The Clan Lord Sentinel

It's been a while since Foghaven had been created and we are starting to have a full foothold over the area. New areas (any, honestly!) would be huge to keep the CL experience chugging along for those of us who still play. For those who do not but browse the Sentinel, the game is still quite alive in many respects!

But gee...even us actives are growing tired of seeing nothing new update after update...

Just my 2cents.

-Eli

Well duh. Maybe we should whip those volunteer GMs into shape because they no doubt have no idea that new areas might be a good thing?

Elindir' wrote:It's been a while since Foghaven had been created and we are starting to have a full foothold over the area. New areas (any, honestly!) would be huge to keep the CL experience chugging along for those of us who still play. For those who do not but browse the Sentinel, the game is still quite alive in many respects!

But gee...even us actives are growing tired of seeing nothing new update after update...

Just my 2cents.

-Eli

I think at least part of the issue is that there are many 'old' areas that we haven't quite explored fully yet. A possible issue is that they want us to clean up the old areas before they go making new ones. I'm a n00b and can think of:
- Peaceton
- Miners guild
- Gaia's temple
- What to do with a herpatid skin
- The shadow guild

That said, I'd love some new areas. Great excuse for me to train more BB until I have 3000 BB and can run amok.

Sonny_Bill wrote:I think at least part of the issue is that there are many 'old' areas that we haven't quite explored fully yet. A possible issue is that they want us to clean up the old areas before they go making new ones. I'm a n00b and can think of:
- Peaceton
- Miners guild
- Gaia's temple
- What to do with a herpatid skin
- The shadow guild

That said, I'd love some new areas. Great excuse for me to train more BB until I have 3000 BB and can run amok.

Your idea is entirely possible, though doubtful. To the best of my knowledge, CL development is not centralized - meaning that each GM works on their own projects at their own paces. When those projects are ready they are released independently of other GM progress. There are certainly things we haven't discovered in "old" areas and maybe even great new areas we haven't accessed yet, but other GMs have their own progress that's separate.

OP seems to be asking for more high level areas to hunt in besides the Eastern Mountains - something I think everyone wants, but most know is reliant on how much time the (volunteer) GMs can put into CL.

I think at least part of the issue is that there are many 'old' areas that we haven't quite explored fully yet. A possible issue is that they want us to clean up the old areas before they go making new ones. I'm a n00b and can think of:
- Peaceton
- Miners guild
- Gaia's temple
- What to do with a herpatid skin
- The shadow guild

That said, I'd love some new areas. Great excuse for me to train more BB until I have 3000 BB and can run amok.

Gaia temple seems to be a GM interaction place. GMs have to be doing things for that to progress.

Miners guild is a deadend nothing from what I understand.

There is a use for Herp skin, isn't there? Shoes or something.

Shadow guild they haven't populated the game with the prerequisite yet. People exhausted just about every effort on that one.

The big issue is that those are projects started by specific GMs who have taken a hiatus. And GMs don't seem to work on another gms stuff.

I didn't really intend on being captain obvious. I have just noticed a significant amount of time had passed since a new high level area had come out (kudos to the GMs behind ravens and foghaven; amazing area). I was thinking of the days when one could mosey over to MI and kill some sasquatch in 15 min or run over to EW on GI and do a similar kind of thing. I miss those days

Elindir' wrote:I didn't really intend on being captain obvious. I have just noticed a significant amount of time had passed since a new high level area had come out (kudos to the GMs behind ravens and foghaven; amazing area). I was thinking of the days when one could mosey over to MI and kill some sasquatch in 15 min or run over to EW on GI and do a similar kind of thing. I miss those days

Well all you have to do is untrain a few times EW not hard enough?

Daimoth wrote:Gaia temple seems to be a GM interaction place. GMs have to be doing things for that to progress.

What he said and I'll throw in a: to the best of my knowledge, this "area" is completed and working as intended.

Daimoth wrote:Shadow guild they haven't populated the game with the prerequisite yet. People exhausted just about every effort on that one.

If by Shadowguild people mean Thieves Island, I'm not certain about this assessment. It's entirely possible that strong clues were given to people, but those people never passed them along or did not recognize them as clues. In either instance, the solution could be out there and we're just missing it. Whatever the case, I wouldn't mind some GM attention to the story.

Mac wrote:

Daimoth wrote:Gaia temple seems to be a GM interaction place. GMs have to be doing things for that to progress.

What he said and I'll throw in a: to the best of my knowledge, this "area" is completed and working as intended.

Daimoth wrote:Shadow guild they haven't populated the game with the prerequisite yet. People exhausted just about every effort on that one.

If by Shadowguild people mean Thieves Island, I'm not certain about this assessment. It's entirely possible that strong clues were given to people, but those people never passed them along or did not recognize them as clues. In either instance, the solution could be out there and we're just missing it. Whatever the case, I wouldn't mind some GM attention to the story.

With the help of many high level, and very knowledgable exiles, we have tried a million things. the new area of thieves seems to be dormant until the GMs wake it up. We may even have figured out the quest but won't know if what we have tried will work until the island opens up.

Daimoth wrote:The big issue is that those are projects started by specific GMs who have taken a hiatus. And GMs don't seem to work on another gms stuff.

Yup.

GMs don't work on other GMs stuff. (Very territorial, and what if the other GM comes back?)
GMs hardly even like to help with their Helper's stuff (as they are volunteers and would prefer to spend their limited time on their own things).
Helpers can hardly do anything worthwhile without GMs doing most of the work.
GMs have to do most of the work as CL is uber-closed-source. Even the simplest things are under lock and key. Knowledge is power and you can't have it, etc, etc.
So basically you have to be a 'full' GM to implement anything new...
... and earning the trust to become a GM makes becoming a Mystic look trivial.
Take the limited induction of GMs with the natural attrition due to time, and it's no wonder progress is limited.

We've got some awesome GMs (looking at Eastern Mountains), but there aren't many left and I don't see any progress in that area.
I'd love to see more GMs and StoryGMs (whatever happened to those ideas?), but that is a debate that has gone on forever.

(Just wait until I win the Powerball and buy out ClanLord so I can start XepelLord...) ;)

xepel wrote:GMs don't work on other GMs stuff. (Very territorial, and what if the other GM comes back?)

I understand why they do this, but there is a point where the game's well being/development becomes more important than any individual GM's ownership. I.e. if players have invested years into pushing and developing a story and then the GM in charge of it disappears, quits, or gets too busy, then it's the developer's responsibility to ensure that the time and effort that the players put into the content of that GM isn't completely thrown out the window.

I'd like to think that if I spent a year or more creating something for CL that I'd be happy just to have the players experience it - even if someone else finished it up or I had to "help" the players figure out the answer (i.e. it didn't get "solved" exactly like I envisioned it).

But again, no one asks me for my opinion or input on things.

As far as the helper bits go.. I've always thought it was silly that some kind of world builder thing wasn't released. I often think about how much time I've spent on making maps of areas and wonder just how many new areas I could have designed and made with that time. Even if it only allowed people to make the snells, no scripts, spawns, etc etc. Could I have made a whole new island? How big could it have been?

Mac wrote:

xepel wrote:GMs don't work on other GMs stuff. (Very territorial, and what if the other GM comes back?)

I understand why they do this, but there is a point where the game's well being/development becomes more important than any individual GM's ownership. I.e. if players have invested years into pushing and developing a story and then the GM in charge of it disappears, quits, or gets too busy, then it's the developer's responsibility to ensure that the time and effort that the players put into the content of that GM isn't completely thrown out the window.

The developer is Delta Tao, and as far I can tell the only "employee" (someone who actually gets paid and so actually has responsibility) is Joe. Good luck getting him to make something happen. ;)
Beyond that, everyone else is just a volunteer. While we can hope that they want certain developments/storylines to continue, we can't obligate or force them to work on something they don't want to. Any time working on other people's projects is time they can't devote to their own, and I'd rather have something (because they may be invested in their own projects) than nothing (when they become disinterested in other projects).

Mac wrote:As far as the helper bits go.. I've always thought it was silly that some kind of world builder thing wasn't released. I often think about how much time I've spent on making maps of areas and wonder just how many new areas I could have designed and made with that time. Even if it only allowed people to make the snells, no scripts, spawns, etc etc. Could I have made a whole new island? How big could it have been?

Making the areas is at most 20% of the total work (and probably much less). This makes the helper/GM dynamic awkward, as areas can be pumped out faster than they can be finished by the GMs (if they are ever finished).

Perhaps some spoilers, just skip if you do not want to know more details about behind the scenes.













Some may know, some may not know.
For Arindal I did cook area's till the last day basically.
To give an example my largest area I did create was the Ether hell area about 110 snells big. It took me 6 months to get this happening. I spend around 4 - 5 hours a day on this. The most work was troubleshooting. To give an example how it worked. When I uploaded the work it was placed in an test environment to troubleshoot. This could only be uploaded when an update (chaos storm) was happening. Roughly 1 time a month. During the month you do troubleshooting the area, was the bridge wide enough to cross. Are we sure if we are on a high cliff and someone below that cliff is dead that we are not able to put a chain around him. A vermine below the cliff can't attack us high on the cliff. etc etc. This consume a LOT of time.
To create the area with the graphics, thats not hard at all. Just choose pictures, drag them where you want it if you make a small area. Then you have to think more as just in copy and paste pictures. What do you want to achieve with this place, do you want some "fun things"in it, how do you want that the monsters go, you want hiding places, block places.
For every area I created I made for myself a small storyline and from there I started. Areas must be fun to watch. My opinion is that monsters can make an area or break it.
If you have an beautiful area filled with 1 shotters like vermines and people have to travel 20 minutes to reach that. People wont come back for sure.
An area must be challenging off course.

When I started as helper for gm's you were not that big help. I did create an area, Ziyal mostly checked that area if she thought everything was OK. Like masking, cant people watch in the gray/black area. etc. Then another gm contacted me to think about the monsters. So I made suggestions, but did not implement anything
As you see, this means for my area in the beginning period as cook I had to contact with 2 people and make appointments etc. This consume time. Lot of time.
So helping in the begin is not that much helping.
After many area's and other helping stuff it was time to grow to the next role, gm. So I was able to do everything myself. Create an area, do the monsters, do a small storyline. Just from begin to the end. That was basically my goal anyway. I wanted to be really help. Sadly it was pretty quick clear that we had to stop with Arindal.
So the whole gm'stuff was put aside and I did some final work and help. And that was it. If I look back I never had to put the gm thing aside, the switch to Clanlord was much easier then as GM. But ok.

As soon you are beginning as helper and tart making area's you most likely lose fun to play the game. Because you know what is happening behind the scenes and how it works, and why this is happening. Fun thing is, I always got lost in my own area's when playing as an character.

So in short, yes it is easy to put pictures in a editor and call it an area. With that an area is not live yet. Troubleshooting must be done intensively. This take serious time from helper and gm. Monsters must be created for that area. In the beginning of your career you can't make the monsters. This comes along the road, and you are depending on the real gm if theywant to help / have time for you. For them it is an investment. And sadly a lot of helpers (arindal) have stopped after some time. So all time GM's has put in them was gone. And you have to be prepared for negative criticism about your area. Because it is just never good. Monsters to strong, to weak, not enough money, not enough chests, not enough this or that. As soon we opened an area we started bets: This player comes with: To strong. This player comes with : to weak.
And I always felt good if my area openend and we got an /pray Awesome great area, thanks!
But mostly the comments where not that positive. So as helper / gm you can't just make friends. It is hard to keep everybody happy.

My last etherhell 110 (even a few more when i think about it) snell area took 9-10 months from begin till end or so to get online in game. 6 months creating (several hours a day) and roughly the whole to troubleshoot. And I knew that the game was stopping some months after it would go live.

xepel wrote:said stuff

Honestly, I thought I was reading a post by Maeght.

I need to go back to not reading these forums.

Mac wrote:

xepel wrote:said stuff

Honestly, I thought I was reading a post by Maeght.

I need to go back to not reading these forums.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with what you said - I'd love more involvement by GMs (in finishing stories and whatnot) as well as a release of the world builder. It's just unlikely to happen.