I just have to say how utterly surprised I was to read this in yesterdays MOTD.

A new feature that people DO play and DID enjoy, is being removed and won't return until we give in to blackmail and recruit more players. That's just wonderful. Good plan! Bravo!

A new feature that isn't bothering anybody and that does not require staff to run it (hey, it's auto!) is being stopped. Quite simply, another thing to add to the list of disappointments of this game called Distant Lands.

Let's see, what else is on that list? Oh yes..
- DLDS was a bust
- Promised new features and spells did not pan out because of above
- Sudden rules of a 2 month wait period before questing

It's a shame, really. Some of us did play in the auto-arenas to help our little characters practice skills and safe combat. And yes, the money rewards helped if we won (it's not like we're dominating the arenas or anything).

So, what's next? Will you take away the new say-to and emotes commands because no one uses them? Do you realize the players are bored and maybe, just maybe that's the reason for lack of players? At least the auto-arenas added a tiny spark of excitement. It's not hurting anyone that maybe only one or two people play, so why not leave it as is?

Suffice it to say, I won't be recruiting new players at this time until there's something to get excited about, and as for voting? You just lost mine. We've had 'carrots' dangled in front of us for so long it's not even funny anymore.

Yeah, I am also disappointed that the auto-arenas
got the boot. They kind of created that little bit
of constant competition and excitment among few
players we have on dl. Now without it, place just
feels dull.

Some of those points you mention Hana happened for
a reason or reasons that were not foreseen.
Like it was said dlds ran fine on one machine but
then crashed on another. Things like that happen.

The two-months-pause-rule i don't understand. I've
been told it's to stop people 'power questing' or
something along those lines, which would be fair
enough if people actually could get 99 or the 25
levels in order to get quest ready in two months.
It just doesn't make any sense. There's nothing
really stopping people still power leveling to
get to max. negs. as soon as possible...

At the moment I feel this game is fun only to those
who were fortunate enough to recently quest.
For the rest of the players it's just a waiting game
till next quest comes. RIP auto-arenas!

Just to clarify a few points:

The auto arenas will return, they have not been removed, only disabled, the main issue was that the same people won the same arenas over and over because of a lack of competition. We need more players to be able to sustain the number of arenas we were having.

The DLDS, while not used to test new code, was a success. We had more players on during the DLDS than any other time in the last 3 years. The fact of the matter is we have a new (to DL) coder (Vulsin) and while on the surface DL may appear like other muds, the underlying code is VERY different. He had done all of the changes for the DLDS and they simply didn't work out as we had hoped. If you'd like to discount his countless hours of hard work to try to please players just because it didn't pan out, that is your option. Keep in mind, we are NOT paid (hell, I pay $125/month to the run game) or compensated in any way, shape or form.

The two month quest rule was put into place for 2 reasons: 1) Previously we had a few players who had just gained an 'Avatar' level when they found a bug that allowed them to gain 25 levels in about 2 days, rather than reporting the bug, they abused it so that they could try to quest again immediately because we were trying to clear out the 'Ready For Quest (RFQ)' list and 2) We simply don't currently have enough staff to run quests frequently and we want everyone to have a fair shot at participating; to run a quest you need significant knowledge about the game as well as a high level of trust (because there is the potential for significant cheating to benefit friends, for example), not to mention about 4-6 hours of time to monitor/run it. To fix the second part of this problem, we need more players (which will in turn lead to a larger pool of potential staff members).

If you are not going to vote or encourage new players to join Distant Lands, that is entirely up to you. Just realize you are not doing your part to make Distant Lands a better place. I know I do MORE than my fair share.

Regards,

--Nezmar

In response to the few people who were caught
cheating. I just don't see the logic behind
the reasoning of 'punishing' (making players wait
even longer for quest) all the other players
for actions of the selected few who abused bugs.
It is essentially saying once quest ready please
come back in two months and hope there's a quest
running soon to most people. Sure there's other
things to do apart from increasing in levels, but
being stuck at one of those for 2+ months is not
what a new player to dl wants to hear from current
players. Sounds rather offputting. Good to hear
though that auto-arenas might make a come back.

The idea was not to punish players (those players that cheated WERE punished), the idea was to discourage that type of behavior and to try to allocate resources more fairly. The fact of the matter is you typically had to wait more than 2 months to get a quest anyway, the only difference is we've actually announced it now. This too could change.

Previously we did away with the quest requirement for avatars and everyone complained that there was not enough prestige to becoming an avatar and they wanted quests back. Since then, I've written over 20,000 lines of code for quests which has helped (and will help more in the future), but in the end we simply don't have the resources at this point to runs tons of quests. We can't have it both ways.

--Nezmar

Yes, the new code that I had written was, for some odd reason, REALLY flawed. It had worked perfectly when I had tested it on my machine, and even on the test server on the DL network. I haven't had time to write code lately (which is really rewriting the stuff I had written, one idea at a time) because real life has been 'getting in the way'. I've been studying for a certification exam that will pretty much determine the rest of the career path I'm working toward. I take the exam tomorrow, so let's hope all that studying paid off. I'm also working with my fiance' to plan our wedding. It's a lot more work that you might think.

Will I continue to write code? Of course; I just might not be able to finish things in the time frame that most would like. As much as I love DL (I've been here for 8 or so years), real life comes first. Anyone who knows me knows that I lead a VERY busy life. Hopefully things will calm down a bit, or at least enough to where I can write more code, soon.

Yes, I am aware that most players had to wait on
average more than two months to quest before this
new rule had been introduced. The thing the affected
me is that since the 'cheating' happened (and the
two month rule was therefore put in action), I was
excluded from the last quest even though last time
I quested was probably around a year or more ago.

So, I am asking if you could make the names of
those that cheated known to the other players
here and also the punishment that they recieved.
That in my opinion would be fair instead of making
it look like some sort of a cover up. Thank you.

This has gone way off topic.

I was not expecting nor did I require staff to become defensive on every single point. I'm merely stating my opinion as a long time player of this game, which I have every right to.

Simple question: why remove something that was coded to run automatically (not taking anyone's time) and that people enjoyed?

It simply makes no sense to me.

I agree this has gone off topic and degenerated into flaming. Let's please avoid that as it serves no purpose to simply call each other names. I have removed inflammatory posts.

Hanaisse, you were actually the first one to take it off topic if it was the auto arenas you wished to discuss (the DLDS and quest issues should probably have been separate posts unless you wanted them discussed as well). Regarding the arenas, I gave you our reasoning:

The main issue was that the same people won the same arenas over and over because of a lack of competition. We need more players to create some competition.

Not voting is the wrong solution if you want to see more arenas, voting and getting all of your friends into the game is the right one.

As I also said, this feature has been disabled but can be enabled at any time (without even having to reboot). Further, I can "trigger" any set of the auto arenas at any time and Staff can (and will) still run manual arenas (as we've done for the previous decade or so). I'm considering adding a minimum number of players requirement (so auto arenas will only run if say 15 or so people are in the game) but until this is done, it has to be monitored manually.

I hope this helps you to understand our point of view.

Regards,

--Nezmar

I would like to apologize if the wording of the MOTD somehow
implied a message other then what it simply said: The auto arenas
are being halted until we have more players to join them. Nothing
more was meant nor implied. It was simply that the staff saw
arena after arena self cancel due to ‘lack of interest’. We talked
about several options and the best solution was to cancel the auto
arenas and continue to run them when staff could manually tailor
them to the player base that was currently in the game to cut down
the unnecessary scrolling of empty arena announcements.

Also, the waiting period for quests, as I’ve stated in the past, is
designed to streamline and actually speed up the quest process
for avatars. I’ve observed the questing process for the last two
years minimum and it has shown a pattern in that it generally
takes two months of waiting to have a good, solid proper mix of
classes to ensure a successful quest for all. Perhaps it would
have been best to not make public the ‘two month rule’ but I
still feel it’s fair for all concerned to know as much information
in advance to ensure fairness. What I hope for in the future is to
be able to post an advance schedule of quests to be run once a month.
That would ensure people who are eligible adequate time to plan to be
there for the quest and those who aren't quite ready to plan ahead.

The staff does discuss and consider all sides of any decision or
rule that takes place. We know there will be unhappiness for some
and others just take it in stride. We would love to be able to make
everyone happy all the time but then we would have a game none
of us would like to play. I just ask that you take a little time to think
about the entire scope of the game – how Nezmar, Amaessara and the
staff have always strived to make it balanced, fun and fair for all. In the
doing so of that, sometimes we even make mistakes. It’s all about
trial and error. When we find things leaning the wrong way we have
to take corrective actions.

In closing, I ask that you remember the spirit of the game. It’s meant
to challenge you to be your best. To teach teamwork, encourage you
to pick yourself up after you fail, dust yourself off, learn your lesson
and move on again. All this is done in a fun, exciting environment of
both Role-playing and hack and slash. Nezmar and Amaessara may
have built and pay for the game, but it’s true “ownersâ€

I'd just like to pose a question towards the new two month rule set in place for quests:

One of the reasons its being set in place is because players abused a glitch and gained 25 levels in the span of 2 days... wouldn't it have been more logical to simply make those players wait 2 months and keep things as they were? I think it would be pretty obvious to figure out who gained 25 levels in 2 days. Also why would the staff even let a player gain two avatar levels in the span of two weeks?

Also since the glitch has been removed, and nobody can really level that quickly anymore, shouldn't we just be able to quest when we are quest ready? Isn't that the definition of 'quest ready'? Maybe the attributes screen should say "You're ALMOST quest ready!" once you take the time to level and make the negatives that it takes to achieve quest ready status. I think it takes two months to move from 1 to 99, or 100 to 124 and so on and so forth nowadays... isn't that enough of a patient wait? I mean, I've played this game for more than a few years before the game was wiped, and I understand waiting, and am happy to be patient, but I strongly feel things are getting a bit excessive; especially with the lack of quests being run in the first place. I hope I'm not flaming, I just havn't really seen a solid logical reason for the wait times that are taking place.

The glitch that was abused took place before I even started playing and i've managed to raise 3 characters to level 99 and higher! That means three generations of new players are suffering for things that happened before they even started playing!

I strongly hope the player base grows and new staffers come around to really help the roleplaying movement that this game needs. But as it is, players seem more discouraged to play by stricter rules and less fun attitudes. I constantly see a situation where it's the players VERSUS the staff, I realize that staff must try to be on the defensive, because players that do exhibit poor behavior exist, but I see less and less positive attitudes from staff all the time. I really hope this game moves towards the players playing WITH the staff as I remember it back in the day. The BIGGEST difference for me playing this game prewipe and postwipe is the relationship between the staff and the players. I wish I'd see less casual joking death threats from the staff and more cookies raining from the sky I honestly used to enjoy all those small things Goldberry did around the mud, like passing out snowballs, and I think I even got a gem encrusted cookie one time... that I couldn't eat.

^ Well put

While I can sympathize with all you guys on the two months of of waiting in the shadows I can onlly put it one way for yas.
Outta 6 years, I've been a the ranks of 98 and 99
with several of my characters. Not once have I ever
saddled up on the Hero's side of the game. NEVER.
The last chance I had, the poor ninja died. thank god.
I look at it like this, I've got the patience to wait two months. In fact that waiting period gives me time to put my effort elsewhere.
On the topic of new staff, I hope that maybe I can perhaps accomodate that this year for you all. It'd be nice to help payback all those chaps and gals that make DL.
While I'm uber excited that I have a chance to make Mahrah my first hero, I'm aslo exstatic about the facts that this process has filtered through for us. You guys are making alternates now in your waiting periods- a startegy that will keep you from suffering the full devesation of a permadeath.

While I know you fanatics can't bear the fact two months out of the year you've gotta collect nothing and gather valuables, it gives creedence to alot of other facts.
Dunno, I respect your opinions as always, yet I can't be forced to see lifting a two month restriction. Our staff has more valauble thing to do than improve our status-quo as players.
But I'll rest assured that they care about you more than you'll ever know, that much I'm certain of.
as always the gooey bowl of oats.

Becoming an Avatar and gaining the upper levels of the avatar system should be something really special. It shows you are the best of the best. Part of that process is to learn the patience it takes to achieve that goal. If we made it so simple everyone could do it, then being an avatar would be nothing great at all. What fun is it to be one of 8,000 uber l33t players that can go and wipe out the entire NPC population in one day? Would you feel special? Would you feel like you'd achieved something? Then what do you kill? What do you do to entertain yourselves? Frankly, I think everyone would still hate the system and demand more then as well.

Learn to be content for a bit. Work on your characters and their plotline some. PLAY the game!

I agree that patience is a virtue. I would truly hate it if everybody online was always an avatar... but when was the last time you logged on and saw more mortals than avatars? I think by the number of mortals around... it's safe to say that a lot of newer players are driven away by the prospect of gaining one title level avatar in the course of a year. I'm always content to work on my players, and roleplay I always have something or other to do with one of my three characters. That's the benefit I see in having more than one character. Although growth seems so restricted... when I can have one character at level 99 and negatives, and raise a completely entirely new character to 99 and negatives and have that first character not have an ounce of growth... the waiting seems excessive. There's a difference between patience, and outright waiting for no reason whatsoever, and things are really leaning towards the latter.