Come up with a set number of edges earned, either based on levels or levels + playing time with a cap at some point so undead, elves and other long-lived races don’t have too great an advantage. Or alternatively, shorter-lived races earn them sooner based on hours played in relation to total lifespan potential. Obviously, there should be some sort of benefit to those who write impressive roles, rp exceptionally well, lend an air of excitement to the world via cabals/Pk and so forth. But the goal is diversity and individuality as opposed to becoming nigh-unkillable or a pk war-machine.

I’ve seen lots of complete silliness about CF being too big so it kills PK, which I think is tripe. If PK is your thing, join one of the more combative cabals or sit on the eastern road you’ll get to PK. Otherwise, an Imm or rotating Imms (like how role contests are done, and of course assuming time is available) could orchestrate or generate more events. From longer-ranging plots to straightforward X, Y or Z is in need of this or must be stopped, etc. It doesn’t have to be commonplace, but it definitely wouldn’t hurt interest if it happened more often. I’ve run into both caballed and non-caballed people who run out of things to do. No new/remaining areas to visit or explore, and so the character they’re playing becomes boring. From a story/involvement perspective things like adventure and more variety in terms of each character being unique is a plus.

Likewise the turnover rate is so high with characters in general it lends itself to a static sense of general malaise or meh-itous, which implies players have less interest in any given character instead of more. To an extent this can’t be addressed, some people just don’t stick or lose their focus with a specific character, but a high turnover rate in general is a sign that involvement is only middling at best.

We have only one or two coders presently (to my limited knowledge) so ideally, the emphasis should be on interactions and immersion that don’t require new coding, and can be enacted via the present toolset.

All of this being said, players should know and be responsible for doing what they can to facilitate things as well. RP RP RP RP. (That’s as much to me as to anyone else.) If you’re just a jerk, there’s really no net gain for you or the game. Coming up with ideas, (like what Herald is supposed to be all about) that encourage interaction and involvement as a player and any given character are worthwhile and pay benefits for all. In most cases players try to support these attempts. This also gives players who tend to expect the moon and stars from the Imms some small iota of understanding about how thankless and sometimes disappointing genuine effort volunteered can end up turning out to be. Not the goal mind you, but understanding rarely hinders a situation and the bottom-line is or at least should be, developing positive results for a game that we all obviously enjoy playing or investing into to one extent or another.


Some generally specific issues from my perspective: (I’ll preface this with saying I am not the know all be all by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not great at PK, I don’t know all the nooks and crannies of the game world, and like many of us, can’t play from work and sadly can’t devote as much time as I’d like to, to the game itself. Likewise I haven’t tried every variation out there, so my comments are limited to those I have or are quantified as a result.)

Outlander: Only being able to barter sucks. (Can you barter if you’re blind? I don’t know honestly, but it’s a huge handicap. Sans knowledge of the game, for specific classes especially it becomes a frustrating and often fruitless chore. For some classes it’s completely not an issue for the most part.)

Entropy: Not so great for shifters at all. Mirror is still broken to my knowledge. Not sure how well the Probability power works, maybe it’s great. Limitations on garble are understandable, but don’t lend themselves to the miasma of chaos. Essentially it is a very wimpy ghost of its former self, but maybe that’s by design. If so, I’d recommend either letting it go and maybe taking the cabal back to the drawing board and dump all old powers in favor of new ones. Or going with a new version of Masters or some variant thereof. Coming up with ideas would be pretty easy but there’s the coding aspect so…

Herald: Maybe allow Heralds to be jacks of more than one trade as they put in hours? In general Heralds and the Inn feels kind of one note and that could be on the player’s to be fair, but Heralds in general should come off as anything but that. Also, maybe give them a bump while in the Inn, defensively speaking or just set bouncers to auto-rescue anyone attacked in the Inn and call in help.

Battle: Clearly something is wrong, it’s one of the least populated cabals around these days. More Scarabs, Entropists and Heralds than there are villagers. That’s just off. I’m not sure what might fix this or if there is anything to be fixed, but it’s disappointing.

Too damn -many- guards everywhere even outside cities: Guards should be mostly neutral instead of good. Granted, in specific cities if they lean more heavily towards good than evil or neutral it would make sense. But Galadon guards should be orderly/neutral. Arkham guards should likely be orderly/evil. And so on…

Rangers: In general are pretty limited and it takes one thing to completely rock a ranger into near uselessness. Archers are an okay wildcard, the rest seem very lackluster and neglected. (Granted, I haven’t played them all but after 4 or so it feels a little like masochism beyond a certain point.