Dear fellow Prisoners of the Mist,
As you know, the server is made through voluntary effort alone, and as such, our priorities will always ultimately be determined by where we find our passions and inspiration. Nonetheless, we still also want to provide content that gives you the best conditions for roleplay and overall experience - for that constitutes a major part of our passion for this project too.
Since it's been nearly five years since we last conducted a similar poll and to be sure to be in sync with this, we've made this very generic poll to give us a clue on where the demand is greatest now. It is not something we will consider ourselves obliged to follow, but we do want to know your thoughts on this, if nothing else then to inspire our future development, and to prevent we dedicate ourselves on things due to misunderstood needs.
If you feel any options are missing, feel free to post below and we'll consider whether to include them.
Thanks!
I voted for more dungeons, work on reducing lag and increasing stability, and adding more MPC variations.
1. More dungeons is popular, so I don't think I need to expand on that very much, although I would like dungeons that are more puzzle oriented with lots of lore and setting-specific atmosphere. That might not be as popular, as many players prefer dungeons with high reward-to-risk ratios. I will speak more to this in my summary comment.
2. The server doesn't seem particularly laggy or unstable to me, but I include in that choice fixing all the little glitches we ignore and play through but that break immersion and cause players cumulative frustration. For example, the crankiness of woodworking tables in that not only must the right components be assembled but they must be put in the table in a particular way or they don't work. Spells that don't fire consistently, such as Divine Power, which sometimes requires targeting and sometimes doesn't, even though it's only castable on oneself. Doors that can be opened but then the transition doesn't work. Basically, the things that pop up in Minor Issues. Along these lines, I wish single-issue fixes were rolled out more often than lumping everything into major hak upgrades that require re-levelling and often introduce new huge, significant bugs, causing the tiny things to be pushed back and forgotten about.
3. MPCs are a great tool for offloading some of the work of generating a variety of content and creating horror from the Devs and DMs to players. In this way, they also fit under the heading of "Adding more systems/features to facilitate individual player-driven roleplay"--which is currently the most popular choice.
In my opinion, along with individual Dev "passion and inspiration" and "player preference," the server needs to follow an overall creative vision. It can't be all things to all players, and that branding needs to continue to drive content (RP not MMOG). To be sure, different parts of the server can have slightly different flavors catering to individual tastes, but in doing so some kind of separation needs to be maintained so a homogeneous stew with a little of this and a little of that but ultimately pleasing no one doesn't result. Much of that mishmash we, the players, need to self-police, but I also hope development works with that identity in mind so that new systems facilitate rather than undermine it.
In short, system design should strive not to force PCs to act in OOC fashion so as to remain viable and enjoy the game.