The Tarueka situation

[Jirato]

Last week, I posted an opinion poll regarding the who list, which I think was pretty well received. I'd like to get in the habit of doing these somewhat frequently. I can't promise it'll be weekly, or even monthly. But I want to make it a thing.

This week, what's on my mind is Tarueka. I'd like to know, honestly, what people think of the Tarueka situation. The idea is it has been over-hunted for ages, and the player characters finally drove the infested out. It's meant to be a "Yay! Players Win!" kind of thing. But at the same time, it's a loss of a major newbie-friendly hunting area.

There's a balance of realism versus game here. In game land, infested just spawn infinitely so that players always have something to fight. In realism land, there's really no way they'd just stay in Tarueka and get slaughtered over and over again. They're not completely mindless. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices on the side of game. Realism is nice, but if we go too far in the direction of realism, things can get too difficult to deal with.

I do have plans of introducing another newbie friendly hunting area, but it's about twice as far as the distance from Shadgard to Tarueka. So I'm not sure if anyone would really want to actually go there. Regardless of the outcome of this poll, we'll likely see new newbie-friendly hunting areas nearer to major towns in the future. It's just, these take a lot of time. It might not really be any time soon that we see anything.

[Tamsin]

I think it would be nice to have the mobs back, but maybe in just a "for now" context. Maybe remix the area a little with some new defenses that might slow players down a little. :)

[Lysse]

I think it'd be more interesting to see something else move into Tarueka, instead of the same old infested.

[Jirato]

Regardless of how this goes, there will likely be some changes.

If we bring things back, they probably won't be 100% the way they were. I've got a few ideas.

If we don't, I've also got some other ideas of what to do with the place.

[Teek]

Plenty of other baddies in the Lost Lands that can repopulate it, not just infested. I voted to repopulate it, but if there was an option to put something else in there, that would have been my choice.

[Jirato]

Infested just seem like the easiest punching bag of CLOK. I'm open to suggestions though. The problem with other things is they are either too poor or too strong for a newbie area.

Your average highwayman/bandit is going to have at least some skill, and be armed/armored. Probably the low-end of this would be in 50-100 range.

Animals and the majority of nethrim don't carry riln, and having a newbie-friendly hunting spot that generates riln is pretty important so a player who wants to fight can actually do so without having to spend hours foraging/logging/mining.

Most nethrim also have the added difficulty of death spawns. These are a newbie's worst nightmare.

[Teek]

I can't recall if zombies/ghouls carry coin on them. I found the Shadgard graveyard area to be a friendly enough area, except for the cold. Riln will be an issue, that's true. I think this could be solved with dome sort of gambling den! :)

[Lysse]

Infested just seem like the easiest punching bag of CLOK. I'm open to suggestions though. The problem with other things is they are either too poor or too strong for a newbie area.

Your average highwayman/bandit is going to have at least some skill, and be armed/armored. Probably the low-end of this would be in 50-100 range.

Animals and the majority of nethrim don't carry riln, and having a newbie-friendly hunting spot that generates riln is pretty important so a player who wants to fight can actually do so without having to spend hours foraging/logging/mining.

Most nethrim also have the added difficulty of death spawns. These are a newbie's worst nightmare.

It could, perhaps, end up as a kind of hostile rogue city of inequity, with drunken (see: weaker) bandits and ought wandering the outside of the city itself?

[Teek]

I've always felt that Infested being the go to for newbie killing was Meh. What if you like infested? WON'T ANYONE THINK OF THE POOR INFESTED? D:

[Kent]

It seems to me new players are hooped if they want to study perception and there are no raccons nor cats.

[jilliana]

I think it'd be nice to somehow replicate the infested that were there before, though change the names instead of making whole new ones with entirely new defenses. I really liked Tarueka because it didn't have bloated carriers. Those are another newbie nightmare.

[Kiyaani]

I'd suggest leaving the infested out of it. There's still the dale and the woodland trail for infestation. We took back that zone. I'd hate to see that success be for nothing.

Maybe have it be in the process of being reclaimed by the wilderness - all overgrown - and just have it be a hunting area in the general environs. I know bears were reintroduced way far out, but it was nice having that old trail with wolves and bears so close to town. Maybe have something similar to how that was but with different kinds of animals that aren't super dangerous for new players.

Since it's broken up into sections, maybe the town and farm could be repopulated by crazed wild men types that hate intruders and occasionally raid nearby areas so are seen as a threat. Or possibly cannibals since I know that was played with before... or some strange group sympathetic to the infested who try to kill anyone who enters sacred lost infested territory.

No matter how you go, I think having a nice mix of non-infested humans and animals is a good decision. There are so many places with infested already.

[Skjotur]

Make it into a Coalition mining and logging camp.

Hey, I'd use it as a hunting ground.

[Dakhal]

Whatever the case is, with the infested cats being removed from Taurueka, new players are going to struggle with gaining perception (those buggers really helped low-skill characters).. so it would be nice to see some form of equivalent added to replace it.

[Akila]

I quite like Lysse's idea of the drunk (weaker) rogues and ruffians possibly banned from cities for theft, violence and other crimes so have sought refuge in the "liberated" Tarueka.

I also like Kiyaani's idea of the wild men type. Aside the canim and Dunwyr, we don't really see much of that kind of mob out there to kill.

Infested have moved to Emleth. They don't need to go back to Tarueka.

[Dorn]

If it was to get occupied again, I'd much rather see different types of creatures instead of infested. I'm sure someone would see the location and availability of some remaining houses as an opportunity to move in.

EDIT: I kind of feel the same about places like Keth and such. Usable, in decent condition buildings? Near foot traffic and roads? I'd expect a lot of people who aren't interested in mingling in the cities, be they bandits, infested, or just the odd canim packs would find and make a lot of use of them eventually. I know there is *a* bandit in Keth, but yeah.

[Bryce]

There go my Bryceburgh plans.

[Kent]

Tarureka was a fun and useful place for lowbie-mid characters to go, and the fun was removed. With the removal of the fun came the removal of that portion of game incentive for new players to join in and stick around.

I don't like the idea of it being repopulated with any thing else other than what was there before for the fact that if the re-constructed Tarureka isn't fun, it isn't going to contribute to to the welfare of the game.

When I started playing CLOK three years ago, the trail, underground crypt area and burial grounds west of the Bowtruckle Preserve was a fun place to go. I could go there and fight some wolves, bears, and skeletons, and get some combat skills and make some money. Not as much money as my collegue working in his mine, but some money nevertheless, more than a paltry few riln per kill. Then a smart idea came along to eliminate the mobs that were there and replace them with mobs that had little to no funds and damaged your weapons fast with their netheric bodies. Now that trail and crypt area is just a place to stay away from.

If I could, I would put these trail/burial ground areas back the way they were a couple of years ago.

I fear that if the former inhabitants of Tarureka don't come back, then Tarureka will likely be just another place to stay away from.

[Lun]

I always thought that the Tarueka thing was temporary, an event of some sort. I missed whatever event signalled the finishing of Tarueka, so it was very abrupt for me to discover they just stopped spawning.

For the sake of an evolving world, I think it's cool that we won Tarueka. /it sucks that the number of training grounds has dropped, but I'm sure there would be plans for a new one. I wish there was more GM confirmation on this aspect--a post on the board from a town scout announcing that thanks to the efforts of the players, the town of Tarueka is infested free. Perhaps organizations taking interest in them, or something to really solidify these events in the timeline.

On that note, I think that ESP-wide announcements should be made for major events that would need lots of player involvement. I think that waiting for someone to stumble upon it and bringing everyone together is cool, but for the life of me, I can never figure out a good way to do so. I don't do well with that kind of pressure! hahaha.

For the sake of the gaming aspect of the world, I wish that there were more convenient options for the sake of new player retention--CLOK can be punishing, and a slightly easier learning curve might do some good in that.


I think that the way the world shifts due to in game events and political shtuff and just new content is really awesome, but sometimes I just wish there were more clarity. All the mystery and intrigue gets frustrating when you don't understand what's going on! Like how I misunderstood the whole Emleth and Tarueka things to be temporary in game events.

I really liked, for example, when it was announced that hamlets are going to be targets of events and shouldn't be considered permanent. I've always enjoyed having a level of transparency, it really shows how much you guys care! Even when I go on hiatus, as I tend to do, I always check on the forums for new developments.

[Vitello]

We need lowbie hunting grounds near each starting town. Reverting Tarueka, while sad is the quickest and least amount of work when staff are already overloaded.

[Bryce]

Not saying don't revert Tarueka, but the graveyard and Kildr Dale are both lowbie hunting grounds close to Shadgard that can serve in the meantime. Yes, the mobs don't drop loot.

[preiman]

Actually, some of the mobs in the graveyard do have quite a bit of riln.

[Vitello]

Just checked it out. All I found were skeletons that die and rise as phantoms, no riln. Just an old pine club.

*edit And you can't sell the clubs.

[Craig]

I also didn't realise this was a permanant "we win" situation, though now I realise I do like the idea that we actually altered the game world in some manner. I could see perhaps small infested animals still hovering about since they would be difficult to entirely clear out but I certainly am happy with no human infested coming back.

I like the idea of it becoming an area full of drunk and incompetent criminals but the trouble there is it'll only get hunted out again, I suppose the GMs need to decide whether they want areas to be more permanant or whether they're committing to an occasional rolling shift of newbie areas, maybe even areas in general. Regardless I think it maybe helpful to have someone in the starting towns who directs newbies to these kinds of areas especially if they change from time to time, something like "You're new around town, if you want to make yourself useful and you aren't scared of a fight you're welcome to go kill those annoying X over in Y."

[preiman]

The skeletons don't have any, but they aren't the only thing there.