Mon Mar 5 07:52:46 2012

At 12 o'clock PM, Day of the Moon, 28th of the Month of the Spring
on the Theran calendar Bolvik perished, never to return.

I rolled up Bolvik and powered him to hero because I saw a ludacris imbalance in cabal wars that is being very destructive to the playerbase and wanted to try and change it. I designed the character to operate as part of a gang because when I looked at nexus I saw a lot of utility/offense power but very little kill sealing. As it turns out I kind of suck at ganging so that didn't end up getting to far.


Some things I learned.

1.) I miss the days when gauging the balance actually told you the balance in clear and concise terms (mild, medium, heavy tipping instead of those long stirngs of adjectives)

2.) Hour past midnight using exotics I knew would be weak against daggers but what I didn't realize was that truly exotics are just easy to dodge so bashing down a human bard = easy, an arial or wood-elf = not so easy.


As far as good byes I wasn't around/interacted much with anyone to warrant them. I wanted to say thanks to the villagers for being classy about looting.


There was one moment though that left a sour taste in my mouth. Light and chaos tip, the fort horde is only 2 people (for once) so I rush into the fort and kill a Baerinika paladin. 2 seconds later Rayihn is on CB saying, 'Hey, order is tipping do you really think you should be killing paladins.'

Now that was the extent of it and sure from a high level a nexus imm saying you maybe shouldn't kill orderly when chaos tips is what they should be doing. But the circumstances of that engagement and the several days before... Just made the whole thing come off as Raybaer saying 'I am busy playing with my fort mortals and I don't want you guys raiding the fort and interupting that'

1.) The only chaotic good in my range was sitting in front of Baerinika who would slay/smite me for hunting them.
2.) Within a few minutes of this happening a number of other fort log in and start attacking the island. I didn't hear anything about Baerinika telling fort that they shouldn't be attacking the island.
3.) I had to watch for an entire week while nexus was in the ####ter and baerinika was vis the whole time chatting up, patting on the back the fort and then see twist is playing fort. Basically all the admins who run nexus are too busy playing fort to be involved in rebuilding nexus.

Like I said above I totally understand that pointing out chaos was tipping is what you should be doing. It was just the total lack of involvement in the cabal at times where they are not interupting your baerinika interactions that irritated me.

>1.) I miss the days when gauging the balance actually told you
>the balance in clear and concise terms (mild, medium, heavy
>tipping instead of those long stirngs of adjectives)

Given that I wrote the code for gauge, I'm pretty sure it didn't ever work the way you're describing.

I swear there was a time when it was something like light tips the scales slightly, tips the scales, tips the scales heavily.

This was likely back when you had to ask the inners and nexus was in the rift.

That probably did, yeah. I didn't have much to do with that incarnation of the cabal.

Eh, even if I'm on and vis with one imm, I'm still watching the other cabals that I keep track of. No matter what I'm doing, bottom line is if chaos is super tipping you shouldn't be all OOPS I just happened to kill orderly guy who got in my way. Darn.

In my general experience, there are two kinds of Nexuns. Those who care about actually maintaining the balance and those who roughly use it to expand their pk range. You were the latter. I called you out on it. It is what it is. You had plenty of other options than thinking "No one will notice if I wax this orderly guy and fix the balance more later."

In my general experience, there are two kinds of Nexuns. Those who care about actually maintaining the balance and those who roughly use it to expand their pk range. You were the latter.

I assume you know who I am due to certain OOC episodes that were related to my character. I can only guess that you just assumed I was playing this char in the same vein as most of my previous because I actually was a "care about the balance and give up PK's because of it character". There were times I made mistakes, and times when villagers forced the issue by coming after me.

You can accept my feedback for what it is. I was not the only player involved in that situation that drew the same conclusion. If you don't want people to accuse you of playing favorites then understand that we only see what we see. If we see zero imm activity in nexus, lots in fort, and the only time we get activity is when we are interupting your activity with fort then what conclusions should we draw, what does the evidence support?

I think your play style gives you away more than any other drama, but that said, you have played an excellent nexus character in the past, one that I believe I rewarded. I'd have to look back at the PBF to be sure. This character (yes, character, not player) was not my favorite of yours. That's all there is to it. When it came to fights vs battle, I did respect the way you brought it to them, though at times you seemed a little suicidal. Some of that might have been more the ####ty part that is being ganged for being anywhere near the battle cabal more than anything else, which I kinda think needs to be looked at.

Do you want me to play more Ray and give Nexus more attention? I'll work on it. But that doesn't mean I'll do less busting on Nexus, in fact it means I'll probably do more. But I don't think you can blame me for not wanting to play, mentor, monitor, reward when all people do is bitch no matter what you do. And tattle to Twist when you dare chastize them. And then bitch some more. And then hold a grudge.

**Just going to put out here that I'm aware this is coming off bitchier than I want it to be, and I do apologize - went off my pain meds cold turkey pretty much yesterday when I prolly shouldn't have and could be doing a lot better today. So please take this with a grain of salt.

Generally it is the one cabal that tends to always have leaders, and active ones at that because of how the vote system works, generally the most visible ones tend to get the votes and leaders tend to do alright in keeping people on the right course. I got leadered with my first Nexus char and I found it was pretty easy to offer corrections to cabal mates when they did something questionable. Especially if the leader is open to being asked about things, I think you'll avoid a lot of those questionable decisions in terms of acting in accordance with balance. If there were big oversteps or questionable judgment calls done by a player (like say me) the Imms jumped in and took care of it pretty readily though.

I don't feel Twist, Daev or Ray need to monitor it non stop for that reason. I always like hearing a good job from a cabal Imm over CB or something, but who doesn't- and I don't think I need a pat on the back every time I kill someone. The occassional praise makes it all the more gratifying when you do get it. There is always s****y behavior at times in any cabal, and if it does get noticed take the words of an Imm as feedback and use it and build from it instead of being annoyed by it. I always enjoy having an Imm's attention, even if I generally tend to shy from seeking it out with most characters, because it usually ends up being beneficial to me as a player and for my char, even if there might be a slight negative at the time. Personally,I saw very little poor behavior by Islanders during my time playing nexus that would warrant the Nexus Imms having to pay closer attention to it when they can be doing other good things for the MUD.

"Some of that might have been more the ####ty part that is being ganged for being anywhere near the battle cabal more than anything else, which I kinda think needs to be looked at."
-I just have to say something about this.
Yeah, Battle may gang people at the giant and around the ruins a bit more than they should or need to, or at least certain ragers were far more prone to justifying things that way than others, but I can't say I didn't also gang the ever living hell out of them at times in return and I know for sure it frustrated a good many Battle players at the time. Generally I saw Ragers giving it out a hell of a lot less than they take it when it comes to ganging, (though they sure as hell loved bringing every hero rager in PK range of me to raid- but sieges permit that and I expected that of them given how insane it could be to fight a prep whore bard + nexus inners) but that's the cabal dynamic I always thought. Ragers, by virtue of being Ragers, just have to shut up and take it sometimes, and that's not always easy.

**I think your play style gives you away more than any other drama, but that said, you have played an excellent nexus character in the past, one that I believe I rewarded. I'd have to look back at the PBF to be sure. This character (yes, character, not player) was not my favorite of yours.**

The only nexun I have had which got any reward (besides last name) got the cabal edge champion of balance. That character was also a murder everything that isn't tipped against character. To be fair though the mechanics of the class forced me to be that way most of the time though.

**This character (yes, character, not player) was not my favorite of yours. That's all there is to it. When it came to fights vs battle, I did respect the way you brought it to them, though at times you seemed a little suicidal. Some of that might have been more the ####ty part that is being ganged for being anywhere near the battle cabal more than anything else, which I kinda think needs to be looked at.**

Not my favorite char either. Trying to follow the cloud giant speech helpfile made any kind of meaningful interaction with anyone challenging.

I don't think the ganging near the village was an issue. The villagers all respected parity to the extent that village doctrine expects it and I wouldn't start messing with their standards based on a really really rare stretch of them being in power. The crappy thing was that their 2 were better then our 2 in most group encounters because they have more support classes then nexus currently.

**Do you want me to play more Ray and give Nexus more attention? I'll work on it. But that doesn't mean I'll do less busting on Nexus, in fact it means I'll probably do more. But I don't think you can blame me for not wanting to play, mentor, monitor, reward when all people do is bitch no matter what you do. And tattle to Twist when you dare chastize them. And then bitch some more. And then hold a grudge.**

The incident gave the impression of favoritism due to its timing. That was my beef. If I had been chastised for killing the wrong person before then it wouldn't have come off that way. If you had waited 15 minutes until after valliane was done with you it wouldn't have come off that way. It seems you get frustrated when you are accused of favoritism/cheating/etc. This is me telling you that it seemed like favoritism and why it seemed that way. If you want to use that information to your advantage feel free.

For the record I was not the one who tattled to twist and didn't think the incident warranted anything like that.

My thoughts on the fort currently are complicated. The current crop is being very destructive to the competative atmosphere of CF. A lot of them are there because of the mortal to mortal interaction they are getting in the fort and the imms are not over rewarding them. But they still need to be taken down a peg or two to allow competition to flourish and let the playing field balance out.

Note I was more concerned about immortal attention because I was hoping someone would undo the stupid crippling cyradia perpetrated on my character. -1100 imm xp isn't the end of the world but that alone was the thick veined edge which would have saved me 6 deaths at least.

***The incident gave the impression of favoritism due to its timing. That was my beef. If I had been chastised for killing the wrong person before then it wouldn't have come off that way. If you had waited 15 minutes until after valliane was done with you it wouldn't have come off that way. It seems you get frustrated when you are accused of favoritism/cheating/etc. This is me telling you that it seemed like favoritism and why it seemed that way. If you want to use that information to your advantage feel free.***

I caught the tail-ish end of this exchange. You better believe the Maran were hearing it from me, and even Baer chimed in that she frowned on Vall's vengeance.

***My thoughts on the fort currently are complicated. The current crop is being very destructive to the competative atmosphere of CF. A lot of them are there because of the mortal to mortal interaction they are getting in the fort and the imms are not over rewarding them. But they still need to be taken down a peg or two to allow competition to flourish and let the playing field balance out.***

Destructive in what sense? Fort steamrolls and gets steamrolled. There are powerswings throughout the day, its just that Fort currently has a set of VERY active leaders who rally the other members together, making their upswings more upswingy.

I'm not really sure what you mean by 'taken down a peg' either. At the moment, if you're a Fort enemy that keeps on trucking, you will get plenty of rewards thrown your way. Conversely, Fort folk appear to have a lower chance of being rewarded (even if you're a quality character), as it is harder to stand out.


Bolvik:

I didnt really know the character beyond the understanding that you were willing to give me a good fight every now and again. I think I might've saved you a few times from deathtraps? I kind of lose track of who I've saved after a while...

GlWYN

**Destructive in what sense? Fort steamrolls and gets steamrolled. There are powerswings throughout the day, its just that Fort currently has a set of VERY active leaders who rally the other members together, making their upswings more upswingy.**

I understand how someone in the fort might think that. To be clear I don't think the fort swing is a result of any conspiracy or over rewarding (the sad thing is I honestly think a number of quality fort are under-rewarded because of the horde).
-Its just not fun to be an evil during fort o'clock.
-Fort o'clock covers large portions of the day.

It is also misleading to say there are power swings throughout the day. Currently there are two cabals that have overwhelming presences, fort and battle. These cabals also happen to share the same enemies (scion/empire) so while it might be half fort day and half battle day its not good for empire all day. Scions actually are fine but scion is a different beast.

While a lot of village is evil they don't take the orb and the fort doesn't take the head. In my experience with CF if people don't have their cabal item and can't get it back don't expect them to be logged in more than 30 minutes. Thats true of any cabal/class except scion and whether or not they loose key cabal powers doesn't seem to matter.


**I'm not really sure what you mean by 'taken down a peg' either. At the moment, if you're a Fort enemy that keeps on trucking, you will get plenty of rewards thrown your way. Conversely, Fort folk appear to have a lower chance of being rewarded (even if you're a quality character), as it is harder to stand out.**

Things Fort Morts/Imms could do to make the playing field more competative.
1.) Stop spam raiding enemy cabals.
2.) Heros stop assisting mid/low rank members in PK (this includes scouting and buffing)
3.) Emphasize courage (parity). Yeah valliane needs an extra hand vs that orc but does Eachinn?

Basically handicap yourself so that some evils actually rank into hero range (as non villagers) and stick around so you have people to play against.

Fort and Battle are not in a high power swing right now. If your a hero right now you may notice the new scions. The Empire is getting back together. I promise you within a week or two people will be complaining about Empire and Scion characters.

I've got a single #### to give...and it's just for you.

Had some fun fights. You were always ready to fight even when you really shouldn't have been, that kind of made it even more fun. I felt bad about killing you a few times but you seemed more than capible of dealing with it. Good job on taking it like a man and not melting down.