I figured I'd carry this discussion forward since I find it interesting. I started playing maybe a few months to about a year before the official schism of these boards and Dioxides, which was a time where the worst of what I will name the "cheat-sites" were at the very least not easily found, or more commonly not publicly accessible. I can also recall that time as being one where people wouldn't even post here naming Dioxides - usually it would be referred to as "that other forum", in concern their post would be summarily deleted. However, without that other forum, I'm not entirely sure I'd still be playing. I realize at the time, these forums didn't even exist, but starting out today, I'm not so sure this forum alone would have been enough for me to not need Dioxides or a similar site.

I think the greatest difference in my eyes, as a boon to new players, really does come down to the item search there, but it does also involve what I perceive to be the type of information available. For example were a new player to come here and say lore is worthless, I think the general response here would be wrong it has many values with vague follow ons as to what those values are, while on Dios someone would break down what information lore provided at what %'s.

I'm curious what other players & imms think, old & new? How much information did you use when starting out from other than official web sites? If you had to do it over again without them, would you still be playing, or would you have given up in frustration?

A bit after I first started playing Glimo's started up. With the item searches I would see equipment but was never able to get it anyway. However, I've never been the type of character to actually search out specific pieces of armor unless I'm regearing and it's on my mental regear list or I've got nothing else to do. After 7 years, I can probably count on two hands the number of times I've been to the Kuo-Toa Lair (or some underwater place with the good gear, that I didn't write, heh) AND inside the Empress' Palace. I generally rely on you all to go do that for me and then die to me or my cabal mates, and it works :)

Smugness aside, there are several things I like about Dio's and it's predecessors. When I'm in a tight spot because one of my character's friends dragged him into an area for eq and then dropped link and I don't have the time to learn the area right then I can pull up a map. It is entertaining to read the logs and I learn from them. I like the Warrior Page and Thief Page as well as the Wrap Chop. More than anything, I think the most important way it serves is as the in-game "public" providing information and news that you might hear from that mob next to you at the bar if it were an actual interacting creature. There are some things characters would just know if mobs talked or if more people were playing at the same time that someone that only plays 3 hours a week would never gather. Of course, this is often abused or taken too far.

What I don't like, and why I haven't posted on Dio's since they required registration is the immature tone of most of the posts. Sometimes it is humorous, but generally it just tends to get me frustrated with the game, even though it is very rare that any of the comments would be made towards me or one of my characters. It's nice to be able to post somewhere like the Officials and not be annoyed with the homophobic insults and other things that annoy me. Also, things do cross over too much from Dio's. A Scion Conjurer recently remarked that she had people she'd never interacted with helping her character and stuff. It can be no coincidence that this came after she posted several logs of herself (which I enjoyed reading). And, finally, it is frustrating having accusations made on the forums that become accepted then made in game (such as someone losing to a warcry/flurry warrior whining to them about being unoriginal.)

Anyway, this is getting too long. I probably wouldn't still be playing if I didn't have a compulsive twitch at times to type qhcf.net into my browser, and I think it does add a lot to the game even with the many problems it brings. It would be nice if the playerbase felt more welcome to post some of the questions, etc. that they do on Dio's on the Forums. I think Grurk's log comments thing was a good start, and I think part of the problem is enduring feuds between certain 'elite' players that will comment on skills on the Officials and Imms that have a history with them.

If there was no item list, would you know off the corpse of someone when you only had a split second to loot a couple of things what to pick?

I'd know from logs. From seeing what well-equipped players wear in the game. It is very rare that I would kill anyone for their equipment though, so after I kill them if I miss something I won't be too upset. I think caring that much about equipment leads too easily to rage deletes. It is certainly plausible for people to play characters that would care, but I don't think it's healthy for the actual players to. Then again, my favorite cabal is Battle, so my armor choices are limited to begin with, especially when it comes to good gear.

Added: Also, most of the lists are out of date, hard to read, and don't contain much information about gear that people get upset about missing out on.

I don't know about you but when I was new especially, if I had my weapons dropped due to strength loss I looked up gear that had strength modifiers. If I'm not a mage and I don't build my own personal CF diaries, there's a good chance I wouldn't be able to get an easy answer to that dilemna aside from trying on every piece of gear I came across.

Especially as a rager, its not like lore is very good at first and I'm sure you don't perfect it with every char if the ending to your name isn't "astur".




Its also a moot point, as an aside, were you to say you should ask other people in game. Because asking other people in game who know about the item through the item list is just as "item list reliant" as using it yourself.

Well, my first three successful characters were a bard, a gnome healer, and a bard. Perhaps this has irrevocably altered my view on the item lists.

I do pick up pretty much every item I come across. I don't think it's very difficult to ascertain some of the attributes of items from looking at their descriptions and typing score/wear bracer/score. I feel that especially non-magical items should have descriptions that give a better impression of what they will do (such as the new armor for sale in Seantryn Modan). Lore is quite useful even not at 100%, I just practice it when I'm sitting around and have a feeling I won't need much mana in the near future. It will tell you what stats it affects fairly early on, which is enough to tell you whether you should investigate it more or not.

Going to the item search and looking for items that affect your strength isn't going to help newbies too much. The info listed is inaccurate, and the majority of items listed aren't feasible for newbies to get.

Asking people in game leads to interaction and could also lead to them showing you items that aren't on the list. My last character's final set had several items that either aren't on the lists or that I expect to be inaccurate.

>Especially as a rager, its not like lore is very good at first
>and I'm sure you don't perfect it with every char if the
>ending to your name isn't "astur".

Unless you're a *really* low int race like fire giant, I swear getting lore up on a warrior isn't that bad. The only trick is, you don't sit there and try to spam lore up. You just (especially when you're uncaballed) get in the habit of tossing a few lores in whenever you're at or near full mana.

By the time I'm ready to start exploring at all with the character, it's almost always into the useful range, even with relatively low int warriors such as felar or storm.

I'd rather be thinking about other things than remembering to "lore 1." when my mana hits 100%. Honestly, why not make lore as useful at 75% as it is at 90%?

You sort of tricked me into arguing against item lists when that's not what I really meant to do. Now that I'm done thinking of justifications for why they shouldn't be needed I can examine the base of your question.

I don't think item lists are bad; I just don't use them and don't think they helped me that much when I was starting out. I don't think they're necessary to use and can limit or mislead people but at the end of the day there's nothing terrible about them if you do want to use them. The only thing about them that really bothers me is when someone goes into a new area one day after it's been opened up and every item has been posted. Considering how much work some people put into their areas I don't think it's too much to ask for the players to show some respect and wait a little while.

I'm a veteran player.... played for about a decade. When I first started playing CF, I didn't even have a web browser, and I didn't discover Dio's until some time after I did get a web capable computer. I think that both forums exist to serve a purpose, and I use each for different things.

Basically, all the maps, item lists, skill lists, old school title lists, etc... are something which saves me time and effort. I rarely, if ever encounter an item on an item list that I don't already have some clue as to what it does, but if I'm looking to up the +str gear I'm wearing, I'll use an item search. I'm not going to mentally try and sort through all the gear I've ever worn and figure out what was +str and what wasn't... this is a waste of my time, and isn't enjoyable. Similarly if I'm looking for a specific item in an area I don't visit often, I might use a map rather than stumble around for 20 minutes until I find what I'm looking for. Again, saving time. I generally know key levels of power for classes, but if I want to know if that mace spec warrior has boneshatter yet, I'll probably check before I run in and fight.

I'm not a cheater, never have been, but why should I compile a hoarde of information, (either in my head or written down) strictly for my own usage, when there is most of that information out there already for me? I used to make maps, write down item id's, and compile title lists, but this was all just a waste of time. I waste enough time doing menial CF related tasks already... ranking, eq gathering, prep harvesting, and money finding that I just plain don't want to waste anymore. If Dio's went away forever tomorrow and that info was no longer out there... would I still play? I don't know, maybe, but I imagine the extra annoyance of trying to id every item I come across, or trying to remember where that stable room was would be enough to push me away forever.

That said, the official forums are great. Generally the discussions are of a much higher quality, and I never have to read some baseless flame by a retard who spreads misinfo like it's going out of style. If it wasn't for the bug forum, I'd never know if something I thought was buggy was fixed, or whatever, and the premium battlefield is a godsend for keeping those people that like to talk a lot of #### from really going overboard because all their stats can be laid out just like that. However, if I want to know if hour past midnight will allow me to dual wield equally weight exotics, I'm probably not going to ask here because I feel like the answer I would get would be something like, "Try it out and see." I'm sorry, but I'll not be wasting 75 hours and a good character concept on something that won't work. I'd just shelf that idea until someone can tell me whether it's a waste of time or not.

This got kind of long and rambly and probably a little bitter sounding, but that's mostly because I'm pissed at getting beaten around like a red-headed stepchild with my most recent incarnation, so don't take anything personal.

Laearrist

>However, if I want to know if hour past midnight will
>allow me to dual wield equally weight exotics, I'm probably
>not going to ask here because I feel like the answer I would
>get would be something like, "Try it out and see."

Actually, I would've answered that one. It's not telling you anything you couldn't instantly find out if you had the legacy. In my mind, at least, that's in a different category from something that would take much more significant experimentation to find out.

(Of course, I was AWOL for a couple years there.)

I believe the answer is yes, incidentally.

This brings up another point about why it's good to have mechanics dialogue here between the designers and the players. If you did pick Hour Past and found you couldn't dual wield equal weight exotics, it'd be brought to my attention. In that particular case, I'd fix it. In others, I might tell you: no, it's supposed to be that way.

This, in turn, reminds me of another point I want to make. Sometimes a player will post a log or something here or complain about something here, and my response will be: You're not fighting that the right way. I want to clear up something about that. When I say that, it doesn't mean I'm not looking at the balance of the thing in question. It doesn't mean there won't be changes down the road. However, it's hard for me to tell the balance of something if one of the players in question is playing to the advantage of their character in a situation and the other totally isn't. That also doesn't mean I'm calling you stupid. A lot of the commonly accepted tactics for dealing with things evolved over a long time of the game being played. Especially with new skills/spells or a combination no one has played before, it's not surprising that the counter-tactics haven't evolved yet.

When I first started out, there were no web sites, official or otherwise. I mudded from a linux prompt in my dorm room.

Granted, CF is more complicated now than it was when I first started playing, but there are also more in-game and official web site resources available too. It's hard to say whether I'd be content or not with what's available here, because it's such a different game now, but I'd think I would be. At least, when playing single-player games, it's not my nature to look up a bunch of walkthroughs and websites. But that's me.

We are constantly re-evaluating the need for more newbie-friendly resources on the official site. (As an example, you'll notice warrior spec skills and legacy information have recently been added to the warrior class page.) However, we do not want to do so at the expense of compromising some of the in-game content. Anything can potentially add something or take away something, and we consider both aspects carefully before making more information available on our site.

Speaking for myself, I don't really see how an item-search function really adds to enjoyment more than discovering the location and capabilities of items in-game. Hazarding a guess, I'd say people who rely on too heavily on item lists probably end up with tunnel vision, and miss a lot of content and item functionality by doing so. Which, incidentally, is why I don't care that there is an item search on Dioxide's.. as I still believe the rewards are there for people who instead go without it. However, I (personally) wouldn't endorse the idea for our own site due to the forementioned reasons.

Kinda like triggers, too. A lot of people like to think to be all kick-ass and hardcore you need triggers, but the most stunningly effective playerkillers I have watched do not use triggers at all. I'd say the most stunningly effective explorers are not relying on anyone's item lists or maps but their own.

It's very fair to say that an item search probably hinders players when it comes to being skilled - anyone reliant on it for all their information is handicapping themselves. But, I can still remember having another player tell me to wear skull rings and charred bracers because they helped me hit harder.

I think the imms want to fall back on the adage give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish he eats for life. Fine, but if you're starving to death and are going to pass out from hunger in an hour, which would you rather have? I'm not convinced that newbies who are concerned with survival first, succeeding second aren't in the same shoes of a starving man who doesn't have the time or inclincation for fishing lessings.

Echoes for all the new things are cool and all, but is there anywhere in the academy that tells the user that explains that these echoes mean some type of enhancement and are generally better than items that don't? Because I think there is somewhere in the newbie academy or the newbie help files which talks about compare. It's how I decided what gear to wear starting out. Compare the armor and where whichever one is better. The problem being I don't believe the compare command doesn't (didn't?) take into account anything but AC value.

Long story short, maybe just beefing up compare to be more informative would be the most beneficial change for newbies.

>Speaking for myself, I don't really see how an item-search function really adds to enjoyment more than discovering the location and capabilities of items in-game. Hazarding a guess, I'd say people who rely on too heavily on item lists probably end up with tunnel vision, and miss a lot of content and item functionality by doing so. Which, incidentally, is why I don't care that there is an item search on Dioxide's.. as I still believe the rewards are there for people who instead go without it. However, I (personally) wouldn't endorse the idea for our own site due to the forementioned reasons.

________________________

When I was a new player and Glimo's first put this up, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. One of the hardest parts of being a newbie is being able to acquire gear that helps you not get your head kicked in every two seconds. Finally, there was a way to start learning about game items I never even knew existed. And as the item search only gave rough hints, I at least knew the general area to start searching in.

CF is, as always, going in two different directions at once. More newbie friendly, but also implementing more ways to obfuscate game mechanics clarity. Less spamming skills, but keeping a spam class like invokers. I don't think that a basic item list is unreasonable. People who otherwise don't want to take six months to learn which item does what and comes from where (and believe it or not, I would say that six months is a bare minimum to exhibit any degree of competitive competancy at this game) could at least have a few basic ideas.

The item search saved my buns

Not sure if it was a joke or not, but I thought I might save you some future embarassment if you weren't aware that it's Hancock (as in John Hancock the bombastic first signer of the Declaration of Independence) and not handcock. Cheers.

I had help of a knowing OOC/RL friend and Dikuclan map page to help me start. A little bit later I also started reading the two forums(Official site and Dioxides). I have never bothered to do item lists, so basically I'm rather dependent on the IC lore skill/identify spell on that matter.

The official forums are great for getting direct staff feedback, and I understand why you guys don't post on Dios.

On the other hand, the only thing people into a hobby like to do more than that hobby is talk about that hobby?

Put two mountain bikers in the same room and in 30 second they will be arguing the relative merits of the type of clipless pedals they use.

The officials don't encourage that sort of discussion, while Dios does. I think it is less about people wanting a spoon (though thats how it ends up coming out) and more about having this abstract ideal of "the perfect cf char" and trying to visualize that char and describe it, and debate it. That is natural.

Moreover, Dios is the reason I always get back into the game after one of my ~6 month lapses when I say I am "giving up cf". The officials are good when I am playing actively, but I will be bored one day and check dios for the first time in 2 months, and there will be a debate about the merits of one combo vs another, and I will find myself rolling a char 2 days later.

Moreover, as anyone who knows my chars can attest, I am more rp oriented than pk oriented. I usually play communers, and I usually rp my butt off.

Hell, you knew Bjai pretty well.

Only reason I bring all that up is because this perspective about Dios isn't coming from a Hasturian I MUST HAVE PERFECTED KICK AS A HAND SPEC WARRIOR type of view point. I love to talk about the merits of piece of gear A versus piece of gear B, but when I actually play I end up being kind of froofy.

Anyways, Yay CF!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Mages and priests aren't recommended for newbies, which leaves classes that have less than optimal means of getting accurate ID's for say, every object they come across. Mull that one over :-P.