NEWS: PM Wyrom speaks candidly on Discord about receiving feedback about scarcity, and more about how handling interactions and feedback is working. Here’s a collection of a recap, the announcement, and probably three more messages from Wednesday on Discord:
Text of Discord Post follows:
PM Wyrom
Discussing Feedback about Scarcity
on 26 October 2022 6:21 PM
from the Official GemStoneIV Discord
from a couple Discord channelsSo to recap today.
– Discord takes a lot of time to manage. It’s not easy.
– I don’t think a community manager is the right move for GS, but maybe less official voices to help filter things more.
– Feedback has 3 main purposes — game feedback (might not get a response), appeals (get forwarded to Wyrom unless Wyrom is part of it), and complaints (get forwarded to Wyrom unless about Wyrom).
– Voice chats RSN.
– Auction is getting a slight delay so we can recover.
– We will continue to offer most rare drops in a form where you can purchase them (this does not include everything ever).
– Duskruin exp orb will stay as is.
– I am officially ending the Trove and not replacing it in 2023 at any event.
The above recap came from the following conversations with Wyrom:
Just wanted to discuss some of the feedback about scarcity, mostly centering around Ebon Gate, but I think this applies to a lot more.
GemStone IV is set up around the idea of rare/coveted items and services. For over 20 years, this was mostly done via limiting availability through various means. That’s why something like a Crate Whistle or Coin Hand item remain some of the the more desireable things you can grab. Neither really make or break the game, but they take some factor and make it a bit more convenient.
Merchanting is a limiter. The reason things can go out in unlimited quantities at a merchant on more desired service is because that merchant won’t always be around offering that. So only the people who manage to get there may get that thing. When merchants are available a lot more, they tend to offer less rare services. That is by design. If a merchant has regular scheduled visits, they tend to have a limiter on how much they can offer (like Xerria). Again, all by design.
This isn’t something I cooked up or really any GM for GemStone IV, this is how the game is designed before most of our times as staff. We have changed a ton over the years. Just rare drops from events went from 1 every 6 to 8 hours, to RNG 1d100000 with randomized time gate, to RNG 1d10000 with time games, to 1d10000 without time gates, to 1d5000 without time gates, to between .1% to .02% with both global and personal reductions that made it easier over time (commonly referred to as “pity”). Also in the last 2 years, we have disclosed drop rates at all of these, something that was NDA’d at the top. For the most part, discussion of drop rates needs to be something I take on, and not all of the GameMasters, because I assume all of the risk of what is shared.
Things like the High End Scrip Shop (HESS), the Cozy Little Friends (Pet Shop), and the junker (former EG scrip shop) are all things that we’ve introduced at the risk of the original game design of randomly finding things or winning things. For the most part, we haven’t seen a lot of concerns. There have been some, which we’ve either corrected over the years or we nixed completely from how we do things. We’ve also pushed to remove the majority of feeder-style prize control. This was a huge move since this was pretty much how it was done for the last 15 years that I can see. That’s a huge change for us.
Rare drops are still going to be a thing. Rare services are still going to be a thing. I completely understand the desire that if I earn X, I should get Y. And for the most part, that is how things are done in today’s GemStone IV. But there will always be a randomized factor at some of our rarer offerings to preserve the original game design. I think we’re light years of where we were just 3 and a half years ago. We continue to listen to feedback and work in ideas where we can. Not everything is possible, but I think we’ve done a great job at adopting many features that have been suggested. Sometimes the answer is we retire something entirely.
Tossing this into an announcement because I don’t want it lost, and I don’t think it really warrants a Discord forum post because it’s one of those subjects that we go back and forth on in a lot of channels.
The Above Announcement at Discord
If we were to hire a community manager, the absolute first thing we’d be doing is barring all GameMaster replies on Discord. It would be someone’s 9 to 5 job to coordinate responses, and things would only filter through them. They would likely work for all Simu games though, or at the very least, GemStone and DragonRealms. I think one of the biggest problems we face right now is there is too much time that GameMasters spend here lately, and it’s become a problem to the point where actual production is lost, GameMasters have been chased off, and projects have been dumped due to a few loud voices just not stopping being loud.
As it stands now, you get around the clock responses from a variety of GameMasters, you pretty much get my attention 24/7 (I make rules for myself not to check Discord between certain hours outside emergencies). You get time after hours. You get time during weekends. If we moved to an employee handling this, like feedback, lockout, and billing, after 5pm CT, it’s cut off. Weekends are days off.
Yes, if it’s not abundantly clear, a few of our Devs have been chased off, and projects have moved to being stagnant. It will take time and likely training new people up to work on those projects again if they decide they aren’t coming back.
This link is where the above quotes begin at Discord
I’m not saying we don’t want to be here talking with everyone. But I think it is a little unfair to say things aren’t heard. I feel like that’s all we do is listen and push things into the game. Yes, Divergence/Profession Reviews are all halted, we’re trying to see where things stand with a few GMs that have gone AWOL.
Recent TownCrier newsletters.
