4.90.1 Initial - Retribution

[Omi]

DRV, and to an extent Durandal and Karlotta are the only people talking any sort of sense in this thread.

New players do not give a shit about 100 slightly different empty wastelands with some coloured clouds and different skyboxes in them. There are other problems as well (see Karlotta's post) but as someone who has over ten years tried to get a huge number of friends, both IRL and online, into Discovery, I am literally telling you that the number one issue is that there is shit-all to actually DO. Veterans do not realise (or don't care about, although I can already hear them screeching their vehement denials) this because they have naturally pidgeonholed themselves into a clique-based roleplay system. This isn't really anything new - there are some roleplay communities that are even worse off than Disco for this sort of thing - but as a legitimate fresh face in this community, how hard do you honestly think it is to manage to even find someone in-game, let alone begin the process of integrating into a purportedly organic (it isn't) roleplay environment? It can take upwards of twenty fucking minutes to actually encounter someone in game, and that's assuming they sit still to let you catch up to them!

The player density on Discovery is a joke and the in-game population, while it might be rising, would need to be at least three times if not five times its current average to comfortably populate the number of systems that bloat and choke the game like tumours. Minutes upon minutes of wasted travel time flying through these endless empty systems to actually find something worth either talking to or shooting at. This is the point at which all the detractors of this line of thought will barrel in whinging about an alternate agenda, something akin to wanting the whole server shrunk to the size of Connecticut so me and the rest of the notorious PvPwhores can farm blues off innocent, angelic 'roleplayers' till the end of time, but in my personal opinion you are either blind or deluded if you think world size has anything to do with the attraction of games and communities like this one. This is not something like Arelith, with an active and motivated DM team who bring life to the tiny, hidden little corners of their expansive and atmospheric world, and give those places a reason to exist. This is not Colonial Marines, with a map size that actually fits its swelling playerbase and provides ample opportunity to enjoy the (admittedly shaky) level of roleplay that server offers. This is a swollen mess of a mod for an incredibly old game, laden with so much extra non-content (nontent?) that admittedly might have potential if the concept of a dynamic event here extended beyond "here are some NPC ships to shoot at."

This is one of the most active forum boards I've ever seen in comparison to its in-game activity. I want to know your reasons why you think so few of those people are jumping in-game on a regular basis, and why people would rather spend time sitting chatting about the game on the forums (or on Skype, God forbid, since we're stuck in the mid 00s here) they think they enjoy rather than actually going and playing it. From where I'm sitting, and from the new players I've talked to after trying to coax them in during the period where I was actually active, it's not hard to figure out. At least the system bloat is a problem that's relatively easily fixed - archaic, awkward, and frankly user-hostile game mechanics like the ones Karlotta mentions will take a hell of a lot more effort.

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