You'll have to excuse me if I vent my frustration, but I've been at it for 2 years with solid characters and retrieved a total of 3 USEFUL goodies from ST. The fact you went and got half a damn set from it and say 'You can to!' pisses me off. It's not a lie, I'll admit, but it'd be cool if you didn't mislead people into believing they'd be able to do it alone, or even learn how to alone in the next Year. A realistic time frame for exploring ST playing 40 hours a week is more than 12 months.

Here's my rant list, what would make me come back more often:

a) If there was a way to be redeemed once you've pissed off the tower. I mean AFTER, not BEFORE. Because that is always the way it happens unless you've been there with 5 other characters, or have a friend to explain it. Which incidentally I did not, and after 2 years of constant exploration have discovered myself. I'm sure you'll say 'But you can still explore!'. I don't have 5 hours in a day to do this ####. Exploring a pissed tower is a frustrating (that means not fun!) waste of time for me.

b) If pissing off the tower wasn't so stupidly easy. OMG, I hit an inert, mindless creature after beating on 20 others like it, Mr.Arseraper has made you ST_WANTED! This is not an exageration, it's exactly what happened to the third character I ruined with it. And incidentally, you don't even get an echo to tell you it's happened. No hint at the possibility it could happen. And no indication of what might make it happen, baring the obvious - strike an actual mage. Someone else had to explain it to me, again.

c) If I didn't have to spend most of my characters life trying to figure out why NONE of the ways in were open. Whatever you say, it's not only a level requirement. There is something else required that doesn't seem to appear until later hours. I'm guessing to stop people creating characters designed solely to explore ST.

d) My last gripe is, that you ask people not to share information about ST. I can understand why but it basically means I can identify who plays what character by inviting them to go to ST. And 90% of the time, the answer is 'What's the silent tower?'. Well, #### that.

Although I respect your area and your efforts greatly (I love some of the stories told inside ST) but I have pretty much ignored that request from day one. And I'm really sorry, but that is the only way to realistically do it. Your quests, their requirements and the information needed was too obscure for even most veterans. You've definetly improved it recently which is cool but for years it has frustrated me like the broken Thar-acacia quest (Thanks Twist!).

It has been the only way I could get most people to even consider joining me there, because my constant-instant-death-and-occasional-full-loot experience is far from unique, and word gets around. That's not anyone's idea of fun.

Yhorian

PS - Why isn't the Octogonal tower area explore yet?