Fri Jul 29 01:21:14 2005

At 9 o'clock AM, Day of Freedom, 11th of the Month of the Grand Struggle
on the Theran calendar Qulenit perished, never to return.

Race:	human
Class:	transmuter
Level:	51
Alignment:	Good
Ethos:	Chaotic
Cabal:	FORTRESS, the Fortress of Light
Age:	73
Hours:	368

Qulenit and Gumbldink were like peas and carrots. When Kiel stopped showing up and being my straight man you became his replacement. You would pimp Yzekon and I would repay the favor by forcing you into boring regear trips. You were the best when it came to having to take YET ANOTHER trip for the stoneform amulet. Every time I died I'd laugh out loud because I knew you were going to be pissed about it.

Good work. I hope if I ever come back we're on the same side again.

So am I the peas or the carrots? Sadly the regearing stuff was the only thing to do a lot of the time, so I didn't mind too much since it was better than staring at the screen and drooling on myself. It was good when you were around, I think our enemies actually hated you more than me =P

This character was one big mistake. Had a whole bunch of ideas for characters, but none I actually wanted to play at the time. So my first brilliant idea, random character. To make it better, no matter what I'm playing it to the end. Random race, class, align and ethos. I picked the hometown though. Trannie, yay. I swore after my last one I wouldn't play another, just not my play style. So next brilliant idea was since I never played dawn or acolyte before, let's give that whirl. Yep, I sucked, and frankly I have no idea how I ever made it to acolyte. Then I get switched to squire and at least I didn't have any qualms about PKing and raiding. Overall I'd say I did a #### job. I did kind of cheat on the age death though, smacked on a few +age things. I was just too tired of watching my hours slowly climb while twiddling my thumbs doing nothing. Onwards.

Imms in general, I apologize profusely to any of you unfortunate enough to have snooped me. If I was bored it couldn't have been much better to watch.

Aarn- Thanks for the switch, made playing a little better for that last however many hours.

Fortress- Glad I could help when I did, if I did. Anyone who was offended by things I said or did, deal with it.

Scions- Hyolinar and Rekraa, I had to respect you guys for giving it a go even when you had to know you were going to get killed. Yagig and Maztriel... you guys are invokers. Nothing else can have as much protection as you. Stop ####footing it. Everyone else, eh.

Empire- I really thought you guys would be the ones to rise, not the scions. You had like three or four healers coming up at one time. You could give some weapons to Jerry's kids and be okay with that. But it just didn't seem to happen.

Battle- Ravnir and Vinourak, a lot of respect for being the guys willing to drop spellbane and still kick my teeth in. To the ones that like to talk non-stop #### (Grimblin or whatever your name is), yeah, transmuter, worst class to fight a rager with. Duh.

Anyone else, I'm sure I felt one way or another.

P.S. Fighting bards as a trannie really blows.

Did you start out neutral, or did you just not care who/what you traded with? Furthermore, was your name supposed to be "coolin it"?

Huh? I have no idea what you're talking about with the trading thing, don't remember trading with anyone not in the fort. As for the name, KWEL'-en-it.

Sorry. That came out way too aggressive. As a lowbie evil, I traded some nicer things to Qulenit and figured "Ok, neutral hero wanting some nice things." Then later I catch wind that you joined fortress, then way later you attacked my group on Mt. K. I was so confused by the whole situation that I left it alone and appreciated what we'd had before.

FWIW, I really enjoyed fighting Karel a couple years back. I probably would have enjoyed fighting Quelenit too, if I'd ranked up in time to do so before you died off. I saw you in action and you did well. A large number of evils told me how ****ing scary you were. Congratulations, and good luck with the next. I'm sure it'll be a gutsy PK monster to account for your fortress time.

Hmmm... don't recall but I won't say it didn't happen. Unless I was an acolyte or you were an obvious evil race/class I didn't have any way to tell if someone was evil for awhile. So if I did, I shouldn't have but I'd like to think I didn't have a way to know.

Not playing much I don't even know some of the new roads names. It's diffacult when so many things changed. You also seemed to have some experience with invokers, which I did not. :P Thanks for that. LAter.

Invokers are my strongest class actually, so when I'm on friendly terms with one I try to give them some pointers to cut down on some of the trial and error. And also so I have a good invoker to be my biatch =P

Bleh, I always tried to get you but you were smart enough
to keep away when I had ranks on you, and after that, well,
we didn't fight much.

- Runaktla

Yep, hell if I'm going to let a volleying trannie with ranks on me get the drop on me. Think we only fought like twice, and frankly I don't really remember them. I did see enough of you at lower ranks and with another character to know I should be careful when I did fight you though.

Good and bad feelings here. As to your comment about us seemingly playing too safe..if you had any idea how much I fought on a given session I think you would withdraw that. A well played transmuter is the one of only a few things that can kill an invoker regardless of protections nearly at will. Forgive me if I was cautious around the summon neuro machine that was the fortress. You seemingly always had paladin backup when I was around. Please don't take me saying that as meaning that you needed it because it was not ment that way. I felt that any encounter between me and you was going to end with you on top. You often managed to render me helpless with a -40 save para/spell and resist mental.

As far as your character is concerned I really felt he was the glue holding the fort up. Not to slight the rest of the fellows but when you were on you changed what was possable. Great job playing a class I have longed to try for some time. With the exception of one event I had nothing but respect for he char. We rarely had any chance to interact other than trying to kill one another so I can't rate your roleplay but the pk side was frightful. I have interacted with many of yoru chars over the years and each seemed solid. See you in the fields again I am sure.

There were a few times I fought you solo, and with the exception of that one time you mentioned above where you knew and were willing to die, it seemed one neuro whether it did anything or not and you were gone. Having played an invoker once or twice, a lone trannie wouldn't scare me at all. Then again, a lone anything wouldn't scare me as an invoker, so maybe that colors my perspective a bit. At least I did see you alone a lot. I do give you credit for giving it a go sometimes when I was positive you wouldn't show up, which is probably the best time to do it actually. Best memory, finally remembering I have earthbind and you two always putting quicksand at the outer =P

By the way, is it just my bad memory, or was it impossible to make quicksand at the maran before? I seem to remember always having to put my quicksand at redhorn gate for some reason.

I would have money on the transmuter winning pretty easily. A successful neuro totally ends an invoker's damage output. A transmuter will also easily physically outdamage the invoker (haste/accelerate) so the transmuter could just continue to neuro you over and over, depending on mana constraints. Even if the first few neuros fail, and you do some damage to the transmuter, a RNG neuro could put you down for the big count, at any time.

Now as the invoker if you did not get jumped upon and were prepared it may be a more even fight. But then again even if you got the jump on a transmuter, you may get one or two spells onto them before they are gone via word/teleport/duo, while the transmuter getting a jump on you could easily kill you in two castings. The scale is heavily weighed in the transmuter's favor. And even if you don't agree with that, survivability of the transmuter against a lone invoker is almost guaranteed while the opposite is not true. Complete command denial on a class with no physically strong attacks means death, no matter how strong your spell damage is.

It isn't the same as mine. I've fought it both ways, I'll go with the invoker any day.

Edited addition: By the way, don't foget the invoker has volley in these scenarios. Foolproof? Nope. But you'll really hate yourself when you get a neuro volleyed back at yourself, which I have.

I think a well geared scion invoker vs a well geared transmuter the odds of 'winning' the fight are about even. I'll concede that even after soften & decalcify, an invoker can almost match a transmuter's spell damage for spell for spell. However the best a lone invoker can realistically hope for against a competant lone tranny is to make him run away. My only conceivable way to kill you was to use a curse scroll and get you in quicksand. - not easy to do.

All you have to do is land 1 bad neuro on me and i'm likely dead or very close to it. You did kill me 3 times and came close (<10 hps) at least twice by nailing a nasty neuro then following me around as I wimpied till I eventually died or the spell wore off. Later in life I geared exclusively for protection vs paralysis. At the time of your death I had something close to -65 saves vs paralysis with a stoneform amulet. With those kind of saves it was rare that any tranny got the killer neuro on me, but it has happened & did kill me vs (Essuvellyn, Eerolyin, & Iliena - sorry if i misspelled any names). Still even with those saves (-75 after my resist mental prep) you still could consistently do bash lag to me w/neuro which when combined with laging strikes was brutal.

Not only is it near 100% effective vs lower levels, but I consistantly geared for divine para/spell saves. It only failed to not do lag once or twice, even at hero I was still getting stunned for 1-2 hours. Which means death.

I'm fine with it stunning for an hour, but consistantly with such high saves? Sheesh.

Well played transmuter over all, I was hoping to get my work done and get back for some ganging vengeance... alas, no luck! I had so many lucky escapes it was unbelievable and I got so bored that I just started to take silly risks instead :P Healers, alone, aren't worth nothing. And unfortunately thats how I was most of the time.

See you around.

I hope you meant rounds, not hours. When you hit hero I think most often I'd hit you with a one round neuro which does a whole lot of nothing unless there's another source of lag. Occasionally I'd get a good or bad one, but overall I spent 100 mana and two rounds to stun you for one round and hit you with the graze damage.

And when it hit, i would barely escape with my life.

Hmmm. I could be wrong on this, so take it with a grain of salt. One neuro, even a good one, isn't going to stun you into the hours category. I think the best I saw on a single neuro was four rounds (that is I hit neuro and the next command I see from them is four rounds later). I tried to get a few people totally neuroed, but the ones I actually needed to do it to resisted too much to make it happen and I'd blow all my mana trying then have none for damage. Like on you. If you log anything (I don't so I can't show you) look back at some of our solo fights and see how long they lasted now that you aren't actually in the situation. I'm not saying it isn't possible to neuro someone into a brick, just that in my experience in varied situations on either side it isn't something a trannie should rely on or an opponent be too worried about. Unless the trannie has someone with them, then you might want to worry.

except I don't know because I died. But it was a full tick at least. I still side with Matz, an invoker may win the fight by making him run away. On the transmuter side, if he is winning he is more then likely going to kill you because of complete command denial. If I had a class character versus another class character, and I knew that almost all the time I will be able to flee and survive and that I can get lucky and maybe a quarter of the time and get a good neuro and kill that person. I'm going to try over and over til I nail you with really no fear that you will be able to kill me.

Because the stiffness wore off on ticks. Thanks to fleeing lots when you disrupt, I'd usually have plenty of time to wait it out but all it takes is 1 other person and I'd get eaten alive.

That said, I likely wouldn't complain as much if I was any other class.

All in all, you knew your stuff too well. Sheesh. Left me with a headache. So I reserved the rite to dance over your corpse when I made it. Hope you enjoy your next char as much.

Srinlete.

Two things.

1) Stoned hours... this is a bad thing?

2) Hope I enjoy my next char as much? I didn't enjoy this one though... Man, that's kind of mean.

Looks like a bad post, you know what I mean :P

When you killed me solo, you lagged me for, as I recall, 16 rounds of combat without me getting a command, and I had very good svs.

I spent a decent amount of time fighting invokers with
both my D-elf Transmuters. If I surprised an invoker
and caught him with just his shields up, then often
times I could kill him. If an invoker surprised me,
then I could usually word away.

Now when I fought Kiel, he would often put up all his
shields and tons of other protections, and strike me or
the nightwalker. I would be hitting him with grazes and
disrupting him (bone/organ) for DISMEMBERS, and that
was really annoying, so if I did manage to land the "big"
neuro I wouldn't be able to finish him. On the other hand
if I put up my protections as well I could send him
packing, and moreso with an eagle staff which I don't
doubt Qulenit had more often than not.

What it boils down to though is that they (Yagig/Maztriel)
are not willing to get into a fight with odds like follows:
0% chance of killing you
33% chance of sending you running
33% chance of you sending them running
33% chance of you killing them

I mean in Runaktla's early hero years I saw the same thing
as I'd see three Paladins in the Fort with my Scepter, I'd
be near the Fort, ready to take one down. They wouldn't
come out unless they were in pairs. They knew better. They
knew I could land my big neuro, smile my ####-eating grin,
and finish them off, when I could always run away if I got
hurt. This was true until several got handed the lagging
virtue :).

I had lots of enemies that I rarely had any luck landing
with the heavy neuro, and I recall mildly gearing for
paralysis against Ginharq and a small amount (-20 svs)
went a long way to prevent the big disrupt. I'm surprised
when you (Maztriel/Yagig) said the huge amount of saves
didn't help you.

However, like Yagig said, if Qulenit and a Paladin with that
lagging virtue were there, it's sorta worthless to come.
And, you guys have/had tons of Paladins and I never seen
Qulenit come by to the Chasm without one when I was
around.

Anyways, I said enough,
- Runaktla

As far as I'm personally aware, there isn't a lagging virtue.

Everyone's been misnaming it, they're thinking of a templars defense move.

That's a normal two-hander Paladin skill? Ugh. My
bad.

- Runaktla

If it makes you feel any better, at its worst it's no worse than cranial (barring a certain shield of X spell), and it's rarely if ever that good.

Maybe the RNG wasn't in my favor, but it had an amazing
success rate. I only think it missed twice out of the twenty
or so times that Paladins tried to use it on me. I used to
hate it when Solasarath would use it on me because it appeared
as if he could lag me indefinitely with it, but really it was
his weapon prog going off as well.

One request on that skill though, most other skills that lag
you show a message that appears more "You have been stunned"
like, when I first felt that skill when fighting Solasarath
I thought my connection was lagging because the skill message
didn't suggest I was stunned. Maybe include something to make
it more apparent?

Also I got another question, does the staff consider Paladins
with virtues Good's answer to advanced Necros (Liches, Mummies)?
In other words, are they intentionally more powerful than your
average Joe but considered okay because the other side's got a
nuke as well?

- Runaktla

Paladins can be very strong, and yet I've seen them slapped around like they were nothing. A certain invoker now, has a certain amulet for massive damage reduction combined with ABS, but you don't hear me comparing them to a lich. Everybody has weaknesses, just most people don't bother to find them, or try different things.

When I said that, for some reason I had the elf Paladin
two hander with defiance and strange bracers in my head.
I am wrong, Paladins do not equal a Lich without those
two particular items, just as in the same way that
invoker isn't as powerful that that one particular item.

That said, Paladins are still very strong, and I would
say stronger than the average character class, meaning
less weaknesses/more strengths, in general. I have never
played a Paladin, but I've fought against them with
several classes, and I have always had a hell of a time
dealing with them, and I don't think I'm all that bad
with those other classes.

Before, I really wasn't saying that they were as powerful
as a Lich. I was saying that they do balance it out,
mainly in the how hard it is to level/become a Lich vs.
how hard it is to to level/get virtues as a Paladin.
Numbers-wise, there are a ton more Paladins than Liches,
and Liches generally get witch-hunted more and have few
allies.

Anyways, that's my spiel, I suppose I should probably
play a Paladin before I say more, but I didn't mean to
say they were, mano e mano, comparable.

- Runaktla

This has nothing to do with Qulenit's goodbye, but what the hell...

>When I said that, for some reason I had the elf Paladin
>two hander with defiance and strange bracers in my head.
>I am wrong, Paladins do not equal a Lich without those
>two particular items, just as in the same way that
>invoker isn't as powerful that that one particular item.

Paladins, like other classes, vary greatly depending on their gear and other class bonuses. In this case, virtues. An elf two-hander with defiance, three virtues, strange bracers and two hummingbird pendants is of course going to be alot scarier and harder to kill than and an elf two-hander with no virtues and none of that gear.

>That said, Paladins are still very strong, and I would
>say stronger than the average character class, meaning
>less weaknesses/more strengths, in general. I have never
>played a Paladin, but I've fought against them with
>several classes, and I have always had a hell of a time
>dealing with them, and I don't think I'm all that bad
>with those other classes.

Paladins' achilles heel has always been their ability to lag. Let me ask you this. In all the trouble you've had dealing with paladins, do you die very often? I'm guessing not.

My own experience is that 90% of transmuters around are tools to my vokers. Its a suprising amount that never prep beyond aura or\and shield. I also aim for roughly -100 SvSpell and -40 SvPara, which helps. I think I can count on one hand the amount of time a tranny has gotten a big neuro onto me. In my entire voker career, I think I might have killed 10'ish transmuters. All of them uprepped, with a huge pillar or equal(Since that huge pillar can knock of like 400+ hps. Cant recall dying solo to one, at hero, anyways.

with headphones so he can hear himself speak. :) Sorry man, could not resist, own horn tooting like its going out of style.

You killed us both. Me several times, I know you got Yagig at least once. We had very good reason to be careful fighting you, 1 bad neuro and you're dead, basically. I will admit that when the odds were really bad against me, I would generally retreat to the chasm and fight you there. But you've got to admit, I did fight against odds in which I had little hope of winning.

In the beginning I would also attempt retrievals but it just wasn't happening if you were there with a paladin. You and Caek almost killed me there several times, twice I had about 10 or less hps left after the encounter.

As for the rest of my feelings, Yagig pretty much summoned them up.

Good luck with your next char

I only recall once, but yet again I admit my memory sucks. I think people are overestimating neuro. I've seen how long people are stunned on a good neuro, how likely it is to get more than one in a row, so on. Not to mention, at 100 mana a pop no one is going to be a neuro machine. As for you fighting against odds where you had little hope of winning, I'll grant you that. On the flip side, it's hard for me to remember the last time I was in a fight with you where you had a little chance of losing. Therein was what I disliked. You waited for backup before even coming near. Obviously I can only speak on what I've seen, so maybe you acted different if you did a locate check on me and I wasn't around. Or maybe I'm just way off base, been known to be wrong before.

By the way, about twenty hours into this character I was thinking I should have rolled up a scion invoker. Funny stuff.

As I said in my goodbyes to my enemies, damn you were mean. 550hp disrupt organs sucked, and I know transmuters well enough to know what you were setting up everytime we fought. I was so suprised that one time I got you alone that I just sat there stunned for a few moments. Was fun fighting you, I realize after I looked back at that log of our fight where I got you that it was because a round or two before I killed you, your prots fell. Well, good character, eventhough we never talked alot. Thanks for the thoughts and all that.

I do remember that fight. Wasn't just like hardening falling either, it was everything at once. Which is why we don't put too many commands in at once kids, you'll screw yourself. Good job on it though, and all the other ones.

You swung from 'peace loving' to 'mad killer'.

Guess chasing evils really does make you more evil. Bad karma for an acolyte to switch, would have been better to just go for the Maran first time round if you wanted to be a hunt/kill machine.

I have to disagree a bit here. I think Qulenit roleplayed it quite well. Outlanders got frisky and there were no real talks to try to calm it down. Qulenit spent a lot of time with those that Outlanders would consider defilers. As an acolyte, Qulenit was pretty much dragged into becoming a maran. If the war was only with evil, then I could see there being a bit of bad karma, bit this was hardly the case.

I really didn't like them. Camping right outside the fort, attacking the dwarves. I think the one real talk I had was along the lines of

Outlander- I don't want to fight with you, just dwarfguy.
Me- Well, you keep fighting him you'll be fighting me.
Outlander- You want a war with the wilds?
Me- Nope, but I'm just going to watch either.
Outlander- You leave me be, I'll leave you be.
Me- Sure, right after you leave dwarfguy be.
Outlander- Never.

And that pretty much ended the only real conversation I had about the whole thing. What was even better were the ones that just kind of blurred "defiler dwarf" into "defiler fortress" and started attacking any of us. Sweet. I think a lack of strong enemy cabals made some people a little too twitchy.

But as you can imagine I don't have the best view point :D

Don't blame Srinlete if he wanted to try and twist the facts. Continuity is a big thing (ahem, being an Order priest and all) so those that don't adhere well enough are going to get the brunt of his abuse. Hence the 'bloodthirsty' taunts. Anyhow, well done again.

I think you were the most depressing person for me to fight solo. I could burn up 1000+ mana and I'd be beat to hell and you'd still be going strong, frustrating. Best memory (that I can recall), you telling me you'd duel me in your hometown (which by the way I knew damn well wasn't your hometown, I'd seen you recall =P ), then trying to hit the fortress and saying "Yeah, like I'm really going to duel." You're a pretty tough healer, keep at it.

Fighting you was just a bad idea. Not much chance you'd die, decent chance I'd die. Gotta hate that. Looks like you did a decent job, though.

Don't take this too personally, but you strike me as that assassinate only type of assassin, although a bit better than the typical variety because I have seen you fight a bit which most don't. The couple times I did get a chance to fight you (think someone holy worded and you failed an attempt on someone with me) I made some good mistakes and that was that. I kept locating things to see when you were around and teleporting/duoing often when you were, should say something about how much I liked the diea of running into you =P

Sidenote to all assassins: All those skills you get aren't just things to play with until you get assassinate. Believe it or not you can actually use them in fights.

In some cases, yes, I pass up better chances to kill someone through melee so I can attempt the assassination. Usually it's when the person doesn't have anything I want gear wise, I don't have a grudge against them, and I suspect that by waiting I can get a decent number of stalks. Do I wind up with fewer kills that way? Maybe, but I'm okay with that.

I do fight people, just not you. With the amount of damage reduction you had, it was very, very unlikely I was ever going to kill you. Tigerclaw? You'd just flee and quaff. You could afford to soften and decalcify me, then throw out neuros until you either hit a big one or got too wounded and had to flee. In the fist case, I'm dead for sure. In the second, you live to fight another day. The best I could hope for is to make you run, the worst case being my own death. If those assumptions are true, it just didn't make sense to fight you.

I think I had a potion once in my life actually, so tigerclaws pretty much ruined my day. Only one assassin ever really tried that though. Actually I remember one fight, you were after Limnoreia and did a kote. She fled and I neuroed which did a one round lag, and I had no protections up so I lost I think about 30% of my hp in one round. I was damn thankful you decided to flee instead of try a throw or something. That is kind of the point of most of my comments though, no one really seems to give it a try. What's the worst that can really happen, you die. Best that can happen is they die.

I caught occasional glimpses when watching you that you might not be entirelly in to the character, but for the most part Qulenit was really solid. You really played a fine Maran, and your enemies were none too eager to fight you if they could avoid it.

Nice job, hope your next character clicks with you better.

Aarn

Not entirely? Huge understatement. I swear I was hoping constantly to fight more shamans and that they would have a wither fest on me. As for the fine job, when you transed me to make me a maran I really did think I screwed up somewhere when you started off with yelling, that's about how good of a job I thought I was doing. That was a good example of you being the funny dwarf though, which I really like about your character, you're kind of a "I'm just one of the guys even though I could kill you with a look" type of god. Enemies not too eager to fight me? I have that part of playing down pretty well, it's the being eager to play I have trouble with.

I have had sort of a mixed bag of characters that interacted with you, and I really would have never known that you weren't having fun, or wern't doing a bangup job. I could never pick a random character and just play it like that... thats craziness man!

I think you, like me, are your own worst critic. Once you've had some kickass characters, its hard to settle for just being "above average." You tend to see only the flaws of the character, and none of the high marks.

Q was someone that would make you think twice about the way you approached the fort, and thats definatly worth something. Good luck on the next ones man.

Agreed, I am my worst critic. But then I'm also the only one who sees everything I do and knows my every motivation. For instance, there wasn't a whole lot in the way of RP involved in this character, it was pretty much just me being me but no one else would necessarily know that.

You admit to not having much RP, to repeatedly breaking character, and to basically just playing the charcter like yourself, IRL?

Yet, you were titled, and afforded two different spots in the Fortress, one as Maran, one as Acolyte? You are an awesome PK'er, but this is exactly the type of flawed rewarding system opponents of the Fortress have been pointing at more recently of late. We all know goodies in general are not the best pk'ers, but how much credit is enough for a character who by his own definition had #### RP? There are a hundred characters out there breaking their ass to RP who never hear even a hint of "good job", yet characters like Qulenit are given credit and other 'props'. I just dont understand how this is logical, or even remotely resembling fair, would one of the Fortress Imms care to comment?

I never fought or interacted with Qulenit, keep in mind, but best of luck with the next, Karel.

So when he says "not much rp" or "broke character" it is all relative.

If not why do you feel the need to answer/stand-up for him? Let the man speak, he doesn't need anyone holding his hand or spoon-feeding him answers or postulating on his personal thoughts. What the hell do we need you to postulate on his thought processes for when he himself can tell us the actual truth of them? Duh.

Because everyone is entitled to their opinion and best guesses. So if they want to share them, let them and stop being a #### about it.

Unlike you, the anonymous critic, a lot of people know some of Karel's previous characters, and they know he's a very solid player capable of quality roleplay. I tend to agree with Threekla's assessment that this was a pretty good character from a player who wants to play great characters. He can be disappointed with that, but it doesn't mean the character wasn't deserving of the fairly small-time rewards he received.

When some loudmouth jerk starts throwing around accusations at someone who other people think is a credit to the game as a player, those other people will occasionally step in to let that person know they are being a loudmouth jerk.

Mind if I look up a few of your characters so that the reading public can better evaluate the high horse you're on?

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

"When some loudmouth jerk starts throwing around accusations at someone who other people think is a credit to the game as a player, those other people will occasionally step in to let that person know they are being a loudmouth jerk."

I am one of those who like Karel's characters, and agree he is an asset to the game, I am merely pointing out his own admittance that the character was nothing special, and expressing curiousity at how
despite this, he was still able to achieve "success".

My point was that this is a thread about Karel's character, where I specifically asked him about his character. Why does Theerkla feel obligated to even respond? I asked Karel, not him. Is Karel unable to answer for himself? No. End of argument.

"Mind if I look up a few of your characters so that the reading public can better evaluate the high horse you're on?"

What does who I played have to do with? This conversation revolves around Karel's characters, not mine. Are you going to tell me who your characters have been, everytime someone wants you to substantiate your points? No, you aren't. Listen to what is being said, not who is saying it. You might learn something.

What does who I played have to do with? This conversation revolves around Karel's characters, not mine. Are you going to tell me who your characters have been, everytime someone wants you to substantiate your points? No, you aren't. Listen to what is being said, not who is saying it. You might learn something.

A lot of people throw that around, but it really does matter who's talking when the subject is something as subjective as roleplay standards. If some jackass on a street corner starts spouting things that make no sense to me about how he'd run the US economy, I'm going to ignore him. If Alan Greenspan spouts those same things, I'm going to say to myself "Maybe I don't fully understand this matter. I'll hear him out." He has credibility on that topic, and I'm much more likely to be wrong in my beliefs.

When you're saying "The staff is unfairly bestowing rewards on certain groups of characters!", I can do one of two things:

1) Investigate matters. Dig through logs, see if some staff are out of bounds with excessive generosity (or conversely, are unduly harsh to other groups of character), and speak with those staff. I do this from time to time (*), though usually only when several people notice the same trend.

2) Ignore you, and work on something else.

Whether I choose #1 or #2 has a lot to do with your credibility in addition to the words you've written. Right now, you're anonymously accusing a veteran player of sucking. The other players (whom I recognize from prior contributions) and staff (who I know well) on this thread are strongly disagreeing with you. I'm less familiar with this character, but I know Karel's played a lot of interesting characters before.

Right now, you're an angry anonymous guy taking vague potshots. You're going out of your way not to mention who you've played, which leads me to suspect those characters aren't terribly highly regarded. So I'm choosing #2 for now.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

(*): 3/4 of the time, it's "You're not giving enough rewards." It's fairly rare that I have to tell people to cut back, largely because we train people to be conservative with rewards when they're doing something new.

n/t

Since I am back at home, I can login now. Let me respond to some of your points without anonymity.

"Right now, you're an angry anonymous guy taking vague potshots. You're going out of your way not to mention who you've played, which leads me to suspect those characters aren't terribly highly regarded. So I'm choosing #2 for now."

I am Shadowmaster, I've played quite a few characters, and while I am no world-beater, I'd like to think I know a few things about MUD's, and about CF in particular. So now that we know my characters, does this mean you will listen to my comments more then if I was say...Josiah? I doubt it. You immortals proved in Curgrims deletion thread that you don't care what your players say/think. You care about when you the staff, decide to change things. And that is entirely your right. Arguably one of the five most respected players here, and an ex-battle imm to boot gave you suggestions about villagers, and you told him he was dead wrong. Why would I believe that you'd take my suggestions any differently when we all know I am not anywhere near Jinroh's caliber on any level. Best of luck, you'll need it.

So now that we know my characters, does this mean you will listen to my comments more then if I was say...Josiah?

No, because I think you're both nuts.

You're on a one-man crusade again. The only person claiming Qulenit was subpar is you. Qulenit said the character wasn't up to his usual standards, which doesn't mean the character should be punished. It just means he has higher standards.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

You're question seemed more rhetorical in nature "How can this happen" I didn't interpret it to be directed at Karel directly, more as a dig at CF that poorly rp'd players get rewards from fortress imms. I was merely providing one insight into why this particular self admittedly poorly rp'd character could receive such rewards.

Intent and emotion are very difficult to discern from flat text on the internet, so if I misinterpreted your posts or incorrectly assigned a motive to them, I apologize for any consternation my response might have caused you.

Um, no. The character had personality and such, it just happened to be mine. So it would be hard to break character without having some sort of mental breakdown on my part. You're seeing this after the fact where I give details, but before now how would someone know it wasn't me RPing my ass off? And I was completely devoid of RP, me as a player would have pushed for beating on the ragers and outlanders for all their ####, but as a character I wouldn't. So to summarize, I don't see how it's logical, or even resembling fair, to expect the imms to be able to read my mind.

"So to summarize, I don't see how it's logical, or even resembling fair, to expect the imms to be able to read my mind."

A fair statement, but you'd think someone would be able to tell the difference between you the player and the character, I mean you were titled etc.

As for the ragers and outlanders, thats because of your desire to PK, which even you admit you weren't sure how to handle as acolyte? I only comment because I've seen a slew of recent characters getting credit and then a rash of people wondering how/why these characters got it. Now you even say you put little to no effort into RP'ing and you got that credit. Do you blame me for inquiring how this can be so?

Actually, yes. Follow the bouncing ball. You roll a character. You decide his role will be to be a somewhat surly but basicly good person who defends what's his and doesn't really take ####. Taking that simple role you play your character and get your title and props or whatever. Now, I roll a character and just decide to play me which just happens to pretty much be your role (I'm not saying that's me, just for example purposes). To the imms watching there is zero difference between us. So, do you expect them to consult a crystal ball to see which of us is actually RPing?

>A fair statement, but you'd think someone would be able to
>tell the difference between you the player and the character,
>I mean you were titled etc.

Not without wiretapping your phones, which I'm not legally allowed to do. Where's mine, Patriot Act? Where's mine?! Ahem.

What it amounts to is this:

Qulenit = Sardonic, a little arrogant in a friendly way, helpful, and at times a bit of an abrasive jerk. The kind of guy you would call when you're stuck in a death trap but not the guy you want to get mud-married to in the Lyceum one day.

Qulenit's player = Presumably similarly sardonic, a little bit arrogant in a friendly way, helpful, and at times a bit of an abrasive jerk.

That doesn't mean Qulenit talked on Fort CB about his car or dog or whatever. It just means the rough personality and speech of the character is similar to that of the player.

But, you know? I even thought he was a pretty good Acolyte. He went out of his way to help people out and took some risks to do so. There's little, if anything, in the character that wasn't solid for what he was supposed to be.

I'm not running a cabal, but #### if I wouldn't have given Qulenit everything Team Fort did and probably a hell of a lot more in their place. Not all the well-played characters in this game are missing arms, have elaborate accents, or are the product of garishly elaborate backstories. Some are just plain solid and good. You need these relatively archetypal characters for the out-there ones to have something to play off of and not just be stupid, and this would've been a good character if it were played by a froofy hugful mom type and it's still a good character having been played by a sardonic jerk. (Although the former would impress me more, after the fact.)

>Do
>you blame me for inquiring how this can be so?

I do. It reeks of jealousy and misdirected criticism. If you can't outshine a guy RPing a character similar to himself, that says more about you than it says about him.

"I do. It reeks of jealousy and misdirected criticism"

Jealousy? Hardly. But feel free to continue to try and point out I am some jealous Josiah wanna-be. I continue to laugh at you in response.

Misdirected criticism? Possibly. The fact is the Fortress Immortals have made a recent habit of titling/rewarding characters with RP that, and this is the real point, more the one person has found lacking. You and Karel say "How were they supposed to know my character was just like me?". I say fine, Ill take it up with the player, who most certainly did.

Karel you slacked off for not having better RP. There, everyone happy now?

>Jealousy? Hardly. But feel free to continue to try and point
>out I am some jealous Josiah wanna-be. I continue to laugh at
>you in response.

If you look like a duck and quack like a duck, I wouldn't go flying around during hunting season no matter what you think you are.

A title isn't exactly a huge reward. If your complaint is that you're playing better characters that aren't getting titles, that's jealousy. If your complaint is that you're playing characters you think are better that are also getting titles, who the #### cares? If your complaint is that you're playing characters you think are better and they're getting more but you don't think it's enough more, again, who the #### cares?

>Misdirected criticism? Possibly. The fact is the Fortress
>Immortals have made a recent habit of titling/rewarding
>characters with RP that, and this is the real point, more the
>one person has found lacking.

Oooh. Not more than one person! I can't stand up to that kind of judgement.

Rewards in this game aren't a consensus-based exercise. If the imms think you're doing a good job, you might get something, if they think you're not, you might not. I think Qulenit was a solid character who deserved at least as much as he got; you don't, and that'd fine, except I don't care.

"If your complaint is that you're playing better characters that aren't getting titles, that's jealousy."

Agreed, and not the case.

"If your complaint is that you're playing characters you think are better that are also getting titles, who the #### cares? "

Agreed, still not the case.

"If your complaint is that you're playing characters you think are better and they're getting more but you don't think it's enough more, again, who the #### cares? "

Agreed, and its still not the case.

"Oooh. Not more than one person! I can't stand up to that kind of judgement."

This is very similar to my own opinion of, "Oooh. An immortal! I can't stand up to that kind of intelligence!" Shall we move on?

"Rewards in this game aren't a consensus-based exercise. If the imms think you're doing a good job, you might get something, if they think you're not, you might not."

Agreed. Thought I think it may make the MUD better if this were more clearly defined to the players, beyond "have role, get 10 xp". Consistency brings a sense of a level playing field that CF seems to lack.

" think Qulenit was a solid character who deserved at least as much as he got;"

I'm happy for you, and him, I didn't have any real problems with Qulenit IC, myself.

"you don't, and that'd fine, except I don't care."

Beyond the typo you made, I'll add that you seem to have this presumption that I care what you think, as well. In reality what I care about is very selfish, and that is having fun on the MUD. The more people the staff alienates with their inconsistent behavior and inconsistent reward system, the more people leave. This leaves me, the selfish player, with a lot less fun.

The reward system's consistent. The problem is, it's by nature subjective, and by definition can't be anything but. I reward characters I think are cool.

>The more people the staff alienates with their
>inconsistent behavior and inconsistent reward system, the more
>people leave. This leaves me, the selfish player, with a lot
>less fun.

Didn't you swear to leave forever, again?

It took me a little while to recognize the tone, but now that I understand that I'm arguing with someone pathologically incapable of admitting being wrong I'll stop.

"It took me a little while to recognize the tone, but now that I understand that I'm arguing with someone pathologically incapable of admitting being wrong I'll stop."

It must be tough for you and Valg to never talk to each other, then.

"Didn't you swear to leave forever, again?"

Yeah. I went and played another MUD, whose numbers were dwindling just like yours. In the end though I thought I'd give CF another try. While you guys constantly alienate your players, and the playerbase is constantly alienating you, you still have a solid MUD here. I just tried to offer suggestions on how to make it better, and seeing as you have no intention of listening to mine, or anyone elses that you do not deem 'cool', I'll go play another game that is interesting in changing with the times and constantly adapting to suit the needs of it's playerbase on a reasonable level. CF will be fine, you have a dedicated playerbase who won't leave ever. In any event, best of luck.

The problem is: No one thought Qulenit's RP sucked except for Qulenit - because it didn't meet his personal standards. If you look at Karel's other deletion threads, this is somewhat par for the course - he's played a few characters I thought were great that he thought sucked.

So, you see, from the very beginning, you never had a point. Yet, you continued with your irrelevant trash, hijacking Qulenit's delete thread over and over.

Look. Next time you come back and "give CF another try," do everyone a favor and stfu. You absolutely, positively, do not speak for the "players." I enjoy these forums much more when I don't have to sift through trash like yours. Your baseless rants do absolutely nothing to improve CF. In fact, I don't even think that's your goal. Thanks, and good luck with your next CF character.

The problem is: No one thought Qulenit's RP sucked except for Qulenit - because it didn't meet his personal standards. If you look at Karel's other deletion threads, this is somewhat par for the course - he's played a few characters I thought were great that he thought sucked.

Yup. In some ways, Karel is the reverse of the usual horn-tooting we see, and I think it throws people. If Karel posted to say "I was the best RPer ever!", there would immediately be a flurry of posts trying to tear him down.

So, you see, from the very beginning, you never had a point. Yet, you continued with your irrelevant trash, hijacking Qulenit's delete thread over and over.

Look. Next time you come back and "give CF another try," do everyone a favor and stfu. You absolutely, positively, do not speak for the "players." I enjoy these forums much more when I don't have to sift through trash like yours. Your baseless rants do absolutely nothing to improve CF. In fact, I don't even think that's your goal.

Yeah. Now that I've had time to check track records, I took some steps to make sure that source of noise pollution dies down for a while. We've removed maybe a dozen people from our forums since they opened, and while we only take that step rarely, I think it's proven beneficial in an overall sense-- most of the discussions here have been more productive of late.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

nt

I think the problem here is that you think of the imms as a collective entity, rather than a group of individuals. I'm sure they have some guidelines on rewarding morts just like I'm sure they have differing views on what deserves what. Doesn't bother me in the least. I play to have fun, at least usually, and that doesn't revolve around what the imms do or don't do for me nor what the imms do or don't do for another guy. I actually like when other people get rewards, then I'm the guy who beat down someone titled "the Badass Killer of Everything"

The fact is the Fortress Immortals have made a recent habit of titling/rewarding characters with RP that, and this is the real point, more the one person has found lacking.

Who exactly are we talking about? I must have missed the buzz about all the unjustly rewarded Fort characters...

And speaking as the imm who gave him most of it, Qulenit was a fine character who deserved what he got. No one had any complaints about his roleplay until HE posted that he wasn't crazy about the character. It's good he's got high standards... if Qulenit is his "crap", then we should do pretty good when he pulls out a gem.

Aarn

I personally think that all in all rewards come a bit easier these days. Minor ones at least like names or titles, not quest forms and third legacies. I don't have a problem with that though, everyone likes a little recognition now and then and from my perspective it seems mostly even across the board. Obviously the cabals/religions with the most active imms will see the most by virtue of having a lot of attention. Now if everyone was getting a quest form/spell/skill, extra legacies/virtues and so on maybe I'd wonder, but I can't remember the last person who had one of these I didn't think completely deserved it, and compared to these names and titles are pretty damn minor, more of a pat on the back than a deafening cheer. My one complaint would be the juicy titles. You just don't see enough of "the Bumbling Idiot" type titles. Make fun of more people, it's good for the soul to point and laugh at others.

I personally think that all in all rewards come a bit easier these days. Minor ones at least like names or titles, not quest forms and third legacies. I don't have a problem with that though, everyone likes a little recognition now and then and from my perspective it seems mostly even across the board.

That's largely a result of policy. We're pushing people to give out small rewards, and we've added a number of features at various levels of immdom over the last year to make this quick and easy.

I'm not sure why Shadowmaster feels it necessary to protest characters getting minor rewards of the type Qulenit earned, but there are no plans to change that policy. As a recent example, the role contest rewards have been cranked up a bit since previous incarnations.

Just wait until those people delete! I'm sure they're also not up to Shadowmaster's standards.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Ive noticed the small rewards ie) titles and stuff, have increased of late. I think its a good thing. Players appreciate anything that makes them a bit unique from the drones of other characters. Without little perks and unique things, the game looks like Diablo or something with everyone striving for the 'perfect set' and all ending up basically the same. I think the Imms are doin good at handing out neat titles, ect.

Another cool idea ,(my opinion), would be minor rewards like specialized spells, (purple/blue/green faerie fire, ect.) SHape forms with slightly diferent names or appearance. (Feral snow-wolf) Thieves with customized blackjacks named Thumper. Warriors with talking swords. Things that do really do anything to effect game mechanics but give more uniqueness to heros of the land.

I played a mud long time back and they introduced mutations as part of the story line. Basically every character that reached a certain age got some mutation due to some role play angle of living so long under the radiation or something...I think there were 100 or so little things that could effect you, like your eyes turning red (permenant infravision), skin started to scab up (charisma went down, armor class a bit tougher. I think they were all pretty minor things but it was kind of fun. (The mud overall did suck pretty bad)

Anyhow I ramble. Titles and reward = Good. Whining about too many titles and rewards = Bad.

Another cool idea ,(my opinion), would be minor rewards like specialized spells, (purple/blue/green faerie fire, ect.) SHape forms with slightly diferent names or appearance. (Feral snow-wolf) Thieves with customized blackjacks named Thumper. Warriors with talking swords. Things that do really do anything to effect game mechanics but give more uniqueness to heros of the land.

A lot of that is fairly easy, and I know we have more options there than we did a year ago, and much more than we did when I joined the staff. We're working on this actively.

Anyhow I ramble. Titles and reward = Good. Whining about too many titles and rewards = Bad.

Yeah. I could understand complaining if we were capriciously handing out powerful quest abilities, but any time someone bitches about another player getting a title, etc., I think it says a lot more about the bitcher than it does about the bitchee.


valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Damn man, think you could put jerk in there a few more times? I feel so abused.

You were a beast and handed me my ass so many times, what else to say... well good work and come back, but this time to Empire!

I've played a lot of imperials actually. It's just at the point of old hat now, pretty much everything is. As to you, you played a good shadow lord. I would rather you were an aggressive assassin who played into my hands, but that probably wouldn't have been in your best interests.

Did you get your PBF or did someone else or anything? If not, I'll gladly grab it for you.

I didn't and I doubt anyone else has. That being said, rather you didn't either, don't have any real interest in seeing it.

.

Sorry, I did after I put this in... while I understand how your not intrested in seeing it, characters that make impacts on those other of us who play's character lives sometimes do. Sorry.

Getting complimented about being a gear whore as an Acolyte by Aarn and saying how the other acolytes should be shamed because they didn't wear a ton of armor.

Man. I'm depressed.

Eh, think you're tossing your own interpretation out there.

You've got a pretty different definition of gear whore from me from all accounts.

Gear whore to me would be a character who hunts gear as a priority over doing other stuff their character should theoretically consider more important. There was a storm warrior this year, and I want to say it was Crenton but it might not have been, who I recall gear hunting this one time with a group of like five. Meanwhile a group of three comparable PK range Scions or Empire or something is running around wreaking major havok. We have this gear-hunting good group who is doing that while the total evilish/enemy characters in their PK range is a much smaller force and is being allowed to do their thing totally unchecked. (To add insult to injury, the dude in question, and it's why he stuck out to me over the rest of the group, is going on and on in grouptalk about how he's going to smoke one of those evils when he sees him and what a #### the evil guy is.)

That, to me, is gear whoring.

On the other end of the spectrum in my mind, we have a guy like Qulenit. If he PKed someone and they had better gear than he had that he could use, he'd definitely take it. If there was good gear in and there was basically nothing cabal-related he could do, he'd probably go get it, but it was clearly way down the priority list. It was something he would do if there weren't really other choices to do something productive rather than just log off. He'd slowly accrue better and sometimes even top-end gear, and since he didn't die a whole lot (at hero, anyway) he tended to have pretty solid gear at any time.

This, to me, is not gear whoring. You can play the role of vow-of-poverty style good, but if all good was meant to be played that way, there certainly wouldn't be high-end good-only gear in the game.

What does the guy's gear have anything to do with him as an Acolyte? Why should an acolyte need good gear at all? Given all that, why would other acolytes be shamed because their gear wasn't l33t? Why would it be a topic of compliment? I didn't watch Qulenit, I just thought the statement was shallow. If I do play an Acolyte I'd play them like I played my last goodies, IE, gear shouldn't mean much as long as its serves a purpose. But whatever, I forgot that I'm alone in that notion.

It's something that was different about the character from many Acolytes. It's not a cause to praise him or deride others, it just is what it is.

It's what Death_claw does. If he didn't, we'd have to nominate someone else for 'single most stupid forum presence'

First I just wanted to say, you did a really good job, and I will never regret recommending you for Maran. It REALLY helps when you wake up and see somebody else on a regular basis. Now on to what I was going to ask. When you got trans'd to Aarn and I was standing there with him, and I said something like "If I were in as much trouble as you, I wouldn't be laughing" did you believe me? Heh, it sounds like you really thought you were in trouble. I wanted to make you sweat a bit, just as some dwarf side humor. You are one of three people that I have ever told, that I knew I could count on you. So good job, and good luck on your next.

Nah, by the time you said that Aarn had already promoted me so I knew he was just screwing with me, so by extension you must be too. You're doing a good job as marshall, especially with your efforts to cut the no shows, those people always irritate me for some reason so I always applaud that effort. You're a good leader too though, one that has some presence and resolve. It was a mixed blessing seeing you around though. On one hand it could mean we'll be getting some stuff done and maybe have some good fights. On the other it could mean we'd be sitting around staring at the walls. I can't honestly say it was mostly the latter because I just don't know if it was, but damn if it didn't feel that way sometimes.

.

Aww, a real shame to see Qulenit go. Surely a solid character with great game knowledge. BTW, I agree with you that you could RP better, and it showed through even though I didn't knew you're Karel. You were a bit too... game-mechanical, if it is a correct word. But I agree with staff guys that this kind of RP was still above average standards.

My character had controversial feelings towards you. You tempted him with the promises of power :-) You helped Alven more than all other characters combined. As a player, I surely liked your sardonic comments and, being a sardonic person myself, cackled behind my monitor, but tried to respond in game like my character would. A pleasure to play in one team with you, and good luck with your next!

I guess I judge RP on a bell curve, at least my own. Liked your character, especially how you like to do things more or less by yourself, a quality I respect. Could wish for you to be around a bit more though =P

nt

Hey there were a few times I almost got you. =P well played. First actual, hrm how do I say it, battle trannie I've really seen in action. Well played.

-rekraa

bt