays is that time spent vs fun gained is VERY important. There is a huge audience out there for players who dont want to spend 10 hours grasping the game and 50 hours before they start getting fun out of it. They want to be able to start playing for a hour or two then stop during which they would like to have spent that time getting fun from it.

Pcgames are not(often) able to be updated & altered whilst the players are playing it. Because of this players often tire of the game after they "beat it" or have maxplayed it (played every single aspect). This aspect was addressed with online multiplayer(similar to muds) abilities. With this addition a new aspect for all games was brought to life, a aspect that prolonged their lives for years. Comparing yourself, challenging yourself against other humans. With this new angel a played out game could be played over and over because you were playing with other humans, whom actions would never be the same.

Sequels to pcgames are normally based on improvements both in design and presentation. Those building the games (like the immstaff) want to try a idea they have or want to improve on a what they have allready created. Its been years since half-life came out, yet it is still one of the all time games. Its graphics have been surpassed for years and there are much better games out there, however it still gets played.

The game requires 5-10 minutes to understand it, and then offers fun then on. Sure you might not be as good as elite shooter X, but the 3 times your managed to sneak up on him and kill him was worth the 15 times he fraged you.

Carrionfields started off like that, it took two days for me to learn how to play it. I think the smugger record was 19 hours for hero. Once hero'ed it was a nonstop cabal raid. We would log in at lunch time for a hour and join in on the raid that was almost always in progress. People would die left right and center and everyone had fun. No one cared about equipment or dying because you knew that it would only take a week before you had another hero running around kicking arse again. Hero range was full of about 30 or more people (with the game capped at 50 max users, or was it 75... cannot remember). Sure the game wasnt "balanced" as well as it could have been, sure the code was bad and cheating was rampant (along the lines of eq swapping/cloning mostly). But it didnt really take away from the fun of the game. Anyone could hero and kill those people for that equipment. People would deleted a character if they didnt like it, raise another type of character normally doing so untill they found something they liked. Which they would then play into the ground (con loss age death boredom) When they wanted a change they would try something else.

This was why cf was so popular and so fun. It took very little time, you could log in for a hour have fun and log out. You could spend huge ammounts of time online and have lots of fun. Because characters were so easily raised, and in such short times people only ever had 1 character. There was no point to have 8 characters running. If you wanted to try something else you could do it easily. So you would just up and delete.


I look at cf now and just cringe at how its turned out. The game itself from a single player standpoint is good. Well balanced and thought out. Soon as you add more than 1 player however it goes down hill hugely.

CF has the following:
- Roaming playerbase (1 player 10 characters)
- Multi time zone players. (requires more players to function,pendulum)
- Massive ammounts of time required to play.(bang for buck)
- Inbalance in reguards to non single player playing. (Permalagging/ganging affecting the game adversly)


Now the immstaff might dispute this in many different ways. But the fact remains, I am a player. These are my views of the game. I have spoken with dozens of other players who also agree. Many of the workers in the game industry (many who mud) also agree this is why they gave up mudding.


Changes:
I've read many posts from players and immortals who comment on change. The biggest laugh is the speed at which change happens at. You have a playerbase, use it. Just like a game company has all its testers. Cf isnt a pay for play game, We play cause we like to play. There are muds out there that make 3-5 changes a day, upping/downing skills & spells. They tweak skills & spells untill they are happy with it. Dont say that it is not professional. Because the real world works like that also. Its only when you flag something with "life&death" that you have to test it for months on end before doing it.

CF in my view needs to make a few drastic changes. Even if you think they are fickle, why not test them, why not see if they work for a month or three (some of the more drastic ones). The changes to spells & skills could easily be made on a daily basis.

Here is my dreaded list of changes to cf:

Introduce character age death linked to real world time, not game time (make this say 4 months)

Introduce 1 character per player restrictions. (started with a player purge)

Reduce the ammount of time required to prac (remove the need to spam prac, yes blah blah will continue at **)

Reduce the time required to level (yes increase how fast one can xp, perhaps even enable more solo xp - larger group size xp)

Introduce command flow stacks, execute 1 skill (enter another and get instant reply that your allready delayed from 1 skill)

Introduce melee range based on room exits. 1 exit 1 foe (back to the wall, 2 exits 2 foes etc, this could also include spells)


** I dont want to rekindle the whole practicing thread below, but simply put if 100% in skills wasnt required then skills & spells would just be that, there would be no %'s needed. People play this MULTI player game to play against others, to test their skills & tactics. They want it to be just that. 100%'s in everything means that no one is to blame but you. Your character is not at fault. (excluding luck stats blah blah blah). Making it take 100 hours instead of 10 has not changed the situation, people still spam prac, just like they did in 94. You have only managed to outcast players due to massive ammounts of wasted times.



Finally:

Games are supposed to be fun. Life is short, wasted time with no reward or fun isnt worth ####. Cf has the potential to thrive again, yet it seems unable to see the big picture, the world changes - players change. No one is going to continue wanting to spend hundreds of hours for 10 hours of fun when they can spend 1 hour for 50 mins of fun with other games. Re-kindle cf, make it fun to play again. Make the time spent 1/10th of what it currently takes. If all hell breaks loose, change it back. Prove me wrong.

PS: It doesnt take much to toss in a *3 multi on xp code, or a *5 on learning rates.
PPS: I've seen a few muds that have "multi" xp sessions on birthdays. Some of those muds only have 20-30 players, but during their birthday they swell to 50-80 players. Perhaps its not all that bad no ?


Anyway, Hastur signing out. (unless you impliment those changes).