Minos

I was pleased to see that the items in shop are without luck and that the medals have been nerfed somewhat. Good call! But, I still think that medals reduce engaging gameplay. So far I found 3 chaos, 1 jewel of life, and 8 bless in Devias. But I haven't felt the need to use them. Again I am just waiting for the medals to drop something nice, while selling the rest for zen. Notice the problem with this? Because items aren't scarce, they're treated like garbage, deteriorating a liquid economy. Players should be incentivized to put items on the market. Why not disable the medals and hearts altogether (something less to configure and worry about) and reduce the item drop rate even more, stimulating a liquid economy. Also, the beginner maps are full of AFKers who do not party. Therefore, would it be possible to increase jewel drop rate as more people join your party? Perhaps turn auto party on by default as well. The advantage of doing this is twofold, because these AFKers would now serve as 'Helpers' for beginners as well. [Oh right, the helpers have been removed as well. Love it!] Lastly, I would advise ADMIN everyone to read The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking by Saifedean Ammous: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36448501-the-bitcoin-standard. Contrary to first impressions, it's not only about Bitcoin, but a history of money, what makes good money good and bad money bad, and its effects on the economy. I'm convinced it will change how you configure your server while reading this book. I even felt the urge to create my own server again while reading it, but decided to try my luck that Oldsquad keeps going in the right direction. Good luck!

No? Bad idea?

On the test server I realized it supports over a million stat points. I've never seen that before and it made me realize my longest standing Mu Online idea is feasible here. And I wonder what the max stats on items are. Is it 255, or can it go higher as well? This is important because with too much character stat points the items become negligible at some point, and this should never be the case. You can only have the amount of resets up until items lose their significance. Anyway, this once, I'll try to explain it as concise is possible because it's more of an idea than a concrete plan. A server where: You need X resets to get out of Lorencia; monster difficulty increases exponentially with monster level, not map. Exp is high, but item drop rate is the lowest possible. Exp decreases the more resets you have. I think, as long as items remain useful (and customized, as I explain here), this idea could turn out to be incredibly successful long term. A lot of players will be together in the beginning maps, creating a tight community—literaly and figuratively—incentivizing newer players to keep playing, which in turn attracts even more players as the online count grows.

What is at the core of Mu? Kill monsters to level up. Collect loot to level faster. What makes Mu fun? Challenging core gameplay. Now, what makes people happy at their work? Good co-workers. Sense of purpose. Good boss. How does the latter translate to Mu? Co-workers: honest co-players Purpose: feeling like your loot is worth something to the in-game economy, and that your character contributes in parties. Good boss: good ADMIN. How does all of the above translate to OldSquad? What is challenging? And are the players happy at their work? Killing monsters is challenging. Especially the level 400 quest took me by surprise. I did finish it in one day though, but it was rewarding. Aside from the quest, I think the monsters in general felt strong, but after a month I could already AFK at Karutan 2, even with my full command Dark Lord. Shortly after I partied at swamp all my interest dropped. There was no challenge anymore and just felt that my addiction outweighed the fun. It consciously became an AFK grind to the perfect set, and that's it, no adventure, no more pleasant surprises. Sure there are events, but they are not necessary to keep improving. The helper bots kill are a killjoy. They should be removed as they aren't challenging whatsoever. There's an auto party command for a reason: to play with people, not with bots. The events like hunting the golden budge are fun. My heart was usually racing when I managed to find one and tried to kill it before someone else. The Shadow Elf Buff NPC should be removed. There are Energy Elves, Angels, Dinorants for a reason, and you can play with two accounts simultaneously. Again, Mu has an automatic bot to play for you, besides that all things that make the game even easier should be disabled. Collecting loot is not challenging: item drop rate is too high, medals are overpowered. This inevitably results in most items being worthless on the market. For example, I won some BOK+5s on events, and got exc thunder armors twice, which I wouldn't have cared about if I sold them at the NPC. However, collecting jewels is somewhat challenging. But I think this is a bit of a mistake since jewels are a means to an end—better items. Jewels should be liquid. They should drop more than items, so you can use them on items, and lose them when items fail to +xx. This balances out both the scarcity of items and jewels. It's more fun to find and use 20 jewels, and possibly fail, than to find 2 jewels and hoard them until you can buy what you need. When correctly balanced both configurations lead to the same scarcity, but the one with higher liquidity of jewels and lowest drop rate of items is the most fun and challenging. Suggestion: remove the blacksmith for credit functionality, and reward people with jewels instead. This increases the challenge and pleasant surprises of naturally upgrading items, and also increases the value of (upgraded) items because their scarcity will be higher as more will be lost. No set items in shops. Only potions, angels, ale (stackable), uniria (walking is extremely boring in Mu; and Dinorant will still be valuable cause success is not 100% and it needs a chaos), and some other small things I didn't think of. Stuff to increase the usefullness of zen. Purpose: the majority of items being useless eventually leads to purposelessness and broken core gameplay. Easy good items > easy leveling & unhealthy economy > no challenge & no purpose of yourself and your found items > no fun > quit. The following might sound a bit farfetched, but just as in the real world, mostly everything works because of the middle-class majority that 'plays' normally, not the the 1%. If the middle and lower class aren't happy, things will die. An example of this: That should never be possible. A server should be configured so it is fun and challenging, long term, no matter when you join. The co-players are generally nice. I mostly had fun experiences. The administrators are generally good. Infinitely better than those who don't listen or reply at all. TL;DR I think the only way for a long-term hardcore server to work is for the drop rate to be as low, and the challenge to feel as difficult as the official Mu Online. All in all I thoroughly enjoyed OldSquad Mu, and I'm curious to see what configurations will follow next. Sincerely, Minos

C'mon bois

Okay, I want to reiterate that I truly find this server exceptionally enjoyable, because whenever I post here, it's usually a suggestion or criticism about certain economic negative aspects which are hard to pinpoint. It's a rewarding server. In spite of the non-liquid economy, collecting the set you want is hard, and getting new stuff is rewarding in general. Even though it skips over the reward of finding non-medal items. There's a decent amount of honest normal players. It's actually been over 10 years since I've made a guild and actually made an effort to find nice guild members. To my surprise, I succeeded, and am actually predominantly partying with them, and having real conversations that are not Mu related. The GMs and administrators actually answer people. I frequently think to myself days after having written some criticism: "Hmm, this ain't so bad after all." It's kind of silly that my list of pros isn't more extensively written than critical posts. I guess that's me being at fault for taking things for granted. I'll update this list when other positive aspects come to mind, because the reasons are plentiful. Some aspects could be a lot better, but others could be a lot worse. Overal, this server deserves appraisal. Thank you.

If your idea gets implemented verbatim, a population decline is almost guaranteed. It's nothing personal, it's human psychology.

I have no idea what PVM points are currently used for, but they should indeed have a use. However, exchanging them for items you want breaks one of the mechanics that makes this game fun; the unpredictability. Whenever you can say, I'll do X, Y-times, then by Z-days I'll have the item, you remove unexpected surprises from the game. The chase is better than the catch; exchanging for items with 100% certainty seems cool—I would use it—but it comes close to Pay 2 Win and ultimately ruins the game. Being able to exchange PVM points for BOKs (or jewels) however, that could work.

The regular stuff, make sure all your drivers are up-to-date. It could also be that your system is running a scan; downloading updates; doing something else. You also need to have the vcredist files installed (check the map FixGameCrash in your OldSquad folder). Perhaps disable ingame overlay in your NVIDIA GeForce Experience settings (right click the NVIDIA logo down below on the right, on the taskbar). Maybe I should have said this first; have you tried turning it off and on again?

If you're running on a laptop make sure it is not using integrated graphics (battery saving mode), but 'powerful NVIDIA-processor'. Right click on your desktop > NVIDIA-config > General settings > Prefered graphics processor > powerful NVIDIA-processor.

This is what started it all for me. Short but immensely powerful. The music is to die for.

Quick update, I've started playing a Dark Lord with Raven + Horse, and I partly take back my opinion that medals are overpowered. Turns out for some characters they are (I was spoiled by my BK defense and attack), and for others, they aren't. Or I have no idea how to play a Dark Lord because my goodness I'm fragile. Even on the testing server with a Light Plate set +11, level 400, and points added to agility, I'm weaker than my lvl 360 BK. The pets aren't maxed, but still.

Necrobump for posterity. I also find the dark horse unpleasant to the eye.

What if auto pickup is disabled, and jewel drop rate is increased? It incentivizes active gameplay without the need of events—events which are mostly dominated by the best. The overpowered medals can be disabled because people will be inclined to upgrade their items more, as jewels become less scarce. Brings life to the economy because people will be willing and will need to trade more. Simplicity is divinity. I think this simple tweak could fix a myriad of problems.

What does OSP and OSGM mean? https://www.gregoryschmidt.ca/writing/the-musk-emails-acronyms-seriously-suck

In retrospect, I think that was a great feature.

Items + Monster codes: https://mega.nz/#!YxwWWITD!7smMkIZo-hiTpXfNOBDfOqjLzwcGB5wiQ40Cb_DKfvc I came here to specifically post the excellent option codes which I found on RageZone and mufilecity . Weapons, pendants: Armor, shields, rings: And the commands below come from here: PS What are the commands for Ancient items? The regular ones don't work.

What has been your favorite Mu so far and why? What were the aspects that made the server awesome? You can talk about multiple servers or features of course. ____ My favorite non-reset server so far has been Mu Philippines (Mobius) because it had a large active and friendly player base and a thriving economy; it made you feel at home, and it tickled your fantasy. I still remember it as one of the most fun Christmas periods I had in games (next to Rose Online), and maybe in general as well. There were firecrackers everywhere for the holiday period, and loads of active and friendly people online. I can't place my finger on it, but there was a huge difference between the official Mu Global and Mu Philippines. In both the items were hard to find, but in Mu Philippines you actually felt the improvement while you were grinding. In Mu Philippines you could frequently look at the market after a day of gaming, and feel like you could buy something new. Not something huge, but a steady incremental improvement, which felt very satisfying. For instance, going from a Gladius to a Crescent Axe to a Morning Star. Not all in a day or in a week perhaps, but not in a month either, a healthy in-between. Whereas in most servers, the change is usually from shitty weapon to really good weapon; usually received from high level players who have a full vault and don't really care about the item. I know because I do this as well. Especially apparent in Mu Global, you felt immersed into the Lord of The Rings fantasy world [Did you know Mu is inspired by LOTR?] because you had to explore the entire map from monster to monster. You had no other choice because the next level of monsters was usually too strong. Sadly, you can skip entire maps and monsters in nearly all Mu servers nowadays. TL;DR: Economy, population, sense of fantasy & significance. [Anyway, OldSquad has a lot in common I think. Not the economy, but the people and the sense of significance. I mean yesterday we were singing the tunes of the Pokémon intro in the /post chat. It has probably been 10 years since I've had such a wholesome moment in an MMORPG. I like the grind in Mu, but only if it doesn't feel like a grind. If it is stale gameplay (a bit too hard, or too easy) I usually have fun for about a day, and stop playing altogether because I felt like I wasted loads of time. OldSquad doesn't feel like that even though the economy is a bit broken, something is definitely right. My guess is that its the steady progress experience wise and the nice people who play it. I'm having fun.] ___ My favorite reset servers, I guess, have been my own (The Lord of Mu - Trailer) and Mu Israel. On my own private server I 'exponentially' increased all of the monsters' strength so you basically needed resets to be able to kill monsters in Devias, etc. My theory to why was fourfold: The maps are freaking beautiful pieces of art that are meant to be explored. Most reset servers are just about picking a spot and staying there for the rest of your days, how silly is that? I know it's addictive, I've done it before, but it's a waste. Hunting should be like Mu Global, in which you can only beat the next category of monsters after some decent leveling or better gear, and not just because your level is now high enough to warp to a new map. People don't like to play on empty servers or predominantly AFK servers. An MMORPG is meant to trigger your sense of fantasy and exploration in a social setting. You can't hunt dragons with friends IRL, so that's a gap Mu should fill. So, when people are required to grind in the same map (or couple of maps) for a while, more people come across each other and the sense of community improves. The challenge. Reset servers are usually easy. But it should be possible to create a hardcore Mu (Philippines or Global) experience with resets. For instance, being able to have a reset even while wearing a leather set +5+8; a server where Dragon Armor feels special again, and Phoenix is godlike. (This is hard to tweak though, because at one point too many stats points render items redundant.) You can't AFK if you want to beat significantly better monsters. You have to work for significantly better gear. I also individually, proportionally, and mathematically increased all the items strength, and level from where it drops, according to the amount of items a class has and the amount of monster levels. Now, the difference in defence between Leather and Bronze armor is insignificant. I changed all these stats so changing from one to the next kind of armor actually made a difference. I also tweaked the strength of different kinds of weapons. For instance, an axe had way more base damage and skill damage than a sword, but was noticeably much slower, and used way more mana. I even added a skill to a Flail, small axe, kris, etc. to make it useful and valuable. Oh, and the more resets, the less points per reset you got. I tried everything to make a reset server as challenging and long term as possible. I know I'm tooting my own horn right now, in the hopes of inspiring ADMIN to 'steal' some of the ideas above. I know it works, but it needs a great server to pull it off. I wasn't capable enough. Also, GlobalMu (the private server) has also increased monster strength so resets are needed for higher maps, and it works well. However, 80% of their online players are AFK and nearly all items are useless as you get the best super fast. It's not the wholesome experience as in OldSquad no reset. Lastly, Mu Israel. This one goes way back. It was super fun because of the 200 points per reset and stats removed. And there were BOKs+1, and bless and soul in shop so you had to grind for money in order to buy those and create your favorite excellent option set +11. And how did you we grind for money? There was a bug in some Tarkan spot where the more people were in that same spot, the more the amount of zen dropped from one monster. So if one player was there only 30k zen dropped, but if 25 people were there, 3mil zen dropped. This was a bug (I think) that felt like a feature. Everyone was together in that one spot, and that was awesome. Hence the argument number 2 a couple of paragraphs above. Anyway, I'm not saying having BOKs or jewels in a shop is necessary for a good server with resets. I'm saying it for inspiration, to think about what mechanism behind it makes it fun. I'm beginning to sound confusing for myself, so here I stop again. Looking forward to reading what great features I haven't come across before.

Again, this corroborates my points. You are biased by an end-game perspective. The end-game can still be fun even if the early stages are fun and challenging as well, even more so. Everything is relative. Also, CC; BC; CC, etc. are not necessities for the game to be enjoyable. The most important things are a healthy player base and a healthy economy; one of those we already have. (Hypothesis: Mu addicts will be addicts regardless of gameplay, economy, or player base. However, most people—the casual players—just want to have some fun distraction. And if the economy and players are alive and kicking, they will stick to the server. But if you immediately give them lots of items to catch up, the grind to the end game abruptly starts and it won't be a fun distraction anymore. So they quit.) Also, I just learned that apparently Devias is full of jewel farmers. This raises some questions in me. I do think AFKing is OK—because I do it as well, and it has been part of the game since forever (I used to put my wallet on my right mouse button)—but, actively playing should be way more rewarding in comparison. Gaining exp used to be and should be the main incentive to AFK, but not to gather jewels or items. Some people can't leave their PC on, some don't want to, etc. Things will always be unbalanced, but rewarding being AFK, too much, disproportionately increases the imbalance. We 'all' AFK and like to be AFK, but ironically no one likes a server where most people are AFK. As I said, actively playing should be significantly rewarded more than AFKing. The Rabbits event is a great example of that, but there can be more. For example, back in the day, it wasn't possible for non-cheaters to pick up jewels and zen while being AFK. There still were lots of AFKers, but there was a good balance between AFKers and active players, and economies were usually good. If you wanted loot, you needed to be online and do the work. I admit, I like actively playing about the same as I like the thought of being able to AFK, and it probably isn't possible to go back to how Mu was played 16 years ago. It should however be possible to mimic similar gameplay, even with the auto looting mechanism. I think drastically increasing the price that mechanism is part of it, as I have touched upon in previous posts. People who AFK 24 hours should get about 6 jewels; 0.25 jewels per hour. People who play 24 hours should get about 48 jewels; 2 jewels per hour. I’m just picking arbitrary numbers, but you get the point: those who play actively the most, get the most jewels on average. This way you don’t need helper bots or silly overpowered medals. Hardcore active players are going to play hardcore and no casual player will ever catch up to them. That’s only fair. But casual active players should be able to compete with hardcore AFKers. Just like it was in the good old days. TL;DR: Play for fun, jewels, and items, AFK for exp. Addendum: when it is viable to AFK for jewels, it disincentivizes partying, because people will want to AFK alone for the jewels. Although my posts so far have been largely critical, I do want to state that for the most part this server is remarkable. The custom features, adjusted event locations (i.e. goldens spawn everywhere), web vault; commands; etc. However, if the economy is broken, the stellar features will have been in vain. In any case, OldSquad has incredible potential.

I think you just inadvertently supported my arguments. For example, the Excellent items I found so far were—personally—mostly useless because of the overpowered items in medals. Items from medals should be transitional, or as you said: 'consumable', not the monster drops. Instead, medals render 99% of the regular monster drops useless. Excellent items used to be "Holy fuck I found an excellent item," now it's just "Meh, let's see what option it has." About socket or ancient items I can't comment because I indeed have no experience with those. However, that's not necessary for my points to be legitimate. Some people play slow or infrequently, others play a lot. If an economy is mainly focussed around end game items, it's only 'fun' for hardcore players. Similarly to my elf, I've been using a Sword of Destruction+10+4+Luck from the first day I started playing with my knight. In the meantime I've found items from monsters that I would've have been psyched about to find if it weren't for those medal drops. What makes gameplay fun is pleasant surprises. These medals aren't. Now it's just a deluge of items that mostly go unused, or just sold in shop. I'm no economist, but I think if items were much harder to find, then the economy would work both ways, jewels from beginners to experienced players, and items from experienced player to beginners. I feel like infrequent or beginner players have nothing to contribute or nothing to look out for. Newer players—personally speaking—don't want to catch up, they want to get good, with pleasant surprises and fun gameplay. If the latter conditions are true, they will catch up anyhow. What this server does well is rewarding active players more than AFKing, but it could do it even better. Brainstorm Idea #1: drastically increase price of AFK mechanism so AFKing can't be done indefinitely on monster zen drops alone. This makes zen more valuable. AFKing should still be relatively easy, but doing so should stimulate the economy, not deteriorate it. Idea #2: I think the helper bots are silly (but the intention behind it is honest). Just as the struggle of weight lifting followed by eventual success (or practicing any other skill) is the cause of satisfaction, so should be the struggle of leveling. When you're small and weak you look at people bigger than you and think "Damn, I want to be like that. If I work hard at it I can be like that as well." Sadly, what is fun about standing next to a bot until you're level X? Yes beginners level up faster, but it leaves a part of the economy, and fun, untapped. It also disincentivizes exploring maps for good spots that are suitable for your skill level. The more you hold people's hand, the more they'll want their hands to be hold, but counterintuitively, the less fun they'll be having and the less inticed they'll be to stay on the server. Idea #3: What is unique about Mu? Not the rarity of jewels, but the vast amount of possible combinations of items. Everyone can look unique due to the amount of different items, and the beautiful shaders of upgraded items. These item shaders are still better looking than any modern MMORPG in the world. You should take use of that. The fact that over the years the game has been added with many more features is a reason we've got to get past the idea that a single bless and soul must be extremely rare. Instead, let Bundles of Bless or Soul +30 be the new benchmark for rare. Only put beginner +7 (without +luck +option) items in medals, and beginner items +0 (without +luck +option) in NPC shops, and let the players make stuff +11 and beyond. This is what's fun, and because of it people will start using zen and jewels for trading more as the chaos machine costs zen, and failing costs items. Swearing and quitting doesn't solve anything. Having a healthy in-game economy is incredibly hard to pull off. Admins or players are not doing this maliciously. Did you know that games like EVE Online employ economists to make their in-game economy work? Anyway, this was all written in short bursts, off the top of my head, so pardon my occasional incoherence.

Hello, Well done! Mu Oldsquad is the best I've played in years, but I have a couple of concerns. These may be caused by my ignorance since I have only been playing for about two weeks, but I think they are legit remarks. Medals, etc. Problem #1: the items dropping from hearts and medals are way too good and abundant. For example, the first day I played on this server, I haphazardly found a Celestial Bow+11+Skill+Luck+4 just lying on the floor of Noria. If this item is worthless for someone, there is something wrong with the economy. I started as an Elf, and this immediately made every other bow I found myself useless. Only when things are scarce, they are valuable. (Problem #2 [uncertain]: the fact that for some characters a Bronze set +11 (i.e. an energy mage maxing agi & ene) is already considered a good late game set, whereas for other characters it's worthless, is a bit too unbalanced I think. Every class should have some trouble to attain their best set.) Solution: Disable luck and options on items in medals. This increases the value of regular monster drops, and doesn't overpower the medal items. For example, you find Leather Gloves+7 from a medal, great! I look shiny now! But as you grind monsters, suddenly Leather Gloves+5+12+Luck drops. You don't look as shiny, but the item is way better than some cheap medal drop. This stimulates the economy Decrease the max possible item level in medals to +8. This increases the value of luck on items. You got to do some work if you want to look super shiny. Don't put super nice items in medals, like a Celestial Bow. This makes hunting or lurking for items way more fun, and stimulates the economy, again. Items in shop Problem: similar reasoning as above. Solution: Remove the luck from the items. It's not luck if you can easily find or buy it. Uniria, dinorant, angel, etc. Problem Uniria: Useless for running speed because of the (nearly instant access) to small wings at level 80. Impale (such a beautiful skill) is useless as well Solution: remove the small wings as an easy level 80 reward; there can be a much better event or box for such a cool item as wings. Suggestions: Buff the impale skill; higher drop rate for Uniria and make them combinable to Dinorant without chaos. Or not, but then buff the Dinorant skill as well. Problem Angel: rare, useful, but not really valuable. Solution: should be in shop for a reasonable amount of zen. This make zen more useful, and Angels make the game look better. Problem Imp: rare, valuable and useful, but hoarded. I have five of them now, but I'm not using them because they are too rare and they die so fast, just like Angels. Yet I don't want to sell them, nor would I want to pay jewels for them. I'm just waiting for the moment that never comes so I can use them when they die very slowly. Solution: I'd put Imps in shop as well, for a price that could be described expensive, but not too expensive so no one wants to buy them. Doing this should increas the value of zen and the value of Imps. And now using Angels or Imps is a choice like choosing a stat build. Drop rate Problem: I think the drop rate of items is between OK and too high. It took me one day to collect a Great Dragon Set by just standing near parties who were killing monsters I'm still too weak for. Moreover, I got the Great Dragon Armor+1+8+Luck for free from someone who initially asked two chaos for it. I told him it wasn't worth that much, because it isn't, but it should be! This problem is closely related to the overpowered items to be found in medals: because I easily obtained a random set of items +9, +10, +11, it was easy to survive near much too strong monsters. Solution: decrease the drop rate, but increase the chance on luck or options. This stimulates active non-afk gameplay, because you have to be active to see your desirable items drop. Jewels I have never had such a hard time finding jewels, which is awesome and how it should be! But it's a double-edged sword. Because items from medals are so good and abundant, and jewels are so rare, I'm hoarding them and not using them. I'm not even going to try and make wings. I'll just buy the few items I want, and keep hoarding jewels until I can buy the item I want, without buying or leveling up any intermediate items from the market. (Nobody is buying my items as well.) ~Solution: Increase the likelihood of finding Bless by increasing the drop rate, or more recurring events specifically for Bless, and maybe a bit more Soul. The latter is the best option because it also stimulates active gameplay. [The events in this server are remarkably good; it's been years since I was motivated to participate in these events. They are challenging, fun, and necessary for jewels.] Finding more Bless, and fewer items, will stimulate people in actually using it to level up items and buying intermediate items on the market. It comes down to this: early game it should be reasonably 'easy'/encouraged/fun to level up items to +7, +8, +9. mid game it should be 'moderate'/challenging/fun to level up items to +10+11+12. late game it should be 'difficult'/challenging/risky to level up items to +13+14+15. Instead—what happens now I think—is that early and mid game is lost, and jewels are hoarded to save for the late game. This is boring. (Anyway, I've hosted a private server myself once, and the economy is incredibly difficult to get right, so this is just brainstorming.) That being said, I think if finding Bless was 'moderate', Soul was 'hard', and Chaos the 'hardest', then it would make early, mid, and late game more fun while remaining a challenge. I have more ideas and suggestions, but the somewhat broken economy is the most pressing for me right now. And it's getting late, so I'll end it here.