>"1) The whole Scarabaeus / Chris Warren thing. I don't claim
>to have 100% of the story, but there are definitely a few
>facts there that I'm aware of that I've never really heard in
>any of the various recountings of the tale."
>
>As I understood this, Chris pretended to be a woman IRL who
>was struggling. He manipulated Scarab into quasi-cheating for
>him and then revealed the truth, much to Scarab's chagrin. If
>I recall Scarab then left the MUD, for a time. This was not my
>time on CF so I am speculating here. As an aside, I am a huge
>Scarab fan from my interactions with him, so no axe to grind
>

I talked about this in some depth elsewhere in this thread; poke me there if there's more there you want to know about that I or someone else might know.

>"2) Cabdru! There's a lot of stuff that people have said over
>the last month or two that hasn't made it up here yet. So,
>c'mon, let's have it out. You may or may not like or believe
>the answers I have to give you, but on the whole I'd still
>rather have it out."
>
>Alright, here goes, then.
>
>1. Did you practice weapons on a mob, or with another player?
>Or did you just set all your skills/spells pre-25 to 100% I
>re-read all the logs you posted. The only time you lost
>concentration on a spell, period, was at level 25 fighting
>Adalanthal, and that was only sleep (Which you would have just
>gotten).

Mostly mobs, putting everything to circa 90, with spear/polearm higher. There's a quest or two that are worth small gains, which I don't think would be surprises to most of you. Then there's a certain amount of discipline to switch weapons around while levelling -- I don't think axe hit 100% until well into his 30s.

Blind/poison/curse were done pre-pk, while working weapons, doing quests, messing around, etc. Even a fire giant regenerates a lot of mana over 20 hours (or whatever). Int was still fire giant racial max for all of that if I'm not mistaken.

>2. How many Silent Tower 'puzzles' did you complete with
>Cabdru that have never been completed before or since. Barring
>the obvious one of course.

As far as I know, none. I don't think there are any major puzzles left that I haven't seen multiple PCs with players unknown to me complete. Even Sz'sra has had a number of visitors lately. I haven't seen anyone visit Ashamorad lately, but that too has been done (although not that I've seen in the last few years, including by me.)

>3. Is the barrier wand you used at level 36 a wand that is
>typically highly used? Or uber-rare? How many of your wands
>period were of the "Found-only-by-obscure-area-explorer",
>rather then "consistently-in-lightmages-inventory".

All consistently found in lots of people's inventories, including probably Lightmage's. I could name two current characters off the top of my head (and I've been too busy with other things to do much watching) that use the same barrier wand that Cabdru used.

>4. How many badass mobs did you _really_ kill using the
>abomination prog?

Just Anazu, who was not going to win that fight to begin with. A day or two after that I changed the soul siphon code such that it could no longer kill mobs by running them out of mana, although it had a few more days of life between then and the next crash/reboot.

There were no small number of damage-over-time tricks in that character's arsenal, however. Plague and poison are obvious; some of the others, like immolation or crimson scourge, are less obvious but I'd be surprised if some of you didn't know how to put them together for important enough fights.

>5. Do you think you could have taken Zorszaul with Cabdru?

There's a chance, but probably not.

>6. Did you actively seek pkills on players you knew as an imm
>had high charge value?

No, but I definitely actively sought pkills on players I knew as Cabdru had high charge value from killing them previous.

There are always some surprises, but you can infer a lot about charge value just by knowing who's tough and who's not. You don't need to see the numbers to know that a character like Saroiya or Hyzin is going to bring in more charges than random Herald #289.

>7. Did you ever find yourself remembering where a character
>hides from your immortal time, only to use it to find and kill
>said character when they ran from Cabdru?

Not that I recall, but I couldn't rule it out 100%.

Over 11 years of playing CF I've gotten damn good at checking a large number of areas fast. If you don't care too much who you fight as long as it's someone, it's not that hard to find SOME conflict fast.

>8. Do you think you could do better then Cabdru?
>
>Lastly, for you personally - Whats the single thing you are
>most ashamed of doing on CF, as an imm?

That's a really good question for which no good answer comes immediately to mind. Everything seems like a good idea at the time, so it's a matter of thinking back to where I made the worst judgement calls, probably. I'll think hard on this and try to come up with a good answer.

>Now, on to more questions. A donation check is headed your way
>for all of this, btw Any immortal response is welcome
>here.
>
>1. What class do you feel is the strongest, pk wise,
>currently.

I honestly feel like that's a hugely conditional question and that there's really no good single answer. I feel like a necromancer is awesome one on one, but throw in any third party to wake the victim and it can get dicey. An A-P playing their cards right is obviously a force, but most don't reach that potential. All of the stealth classes have a fantastic potential to rack up a high number of kills per death. Bards and invokers are awesome group vs. group. Warriors are what usually kill me. It goes on and on!

>2. What class do you feel is the weakest, pk wise, currently.

Similar answer. I might say, for example, that I think both thieves (depending on build) and shamans can be limited in the kinds of characters they can beat, but many players are very effective with them. For anything I might say about either, a thief beat Ithzaruul (lich) solo at a point at which he was doing very well for himself, and a solo shaman broke Greddarh's best unholy streak.

>3. What is in your opinion the most powerful cabal power?

That's a hard choice.

Nothing has the power to kill a single character under the right circumstances the way manacles or bloody shackles can. Chameleon and windwalk are both fantastic powers for a skilled player. Very little changes the whole dynamic of a raid the way black shroud or forsaken portal can, and so on.

>4. What cabal do you feel is the strongest, in terms of
>powers, pk wise, currently.

The Emperor is clearly the king of the heap, especially for certain classes. Obviously, that's not the lot of everyone in Empire.

>5. What cabal do you feel is the weakest, in terms of powers,
>pk wise, currently.

Heralds, of course! I think squires and non-special-position Tribunal have it rough. Evil outlander or Scion warrior-type don't have great powers either, but they get to be evil, which counts for a lot.