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Jun-28-2008 08:39

There have been some recent events on this game that warrant some concern. It’s no secret that there has been a lack of interest. Much of this may be attributed to the release of Shades of Mystery. If that is what people want to play, far be it from me to tell them not to play it.

That being said. I am still a paying customer of Sleuth Noir. As a paying customer there are some things that I expect. Ben has done a decent job at keeping the server up and running. We had a slight issue earlier in the week with not being able to travel and Ben did a great job of addressing the issue and getting it corrected. He always has done a great job of taking care of things. He has not however kept the game fresh and interesting. We recently had the expansion of the USS Sleuthetania. There was a buzz before the initial launch of it and we couldn’t wait to see what was in store for us.

Well what did we get? The opportunity to pay $20,000 to get on board of a ship and do nothing more than play cases. Sure there are some new characters and new items along with 2 new “coming soon” links. That’s it! I can’t help but to feel disappointed in the way this has played out. Two weeks later, the links are still coming soon and the interest of the boat has already gone away. I know I have no plans or reason to get on the boat and be cut off from my agency completely. I don’t know this for a fact, but I think a lot of people are disappointed with the boat as well and some may even be irritated and feel cheated by the whole development.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh and we are missing some secret that still needs to be unlocked on the boat, but if people aren’t playing, the secret will not be unlocked. I know that Ben is just one person and can only do so much. He has a lot on his plate right now with running both SOM and Noir. I’m sorry, but SOM means absolutely nothing to me as I don’t play over there.

Jul-6-2008 04:23

I have been thinking of yet another kind of TH'ing ;-)
This one is designed for the smaller agencies, and goes like an ordinary TH, with this distinction.
There are only 6 sleuths from an agency that are allowed to participate, and no-one of them are allowed to do more than 8 favors a day in the hunt, meaning that if one of the sleuths in the TH taps into doing a 9.th favor, and it happens to be the "right" one, it won't count. And, if the correct favor is started one day, but finishes the next day, the starting day will make it not count.
If an agency with 6 or fewer members joins the hunt, everyone of the current members in the agency is considered members in the TH-team from that agency. If an agency with more than 6 members joins the hunt, the current members of the agency is scanned, and first those on AVH is excluded to see if that will reduce the size to 6 people, and then those unsubscribed will be taken away, and lastly, those who have the longest time since last time they were logged on.
In the "scoring" page of this hunt there must be possible to see which sleuths in an agency are member of the hunt, and I suggest even how many favors each of them have solved that day... ;-)
If an agency have fewer than 6 members, and gets new members joining the agency, those will be added to the TH-team, up to 6 members. This won't work for agencies with more than 6 members though. Even if 6 is on AVH and 2 is inactive and unsubscribed.

Jul-6-2008 12:43

I really like the idea of updating/expanding the SM feature. I started writing a mystery but soon go bored with it because the engine simply couldn't handle the mechanics I was looking for. The ability to remove a question via trigger and the use of and/or/not boolean triggers would add a huge amount of flexibility.

Even better, adding the open ended "ask about" box to SM would be great

On that topic, having more to ask about would also be nice, even if the answers didn't unlock anything significant. Just a sort of easter egg for those who want to spend the time. There's a huge amount of info in in the faction archives and townie descriptions that could be expanded upon.

And of course I'd like to see the pay-a-fee-to-dump-a-contact option that ben once signed off on.

Jul-6-2008 21:46

I love that this thread is still bringing so much interest! It's very encouraging.

Jul-8-2008 01:50

A lot to read, but I'm trying to keep up when I get to a computer.

Jul-8-2008 12:15

Just because I am curious: Have anyone heard anything more from Ben on the topic(s) this post is raising?

Jul-8-2008 12:25

Haven't heard anything yet!

Jul-9-2008 18:04

Wow I haven't been on Noir in ages and I come back find this great post with some fantastic ideas. I guess most of you don't even know who I am anymore and I sure see a lot of new faces. Anyway I don't know if anyone else will do the same as me but I'm converting back to Noir which is my true home :) Shades was fun for a while but I can honestly say I miss Noir a lot. I'm happy to go back to helping ani and squirrel editing and Ben knows he can pile anything else he wants to on my work load :) Hopefully in a short term we could get some SM's edited to be played.

Great thread ctown hope it works :)

Jul-9-2008 20:33

Welcome back, Ms Helen :D :D

Jul-10-2008 00:06

Interesting discussion. I'm willing to help any way I can... which wouldn't be too awful much, since I'm not a computer programmer. I could always look for more pictures for something...right? ; )

Jul-10-2008 00:54

Please understand that the most of the job needed in a development team are not the programming, but very much everything else.
We will need people to find out how to do tricky things, how to solve security, getting all the good ideas that will make Noir even more fun, create all the good stories that gives people a good time, marketing issues, to make us grow and become popular, new items and trophy's, good quests of many kind, prioritizing, validating and growing the ideas, help to sort out personal conflicts that may arise, encouraging people to involve....
And those of us who will be programming need help with testing, so that we might learn if things work out all right or not.
As I am a programmer, and think that part will be ok, I am really starting to learn python now, and have learned enought spyce to know the principle as well (only need help to get something up and running locally).

What I worry about though are:
- will we get the needed authorisation and permissions from Ben to implement the great development team idea of Breitkat?
- will we be able to find ideas that we agree on that will make Noir even more fun and attractive?
- will there be anyone who are able to write all the good stories that will add for the richness of Noir? (Hey, what fun would the mysteries, AVH's, factions and so on have if it were not for all the good stories?)


- perhaps there will be a need for more books to collect? Where are they going to come from, and how are they going to be revealed/found?
- perhaps the apartments need more things to stuff into them?
..... the list is long.... so don't worry if you are not a computer programmer. The need is rich and high on people who have other skills as well.