After having suffered at the hands of certin death during last session it prompts me to ask the Imms to have death traps removed. I know this is unlikely but I feel I have to ask. Over the life of several characters I have suffered multiple deaths to teleporting into them or stumbling into them during the course of exploratition. With the exclusion of some rather clever ones most of these appear in older areas and seem to have been included for ####s and giggles. A death trap in an area explore I can understand but lets do away with the several that are not.

The death today was the result of me porting a room away and scanning to see a beast in the next room. Having fought nearly ever hard mob in the game at one time or another a guardian beast didn't seem overly imposing. One step and dead. No fighting, no chance, just dead. Some will say that if you pay attention that could be avoided and they may be right. I just can't see how falling off mountains because you typed one too many ups, falling on a spike in a moat while exploring a regular city, tumbling off some ciffs, or taking an instant death because you thought you would check out a mob you didn't remember in a low level area brings any worth to the game. This is not a make or break for me but if any Imm would mind letting me know why they think these traps belong that would be cool. Thanks for any response ahead of time.

I think this is a big problem. They are necessary, but here's my issue with CF:

With the advent of all these areas, imms have strived to not over-inundate the game with wealth, uber gear, etc. They want good gear to be valuable, so they have judiciously handed it out. The problem is, they don't as quickly judiciously handle the other end of the spectrum. All the new areas added in, and many many of them have either death traps, NPC's with spec attacks/gear shattering attacks that aren't warranted or necessary but just make them a pain in the ass to kill, and etc.

Here's where the problem comes into play. Most of the new areas I explore, have crappy gear, death traps and annoying to fight NPC's FOR NO REASON (IE, they aren't guarding an elite piece of gear).

I'm fine with not handing out an overabundance of gear, but if there's no good gear in the area it shouldn't be a pain in the ass to explore. Nothings more annoying than getting to the end of the maze only to find out there is no cheese.

The NPCs having specs, special skills, etc. As if fighting them is already a risk, having an axe spec break my mithril-pickaxe as a pain. Also, those mobs can sure lag you bad with bashes, trips. Need to tone it down.

Death Traps are there, and hopefully not always. Exploration should have them, as these are... exploration areas. The rest of the areas shouldn't have them at all, being places of frequent passing.

But if the guy does all that crap and I'm risking my neck I hope to find something better than the equivalent of a steel jeweled broadsword. Know what I mean? Give a mofo some cheese at the end of the maze.

...can be a good way to rid those pesky gaters, look at the log of Aurilnius (imperial war master) killing Arminas with a deathtrap, it's süpercool.

Yeah and a certain unflying person following the flying druid's mob and the druid walked over a certain bridge of certain death trap.

Makes me laugh.

I've been in that mountain, and I remember three or four rooms before certain death having a warning in their exit descriptions towards that room. I like it how it says, with increasing effect, 'you feel like turning back' or 'it's not a good idea to continue this way'. In case of certain death, did you look at the direction the death trap was at?

And what comes to too many ups, I've fallen into that one that way too. You'll just have to be more careful.

I teleported one room away from it and scanned to see the mob. It didn't look as imposing as many of the mobs we have all fought. My gripe is not with just that one but the idea of them in general. I dont see what they bring to the game. Not paying attention or a keystroke error can walk you into all kinds of trouble or maybe even death in many normal places in game. I can accept those cases. A long fall and a boneshatter effect dosent sound bad, a level 55 assbeating mob does not sound bad, a defeat this mob or die effect I can live with, instant death regardless of race/class/level just does not have a place in game to me in normal areas.

There are areas in life you want to avoid. So does CF. Then again where's the thrill of finding out and die again only to know you shouldn't be there? Be glad it's only a game and not RL. CF is only bloody virtual life that gets me going on and on. It's all part of the area writer's code.

For advice, scan/look after a teleportation is your best friend. If not, teleport again. I'm quite sure you won't teleport into a death trap. Could be wrong though.

Veteran teleporter.

Didn't used to be that way - may have changed. Basically, since death traps are so few in the grand scheme of thousands of rooms, it's not really likely that the RNG will screw you. But I think part of the risk of using teleport is running straight into a deathtrap, a huge aggro mob, or wasting mana/lag and ending up one room away.

As for the deathtraps out there, sure they suck. But once you know about it, you can usually avoid it 99.9% of the time. The thing is, how do you know there's not an unlimited +10/+10 bracer on the ground in a room that looks dangerous until you try to walk in? Some of my characters run straight into these rooms to see what's what, and some are more cautious. But however you care to test it, you'll know it's there if you pay attention to room descriptions, look <direction>, and scan. I think it adds alot to the game. Can you screw over a healer that seems to think that healing is about chasing you down with gate to kill you? Yea, sure. Can you DRIVE someone into a deathtrap room so that you both die? Yea, sure. If I'm at 10% and this healer that gated to me is at 100%, I'll happily drive his punk ### into certain death. Pull him down with you any way you can, and go out fighting.

What I wish is that there weren't a huge set of diku maps that say XXXXXX DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GO IN THIS ROOM YOU WILL DIE. Maps are no substitute for experience, but telling people where a deathtrap is so that they don't ever have to hit it just bothers me. Go explore, pay attention, and be engulfed by the CF environment.

I'll leave you with something. I once got walked off that mountain by a Sylvan Warder who had led us through area explores without a problem. Oops. He did it again another time a while later. Oops. It sorta made for alot of fun messing with the guy about it. These problems -can- add something to your game, if you so let them. Try walking a group of goodies into one and just apologize and laugh it off. If they're really good goodies, they should laugh about it with you.

And I'll tell you why - because I hate gating healers.