Sun Dec 19 13:02:41 2010

At 1 o'clock AM, Day of the Moon, 35th of the Month of Nature
on the Theran calendar Yitzua perished, never to return.

Race:	elf
Class:	invoker
Level:	51
Alignment:	Good
Ethos:	Orderly
Cabal:	FORTRESS, the Fortress of Light
Age:	417
Hours:	167

I liked what I saw, generally speaking, but that last episode at the Palace sort of ticked me off.

My plan was to wait for folks to clear out, phase past the centurions, prep up and juice my servitors, then try to take down the Vanquisher before the cavalry arrived.

As I'm walking to the palace I'm like, "Huh, no centurions; that's weird." Then I get there and see you fighting the Vanquisher and she's already half-dead. I know that since you had to get past centurions first the cavalry is probably very close to arriving...and yet the Vanquisher is also half-dead. So what do I do? Bail or stay and try to finish? Decided to stay; paid for it.

What annoyed me was that if you'd just told me you were going to attack then we could have gone in together and very likely been successful. When I brought this up your response was something like, "I do stuff on the spur of the moment." At the time I took this as code for "I'm chaotic; get off my back." IMHO that vision of chaotic behavior conflicts with proper Squire behavior. So much so that I might have booted you if I'd been a Fort imm watching that go down. It's not bad "good-aligned" role-play or bad "chaotic ethos" role-play but it's behavior that really damages your ability to act like (what I think) a Squire should act like. Namely, being willing to work with other Squires/Maran towards a shared goal. In this case, the retrieval of the orb.

As it turns out, though, you weren't even chaotic. So I'm not sure what you were thinking. :)

And I doubt it's RP, but rather the inability to PK as a team. (I'd go as far as saying that 90% of CF has this problem.)

There are a lot of GREAT solo-PKers, but not that many group-PKers. Sure, ganging is easy and most can do it. But group vs group PK, not that many can handle all the spam you need to interpret real fast.

It's the aspect I love the most with CF, the group battles. (I'm not that good with it though.)

Still, I always see A LOT of really hilarious PKing behaviour from fortress, which is hilarious as I've mostly played evils as of late. (Not so much fun when you're of the fort yourself.)

I agree that CF is a very solo pk style. It's hard for your to get group on group fights. From the years of playing on and off. I see little reward for leading and coordinating a group to attack and defend. It's always "Awesome job going 1-on-3" or "he's got cajones for that solo act".

You rarely see it anything rewarded like, "Gathered the squires together to make a coordinated assault that cleaned out the imperials, and retrieved their items *kudos*" It's all about doing things to get the individual their 15 seconds of fame.

This do everything solo is also shown in the PBFs if you're in a group who landed kills you get called a gank squad.

What's to be done? Change the mindset? Turn autoassist off? Maybe if you're in a group, say "I can take him alone, but watch my back incase his friends show up."

Just food for thought...

> Denawe: Yitzua, call me next time. Had we coordinated >that it would have succeeded.

><16hp|3%hp 102m|9%m 691mv|100%mv 27100tnl (-23.18%) <PROTECTED> ><indoor> 7 AM
> Kalcova: Bah, dead.

><16hp|3%hp 102m|9%m 691mv|100%mv 27100tnl (-23.18%) <PROTECTED> ><indoor> 7 AM cb I'm not much or a coordinator.
> Yitzua: I'm not much or a coordinator.

*** Edit that was a copy/paste of the real typo that was supposed to be "of" not "or" ***

That was the exact dialog. It was not meant to be aloof. What I meant by it was that Yitzua does things on her own much of the time. It’s how I styled her. Also I did not attack any centurions to alert them to my presence. I performed a tactic that didn’t require any fighting to get to the vanquisher. So they were not alerted to my presence until I attack the vanquisher.

As far as your plan to fight the vanquisher, you didn’t coordinate that with anyone either. We were two solo acts that were reaching for the same goal. I just arrived there sooner. I didn’t wish for you two die. As a matter of fact I had no idea you were coming until you showed up.

Yitzua was never chaotic. She, that is me, always had a plan. I didn’t share it with anyone from time to time, surprise sometimes paid off sometimes it didn’t. I was OG fairly well down to the letter.

As a squire, I made my attempts to fight off evil. If anything the Maran(s) should have been gathering the squires and coordinating them to something. They are the higher ranking and should be taking charge.

To say that I did not work with other squires/Marans is simply wrong I have retrieved/raided many times, and defended many times with Marans and squires. Did I gather them up together and lead them? No, it wasn’t Yitzua’s role nor was it her ranked responsibility as a Squire. If that is what the fortress wanted out of me they should have promoted me. Until then I ran and attacked evil as I could and saw fit under the tenants of a squire. If I was not seen fit to be promoted maybe I should have been mentored to be a better Maran.

I didn’t have very in depth conversations with you, but I liked that you were an aggressive mage that had no qualms jumping into a fight. I helped you level a bit, but that was all about all. Keep up the good work and step up as a leader. Squires need to be led by Marans just as Marans need to be led by a Marshall/Captain.

>What I meant by it was that Yitzua does things on her own much
>of the time. It’s how I styled her.

And I'm cool with that, except in extreme situations like the orb being out of the Fortress. One character's preference for working alone is trumped by the need to retrieve the orb.

>As far as your plan to fight the vanquisher, you didn’t
>coordinate that with anyone either.

That's because I assumed (incorrectly) that I was the only one with the ability to bypass centurions. Also, when I found you there, I was on a scouting trip to see if the palace was empty. Had I known you could slip past centurions too then I would probably have asked you to lay low nearby, gone in to scout, then, if the palace was empty, called for you to come join me so we could attack together.

A nugget for my next. :)

Imm comments were about me role, Cool.

Was there any feedback on anything from the eyes in the sky?

Good bad or ugly, I always look for ways to improve.

-Meo

I generally liked you, but I didn't get too much of a chance to watch you. Often it seemed, when I would see you on there would be a lot of other Fort people online at the same time, which can make it hard for someone to stand out in my mind.

I liked what seemed to be your go-it-alone approach and that you were able to do it without being a jerk about it.

Between 2-5am there was next to nil with fortress (or anyone for that matter). Haha.

With some of the other discussions I am curious to find this out. Other than a High PK ratio, how does one get promoted as a maran? If you were to exhibit superior leadership qualities (not say gunning for captain/marshall). Would you premote someone who can't seal solo kills, but can get this groups together to raid/retrieve/defend well?

Time in service doesn't seem to be a deciding factor. :)

Having a notable Maran's I learned a bit getting them there.

1) Learned from Miyo - Play as if everyone is watching every minute. Patterns are set when they watch you one time. But it can be overcome. Check Miyo's PBF. I think I got Maran in the early 100's there.

2) Maran is as much about RP as it is about PK. If not more so. Ralek was Maran at ~80 hours with maybe 8 PK. But I was RPing the crap out of him. I deleted because he was frail as crud and I suck, story of my life.

3) Listen when the Imms or Maran tell you something that needs to be done. I remember with Kourin, specifically having a chat with Baer about the empty captain position as a squire. She gave me the "You need to balance the duties of the squire(Interviewing raiding retrieving) with the war against evil." chat and I immediately went out, interviewed an applicant, said to them something way cool at the end like, "You've got my recommendation, now I have to go kill a shadow." Immediatly lucked into finding Kyrilos ranking on storm giants, whacked him, and as soon as the KB came in, I got Maran.

It happens at it's own pace a lot, but doing something either PK wise or RP wise to set yourself appart is what's needed. Both ways is better.

Great first two points. but I recall an event specifically when Adekar Vis'd to basically chew me out for attacking neutrals as a squire, and generally appearing like I wasn't paying attention. I took note of it, and was extra careful for the next 30-40 hours I think? Next time I spoke with Adekar he acknowledged I had improved in that area and allowed me to get into the intricacies of squire/maran/fort/thera talk which was fantastic.

Heh, neither Baer nor I are awake from 2-5am game time. Well, if I'm awake on CF, I'm probably drunk and not interacting as an imm. :)

For myself, I don't care about pk ratio. Generally, the threshold I look for to begin considering someone for Maranation is having ~10 evil pks (modding it a little for the difficulty of the class/situations, not all of them pre-Squiredom), 50+ hours as a Squire, and not being a douchebag/bad roleplayer.

You can be 10 wins and 60 losses and I'll Maranate you. If you're trying hard and just can't get the kills, it's going to take a bit longer to become Maran from me.

Of course, if you pull of an awesome pk or exhibit some exemplary un-imm-prompted roleplay and you don't have the hours/kills yet I might promote you ahead of time.

So...finally answering your question...I'm surprised you didn't get more kills, but yes, I would have eventually promoted you if you were diligent in cabal duties and still trying to get your kills rather than doing gear runs with other Fort people every opportunity you got (to give an example of other characters in similar situations I haven't promoted.)

I liked Yitzua overall. It did make me sad seeing you run in to 3-4 imperials alone when they had the orb. While I appreciate the balls to the wall style, it hurt seeing you eat all those deaths sometimes.

Nae-nae

I really wanted yitzua to be the type that showed the world that you shouldn't be afraid of evil and you should fight them no matter what. I still enjoyed it all though, even the deaths.

I really liked playing Yitzua, but she was my return to the fields character and though I learned much from her, I made some choices (solipsisitic shields) that made it so my game knowledge was more important than what I was prepared for.

I wanted to be very solo pk with this character. My kills I had were solo. I really enjoyed getting in there and mixing it up, even I was solo. I pulled some counter raids out of my ass, and other times I was put on my ass.

I hope that I was able to impart some of Yitzua's thoughts and mindsets as I played with each of you.

I loved interacting with everyone. I once had an imm comment that said it was not apropo for an elf to carry on a conversation with an evil character. So if it seemed harsh or curt the way I delt with conversations from Imperials (I can think of three; Jez, Fao, Cawr) I really would like have liked to have interacted more than just bringing the thunder and lightining (haha).

I'm not really much for words, but if you have anything you would like to say about yitzua, my play style, or roleplaying, please comment and I'll respond. If you don't want to post it here you can e-mail me at nathanieljeffries@hotmail.com.

Thanks for all the fun as always guys.

Nate/Meoilaxenz/Perpetual_Noob

n/t

I was kinda fond of Yitzua, Truhukk decided it was a challenge to
try to prove to you that I wasn't what you thought. :) Hope I
pulled that off.

As you read in my 9th role chapter, you were a struggle not to kill. I wanted you to pull off your role of becoming good. The Player was in your court. Yitzua on the other hand wanted nothing to do with you until you were cleansed. You really pushed how far I was going to go. As Yitzua if you had come to me again before you were at least neutral I would have killed you. Which as a player annoyed the crap out of me. I really was saying to myself "Stay away already!" Though I'm sure the imms would have been more please with my squire PK ratio with you being a positive kill for me. I really felt your struggle though and how hard it was to deal with all the beat downs.

Aww really? That sucks, do what you gotta do though.