Sat Feb 11 18:18:54 2012

At 11 o'clock AM, Day of the Great Gods, 12th of the Month of the Old Forces
on the Theran calendar Elanya perished, never to return.

Race:	elf
Class:	paladin
Level:	51
Alignment:	Good
Ethos:	Neutral
Cabal:	FORTRESS, the Fortress of Light
Age:	351
Hours:	156

Thanks to other players and IMMs for a great game.

Players: Both enemies and friends were generally cool. They didn't loot much, or if they did, there were good reasons for it. I don't flip out over having prayer beads / other powerful equipment taken away to weaken me.

Enemies: I tried not to communicate any sense of my frustration with the character to my enemies. I've not had an enemy I had a problem with, and any comments I made were made with no ill-intent or no intent to threaten loots or insults. I made fairness of speech a particularly key concern with this character. Any frustration I had with the character was a function of how my relationship with my IMM was going, or with how poorly I was playing this character in PK.

Akresius: My interactions with you were marked mostly by your absence. You might be a really good IMM, but I'll never really know because I only got to properly talk to you three times (have all the interactions logged).

I deleted for several reasons:

1. I had 0 virtues, which in itself is not a problem if all other Paladins have 0 virtues at 150 hours except for the most amazing ones. But I've seen other Paladins get rewarded with insane virtues (I'd kill to have temp/fort, or temp/ret). I'm sure some of them deserve it, but I'd say at least one, from what I could see, does not deserve it. Please when I next play a Paladin, could I get some indication of whether or not my IMM will be active? Anyway, I guess this is karma for having been absurdly well-rewarded with Volker.

2. I didn't want to continue being a follower of an IMM who didn't log on much, or give me any indication (even by sending notes) that I was doing well, 'keep it up', etc.

3. Lots of goodies around. This is starting to change, so if I do roll a new character I wouldn't rule out a goodie.

I was happy with the character for doing everything I thought a Paladin should do. I tried to keep in touch with my IMM - the past week or two I visited the shrine every day, and RPed at the shrine object by talking to it about the religion, even though no-one ever answered.

Krunk: I really appreciated those words you said after the excellent kill you got on me 1v2. I think you're a great orc, keep it up.

Eleagra: You should have been Empress, but I guess you didn't get it, and that's poor luck for you, and poor luck for the Empire. Excellent character, and brutalised me in every possible way. I hated how you would bash me down with no chance of escape! Sorry for the gang with Vallinane and the one with Laesron, it was the only way I could get you.

Vallinane: Amazing RP with you. We had great talks, particularly that time when you inducted me. I was so impressed by what was going on I logged it.

Illanthos: Hands down, one of the best healers I've ever played alongside. I think you do more for Fort's dominance than any other character. I have my suspicions about the player behind the character, and I think you've done extremely well, especially in the RP side.

Laesron: Sure took a long time for you to make Maran! I thought you deserved it, long before you got it. We were peers, getting through the ranks at the same time. We had very good conversations together.

Veneroth: It was nice fighting alongside you, from levels 30 to 51. Wish I had your virtues on a 2-hander. :)

Arngrum: Wish I had those virtues on a shield dedicant... :)

Foratha: We had some great fights. I think I know the player, and I like your style. Sorry about the other time I got you when you were lagging badly. Normally, if I see a character whom I know is AFK, I just don't kill them. Bad RP, I know, but I believe in sportsmanship.

Demiero: Sorry I got you twice the other time, but I guess you got your revenge. I go out of my way not to multi-kill (or kill an afk character), but many of my enemies just want to fight and they jump right at me after unghosting. Wasn't about to turn down a fight in that case!

Fzoarn: Hope my OOC dislike of you did not ever come through with the character. I just don't think a Paladin (fair of speech) can talk like that, regardless of 'RP reasons'.

I had a few RP restrictions on my character - I wouldn't kill a sentient neutral who wasn't doing anything wrong (Got a dwarf to kinship Fordurn for me, though Brulgar is the ideal mob for a Paladin to kill because of Righteousness). I gave away something like 500 gold to the Paladin Guildmaster (the RP was that I was getting him to hold those funds to fund the orphanages of Galadon). I wouldn't taunt my foes by calling them cowards or anything, though I would offer duels in the politest way possible :) I wouldn't ever be rude to a goodie, even if he/she was very rude. I thought that made me really feel like I was a Paladin rather than just a random goodie.

I's enjoyed our brief interaction. Sorry dis en didn't go yas way but sure as I's sittin here yas will be back before too long so see yas in da fields.

" Illanthos: Hands down, one of the best healers I've ever played alongside. I think you do more for Fort's dominance than any other character. I have my suspicions about the player behind the character, and I think you've done extremely well, especially in the RP side. "

RP has always been my forte, particularly philosophy. As for my skill as a healer, I've only ever played a sum of ~100 hours of failed healers before rolling Illanthos. More on this when I eventually kick the bucket.

Elanya was a really top notch character. I'm kicking myself for not RPing with you more, but there were rarely ever any quiet times for me when you were logged on. I can really sympathize with your burnout, as I think I got empowered from 35 to 51 at ~200 hours (I'm an empowerment n00b).

I really wish you would've kept on trucking, if but only to show what a determined player is capable of without any tats, virtues, or special rewards.

Fort is currently hemorrhaging quality characters (Vaellron, Argivo, Arngrum, and now Elanya), you should roll up something with a gold aura and help keep Fort going ;) .

GLWYN

I am actually a philosophy student in life, so I actually love philosophising in Thera. There's a lot of descriptive poverty in Thera about morality (good, neutral, evil, orderly, chaotic), and I tried to fill it in with my characters' philosophies.

The metaphysics of Thera is even worse... But I tend to stay away from bringing discussion of Theran 'metaphysics' into the game, as it just tends to confuse non-philosophy people. Philosophy is one reason why I would like to make a Scarab character someday.

If I ever decide to IMM, I'd write a canon metaphysic for Thera. Just a few questions I've thought about:

'How do Therans perceive repops, or respawns, of mobs?' Reality is odder than we know (could write entire essays on this), and there's no reason why a Theran reality could not somehow magically have respawns which people thought were completely normal. Somehow, when areas have no players in them, they respawn fast. Perhaps some theory of existence depending on the presence of perceivers.

'Why do elf adventurers age so fast compared to human adventurers?'

'Why does the landscape never change even though people have been battling over it for so long? Fort's complete dominance should probably destroy the Palace entirely, yet it stands and the Imperial Council keeps coming back when the Fort leaves.'

'Does magic obey any uniform laws, the way physical objects obey laws like gravitation, the laws of thermodynamics, etc?' I'm inclined to say that mortal magic does, so there are great limitations on (mortal) magic.

I do bits and pieces of philosophy too! Hope we meet in the fields bantering about stuff lolz.

They reenforce and I leave the area to other forces when it's time to move on.

Each character was just born and reguardless of however many characters you have had, I have had or anyone else, it's a fresh adventure.

My characters don't die. There spirits return from the light at the end of the tunnel.

Heh. I know -exactly- what you mean. A philosophy conversation with Sacer in High School is what hooked me.

Bohvik was an animist - and I've written so many roles for ascetics...

I'm so sad to see you delete. You were great, and we had some good talks and a lot of great long drawn out fights.

I echo you on the virtues, I noticed you not having any and it just boggeled me. You were by far the best of the four APs running around, at least in terms of fighting and RPing with your enemies. And at least 1 of those Pallys I can't understand why is having virtues at all, but it might just be an RP angle the way he acts.


I had a rough guess on who you were, a little bit of Humbert shining through, an extremly softer side of Humbert that is.

GLWYN

Yeah, I really like Elanya too. I got pissed off after awhile because everytime we fought, here someone would come running in and breaking it up. There were a couple times when I was still adjusting to the philosophies of the religion where I did jump into a fight, I started pulling out when it happened, and then stopped doing it at all. The other day, when I had you snared, I passed up Demeiro like three steps from where we were, that is why I freed you out the snare because
a> I didnt want him jumping into our fight...
b> Niv viewed him as a bigger threat to Thar-Eris then you.


but I kind of got soured with Akresius too, and he is a really great guy. I think he may just be busy or our hours werent meshing up. I only spoke to him one time awhile back through a mysterious tell and he told me he want me to get another solo kill or so before I sought him out again.. I did and havent heard a peep from his since. and your right, just a little note from him may have kept me going a bit longer.

ahwell... maybe one day I will try his religion again. pretty sure I could have been successful with it, I did a Urtrekis awhile back and did fine, and his religion is alot less restricting then urtrekis was.

Rangers were a massive challenge for me, especially neutral rangers. Oryntohr was worse though, he could permalag me like Eleagra could.

It was nice having fights with you. If I were a Baer paladin, I would not even bother fighting a neutral unless I had really no choice (entwined or have a goodie groupmate being attacked or goodie mobs being killed). But I've heard of the previous Akresius paladin (Yuzxra) criticised for being too friendly to non-evils who pick fights with her, so I decided that an Akresius paladin is a very different beast from the traditional paladin, and I tried to let it show with my relations with neutrals. I would actually hunt a neutral who had previously killed me, assuming I had no evils to fight.

Not sure what IMMs might have thought about it, but there was a very clear reason for me to do so, despite the disadvantages of a Paladin fighting neutrals. Seems to me that a sphere Combat Akresius Paladin should never shy from combat as long as the challenger is not good (and under one very narrow case, even if the challenger is good, but I'll leave that for future Akresians).

I am actually quite in favour of the Akresius approach of making people work for stuff (and in fact, Akresius did make contact with Zantala to say that she was on the right track -- the one thing I regret about deleting was not getting to follow that up). However, as an enemy, it amazed me how one particular other paladin seemed to get rewards while breaking the code (his buddy even said that his lying was ok because if he told the truth he knew he'd have to die), but Elanya was sometimes getting flattened multiple times per session, was respected for quality rp and came in second to this other paladin.

PS. I think it's great you wouldn't kill for Fordurn. I never did with my paladins either and it annoyed me when my fellow paladins would run off and do it without a second thought.

I didn't fight you that much, but you seemed competent and always willing to give it a go. I didn't think I had a chance of actually landing a kill on you, but I wasn't going to turn down a fight as an Akresius paladin.

I was a little careful about getting put to sleep by you, so I'd usually arrange for my 'sleep' to happen in a place without a summonable closed room (those who hate necros/APs: this is a very good tactic to try to get kills on them with). Hope you didn't mind!

I like to think I'm the sort of player who does not get flattened often in PKs, but I've failed quite spectacularly with Elanya at the PK scene. I vow to redeem myself in the future with another elf 2h paladin. And unfortunately, an elf 2h paladin does need temperance to pull off those stunts Lariya/Solasarath/Acvilar did - if not temp and fort both. I was so vuln_bash it wasn't even funny... And I do know how to do the reduce - double-enlarge dance, it's just that the basher always has the advantage here even if he mis-predicts your size once.

Sad to see you go. I figured you were having some trouble, but never figured you for zero virtues and crap. Especially since I was impressed by top-notch RP and reasonable success at PK. Uncaballed elf paladin is quite a bit more difficult than it looks, and considering you were at zero virtues the entire time, and still bravely went into hero range regardless, looking back I am pretty astounded you managed to take as many kills as you did. Heh.

I completely understand your frustration, though.

Take heart, you were maybe the only paladin in the Fort who didn't, at some point, wake a guy I had garrotted before we were ready to kill him. That is how I knew you were PK competent :)

If you have some of those RP logs involving Vallinane, I sure wouldn't mind seeing them.

I like to think that PK is one of my fortes in CF, so I really appreciate that comment. I could roll up a fire giant Greeting sword spec character and get 300 PKs by old age, I'm fairly certain of that, but I want to succeed in PK with an atypical character. Like a good-aligned character. I went 10-1 with a midbie elf shield paladin (who got Temperance) once, and the 1 death was due to AP cleave. The challenge for me is to do it on an elf 2hander :) alternatively I might try a chaotic dark-elf conjurer, partly because there is one very special item for them, which I found when exploring as Volker my scion invoker.

I did get past 200 PKs on Humbert, but he was a Greeting storm giant sword spec, which made things really very easy, in spite of the smaller number of enemies.

I'm not sure if I kept proper count, but I think I had 25 evil PKs by the end of it. That would be fine if I hadn't died so many silly deaths to bashers (Krunk, Eleagra, Oryntohr, Haelor, Yarglen).

Vallinane was clearly a very capable character. I liked your PK ability, but most of all I liked your RP (even if some might think it's too 'casual'). If we went about ganging people you bound up we could have done some damage! But to be fair, perfected and 23 dex Templars Defense Mid Slash is only accurate some 75% of the time, unlike trip. I think low crescent and high deflect are worse than mid slash, given mid slash's inability to work against daggers and whips.

I too as a player would have been frustrated watching other 2 virtue'd paladins run around while I got crap.

I think the imms need a system that isn't just subjective of "Oh this guy needs virtues". It should be X virtue cannot come before X hours or X level etc etc. Right now for better or worse all goodie players who are getting rewards are because their imm is active.

Empowerment seems very frustrating and I avoid it like the plague due to situations like this.

I did not interact with you in game. My first elf paladin I played had great rp/pk and I never got anything, due to the fact my imm went MIA. It made me very jaded that my hard work and time was for nothing. So I gathered my pride and rolled again making Nilian and for some reason I got 3 virts(last one was mix up when edges were put in where the code that keeps track of players rewards was deleted and Baerinika seen that I had 0 so she gave me another heh)ANYWAYS keep trucking and never give in to the man =P see ya in the fields bro.

I have some things that I would like to discuss with you privately - I'll be sending you a PM.

That being said, I thought you were doing a fantastic job.

I should, of all people, understand that RL does disrupt one's hours, and this can manifest itself when one is playing a leader or an IMM...

So yeah, no hard feelings :) Hope everything's going fine in the real world.

You were with me ever since I started playing more than 10 hrs a month.

Was fun getting older and more levels with you, and how our combat techniques would change.

I finally got you to join Fortress because I knew you were frustrated, but I understand that when your heart isn't in the character, it's time to delete and re-roll.

Good luck with the next.

Loved the roleplay and everything about you. Once I accidentally found out the player (had to delete one of your logs I think) it all made sense on why this char was so high quality.