Wed Apr 6 22:30:09 2016

At 2 o'clock AM, Day of the Great Gods, 19th of the Month of the Great Evil
on the Theran calendar Inethalas perished, never to return.

Race:	wood-elf
Class:	healer
Level:	31
Alignment:	Neutral
Ethos:	Neutral
Cabal:	HERALD, the Heralds of the Eternal Star
Age:	165
Hours:	40

Sad to see. I was getting very excited about Herald filling up again, and when a painter came along, it made my day. I'm sorry Inethalas didn't work out, but I liked your enthusiasm and found the character enjoyable. I would have liked to interact more. Perhaps someday...in a different incarnation.

Umiron and Distuvius for clarifying custom empowerment and Greenways path.

Raltevio for providing his support and consideration for this idea.

Qinsa for being awesome. Mre.

Daphedee for sticking it out.

Renize for the induct and the RP.

Whildur for overwhelmingly impressive RP and setting the bar to an all time high

Hamza / Aerafr for fun interactions.

And many others for making CF great.

I was planning to take you on but things are crazy right now and the one time our logins overlapped you quit out while I was still reading the role (10-15 minutes after I logged in myself.)

Things are hectic right now. I was trapped in an airport yesterday for 5 hours with 60 kilos of luggage because of a bomb threat http://bnonews.com/news/index.php/news/id4090

I hope you can forgive the lack of response. It wasn't intentional and your role looked pretty neat.

Thank you for your note. No problem and I understand that things get busy and hectic. My timing was off. I picked custom empowerment (with some Greenways flavor) path at the time when the system was being wound down.

No apologies are required and Umiron/Dest explained the new system / philosophy.

Cheers!

I clicked your link - be safe!

(The birthmark ASCII art does not line up properly, but you get the point.)

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A robed figure of a man appears before you. Copper skin, elongated ears, high cheekbones and a flawlessly straight nose - all features point to this man's wood-elven heritage. Bushy white eyebrows overhang deep hazel eyes. Long silver hair is gathered into a pony-tail and interwoven with a mithril string. A large red birthmark with jagged and irregular edges covers almost the entirety on this man's left cheek.

Both ears are adorned with multiple piercings - some are silver, others are of an unknown origin. Slender fingers show rings made of bone and onyx. The right hand is scarred with a burn that never healed - likely from the shaft of an iron mace. Overall, the figure gives off an aloof shamanistic vibe.

Upon further examination, you notice that:


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A Child with a Birthmark

The druids gathered in a circle around the newborn and stared in disbelief. The child had a bright red birthmark suspiciously resembling a deer's antlers.

<He cannot stay here,> said the elder druid.

"But he will die in the wilderness if left alone," said the youngest druid.

<Such is his fate then! He will feed the soil and the cycle will repeat itself.>

"But what if he has the gift?"

<This is not up for discussion. Leave him by the oak tree. We are done here!>

And thus begins the story of Inethalas. Left in the woods to die, he had slim chances at survival, but fate had something else in the cards for him. A human hunter, in pursuit of an elk, stumbled upon the crying child, took him into his woodcabin, and raised Inethalas as his own.

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Birthmark

.........................................
.............(\_ _/)..........
.............) ( ) (..........
............( ( ) ).........
.............) ( ) (..........
.............( ( ) )..........
..............\_ (\\.--.//) _/...........
.........................................

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Excerpts from Inethalas Riverbrook's Early Life

At a young age, Inethalas began to develop the powers of divination. With just a few words and a bit of focus, he was able to set bones and mend even the deepest cuts. Thinking his power was of druidic nature, Inethalas tried to commune with nature, but alas, the sticks and stones did not respond to his pleas. His talent came from elsewhere.

One day, on a cloudy afternoon, Inethalas saw a shadow within a circle of trees. The birthmark began to itch and burn. Inethalas turned around and looked behind him. The glimmering Great Stag towered over Inethalas, his emerald eyes piercing the very essence of Inethalas. The Stag snorted, nodded and vanished into misty air.

As Inethalas turned fifty, still a child by the wood-elven standards, his adoptive father died. Inethalas was alone once again. Packing up the few belongings that he had, Inethalas headed for the Greater Thera.

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Theology: The Great Stag

In the most secluded corners of the forests and swamps of Thar-Eris, the oldest living wood-elves whisper the name of Morlais (pronounced Mor-luh-ees.) It is rumored that Morlais was a simple stable boy serving the knights of King Galeth Evermoon. During one of King's hunts, Morlais was gored by a boar. Knowing that the boy would not survive, the King put an arrow into the boy's side and left him in the woods beneath a giant oak. While the body of Morlais died, his spirit never came to rest. It is said that his blood seeped into the oak which his dying body once touched and that his soul found vessel within a deer grazing blood-soaked moss nearby.

The spirit of Morlais appears to the hunters of Thera in the shape of the Great Stag and to some he even whispers into their ears through the rustling of the oak leaves. Only those that exhibit a true thirst for the Wild Hunt can hope to see the Great Stag or to hear his whispers. The Wild Hunt can have many meanings - both literal and metaphysical. To some, the Wild Hunt represents overcoming an obstacle. To others, the Wild Hunt is the search for the hide of the largest beast or the toughest foe. To the select few, the Wild Hunt is the way of life - constantly thirsting for the greatest challenge.

The Great Stag governs over the spheres of Seasons, Spirit, and Revelation. Those seeking to commune with Morlais must do so from a place of wilderness close to their hearts.

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Arrival to Greater Thera / Wild Hunt

Much time has passed since the adoptive father of Inethalas has died. Inethalas Riverbrook arrives to the Northern Plains in the prime of his youth. He now belongs to the Hall of Healers and the thirst for the Wild Hunt burns not only within his birthmark but within his blood as well. To satisfy the thirst, Inethalas seeks to slay the most dangerous beasts of Greater Thera to prove to Morlais that he is worthy. To proselytize his faith in the Great Stag, Inethalas desires to capture his greatest hunts on canvas and to show Thera the glory of Morlais. To this end, he seeks to join the Inn of the Eternal Star as a painter.

I don't get the idea of your Great Stag as well. What are its goals? What should its followers do? How does it manifest itself?

Why does Inethalas follow it and what should deity want from him?

Considering that's a deity you invented, you should've answered those in your role, but I don't see the answers.

No wonder staff couldn't wear its role as well :(

The feedback I got ICly from the community was overwhelmingly positive and many people "engaged" in the role/RP. Do I think my role is an RC winner? No. Do I think it provides sufficient basis for some engagement / steering / direction? I think so... frankly, I hope so.

The point that I missed - which Umiron and Dest clarified - was that custom empowerment now has a MUCH higher threshold than it ever had - and frankly it makes sense with a limited pool of people.

My point of initiating this discussion is not to complain about not getting custom empowerment - please do not read my feedback as such. My point is to encourage staff to provide some guidance in these circumstances in game... even if such guidance breaks the "fourth wall" a bit.

And many ppl stated it in the past. That getting simple "Dude you're doing it wrong" would save a lot of nerves for ppl and help them improve.

Problem is that if you're getting that "Dude you're doing it wrong" feedback, the next thing you do is either "Oh well could you please explain it in detail" or meltdown on forums. And staff members are hardly inclined to participate in either.

The point of this post is to provide constructive feedback. CF is dear to my heart. I wish to see it flourish and prosper. Please bear this in mind as you read the post below.

I don't know how to categorize myself as a player. I have been CF'ing for 20 years since 1996 (when I had a Second Age cleric named Svyaschenik - means priest in Russian - who used to play with Justin who then became an Arbiter immortal). I don't play regularly, but I produce a character or two per year and even then not regularly. I don't consider myself a vet, but I know enough about the game to hold my own in CF and I play exclusively for PVE / exploration content of the game. My notable characters are Vythigor (Provost), Artenno (Provost), a gander of Herald bards whose names I forget and a couple of High Heralds. My recent characters were Bildot and Xoog. I try to improve experience of others at the game and strive my hardest not to ruin the game for everyone. Like I said, I love CF and I want to see it do well. (My handle on QHCF is "Noone of Significance" and while I enjoy the QHCF trolling game from time to time, I try not to ruin others' fun. I likely don't always succeed in that, but I try hard nonetheless.)

I like to do new things. Not as new as Torak's gnome ranger Fortress guy but new nonetheless. Inethalas was my attempt at custom empowerment (which I achieved as Nirilas with relative ease). I had a five chapter role centered around a diety by the name of Morlais. It was NOT a greenways path. It was a custom empowerment path.

This was BEFORE the discussion which took place here (which coincidentally was started by stlucian1992):

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=63202&mesg_id=63202&page=

I knew custom empowerment was a gamble, but I always thought it was a blackjack gamble, not exactly a roulette gamble. I appreciate Destuvius and Umiron clarifying the subject on the forums and through email, but 40 played hours down the drain is not something I can afford in my 30s with busy work and family life. It's tough. And while CF offers the most wonderful niche and requires a time commitment and patience, I don't flaunt 40 hours easily on other hobbies.

***Long story short, I found my experience to be discouraging.*** I had a character with what I thought was a well-thought out role. I researched the role quite a bit and based it loosely on some Celtic roots. My character was (what I thought) was well-RPed. I interacted with 10-20 other high profile characters in the game and engaged them on "find the Great Stag" quest.

Ultimately, I'm surprised that there was no immortal interest in picking this custom empowerment in 40 hours. I don't think it would have been difficult. I don't think it would have required much time. I don't think I'm a risk for ####ty RP or a healer that does things perceived by the staff as out of control. In other words, I don't think I break the empowerment system.

This empowerment could have added a long-term character to the diminishing numbers of CF players, but alas, it didn't happen.

Although the discussion on the Gameplay forum and by email clarified the situation - low chance of success of custom empowerment, it was only by luck that this emerged. When my character was created (a week or so ago), greenways still existed and low probability of custom empowerment was not clarified. Despite the presence and hours no IC guidance was given - no tip, no acknowledgement, no role exp, no smite for excessive prayers - it was just silence. It felt apathetic from the Pantheon side, while the playerbase reacted very well and seemed very engaged in the "Great Stag" discussion.

Developments like this make it hard to recover (which I'm sure I will because CF is great despite all the set backs).

What I'm trying to say in this verbose post is that I encourage staff to give feedback to players IC even if it involves "breaking the fourth wall" a bit. It would have been helpful to know that I'm up against some bad odds earlier rather than later. The playerbase is diminishing... it's very hard to play a support character... the RP quality (in my view) is declining... I'm not worried about myself or Inethalas... but others may find this experience discouraging enough not to come back... and I think player retention should be a high priority.

With all that, thank you to the staff for continuing to run this game, to the community for continuing to engage oddballs like myself and I'll see you all in the fields. Cheers!

Xoog was one of my favorites as Sindrir and I interacted with pretty much everyone.

Your story makes me want to scrap a custom empowerment role I've been kicking around for awhile as well. Which is a shame. It seems like the staff is just really spread too thin at the moment.

I tried a few different times to wrap my head around your role and everything but I just couldn't get into it. And like our players, I have limited time and lots of things that I do with it. So forcing myself into a half-hearted interaction as a player created deity that I didn't understand was something that I didn't do.

I am not a super heavy immteraction guy and I never have been. I try to offset that by making specifically tailored interactions for each character who embarks on my religion that have potentially interesting arcs and such. The problem I run into with most custom things is that the deity that is presented/the religion that is designed/the things the player is looking for are not things that I feel like I can do much with.

A follow up question for you: If you were having such a great time with your character and your made up religion and other players were enjoying it so much, why delete?

How hard is it to really empower someone? You have an offline empowerment option which I've had used on me most of the time I've even played an empowerment character. My whole point before with the greenways is that it's very simple for you to see when someone is doing something wrong and remove the empowerment. Easy to see if they are exuding roleplay to give the empowerment.

If you offer offline empowerment than that means you have conceded the fact you don't need the 'interaction'. Rather you have come to understand they have met the more advance ability to create life to a diety/religion that can fit within the scheme of the sphere chosen in CF. Your choice to thicken their diety plot then becomes a choice that the player will understand they will never get immteraction through as they have chosen the greenway/standard religion route.

You are trying really hard to make this hard? You all are allowing custom races to certain classes which is far far more advanced concept than empowerment in the terms of unique. But now seems more common than a greenway/custom empowerment..........

>
>
>How hard is it to really empower someone? You have an offline
>empowerment option which I've had used on me most of the time
>I've even played an empowerment character. My whole point
>before with the greenways is that it's very simple for you to
>see when someone is doing something wrong and remove the
>empowerment. Easy to see if they are exuding roleplay to give
>the empowerment.

One of the reason we don't treat empowerment as an "easy in, easy out" proposition is one of the very reasons we discourage custom empowerment, and that is because people get upset when it blows up in their face. We would much rather have people earn their empowerment because it means they are substantially more likely to RP well and remain empowered.

>If you offer offline empowerment than that means you have
>conceded the fact you don't need the 'interaction'. Rather you
>have come to understand they have met the more advance ability
>to create life to a diety/religion that can fit within the
>scheme of the sphere chosen in CF. Your choice to thicken
>their diety plot then becomes a choice that the player will
>understand they will never get immteraction through as they
>have chosen the greenway/standard religion route.

Sufficiently high level immortals can empower offline, but most cannot. This is very uncommon (I realize it's happened for you before) and not something I encourage other immortals to do because you're on the right track that it more often than not defeats the point.

>You are trying really hard to make this hard? You all are
>allowing custom races to certain classes which is far far more
>advanced concept than empowerment in the terms of unique. But
>now seems more common than a greenway/custom
>empowerment..........
>

I'm not sure I following your reasoning. Allowing someone to play a custom race/class combo requires almost no effort on our part, and largely boils down to a 30 second thought exercise as to whether the build is fair or not. Greenways/Creeds, and to an even larger extent, custom empowerment, require considerably more work (read: time investment) on our part. If you don't understand why yet, there are a number of forum posts both recent and ancient that clearly explain.

Interestingly enough, the primary reason for deletion was the discussion initiated on the Gameplay forums about Greenways/Creed. The discussion clarified two things for me - one, I went about the custom empowerment the wrong way - I should have gotten an imm sponsor who could have reviewed the role and given me feedback on whether they would be willing to engage... two, there was a link established (not an accurate one) between stlucian1992 forum handle and Inethalas (who many players knew was seeking custom empowerment through IC interactions).

On the first point above, I wish I knew that before 40 hours played.

Another reason for deletion is that while I certainly enjoyed the character, I am not brave enough to play a shifter without forms or a transmuter without spells. With a declining playerbase, a support character without the support toolkit is tough.

Again, my desire is to share my experience with this. I'm not throwing in the hat, I'm not rage-quitting CF and I have the UTMOST respect for the staff.

Edit:

***

One thing to add: I was not looking for an imm to immerse himself or herself in my religion... and maybe now that's the standard/threshold - what I was looking for was - "OK, this is kind of interesting, I'll throw this guy a bone and see where he takes it..." 10 minute immteraction session would have clarified things... even if it was not positive - the Great Stag could have smited Inethalas (and maybe given some guidance). Again, this is simply to explain my expectations - you and Umiron have clarified the new philosophy on custom empowerments and deletion of Greenways.

And that's the part that kills me knowing you guys the (newer crop) of IMMS are not RP imminteraction focused why not figure out a means of empowerment like pagan greenway that works and requires less from you guys. At least with pagan you guys had the ability to just empower and not follow The interaction unlike custom IMM could be picked up randomly by anyone for that session opposed to you feeling like you have to follow the character throughout.

Also with the loss of IMM's should paths be relooked at since a good portion of them are now covered by people that favor one ethos/align or the IMM for them is gone all together. As of late you see more pain/anarchy/vengeance because those are wildly covered. Thanks again and thanks yesterday for your insight. These are just questions jabs or an end all be all

Yes, in theory anyone could have picked up this char or any other custom empowerment or greenways empowerment.

The reality is that no one from the staff has been doing anything with it. Im getting tired of having to tell you the exact same thing in different ways in different threads because you don't want to accept the truth of what is happening.

Also stop acting like you are super hurt about rp opportunities being missed with a slimmer pantheon, then asking for rp to be thrown out the window so that you can have the specific path pairing you want for a shaman even when it doesnt fit in terms of rp. Pick one soapbox and stay on it instead of trying to use both. It will make your points more valid.

Same soapbox.

Don't start getting upset just because he doesn't put "utmost respect and I love you all!" at the end of every post.

It's a discussion regarding empowerment. Shaman paths are an aspect of empowerment, nothing ridiculous about bringing it up at the same time as just another point in favor of his ideas. Heck, his character wasn't even a shaman so it's not like you can view it as whining about not being able to pick paths.

Don't make me revoke your forum discussion privileges.

Regards,
Tsunami, Customer Service Relations Support Grandmaster Management Team of One

PS: I'm not in favor or against any ideas posited. I'm just doing my job as the resident relations manager.

I assume your heroimm application was lost in transit. Please resubmit at your earliest convenience so that halflings can become a reality and you can officially wear a customer service hat.

"Utmost respect and I love you all."

Ps: please dont revoke whatever it is you can, I'd be devestated losing it.

Edit for spelling fixes cause I cant work a phone correctly

Please stop derailing stlucian's death thread. It's unbecoming of an immortal, especially one supposedly committed to Order. This will be my last post on his thread, but feel free to take up the matter on the Gameplay forum.

Regards,
Tsunami, Supreme Customer Support Representative of Carrion Fields, LLC.

PS: Let's stop the Halfling nonsense and admit that you just want me to submit an app so you can tell me "no."

PPS: Halfling 4 life

It's mine.

>PS: Let's stop the Halfling nonsense and admit that you just
>want me to submit an app so you can tell me "no."


If this EVER happens PLZ PLZ PLZ PLZ, imms post a log of it.

It would make my millennium. LOL

-Jae

Thanks for the behind the keyboard "sassyness" does wonders for the fleeting PB. Thanks for answering my question though. And apologies Noobagain it was not my wish to hijack your death thread.

As the IMM crowd gets more and more thin it seems like lately the non-essential/non-interests are being trimmed to retain the interest of the current group in charge. If they have to spend their time doing custom empowerments and not having fun they'll probably do IMM things in general less.

Probably if you had emailed your role first and asked if someone was interested it'd have worked out better.

40 hours is nothing. I get excited when I've had a role read/rated within 40 hours..except that anytime I write a really really good role contest winning role it gets skimmed and I get less role exp than I would have for bullets.

The playerbase is aging. I've a family, a job, other things - as do many other people here. Until I retire (AND CF BETTER BE AROUND THEN :D), 40 hours will continue to be a lot of time. And considering other gaming options, I don't think we can flaunt "it's just 40 hours" left and right - this may be causing some of the slow down and disengagement. We (as a community - I'm not putting this on the staff alone) should find a solution. I'll be back after this experience - I learned from it - got good feedback, etc. Others, however, may not be. +/- 1 or 2 players online these days makes a very big difference.

>The playerbase is aging. I've a family, a job, other things
>- as do many other people here. Until I retire (AND CF BETTER
>BE AROUND THEN :D), 40 hours will continue to be a lot of
>time. And considering other gaming options, I don't think we
>can flaunt "it's just 40 hours" left and right - this may be
>causing some of the slow down and disengagement. We (as a
>community - I'm not putting this on the staff alone) should
>find a solution. I'll be back after this experience - I
>learned from it - got good feedback, etc. Others, however,
>may not be. +/- 1 or 2 players online these days makes a very
>big difference.

I agree that 40 hours of gameplay is not a trivial investment for many players, myself included. That's precisely why we discourage custom empowerment, for example.

It's also why I groan every time I see someone rage delete over a single death (or whatever) in the low/mid ranks and then proceed to repeat the previous X hours of character development all over again with a new character.

When else would players roll characters to grief the people that killed them? Evil sphere greed thief/assassin, or duergar to kill evil sphere greed thief/assassin are some of my favorites. They give the PB a universal figure to hate.

But most of them probably aren't rage deletes, they're inevitabilities of a player bored with their char who couldn't bring themselves to delete otherwise. I always tend to rage delete when I realize I'd rather just quit out instead of walking 12 rooms back to my corpse. And then it's actually a relief, and you get to look forward to something that's not stale.

Or in lower ranks, it's the result of things not working out like they would hope. Sometimes there's a reason people aren't continuously rolling up gnome mariner animists, unless you're Matrik who has probably played six of them by now.

Little things can have a long term impact on a character, and most players have been around so long they know when they screw up or how the build will play out, and don't want to undergo the 100 hours of futility that hero range brings with the screw up in place.

Of course, if you reroll the exact same character just because you died, that's just stupid. 95% of people never play to con loss, so a death in itself should not matter.

I don't understand deleting and rerolling the same char because of a PK, but I'm not going to judge as long as they're playing.

There are as many reasons people play and pick the characters they do as there are players.