It's possibly the most beautifully coded area with Hell in the game. Not having it in use because of some assholes seems like such a waste.

If you ever manage your anger and forgive the fools who ruined it, some tweaks to it and a reinstation would incite many cheers.

At this point the thing keeping it closed is more my lack of coding/building time than anything else. I have a lot less free time post-baby than before, and the nature of the work I'm doing (professionally) right now is pretty well giving me as much coding as I'm wanting to do most days.

I don't intend it to be a "never", but I have no idea when and I don't expect soon.

Its nice to know though that you're considering it and you're just caught up with life and pressed for time, rather than just put off by the idea of ever bringing it back. It's nice to know its a consideration that it may come back...even if there were some people that ruined the experience in the first place. Much like hell, I enjoyed spending my logins there.

>and the nature of the work
>I'm doing (professionally) right now is pretty well giving me
>as much coding as I'm wanting to do most days.

Amen brother. Things I hate today: Oracle 11g, Hibernate, JPA.

As much as the mud is awesome, and a labor of love and you enjoy working on it, don't fall into the trap that I see as increasingly common among people in net circles in regards to their families. The mud will be here to be worked on when you find yourself with spare time, don't kill yourself trying to MAKE time for it. That's when you start to chisel away at the time you devote to the more important things, and it's far too easy to let that get out of hand. I had an issue with that a while back, and it is in large part why I have given up CF.

Do I miss it? Sure I do. I still get itchy fingers when a new role idea pops up, and I'm sure you get the same feeling when you have some idea you want to incorporate into your much loved areas. But I'm far far happier than I ever was before, knowing my wife and daughter are receiving my full attention as much as they could possibly want. We had a few arguments about net usage before it all really became crystal for me, and I would hate to see you trying to "find time" for a hobby you love, and risking the FAMILY you love.

CF will wait for you. Keep on putting the family first and everything else will sort itself out.

Sorry if this bit of advice is unwanted or unwelcome. I would just hate to see you trying to fulfill some self-appointed obligation to the game out of a sense of guilt, and making some of the same mistakes I made early on in my marriage.

Are you still programming in C#? Just curious. I haven't touched the language myself in probably 2 years. Java/Grails for the win.

Mostly. In my market there's a lot more work for it than anything else, for whatever reason.

I hope i'm wrong about that, but it doesn't seem like he is interested in reopening it in the slightest. It's an area built on puzzles, and once the puzzles get inevitably solved again it will all be common knowledge and once again, not what he wants it to be. It's different from hell in that hell is supposed to have the feeling of a great adventure from start to finish, and is meant for groups. Silent tower was very managable alone, for the most part, and in a comminity where everyone has known each other for 10-15 years, it would be literally impossible to keep the knowledge all im game.

It's a shame that such a well coded area would go to waste, but Neps a prideful guy, and people sent out silent tower docs that got circulated. Scarab did the same thing with hell, and it got closed for a long time too. Luckily for us he repoened it and is revamping it to cater it to the new age cf, which rocks.

I hope Nep changes his mind one day and we see it back. But I seriously seriously doubt you will ever see that happen. You have a better chance of just hoping for a new cool area explore from one of the new immortals.

Or only worked in the tower itself, a bit like the sanctum wands, then I doubt the community that was circulating the info would bother.

Whereas those of us who liked solving the puzzles probably still would (although the gear was nice too).

It was broken. Most of the gear in Silent was waay more ####ed up than Hell. Another big difference was the Identify command, most of the hell stuff was pretty much obvious as are its affects. Silent Eq had all kinds of built in benefits that a lot of people didnt even realize. How were you supposed figure it out? Ask Nep? LOL

It sucks that a lot of the tough asses from back in the day were able to utilize them, but our day and age is missing all ST gear and Tiamat pendants. Having just those two areas makes an evil so much tougher it's retarded.

Just have to have someone actually kill her to find out. I began playing right before the dragon tower blew up, so I'm not sure what they were, but if they came from Tiamat they might still be there in her lair, so they are just far far more difficult to get.

And evils are already the toughest people around for the most part, just by virtue of the vets who tend to play evils I'd say. It's pretty rare to see the toughest characters running around in CF to not be either a scion/imperial/reaver or evil villager. It's almost never a fort or nexun guy.

Dragonmail and Pendants. Though, I did hear of a lockpick thief picking tiamats chest before they fixed that bug, so at least SOME people know whats in it at this point, but to my knowledge the pendants and dragonmail are made from his flesh, and wont show up till he dies.

nt

I can't think of anything offhand where this was the case, excepting stuff you had to kill an Archmage to get (which it doesn't bother me if you have to fiddle with a bit to figure out) and your typical progged stuff that you have to fight with for a while to see all the various things it does.

I can name more than a few, not all of them came from Archmages. And I will admit my knowledge of ST was limited to one character's worth of exploration. The real ST experts con died multiple characters in there.

That didn't come from archmages?

I've been wracking my brain and honestly can't think of any. Are you sure you haven't decided some items did things they didn't?

So I wouldnt know the specifics as to what came from who. Most of the ST eq that I've ever had was either from PK or hand me down.

I have found loads and loads and loads of hell gear, that I thought was total trash, and ended up being some of the sickest armor I have ever seen when I found out what it does. I know a lot of the silent gear was dope too, but IMO, knowing loads about the gear from both areas, the most OP item in the game still comes from hell. And I would bet in a couple parts I have not had the time to explore yet, there is an item even more OP than that one.

Of course, there is loads and loads of silent gear that I never figured out/got/know what it does either, so the most op item in the game may very well have come from there. If I had to pick which area had more OP gear, I would say hell IMO.

it would be literally impossible to keep the knowledge all im game

I wonder, is there any game that deals with this issue effectively?

Not beyond the source code I don't think. I mean you look at something like WoW and the level of information that is publicly available (provide by Blizzard) is overwhelming. You can do complex calculations to min/max DPS and other crap I don't really understand (because I don't play WoW). The right answer is to acknowledge you can't keep a secret and to design with that in mind IMHO.

With the internet providing easy answers for everything, maybe the age of explorers has passed. I hope that's not true.

>Not beyond the source code I don't think. I mean you look at
>something like WoW and the level of information that is
>publicly available (provide by Blizzard) is overwhelming. You
>can do complex calculations to min/max DPS and other crap I
>don't really understand (because I don't play WoW). The right
>answer is to acknowledge you can't keep a secret and to design
>with that in mind IMHO.


The difference between most MMORP and CF is that the MMORP's generally have constant developement and continually move the goal post so to speak to keep the games fresh. I don't think it is possible in CF. Games like CF have to find ways to keep areas fresh year after year without major overhauls.

For example with WOW original max level was 60, 2 years later it was increased to 70, another two years it was increased to 80, and now i belive it is 85. My point is that the game keeps adding more and more at the high end to keep the game fresh. CF can't really keep adding more and more area explores and making obsoleteing the old ones like an MMORP can.

Not arguing the current way is good, just that the comparison to a game like WOW really isn't apt.

The expectation of keeping area explore information "secret" is just silly and completely against gaming nature. In the end it only causes headaches for the staff and the playerbase.

Scarabaeus what exactly was your expectation for an area that requires 10-12 hour blocks of playtime and multiple people to explore? That people would just go in and wing it?

Let's say you go out and buy an puzzle based game for your PC. While you are firing up the game is the first thing you do download all the spoilers you can find on-line? Or did you buy the game to test your ability to outwit the puzzles?

Perhaps there are people who buy those games merely to check off the steps of a walk through, but I suspect the majority enjoy the sense of accomplishment in solving those things on their own. Is that "against gaming nature"? It may be. But I think that is the idea behind the area explore areas.

It's a false dichotomy to suggest that a player is either faced with secrecy or winging it. Somewhere in between there has to be a happy medium where people don't publish the solutions to quests and ruin that experience for everyone.

On that note then, would someone who enjoys the sense of accomplishment just NOT read walkthroughs?

I don't see anyone forcing others to seek out and read OOC information on area explores. It would seem if that's the case it's possible you are simply wrong about thinking that the majority of people enjoy the sense of accomplishment as opposed to the phat loots.. I know the only reason I go to those areas is when I want eq from them.


Cheers,
Jhyrb

to respect the wishes of the artist. Even moreso if I like his work.

To me, it is pretty bad that people are willing to ignore the wishes of someone who went out of their way to do something for them.

In that sense, I kind of understand Nep's reaction better now. If people can't even respect his wishes, why should he put the effort in?

Personally, I liked the challenge of the puzzles of Silent Tower(whereas in hell I was normally being dragged around too fast and entirely focussing on staying alive). I liked figuring out stuff that others couldn't (where I was able to). I'd still go there a lot even if the gear there wasn't usable.

To me, the fact that areas keep getting removed from the game because the creator is pissed off with the information sharing should be enough to disincentivise people from sharing info. But unfortunately it isn't.

I don't know that someone wanting to have that sense of accomplishment has a means of communicating that to other players in game without going OOC. Let's say you're in a party of 3 that is entering an exploration area; what means does a player have to say, "Hey, don't ruin this for me?"

Without any real data, I don't think we can say whether the majority of CF players enjoy or loathe exploration and puzzle solving.

I think we can say that as game designers we have a difficult task in ensuring that players have to somehow earn the rewards of those areas. I think we can also say that OOC information does give a player an advantage over an independent player, whether that be in exploration areas or in other aspects of the game. Should someone legitimately working their way through an exploration area complete a quest only to find that a group with a walkthrough already pilfered all the limited phat loot? As someone writing areas, I will confess that I'm not sympathetic towards players that merely want equipment. But it's a design issue that I'm not sure we can solve.

I base that on when I take them to Trothon. Sometimes we have no choice but to get past the riddles fast, so I have to tell them the answer. When that happens, they invariably don't seem to enjoy it as much as when they figure it out themselves (possibly with some clues).

Well.. if the player REALLY wanted to solve those things.. why isn't he leading groups down? The way the game is setup, each group has a leader.. players (especially vets) don't want their noob groupmates wandering around in Dis exploring by themselves since if/when they die they'll be wasting EVERYONE's time by ####ing up their group. (especially if that person is a key part of the group)

In all the Hell trips I've been in on, there was 1 person who knew what they were doing and the rest were along for the ride. In my opinion, I don't think this issue can be fixed, you the area maker need to design around it. I've never played a game aside from CF that tried to muzzle their players so much.

Of course information is a huge advantage when you bottle it up and try to keep it under wraps. If it's shared amongst the entire playerbase it's no longer an advantage - it's an even playing field.

Maybe if you made these areas a little more solo friendly you could achieve what you want since a person could then go and explore on his own terms. I'm sure most people don't want to re-teach every single thing to every groupmate every single time they go down. (In some sort of RP'd way of course.)

I don't blame you for being unsympathetic to gear whores, I'm just being honest and I don't expect you to ever cater to a player like me. I think Hell is a great sandbox to play in, you can add random quests and random rewards once you get in to shake things up but even then that will only delay the information getting out since people who know each other WILL still share what they've learned.

I don't know, I don't envy your position - I'm just throwing my thoughts out there.


Cheers,
Jhyrb

Newbs still wouldn't get far into it.

That is like saying don't post where humansunder comes from, because newbies will never get it. At least with the info, they could make as fair an attempt as anyone else at it. With enough practice, ANYONE can successfully run hell groups. Trust me, I know. I didn't get great at it overnight.

Generally speaking.

If VETS took newbs along every time then I'd not have as much of an issue. As long as the vets made an effort to show them the place rather than drag them through too fast for them to do anything.

I think a vet would be willing to take a newb along when getting humansunder, since it isn't likely to put the vet at much risk.

I took a trip of 14 down with my spectre I believe it was, maybe it was my fire giant. Either way, if I run a trip, its open to everyone that wishes to go usually, barring cabal enemies and people that have griefed my character before. Not every vet is a #### dude, some of us actually try and share the love. Can read my battlefield threads for Omork and Mujarin if you don't believe me.

Clearly closing areas and cutting off rewards retains newbies more. *rolls eyes*

The ivory tower elitism you're talking about, in my experience, is largely imagined.

I've been asked to keep quiet.

Now, it clearly isn't an ooc group since I've been invited. There wasn't a great deal of risk since not everyone from each cabal involved was going (so people could still retrieve). So why the secrecy? Because they didn't want newbs.

And closing off areas and cutting off rewards doesn't "reward" newbies more. It stops vets getting rewarding for things that newbies are excluded from. Gaplemo is about the only person who looks to take even newbs to hell.

It's not the newbs that felt the need to cheat to maximise the amount of high end gear they got from these areas.

You're just jumping to conclusions. Most people keep it quiet because they don't want imms jumping into demons and wiping them before they get their shinies.

Imms do still take over Arch-Devils, at the worst time possible, and wipe your group into the damn floor. Me, personally, I found it exciting as hell. The poor victims of the assault...well, lesson learned. Don't taunt Arch-Devils in hell, and hell is not a safe place. It's always been that way, thats part of the excitement of hell. Sometimes imms just came in and wreck shop on you, but it wouldn't be hell if they didn't. I almost had a damn heart attack tonight. For real. And I enjoyed it.

even if people died I love immteraction

I've been invited (as Victoria) to come and help Tonghi get a bunch of ST gear for his character Ravon. I didn't go, he denies it, but it happened.

Telling me that's not elitist, cheating, and going to make matters even worse for newbies?

Every hell trip I've been on I've seen at least one newbie. Considering you have said you never go to hell, how can you even speak to this?

But been dragged around so fast I've not enjoyed it.

I have also been invited twice (but not gone) and asked not to mention it to others. And not in circumstances where the risk was losing the cabal item while we were in there.

possibly with good reason.

I just wanted to throw out there, though, that one huge reason for secrecy on a Hell trip is to avoid what I've seen happen dozens of times (this is during the early helltrip days, FWIW):

Someguywithus: Greetings, Guywhojustloggedin. We are traveling to the Inferno.

Guywhojustloggedin: Ah splendid. I will join you. Have you gathered enough First-item-that-each-person-needs?

Someguywithus: We are doing so now. And then we will need to get enough Second-item-that-each-person-needs from the First Circle.


And so what started out as a trip that we were just about ready for, and only needed one or two things, because we were a small group, became a group of 13 that took 7 hours to get to the River Styx where we were summarily slaughtered.


(This is the part where all of you sending ideas to Scarabaeus about the Inferno revamp suggest that he make it possible to get into the deeper Circles (read: 2nd and below) without needing to spend hours gathering the tokens to get there.)

:)

Part of the dragon quest code. One item, whole group.

I second this idea. THE Worst thing about a hell trip is having get all of things to get into first circle, then all the things to get out of first circle. People get bored out of their minds and start getting unruly before you can even start doing any real delving.

Let me guess what they were for...

Equal opportunity, or as a means for a group that know each other to avoid any of them having to...?

No it was usually to fill a role that was missing, aka invoker, bard, etc.. For the trip I made to Satan for what you were talking about it was the surplus, aka we had two bards. No idea if it was ooc, but the bard was definitely not a newbie as he knew the place better then most on the trip.

I must admit that my previous post probably came out a bit angrier than it should have.

Maybe if I played during US hours I'd see more newbs going to hell. As it is, I mainly just see groups of vets.

> Should someone legitimately working their way
>through an exploration area complete a quest only to find that
>a group with a walkthrough already pilfered all the limited
>phat loot? As someone writing areas, I will confess that I'm
>not sympathetic towards players that merely want equipment.
>But it's a design issue that I'm not sure we can solve.


Have you ever tried to go through hell with a mortal? Even if you published all eq stats, maps of hell, it still takes monumental effort to get said shinies.

Interestingly, no, I haven't. Perhaps foolishly I never considered it fair for me to do so.

So far my comments have really been geared toward exploration areas in general, and not to Hell, as exploration areas can range pretty widely.

>Interestingly, no, I haven't. Perhaps foolishly I never
>considered it fair for me to do so.
>
>So far my comments have really been geared toward exploration
>areas in general, and not to Hell, as exploration areas can
>range pretty widely.

Go down without leading the group, letting someone like Gaplemo, Torak or someone else who 'knows' what they are doing and resist the urge to keep your trap shut both about what you feel they are cheating with AND how incorrect they are about how things work. I guarantee you that you'll learn some valuable lessons and gain new insights about how to redesign the area without necessarily giving your mortal any unfair advantages. This isn't terribly difficult to do if you are playing a member of the group that is uncommon at hero but reasonably competent. Examples I don't need to be telling you from going down only once are healer, bard, minotaur warrior, invoker, a thief with advanced picklock loaded with progging gear, occasionally conjurer and anti-paladin... these are all classes that can pretty much stumble on being invited to a hell group if they haven't pissed the explorers of the MUD off but likewise will frequently be told 'Keep your trap shut and do exactly as I tell you for the next six hours.' (I didn't enjoy my trip and was eventually permabashed down by Mephistopheles as a healer looking for a piece of gear to counter Dupmasione's Defiance.)

If you feel you can't do the latter without it being unfair, then the rules need to be rewritten seeing as how you yourself personally have slapped down imm(s) who could near-guaranteed have changed the history of the game during it's dead spots in the past couple years if left alone for far less.

The area has been in for over 10 years now, I suggest you try it from a mortal's perspective. Maybe bot pre & post the revamp, I would wager you will learn quite a bit about the area and your vision for it. As far as fairness, trust me, Nep popped that cherry long time ago. No one is gonna moan about that.

Also, since you are revamping the area in a big way this summer, in the name of settling this debate once for all... I challenge you to make hell info public until the revamp. Yes I am actually asking you to initiate the cheat ring :P Hey you can always change all the stuff you revealed right?

Occasionally I forget why I don't care what you think, but then you remind me. :P

Occasionally I forget why we have so few players, then you make a new post on the forum somewhere. :)

Most multiplayer game designers take the standpoint that socialization is a part of the game and as a result, it's normal that people who want to "strike it alone" are at a disadvantage.

I'm not sure why after like 12 years we still hold this idea that there are players out there living in a vacuum expecting to find groups of people to help them explore but not give them any tips. If hell has been explored randomly by no one with OOC knowledge about it more than 1-2 times in the last 8 years or so I'd be surprised. Not sure why we're still catering to these fictional players that largely don't exist.

I feel like we're holding onto antiquated preconceptions that just aren't valid. Loosen up the seriousness of the game, let people play together and enjoy themselves and if we get overwhelmed by drama we can address it easier than investing so much energy and exasperation into apprehending what the bogeyman players are going to do.

Is that this is a *competitive* and *multi-player* game. So, if you want to compete against the other players, yes, you would go out and download whatever puzzle solutions are out there. If you aren't trying to compete, then sure, you can get some enjoyment from doing it on your own, but you won't be competing. You might learn something people following the "official" walkthrough miss, but you still aren't likely to be competitive. Only if you do both (walkthrough + self-explore) will you gain a competitive edge, which seems to be about where CF is today.

The only difference I see is that the playing field is so unequal to start because the "walk-through" is so incomplete vs. what is actually commonly known. For instance, what is on diku-wiki gives you a good start on maps, but isn't going to help you do the happy boots quest which used to give a considerable competitive advantage.

Or other stuff that really is common knowledge.

However, the problem with things like hell is that newbs probably aren't going to be taken there because they'd increase the risk of getting others killed. So they wouldn't benefit from the info sharing. Only vets would, and that would make things even more one-sided.

It is possible to compete without sharing the info on the areas. Every piece of hell gear I've ever had I've taken in pk. Admittedly some of it I couldn't use because I didn't know the command phrase, but some of it I could.

Take the ioun stone, for example. I took that in pk before pretty much anyone figured out how to get it, judging by how long it took to come out of hell again (several years -- with me repeatedly locating it). Still wonder who that was that I killed for it. Still can't believe I managed to get it destroyed by putting it in a bag and fighting an acid breathing dragon.

Because you can't put the ioun stone in a bag. Its highly limited, and always was, to my knowledge.

There are two ioun stones in game as well. One from hell, and one not from hell. They do totally different things.

Which I assume is from hell.

It was a long time ago. As I said, it was years before it came back up again. I think it might have even been Daurwyn (the character) that I had it with, but when I was still pre-hero.

I'd make the case that there are reasons to bring newbs there, as there are several places where someone expendable is welcome. While it might suck to be expendable you get to see lots of cool stuff before that and learn it yourself.

RE: multi-player games

The multi-player aspect is precisely why I see OOC information being a problem. With regard to fairness, I think the staff owes that independent player out there who doesn't have out of game contacts the chance to compete on even ground with those that do. How we accomplish that with a group of people that aren't concerned about fair play... that's another matter.

RE: Diku-wiki

Well, the real issue is what is distributed beyond the diku-wiki. I actually appreciate the fact that those guys have kept exploration areas off the map lists and haven't populated the site with shrine locations, quest information, etc. (at least that I know of).

But the end of the day all immortal effort wont stop it.

Players want advantages in a game that keeps score. There will always be people grouped with ooc friends, sharing info, etc etc

I do not think there is a way on earth to solve this.

There is no such thing on CF. No one plays these games in a void, completely oblivious to the rest of the player base. Why is it that the information that a staff member learns from discussions on the immortal forum considered a "fringe" benefit of being an imm, and same information shared between players is cheating?

If area explores were a painting, your stance on this would be akin to telling people they cant come to a viewing if they have seen a copy of it somewhere else.

Additionally, Hell isnt a puzzle neither was Silent. The hardest part of hell isnt figuring out what to do or how to do it. Its getting through the marathon of mudding, maintaining a ridiculously high level of cooperative play. Puzzles are something you can put down and walk away from, think about it and come back to them. Silent allowed you to do this somewhat, Hell doesnt give this option at all. (No, being able to quit out in certain spots is not an option)

I am not expecting to change anyone's mind on this, hell I don't even want Silent to come back. We have always been of different mind sets on just about everything CF. Considering the way things are now, maybe you should consider that I was right about some of them?

>There is no such thing on CF.

I know zero people that play this game nowadays and that's been the case for 3-4 years. While I rarely play myself, I'd consider myself an independent player when I do.

Just mentioning it because there are some of us that still play this game in a relative vacuum.

You're a very small minority.

>You're a very small minority.
>

I'm not arguing that I'm not, just tossing it out there that some people do play wihtout OOC connections to other players.

So you've never had the opportunity to chat with someone out of game about CF? That sucks.

>So you've never had the opportunity to chat with someone out
>of game about CF? That sucks.

No I didn't meant to sound like I've never spoken to people about CF OOC in the past which is why I said I don't know anyone that plays nowadays. Its been since around 2006-07 that I knew people that played. But, the people I did know didn't have walk throughs for hell or ST or extensive wand lists to share, etc, or if they did they were bastards and never shared them! :)

The point is now when I play, I do play in a vacuum and honestly wouldn't be surprised if more then a couple people are in a similar situation where old friends have moved on to something else while they occasionaly still play.

Anyway, I actually think designing away from secret knowledge being a balancing aspect of areas is a better game design. I just think it isn't really possible in a volunteer mud setting where areas are pretty much stagnant once they go in and new area developement is rather slow.

nt

And independent players probably seem like an even smaller minority than they really are, because by definition if we're playing independently and not interacting with a bunch of OOC friends regularly on the off-site forums etc, how noticeable will we be?

I personally think the diku-wiki has the right balance; even after years of playing I still have it open every login just in case I can't remember an exact area layout, or item stats, but I also wouldn't want to see area explores on there, because it makes the exploration of those places so much more immersive when you're going in blind.

So you'd be the perfect person to ask, why don't you learn Hell on your own? What stops you?

Also - I'm going to go out on a limb and say you players who are "independent" would be classified as a lot more casual than the rest of us powergamers.

Cheers,
Jhyrb

>Also - I'm going to go out on a limb and say you players who
>are "independent" would be classified as a lot more casual
>than the rest of us powergamers.
>

I would agree with this.

With my current character? Mostly just that there's often cabal related stuff going on, and I usually can't manage to sneak off exploring for an extended amount of time without at least somewhat ignoring duties.

That applies to exploration of anywhere though, not just the area explores, and I do still find time to do some exploring when I happen to have some playtime during off-peak hours.

I actually did explore the 1st circle alone a few times years ago with a different character and thought it was very cool, and would love to go again (to refresh all the things I've forgotten, and of course to press beyond the 1st circle and leave a few corpses behind in the other 8 circles I've never really explored), I just haven't gotten around to it with my current.

You're right though that I'm probably a more casual player right now than some, but for me that's more just because I have less time free to CF at the moment. Back in the day I knew just as few people OOC as I do now (ie, zero) and I could put in 20-40hr weeks with the best of them :)

Anyway I just wanted to chime in with the rest of the Brotherhood of Independent Players and help let people know that we do in fact exist!

You are obviously posting and reading forums, its that is ooc. I am saying area explores should not have a separate set of rules than other areas.

>You are obviously posting and reading forums, its that is
>ooc. I am saying area explores should not have a separate set
>of rules than other areas.

Your right, I did meet some friends through CF and I used the word nowadays so I didn't sound like a hypocrite if any of them still read the forums. But its been so long since they have played or that we talked I'd consider myself an indenpendat player.

The forums are public information so I don't consider that the same as having direct OOC connections.

I agree with you though. Having secret information or different rules for area explores, wands, etc isn't really a good long term design for a game like CF. Puzzles and hidden knowledge work for games like Myst, not a game where PKing matters. :)

>Why is it that the information that a staff member learns from
>discussions on the immortal forum considered a "fringe"
>benefit of being an imm, and same information shared between
>players is cheating?


great point

>>Why is it that the information that a staff member learns
>from
>>discussions on the immortal forum considered a "fringe"
>>benefit of being an imm, and same information shared between
>>players is cheating?
>
>
>great point
>

I don't think anyone's ever exactly said that, but I'll say this:

CF can't run without imms that also are players. The day it doesn't have that is the day it's dead forever.

Therefore some concessions are made to the reality of that.

and Im ok with the players sharing info too!

>RE: multi-player games
>
>The multi-player aspect is precisely why I see OOC information
>being a problem. With regard to fairness, I think the staff
>owes that independent player out there who doesn't have out of
>game contacts the chance to compete on even ground with those
>that do. How we accomplish that with a group of people that
>aren't concerned about fair play... that's another matter.

You do owe an independent player (like me, as I have 0 OOC contacts) the chance to compete on even ground. What that means, however, isn't what you think it means. Knowing there is a vine of infinite practiceness in Ysigrath (*) gives an unfair advantage to anyone in-the-know and isn't something that is reasonable to expect an independent to figure out. Things like this either shouldn't exist, or should be advertised via the Immortals. This kind of hidden easter egg shouldn't exist IMHO.

You can't give the independent an even playing field so long as you make information (like say wand locations) a competitive advantage. If, however, all the wand locations were common knowledge, there would be no advantage to sharing such info OOC.

>RE: Diku-wiki
>
>Well, the real issue is what is distributed beyond the
>diku-wiki. I actually appreciate the fact that those guys
>have kept exploration areas off the map lists and haven't
>populated the site with shrine locations, quest information,
>etc. (at least that I know of).

I think they do a good job too, and I actually have a hard time playing when diku's is down because I don't maintain my own item lists and area maps anymore. However, some other people do. I know I could, and mine would rapidly exceed the depth and breadth of what is available on diku's which would be an advantage. I firmly believe that the only way to eliminate OOC sharing is to make it non-profitable. Then all you have to watch out for are OOC groups and permas which are easier to police (since they actually happen in game).

The CF of today is a lot closer to this than the CF of yesteryear, but it is still a very long way from being "fair" in the sense that everyone competes on a level playing field. I think the Immortal version of "fair" is that you know only what you yourself have figured out, but frankly that is unrealistic in an age when one could probably send all of CF's source and area files in the size of an email attachment. Sharing of information is too easy for some to resist the temptation, and faced with that reality, I think you have to remove the temptation rather than try to hold people to an unrealistic standard that you have no way to enforce.

Tac

(*) I didn't know about this until after it was removed, so I have no idea on it's actual effectiveness. I will say that I do another quest with every character that can, but I invariably feel dirty afterward because I feel the imm exp requirement to be horribly unfair and stupid.

I personally don't share the uber secret stuff that I figure out down there, becase A) I'm the one that spent 300-400 character hours to figure it out, and the man that puts in the time should get the dime, and B) It give me a distinct advantage when it comes to gear gathering, which pieces are best for my build, etc. It's hard to tell the trip leader thats making sure everyone gets through he can't get those items he wants. However if those people following were to lead their own trips, they would share the same advantage.


Basically cf is the only online game I've ever played where you get in trouble for sharing information. And it DOES create an unfair advantage against the players that do not know boatloads of people to theorycraft/help out when they get stuck.

That being said, I still love the hell out of hell, I would still go if it was all made public. Either way, I love the experience. But im not gonna lie and say I dont go there for the phat loots too, thats half of my interest in the place is the possibility that the next part of unexplored hell I hit could have something even sicker than Thera has ever seen before.


edited to add, I agree with what was said before. It should be up to the area writer, and everyone should respect their wishes. If they want it hush hush, it should be hush hush to the public. But there will always be people in a competitive game like this that share info. Most of us are guilty in some way or another of learning something from someone ooc telling us how to do it. IMO, CF was around before online gaming is what it is today. Online gaming has changed, we no longer have 120 random players logging on just to pk. We have 30-40, mostly vets, all trying to get themselves an edge. To keep CF fair and relevant, I personally believe it should adapt to the times. Stop the silly area explore is a no no garbage, and let it be on the wiki just like everything else. That puts everyone on a fair and even playing field. For the people that REALLY dont want to see the knowledge, well, they dont have to read it. They can still go do the #### on their own. Its a choice to click on the wiki maps, not mandatory. Im of the belief taking away the unfair advantage of secret info (even though I benifet from it character after character) is the best thing you can do for todays cf. That includes sleek spots, and area explore info and maps.

But as always, its up to the area writer. I'll still go to the areas, and ill still respect the writers wishes. Nothing was worse to me then Hell being closed when it was. I literally quit cf during that time period. That is why silent tower will never come back, because honestly an area like that has no place in todays cf. Where as an area like hell, certainly does, walkthrough or not, it would still take and act of god to survive it without immesnse amounts of experience there.

The rewards for figuring out stuff didn't give advantages in PK.

let me enter hell at rank 1 and you've got eggs for eggs.

>The expectation of keeping area explore information "secret"
>is just silly and completely against gaming nature.

It didn't seem that silly to me in 1998.

The culture of the game has changed a lot in 13 years.

It's like we've gone from D&D players who discovered CF to WoW players who discovered CF. The mentality is totally different now.

As it pertains to this discussion: D&D players didn't want to look behind the DM's screen. They didn't go buy the book the DM was running the quest out of so they'd have the answers to everything that came up. The fun was in the interaction with the other players and the ingenuity it took to make it through dungeons.

By contrast WoW is all about getting levels, gold, armor and PKs as fast as possible. There is very little meaningful interaction between players and it would be practically impossible to compete without finding info about the game on the web.

D&Ders were nerds who liked to roleplay. WoWers are computer gaming nerds. It's a different crowd.

This comparison makes sense to me. Regrettably, I was a D&D player who never played WoW, and what appealed to me in D&D is what appeals to me in mudding. If that is significantly out of sync with the current CF mindset (again, without data it is difficult to say), it might be wise for me to reconsider the Summer makeover for Inferno.

>This comparison makes sense to me. Regrettably, I was a D&D
>player who never played WoW, and what appealed to me in D&D is
>what appeals to me in mudding.

Me too.

If that is significantly out
>of sync with the current CF mindset (again, without data it is
>difficult to say), it might be wise for me to reconsider the
>Summer makeover for Inferno.

Obviously, it's my supposition. It's also difficult to gather such data. It seems like polls on the forums tend to be answered in the way that immortals want to hear and not necessarily in accordance with the person's actual feelings. Many of the people who disagree with the approach of the "old skool" CF staff politely don't post here. Additionally, I find the official forums to have a ratio of old school to new school posters that's incongruent with what I see in the game. This could be partially due to the hours a new school player spends playing vs. that of an old school player and is, of course, subject to the filter through which I personally see CF.

I would guess that gathering any meaningful data on the subject is probably not possible and such decisions are probably best made anecdotaly. Professionally, I'd point out that with such a low playerbase catering to their needs/wants is probably not as important as catering to the needs/wants of the kind of player you want to attract.

Finally, Scarab, please check your email. :)

However, I also think there are still a lot of us that come from DnD backgrounds still, mixed in with the new age wow crowd, that would immensely enjoy the resurfacing of the inferno that you were planning. There will always be powergamers in todays gaming world. But cf will always be a niche game for a niche crowd, and along with the pk freaks and number crunchers, you have your roleplayers and explorers. Hell always only catered to a certain % of the cf playerbases interest from day one, and those same players still enjoy it, and the information for the most part is still secret. If it wasn't you would see a lot more successful trips/armorgrabs. And in truth if a couple people weren't running them the armor wouldn't be circulated at all. Just a thought, that CF hasn't and won't likely ever go the total direction of wow. If and when it does, I'm gone as a a player, no doubt.

Don't let a couple bad apples defer you from finishing what what in my opinion, an obvious masterpiece. Your fans will always back your wishes on what you want done with the area, uber secret or not.

Would you agree that, regardless of your post, hell gear seems to always end up in the hands of the powergamey a majority of the time? It sure seems it to me.

Id much rather someone as awesome as Scarabaeus put effort into something that isn't just an area that a very small subset of CF gets to go to.

I'd much rather someone like Scarab work on something that all players would get to enjoy more often.

decided that sometimes you put your elite immortal creating things for your elite players. A little of this is healthy. These kinds of practices to the exclusion of other wider based projects would be bad.

There are loads of new Imm recruits to work on the low hanging fruit. Someone needs to create the stuff people strive to achieve, the Tiamats, Silent Towers, and the Inferno's. A CF made up of Olgakar quests, mobs that I overpower myself, and easy achievements would never have kept me interested this long.

As an old school D&Der I think areas like Hell and RP are the reasons I keep coming back to CF but I've let my WoW account go. Sadly there are always people who will read the last page of the mystery novel first, but I think the majority of us still enjoy the wonder. Don't let a few loud voices drown out those of the rest of us waiting for some more magic.

I enjoyed D&D and the idea of WOW just doesn't appeal to me at all.

nt

The expectation of keeping area explore information "secret" is just silly and completely against gaming nature. In the end it only causes headaches for the staff and the playerbase.

Scarabaeus what exactly is your expectation for an area that requires 10-12 hour blocks of playtime and multiple people? That they not communicate at all? It used to be that the staff said OOC information sharing was a No No but in game stuff was fine. But I have seen more than one snyde comment about two characters sharing information in game.

Tends to be around people sharing info they've no way of knowing ic. For example, if I've never been to hell, never met anyone from hell, never read anything about hell, but I know all about it, then I'm probably doing something wrong ic.

I've seen positive comments about ic sharing too (on a pbf).

There is a right way and wrong way to share information IC. But success of a character shouldn't be solely dependent on the amount of "secretive" knowledge you know. And that is what CF has pretty much become, just a bunch of make or break secrets. These secrets have done more to keep away new players from this game than any griefer or cheater ever did.

Secrets that are commonly known are normally readily shared ic.

Secrets like Silent are not, but not knowing Silent is not what drives newbs away. I'm fairly confident of that.

I would also note that if others weren't sharing (I'll use the word cheating, since it is explicitly against the rules), the newbs wouldn't face as much of a divide as they currently do anyway. That said, they'd still be dying to the same people so it's kind of moot.

Is there a core difference between Noob's fire giant warrior and Twist's fire giant warrior? No not really. Its the knowledge base that is the key factor, knowledge base that takes years to develop. Because most of the information that gives characters an edge in PK has been dubbed secret. End result the people in the know just repeatedly wax new players, and CF pk is down right merciless.

A puzzle has some parts randomized by some algorithm so that any given character gets a different output from finding the clues that they need. This is beaten by a cracker/coder reverse engineering the game and figuring out the algorithm, or some players grinding enough different clues to figure it out. Neither sounds easy to technically-challenged me.

Also, things like Loch Grynmear's questions being sort of high in number seem somewhat effective.

I have considered this and I think the idea has merit. The problem, of course, is that the more burdensome we make the coding process, the longer it will take to add new code to the game. But, that might also increase the longevity of the code for quests and the like because solutions are less readily-distributed.

It occurs to me that code could be written to cripple a player that starts trying solutions that aren't for his/her quest. That would certainly make a player reticent to cheat their way to a solution.

Like a lot.

I've never had the opportunity to set foot in ST.

The fact that this is due entirely to asshattery sucks.

Anything that viciously punishes wanton asshattery of this
nature I am 100% in favor of.

>I have considered this and I think the idea has merit. The
>problem, of course, is that the more burdensome we make the
>coding process, the longer it will take to add new code to the
>game. But, that might also increase the longevity of the code
>for quests and the like because solutions are less
>readily-distributed.
>

It could also make the areas more replayable, if there is a random element to the puzzles and quests at some level it would be more fun to go back through them multiple times. Where as with most puzzles I think they lose their luster after the solution is figured out the first time.

Not to give anything away, but did you ever try opening north, or unlocking north, to search for hidden doors when there wasnt one there? It was not a pleasant experience, and it wasnt viable to do at all.

You got the emails I sent yes?
I sent probably 3 or 4, just wanted to make sure you got them because there was quite a bit in there, as far as bugs and what I thought might have been looked over. Anything that can make your updating easier on my part Im glad to do.

Also...Im very curious....What did you build hell off of? I assumed it was all done off of the divine comedies (Which I did have to read in High school English) but the more I look into DnD lore and read about the nine circles of hell there, I get the idea you may have compiled your building of the inferno from several sources, One being the Dante adventure, the other maybe being from some split DnD lore and possibly other places.

Shed some light maybe? Been curious of that for a while.

I did receive the e-mails and they have been condensed and added to THE LIST.

I read Dante's Inferno, but was inspired to try to create a set of areas out of the material after visiting an art gallery with the works of Tom Phillips. I picked up a copy of his wonderfully illustrated edition of Inferno and that set the wheels in motion. Dante borrowed from a lot of sources, so I didn't feel too badly about doing that myself.

nt

>I wonder, is there any game that deals with this issue
>effectively?

Fight Club.

There is one that does a really good job at it. Since I don't want to advertise for someone else, remind me in-game and I'll give you the details.

Apart from the gear you actually need in order to explore it, that is.

Your groveling skill will need to be at at least 97% before Nep will humor such a request. Keep spamming!

Wait, was that in ST? Oh well.