Reported by: Gilean
Time       : Fri May  6 17:39:58 2005
Type       : idea
Location   : /domains/crystal_reaches/towns/glimmerdin/room/tavern
Status     : NEW
Bug        : To whom it may concern (primarily Duuk),
Ok, here it is, you want more players and want old players to come back and everyone to stay? Read this entire letter then. Don't delete it cuz you're stubborn and think you have the best realm in existance..you have few players, therefore you don't. 
Quit interferring in player activities and trying to convince them on what race or class they should play becuz you don't want everyone playing mages. Players play what they want to, give it up, you're just driving people away. 
Either remove the racial restrictions on who can interact with whom or get rid of all but maybe 2 races, 1 good and 1 evil. 
You don't want shields to be "vital" then remove this whole limb based combat system and bleeding to death OR increase the duration and strength of ALL shields. Make them train in combat too.
Get rid of losing stats when you die. Especially losing more then you gain and never being able to regain what you've lost. This DOES NOT promote continued play of a character, just pisses people off and drives them away. For an RP realm, you ideally want everyone to have a character they want to play developed over time, gain history in that character, and really enjoying playing that character. Well, destroying a character's stats just makes people start new characters and think of creative ways to get rid of their old ones (or just plain stop playing them.)
One of the BIGGEST PROBLEMS with Haven is everyone sits on their butts and trains. They have no excuse/reason to go do anything. Your quests are limited and few (saving cities from raids is hardly a quest), there's no party system so no one wants to get together and do things together, and the main reason everyone wants to play a mage or even a classless cleric is becuz they don't have to do anything to advance. Make a macro or a trigger and cast spells, convert sp to mp, cast, sleep, repeat. So the realm is full of mindless sloths sitting on their butts leveling. exciting. 
Cost of languages is too high right now, amount of languages is too much right now, you don't have enough players to warrant either at the moment.  Reduce both of these for the time being. 
Drop the cost of dp's. Dp's should either be restricted to classless characters only or changed to be free, less common, and if used to raise a skill, only 10%. The begining dp's that a character starts with works well tho. 
You need more spells added in, and not just for your favorite classes/gods, but for the other less popular religions/classes. More useful spells too. (Diving good/evil?  Why not have one that divines alignment?--having to train 2 spells that basically do the same is dumb.)(Holy glow? espeically for dwarveS? who can see in most places anyhow? useless. Grishna went into every crook and cranny i could find and never once cast a light spell to see.)
Use your immortals to help facilitate RPing. Let the gods get angry if someone's not worshipping properly. Put in religionous restrictions (like alignment.) Change the spells so that casting a spell of your religion promotes your alignment in the direction you're supposed to go. Put less emphasis on what you kill vs your alignment. Make destructive magery spells shift alignment towards evil, and benefical/constructive magery spells shift alignment towards good.
FOCUS ON FIXING things that are screwy, bugged, and/or otherwise FIRST. Stop putting in new areas for nonexistant players. Fix the other stuff first. Fix Fix Fix. DECIDE on what you're going to have for religion templates, spell templates, etc. and STOP changing it on a whim. STOP changing the rules every other week because you got a new idea or you're upset becuz people aren't playing the way that you have envisioned.<--[This is one of the BIGGEST complaints by most of the people that have played Haven.]

Yes, you own the mud; Yes, you pay the bills; Yes, you're the boss. But w/o players, you have nothing more then a place to code at and BS with I3 (might as well go find a free chat room and save the cash.)

And Laoise, I don't know what your story is. You have free thought and logic UNTIL you remember that Duuk owns the mud/is the boss and *poof* your brain dribbles out your ear. Whatever you think of me, good luck & you have a bright future if you listen to yourself.
