Afte so big delay I've seen CF like for the first time, and I want to share my thoughts. It's just MY own impressions, as I see today's CF.

1. Starting playing from the beginning is difficult for newbies/comebackers. Nobody knows about those pretty quests that give a huge advantage to veterans. Boots from Gralan, for instance. I totally forgot about them. There should be hints/links/quest line leading to the boots for new players. I've got a bit lost after leaving Academy, having to idea what to do. There also should be something to catch "lost" players and guide them what to do now. Also, it's very difficult to play without equipment, and new players have no single idea where to grab it. I've remembered some, so I quickly checked spots and got some, but new players won't ever do it. So they'll easily die to the mobs and probably leave at level 6, never to return. I don't have statistics, but I think it's where CF loses them.

2. With the so small player base, leveling up for newbies is a problem. Really, I don't see any points in so slow leveling now, when there are so few people around. No groups; hours of single-player mode on mid/low ranks for... for what? Is it supposed to be fun to sit there alone for days? I'd make x5 XP boost, because the game actually begins on high ranks now (it's only where at least something of interest left, due to relatively "good" online of people in range. Remember POS's power-up to 51 level? It allowed an even tiny player base to play and have tons of fun.

3. I got totally disheartened when I've read EDGEPOINTS SPECS (I found it after reading a thread on the forum) because I've read it on like level 43. I missed two milestones that sounds like "write scripts before you begin to play CF to achieve 2 milestones before level 30". I feel that it's unfair to the newbies (who will NEVER complete this task). Forcing players to waste their time on exploring over and over again, same things - what's the gameplay goal of it I cannot understand. What do you achieve? Forcing players to levelsit on 28-29, what for?

4. Yes... second thing that totally killed me is the lack of edge point for PK. Why should I hunt now, if I'm not a lich and not having phylactery rewards? I felt that only one reliable way to earn edge points is to receive immexp, and this is not for me (foreigner, no possibility for quality RP, no chances to write a good role, night-time online). As a result, all my enemies will have from three to five times more edges than me - always. Do I want to play with such permanent penalty? No. I'll probably play, but this always be the negative part of CF, permanent "dishearten" buff on me as on the player. So, I'll leave CF faster (though I think it's a good thing for real life!).

5. New wands system seems to be fun, I think. At least, there shouldn't be situations where characters are deleting because their wand spots sucks. But I had no chance to test it properly - I've stuck without sleek black for 7-10 days (it didn't pop up on the mob). I've finally got it at the last day when I went to Conservator. Playing spectre with only one limited barrier source (from 0 to 3 barriers per day) weren't fun, so I mostly avoided battles. I think it was a bug, and Immortal told me to create a ticket, but when it finally appeared, the ticket was removed and reason was "oh, it works, okay". I still think it should be investigated properly because any other player may find himself in the same situation.

I don't believe anything of this will be taken into consideration, nor do I encourage you to change anything. It's just my feelings about "bad" things in CF. But generally CF is still fun, still interesting and addictive. So I think I'll stay, make some scripts to explore, write a cool role and probably pay a $100 on Fiverr to proofread it :P

You leveled one of the single most difficult things on the mud to level (a necro) to lvl 47 WHILE being inducted into a cabal AND having a positive PK ratio in just over 100 hrs. I think that you have a skewed opinion on what new players actually struggle with.

Based on your commentary, EP would not help you in pk. You have a predetermined notion that you need X, Y, Z to be competitive. That is just not true whether you believe it or not. Also, the fact that you had a positive kill:death ratio even at the point of your death makes it very difficult to take you seriously that you were gimped at PK. Especially since you died as a Spectre, which again is one of the harder things to do much of anything with and its almost impossible for a true "new player" to do anything with.

Re: removal of the ticket. The bug ticket you put in was not helpful to track down a bug. It said "My wand won't show up on this mob but I am doing everything right." That doesn't give us anything to work with to find the root of the problem. There was no log, there was no details of anything that could be viewed as out of place. And you know what, when your wand does actually show up from that mob then that ticket you gave us is 100% meaningless.

I have logs, I can attach them all, it's not a problem. Problem is that you have a spontaneous bug (which are the most difficult to catch and track), and when I reported nothing happened. And nothing is happening. For some reason wand didn't appear for A LOT of time. I wrote that I tried a lot of different things - killing it alone, with pets, lasthit, via poison, with other players. It never appeared, but then suddenly it did. And then you says "there is no bug". I don't think it's right.

About other things - well, you are free to treat my words as you desire. I said only what *I FEEL*, you can't tell me that that I feel wrong. I had such experience this session, another session I'll have different. I don't ask you to change anything, don't blame imms for anything; it's my, only my feelings that I've shared, providing you this feedback. You are free to do whatever you want with it, from ignoring it completely and saying everything is okay to taking into consideration.

I've killed mobs that have a sleek and if the mob ever died on the tick to bleeding the rod would not drop. There is likely other ways to kill a mob and not have it drop too I guess. Bleeding is the only one I've encountered though.

And rod didn't appear. Then, without any actions from my part, it popped, when my charmie killed the mob. Only one thing comes to mind, what was different that time - I died. So my death could somehow affect poppting of the wand. I don't want to think that there is a mechanics that will limit your sleek rods if you haven't been killed for a long while.

I landed PKs as a goblin. If someone were to both do that and avoid being PK'd then a goblin with a posistive ratio would be conceivable. That doesn't mean it's a competitive build or that it isn't gimped.

No I'm not going to log me going to location X and killing the mob, looking in corpse, and the wand not being there, walking back to guild, asking for hint, and the guy saying its on the mob I just killed.

Why do you keep asking for logs of that? How is the explanation not telling you exactly what happened? What am I missing here?

Do you even code bro?

That leads to insight on nature of a bug.

Used to be how I knew assassins were stalking me.

This is BACK BACK in the day though, with the original old-school sleek sets.

The log reveals if you did one of the many things that will make it so you don't get the rod. I dont need to code know if you're doing it wrong. I need a log for that.

Because ticket is deleted already. But you won't see anything special in the log, it's just usual killing of the mob, same as always.

The way the edge system is now you have to script/grind obs/explore to be competitive. Yes you do, because with other sources of edges drying up the comparative importance of the script/grind stuff has skyrocketed. If you hero and you're still missing key edges (the edge point bonus you get for heroing seem pretty small, not even enough to see strong wrists if you save up) you're forced to avoid PK because you're off losing con in area explores that might not even be worth anything (I did the whole of Trothon for 0 exploration?). I have to assume I'll be able to afford only a single edge on any character I play now, and if I pick the wrong one it's like "well, wasted this character". And if the edge is more expensive than I think I might not even get that one. Whereas before I was able to 'just play' and have a reasonable expectation that if I kept participating in the game that eventually I'd accrue some more edge points and be able to try out this crazy idea I have/be able to pick the vital all or nothing edge which transforms the class completely, now I have to go out of my way to avoid participating so I can stumble round in dangerous areas I've no reason to go to besides hoping there's exploration points to be found on the offchance I might be able to afford an edge which will allow me to be somewhat competitive in PK.

Sure everyone's at the same disadvantage now, except they aren't, all the characters who existed before the change still have their edges.

While it may be personally annoying to me not to be able to earn edge points, that's not the point of this post, the point is that by removing the possibility of just PKing and not worrying about secret sauce explore/observe exp, you've left in the secret sauce for the most problematic method of edge point accrual and it's encouraging/forcing players to go down that route when they otherwise wouldn't. Yes, you don't need edgepoint incentive to PK, but if you want to PK competitively (and who wants to PK if it's not competitive), you MUST stop PKing and explore.

I think maybe your problem was trying too hard?

Trothon, for example, won't give explore exp until you get above a certain level, I think? To stop cheesy "take your mates thru" stuff etc.

Although I have successfully taken a Druid thru solo at relatively low level.

The problem is, if I want my character to be effective in PK, I have to spend time doing anything but PK. I want to PK even without edge points, but I want edge points to be able to PK better, meaning I have to do not-PK things.

Most characters will still get their edge points retrieving cabal items, but some kinds of characters such as orcs don't have that option available to them. So precisely the sort of character who should be out being a scourge of civilisation is instead incentivised to find obscure places away from the action to look at things.

I dunno? Because it's fun?

I can't sleep and there's a part of me that would like to address this post on a point by point basis, but I think we fundamentally disagree on the point of the game, so I'm going to skip it.

I'm really glad you failed your becoming, though, because I think all the OP Villagers shredding through ABS and OP Outlanders sneaking up on me are better for the game than a badly RPed undead ever could be.

But probably your poisonous attitude is one of the reasons why playerbase is so small now. I really feel sorry for you and for those who have to deal with you. Thanks for helping me to stay away from CF for yet another couple of years (or at least to move in that direction).

I'm merely suggesting that if you're not having fun you're doing it wrong.

Your death thread was titled "Thank god I have died!" and included the line "I had no good role, had poor RP and PK."

But wait, there's more:
"Can't say I like what I saw."
"I'm glad that mummification is failed"
"it's really fortunate that it's over"

I discern that you're not having any fun playing the game.

I will repeat that if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.

Although the playerbase is smaller than it has ever been I believe that with the addition of Raltevio there is an RP renaissance going on and if you haven't noticed, a third of the cabal leaders in Thera, including the Emperor, have one foot in Herald.

If the only way you can have fun is by being the PK king-of-the-hill, you're never going to have fun, because there will always be someone better than you at playerkilling.

You and I will never catch up with the folks who have not taken a break from the game in more than two decades.

What we can do is enhance each-other's experience by engaging in cool storylines, fun PK, and figuring out what secrets are hidden in the game.

From my POV, both on the forums and in game, your sour-grapes attitude is the only poison here.

Yes, he doesn't have the best attitude but he made some decent points about game dynamics. The fact that the post "as a whole" tended toward the needless complaining shouldn't get in the way of the fact that in parts, there were things worth considering and addressing.

Was when he asked "why would I pk for no mechanical bonus" was that his rp must be ####.

Normally it's obvious why your char would pk. Because it is integral to almost all roles.

nt

How would I know? How would newbies know?
Thanks for the hint, I'll check it now. But it won't help newbies much. Imho, there should be a basic eq for newbies, like outfit, but for level 6-10.

on newbie channel. It's also on the main page of carrionfields.net webpage. So how would newbies know?

1. Each time they level up, they get an important hint.
2. If they are new to CF (answered Yes when rolled), they are receiving tips from time to time over newbie channel

If you answered yes to being a newbie, might not be a bad idea

NT

when I got pissed for not getting a lastname... and it turned out you have to actually set your own lastname via an in-game command, as opposed to just writing in a role entry that "my lastname is so-and-so".

How would I know? How would newbies know?

/sarcasm

They do indeed point you towards quests and gear, since they list suitable areas and stuff/mobs to look for there. And I think the explorers notebook sold in the academy does too.

But I guess you didn't bother reading them.

...then you are very, very far from reality. You may read a number of good articles of researchs concerning what players are reading, why in WoW were removed quest descriptions and articles on Gamasutra how to involve players into the game. But judging by your tone and type of comments, I doubt you'll do it, so I won't continue this little conversation with you until you educate yourself and stop talking groundless arguments that I interpret as nonsense.

To help you understand the idea, here is a pic for you - design vs user experience. It demonstrates pretty well how users are reading helpfiles.

It's photoshop.

It's just an illustration, first that I took from google. There are tons of same "design vs user experience" in real life. Right outside of my house, for instance.

you should've used those :)

You're probably amongst those that don't because you thought you had the basics covered?