>I'm not going to mince words here, so if you're liable to get
>your feelings hurt, don't read this.
>
>
>I'm sorry you feel that way, and I hate to turn your argument
>back against you, but it's not the Immstaff that is so wrapped
>up in beating "the guys who use the magic decoder pen" so much
>as the Immstaff is interested in keeping the game as much fun
>as possible for everyone. All the changes and modifications
>you bitch about have far, far less to do with some grand
>immortal plot to make the game impossible than they do.
>
>Here's the rough history of the practicing thing.
>
>1. Players slowly discover that having high skills helps win
>fights.
>2. Soon, everyone decides that just to compete, you have to
>spend hours and hours perfecting all your skills, which is
>boring as hell.
>3. Players complain about boredom of having to perfect skills
>to compete.
>
>So, the Imms sat down and discussed how to fix the problem.
>All the attempts to make spam-practicing less rewarding have
>been to prevent item #2, above, from being true. If you can't
>spam practice on kobolds, then you don't need to spam practice
>to compete, because everyone is on the same footing (nevermind
>our repeated insistence, which has gone mostly ignored by the
>playerbase, that mass-perfected skills aren't as critical as
>everyone thinks).
>
>Warrior, Thief, etc paths... Should I just have copies of all
>the "we need a warrior/thief/etc revamp" posts by players in
>the middle of your living room floor? I'm sure it's a full
>forest's worth of paper. This stuff happens because players
>request it, and we try to keep new things coming. You want to
>keep things nice, stable, and oh, Boring? Because that's what
>happens if everything stays 100% constant and predictable.
>
>Copper changes... Gee, it couldn't be because of players who
>said "money is worthless, make there be cool stuff we can
>actually buy for a change" now could it? And there's no such
>thing as a free lunch, if there's gonna be stuff worth buying,
>money's going to actually have some value, so it's not just a
>free giveaway. I've had to figure out ways to make money in
>playing too, and you know it's just not that damn hard to find
>the cash to buy food and a few potions now and then.
>
>Immortals without helpfiles? Uh, gee, I have a helpfile, and
>so do all the other actual Imms. All Imms with religions have
>helpfiles, and show up in Help Pantheon and Help Wizlist. If
>an Imm doesn't show up there, it's for a very good reason that
>you should be smart enough to figure out without me having to
>spell it out for you.
>
>Yes, some mobs have spec skills, cast spells, and so on.
>Tougher mobs often have a higher gain in experience than those
>of similar level but who lack special abilities, but I suppose
>you never noticed that before?
>
>Yes, we don't lay out the ins and outs of how everything
>works, because if everyone could just number crunch what combo
>was best, where's the fun in it? What makes someone the
>better player should be their intuitiveness and ingenuity, not
>their ability to do esoteric math. For that matter, what
>always seems to get me is that you take these "bones" people
>toss you as being like mana from heaven. Here's a tip, it's
>not the be all and end all. I read this stuff too, and not
>only is it riddled with misinformation, but the longer you're
>spending just trying to emulate other players, the longer
>you're going to be their inferior since you're still trying to
>catch up.
>
>Don't play catch up. Learn to get ahead. No, not everyone
>will be able to get ahead, that's the nature of the beast.
>Someone will come in second. Would you rather it be based on
>player skill and inventiveness, or on sheer time and money
>like in Everquest and such? Or worse yet, just on the sheer
>number of OOC buddies someone has?
>
>Lastly, what Yanoreth said about Immortal time is right on the
>money. I work 10 hour days, soon to hit 12, and yet I still
>somehow find a little bit to work in some CF. We're human,
>and we have lives, and we do this for free to try and make a
>game that's fun for everyone. Sorry that doesn't come up to
>your oh-so-high standards.


I hope you dont take what a few people think and get bent out of shape over it. Me and at least 5 or 6 of my friends that play and rarely post things, but have been playing a long long time love the game accept that the imms implement mostly goods things and move on. I love that money is harder to come buy, all the new areas. I love that I cannot bash someone to death at 10001 exp with a giant.

Imms you do great job since you are doing it out of your love for the game and nothing more. Do not let a few crackheads get ya down.