Sun Apr 8 23:56:47 2012

At 11 o'clock PM, Day of Deception, 23rd of the Month of the Old Forces
on the Theran calendar Muzgash perished, never to return.

Race:	orc
Class:	berserker
Level:	50
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Chaotic
Cabal:	None, None
Age:	45
Hours:	241

How could you forget me? I loved the way you took about bringing treachery to the realms. It was more than a bash bash bash stare over your corpse. You rp'd to a tee and tried to find various ways of taking me down. Anyways GLWYN

That's what happens for writing that before falling asleep. I've no idea how I could forget you, as I expect I'll see amazing things from Samaiya as time goes on. You're the sort of character that MADE me want to step up my RP.

Sadly, given how many paladins you fight as an orc, I was definitely at an advantage against you. I knew how to fight paladins in general and figured out very quickly how to fight monks (YAY PIN!). I actually tried to avoid killing you and was having lots of fun trying to convince you (from my twisted orcish mind) that you'd be much better off coming to be my pet/slave/consort in the Clan. Seriously, who doesn't want a sanc/healer sort around as an orc!?

Anyways, ABSOLUTELY hands down the most interactive character I ran into from the "Good" side of the game.

Bah. loved to hunt you as I heard rumors about you, but never got the chance. Unfortunately I had not enough reason to jump on you as a grey villager the few times I passed you, and you didn't initiate it even seeing me staying near Muzgash as much as I could.

GLWYN

I'd like to start off with two comments.

1) Lesson learned, just don't wear +age items as an orc. It's WAY too drastic an impact.
2) Pretty sure massively low wis crushes your save chances much worse than having zero saves, but both counts makes wither ridiculously absurd against orcs.

Now that that's out of the way, yes random Skrugga orc #2953 was me. Watching Krunk, I may have to try a Shig-ru here. Had a lot of fun with Muzgash, lucked out with a good set early, and generally felt I kicked in more teeth than I lost. As always, I'll be back to an orc sooner or later. Have to admit though, *SO* frustrated trying to get the agile coward edge and not picking any others, then getting myself age-dead w/ two pages of edge options to pick from. *sigh*

Goodbyes:

Dvalygg - Shame I haven't been able to find you in forever. You were awesome, even though I don't think we EVER got to bash people at hero. Hopefully everything's good?

Scarab Druid - Had lots of fun with you, orc and FRIENDLY druid was kinda sickening.

Scarabaeus - Sad I never got to run into you after our first interaction. It's so hard to really show that it's a CHARACTER that's without fear, compared to the player just not really "losing" anything if you die. I tried to go with the idea that he'd learned to overcome it (hence picking the edge), and coming back at that point. Was I along the right path with your religion?

Mreklau - Yes, I pretty much took Chieftain from you to let Krunk have it. I never saw you, and PARTICULARLY after you didn't even show up to the first fight and I spent another month hunting for you, I felt Krunk was much more useful. Sorry, but I'd rather be under Krunk than you. Shouldn't be long and you'll get it back anyways.

Krunk - Man, keep doing what you're doing. I've played SO many orcs (but apparantly never branched out into the adapts properly), but you definitely figured out some mean ways to make them work. Yes, I did let you win :P

Kagash, Gerbonk, Gorbu, Kragg, other orcs - You were all a blast to travel with.

Assorted entwine warriors - Yes, I felt a bit bad with the fact that I pretty much could insta-kill you when you entwined me, but once Daevryn confirmed it was intentional (which I rather figured), I didn't really worry. It took me some effort to make sure last stand was perfected, and since YOU had to choose to entwine ME, it's really your own fault if it ever happened more than once.

Islinic - Sorry I picked on you so much, but orcs aren't very bright, and you ARE half-elf. He wasn't one for particulars.

Scion zoo - Had fun with most of you.

Ragers - Non-berserker ragers are *SUCH* easy pickings for orcs given our regen and move advantage. I probably going have gone the Krunk route for most of those, but I've played too many ragers also and didn't like picking on you guys.

Fortress - Have to admit, generally was OK with most of the people I fought in Fortress. Definitely gank-heavy, but I suppose it is what it is.

(Tairnech, I hate you. I entirely blame those damned withers for my death. OK, not really hate, but I still blame you, heh)

Oddly enough, the only two people I really couldn't stand were Lohakahn (relatively obviously), and Grorbek. I've no idea why Grobrek and I rubbed each other wrong *SO* badly, but that got to be quite the grudge match.

Anyways, ran into a lot of different people, figured I'd stop it at this. Cya all around soon enough. Hell, maybe I'll even get to try a seasonal race now!

What was keeping you from the agile coward edge? Surely you got enough edge points in 241 hours for it?

Skill requirement to one of the Skrugga skills that's damn near impossible to ever actually end up using much less improving on. It just doesn't get enough practical use to ever improve that much on. I set skill learn to it soon as I got it, and didn't get lucky with much of that.

We ran a lot together. A shame I talked you into messing up that first fight with Mreklau. My fault. Then I heard some rumor and decided to have you killed. Next time we met I had totally forgot about that and didn't realize it in like 20-30 more game hours and then it was far too late. bleh

You knew your stuff. You and Krunk makes me wanna try out an orc some day.

>We ran a lot together. A shame I talked you into messing up
>that first fight with Mreklau. My fault. Then I heard some
>rumor and decided to have you killed. Next time we met I had
>totally forgot about that and didn't realize it in like 20-30
>more game hours and then it was far too late. bleh

Heh, true, I probably owed you more specific but it's SO hard to really stand out as a shifter. I definitely ran with you most, and 2ndly Kiraava before the delete, but orcs don't really come across much for the backstory sorts and most of the time is off killing people, which means you're in form. We made great PK buddies, but I never delved much into "Zameida". Definately love having an extra lagger that deals ridiculous damage while tanking in ABS for me.

*Edit - Forgot to say, I'm *REALLY* curious what this rumor is that made you suddenly decide to kill Muzgash. If it's just Muzgash pertinent, I'd like to hear.

>You knew your stuff. You and Krunk makes me wanna try out an
>orc some day.

Hah, you'd think I should by now. I think this is my 6th hero range orc over the years, though I CONSTANTLY went w/ Skrugga and maybe 2 Mundungus. Still pick up little bits here and there, and I've *REALLY* been taking up Daevryn's idea of going through the levels more slowly, which has definitely extended the development and lifespan of my characters. The nightshift is just too damned boring at hero if you power up in less than 100 hours, then spent another 100 with the same 15 people online.

But I think it was a rumor that either you helped imperials defend or you helped raiding the chasm? Well, I don't really remember. Might just have been you traveling with imperials. hehe

Tough foe, brought me down three? times.
But i got my revenge!
Once i have figured how to fight you, things became just innoying.
You was appearing, grappling weapon and run.

Still liked you.
Gutsy and stalking.

Heh, well, Grorbek obviously didn't. You *DID* pretty much full me the time you got the chance outside the Underdark. I know you lost things, but most of it was just war banners.

As far as getting annoying, daggers just *SUCK* for orcs to fight. Still, orcs are really best at taking beatings, then coming back right away and keep trying until luck goes their way. That was me TRYING to kill you, and pretty much getting beat up that fast.

They are nearly useless for non-chief orc,same +morale affect you can take making warbanner from empty corpse.
This is way to be a douche, yes, by poor design.
With my orcs i tried to not make banners from gear.

I actually make use out of war banners when I can. The additional damage is pretty awesome. Especially human, since there's always humans around. As far as with gear or not...I always felt like SOME war banners made for much better results with some skills, but thinking on it, you're right that it was mostly Chieftain stuff.

Looked like war banners just used up the top 3 or 4 items in a corpse, so I did try to avoid having it destroy say...famous/legendary items, but figured random noteworthy or non-limited gear can't be THAT bad to regear. Similarly, at least, orcs are pretty easy to get a basic set for. Figure it's handy to have, when everyone wants you dead.

Yea wither can be a right pain in the arse, I think I only permanently aged you once, maybe twice in all those withers. But when you're a shaman facing an orc and you're not much of a melee fighter, then wither is the fallback lol. I'm curious, how much did wither age you? Or do you know?

You got me at least twice, I *THINK* three times with aging while I had about -30 or -40 saves. Unfortunately, I was also wearing the ogre-horned helm and had like 11 wis at the time, which I think hurt more than the saves I got out of the item.

Wither doesn't *AGE* you directly, it chops years off your old-age side. Like smoking cigarettes. You're not "older", you just die of cancer or a heart attack before your time. Given orcs don't have long life-spans anyways, I'm better wither rocks them more than an elf or dark-elf for example, and I happened to get Rancor, so tried wielding it, then dropped dead on the tick.

>Given orcs don't have long life-spans anyways, I'm better
>wither rocks them more than an elf or dark-elf for example,

You are correct, in that wither goes after years rather than, say, hours of play.

Does wither taking years off a characters life, and potentially ruining a character if someone is dedicated to it, have any place in todays cf?

We have gone the way of trying to prevent heavy griefing. We put in corpseguard, we made air forms not see ghosts from the air, we have done literally dozens and dozens of changes over the years to things that don't have a place in today's CF.

Wither already takes potentially 25 strength off somebody with low saves. Does it really need to take time off of somebody's character? One might make the argument that you can gear for saves, to prevent it somewhat, but that's ugh to me. I can gang you, loot the piss out of you, and spend the rest of the login shortening your life if I want to. I think wither would be fine if it was just a mega strength maledict. Does somebody need to roll up a human shaman and grief the hell out of well thought out characters before it is changed?

I think it's a fair question and should be addressed. Either change it to make the mud a better place, or don't get pissed when somebody rolls a evil shaman and spends all day withering everything in sight, making it totally not fun to play anymore.

The worst part is, the characters that suffer most from it, are the ones that probably would have been over 300 hour characters, but never got the chance to get there. It just seems wrong to me.

I know your pain. I had an arial warrior Harbinger in Outlander and age died at level 44 and 169 hours because there were like 3 shamans in Empire at the time. I even geared for saves because I was sick of dropping my weapons and didnt' seem to matter. Lyriston tried to get them to do something because age death with leader age at 169 hours is insane. But I think the response was, he shouldn't have fought shamans. Yeah let me not take part in cabal wars as leader... I quit cf for at least a year or two over that ####.

P.S. I especially like that you have no idea how much time you are losing with each one. Awesome funstick ability.

Kind of makes me wonder what's the reasoning for having this kind of mechanism, has been ever since Skryth. If I were playing a shaman, I would use wither the same way, regardless of whether or not it would age you like that or not.

Oh right the emperor and his new clothes and all...

The same thing happened to one of my characters ~13 years ago. Larcat's roommate, a scarab shaman, kept withering my Shokai shaman over and over. I thought he was just wasting a command (who withers a shaman) but little did I know the nefarious hidden effects that would age die my character at like 230 hours. The experience scarred me so badly I did not roll another Arial until Malakhi.

I think the rationale for why that possibility exists is less "don't fight shamans" and more some combination of the following:

- it is an extremely rare phenomena. I only know of your char, my char, and a couple orcs.
- it is highly dependent on spellsave. So it's feasibly in your control.
- most of CF play relatively short lived characters that delete at under 100 hours. Look at Zulg's stats on the Announcement board in support of the four month seasonal character limit. The fact is, it is a rare player that actually wants to play a character longer than 200 hours. You and I just happen to fall into that demographic :)
- Moreover there is an opportunity cost to wither - you don't use it, for example, on invokers because it's a waste of two rounds, even though invokers, given the mastery time, would be among the most devastated by repeated curse/withers.
- There is just not much fun or glory to intentionally age-killing a character. So no one goes for it.

In short, I think the above adds up to it not being a game balance issue - yet. What you really have is a danger that has adversely impacted an almost statistically percentage of characters and can be controlled by the endangered characters through spellsave. I have ideas about how you could raise wither aging to the public consciousness, but it's not worth it. I'd rather Daev spend his CF time and energy on shrine progs :)

Yeah, I think at the time it was the shock that a character I was pouring a ton of effort into could be snuffed out like that, even the Outlander Imms were shocked at the time and tried to get my character brought back. I think at least the help file needs to be changed as it clearly states that withering ages you, which it does not.

Bundeltorf my rager thief died at 205 hours, from a combination of age gear and withering. Funny thing is, he only got withered 5 times but got really unlucky with the dice rolls and ended up losing something like 40 years from 3 aging withers.

Thanks for the ranking help before and after.

Fought Muzgash with one of my previous characters and you were tough and always with good orc RP.

Good luck with the next.

First I wasn't sure if there was really any reason for me to, but I did have a *FEW* skills I wanted to practice, and orcs are surprisingly political in the sense that even more than Empire, you have *GOT* to make sure you get some allies, since you can challenge/be challenged for Chieftain at (roughly) any time.

Even after all these years, orcs are ridiculously buggy especially when it comes to the Chieftain challenge. Definitely couldn't have won w/o you guys because of that.

My best friend when I was in perfect health and ready to kick teeth in... then you'd attack me while I was fighting someone else or if I was wounded. Overall, I thought Muzgash was well played. GLWYN!

Mreklau - Yes, I pretty much took Chieftain from you to let Krunk have it. I never saw you, and PARTICULARLY after you didn't even show up to the first fight and I spent another month hunting for you, I felt Krunk was much more useful. Sorry, but I'd rather be under Krunk than you. Shouldn't be long and you'll get it back anyways.

Damn 241 hours, you didnt live long at all.

I won't go into it to much as it is something I will cover when I age die, but in short. OOC I am glad you took chief off me, but IC of course I didnt want you to have it! :P

What you do with it from there how you take it well thats your roleplay choice. As for the first fight ... well that was simply a process of me trying to frustrate the hell out of you and it worked to my advantage. The second fight well your setup was much the same as the first you just did a better job of executing it! :)

I must say with Orc's as a whole and as you showed they can be both extremely versitile and deadly while also extremely fragile. This is admitidly my first Orc but I am very curious to see what the other adaptations have to offer.

GLWYN

That said, I wish we could have been around more often together, even if that fight after the chief challenge went so badly. I'm sure with a little time we could have worked out our tactics to compliment each other.

Honestly, if it wasn't the first time I'd had the chance to chief challenge in the lifetime of the character, I doubt Krunk would have bothered to challenge Muzgash, but having sat under Mreklau for so long I just couldn't pass up the chance. Were it Mreklau instead, Krunk would have called in every ally. As it was I used every prep I had and still got my ass kicked. I'm not sure the horde should be allowed in the temple during a chief challenge, but the whole thing seems a little buggy.

I'm sure you'll be back to orcs and I definitely recommend giving shig-ru a go. It is always good to have a few orcs running around Thera terrorizing the elf population.

You were very hard to nail down.

First time I had you near death, after killing Kragg, you ran the wrong way on a 50/50 chance to land in snare with wasps on you even and
escaped.

Second time, I get two ambushes off + wasps and again you manage to slip
away. I was kicking myself there saying WTF just happened. Between you and Krunk unlagging himself at the worst possible time for me => very frustrating hunts!

First, let me say that I'm glad you enjoy Orcs; I think Orcs are a race you need to play with much less seriousness than other races/classes (that was what I was shooting for, anyway). The adaptations seem to have picked up on that and ran with it, so I'm pretty happy with how they look these days.

With regard to the Cult(s?), I'll admit that I felt there were mixed signals and at some point I wasn't sure what you were shooting for. Or perhaps I simply misunderstood the transition; the seasonal race nonsense was a little distracting. Regardless, sorry for the confusion there.

>First, let me say that I'm glad you enjoy Orcs; I think Orcs
>are a race you need to play with much less seriousness than
>other races/classes (that was what I was shooting for,
>anyway). The adaptations seem to have picked up on that and
>ran with it, so I'm pretty happy with how they look these
>days.

Heh, yeah. Part of why if I can't think up anything that really strikes my fancy, I always end up rolling an orc. Unfortunately, they don't make for a LOT of the most creative roles ever. It usually ends up with some fashion of "Well, I'm an orc. I kill people and take their shinies if I can, and run away if I can't." Though I *DO* have a Mamlauk idea I want to try out as far as truly exploring evil and orcs and could be neat, I just don't want to play a mamlauk, hehe.

>With regard to the Cult(s?), I'll admit that I felt there were
>mixed signals and at some point I wasn't sure what you were
>shooting for. Or perhaps I simply misunderstood the
>transition; the seasonal race nonsense was a little
>distracting. Regardless, sorry for the confusion there.

Yeah, I was trying to develop Muzgash in a sense of coming to LEARN about the religion, since I was as well. His background gave a reason to know about Saraba and to want to interact with you to keep it happy, but then becoming part of the Cult and TRULY making Saraba happy was what he was learning. The idea of Muzgash's last role entry was that in SOME fashion (perhaps sufficient for GWB, perhaps not), was that he'd learn to deal with fear. Of course, it's a daily occurance that what makes perfect sense in MY head doesn't translate to when I communicate with others, hah. Ah well, mostly I only regret that I didn't get to learn more before it was over.

I'm certain I'll try it again sometime soon enough. After I try one of these touted seasonal races. Damn your centaurs!