The bonus XP/sleeping soul mother event lasted a lot longer than it should have. I'm sorry you feel like the XP climb to achieve higher levels is too slow in its normal state.
In terms of your sentiment on the Soul Mother? Sigurd is a level 30 Barbarian with 0 strands lost who has died 4 times, the last at level 6. Ben is a level 30 Monk with 0 strands lost who has died 2 times, the last at level 7. Xaltotun, level 39, 5 strands lost. Your only player who has suffered from the Soul Mother much is Eleandilethessa with 7 strands lost. You did no adventuring with her at all this bonus period.
In terms of your sentiment about going out exploring with the Soul Mother sleeping, you only changed things once with Ben on 1 trip with the Hoff boys. You didn't do anything else with him except the Misted River Hideout. In fact the vast majority of your time spent during this bonus period was with Sigurd who gained 2.3 million XP in the bonus period by logging and looping the Great Forest giants and trollocs 2-3 times a day for a total of 31 hours of play time in the 33 days of bonus period.
This seems to me an attempt to curry favour with the community as an end to level your characters faster in the limited amount of time you can login (which I understand!) but the admin is not going to sway on changing the bonus XP/GP/fortune to be permanent. We are however going to introduce reward systems to encourage exploration, diversification and roleplay.
-orth
We'll have other bonus periods, and we'd like to offer them more consistently, if not for as long of periods as during the winter holidays. But if we left it at bonus level all the time, the appreciation for the XP boost and soul mother vacations would diminish as we became accustomed to the new norm. To make a bonus feel like a bonus, then, we'd have to keep pumping bonuses higher and higher into (what I consider at least) to be rather ridiculous levels. It's good to know that you really appreciate the bonus periods, and helps your GM team know that it is a valid thing for use as incentive to play, explore, try new things, etc.
Your always welcome to rp and explore with the "Hoffboys" Xalt, with or without the mother around. Thanks to the team for the double xp and soul mother vacation! I personally like the soulmother in play but do agree the event attracts more players for various reasons. Keep up the good work everyone and lets keep this rolling. Also, lets not forget, fairly recently the team also reduced the chance to actually loose a soul strand by changing the percentages based on char. level!
~Willhoff
*crosses her fingers and mouths the words silently over and over* Don't look at mine, don't look at mine, don't look at mine, don't look at mine...
I do agree that a bonus is not a bonus if it is a constant. What would a 'bonus' look like if the current bonus was the norm? Probably wouldn't be any bonuses.
Ditto Charm and W.Hoff. Bonus was awesome, enjoyed every second of it, look forward to the next one; but I appreciate it more when it's not the baseline. I get you though, Xal, because it was an awesome month-plus!
Also ditto Soul Mother. I admire her tenacity. Wouldn't be as much fun without a bit of risk.
Orth,
Curry favour? The only curry I actively seek is the gastronomic type.
Good to know though that "We are however going to introduce reward systems to encourage exploration, diversification and roleplay."
Bring it on.