I am not an idiot. I am not very good at this game, but I am not an idiot.

I know that nepenthe does awesome hardcore powerful characters, like istendil and cabru. Thats because he is a badass, even if he wasnt and imm.

I expected Twist to bash me to death as Heben and me as as Manaheim, because he is a less badass than nepenthe but way more badass than me.

I expect both twist and nepenthe to have more OOC insider knowledge than me in the game, thats fine, I have OOC insider knowledge where to get diluted vials and yellow roots etc.

Hell I expect some of the imm staff to know some of my current chars from speech patterns...its no big deal. I'm not special, and I think they dont care enough to ruin my humble cf life.

So we come to Cyradia. Like I said...I am not an idiot. I dont care for long emotional rants with no evidence. I care for evidence for claims.

I see no evidence for the claims made by Cyradia, as the entire rant seems to be 'word salad' to me.

Personally, what she posted is something that I already knew and made peace with years ago.

In the end, just like situations with players, both sides can think they are right, and in a way, both sides are right. However, with added perspective and seeing it from both sides, understanding the people and emotions involved, etc, etc. It becomes more logical and understandable.

Basically, I'm not going to be like Torak/ORB/kadsuane/satchmo (and I'm sorry if I lump any of them in with a group they don't belong to) and claim this validates all my conspiracy posts, because it doesn't. The only thing it validates is that just like with players, IMMs can get into disagreements with how their playstyles/personality-types mesh. I'm not going to ignore all the crap that these people have spewed over the years (except for Kadsuane, all of these people were trashing Cyradia not two days ago) and start thinking 'EVERYTHING THEY SAY IS TRUE!'.

Hopefully Cyradia can move on from this and enjoy her real life, which is much more important than any game (even one she's put thousands of hours into).

CF will survive.

Your constant use of the term word salad makes me want to punch u in your fat ####ing face

>Your constant use of the term word salad makes me want to
>punch u in your fat ####ing face

You can make pitiful threats and insults all you want.

You cant punch me and you cant come up with an arguement. Doubly sucks to be you.

...that only this post weren't deleted, unlike other posts, supporting Cyradia.

Censorship on the forums becoming more like an ultimate dictature with repressions of everyone who dare to support Cyradia and ask for justice or, at least, a fair game for other players (who are being just a cannon fodder for players, connected with some certain imms via IMs).

Likely, you are one of those players. After reading Dio's, it became obvious who those players are.

Very sad story. Pity that no justice is possible with "unpleasant" messages being deleted and people getting banned (and guess I'll follow them, and this message will be deleted too).

Justice?

If you leave my house because you are mad at me and I don't want to talk about it doesn't an injustice make.

You can disagree with me on the forums. People do it all the time.

If you're a douche about it, it's my prerogative to not deal with you at all, and I'm happy to exercise it.

I'm way too old to waste my time fighting with people who don't have anything constructive to say.

I'm not sure the "I'm not an idiot" quote of yours stands here. Sorry. Cyradia will be a huge loss to the CF community no matter how you look at it. There are obviously two sides to every story but for something to push her so far, well, I think it speaks volumes. We (as in the playerbase) will likey never really know what happened. And I'm not sure we should be privy to it. But it's a shame. Maybe the simple take home is that the game has evolved.

>I'm not sure the "I'm not an idiot" quote of yours stands
>here. Sorry. Cyradia will be a huge loss to the CF community
>no matter how you look at it. There are obviously two sides to
>every story but for something to push her so far, well, I
>think it speaks volumes. We (as in the playerbase) will likey
>never really know what happened. And I'm not sure we should be
>privy to it. But it's a shame. Maybe the simple take home is
>that the game has evolved.

The reason for me saying 'I am not an idiot' is to express the idea that I am not swayed by emotive 'word salad' such as the post that Cyradia made.

I consider people who are swayed by said emotive 'word salad' to be idiots.

lawl

Just to get another point of view: I believe all Cyradia said is true, and that there is more to it than that.

I also think some people like to brown nose. Take that as you will.

==
You get 269938 gold coins from the corpse of Valguarnera.
==

Is it true? Perhaps.

But just shouting at the Imms being assholes won't repair what's broken. I've tried that with my TV, it didn't come back!

If the players and the Imms could discuss respectfully about that matter, I'm sure everyone could learn from this and maybe we'd have a better game.

But playing the blaming game won't change a thing. It will just make it worst. And do we want to do that with 30-40 players a day?

>>Just to get another point of view: I personally believe all Cyradia said is true, and that there is more to it than that.
>>I also think some people like to brown nose. Take that as you will.

I take it as an implication that I am brown nosing the imm, and respond thus:
<sarcasm>Yes, im the first on the list for a frost giant, because of the post I made.</sarcasm>

>Just to get another point of view: I believe all Cyradia
>said is true, and that there is more to it than that.

There's an interesting distinction here, which I'm going to choose to comment on.

I've had some form of contact with Cyradia for, what, 15 years? It's something like that. I can't ever recall her lying about anything in that time. So in that sense, to draw the CF sphere distinction, I think what she's said is honest.

But: that doesn't mean she can't be mistaken. And to some degree, yeah, I think she is.



I was pretty frustrated to see her delete and the subsequent flameup. This is somebody I'm talking to, what, a week ago? Whichever day the misfit edges went in, because Cyradia volunteered to write the helpfiles from my half-assed notes so I wouldn't have to, which was pretty cool of her. As far as I know everything's cool, and then this, and then every person who's even worse than I am about having positive things to say sometimes is out bitching about it and making accusations.

So, yeah, I didn't handle that too well. In that frame of mind there's basically nothing I could have said which wasn't coming back swinging.

But I've had some time to mellow out and think about it, and here goes.



The first thing I want to do is set the record straight and defend Enlilth a little bit. He was Venphoria's imm and that's pretty well a matter of public record, so I don't think I'm exactly making any big revelations here by filling in that blank for anyone who wasn't already aware. Here's another side of the story from my perspective, to the best of my recollection.

Venphoria is in Empire at a time that isn't great for Empire and/or at times of day that aren't great for Empire. Basically she's a little bit of an underdog but she's putting in the effort and time and generally doing the kinds of things that make your cabal imms want to like you. When I put the wand attunement edges in, I also set up quest flags that can tell us if you've ever found each sleek wand, so if I want to reward you and I'm thinking maybe I want to give you aura attunement I can tell if that's actually a help to you or not. Venphoria hasn't found her sleek black and that's something we can tell.

Enlilth came to me and asked me if I thought giving her a hint to where it was would be an appropriate "hang in there" kind of underdog reward, and if so would I figure out where it was? I said I thought that was fine, figured it out, and told Enlilth who, as far as I understand, then gave Venphoria a hint.

I can't for sure assert that Enlilth does not have a secret wand location spreadsheet, although as far as I know he doesn't. At one point in the past I realized that an imm that's no longer on staff was keeping and parsing exacting logs of the bits of information they did get to see to draw out a bigger picture about which character was which player and made some changes to better restrict the flow of that information. If it turns out it's necessary to make changes again to that effect, I will. It's something we take seriously inasmuch as we are able. It's necessary to give a member of the staff enough power to do their job and sometimes that has consequences we don't immediately forsee.


To the comment that Twist was claiming responsibility for Cyradia's deleting as a PR maneuver: I think people can start to put the pieces together now that this was more Twist inadvertantly outing himself than anything else.

The chain of events goes something like this:

Twist's mortal kills Cyradia's mortal.

Cyradia's mortal rage deletes.

Half an hour or so later, Cyradia logs on and immediately deletes, then logs on Trabryn and immediately deletes.

Now, I don't think that death was the reason Cyradia deleted -- I give her much more credit for being level-headed than that. But I can totally see why Twist, in that moment, could feel like, "####, that was the straw that broke the camel's back." I haven't run this angle by Twist so it's possible I'm putting words in his mouth.



What else? When imms talk, do they sometimes mention who a player is? Sure, that happens. It happens more than it should and we're working on it. But let's also put this into a little context: Cyradia, for a while, has been streaky as a player. That's just what the demands of her real life are. Sometimes she had time, and sometimes she didn't. After one accidental autodeletion of her imms we jacked with the autodelete code so it wouldn't happen again. That's not any kind of a knock on her -- I've been as absent for longer streaks. It happens.

The thing about being streaky is: you lose a lot of the context and background information that other people take for granted. Sometimes you miss that we're paying attention to what a certain player is playing because we keep catching them cheating or we keep having to intervene when they die and keep calling the guy who killed them a fagtron, whatever that is. Sometimes you miss that we're not talking about who the imms know is playing a given character, but who everyone knows is playing a given character. Maybe we should take the high road and pretend not to know who the third evil dagger warrior in a row to die and tell their killer something like "Bash bash bash, all you know is one move" is played by. But you know, we don't always. If you have super obvious tells like that or only really play one thing serially we only try so hard to pretend we don't know what everyone posting on Dioxide's knows. As I said, this is something we're going to try to be better about, but I think it's easy to miss when you're logging back in again for the first time in a while that we're talking about things that are pretty common knowledge.



Moving on. Rewards and punishment are always a contentious topic. Over the years I've had the talk with various imms about being cheerleaders for their followers or cabal more times than I care to think about. It happens to the best of us: when it's your job to watch a subset of the players, you tend to identify with them a bit, and you also tend to see them at their best. Most people are cool about it and make adjustments. I don't see fit to tell all of the players or even all of the imms when I or another IMP has pulled someone aside about this or even really most issues; I think it undermines their ability to do their job. (I think this sometimes was a sticking point for Cyradia in particular; I always felt like she thought we didn't take what she had to say about someone seriously or that we didn't do anything. I may have misread her here and I don't want to put words in her mouth.)

From the player perspective, there's always the oddness that you never know really is responsible for your being rewarded. There's a character in Empire right now who has a small quest skill; although there's no reason for the player to think I was involved, as far as I know, I was the one who lobbied for him to have it and ultimately set it. There's another character in Empire right now with a custom long description; that came from Raybaer, a person somewhat infamous for not being much of an Empire fan. I'd have laid money that if you asked either of the players in question who gave them their small rewards they would have guessed wrong. Generally, the players seem to think whichever imms they personally like are behind their rewards and whichever imms they personally dislike are behind their punishments. I'm not too sure how to correct that, beyond if you read a PBF or ask in a deletion thread you usually can find out.

There's another uncomfortable situation which crops up now and again with rewards: what do you do when one cabal's a powerhouse, and some of the characters in it don't do anything wrong by way of their cabal dogma, but exhibit consistently poor sportsmanship or otherwise are unpleasant in some way?

Empire in the Ahtieli era was like this, full of tough characters who were conquering and doing exactly the kinds of things that Empire should do, yet, also full of some of the worst sportsmen among the playerbase. Enlilth got a lot of #### from people at the time any time someone in Empire got a tattoo or a title or whatever.

The same kind of thing's happening with Fort right now, and it's Baer's turn to get a lot of #### from people over the same thing.

I honestly don't think there's any way to make all of the players happy in this situation. If you're a guy who serially plays Fort and has been with the cabal through many periods in which it was a free PK farm, is it fair to you if now you can't get a title because the cabal's winning? If you're a Mochodin and (for the sake of argument, if you disagree take it to the deletion thread ) a pretty good sport, is it fair to say you can't get a tattoo despite roleplaying your heart out because sometimes you're the third guy in a gang with two other guys who are douchebags?

Right now we mostly try to judge these characters on their merits as best we can, which pisses off people playing underdog characters. If we steadfastly refused to reward whoever's winning, we'd piss off the people playing those characters. I genuinely don't know how to make people happy on this one and if someone comes up with a solution I'll listen to it.

There's more I can say, but I'm going to leave it there for now.

Because enough people don't say it.

FWIW Everything Cyradia posted is something I already suspected/knew. Nothing is earth-shattering.

So your wife gives out too much love to her followers? She's, arguably, the IMM that's on the most.

It's becomes the type of question re: Grummorum/Eshval types. In the end, IMHO, it's good for the game. Even if other players get in a tizzy over it.

Glad to hear my main man Poppa E is all clear though. I got sad when I read Cyradia's points about him though.

Very neutral in tone and very informative about the problems imm face. I'd never thought about things from that perspective before.

P.S. I'm also fine with an imm tipping people off to a sleek location as a small reward, similar to imm exp or a pat on the back. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. I think it's pretty cool, actually.

I don't think the problem is who is the underdog or whatever it just seems some people and some followers happen to get all kinds of stuff for their entire chars life while others see one or two things if they are lucky in 500 hours

I think the problem here is that for an example twists thief (because he just deleted) at 200 hours he had a tat, full maran, restrung boots and a cabal edge, i have played chars and so have others with over his 200 hours, a leader position and if not as good of a pk record as his it was darn close and they see nothing

here is a few recent examples that i found on the pbf's not including me
1 pughly (220 hours given cabal edge and that was the first of his rewards and then none till after 300 hours)

2.gdot got a tattoo at 365 hours (both his and pughly first rewards were from twist)

3. Naijia 50 hours got a quest archon but was for RC win, then tatted at 250 hours

4. akedh at 200 hours got a 3rd legacy for winning a sapper contest

5. gwildonian 220 hours no rewards at all...

6. Ilianthia leader at less than 100 hours, then tatto'd at 250 hours then nothing else the next 220 hours....


see the problem i am talking about here... it just seems some people happen to reap in the rewards very early and over and over again... while some people who obviously play good chars (good enough to get a leader position) end up getting the short end of the stick with little to nothing over huge time spans. I know different imms reward at different times but this was the last six leader chars i could find that purchased pbf's

Just feel the need that to point out that you are missing some of the rewards the characters you mentioned received and in some cases the rewards came earlier then you mentioned. Just think it clouds the issue a little to have an incomplete picture.

Also, I wouldn't normally consider something like a tattoo or becoming a Maran, (or Provincial like Gwildonian) to be rewards. Those for the most part are normal character progression for characters in those cabals and/or actively following a religion. Essentially most characters should be able to achieve these if they try and put in the time. They are not really on the same level with earning a 3rd legacy or quest form or something like that.

Pughly
1. Lastname 51 hrs
2. Edge 218 hrs
3. Edge 333 hrs
4. 3rd legacy and title 367 hrs
Total Imm exp 3350

Gdot
1. Lastname 138 hrs
2. Tattoo 365 hrs
Total Imm exp 2600

Naijia
1. RC 50 hrs
2. Justicar 166 hrs
3. Tattoo 169 hrs
Total Imm Exp 2400

Akedh
1. RC 62 hrs
2. Lastname 62 hrs
3. Title 198 hrs
4. 3rd legacy 200 hrs.
Total Imm Exp 3200

Gwildonian
1. Lastname 76 hrs
Total Imm Exp 2750

Ilianthia
1. Edge 43 hrs
2. Last name 100 hrs
3. Tattoo 244 hrs
4. Title 269 hrs
5. Title 276 hrs
Total Imm Exp 5800

Personally I have no issue with respect to how rewards are handed out. The characters that I have interact with over the years that are high reward earners are in almost all instances very high quality characters, making me believe they deserve what they have received. Regardless of who the player was behind the character.

I think the main thing is: Twist knows how to gun for recognition. The correct response to noticing that, if you want the same things, is to learn from what he does.

If you kill a ton of evils and your RP or lack thereof isn't a hurdle for you, you pretty much get Maran. Twist racked up over a hundred evil kills. There probably aren't two dozen Fort characters who have ever done that.

To get a tattoo, mostly, you have to go after a tattoo. A lot of players seem to pick the sphere of the imm they want and that's pretty much the end of it. Maybe that will get you spontaneously tattooed three hundred hours in but that's definitely not how you get tattooed by anyone quickly. Mochodin was praying and getting audiences early, and he was running contests and #### with the other Baer kids. Have you ever done something like that with a religion you were trying to get in? I can't even say I've done that.

I am no brown-noser and have felt persecuted before and had my blow outs with various people but I have also had my fair share of rewards and RC wins so it all balances out.

Only thing I did agree with Cyradia over, was the way heroimms, were treated when writing areas. If Valg didn't like you, you got ignored until you started playing alternate chars and/or deleted. That process should be and I hope it is now, a more open affair with proper feedback and guidance.

At the end of the day, there are many many ways to run CF and it just turns out my admin style is different than Cyradia's. While neither of us is perfect, that also doesn't mean either of us is necessarily wrong.

As far as heroimms, making life a little easier on heroimms has been one of my imm-long goals. Maybe I do coddle them a bit and cheerlead them a little too much, but considering how hard the process is I don't think there's a problem with that.

I've seen logs and heard first-hand accounts from other heroimms how much of a bitch Cyradia was to work under. The verbal abuse and tirades of Cyradia make me feel sorry for all the people who have worked under her.

but feel like I see you on and also it seems as if you are doing more than any other imm if I am just reading pbf's

I'd say if the worst result of that is that you over-reward a few characters here or there, thats easily addressed and the big picture is the effort you put in is noticed even if I dont always agree with you on the forums ;p

>Right now we mostly try to judge these characters on their
>merits as best we can, which pisses off people playing
>underdog characters. If we steadfastly refused to reward
>whoever's winning, we'd piss off the people playing those
>characters. I genuinely don't know how to make people happy
>on this one and if someone comes up with a solution I'll
>listen to it.

Reward both sides. Maybe unerdogs didn't deserve so many rewards as, for instance, Eachainn have, but at least something they DO deserve.

For example, I'm big fan of Eleagra. What did she gain, in comparsion with Eachainn? Or village leaders? Third legacy? No, never. Special edges, except for Orderly financier? No. Tittle - stripped for being strong and fair. And etc... You dislike russian players, it' obvious. But his char is brilliant, and everyone knows that. Yes, maybe he isn't best english speaker ever, but he puts crazy ####oad of effort into his character - and he is roleplaying way better than many english speaking players I've met while I've been playing.

Open their characters - Eachainn and Eleagra's and compare their rewards. Compare power of those rewards. Check those who you imm-anathemized for their forum persona. This is also what Cyradia have been talking about - if person did something wrong on the forums, he is anathema to the immortals and won't receive anything but punishments. I sincerely hope you will look at it with the new look and change how you treat their characters IN GAME.

About hate and such: I truly respect you as a person who keep CF going, and I value your investment into CF during all those years. Only if you would analyze this situation and see what is wrong, insteadof blaming everyone else except for your self - you would be PRICELESS imm.

I actually have a fair bit to say about Eleagra, but not while the character's active.

Not that you'll believe any of it, because of who you are.

Edit: Incidentally, It was in my first draft of the above giant post.

The fact that there is an open dialogue on the issue can only be a good thing. It is obvious that the imms face a challenging time trying to be fair and balanced, as well as working with their own natural human flaws.

At the end of the day, I think what we want (as players) is the respect to not be judged by the past characters and mistakes we once made, but yet to be judged by the overall strength of each character we play. It was extremely hard for me to hear that past characters and forum handles were used in making decisions about characters.

It seems to me that this line of thought is breaking the immortals own rules on roleplaying and treating each character as a completely different entity. Obviously, if a player continues to behave like a jackass with each character they make then they should be treated accordingly, but if a person is making a real attempt to change their ways, that person should be given the benefit of the doubt as to rewards and such.

I, for one, used to be the perma/multi-charing type of player (back when I was like 11-16 years old in my defense) but over the years I've figured out how to play this game without the help of anybody, and I've continued to play as such for many many years now. It would truly hurt to think that imm's labeled me as "bad" and there was no way to overcome it.

There were alot of other issues in Cyradia's post, I'm well aware, but this was the one issue that really stood out to me. I'm really glad that you (Daevryn) decided to give a well thought out response to it instead of just tossing it aside. It shows that the immortal staff is willing to grow and move towards a more better CF. Which is what I can only hope is what everyone wants.

Why Baerinka have more prized, tattooed, tittled, maranated players with unique rewards, fixed PBFs more than all other imms summed together? While it obvious that some of those players are permas and coordinating their logins via OOC connections?

You are trying to paint Cyradia as some upset, delusional person here, while he was one of the most fair, honorable and reasonable immortals up there.

IMO: It looks like you and your wife are trying to prove each other and other imms that you are the best. To achieve it, you ready to use everything, even shady, cheating ways or ways that would disbalance game and put playrers to the completely unfair ground as Cyradia mentioned.

Someone's really, really mad. Lol.

Think about it. It is a benevolent Immortal who is online an absolute ####load. Ofcourse this is going to result in more rewards of various types.

A cruel evil god that you worship out of fear and admiration of their power is less likely to reward followers and more likely to punish failure.

You need to grow a brain on this issue.

>Think about it. It is a benevolent Immortal who is online an
>absolute ####load. Ofcourse this is going to result in more
>rewards of various types.

So, rewards are dependant on the imm online? And if you are neutral/evil or not fortie, you have no chance to have even near as much rewards as her followers do? How it's fair? Getting rewarded for non-sportmanship, for organized logins, for fights 6-7-8-10 vs 1-2?

Yes, you want to support imms, you always been, and that is fine. But maybe it's time to begin to use your common sense and think, if it's good for the game.

>A cruel evil god that you worship out of fear and admiration
>of their power is less likely to reward followers and more
>likely to punish failure.

A cruel evil God that someone might worship could recruit an army and power it up to destroy everything that opposes them, especially marans. Real dark God would give not less powers to his followers, because he would be pleased by the bloodshed his followers would bring upon their enemies.

>You need to grow a brain on this issue.

With all respect, you need to reread what Cyradia wrote about IP's tracking and favorite players.

Raegahn->Qiirvas is a good example of the same #### but on the dark side. Do you need an explaination why, or is it obvious?

>Getting rewarded for non-sportmanship,

Heh, just for the record, you might ponder the reason I said many bad sportsmen are currently in Fort and not ALL the bad sportsmen are currently in Fort.

Let's be fair here. Prior to people attempting to demean Baer on this issue, they were attempting to throttle Thror for over-rewarding members of Battle.

Players are notorious for doing this and they happened to find a different target in an attempt to discredit him/her.

Is someone who is so gay, its like they are a robot programmed to be gay. Like manaheim.

As the person that was the cause for the original use of this phrase, I compute that you are trying to insult him and adding nothing else to this discussion. Please do cease this activity or expect the standard punishment.

Im not kanye, who is the one that did that, and if u read daevryns post he says "fagtron, whatever that is". I clarified what a fagtron was, not insulting him. You could use a chill pill there ace.

I was saying I was the original recipient of the insult...

http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?18,778088,778088#msg-778088

There's another one where he goes of spamming CO WRATH in yells.

Yeah, I was Linolaques.

Since this seems the be the thread to p*ss and moan alot I'll chime in too. I think people see some characters get amped up and amped up and we all ASSUME this is Twist or some immortals mortal character reaping benefits. Generally its not the case, but on the other hand there are those of us that are not that great a RP or PK, like me and a few others I know of with their last 75 characters or so that recieve nothing. No kind of guidance, no tiny IMMXP bumps, not even a verbal "Good job" or anything of the sort.

I think the reason people get so fired up is because we feel that certain people behind the minds of characters that know the ins and outs of milking the reward teet seem to garner all the attention, making it so theres no learning curve for others. I myself realize that you immortals put a staggering amount of time and effort into the things you do, snooping, area creation, RP contest and the whole deal. You look at most characters that arn't caballed or actively RPing simply because they don't know exactly whats wanted and don't want to waste their play time, then most imms probably go "Forget this guy" because of those facts. After getting no kind of attention after a time they end up getting angry at the world when some Fortman horde or Imperial gang of douche nozzles all bearing unique titles or unusual abilities come in to gang one character to the breaking point. Allowing the elitist to win again, then making life tougher for the less skilled/new players and making many lose interest in trying.

Just my point of view, which I'm sure nobody really cares about and completely disagrees. Although it might be something you should think about before handing out mass rewards to people and try to spread the creamy immortal goodness around.... EW! Not to say that those stellar characters shouldn't get rewarded, I just think that serial fort, imperial, battle, etc. players that get so massively rewarded on their last characters should have a bit of a tougher time achieving the same with their next. Perhaps forcing them away from their serial status to some other possibilities.

Yes, It is I, King of the run-on sentence and too many commas!.....

Okay, done

FLAME ON NOOBS!

People talk about not wanting their forum handles incorporated into how the IMMs treat their PCs. The people talk about how the same people should not always get the rewarded for their PCs. You cannot have it both ways. If you do no want IMMs to know who you are, how can they be sure with your next PC that they are rewarding the same person again or not?

I understand that you did not yourself did not say that it bothers you if the IMMs know who you are, but some others did. There has to be some happy medium and who knows? Maybe we are there already?

Besides, I could NEVER fault Twist for getting rewarded in game. He just oozes pure awesomeness in his PCs. There are a couple people when I interact with them in game that I can not wait to find out who they are after they delete/con loss. It has turned out to be him for quite a few of them. I have never interacted with a Nep character (not that I know of anyway) but I always assumed his would strike me the same way. They are the type of people that just make me want to model my game after them. Duck_Trainer is another person I would say this about. Amazing to interact with in game and they can teach you so much.

So I say, let them gather their rewards, watch them, learn from them, then you too can try and become them.

>People talk about not wanting their forum handles
>incorporated into how the IMMs treat their PCs. The people
>talk about how the same people should not always get the
>rewarded for their PCs. You cannot have it both ways. If you
>do no want IMMs to know who you are, how can they be sure with
>your next PC that they are rewarding the same person again or
>not?

I think you're missing the whole point here. People want characters to be treated based on the merits of the said character, not those of the person who plays them. So things like forum posts and having an Imm character would not affect how your mortal is treated in the game. People aren't upset that an Imm character is rewarded, they get upset if they think that the character got rewarded because the player was an Imm. In other words, people want things to be more character-centric, not player-centric. It is not bad that the an Imm mort gets rewarded because the character was cool, but it's bad if an Imm mort gets rewarded because of who happens to play the character.

It would help fair treatment of players if Nep* et al. would stop speculating who the player of an active character is and making speculatory PBF comments guessing who an active character's player is. We ban for such speculation in Dio's to promote more character-centric environment in the game. Imms not knowing who plays who helps to promote fair treatment of characters and reduce favouritism, making the experience more pleasant to the interacting immortals as well, without the OOC information burdening the interactions.

*Nep is named due to his admitted speculatory comment guessing Twist's thief being Jalim.

If you did a search on the Battlefields for the word 'hunch'* you'd probably find a ton of posts by various players (imm and non) who would say "I had a hunch this was you."

Speculation like this in a playerbase community as small as ours is human nature. No, I don't imagine people see some guy on WoW and say "I bet that's joebob899 on the WoW boards."

But that's different than how we are here, and you're not going to see it change I'm afraid. The speculation (or knowing) isn't really the issue, it is making sure that despite speculating (or knowing) who is playing what that everyone is treated according to the character's actions, not those of the player behind the character.

One random imm (who doesn't have the ability to check IPs) commented recently that she can pick out a certain player's chars the moment she hears them speak after a death.

That's not on us, as an Immstaff, to pretend that we can't see that pattern. That's on the player to not be so blatantly obvious (if they don't want staff picking them out). I include myself on this list. Iunna told me about one of my "tells" a long time ago - I had a bad habit of not always capitalizing the first word on a cb. So I'd be like:
cb lich on eastern.
I made a conscious effort to correct this.
Also do you have any idea how many innuendoes I had to let pass when playing Tavlin? Ones that Dupmasione or Woldrun would totally have made a crack about? Tavlin's mind simply wasn't dirty like that, even if mine was.


*I could be totally wrong on this, I didn't try a search on the word hunch prior to posting.

You're right that people will naturally speculate. However, what isn't right is making that speculation public in any way. My speculations should be kept to myself so as not to taint the experience of others and so should yours.

Let's say you notice I am Douchbag01, because of a douche bag action, while watching my character. You mark it in my PBF, say it on IMM channel, or otherwise speculate that it is me. However, what you don't know is that I'm really trying this time, as unlikely as that might be. You just happen to catch me slipping.

The proper course would be to mark that I slipped, so others know to watch for it, but not mention that I am Douchbag01. Once you mention that I am Douchbag01, I have all of that stigma attached to me immediately.

Asking yourself and the others on the staff to "despite speculation be character-centric and unbiased" is just as unlikely/impossible as asking someone not to speculate internally.

...that I missed making in my post above.

First, when it comes to rewards and IC punishment, I do no think anyone, Cyradia included, has made a case that these are being made on a player as opposed to character basis. In fact, Cyradia's "cornerstone" example of unequal rewards, her character Venphoria, is an undisputed example of rewarding on a character as opposed to player basis. Cyradia even admits the IMM had no idea who Venphoria's player was, and was merely trying to provide an IC reward to a character that sucked in PK, had a horrible range, but top-notch RP. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think everyone agrees crappy PK characters with good RP dealing with crappy odds (like Venphoria) should have the opportunity for small rewards. As long as it is on a character basis, which that admittedly was.

Second, I am not sure if you heroimmed, but it is a lonely and awkward process sitting around in one room for hours at a time. Again, using Cyradia's examples in her thread, you can see at least one high level IMM (her) intentionally made no effort to learn new heroimm's names or engage with them on a human level to make them feel welcome and acknowledged unless they were useful to her. (note: I am not criticizing this style of management, in fact it is relatively common to large, very successful, law firms in the US, for example. I'm just saying her thread and response to Balta paints a picture.). This new situation is compounded by the fact you are no longer able to communicate on Dios or other channels where you used to talk about things CF related, and your real life family and friends don't want to hear about "the black screen," as my wife calls it (for example, I used to post on Dios 2-3 times a day). So your CF communications are restricted to one outlet: that room.

Your main connection with the imms sitting around in that room willing to talk to you and learn your name at that early point is active characters and players.

On some level I do not think there is a harm to allow some variation of the comment Cyradia is talking about amongst heroimms - because it is an ice breaker and you are no longer in a capacity to influence the game. I suspect Cyradia's example is one of those instances. Similarly, I think Nep's comment in Mochi's pbf is another example of a harmless comment that obviously had no impact.

Obviously it becomes problematic the moment that speculation influences IC interactions with a character, or creates an environment where OOC negativity surrounds a character - but that is not being alleged here.

Anyway, based on what Twist said, restrictions on speculating re: active characters like the ones used on Dios are already being enforced with renewed attention. I just would like to think that we can all recognize, respect, and appreciate the value of entertaining and open conversation where it does not potentially impact a character. This is a game, and one that benefits by making it fun for everyone involved, including heroimms.

>Again, using Cyradia's examples in her thread, you can
>see at least one high level IMM (her) intentionally made no
>effort to learn new heroimm's names or engage with them on a
>human level to make them feel welcome and acknowledged unless
>they were useful to her.

I think this is a fair point, in that, there are several different strategies that higher imms have taken with newbie imms.

Some people have hung out with the newbie imms and generally tried to befriend them.

Some people are more of the strategy of needing to manage them and are more inclined to sit elsewhere, avoid direct contact, and snoop them to make sure they're not screwing anything up.

Some people are more inclined to ignore them entirely because their focus is on something else entirely. (This is usually me.)

There're advantages and disadvantages to each of these approaches. I think one of the big things you give up with the second or third approach that's very subtle is that you can't really influence the culture of the staff that way. You have to be part of the conversation to say something like, "Hey, I didn't want to know that DudeX is playing CharY, could you try to not mention that kind of thing?" and be taken seriously. It's different with people you're paying but I think it's hard to tell a volunteer that you're important enough for them to watch like a hawk but not important enough for them to socialize with and get respect for it.

>>and keep calling the guy who killed them a fagtron

One of my paladins was the victim of this! Killed a duergar warrior and one of his group...spammed fagtron at me. Didn't last long, and he poofed. I was grateful for the quick step-in.


I can attest to the "suprised at who gives rewards" thing. I had a necro win a role contest and get a REALLY pimp warrior legacy. By an imm who, I am sure, ooc, detests the fact that I detest pinko commies...hehe.... And, as much as I think Proud Blade, as a person, is wildly misled in his world outlook, and was vociferous about it (even overly acerbic, on porpoise (yes, I spelled that right!)), And, he even ooc denied Odrirg's Imm app, because of my former deep enjoyment of poking liberals on Dio's...heh...at least he was clear, honest, and open about the reasons....(Thank goodness he did deny my app, I know I'd have contributed tons, but my life would have suffered, and I'd not be engaged now), But Valg gave me some really primo, nice, enjoyable interactions with a ranger I had that was a Valg follower.

I've struggled with some of the Imm culture since my return as this game, the people maintaining it and the players involved are all evolving.

However, I agree completely with Nep's assessment of "immortaldom."

There is context to everything that takes place in Administrative decisions. While losing no immortal is ideal from the perspective of CF growth and maintenance, it is a reality of Carrion Fields that people will move and and at times return.

We have the most level-headed people serving as Imps for this game. Have faith that they have the best interest of the game and players in mind.

"We have the most level-headed people serving as Imps for this game. Have faith that they have the best interest of the game and players in mind."

Scarabaeus, Zulgh, Twist, Daev.
I think those are the four Imps, unless I am wrong, and I have to say I'd probably buy a beer for any one of those guys for what they do for CF, maybe two beers after looking at what they go through while they do it.

Course, I'd buy ones for pretty much all the immortals.Except Ysaloerye, no beer for that one until he makes a comeback so I can try another follower now that I actually use punctuation and capital letters.

Kastellyn as well. Met him a month or so ago. Outstanding guy.

It's flattering to be included in the list, but I'm not an IMP. I can, however, be purchased beers.

This game is set up, from imm tattoos to wands to gear to quests to give a leg up to inside knowledge and a handful of people having a large amount of sway over how powerful your character is.

Even if no one ever knowingly cheated (right...) or knowingly favored anyone (again, unlikely) your own individual merits have no meaningful connection to anything you receive.

The game is *designed* to support cheating. Everything about how it works screams AIM info sharing, MIRC, emailed lists floating around and kissing up to the right people.

If you still want to complain it's not an even playing field then you're *really* naive for not coming to that conclusion a long time ago.

I do just fine and I don't cheat. I don't know where a single wand location is. I know less than a handful of limited preps. You can't compete because you are bad, not because you have to cheat.

Also, my characters never get rewards other than leadership whenever there's no one better. I usually follow Shokai and we're self sufficient badasses of the Light in that way.

Edited to remove a semi-personal attack I guess.

My post was talking about a level playing field. If you think you and Twist have a level playing field you're naive.

I didn't say that you can't kill anyone unless you're Twist, I just said it isn't an even playing field because the game is designed to pretty much solely favor people with "l33t knowledge" and people who get things like quest forms, legacy rewards, lich quests, etc.

I'm using Twist as an example but the basic idea is that this game is anything but a level playing field. As for me being bad, heh, childish but whatever I'm bad if you say so. Doesn't change of the meat of what I said.

I didn't mean the "maybe you're bad" comment as an attack. I'm not good with internet speak and I forget that is such a prevalent troll. I don't know how to clarify what I meant beyond saying I only mean to encourage you to find another approach or view it from a different perspective.

As for the level playing field. I understand where you and many other players are coming from. However, I pose to that perhaps Carrion Fields isn't the game you think it is. It isn't a simple rock/paper/scissors or a game of chess with strict rules and full equality. It is a game meant to breed interesting roleplay with a heavy focus on conflict-driven "drama." You can't have that AND a level playing field, I don't think.

Carrion Fields needs its over powered individuals at times. None of it will ever play out perfectly and if it did that would detract from the "interesting" part of it. I don't want to play a text-based version of Call of Duty or Street Fighter. I want something complex and challenging. Super powerful villains and heroes alike, always with a chance to overcome. Even the biggest, baddest Twist/Daevryn/Whoever character is killable. Given enough time, preparation, and troops.

Just my personal take on it.

Eh. Most of my characters don't have that stuff.

Further, I'd be willing to bet that if we added a PBF stat for average preps up per kill, both, say, mine or Twist's would be below average.

At some point I'm not sure how you make the case that some players have an advantage that isn't basically of the form "Just has played longer than you and can go through areas blind that you've never been to."

But this is an old argument and I don't see much point in rehashing it, either.

Most of your characters have a pretty good understanding on how to maximize skill spamming, get access to questy gear, maximize quest XP and observation XP, etc.

Being the developer of something is like a min-max'ers dream.

Now, that doesn't mean you're probably not good at PVP in your own right, but it's definately not "level" and you'd be kinda naive to think so. Same for wand locations. Same for preps. Etc.

I mean, it is what it is. Whenever you have secrets that confer power, people who know the secrets will be more powerful just as a matter of design. Some people like that 'strong get stronger' kind of system, it keeps newbies weak and veterans strong and gives them an uneven playing field which they can use to mash down people who don't stand a chance. But to compete in that system on a high level favors either the treadmill or the cheat ring.

But my post is mostly in response to : "I genuinely don't know how to make people happy on this one and if someone comes up with a solution I'll listen to it."

I mean, it is what it is. People know how the system works. They like being elitist when it favors them, they hate it when its used against them but anyone looking for a level playing field in this game is looking in the wrong place. If it's really going to upset you that you can't compete against a Twist char then like what did you really expect?

A newbie can never compete against a veteran and a veteran can never compete with a few of the Imms who know a lot nor can they compete with people like the russian cheatz and their OOC wand lists. Well, they can but they'll just be at a heavy disadvantage - by design.

Misread

Do I believe what was said? Probably most of it.

Do I wish it wasn't so? Meh.

Do I honestly care? Not really.

I can not expect people that give up their time for a volunteer hobby (that is what this is, let us be honest, no one if getting paid here) to not (hopefully only on occasion) "hook a brother up". Everyone says "How can you possibly do that?" If you knew you were not going to get caught, would you give that sweet set to your room mate/wife/brother/etc when they are level 11? You can deny it all you want, but you probably would. Not because you are trying to cheat, but because you know it would make it that much more fun for them.

I have no OOC friends what so ever at Carrion Fields, but if I did, I would expect we would all discuss different things like where we found wands, quest, etc. Do I think it is unfair that I do not have these connections most of you do? nope, I will just keep my own lists. But if I ever find a friend that plays or convince someone to start, I will likely share it all with them. well, most of it anyway

How can I not expect other people to do the same? This would include IMMs in my opinion.

Do I think forum handles and characters should be separated completely, probably, but people should not be the asses they are on the forums either. But we all know that will not stop happening.

What bothers me the most is that a lot of people (Mortals, Imms, and Cyradia) are all not not going to enjoy this game for what it really is. an imperfect but still amazing and wonderful game.

>So we come to Cyradia. Like I said...I am not an idiot. I
>dont care for long emotional rants with no evidence. I care
>for evidence for claims.
>
>I see no evidence for the claims made by Cyradia, as the
>entire rant seems to be 'word salad' to me.

I've rarely, if ever, interacted with Cyradia in game. From playing since the 2nd age, I've always felt Cyradia dealt with Immortal responsibilities from behind the "An Immortal" hat. I've occassionally guessed she might be who I was dealing with, but I generally assume it goes with her opinion of the characters, and the admin being seperate.

Ultimately, this deletion reminds me much of (I believe) Ordasen's deletion. I could be wrong, and I'm not really too interested in speculatin beyond the following. CF Immortal Staff is somewhere in between a hobby, and a structured organization. Not everyone is always going to like everyone else, though in general I'd say it's above average getting along for any random group of people. There is accountability to others above, but there's also a good bit of leeway in that someone's not going to be an Immortal long, or raise in level without trust in that person's judgement. However, sometimes one person's opinion of what is reasonable disagrees with another. Sometimes it comes to where it's just overall too much of a disparity. Personally, I'm a manager at a nightclub, and I've spent a good part of five years keeping 30+ people content with each other, if not always happy. And that's with them getting paid to be there, compared to voluntary.

This is strictly my opinion, and I know nothing of what the actual situation here was, but Cyradia's been a staff member a long time, and one I've always respected here in the forums. I doubt she would make wild accusations, though everyone's perspective IS their own. Even in her deletion, it was stated she's welcomed back.

In closing, this has always driven me up the wall - is Cyradia male or female behind the curtain? Cyradia & Trabryn's profiles each state the sex for the character.

I just think Cyradia is doing that him or herself...

To be honest a lot of the 'word salad' of Cyradia's seemed to be TL;DR to me.

You are the equivalent of a kid being told Santa doesn't exist and sticking your fingers and going "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!". Your whole word salad comment trying to dismiss what she said is a sad spin attempt as well.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

>You are the equivalent of a kid being told Santa doesn't
>exist and sticking your fingers and going "LALALALALA I CAN'T
>HEAR YOU!". Your whole word salad comment trying to dismiss
>what she said is a sad spin attempt as well.

A more correct analogy would be Cyradia telling me what I already knew: 'Santa doesnt exist', that was why I spent time explaining my view of the imms in the original post to make my point.

Spin? I'm sorry if you feel that my opinion is spin, but that is your problem, not mine.

>Not everyone is always going to like everyone
>else, though in general I'd say it's above average getting
>along for any random group of people.

Honestly, this is part of it, too. I'm not going to tell you that's the whole picture, but it's a piece of the puzzle. Not everyone on staff shares the same opinions on how we should do things (which is especially maddening when a player demands to know why I didn't so something the same way another immortal had done in the past that was a decision I never agreed with), not everyone has the same life experience or sense of humor, etc.

I would love to have a staff for the game that was totally consistent about everything (because they did it my way, which is obviously the correct way, right?) and in which everyone got along great with everyone else, but as the saying goes, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.

"you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want."

This was a very comforting saying as we rolled past the barrier from Kuwait heading north to Al Fallujah with nothing more than plastic doors on our aged humvee's. Filled sandbags on the floorboards and plywood tied to the doors for protection (as little as it would have given). As insane as that sounds, we did what we had to do because of the situation.

But within six months we had appropriated the barrack buildings of Saddam's guard, sealed the buildings with the materials we had, engineered running water, electricity to the building, created metal doors to replace the plastic with, and mounted the appropriate amount of heavy weaponry to repel any sort of coordinated attack.

Now working with/to fix equipment is certainly quite a bit easier than working with people to fix the way operations are run. But we only had six months and you have nothing but time ahead of you if you want to put in the effort. Good luck I say, use this as a stepping stone and don't let it be quicksand. (Gosh I hate that spell)