Mon Nov 7 18:25:58 2016

At 6 o'clock PM, Day of the Moon, 7th of the Month of the Winter Wolf
on the Theran calendar Serzajes perished, never to return.

I made myself promise that I wasn't going to delete this time. This was my first character to actually finish without deleting. I learned quite a bit with this one, and I'm glad I did it. I've played conjurers before, and I was surprised how rarely my servitors turned on me or attacked me compared to previous ones. Even the negative effects of some of the higher level spells didn't fire nearly as often as they did in the past.

I've played a lot of Nexus as well, but I think this might be the last time for awhile. I didn't see much of the other members, and when I did it was usually lowbies focused on gaining ranks only to delete, or heroes who only logged in, all at the same times, for eq runs. Not much fun. But at the same time, I get it. Free time gets tight, and you want to get some fun out of a session. So I ended up fighting Scarab or the Village solo a lot, which I was pretty terrible at. But, I definitely got over my fears of doing so. Even if I couldn't beat anyone, except the one Imperial I managed to set up in a nice gaunt, I was able to learn from mistakes and come back at least a little stronger each time.

I'll probably also take a break from conjurers and maybe mages in general. Between the Veil, and the difficulty of balancing the timing and mana requirements of servitors, it felt like I had my hands tied behind my back a lot of the time; especially fighting against the Village. I tend to play high-utility characters that either can't solo anything worthwhile in PvE, or can only do so with exhausting preparations. Sounds like I need a warrior, or shaman/paladin for my next one.

I think I personally find it difficult to roleplay well in cabal situations. Or maybe just any situation. It's difficult for me to think and type quick enough to interact meaningfully while defending, running, or hunting. I've tried more RP-focused character before, but I always run into a problem of not being sure how much I can interact with or add to the lore of Thera, especially if I'm still not familiar with a lot of it. I'd like my next character to get out of the "learning the game" shtick and start contributing more. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Example: Serzajes was sphere Knowledge, and I had trouble fitting that into a role because I feel my two options are either a) record the path Serzajes takes as he learns "knowledges", or b) make up some Knowledgey hero's journey arc. A is boring. B runs the danger of meddling with CF lore. Where is the happy medium, or am I completely on the wrong track?

Related to RP, I'd like to gain some confidence with immteraction in the next character. Many of my previous characters at least experienced some casual immteraction, but never felt comfortable pursuing or soliciting it. I think I do alright writing backstory, even won a contest once, but when I have to write the character as they live in the playable Thera, I'm never sure enough that I'm not mucking up some important part of someone else's story line, or going too far with places/people that don't actually exist in-game. From what I (mis?)understand, immteraction is the only path to customization beyond class specializations (edges, titles, long descs, "flare"), so this is a challenge worth overcoming for me.

So, next character: RP- focused, attempt to immteract. Hey, thanks for reading. If we interacted or you watched Serzajes at all; what were your thoughts? Advice, especially on the role front?

Don't worry.

Not doing things because you worry about looking stupid is fine in RL (well, not really), but it's definitely a dumb thing to do in a game. Meddle with CF lore? Who cares, if it's fun? You don't have to know it all, and if you're completely wrong, you always have an option of RPing an insane or misguided dude like "Oh that was in a book I've read, perhaps it was a joke by stupid gnome rather than scientific tome by a herald librarian".

By the way, Conjurer is cool to learn CF lore, because the lore itself is hidden within area and item descriptions, and conjurer is one of the best for exploring that. Not that I'd care to "learn" CF lore in the first place. It's cool if you know it, but don't let ignorance ruin your fun.

RP- focused, attempt to immteract

I would STRONGLY recommend adding at least one other focus for a character. Giving your funstick to others is the best way to get frustrated if you don't get enough immteraction (proven by million heroes of the past, browse through goodbye threads).

Good words. Thank you.

So I will throw my 2 cents in also.


Based off of all the things you stated I would make this suggestion:

Shield Ded Paladin Acolyte

This gives you survivability but takes away a lot of PK ability because of lack of lagging abilities. Being a Paladin give you a direct path to IMMteract but doesn't get you stuck if your IMM is not available to you when you need to interact. RP your butt off with leaders and heralds. Most of the time these people are your knowledgeable people who you want to talk to about lore and stuff.



Another Option is Neutral or Good any class/race Herald scribe Whiysdan follower. This is my go to when I want to RP. Rakdrek and Graenmar are the the most well known. Just be happy, love life and enjoy Reading all of the lore you could ever want in the Lyceum behind the inn.

I would recommend against Shield Ded Paladin... They are EXTREMELY limited in what they can do, and I have heard from a few post changes that it is extremely boring being limited to just a handful of skills/supps (though I guess this was similar, but before you had wrath spam).

Also, I would throw out Strienat into your purview for an imm to follow. He's pretty amazing, having followed him twice. He is very forgiving, and willing to guide you through his religion, and it is a pretty amazing religion to boot. If you can go shaman following him, you will pick up desolation, which is simply amazing for soloing (On Bilgritik I was soloing the charcoal dragon at 36!!)

Whatever you care for race, but try to imagine an original back story and a need to interact with other players, not necessarily imms. Approach interesting/prominent chars with your angle and challenge their world view (works best in wardens, less so in more rigid Fort). You won't "save" or "redeem" anyone in practice, but that's not the point. Hell, doesn't need to be "redeem" - can be "escape your prison" or whatever your backstory and angle dictate. Also, feel free to imagine anything at all even if it doesn't match Thera. You could always come from a different plane, you know. In my experience, imms run with pretty much anything if it makes internal sense and matches char/Thera as they are now.

Shaman because it's preachy and not tied to the code like paladin, so you kinda get to invent your own - good excuses to RP. Goodie because it's easier to justify whatever angle you're preaching since evil would just kill ya and then talk, so no nice out of the blue opening usually. But if you can swing an evil preacher, that's fine too. Scarab's full of them, but I don't think they do the actual preaching and opening of the eyes thing.

you can just be from a different land.
It's been established quite clearly that Thera is not the whole planet, but a region.