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Starmourn!!!

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  • TreyTrey
    Tahquil said:
    There's one other name you might know me by... Star Rawr. 


    Relax, Tahquil. It's cool to have a code name, it's not that weird.

  • LucianusLucianus
    Kayeil said:
    Hello Starmourners!

    Today, we're introducing you to the Ry'nari player race, which you can check out here!

    As you also probably know, we put out a search for a a lead builder last week, and we got nearly 50 applications. That was far more than we expected, which has afforded us some great final candidates. We're in the last stages of selecting someone to join the team in that capacity and hope to be able to choose and then announce that person soon!

    We've also been working pretty heavily on the framework for both PvE and PvP combat recently, and while it's a sometimes-frustrating process of change-evaluate-change-evaluate-change-etc etc it's shaping up. We probably won't share any concrete info there until we're pretty sure we've got something interesting nailed down though.

    Tomorrow (Thursday) the Starmourn team is off to Vegas to hang out with the rest of the Iron Realms crew for a long weekend of team building in the form of Cards Against Humanity, booze, and cheating at blackjack. 

    Until later,

    --matt

    CEO, Iron Realms Entertainment
    Wow, I'm impressed with the speed they are working on this thing. PvE and PvP foundations already getting laid down? Nice.

    ToP and MKO took years of production. Latter still in beta. :|

    I guess that's what happens when you have a team filled with top producers who have a ton of experience building MUDs.
    That is not an ordinary star, my son. That star is the tear of a warrior. A lost soul who has finished his battles somewhere on this planet. A pitiful soul who could not find his way to the lofty realm where the great spirit awaits us all.
  • KayeilKayeil Washington State
    Lucianus said:
    Kayeil said:
    Hello Starmourners!

    Today, we're introducing you to the Ry'nari player race, which you can check out here!

    As you also probably know, we put out a search for a a lead builder last week, and we got nearly 50 applications. That was far more than we expected, which has afforded us some great final candidates. We're in the last stages of selecting someone to join the team in that capacity and hope to be able to choose and then announce that person soon!

    We've also been working pretty heavily on the framework for both PvE and PvP combat recently, and while it's a sometimes-frustrating process of change-evaluate-change-evaluate-change-etc etc it's shaping up. We probably won't share any concrete info there until we're pretty sure we've got something interesting nailed down though.

    Tomorrow (Thursday) the Starmourn team is off to Vegas to hang out with the rest of the Iron Realms crew for a long weekend of team building in the form of Cards Against Humanity, booze, and cheating at blackjack. 

    Until later,

    --matt

    CEO, Iron Realms Entertainment
    Wow, I'm impressed with the speed they are working on this thing. PvE and PvP foundations already getting laid down? Nice.

    ToP and MKO took years of production. Latter still in beta. :|

    I guess that's what happens when you have a team filled with top producers who have a ton of experience building MUDs.
    They're definitely on the ball with Starmourn, very exciting stuff they've come up with so far.
    What doesn't kill you gives you exp.

  • AhmetAhmet Wherever I wanna be
    @Tecton you better not use the same 1/3 rooms system Achaea has for exploration. I will boycott! :(

    But everything I've seen so far is breath-taking. Utterly amazed by how fast this is coming along and with all the hooks they're putting out.
    Huh. Neat.
  • ValariaValaria
    Ahmet said:
    @Tecton you better not use the same 1/3 rooms system Achaea has for exploration. I will boycott! :(

    But everything I've seen so far is breath-taking. Utterly amazed by how fast this is coming along and with all the hooks they're putting out.
    1/3 rooms system? 

    2015/01/12
Tecton, the Terraformer has bestowed His divine favour upon you. It will last for approximately 1 Achaean month.
  • KayeilKayeil Washington State
    This thread seems a little behind, so I'll update with the last bit of additions..


    6 days ago:
    Greetings, Starmourners!
    Today, I bring a longer update than usual - some backstory you can really sink your teeth into.
    This update focuses on the Elessi - one of the Elder Races - and its tragic conclusion at the hands of the Ishvana they themselves created. 
    The Ishvana is, as you're likely to guess after reading all about it, one of the chief threats in Starmourn. It's essentially the combined consciousness's of trillions of Elessi, and it's somewhat insane. 
    Read all about it on the new NPC Races page (which is pretty thin right now except for the ~2500 words about the Elessi and the Ishvana).
    http://www.starmourn.com/npc-races/
    Enjoy!
    Sincerely,
    Matt Mihály
    CEO, Iron Realms Entertainment


    And today:

    Greetings and epic salutations, Starmourners!
    Today I'm writing to you with another player race to reveal - the Nusriza. These guys have the most unique post-adolescent development of any of our races, involving some intense sex, count among their members some of the finest singers in Starmourn, and are the newest of the player races to use kith, due to the fact that for much of their history their religion prohibited its use. 
    Read about the Nusriza here!
    In the picture below, you'll note she's wielding a kithblade. This is a physical weapon made of one of a couple different exotic materials that is extremely strong, hold an incredibly sharp edge, and which some kith users - both star and void - project their energy through to add different effects to what would otherwise be just a sword. Because they're so sharp, they're often serrated or contain protrusions designed to catch on an enemy's bodyarmor or flesh and rip it, doing more damage than a simple straight-edge would cause. 
    In other news, Laura Martz, our new lead builder, started work on Monday, and after a couple days of learning how to use our tools, started building her first area today. We'll be looking for more building help soon!
    Best,
    Matt Mihály
    CEO, Iron Realms Entertainment
     Female Nusriza wielding a kithblade


    What doesn't kill you gives you exp.

  • AhmetAhmet Wherever I wanna be
    (2/5k) pls tell me those are xp values.
    Huh. Neat.
  • NatliyaNatliya
    Doba Jett?
    What heresy is this?
    I don't like long goodbyes.
  • KasyaKasya Tennessee
    There's nothing about Scatterhome here??

    http://starmourn.com/scatterhome/

    Seriously. Can't wait.
  • AldeberanAldeberan
    I had a dream they let people in for a sneak peek weekend. Then the power went out and it was more like a nightmare. Fun times!
  • ChaelChael
    >_>
    When the ToP preview went up, I was in uni accommodation and the port was blocked. I like... ran to a net cafe to get access.
  • ChaelChael
    treeple ^_^ or Decheerans I guess >_> 

    Though, their mentioned lack of sex does raise a question for me about pronouns. Will it be possible for there to be more options than just "he/she" in Starmourn?

    "They" would be really great, but obviously more options or some kind of freeform system would be cool.
  • LucianusLucianus
    Three Player Cities so far:
    Celestine Ascendancy



    Scatterhome



    Song Dominion






    That is not an ordinary star, my son. That star is the tear of a warrior. A lost soul who has finished his battles somewhere on this planet. A pitiful soul who could not find his way to the lofty realm where the great spirit awaits us all.
  • LucianusLucianus
    Starmourn's First Class: The B.E.A.S.T.

    It's the name of one of Starmourn's classes, and stands for Biointerfacing Exoskeletal Assault Suit Tech/Technician (depending on whether you're referring to the suit or the operator).

    These are shock troops that seek to overwhelm their opponents with a panoply of weapons and the enhanced strength granted to them by their suits.



    The three skills of the B.E.A.S.T. are:

    • Plasmacasting - All about using their plasmacasters to do various things, including barbecuing victims.
    • Mech Weapons Platform - This involves using the other weapons mounted on a suit, including a railgun, a minigun, a missile launcher, a stabbing blade, a net launcher, and more. This skill also contains abilities that have you punching, crushing, and, in one of its instakills - literally ripping an opponent in half.
    • Suittech - Other abilities that a B.E.A.S.T. grants its operator, such as using the jumpjets, activating advanced life support, and balancing production of overcharge and plasma, the two class resources for this class.


    That is not an ordinary star, my son. That star is the tear of a warrior. A lost soul who has finished his battles somewhere on this planet. A pitiful soul who could not find his way to the lofty realm where the great spirit awaits us all.
  • VenderVender
    beast class looks cool. i loved reading about the power armor suits in starship troopers.
    spread positivity
  • AtalkezAtalkez
    Holy shit I can be Ironman?

    Sold.




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • OmorOmor
    retire confirm
    Omor Ceberek - Targossas

    got gud
  • BlujixapugBlujixapug
    Atalkez said:
    Holy shit I can be Ironman?

    Sold.
    That would infringe on copyright. But you can be... Titanium-Rhenium Alloy Sentient Hominid.

    Beryllium Isotope Galactic-Deployment Integrated Cybernetic Kinoprosthesis.

    Semiautonomous Electronuclear Xenosuit.

    I wonder if they started with the acronym or the name.

    Also wondering if they have a trans ability called B.E.A.S.T. Mode. It seems obvious, right?
    image
  • JonathinJonathin Retired in a hole.
    Last I heard, retire credits couldn't be used to transfer to starmourn. My info is dated a few months though, would need confirmation.
    I am retired and log into the forums maybe once every 2 months. It was a good 20 years, live your best lives, friends.
  • AtalkezAtalkez
    Well that would be a pretty major bummer but I can understand why that would be done.




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • DortheronDortheron
    My guess is that there would be a grace period where transfers wouldn't be allowed (like 6 months to a year) so that the dedicated community can develop instead of a bunch of lolalts running around because it's new and shiny

    Plus they want people to buy more credits for lessons and arteifacts instead of just using their retirement credits.
    You know, that one thing at that one place, with that one person.

    Yea, that one!
  • KelloniusKellonius Cape Girardeau, Missouri
    edited November 2016
    Dortheron said:
    My guess is that there would be a grace period where transfers wouldn't be allowed (like 6 months to a year) so that the dedicated community can develop instead of a bunch of lolalts running around because it's new and shiny

    Plus they want people to buy more credits for lessons and arteifacts instead of just using their retirement credits.
    I think that might have opposite the desired effect, if its true.

    Using myself for example: I've pumped thousands of dollars in Kellonius over the years. I started playing in September 2001. Kellonius us currently worth roughly 13k in retirement value, and according to the help file on retirement, real value is roughly twice that. I would think its actually probably closer to just 19-20k. I'm not really in the market to do any of these things: start a new Achaean character, buy massive amounts of credits, or make much more of an investment at all in Kellonius. I'll play him about as much as I do now, taking long breaks here and there. If Starmourn were to allow retirement credits, I would more probably than not(read almost 100% certainty) retire Kellonius and move over there. The new game would reinvigorate my desire to play these games and I would certainly buy more credit packages on whatever character I create there.

    I have no interest, however, in starting over on a new character there while I have an investment of a few thousand dollars sitting dormant on Achaea. So basically if retirement credits are disallowed, I will probably create a newbie alt over there, play for a little bit and spend no money before moving back to Kellonius.
    image
  • KiskanKiskan
    edited November 2016
    Kellonius said:
    Dortheron said:
    My guess is that there would be a grace period where transfers wouldn't be allowed (like 6 months to a year) so that the dedicated community can develop instead of a bunch of lolalts running around because it's new and shiny

    Plus they want people to buy more credits for lessons and arteifacts instead of just using their retirement credits.
    I think that might have opposite the desired effect, if its true.

    Using myself for example: I've pumped thousands of dollars in Kellonius over the years. I started playing in September 2001. Kellonius us currently worth roughly 13k in retirement value, and according to the help file on retirement, real value is roughly twice that. I would think its actually probably closer to just 19-20k. I'm not really in the market to do any of these things: start a new Achaean character, buy massive amounts of credits, or make much more of an investment at all in Kellonius. I'll play him about as much as I do now, taking long breaks here and there. If Starmourn were to allow retirement credits, I would more probably than not(read almost 100% certainty) retire Kellonius and move over there. The new game would reinvigorate my desire to play these games and I would certainly buy more credit packages on whatever character I create there.

    I have no interest, however, in starting over on a new character there while I have an investment of a few thousand dollars sitting dormant on Achaea. So basically if retirement credits are disallowed, I will probably create a newbie alt over there, play for a little bit and spend no money before moving back to Kellonius.
    This.  Although in fairness I am just not a player who'd be easily swayed to jump to a new game until it's proven it's got real legs, and has developed into a community I'd want to be a part of, or at least could tolerate.  But for most of the people who really have that kind of money to spend in the first place, we do reach a cap where you're just not going to squeeze THAT much more out of us (again).  Not multiple purchases in the $1000-$1500 range.  We'll continue to make purchases, and we might be the kind of people who have at least one fairly artied char on every existing game (and at least one absolute whale), but the people who can afford to do that just reach a sort of common sense cap where we go "yeah, we've had some good times, IRE, and we might have some more, but I think we're good".  In short, I hope IRE truly does plan on tapping into a new player base rather than tapping heavily into existing ones (which would also be absolutely brutal on those player bases if successful in any case, save possibly this one, which is probably best positioned to weather such a storm).

    tldr if they are trying to encourage actual, new players to be the ground breakers in Starmourn (by not allowing use of retirement credits at first), that's actually a good thing.  And then by all means, I hope they eventually allow people to retire over there if that's what they really want to do.
  • KelloniusKellonius Cape Girardeau, Missouri
    @Kiskan I have characters on Aetolia, Lusternia and Imperian with probably 2k or more credits a piece that I've sort of forgotten about because Kelllonius was always the bigger draw for me. I always go back to my whale. The problem is that Achaea is sort of stagnate for me. I've played since 2001. A lot of the reason its stagnate is my own fault, letting myself get caught up in OOC clans and so on. Part of the reason I still play is because of the cash investment. I really like the concept of Starmourn and I think that if I could retire and move there I would stick with it 100% because there would be no whale to go back to.
    image
  • NazihkNazihk
    If you allow people to retire there immediately you run the risk of gutting the population of your other profitable games and then having them not stick with Starmourn. You also run the risk of making the game less friendly to new players who can't cash in 10k+ in retirement credits for a $0 instawhale in Starmourn. And then you also run the risk of having your brand new awesome MUD underperform financially because your entire playerbase just cashed in their other characters to roll there. 

    I honestly don't see much incentive to allow retirements to Starmourn for at least the first year that it's open.
  • KiskanKiskan
    edited November 2016
    They could allow Achaeans to do it immediately, but probably only Achaeans.  Achaea has the highest population in general, and also the highest population that is going to feel like Kellonius - "thanks and all, but I've been here since 2001 and I'm ready for something different.  If you work with me, you might get me to buy some more credits, but you're not going to get me to kit out a whole new whale from the ground up".  Achaea has bored players who they're basically losing anyway, and is also big/strong enough to be able to afford to cut some people lose.  But like I said, there is huge risk to cannibalize the other games.  That's somewhat true even if they wait, really - and one bad thing there (at least for the players), is that unlike MKO, those games won't ever be shut down, no matter how bad things get.  

    But waiting for awhile at least gives genuinely new players in Starmourn a chance to establish a game without so many IRE vets around.  There are going to be a lot of those anyway, but at least they can't bring a mountain of retirement credits off the bat, and so that new player base won't have to immediately deal with people who are just absolute whales.  Because true whales do generally take at least a bit of time to create.  And retirement is only roughly half of certain purchases, but that is still going to make a heck of a whale in many cases, especially in a newborn game.
  • KelloniusKellonius Cape Girardeau, Missouri
    @Nazihk @Kiskan

    I see your point, but I can say that I know I'm not the only person that feels this way. Try and look at it this way: if someone is willing to cash in their whale to go all in on Starmourn, it is probably not a far stretch to believe that those same people are going to purchase credit packages on Starmourn as well. There are other counterpoints to your argument as well:

    Nazihk said:
    If you allow people to retire there immediately you run the risk of gutting the population of your other profitable games
    Counterpoint: You run the risk of gutting the population of your other profitable games when releasing a new game, irrespective of their ability to retire their characters and redeem some value. If I leave Achaea for Starmourn for good, then I am gone regardless of my ability to move credits. Further, if I cannot retire my character, then you also run the risk of me leaving a new character on Starmourn to go back to playing my investment, as is what happened with Aetolia, Lusternia and Imperian.

    Nazihk said:
    I honestly don't see much incentive to allow retirements to Starmourn for at least the first year that it's open.
    Counterpoint: Those of that have waited for so long to do something like would end up just waiting out the year and then retiring our whales and bringing the credits over. Do you really think people are going to dump money in Starmourn when they know that they will eventually be able to bring over their other characters? No, because due to the restrictions on retirement, they would have to create and entirely new character anyway and lose the smaller investment they made for that first year.
    Nazihk said:
    You also run the risk of making the game less friendly to new players who can't cash in 10k+ in retirement credits for a $0 instawhale in Starmourn. 
    Please explain how. Just because someone has a lot of artefacts, that does not make them an immediate game breaking problem that ruins the fun for everyone. There are plenty of asshats in Achaea that ruin the game for others and they have spent very little! The culture of the game and how friendly it is to new players starts with what is set forth and enforced by the administration, not dependent on how much money someone has.

    Basically, the real risk here is that IRE will take a chance on alienating part of the population that wants to migrate to the new game, and if those players are people that are getting bored with the same ole Achaea, they might lose that player entirely to a different MMO that doesn't have in game purchases - or at least not as costly as the IRE model.

    If money really is the driving factor here, IRE can always charge 25-30 bucks to allow the whales to migrate their character during the opening year of Starmourn and then they can have their cake and eat it too.
    image
  • KiskanKiskan
    edited November 2016
    Honestly, something they could do is look at the age of the player's oldest registered char, along with play time.  Which would likely make a Kellonius type a prime candidate.     

    That said, bringing gigantic whales into a baby game, especially immediately, is still probably pretty rough on the true newbs if IRE is making a good faith effort to attract actual new players, and not to just cannibalize.  It's true whales aren't always game breaking - but that's usually because some whip smart IRE vet with over a decade of experience knows EXACTLY how to neutralize a whale who doesn't know how to take full advantage of those arties.  If Jhui or Mizik types (guys who have arties AND can use them to full advantage) retire and show up on or near opening day, those newbs are going to rage quit so fast, and you really can't blame them.  
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