>You see people playing as a social group as something that is
>inherently bad, evil, wrong, incorrect, aka cheating.

Because it necessarily disadvantages those players not part of an OOC social group. Even if it's something as small as ranking, those who know each other OOC are going to group together and rank each other up instead of grouping with some random guy none of them know. This makes it harder for the random guy to rank his character, since a big chunk of his potential groupmates are going to ignore him more often than not.

It also aids in PK situations in that you know exactly what to expect from each of your groupmates. You also know you're not going to be betrayed by any of them. You know they're not going to snatch all the good gear and leave you holding the bag. When cabal politics come into play it gets even murkier, since you could be put in a position to induct your OOC buddies, promote them, nominate them for leadership positions, etc.

>Please tell me a good way that I can
>socially play CF? There is no way. I cannot have my
>roommate/brother/sister/friend play from my site when I play
>or I will be smacked down, severely.

I try to do what I'm going to do, in game, without any coordination based on OOC events. When something happens in game that's particularly funny, tragic, or makes me look really good, I might post a log to someone I know OOC. That's social. When not actually playing, I'll sometimes have conversations with people about this or that class combo, or some new rule change. That's social.

Your last statement seems to directly contradict what Valguarnera said in another post. Namely, that the staff doesn't automatically punish people who play from the same site, even if they sometimes group together. Either he's lying and that is staff policy or you're mistaken in your assessment of the situation. Or, possibly, your site is a special case in that it's the origin of alot of abuse.

>Is, on its face, and examined, a needless and ultimately self
> CF) destroying position. First, the "stay" rate of
>individuals who are shown CF by another friend in real life,
>and are able to group with that person, and get help from
>them, is by far astronomically higher than a random individual
>who happens on CF through mud finder/blind luck/CF internet
>friend. Therefore, you retain a much higher number of
>individuals at CF through this kind of "mentoring" system than
>you do anywhere else. That much can be agreed on.

The solo guys shouldn't be placed at an unfair disadvantage just because they don't have an OOC gang to run around with.

>Second, ganging, in itself, happens, no matter what, which is
>what you also fail to understand.

I think he understands that. His point seemed to be that allowing OOC permas would increase the rate of ganging.

>And you know what happens? At any time and day,
>you won't have group A dominating because group B and group C
>are there causing havoc too, all in the same PK (Hero), all
>rumbling each other, all creating an air of competition.

I wonder what your reaction would be if the most competant PK folks from the immortal realms all got together and decided to roll a gank squad together. Sort of a PK dream team, as it were. Nepenthe, the now departed Thror, Sebeok, Zulg, Arvam. One gets installed as a cabal leader, everyone else gets promoted as high as possible. Then they just start con-killing anyone they perceive to be part of an ooc "social circle". Let's see. Warrior Emperor, Lich Black, Thug Shadow, Healer Divine, Warrior Blade. All leaders.

>Solution. I am a firm believer that if you reject the current
>set of rules you offer a solution, even rough. Get rid of the
>hard and brutal rules that people cannot play from the same
>site. Allow a low level of peer assistance and grouping. Allow
>social players to exist on CF, because right now, if you are
>not willing ot dedicate 10 or more hours a week to CF, you can
>summarily eliminate yourself from the CF community. Especially
>if you are seeking a leader position, or any other position of
>somewhat enjoyment besides grunt.

Time committment and ooc permagrouping are two separate issues. I'm not sure why you're mixing them. I don't think it's possible to play a good leader character with less than ~7 hours a week. I think it's perfectly possible to play an enjoyable, successful character with maybe ~4 hours a week. Possibly even cabaled, though that would be harder. If you log in for an hour every other day, I doubt that's little enough playing time that you'd get booted.

>The guy who
>spends 20 hours a week on CF is going to be chosen as leader
>over the guy who spends 5 hours. That is a proven, and
>illustrated fact.

You'd rather have the 5 hr/wk guy get leader, then have everyone complain because he's not around to induct?

>And then you
>have Fortress whose leaders not only get a leader weapon, but
>at some point, some kind of leader power.

My only leader power was "induct". It seemed like I didn't get the weapon either until a couple of weeks into the position. You may be exagerrating how nice the leader weapon is, by the way.