>Thought I'd post this given people continue to bitch about
>rolling stats.

I stopped reading here.

>Normally I wouldn't, but they actually have
>somewhat of a point. There are four types of players when it
>comes to character creation.
>
>1. Players who accept massively suboptimal stats because they
>don't know any better. These are usually extremely new
>players.
>
>2. Players who accept massively suboptimal stats because they
>want a challenge or some angle to role-play.
>
>3. Players who take the best they can get in some "reasonable"
>period of manual rolling (maybe 5 minutes). This usually gets
>them MAX-2 or MAX-3.
>
>4. Players who use rollers and insist on perfect or
>near-perfect stats, possibly rolling for multiple hours.
>
>#1 punishes new players for their ignorance. #4 punishes
>non-obsessive players (though admittedly not hugely) for their
>unwillingness to automate rolling. #4 also incurs bandwidth
>use that might be better allocated towards something else.
>
>As a solution, some have suggested that every character be
>given perfect stats automatically. I don't like this idea as
>it removes all variability from characters' stats. Instead I
>propose the following:
>
>One "stat generation" per {net designation} per {unit time}.
>Net designation would be either address or subnet. Unit time
>would be either "hour" or "day", depending on how strict you
>want to be. Character creation would resemble the current
>method, but with a few key changes.
>
>A) Stat generation is made the very last step in creating a
>character. All other choices preceed stat generation. One a
>set of stats is generated, the user must choose to either
>create the character or disconnect and wait the requisite
>amount of time before attempting to create another character.
>
>B) Stats are generated in a single step rather than being
>generated multiple times within a given session. They will
>not be perfect, but will resemble the stats typically chosen
>by type #3 players above. That is to say somewhere in the
>MAX-1, MAX-2, MAX-3 range. The point is that they should
>resemble what a "normal" player gets using the current system
>if he rolls manually for about 5 minutes.
>
>C) When shown prospective stats the user is also given a
>reference point from which to evaluate them. In other words,
>he sees the max rollable value for each stat. Currently this
>is easy to discover using a relatively small number of rolls.
>Since the new method doesn't allow multiple stat generation,
>providing a reference point is only fair. Otherwise the
>first-time player has absolutely no context within which to
>evaluate a given set of stats.
>
>D) Prior to stat generation the player will be given the
>choice to altar any of his previous choices (race, class,
>alignment, etc.) to endure that his session isn't wasted due
>to an errant keystroke.
>
>Advantages:
>
>1) Ignorance doesn't shaft new players. Their stats will be
>similar (though not identical) to other characters of the same
>race/class.
>
>2) Less load (cpu and bandwidth) on CF's servers.
>
>3) Character creation time is reduced for those players who
>currently roll manually since they no longer have to roll.
>
>4) Stats in the new system will resemble the stats received in
>the current system by players who act in "good faith"
>according to the staff's suggestions concerning rolling.
>
>5) More difficult to gain an advantage via automation, i.e.
>rollers.
>
>6) Less incentive for low-ranking characters to delete and
>re-roll after their first death, since in many cases that may
>require waiting several hours.
>
>Disadvantages:
>
>1) Much harder to get perfect stats. (Some will consider this
>a disadvantage, others an advantage.)
>
>2) Less flexible. A player can't create a character then
>change his mind and immediately create something else.
>
>3) Using subnet for net designation could penalize players who
>share a subnet with other players. The effect should be very
>minor, though, as character creation is a relatively
>infrequent event. Using IP address would allow dial-in
>customers to circumvent the time restriction by reconneting to
>their ISP. However, that effort itself might be sufficient
>deterrent.