Which was absolutely awesome and none of this should in any way be considered a criticism of that effort (I don't think it will read that way, but just covering my bases in advance). I also want to sincerely thank the Imm Staff for taking the time and putting in the effort to make it happen.

Now, on to my thoughts and conclusions/suggestions I came to:

1) The game has slowed down over the years.

Even with 100 players, it still didn't feel quite a fast paced (likely related to later points) as it used to. Some of this is my own increased knowledge/experience/skill, but some is not. Fast paced, non-stop pk intense action is part of what drew me into CF in the first place, and 100 players online illustrated (to me) just how far from that initial place we are today.

2) The game is WAY too big.

I'm not sure how many rooms are in Thera, but I'm guessing 10K wouldn't be too far off the mark. That means even with 100 players online, each character still has ~100 rooms all to themselves... That is too many. Was there a ton of action in FoN, Eastern, etc? Absolutely. However, I was still able to find a quiet corner to recover/practice skills/whatever with little to no risk of discovery, even with 30 people in my pk range of which a significant percentage were actively hunting.

Suggestion: Try an event where everyone gets perma 'eyes of the eagle' to see if being able to use where across areas makes Carrion Fields a bit more "Carrion" and a little less "Fields"

Suggestion: Make summon work on increased area (like above)

Suggestion: Make nightgaunt take victims at 75% health... This one I'm less sold on, but generally more ability to track, bring back, or otherwise magically transport people to each other could help shrink Thera.

Suggestion: Make mv (regen?) work differently based on PK adrenaline or not. Basically if you are PK adrenaline, mv could work the way it does now, but if not, you basically regen like crazy to make it easier to move about and check areas without having to stop and rest (especially true at low levels). Maybe only up to 50% (or something) so that people aren't always at 100% mv.

3) We, as a community, have significantly undervalued low-investment characters.

I don't know the demographics of the night of 100 players, but I do know that while quite a few people just logged on there existing characters (I'm sure hero range was full of folks), there was a *lot* of low level action. People rolling up characters, knowing with double xp and 50% learning bonus they could get into the action quickly and without being at a huge disadvantage over someone who put in 30 hours by level 15.

Long-lived characters are awesome, and we all enjoy having a hero/villain that is around for some time, but I believe the life-blood of CF is truly the 11-30th level characters with a half-dozen or dozen hours in, no role, no real purpose except to get out there and see what happens. I know that some people can basically choose a character they want to play and then play it out forever. I also know I am not one of those people. I like to try a few things until I find something that feels right and then go with it. However, with quests, edge points, skills, etc. that I feel I *need* to do something with right away I end up spending significant amounts of time at low levels basically not contributing to the overall game, just building a character to the point I want to play it.

Suggestion: Make learning rates higher as a baseline.

I find few things more frustrating than skills/spells/sups/songs that fail when I need them to succeed. Sometimes this causes my death, but more often it means I'm simply aborting my attempt and waiting 5 minutes to try again. If I knew my skills were going to go up as fast as they do with 50% learning bonus, I'd be much less likely to try to spam defenses at 15 or any of the other anti-social behavior my lowbies tend to end up doing because I don't want to hit level 30 with 75% parry or whatever.

Suggestion: Less low-level quests (or changes to them).

There are, for instance, usually 2 and sometimes as many as 5 low-level quests that I feel almost obligated to do because the reward is good enough to justify the time. Some of these are the kill 70 of X quests, which take a significant amount of time to complete, during which time it makes little sense to engage with other characters. If the rewards were nerfed, or the quests was much easier to complete (fewer kills), or if it was harder/impossible to complete solo (big mob at the end) but easy with a group I think that would be an improvement. For instance if Sutton's quests required only say, 20 kills, but then a large, mean, deadly version came after you once you had those 20, it might make sense to do the quests as a group.

There is also the issue of who gets credit for kills on these quests when doing it as a group, which should be everyone, but seems to be killing blow or most damage or something.

4) Empowerment sucks as a system.

This is related to the above slightly, and is a little more harsh than necessary, but the number of people who rolled healers, shamans, druids, and paladins because they knew they could get empowered and start mixing it up, really should be a strong indicator that empowerment isn't just a barrier to playing one of these classes. It is a significant barrier to even *trying* to play these classes. Speaking personally, I've found it very difficult in the past and generally unrewarding to put in half a work week of my time (or more if I'm unlucky, but never less) into a character where my only goal is to get "approval" to play the character/build I'm interested in.

Looking back on it, if I had realized just how easy it was going to be on the night of 100 players, I would have rolled up dozens or more empowerment class characters just to get juiced so I could keep them around for later playing. Again, for me personally, I would rather have to keep 50 level 1's with empowerment from getting auto-deleted than put significant work in a character only to find out the build isn't what I thought it would be, or my immortal and my vision of the character are totally at odds, or that I can't get a hold of an Imm or whatever. I can't tell you how many druids I've attempted only to get hung up on getting empowered (or even spoken to) and then let die the slow death of auto-deletion when I realize the character I want to play isn't going to happen.

Suggestion: Easy in, easy out on empowerment.

Make religions more flexible, or make it more clear what a religion is actually about and what the expectations of a follower are, then just juice people watch them to see if you need to lay the smack down or guide them into a better path or whatever. I enjoy Immteraction in general, but empowerment has led me to the place where I can't bring myself to play empowered character because I can't seem to get empowered in a manner that lets me actually play the game or play the character I'm interested. Instead I feel like I'm just sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting for a job interview and hoping I don't #### it up.

Suggestion: Get rid of spheres.

They are a stupid RP device and I have always hated them. It has become increasingly unclear to me whether my characters are supposed to know their sphere or not. Significant numbers of spheres are always uncovered. Not every character makes sense in a sphere. I could go on, but suffice to say I hate the sphere system and find it confining and not at all helpful.

Suggestion: Expand the greenways idea into others spaces. Make these the have a role, get empowered path.

Sure you might not get a tattoo, but at least you can actually play a character and see if they fit your playstyle before putting in so much work.

5) We as a community take ourselves and our "leet" RP way too seriously.

One of the things I noticed during night of 100 players was that the RP atmosphere felt significantly more relaxed. Yes, there was a bit of OOC going on. Yes, the newbie channel looked a bit like a chat channel at times, but not overly so. And for all of that, I didn't feel like the game was ruined, or that I couldn't RP, or that people were constantly OOC. I don't want to see cb being using to ask for algebra help again any more than the next person, but that doesn't mean all OOC has no place. I've said it before in regards to helpfiles, getting and keeping people logged in should always be a priority.

Suggestion: Relax the policing of the newbie channel.

Discussions (about mechanics or whatever) tend to get shut down. Arguments should be, but if someone is looking for help on how a sword spec plays... maybe that should be allowed. The newbie channel was significantly more of what would usually be considered "inappropriate" chatter on night of 100 players than I've ever seen, but it didn't seem to be hurting anyone as far as I could tell.

Suggestion: Find a way for players to discuss things (in an OOC fashion) in game.

I'm not 100% sold on this one, but wouldn't the Imm Staff rather have what amounts to an OOC channel in game (where it can be monitored) than have people doing that over IRC? Wouldn't it be better to have discussions while logged in to CF than through a forum, or facebook, or AIM? I'm not sure, really, but I think it bears scrutiny.

Sorry for the wall of text, but hopefully at least some of this sparks some interest/ideas.