Your post is all over the place, but this is something we've been consciously addressing:

Lastly, there's power creep - this is a lot broader but I think it needs to be said that it needs to start being addressed. The difference between a fully prepped player and a newer or less prepared player is incredibly high. Every single zone adds some new prep, some new kickass thing, that ups the ante a little more. "You mean you didn't have aura/shield/fly/stone/resists/ward/etc before you died"?

1) We recently reduced the number of Edge points awarded for Observation, Exploration, and role entries because we felt the boost was driving a lot of OCD-type tedium. Factor #1 behind that change was reducing the gap between haves and have-nots-- we were seeing otherwise unremarkable characters with pile of Edges and didn't like the degree of advantage it gave. That's worked, and frankly the characters near the top of the Edge Point list are the types of characters we like to encourage-- and yet not as far ahead of novices as they used to be.

2) We reduced the rate at which expert players could amass cash by clamping down on the more exploitable currency containers. Before, there were a number of experienced players with nigh-unlimited cash flow (which translates directly into preps, the most common purchases), and novices who couldn't afford much. That's worked-- the wealthiest characters still have a lot of cash, but not so much that they can just buy 50 of everything.

3A) We revised the sleek wand system so that any character can find their wands, and there's zero advantage to having a cheater's list. The old system created an OOC tiering that's now gone.

3B) Every character has the same lifetime level of difficulty now. Before, blind luck resulted in some characters always having high-difficulty spots and other characters always having low-difficulty spots. And still other characters effectively had no spots, because their wand was in a location that they couldn't find, in part because they had no guidance to help them. That created an IC tiering that is now gone.

All of those instances had one thing in common-- many of the "haves" complained bitterly that they no longer had a massive advantage over the "have nots". We're perfectly willing to fight that battle, however, precisely because we want to cut back on the advantage they have, in order to increase retention of more novice players.

This is deliberately different from much of your plan, which trends towards uniformity-- everyone gets the same number of Edges just for power ranking, for example. We don't want various facets of the game to have no incentives-- I like that Exploration and Observation, for example, get people out of their guilds and open up an activity that can be done when a group isn't feasible.

Finally, I'm completely unapologetic about subjective rewards for well-RPed characters. If anything, I don't think we provide that sort of incentive enough, and if that reward system gets "gamed" and the MUD is overwhelmed by a swarm of characters who spend their time trying to stand out for excellent RP, that's a situation I'm happy to accept.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com