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An Editorial
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ctown28
ctown28
Huntsman

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.

Replies

Lady Jas
Lady Jas
The Chosen One

Jul-12-2008 09:18

BRILLIANT Hawk ;)

detectivehappy
detectivehappy
Old Shoe

Jul-12-2008 11:23

Good ideas Hawkeye! Sounds like a lot of fun. Also, it would be nice if they can make it easier for retired detectives to re-subscribe. (not loosing as much experience, etc.)

Ms Helen
Ms Helen
Con Artist

Jul-12-2008 12:31

Ohhh hawk I like the idea of agencies having their own emblem/logo that would give them all a little bit of individuality.

Jesse Hunter
Jesse Hunter
Bibliophile

Jul-12-2008 13:05

A trading area! That's so much easier than the parcel post idea that I never really worked out (you'd get a PM and then go somewhere, maybe the docks, where there'd be a mail box - like a pine box for your apartment but temporary - there would be fees somehow involved).

How about a small easter egg type bonus for sleuths that obtain a certain combination of contacts. Four barbers would net you a book related to barbershop quartets, for example. Having the banker and the fortune teller in NYC would let you consult the fates for free. Little things that take a lot of work, but encourage exploration and change.

Of course that's just a shameless attempt to create an environment where changing contacts is allowed (my personal pet project).

Heimlich VonVictor
Heimlich VonVictor
Vigilante

Jul-12-2008 16:40

How about trading contacts? Let's say that I have the waiter in New York but need the bartender in New York. If I find someone who needs the opposite, we could trade them.

ctown28
ctown28
Huntsman

Jul-12-2008 18:53

I've actually been thinking about the contact thing for a while. I think if we want new contacts it shouldn't be easy to do, just like getting specific contacts wasn't easy. Here's what I propose:

The only way to lose a contact is for that contact to be the co-conspirator on a Villian Hunt. Say you have The Barber in London and good ole Edmund ends up being the co-conspiritor,, well you can no longer trust him so he is no longer a contact of yours and you have to restablish a contact. It can also be done where if you don't want to lose the cntact the game asks you whether or not you want to continue trusting him. Say yes, he's still your contact, say no and he's gone.

I would prefer not having the option and if you lose the contact then you have to regain him if thats the one you want. It adds a little more risk to doing VH's, but also adds that possibility if you want a new contact. Of course you never know who the consipirator will be, but like I said, I think it should be difficult to lose a contact and not something we can just decide on.

crunchpatty
crunchpatty
Old Shoe

Jul-13-2008 00:17

hannah blue? that's funny...I thought you sounded a lot like this guy who used to call himself Nephi. But that's totally not you, like not at all. I think I remember he said something profound, just like "risk is the essence of gaming" before he left, but -and I'm sorry for being a stickler for details here, please just bear with me- I believe his exact words at the time were "Old spice is the essence of a man". Then he just whistled a sea-farin' tune, ate a codcake and disappeared into the bowels of a super-secret government test for a miracle pill that cures social anxiety, superiority complexes and swollen acne in one fell swoop.

More on the phenomena known as Nephitism on my bio. Serges' too. But all that is a bit of an aside. What I really wanted to say was something along the lines of, "Yeah...I know. There's been more focus on the new game of late. True." I can understand being frustrated at the lack of new developments (or, the inadequacy of the ones that HAVE appeared) on Noir. About a year ago, my own agency was sitting pretty close to the top when we all discovered we were getting a little tired of grinding out cases, one after another. The ensuing feeling of frustration sucked, plain and simple. The thing was , we all sort of realized that what we hated about it was the fact that the game we had all signed on for wasn't as fun as it used to be, because the thing about games is that they have rules, and once you figure these out, the challenge is gone. We didn't demand that the community change the rules to make things more exciting, and we didn't feel that admin owed us upgrades to the service we understood we were paying for when we bought our subscriptions. We understood that we were participating in a fledgling effort to make a business out of one in a million random internet games and we just shut up and felt happy on those rare occasions that we would log on an find the server blessedly UNclogged by armies of tweenagers with Nancy Drew names.

crunchpatty
crunchpatty
Old Shoe

Jul-13-2008 00:32

The thing is, at ANY level you have to accept that continuing to play a game means making a choice accepting grinding in that game to remain competitive or just playing for fun. No-one can change that, and no amount of shipwrecked tanker ships and grandiose Celine Dion songs can change that. Please have a sense of history, and recall that this game survived for years with NO major changes (new cities, new contact rules, loads of new equipment, new caseloads and the twin advents of VH-ing and apartments).

I'm just sayin': expect only and exactly what you pay for and treat bonuses as a rare privilege rather than an expectation.


Hope you're all well :)



nicnic
nicnic
Battered Shoe

Jul-13-2008 01:55

Crunch darling I think I may have to disagree with you a bit, not based on fact, but based purely on my egotistical sense of understanding human nature.

Do you think that SMRT went down because you got bored with the game, or because you got burnt out? I remember that era with much sentiment. We (al-Q) were originally trying to beat Hitchhikers for the top spot in London. Tin made a bet with Serges that we would do it in 6 months. And we had a little countdown ticker on our boards to see much we had gained on HH and how much time we had left. And then you guys came out of nowhere and were perpetually treasure hunting and SMOKING us and we couldn't keep up with you. You guys were working non-stop and winning almost every hunt you were in. And in our efforts to keep up with you, it felt like a job away from our RL jobs. Actually for me it was more work than my RL job to have to come home every night and stress over treasure hunting.

Then all of a sudden, last summer, a year ago, everyone from SMRT kinda left. And everyone, at the same time, from al-Q kinda left. Around the same time as SleuthCon where SOM was announced. Obviously I can't speak for SMRT but I know what happened to us. We were all so tired and the idea of having a new game to start from scratch seemed really appealing where we weren't trying to play catch up. And our plans for Sleuth-World domination could go on hold for a few months because we were going to do it in the new game. And of course the newness of it was intriguing as well. So instead of just saying you know what... We're OK with not being the top agency in London, we said, we'll start up in the new game and be the top agency there. Let's just take a break for now.

Unfortunately, no one from al-Q ever came back. Being away from the game for over 6 months, I guess everyone found something new to do with their time. But I wonder, if that announcement of the new game had never taken place. Would al-Q and SMRT still be dead?

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