TWC - 2015

[Azrael]

TWC's 10th anniversary is coming up, I'd like to say congratulations. That is not the only reason for this post however. Let me begin.

I have scrapped the first post as it was just crazy full of stuff and I want to get feedback on this stuff.

1.Gold to Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts and make them drop-able I have icons with the correct designs and a Idea about how the conversion will work/what mobs drop on kills/prices.(Ik it was discussed before)

2.Each mob having different speeds/attacks/mechanics. Ex.Wolfs cause bleed effects if they are attacking you long enough. Ik the eyes have cool effects now, why not all.

3.A lost more spells that are canon added as well as spells given a purpose besides dmg.(see improved spells idea post).

4.More exploration and secrets, ROR was fun, maybe automate it to change every week. Better hiding spots to like where you must interact with something to get in.

5.Auto events- item drops somewhere in the world have 5 mins to find it. Spot the difference-something in the map changes, you must inspect it for prize/points. Scheduled RP hour? Break into gringotts- have to break a certain wall and fight off dragons and other creatures to pick up gold.
Classes-NPC teachers? How will questions be asked?
ex. Teacher NPC starts class, tells info about spell, and afterwards has options to repeat info, or you can leave a question and a gm can check and answer it at a later date?

6.Npc'd students? Not sure if they'd get in the way or if they are extremely necessary  but would be cool to see some npcs in school.

7.Like other posts, more quests got loads of ideas for some.

Basically if you read this, make a post doing

1. Like/don't like/ in  between/ (addition or something that should be something else.)
2. Like/don't like/ in  between/ (addition or something that should be something else.)

[Azrael]

Just in case I need this space.

Also I edit the top post several times, might be worth re-reading every once in a while, Ill put ** next to anything added.

[Skystone]

How would you rank up in the clans? What stops everyone from being a DE Dark Lord?

[Azrael]

The Dark lord promotes you. Some might not want to be promoted due to being banned and what not. Those who want to be completely dedicated to Death eaters can await promotion and get perks for giving up certain things. There is only one Dark lord.

[Christopher Anthony]

I'm guessing that if you become the strongest DE, you would automatically become the HDE. However, if you become stronger than the HDE, you can challenge them formally for the position. If you loose, you give up any claim to lead the clan ever.

[Azrael]

Possibly, the whole clan will have a chance to vote off the current HDE. The whole point is the clan leaders are people who understand all the rules and do whats best for the clan. They are basically a full time DE, when they log on their goal is to gain power and numbers. Most of his numbers will be recruits. I see it difficult for people to give up hogwarts.

[Rotem]

I'll put it here as a note: I don't plan to spend any time improving current clan system, I think clans that rely on leaders suck and should be removed.

The general idea is currently to add quests and clan "factions" that will behave in similar fashion to factions on MMOs, a player will be able to align themselves with a faction and advance via quests/actions, his rank can also decay if he's inactive over time.

A system that relies on players to be active will not yield any fruit, a new leader only have a temporary activity boost and any new feature we provide only have one effect on players "oh hey, a cool new feature. -logs out-".

I understand you're all full of ideas so for now I'll just put some of my own so you understand the general direction I'm working towards, my goal is to automate TWC to create activity at all times for all time zones without relying on other players, what I want to add to TWC is single player activities in hopes that co-op activities will be born by luring players one by one.

This includes adding -some- new content, we do work on new things here and there, changing old crappy things, automated events (While I do beg for feedback about what we currently have, so far I've received none nor anything solid regarding new possible automated events), automated classes (a big question mark as there's a lot of resistance regarding that idea) and quests.

Something I wanted to really do was add a dueling type AI so that I can produce deatheater/auror NPCs, I don't want a normal monster, I want an actual fighter you can duel, perhaps on few different difficulty levels, however, making an AI behave like a human is a little tougher.

Another thing we've been planning about for ages is the possible features BYOND 5.0 holds, Murra did approve updating the server to the latest version which holds many graphical features, I can't begin to note how important this is as BYOND adds a lot of features we can use to create new spells, items, monsters etc.

For example, we could now easily do a spell that makes you twice your size with a one line code. Previously when I needed a bigger icon for a monster, I'd grab the icon, resize it via icon editor then re-upload the icon editing the monster. It's not something that'd be very efficient as a spell.
This could mean a whole revamp of Transfiguration /for starters/.

While there's many directions to take, I'd like to keep focused on quests and automated events while trying out new content, christmas is coming and I have to figure out what I want to do for that.

P.S. Azrael, I understand you've been away for a long time, I advise you walk in the desert and try fighting Floating Eyes or perhaps jump in Chamber of Secrets and try to fight Basilisk. A lot of the things you write have been answered by me in an update or previous suggestion post.

Lastly, prefects will only be considered when we hit 50+ players on daily basis, although if it were only up to me, I'd just hire more GMs, I see little purpose in prefects, either way, 50+ players on daily basis then we'll talk.

[Azrael]

Yes I understand completely, perhaps I am to ambitious at the current moment, maybe smaller changes can change the game greatly. I understand the importance of automating the game, but I do hope you consider my features of smarter monsters, or item uses later down the road. The little things help as well, thank you for your time responding, I will still update this post with ideas, and I will lean more towards the direction you are taking.

[Severus]

!*Attention*! Please read. I would appreciate you waiting a few hours to reply. I would like to ensure as many people as possible read this reply.

Hi, I believe below is an easy read so please read. Particularly if you're an oldbie/elder, you may get a wiff of nostalgia like I did.

Ok, I'm going to be the one to finally politely challenge Rotem with the vision of automation. At the end of the day, Rotem is the one who devotes the time and ability to change shit. Period. Cos of this, I think no one has actually challenged the vision. I'm not going to argue with Rotem, I think she has performed wonders with her recent updates. Despite this people still put suggestions as if TWC lacks something. Let me put something out there to feed your own fire. Here's why.

Fact number one. TWC long term activity has not been as high ever since stat points from monsters were removed. Period. Did we find an alternative replacement for this? No. We didn't.

Stat point drops were the only manual, unequal, unique player focus which was self-motivated and in turn was rewarded with improved player stats and gold. When they were removed, a huge void was left. Sure, there were reasons, the general dev team agreed it, fine. But what was brought in as the alternative? Nothing. Game, set, match.
Controversy debate: Was the removal of this in favor of the majority base?


Point number two. Level 600 content is flat. Sure you removed the unlimited level factor. Great. Now we have a bunch of equals at Level 600 with fuck all to do or prove. Any noob firing the right number of misplaced shots at the right direction results in a ruined fight, battle, whatever. Evidently, it has screwed with clans who can just hire shit players and in turn have shit outcome. They get kills via nooblessness - this is an anti development agent. How many players who are top tier even still rock the clan scene these days?

Compare two years ago from now before the server shut, before stat point removal, before our end of summer activity drop which resulted in the shut. Before loads of shit changed. Clans?
Aurors: Seraphim Kyo, Julian, Killa, Ezekiel, me, Picklez, Natwolfy, Jace, Turb, Dazzler, Tim Cloud, Avery, Markus, Lavitiz.
DE: R*t*m, Demonic, Brett Black, BioHaZard, Bl*z*, Dscudiero, Shade, Lucifer, Sponge.
The variety here was insane. We had the most fun doing this shit. Julian vs Rotem was an epic battle which everyone would just watch cos it was them two? Now? The fuck happened? No one in TWC right now has the level of motivation the players back then did. In every generation of TWC, the best players who left were always replaced. Except, when the server came back, it was never like that.

Now compare to who we have active right now? That's called devolution. No one is motivated to get to the level of skill we all got to back in the day. I bet if Julian and Kyo came online right now they would fuck up 95% of clan members. After months of nothing. Something about current TWC is not as motivating as it was in 2011 & 2012. Exhibit B.

Point number three. The economy. If you weren't fighting you were an item hoarding business making rich motherf*cker. People used to collect items like no tomorrow and gold flowed like we burgled Smaug. Look at Dsc's B&B joint, man that place was the way to go for your items.

Everyone used to save and collect stuff to trade and get in the big time items - draghorn wands, Lion wigs, other custom wigs, shoes, event shoes, event items, magic eyes. Slowly this has been stripped down. Now we are left with what everyone has access to. YAY WE LOOK THE SAME. LOOK AT THIS ITEM I EASILY GOT BECAUSE IT'S SO COMMON. The excitement as a player getting valuable unique character recgonizing items was great, another fuckin reason to play.

Furthermore. The removal of the Event Shop was a step backwards. The Event Shop gave sight of long term activity because people used to come back every day to every event to save for those rare items, or name changes, or spell points, or whatever else you could buy back then. Players nowadays don't know the hustle of saving shit to get the top items.

People don't turn up to events like that anymore with a hungry ambition to win to save points. People don't give a fuck about events cos the hassle isn't worth competing against others. The rewards aren't high enough. Not only that, the Event Shop introduced items in to the industry with exclusive offers and deals. This shit definitely helped gold travel and helped people farm, save, etc.

Removed also though? -shrugs-

Number 4 - tieing in with #3. Events? Any danger?

I've said this til I'm blue in the face. Event board? Pushing staff to do original events as well as the easy ass automate FFA? This worked like clockwork before. People would do shit. For me, the best GM's were brought to light during this period because the ones who had to commit to the event board brought their own creativity and motiviational skills to the post. The lazy fuckers who couldn't hack it were filtered back down to a regular rank where they belong. They just don't make quality GM's like that anymore it seems.

GM's on TWC right now I agree are daily log ins. Reliable? Certainly. Just about get the job done? Yes. Nice people? Sure, most. Do GM's have huge OOC personalities like they used to? No. Do they bring creativity to events? Some. Do they go above their responsibilities? No. Are they pessimistic rather than optimistic? Some. Do some really give a shit anymore? Evidently. If you hire robot equivalents you get robot results. Originality is such a vital ingredient to the recipe of TWC's fun, don't you see?

--

Now, we're in 2014 nearly 2015. We've come way past all of the features and problems I listed above. If you're a developer, you will stick with your guns about how TWC currently looks because you did all the work to get it to this current position. You were the people who removed all the features that I crave today. You were the people who continued to tidy up and accidentally throw away our favorite toys. I get that at that time you had good reasons and thus you probably won't go back on yourselves now. But please, do not brainwash yourselves.

The best TWC times was when shit was human to human, interactive, original, together, communal. 99.99999% of the people who I know in TWC stayed here for the love of the community. Making it an auto session will lose the harmony.

[Rotem]

I think what you wrote is complete bullshit Severus.

• Fact number one & two, the removal of stat points and the addition of level cap developed dueling to the point where dueling is not limited to Rotem and a changing adversary she crashes, now pvp is a thing everyone enjoys because they don't have to put a fuckton of hours to get to level cap or high stats. Do note that with AFK training allowed there's no way in hell we're removing the level cap, it would be completely and utterly pointless especially when a lot of people, including you Severus do not take the time or effort to even hit the level cap when it increases. Stats are balanced now and have logic in them, we've never went backwards and only forward, the current TWC is definitely a better version.
• Fact number 3, there's a lot more items than there were back then, there's even a new event shop built into TWC itself, with gold, I've even added artifacts, those ideas were born out've the dead event shop, like a phoenix.
• Fact number 4... events... I don't know if you guys realize this, TWC died with 30 events going on per week, activity was never effected by event quality or quantity, it actually made little to no impact whatsoever. While the time of the year, holidays, updates, new books/movies and the like do make impact on player numbers, events hardly do.

I think this 'stepping backwards' you describe is your own personal interest decay from playing TWC for so long, if I, the one who had highest level and an insane amount of stat points say that stat points removal and level cap proved to be a good move, it means something.

TWC is a small community and I will be providing cool new updates over time, if you go back to version 16.00, this was the first release from open source, I think I've made a lot of good progress and this progress will continue. TWC is not in a state of emergency, there is nothing wrong. When you've played the same game for a long time, you lose interest, this is natural, please stop trying to make things bigger than they really are.

If what I wrote doesn't convince you that this is only in your head, please compare yourself to those who said safe zone killing was a mistake and they wish to kill in school again or that removing student housing was bad or all that bullshit people complain about. The game changes, it moves forward, please stop being stuck in the past.

[Rotem]

Oh and just an addition about the subjects of GMs.
You guys don't recall this but I do, GMs generally suck.

Ander hired many GMs within the same month, Azlef who is remembered for his abuse, Acheron who left after a week, Zander who disappeared twice yet hired twice. There was Crow who until today we have no idea where he disappeared to. The list of shitty GMs goes on and on.

Then there's decent GMs who did their minimum requirements. Odd Future, Ezekiel, Severus etc.

Then there's the GMs that got promoted to admins, because they were simply noticeable.


The only difference between GMs today and GMs back then is that we no longer hire the first type, we haven't experienced shitty GMs. The decent GMs are precisely the same, you may not recall correctly but there was no creative events aside from admin generated events. Today we gave GMs the ability to use custom maps and admin verbs within those maps so we even get more creative events by GMs now and then. That too improved.

I am seriously disappointed with how people fail to remember the actual truth. If you compare TWC today to TWC back then, TWC today is better in every aspect. There's not a single detail that was better back then.

"BUT YOU COULD KILL IN SCHOOL BACK THEN." Yes you could come back after you've been AFK in slytherin CR finding out you died to a level 100 named Timmy who spammed you with inflamari then laughed at your AFK body at hospital wing and logged out, leaving you no option to get revenge with GMs or with vigilante justice.

Today, you get an automated event that allows you to kill in school and the AFK are protected. Is this really stepping backwards?

[Azrael]

I made the post to suggest adding both small fixes, and adding immersion to the game play. I agree on both parts here and there. It is the holiday season people both have free time and no time to play. Rotem this is to you,  on the original post I had ideas about making the AI smarter, I see the bassy and eyes do certain things now. What did you think of my suggestions for the other mobs? I know getting the games essentials are more important than adding new features, but over all minus the clan stuff and big suggestions, what do you think about adding more immersion and fun ideas here and there. If there is a certain idea you like or don't like please tell me and we can tweak it together. Examples-Currency being turned to Wizarding money(Ik it was talked about before), Interactive items, owls replacing replacing Pming(Know its it big step perhaps a vote?) and heaps of other things. I am all for putting smaller changes first, but I want to feel like im in a magical world. No offense to anyone these are just my thoughts.

[Zachie]

Severus:

I completely disagree with what you're saying, also. Now I may just be a lowly GM to you and basically the one that nobody ever listens to, but the things that you're carrying on about and saying are complete bullshit. I've been around on TWC since the wipe happened and the game came back, give or take a month. Numbers have been up and day, with numbers peaking around the time that you would expect: summer time. It isn't a matter of this was removed, that was removed it's a matter of: people have fucking lives and don't have time for TWC. You yourself are barely on TWC, and I'm logged in more then people like Justin, but yet you come here and claim you have all of the answers and know everything about the state of TWC today.. makes sense, right?

I invite you to spend as much as a week as you're physically able to on TWC without your life getting in the way, see the game, the people who still actively play the game, the events the Staff Members try to do, especially now that we're leading up to Christmas time where we have to base more events around the Christmas theme. And then at the end of that week, come back here and comment with what you saw. Because TWC isn't dead. The current TWC doesn't not lack personality Events may not be as creative as they used to be, but TWC isn't the same game that you remember and barely spend time on now, there isn't a plethora of people who are online that are going to join events, I'm lucky to have one or two people join a "Find it" event, and odds are it's going to be the same people every single time.

In short, I ask you this: How can you accurately judge TWC if you're never on TWC? How can you say "TWC is shit now" if you don't play TWC as it is now? Because I sure as hell never see you around. If you're some high and mighty god and have all the answers; then you bring new players to TWC, keep them on TWC, and the events will pick up because there will be people there to join them. There's only so much you can do if you're doing an event for 3 or 4 people. You're not going to go out of your way and set up an extravagent event in which you spent 1-2 hours of your time if you're going to have the same 3 people join who you're going to attract if you hide yourself, run around outside, or even do a FFA.

But like I said: TWC isn't dead, because there's usually a conversation always happening, there's always at least one person in a class, the problem isn't that TWC has changed and people don't like it, the problem is that these people are busy and don't have time to be on TWC anymore. When that changes, they will come. The thing we should be doing, and you should understand this Severus, is catering for new players, not old. Old players will come back when they can, but new players need to find something in the game that they like and will stick around for. How do you suggest we do that?

Please tell me: If you were in my position, Spitty's position, Rotem's position, Sylar's position; if you were in any of our positions, what would you do to ensure new players remained on the game? How would you do events differently from us?

Because, honestly, your "facts" just seem a lot like opinions to me. You say staff have a lack of OOC personality, I don't understand where you get that from.

But, like I said, spend a week on the game as much as you can, and then come back here and say what you will. Because as far as I've seen, you're not active enough to judge the game like you are here.

[Severus]

So given all of the above, why has TWC rapidly deteriorated?

Every year since 2005 players come and go yet were either consistent or increasing in numbers - and I talk regulars. You can pull any stat to say that TWC since the reboot has had increased numbers but it doesn't mean shit when you can't pull together above 6 players for a class

If TWC was still in improvement then where the fuck is the next set of players incoming? Why does every other player of my playing age and older complain of the same things? I'm in contact with several people who would be willing to play TWC under previous conditions.

I played the game pretty much non stop all year trying my best to convince new players to stay, bringing in old ones and refreshing the interests of current ones, I've tried all sorts of shit. In the belief of the dev team I have donated with good intent.

Why is it every time I log in TWC comes to more of a stand still than ever? People who return after inactive phases PM me for an update. I have no option but to say good features but no one fucking uses them.

In honesty, I remember things Ander did. That Linshon did. That Tobias did, Rotem, Sponge, Odd Sky Eze Ash I could legit remember a Dscu fucking lesson where he took a class demo in the holoroom? Dsc?! Eze and Ash obsessed finding hunting seeking events. Sponge rp hour. Tobi depulso ball. Rotem had me going every time from sky map cloud events and tile color mazes and wheres walley, wizard lottery, event shop. This was standard eventing in 2011/2012 and the base fucking loved this stuff. Everyone was hyped logging in. Today we have a 5 second class from a GM like come on man this shit sucks.

I am glad you disagree with me and it makes sense. The people developing the game disagree. Of course. You guys do great jobs and I know you work your asses off but there are fundamental elements this modernized TWC lacks. The reason you disagree is maybe you don't see it. Regardless of my opinions, your opinions, the outsiders opinions, the proof is in the pudding: the game can't get a regular player count anymore, and, knowing that stuff you removed had them coming before... that's when you know you've fucked up.



Edit:
In reply to,
"In short, I ask you this: How can you accurately judge TWC if you're never on TWC? How can you say "TWC is shit now" if you don't play TWC as it is now? Because I sure as hell never see you around. If you're some high and mighty god and have all the answers; then you bring new players to TWC, keep them on TWC, and the events will pick up because there will be people there to join them. There's only so much you can do if you're doing an event for 3 or 4 people. You're not going to go out of your way and set up an extravagent event in which you spent 1-2 hours of your time if you're going to have the same 3 people join who you're going to attract if you hide yourself, run around outside, or even do a FFA."
I hope this is some form of sick joke. Perhaps due to timezones you miss me. I had to leave and broke from TWC in August time only. Except for then, every month every day of this year I have been online trying to intensify interest, spark new sources of media. Dragons had people I trained fighting existing clans- the Dragons era was easily the most active I've seen clan wars and players fighting in 2014. Mr E Leak, another of my creations, sparked the most posts to the DP and talk about the DP since I started playing TWC. My intent with new players and kindness, generosity and will to help is always at high quality. I actually tried to leave a generation to play TWC who I talk to on Skype daily yet they have no interest. Shit changed for them.

[Kole]

Its because people have gotten older they've gotten jobs they have kids they have relationships theres more to life than just a game.