What do you guys think of having multiple caballed characters? How about multiple characters in the same cabal? Obviously, there's no rules against this right now, and I'm just curious what the general public thinks. (And other imm opinion too of course)

>What do you guys think of having multiple caballed characters?

Generally, having multiple characters reduces the RP intensity per character and the likelihood of a character being cast aside increases. However, this is true whether or not the character is caballed. If you allow same person to have multiple characters in the fields, allowing them to join cabals is a natural extension of that policy.

How would you enforce one caballed character/person anyway? By IP adress? Nep joins a cabal with his mort, so yours doesn't get to join one. Active characters in cabals only? If that happens, casual players like me can't join cabals and I'd probably quit the game altogether.

>How about multiple characters in the same cabal?

I think having multiple characters in same cabal is rather pointless. Why not finish one character before starting a new one with similar enough role to join the same cabal? However, same enforcement problems apply and if multiple characters are allowed, they should be allowed to join cabals.

I'd like to point out that I'm opposed to closing cabals as full based on numbers. You should allow people to play the characters they want to play, the pendulum will correct itself as CF playerbase isn't the kind that predominantly wants to gank people. Personally, I think that the swinging of pendulum is caused by people rolling new chars to the underdog side and that closing a cabal makes the pendulum swing particularly violently, leading to a situation of imbalance as the opposing cabal comes to power when the numbers in the closed cabal decline rapidly without new blood to fill in the cabal.

I realize, given my history of running up mutliple fort apps that time, my opinion may be suspect to a bunch of people, but I think I'll give it anyway and they can just ignore me....

So Multiple Chars....

I think so long as cheating is not part of the equation, that it's ok with me. I find now, with the pendulum, I find myself running into days when I log in with nothing to do. No cabals to raid, no enemies around, and I've pretty much given up on searching for any more wands. I absolutely hate the tasks of day to day living with a hero(Gathering Gold, Preps, etc...) So I don't tend to do those when logged in with nothing to do, and no one to do them with. My whole point on playing this game is the interractions. No interactions = no fun for me. So I might roll another just for something to do, or because I have an interesting idea i want to try, or want to learn the class.

Now, I also have the problem of what I call Character Touretts. Times when I start chars, hoping they'll go somewhere and then they just die for one reason or another. I should be better about deleting those....

Opposing cabal chars? Well again, I think theres a lot of room for abuse here, but I think that it can be enforced. I've seen PBFs that talk about people who have a trib and an outtie. I know that they were able to track my multiple apps to fort, so it can be done. Should they have to? I'm sure the imms could spend their time with better things....

So here's my final thought, people who a multi-charing to cheat, will find a way to do it if you try to stop it through code(Proxies etc...). Turning it down won't stop the cheating, and may for some stop some of the fun. Its a game guys, here for fun and enjoyment, so enjoy it.

Having caballed characters in cabals that are permenantly opposed to each other is wrong. It is as good as having a spy in the cabal, leaking information about other peoples specs, legacies, edges etc and any leakage of that information through an unfair means, such as this, it not right.

If people have the hours to give to two chars or three chars, let them but cabaled chars should not be in opposition cabals, imho.

-----Abernyte

I tend to go by the measure 1 hero cabaled char. Maybe a lowbie if hero starts get dull. That is, log in. check notes, take undefended items, double check my prep pool... now what?

I don't usually like 2 cabaled chars, same cabal or not. Just tends to muck everything up for me, interaction wise. And if I do end up with 2 cabaled chars, its usually because the other is about to get the axe.

And no one should have more than 1 alt, imo.

For other characters, it's not a big enough problem to be worth taking up imm time to enforce. You could just talk to people when you make them a leader, and make clear that they shouldn't be playing anything else.

I'm glad this is something that's caught your attention.

I've always thought one caballed hero, then one other character just when you want to CF but not play seriously was fine. That means the second character can not be hero range, shouldn't be in a cabal, but if it is, should be unrelated to your main.

I don't think I've ever had two characters caballed. You know how people talk about liking to play the underdog or hating the pendulum? Well, it's people that play multiple caballed hero characters that are the problem to that.

Those are my rambling thoughts, but I will add that I just don't see a solution on IMM-side to this besides what you guys are(I suspect) already kind of doing. I have a feeling that you guys can kind of pinpoint who is dedicating themself to a character and those players are getting more attention than the guy who has four or five characters and just playing whichever one is convenient.

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... Empire is a prime example. Say you have an empire leader. If you have another empire char in the same sect you are highly dependant on promoting your own character. Which will NEVER happend. It's lined up for some sort of cheating = no good.

Or you logon your leader char, raid fortress, take the orb. No hero to retrieve but lowbies. You logout your leader and logon your mid-level Empire AP to rack up some charges. I think A LOT of people woudl get accussed of this.

However say that you have one Empire char and one Tribunal char. These two doesn't really have enough to do with eachother that things will become a conflict. (Except ot make use of detect hidden... But same effect as if you had an uncabaled thief.)

Fortress none-dwarf/conjurer and an outlander. Would work too.

Either way, I think it's setup for cheating.

I observe certain rules for myself when I do.

First, if I have more than one serious character (any character in a cabal is serious) I won't play them during the same time frame. So I might play one 5-8 and t he other 8:01-12 or something along those lines. Not that I will necessarily be playing 5-12 all the time, but I don't like to have my characters overlap in their play hours. Also no two characters will be in the same or opposing cabals. "orthogonal" cabals only, like empire/trib, or fort/outlander, etc.

I never have more than 3 character. First, I'll have my "main" character. This is a serious character with a substantial role that I play during my primetime, when I can focus exclusively on the game. Next, I might have a character that has a real, though not as elaborate role, and might join a cabal, but is played during a timeframe when I'm likely to have to go afk suddenly. Finally, I will usually have an experimental/explore character that has only a very basic role, and wouldn't join a cabal and that I play any time. For any character, I leave a buffer of a minimum half hour between logins and usually I try to make it an hour.

It also depends a lot what is going on in my life and with the characters. Usually I'll just have the explorer and the main character. The second serious character usually only happens if I end up enjoying my experimental/explore character enough to develop the role somewhat.

I never scout or do anything dubious like that, and I'm very careful to not leave stuff on the ground just in case I might pick it up later accidentally. Overall I'm very paranoid about not doing something that could be considered cheating. The only thing I might do that's at all sketchy is gathering stuff with my real characters that I happened to find and identify with the explore character. So in a sense I'm trading information (I would never transfer the actual item) but meh, until people play as if they don't know about anything that their current character hasn't actually seen, I don't consider this cheating at all. But I'm open to criticism there.

The only potential problems I have with it is if they're checking who lists on one and logging in the other sometimes. That is, they're using one to scout for the other to find out whether they should log in the other one or not. The other problem is if the cabal is 'full' and they've got multiple characters in the same cabal. That'd be annoying.

If there was a Shadow type cabal, I'd be more against it since membership in that cabal was more secretive. Or if there were super-secretive questy stuff going on and people were passing information between their characters.

Aside from these, I'm okay with it. Sometimes playing a second character can help prolong the enjoyment of the first and prevent burning out. Besides, right now, I'd prefer people play CF too much rather than too little. :)

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker


'Sorry, I'm not 72323slhlst. Or however you say Elite'
-Vynmylak

Spreading your time out between multiple characters allows too many opportunities for neglecting IC relationships, duties, and character development.

Having multiple characters also makes it too easy to abuse game dynamics and game mechanics. It creates opportunities for gear detection, gear passing or storage, range/group scouting, and pendulum manipulation. It gives people privy to current small group and cabal secrets too easily abused.

The OOC police could be running around trying to monitor everything, but that's like asking one state trooper to catch every speeder in a 400 square mile area. You are setting the immortal staff up to fail.

Why can't I?

Honestly, I never play more than one character. Occassionally, I might have a lowbie alt to bash around with when times are boring or overly stressful. But in general, I'm a one character kinda guy.

But I don't have a problem with people who are playing several. The only caveat of course is, cheating is still against the rules. So don't scout with one, so you can play the other.

And also, make sure both (all?) characters are active enough to maintain their position in the cabal. I don't think inactive players should be in cabals at all, as it over-inflates their numbers and potentially can make life difficult for active characters to get in.

I'm in the same boat. I barely have enough time to play one, let alone two.

While those who have multiple characters would say they don't choose which one to log in based on the mud climate, I would say 90% of the time that's not true.

Maybe I have two evil characters, but one is hero and the other's in the 20s. Cabaled or not, doesn't matter. I get online with my hero and realize the environment is terrible. I don't have my cabal item, the enemy cabal that has it has 8 people in my PK, a thief, an air form, a ranger, and a warrior/muter combo, and all of them are gunning for me.

Do I stay online with that guy, or do I log in my 20s guy and have a more enjoyable time (meaning: not dying multiple times) with him?

Now, I guess if I only have the hero I could still log out and just go do something else besides mud. So that possibility is always there. But having the second character just makes it so much *easier* to log the hero off, since I can still get online and play.

Okay, lets assume you dont really like to play against very bad odds and so on. As you said, if you have second char you can relogin and have much more fun. So whats wrong with it? Its game, its supposed to be fun. And if you, as a player, dont like 'balls to the wall' type fights, bad odds and so on, why should you stick with that char and have less fun? Would I be one, I'd certainly consider rolling one more char.

The problem is that you logging out your hero prolongs the super-majority of goodies. Let's say after you log out, some other guy logs in and does the same thing because he's the only guy around. However if you'd stayed on then when he got on there'd be two of you. Maybe add a third guy, etc. etc.

If I log in, see that I already have my enemy cabal item(s), and there's no one to go fight... I really lose interest in playing that session.

I get a weird pleasure from being the one guy that goes against a group though. But then, I rarely have a great set and never really care too much if I die.

I don't care about multiple caballed characters. I do not agree with multiple characters in the same cabal. Focus on one character at a time in a cabal and delete the other. I usually only play one character, but, recently I did have two characters in different cabals. The only reason I don't have a problem with that is sometimes a person needs a break from a character and it might help them become motivated to play that character more. It did for me.

Let's say I have a Trib that's my fave character and I'm afraid to raid Outlander.

I log in my outie scout, quit, log back in my trib raid/retrieve.

I don't know if ISP's can be tracked accuratly enough to work some kind of magic to have a 30 min waiting period between cabals for characters.

I'm certain their are power gamers who do this with nothing in their head other than, "I win", meaning the player and not his character.

I'd love to see one person = one char only. But this seems impractical and overly messy on many levels. So leave as is with the possible caveat that having PCs in opposing cabals would be frowned upon. This just seems a bit weaksauce and should be curbed. But this is the messy bit, relies on IMMs with better things to do etc.

In the interest of disclosure, I did multi char once with two bards in scion/battle and some people complained after the fact. But having done it gives a better understanding of it I guess, and mostly people complained because scion is not induct all under the sun like other cabals can be and so thought I was keeping others out by keeping Kalisda.

Char knowledge:
I think the character knowledge issue is not a big deal. Already knowing who is in what cabal, warrior specs, shifter forms and such that you may know from one character is not really a big secret since there are usually other cabal members who can and will tell you those things anyway, and you don't have to be in a cabal to learn those things anyway. So generally that would be a multi-charring issue more than a multi cabal charring issue. And hell, you can delete a character and roll a new, you're not going to forget what you already know about current characters, especially the longer lived ones.

Selective Log ins:
I logged both of mine about the same amount (I think I rolled the second with Kalisda at 350 hours and she had 430 when the other had around 100 at purge time). What I did not do (maybe I did once, can't remember, but I tried to avoid it) was log one in, say oh crap I'm dead if I play this, and switch to my other. If I logged one, that was who I played even if they were getting the shaft, which scion was for a while at that time. If someone does selective logging in and switching its not fun, but really it's not entirely different from people who log in, see a crap range and just log out. I imagine a lot of players may actually prefer playing their weaker ones because that gives them more to do/pk with, but I can't say for sure.


My only real opposition to any multi charring in cabals (be them the same one or different ones) would be if you leadered or wanted to leader any, just because I feel that's unfair to the cabal mates/applicants. Leadership is more of a responsibility in my eyes than just being a member.

Otherwise, a few more char files is not a big deal, unless they exist for questionable reasons like gear holding or something, but so long as each char plays within the rules I've no problem with it.

I never do it*, and I usually give grief to players I talk to regularly who do it, especially when it's two hero range characters in potentially enemy cabals.

Even if you don't mean to, it's hard not to abuse the knowledge that comes with playing two cabals. You get information about your enemies quicker and easier than you normally might, which isn't a huge deal but something some people might care about.

Most importantly, I think it's hard to do that and not get lame with your logins. After you play a cabal for a week or so, you get a feel for when it's upswing and downswing are, when the power players generally play, etc., and having that information for two cabals is definitely going to affect how anyone chooses to play whether it's conscious or not.

* The exception to the rule for me is rolling new characters. Since I tend to go for induction early, I'm fine with playing an app for a cabal while I have a caballed hero. Once I get inducted though, I always let the previous character go (like I told myself I would when I rolled the new character).

Multiple characters in the same cabal I'd have a problem with, because there's no way you could get around one of your characters having knowledge of the other one's existence, and your characters in many ways would benefit from each others existences (against the basic restrictions of multi-charring). Multiple characters in different cabals is less of an issue for me.

nt