Sure, I can see your point. My frustration at playing an Elf not nearly as good as the one I played before, when I was in the Maran may have shown. BUT all the Elves were supposed to be trajically flawed, too smart for their own good, and looking for a place. I wanted to make that role work, sucked that I could not.

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Hmm.. I add this because I think I may have to give you another point. I had been slowly drawn with Pmenoa towards Herald, I was just unsure if he could assault evil as aggressively, as Pmenoa was evolving into wanting to, as one under Herald's current incarnation. It was Dorn, Leeyantra, Jemr and a couple of other goodies that finally made me put in my application. Leeyantra nagged Pmenoa, IC, to. I should have went with my gut instincts on that and not tried to please others IC. See? I screw up by trying to make others happy too damn much.

Add to that the experiences of my past Maran with respect to the no hold barred approach to playing one.. probably worked better back then BECAUSE there was such a large playerbase. Makes for a ####ty character with ####ty attitudes regardless of how you try to save it.
Now if that is the case, or at least partially the case I can definately see mutual frustration for all involved.

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I can not say that IC any of my Elves truly thought they knew it all, but they all challenged norms that seemed wrong to them. Well Pmenoa did, the rest of them died to the point of being unplayable. And now that I look by the three Elves I played, started with a character missed by others, then a character somewhat missed, and finally this one.

BUT... BUT... your attacks on my assessment of CF's current situation are "Against the Man".. toque que... or something like that. I have managed to demonstrate, through your own posts and Valgs, and other player's exactly the support required for my ideas to have some merit, maybe not in any incarnation I offer but merit just the same.

The fact that you stopped to give me what you felt was the requisite help and kick in the balls was appreciated by the way. Well said on your part, and appreciated on mine. But seriously I wanted to try another character taking in Lysterion's, Rogue's, and a few other suggestions but the lack of anything resembling low level RP at times, and the lack of options for non skill perfecting turned me off. Add to that the chore of walking from one end of the world to another to have a decent enough newbie set of gear, including potions, to offset my SUCKY PK ability is just too much.

Now, like I have said, I do NOT have the mastery of CF in any way shape or form to make the first twenty levels fun. That much work to learn the game would take months, and months, now apply that to a brand new player or a vet, dumber than I.. well there just MAY be someone, trying to get in CF? If you managed it, as painful as it may have been to walk in my shoes, you will see where I am coming from.

I know this is bizarre but my experiences early on in CF's history were cool because at low levels I RPed and higher levels took noticed. And RPed back, they nutured me, they coddled me, they left me in the Underdark by accident during a raid on the Fortress. Of course I was so sickeningly sweet that even my enemy, that mega-well played Storm warrior in the Village, helped me out! Maybe I am just stuck with being a player of pathetically happy characters. Sucks to be me then. And I tried a couple more warriors, Storm I sucked at more than the Elf, a healer, I loved the RP I got for that, and a magic user of some type which got munched and crunched because I only had a tiny grasp on gear, gear for a warrior.(I excelled at RS mages because of my neurosis and psychosis allowing me to envision evil ways to manipulate the spell sets)

Sure, roleplaying may have been atrocious at low levels, but I got past it each and every time by rping from the get go with higher level characters. Sure that hindered my munckinism, a lot, but it really really brought out my RP. Arm and CF I credit with making me so appreciative of great RP, not that "I" was the instigator, but I was one who went with it.

Elf warriors worked best for some RP I wanted to try, I HATE playing myself, the happy healing hugging type... you want >>>>BIG HUGS<<<< here you go! I wanted something more dour, troubled, and standoffish, apparently I got them all right, but also ALL wrong. In the Elves I wanted to try to downplay the Int card by showing they are fallible, and not as wise as they could be. Did not work.

Haelstrom got frustrating simply because there was no viable avenue of communication with the Outlander Druid who constantly PKed him. Haelstrom had befriended several Outlanders, he saw them as honourable in having dedicated themselves to something, but that one character was no talk, and knew where to find me each and every time.
It was boring logging on and dying, logging on and dying with NO RP at all about it. I had asked, repeatedly, that the other Outlander, and Outlander prospects speak to him about, but no one did. Sure I knew OOC WHY he was doing it but to have no RP about made it feel like Deathmatch Quake and me with one thumb and no fingers on my left hand.

I had wanted Haelstrom to start out whitecloakish and then have to find his way out of that mire to something more. He would have let anyone of the Light, non mage, kill him rather than fight him. I got a good response about that from Villagers and goodies. Mages I was going to have trouble and I knew it, but that was supposed to be the character's foil, it was neat to play but for the constant smearing by one player. Heck the instant he logged on I wanted to log off because I knew in the next two minutes I would be dead! But I didn't!

It is that smearing, smearing partially due to the strength of all the communes he could throw at me and partially due to me of course, that I say is endemic to making CF a hostile place for new and old players. If I could have been off doing some herb gardening or the such after that, the player was very good about NOT mega smearing but letting me have a wee bit of cooling off usually, I would have been able to alleviate the frustration and unrewarding multiple deaths. I hope that makes sense to you, I know you may not have experience in games with more RP options, I think you probably do, but I really think CF could rise above almost all the other games out there if it only broadened it focus to include both: PK driven RP, AND RP driven PK.

You want to draw and keep new players? You may have to make the game a bit more friendly to them simply because there are not the ton of Acolytes or Vets to take the time to help out new players. Even if all the Imms made such characters, where would the fun be for them?
New blood will require draws and things to keep them here, show a MMORPGer that they can enjoy RP and killer conflict you may just hook them.

Oh get mentioned on a Tech TV show if you can. I bet it would do wonders.