By now a handful of you have figured out that Frost Giants are roaming the lands. You probably have some questions. Since this is my first attempt at coding up a race from scratch, you also probably have some bug reports. The latter you can send to me via e-mail or note. The former can first refer to the HELP file posted as a note. Special thanks to Nreykre for putting together a new area for the occasion, and on short notice.

Frost Giants are a limited race. I know this might curdle your milk, so sit down before reading any further. Are you seated? OK, you were warned. Frost Giants are even more limited than that; with this race I wanted to try implementing something seasonal. So, you can think of the Frost Giant as the McRib of CF. It will likely come and go with the Winter.

This will probably not be the last time this happens. (Unless I have managed to break the MUD and am banned from such activities in the future.)

Instead of these race slots being handed out by sheer luck, what would the staff think of having descriptions and roles submitted through the website for approval? The idea is that the folks who would best RP the new race would be selected to fill those slots.

The new race could be announced a week or two in advance of rollout, giving the playerbase a few days to come up with their ideas for the first wave.

I think this could really inspire some genuine roleplay and push us (the players) to come up with unique and thorough concepts for the characters.

I know this would be a time investment for the imms, though, so that may be a no-go right out of the gate.

I wonder if the system would support doing unlimited temp races.

Basically what I would like to see is a kobold or goblin race.

They have to belong to the grinning skulls village. They have a negative -400 xp penalty so they rank super fast and have a very favorable range but they are gnome sized berserkers who can only choose mundugu or skugra adaptations.

They could be turned on for short periods of time and maybe make having an extra orc clan race a thing. Other possibilities could be half-orc, troll, 2 headed ogre, etc. Would be a way to add a little extra variety to the village.

How many people out there would really go ahead and handicap themselves with a gnome sized berserker, besides maybe you and me? I would think it was hilarious and I'd do it, but why not just roll an Orc?

Giving Orcs another limited race though would be phenomenal, let me roll a troll mundunugu, an ogre mamlauk, or kobold/goblin skrugga the adaptations have specific stats they rely on so having a limited race for that adaptation would make sense. It would definitely make some people who all think Orcs are terrible roll them and have a larger base.

#### I'd probably do a good job of it.

Though I would swap troll to mamlauk and ogre to mundunugu as those make more sense to me (ogre's being smarter) and making goblins the choice for skrugga with higher dex but human size makes some sense to me. Kobolds should be reserved as the punishment race, because nothing is funnier than a gecho about kobolds eating some gear passing cheaters.

Get rid of adaptations as they are and then transfer them to a race each like you said above. Mundungus are trolls, ogres are mamlauk, kobolds or goblins are skrugga, and orcs are shig-ru.

Just curious about the summer season race. So, if you have not chosen a summer season race I vote for....... CENTAURS that can range the entire gambit for alignments and ethos. :)


Skills maxed KICK

Centaurs are harder to trip.

Inherents:
Hoof strike- this attack is the same as a kick however as the skill goes up a secondary kick may fire off a successful hoof strike.
Double slots for footwear however mino footwear type only.

Endless Stamina- automatic, large movement refresh at every tick and less penalty incurred from terrain.

Warrior, Ranger, Shapeshifter, Druid, and Shaman.

Why not something for the spring?

All are automatically heralds and all character descriptions must include attractive breast and hip size.

When they hit hero they get a custom sdesc which would be something like "You see the form of Zulghinlour prancing around here, bouncy breasts exposed."

Make them Good/neutral only.

Warrior, Ranger, Paladin, Druid only. (Def not shapeshifters They pride themselves in their physiques!)

They get automatically get that charge edge.

That's all I would change.

BTW, for those of you who have mailed me RE: Frost Giants, I have read your e-mails. For some reason, the CF mail server is timing out on trying to send replies, so consider this your acknowledgment until that is sorted out.

This sounds awesome. I both like having frost giants as a PC race AND having seasonal races. Seeing this announcement really made me want to come back from my 6 month plus hiatus. Then I realized, "oh ####, it's like minotaurs." I had a minotaur once, years ago. Got it through pure luck and it ended up being a kinda crappy character because I wasn't planning on a minotaur when I originally went to roll and didn't have a role in mind. I just had to take it because who knows when I would get that chance again.

Now with frost giants that's compounded by the fact that I only have a few months to snag one. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way to know if a frost giant slot is open is to happen to roll up a character at the right time? I understand the additional mystique/cool factor added by having them limited, but I think most people would trade that for a chance to actually play one.

Yes, this would likely result in a huge influx of the new race every time one was revealed, but for one I think that fits with the "new race entering Thera" theme, and two I think it would even out quickly. If minotaurs were suddenly unlimited now, there might be a lot of minotaurs for a week, but I don't think much longer.

At the very least, could we implement some kind of way to know if a slot is open besides trying to roll one? Maybe via CF Twitter/Facebook or some such thing?

At best... could we consider a different approach here?

Please don't take this as a complaint. I appreciate all the staff's hard work. I'd just like a better shot at experiencing it.

Thanks, seems like you've been hard at work at CF a lot lately and I'd like to thank you very much for it! :)

I probably spend more time with CF than my workload permits, but I hope it makes things more interesting for everyone. :)

Some of us do appreciate the time you guys spend on! Even though I suck balls, I get my fix everyday!

...to change Frostblade to more than an exotic?

inh frostblade (weapontype) would be such a cool thing.

Kinda stinks getting teased with exotics only and wanting to take HPM just to make use of the Inherent outside of being in a bind and needing something to parry with.

Regardless of your choice, you are and always will be my favorite IMM and thank you so much for how much work you put into CF. This is such a fresh fun thing you've done.

The Frostblade may undergo some balancing as we move forward, so we'll see.

asf

I'm just thinking that limited races should get a faster autodelete, say like twice the rate. In all those years, I have never had a Minotaur, and I just fear this is going to be the same.

Especially since some people will now roll one, and keep them on ice until they're really going to play it. Given the release timing, that will mean you will not ever get one, until they reappear at autumn.

While I absolutely appreciate your involvement, time and hard work, I am not sure I really should be excited about this one.

You know that Minotaurs have a faster autodelete, right?

So far I have been keeping an eye on the Frost Giants. If I see one go idle for long, or I see one person scooping them up, I will likely intervene. I am not unaware of concerns like this.

In fact, I just opened up one of those slots. Don't roll up a character like this, play it for 3 minutes, quit, and then go play your alts for the next four days... you're not going to keep a limited race that way.

Good to see a crack down on nonsense

No lie.

To quote mister Burns. Always a good time for that.

Very cool concept though. Ebb and flow races? I dig.

It's good to see the current Frost Giants taking their roles seriously.

Good work man! now....to get a slot!!

Certainly someone who has never played a warrior before rolled one up and didn't know what he/she was in for. :P

There are only a limited number of slots, and they will only be available certain times of the real life year?

That is correct. The idea is that we could periodically swap in a rare race for a time to inject a little something different into the environment. So maybe in the winter we see Frost Giants while during tax season we see Illithids--whatever. The mechanism is in place now to turn individual races like this on and off as we please.

.

P.S.

Do you have a link to the Graatch song? I haven't heard it in years!

That's probably for the best. I don't have a copy of it myself.

nt

sdvadv

I mean you can't roll a new frost giant in the summer, but presumably you can still play one?

That is correct; character creation will be turned off for the race, but existing characters of that race will persist like any other character.

Seems like it would be cooler to have them start melting when they log in during the summer and eventually end up a puddle with some gear in it, like frosty.

Man that would be ####ing brutal however.....

Will there be a helpfile eventually?

Have I just had bad luck and all of them got taken real quick?

Just curious.

Anyways, awesome as usual! Super happy to see another race in CF!

The help file was added; last night we had a note with the help information instead. More helps will be modified as well.