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Comments
This all being said, can confirm Rino never used WALK TO (or anything else) to escape any theft situation ever, but sometimes used GUT, followed by EMBRACE DEATH.
Please turn this back on. Look at your audience, look at the negativity surrounding it. Thank fuck I can still hunt Quisalis Den without having to walk around aimlessly (because Grukai map is dumb).
Avianca
Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
1. QoL - No question that this enhanced the game for many. Yes, I remember where the Buffalo roam. But for me to wander around the Sangre plains for an hour (which I just did) looking for Buffalo because I don't know whether they are dead or alive might be immersive and like real life, but none of us log on to Achaea to be as frustrated as we are by real life.
2. I wasn't around for the event. It really sucks that staff (paid and volunteer) worked their tushes off to make a really neat event and felt that the ability to WALK TO for one portion ruined their enjoyment. Doesn't sound like it ruined the player enjoyment though?
I have been volunteer slave labor staff at other very large entertainment companies. My duties were to make the experience good for our players/members.
I don't want to the volunteers to have thankless duties, it sucked for me, and it would suck for them, but I'm betting that they mostly all volunteered to MAGA (I couldn't resist) and not just for their own fun.
Further, how did folks with so much experience not know that WALK TO would work for this integral (sounds like maybe it wasn't however) part of this event.
3. I just always feel that there should be a "3" when there is a "1" and a "2."
Hope everybody is staying safe and healthy!
Simply Prythe
Channeling Deborah
- To love another person is to see the face of G/d
- Let me get my hat and my knife
- It's your apple, take a bite
- Don't dream it ... be it
Does GUT have a better to-hit than REND? Asking for a friend.
For every one person who has posted in this thread that they hate this change, you could probably find someone who appreciates it.
The entire playerbase does not hate this change. The entire playerbase is not ranting in this thread.
Some of us think this a great change that enhances immersion, creates natural barriers that make sense both mechanically and ICly, and frankly isn’t that big of a deal.
This is a little snarky, I will wholly admit, but it’s really highlighting a double standard here: automation is okay unless it kills me.
The problem with this kind of discourse is the same problem that we have with a lot of conversations about serious topics in the real world, and that's that we like to pretend that positions are of equal value. They're not.
If you are new to Achaea, playing on Nexus, or don't particularly want to spend time to transition to mudlet, or only play casually, or just don't like to code, should your life personally be made more difficult because someone else doesn't think that being able to check that an NPC is alive with WALK TO is 'immersive' (even though, as I've said before, you can know someone's name, age, accomplishments, titles, weapon name, experience, explorer, PK, PKdeaths, etc. ranks, their citizenship, House membership, etc. etc. at a glance, which makes that particular brand of 'immersion breaking' asinine, frankly)?
No, that doesn't seem fair.
It's funny that people weren't regularly complaining about this while WALK TO was working, for years and years. I check IDEAS pretty often, never saw one for deleting WALK TO. I don't think I ever saw a forums thread about it, though I might've missed it.
No, it's not the whole playerbase. There are also a lot of people who don't like this change who haven't posted here. And just because you're personally fine with it, it doesn't mean it's a good change. Just like my not liking it means it's a bad change. If in doubt, why not err on the side of additional convenience? If you don't want to use WALK TO, don't use WALK TO? It's hard to see how Joe or Bob using WALK TO ruins your game experience. Unless you mean you don't like having competition for things, and making it more obtuse will reduce competition for NPCs of certain stripes, which... I dunno, man. That's a weak argument.
Edit: Grammar thingies.
I will also agree that I have not been affected incredibly by this, given that I know all the manual directions to everything (even wandering denizens, yes). However, I have several issues with how this is handled, and the 4-5 people who have commented here represent a subset of people who (frankly) seem to be thinking walkto is some great lorebreaking thing.
The truth is, walkto does not solve puzzles. Most puzzles in Achaea are not incredibly difficult, so stop pretending that you're some sort of champion for winning "Guess the Syntax," and that other people are mentally deficient for wanting some quality of life upgrades.
I think some of this banter is rich since we haven't even heard the administration's side. We were told two days ago (ish) that we'd get a report on this 15 minute meeting they had, and still, we have a few people white knighting what I feel is a mistake made by the administration. (Yes I called it a mistake).
I don't think I've been too snarky, and I will agree that there are likely reasons for both sides to want alterations. However, what I would appreciate is more of the presentation of evidence, and less of whatever passive-aggressive cryptic flaming insult passing jabs you're doing here.
You aren't actual adventurers, you're players in a game. I'm not saying this change will "BREAK IRE", but what we (hopefully) all want is for the playerbase to enjoy playing the game and for the admin to want to be involved. I feel more (adult) communication would be intuitive for that.
For this purpose, I think I'll just do a poll so we can simply see (NUMBERS-WISE so you all shut up), where everyone stands.
https://forums.achaea.com/discussion/7482/walkto-thread
Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
Disappearing from Achaea for now. See you, space cowboy.
smileyface#8048 if you wanna chat.
Simple then, if you enjoy the tedious then simply don't use WALKTO...not sure what is so hard about that...here this should help...
Alias pattern: ^WALKTO (.+)$
Script: echo('\nYou have no idea where that is...")
Enjoy!
Edit: This solution is duel purpose too for those of you with "immersion issues"...free of charge!
The argument that you 'can't find out someone's location IRL' when we play a game where people locate each other via magic all the time is... I don't even know what, frankly.
If you want to put the limitations of FARSEE on WALK TO, that's completely fine by me.
In itself, WALK TO is no more immersion breaking than a whole slew of other things Acheans are able to (and regularly) do, day in and day out.
Contrary to popular opinion, apparently, you can choose to suspend your disbelief for one thing and not another based on a list of personal criteria. That's what I do, and what I've tried to explain in my reply to Reyson. But just for fun, see my direct justifications.
I could wax at some length (as I do enjoy doing) about how walkto has been a major headache for us over the years, and how the latest instance was just the straw that finally got us to talking about it. I don't think an itemised list of the various situations where walkto has been an issue for the game is really conducive to what we are trying to convey here though, so I will talk about something completely different. Bear with me.
When we make a change such as this, one of the foremost considerations always has to be longevity. The goal is always to ensure Achaea is still here however many years down the line: be that five, ten, twenty, pick your timeframe. We strongly believe (and have good reason to) that world integrity and player investment is critical to this.
Integrity: I'll confine this to IRE games, but I'm sure many of you will have experienced similar in other games (particularly muds). When the world becomes too sterile (for want of a better word), the game as a whole suffers. We have all likely been through eras in our online rp game of choice where the world just does not feel alive (Achaea's certainly had a couple of periods like that), and people are just going through the motions. It is our belief this is one of the worst danger signs for a game such as ours, and walkto denizen was way into the realm of hands off keyboard. I could write a whole post on this alone, so I'll leave that there.
Investment: When I say investment in this context I do not mean monitary (though of course that helps!), but rather that players are invested in the world itself. This is something close to my heart personally as I believe it is the true danger of combat automation as well: investment (I hesitate to call it ego, because its not really the same) is something that gives a person a tangible and measurable feeling of value in the world.
Agency: differing levels of agency in the world are good. It gives the individual personal value in the context of the world as a product of their particular skillset, which feeds back into the living world aspect as well as making them invested (because hey, they are really good at this particular thing). The key here is that: (1) everyone has the same tools, and (2) as far as is possible, everyone starts out at the same place (obviously some people are better predisposed to certain things, and we can't really influence that).
So, how do these apply?
Integrity: this is first on my list but should have been last, because its the next two that directly influence this in this case.
Investment/agency: I think most people (certainly people engaged in the combat side of the game) would agree that getting good at pk is a worthwhile experience for those who enjoy that side of things. Players historically do not like when the skill aspects of this are trivialised: it devalues not only existing skills (personal, not mechanical) that have been developed and also just makes becoming genuinely good at it feel less good. I could talk about examples here (serverside curing is one that many of you may be familiar with), but there are two core take aways here: (1) this applies to all areas of the game. Someone being excellent at finding x y or z is a thing we don't wish to trivialise. (2): compromise is at the heart of this. More on compromise below.
Compromise: there is a critical balance to be struck between all of the above considerations and the fact that Achaea is a complex game with many barriers to entry. We appreciate this one likely stings more than a lot of changes like these because its something being taken away; but its also worth noting that one of the original significant motivations for walkto denizen was because we did not have the facilities to enable walkto areas (announce 4175 and announce 4524 for anyone interested in the timeline there). We feel that walkto area is not only a far saner concept, but a pretty good compromise that doesn't particularly devalue any aspects of the game (world based or personal based). Static landmarks are a much better middle ground we feel, and retain a high degree of value in geographical skills without making it cripplingly difficult to navigate the vast world as a newer player.
All of this said, of course this might not be perfect. There are always ways to improve on things like this, and if something comes to light that is particularly compelling or something we have just missed (it has been known to happen), we'll make adjustments.
Addendum 1: we should not have posted this in the changelog and it should have been an announce post with an explanation of reasoning. The changelog is a really useful feature for us to quickly show you what's changed, but we'll be more mindful going forward of using it for stuff like this where the subject is deserving of a lengthier explanation.
Addendum 2: I like combat so I use it for all my examples. Substitute your favourite system of choice be it mining, ships, whatever. I'm told some people like ships...
I suppose my only question is, are you guys considering implementation on walkto area? Before, if I recall correctly, there were 100 rooms that had to be between yourself and a denizen before you got the "you are too far from x". At the risk of sounding dumb, couldn't you restrict it to 25 rooms and then hide the line that says "you are too far from x"?
Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
Either that or I would like a refund on my gathering now that it's much harder to get reagents. :v
If WALK TO <area> is IC'ly sane and accepted, could SURVEY be edited to be of more use? Like, for wandering denizens, you could SURVEY and under the usual information, it could say "You see <denizen> passing through the trees." "You see <denizen>'s silhouette against the desert sands." "You see <denizen> walking through the grasses ahead."
I've no experience with regent denizens, whatever they are, but, couldn't it be similar to above? And for special NPC's for hunting/quests/whatever? And for ferrymen, it could say something like "You hear the ferryman's voice carry over the breeze." Or something like that. Just so you at least know you're in the right area, without having to waste time search every room just to be wrong.
And it gives a nice mental picture of an adventurer shading their eyes with their hand and looking across the horizon. Or pausing to listen for a certain denizen's voice over the wind or echo through the fortress halls.
Anyway, just my two coins.
As others have pointed, this will just lead to someone making a database of denizens for people to walk to client side. If you really actually wanted people to all have the same tools, you'd leave walk to as it is instead of making it so that only people who can code/implement a dB script can have it.
It's all such poor reasoning. Migh as well go and take the serverside curing system using the same logic you are using for the nerfing of the walk to system. Would make just about as much sense too, be just about as much of a good idea.
In a way it's exactly the same problem as with crafting approvals. The approver has their very own idea of what a word means and make decisions based on that idea even if it flies in the face of every dictionary out there.
You are not evening the player field, you are not somehow making interactions with the world more meaningful. You are just making it more of a pain. One of the nice things about Achaea has always been that people can choose how invested they can be in the different aspects of it. Some people want to know every bit of the world and some people just want to get by or focus on social interaction or whatever and that is fine.
Removing a convenience I'm a bid to force people experience the world in the same way is just as misguided as if you wanted to make everyone as adept in combat or as good with lore.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.