Complaint/suggestion

[Beckhan]

Hi all, first time on the forum. I'm a pre-crash player that just found out that Wyvern was back up. Never HoF but I was up above 20.

Anyway, I got hooked on Wyvern after it deviated from standard hack and slash junk with some really cool quests nd side quests that were always being updated. One of my favorite was/is Sokoban which, when I found out the server was alive again went there as soon as I could level to 4.. only to find out that my favorite quest has been neutered!

I mean I know this is old news to most folks here but fun riddles and puzzles with actual game reward was what sold me on this MUD. I am really sad that it's just a relic, there for show and not part of the game mechanics any longer. In my opinion removing stuff like that make the game significantly less fun and I hope you'll reactivate it in the future.

That Soko gear was really cool too. Ah well..

[Arilou]

The problem is that the idea of giving rewards for solving just puzzles was a flawed concept from the start. They are insanely easy to cheat on (I cannot and will not go into how people cheat on sokoban) so the next thing you know, those sokoban prizes you worked very hard for are everywhere in the game. That in turn makes them less special and unbalances the game as they were only so powerful because they were designed for what was believed to be a very difficult and time consuming challenge.

We've by no means been phasing the reward concept from the game. Rather we just made sure they were all in appropriate places. Places that ideally require a mix of monster fighting, puzzles, and randomization. That way when you do get this prize you truly earned it and it truly makes you special as not everybody can achieve what you did to get it. In the case of Sokoban prizes they were pretty unique to Sokoban so they can't just be stuck somewhere else. But if someone ever comes up with an idea they can work their way into the game again, it just won't have anything to do with the tower.

[Beckhan]

Thank you for responding!

Please allow me to recap. Some people cheated (annoying, but oh well). So in retaliation the entire wyvern community was punished by the removal of the Sokoban items? Forgive me but that doesn't seem to make any sense to me. I mean, why not just reduce thier gold value and let everyone who wants em go get them, banning the people who are caught cheating? But to say that the rest of us can't have em, well.. maybe Im just frustrated cause the first thing I did being back on Wyvern was to level to four and beeline to the tower.

Also, I like the idea of games that are completed outside the hackNslash element.. such as the Monk Quest and that crazy side scroll thingy. Switches things up a little. Different skill types and all.. I love riddles and brain stretchers.

Anyway, disagreements aside, I always think you guys did/do a great job at maintaining the freshness and fun of this game. Cheers. And thanks again for responding.

[Arilou]

The problem was it wasn't just a few people. It was widespread and we were constantly banishing individuals over it. Some had the nerve to actually solve each set of 10 puzzles within a few minutes of each other. So you'd see the town crier shouting that they solved sets of 10 one right after another. Others were more sneaky about it and we regularly had to watch people trying to do Sokoban to make sure they were not cheating.

To fix this and still keep the items as rewards we would've had to nerf their stats based on how easy they were to get. So they would be of no real use to honest players who tried to get them the hard way. This also would've effected all the prizes people already got, so a once powerful Sokoban ring would now be near useless to them. Instead of that we let people, that may or may not have honestly got them, keep their prizes and made it so new ones could not be attained until such a time where we may find a way to add them back at their current power level.

In any case, I agree with you on your latter point...Games within the main game are a lot of fun for people and they're something we intend to improve upon. But we need to be careful about what kind of in-game rewards we give people for them. Sokoban still rewards you with its own high score list/quest points and Kiz's sidescroller gives quest points as well. Powerful items, however, have a negative effect on balance if done poorly. The idea for getting the most powerful items is that you sacrifice time that could've spent leveling and/or xp because you run the risk of dying. Quest points are also a problem as they can be used to make you higher on the score lists than other people so keeping them for things which can easily be cheated on makes it unfair to the honest players. But items were the bigger unbalance. In the end, I think if you really enjoy a game like Sokoban the score lists alone should make it worth it for you. Items and quest points, while offering a nice bonus for people like you, also tend to just lure a lot of people to it that find it very difficult/boring. Thus they either suffer through it or they try to cheat.

Anyway, if you explore a bit, you'll find two mini games that Teshuvah made in more recent years. One is called the Temple of Words and the other is called the Tower of Conundrum. They're mini quests so players can't tell you where they are, but if you find them you might enjoy them. One offers word puzzles and the other offers riddles. Mixed in is monster fighting and heavy randomization. At the end you are rewarded with unique items that you will only find there. In the future we'll be making more things in this style so you can have a mix of hack and slash, puzzles, and rewards. However, we'll also be making more games that don't have monster fighting mixed in - You just won't be as heavily rewarded as you used to, but at the same time you might see old things being improved upon in that department. For example, chess was never fully coded. It doesn't declare a winner and certain features can always be looked into such as giving players a score based on their wins/losses and possibly allowing people to gamble on games so they can collect money upon winning a limited amount against people with a score close to their own. Most of this is hard to code so progress in this department is very slow, but it's always on our mind to improve all aspects of the game so players have more to do than just chatting and monster bashing.

[Jessikha]

Mentioning chess gives me a really good idea, because I like the sound of that. Prizes could be awarded for beating chess games against different difficulty computers; the easiest having a so-so prize and the hardest (being nearly impossible) would have an amazing prize. You could even put in a mode where a player could play a wizard in chess, and get some sort of prize (powerful item, a "I beat [wizard] at chess!" T-Shirt, etc.) That'd be a lot of fun, although to keep 50+ people from challenging the wizards, they'd have to beat all of the preset difficulty levels first.

[maahes]

Chess with prizes is a good idea in theory, but Chess is a simple enough game that computers have mastered it, making it extremely easy to cheat at if you have a decent Chess program on your computer.

[Arilou]

That and players would throw games to let their friends win money since they cannot just give it to them anymore. Which is why the amount one could bet would have to be limited to small amounts which, while fun to do, would be a drop in the bucket if abused.

[Duender]

Oh my, it's unfortunate that it happened.
I guess it had to be done though.
|: