First, I'd like to say that I have purposefully withheld information about why
the item purge is a good idea, and I am going to continue to do so. Sounds harsh,
but that's life. My general purpose is to limit the advantage players can obtain
over each other as well as add/continue some of the mystique of the game.
Second, I'd like to say that as a player, I'm not very fond of the idea of an
item purge. I don't really know where much is... and most of the (good) stuff
I've gotten has been given to me by friends. Others have complained to me from
this perspective as well. On the other hand, this will add a new challenge
to the game that can create some interesting situations. Let's face it, this
challenge will be mostly temporary -- in fairly short order even those without
friends at all will have help with gear -- we really do have some very friendly &
helpful players. It will encourage me and others like me to explore some more
(which is really a very large part of what the game is about at this point). It
will encourage people to group because the masses can generally get better equipment
than individuals. Yes, some people will have a temporary advantage in the game.
(I saw someone do this... and I have no complaints about it... just thought I'd
point it out to try to help level the playing field -- If you know some
characteristic will give you an advantage in such a situation, maybe YOU should
begin preparing to have the advantage NOW?) From a roleplaying perspective this
adds a really interesting plot twist, I think. Just imagine if one day every one
in the world woke up and everything they thought they "owned" had just disappeared.
It's as if someone had stolen everything the world and then redistributed it to its
original owner. Someone should come up with a RP name for this "event". As a player
I kind of view this as a natural disaster of sorts (think of a hurricane taking away
everything you own -- Vulsin, imagine real hard here).
Third, some might say the idea is "very short-sighted at best". But as a Staff
member, I whole-heartedly disagree. I consider making judgements without all of
the information to be very short-sighted at best. *I* have more information about
the situation than any other person on this planet. Hanaisse did bring up some
very valid questions (Thank you, Hanaisse) and I will try to address them (although
not directly). There are a number of reasons why I believe this IS the best solution
to some of our current delimmas. As I said, I'm going to be intensionally vague and
I'm going to struggle not to provide more information than I deem is necessary to
help you properly understand the situation. The item purge is not about redistributing
items amongst players, that is a side effect, the item purge is about being able to
make some significant changes to items without bias. Perhaps an extreme example to
illustrate the point... How would you feel if we lowered the gold value of every
item you owned while we raised the value of everyone else's equipment? We certainly
aren't going to do that to anyone on purpose, but it is a possible side effect of
some of the types of changes we intend to make to items for this purge. The item
purge allows us to make these changes without having to worry about what effect it
will have on the current owner of the item. A few vague examples of things we
intend to change (more or less everything we think needs adjustment on an item is up
for grabs -- got suggestions?):
* Set some items so they can't go into a container
* Set some items so they are RP only
* Adjust the gold value of some items
* Adjust item life spans
* Adjust item occurance types
There are other positive side effects beyond what is listed here. I actually
believe a DLDS followed by an item purge and new changes (both zones and code)
would likely ATTRACT MORE players than it would push away. If you are so adverse
to this change that you are considering quiting the game, you might as well quit
now. Don't get me wrong, I don't want ANYONE to quit. Just like the next DL
player, I want more players on DL, but those players need to understand that much
like real life, change happens and they need to be able to adapt and even embrace it,
that is part of Distant Lands. There are likely even larger changes than this
item purge on the horizon for DL. We (the Staff in general) strive very hard to
be impartial about such changes -- this is part of that effort. Distant Lands is a
community and as such sometimes the community needs to come before the individual.
That said, this item purge affords us a number of the benefits of a full purge,
without the painful loss of characters. Essentially, it will mean that all of the
equipment is available to active players. Yes, you need to invest time in DL
(which is hopefully FUN and NOT WORK) to regain previous gear, but ultimately that
seems like a fairly small "price to pay".
Finally one individual point I need to address --
Quote:
Jorlain wrote:
One thing I think a lot of you may not remember, is that certain code was implemented,
and as far as I know, is still in effect, that circumvents the reasons for something
as drastic as this. The higher the player base we have, the higher that items will max
at, with the sole exclusion of unique (one of a kind) items.
People don't remember this because it is a rumor at best. You will NEVER find any
perfect indication of any kind of item load "max" as a player OR staff member. This
was one of the changes we put in when we created item occurance types and made lots
of massive changes to items at the full purge 3.5 years ago. We made this change
because we found that people were trying to compile databases of the equipment in
DL and this gave them an unfair advantage.
Hopefully this will at least help provide some perpective as to why the change is
viewed as desireable by some (actually most, based upon the current poll).
Best regards to all,
--Nezmar