Tue Aug 12 15:38:11 2014

At 2 o'clock AM, Day of Deception, 2nd of the Month of the Frost Giant
on the Theran calendar Cionadh perished, never to return.

The posts don't have anything to do with Cionadh at this point.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

You were enjoyable, as I stated. I did not have any certain expectations for you to live up to. No worries there ! It was clear you were either new or rusty to leadership but nothing that took away from your accomplishment. You were a good leader, I think.

You were very active. Always out there fighting, setting traps or just using brute force.
It was some fun fights near High Lord's Keep. Damn those glauruks.

Later on you seemed more powerful. I felt I was facing an unstoppable force. I only managed to do a little with the help of Niji or Tralgdar.

In my death comment, I referred to paladins in general. You were not as deathly afraid and did not absolutely refuse to fight as the others did. Bal'talon whining I didn't call you out on, that was also a general comment and there was less of it than in some other cases.

You took my general comments way too personally.

As a char, I was fairly fine with you and even let you live more than usual since fighting you was a hassle and required prep, so kudos for that.

General thoughts:
Cionadh was my fourth go at a fortress paladin in the past couple of years. Had never made Maran previously so Marshall falling to me was quite a surprise. I regret taking it on as at that point I felt like playing other characters was betraying the responsibility. If I would have played other characters I would have stuck with CF longer this time around. I had made the character with the goal of making Maran and seeing the area explores I hadnt yet. Made it everywhere except the place I didnt qualify to enter. I didnt have the time or see a likely way for that to happen so it isnt worth shirking RL responsibilities that I should be doing instead.


Fortress:
This was my first leader character since I ran Justice back in 96. Hope I didnt noob it up to bad on you guys.
Ama - I felt like I never quite lived up to your expectations but I enjoyed playing with you.
Corwyn - Sorry I quit on you, I was playing more than I should be and I dont know how to do CF halfway. This being my first leader in 15+ years was made easier by your help. Hope you stick it out till time catches up.
Riraneln - Keep trucking man, doing a great job from what I see.


Heralds:
Chef - Awesome times man, thanks for being you.
Diri - Hope you arent too disapointed. Thanks for including me in your daredevil feats! Holy hand grenade away!
Sin - Good luck with everything, hope the plan works out.
Shazidra - I was crying laughing after finding out that room wasnt no recall. Thanks for dragging me around

Empire -
Niji - good enemy for the most part, sucks I didnt get you that last time on eastern. Only character I bought edges to fight. I never lied to you.
Tralgdar - Didnt expect to go before you did, but life intervened. Good luck.
Nizrili/Rahzeez - you guys both kicked ass, literally, mine. Great players.
New batch of imperials - blah

Scarab
Quarissa - I respected your IC words and actions, dug the RP. Taking it to your death thread I disagreed with. Hope I see you around the fields some time as I felt like we had unfinished business. I'll post the log of my 'whining' about your taking Bal'talon about which you commented on your thread. Nothing compared with what was said over the Mask when I/Fortress held it, or a few rods taken from your friends.
Thurmonbrue - You were super mouthy for someone who amounted to a speed bump.
Kowalewei - good enemy, enjoyed our interactions.

Nexuns:
I tried not to hold actions for the balance against you guys. This was a pretty serious problem for me in the past so I intentionally spoke out against this and revenge in general, it fit with both Cionadh's character and was a point I wanted to make for myself on this PC. When you hold grudges or loot on top of it you undermine that
entirely, your personal greed is not keeping the balance. Tough road you guys have doing #### like that makes it harder to let you be Switzerland when you want to be.

Tribunal:
Rylium - one of the good guys, keep at it. Thanks for the friendship.
Elasia - I enjoyed watching you squirm/cry about the guards thing, but I should have just let it go.



IMMS:

Wow did my role XP suck it hard. Could you perhaps give some insight or advice to me on the roles? I bought my pbf hoping to see this but the imm who gave xp didnt make an entry. I hope to god it is not another 'oops, I forgot to add a 0 there'. The best I could guess is I'm not supposed to write CF fiction as role entries, but I thought the tale of going to Darsylon made a good story and tied into the religion/helpless title pretty well. It was based entirely
on in game events. I nearly deleted at the point when I received 100 imm xp as one of my goals required to get 2K imm xp. But Whiysdan granted a title and virtue so I thought, well i'm doing something right. So I wrote my role entry 6 entirely about my character and motivations. Still really minimal imm xp for it, this was by all accounts my most successful character but had the least imm xp of any of the past three I've played. I wondered if it
was a 'hey, raise the bar for yourself' type of thing, or just random chance that led to it? If you guys are trying to incentivize
better role entries by giving 100 on the first one, then please plan to give a larger bonus later. Getting 100 for first hamstrung
my character for the one place I did not qualify to go. Perhaps I needed to put more effort into my religious side of things? I'm open to whatever criticism or advice is out there on this.

At one point I believe I was a double virtued, custom titled paladin, "priest" of a religion and a Maran. I had like 800 imm xp? It really hurt my willingness to keep trying the immteractions, I just kept at the cabal war/pk, personal interaction RP, and Marshall stuff.

Whisydan - can't say thanks enough, both for the interactions and everything you do for CF. Top notch.
Baer - I'm always intimidated to interact with you, since I took my first paladin to the shrine and you RP'ed circles around me. Then sat quietly for minutes at a time while I wondered, is she waiting for me to say more? is she AFK? ugh! what do I do! I'll give it more of an effort next time it is appropriate. Thanks for giving me a shot as Marshall.
Akresius - very cool, thanks for taking the time to explain, great talk, and when RL allows I'll be filling the chalice again.
Twist - you bastard why'd you go and delete Resdrenn. I was perfectly happy as a maran!

I appreciated the one on one fights early on and your willingness to take risks. From a player perspective, my thought was this time around you got Maran Paladin right (not to say you got the other attempts wrong).

This is meant purely as constructive criticism, so take it how you will:

You never received 100 xp for a role, or for anything even, through the course of your characters life. You did receive 400 at two different points for role stuff, and then 250 later for some immteraction thing (at least that's what it reads like to me). If you set yourself with a goal of attaining a certain amount of IMM exp, I think that you are essentially setting yourself up for failure because it can lead to you pouring it on too thick while with your patron imm, or if you know your imm is showing, which can in turn lead to you being less impressive while you aren't being watched by your imm.

I do a lot of watching of a lot of characters and while I think you were a good character who offered a lot to the mud, you never really did anything that was 'special' or helped to make you rise above the pack in my eyes. I think that for everything that your character was supposed to be: a dwarf, a paladin, a Whizzers follower, a Maran, you were good. However there have been a lot of other dwarven paladin Whiz following Maran that I think did it as well, if not better at points, than you did. With a combo like that where it has been played A LOT it really does get difficult to be the 'shining star' example of what it should be.

Its always a downer when I see that a character has a list of goals and *almost* gets them all achieved, and I hope that you still be planning to make a return to CF again in the future.

>This is meant purely as constructive criticism, so take it
>how you will:
>
>You never received 100 xp for a role, or for anything even,
>through the course of your characters life. You did receive
>400 at two different points for role stuff, and then 250 later
>for some immteraction thing (at least that's what it reads
>like to me). If you set yourself with a goal of attaining a
>certain amount of IMM exp, I think that you are essentially
>setting yourself up for failure because it can lead to you
>pouring it on too thick while with your patron imm, or if you
>know your imm is showing, which can in turn lead to you being
>less impressive while you aren't being watched by your imm.
>

Thank you for the reply. I appreciate it.

The only reason I set X amount is that on my last character I was told it was required to explore a certain place. As i've seen nearly everything else in CF at one time or another than that place, I set it as a goal for this character to see those remaining exploration places I had not.

I was mistaken about the 100xp bit. It felt that way as I had two role entries(split into three) and 60 hours played and received 400imm xp for my role. The lowest total I had previously received for any initial role was 500(and this pittance only one time). Then 200 hours more played without imm xp but during which time I contributed three more entries(split into five) which received 400imm xp in total. Total of eight entries for 800 imm xp, where previous characters(bland or not) had mostly received 1000 - 1500. It is a purely subjective decision which I understand so i very much appreciate the feedback that I need to be more original.



>I do a lot of watching of a lot of characters and while I
>think you were a good character who offered a lot to the mud,
>you never really did anything that was 'special' or helped to
>make you rise above the pack in my eyes. I think that for
>everything that your character was supposed to be: a dwarf, a
>paladin, a Whizzers follower, a Maran, you were good. However
>there have been a lot of other dwarven paladin Whiz following
>Maran that I think did it as well, if not better at points,
>than you did. With a combo like that where it has been played
>A LOT it really does get difficult to be the 'shining star'
>example of what it should be.
>

Thank you for the feedback. As I've said this was my first Maran, also my first Whiysdan follower, and first dwarf over level 30. So while their may have been others it was my first attempt at it. I tried to go a road less traveled on my last paladin. It didnt work out so well in practice, so my plan here was to stop trying to swim up stream and just go with the flow RP wise. I take from your comments I did that.

If I apply this feedback to my role entries in the future it would be find some unique concept if you want a chance to get to the place which requires it, because no matter how well you play your role if it is not unique you arent getting there.

>Its always a downer when I see that a character has a list of
>goals and *almost* gets them all achieved, and I hope that you
>still be planning to make a return to CF again in the future.

Eventually I'm sure I will.

Is so dumb. How many dwarf monk whiz followers have there been? Surely not A LOT in the history of CF.

He will stop expecting IMMEXP and have it as a goal for a certain amont.. when you guys stop being stupid and giving Silent Tower a EXP requirement. Or certain edges EXP requirements.

They are REQUIREMENTS to achieve an aspect of the game I want to participate it which is based of subjectivity and inconsistency on all your parts. That is why it doesn't work.

He was empowered, double virtue-d, stringed... full maran.. and leader..

Yet you all were huge ####s and didn't let him enter the silent tower because you can control who gets the 2k IMMEXP.

Then you post here saying he was average and basically didn't deserve it for being 'average dwarf paladin monk whis follower'. Despite being a leader and such. Lets see how many average characters got entrance to ST that justify excluding this one? I'm not going to post the long list.

Just stop being a tool for 10 minutes and realize people want the immexp simply because they want a chance at level footing in area exploration. Even if they are going to kill their con by doing so.

I have probably 2 or 3 chars left in me before I move on, and part of that is because since that imm exp requirement went in I've never met it. This is despite chars that are well received and leaderified. I loved exploring st and considering I can go hours without anyone in my pk (time zone) it's very disappointing to be permanently locked out, partivlarly as I've not cheated to get in or gain advantage there.

He was empowered: You get no XP for this.
Double virtue-d: You get no XP for this.
Stringed: You get no XP for this.
Full maran: You get no XP for this.
Leader: You get no XP for this.

These WERE rewards for his RP. You only get IMM xp through entering roles.

He was given 1050 XP for his role entries, but didn't get the 'initial' role entry of 500-1500.

I assume this is an error, but if he was given the IMMXP that most characters enjoy at the start of their lives, he would have had plenty.

What to do in this situation? Pray? Write a note?

It amuses me that you think you only get imm exp through entering roles. It really isn't supposed to be like that, so your perception that it is like that is not a good thing.

>He was given 1050 XP for his role entries, but didn't get the
>'initial' role entry of 500-1500.

I was given 800 imm xp for my role entries. 250 imm xp was granted for an interaction with Akresius, which he initiated based on some RP with one of his followers.

The general tone of your post is extremely argumentative, abrasive and rude. It is most likely going to end in the thread being locked.

This manner of discussion is not beneficial and you cannot expect reasonable discourse, or change to come out of this particular style of posting. Would you talk to a work colleague, boss, or stranger like this in real life? If you did so, what do you expect their reaction to be?

Secondly, you reeled off a longish list of rewards (or at least, what most of the staff would consider to be rewards.) Lots of players go entire characters without receiving half of the stuff, or even one of the items you listed in some cases. Edit: And chances are the staff members who were giving Cionadh this stuff were doing so believing that they were genuinely making the player's experience more enjoyable.

To Cionadh's player: congratulations on a character which hit most of your targets. You should be proud of achieving most of what you set out to do, especially if you are an infrequent player.

I hope you found some of the feedback constructive, and that you enjoyed your time playing this character at least.

Seems simple.

There's no pleasing everyone. When I close it, some of you bitch. When I open it, some of you bitch.

But seriously, it's an awesome area...but it doesn't work in CF. You are a great area writer...but it doesn't work in CF.

Just drop Immxp requirements to all areas and quests. The concept, due to its subjectivity and other factors, just reeks of cliquishness.

I mean how horrible and/or gamebreaking would it actually be for people like me to complete the "Betray the Paladin" quest or actually step foot in ST?

I just feel that the imm exp is quite an inequitable way of assessing entry. Could you perhaps make an alternative that those with 300 hours can get in?

I'll consider something like this.

The reason I instituted it originally is that people would roll up throwaway characters to zerg at the tower to figure things for their "real" characters.

That would be fantastic!

But I guess it makes sense.

The "Zerg" would certainly cheapen it. Right now the tower is a special place. I'd rather see it kept that way!

Totally like the 300 hour access concept. Perhaps something like this could also happen with another very special area.

In what way?

This isn't theoretical zerging. This is something people actually used to do, a lot, before I put in the requirement.

So maybe you have 3 or 4 sets of criteria and meeting one of these will get you in.

For example criteria could be:
Imm exp
# of hours
Leader position
Tattooed


Just meeting one of the above would get you in. Granted by the nature of what is above if you meet one you probably meet others but it could prevent cases like Cionadh from happening.

nt

I may be way off base, but it seems to me like Daev is kind of a Kantian thinker.

He's basically saying everyone has a categorical duty to do all those things, and if your motivation to do those things is purely to get into ST he doesn't want you there.

I guess I understand it as the ST can be a con burner and he doesn't want people powering to hero in 40 hours with a throw away character and burning all their con solving the puzzles so they can turn around and go through the tower relatively risk free with their other characters.

I have to think if you're willing to invest the time to meet any of those things I listed its fine to go into the tower even if that was your motivating reason for achieving those marks.

Sorry man, I love you, but wow is this a ####ing delusionally naive take on this.

What is so nuts about what I said?

You may have to find other things in the game that you can derive enjoyment from first.

If you love it... Let it go.

Lets say you are right about Daevryns ST philosophy. How does my idea not coincide with that when you consider the current system in place?

Getting leader or tattooed or playing 300 hours are all signs of a character that's being played for the enjoyment of it rather than a means to get into ST.

I know I interjected myself as pseudo-translator here, but your guess is as good as mine.

How far would you go to protect something you worked very hard on? I imagine it's more intangible than having people complete X, Y, and Z goals, which is why he based entry on the subjective measure of ImmXP.

ImmXP itself is something I'm very far from an authority on obtaining.

Right, that's generally what I'm talking about. Keeping the idea of weeding out throwaway characters for it but broadening the categories of characters this code allows.

Considering you kinda have to lose a lot of con there if you don't cheat - why would you want to run your favorite, most effort containing character through there to an early con death?

And what exactly is the problem even if you did? If you're dying there then clearly you didn't cheat so what's the problem?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something but is this in the game for people to enjoy? If so why would it be crazy for someone to roll a character to enjoy it? We don't need anymore fail leaders because they only went for leader position with hopes of getting into Silent Tower...

I guess I'm trying to understand exactly what problem you're trying to solve. Originally it had to do with people sharing information OOC - now it seems to have to do with what types of characters are allowed to enjoy it...but I'm failing to see the goal really. If the area is there to be a net positive to the game for people who like to explore there you're just really annoying them and giving more incentives to cheat (after all, now I might *only* be able to go there on a character that I can't afford to die with too often...).

The place is a deathtrap. I assume it's intended to be, and if people info shared about it, it wouldn't be. Allow everyone access and the information on how to do anything other than die there is going to spread. Perhaps the reward of figuring out how to accomplish something in ST is itself a reward that being handed any piece of gear would not be.

You can make information sharing ineffective. Honestly it's not that hard. That's really not what this accomplishes. Plenty of games have achievements and all the steps to accomplish said achievement are freely shared.

I'm really surprised that in this day and age people really still fall for this.

The game, with it's lack of bodies also has a lack of solo content...and while that's the reality, we're hiding areas that provide solo content. Not only are we hiding them but we're making a bar that they can try to reach and fail completely outside their own control. That violates like 8 rules of psychology.

I know we're not really trying to remain PVP competitive here or attract new players anymore (I assume that because whenever we talk about these things, people seem to ignore the fact that this breaks both) - but at the very least why are we still being so passive-aggressive to the 30 people who still play?

I am compelled to give my unsolicited .02

ST is one of the main reasons I still enjoy and play CF. It is the last tough place to figure out. yeah I have fun with my characters, but in the end the goal is always to get there, and try to figure out what the heck is going on.

Every character I get a little farther...

If ST were to close, again, that last push wouldn't be there. It wouldn't be as fun, and personally, I bet my interest in CF would wane.

I believe you are responding to one of the sarcastic posters and not to me, the player of Cionadh, in the first half of your post.

I was honestly hoping to get some feedback on my role entries or insight into what I did wrong that caused this discrepancy between imm xp and other rewards. I very much appreciated the rewards which I did receive, I do not wish to seem ungrateful for them if that is how this came across, I apologize. I have played many characters who recieved little or none of these types of things so I am truly grateful. My goal in asking about role entries was to do better next time, whenever that should be.

I'll say again thank you to all of the staff for the effort and work you guys put in and I'm sorry if this thread got detoured by my comments on the imm xp topic it wasnt my intent.

If you followed this guy, that's probably why. From observation I would take a guess that he is less likely to award immexp for things and more likely to award other stuff. Not a bad thing, just seems to be his style.

Sorry your thread got jacked by ST creeps.

I was responding to CD in the first half yes, but I know the staff work very hard to maintain this game and will be appreciative of your kind words.

I think some of the issues raised here have given us some stuff to think about, and constructive criticism is never a bad thing. As long as it really is constructive criticism and not just finger pointing/blame.

Sorry it is spamming up your death thread.

I'll be honest as soon as you mentioned monk, I quit reading. Mostly because it means you didn't read anything that was written or you had no idea about the character in question and were just looking for a chance to take shots at me and the imm staff. Thanks for trying, and I'm sure you will get another opportunity in the future where it will end up more successful for you.

I 100% concur with you. Immortal bias combined with control of area explore access (through IMMEXP or lack therof) is terrible. Edges fall under this category as well. Judging someone's RP is subjective, and frankly the "Staff" is not comprised of be-all-end-all role players, in fact a few of them are quite pitiful.

R. A. Salvatore wants his motif's back from your religion.

You are going to be missed! Big time!!

You were one of the regulars who ALWAYS showed up to the hunts! ALWAYS ready to mix it up!

I had a blast killing Tiamat with you and exploring all over the place. Great stuff!!

I encourage you to dream up something new and come back at it!

Spend a few days writing a role, looking at it, rewriting it. Fall in love with your character idea and you'll reach your goals, promise!

GLWYN.

Thank you for your patience while inducting me.

Those freaking pen and papers kept breaking on me, and I was at my wits end when I ran out of them,hahahahahaha.

One of the hardest things I've ever tried to do, explain all my role with the things breaking all the time and half way to anything meaningful. I hope you didn't think I was making things up as they went.

I hope I didn't cheapen the interaction too much by going the easy way of the writing on the dirt at the end.

You seemed like a very cool character, and I definitely got the feel of a gruff and growling dwarf from our brief interactions.

It seemed like you were doing a very good job.

Congratulations on all the goals that you achieved.

Glad of the interaction and it made for an interesting interview. I was not trying to make it too drawn out on you at the end as I felt your pain.

I liked Cionadh a lot. I really enjoyed our interactions at the beginning and thought you had a ton of potential. It just kind of felt that after you got fully empowered and you got your virtues, you just kind of stopped praying/coming to the Temple. There was definitely tattoo potential in you, but it just seemed like you started putting all of your effort into Fort instead of religion.

Overall, I thought you did a good job and I enjoyed the character.

As to the IMM EXP stuff, I probably don't do as good of a job there as I should (I usually don't give exp for shrine RP - sometimes, but not usually). There is a fine line to walk with giving out too much and not giving out enough. Sorry that you felt slighted there. Sadly, when you have a bunch of different people reading roles and the like, it becomes a little subjective. It's something we're working on and I'm sorry you feel like you got the bum-end of the stick.

I will say that playing just for IMM exp can be a bit of a letdown, but I understand your motivation for doing so.