TMC Player Reviews: DragonBall: Infinity

(The following review comment is the opinion of the comment's author [Rendo] and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff).

Before I begin, I'd like to say Andalar's review is for the most
part fair and what he has said about me is true in a specific light,
with the only thing that's 100% false is that I don't care about the
playerbase.

The way I run and the direction I take DBI in is the direction I
want. Many people like this, while others will dislike it. That's
simply how things work, as there will always be someone who doesn't
like what you're doing or how you're doing it. To say I don't care
about the playerbase is absurd, especially when they're providing
free entertainment at their own personal expense.

The biggest issue that occurs between myself and specific players is
they don't like X thing, and want me to change it. They never give
compelling arguments as to why it should be changed, but they do it,
usually for their own safety. DBI has evolved over the years and I've
taken it into a more player vs player based game, over one involving
solo grinding. You can still become powerful going solo, but
interactions with players, for skills, powerlevel, other items are
primarily where you will get most of your strength. The issue most
people have with this is a lot of the player killing that goes on.

This is a MUD based on DragonBall. DragonBall had villains. DBI has
villains. People don't like dying. People thinking dying over and
over shortly after the allocated 'safe timer' is harassment.
According to the rules the DBI staff has come up with, as well as the
coding restrictions, this is not harassment. There are 3 player
killing flags. Red/HC which means anyone can attack you, Yellow, which
means anyone within 5x your base can attack you, and White which means
anyone within 1.5x your base powerlevel can attack you. In the case
that you're out of any of those ranges, a bounty can be placed on a
target and as long as they have a PK flag on, and everyone gets a PK
White flag at 100k base, though the bounties can only be attempted on
when they are 10 billion base, the player is treated like they have a
PK Red flag. Now you may be thinking, hey this seems unfair. You can
buy the bounty at 2x the cost, with an overall increase of 5%
everytime you buy the bounty, and then you get a 2 hour bounty free
timer, or you can accept your death and get a 6 hour bounty free
timer. The average powerlevel less for a player is roughly 2-5.5% on a
death and gaining back that little powerlevel in the 2-6 hour time
frame shouldn't take even an average player that much time. With all
these checks in place, pissing someone off and having them come after
you for whatever reason, like they need one though, this is DragonBall
afterall, is not harassment.

Now, let's say you don't like PK. I added, and recently updated a
NOPK option at creation for players. It allows players to play the
game free of player killing threats, but some of the costs involve not
being able to participate in some of the global events like the
dragonballs(The dragonballs are a pk event), and they also get reduced
gains as they get stronger as this was NOT how DBI was intended to
play. I also recently changed bountying to allow non hardcore players,
as hardcores were at the time the only ones allowed to hunt, the
ability to hunt hardcores.

Before DBI and even the base DBS was a horrible PK Mud. Bounties were
essentially useless, as safe rooms existed everywhere and players
needed a PK Flag on to be able to successfully hunt them. I removed
safe rooms completely and made a mandatory 1.5x range flag to
encourage people to fight more often and more fairly instead of the
typical 1 hit/round slaughters, as well as to allow some of the PK
races the ability to gain their skills/forms earlier on, otherwise
they were just paying people to let them kill them which really isn't
how the game should be played. If someone finds a way to hide, I fix
it, almost immediately. If someone finds a way to gain in peace, the
area will be adjusted. If someone comes up with a GOOD reason with
GOOD arguments as to why something needs to be changed, I change it.
The majority of people say oh no, player X here just called me 5 times
in the last 2-3 hours, that's harassment. No, no it isn't. It's
part of the game, and if you don't like the PK aspect, take the NOPK
road.

As for Admins being held back....
No one on staff has ever been held back. All positions are earned. No
one gets a free pass at anything, even if they've been around since
the beginning. Whatever capacity an Admin is currently in, should
really be all they need to 'shine'. What exactly do you expect me to
do though? Give everyone shell access? If a person steps up, let's
use Luke as an example, they earn their position. Luke started as an
RP Admin, then went to builder, then went to Head Builder, then
finally reached Head Admin. This didn't happen overnight, this took
years of hard work. Luke is one of the hardest working staff members
we have and through all that work he was 'allowed to shine'. Other
Admins are welcome to put forth the same effort Luke has and they too
will be rewarded with promotions.

As I stated at the beginning, his review is mostly fair, with the
biggest fault being that I don't care about the playerbase. I do not
compromise to people who can't make a compelling reason for something
to be changed. I run DBI the way I want, and many times I can be
extremely blunt. However if a player cares so much about a specific
aspect of the game and can lay out how it's broken and why it needs
to be changed, I greatly consider their suggestions, otherwise I
usually ignore them because they are whiners and complainers. :D