I was just talking about "the good old days" of CF with a friend of mine that doesn't play anymore. Honestly, I don't know how we even played back in the day, so many of the things that were normal then sound HORRIBLE now. Feel free to post your own revised list if you like. So, here's my top ten list of the Most Significant Changes in the History of CF:

10. Changes to preps. Specifically I'm thinking of the removal of the glorious "purple potions". What was it, like five steps off the eastern road, free sanc potion? The new changes with a/b/s have obviously had some significant affects as well, though it's lowest on my list because I think the large majority of players can play without worrying about them.

9. CF becomes 99% unique. I think it's good to have all the assorted references to Jordan, Eddings, Toliken, etc gone. It allows us to further our own CF "brand" of fantasy. In fact the only one that's left that comes to mind off hand is the whitecloak encampment. All in all it's not an earth-shattering change, but it's worth a mention.

8. Changes to practice. It really feels like there's very little need to sit around and spam practice your skills now days. Back when everyone was doing it, you basically had to do it or get beat up by those that did. Special honorable note to the skill bonuses at every ranking. Also, I trust everyone remembers the pyranthian boxing gloves!

7. Recent expansion of built-in quests, and the new "sayto" ability. Having little quests all over the place really adds a lot of depth to the world. I hope we'll see more sayto usage in the near future, as it spreads throught our areas.

6. Newbie protections. Namely, moving the pk range up from level 5 and taking away bash and enhanced damage at level 1 from giant warriors. How many of you remember being pked for your first time while INSIDE THE NEWBIE ACADEMY. Bleh.

5. Changes to invokers, transmuters; addition of conjurers and shifters. Makes actual distinctions between the schools of magic, rather then everyone having the same spells with no particular rhyme or reason (more or less). Old transmuters were so overpowered. Gate, duo, prismatic, color spray, hold, charm. Beauty.

4. Communers actually "commune". Makes the clerical classes more then just "mages in priest suits". Also, honorable mention to spheres here for the way they helped define religion and communers.

3. The gradual stricter enforcement of roleplay. Back in the day we did things interspersed with OOC stuff, and that has gradually become unacceptable. And I think that's a good thing that really sets CF apart from the crowed.

2. Lengthening of the roads of Thera. Five rooms from Galadon to New Thalos! And the forest south of Galadon and the Eastern Road were the same area, so you could summon between them. Great for splitting up groups! Few things have changed the face of Thera and the way we play more then that.

And Aarn's number one most significant change:

1. The "new" cabal raiding system. I remember the days of having to spam the altar to get the item as you unlocked it, because if you didn't one of the lowbies would grab the item and your raid would be for nothing. Also, remember standing "guard duty" over the item, and trying to be fast enough to grab the item before someone could flee past the guardian and get it? I sudder at the thought. Cabals and cabal raiding is one of the key parts to CF gameplay in my opinion, and it's far, far surperior today then it was back then. Also let me just say, the Battle cabal was 100% no-magic. Imagine raiding in that today! If anything is a testament to how buff Masters were, it's that. Cabals are MUCH more balanced today.

RE: Poll: Most Significant Changes in the History of CF
Also let me just say, the Battle cabal was 100% no-magic. Imagine raiding in that today! If anything is a testament to how buff Masters were, it's that. Cabals are MUCH more balanced today.


I thought Battle cabal was still 100% no-magic? I'm confused here by the implied contrast.

It means that in the old days, you could not use any magic inside Battle cabal area. These days, it's just no recall but you can cast spells there.

Good:

5. Warrior specializations. This turned a very poor class into a very good one.
4. Assassins being made completely spell-less. Another awesome change. Take away some of the obvious no-thought power and give them a whole whack of skills.
3. Removal of necro acid blast and general improvement on the whole class.
2. Conjurers. A great class with a whole lot of fun stuff in it.
1. The entire economic revamp. A fantastic change which actually put worth into money.

Bad:

5. Empowerment. This is bad for a couple reasons, but the most glaringly obvious seems to be the pigeonholing of priests into bad religions. Some good religions, but a lot of horrid ones.
4. Removal of the Shadows and Knights. The one good-aligned cabal around I enjoyed. Fortress is no comparison, and when you threw every single good-aligned guy into the same building it was far too tough to raid.
3. Legacies. "Oh, let's just make the easiest class in the game to play even more powerful by giving them legacies. Shouldn't #### up the balance too hard."
2. No mage cabal other than Scion, and even then when Scion was crying out for a little relief from the pressure you added Outlander into the gank mix.
1. Sylvan. Awful, awful, awful. The age of "stupid gank squad".

>Bad:
>
>5. Empowerment. This is bad for a couple reasons, but the most
>glaringly obvious seems to be the pigeonholing of priests into
>bad religions. Some good religions, but a lot of horrid ones.

Suggest a better system. Hint: Over ten years later, no one has yet. Just so we're 100% clear, pre-empowerment clerics were not a better system.

>3. Legacies. "Oh, let's just make the easiest class in the
>game to play even more powerful by giving them legacies.
>Shouldn't #### up the balance too hard."

Clearly, your biases are showing, or you weren't around to see the nearly nonexistent high level warrior population at the time legacies went in.

>2. No mage cabal other than Scion, and even then when Scion
>was crying out for a little relief from the pressure you added
>Outlander into the gank mix.

Nexus.

Not changing the concept of empowerment, just tweaking it a bit..

Change empowerment so that instead of being unable to use communes and skills above level 10, make it so that you commune at 66.6666667% (modify as fit) of your level.. (So a level 30 unempowered cleric communes at level 20 (+/- other modifiers))..

Edit: Skills should not be affected by empowerment. Someone said that they are, and it doesn't make sense.

I was reading cached logs on dios from long ago. And i noticed the one skill you wanted most for any one class/race combo was spin for felar antipaladins. Dude! the Imms love you! Since that post.
Partial spin, Evade, and that one WandinInventory spell has been introduced. I am glad your wish list is on par with mine!

krilcov@gmail.com

>I was just talking about "the good old days" of CF with a
>friend of mine that doesn't play anymore. Honestly, I don't
>know how we even played back in the day, so many of the things
>that were normal then sound HORRIBLE now. Feel free to post
>your own revised list if you like. So, here's my top ten list
>of the Most Significant Changes in the History of CF:
>
>10. Changes to preps. Specifically I'm thinking of
>the removal of the glorious "purple potions". What was it,
>like five steps off the eastern road, free sanc potion? The
>new changes with a/b/s have obviously had some significant
>affects as well, though it's lowest on my list because I think
>the large majority of players can play without worrying about
>them.
>
>9. CF becomes 99% unique. I think it's good to have
>all the assorted references to Jordan, Eddings, Toliken, etc
>gone. It allows us to further our own CF "brand" of fantasy.
>In fact the only one that's left that comes to mind off hand
>is the whitecloak encampment. All in all it's not an
>earth-shattering change, but it's worth a mention.

Its ok. There was also something cool about taking a trip to Moria to beat down the Balrog.

>8. Changes to practice. It really feels like there's
>very little need to sit around and spam practice your skills
>now days. Back when everyone was doing it, you basically had
>to do it or get beat up by those that did. Special honorable
>note to the skill bonuses at every ranking. Also, I trust
>everyone remembers the pyranthian boxing gloves!
>
>7. Recent expansion of built-in quests, and the new "sayto"
>ability. Having little quests all over the place really
>adds a lot of depth to the world. I hope we'll see more sayto
>usage in the near future, as it spreads throught our areas.

Gimme a break. This just makes everyone waste time. Sayto 'random mob' something. No response, west. Sayto 'random mob' something, no response, north. Yawn, exciting as watching grass grow. How you could include "sayto" quests in a top ten boggles me.

>6. Newbie protections. Namely, moving the pk range up
>from level 5 and taking away bash and enhanced damage at level
>1 from giant warriors. How many of you remember being pked
>for your first time while INSIDE THE NEWBIE ACADEMY. Bleh.
>
>5. Changes to invokers, transmuters; addition of conjurers
>and shifters. Makes actual distinctions between the
>schools of magic, rather then everyone having the same spells
>with no particular rhyme or reason (more or less). Old
>transmuters were so overpowered. Gate, duo, prismatic, color
>spray, hold, charm. Beauty.
>
>4. Communers actually "commune". Makes the clerical
>classes more then just "mages in priest suits". Also,
>honorable mention to spheres here for the way they helped
>define religion and communers.
>
>3. The gradual stricter enforcement of roleplay. Back
>in the day we did things interspersed with OOC stuff, and that
>has gradually become unacceptable. And I think that's a good
>thing that really sets CF apart from the crowed.
>
>2. Lengthening of the roads of Thera. Five rooms from
>Galadon to New Thalos! And the forest south of Galadon and
>the Eastern Road were the same area, so you could summon
>between them. Great for splitting up groups! Few things have
>changed the face of Thera and the way we play more then that.
>
>
>And Aarn's number one most significant change:
>
>1. The "new" cabal raiding system. I remember the days
>of having to spam the altar to get the item as you unlocked
>it, because if you didn't one of the lowbies would grab the
>item and your raid would be for nothing. Also, remember
>standing "guard duty" over the item, and trying to be fast
>enough to grab the item before someone could flee past the
>guardian and get it? I sudder at the thought. Cabals and
>cabal raiding is one of the key parts to CF gameplay in my
>opinion, and it's far, far surperior today then it was back
>then. Also let me just say, the Battle cabal was 100%
>no-magic. Imagine raiding in that today! If anything is a
>testament to how buff Masters were, it's that. Cabals are
>MUCH more balanced today.

...And I'm somewhat proud to say that some of the above are actually my ideas (or I helped dream them up) including the "new" cabal raiding system.

However, I have to say that THE MOST IMPORTANT/BEST/TEH M0ST R0XX0RZ CHANGE EVER....

Was when Derit (I think) changed it so you did not lose exp from being PK'd.

Prior to that change (which was very early in CF's life), you could be pked as early as level 3, and you lost exp just like a mob death. At level 3 that didn't mean a whole lot since you only lost 15% of your total exp or something like that (so 1500 exp) but let me tell you there was *very* little pking going on at "higher" levels (back then "high" level was 30).

In general if you PK'd someone back then, you knew you were essentially causing them to eat a mob death, and it seemed like only power gamerz pk'd.

Imagine CF today if the only people who really PK'd someone else were the ones who essentially didn't care if they were ruining someone's day. Other than heroes, you'd see:

Cabal raid/retrieval? I don't think so. I have to level before I get pk'd.
Levelling with someone I don't absolutely trust 100%? Uh uh.
Eastern road? I'll stay in my guild, thanks.
And so on.

I actually remember the MOTD when this change came out. It said something like:

PK no longer causes EXP loss. MORE BLOOD!

I mean hell it was fairly common to delete straight up if you ate a mob death after 40, if you ate 2 in a row it should have been an automatic your never ever getting past this rank flag.

this was also a time when all arbitters had guards and could use them out of the city as well as manacles. hero arbies hunting down level 20 criminals as they ranked in the past and piling up xp penalties for sylvans and villagers bleh.

>I mean hell it was fairly common to delete straight up if you
>ate a mob death after 40, if you ate 2 in a row it should have
>been an automatic your never ever getting past this rank
>flag.

When I leveled Ahztel, I had probably 75k to go from 49 to 50, then I needed another 120k to go from 50 to 51. And people say the "grind" in World of Warcraft was bad...do you even KNOW how many storm giants I killed in Kiadana?!

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

3)Immexp. Now almost everybody gets an itty but of imm love. Too bad I can't even get past first base.

2)PBF's. Callin' out names, yo.

and for the badabing...
1: Warrior Specs. Made the class super cool, and was a great concept for how other classes were to be further developed.

I started when Tureanthen was a Hero-Imm, whenever that was. So here are my 10 Most Significant Changes AN (After Nivek) - In no particular order.

1. Toggle for damage verbs. This is the first time that I can remember where you guys put something in that you thought was cool, a significant part of the playerbase said no, and you compromised on it. To this day, "damage" is the first command I enter with a new character.

2. Role command. A fantastic addition, even if I don't always use it.

3. Monetary conversion to gold, silver and copper, and the refined economic system.

4. Cheap shot skill for thieves. Can you say thief population explosion?

5. Thief revamp - very nicely done, even if it's trial and error to figure out what the matrix between two guilds is.

6. Cabal changes:

a. Change of Battle philosophy.
b. Change of Sylvan powers. Much more significant than the elimination of the cabal.
c. Elimination of Master and the forming of the three subcabals.
d. Elimination of Entropy. I can't thank you enough. Cabal was great until chaotic-stupid took over.

7. Reduction of XP holes. Another fantastic change. 'Nuff said.

8. Warrior legacies. Makes the most popular class even more customizable. Well done on these.

9. Change to practicing. It doesn't really bother me any, but it surely was a major change.

10. Expansion of the PK range at hero. This happened twice as I recall.

>4. Cheap shot skill for thieves. Can you say thief
>population explosion?

When I first put that skill in, thief players at the time almost universally thought the skill was crap. Most complained it didn't do enough damage. A lot of hate notes were received. A few even asked me to remove the skill from them because they believed for some crack-headed reason that it was lagging them.

Everyone thought it sucked until all of a sudden, one of you IMMs brought it up on the boards and then the light went on.

K

nt

Not in order of well-liked/dislike. Throwing out some good/can-be-improved changes.

Changes that I liked and appreciate:
1. Warriors Legacy. Friggin' cool stuff. Till now, whenever I read a fantasy book, I would think if this particular skill on a hero can be reproduced as a legacy. Nice job.

2. Newbie Academy. Nuff said.

3. Toned down cabal powers so that uncaballed actually *gasp* stand a chance and hero. Cabals are not for elite but for the general players. Except one cabal, but that's another subject altogether.

4. ORCS! MORE ORCS! MORE ORCS! Good stuff.

5. Mummy/Lich. I hate it when I have spent hours to near hero range and I can't move further until an Imm decided that I'm good enough to be a Lich.

6. Priests tweaks with the style of commune. Religions actually is important for empowered characters.

7. Empowerment. In spite of all the #### that people have bitched, I've found this to be one of the highlights of CF. Ok, maybe I'm a religious fanatic here, but still... Good job!

8. Summon mobs. I remember summoning mobs in the Palace and ranking from there. Gosh, it was stupid but fun. So I think the Imms felt stupidity has overtaken fun. Nice.

And...

The #1 thing I've found to be most helpful (read: punt) and useful is the re-vamp of the help-files.

It was a bloody pain in the ass in the past when I used to play. I can never find anything. Trying to do a help <word> gave me whole tons of rubbish I didn't need. Now I can differentiate sphere and subject.

Changes that I hope can be better:
1. Thieves. I liked the changes and unique paths. Makes them so uniquely creative when I want to roll up a thief. I know a lot of deep discussions and thoughts were given to it. And the one-trick pony of double-backstab, then trip or knife/flee, rinse and repeat, were kinda stupid as a thief.

However I still feel that the individual paths on the overall lack something. I don't know what, but somehow, I cannot figure it out.

Thieves Guilds separation is a very good change. However, we need to draw it into the landscape. Joining a guild should have more rewarding experience. Maybe I should roll-up one again and see how I can improve. I just love the poisoners (if only my previous request can be met) and trappers.

2. Mazes. I god-damn hate them. Er, actually it's 2-sided... if I knew how to walk through it.

3. Minotaurs. Friggin' speech. As Narissa, when the Minotaur God spoke to me, I was sweating behind the screen. He's an evil god, yet I wanna punch him in his face because I had to take 2 minutes to understand one-line, repeating it over and over to make sense out of it. He said, "blah, blah, blah" and then there's this "thybrith" or something and I asked him, "Huh? Hybrid?" Is that a medivial word? Gosh it was funny.

Anyway, minotaurs didn't fit in as well as I thought it would. Purely because of the lack of chances to roll it up. So players cannot be creative in thinking of the background, speech pattern, religion, etc. Take away the cap and you'll see more writings about them.

4. Wood-elfs. Less exp penalty. If not, beef up the inherents. The current one don't cut it for the 400 exp penalty.

I'd just like to cosign that. Wood-elves are supposed to be less rare then dark-elves or high-elves, right? Sure they have an experience point penalty to reflect that, but the character numbers don't. So yea, should be a good indicator that something's wrong balance-wise with the race. Something's gotta change to warrent more people playing them. Beefing up inherents and cutting the exp penalty, both, instead of either one, sound like good solutions to me.

Any chance of gentlewalk for wood-elves? heh.

Splntrd

If you choose ranger or druid as wood elf, you get some very nice stuff. I'dd say that the exp bonus is there for an obvious reason if you tried them in combination with those two classes.

But I can agree that a wood elf warrior is not worth 400 exp penalty

What is the mummy chage?

Necromancers can now opt to become either mummies or lichs. The mummification process is similar to the becoming of lichs, and mummies are similar to lichs as well, but a bit less potent and (debatably) easier to obtain.

Splntrd

Most annoying changes to CF:

1: Practicing. I agree that you shouldn't have to spam. You should have bumped up natural learning to the point that it wasn't faster to get a bunch of mobs and learn dodge/parry.

Instead you did it your way.


2: neo-past, gol'galath. I spend most of my time on CF sleeping for mvs. It's pretty awesome. And roads keep getting longer and more mv draining.


3: Censoring your own forums. You know, CF has this sort of hardball edge. Proving your point by pointing out that everyone else is a moron is part of the fun.

Now you guys are always "right" because nobody can point out why you're wrong.


4: Imms renaming themselves every few months. Has it always been like this? Who the hell is Aarn? He's been around since the days of Purple Potions? Religions come and go so fast.. sheesh.


5: Making mobs smarter. Awesome, now ranking area mobs have weapons - my non-warrior is twice as likely to not tank well. Remember the White Tower? That was pretty nice. I liked dumb mobs. I don't particularly like getting spinebroken trying to regear for an axe.


6: Loooonger descriptions. I know you guys think that you are all really great writers, but guess what - I'm not mudding because I want to read. Give me a few lines in a room description so I can get some idea of what's going on and let me use my imagination. And that way I can actually spot stuff to look at and explore a little deeper.


7: All these ####ing hidden exits. (Can I swear on here?) I want to write a script that plays that goofy zelda song whenever I walk through a wall. why why why? And more and more keep coming in.

In summary: It's a PK/RP mud. Why do you seem to want to make us stand around reading and walking in extra directions? Why make it harder to rank, longer to walk places

8(ish): I really thought Battle/Master/Entropy/Sylvan/Empire + Arbiter/Dawn was a great balance of cabals. Swap Dawn for Maran.. and wow.. you're all set. I think you guys tweak stuff a little too much.


The awesomest recentish changes (so you don't think I'm a jerk)

Capping XP holes
Respectable gear for sale
sayto/whisperto
neo classes and class revamps
customizable warcries and lastnames

And the best change you guys have made:

charging for PBFs.

That #### was brilliant. You guys should seriously consider setting up empowerment appointments for $5 or something. Think of all the people who spend all their time trying to meet up with an imm.

Or god, even better, sell level 20 characters for $10. The people who actually rp pre 20 are going to do it anyhow. The rest of us trying to rank up mages and #### can pay to avoid that nightmare.

And if you wanted to be RICH, let people pay $5/level on existing chars. Cap it if you really think that the ranking experience adds something to characters. I think it's a Bria damned chore.

I'm going to assume you're mostly being sarcastic here.

If not, what you've just written is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this forum is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

No offense, man. I just have to tell it to you straight.

n/t

you sure got me.

Seriously, how was I supposed to think a post with such gems as "Give out levels and empowerment for $5!", "I like dumb mobs!" and "I don't want to read!" wasn't supposed to be a joke?

>"I don't want to read!"

You must admit there's a fine line between "immersing yourself in an area" and feeling like you're proofreading some bad college lit essay over and over and over again.

I wish I could just have a room-by-room diff output. Would save me the time scanning for the "changed word". Or when none of the words change, only a keyword becomes usable (those are fun!).

I appreciate however that different people have different tastes. Sadly people with my tastes aren't well represented in the "Senate" known as Immdomship.

For reciting one of the best movie quotes I know of, Nep you are now my hero.

-rulanit-

No more 200k exp holes.

.

asdf

Bad changes
1: Removal of a mage cabal. I think this directly has made the game loose alot of its broad specter. Theres one mage cabal, and its utterly evil. Where is a balancing second?
2: Wand system, this is good and bad, players with knowledge has an easy going, players whom dont get shafted. And with the time I have played none can convince me that a wand or three dont make so much a differance in the game that its ultimately the thing that ither wins the fight or looses it. The mage class has become newbie unfriendly. Atleast pk wise.
3: Shapeshifters in basic are unable to go underwater, which dont make sense to me, why? why?.... *shigh*
4: Neutral mobs having alot of nifty wands. Can make it hard for someone with a good morality to slay. Not hard as difficult, but rather morality problem.
5: Entropy gone... loved that cabal, thats actually one of my fondest cabal memories. Even above the master cabal, as overpowered it was.
6: Some classes have been upgraded and others totally left out.
7: Removal of the elemental cannyon... I really liked that area!
8: Hell, what is it good for? Perhaps make it, like it was more accesible?
9: Imperial induction vs other cabal inductions, gathering coins is not a great obstacle.
10: Still missing another good only race, evils keep comming, but wheres the good ones?

Good changes
1: Roots, herbs ++.
2: Quests implementation with interacting mobs.
3: barter, perhaps the best recent change
4: paladin change with their virtues
5: Legacies for warriors
6: Division of the transmuter/shapeshifter
7: Reward system for exploration
8: Sleep/jack/knockout change
9: Inherent abilites, though Id love some more.
10: Anti gang code, and bashfix pre 25.

7: Removal of the elemental cannyon... I really liked that area!

Did you like the area itself, or the equipment from that area? There were some handy items there (more than replaced by all the new areas that have come since, but still), but I was never too fond of the layout or style.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Its two fold I must admit. I did really like the idea of the area, with all the elementals seemingly being opposed to eachother. It gave a picture in my mind of how the elements are opposed to eachother. The battle of the elements and stuff like that. I would have liked a small change in the layout, but the essence of the area is what I liked. Hope that makes somewhat sense.
The second was a bit of equipment. Though I can get all of that other places. I think....

larsihalv@gmail.com

Its two fold I must admit. I did really like the idea of the area, with all the elementals seemingly being opposed to eachother. It gave a picture in my mind of how the elements are opposed to eachother. The battle of the elements and stuff like that. I would have liked a small change in the layout, but the essence of the area is what I liked. Hope that makes somewhat sense.

Yup. That was a stock area, though, and we wanted more connectivity among the areas around Eastern Road- our old layout made it too difficult to get from A to B without using Eastern in many cases. Nowadays, I don't think the crafty player has to use it for much of anything. It's often the fastest route, but not the only or the best.

The theme has its merits though- see the Confluence in Kteng's Laboratory for my mini-version of it, or (*censored*) in one of our exploration areas for a larger one.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I can think of 2 that definentaly have the whole elemental theme.