So here's my take.

>Hey,
>
>I haven't actually played yet, actually, I don't have much
>information besides a blurb on Top Mudsites because everything
>is down, but I wanted to ask a few questions.
>
>How enforced is RP. I'm pretty into RP, and I'd hate to start
>a game where everyone goes OOC all the time.
>

In theory you have to remain in character all the time. In practice, people will sometimes go ooc. Why? Some examples:
- if they are trying to explain some syntax to a newbie who doesn't get their IC hints.
- if they just got pk'd and have lost their temper (this is more common)
- if they just suck at rp (this is pretty rare).

The most common offense is people with shallow roles, but they still stick to them. Also, be aware that a character's RP may not involve explaining themselves to other people. So often, you, as the guy they just pk'd, may not be able to tell much about their role, and they may seem like a random pk'er, but their allies might see quite a lot of the reasoning behind why they are acting like this towards you.

For example, I had a drow ap who had a thing about humans because the Matron Mother gave her a human name in order to torment her. So she pretty much wouldn't talk to humans, and would try to kill them on sight. But that wouldn't necessarily have been obvious to people for some time. In fact, I know it wasn't because people complained on a certain other forum that I'd chosen a crappy name because it suited a human more than a drow.

>What does restricted player killing mean? Do some people have
>a no pk flag, (annoying), or are there just rules, and how
>oppressive are the rules?
>

It means:
- someone has to be within 30% of your exp (and you within theirs, which isn't quite the same thing), I think. Note that different classes and races have different exp penalties. So a storm paladin will probably have a pk range with mostly people of higher level, whereas a human shapeshifter will have one with mostly people of lower level.
- they ALSO have to be within 9 levels of you (9 is within pk)
- if you die recently, you are taken out of pk for a bit (aroound 10 mins) so you can recover a little
- if you are level 10 or under, you not can pk or be pk'd, or loot other players' corpses
- if you kill lots of people without advancing in level, you will "distend" into a higher pk range, and have people more than 9 levels about you in your pk range.

>Any chance of getting details on the races/classes/cabals
>since I can't do any research on the site?
>

Google for carrion fields because there's another forum, and you can still see helpfiles on it (right hand bar). It's a relatively new feature, but still useful, I find.

>How involved are the politics?
>

Depends on the character, cabal, and your role. I have, for example, formed a company of bounty hunters and tried to monopolise the bounty trade by killing anyone who seemed to be hunting for bounties without joining. In cabals, you can make and break treaties (or rather, the leaders can), based on ic events. So, for example, if the law is obstructing you or always tagging along when your enemies raid you, you can raid them and take their item of power. They'll probably retaliate, even though your cabals may not normally be at war, but after a while, a treaty will typically be negotiated.

>Is this a pay for perks model? Do you have to pay to get all
>your skills trained, and if so, roughly how much?

The game is designed to be completely free. The ONLY thing that you can pay for has no impact on the game. And that is that after a character is deleted, you can pay about $5 if you want to see extra details about that character, like their pk record, and any immortal comments etc. But that has no impact on the game, since the character is already deleted. The game itself really is completely free. You can train your skills either through using practice sessions (of which you get a number when you gain a level, dependent on your wis), or by actually using the skills against mobs or other players.