In the spirit of saving CF let's brainstorm simple ideas or things to revert that would help bring people back so the mud doesn't die. And yes, it is going to die. I played another mud that went on this same downward cycle and everyone said it wasn't really dying. It was. It will.

1) Give us edges back. Who quit because people had too many edges? No one. Who quit because we don't have any? Several.

2) Consider more learning and xp bonuses. To the point that people get spoiled. The most fun I've had in recent memory as a lowbie were over that weekend that the 100% bonuses were up.

3) Unban Boris he brings joy to many.


That's really all I have. The first two would boost numbers back to 40 by themselves. Just do it, IMMS. Even if it means sacrificing everything.

Everyone seems to have an opinion about how to save CF. The problem is, everyone seems to have a different understanding of what CF is, or what the "golden age" was, or what made that golden age so golden.

The truth is that this entire medium is in decline. Some MUDs/MMOs are declining faster than others. But even World of Warcraft's playerbase has dropped by more than half since it opened.

I've elected to concentrate on providing unique, in-game experiences that I had always appreciated and found to be special and magical for my years in CF. Ironically, the many posts that I've put here attempting to make sure that as many people as possible have access to this repeatedly get buried beneath literally tens of thousands of words focusing on criticism, theories that are not grounded in any kind of empirical data, and moonshot ideas that would take more resources than we have as unpaid volunteers to implement.

My request would be that you instead put that energy into figuring out a way to have fun in the game that it is, rather than getting disappointed that it isn't the game that you want it to be. There is a lot you can do to have fun and contribute to the fun of others. Literally none of these arguments are new - and the players making them have invariably made them many times before. You are heard. You have been heard. But frankly, if I were intrigued by CF and scrolled through the Gameplay board, I'd probably get turned off pretty quick.

I think, at a certain point, you need to decide whether you are happy doing what you are doing. If you are happy being part of this community and if playing this game brings you joy, I hope you stick around for as long as it does. That's what I'm doing, and I spend many, many of my few free hours every week working on trying to add as much as I can to this game because it's a great creative outlet, and surprising, delighting, and sometimes confounding players gives me a rush.

If you aren't happy - if certain personalities make you bitter, or if you walk around fuming IRL about this game, or other players, or IMMs, or if you just can't stomach the thought of rolling a character and writing a description and ranking up, the solution is to simply walk away. Maybe you're finally over your CF phase. Maybe you just need a breather. I've done it before many times over the years. Then I came back when I felt inspired. It was good for me, and good for the game, that I left when I did. And when I came back, I was a better player for it.

I'm serious. If you're really unhappy, please just leave until you miss this place. Not the place it was 15 years ago. The place as it is now. When you do miss this place, come back and you'll enjoy it more than ever.

A lot of you are pretty smart, so you'll find a lot to attack in what I wrote above. I'm sure there are some logic holes that invite some really witty retorts. I'm not going to reply further to discuss defend any of it, because it is utterly pointless. Just know that none of what I wrote here is laced with bitterness or animosity toward anybody. There's a lot I'd like to see changed, too, that most likely will not ever change. I'm not the first, last, or only one who feels that way. It's just that at a certain point, you have to take responsibility for your own happiness. That's what I'm doing, and I hope you do it, too.

You seem to be the face of them but I’m sure it is a team effort and I don’t want to deny anyone their due. Those events are fun.

That’s what players love. They like having something to look forward to.

It’s not wizardry. I want to get excited to log in.

Maybe it’s an event. Maybe it’s perfecting a skill. Maybe it’s an edge. Maybe it’s chasing a PK. Maybe it’s something to RP about or work toward a tat. Doesn’t matter. It’s about working toward something to enrich your character and make the log in exciting.

When you IMMs throw out an unexpected interaction or boon that does it.

I hate to bring it up again but that’s why so many people lost their #### over the Halloween form thing. They wanted that chance. They were willing to blow 50 hours x 3 just to look forward to that opportunity. The decision was the New Coke call for CF.

I think a lot of you staff do great. Just keep giving people something to look forward to when they log in and this game will live.

Nt

nt

I agree with all this. When playing a mortal, these kind of events make my day.

NT

>Everyone seems to have an opinion about how to save CF. The
>problem is, everyone seems to have a different understanding
>of what CF is, or what the "golden age" was, or what made that
>golden age so golden.
>
>The truth is that this entire medium is in decline. Some
>MUDs/MMOs are declining faster than others. But even World of
>Warcraft's playerbase has dropped by more than half since it
>opened.

I'll try not to go into too long a rant here, but this attitude is
not productive, in my opinion. 1) It depends entirely on how you
define the medium... For instance there are more people playing D&D
online now than ever before... and there are more people playing
online games. And there aren't really solid numbers for these things
since things like WoW don't publish subscription numbers anymore...

Also, Wow still have something like 5 million subscriptions, down from
11 million. And neither of those really defines what matters, which
is people logged in playing the game on a day-to-day basis. Has WoW
declined? Probably, but it is hardly a ghost town, and Blizzard is
clearly still making money on it, or they'd pull the plug.

>I've elected to concentrate on providing unique, in-game
>experiences that I had always appreciated and found to be
>special and magical for my years in CF. Ironically, the many
>posts that I've put here attempting to make sure that as many
>people as possible have access to this repeatedly get buried
>beneath literally tens of thousands of words focusing on
>criticism, theories that are not grounded in any kind of
>empirical data, and moonshot ideas that would take more
>resources than we have as unpaid volunteers to implement.

I'm honestly glad you are doing these. They certainly help attract
and retain a certain type of player. Please continue to do them.
That they do nothing/very little for me shouldn't deter you, but it
also won't bring me or others like me back, because they aren't the
experience we are looking for.

>My request would be that you instead put that energy into
>figuring out a way to have fun in the game that it is, rather
>than getting disappointed that it isn't the game that you want
>it to be. There is a lot you can do to have fun and contribute
>to the fun of others. Literally none of these arguments are
>new - and the players making them have invariably made them
>many times before. You are heard. You have been heard. But
>frankly, if I were intrigued by CF and scrolled through the
>Gameplay board, I'd probably get turned off pretty quick.

What if I can't have fun in the game that CF is? I should leave
quietly? Cool. CF is a game I believe could be better and that I
want to be better and I'm voicing my opinion on that. Please stop
trying to blame me for scaring away potential new players by doing
so.

>I think, at a certain point, you need to decide whether you
>are happy doing what you are doing. If you are happy being
>part of this community and if playing this game brings you
>joy, I hope you stick around for as long as it does. That's
>what I'm doing, and I spend many, many of my few free hours
>every week working on trying to add as much as I can to this
>game because it's a great creative outlet, and surprising,
>delighting, and sometimes confounding players gives me a
>rush.
>
>If you aren't happy - if certain personalities make you
>bitter, or if you walk around fuming IRL about this game, or
>other players, or IMMs, or if you just can't stomach the
>thought of rolling a character and writing a description and
>ranking up, the solution is to simply walk away. Maybe you're
>finally over your CF phase. Maybe you just need a breather.
>I've done it before many times over the years. Then I came
>back when I felt inspired. It was good for me, and good for
>the game, that I left when I did. And when I came back, I was
>a better player for it.
>
>I'm serious. If you're really unhappy, please just leave until
>you miss this place. Not the place it was 15 years ago. The
>place as it is now. When you do miss this place, come back and
>you'll enjoy it more than ever.

Continually asking your players to stop playing probably isn't the
best choice.

>A lot of you are pretty smart, so you'll find a lot to attack
>in what I wrote above. I'm sure there are some logic holes
>that invite some really witty retorts. I'm not going to reply
>further to discuss defend any of it, because it is utterly
>pointless. Just know that none of what I wrote here is laced
>with bitterness or animosity toward anybody. There's a lot I'd
>like to see changed, too, that most likely will not ever
>change. I'm not the first, last, or only one who feels that
>way. It's just that at a certain point, you have to take
>responsibility for your own happiness. That's what I'm doing,
>and I hope you do it, too.

So the message is, please leave, I don't want to talk to you, you
aren't worth my time. I'm sorry for trying I guess?

Sometimes we take rest from CF because of the immortals - did it myself at least twice from what i remember - because of Iunna (or whatever Imm it was with demons in helpfile :P) and Jormyr.

After few monthes break i found easy solution - to avoid their cabals IC and everything about them.

I also took rest after Bakrmarr for few monthes because i didn't see what else could i achieve in CF. Before that i was taking a rest or two when i died stupidly as a-ps.

As for me i always returned to CF after few monthes. However i can see it if someone doesn't.

But please let's stop all these stupid posts about CF dying and so on. It's not perfect game and is only for those who enjoy it in current state.

"It's not perfect game and is only for those who enjoy it in current state."

Is that true? So, when there were fewer edge points, no one should have stuck it out until they were later increased?

If that was true, we'd have lost 90% of the PB between the time 'forced dual' was implemented and the time it was removed as a obvious mistake.

Can you name any other entity that exists that tells the players/customers/participants to pound sand and leave if they do not like it? The only one's I can think of are either monopolies or government (force) run.

>1) Give us edges back. Who quit because people had too many
>edges? No one. Who quit because we don't have any? Several.

I could get behind this with the caveats that:

a. PK should not be a significant source of edge points. You should be able to get some points from PK, but the cap should be very modest.

b. Some edges should probably be adjusted in upwards in cost or nerfed in effectiveness; this should probably be balanced by making other edges available to the same class slightly less expensive or more powerful.


>2) Consider more learning and xp bonuses. To the point that
>people get spoiled. The most fun I've had in recent memory as
>a lowbie were over that weekend that the 100% bonuses were
>up.

Why was it more fun? Seems like a no-op, except that you rank faster.


>3) Unban Boris he brings joy to many.

Depends on the circumstances of the ban, I would imagine. Staff takes a pretty dim view of cheating; I support that stance. Note: I have zero insight into the circumstances of that ban.

some folks might enjoy playing one char, or the same sort of char, for a thousand plus hours. for instance, a fortress thief.

others enjoy playing out ideas and combos, rarer builds, and generally experimenting with things.

being able to rank quicker, especially when playerbase is low or off peak hours, helps realize the idea quicker.

it means we get in the game faster which is fun for everyone

Trying hard not to power rank I still hit hero in 60 hours unless I make an effort to levelsit.

If I try hard 30-40 hours does it. If I catch double xp i can do it in 20.

You might have a few logins that suck but solo and duo ranking works and I get several ranks from quests and explore/observe.

but some simply don't work

in the past 5 years i've played evil outlander mage 2 or 3 times. couldn't hit 30 on any. wound up soloing on random stuff, quests, or planar sanctum. can't get a merc.

evil bard? same thing.

sure, i can solo a ranger 1-51 in 50 hours.

or i can buy a giant merc and solo mausoleum as g/n

but some builds simply aren't feasible.

what i would LOVE is some woodland mercs that can be bartered to help outlanders or entropy (i know entropy can buy regular mercs) to get the bonus. would be beautiful

For fun I looked up some recent evil outlander mages and evil bards and checked how long it took for them to reach level 30.

Jakhu, transmuter: 9 hours
Qarodeth, shifter: 31 hours
Zoenad, invoker: 24 hours
Shalic, bard: 19 hours
Zagaer, bard: 9 hours

Both bards were Empire. Wasn't clear from your post whether your evil bard was also Outlander.

- One was on 100% leaning bonus much of the time.
- Several had steadfast groupmates
- One had a taura lizard (the only one I saw much solo ranking with)

Also, not saying these players did, but many coordinate characters with friends to rank. Using them as a yardstick with which to measure those that don't doesn't make sense. And neither of us know whether they did or didn't.

No one said it couldn't be done under the right circumstances. And the premium board is a terrible place to figure out what's "too difficult" and what's not.

Also missing, how many gave up and deleted.

that I am awesome and ranking bard is easy peasy any way.

And if the problem is newbs not getting edge points, increase the baseline edge points so that newbs can also try out lots of edges over the course of a few characters. They'll soon learn which ones are nice that way.

Add back a few more milestones for commerce/explore/observe and bring back edge points for PK.

But change the PK bit to only care about number of unique characters instead of raw numbers and make assists count. That nixes multi killing and throws a bone to supports type builds.

It’s just a good incentive system because it gives you built in things to keep striving for even after you hero. Presently outside of imm xp and leader there isn’t much to get at hero. I likely would actually remove the role and imm xp points since they dont relate to inter mortal gameplay.

You don’t need edges to compete but they are something to do that has some benefit.

And also more tiered comnerce/obs/exp thresholds than now, so that you gain EPs more gradually. Some for mature age, too.

The impression I get is that there's this very inflexible view of an idealized CF which has little room for different (player) input, that you know better than we do what kind of game we want to play. Of course coding resources are thin, but it would be nice to see at least something simple, like reversing the "decision" on October forms (not that I play shifters) which many were looking forward to.

Which should have been before the big edge changes in December of that year.

I quit playing at that time specifically because average high numbers were like 18 and in the late hours of the night it was about 10, with some nights having 4 players, which was lower than I'd ever seen CF and too low for me as a pk player.