Great thread. Thror glad you're active again. You've been one of my favorite Imms for a long while. I think this discussion has been really good and has been something I was hoping for for quite some time. The lines of discourse are opening and I'm very glad that there are people on both sides keeping it civilized. The outliers will always exist, but you can't satiate everyone's need to be right 100% of the time.

This post itself is great as it addresses the issue of new players vs older players. I'm totally in agreement with Valg on the fact that we can't allow new players to escape due to some assholish behaviors, but at the same time, I think it's also significant to keep our veterans. It's too steep of a learning curve to hope that we can retain more then a small % of the people that find CF through advertising. Plus, I would imagine that veterans would put in more time on a weekly basis then newer players and also be more influential in cabal wars/politics which to me has always been CF's bread and butter as far as setting it apart from other games.

I've been bystanding/playing CF for quite a while now and I've seen the ebbs and flows and I really think that some things need to be clarified so that we can enhance the entire CF experience by possibly bringing back some old players and bring in some new players at the same time. I'm not going to go super sentimental in this, but I'd like to see where the Immortals stand on some views based on how they were in 1994 when I started playing and and based on how I perceive things to be now. I'm in no way saying that old CF is better then new CF, but I'd just like to analyze the differences and see if there's a middle ground that might benefit everyone's experience with the game and increase the playerbase as well. I'll apologize in advance for any skewed opinions I may have regarding the past or now based on assumptions I've had from watching/playing the game.

(The Past): No one cared. RP was optional. I think someone posted a crazy old log of myself and Nepenthe where people were just blatantly not RP'ing whatsoever. You did what you wanted, and that included super shady multicharring. Definitely a negative of the time period. At the same time, you had the ability to roll up a character with friends who were new to CF and help them find the niche of the game that you knew they'd enjoy, ultimately sucking them in and paving the way for them to become multi-hero long term players. Roles didn't exist and rewards were titles and tattoos which were both revered very highly. Although class/cabal disparities existed, it was a very simplistic polar environment with cabals balancing themselves out ie master/rager, knight/shadow, entropy/arbiter. Cabal alliances were more prevalent and generally decided by the leader of the cabal with Immortals letting the natural food cycle take its course and not really interrupting except for the occasional Cador slay or to interact for a global quest such as the Orihalcom statue quest. Areas were minimal and for the most part not complex or thought provoking and the player count was high so player to player contact/fighting was almost impossible to avoid. Damage reduction was found with sanc on a stick available to almost everyone. "Prep'ing" was definitely not time consuming.

(The Now): RP enforced, rules heavily enforced. Much easier to immerse yourself into a character knowing that someone isn't going to say that he ran out of toilet paper and needed to use his x-men comic book to wipe his ass. Rolling up a character with friends, inducting friends into your cabal. Definitely a no no, but I did it with a few characters somewhat in the past and had no problems, but at the same time, I took risks and wasn't attached at the hip with any of them and basically just used them to get over the monotony of levelling. Some people are punished and there doesn't seem to be a line that needs to be crossed, but for the most part it seems like people were taking advantage of their numbers in some way to take away some enjoyment for others ie ganging, but it's somewhat of a random gamble and I always felt the enjoyment of introducing and playing with my friends on CF was worth it in the end. Cabal wars are somewhat polar and still prevalent, but there is more of a chaotic dynamic with less cabal alliances. Significant prizes seem to be given out in the form of monthly role contests and for good RP, but possibly not as much for being courageous and consistently fighting with odds against you. The role contest/imm exp seems like an incentive to players, but to me it just seems like an opportunity to add more "work" to the game for players and immortals who should just want to relax and enjoy the game however they see fit. The amount of areas is immense and complex with amazing writing and very unique puzzles/items/mobs, but the playerbase is low so player to player interaction is reduced, and it's a bit easier to find reclusive spots to avoid people altogether. Large scale quests seem to be lacking, but I could be wrong in this assumption. Damage reduction is available in many manners with healers still being significant, but for the most part, it seems that exploring for some classes is a must in order to find prep items which seem almost vital to these classes before the hero ranks. Once you've attained this knowledge, it is much easier to go forward with a next character.

(As a total aside, I'm not sure the uproar of ooc groups going through areas because I don't think that is a detriment to any other player's fun, but maybe I have a skewed view of it all. If it was truly RP enforced then wouldn't everyone have to pretend that they didn't recognize any rooms or any areas with every new character they had? Just because an area takes multiple people instead of individuals ie Hell vs Silent Tower, does it change the RP/abuse factor? If it's that impactful to have knowledge in this as well as with observation xp/prep items, should there be more thought into why knowledge is so powerful which in turn skews CF against newer players?)

Sorry for the horrible grammar throughout this; kind of stream of consciousness while taking a break from studying.
-thinnie