This is mostly to newbies, but we are all newbies at sometime. Aside from grinding out levels, what are some of the major frustrations in the lowbie ranks?

Also, here is a rhetorical question: Why do dwarves in CF speak like Scottish pirates?


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I recall that there was this char who got bashing reviews from Imms as someone who did things all wrong in the death thread. Yet, the char, judging from PBF, was getting sweet Imm xp regularly, while my chars often get no little to no Imm xp. Hence I'm not fond of edges either, as they power up people who get the Immlove, which I feel is distributed somewhat unevenly and favouring people with American hours and attention whores who go regularly praying. The source of frustration is everyone else seemingly getting Immlove and me being left without as I don't go whoring for it.

Also, I'm not very fond of good PKers getting quest skills that make them overpowered as opponents (example: Dulmisa and #### dodge power that made him nearly impossible to fight against as invoker). Nerf rewards from role contests to the level they are somewhat cool, but don't buff up a powerful char's PK ability. No more overpowered rewards, I say. For example, you could pick multiple good enough winners and give lastnames or something of that level of acknowledgement instead of overpowered #### power to one dude.

I have a few thoughts related to this. Will post them when I can.

Personally, I kinda like these. I mean, yeah, Dulmisa becomes insane, or that AP/Lich even nastier, or I might swear about how overpowered that super-defiance-paladin is, but most of the time they're not getting it BECAUSE they're some super-pker, they're getting it because they're around forever, they've proven themselves to be cool, and the PK just came along with it.

Hence, I doubt it's really a make-or-break thing, and I'm probably going to get whooped by said character anyways, so it only increases my bragging if I manage to kill said person ;)

You can be an immteraction exp whore all you want to be. Not everyone is going to get what they want unless their actions dictate it.

Believe it or not, most of the people who get the really good stuff, don't do anything whoreish at all. They just play.

WHen a player is rewarded a unique piece of equipment and upon death it is Rot-Death, or looted and never seen again.

I would like to see rewards of unique pieces of equipment that like leader weapons return to their owner. If you please some god or win a quest whatever, these little perks become part of what makes your char unique.

Hell through some progs in as well. Minor special effects and uniqueness win out everyday.

Unless you would still perfer a wide copper bracelet.

BLah.

And I feel partially responsible for the Dwarf thing, sorry. It is not pirate...it is Dundonian (ppl from Dundee, Scotland).

-----Abernyte

Every once in a while, I write something that is readable by another human being without vomitting. More often, it's a waste of my and the person who has to read it's time to even try. I won a role contest with Nefla for a line itemish role, but that was because I played it as well. Characters who are level 20 and win role contests because they're english major's who finally found a use for their degree sucks. It would be nearly impossible to have a role contest of reading the role and they seeing if the person is really playing it as well (moreso than what goes on normally as a patron/random imm watches/reads over the course of a character) but I really wish the role contests were more like that, and less like, "Who can write the least vomit inducing story?"

>It would be
>nearly impossible to have a role contest of reading the role
>and they seeing if the person is really playing it as well
>(moreso than what goes on normally as a patron/random imm
>watches/reads over the course of a character) but I really
>wish the role contests were more like that, and less like,
>"Who can write the least vomit inducing story?"

This is something I really try to build into the contests I judge.

That being said, some of the contests are judged by newer imms that don't have access to all the resources that I do for checking up on these things.

Also: Consider that quality RP actually in the game does tend to also reap its own rewards.

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I would just like to note, that I didn't knock off points for things like grammar, poor sentence structure etc. etc. I also didn't do how the character is role played. A lot of our players to not speak/write English as a first language, and I think it's pretty unfair to judge on perfect English for that reason.

I looked for things like: what does the role tell me about the player, do the chapters move the character concept along (rather than uneeded fluff), does this role foster roleplaying (a role of I'm going to kill everyone doesn't appeal to me) and is this an interesting/unique concept. Some humor didn't hurt either. There's a lot of people that can write a role with near perfect English, and still manage to tell me nothing about the character.

All that being said, role contests are totally subjective. Everyone has their own set of standards.

I think I have done one role contest. And most of the time, and I mean nearly all of the roles I read, I was thinking to myself what you are basically stating. This guy has written a nice role, but, it sure isn't this character.

On the flip side, I give out a lot of goodies to folks for their ic actions. If I see a character getting glowing reviews from several imms, I will watch them for one of their moments and reward it. If I see a guy who is getting the bleh reviews from several imms, I watch them to see if there is a pattern. If there is, I bash them a bit. Every imm that is 53+ can rp, enforce rules, do quests, etc. to their hearts desire as they wish. It just so happens that it is my listed job as an admin 58+ imm to make sure it is getting done. So, there are going to be some instances where it is liked and some where it is hated. It just is what it is.

Valg and I were talking about running a role contest where we just bash the crap out of the liars and add our opinions on each for the PBFs. How would you guys like that? I think we would have some really funny histories.

Apparently dwarves come from a *special* Scotland where they practice speaking in some mutated form of whatever it is they try to speak to sound Scottish.

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Eshval's slightly off-center (unofficial) blog.
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But frankly, people would just think I'm ESL. That's pretty much what everyone thinks of weegies anyway.

Ahm poor gyna fekin stahb ye! Geas me bucky!

See what I mean?

Even the time Graham and I randomly teamed up with dwarves IC didn't break SDS* boundaries. I fear someday someone might go to the trouble of writing a script that processes language and takes it to a new tier of incomprehensibility.

*Scottish Dwarf Syndrome.

Yhorian

Whoops, what was meant to be a bit of a joke has backfired badly.
Was commenting on the dwarf thing, and I can confirm as a Dundonian that well, they do mostly seem to come from this neck of the woods.

I bet you can see the dwarves frolicking there all the time. ;D

~

Thats not dwarves, that kids....though you some of the girls do have some rather impressive beards ;-)

The responses at this point are wonderful!

Your concerns and suggestions are thought provoking as well as creating ideas, and hopefully, solutions. I will not degrade your posts by nitpicking, rather I approve of the concerns and ideas (maybe some more solutions would be helpful?). I am hopeful that the adult imms are taking time to look through these. I will address those that I can with the thought that we (you, I, us) may find a good common ground.

Thanks

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I'm currently playing my first character here (though I'm not new to mudding - am an imm on another mud of comparable age and size), so I thought I'd add my two cents.

One major thing I found really frustrating, particularly at low levels though still occasionally now, was the combination of losing con every 3 deaths (as a newbie, I need every hit point and all the regen I can get!), and getting hammered into the ground in two seconds flat by that person who appeared out of nowhere. I can live with a gradual drain of con if basic common sense can help me avoid death, it's not a bad idea in itself. I can also live with (and in fact enjoy, on my 'home' mud) seriously intense pk leading to frequent and swift death until you know what you're doing. But the combination, which means that a newbie will lose a lot of con very early on, is a tricky one and - since my death rate is still well above average for my rank and cabal! - still concerns me a bit, given that I have a role and character I am really enjoying. (I realise con death is a fairly rare phenomenon, but since I *do* enjoy the role, I have no intention of deleting the character and would really like it to go on as long as possible).

It's worth noting that while you do get random newbies who are passing through, you also will get a fair proportion of newbies from a roleplaying background who will deliberately put a lot of effort into their first character, use a role they love, etc. There's also a distinct tendency for the first character you get really involved in to have a special place in your affections. That does make it a bit discouraging for those newbies if you also then have a system that virtually guarantees your first character won't last as long in terms of hours played! (This may be especially true since not all newbies will trawl through the forums enough to know that con death is rarely an issue, so they're likely to worry more. I have characters on my other mud that I've played steadily for over five years, and that's common elsewhere - the idea of automatically losing this char to con death after a few months really wasn't that attractive!)

Please note, I'm not suggesting getting rid of the system; after more playtime and more forum-reading I actually like the idea of age and con death (also, newbies should never suggest sweeping changes before they've been playing two months :P). I'm just wondering if something to soften the impact of enormously frequent death on newbie characters' con could be done. Could the con loss maybe start, or be reset, at level 25/30, or at their first PK kill, if the person says yes they're a new player? I'm not sure what would fit well with the game mechanics, and of course you'd then have to sidestep throwaway newbies and explore-without-con-loss lowbies, but anyhow, something along those lines would be nice.


Another thing that's still driving me slightly nuts is the whole finding gear issue. I currently have a character build that's not very gear-dependent and very kind friends who keep giving me things (luckily for me). I'm a bit concerned though that if or when I eventually find myself playing something else - especially as it will likely be a different race/alignment - I will have no clue where to find anything useful or even WHAT is useful. I tried the 'outfit' command once after dying and it gave me some food and a water skin, which was useful as far as it went, but equipment-wise didn't help at all. I hear rumours that it's supposed to, so perhaps I was just doing something wrong....this is not unusual for newbies (and if I don't get it, maybe others don't either)!

Granted a lot of this comes with experience and I'm totally willing to learn, but it's also not that helpful that when a newbie gets smacked in two rounds and full looted, they may well have no way at all to get back on their feet. Same actually goes for my now-high rank character when she gets smacked (frequent occurrence) and looted; I refuse to go around begging for handouts or bugging my cabal-mates to help me, but having a 40+ character wandering around in blue vests from the always-dead Galadon guards is, well, not that useful. Even if she were more of a combat class, I wouldn't have the first idea where to start looking for sensible replacements or what might be reasonable equipment to try to find.

This would be quite a project, but if it were possible to have either a helpfile or a generic mob that gave clues (note: not a list, but clues) and suggestions based roughly on level/class and alignment for where a character could look for a basic usable kit, I know I would definitely appreciate it. If my guess is right and I'm not really understanding the 'outfit' function, possibly the healers at the various altars could send tells to characters under level 10(15,20,whatever) when they appear after death (or an echo when they regain their material self?), explaining exactly how it does work? I read the helpfile and thought I followed it, but maybe not.


And now that I've complained for several long paragraphs, can I just say that you do have a very fun game here, and I'm definitely enjoying it. Please don't take this all as global criticism, because a lot more is done right than wrong :)

(Edited for minor error)

In regards to gear:

This might be of no use but I thought I would throw it out there anway.

1. If someone is nice enough to give you gear, ask IC if they could tell you where it came from, or better yet, show you so you can get it yourself next time.

2. If possible make friends with someone IC of the same class that seems to be more experienced then yourself. Find a way IC to ask for advice about where to get gear or what might be more useful for you. This can be done without it appearing like begging.

3. If someone asks for your help to get something, go along, write down what they are getting and from where, this can help with future characters if not the current one.

4. Keep a listing of gear including location. If you cannot identify gear yourself, there is a mob in the Inn that can do it for you at a price.

5. Spend sometime building a basic regear set. Regearing is part of CF so it is a good idea to build a basic set of stuff you can get as a ghost so when you die and find yourself looted you know exactly where you are going to go to a piece of gear for whatever slot you are missing. As you get more experience and learn more gear this list will change. I will note I haven't played for awhile and am not sure how well the outfit command works, I thought it was reworked to be better recently.

6. Work at learning the different areas, spend time exploring even low level areas to see what mobs have what gear.

Hope something in there was helpful.

Oh, yes - I'm certainly working on doing all that as I have time and opportunity, and thank you for suggesting those things. My post was more in answer to Eshval's asking what was frustrating about being a newbie...of course the solution is time and effort, if you survive the first few hours ;)

>...and getting hammered into
>the ground in two seconds flat by that person who appeared out
>of nowhere.

I'm not sure if this is the right way to go about it, but I learned how to "not die very often" before I learned to actually kill people. Consequently I'm still not all that great at the latter. But, it makes the game a little more enjoyable when you're not a ghost every time. One of the cardinal rules to follow in order to not die very often is, "If someone surprises you, get the hell out." Two corollaries to that being, "Don't let yourself be surprised," and, "Don't do anything that would prevent you from getting the hell out if/when you get surprised, such as stacking commands."

Oh, also, there are some edges that help with regen if your CON gets low. Basically they base your regen off something other than CON.

>Another thing that's still driving me slightly nuts is the
>whole finding gear issue.

This used to bug the hell out of me too, when I started playing. Not so much that I didn't have the gear, but that I didn't even know what gear I should want to have. My suggestions are these:

1. Play a character with identify object. Failing that, perfect lore. Identify everything you can and log it all.

2. Make a point of looking at other characters. Especially heros, or people who seem competant. If they have something you don't recognize, and if it makes sense from a role-play perspective, ask to see the items you don't recognize. Identify them and log it. Then ask the person where they come from. Note: this is easier to pull off if you're a good-aligned character, since people are more likely to trust you not to run off w/ their gear.

4. Familiarize yourself with the items in the Dio's list, but bear in mind that lots of them no longer exist and some of the existing ones are now inaccurate. Most of the inaccuracies have to do with weight.

>And now that I've complained for several long paragraphs, can
>I just say that you do have a very fun game here, and I'm
>definitely enjoying it. Please don't take this all as global
>criticism, because a lot more is done right than wrong :)

Welcome to CF. Don't let the constant dying get to you. Trust me, everybody dies a lot when they first start. Everybody.

There's ranking and quests at low levels, but it seems like nothing really hooks into Carrion Fields social politics until level 15 or so.

It would be cool if low-level characters made for worthwhile pages with broad access to information and people. The 'tell' system generally makes low-level messengers worthless, though. Maybe if you gave low-level characters the ability to Gate until level 10 (just like Word of Recall)...

I was considering writing something along these lines on your blog, but here goes anyhow--

1. The logic behind needing to leave an area for mobs to respawn/respawn faster astounds me. I understand that having aggro/assisting mobs respawn behind you could suck, but I feel it would add a bit to the excitement, but also reduce the horribly annoying downtime, as well as increase immersion.

now-
"Well guys, the entire keep is clear, lets go sit outside the front door waiting for everything to re materialize."

then-
"The bastards called in reinforcements, we'll have to fight our way back out to get any break in the slaughter."

etc etc. It would make leveling slightly more exciting and dangerous, rather than feeling like we're shooting cans and having to stop every few minutes to put them back on the shelf to do it again.

The bottom line is one of the most annoying things about leveling up in any game is having to wait for mob respawns. This would increase leveling speed, increase immersion, increase excitement, and increase risk.

2. Continuing with immersion...and I am sure this is nit picking, but why in the hell are orphans in Balator around the same strength/stronger than elder elves, and much stronger than war trained sentries etc there? When I first saw this I felt it was almost the same thing as putting lvl 1 liches in the academy for you to knock over.

3. Quest giving and npc alignment in general. How is it that you know what alignment npcs are, and they know what alignment you are? I understand it would lead to tons of confusion if you couldnt discern if mobs were good or evil, so I get it, but npcs know what alignment you are, when other players dont, unless you have a tell-tale race or class. There are some hints, you have a giant frog demon following you. Slight hint you're evil. But if I am just a human invoker, unless the npc notices I havent wiped off all the blood from the baby I just ate, there shouldnt be an indication I am evil. The exception to this being mobs with the ability to discern auras.

The whole point of this is that goody npcs should be offering evils quests, and vice versa unless there is a clear indication they are good/evil or they can discern auras. This would be a huge boost in not only ability to quest, but to RP. Lets say my role is that I am an evil human invoker because I am willing to do anything to increase my power, and the dark arts intrigue me etc. There is really nothing stopping that guy from rescuing the goodly farmer's daughter from the mean orc in the cave, especially since it would increase his fame/he gets to take advantage of the daughter etc etc etc. As well, why wouldnt the evil duergar offer a quest to the goodie invoker to go slaughter the princess? This would give the invoker the opportunity to say "how dare you, I would never harm the innocent for you!" etc etc.

What I am trying to say is that unless you just got finished slaughtering all the dwarf's brethren, theres no reason he shouldn't be asking you for help to save the princess unless you look like you mean to eat her afterwards.

4. I still have no idea how lvl 5s are walking around in hero sets. I can understand someone walking into a room with a freshly butchered hero corpse so everything is on the ground, or someone handing stuff over to randomly be nice, but I see it extremely often. I would really really like to see level restrictions on items. This would remedy one of the problems with just hitting lvl 11 and that orc one shots you with his 40 damroll set. It would also curb hero looting by lvl 11s.

5. I dont understand why grouping gives more exp than soloing. I have played a lot of games with a level grind, but it has always worked in exactly the opposite way. I am a warrior, I fight a mob solo, I take the hits, I bring him down slowly, using all the moves I have/want to, I get 100 EXPERIENCE for slaying this foe. I fight the same mob with a group of 2 friends. Paladin takes the hits, and Invoker shoots fireballs to take him down, I do not even strike the mob, hell, I can be asleep in the same room, and I get 200 EXPERIENCE for it. The logic eludes me. Also, why do I get no experience if I flee right before the mob dies? Did fleeing suddenly make me forget everything about the fight? I understand you wouldnt want it to be
XYZ's claw EVISCERATES you!
You gain 3 experience!
But to forget everything because you flee makes zero sense.

I will try to think of more later.

A very large part of CF is about interaction.
While much of this is and should be player driven,
the game itself is designed to encourage interaction, whether
through conflict or cooperation.

You have the xp bonus to groups in order to encourage grouping,
i.e. making people interact.

It is not about logic, it is about making more situations where
the players are likely to interact.

Tough mobs are there to provide a challenge, but also to provide
incentives for people to cooperate.

Object numbers are limited so as to promote strife over the objects in question, etc.

While much of CF can be enjoyed solo (beautiful well designed areas),
the heart of it is interaction between players, often conflict driven.

n/t

That God damned Xylophone quest

*bleh*

Eshval's email (I actually read my emails and answer them!)
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Eshval's slightly off-center (unofficial) blog.
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Moves.
Really annoying.

I don't mind running out of moves. What I don't like is running out of moves in the middle of nowhere and then feeling as if my character has been paralyzed with exhaustion. It's neither realistic nor fun.

It would be nice if, upon running out of moves, our characters were restricted to their current area, instead of their current room. All peaceful time spent awake in the area would be the same as rest or sit, even if our characters are exploring.

Even better, make it so that you simply can't run out of moves unless your adrenaline is pumping. Allow characters to eschew unimportant travel time and get to real challenges or conflicts that much faster.

Can you can explain the logic behind why my feet wear out more at low level (when I am young and full of energy) than when I am old and venerable? Realistically, moves should decrease when I get older, perhaps that is taken in when the stats change. I have never looked.


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I reckon it's supposed to be less a matter of increased energy with age and more one of increased skill with adventuring experience. But really, it's just one more kind of instrumental reward to keep people interested in their current characters. You might as well as why characters are getting healthier the older they get. :)

You put a team of all-state highschool track stars and a SEAL team in a mountainous jungle. Give both teams a map and a compass and a destination 2 miles away. I guarantee the SEAL team will not only get to the destination faster but with less wear and tear.

I look at most cf characters like life long soldiers that spend all their time in the field. Even being middle aged they are conditioned and hardened and better trained to deal with any of the difficulties that are found day to day in life in Thera. That is something that youth alone cannot compensate for.

I lived on a mountain in the jungle for 18 months. I can testify from personal experience and observation of others that your endurance increases as time goes on, even increasing after a person enters old age. I lived among and worked with a group of native tribal people, and the 60-70 year old mountain men (those who have remained active and mobile all the time, not laid up with injuries or illness) could easily out-pace the younger people on the trails. The younger people could run faster and longer, but the old men (and women) could walk a good 3 times faster than the younger people, and could do so for much longer before getting tired. It sounds strange that those who can run faster and longer cannot also walk faster and longer, but it was such an obvious fact that it was common knowledge among those people.

Similarly, a seasoned adventurer would deal with the rigors and hardships of the adventurous life much more easily than a younger, less experienced adventurer.

If you look at peak performance, endurance definitely outlasts strength and speed-- NFL players are retiring at an age when long distance runners are often hitting their peak years.

However, there's no doubt that by the time you hit what CF calls 'old' (60-ish for a human), even the most active people decline in endurance, even in low-impact exercise like walking. There's well-understood medical reasons for this (changes to bone structure, cellular respiration, etc.), and there isn't a single physical activity dominated by people in this age range by reason of fitness.

Senior citizens, even active ones, also get ill more often, take longer to heal from injuries, etc.-- all of which fall under CF's CON statistic.

'CF aging' dings you less and later on CON relative to the other physical stats, but it does ding you. If we were aiming for realism, it would ding all of the physical stats much more, to the point that an 80-year-old human probably couldn't sustain combat. We 'round down', because we want experienced, well-developed characters to continue on for their full lifespan.

As for movement points, you don't get more movement points by merely getting older. If you were to roleplay a sedentary character who sat around Galadon instead of adventuring, you would get older but gain no more movement points. You gain movement points through the rigors of adventuring, reflecting conditioning. Again, we don't have an interest in eroding these with age, but it comes from wanting to (artificially) encourage longevity.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

ya.

n/t

Being killed with two or three hits by a guy with good damroll set.
I think damage vs hp thing is really unbalanced at low levels.

Lots of folks really nice sets due to concerted looting, lucky finds, high level (caballed or not) folks getting them for them..."Hey can you evil fire giant dude kill the midnight dragon for me? *wink*

Personally, I feel an 11th level grabs/gets/obtains a nice set, that set should permanently dumb down to reflect the character level. It should stay that way until it is destroyed, sacrificed, whatever. Then when it repops, it repops as normal.

Just my feelings.

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Not yet knowing who your enemies are.

Does that Felar hate magic?

Is that Human good or evil?

If I ask him to group, will he say yes just to get close enough to attack me?

Like I said, kinda stupid because it is not something that should ever change, but it is what frustrates me the most.

Allow one free kill from each character or group of characters. Free as in no penalties except for looted gear. That way, you don't so much need to know who your enemies are until you've actually made them.

This has a nice side benefit of encouraging PK between archnemeses over than free-for-all PK.

How would this be implemented? I have no idea.


Eshval's email (I actually read my emails and answer them!)
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Eshval's slightly off-center (unofficial) blog.
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But from the Premium Battlefield, I see you already keep lists for each character regarding who killed them. So you'd probably just need to do a check againt that list for each person in a group of murderers. If any one person in that group has previously killed the victim, then the victim gets penalized as normal. If no one in that group has previously killed the victim, then the victim is not penalized.