Dissemination of Information

[zodiak21]

Let's be real, I appreciate all the new developers creating content. I love this game I've been playing it since i was 8 yrs old.  The players have died. Mainly from a Game Info standpoint.  I know the main argument is "blah blah blah we put in the time to discover the answers". Lets stop lying to each other.  The "Majority" of the game is no longer secret. Arctic has been put into a choke hold of  information.  Anyone can level and build a character to handle a majority of the zones in this game. Now with the approval of being able to bot it has expanded the game even more.  But we all know that the wall is the Keyword System. I get that is the charm of this game that i know and love.  Nothing made me happier then finally cracking the code, but we don't have 100+ players constantly playing anymore.  When we had that population the "hidden"(i use that term loosely because we all know/talk about that social drama of game knowledge) was necessary.  But i think we all agree the draw of this game was mainly PVP but also getting that piece of gear that was one step up over what you currently have.  With the diluted population if you aren't in the "know" or know someone who may be willingly to tell you or at least "lead"you...good luck.  I am not saying that the entire game has to become public knowledge, but I think we can all agree that there is about 80% of this "zone knowledge" that could be put to the public that wouldn't hurt the current game climate.

[el conquistador]

big agree with zodiak here. 

keywords are what pretty much ended the wipe for me.  exploring a zone i have never done and come up to a wall.  i know the wall opens i have a log of it but there is no keyword in the room at all that i can see.  so i spend hours staring at it but still cant figure how to open it.  and if i didnt have that log i wouldnt ever poke around in that room in the first place.  there are 0 things that look suspicious.  its crazy!  huge disincentive to explore.

then it comes out that if too many people know things, keywords or zones will be changed.  why!  we have been playing this game for 20 years and are still not allowed to know the secrets.  its insanity.

[Willoe]

This post is hilarious. Quitting because you can't solve a zone? Sounds like a personal problem. I've spent literally hundreds of hours in a single zone to figure out how to open that wall, and you want that for free? Millenniums these days. *Grumble*

If a zone warrants keyword changes it' because the rewards are meant to be for those who actually invested time in to the game. If creators/game imps see that too many people are being fed that info, they change it. It isn't hard for someone who actually spent the time solving the zone to resolve a kw.

That being said, there are plenty of zones out there that don't have their kw's changed. If you don't like having to work for your knowledge, stay there.

My grumpy ass 2 cents.

[zodiak21]

I think you misunderstood my point.  I am not talking about the higher level tiered zones.  Ive brought many people into arctic over the years that just felt overwhelmed by the lack of information really.  I enjoyed that myself but for a dying playerbase, pulling back the curtain on things that are like sub lvl 25 not only makes the game more accessible to new players, but also helps teach them the entire Key Word  mechanic so when they are ready to learn the unknown they have a better idea of what it would take to actually crack the code.

[Willoe]

Gotcha. Maybe that was more a reply to El Conquistador. All for lower zones being open knowledge (mostly not including some quests).

[Alecto]

There are several new mid zones that are designed to be "trainers" to help players get better at exploring zones. I would suggest you start with those - often learning to search for details in rdescs, redescs, etc. takes time. There are a few quests out there that take a pretty intensive amount of exploring to learn, but most zones in the game (and almost everything in the low/mid categories) can be solved using basic action/object keywords.

[el conquistador]

try to make me feel dumb all you want.  i know that its insane to not be able to open a wall after hours in a mid-high zone that barely gets done.

i am not the freak for thinking it should be doable by a fairly intelligent person.  you guys are the freaks for believing it should be that hard.  trying to keep people from being able to solve half-ass puzzles in a text game 20 years old.  lol

they mostly arent even good puzzles at all.  its like spam random keywords in different combinations at everything that vaguely looks like it might be hiding something for hours and hours.  thats the gameplay you are protecting. 

[Hoyt]

Although i am not sure which zone you are  referring to. You can't see the Forest if you are only looking at 1 tree. STOP LOOKING AT THE TREE! I see where so many people get so slash and hack happy they kill all the mobs in a zone, and then wonder why they can't do quests in the zone. maybe some of those mobs are there to help you with the zone?  if you take the time and examine everything in each room talk to a mob sometimes they give clues to kws in other parts of the zone. and yeah it can be mind numbing at times, however when I myself have spend up to an hour in a room looking at all the clues and doing kw in that room, it takes some work to unlock the goodies a zone holds. I will agree there are some kws in the game that are a little silly, but even those ones usally have a hint somewhere. 

[Kadaj]

Ok, I just have to ask. What wall are we talking about, because I am now genuinely intrigued!

[Alecto]

What is up with that trough in the Solace Sewers? I have been trying to figure that one out since 1998!

[Gnua]

What is up with that trough in the Solace Sewers? I have been trying to figure that one out since 1998!

I've been trying to help the crying kid in the tarsis park since 1997.  I have strong (perhaps fake) memories of returning/presenting/displaying the green wooden sword to him and getting a whopping 650 xp, but i have never been able to reproduce this moment of triumph.

[reed23]

At this point in the game's life, if someone is out grinding to try to solve zones, i think it would be smart for the immortals or other players to help them if they are putting in the effort.  The most end game secrets don't need to be handed out (even though i'd be fine if even those were hinted towards), but 95% of the game should be able to be solved/helped/etc. if effort is put in.

[el conquistador]

Ok, I just have to ask. What wall are we talking about, because I am now genuinely intrigued!

dont want to say.  i feel like i will be mocked further

[mikey]

What is up with that trough in the Solace Sewers? I have been trying to figure that one out since 1998!

A big problem for me is you never know if you are on the right track.
You see a trough - does it do anything? No way to know, but absolutely no way to rule it out.

You've tried all the regular keywords "X trough", no good.  Now you have to try all the crazy stuff you can come up with, because maybe it's "nap trough" - who knows!  Perhaps an adverb got involved.  Yikes! Looks like your fingers will be cramping up before you can do every combination of "X trough Y".  Ugh, what if the syntax is abnormal? Nothing else worked, so you have to try all the (X Y trough and trough X Y) combinations you can think of.  Now you recall that some keywords have to be entered multiple times to be successful, plus maybe you have a goblin corpse in your inventory to use for a blanket?  Maybe two "blankets"?  No way to know.

I guess I'd propose a spell/skill (Ex. Inspect)  that allows a player to see what objects have a purpose.  Once you "inspect" that trough and it glows green, by all means sit there until you get the magical "quickly nap trough" x3 (with 2 goblin corpses in your inventory) combination.

I know it's way too much work, but what would be really nice if attempts gave some kind of hint - "break trough" would give "don't you feel too sleepy for that?"  anything that would give the feeling of progress.

[Malthros]

Unless someone's being fed info by an imm what business is it of the imms?  I know this mindset has been around Arctic forever but "too many people know Zone X, or were taught it by other players, time to change it NO FUN ALLOWED" is dumb.  So what if a bunch of people are taught zone X or Y?  If they manage to rush wipe that nobash or dragon orb you wanted then deal with it the way it's always been dealt with:  PK them and take it.