Discussion Suggestions and Ideas

Well, I guess I should have sorted the ideas according to their feasibility.

From what I know, I think it woul be something like this :


Easy to make :

Changing the rules of diplomacy. Because well, all what is needed is to change the rules/improve them without programing or modding anything.

"Forcing" people to get into roleplay. I talked about the password solution because that is the only one I though about, tough I'm really not sure it would be the best solution. The word "forcing" is also not very good, forcing people being a quiet bad idea. I quiet destroyed a guild once in an MMORPG by pushing it's members into roleplay while they were not prepared for this (the guild did not actually collapsed just because of me, but it's leader accused me of having done so, but I'm not sure that it is the place to tell the entiere story or that you are interrested in earing it).
But it is quiet different here, Aphelion is a roleplay server, so assume that the people who come are looking for roleplay, or at list know they are going to have to play roleplay since it is mentionned in the title of the server and in the chatbox when you connect. The goal is not to force people wo do not want to roleplay to do so (people who do not want to roleplay should logically do not come to the server), but to give roleplayers a way to improve their roleplay experience and to strenghten the community. The password thing is bad in the way that it could discourage people who do not know the forum to go to the server, but it is the easiest thing I though about.

Making New thread. One to allow people to introduce themself/their character, and one to post screens of the buildings and discussing about how to make roleplay structures. I can easily do that, but I wanted to be sure that I was allowed to do so.


Things which need some work :

Changing the skin of the buildings, races already have different skins for the characters.

Changing the time between automatic reset of the map.


Things that would need a lot of work/that are still quiet far from what we can actually do :

Bigger maps. I guess the lag is due to where the server is hosted and that a good host has a cost so we would need a bigger community/more donations to have one.

Having two servers (same problem more or less).


Things I have no idea how much work it would require :

Changing the propeties of wood for the elves to make teams equal/finding something else to allow them to be roleplay without being weaker.

Putting a couldown between ending an alliance and starting a war.

Spawnning neutral tunnels at the beginning of the map.

 

Not to discourage you buddy, some things we have tried before and some we have strongly discussed before as well. Some points we might answer here.

Diplomacy rework was in some form of planned development as far Aphe told on this thread. it still may be planned in the future, but as of now, unless Aphe promises it, it may be only wished for.

As for forcing people to roleplay via implementing server password, that still may be a kind of an "overkill". KAG as it is has quite low player count, for an multi player game and even fewer use the forums. From that even smaller percent apply to join this social forum, thus soon it may only be too few that play on the server, which can support 24 at maximum. Yes, we would have players still, but soon enough the playerbase will get too elitist or too bland. Part of the fun is to help new players get started with their lives.

As for making thread to introduce new characters, it's nice idea, should be done already. As for characters, I take that you are a experienced roleplayer, so you should know of "new life rule" in roleplays. yes there are characters that are immortal as such, but for a common player... up for the community.

In terms of bigger maps, we had them, but they caused way too much lag and even more frequent server crashes. As of now I certainly do not know what causes this, or more importantly how we could fix this. Getting better server provider didn't help? (Don't know about that that much.)

And as of changing properties of blocks or so, it's all in the gameplay to overcome your weaknesses. Only the smartest and strongest may rule the realm of Aphelia.

 

Having a password is not an 'overkill'. It makes people who actually WANT to roleplay go and search the password, instead of random people who try to piss everybody off. A password does not reduce the amount of players in this server, it more increases the amount of times good people want to visit/play on that server.

 

If you think about it, it will make the server quite bland. daily the average amount of players on server is about 6-10, it sometimes peaks to over 15 but then it is most likely the server wont last as long. The people who would be so much interested and active on the forums is about 4 to said 6 players (whom are not online on the same time, mostly). rather than implementing something that discourages new people to find out what roleplay could be, we could help to enforce roleplayers by trying our best to include new people into the stories or explain them how things go.

And even if there happen to be trollers and griefers whose sole purpose is to make you mad then there is always option to kick them. But for people who do not know what is going on and then giving them label of an arsehole, we could do better in our part.

In reality, password seems as server suicide... :/

 

Zhuum is correct. There will not be a password to the server.

 

Again that's why I think password is not the best idea. It MIGHT be if the server were more crowded.
Another solutions would be some kind of ranks in game linked to the participation on the forum. People would be able to do some things when they are new, but not all of the things we can actually do (for exemple they could not start a war or become king, or maybe use the best items I don't know). According to what they do on the forum, they would unlock those thing, for exemple they would be allowed to become king after having done an introduction of themself/their character on the forum.
I think it would be better than the password thing, but it would probably be way harder to do and it requires deeper reflections.

The fact is that I get a bit tired about random wars, dungeon rushing (and then map switching once the dungeon is cleared, stop me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem to me that it is the goal of this server) etc. I always try to know why have people started a war if do not know, and too often the answers are things like "Because we where stronger than you." It sometime seems like roleplay is more like a burden than a pleasure to some people and I totally agree that making their interest for roleplay grows if way better than just preventing them from going on the server.

 

making such structure where people would be allowed to only play "bigger" roles is plausible, thouhg i must say it is the very thing that will rob the free will of roleplay for newer people, plus there are many who might not use these forums but make their name quite well known in the server. Everyone should be able to be as grand characters they wish to be.

I'm not against for giving people chance to intorduce their permanent characters for positions of kings and queens, that is still nice idea we should have.

And as for mentioned random war starters and no reason warmongering, you can always make quick screenshot(s) and report those kind of playersin this forum, I'd be happy to make sure they would not do that again. Or ask any other admin that may be online during your gametime.

 

It is true that people can be very active on the server without using the forum. Perhaps I think the forum is a better place to make projects for the community and to help building something that will last, the server being actually used for short roleplay cessions. And I am not saying you would have to post constantly on the forum to ba able to do all wa can currently do, it is still yet to be discussed, but making a post to present yourself should be enough to unlock most of the things. The question I think, is what we actually want to do with the server, if we want to stay with casual roleplay with some people not playing roleplay not being a problem, this proposition would not be really usefull, but if we want a fully roleplay server with a quiet strong community, then it could be usefull.
And newer people would not be prevented from doing roleplay, in my opinion it is actually more roleplay for the newer player not to be able to do as much and to bo as important as the older player, having to make yourself a name and to show what you are capable of would be in a way part of the roleplay. The fact is that it should not ba too hard for a new player to catch back the older one, because it could discourage them and make them thing that it is the seniority rather than the implication that counts.

About random wars, I always got the feelings that I am pissing of people whan I ask them if they had a roleplay reason to start a war because usually, to whole team who attacked was happy to have this war, whatever was the reason.

About the "new life rule" you talked about, this is a tough question. While the server currently works with short cessions, i'm not sure people would like to play multiple characters, a new one at each maps, rather than engaging in a strong and well developed one that they will use for multiple cessions. I guess this is a point we should discuss about.

 

For now i've made Character bios thread for people that truly wish to use it so.

As for "new life rule". My dwarven character is already in 14th generation and human one in its 7th. It's not that hard to do if you are really up to it, but using same characters or so then they at least should have a reason. Either they travelled from other region to the next (map change) or they are always there (immortal), both can be done and have been done.

 

It is of course not necessarly harder, the question was "What do people prefer ?". I guess some people would rather have a single character they would devellop and with which they would easily identify than multiple characters with short backgrounds and a smaller identification.
Is there a a lore which explains somehow why they are multiple areas, diffrent wars etc ? I saw they were an unofficial lore for each race and a genral lore about the Aphelion's universe, but I found nothing more detailed.
A mix between the two would be to say that people got one character per map, by doing so they could have durable characters but would also have to play different at each game and could play different races without complex roleplay justifications.

 

Mage ability,

Name: Mesmer
Effect: Causes target to be stunned for as long as the mage holds down right click and dosent move/get damaged.

 

I think that it's a great idea updating the updates list, because it is saying mid-january and february, but it's already march xD

 

It is a low quality suggestion and probably something just I am not very fond of. It's the name of the donator race. I mean, obviously we have this Low Fantasy thematics going on (not very much lore but basic tolkien framework) - Humans, Dwarves, Orcs, Elves and then... Angels? Angels seem the odd man out. Immediately makes them seem Lawful Good/Lawful Stupid and would restrict roleplay opportunities by forcing them to be only on a single side of the alignment spectrum.

I think something like Hawkmen [Figure 1: http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net.../Iuria.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140429092107] [Figure 2: http://blog-imgs-37.fc2.com/s/a/l/saloonrpg/tacticsogre_chara_canopus_09_JPG.png] would fit the narrative (scarce as it is it seems to me) - basic function is still the same (winged folk) but is just as rugged like every other races, and aren't morally obligated to be "good".

 

Nobody says you cannot be an Fallen angel, or morally obligated to be "good". Through proper roleplay angels can pick sides to help. Though it says they are allied with everyone, they do not have to help anyone if they do not want it. Griefing is still not allowed for them (If they wanted to break open door of one race to help the race they're supporting). Though, in "lore" angels were created by Aphelion to be goody-good types.

To counterbalance this, undead race is(?) planned. We dont know when it may be released, but yeah.

You could play on angel side as hawkman. If that is your character. You just have to make sure everyone else knows it too.

 

I see. Thank you for the explanation.

 

Perhaps.. more maps.

Better yet, an expansion; a huge update including tons of new features, an entirely new continent with entirely new maps. As you may know, or if you've seen some of my newest work, I specialize in highly-detailed Sandbox Roleplay maps complete with an entire set of Lore (Despite the time it takes to create a single map, I assure you it is worth it.). Adding this "expansion" so to speak, will attract more people, and thus more reputation.


Here's an example for a large map I did a few months ago, not my best work but it's still good. If not, I can still offer my Lore and writing.. I write all sorts of crap; ranging from books, short stories, and in some cases -- erotica.

The map above is called 'Ghosts', it's 1500x300 and took me around a week and a half (Possibly two weeks) to fully complete, and obviously a map half the size will take half the time.

Think about it...

 

If they wouldn't cause so many problems, larger maps would have been added long time ago.
Apparently, large maps with huge amount of water will cause the server to be bugged or crash entirely. As you might already know, having too many blobs in the server will cause it to be bugged. It will disconnect players who are trying to connect to the server or freeze the game entirely.
There were few big maps with big lakes, they were removed after some time.

Also adding tons of new features takes some time. Plus too many things will often drop framerate.
I don't know if there is an update coming soon, been long since one. But since Aphelion is very silent guy who barely announces something (no offence), knowing what and when new features happens rarely.

 

Ghosts was just an example for the maps I make, Pin. Not insinuating that we use that map speicifically.. mainly because it's already being used, and if I were to blatantly give them that map I would be yelled at, alot.

 

Since you were talking about new maps and your example one was huge one, I thought you were talking about adding large maps.
Of course, everybody wants a new huge update with new maps and cool features and bug fixes. But since there is only one man doing those codes and maps, it will take some time. And since he is silent too, nobody really knows when those updates are coming, but maybe that's something Aphelion wants.

 

I am more than aware that having an extremely large map makes people lag or even crash, thus in an alternate version I got rid of the water which shortened it down to approximately 850x300.