I very much enjoyed my first offense/air shapeshifter and my first real run at the shapeshifter class. I did not find it to be overly boring and I was happy that I was able to pk starting at low levels. Horns Of The Bull worked far better than Paws Of The Cheetah (something I was hoping to get at least a bit of mileage from) partial shift for low-level player killing, I tried to use paws twice and died both times. So it goes.

Wands are a very good option and there are a lot out there, but one in particular made the pk aspect of low levels effective up until around the 25th level. For the record, I do not like distention. I feel like each level should reset completely whatever count it is that leads to distending. As it was, I would raise a level, kill one person, and then be back to a distention adjusted pk range. Not always fun... but more targets, right?

I have a lot of neutral kills due to the Battle war and Nexus always being enemies. I set a policy for myself that I would only hunt neutrals that I had witnessed harming the Light, and then only kill them once per infraction. The exception was those who were marked as hunted due to the Battle war. I died a lot early on. I mean LOTS. I was set to con die in pretty short order while learning to pk as a shifter. I never maxed out my str and other stats because I pumped all my trains into con. I had no other choice, really. Some people said I never died and it took a lot to kill me; that just isn't true, but it helped me play more aggressively because people assumed I was unkillable and ran instead of using their rounds of combat/skills/focus to kill me.

Oshui was an experiment and a challenge... that grew, succeeded, and flourished in ways I did NOT anticipate. I expected to con-die in the mid 30's if I was lucky. The shapeshifter class, counter to my previous beliefs, seems decently balanced with other classes per rank. I was very grateful and happy to receive the Black Jaguar form. There were a lot of misconceptions and overstatements about the form at first, and then even more later. I do not believe the form was ever tampered with other than the mana adjustment for quest forms, which I did burn through at a healthy pace. When I received the form there were four enemies with quest forms as well as a lich and mummy that were completely dominating the Fortress, and for a long time before I made it to their range. I had heard about the quest form being available on the forums and I had observed that evil was dominating good for quite some time, so I decided that I would have lots of fights available, and a chance to earn it. It did not take long for me to get the tattoo/Maran/Leader/Quest Form because of the environment being ripe for anyone to go in and make a name for him or herself by killing the hell out of evil as the underdog. Effective killing, role-playing (in and out of the shrine), and leadership in general led to early rewards; not any sort of OOC communication or favoritism. I did not have any special dodging quest spells and the form didn't dodge spells naturally, that was an air major greater enliven (the whole reason I went Air first: the enlivens are SICK).

This was my first age death, but my second go at Fortress leadership. I had a Paladin elf who was an emo Cardinal of the Golden Sun and con-died 'neath Hunsobo's (and everyone else's) boots, so it was interesting to get a feel for leadership on the other end of the spectrum. There is a big difference in Rayihn's religion and Baerinika's religion, but I felt I was able to grasp the concepts of Baerinika's religion quickly and embody them well. I recommend Baerinika if you are attempting to be immersed in constant RP in a hands-on/hands-off setting based on what you put into it, and how you respond to/direct the interactions.

I received a lot of negative criticism both IC and OOC. It was easy to pick out who the players complaining on the forums were because most of them would say the same, verbatim, things to me in character they were saying on the forums. I saw a few times where it was said that I full looted someone. I never actually did this once. The time with Cradditch was due to me not staying to protect the corpse, apparently lowbies got to it and he assumed it was me since I did take a dagger and bracelet of charms. After that Empire started sacrificing all my gear every time I died: that was annoying and only led to me looting more of their things when I killed them due to needing the gear. I tried to mostly ignore the OOC comments that were a constant with this character, and tried to keep a very low profile on the forums; it didn't help when the OOC aspect of the reward system was reinforced in-character by Battle Immortals. :P Luckily, that was just a phase and calmed down after a while. It is understandable if you do not agree with or enjoy the way things play out sometimes, but I do not feel it is proper to let it leak out IC with your interactions with others. Then again, I was a stinkin' mage, so what do I know?




Immortals:

Baerinika....So much to say, but nothing we didn't discuss in character at one point or another. Thank you, and your work is appreciated. I think we both caught a lot of negativity due to this character, but in the end the good outweighs the bad and you cannot be favored by everyone all of the time. Especially when your avatar is out clawing their asses up :> I like that you seem to play for the characters that enjoy the game while ignoring those that attempt to bring you down to their level because they disagree with your methods/style. Thank you for the goodbye echoes and everything else that made this character a great experience.


Lian.... I very much appreciate the role contest win, my rewards were Magic's Might and the pseudodragon form. Magic's Might made a noticeable impact on my forms damage so I did always try to keep the veil thin after receiving it. The pseudodragon had its uses, but overall I used it for neurotoxic sting, something I already had with the yellowjacket form though I hadn't been utilizing it. I wish you were more active, there was a lot I was hoping to roleplay out with you in character based on magic and the Silver Tower, but I understand if your personal life does not allow you to spend much time on Carrion Fields. I still love you.

Twist....I feel there was no need for you to transfer me to ROTD because I killed the Commander of Battle a second time after almost an hour and tell me I was multikilling and breaking role. If you would have listened to what I was saying instead of blowing me off you would have realized our cabals were at war with each other due to the Commander purposefully not calling off the Battle/Fortress war- a move totally within his power. Yes I flew at him and beat him up and killed him as much as I could, probably less than five times, because innocents weren't going to cease being murdered until he either made the decision to be done with war, or con-died with a new Commander being chosen. This interaction really soured my experience, I think ROTD should be used for rules violations and if you want to state your opinion about an event I'd far rather interact through your IMM powers via mobs (loving on the Commander as Twist himself probably wouldn't have made any sense :P) that could lead to a more immersive RP environment. It was jarring, and made me feel like a shameful, dirty cheater :( Otherwise thanks for all you do. And for not playing fire giant sword this time around.

Akresius....I didn't understand the purpose of our interaction at Baerinika's shrine. I had just died to a group of three or four Scions ganging me down. The Lich, who had nothing to do with my death, was standing over my corpse when I got there and was talking a lot of smack about how weak I was. I told him that all he was good for was talk and that he never actually fought me, ever, so he did not have the right to gloat over my corpse when others killed me. I had been looted pretty good, and ganged down, and was in Baer's shrine to rest up when you came out of nowhere to tell me that I needed to adjust my attitude after deaths and not interact negatively with others. This basically felt like salt in the wound and I had no idea why you were in Baer's shrine lecturing me about my reaction to being ganged-looted-and talked down to by a character that never fights me. I mean, in a vacuum you're definitely RIGHT to a degree, but I feel I usually took deaths in stride pretty well. Gangs always raise my blood pressure, though.

All other IMMs and those above, thank you for a great FREE game. And your time and attention and imaginations.


Cabals:

Herald....I was banned from the Inn fairly early on, so I did not get to interact with a lot of you inside of it. I enjoyed my interactions with Maehayla and what she was trying to accomplish as High Herald. Good luck Shamise, you seem to be a good presence and encouraging events and things, I enjoyed your scavenger hunt.

Scion/Empire....Feast and famine. Scion was very powerful at first, as was Empire. It seemed like one key player from each cabal left, and the rest followed shortly after to move on to other cabals. Empire is making a solid push towards power recently, looks like Kraldinor outlived me after all. Curses! Most Scion players should just be ashamed of themselves. When all of you go OOC on me about the same issues and delete at the same time things become pretty obvious. Vhateel, you went from RPing steadily to OOC tells and log in/log outs if I was on, you weren't the only one, but I don't really understand the shift. Oh well. So it goes.

Battle....Tiarhelle/Cainargen: war with the Fortress did not make much sense to me, especially for the reasons you stated. You could have... you know, just fought me and the rest of mages in Fort. There were powerful mages as leaders in other cabals but you did not attempt to take their items. War with the Fortress ended up putting Battle from the strongest cabal to the weakest for the last several months, I'd *like* to think in no small part because of my own work and leadership of my Fortress brothers and sisters. And our impressive numbers :D. I do not think it was worth it, but I understand you wanted to impress and follow the path you were presented with and stir the pot a bit. I am glad Arratok had common sense and a sense of self-preservation that nobody else demonstrated and quickly ended the war after becoming Commander.


Tribunal....I feel like with Marcatis gone nobody is really watching over this cabal to any great degree. It is a bit preposterous to me that the Magistrate Library has books explicitly covering the subject of on/off duty and what it means, yet multiple Tribunals are flagging people for 'assisting criminals' outside of protected cities, including coming to defend their own cabal because the Magistrate is RAIDING it. There were even instances where no Fort members were criminals, and a specific Magistrate raided against Fort with Nexus and Empire on separate occasions and took the Orb. Once the Spire started inducting evil people and breaking previously discussed pacts, Oshui was a perpetual criminal the remainder of his life in protest for various injustices he witnessed against the Light. If I saw you aiding Empire and defending the Empire, or harm anyone of the Light I applied the Nexus rule to you, 1 death for you.

Outlander....I really enjoyed my interactions with Outlander even though I fought the wicked ones a lot. At times I wished I had chosen to become an Outlander instead of joining the Fortress, I really could have gone either way with my role. I believe that some players would have internally imploded in on themselves if Jack Blaguar would have had the insect swarm ability. Wow. That's a thought.

Nexus....It seemed like every time I logged in the Light was tipping, so most of you were enemies. I've played Nexus before, and I understand what it's about. But Oshui didn't! He took a hard line with y'all evil-lovers. For the most part you seemed evils that I couldn't hunt with regularity or freedom. So it goes.

I interacted with many different individuals since August, almost nine months ago. I could have made a baby in that time. Neat! I will respond to posts as I see them. If you have any log requests let me know and they will go on the other forum.

(EDIT: Let the fireworks begin! Flame on!)