Wed Jul 18 01:49:34 2007

At 5 o'clock AM, Day of Thunder, 17th of the Month of Futility
on the Theran calendar Belash perished, never to return.

This was a second attempt at the thieves (the first one was trapper). I wont be first to say they are immensely powerful midranks and imho completely suck high ranks. My greatest achievement (at least alone) at hero range was stealing almost all weapons from Drezen, which he eventually got back by Rettis getting my ass in the ocean.

My foes may be surprised, but each time I prepped to the teath, it was mostly aura, stone skin, protection, very often haste, yet it didnt seem to change anything. Even hasted I was torn apart.

Once again - I love Empire and it's politics, though powers of Shadows always seemed to be more of RP, then anything else. Codex protected me from fog perhaps at 10% times and eavesdrop was funny as hell sometimes, but no tactical advantage.

If anyone care to explain, I would hear imm oppinion on the demotion cause. I really seen it like prelate couldnt see me commit crime in Galadon, so Belash had no reason to admit his guild and lied to the last as he always did. The only thing I can explain this with - the phrase in the law, that Immortal Lords speak through Divine Sect. Not something mortal imperials really believe in.

Specific good-byes:
Ktaar: I loved our times matched at least sometimes. We had some interaction and as I was deadly midranks I really didnt deserve Elite later.
Khasotholas: one of my favourite Imms, thanks for promotion and interaction.
My foes: well fought, thanks for leaving my stuff in most cases. I appreciated it very much.
My friends: I never manage to RP a shameless bastard, there were cases I shouldve did it and stab in back, but I never manage to convince myself I should.

See you in the fields.

nt

Liked Belash a good bit. As for the Prelate demoting you, well, you have to accept as fact if you get caught breaking Imperial Law, however it may happen, there will be repercussions. But I gladly promoted you back up rather quickly, because you seemed to learn from it, even put it in your role, and moved on. That's something I really like to see. Good job all around I thought.

I didn't think you sucked at all. In fact, you did a lot of cool things and displayed a lot of aggressive leadership and definitely deserved at least an elite spot. The problem was that I knew you lied to me early on. Empire promotions work so that, unless you're the Emperor, you are putting your weight and trust behind the person you're promoting and I, personally, had to get beyond that and trust you enough to promote you again.

Re empire powers, I strongly disagree, but that may be because I'm playing an assassin. They are absolutely amazing for an assassin and probably the most powerful cabal powers I've played with. But more on that in a different topic

nt

You posed a genuine threat, even to a duergar warrior. I remember you coming at me when you had about 8 ranks on me and kicking my ass around. Then I ranked up and turned it around a bit, but you still could cause a lot of problems if you caught me wounded at all. And yes, you really cleaned out my weapons and I was so very annoyed, but that's what thieves do.

You didn't suck, but take it from another newish player until you achieve mastery of this game it seems like there's often a sharp trade-off between taking risks and getting results.

Example, you let my char lash yours a few times on the ocean, then came back to try to blackjack again, and died. I'm imagining if you had the same admirable go-for-the-win-no-matter-what attitude with other bad terrain/matchups as you ranked up, it might have felt like you sucked. But you didn't, you played really well, and I have no doubt your next character will show the results.

Especially your attitude. It may have been a little too
sportsmanlike for a good imperial, but Throkk and I sure
didn't mind!

Good luck with your next.