This is the real Hastur, no VPN user here.

Well I landed a job ... finally ... that allows me to work from Australia for Atari. With this job comes the angle of time vs reward. Unfortunately when I look at Carrionfields and compare it to many other aspects, Cf just doesnt cut it. This post is more of a curtesy and a Hey Immstaff you should consider this, than a post of YOU ALL SUCK & cannot do anything right.


I started cfing in 94, Back then it was a impressive game, human interaction and a test of my skill and knowledge against other players. Nothing of the sort was really about to compare with it. Sure it didnt have graphics but game players rarely do care about graphics as long as they get to test themselves against others of the world. Sure graphics are appealing, any one who remembers X-Crossfire will have fond memories of playing a primative graphics game with their friends. However if you look at the fundamentals it comes down to a few simple aspects.

Do you have fun playing the game.
- How fun is it in comparison to other things that you could do.
- How much time is required for you to have fun.
- Will the fun last.

Simply put; A game needs to be fun, it needs to be quickly achieved, it needs to be versatile to maintain the fun.

I will use the pcgame X2 as a example. This pcgame was released and many of the people who played it instantly thought it was a piece of #### space game. However all those dedicated die hard space game lovers pluged away at it. The game creators and the millions of forums spammers all commented on how the game soaked up atleast 10 hours to even grasp how everything worked. How you then had to spend a good 50 hours before the game started. This time consuption was a massive drawback to X2, so much so it was classed as a failure at launch. It took months and months before it was recognised as a good game. Then sales picked up some but sharply dropped again as many of the people who waited bought the game and discovered how much time was required to get it up and running.

I will now defer to a PC game that I worked on. Freedom Force. A small niche group of fans existed for this game, all you comic book lovers. Sure the game design and LD was done by some kickarse people, but the fact remains that it was aimed at a tiny audience. It was a game that took a few minutes to adjust to before it returned fun & lots of it. Freedom Force went plat so fast it wasnt funny. Surprising us and the company (sure we got all cocky and said - Course it did, we made it). The niche audience expanded to many game players who loved it purely because it was fun to play.

The single aspect that this displays is that time spent vs fun gained is VERY important. There is a huge audience out there for players who dont want to spend 10 hours grasping the game and 50 hours before they start getting fun out of it. They want to be able to start playing for a hour or two then stop during which they would like to have spent that time getting fun from it.

Pcgames are not(often) able to be updated & altered whilst the players are playing it. Because of this players often tire of the game after they "beat it" or have maxplayed it (played every single aspect). This aspect was addressed with online multiplayer(similar to muds) abilities. With this addition a new aspect for all games was brought to life, a aspect that prolonged their lives for years. Comparing yourself, challenging yourself against other humans. With this new angel a played out game could be played over and over because you were playing with other humans, whom actions would never be the same.

Sequels to pcgames are normally based on improvements both in design and presentation. Those building the games (like the immstaff) want to try a idea they have or want to improve on a what they have allready created. Its been years since half-life came out, yet it is still one of the all time games. Its graphics have been surpassed for years and there are much better games out there, however it still gets played.

The game requires 5-10 minutes to understand it, and then offers fun then on. Sure you might not be as good as elite shooter X, but the 3 times your managed to sneak up on him and kill him was worth the 15 times he fraged you.

Carrionfields started off like that, it took two days for me to learn how to play it. I think the smugger record was 19 hours for hero. Once hero'ed it was a nonstop cabal raid. We would log in at lunch time for a hour and join in on the raid that was almost always in progress. People would die left right and center and everyone had fun. No one cared about equipment or dying because you knew that it would only take a week before you had another hero running around kicking arse again. Hero range was full of about 30 or more people (with the game capped at 50 max users, or was it 75... cannot remember). Sure the game wasnt "balanced" as well as it could have been, sure the code was bad and cheating was rampant (along the lines of eq swapping/cloning mostly). But it didnt really take away from the fun of the game. Anyone could hero and kill those people for that equipment. People would deleted a character if they didnt like it, raise another type of character normally doing so untill they found something they liked. Which they would then play into the ground (con loss age death boredom) When they wanted a change they would try something else.

This was why cf was so popular and so fun. It took very little time, you could log in for a hour have fun and log out. You could spend huge ammounts of time online and have lots of fun. Because characters were so easily raised, and in such short times people only ever had 1 character. There was no point to have 8 characters running. If you wanted to try something else you could do it easily. So you would just up and delete.


I look at cf now and just cringe at how its turned out. The game itself from a single player standpoint is good. Well balanced and thought out. Soon as you add more than 1 player however it goes down hill hugely.

CF has the following:
- Roaming playerbase (1 player 10 characters)
- Multi time zone players. (requires more players to function,pendulum)
- Massive ammounts of time required to play.(bang for buck)
- Inbalance in reguards to non single player playing. (Permalagging/ganging affecting the game adversly)


Now the immstaff might dispute this in many different ways. But the fact remains, I am a player. These are my views of the game. I have spoken with dozens of other players who also agree. Many of the workers in the game industry (many who mud) also agree this is why they gave up mudding.


Changes:
I've read many posts from players and immortals who comment on change. The biggest laugh is the speed at which change happens at. You have a playerbase, use it. Just like a game company has all its testers. Cf isnt a pay for play game, We play cause we like to play. There are muds out there that make 3-5 changes a day, upping/downing skills & spells. They tweak skills & spells untill they are happy with it. Dont say that it is not professional. Because the real world works like that also. Its only when you flag something with "life&death" that you have to test it for months on end before doing it.

CF in my view needs to make a few drastic changes. Even if you think they are fickle, why not test them, why not see if they work for a month or three (some of the more drastic ones). The changes to spells & skills could easily be made on a daily basis.

Here is my dreaded list of changes to cf:

Introduce character age death linked to real world time, not game time (make this say 4 months)

Introduce 1 character per player restrictions. (started with a player purge)

Reduce the ammount of time required to prac (remove the need to spam prac, yes blah blah will continue at **)

Reduce the time required to level (yes increase how fast one can xp, perhaps even enable more solo xp - larger group size xp)

Introduce command flow stacks, execute 1 skill (enter another and get instant reply that your allready delayed from 1 skill)

Introduce melee range based on room exits. 1 exit 1 foe (back to the wall, 2 exits 2 foes etc, this could also include spells)


** I dont want to rekindle the whole practicing thread below, but simply put if 100% in skills wasnt required then skills & spells would just be that, there would be no %'s needed. People play this MULTI player game to play against others, to test their skills & tactics. They want it to be just that. 100%'s in everything means that no one is to blame but you. Your character is not at fault. (excluding luck stats blah blah blah). Making it take 100 hours instead of 10 has not changed the situation, people still spam prac, just like they did in 94. You have only managed to outcast players due to massive ammounts of wasted times.



Finally:

Games are supposed to be fun. Life is short, wasted time with no reward or fun isnt worth ####. Cf has the potential to thrive again, yet it seems unable to see the big picture, the world changes - players change. No one is going to continue wanting to spend hundreds of hours for 10 hours of fun when they can spend 1 hour for 50 mins of fun with other games. Re-kindle cf, make it fun to play again. Make the time spent 1/10th of what it currently takes. If all hell breaks loose, change it back. Prove me wrong.

PS: It doesnt take much to toss in a *3 multi on xp code, or a *5 on learning rates.
PPS: I've seen a few muds that have "multi" xp sessions on birthdays. Some of those muds only have 20-30 players, but during their birthday they swell to 50-80 players. Perhaps its not all that bad no ?


Anyway, Hastur signing out. (unless you impliment those changes).

As a relatively newer player but with veteran friends, I think I have some valid points that could be brought up from this side of the table. I've grown a lot I think in my CF ability in every aspect but have a ways to go...well enough background, here goes.

1) One of the biggest things I hear about is the loss of fun with practice. I can understand the staff doesn't want everyone running around with 100%s in everything and has added the features to make learning easier while ranking - problem is, most people don't want to rank without them. The learning curve for CF is huge and nearly exponential including all the preps, skills/spells, tactics, etcs that those few % can make a big difference - even if you say there are those that run around and win with low % (which I have done), when you miss and die because of it, you're cursing the idea that you didn't practice. Sure you could have missed anyways, or you might even have 100% and miss (which should occur less in my opinion), but the fact that you died and lost everything because of it is a huge problem for newer players - the downtime for that is what causes the "must...practice" mentality. Tactics may beat it, but people don't like running a lot when you don't know what to do.

2) One of my best friends constantly says how he misses the White Tower - not because of the story behind it, or the special things in it, but the pure fact it was the newbie showdown place of the mud - you could guarantee that a majority of players were there in the ranks of 15-20 and group fighting was common there. In the ranks of 15-20, there are a lot more options but a less occurance of group on group fighting. Ranking, for the most part, can be done in complete silence if you find a non-common area or an area far away (Akan is a great example of a neat place but horrible location for newbies. Too far away, too many movement early on, and too far if you die. I've seen newbies who die there just delete because of it.) - and that becomes a grind (and ranking is a LOT slower here compared to other muds. Yes, it builds character but how many times did your parents say that to you before you hated it?). I love the fact that groups bump into each other and we need more of it early on - groups in high levels is depressing because it's never really even. Level 15-20, you really only have a few options but those options matter in fights and I think that ability to group fight and pk consistenly near a town makes for great training for newbies in playerkilling. It'd also give people the enjoyment they want early-on and I hear it was faster ranking then today - when you've played level 40+, level 1-20 becomes a huge pain nowadays with all the practicing required.

3) More people = harder for newbies. It's quite simple. When you ask for a group and don't know where they are, 99% of the time they say no since they can find a non-newbie to rank. That's something that needs to change somehow, but really I don't know how besides make learning areas easier and closer (like in town lumberyard, graveyard, white tower, etc) for the earlier ranks. Balator is the closest thing I can think of and that's a horrible place now to learn (Centurions BLOW for newbies. I had a helluva time understanding what to do when pinned by a group and centurions, or worse, people demanding the oath to newbies who don't know where Galadon is! There is a reason people hated them being used in areas like Eastern/Balator/Past - restrict them to imperial lands and it'd make everyone happier for the most part. Only group you'd disappoint would be gangbanging homos who sit near them in Eastern - and the rp standpoint of two centurions instantly walking far out of imperial lands to get taxes is is horrible. At LEAST make them go to the Citadel to get them and pay them, then make them walk them out to where they want to go. Or better, make it so that player can't leave the area or invisible, or the Centurions shrug and walk back.)

4) Information hiding is completely different from spoon-feeding and I think is a big deter for newbies. Like the comments people made about skill effects, spell effects, etc - yes, use them and find out, but when you're on the receiving end as a newbie from something the helpfile doesn't explain it's a lose-lose situation. Death is a great teacher but a horrible aspect for new players.

5) The Ultimate Empowerment Solution - make partial empowerment an automatic QUEST given by your guild leader. Make it random and based maybe on sphere (something that never gets used much) - yes newbies shouldn't be doing empowerment, but us semi-newbies who decide to pick a god that we didn't know never shows up or whatever has something to do up to 20 or 25. It'd also increase the number of empowerees I think which would be nice - healers make the game a LOT easier. When you see only 3-4 healers in a game, you realize why it takes forever to rank.

I had more but I can't think of it right now, I'll probably reply with more later. Time for bed

Night

Despite the fact that my weapons and armor are in desperate need of repair, I blow the entire king's reward on Ale and Whores!

2) One of my best friends constantly says how he misses the White Tower - not because of the story behind it, or the special things in it, but the pure fact it was the newbie showdown place of the mud - you could guarantee that a majority of players were there in the ranks of 15-20 and group fighting was common there. In the ranks of 15-20, there are a lot more options but a less occurance of group on group fighting.

I think it would be great for a neo-white tower when TV gets re-written that served the same purpose, as a 15-->20 ranking area. Also, it would kick ass if the XP given was 'high', as in 500~600 a mob. This would make it much more desirable and there would be lots of crazy gr v gr fighting to making the ranking experience more enjoyable and profitable too

Remembered a few more things, just quickly while I'm at work. I'll have a bigger post later.

1) Newer areas I am noticing has multiple "types" of mobs for people to rank on. An example is the Balator fields where there are like 5-10 different mobs that you can rank on. People like doing "murder orphan", it's bad enough in tediousness already. When you have to change a macro or type something new for each room to rank, people get bored real real fast. Give them a common name, makes it a lot easier - I know a lot of areas have this, just saying I've noticied it a few places.

2) Make sphere more important - really just feels useless besides empowerment. Never seen it have any use unless it's the famous luck stat or a similiar affect that we don't know about. Make effects more effective with certain spheres or less effective or more effective against, etc. That or just toss it - it only really deals with empowerment/tattoes from what we all see and that could just be handled in your role. A neat idea would let people pick their sphere by a quest, not just by the 11 warning. Another idea would let people NOT pick a sphere if they don't want to - if I pick Fire, I'd rather not be stuck with it forever if I wanted to talk to another Immortal and have to explain "why you don't fit what you picked 40 ranks ago".

3) Full looting - yes, it blows. Yes, it's fair and everyone can do it, etc. Getting full looted is becoming a popular thing and is very rare to get anything back these days - especially when it involves multiple people. Why not put lag on it, or they have to grab items individiually, or put a bad effect to some stat while looting, or require you to have your hands empty (how people full loot with 2 swords equipped is beyond me), or make a looting skill which different classes do better than others and have it effected by spells (a hasted thief is going to loot better than a slowed healer). If you're going to make it painful, make it painful by the correct classes and not by others. Also, looting while fighting? Come on, you should get an ANNIHILATE for turning around and grabbing stuff on the ground. This seriously should be looked into.

Alright, I'll post more later.

Despite the fact that my weapons and armor are in desperate need of repair, I blow the entire king's reward on Ale and Whores!

>2) Make sphere more important - really just feels useless
>besides empowerment. Never seen it have any use unless it's
>the famous luck stat or a similiar affect that we don't know
>about. Make effects more effective with certain spheres or
>less effective or more effective against, etc. That or just
>toss it - it only really deals with empowerment/tattoes from
>what we all see and that could just be handled in your role. A
>neat idea would let people pick their sphere by a quest, not
>just by the 11 warning. Another idea would let people NOT pick
>a sphere if they don't want to - if I pick Fire, I'd rather
>not be stuck with it forever if I wanted to talk to another
>Immortal and have to explain "why you don't fit what you
>picked 40 ranks ago".

I've often thought about this - especially in the cases of shamans who could definately use some lovin'. Long ago I think I may have proposed the idea of a "base" class package (of supps and skills) that every shaman gets, with a more advanced set of skills and supps specific to either sphere (or god) tossed on with empowerment. Yes, the biggest problem is lack of coding time, as this would be a fairly big project, but with the right support (from imms and players) I could see this being a significant boost to a sometimes stale class.

>
>3) Full looting - yes, it blows. Yes, it's fair and everyone
>can do it, etc. Getting full looted is becoming a popular
>thing and is very rare to get anything back these days -
>especially when it involves multiple people. Why not put lag
>on it, or they have to grab items individiually, or put a bad
>effect to some stat while looting, or require you to have your
>hands empty (how people full loot with 2 swords equipped is
>beyond me), or make a looting skill which different classes do
>better than others and have it effected by spells (a hasted
>thief is going to loot better than a slowed healer). If you're
>going to make it painful, make it painful by the correct
>classes and not by others. Also, looting while fighting? Come
>on, you should get an ANNIHILATE for turning around and
>grabbing stuff on the ground. This seriously should be looked
>into.

Your arguement makes alot of sense, but unfortunately, the biggest factor that the imms take into account when looking over things is the almighty FunStick. Thinking, though, on realistic ways to slow/hinder full looting and lowbie looters, while also not preventing it completely, is by maybe adding a loot command:

In combat:
You're fighting someone and you think they're about to die, so you hit the loot command.

Y is convulsing on the ground.
loot Y (or loot A, B, etc., if it isn't the person you are fighting)

You see: You take your focus off the battle and prepare to gather the spoils of combat!
Others see: X's focus appears to no longer be on the battle, as he eyes Y's items with interest.

(ie. -20 hit/-20 dam affect that lasts until the end of combat, gives a 2 round lag, and subtracts all skill %s by 20, barring 100%s - This command sits there until opponent dies, where the command immediately goes through.)

You see: As Y's body collapses, you immediately free your hands, intent on ransacking his body. (weapons removed, auto-g all corpse)
Others see: With the final blow struck, X removes his weapons and begins stripping items from Y's lifeless body. (Items masked to all but X) This would essentially reduce the problem of lowbie looters, make it really a "hmm.. should I do this." command while still in combat, while also adding some mystery to what was actually looted (less of a target when logs are posted)

Out of Combat:
You are in a room with fighting and see:
X's focus appears to no longer be on the battle, as he eyes Y's items with hunger.

So logically, you also hit the loot command as soon as he dies.
You see: Rushing towards the recently fallen, you make a grab at his things!
Others see: Z rushes towards the bloodied corpse, seizing a few possessions for himself!
(Items grabbed random and masked to others in the room - allowing for up to half of your free slots in your inventory (So if it's 15/29, you'd grab 7 things) - 1 round lag - Random because unless you type 'g xyz corpse' you aren't being specific and obviously don't care what you get, only that you get something)

If the corpse happens to be yours, you grab your things with no problem.

If you hit the loot command before someone dies (and aren't in combat with them) it simply says there is nothing here to loot.

Now, this will give priority to the person who actually killed the guy (if they want it), not as useful to people who spam macros like 'g all corpse;put all bag', while not completely screwing over others who want a piece of the pie.

Hope you like,
Spifficator

2) One of my best friends constantly says how he misses the White Tower - not because of the story behind it, or the special things in it, but the pure fact it was the newbie showdown place of the mud - you could guarantee that a majority of players were there in the ranks of 15-20 and group fighting was common there. In the ranks of 15-20, there are a lot more options but a less occurance of group on group fighting. Ranking, for the most part, can be done in complete silence if you find a non-common area or an area far away (Akan is a great example of a neat place but horrible location for newbies. Too far away, too many movement early on, and too far if you die. I've seen newbies who die there just delete because of it.) - and that becomes a grind (and ranking is a LOT slower here compared to other muds. Yes, it builds character but how many times did your parents say that to you before you hated it?). I love the fact that groups bump into each other and we need more of it early on - groups in high levels is depressing because it's never really even. Level 15-20, you really only have a few options but those options matter in fights and I think that ability to group fight and pk consistenly near a town makes for great training for newbies in playerkilling. It'd also give people the enjoyment they want early-on and I hear it was faster ranking then today - when you've played level 40+, level 1-20 becomes a huge pain nowadays with all the practicing required


I totally disagree with you here. As far as PK bait area are concerned nothing beats the past.. huge area massive xp drain..one way out. Too poor to invest in potions.. you end up getting hammered hard. As far as White tower is concerned yes I miss it.. but just for the easy leveling. But imms are trying to get away from certain nonstock areas or areas that were just not meshing with cfs world. White tower made no sense in CF since most of the mages in CF are male. Not to mention the area itself sucked, did you ever read the room desc and mob descs?
Anywoo.. thats my 2 rupees

Crazy Injun

Sides

nt

Despite the fact that my weapons and armor are in desperate need of repair, I blow the entire king's reward on Ale and Whores!

1) One of the biggest things I hear about is the loss of fun with practice.

I think you're projecting what you want (an easy game for powerranking) onto newbies. I really don't think newbies worry about this stuff- the things that draw or keep them have a lot more to do with orienting them.

2) One of my best friends constantly says how he misses the White Tower - not because of the story behind it, or the special things in it, but the pure fact it was the newbie showdown place of the mud -

I don't see how a ranking area that begs for easy PK of anyone using it will encourage new players either. I think you're projecting what you want onto newbies.

when you've played level 40+, level 1-20 becomes a huge pain nowadays with all the practicing required.

Sorry, it's not required. Plenty of people skip it entirely, including a number of our best.

3) More people = harder for newbies. It's quite simple. When you ask for a group and don't know where they are, 99% of the time they say no since they can find a non-newbie to rank.

You're claiming that more people makes it harder to group. This is profoundly backwards. I don't even know where to begin, other than to say that having more options is good.

That's something that needs to change somehow, but really I don't know how besides make learning areas easier and closer (like in town lumberyard, graveyard, white tower, etc) for the earlier ranks.

Kobolds? Goblin Village? V'dramir's? Aldevari? Graveyard? Lumberyard? Academy? Troglodytes? Udgaard Plains? Forgotten Crypts? Galadon Sewers? Forest Road?

All have sections aimed at newbie-level ranking, and all are easily accessed from nearby hometowns. Many have exact directions in helpfiles. If you're willing to walk slightly further, a few dozen other areas can serve that role.

5) The Ultimate Empowerment Solution - make partial empowerment an automatic QUEST given by your guild leader.

This defeats the point of immortal-based empowerment. We want empowered characters to be hand-screened, even if it means they're somewhat uncommon and special.

You wanted feedback. I thought the entire post was way off base.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>1) One of the biggest things I hear about is the loss of
>fun with practice.
>
>I think you're projecting what you want (an easy game for
>powerranking) onto newbies. I really don't think newbies
>worry about this stuff- the things that draw or keep them have
>a lot more to do with orienting them.

You want newbies to stay, the point of my post mainly was around keeping people here so there's not a big turn-around rate once people "get into" the game. Practicing requiring a lot of time, which requires a lot of playing time, something a lot of people avoid because we have lives outside CF.

>2) One of my best friends constantly says how he misses the
>White Tower - not because of the story behind it, or the
>special things in it, but the pure fact it was the newbie
>showdown place of the mud -
>
>I don't see how a ranking area that begs for easy PK of anyone
>using it will encourage new players either. I think you're
>projecting what you want onto newbies.

Any monkey can get to 11, but surviving 11 to 20 as a newbie is the learning ground that keeps people or sends them packing. If there was more group oriented fighting early on, they'd have a better chance to learn aspects of the game they wouldn't when they get beat solo. Also, it will force playerkilling into their lives and not let complete newbies be level 40 without it. The last time I was with a newbie and we had a group pvp fight he said immediately after "That was SO fun! They beat me senseless earlier, wow" - you want people to stay and learn, they need an earlier testing ground and place to grow mature. Fighting pre-20s is the easiest place to survive with very little ways to lag or even options. The suggestion below my thread about making the experience worth more is pretty fair for the risk.

>when you've played level 40+, level 1-20 becomes a huge
>pain nowadays with all the practicing required.
>
>Sorry, it's not required. Plenty of people skip it entirely,
>including a number of our best.

"Best" may be a bit different on your side of the table. A warrior who doesn't work on defenses isn't wanted to lead groups. An invoker who doesn't have a high level spell because of lack of practice isn't wanted - a better example is an invoker without shields who "should". On the other spectrum, an empowered class at level 20 without the gift from his God isn't wanted. I'm not saying speed ranking, I'm saying speed learning. It makes a big difference to the "fun" factor, even if it was a bit faster. People don't enjoy "work" in games like spam practicing or such, it's why people hated Ultima Online and chopping wood

>3) More people = harder for newbies. It's quite simple.
>When you ask for a group and don't know where they are, 99% of
>the time they say no since they can find a non-newbie to
>rank.
>
>You're claiming that more people makes it harder to group.
>This is profoundly backwards. I don't even know where to
>begin, other than to say that having more options is good.

When there are 20 people to rank with and you're a newbie who doesn't know where the Vale is, they find someone else. When there are 5 people, they take whatever they can get. Maybe it's been awhile since you've been a newbie, but we're quite discriminated against because "the waste of time" we are compared to someone who knows how to play.

>That's something that needs to change somehow, but really I
>don't know how besides make learning areas easier and closer
> like in town lumberyard, graveyard, white tower, etc) for the
>earlier ranks.
>
>Kobolds? Goblin Village? V'dramir's? Aldevari? Graveyard?
>Lumberyard? Academy? Troglodytes? Udgaard Plains?
>Forgotten Crypts? Galadon Sewers? Forest Road?
>
>All have sections aimed at newbie-level ranking, and all are
>easily accessed from nearby hometowns. Many have exact
>directions in helpfiles. If you're willing to walk slightly
>further, a few dozen other areas can serve that role.

As I said earlier, any monkey can get to 11 and the areas are closer as you said. White Tower was an example of a level 11-20 area that was close and that's what I'm suggesting - after PK is enabled. What you just mentioned was all pre-11 and not what I was trying to suggest. I should have explained it more in detail. Another reason the White Tower was a nice 11-20 area, was it was a few rooms from a protected city and didn't require 2,000 movement points to get out of (Past, Akan, Vale, etc)

>5) The Ultimate Empowerment Solution - make partial
>empowerment an automatic QUEST given by your guild
>leader.
>
>This defeats the point of immortal-based empowerment. We want
>empowered characters to be hand-screened, even if it means
>they're somewhat uncommon and special.

Not at all, they still have to get empowered - just at a higher rank. They can still be empowered earlier and can still seek it early, but it gives them a way out to actually play instead of sit arond waiting for empowerment at level 11. And my fact about lack of healers is still very valid, maybe the solution to faster ranking is just a faster healing rate or more healers. I thought this way, with healers being able to be level 20-25 would make people play them more and help people rank faster. I know that a healer is a very wanted groupmate and making them more desirable to play is a good direction I think.

>You wanted feedback. I thought the entire post was way off
>base.

Sorry you feel that way, but this is from the view of a almost-newbie. What I need to stress is level 1-11 is not that big of a deal and is not what keeps people in the game. Carrionfields is a playerkilling-driven mud and that simple fact makes levels 1-11 more of a preliminary investment to understand the game. To get people to stay, they need to enjoy 11+ - even as newbies.

Despite the fact that my weapons and armor are in desperate need of repair, I blow the entire king's reward on Ale and Whores!

>As a relatively newer player but with veteran friends, I
>think I have some valid points that could be brought up from
>this side of the table. I've grown a lot I think in my CF
>ability in every aspect but have a ways to go...well enough
>background, here goes.
>
>1) One of the biggest things I hear about is the loss of fun
>with practice. I can understand the staff doesn't want
>everyone running around with 100%s in everything and has added
>the features to make learning easier while ranking - problem
>is, most people don't want to rank without them. The learning
>curve for CF is huge and nearly exponential including all the
>preps, skills/spells, tactics, etcs that those few % can make
>a big difference - even if you say there are those that run
>around and win with low % (which I have done), when you miss
>and die because of it, you're cursing the idea that you didn't
>practice. Sure you could have missed anyways, or you might
>even have 100% and miss (which should occur less in my
>opinion), but the fact that you died and lost everything
>because of it is a huge problem for newer players - the
>downtime for that is what causes the "must...practice"
>mentality. Tactics may beat it, but people don't like running
>a lot when you don't know what to do.

Practicing is completely unnecessary with few exceptions. I think I've practiced about three skills in as many years and only for a specific reason. I'm not "deathful" but I hold my own pretty well relatively speaking.

>
>2) One of my best friends constantly says how he misses the
>White Tower - not because of the story behind it, or the
>special things in it, but the pure fact it was the newbie
>showdown place of the mud - you could guarantee that a
>majority of players were there in the ranks of 15-20 and group
>fighting was common there. In the ranks of 15-20, there are a
>lot more options but a less occurance of group on group
>fighting. Ranking, for the most part, can be done in complete
>silence if you find a non-common area or an area far away
> Akan is a great example of a neat place but horrible location
>for newbies. Too far away, too many movement early on, and too
>far if you die. I've seen newbies who die there just delete
>because of it.) - and that becomes a grind (and ranking is a
>LOT slower here compared to other muds. Yes, it builds
>character but how many times did your parents say that to you
>before you hated it?). I love the fact that groups bump into
>each other and we need more of it early on - groups in high
>levels is depressing because it's never really even. Level
>15-20, you really only have a few options but those options
>matter in fights and I think that ability to group fight and
>pk consistenly near a town makes for great training for
>newbies in playerkilling. It'd also give people the enjoyment
>they want early-on and I hear it was faster ranking then today
>- when you've played level 40+, level 1-20 becomes a huge pain
>nowadays with all the practicing required.
>

Ranking is rather fast IMHO.

>3) More people = harder for newbies. It's quite simple. When
>you ask for a group and don't know where they are, 99% of the
>time they say no since they can find a non-newbie to rank.
>That's something that needs to change somehow, but really I
>don't know how besides make learning areas easier and closer
> like in town lumberyard, graveyard, white tower, etc) for the
>earlier ranks. Balator is the closest thing I can think of and
>that's a horrible place now to learn (Centurions BLOW for
>newbies. I had a helluva time understanding what to do when
>pinned by a group and centurions, or worse, people demanding
>the oath to newbies who don't know where Galadon is! There is
>a reason people hated them being used in areas like
>Eastern/Balator/Past - restrict them to imperial lands and
>it'd make everyone happier for the most part. Only group you'd
>disappoint would be gangbanging homos who sit near them in
>Eastern - and the rp standpoint of two centurions instantly
>walking far out of imperial lands to get taxes is is horrible.
>At LEAST make them go to the Citadel to get them and pay them,
>then make them walk them out to where they want to go. Or
>better, make it so that player can't leave the area or
>invisible, or the Centurions shrug and walk back.)

Huh? Making things easy doesn't help newbies, it hinders them. Spam killing orphans imho makes ranking boring. Power ranking in and of itself is somewhat pointless, I think having time to thresh out a char is more valuable then mass rank, practice, mass rank, etc. Oddly enough the 'number churners' who tend to do that seem to not do too well.

>
>4) Information hiding is completely different from
>spoon-feeding and I think is a big deter for newbies. Like the
>comments people made about skill effects, spell effects, etc -
>yes, use them and find out, but when you're on the receiving
>end as a newbie from something the helpfile doesn't explain
>it's a lose-lose situation. Death is a great teacher but a
>horrible aspect for new players.

Taking death too serious is usually a sign of burnout or newbieness. You can only get rid of it by either taking a break if its burnout or by dying a bunch and seeing that it is really no big deal.

>
>5) The Ultimate Empowerment Solution - make partial
>empowerment an automatic QUEST given by your guild leader.
>Make it random and based maybe on sphere (something that never
>gets used much) - yes newbies shouldn't be doing empowerment,
>but us semi-newbies who decide to pick a god that we didn't
>know never shows up or whatever has something to do up to 20
>or 25. It'd also increase the number of empowerees I think
>which would be nice - healers make the game a LOT easier. When
>you see only 3-4 healers in a game, you realize why it takes
>forever to rank.

As stands I think empowerment can occassionally be too lax.

>
>I had more but I can't think of it right now, I'll probably
>reply with more later. Time for bed
>
>Night

Quick points:

Ranking:
--------
ranking is way boring.
ranking solo is unrewarding and more boring.

Skills:
-------
Skills perfection takes too long.
As a current warrior at almost level 30 I havent perfected my defences and only just perfected the weapon I specialize in. Ive solo ranked near half if not more titles. I only used practice weapons for the first 10 and Ive put in a good chunk of time practicing say 6 or 7 hrs. Granted this is a low int race but still.

Cabals:
-------
Unlike empowerment which Im more or less happy that it can take a while, getting into some cabals can be too time consuming. Take for example a wannabe rager, if you play the character everyday you tend to die a lot as you cant see invis and cant use preps. It can take weeks to get into the cabal and you can loose interest in the character and start playing others. The imperial induction scheme seems good.

Time:
-----
All points above make it too time consuming to play and a large chunk of that time being quite boring.

Suggestions:
-----------
Decrease the time required to build the char to have fun with.

Some quick examples:
make some skills practiceable to 100% good examples for this would be hide and sneak for assassins and theives. Allow warriors to practice weapons to 80 or 85%.
Make practice weapons work better (dont overdo it).

Make an effort to improve the induction process for some of the cabals. Ragers being a good example (dont make people put chars on hold for weeks waiting for the rites).

Give characters a higher movement point base - its frustraing as a new character to have to sleep for hours to get anywhere. Note sleeping to regain mv is boring.

Jachyra

Its too damn time consuming to play CF now. I need to spend a ####load of time getting money and preps when i could be doing other things, like pking or looking for some RP thing.

I think they need to limit chars from 1 IP to 3.
Too many damn people have like 10 characters and use knowledge from one char to go do something with the other. They have an imperial thief to log on just to see what threats are there to their maran paladin. To see if any imperial assassin are on who could whack him if he logged on his maran and raided.

This would also limit the number of equipment hoarders. There are so many of them and the anti hoarding code just doesnt work against them because they are careful to log in for a few minutes until they need the gear stored on that character and dump it. This is especially common with wand/prep hoarders.

Whatever, thats just lame. I would limit their characters and only 2 characters allowed in cabals at one time. THere is just too much crap going on with people having 2903943 characters.

I tried out the MUD a year or two ago. I still come back and visit the forums from time to time, simply because it struck me as the best PK mud with RP. However, a few frustrating features made it clear the game wasn't for me. If sharing them might help, I'm happy to do it.

The biggest problem was that leveling without a group was far too difficult. My half-elf character was well into middle age before hitting level 25, and that was with groups handing me over a dozen of those levels. Rewarding groups is good, but forcing them is another matter.

What's wrong with groups? Well, let's admit that CF is so complex that newbies don't have much to offer veteran groups. Trying to find a group of fellow newbies is impractical. (Besides, how could that be set up ICly?) It doesn't help that some group-oriented classes require empowerment, which is not accessible to new players.

My second biggest peeve was age death. Not that I object to the concept at all. However, newbies are going to take MUCH longer than veterans to reach high level - partially because they want to explore. Aging occurs rapidly enough to severely penalize such players. Nor am I inspired to sit at the inn and just RP when I'm on the clock. Changing age death so that it's based on RL months would help. (I believe newbs tend to log lots of hours as they first start the game.)

I'm all for the removal of stock areas (including semi-stock). But I think CF would do better to reduce the pain of newbs trying to build mechanically decent characters. There's still the world of PK to provide challenge, after all.

At the same time, I think a niche MUD that can reliably make the TMS top 20 is already in pretty good shape. I continue to use CF as an example of what a PK-oriented mud should look like. Best wishes!

>What's wrong with groups? Well, let's admit that CF is so
>complex that newbies don't have much to offer veteran groups.

Actually they do. Remember that experience bonus that groups get? Even a newbie groupmate lets you take advantage of it. Because, as you note, it is harder to rank alone, this encourages vets to rank with newbies. I'll take newbies as groupmates almost any time (and partly because I know their chances of successfully betraying me are next to nothing).

>Trying to find a group of fellow newbies is impractical.
> Besides, how could that be set up ICly?) It doesn't help
>that some group-oriented classes require empowerment, which is
>not accessible to new players.
>

All classes are group orientated, just in different ways. Probably the least overly group oriented class is the necromancer, but they offer a group security against pk (much of the time) and from the upper 20 levels can rake in exp for their group if played right.

Finding a group of fellow newbies isn't really impractical. It's pretty easy really. You ask around the guys sitting around Galadon to see who is willing to join you. If they are newbies, they'll probably say "yes". Then all you need to do is know a basic ranking area, which you can get by asking people like Heralds and Acolytes. Sure, you may all get pk'd there, but that's part of the learning curve.

>My second biggest peeve was age death. Not that I object to
>the concept at all. However, newbies are going to take MUCH
>longer than veterans to reach high level - partially because
>they want to explore. Aging occurs rapidly enough to severely
>penalize such players.

I disagree. It's only when you hit "old" age that age hurts badly, and that happens, roughly, at 300 hours. Very few newbies hit 300 hours on a character. Losing a point of str and a point of dex at middle age isn't worth worrying about as a newbie. And anyone who lasts until age death isn't a newbie imho anymore (unless something caused them to age prematurely).

> Nor am I inspired to sit at the inn
>and just RP when I'm on the clock. Changing age death so that
>it's based on RL months would help. (I believe newbs tend to
>log lots of hours as they first start the game.)
>

To age die you need over 500 hours on most characters. Do you really believe that's a problem for newbies?

>I'm all for the removal of stock areas (including semi-stock).
> But I think CF would do better to reduce the pain of newbs
>trying to build mechanically decent characters. There's still
>the world of PK to provide challenge, after all.
>

One thing I suggested once (which imms seemed to hint was in the works) was for guildmasters to give people with the "newbie flag" tips. So when your assassin guildmaster teaches you to throw, he'll point out that as well as hurting your opponent, it prevents them from escaping for a bit, and also from actively using their own skills against you.

>At the same time, I think a niche MUD that can reliably make
>the TMS top 20 is already in pretty good shape. I continue to
>use CF as an example of what a PK-oriented mud should look
>like. Best wishes!

Thanks. And thanks for a constructive post.

One thing I suggested once (which imms seemed to hint was in the works) was for guildmasters to give people with the "newbie flag" tips. So when your assassin guildmaster teaches you to throw, he'll point out that as well as hurting your opponent, it prevents them from escaping for a bit, and also from actively using their own skills against you.

I don't remember this progressing towards "in the works" the way you described it. These sorts of basics (*) end up in helpfiles, which I'm happy to add more detail to as needed. We can't modify helpfiles at this moment (should be fixed shortly), but you can email me with these sorts of helpfile upgrades.

(*) Basics meaning "Stuff you need to know to get use out of this ability" and not "Arcane nanodetails". Helpfiles don't and shouldn't explain everything.


Using their knowledge of Nage Waza (throwing techniques), the assassin is able to grab their opponent and throw them to the ground. Thrown opponents are stunned, unable to take any action for a brief time. Certain classes are familar enough with these techniques to be able to roll safely out of harm's way.

Throw is a reactive skill, and it is easiest to throw someone who is attacking you directly, rather than someone else.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Generally though I mean stuff like telling you that if you manage to break someone's wrist using kotegaeshi, you hear a loud crunch, and they will be unable to use one of their arms, but whether or not you break it, they are likely to lose strength and co-ordination.

I mean, ever non-newb knows about kotegaeshi crunch, so it isn't a secret, but a newb won't.

I mean, ever non-newb knows about kotegaeshi crunch, so it isn't a secret, but a newb won't.

Yup. But I've also gotten helpfile requests in the past like "You need to list every skill, attribute, and circumstance that affects Kotegaeshi, and by how much, because I need to feed that into my kote-u-lator to optimize my success.", and those get round-filed.

Happy medium.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

what some skills do exactly. Not full affects or numbers but what crunching means and what not. Also some help on kans would be nice too for newbies. Be good for them to know that screaming kans slows your opponent (not exactly in those words but whatever). Maybe adding an extra echo or two to a few skills to have them more explict would be ok too.

>I disagree. It's only when you hit "old" age that age hurts badly, >and that happens, roughly, at 300 hours.

Had I known my character had 300 hours available in his total lifetime, I wouldn't have worried about it. Perhaps "help age" could use a little more comforting detail.

It is roughly at 300 hours that you become "old". Even after that you probably still have at least 100 hours left in you, and 200 or more is not unlikely.

Being old isn't much of a problem for a mage. It is dex and strength that take a big hit, so it is the fighting classes that suffer, particularly those that don't use stealth.

Some of the (age deaths) you see on the battlefield are from premature aging. For example, there is a sword that makes you age faster, and, in my case, my character's body gave out during a magical ritual and was listed as age dead at 320 hours or so. However, I could have lived quite a bit longer had I not conducted the ritual.

I have been playing for a while too. A few things that make me mad is that noone can usually rank alone. Time after time when a person gets to titling on there own, it eather takes four months, just playing a couple hours a day, and in the process of doing this, You get ganked many times. Perhaps there should be a way to make it to where you can decide weather you want to be a peacfull mudder or a killer. Too many times have I faced the death card and lost. Perma Laggings and Crashing. My only peeves.

Peace

Jeremiah

I've played a couple of MUDs but in the end still ended up with CF. Why? Playability, craving out a niche as a player and character, RP potentials, etc. Lots of reasons.

But depth. This is something lacking in lots of MUDs. It's not how many classes you have, how many races, or rooms, or powerful items. I can even believe CF in real life. Not everyone is all powerful and to get powerful and well-known, it takes planning, strategy and a little bit of luck. The more powerful the item, the more risk and time spent.

Imms are gods. They shouldn't care about mortal lives except worship and respect. If a god talks to you, it's a BIG bonus, not like many others put it - no big deal, Imms suck, etc.

I've never ran short of ideas and RP possibilities with CF. With other MUDs I've done so. And I like the new changes and all the nifty stuff the Imms have done with it. And I'm not bootlicking.

Well, if you feel difficult to adjust to the new kind of CF, there are other tons of MUD out there who are hack and slash. Mayhaps CF is not for you. However I will miss you around. If the CF bug hits you, do come back like I did... again.

And again.

>Imms are gods. They shouldn't care about mortal lives except worship and respect.

While valid from a roleplay perspective, this is not a good attitude to have as far as enjoyment of the game goes. Not good at all.

>Well, if you feel difficult to adjust to the new kind of CF, there are other tons of MUD out there who are hack and slash. Mayhaps CF is not for you. However I will miss you around. If the CF bug hits you, do come back like I did... again.

Neither is that.

sd

Before I get off on my little rank here, I'm going to give a huge thank you to the CF staff for what they do. You guys have taken massive amounts of time out of your lives to provide a game for us players to play, and I want you to know that it is appreciated.

The fact that a for-profit company runs the top 3 MUDs of mudconnector is, in my mind, a mildly unfair advantage over the CF Staff. However, the volunteer staff here has made a far better game. The point of this post is simple- What attracts so many players to these MUDs?

Hastur made the point that players, in general, want more bang for their buck. Honestly, I have to agree with him here.

As it stands, CarrionFields is the most professional looking, most enjoyable MUD on the mudconnector top 20. Yet it is, as I write this post, #20. When I first started playing CF, I believe it was #6 or #7. What has caused this drop on people wishing to vote and visit the carrionfields website/MUD? The amount of time REQUIRED to be able to play and be even moderately successful.

Now, I have played a vast number of different MUDs. From Play.Net's Dragon Realms (Which I originally started playing on AOL, then payed for when they moved off), to CF Clones. Lastly, I've played every mud on the Mudconnector Top20 in short tests.

What draws players to MUDs like Aardwolf? Playability. Aardwolf is like text based quake. You have a small selection of classes, and slightly larger array of races. The learning curve (for someone who's played MUDs since he was 10) on not just Aardwolf, but the other Top5 is so quick. You start up, read the helpfile presented, and the gaps are filled in by the newbie guide staff.

Conclusion? Theres no confusion over how to play the game, almost nothing is hidden from general knowledge. Someone new the the game can become a successful PK in a matter of days.

Fin.

The reason I play CF is because it is NOT like any of those MUDs. It is far superior (thank god). However, there are crucial differences which deterr new players from playing CF even if they are looking for a MUD like CF.

Now, I'm going to make a few suggestions.

I think the biggest deterrant inherent in CF is the lack of newbie attention. Yes, there is a newbie channel. Yes, there is a newbie setting in character generation. Yes, there is a massive array of well written helpfiles. The problem? A lot of newbies don't know what questions to ask on the newbie channel, what helpfiles to read, and I still, to this day, do not know what difference answering YES to that question makes.

Solution to this problem? Dedicate staff to making sure newbies are comfortable and are learning what they need to learn to play CarrionFields*. The current 'hands off' policy of the ImmStaff is hurts new players more than it helps them.

With my next suggestion, you're going to notice a trend. In general, I'm for assigning staff to specific tasks. This is far more efficient than having various IMMs doing various tasks that happen to need doing. So, I'm going to break this down into subsections now.

Team Plot: Dedicate a few staff members to writing an on going plot for CarrionFields. From what I can tell, you come up with various G-Echos simply to explain/announce a new area or a change in the cabal structure. Very few characters get the opportunity to take part in these minor plots, and generally they only do get to take part because the plot is affecting their cabal.

Bug Team: Dedicate staff members to checking and fixing bugs/typos.

Code Team: Dedicate those of the staff to the code. New skills, spells, races, etc, etc, etc.. Have them rotate through being on the Bug Team, that way no one just plain gets stuck fixing bugs.

Area Team: Those Imms that like to write areas can call themselves the Area Team. Part of the Area Teams duty (in my mind) would be to train the new hero-imms in their area writing, seeing as it seems that all hero imms must write an area.

Alright, so you've probably already got your staff assigned to different tasks, a most likely have some form of rotation. However, as far as I know, no such thing as a Plot Team exists. Invent it, utilize it, and make CF breathe with a player driven life of its own rather than simply making CF exist for heavily-RP enforced PK/Deathmatch. The other major point was the Newbie Team; when new players get attention without having to beg and search for it and learn the game just that much easier, then the player base will shift from being 7+ year vets as a majority, to being 1 year or less as a majority. Something any game requires and should desire.

* - I'm not saying dedicate busy imms to hand holding newbies. Find volunteers separate from the ImmStaff to do this specific task. In fact, I volunteer for it right now.

First let me say: your attitude is a breath of fresh air. Now some thoughts.


> I think the biggest deterrant inherent in CF is the lack of
> newbie attention. Yes, there is a newbie channel. Yes, there
> is a newbie setting in character generation. Yes, there is a
> massive array of well written helpfiles. The problem? A lot of
> newbies don't know what questions to ask on the newbie
> channel, what helpfiles to read...

From my vantage point, this is a noted concern and is being looked at. Something may be forthcoming as soon as a certain someone gets his area finished, if not sooner.


>Bug Team:
>Code Team:

As far as I know these are generally the same small group of people, excluding a few folks that fix typo-ish bugs but don't touch code. The number of people with access to code will always be small, an since there's a fair amount of coding that needs to be done between bug fixes and stuff for new areas...they may always find the lion's share of their time spent there.


>Area Team:

This exists, though for the most part in an advisory role. I'm not sure what percentage of new areas are created by new heroimms, but I'm guessing its "high". So then, the Area Team is effectively those higher-ups involved in area approval + all the heroimms.


>* - I'm not saying dedicate busy imms to hand holding newbies.
>Find volunteers separate from the ImmStaff to do this specific
>task. In fact, I volunteer for it right now.

While I agree that there are plenty of vet mortals who could act in this capacity, nothing prevents them from doing so already. There is also a sizeable group of vets that I would definitely not want advising newbies.

If it's something you feel strongly about...imm.

>The single aspect that this displays is that time spent vs fun
>gained is VERY important. There is a huge audience out there
>for players who dont want to spend 10 hours grasping the game
>and 50 hours before they start getting fun out of it. They
>want to be able to start playing for a hour or two then stop
>during which they would like to have spent that time getting
>fun from it.

By the same token, there are some players who enjoy achieving "difficult" goals. Make the goals easy and they cease to enjoy achieving them. To take a page from my personal history, I really enjoyed playing Ultima III on the Nintendo. Once "solved" it failed to be enjoyable, but until that point you couldn't tear me away. It helped that I'd rented the cartridge rather than buying it, but basically I played it about 10 hours a day for three days before solving and returning it. For many CF is like that, but without a definitive "solving" point. There's almost always something about each character that could have "gone better", regardless of what metrics you use to evaluate characters (role-play, pk, etc.) There's almost always some part of Thera which each player hasn't explored. Some class/race/cabal combination they haven't played. Etc.

>Carrionfields started off like that, it took two days for me
>to learn how to play it. I think the smugger record was 19
>hours for hero. Once hero'ed it was a nonstop cabal raid.

To me, that sounds boring. It sounds like Nhiala's mortal life towards the end. Log in. Read notes. Raid/retrieve. Defend. Repeat. Got rather repetitive. Group fighting, in general, doesn't appeal to me, which is what cabal wars often involve.

>No one cared about
>equipment or dying because you knew that it would only take a
>week before you had another hero running around kicking arse
>again.

Again, this sort of setup seems like it would get old rather quickly. If gear is essentially worthless since everybody's dying left and right and replacements are easy to obtain, where's the "risk" involved with PK? What is there to cause tension? What gets your blood pumping if there's nothing to lose?

>This was why cf was so popular and so fun. It took very little
>time, you could log in for a hour have fun and log out.

This is a rehash of what I said above, but I think one of the reasons CF retains any playerbase *whatsoever* is that it's *not* quick and easy. It takes time to learn maps, learn the abilities of classes, learn what gear is valuable and what isn't, figure out where preps are, etc. It takes time/effort to hero. It takes time/effort to perfect skills. If every new character was a hero with perfect skills and the exact same set of gear, all you have left to entertain people is role-play and game-play. Like it or not, people are attracted to incremental achievement. Even people who mock MUDs (re: Progress Quest) are clued in to that fact.

>Introduce character age death linked to real world time, not
>game time (make this say 4 months)

I wouldn't necessarily object to this. One problem is that it shafts characters who don't play much per day. It also necessitates that ranking/empowerment/induction be quick, since if they're not then you've spent a substantial percentage of a character's life waiting to really "arrive". I might lengthen it somewhat, since a character who plays 1hr/day 7days/wk could conceivably play for a year and a half before age death.

>Introduce 1 character per player restrictions. (started with a
>player purge)

This I can support. The problem is enforcement. Would you want to be required to provide a credit card number in order to play? I certainly wouldn't. IP address analysis could help, but there are some pretty obvious problems with that.

>Reduce the ammount of time required to prac (remove the need
>to spam prac, yes blah blah will continue at **)

Believe it or not, some people enjoy perfecting things. Or, at the very least, watching them go up. It's the whole incremental achievement thing. There's also a player skill aspect to practicing that I might not want to axe. Out of curiosity, how would you feel if skill percentages were rigidly attached to a character's rank? This would completely do away with spam practicing. If the idea doesn't appeal to you, why not?

>Reduce the time required to level (yes increase how fast one
>can xp, perhaps even enable more solo xp - larger group size
>xp)

I'd expect this to lead to a huge clump of heros and not much else. Why does one have to hero in order to enjoy the aspects of Carrion Fields you mentioned earlier? Distention?

>Introduce command flow stacks, execute 1 skill (enter another
>and get instant reply that your allready delayed from 1
>skill)

Interesting. Though, this might tend to remove some of the "skill" involved in PK, since panicky spamming would be relatively impossible to do. One of the hardest aspects of PK for me was to restrain myself from spamming skills, whether it be "flee" or "bash".

>Introduce melee range based on room exits. 1 exit 1 foe (back
>to the wall, 2 exits 2 foes etc, this could also include
>spells>on])

This would be a huge change to the way combat works, and would impact game balance in any number of unforsee ways. What about area spells? Bard songs? Can directed skills be pointed at anyone in the room? What about things like cutoff, will they work if the pole-spec isn't directly in combat? Etc. Too many things to consider. For what it's worth, the change to lag re: gangs is a step in this direction.

Well, as a relatively new player I believe I have an opinon to input. Hastur, you are most definately correct on a few points. However.. what you have to remember is that CF is not your typical game. It's a ROLEPLAYING game with a PK twist. I look at it like I look at D&D. Sure, it's quite possible to make a character and start throwing die everywhere.. but if you don't read the books you are most certainly gonna be ####ed. CF's learning curve is beginning to grow every year. Hell, I've only been here for a year and I've already seen it growing. However, it adds a element to the game. Amidst all those people who would like EVERYTHING, NOW, FAST!!.. there are a few people who take the current playerbase as a challenge - and wish to prove themselves amongst it. Yes, these people have to spend an assanine amount of time ranking/wasting time (when they could be RP'ng or PK'ng), but they know that once they get to hero or whatever level they desire - they know what they are doing.

I don't agree with the 1 player per character rule. If I want to try something else, I damn well better.

I agree with the ranking thing, as per my posts below state. Ranking in CF has become a minor problem to a huge annoyance, even stopping me from making characters (and playing at this current time). I'll throw in an reason and say this - when you are new, ranking isn't a problem. You want to see how those neat axe skills or spells or supps work, so you don't mind spending time gaining the necessary levels to acquire them. However, once you've played the game enough and know all the little nic's on them.. ranking just becomes annoying. There is no reason to rank other then to get to hero, increase your stats/numbers and perhaps explore. I just wished the IMM's would admit that people rank to get to hero..

Now with the practice thing.. the IMM's have implemented things to stop spam practicing. Personally I have no idea what people are talking about, here. I've had two heroes and a wack of characters and all those characters come out with the necessary perfected skills. However, your latter point is valid. Wiether it takes 1 hour or 1000 hours, people will always be picky and want 100%. Dropping the time down to get those numbers will (logically) allow more time for other stuff.

The rest is just stuff I, as a player, wouldn't want to see implemented. Exits are very vague and can't determine how big a room is. Command flow stacks.. why? You gotta leave some #### secret

But above all this, my ultimate explaination for the now arising disappointment with CF can be boiled down to a few things. The most important, I believe, is that the IMM's seem very.. foreign to the playerbase. I'm not talking about IMMteraction or any of that garbage, I am talking about responding to posts and inquiries. I remember when Hastur posted all that #### about his number crunching and the IMM's said "NO NO NO!".. but then turned around and actually fixed pole specs. I think admitting there is a problem is NOT a bad thing, Imms.. and right now it looks like the default response to something that is up in the air is "NO NO NO NO!". I'm sure you guys can remember when you dood's/ettes were players, why not throw us a bone and help us out?

I concur with the playerbase on this one.. the IMM's just have to stop throwing in areas. New areas are neat, but in all honesty - if the player numbers drop what is the point? More people will keep traversing Galadon and the 'important-eq' areas rather then the new areas with interesting crud. Implement more twists in the game.. more skills, more races, different cabals, different IMM's, more religions (THAT ACTUALLY STAY!#!) and things that will constantly change the game. I personally would rather see changes, CHANGES (bad or good!).. rather then careful deliberation and a change once in a while. The last announcement on the board was what, 10 days ago? That's not enough.. more more more!

Anyways, some constructive criticsm. My time in CF is not done, but I am hoping for IT's sake that the game begins to change and the IMM's take heed on the playerbase's inquiries.

Thanks.

the IMM's just have to stop throwing in areas. New areas are neat, but in all honesty - if the player numbers drop what is the point?

We've been shifting to a quality-improvement focus over the last couple years. More than half of recent large area projects replace older areas. In addition to that, there's considerable effort towards splashing in new color or functionality to older areas- look at the shops in Tir'Talath for one example. When we do add a brand-new area, we generally merge or nix older areas to keep the total area count the same. This gives us a mix that should satisfy the concerns you're talking about, while still providing new material for exploration-oriented players.

In more recent news on that front, I've gotten a green light from Implementors to start pushing heroimms towards area-oriented projects that don't necessarily involve writing a whole new area. (One of my hats is to supervise these sorts of projects, and make sure they get done well, work in our game, and arrive in a reasonable amount of time.) For example, a new staff member might be assigned to write/revise a smaller area, and spend the extra time generating objects for shops, redoing descriptions in older areas like Galadon, etc. It's still area work (which we consider crucial to our 'cross-training' approach to new staff), but it's less focused on expansion than our older approach.

More people will keep traversing Galadon and the 'important-eq' areas rather then the new areas with interesting crud.

This isn't true from experience. Plenty of the newer areas see a lot of traffic. To cite one example, Azuremain is consistently in the top few as far as XP awarded per day. It's also completely false that no one uses gear from the new areas- as a matter of fact, the newer areas tend to be more equipment-heavy than old ones. If you're only using gear that was in the game in 2000.... you're doing something wrong.

Implement more twists in the game.. more skills, more races, different cabals, different IMM's, more religions (THAT ACTUALLY STAY!#!) and things that will constantly change the game.

Apples and oranges with respect to areas. See below.

I personally would rather see changes, CHANGES (bad or good!).. rather then careful deliberation and a change once in a while. The last announcement on the board was what, 10 days ago? That's not enough.. more more more!

You might notice that Sebeok and Zulghinlour recently posted to explain they can't be around a lot right now- Seb because of moving, Zulgh because of work. I just finished moving myself, and only got back to a normal CF schedule a few days ago, as I mentioned on these forums. Also, all coding basically went on hiatus (except for Jullias, who did the really hard stuff involved with managing a transition like this.... stuff that isn't really visible to the playerbase, but is crucial to normal MUD function) for a little bit while we changed over to the faster servers.

Coding is done by a small cadre of people, with help from the staff as a whole. Thus, a few instances like the above can have a MUD-wide impact for a little bit. If Seb/me/Zulgh aren't around much temporarily, and J is occupied doing nuts-n-bolts stuff, that's a sizable chunk of our available resources for the type of projects you're looking for.

Area writing and immteraction are done by the whole staff, which is typically 30-40 members, and tend to more or less chug along steadily, regardless of the presence or absence of a few people.

Also, different types of work are more or less visible to the playerbase. You might want more races/classes/etc., but all of that has to be built on stuff like game stability, game speed, human resources work (training, managing, and evaluating the staff), etc. As another example, I spend a significant fraction of my online detecting and busting cheaters. If you're an honest player and I'm doing my job right, you barely know I exist in that capacity, aside from the occasional global echo or forum post. Yet I'm doing work that benefits you as an honest player, whether or not you realize it.

In short, we're busy, and we care about the game. That's all you're going to be able to ask from us. Jumping up and down and demanding faster implementation of things only serves to irritate the staff, and generally produces results contrary to what you're asking for.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I remember when Hastur posted all that #### about his number crunching and the IMM's said "NO NO NO!".. but then turned around and actually fixed pole specs.

Could you cite what you're talking about? Granted, I mostly read Hastur's "unique perspectives" for the same reason I get a kick out of reading this site, but I can't think of any recent changes to polearm specs, or connections to his posts.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Many of my past jobs have been testing the !@)#(*!@# out of games. I will play a game and with my "unique perspective" as you and many employers have said I possess and find inconsistencies/bugs. I raise my hand and say "yo, this is broken" People look into it and either A) say nope I've tripple checked the code and Its supposed to do that(I shrug and continue), B) spend ages checking the code more than three times (insert coders and Zulg) and discover that infact im right and there was a error.

Simply put for your answer:
A few polearm skills were broken, I say broken because they had 80 odd % fail rate at 100%. I bitched and whined like I normally do. And after much tolerance from the immstaff they found the code error that was causing the problem (which affected a couple polearm spec skills).

PS: That only took 500 odd hours on my part, but it was worth it All the time spent by the Immstaff searching my queries and whims also much appreciated . Never can it be said immstaff do nothing for players whines.

you are right. Only if you post a bug.

>Well, as a relatively new player I believe I have an opinon
>to input. Hastur, you are most definately correct on a few
>points. However.. what you have to remember is that CF is not
>your typical game. It's a ROLEPLAYING game with a PK twist.

That’s where people like you and Hastur, and you and me differ. I see it as a PK mud with roleplaying enforced. My current trend is to play characters that can and will PK other people (hello, spheres Greed, Rage, Combat).

>I look at it like I look at D&D. Sure, it's quite possible to
>make a character and start throwing die everywhere.. but if
>you don't read the books you are most certainly gonna be
>####ed. CF's learning curve is beginning to grow every year.
>Hell, I've only been here for a year and I've already seen it
>growing. However, it adds a element to the game. Amidst all
>those people who would like EVERYTHING, NOW, FAST!!.. there
>are a few people who take the current playerbase as a
>challenge - and wish to prove themselves amongst it. Yes,
>these people have to spend an assanine amount of time
>ranking/wasting time (when they could be RP'ng or PK'ng), but
>they know that once they get to hero or whatever level they
>desire - they know what they are doing.

Agree. I could not even begin to imagine starting CF fresh. When I started in 1997, I didn’t know anything. I had to teach myself everything. (Items can affect your stats? What?) I discovered Dioxide’s and started reading logs. I checked Zulgh’s (or maybe Dio’s by that time) item database. I was in college and spent time on the game – time that I certainly don’t have now.

I can out-PK my share of the current player base and I’m a decent roleplayer when it comes down to it. I will never be the best at this game, but I’ve paid my dues and now am reaping the rewards. A small, selfish part of me wants to see these newbies go through what I went through before getting “good” at this game. While I think helping newbies is a very good thing and good for expanding the playerbase, this game needs a disclaimer saying: “WARNING – VERY IN DEPTH AND DIFFICULT GAME TO MASTER,” or some such. This is not checkers. This is chess.

I think one out of the five people I introduced to this game still play, and him not even that much. The rest did not have the time to devote to learning the nuances of the game.

>I don't agree with the 1 player per character rule. If I want
>to try something else, I damn well better.

I play at most two characters at a time. They are never in the same range. One is typically 30+ and the other is sub 20. I do think a limited number of characters per player is a good thing, though I don’t see an effective way to implement this.

>I agree with the ranking thing, as per my posts below state.
>Ranking in CF has become a minor problem to a huge annoyance,
>even stopping me from making characters (and playing at this
>current time).

I am not even going to touch this. In short, nail on the head. I listed my reasons why in a prior thread.

>I'll throw in an reason and say this - when you
>are new, ranking isn't a problem. You want to see how those
>neat axe skills or spells or supps work, so you don't mind
>spending time gaining the necessary levels to acquire them.
>However, once you've played the game enough and know all the
>little nic's on them.. ranking just becomes annoying. There is
>no reason to rank other then to get to hero, increase your
>stats/numbers and perhaps explore. I just wished the IMM's
>would admit that people rank to get to hero..

I rank because I want the upper level spells/skills and no penalties on exploring. Case in point was my invoker. I got my last skill at level 49 and stopped ranking. Other than a train at level 50, there was no incentive for me to rank higher. None.

>Now with the practice thing.. the IMM's have implemented
>things to stop spam practicing. Personally I have no idea what
>people are talking about, here. I've had two heroes and a wack
>of characters and all those characters come out with the
>necessary perfected skills. However, your latter point is
>valid. Wiether it takes 1 hour or 1000 hours, people will
>always be picky and want 100%. Dropping the time down to get
>those numbers will (logically) allow more time for other
>stuff.

Agree with Hastur here. I perfect certain skills because I want them to work as effectively as possible. My current character parries like crap, one of the reasons why is that I didn’t bother to practice it earlier in life. Even the IMMs admit that some key spells/skills should be perfected. I personally think that the new system is not as good as the old. I liked tanking 20 gibberlings with 3 skill improvements per round. I thought it was easier to do it that way. Nothing I can do about it now though, except plug along. No big complaints here.

>The rest is just stuff I, as a player, wouldn't want to see
>implemented. Exits are very vague and can't determine how big
>a room is. Command flow stacks.. why? You gotta leave some
>#### secret

Agree here. I do not like this idea. I can’t even begin to think why Hastur would bring this up. He’s enough of a veteran player to know how long lag lasts.

As for the ganging, I still think that the best way to stop this is Immortal abuse of the players. ####ty titles is the best example I can think of. Others include:

Derogatory remarks by cabal mobs – a Pattonesque shaming of the coward

Permanent reduction in morale – this person must have low self esteem, as they are constantly calling in others when they should be able to kill someone solo.

Permanent reduction in stats – this player is too dumb to kill anyone unless he has a gang.

>But above all this, my ultimate explaination for the now
>arising disappointment with CF can be boiled down to a few
>things. The most important, I believe, is that the IMM's seem
>very.. foreign to the playerbase. I'm not talking about
>IMMteraction or any of that garbage, I am talking about
>responding to posts and inquiries. I remember when Hastur
>posted all that #### about his number crunching and the IMM's
>said "NO NO NO!".. but then turned around and actually fixed
>pole specs. I think admitting there is a problem is NOT a bad
>thing, Imms.. and right now it looks like the default response
>to something that is up in the air is "NO NO NO NO!". I'm sure
>you guys can remember when you dood's/ettes were players, why
>not throw us a bone and help us out?

Total agreement about the “NO NO NO NO!” thing here. The one distinctive bone being thrown out that pops into mind immediately was the damage type toggle. IMMs were all haughty about how great the new damage types were and why the hell should ANYONE want the old types back. Enough people complained that they put in a toggle. And for that, I sincerely thank you. I didn’t want to calculate whether staggers = toasts = devastates or whatever. Simple is better, in this case.

>I concur with the playerbase on this one.. the IMM's just have
>to stop throwing in areas. New areas are neat, but in all
>honesty - if the player numbers drop what is the point? More
>people will keep traversing Galadon and the 'important-eq'
>areas rather then the new areas with interesting crud.

Yes

>Implement more twists in the game.. more skills, more races,
>different cabals, different IMM's, more religions (THAT
>ACTUALLY STAY!#!) and things that will constantly change the
>game.

More skills: Ok
More races: Mmmm…… pass. Can’t think of anything that would truly be unique.
Different cabals: Ok
Different IMMs and more religions? No thank you, I have seen too many flashes in the pan.

>I personally would rather see changes, CHANGES (bad or
>good!).. rather then careful deliberation and a change once in
>a while. The last announcement on the board was what, 10 days
>ago? That's not enough.. more more more!

I like careful deliberation. It would be cool if the players could be consulted about major changes, but I can see where problems would arrive there.

>Anyways, some constructive criticsm. My time in CF is not
>done, but I am hoping for IT's sake that the game begins to
>change and the IMM's take heed on the playerbase's inquiries.

*old man’s voice* For being a short-timer, you have some good ideas.

>Thanks.
>

Welcome.

Nivek

Yes, CF might attract more people if they added the changes you want, but that doesn't mean they want to. Attracting as many players as possible is the goal of a commercial game sold in stores, not neccesarily the goal of CF.

I came to realize that for a number of reasons not entirely unlike those you mentioned, CF is not really targetted at the kind of casual player I am, so I haven't played seriously for about a year. But there's no point in making a big deal about your departure when the problem is your lack of interest in what CF is.

CF is a game targetted at a fairly specific interest-base. It's a game best for hard-core gamers with a lot of time to commit to their character. It's designed for people like the same things you find that detract. People for who a high-investment game does generate the most fun for their time, and who like ranking, gathering preps, regearing, and the things you probably find tedious. That doesn't mean you can't play at all as a casual player, you just can't expect to excel. And that's fine. Some old players will go, and that's okay if they are no longer who the game caters to.

I played one character for near seven months. I played at the *most* 10 hours a week. Usually it fell somewhere around 5. I got empowered, I got into the cabal I wanted, I got full induction, and I had fun. I pk'd and got pk'd.

Empowerment - I had three hours on the character and I didn't have to change my damn sleeping schedule to make it happen.

Cabal Induction - I plugged along playing my char and having fun on my own until they had the time to induct me.

Squire to Maran - I'm fairly certain I spent under 10 hours in game as a squire. I'd have to check my logs, but that's what I remember.

I had no problems accomplishing what I wanted, the only thing that I found difficulty with was leveling, and I believe that was mainly because that particular class really doesn't lend itself to being able to power level.

So it is possible to play casually, accomplish what you want, and excel.

One thing your post seems to ignore, is that many people play muds not to compete in pk terms.....but simply to RP.

About two years ago, I started getting role Ideas, that I found I had fun playing, nomatter what the skill % or pkrat was.

My current character has alot of trouble with solo pking, I think because I never spent more than 10-20 minutes total on spamming skills, and alot of those skills fail *ALL THE TIME* in pk...whereas in the past I have played the same class and have spent the time to work all the skills up to 100...sure, I was more successful pking, but did I have more fun?

No.

I have fun logging on and becoming that person for a bit of the day, a person that is not like me. And that really has nothing to do with the amount of time it takes to rank or perfect skills. Heck, I've known people who on their first player can "compete" roleplay wise and have just as much or more fun, with their string of rp characters that never get past 35-40, as people have spam-practicing and ranking and pking.


My point, is that YOUR point would be valid, if cf was a Pk mud that gave a passing nod to Rp, like it was in the early days. But nowadays, I think they are trying to get a REAL balance between Pk and Rp, having both be important and fun.

And to tell you the truth, I think that whole "hero in a day, perfect everything in 2 days...pk until your bored then try something else" doesn't leave much room for Roleplaying.

Does cf have the perfect balance of pk and rp so both are equally fun for those looking to get different things out of their time in cf? Maybe, maybe not, I'm sure there are those who will debate both ways. But I'm sure that a making your changes about making ranking easy and practicing easier isn't the answer to make it balanced.


I have always been in favor of the first idea you stated. Age death based on real world time.

Perhaps peg Elf life at aprox 8-9 months. Peg Arial life at aprox 4-5 months. And the others fall inbetween.


My point, is that if (as you stated at the end) you won't play cf unless it makes those large changes to make pk more fun and accessible, ignoring what impact they would have on the RP atmosphere...then maybe cf as it is now isn't for you.

Sure, City of Heroes is really cool. Sure it takes maybe 2 hours to get the hang of. But it's fun level goes down fast, because of the utter lack of anything remotely resembling Roleplay.




"Death awaits ya all, wit nasteh big pointeh teeth!"

You want CF pop music, a quick simple catchy little thing, that in the end really isn't very satisfying. Most of us want something a little more complex, and therefore more rewarding. In order for any achievement to mean anything there has to be effort put in, by removing the effort you trivialize anything accomplished. I'm not saying you're wrong, but there are 2 types of fun, the quick and simple or the long and rewarding, you have seen CF change from the simple to the rewarding and don't approve, but many of us prefer the way it is now. I can go play other games for simple high, as far as rewarding highs go, nothing really compares to CF for me. so I'd rather keep CF the way it is so I can enjoy botrh types, I can have my cake and eat it too.

Personally I think that something made easy quickly becomes dull. I don't, for example, like playing strategy games such as civilisation past the point that I start to find them easy.