Sun Jan 4 18:12:31 2015

At 8 o'clock PM, Day of Freedom, 25th of the Month of the Old Forces
on the Theran calendar Adril perished, never to return.

The game isn't what it once was, and neither am I. I started out madly in love. We enjoyed each others time together when we first met some 19 years ago but, alas, the past 10 years has been a gradual decline in our relationship. I came into some time as my real love was in Japan for two months during the holidays and decided to play again after quitting in frustration a couple years ago. A lot of changes looked interesting and I didn't recognize half the items I saw in logs. I tried with a healer empowerment... that was a waste of time. I tried with my favorite, a conjurer, but again it was a waste of time. Finally I tried a bard, as other suggested, since it can solo rank. Even then I felt frustrated though at how slow it was and how annoying it is to have everyone in your range gunning for you for their mid range edge points because... you're all they have to do.

The game has gone from let's have fun together, to let's have a job together while hating each other. The Imms keep making #### more difficult and annoying. No mastering defenses till past level 15, no gaining on things immune, no gaining when wielding something you don't know, etc. This just means people spend MORE time not interacting with eachother. Playerbase is shrinking, lets make ranking mobs do things. It's shrinking more, let's make ranking mobs have specs. More shrinkage, let's make them do it to more than the tank! Then there are things like making only people who are imm faves get edges, making it so wands are freaking ridiculous to get so that mages spend so much time looking for wands they aren't even interacting with people, etc. As for empowerment, the answer I was told when I asked if I could keep leveling up was "It's not all about exp, we don't want you to level up past your empowerment." For me, and most players, it IS all abour exp. Hero IS where the game starts. Where do you get the best gear? Hero places. When do you get all your abilities? At Hero. How can you get the best rewards from quests? Be a Hero so you can get the items. People won't even RP with someone that isn't a hero. They just pretend you don't even exist, even if you are attacking the Maran or Huntress or whatever. They just sit there looking at you or the guardian and if you try to strike up a conversation, they just laugh or ignore you... while you're slaughtering their guardian. You don't get hardly any RP in the low-mid ranks. And I'm certainly not gonna walk around randomly RPing with NPCs just in case an imm is snooping.

The final straw for me was a quest that I spent many days by myself exploring and studying to figure out on a couple previous characters. It took me two characters to get it right. Well now they went and changed it with no obvious reason and so instead of exp and a level I was expecting, as I had with previous characters that did it, I was met with a lost con and exp hole. Seriously? It's like you want this to be a job. You want to screw people over. You want your players to not have fun. You have petty little grudges where someone shares some info so you screw over those of us who actually worked for it too. It's like.

I understand you don't get paid for this game, I really do, and I greatly appreciate all the effort you've put into it. I've loved and played the game off and on for nearly two decades. I just can't see how some of the changes of the past 10 years have made any sense to you from a fun perspective. This is a GAME. People want to play it to have FUN. It shouldn't be such a pain in the ass to play. Everything is just too darned serious and severe in the game anymore. I'm not saying all the changes have been bad, there have been a ton of really awesome changes. I just think too many changes that make life difficult have been made and general roleplaying expectations take away a lot from the fun to being much to serious. Overall it just gives a sense of working, not playing.

So in short, I think I'm finally done with this game forever. It's simply not fun anymore and I am halfway through my life now and have better things to spend my precious time on than something I no longer can enjoy. Thank you for the fun times and all the hard work you have put into the game, which I have appreciated a great deal.

Farewell,
Joe

Many, many times. The initial encounter most of all. I put a song through, you fled, you healed, you came back, and halfway through that the command finally went through. Was seriously frustrated knowing that if I had a connection you wouldn't have succeeded. Problem with living in England I suppose. Good luck with the higher range!

I dunno what kinda muffins Scarab feeds you but you gave my my first and only CF nightmare in 19 years of playing the game! I literally dreamed that I logged in and was instantly being tripped to death, in text and everything! Scary #### man.

I feel like I let you down. I tried to help you out when I could but you were obviously a skilled player so I was confident you could handle whatever CF threw at you. I was really looking forward to having you in the hero ranks.

Your final CB parting blow did make me chuckle though Good luck with whatever is next for you in life.

I wasn't aware that they changed a buncha things from some jackasses passing guides around. Either which way it feels like lets punish everyone for a few jerks. But it's really just been an overall sense of everything bringing me to this point. Thanks for what you could offer and have fun.

Just consider yourself to be nearer the start of the learning curve.

For quests in general, I'd say to solve them with each char, not just do them, and you'll be fine.

Finally, I think the wand change makes for more interaction, not less. In my experience mages get groups to get wands now whereas before you were often wary of involving others because eventually you'd have ambushes waiting for you at your wand site.

Guikdmaster gives you a spot and you think 'ehh I'll need 2-3 heroes for that'. You can get 2-3 heroes together and you have a wand - badass. Under the old system it would be 'ehh I need 3-4 heroes to take me through a dozen tough spots and I've no idea if anything will come of it at the end' and that's too much investment in your character for a large chunk of the cabal for a large chunk of their playtimes. New wands are much better.

So I think your definition of old system depends on WHICH old system.