Everything aside with what just went down with Loshnak, I would like some Immortals and other players to chime in about the area and clearly layout intent with dealings of the Inferno - rules around it and facing some of it's problems.

Hell has always been the biggest challenge in Carrionfields. It's the paramount of PvE and has a huge scale of difficulty that doesn't get much easier with knowledge. With that said, it's also one of the largest areas in the game and has reportedly had roughly half of it never seen by anyone so far since most people bee-line to Satan for the tattoo. On average, trips can take five to seven hours (depending on your luck and preparation of gathering things beforehand) and takes around seven people to cover all the roles unless you're walking in with Cabdru/Ravon/etc....and that's just to get through, not including mobs being killed beyond the fifth circle. It also requires a huge amount of outside-Inferno preparation with weapons that mobs aren't immune to, nodisarm ones for the tanks, saves gear, explore edges, preps, etc. Any mistake or lack of complete knowledge along the way means you will likely die and have to start from the beginning - this all goes along with parts like deathtraps without any warning, several mobs who instant kill easily, and items that can permanently screw your character forever for just trying them on (like setting your wisdom to 15 or turning you evil). There's no "save points". It's Hell and a huge amount of fun despite this.

Now, the Inferno has always been Sacer's "baby" and because of that it hasn't been touched because of this fact. Annoyances with seeds/coins, things requiring copper and not taking silver/gold, several bugs and general heartaches haven't been altered because of this. A great example of this would be my request for several years that the area not have a chance to turn you evil at certain parts so neutral and goodies can explore it (or at least an alternative...every Santa Zulg I ask)...but it's left in that way. This area is also one of the oldest in Thera and was balanced around such - when evil healers weren't a joke and there was a playerbase to compensate the group size requirements that doesn't really exist anymore. Also a lot of us were a lot younger, without kids and work responsibility so we could invest huge time sinks into it without worry....and back then OOC groups were actually more rampant, including the infamous and ironic all-Immortal hell group to reach Satan.

Now despite all this, the Immortals are clearly against people making characters around this or attempting to coordinate so this place can be explored. I just got a character denied for doing such. The best comparison I've heard made is that it's like a WoW raid mixed with Fight Club where you can't plan ahead and talk about it - it just has to fall together somehow IC. More than a few Immortals have voiced wanting to remove the area because of the ooc nature it brings to the game (like saying "meet me at 8pm in the gods time", saying "I'm meditating" so you can take a piss break sometime during the 7 hour ordeal or splitting gold coins to get copper down there) or explaining why Satan is chewing on Brutus and other such mobs that don't fit the story of the game.....but quite honestly I think this area kind of defines CF "end-game" and would be a huge mistake to remove.

So then where's the balance? Inline with several other changes lately that have tried to bring the "fun" of CF to the forefront, what about this area? Since Sacer is back and may give the go ahead for some changes, will it be changed for the times so it's possible without OOC use or 200 charges Anti-paladins or is it just going to be left as is? I'm going to go as far to say that it's borderline impossible to get enough people, for those time lengths, in the same timezone, that aren't enemies, that are the right classes, that have enough skill to accomplish anything more than basic gear gathering on the first few circles and beelines to Satan if you're lucky. Considering I've been either the leader or a member of almost every successful trip to Satan in the last few years I've got the experience to say that...and every one of them had some amount of OOC and most had some planning like players filling the gaps and making required classes since there were none at hero when other roles can just be found normally (warriors/bards/shifters).

The Immortals have said that it's ok to know people who play the game but not to abuse it or use it to an advantage against others. Sometimes it allowed to slide, other times it's not. PK gangbangs, cabal groups, item transfers and everything else aside it seems that Inferno trip exploring is now joining this restriction and I really wish it wasn't. Despite efforts to specifically follow the rules and explore the Inferno with friends this time around it seems not possible and frowned upon.

So what's going to happen then, if anything? If you disagree I'd love to honestly hear why and discuss it out. Considering I didn't get much of a say in Loshnak's denial, I'd like to at least have a discussion about this area.

I love hell ever since Nantha went to hell i have wanted to go back i mean i suck at every clas sBUT bards but wow that was the most fun i ever had playing it even kept me from talking to me ex for 5 hrs then we all died. Still amazing it also gives me something to gloat about to my cousins cuz i got to the 5th circle and they nvr have been to the first (though they have played two years more than me). I agree if that was gone CF would lose alot.

Sometimes when I'm feeling evil I wonder how much damage I could cause (maybe not that much) if I had a partner who was fairly decent, we spec'd out our characters to compliment one another, then tried to kill as many people as we could.

I think it could be kind of humorous. And I'm guessing I/we could limit ourselves in a key few ways that would result in us not running afoul of the staff.

I never killed with them, nor hung out with them, and strictly avoided them all besides Hell + Yzekon exploring. We did nothing like what you are talking about.

Nor did we get a warning - and even had Sacer encouraging we continue doing what we were doing.

And what does your response have anything to do with my post?

if you hadn't been caught cheating several times in the past.

Or if you stopped playing APs. Who, you know, get stronger the more they kill. And having sweet sweet gear and OOC backup makes it a lot easier to kill.

You not being terribly successful has nothing to do with the argument btw.

PS For Isildur. Yeah, sometimes I want to get Chi_Town and Carth and just rape ####. But it wouldn't be fair. Seriously.

>We did nothing like what you are talking about.

I didn't say you did. Though, I'd argue you did do at least part of what I talked about. That is to say you chose your character classes to compliment one another for the purposes of exploring.

>And what does your response have anything to do with my post?

Elsewhere in the thread people were discussing rule changes about permagrouping. My post was basically, "I've never intentionally permagrouped, but sometimes I wonder how gross it would be if I ever did."

>Elsewhere in the thread people were discussing rule changes
>about permagrouping. My post was basically, "I've never
>intentionally permagrouped, but sometimes I wonder how gross
>it would be if I ever did."

You talked about perma pvp groups - which no one is suggesting we change.

You'd do as much damage in two nights as Bhostnak, then you'd get caught (assuming you both wound up on the pkill stats), then you'd get denied.

It's not like the world would end and thousands of orphans in China would be slaughtered to appease the gods of fair PVP.

Do you not think ooc grouping to get a certain weapon gives you a HUGE boost as an ap?

Sorry, but one day you should try playing without drawing on your friends. That applies to both info and in game assistance.

They were both THE MOST ENJOYABLE explore times i've ever had. From what I could tell about my limited experiences, the area is huge. The people playing those characters knew what they were doing and I think that shows something about the level of character playing CF. If you can comprehend the mechanics of such a large area and beat it, then you have crossed a hurdle that many fall behind at. It relates to RP I think too, as High Herald, I think I went with the person playing Satebos, but not Satebos, and RP'd some stories and emoted some note taking. I was impressed by the character that was teaching me, and I learned as we went without them explaining too much but just observing. Two people, and that was it.

I think the Inferno is a great take on the story, and the time it took to create every circle shouldn't go to waste. I can kill the midnight dragon 100 times, but if I take the gold in the Nizarrsh Datul I'm using my time more efficiently. Same goes for finding the best group to go down there. When I went with Ravon and Igbah, we had healer, invoker, muter, maybe assassin; characters with the skills/class required to adventure down there.

All in all, people can become overpowered with some of the gear down there, BUT they can also become legends because of it.

EXAMPLE:Gzurweeg. Igbah. Ckath.

ALL were beasts, had great skill and knowledge of/in the game, and HAD FUN.
no one hated any of those characters or ever accused them of cheating when they had the perfect groups to go down the inferno. Why? because they were good characters with skill/class/RP.

LETS KEEP THIS GAME FUN.

I accured Ravon of cheating because he asked me to go through ST with him to gather gear.

Much as I enjoy the company of some of the PvErs some of the time, I think PvE players are wholly blind to the tedium and boredom that area exploration is.

Whether it's for wands or other things, improving the difficulty scaling of PvE is not the thing that will save this game.

Making Hell playable for a group of 3 would be good news, in that I might actually be willing to learn a thing or two/help with exploration as long as there was a guaranteed tangible rewards (that a limited item some other explorefag might have gotten first already and is now illusionary is not a tangible reward, and the knowledge that the item potentially exists there is not a substitute if it's unreasonable to obtain solo without about 20k worth of preps)

But there's a large chunk of the playerbase that just doesn't give a #### about whether Hell takes 7 hours to get through, or that ST requires a freaking PHD degree in philosophy and a hobby for crossword puzzles and optical illusion books. Or worse, these things turn them off of the game further when the explorefags come out of the areas with items that make them unkillable (cheating to get them or not is irrelevant) and increasing the amount of people in a gang to kill the explorefags for them only makes them even harder to obtain for themselves while avoiding the exploration that is either boring or perceived to be impossible.

Making explore areas reasonable is not something that will save this game, unless it's part of scaling back the timesink dramatically and the pre-conceived notion that if you're not sitting down to roll a character and invest at least 300 hours into it, you don't deserve a reward, attention or to even exist. It's got to stop.

Game design, as a general rule, is an agreement with the player that a given task is not only possible, but reasonably challenging. You can tack on 'and not all-consuming in terms of time and effort' on the end of that as the CF playerbase ages. The standards of play in this game just don't work anymore and this giant ass thread is a big honking warning sign that this is the case as well as shining light on the bad parts of both the players and immstaff of the game as a whole.

CF is pretty crappy at advertising "If this guy can do it, it's possible you can too." because it's usually not true for any number of reasons regardless of what you pick out in the realms of RP, PK or exploration.

The crux of your argument, which has been before, is that you don't like the investment required for some things. Making Hell playable by a group of 3 would be absolutely devastating to the work Sacer put into a true challenge. If you want something that requires 2-3 people without preps in short time, go to every other area in the game.

You can guess that people don't care about Hell but I absolutely assure you that you are wrong in this. The majority of people I know find it the true fun at hero range considering the continual grind of pvp that's unbalanced and gang-heavy with raiding/retrievals that are enjoyable being few and far between. I'm constantly bugged, in game and out, to go to places that people have never been to so they can see and experience it. Several trips through the Inferno where we did absolutely nothing beyond walk a few steps and die and people say it was the most awesome experience.

Having "Explorefags", as you so eloquently state, come out with gear...how do you think the mindless pkers get that gear? How do you think it gets circulated to your lowbie bash-bash-bash chars? It's the same argument of people complaining about Heralds - if you're good enough at killing then you'll get them. Every major character who has been a pk powerhouse hasn't had problems killing the countless explore bards, archon conjurers and everyone else whose focus isn't killing. You're basically advocating the removal of area explore gear because you don't have "the amount of people in a gang to kill the explorefags".

The game will always have an investment required, if you're so interested in it not, go play an arcade game or the OtherMud that starts you at hero. People that put work into *gasp* roleplaying on a roleplaying MUD and invest time usually see benefits because they're not #36 cloud giant ranger who spams bearcharge on villagers char that you're so inclined to make over and over and over. Or you're lovable insta-hero shifters.

Game design is something you clearly don't understand because it seems you want GodMode without the work. People like the challenge of the impossible and people strive to achieve what hasn't been done before. I could keep going but your whole response is just spiteful, bitchy, and a general complaint that it's not what *you* want when clearly your grade of effort and output is just crap for your high expectations.

If you hate it so much, don't play.

And you got busted for cheating because precisely what I said is true, the only difference is you're an explorefag that identified the problem and then picked the exact wrong method to solve it for like the 4th time in a row and someone PMSed and shat on you despite knowing precisely what you do.

See where we're at now?

You're taking it as an insult when I say 'You're placing too much emphasis on preserving the integrity of the high end PvE areas.'

Let me tell you about my first experience in Hell and see if you don't understand.

I was the High Priestess in Empire. This was the *only* reason I made it into the Hell group, because I was the most competent healer present. The vast majority of us were Imperials and there were some uncaballed and Nexus involved. Half of this group were the Russians. Which, the majority of the time during this trip acted twice as nice as you've ever thought about being, given the circumstances (nasty explore area, evil alignment)

In the first two hours we lost our minotaur warrior which was supposed to be immune to fear for these horrible pit fiends I've never seen and didn't much want to. This was mostly the warrior's fault for not watching his stamina or something like not picking up a disarmed weapon on the first or second circle, and then panicking and fleeing into other aggro mobs.

Second circle a fun bit of RP happens. The Emperor (non-Russian bard) has to order me to #### a bull. That was pretty much the highlight of the trip, the rest of it was a boring grind of healspam and doing exactly as I was told, not looking at anything, and anything I did look at was not giving me observation experience.

We get down to about circle 5 or 6. This takes us roughly 5 hours. By hour 3 or 4 I was bored to tears and looking to see how I could get out without dying, but I wanted a way to destroy Defiance so that I could actually defend against Twist's Dupmasione because there was no one ever on who could stand up to him, so I stuck it out.

I get bash permalagged near Mephistopheles trying to do something to prep for the rest of the group and die. Some kind of mistake with protective shield because I was trying to do what you're supposed to do and poke around, but my concentration was shot after hour #3.5

The rest of the group gets picked off one by one or sacrificed until the 9th circle. Gzurweeg is the only one that survives and he had to flee past Satan to get out.

Pretty much I just wasted six hours of my time that someone overly hyped that it was going to be an awesome trip.

Oh, I should mention that most of the gear from the 1st through 4th circles was gone (and not in our hands who were the most powerful evils in the game at the time) because some bard with more time on his hands than is healthy managed to solo the first 3 circles. Repeatedly.

The area isn't as awesome as you make it out to be. It's one long boring gayfest, and if you make one mistake or experiment with anything or pretty much go down there without a walkthrough or a leader who's been there first, you're screwed.

There was no chance to walk around, no chance to explore, no chance to ID items, no chance to read literature, only spam group, heal people, spam sanc and various resistances. Primarily so the russians could get to Satan. (no knock on the russians, as I still find them more pleasant to deal with than you.)

The above should not be someone's experience in ANY 7 hour stretch of playing CF. It shouldn't even be the end of a 3 hour stretch.

I agree with you, close Hell (and ST). But for vastly different reasons, so the players that are obsessed with it will actually help/interact with people and do other things, or leave the game. Neither of us are wrong, and this is only one small facet. But even your reaction alone highlights problems with the game by leaps and bounds if this is how high level players act toward everyone else.

So because you had a crappy experience in something that took longer than 3 hours, and didn't get phat lootz, they should just remove the single best area in the game. You died for the group, such tragedy. "One long boring gayfest". Did you even read room descriptions or appreciate the effort and depth of such an area? Wow dude, you really are that bad.

If you think I want Hell closed, you're mistaken. I said it should be closed if they don't want it attempted by friends or at least clearly define rules around that considering that's nearly every trip (at varying measures of OOC) and basically a necessity given difficulty of lower circles and the playerbase size. I also don't think they should deny for such things as ooc hell trips and give warnings around it and strongly agree with Eskelian's post about changing the rules.

Please don't come back.

I don't know about the other imms, but I'm less inclined to put work and imm effort into things cheaters want than non cheaters. That's just me.

Everyone (I assume) would like to be able to explore and get the gear from Hell.

Yeah, he's a cheater because he cheated to do that when history suggests it's otherwise improbable. Even so, if Hell weren't so logistically difficult (which is probably something a lot of "non cheaters" would like) then Torak wouldn't be in the group of people you don't want to address the logistical issues of Hell for in the first place.

I get your point, though.

(This is of course based on the assumption that Torak would qualify as a "non cheater" if the Hell stuff weren't held against him.)

I'd be fine if Hell were closed. Considering I never go there anyway, and all the pimp gear ends up on the Dwoggurds and Toraks of the world.

Pretty sure you are in the minority. Though you make a good point, the problem is it's such a difficult task to do that only a few people can accomplish leading a trip there especially with how few people still play. Though to be honest things like Hell, Silent Tower, Tiamat, etc are one of the things that still keep me interested in the game after all these years and I'm usually just the poor shmoe who gets dragged along and never even gets to use any of that uber gear. I think overall most people would love to get a chance to check it out more if it was made slightly more accessable.

... it would be a HUGE loss to CF if it were removed.

Sure, there is some über pimp gear there that a lot of people want. But it's the exploration that's truly the cool stuff. All the cool referenses in room descs to other room descs further down the circles and to other stuff etc... It's just so awesome!

I really wish that the inferno would be a bit easier to explore. Hell I NEVER have the 7-8 hours needed to just get to Satan anymore. (That was my 3rd coolest CF moment ever.)

My guess is that Hell is only one part of it.

Torak went from knowing very little to knowing huge amounts almost instantaneously.

If he didn't get a wand list at the very least, I'd be astonished.

But, from what I see here it looks like you're calling him out as a cheater (in this instance) for organizing an OOC hell group.

Was this to gain advantages over people, or make their lives miserable? Was it done to hurt anyone in any way? I don't think so. It was done so he could finally really get some exploring done in the Inferno. Sure, maybe he got an OOC buddy or two just so he'd have some kind of decent body count for the trip, or maybe he just wanted to actually enjoy the area amongst friends.

It's kinda like how you and Daevryn have had some characters that have happened to be playing the same cabal and hours at the same time. You all can't be hardasses about people having SOME ooc contact when there is no way any human being who knows anyone else who plays the game can abide by those rules.

...since you are friends with Torak OOC, take this with a grain of salt.

Defending a friend is something that comes naturally to most people. Like it or not, Rayihn is not incorrect in what she posted. A little snippy (or bitchy, as other people have said), sure. But Torak did cheat. And he has A HISTORY of cheating. Most IMMs might look the other way if someone like Balrahd led a Hell trip with his friends because Balrahd has never (except the infamous Emmonev incident) been accused or caught cheating. Whether or not that's right has nothing to do with this argument. For all the talk about this it is expressly written in the rules of Help Perma that what Torak/Tweedster/Artifical/Two others is something against the rules.

Now, about Hell. I kinda feel like Hell is a lot like Silent, and has no place in CF anymore. It literally almost asks the players to "cheat" in order to explore/figure it out. I really enjoy the new dragon lairs and would hope that any future area explore is along those veins. Tough as ####, nice gear, small area, doesn't matter if it's your first or hundreth time there because there will always be #### that's dangerous.

Ah well, my two cents. And this is coming from someone who honestly doesn't like the IMM staff and is the farthest thing from an IMM lackey as you can get at the moment.

Except that it's more people then Torak who want to see it more feasible to explore these areas. I think we should do an old fashioned poll like they used to have on here to see who would want to see it revamped some for the times?

>Now, about Hell. I kinda feel like Hell is a lot like Silent,
>and has no place in CF anymore. It literally almost asks the
>players to "cheat" in order to explore/figure it out.

Hell requires skill, Silent Tower requires knowledge.

You could be given a full walk through the Inferno and there's not jack you could do about it. Just as you said, it asks players to "cheat" in order to accomplish it given the difficulty, design problems and player base size. Big part of why it's interesting is no matter if you figure out, actually doing it is the hard and fun part.

You could be given a full walk through of the Silent Tower and suddenly become a solo badass. If you share that knowledge with others, they immediately gain the benefits...and it required sharing of knowledge to even try archmages. Big part of why it was closed is because once you figure out the "riddle", you get the prize - people who had never done it were walking out with Inferno-grade or better gear.

Knowledge should never equal balance, ever. Maybe that works in a single player game but not in a multiplayer game.

And really the dragon lairs aren't hard - the blue is a pain in the ass for some reasons (like buggy dragon tracking) but the rest are easy. A group of us got together and cleared all the lairs out in under two hours. Tiamat is rough but if ya get that kinda group, with people who have the knowledge and experience for the fight, you might as well go to the Inferno. Half the reason Tiamat hasn't been beaten yet is the exact same reason higher archdevils haven't - getting the numbers of the right classes is too unlikely. Having enough invoker/bards to keep shields up for example is basically impossible unless the stars align perfectly or people make missing classes to fill in the gaps at hero range. Not many people like making the bitch healer, especially an evil one.

That and the Inferno is just cooler ;)

I think the primary motivating reason to cheat with Hell or share info about it is to build the army you need to make it work.

Silent Tower is just one big ####ing puzzle, most of which can be solved alone. Unfortunately, it's so difficult to so many people, they are forced to seek the answers elsewhere.

At the end of the day, you can chalk the problems surrounding both areas to "cheating", but I think the difference as to why and how is night and day.

He could do all that without retaining the gear/tatts.

However... he doesn't.

Also, I've personally been on a trip with him that was never going far. It was purely only ever going to get gear. That was totally ic, but at the end of the day, he wasn't exploring, he was gearing.

I like you from the interactions we've had so I'll assume you are having an off/bad day and that it's spilling out here instead of chalking it up to you just being a bitch.

What he did was wrong, he knew and accepted that. He didn't throw a tantrum or argue but instead accepted the punishment and then came here to make a well thought out post and suggestion. Your post doesn't add anything to the discussion except venom. And from what I've seen the player base isn't exactly kicking ass, so maybe, if you instead fostered quality dialogue here you might take a few steps towards turning a, for the most part, solid player that you consider a "cheater" into a non-cheater that you are happy to have around.

I like his thoughts and I think it's something valid and worth addressing. It has been a couple years since I've played but I've been giving it serious thought the last couple weeks. I've also never been an explorer type, but hell gets me excited about exploring, it always has the few times I've gotten to venture the first few circles. However it very obviously is not an area that really works in the modern cf. Largely due to numbers. I'm not saying I know what the solution is or that there even is one really. But there is no denying there is a problem so I think you shouldn't be so quick to be snarky to someone who is playing the game for the reason they have fun, Sacer's amazing Hell area.

So offer a solution or explain to me how he is wrong in his belief. You've denied his character so he has been punished. He didn't post a list of every wand location so perhaps you could act like the adult you are and let it go.

Obviously its been an issue for years. You CANNOT do the inferno with any success anymore without knowing the group or the area VERY well. You people that say youve went with groups and knew nobody? Guess what, the rest of the group knew each other and you didnt know it. Its that simple.

Quit teasing our ####s with it and then slapping it when we move towards the warm gooey hole with it. Close it like you did silent and the problem will be solved. But dont bitch that people actually attempt to go to a place that you guys make impossible to go to IC with the low playerbase. Its wrong and it will lead to more of these situations, I guarantee it.

I only made it down to Satan once, but that trip included me, Macheath, Zulg, Nep, Gareth, Gareth's real-life friend, and a few non-imm but better-known players. Granted this was years ago, but the standards were pretty similar then, I thought. And to top it all off, Gareth (who was leading the group with his Emperor character) sacrificed another Imperial instead of either me or Nep, even though me and Nep were the only two non-Imperials in the group.

I can hardly attest to what may have gone on with this current event, and maybe there was more involved that isn't public (which is understandable), but I have a really hard time believing that the standard is now denials for OOC coordination of Hell groups. In the aforementioned trip of mine, it was obviously known what players were in the group, because Scarab came down and had a pit fiend chase us around the seventh. That seems like a far more fitting response to a group you suspect of too much overt OOC coordination than handing out a bunch of denials to otherwise good characters.

Also, really cracking the whip hard on OOC coordination seems like possibly the worst marketing strategy ever. People like to play with their friends. And for that matter, I bet the percentage of veteran players who know each other OOC now, but strictly through the game, is huge. When CF started up in the 90's, OOC coordination virtually always meant you were sitting in a computer lab next to your groupmates. Now days, with the ease and prevalence of IM, and the growth of MMOs, we're not going to attract players at all by being MORE strict on OOC connections than we were a decade or more ago, when it was so much less common.

Calling this cheating and busting those involved with the heavy hammer of denial seems like a really unfortunate standard to set.

Aarn

~

Imms can do it themselves, but dont want the rest of the mud to have the same priveledges of it they did. Thats 2 imm hell groups we know of, and I wouldnt give a #### if they didnt ban players for doing the same thing that they do.

Theres no hidden evidence.

I didnt pk with them

I didnt rank with them

I didnt raid with them

I went on a hell trip with them, and I happened to know the people in the group.

Apparently this is enough to destroy a char over. If thats they way they want it cool, but you lost me, and I doubt im the last player to leave over this sort of ####. Nobody likes double standards. You cannot hold people to double standards and expect them to respect you. The Imm hell trips is one example. The Cabdru incident is another. We know damn good and well nep would NEVER have admitted to playing a character so well known for abusing game mechanics IN HIS OWN SUPER EXPLORE AREA amongst other places. But he blew it and we all found out. Expect us to be happy? No, #### that. And thats only the incidences we KNOW about. Think about how many times that type of #### has slipped through the cracks?

Like I said, I log on and twist tells me if he knew it was me, he would have never empowered me. And that he feels betrayed by what we did. Really? Cause youve done the same thing, and I doubt you felt betrayed then. Its a satan trip. Im not building a 200 charge weapon with my friends or leet imm knowledge. And Ive NEVER had a history of cheating or being in a perma, so I have no ####ing idea what he meant by that. He likely meant "If I knew you knew torak, I wouldnt have empowered you." That type of additude is gonna send more people out, veterans included, not bring them in.

You said "and I happened to know the people in the group."

Did you "happen to know" every single member (or close to) of the group, or did you guys PLAN to roll these characters from the beginning for the purpose of these trips?

There's a big difference.

Getting with your pals and saying, "You roll a bard. You roll a Hell_Spec warrior. You roll an invoker. I'll roll a healer, etc. etc. and we'll rock us some Inferno" IS a perma, even if you don't level, PK, or raid with them.

Logging on AIM one day and, to your surprise, finding out your buddy has a compatible character for something like that is fine. (That's not the case here, though).

I think the Imms have a lot less ammo when the whole collection of characters (and possibly even their builds) is pre-arranged for the purpose of benefiting your Inferno endeavor.

My character didnt interact with any of them for anything other than hell or when i was asked IN CHARACTER to go explore somewhere, which should be fine. The imms are acting like they want us to mud alone or something, and never know anything about any of our friends. Let me ask you a question. How many cf players do you think roll something because they know they have a buddy of a certain class in a cabal and they want to play with their friends. How is this any different? Its not.

Perhaps that is where the disconnect between me and you (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the group you were going to Hell with).

The last I ever remember coordinating anything with anyone OOC was when Shamanman told me to roll a Nexus character, and I already told him I had a gnome shapeshifter. We ranked for a half hour (6-7 ranks) and then I literally didn't see him for another 2 months until after we both had been inducted. Now, I course, I knew who his character was, but neither of us ever coordinated logins or anything of the sort. In fact, we both tended NOT to group with each other just because.

And honestly, that's really the only time other than Aeinrez/Dorthilon that I've ever even been in a cabal with a friend of mine since 2006. And the Aeinrez/Dorth thing I didn't know it was leaf until we were hanging out and he was giving me #### for almost letting him die to some imperial gank.

I'd love to be able to play with my friends, but I'm serious, if we coordinated ####, we would dominate the cabal wars to the extent we'd most certainly get denied. It's TOO much of an advantage. I personally like knowing who plays who but trying to kill them (hence my death grudge with laxman/Yhorian/a few others) is way more interesting to me than rolling around with them.

There was no mass pking, no domination of cabal wars. We just wanted to explore some, and were punished for it. I specifically avoided ranking with them and pking and even raiding with them even though I was in the SAME cabal and it would have been justified. I dont really see what I did as wrong now that I think about it. I never ever coordinated a log in other than the time that we were gonna go to hell, and I sent notes and tells out in game too, so weather or not I knew someone shouldnt have mattered. I asked them ic to go and ic they said yes. We didnt get a bunch of crazy hell armor, we went straight to satan. Big whoopin deal.

This is a very interesting thread for someone new to the game (me).

I don't know most people here so I can't say anything about specific events. But I do have one thing to say.

When I read the help file at first and now read this thread, it's very discouraging. Maybe I'm wrong, but to me it seems like I can't invite friends to the game without running afoul of the rules. Because if I did, you can bet we'd 'roll' complementary characters (same alignment, and for example, maybe a tank and healer and damage) and play together and help eachother. Not all the time and probably only occasionally, but well, they're friends of mine because we enjoy eachother's company/role play. Having a friend is especially nice when trying to figure out a new game.

I can understand where you wouldn't want groups of OOC friends ganking random people, though. But I've been on other PK muds and they didn't have this rule or that problem.

In any case, it detracts from the game but even so, this seems like a mud I can still enjoy.

~

You can play with your RL friends to an extent. I know one actual person that plays CF. That person introduced me to the game and is a friend of mine. We still talk about CF now and again, things like how we would kill Tiamat, hat builds or roles would be fun to play... We both usually have a char, though I play more than he does and mine are usually heroes while he tends to make it to rank 15 and stop.

I used to ask him where to find fine leather when I started. If the Imms mind that, well, nobody would play the game because every newbie would be so screwed it would be so annoying they would not bother with the learning curve. Having an actual person to help with the basics is much better for the player and for the game. So long as once you learn the basics and begin to know what you're doing you two don't always run around grouped beating ass and coordinating things solely for that reason.

I think people play muds for different reasons, but I can not imagine there are many who get together with their friends and say lets roll these two chars, and dominate CF's 35 players. It's just not really worth it. Two chars may perma all the time because they happen to have similar playtimes and develop IC relationships. IT looks OOC, but really, two implerial people who play the same times, damn right they're ranking and pk'ing together. The game is not a solo game, nor is it meant to be, but it's the manner in which you go about forming the IC relationships that the Imms seem to care most about.

Welcome to CF by the way, it really is a lot of fun.

and thanks

>I can understand where you wouldn't want groups of OOC friends
>ganking random people, though. But I've been on other PK muds
>and they didn't have this rule or that problem.

That's sort of the horns of our dilemma as administrators of CF; before we tried to tighten this down, we DID have groups of OOC friends ganking random people.

Ideally I'd like a game that people can play with their friends up to a point, that point being somewhere before the point where you essentially need to play with your friends to be competitive. Once upon a time, I always played with my friends because that was just kind of the state of the game; if you didn't do that, three or four people sitting together in a computer lab would roll you without a prayer to survive much less win. At some point we decided that that's not what the game should be and tried to make rules and change the culture of the game, to mixed success.

In this specific case no small amount of players -- including some people who don't get along great with each other and probably would withdraw their objections if they knew just to avoid agreeing -- called our attention to this situation, providing evidence and information that something shady was going on. Basically the same thing, with different players complaining, had happened with the previous group of characters from some of the same people.

I'm not saying rules enforcement occurs only when players complain, or that we're going to bust someone just because five people ask for it, but when we're looking at rules that exist in no small part to keep people who play with friends from ruining the game for people who don't or who don't push it as far, yeah, that's got to weigh in our decision making. Or so I assume.

Very understandable then. Thanks for the explanation. (Though I hope friends occasionally helping eachother doesn't run afoul of this rule!)

If your end goal was hell and you set up a plan to get there that incorporated a deception that prevented the Imms from catching you before hand... That's some pretty crazy cheating.

I'm just saying __IF__ that was your plan. I'm not saying it __WAS__ your plan.

Honestly, I wouldn't call it a conspiracy like you're implying, particularly given how long ago these other trips were. Rather, I would chalk it up to changing priorities in rule enforcement. In fact I don't imagine they would let trips like I described happen now days.

What I'm saying is, I think that's a mistake, at least to some extent. It's not a good idea to work against the trends in gaming. Every MMO out there requires OOC coordination for the big events. I've never played WoW, but I know you have to coordinate to do the big raids. I did play a lot of Eve, and the scale of out-of-game coordination is enormous. Of course CF is a different game from those, and I don't think it would be good for CF to even try to be them. But the important thing is the trend that comes with those sorts of games; namely, that gamers virtually always coordinate big events OOC. And gamers are who we want to attract to CF, right? So it doesn't make sense to tighten our controls on OOC interactions while the entire community is trending the opposite direction. Not if we want to gain more players anyway.

There's another thing I would have to be cautious about in the specifics of this case. If there's one thing I learned in my years as an imm, it's that there's virtually always information the imms don't divulge in public complaints like this, even though it might better collaborate their side of the story. So to be honest my post wasn't so much meant to be "what they did to you was wrong", because I have no idea what went on. It's more to point out that a general policy that cracks down harder on OOC connections than it has in the past is a bad idea.

Aarn

If they wanted to point to anything I did on the character wrong at all beyond the Hell trip, they can publish the pbf and show the kills, loses, and gank ratio - I've got the whole character's life logged. I was planning on con-dying this guy and going the long haul for Sacer and rebuilding the Church...they wanted quality so I tried and I just lost one of my best chars. Twist said my gank was a bit high but I've got a feeling when Knancar charged our Inferno group of 9 and died it might have screwed that up....least my pkwins would show the truth.

It's a side note to this conversation but one of the real bitches about getting the deny is I can't see my pbf....but my "offense" was the Hell trip which I'm not denying I didn't know a few that went with me. But that's what this is all about.

Just wish there'd be a real response beyond more TLB bashing.

The problem is that even if you didn't go on PK rampages with your buddies, you still arranged to have a group of very attractive (build wise) allies at your disposal, regardless of what you used them for. Even if all you used your OOC advantage for was gathering equipment, consider what advantage that equipment then gives you?

If your Hell perma existed in a vacuum, then it wouldn't be a big deal at all. Unfortunately, arranging to have multiple support characters available to your AP did provide you with advantages, some actual and some potential, and that's just the consequence of setting something like that up. This is why the Imms have a problem with permas made "just to explore", I would guess.

I see their logic. I don't necessary agree with it, but I see it.

Somewhere in there the funstick and the fairstick need to join forces and find a nice harmony between PvE and the consequences PvE have on PvP.

Even if they didn't do ANY thing together the whole life of the characters... what was their end game once they finished the hell trip?

I genuinely believe Torak when says that his primary motivation for all of this was to see parts of Hell that have never (or VERY rarely) been seen, kill mobs that have never died, etc. For me, at least, the journey is it's own reward (yeah I know, that's lame). To simply have the experience would be amazing, and if Torak claims that is why he did it, I'll buy that.

That said, there is still a net effect of him gaining a mechanical advantage over everyone else and that the benefits/consequences of that fun experience spilling over into PvP (and raids) all because he planned and executed a perma.

Nobody (including him) is saying they didn't break the rules. As someone who enjoys PvE a lot, and given the circumstances that have to occur to explore certain things effectively, I'm inclined to throw him a bone, personally. I certainly see why not everyone agrees.

I've never even had a piece of hell eq let alone been there. Is that something never or rarely done? I don't know.

>Imms can do it themselves

No.

1) A group of mostly imms did do it, about 14 years ago when there were no rules about permas or OOC collusion. That's the way the game was played back then. Eventually we decided you shouldn't have to roll with at least 2 RL friends to even be competitive at the game and changed the rules.

That the rules have changed since is left out of nearly every half-assed retelling of that story.

2) Beyond that, most of those people aren't imms now and haven't been around for a decade. So basically you're saying: "It's hypocritical for modern Americans to be against slavery, because Thomas Jefferson owned slaves."

3) Pretty much all the Cabdru stories have always been ####, but I'm getting tired of arguing about them.

You like to rant about how we're all full of ####, misinformed, etc., but given how reserved, secretive, and vague The Staff is about almost everything, go figure.

Instead of listening to people gripe about that "Imm Hell Group", just calmly point out the rules were different back than. I had no clue.

If all the Cabdru stories are ####, tell us how it went.

If you want people to stop giving out inaccurate advice, don't be so ####ing reserved and guarded about mechanics.

You guys seem to intentionally keep the player base from finding out certain things (which is fine), yet you seem angry that we wallow in ignorance while you're forced to listen to us ramble when, 90% of the time, we THINK we're right and don't mean bad, but simply have no way of knowing any better.

I swear to God if the staff were just a LITTLE more open in general, you'd have so much less confusion, inaccuracies, and ####.

EDIT: Also FWIW, I think the staff has been much more open with the player base in the last year or two than it ever was before, by an order of magnitude. It's not great, but it's better.

>Instead of listening to people gripe about that "Imm Hell
>Group", just calmly point out the rules were different back
>than. I had no clue.
>
>If all the Cabdru stories are ####, tell us how it went.

I've done both of those things on the forums, several times.

But at some point I get tired of repeating myself, and it really seems like people willfully get things wrong.

>If you want people to stop giving out inaccurate advice, don't
>be so ####ing reserved and guarded about mechanics.

I pass out a lot of accurate information about those things on the forums, to.

>>If you want people to stop giving out inaccurate advice,
>don't
>>be so ####ing reserved and guarded about mechanics.
>
>I pass out a lot of accurate information about those things on
>the forums, to.
>
>

That you do, and like I said, it's better in recent years.

I still think as a whole, CF and it's staff tend to be very closed and guarded, and while it might be more common to get a sound answer to a specific question on the Forums these days, the staff still does plenty to instigate the kind of frustrations you have. I don't mean that in a bad or disrespectful way, that's just the way I see it and I'm completely open to the possibility that I'm dead wrong.

There will always be that small percentage of players that say we are lying when we aren't. Unfortunately, there are other players who want to believe them instead of what we said. It's kind of like beating a dead horse.

No matter what is said in many posts, just like this one, some players, (mind you, it truly is a small amount of players) think they "know" everything but really don't know nearly as much as they think they do.

For example:

Elite player #8 says there are X amount of barrier locations.
Immortal in the know says there aren't nearly that many.
Elite player #8 calls BS.
Some of the player base believes Elite player #8.

Elite player #8 is considered elite because he has a positive pk ratio and knows how to navigate the mud, but has never coded a thing for the game.

We as the immortal staff know the truth, but some people are going to believe what they want to believe regardless of what we say. So, it's just better left unsaid. It really is that simple.

I have to comment on the second part, since I did not play around Cabdru's time, do not care who that char was or if Daev played him. Daev can play whoever and however he wants, if he wants to, same as all of us. Yes he's an Imm, why should that matter. I imagine for him it is probably harder to get immersed in CF at times because he probably does know more about how things work than the rest of us, which gets into my second point.

Daev posts lots of information to people's questions about mechanics and such of the game, and it is helpful, but I think he usually does it in the best way. Vaguely, without definitive numeric answers or telling us the code.

I do not want to CF to be like an RPG where I can break the numbers code in the game. RNG does a lot, true, but I don't want to know the exact % of anything firing, the exact way edges impact it or legacies or anything else. The second I know all that, CF loses a bit of that mysticism that you really play for in an RPG style game.

Who the hell cares how it works exactly? Do you really want the actual code so you can figure out the optimum build and be a PK beast because you figured that out? I think the game would lose lots it's appeal if you had it. For example, I don't know how often Zulgh morts, but think about what he knows about the game mechanics and what he could do with that knowledge. Yet, he probably does not because Zulg the char allows him RP when he wants to, and well, he's an Imm, so he's not concerned with the PK/fighting side of things. As a mortal char it's less immersive simply because he does know how most things work.
(I have no idea about anything relating to Zulg and if he plays/how he plays of course, and I'm sorry if I said something incorrect, I just wanted a reference and I have always considered him the man in CF.)


I swear I think some people actually believe you can win CF. You can't. You can only enjoy playing the game if your enjoyment comes from playing, not from the hopes of winning.

I agree with you. I don't think a "tell-all" Wiki or an Official Guide is healthy for CF.

Nonetheless, that kind of stuff is common in "gaming" culture today, as is a lot more communication and "social" behavior among players.

The point was merely that the fact that CF works the way it does and the way the staff has traditionally handled the information barrier between the developers and the players means that the kind of things Nep described are simply going to happen and shouldn't some as any surprise.

When did rules go in that would disallow OOC coordination of a Hell trip? I know there were rules changes obviously, but I thought they were older than this.

And ZERO IC coordination.

The group you mentioned which I was a part of came to pass (from my standpoint) as set up by the Emperor in game. Sure we had to figure out how to talk about what 5:00 p.m. tomorrow is in some sort of roleplayish speak, but it wasn't instant messages/ventrilo to go trekking down to Satan.

Because if youre even insinuating that you as the player didnt know exactly who each other were playing at the time, Im going to have to throw up my #### flag. Its easy to say things like that, but its pretty hard to believe that you guys did a mass hell trip that happened to be mostly to all imms (more than once). And its also hard to prove that you guys didnt IM each other at all the whole time, or even have an irc room or something. (irc was real big at the time if i remember correctly). Its easy to say. I can say it too. We never used AIM ever. Other than me saying i knew a couple players on AIM, its really a statement that cant be proven or denied. But when you look at the big picture, its NO different than what we did with the exception of a note going out to EVERY player that went. No different at all.

Uh... how sure are you that that was me? Because I don't think I ever went on a trip with Gareth leading.

Oh, well ####, sorry if I was wrong about that. It hasn't come up in a while, but I was sure it was. An invoker with Twist's tattoo if I recall. Gareth was Savryn or something, a female shaman Empress. Zug was an armadillo shifter. My logs are all burned to cd and in storage somewhere, assuming I still have them, so I can't check. I want to say the name was I-something.

I think you might be mixing up two trips, but I can't swear to that for sure.

I could be wrong about it being you, in which case I apologize for bringing it up incorrectly, but I'm definitely not mixing up two trips. I've only been below the second circle three times ever; once with Sranu, once with Jarlandra, and once with Savryn. As a serial goodie player, once it became bad form for goodies to head beyond the early levels, I stopped going. :)

Aarn

FIRST PARTY TO SLAY THE ARCH-DEVIL MEPHISTOPHELES

Jarlandra Elmorniah Kellanthamas
Elmaster Glenada Yohko
Athuan Elena Adccymen
Syrinaa Tyrille Hirith
Garoth

I was lucky to be apart of one of the groups that ventured down back in the day. And part of the charm was the fact that we did not have vent/skype.(and no-pre knowledge about what was below the second circle.) But what ultimatly killed us, besides a nasty dragon was time. And trying to coordinate the return of each member to a specified time. Trying to slay arch-devils was tough but it was the challenge that was fun!. Its after all the search in the unknown that drives us forth. But the numbers we had I doubt Ill see again, especially as a goodie. Which is sad. But when playing good, you generally dont have more than 2-3 allies on at a time. And even thats rare.

The next group was "challens" group. Which was much smaller than our group and also made it further.
(After this some trips were attempted but paladins would not go as a few had been punished for going down). Old knights cabal.

My thanks still go out to sacer that created this area. Amazing work. My thought on the matter is that it may be worth reducing some of the aspects of it, so that getting turned evil, and compromising yourself as good is not that "easy". Goodies generally have it difficult enough.

Rafik's group:
<51 Hea> Xanthrailles 100% hp 51% mana 100% mv 592113 xp
<51 Tra> Halifanse 100% hp 79% mana 100% mv 444052 xp
<51 Thi> Alrin 90% hp 95% mana 100% mv 518296 xp
<51 Asn> Rafik 90% hp 90% mana 100% mv 606855 xp
<51 Inv> Iyalfialt 100% hp 76% mana 100% mv 444098 xp
<51 Sha> Savryn 100% hp 83% mana 100% mv 444048 xp
<51 War> Kzaorsd 91% hp 66% mana 100% mv 592043 xp
<51 Tra> Macheath 100% hp 100% mana 100% mv 592042 xp
<51 Hea> Sybrisha 100% hp 41% mana 100% mv 444282 xp
<51 Hea> Jaldean 100% hp 6% mana 100% mv 532817 xp


I was Halifanse...the armadillo in question.

You need to be posting some of these old ass retro logs. Obviously not THAT one, but come on, if you got some sweet antiques, let's see 'em.

That log is one of the most prominent hell logs passed around by the IRC group that's been around for years.

Dont remember where.

Dang, that does bring back memories! Makes me want to dig for my old logs somewhere.

I think it matters a great deal that this happened before the 21st century. We are talking over ten years ago. The rules, particularly the OOC permagroup rule, has certainly changed a great deal since then.

A few points:

1. I don't know when the changes to perma-group rules went in. I asked, but didn't get an answer. I just can't remember myself. Maybe no one does off-hand.

2. My point wasn't to condemn our old group. My point was that tightening rules against ooc-connections is a bad thing for the game. Bringing up that old group was to illustrate how the standards used to be, given that the imms who are now enforcing the apparently stricter standards used to partake happily in the far-less-strict standards.

3. See Eskelian's post, or my reply to Gaplemo.

The standards were actually quite different.

I remember going to the Inferno and it was an OOC fest.

Here was the group I was with.

FIRST PARTY TO SLAY THE ARCH-DEVIL DISPATER

Graatch Mahaira Kantherion
Amlaruil Syrinaa Challen
Angelica Tsemakh

My character was Kantherion.

The rules, as we understood it back then were:

1. Don't talk out loud. (If we "say" it, the "devils" will surely kill us.)
2. Talking in the gtell mode was safe. ("Thinking" something in that fashion is no different than doing it as someone not in hell.)

We found safe places to drop link. We set up our times to return. We did everything we could going over our notes.

We did say something out loud once and sure enough, we had to go through an epic rping experience which we all enjoyed thoroughly. So we knew we were being watched.

This all happened over a decade ago. I wouldn't even think of doing a hell trip the same way now.

During the '90s (I started playing in '94) I was part of one of those infamous crews. Mind you, I was taught by one of those ring leaders on how to play. We eventually went our own ways in regards to playing. He hasn't played since the late 90s and I eventually immed.

Part of the reason I immed was because part of me still thought that something wanky must be going on in certain situations. And I wanted to know. I cleaned up my playing act and applied to imm with Kantherion. Obviously, I was turned down. I then went through many more characters over the course of a few years and applied with Blachmianan. I got to see behind the green curtain and this is what I learned:

Not all of the imms agree on everything all of the time. There is no kool-aid. They discuss things as a group when there is a difference of opinion until a resolution is made. What I thought was wanky in why things are the way they are, was completely explained in threads on the immortal forums (mind you, the higher the level you are, the more there is to read). Unfortunately, after that meltdown earlier this year, most of those threads are gone. I have posted many of the humorous ones for you all to read in the past.

Now, here's the dilemma which I hinted at in an earlier post in this thread "It really is a Catch-22":

A player with ties to an ooc ring becomes an imm.
He eventually gets to a high enough level to read the threads about balance and game play.
He tells the player base that all is cool, but he really can't go into detail.
Some of the elite know-it-all players say something must be wrong and call BS.
They are wrong.
Some other players believe elite know-it-all.
No matter how much is said, they don't believe the imm.
The imm is right, but couldn't prove it to them anyway, so what's the point of trying?
Imm still tries, and is still told something must be wanky.
BLEH.

And even though these elite know-it-all players KNOW that we MUST be cheating somehow, they continue to play the game. Why? Because we enforce the rules to keep CF the way it is.

But the way I figure it, it isn't your positions to convince people. It's to help them out as you can. If someone asks, just need a quick accurate respond - if they don't believe you, sucks for them.

Cool character, I stole the name and used it on another mud I was playing at the time :p

I agree that cracking down will lose us some players.

However, I also feel that not cracking down will lose us others.

Which is the dominant effect is a matter of debate.

I think the perma-grouping rules should be limited to wiping out PK ranges and sucking up Empire sect leader spots and not enforced as they pertain to anything else.

First of all, the whole "you shouldn't interact with people you know out of game" or even if you go so far as to roll up chars to compliment each other on a hell trip is not against the rules. Its against your very loose, very flexible interpretation of the rule. The rule actually says :

* If you know another player OOC, treat their character as you would any other.
This disallows having multiple characters 'attached at the hip'. See
PERMAGROUP.

That rule itself is reasonable and easy to follow but that's not the rule you're actually enforcing.

But really, what does the rule boil down to me in terms of how it benefits "the newbie" and other players? It boils down to not getting steam rolled by a permagroup in PVP. I could seriously give a half #### less if someone needs to coordinate with someone else to run the hell trip they want to run, so long as I'm not excluded purely because I don't know them OOC. If they get uber gear that I want I'll just kill them and take it, that's how the game works.

I like the idea of people hanging out in game who know each other OOC. Games should be social. That's what makes them engaging. All the secrecy and whining and cry-babying about people's characters is at best a distraction and at worst a detriment to playing the game, but it sure doesn't keep people "hooked". It's to the point where people are afraid of letting anyone OOC know who their char IC is and that to me really is a missed opportunity to make the game more fun.

.

a

We even specifically avoided each other because of previous character problems, but still wanted to see Hell together.

>* If you know another player OOC, treat their character as
>you would any other.
>This disallows having multiple characters 'attached at the
>hip'. See
>PERMAGROUP.

I have to agree that the rule/interpretation needs updating. Either change it to say that any grouping with, pking with, exploring with or otherwise interacting with a character that you know through OOC means is against the rules or it should not have been enforced in this case from what has been said. In my opinion, as a person who has never gone to Hell, partially due to time constraints, I can see how difficult it would be to try and get a proper group to explore successfully through IC means. Heck, with a 6 week old daughter I'm lucky to get 1-2 hours to play with interruptions in there and I imagine most of the player base is the same. Anything like Hell requiring a good 6-7 hours or more has to be scheduled in advance and the OOC communication tools make it far easier to plan.

On another note regarding the permagrouping rule, throughout the years, the friends that I know in real life have pretty much all stopped playing. Some would return if they could roll characters to play with me, as it is nice to have friends in real life you can game with especially knowing that your 1-2 hours of playtime will not be wasted trying to find a group. Instead, they do not want to spend time making a character, getting into the character because of the risk of being denied. Instead, they play other multi-player games. I am not saying that the rules should be ignored, but for some of the aspects of the game that are more tedious than others, such as big exploration expeditions and ranking, I think it would be beneficial to relax the rules. Allow a person to invite a real life friend that they can help by leveling with, showing gear, etc. without the risk of a deny.

Anyway, that's just my take on the matter.

Honestly, if they made the rule exactly this-

"I think the perma-grouping rules should be limited to wiping out PK ranges and sucking up Empire sect leader spots and not enforced as they pertain to anything else."

I think tons more players would come to, or back to, the game, and many of the more tedious issues would be resolved, namely those having to do with ranking.

There was no ill intentions. A couple friends wanted to see some of the more obscure areas of the game and the brilliant works of Sacer. I dont see how that is bad for the game.

If you want to bring a friend to CF to show him how much fun you're having, I feel you should be able to do that.

asf

nt

>I think the perma-grouping rules should be limited to wiping
>out PK ranges and sucking up Empire sect leader spots and not
>enforced as they pertain to anything else.
>

I think there is a little bit of a slippery slope here. If perma groups are against the rules in and of themselves then it is much easier to police. Any group deemed a perma is breaking the rule. I think making the change you suggest would lead to greater number of instances of permas doing exactly what you state they should be disallowed from doing because it will require greater work on the IMMs part to determine rule breaking.

Either way, I don't really care, I just don't think it is as easy as changing the rule or enforcement of the existing rule.

N/T

There is a balancing act going on between keeping CF adherent to what CF has been and adapting with the changing culture and demands of the player base.

If the Immortals don't bend a little on issues like this, it's very possible there will be tangible, negative consequences in terms of numbers.

The issue of how much "OOC" is too much might just be one big mess that will blow over at the loss of a player or two now, but I think the big picture is that the issue is only going to get bigger.

Nep says CF isn't the same game it was a decade (or more) ago when the Immortals perma'd Hell. That's absolutely right. CF, and it's core audience, is a different and changing group. Adapt or lose them.

~~~ = No text.


Or am I lying.

I'm sure sneaky.

Either way, very good post.

Well, we didn't break a damn rule then.


Calling us a permagroup is stupid. Read help permagroup, it doesnt apply in the slightest.

If you know another player OOC, treat their character as you would any other.
This disallows having multiple characters 'attached at the hip'. See
PERMAGROUP


This right here says it all. Thats exactly what we did.

this isn't worth getting involved in

From HELP PERMAGROUP:

3) Ask yourself if you are exploiting your connection to the other
character(s) to gain an unfair advantage over another player. This
can be a difficult determination to make, but fairness to other
players will be at the heart of the staff's decision, so weigh it
carefully.

I think that's the only part of the two helpfiles (that and RULES) that you guys can't wiggle out of.

It's not against the rules to get with your pals and "play together", at least to a degree. Obviously the Imms think it should be, but they haven't written it down, so we'll toss it for now.

You simply cannot argue that you didn't design and execute a plan to give yourselves an advantage over everyone else (the advantage being your ability to DO these things in the first place and then the benefits you would reap from succeeding) because of the things you orchestrated OOC. This whole ordeal is textbook "exploiting your connection to the other character(s) to gain an unfair advantage".

I think there's room for argument on every rule and every piece of the PERMA helpfile except that one.

Unfortunately, it's still enough to get denied over. It might not be a popular choice with the you or the other players, but it was definitely a "clean shoot", so to speak. Now all that's left to do is argue over whether the rules and their help files are fair and if they merit being modified. As they stand now though, what happened to you was legitimate.

10 points for gryffindor

But maybe not a belief shared by most everyone else.

Basically, it all boils down to fairness, if you ask me (and no one has, just to state for the record). Is it fair that I have a band of homey's I hop on AOL and coordinate #### with?

I mean, I'm all for knowing who plays who. IMHO that's neither here nor there. I think it's #### that characters have been denied because their player accidentally (or on purpose) outted themselves. FFS we're a fairly closed community, it's nigh impossible not to know who is playing who, even without OOC communication. But when that knowledge turns into 'DUDE, LOGON, I JUST GOT SWORDMASTER'S AND I NEED TO RANK TO FLURRY', that's when people are stepping over the line.

PS I love knowing who plays who. It's one of my character flaws, trying to figure out who played who (and conversely, trying to figure out Nep's chars...I think I've figured out 4 he never admitted to!!!) Especially when it's something like Balrahd playing Ktaar (and I actually had no idea it was Balrahd until he posted) or Graatch playing that non-agression HERALD. Mostly because you see the depth of the roleplay in playing something they should have no business succeeding with. Of course, by the same token, knowing certain players continuously play DouchebagOfTheMonth#'s 1-10 kinda ruins it when you realized that arrogant prick dark-elf you were RP'ing with wasn't RP'ing.

Kind of a double-edged sword, so to speak.

Some other assorted commentary, which I assume you will find insufficient:

I've seen groups of 2-4 that didn't involve me make it "through" Hell. Some of those aren't that long ago and didn't involve super A-Ps or (as far as I know) immortals playing mortals if you want to argue that's somehow relevant.

This, to me, invalidates most of the rest of your points because you're assuming a greater necessity of collusion than has been actually shown to be necessary in practice.

I mean, we can theorycraft about what you think is necessary all day, but when people go and actually DO it with less, what is there really left to say?

I don't think you've been part of most of the groups to go; it just seems to me like, for whatever reason, you need to feel like you're the guy who's done everything and knows the most there, even though I'm convinced that's true.

We just don't agree it seems. The last few successful groups since I came back to CF before the wipe I was a part of each that I know. My point about the requirements of people plus skill levels and certain classes is higher than what I think is available given the playerbase, especially if you want to attempt anything besides "make it through" as you put it. I want to take things like Moloch and other archdevils down, fight at the Pit Fiend council on the 9th, and it's never really been done or even attempted by "less" as you say. There's a reason most hasn't been seen or done, and it's because of what it takes to do it just isn't there. I'm no Cabdru and finding 7+ people who know their #### and are the right classes is asking for a whole lot these days.

Anyways, it's a difference of opinion and your sandbox. I'm fine with that, I just would like to see changes and think it'd be beneficial as a whole if they were made to that area. Take it or leave it I guess, I still like the area.

I do believe that you guys went overboard with the deny considering the gravity of a hell trip being the offense considering the typical hell group is generally OOC blatantly or just hiding it better than we did. As you wrote below it being a "repeat offense" from Rawvos, but Loshnak was extremely different in behaviour and actions. I never killed or really grouped with the people I knew unless it was for the Inferno and a few other exploring...most of which I just grabbed whoever was on to do it. I specifically avoided them, even making a Scarab Ehren character to enforce it. I figured given my immexp, roleplay, and general behaviour you would see it was different...I hadn't deleted with weapon loss and was toughing it out. If I had known it pissed you guys off that much to do Hell trips with others you knew, I wouldn't have done it because I liked being a Scarab again so much. Ironically for all the crap I've been in trouble for, hell trips has never been one of them....and I've been doing them for years. Scarabaeus specifically told me that with the Voice we'd be killing archdevils for con-quests and asked me why I didn't on our first trip...not a single mention of the OOC nature or dislike of what I was doing. A warning was all that's necessary....but you just figured it was the same and banned away.

Well that's that. I'm pissed about losing a high quality character considering the effort I put into it and definitely saddened at what's happening with the Inferno, but again not #### I can do about it apparently but point it out. We'll see if I continue playing or not, I still haven't decided.

Peace.

Could you play a character in Carrion Fields without telling someone(that CF's or has CF'ed) who you are and what you intend to do?

Some Hell things have not changed because Scarabaeus was not around.

More of what you want changed, he/we don't agree should be changed.

Given how this conversation is going and what just transpired, I was hoping for a little more out of you about this. It's kind of common for your responses to be addressing only single points in a message or short as it's your personality it seems, but really that's it?

The deny hammer just got waved around - without even a real discussion. I think this merits a bit more. Reading of Aarn's or Tohno's posts shows major points as well as mine does and just two vague lines that really doesn't answer anything?

I just lost a huge investment on a solid character, in which I specifically tried to follow the rules for, and I'm denied for taking some friends and some random people through the Inferno and the only small response I have so far is from Zulghinlour saying I should have sent an IC note (when if ya read the log, we were in Yzekon when people started showing up to make it possible and just decided to go)....which would have made it apparently ok. I never really ranked or killed with any of them, was far from some game-altering powerhouse, and specifically avoided them to follow the rules on OOC.

Come on man, some effort here would mean a lot.

You ####ed wands, you cheated OOC and claim "Oh it's only for the rush of PvE and blah blah blah" but then head back up and go back to pk'ing reaping all the benefits of the gear and things you got from down there. You would have never gotten it without going OOC, and yeah it might not had a huge affect on your pk ratio, but it's still the point that you did it.

Quit playing the I'm the victim and I'm not as guilty as it seems card. I've seen some of the convo's you have with your friends, and it's just plain retarded that you want to act like you're a good thing for CF.

Quit trying to downplay the situation and say you were only trying to have fun with friends. You blatently broke the rules that have always been there. It doesn't matter what the #### you say, or how you want to candy coat it. YOU BROKE THE RULES OF THE GAME THAT HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE. You're not exempt because you couldn't of done hell without breaking it. Don't go to hell and get over it.

>You ####ed wands,

Really, you want to go that direction? They don't want the past brought up on Imm groups, so do we need to point to this every time I bring up a point?

>>you cheated OOC and claim "Oh it's only for
>the rush of PvE and blah blah blah" but then head back up and
>go back to pk'ing reaping all the benefits of the gear and
>things you got from down there. You would have never gotten it
>without going OOC, and yeah it might not had a huge affect on
>your pk ratio, but it's still the point that you did it.

So let's talk about this. I specifically avoided friends on a very solid solo-killing RP character and took them to a few places for exploring. The "benefits" got lost more than once as I died since I'm no powerhouse, and even the trip in question they point to I got a single cloak of displacement - and no tattoo, so the only reason I cared to go to Satan was to take others for their enjoyment and IC reasons like Tim getting full empowerment. I got exactly jack ####.

>
>Quit playing the I'm the victim and I'm not as guilty as it
>seems card. I've seen some of the convo's you have with your
>friends, and it's just plain retarded that you want to act
>like you're a good thing for CF.

I think I bring something positive to the game - you can think otherwise but considering I share a lot of my knowledge of the game to others IC, and do decent RP to have 3100 immexp and tattoed scarab character I think I'm doing alright.

Actually the people this character hung out with the majority of the time I knew nothing about. Players like Kyanden and Isarbin and many others who I helped find their wands (and in the process never found my barrier) are the people I spent the majority of my time with and they never went to Hell or anything - mostly since a lot of people can't dedicate seven hours for it.

>Quit trying to downplay the situation and say you were only
>trying to have fun with friends. You blatently broke the rules
>that have always been there. It doesn't matter what the ####
>you say, or how you want to candy coat it. YOU BROKE THE RULES
>OF THE GAME THAT HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE. You're not exempt
>because you couldn't of done hell without breaking it. Don't
>go to hell and get over it.

If they don't want Hell done, close it. The whole purpose of this thread was to talk about the Inferno's problems around being basically OOC-required to accomplish. I enjoy exploring the Inferno and it's basically one of the top two reasons I play CF, and Hell and areas like it are a huge reason people play CF as well. They got pissed at Rawvos' behavior and actions so I distinctly made my next char to avoid anyone else I knew in-game until that Hell trip...and 300 hours later, I'm denied because of it.

You're damn right I want to talk about it, considering I get zero input to the deny on my character I'd like to say why I made that choice. They can either try to improve the game and relations with players or grind it to the ground by continually not discussing things like this and avoiding genuine points from new players like Tohno and ex-Immortals like Aarn.

And I want more than Nep's standard response of avoid the entire subject and answer random parts vaguely or point out the group Aarn was on and avoid the entire rest of his post.

And seriously, calm down. It had nothing to do with you at all.

>>You ####ed wands,
>
>Really, you want to go that direction? They don't want the
>past brought up on Imm groups, so do we need to point to this
>every time I bring up a point?

You can bring it up if you want. The past just isn't relevant there.

>If they don't want Hell done, close it.

I think it can be still done without the way you chose to do it.

I feel like you're saying "If people don't want home runs hit with steroids, we need to ban baseball."

If you don't think Hell can be done playing fair, then maybe you could be an adult and respond to that by not going.

>And I want more than Nep's standard response of avoid the
>entire subject and answer random parts vaguely or point out
>the group Aarn was on and avoid the entire rest of his post.

You can want whatever you want. Today it's short responses or nothing. That's what I have time for. Honestly, I don't think there is anything I could say that would make you happy here, so I am not extremely motivated to try.

The sad thing is, the more I see of what Torak does, the lower my opinion gets of people who must have facilitated it.

Say, I want to explore Hell. I make a character suited to exploring Hell. I don't talk to anyone OOC. I level some, and then send a bard note IC to All stating that I wish to conquer Hell. Stating also that I have enough knowledge to lead a worthy group (in an IC manner, like 'I have read ancient scrolls long lost to mortals' or 'A vision of the true path in the Inferno appeared to me in a vivid dream').

And say, somehow, this attracts people. People roll up characters that they know are needed for Hell. Bard, invoker, high-int tank, warrior, dpser...

And I don't know any of them OOC. We proceed to go to Hell, coordinating everything via note to Char1 Char2 Char3 Char4 Char5 etc stating 'Saturday at 5 pm by the Gods' time' or something.

Would that be against the rules?

Because I can see how it might be, if my bard note is a sort of signal to all the Hell-knowledgeable people out there to start rolling characters to explore Hell.

The only difference seems to be that I've sent a bard note out to get people to join me (or indeed create new characters to join me), instead of getting on whatever OOC channels and asking friends along.

Disclaimer: I know very little about Hell, and am not about to try this. I'm just curious about whether this is within the rules or no.

A couple random musings / points:

My assumption, based on how Hell has or hasn't changed over the years and various comments made by the Imms in the past, is that Hell's difficult isn't supposed to function on a curve like a high school math test. Meaning it's perfectly acceptable to the Imms that certain achievements never be made and certain items never be held unless/until it can be done "fairly" (as they define it). If it's impossible given the current player base or other circumstances, then they're "fine with that", as they like to say. If I'm wrong in this assumption, they are welcome to correct me (or better yet, the area).

There is a BIG difference between exploring Hell for you (and a few other individuals) and 99% of the player base. Most people haven't see much of Hell, and any chance to simply be in it is an amazing experience. Even getting to Satan isn't super difficult if you have a competent leader, an "okay" group, and are willing to skip a lot of the things (like eq) that you obviously aren't interested in skipping (which is understandable, because to you, that's actually boring). For a very high portion of the player base, Hell still provides all of the things it no longer provides you in terms of PvE.

I'm all for playing CF with your friends. When I took a long break from CF I played a lot of desktop / console video games. Ever since, I don't enjoy playing any game, even MUDs, "by myself". The IC interactions (while fun) are very different from those with actual people who also play the game, and I enjoy mixing them. This goes against the grain, I realize. I definitely do things that go against the letter-of-the-law interpretation of HELP PERMA. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about that, but it's how I enjoy the game and until somebody pulls me aside and tells me to either do it their way or #### off, I have no reservations with saying that I bend the rules once in a while to make sure the game is still fun for me while still trying my hardest to make the game fun for everyone else too.

What's the point of that? Most of the successful Hell trips are planned OOC. Either the trip(s) specifically is, or some/all of the characters in the group are planned ahead of time specifically for the trip. Even if you roll and level to 51 independently, that "conspiracy", if you will, is still against the rules. The point here being that we all know this, so doing so sort of enters you into an unwritten contract that goes, "I know this isn't kosher. I'm doing it anyway. I accept the fact that it might backfire on me." On one hand, I don't mind planning Hell expeditions OOC, but on the other hand, while I want you to enjoy your PvE experience, I don't want to get instagibbed by an ioun stone that only you can get because only you "cheat" to get it. It goes beyond PvE because you get to take those rewards and use them in PvP.

Should they reconfigure it all so that none of that is necessary? I dunno. I want to say yes, but then when I look at the way New Tiamat has worked out, I'm sorta fine with that too. Given the power of the gear from Hell we know about, and given the likely power of the stuff we haven't seen yet (all things being relative), I don't think that gear should see the light of day very often. It almost SHOULD take some damn-near shady stuff to acquire. I just haven't made up my mind on what I think about that yet.

Final thought on Hell, non-specific to "The Loshnak Thing":
Now that Scar is back, I'd LOVE to see Hell modernized. The code can do and support so much more now, it would be great to see Hell ever-so-slightly updated to include and incorporate some of the mechanics of 2010 CF. This applies to the gear, stats, progs, AI, area features, etc.