Imm rewards should be more and sooner?

I think a big flaw in the game is that it seems designed to err on the side of "longer to wait" than quicker gratification which makes it such a grind.

The mechanical advantage winning an RC often conveys will mostly to completely overshadow whatever other crap you do in game.

I.E, among the really skilled players (of which I wasn't one for clarity's sake when I quit playing) the one who won the RC is probably gunna win the fight hands down, all else being equal.

Focus should be on RP, not writing a bang up role.

At least a couple years ago, RC rewards had sort of taken on the air of an arms race.

Do you IMMS really like it when people RP for rewards?


It's like killing few people in the real life and then going to the Church praying to the God with the hope that God will forget what you did.


Imm rewards aren't only unfair, but rewards are also cynical.

For example: many people like Cabdru, but also many people remember that Cabdru's tatoo did cleanse and helped him to get all those pimp gear.

What will people remember about Muuloc? They will remember that his tatoo helped Cabdru to become Cabdru and then he deleted.

Do i personally think that Cabdru would become Cabdru without that tatoo? I don't know, and i will never know. Is it good for the memories about Cabdru or Muuloc? You decide.

This is also true for all IMM rewards for all somewhat PK successful characters.



Standartize all role contest rewards and don't give additional IMM rewards. Fair game is much better than unfair game.

Whoever really like to RP will still RP, right?

"You guys RP if you want, we're going over here to fight."

"But RP is what makes CF.. CF! It's the rules. You'll still RP, right?"

"Indeed."

I feel that the reward process is pretty good. With role contests monthly, and most everyone with a role getting SOME amount of imm exp at least in the early stages of the characters life, its fair to say a chars gonna get at least a little love at some point. A couple issues I have seen that I think if adressed would make a pretty fair deal of difference, my opinion of course.

First, Character time. 400, 500 hours. Hell, even 300 hours is a LOT of time to put into a character. Some people dont play 40 hours a week. Some can only play 5, or 6, or 10, and so on. It seems the reward system currently is not so much rewarding older hour chars (not saying it isnt at all, just not as much) as much as they are rewarding the guys that play 5-6-10 hours a day. I understand because theyre around more = more chances for imms to see and reward, but its kinda depressing to see some of these chars deleting with 300 + hours and they dont even have their last name. Same goes for caballed chars vs non caballed ones. Non caballed chars tend to get noticed a lot slower and less, and reap less rewards in general. My soulution to that would be to kick up the attention a little after the 300 hour mark or so. Im not saying quest spells, or even imm exp. But how hard would it be to take 10 minutes and control a random mob and rp a little bit with a random char, for no reason whatsoever. Its the little experiences like that that DEFINE a character and make them want to move on. The reason Grummorum was such a loved imm for his time was because login to logoff, that man was interacting. It didnt matter who you were, he could pop in anytime as any mob and instantly revive the interest in the charater. Very recently there was an activity in the weald, and that type of thing is what keeps people going. Mini quests in cabals, Mini global quests where people compete to complete a tasks...basically I think the immortals should spend LESS time wizinvis and I think that MORE face time with interactions, or just visible in general would GREATLY improve the quality of the game. When people start hearing about all these cool events and global quests and stuff...they tend to come back to cf. Anyone remember how fun the ice drake stuff was with warlocks? Or how bout the Anti-life? whens the last time we saw him?

People keep saying that complaining without a soulution is useless. I think I just posted a pretty fair solution that takes little to no coding and hardly any time, and I guarantee the playerbase would LOVE you for it.

Anyways, just thought I would post what I would like to see more. Im a player thats left and returned quite a few times over the last 12 years, so I guess I'm the average "player". Anyone else feel the same way? What do you imms think bout this?

I remember years ago seeing a lot more gechos. Some of it was global quests, Immortal fights / deaths, and sometimes just random stuff. Players go bat #### crazy for that kind of thing. It just seemed like there was more going on.

These days, it seems like we suffer from: Fewer active Immortals with less free time (or they are spending their free time doing things we don't see) and the fact that the MUD isn't nearly as developmental as it was before. Years ago many of the major aspects of the game (cabals, classes, religions, areas, etc.) seemed to change far more often. Cabals were getting blown up, Gods were duking it out in Asgaard, classes where getting re-tooled (sometimes through global quests), and major features were being added, usually through some epic event.

Having Immortals do things like take over NPCs (to RP, not flurry), use gechos, host events, etc. is not as common anymore, or so it seems in hindsight.

My idea: Focus less on "lurking" and "spying" on people then rewarding them for that. Instead, get involved with the characters. Use the many tools you have available to interact with multiple people at once. Involve people in mini-quests, RP discussions, etc. That "spark" might encourage other people to take RP more seriously.

Basically, what I'd like to see is the Immortals become more like Dungeon Masters that Santa Clauses who spy on us all year and bring some of us a present or two if we're good. Plus, focus less on individual attention and more on groups of characters to more effectively use what "RP time" you have.

EDIT: And I don't think snooping us all day long is bad. The point was that interaction is, in my opinion, WAY cooler than being rewarded for saying something cool or properly acting out my role (which should be mandatory, but exemplary).

dfbdxf

Biggest enjoyments are when Imms actively RP through NPCs or quests or even random gechoes. I enjoy those more than just a 400 exp added for role update.

gnd

I think imm rewards should be less and later.

Seriously.

Imm rewards are great, they make someone want to play the game.

Right now, there's no consistency, albeit I'm not on the staff so maybe the staff has some policy I'm not aware of.

Because players perceive there is no consistency, problems arise.

Incentives are only so good as they are fair.

I don't think what's happening in those regards is fair right now, but I admit, I've thought that for a few years now. I'm not an IMM, so if I'm in their position, I might very well do what they are doing.

But they're a bit out of touch in those regards. I'm not sure anyone can disagree with the fact that this game is deteriorating. So, if I were up in Asgaard, I'd consider a change to how they reward stuff.

Players may respond I'm wrong. Today it's 25 disagree. Two years ago, it was 35. Two years from now, it'll be 15.

I'd like to hear someone from the staff say that they think the direction CF is going is -building- a playerbase.

Frankly, other than "we're going to stop giving out rewards", which is an actual position some on staff argue for, I'm not sure what system you think would be more fair than the status quo.

And honestly, I think "I don't have a suggestion for an improvement, but what you're doing is obviously killing the CF, so do something better unless you want to kill CF." is kind of a ####ty thing to throw out.

And every time there is a post like this, it makes imms feel less like giving out rewards.

Try to look at something from our perspective for a second. I can think of a few off hand that seem like feast or famine. There is a ranger right now that can hide in places that aren't wildnerness, has a custom title, and has a few other perks (i suspect a power from another cabal). An invoker closely tied to them has fireballs or novas or something that are negative attack, that also have a nasty immolate like effect, I think they also have a custom title, and probably other perks i'm unaware of.

There are other cabals, races, classes, that get no attention at all. I'm not trying to support the rant here, but I think it's the feast or famine aspect that people aren't digging. However, I'm not saying pull the plug on rewards. Those are a big incentive for a lot of the playerbase. Maybe take imms that like to watch and reward (or even punish), and have them watch the whole mud. Don't spend too much time on any one character or cabal, and spread the love around.

All of that except the titles are role contest prizes. So what solution do you think fixes that? I like giving powerful role contest prizes in general but maybe since we do it monthly it puts too much extra stuff out there?

My problem with role contents are that they seem more like story writing contents.

A lot of the roles that seem to win aren't well expressed through the characters or don't make any ####ing sense given they were written when the character was basically a teenager (relatively).

This varies by judge of course, but I think too many of you look for and reward cool stories more than you do roles that "make sense".

That's more of a pet peeve about roles tough than anything else. I'm tired of reading about how people fought their way out of the Underdark or flummoxed some intricate spell yet can't cast faerie fire yet.

Adekar's current contest seems to go against this trend in that he said he'd award points for succinctness.

af

It would just be more infuriating to me when I later read a role and wonder how in the hell that person won the role contest :/

Is I think that a small handful of players are getting the lions share of these rewards. I think having different imms do it each month def cuts back on this but the people who I know out of game who have won role contest rewards have won them very often. I mean I know more people who have won 3+ role contests then I do people who have only won 1.

I think it is cool that you give out such big perks for role contests. I just think it is less cool that it takes 1000 times the effort/luck to get equivolent rewards through other means and as a player who generally thinks the role command is a waste of everyones time I would like to see rewards doled out more for what actually happens in the game as opposed to fantasy fiction writing skills.

I think roles are a waste of time because I just don't think it serves much purpose outside of shortening empowerment interviews. I mean you get monthly complaints about role XP either being too much or not enough. You get people who write walls of text that actually say very little of use that consume large amounts of your time to read, etc. The whole is this questionable behavior in role thing... if it is questionable it shouldn't matter if it is in their role so it shouldn't matter that the role is there.

Then back to the begining there is the huge disparity in rewarding people for what goes on outside the game with big in game mechanical bonuses vs getting rewarded for things done in game with largely cosmetic rewards (titles/lastname)

Maybe some people are just good at creating interesting, well-written, informative roles? It makes sense that such a person would win more role contests.

And I make 1,500 for my roles fairly often, but I don't expect to win role contests because it seems to me like there are about 5 players who have been winning them all.

That and my characters don't live long enough to last the amount of time it takes to submit and wait.

But, I have only had 1 character that PK'd enough to get edges beyound what my Imm Exp gave me. So for me to be motivated to check out these edges, I tend to reroll and rewrite.

Maybe you should stick with a character longer than about 2 weeks and you'd get to try out some of this stuff.

And I play longer hours than average.

I just don't get rewards. Had a double virtue Palasin with Aarn I think.

But it doesn't mean they role-play better than someone who writes a less readable role.

But if you did start giving out less later to show us how good we have it now, that would teach us to dare broach the subject.

I'm not planning on changing anything about the way that I do things or hand out rewards. But I'm open to changes if a suggestion makes sense. That's all.

Two on one character in fact.

Same thing happens with me. Multiple times :(

Reward written role less. Reward observed rp more, but NOT when someone will know you are watching. In the latter case, reward it less.

Not trying to be funny, but at least one good player will intentionally create reasons to speak to lots of imms so that they get lots of imm exp.

sfbsdf

>Reward written role less. Reward observed rp more, but NOT
>when someone will know you are watching. In the latter case,
>reward it less.

I'm all for this. (And if you've ever gotten XP out of the blue while RPing, I give you at least even odds you got it from me.) However, it's very easy for me to sucker someone into running a monthly role contest, and it's very hard to get most of the staff to consistently be good about watching random people and rewarding them.

You better not be talking about me...

Maybe those guys are awesome and everybody else kind of sucks?

I mean, sure, its possible those rewards are way out of proportion for how cool those characters are. But...I haven't seen anybody present evidence to back that up. (Ignoring for a moment that it may not be fair of me to expect someone to present "evidence" for something that is inherently subjective).

Of course, another argument would be "these rewards are so awesome they'd be out of whack even if {insert character} were the coolest person ever in the history of CF". Some people may be making that argument, in which case "how cool these characters are" is mostly irrelevant.

The issue is...

A role is meant to help someone understand the observed role-play, yet it is rewarded more than observed rp, typically.

Because its easier to assess a role than it is to assess someone's actions. An instance of "bad role-play" might take 5 minutes in real-time. Even one of these, if its egregious enough, should be enough to damn a character. But what are the odds its caught?

Similar problem for differentiating between "average guy" and "awesome guy". Awesome guy's awesomeness isn't going to be obviously apparent 100% of the time. Every once in a while some situation will come up, or he'll have some interaction with another character, that really demonstrates how awesome he is. But if nobody happens to be snooping him at the time? Then its like it never happened.

There are also characters who have bouts of awesomeness and bouts of craptaculosity on the exact same character. If the staff happens to notice the good stuff and not the bad, and rewards that guy for "observed rp" then the playerbase raises hell.

At the end of the day I kind of agree with you: role-contest rewards should be scaled back in significance, since its possible to write a tremendous role but then not really play it out. And its the playing it out that matters.

Rewards should be given for repeatedly observed good role-play. One good thing maybe gets you a little imm xp. Lots of good things piled up over time, with few-to-none bad things, gets you a bigger reward.

The corollary to this would be that for a character to have "observed good role-play" he must have a somewhat detailed role entered that he's actually playing. Hard to have "role-play" without a "role".

3 years ago more people would have said they wanted him to play cf than would say it now.

Therefore he is killing cf.

Or... could this logic be faulty?

Dust of an old DMG or similar manual and read what they suggest to reward exp for.

That might give you some ideas you never had.

Things I would reward my players for were..

Achieving Short term goals.

Achieving long term goals

Leading parties

Solving puzzles or traps I set for them or their party.

Participation in a group

Enthusiasm, for their character.

What I did is constructive criticism, I'm not sure why it is being called a rant.

I didn't mean for anyone on the Staff to take anything personally here, but I can see how that is just unavoidable due to the subject.

500 hours Fokzop puts into his character and for what. To have a 9-29 PK record(of which he got his ass kicked a lot more, just died only 29 times), 900 immexp , immortal comments that are honestly just insulting to the player. Do you think it is possible that over the entire lifespan of that character he didn't do something worth giving him something. Hell, you may respond and tell me that you interacted with him all the time and I'm wrong, but damn if the PBF doesn't look disappointing.

It's clear you didn't like Fokzop, but still, do you think that player was treated fairly in your game? Nearly 400 hours that guy played in your cabal and all you have to say to that is he threw a tantrum after dying.

If you say yes to me here, that yes Fokzop is what each player should expect after 500 hours(400 in my cabal), you should think long and hard about changing that mentality.

I was in that cabal at the same time, he wasn't great by any means, but CF was not fair to that character, not even close.

>What I did is constructive criticism, I'm not sure why it is
>being called a rant.
>
>I didn't mean for anyone on the Staff to take anything
>personally here, but I can see how that is just unavoidable
>due to the subject.

I'm not calling a rant or taking it personally. I'm just pointing out the realities of your post that you may not have considered.


>It's clear you didn't like Fokzop, but still, do you think
>that player was treated fairly in your game?

Yes, I do.

A character that long-lived almost can't help but rack up a decent amount of edge. That's a piece of the idea of that whole system -- that long-lived decent characters get to pick out some fun stuff for themselves whether or not I personally take notice of them.

Beyond what that provides, no, I do not think a character needs to get special rewards hand-tailored by me just for existing.

>Nearly 400 hours
>that guy played in your cabal and all you have to say to that
>is he threw a tantrum after dying.
>
>If you say yes to me here, that yes Fokzop is what each player
>should expect after 500 hours(400 in my cabal), you should
>think long and hard about changing that mentality.
>
>I was in that cabal at the same time, he wasn't great by any
>means, but CF was not fair to that character, not even close.

He wasn't a bad character, but he wasn't a standout either. Despite a fair bit of time watching him, I couldn't have told you anything about his RP.

Nobody RP's 24/7 but when we bump into another player we do. If you are watching a lonely character, why not jump into a goblin or cow or what ever?

Because some people will only RP when they know someone's watching. The only way you can tell if they're interested in role-play when they <i>don't</i> think someone's watching is if you don't reveal yourself.

I have lurked cammo'd or hidden or invis for 1000's of hours watching people. They never RP'd when they weren't aware I was there, they Always RP in some fashion when my presence is revealed.

Do you RP running down the Eastern, or crossing the Aryth, or spamming Invoker Spell #12? I don't but if I am interupted I do.

I'm talking about situations where two characters are interacting, or a single character is faced with some choice that's made difficult by his or her role-play, and nobody thinks an imm is around. Those are the situations where the rubber hits the road, so to speak.

Case in point: those two paladins you bitched about because they killed the elite guards in Evermoon. If an imm had popped down and said 'Hi', maybe they don't do the thing you criticized them for.

And imo an Imm should have popped in. :P

I know perfectly well how my character feels, moves or thinks. Why would I feel the need to actually write it down if nobody else will read it?
Would you use emotes in e.g. Baldurs Gate if they had no other purpose in the game?

Edit: Its not like I condemn the use of emotes when nobody else is watching, I sometimes do it myself just for fun but I dont think it can be seen as some sort of RP measurement tool...

Other than when Enlilth felt bad because he punted the #### out of me ;).

It's the curse of shifters.

It's really really hard to be a standout shifter. Even some of the best ones I've ever interacted with weren't even close to as cool as joe random battle warrior who had a fleshed out role (Harkan notwithstanding, Harkan was just straight awesomeness).

Nexus also doesn't tend to get a lot of loving because whether or not the cabal sucks, it's very HARD to do a Nexun well. I've tried twice and IMHO mostly failed miserably.

I'd look to those factors moreso than the IMMs didn't like him or anything. If Fokwthhrwheuihweiuhwhatever was a gnome transmuter, odds are he might have got more IMM comments/loving.

FWIW, of course.

I'm just saying it's got to change to -build- a playerbase.

Curse of shifters, lack of IMM time, whatever, it's a big problem.

If in my example, there is a character that put 500 of his hours into CF, some IMM should have made that guy feel good about it. Doesn't seem like that happened for him from PBF.

I don't know the player, I did interact with the character(same cabal) and not to some level where I feel like I owe the guy anything, but I know something wrong when I see it. And if that guy stops playing, it's pretty clear, to me, why.

No quest skill/spell/legacy suggestion, but thinking from a Staff perspective what was done is perfectly fine is nonsense and unappreciative.

I had forgotten him.

It's a free game. There are a limited number of imms with a LOT to do. When I make a character I try not to count on imm rewards to make the character fun. I come up with a role I can get into, try to get into a cabal if I think it fits, and if it's an empowerment class make it have an outlook that fits with a religion. That way, except for the healers (all those healers. . .) I don't get set up for disappointment that way. Sooner or later, I tend to get noticed and get a perk or two. Most of my characters that have broken thirty in the last few years got lastnames and a few got bigger perks. The characters I had that didn't get perks were just as fun because of the interactions I had with whoever I interacted with.

A final point, if you make it more fun for them, they will be more likely to make it fun for you.

Fun for them for you?

It just won't work like that and more and more players are going to leave, which leaves me, a PK'er, less and less people to pwn.

CF staff reminds me of some bizness that is on cruise control. Noone really has a handle and nothing is consistent.

If someone was to try to convince me I'm wrong, I'd just like to ask whether playerbase is growing or not. It's a simple measure.

Normally your posts seem quite intelligent, but here you seem to be missing the fact that what you are observing could be down to other things than what you are saying is the problem.

It could, for example, be down to full looting, and not even remotely related to imm rewards. It could be down to the steep learning curve. It could be down to level sitting people racking up pk's. It could be down to cheating. It could be down to people having families and thus less cf time.

Yet you state conclusively that it is down to imm rewards?

I don't. Especially when you have people who burn up a lot of an imm's time then delete. Yes, I'm looking at you.

It's a matter of how best to allocate staff resources. There's basically a fixed amount of time they can spend. Given how few characters ever hit the 50 hour mark, I don't have a problem with them waiting to see who's going to stick around.

I burn a lot of Imm time and delete?

I spend an hour and write a role and play for 60 hours, get 5 mins of Immteraction, with little or no reward and I am wasting someones time? I don't play characters that live more than a couple weeks IRL, I typically don't go empoweree, I don't get Imm interaction, so I am not wasting anyone’s time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they are wasting my time, you've made it about me, it's a question about if the rewards that could be passed out are generous enough.

In a 500 hour character how many perks are given? 4?

So one every 125 hours. Let's say you play 4 hours a day, you're getting a perk every 25 days on average. Play a leader live to be 800 hours you might get a cool weapon. So in that case you get a perk every 160 hours or every 40 RL hours.

Before you reply, about me again and how awful I am, go ahead and look back at the question and see what I was asking. If you disagree you disagree, so be it. I'm not going to post and tell you you are wrong, I'm also not going to post and attack you personally.

Get over me.

as soon as you stop being such a ####ing martyr all the time.

I generally don't mind you, but you do seem to blow things out of proportion lately.

That said, I have two comments on the theme of your post. I do feel like sometimes it's hard to get imm attention. I also think that if you are expecting it, you are setting yourself up for frustration. Also, each post like this makes them less likely to do any.

That, predictably, was used to stick it to me.

If people would simply get over their grade school mentality and focus on the question without extraneous B.S. focused on me, there wouldn't be, "Posts like this."

My posts generate plenty of good debate, sadly, people without an argument will invariably attack me rather than the idea. This leads to a lot of the chaffe you see.

Glad you gave an answer reguarding my initial post though. That's really all there is to it.

I'm not sure every post of yours becoming a locked thread = good debate. lol

I don't remember specifics, but I seem to recall you having a Thror follower that Thror spent some time with, then you up and deleted.

If not, then ignore what I said about you specifically and just focus on the rest of my post.

I don't really do empowerees of any religion because I don't like the empowerment process in general and I know I will delete before 100 hours.

Thror's religion isn't an option in practice for me at all.

.

Seriously, if you can't have fun without imm perks, you are doing something wrong.

Read.

Like pretty much anything in life, the rewards of CF come with time. Anything worth doing (and I think that the real question anyone needs to ask themself is: Is CF worth doing?) will only pay dividends over time. That goes for hackey-sacking, blackjack, and CF.

One of the things about CF that appeals to me is that it does have such a steep learning/achievement curve. There is a particular quest that I have never completed. I have spent six hours this weekend alone trying to solve it. Where some people might find only frustration, I am glad to have the depth of involvement that this sort of thing offers (and some frustration, to be honest.)

When I was a kid my dad taught me how to play chess, but he never "let the kid win." He would not try to humiliate me, but he pulled no punches. He's hardly a rocket-scientist, so I was able to eventually beat him, even though I was only eight or nine at the time. I think this is why I have always been drawn to unforgiving games, hello Carrion Fields. The point is that I would not have wanted him to let me win. What would have been the value in that? Anyone can do the New York Times Saturday Crossword with the help of Wikipedia. Finishing it alone is truly rewarding.

I started playing CF after an absence of many years because I was looking for a more forgiving environment than micro-limits online poker. The rewards there are fleeting, gone in a moment of distraction and the frustrations are a thousand-fold. Compared to the whips and chains of poker, CF is a massage and a mai-tai.

Also, keep in mind that despite the fact that the staff is small, rewards are there if you want them. When I rolled up Homard it was my main goal to please Thror and get his Tattoo. When I realized how long that was going to take, I focused on all the aspects of the character. The result was Sapper-Training/Quest Skill; Role-Contest Win/Third Legacy; Village Leadership; and finally, Tattoo. So, if an unskilled PKer with crappy game knowledge (I still don't even know where to get the stoneskin fillets) can get these rewards, what's stopping anyone?

The fact is that if someone is looking for instant gratification, there are literally tens of thousands of games to play. If someone has the luxury of investing time into a game and wants to see some depth to the gameplay, there are only a handful.

tl;dr: If being rewarded becomes an easy thing, it will lose its value. I suck and I can get rewarded, clearly you can too.

I understand your last line perfectly, but there is a flip side, and I think we lean to heavy in that direction. That flip side being, no reward, no players.

My point was that if I can get rewarded, it's within anyone's grasp.

What sort of rewards are you looking for?

As far as I'm concerned, getting your last name is pretty sweet.
Getting a cool title is even better.
If you're looking for more than that, don't you think you should have to put in some time?

Who are some of the characters you've played that you feel deserved rewards that they didn't get? Did you delete before you were rewarded? After how many hours? Do you enter the role-contests? Did you follow a god?

That precludes me from getting any reward.

I write a decent role for the Imm exp then I play.

I don't get rewarded, ever, no matter what I do so I've shied away from trying.

The effort is not worth the reward for me. And I think you are a masochist. :) I was empowered three times by Thror, and didn't get any Imm exp on any of them. That's just not fun for me.

There are a lot of neat edges, but I basically have to reroll and rank to 25 on a bunch of different characters to play them.

You think that players are not getting rewarded enough or quickly enough, but, by your own admission, you don't put any effort into trying to get rewarded?

Also, why not reset your IP address if you really think that this is the case?

You are the one who steered the thread toward me. I was posting the thread off my own observation of the game in general.

Look at how blase the death threads are. You are boasting of incredible rewards that to me seem mediocre given the effort you put into the character.

And I had no idea you could reset an IP address and I wouldn't know where to start.

P.S. I also find your self-deprication to be a little shallow. Basically to me it comes across as "I (You the player) suck and I got rewards, so other players who don't must be really sucky." It's not inspiring at all even though I understand you mean it to be.

1. I steered the thread toward you? It's your thread. The sentiments I was commenting on came from what you wrote.

2. What sort of rewards are you looking for?

3. You know enough that you think that they're tracking your IP and discriminating against you because of that, but you have never looked into possibly changing your address? Wat.

4. I'm not saying that anyone else sucks, just that 90% of the playerbase is more skilled/knowledgeable than me. If I can get rewards, it must have something to do with the amount of energy I put towards this character.

You admit that you're unwilling to put time towards these goals. How, then, should you expect to benefit?

I feel like you're trolling me.

And again.. I didn't initially say anything about me aside from expressing an opinion, you did.

You asked a question. You stated your opinion. You have experiences upon which to base that opinion. Analyzing your opinion in this thread seems perfectly valid to me. Why start a thread and state your opinion if you didn't want to discuss it?

Not easy, but consistent.

Any lack of consistency, you detract from the MUD. Hopefully(I love CF and it's taught me so much) everytime a player decides he/she has been wrong leaves.

Consistency can prevent a lot of that.

Consistency.

That's all I ask for in the businesses I run and in any business that wants to survive. I take that back, CF is surviving right now. But consistency would allow it to thrive.

Although I wouldn't say you suck.

Freud would say that you're trying to gain the acceptance of your father via proxy of the Imms in CF.

Just saying.

I don't have the problem with the time required to be rewarded for things by Imms. If that's the primary thing you play for, I can definitely understand having a problem with the high work vs. reward. That said, I've always considered rewards to be "extra", save things like necessary empowerment.

I DO tend to grumble and groan if I don't get Imm XP (amount doesn't matter) for my first role entry or entries within a few days of adding it. Even that is just because I kind of feel like after a certain level and/or once in a cabal, a role is mandatory (even though it isn't), and if I feel obliged to write one, I want to be acknowledged for it just a little bit. Plus I want edge points. Other than that though, anything else is icing on the cake. Last name, title, virtues, edges, edge points, quest forms, quest spells, etc. are all things I feel no entitlement to. Sometimes I may want them if I feel like I've earned a certain something, but it's all extra and I've never, ever deleted because I didn't get something or get it in a certain amount of time.

My problem, as it relates to time sinks, is the amount of time necessary to gather and maintain the level of preps, gold, gear, regear, etc. to play competitively at hero, primarily in cabal wars. If I have X hours every day/week to play, I don't want to spent 70% of X hours being "out of the action".