I'm really happy with some of the changes that have been made to Imperian, even in just the span of the two months or so since I've been playing. The changes to how sect belief is gained/lost, the extension of the achievement XP bonus to only count down while you're actually logged in... and a variety of other fixes or tweaks, but they all seem to respect the fact that not every player has the ability to log in at the same time every day for several consecutive hours. IRE games always seem to walk this fine line of being a game but also being very serious business and I think Imperian seems to strike the best balance of them all.
Imperian is by far the least grindy IRE game. The other IRE games, and in particular, its flagship Achaea, end up saying essentially this to their players: "suck it, go grind some more and we might let you play around with our version of IRE's awesome PK system. Then, we'll make you go grind some more because you're a bad who should be grinding because you died again. Stop being a bad. This game is srs. It's so srs that you need to stop taking grinding so srsly. Also, you are bad at grinding. That's why it's taking you so long. If you were good at grinding it should only take you 30 minutes. Er, I mean two RL weeks only taking pee breaks. That guy showered a couple of times too, I think. Also, most of our orgs are full of people whose hobbies include making up horrible, tedious requirements and ensuring that everyone they outrank treats them like a medieval lord because that is how arghhpee works. Finally, the trolling on our forums is carefully adjusted to safe levels based on readings from special geiger counters that regularly travel back in time to Chernobyl, circa 1986 for recalibration".
Imperian, on the other hand, says: "we're going to let you use our version of IRE's awesome PK system. This isn't WoW, but our players won't be uptight jerks if someone makes a vaguely OOC reference in game, so it still feels like a (way less pretentious) real world. In fact, it feels more immersive in a lot of ways because people who aren't uber combatants don't have to sit on the sidelines. Unless you're a whiz at both game mechanics and coding, you're still going to have to really work to figure it out decently, and if you're lucky, you might find some people to help you when you're stuck, but we'll let you play without telling you to go grind when you keep sucking at it, even though you're a terrible bad. If you just want to bash and hang out you can do that too, but there's nothing stopping you from being an awful combatant and you should at least try it. Also, for some weird reason, our current players mostly aren't jerks who need to be treated like medieval lords and they won't shove a bunch of tedious org requirements down your throat. Oh, and we seem to have Woz over here, but they definitely have Jobs over there. You're lining his pockets whether you're here or there, but at least if you're here, he's over there, and Woz is over here".
So basically, anyone who isn't a hard core gamer troll with too much free time on their hands, but who is willing to be constantly humiliated in combat as long as it doesn't entail grinding, should be over here, but first, they need to know that over here is... over here. Let's be honest though, you're still going to end up saying "oh crap, I really need to go to bed", but at least it will be because you were having fun dying repeatedly, or finally made a good change to something in your triggers etc... All IRE games seem to have gorgeous mechanics, but even by that standard we seem to have some of the best toys. We haven't had the comprehensive combat balancing Achaea finally got. Yet. But give it time. Hopefully. And in the meantime it's not quite so tragic that blah blah prof is ridiculously OP this week, because when your entire team dies repeatedly, it might be annoying, but not as annoying as it would be if that meant you had to go bash for hours.
I wanted to like Lusternia because holy crap Aetherships and tiny adorable dolls that murder each other, but I kept hearing (from the players themselves) that conflict was pretty much dead for the time being - partly because of punitive losses when they would fight and people getting sick of grinding back losses. I also kept hearing it was the worst dollar sink of them all (and a lot of us already spend thousands on our chars). Still, if they ever ditch XP loss at some point (and some other thing people have to grind back that a lot of players weren't so happy about), I'd be awfully tempted. They had some really nice, eccentric players, too.
To be fair, if I'm not mistaken Achaea just released some kind of team-rage-PvE-addon-system-thing, presumably to help reduce some of that grind. Anyone played with it at all?
Dicene, I can't speak too much to the new bashing system from personal experience, having only tried it briefly so far, but by their own admission, they're not trying to compete in the area of PVE with games that have it as a main focus, and I'd just rather play around with what IRE does specialize in, which is amazing, fun PVP.
Anyway, some people are really liking it, others having pretty strong negative reactions. People are partly worried about the "fun" aspect, and partly worried about the "efficiency" aspect, since they still want to be able to feel like they're making good XP gains (and in many cases, they care about gold, too).
A lot of the top coders/PK-ers seem to be liking it, which is good and bad. It means they probably avoided making something that was actually bad, but a lot of people seem to be struggling with it. My thought was that they've built it already and a portion of the player base definitely likes the challenge of coding new things and figuring out how to optimize their hunting, so even if it ends up being too much for a lot of players, they should definitely continue to make the new bashing experience available for those who are enjoying it. But, depending on how things play out, they may need to make it more user friendly for people, and actually they're taking at least some steps in that direction. It's also just got to get all of its initial "new system" bugs worked out before we can see what it's like when it's pretty much working as intended, so needs a bit more time to see if it's an improvement or not.
Jules is pretty spot on with her Achaea tutorial :P. This new bashing system is interesting, but it also makes it nearly impossible to clear even a single level in nearly any bashing area without running out of either endurance or willpower. That's an awful lot of sleeping. In the long run, it seems much more tedious to even consider bashing. Maybe that will change soon though.
Arg, I wish I was a coder. If I was, this particular IRE game would be perfect for me. The -only- reason I still play in Achaea instead of here is because I have a system there and only use the in game curing here. That has no "convenience" scripting. Alas, the woes of the bored.
The in-game healer here is awesome. I use it exclusively as does practically every other fighter in the game.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Jules is pretty spot on with her Achaea tutorial :P. This new bashing system is interesting, but it also makes it nearly impossible to clear even a single level in nearly any bashing area without running out of either endurance or willpower. That's an awful lot of sleeping. In the long run, it seems much more tedious to even consider bashing. Maybe that will change soon though.
Arg, I wish I was a coder. If I was, this particular IRE game would be perfect for me. The -only- reason I still play in Achaea instead of here is because I have a system there and only use the in game curing here. That has no "convenience" scripting. Alas, the woes of the bored.
What do you use as a client, Geneve? I'm sure smart people can script up an easy system for ya.
Jules is pretty spot on with her Achaea tutorial :P. This new bashing system is interesting, but it also makes it nearly impossible to clear even a single level in nearly any bashing area without running out of either endurance or willpower. That's an awful lot of sleeping. In the long run, it seems much more tedious to even consider bashing. Maybe that will change soon though.
Arg, I wish I was a coder. If I was, this particular IRE game would be perfect for me. The -only- reason I still play in Achaea instead of here is because I have a system there and only use the in game curing here. That has no "convenience" scripting. Alas, the woes of the bored.
Actually, I tried Achaea's new battlerage hunting mechanic. With all the changes taken in, you don't need to clear a single level in any bashing area to get the same amount of experience, because experience per mob has also been upped. If, for example, you previously got 10% from 1 bashing area of 100 mobs and it took you 10 minutes to do that, the new system gets you 10% from 10 mobs in that 1 bashing area, still taking 10 minutes to bash out those 10 mobs.
currently tentatively active (may vanish for periods of time)
Jules is pretty spot on with her Achaea tutorial :P. This new bashing system is interesting, but it also makes it nearly impossible to clear even a single level in nearly any bashing area without running out of either endurance or willpower. That's an awful lot of sleeping. In the long run, it seems much more tedious to even consider bashing. Maybe that will change soon though.
Arg, I wish I was a coder. If I was, this particular IRE game would be perfect for me. The -only- reason I still play in Achaea instead of here is because I have a system there and only use the in game curing here. That has no "convenience" scripting. Alas, the woes of the bored.
Actually, I tried Achaea's new battlerage hunting mechanic. With all the changes taken in, you don't need to clear a single level in any bashing area to get the same amount of experience, because experience per mob has also been upped. If, for example, you previously got 10% from 1 bashing area of 100 mobs and it took you 10 minutes to do that, the new system gets you 10% from 10 mobs in that 1 bashing area, still taking 10 minutes to bash out those 10 mobs.
Yeah, it's upped the amount of hunting available (which was really needed). Geneve, with the willpower and endurance - that was a bug, so you're not crazy for noticing that. It's been fixed now, but still seeing mixed reports on people experiencing massive endurance drain. Anyway, now that the initial wave of bugs has been fixed, I'll probably play around with it a bit again.
Jules is pretty spot on with her Achaea tutorial :P. This new bashing system is interesting, but it also makes it nearly impossible to clear even a single level in nearly any bashing area without running out of either endurance or willpower. That's an awful lot of sleeping. In the long run, it seems much more tedious to even consider bashing. Maybe that will change soon though.
Arg, I wish I was a coder. If I was, this particular IRE game would be perfect for me. The -only- reason I still play in Achaea instead of here is because I have a system there and only use the in game curing here. That has no "convenience" scripting. Alas, the woes of the bored.
What do you use as a client, Geneve? I'm sure smart people can script up an easy system for ya.
Mudlet. I can do some simple things, but that's about it, heh.
All of the RP Urzog is bringing and all of the commotion/conversation/activity that is happening with/within Antioch. Its been a long time coming of nothing really going on, and then this.
Absolutely love how welcoming everybody in Demonic has been. Given the whole "evil" vibe, I was worried people would be cold, harsh, or impatient with new players, but I'm glad to see it's such a fantastic group.
I'm excited to keep meeting the rest of the crowd there.
Absolutely love how welcoming everybody in Demonic has been. Given the whole "evil" vibe, I was worried people would be cold, harsh, or impatient with new players, but I'm glad to see it's such a fantastic group.
I'm excited to keep meeting the rest of the crowd there.
Sometimes the demonic are merely misunderstood. Evil is subjective of course.
I remember having a similar conversation last year here. The best kind of evil is the evil that thinks itself good.
Nah, I meant more of a... I was worried that the whole evil archetype would appeal mainly to people who wanted to flaunt authority and bully people (it's an overused word but I can't find a better one). But in my limited experience so far, it's been a particularly pleasant group of people.
I remember having a similar conversation last year here. The best kind of evil is the evil that thinks itself good.
Nah, I meant more of a... I was worried that the whole evil archetype would appeal mainly to people who wanted to flaunt authority and bully people (it's an overused word but I can't find a better one). But in my limited experience so far, it's been a particularly pleasant group of people.
Demonic.
Demonic recently took the very bold step of transitioning from an "Empire" to a "Republic" which is great. The whole authoritarian arpee thing is so easy to do in a way that alienates people and so hard to do in a way that doesn't, so yay for that amazing player driven change that will help reinforce a more collegial atmosphere (hi Iniar) even if their player makeup changes a bit down the road.
Comments
* Like a hero always says, you have to be realistic about these things
Imperian is by far the least grindy IRE game. The other IRE games, and in particular, its flagship Achaea, end up saying essentially this to their players: "suck it, go grind some more and we might let you play around with our version of IRE's awesome PK system. Then, we'll make you go grind some more because you're a bad who should be grinding because you died again. Stop being a bad. This game is srs. It's so srs that you need to stop taking grinding so srsly. Also, you are bad at grinding. That's why it's taking you so long. If you were good at grinding it should only take you 30 minutes. Er, I mean two RL weeks only taking pee breaks. That guy showered a couple of times too, I think. Also, most of our orgs are full of people whose hobbies include making up horrible, tedious requirements and ensuring that everyone they outrank treats them like a medieval lord because that is how arghhpee works. Finally, the trolling on our forums is carefully adjusted to safe levels based on readings from special geiger counters that regularly travel back in time to Chernobyl, circa 1986 for recalibration".
Imperian, on the other hand, says: "we're going to let you use our version of IRE's awesome PK system. This isn't WoW, but our players won't be uptight jerks if someone makes a vaguely OOC reference in game, so it still feels like a (way less pretentious) real world. In fact, it feels more immersive in a lot of ways because people who aren't uber combatants don't have to sit on the sidelines. Unless you're a whiz at both game mechanics and coding, you're still going to have to really work to figure it out decently, and if you're lucky, you might find some people to help you when you're stuck, but we'll let you play without telling you to go grind when you keep sucking at it, even though you're a terrible bad. If you just want to bash and hang out you can do that too, but there's nothing stopping you from being an awful combatant and you should at least try it. Also, for some weird reason, our current players mostly aren't jerks who need to be treated like medieval lords and they won't shove a bunch of tedious org requirements down your throat. Oh, and we seem to have Woz over here, but they definitely have Jobs over there. You're lining his pockets whether you're here or there, but at least if you're here, he's over there, and Woz is over here".
So basically, anyone who isn't a hard core gamer troll with too much free time on their hands, but who is willing to be constantly humiliated in combat as long as it doesn't entail grinding, should be over here, but first, they need to know that over here is... over here. Let's be honest though, you're still going to end up saying "oh crap, I really need to go to bed", but at least it will be because you were having fun dying repeatedly, or finally made a good change to something in your triggers etc... All IRE games seem to have gorgeous mechanics, but even by that standard we seem to have some of the best toys. We haven't had the comprehensive combat balancing Achaea finally got. Yet. But give it time. Hopefully. And in the meantime it's not quite so tragic that blah blah prof is ridiculously OP this week, because when your entire team dies repeatedly, it might be annoying, but not as annoying as it would be if that meant you had to go bash for hours.
Arg, I wish I was a coder. If I was, this particular IRE game would be perfect for me. The -only- reason I still play in Achaea instead of here is because I have a system there and only use the in game curing here. That has no "convenience" scripting. Alas, the woes of the bored.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
(may vanish for periods of time)
Mudlet. I can do some simple things, but that's about it, heh.