Sat Feb 27 14:30:50 2010

At 12 o'clock PM, Day of the Sun, 27th of the Month of Futility
on the Theran calendar Cael perished, never to return.

So I decided to cut my losses and delete. Honestly, most of you probably won’t care, but I’ve decided to put in my rambling two cents in.

This is another comeback character, and I have played three characters in the last four years, the last one was about two years ago. I ended up writing a role without reading up on any of the current imms. I looked at it, and I decided that this role was an OG paladin, sphere purity shield guy.

Instead of just making up my own religion(like I should have done) I decided to try to tweak it a bit to fit into one of the existing religions. Unfortunately my memory of Baer’s religion was woefully off. Oops, oh well, no hard feelings. I thought if I could pull Aiyanna off, I could pull a Baer Acolyte, guess not. So she scoots me over to Thror.

My impression—either he’s had a major cutback in hours, or the wizlist hours are just plain wrong. I wrote a missive to him, no response, but I got partially empowerment a day later so I didn’t press the issue. I think I had a general idea of the religion, but unfortunately not seeing him at all made it difficult for me to tell for certain. I got empowered through an NPC and I can only assume it was him, but it could have been another immortal taking pity on my ####ty paladin.

So it ends up to be about 90 hours in my character, I’m level 43, empowered to 35, never even seen my god, there’s no leadership for the acolyte side of the Fortress and I somehow got a lastname(?)…and it all adds up to me playing ME2 or Demon Souls. Or at the very least roll up a character that doesn’t have to sit around for more juice. There’s no hate for Thror, it was just bad timing, or maybe I just sucked way worse than I thought I did and I know I’m not super patient.

And for some reason, my entire drive to play this role died a few days ago. Screw the Orderly Good paladin guy. I’m going to at least stick to my gender(female) when I play the next character. It’s possible I lost the drive because I tweaked the original idea too much to fit into one of the coexisting religions.

As for the fortress itself…you guys have absolutely crappy communication problems. There was at least several times where you guys would ask me to help with xyz, and I’d go okay, where do I meet? I rush over there, sit there for ten minutes and then ask about the raid/counterraid/whatever. Without fail, they’d tell me the deed is done, or my aid was no longer needed. But at least talking to you guys was alright.

Empire people I fought: All except that bard(forgot his name) were pretty cool. When I got killed you guys pretty much left everything but coins and potions, which basically shocked the hell out of me. But thanks guys, stay cool. As for the bard? You lost –two- things and you decided to bitch? I was going to give you back that mask too, but the moment you started whining, I wished I took everything from your corpse. And Ckath? I wanted to irritate you some more with wrath spam. Fun times. And I’m a human, damn it.

Ellonis: You are an amazing human being, no sarcasm. You killed me on Eastern, and you corpse guarded my corpse and I got everything back. Except this act of kindness got you killed, and I thought it was funny and sad at the time. Maybe you shouldn’t be –that- nice, though I was very thankful for it.

There was an orc that was pretty cool about leaving my gear too. Actually, all the players were pretty much golden. Where’s the full-looting? The newbie bread saccing? WHERE!? I jest. It was cool knowing that there are decent people in the game, so I might give another character a go to see where it takes me.

So summary: Absent god, no Acolyte leader, lost interest in the role. But the players seemed to be pretty cool, albeit a little uncommunicative. And I have no idea how I got a last name. I didn’t do anything cool.

Well this is a shame (and a risk we take) ...

I felt like you had a pretty decent grasp on what you had intended on doing with my religion, unfortunately, I have been trying to interact via mobs to better teach the concept of 'faith.'

I do apologize about the hours. It's sporadic when I do get caught up in work or other hobbies but it usually doesn't prompt me to change my online game hours because it's not something that will last for weeks on end. I'll have to do a better job with this.

There is a big risk we take as immortals - on characters similar to this. We can invest a lot of time into the experience for you, but if you delete, we can't get that time back. Or, we can invest little time and focus on something that affects the entire playerbase, hoping our lack of interaction doesn't turn you away. It's very much a double-edged sword.

Hope you come back soon. Again, apologies about missing you. Yes, empowerment was done through me fyi.

As a potential forewarning, I will probably sound a lot angrier than I actually am, but here goes.

How long did it take you to post this? Five minutes? That's all I was asking for. I wasn't asking for a tattoo, virtue, title, nothing. Just a five minute thing so I even knew you were around(and yes empowerment would have been nice, but not even required). Now if you wanted to give me all these things, sweet. Still not necessary.

When I play a priest, I like to know if my god is around. When I delete a priest its usually because my god just disappeared for a couple weeks or I had no direction. With you, its like you didn't even exist. And I had absolutely no direction because I couldn't even be certain that the dwarf NPC knew what he was talking about. So I was just generic Acolyte paladin guy who was kind of a douche to beggars.

I felt weird telling Alondarin that yes Thror gave me his blessings. Because honestly? I was just taking a wild guess it was you and it almost felt like I was bending the truth. I know its just an individual hang up, but I just felt plain dirty.

Now I understand life and being busy. However, there are two things you could have done that would have added at least 60 hours to this character. I say 60, because 150 seems to be my general minimum for a hero character.

One, you could have responded to my missive. You ignoring this missive gave me the impression that either you didn't care, or that the NPC wasn't even you and you were absent. Both are very frustrating for an empowerment character.

Also, offline/random empowerment. Now this, I understand should be deserved, so I understand why you'd be hesitant with this. But had I logged on and noticed I could practice redemption, I would have stayed. And both would have taken you no more time than it took to write this post.

Going through the NPC is fine -if- you do it often enough. The problem with NPC's is that the player can't even be sure its you doing the talking. They can make a good guess but there's always this uncertainty. For a player like me, it bothers me. So in essence, I played 90 hours without even knowing I was doing anything right. Add that to the fact that I'm still uncaballed, I had absolutely no reason to keep with this character.

It wasn't so much a gamble on your part. It was a guarantee. Some players are more patient than others, I admit. But every player is going to eventually get fed up with the uncertainty. Am I doing things right? Was that even Thror? Maybe it was Baer taking pity? Does Thror even exist? When is there going to be a damn Cardinal? Maybe I should just change my mind and go Maran and pretend I don't suck, etc. And when I have Demon Souls, ME2, Borderlands, Uncharted, DAO, etc on the PS3....

No induction + not even sure your god even exists=eventual deletion for anyone.

I'm trying not to be selfish, but if the imms are going the route of empowerment, it should be a given that you at least show yourself once to your damn priest. As it is, unless the last couple weeks just happened to be a really ####ty ones for you(Thror), you should at least put yourself on dormant rather than active. I have gotten more interaction with a -dead- god. All I was asking for is a passing nod and the ability to commune sanctify room(that would be nice anyway).

And as for coming back? Maybe. If I decided on a role that isn't healer/shaman/paladin. But those are my classes. And I'm basically stuck with Raybear, since I know she's around during my play times. But as much as like her, I can stand only so many Raybear followers. I'm not Java who can roll five Baer paladins in a row.

This entire experience is what prompted me with the custom religion post. Before this character I disliked the idea of custom religions, because supposedly there's a ton of them. Maybe I'll try one of the other religions and see how crappy that goes. If its similar to this experience...something has to change.

Honestly, it sounds like you're a good role player, from the responses people have left, but I just don't think you're cut out for empowerment characters. If a mob empowers you, you can rest assured that you're doing something right. Yeah, you don't know who did it, but you know there a god up there thinking, "this guy's got it, we want him around."

It is a free game, and the imms take time out of their life to keep it going, just like we take time out to play. Both are crucial to keeping the game going. However, empowerment characters need a patience to them, not just RL patient waiting for your Imm, but IC patient as a priest going through hardship. I don't want to see empowerment characters automated because it's not just magic they're throwing around. In almost every religious movie there's a scene where the main character doubts his faith, that's the way I like to see CF priests, if they don't have the faith then the give up and go into hiding. Works perfect in my opinion.

The problem is, I didn't get -full- empowerment, and that is saying a lot to me. And I've had more than one empowered character, this is the first I had a real problem with. I just wanted a damn response from Thror. Hell I've had a couple tattooed priests.

I wanted empowerment, or a no you suck at my religion, go away you sucky paladin. That's my entire point. I would have stayed either way, the latter would be like YAY empowerment, the second would be a challenge beyond a waiting game.

And I understand the imms put in time. I've heroimmed before, I'm one of many wash outs. I'm thankful for this. I know Thror has put in many hours, contributed and is probably just as awesome as the next imm. But I was just asking for five minutes, nothing more, nothing less for full empowerment(or a quest to get it, whatever). I don't know, I would have liked having redemption when I got damned by an ice devil and I quaffed teleport into a nasty mob. I survived, thank god for heal, but the point still stands.

You say its a game, and you are exactly right. Should anyone have to wait 60 hours just for empowerment? I did, though part of it was my fault and I admit this freely. I can beat DAO in 60 hours. I can hero characters in less than 50 hours. I can't stand warriors, ABS has changed since I last played, I love paladins and healers. I don't mind RPing, I don't mind following a religion, I mind sitting on my ass for 60 hours. Or re-exploring areas while I wait just for a couple hundred OXP. The wait would have been far less worse if I was in a cabal.

If empowerment isn't for me, then its for someone who has nothing better to do than waste 100 hours of their life just to enjoy their character and have sanctify room. Sorry, I know like one person who is that patient. Also, if this is normal, it makes me extremely hesitant to roll another character. I was planning on a healer or shaman, but I'm all of sudden disinclined to play her.

If someone who has supposedly good RP has to wait this long, there is a problem. I'm hoping it was an isolated event rather than me being really lucky with my last six or so empowerment characters.

And I wasn't suggesting automatic empowerment. I would never suggest that.

So this is going to come off abrasive. Brace yourself.

Based on these couple of posts, you're not cut out for empowerment characters. I have to agree with spectator, there is a reasonable amount of IC/OOC patience you'll need when playing a Priest. Even if you are fortunate enough to get the attention of 'Thror' he's not going to hand it over to you. Furthermore, Thror doesn't fully empower off of one discussion with a character.

I understand your need to direct your frustration at me, in fact, I'll accept it. What I don't think I (nor other immortals) will accept is that you think our interaction is necessary to justify your enjoyment of the game. I'm not interested in interacting with characters that aren't in it for the long haul. In fact, it's a complete waste of my time if your intentions aren't to stick a character out. See how I turned that around on you? Time is as valuable a commodity for you as it is for me.

I'd suggest jumping into another character that isn't "Immortal dependant" and enjoying the character rather than placing expectations that you have absolutely no control over. You have to acknowledge that regardless of how great your RP is, there are going to be instances where someone just isn't watching. Set the expectations low so when they are observed, you're pleasantly surprised.

As an addendum - please, really, really think about what "Faith" is realistically. It's not God writing back to you. It's not fire and brimstone coupled with ash then some being garbed all in white stepping out from the smoke. I limit my one on one interactions for this reason alone.

Good luck with the next character.

I had every intention to play this character out. In fact this character was loosely based on a character I played on another mud for more than a thousand hours. I'm sort of crushed that I will never be able to pull this guy off again(he died in the other mud).

I'm also upset at myself for listening to a couple buddies who said that my frustration=should delete because of the empowerment and being uncaballed issue. This was never intended to be a throw away character and I'll admit I did jump the gun a little bit here. My lack of patience is what killed it for me and I do apologize for that. Don't worry I've been kicking my ass for it since about 10 minutes after I deleted.

Frustration+peer pressure+uncaballed+not fully empowered=Death of my character.

And no, interaction isn't necessary to enjoy the game. Empowerment is. Full empowerment, or some sign on how I should get it is all I wanted. Make me jump through a hoop, give me a quest, I don't even care. I'm not asking you hand it over, I'm asking that you either hand it over, and give me some direction on how to attain it. Sure I get why you wouldn't get full empowerment on one conversation, in fact I'm pretty sure that's the norm. I understand you do not empower someone who is a poor rper, who doesn't do what is expected, etc.

All I ever wanted, all I was trying to say, was a nudge one way or another. That's it. A nudge. I hope I'm not asking too much here, or empowerment definitely needs another look, since its basically required for a priest to get empowerment eventually.

I think I'm not making myself clear, but I really just wanted to know how I could get full empowerment. I've never ever been this frustrated with empowerment characters, so I guess you are saying that I've been really lucky with empowerment characters. If this is a case, that's a shame.

And as for a missive, I would have taken it completely OOC, so realistically speaking my character would have no idea about it. It would have been an OOC nudge that maybe you weren't completely there. Five minutes saying hey, semi-inactive, be patient would have equated with me being more patient. It had nothing to do with the faith of my character. He had the faith, I didn't.

And as a final note: I wasn't even angry about the situation, until I saw your first post. I know I took it the wrong way, but something snapped in my head when I read it.

The other ones... not so much.

Sure, it would be nice to have your imm around for you all the time, but fact is, you have to roll with it not happening sometimes.

You should NEVER be reliant on an imm's attention to have a good time or you are setting yourself up for disappointment as often as not.

I lived with them on Montague street in a basement down the stairs
There was music in cafes at night and revolution in the air
Then he started dealing with slaves and something inside him died
She had to sell everything she owned and just froze up inside
And when finally the bottom fell out I became withdrawn
The only thing I knew how to do was to keeping on keeping on
Like a bird that flew tangled up in blue

Sorry you lost steam with this character. I've had a strange upsurge lately of redemption loving Baer followers and unfortunately there's pretty much nothing that saves that in Baer's eyes. Anyone trying to play Baer Acolyte needs to shy away from the redemption angle of an Acolyte and go more for the "I'm going to fight to keep people alive" angle. I think Java's probably the only one who's really successfully pulled it off, and even then it didn't sit very well on either side.

Anyways, I'm glad there are no hard feelings over it. I genuinely felt bad when I turned you down because trust me, I've empowered far worse rp'd characters than yours was.

Good luck on your next and I hope you find a role that you settle into and have fun with.

- Baer



There will be no white flag above my door. - Dido

Sorry about the communication thing, I was one you talked to today I know. Thing is at the time on that one was, that when you were asked Aervery was already at the Chasm and she only knew that you were going to speak with her. The nightwalker was already dead and I was just waiting for defenders to show up to harass while others took the scepter. But she was plotting out a course of action because the servitors were running on fumes already, and then I messed up and called an elemental in my haste without a celestial and of course it was aggresive that time and threw a wrench in everything and there wasn't much in the way of anything to communicate.


Long story short I guess, wish I could have had a chance to get to know you. I would personally love to see more Acolytes. GLWYN

Sorry you felt this way Cael. I enjoyed our short conversation and thought you would do well. Keep at it with Fortress. Its rewarding.

As I'm currently playing my second Thror-sphered character and
that I interacted a (very) little bit with Cael, I'll tell you
what my perception was.

Thror is all about giving you a task that seems essentially
impossible from the viewpoint of the character. My first Thror
guy was told, basically, "That guy who killed you fifteen times
who you've never managed to get below gushing? You know him?
Kill him and we'll talk."

Because I'm at the far end of the spectrum from a Vet, I was figured
that this was like asking me to kill Zulgh. But I worked it out,
bided my time, waited for the guy to press too hard and killed him.
It gave me a tremendous sense of accomplishment, at least as far as
CF is concerned.

My new character's trial makes the previous task look like "Go kill
Tarus," but that's beside the point. The trial is supposed to seem
impossible.

After speaking to Cael I was convinced, to a near certain degree,
that your trial was to be ignored. It seems to me that with Thror,
if you're frustrated and feeling that you just can't do it, that
you're experiencing exactly what you're supposed to. Does that make
any sense?

I'll give you that Thror should have given some hints that you
weren't completely in the dark, but it looks like offline empowerment
and a couple of NPC immteractions fit that bill pretty well.

From what I've read, you seem like an asset to the game, so I'd ask
that you come back and try Thror again. It doesn't come with
chewy-caramel in every bite, but that's pretty much the point.

One way of looking at immortals are that they are like the greek/roman pantheon. Not so much in variety (that's an obvious), but in terms of capriciousness.

Immortals are at one point selfless, put in a lot of time, interested in their empowerees, go the extra mile to RP, think carefully about how to improve their cabal, be fair, non judgemental, creative.

Immortals are also at another point tired, had a bad day at work, busy with real life, temporarily jaded from #684212 elf shield paladin prayer, prejudiced towards certain speech patterns, bored, offended at something you posted or did previously.

We're all human. We're all players.

Relying on someone else for your enjoyment is risky, especially if they hold so much power in their hands at their full discretion, and don't have any duty or obligation to give you what you want. The sooner you realise this, the faster you'll enjoy playing the game. There have been some priests who got no empowerment for whatever reason, or did nto get virtues, but were sitll in my mind, "successful" characters (like Aurilimilis, who had no virtues), because of their impact on the rest of the playerbase, and what when they're not looking, you as a mortal see is being done.

Don't expect a heavenly all seeing eye of fairness from immortals. Wishful thinking.

Expect another human, trying to have fun, trying to make fun for everyone, balacing work, life, problems, babies, cancer, baggage, and realise always on the back of your mind that they're in the same boat as you. Complaining about a lack of attention from immortals is like a homeless complaining you didn't give him 50 bucks. You could have couldn't you?

Yea, not seeing your god sucks big time. But as Thror once told me its more about showing him that you can spread the faith and be the best priest out there in Thera. The kind of priest that when he logs in makes people go oh ####. Usually when I rolled a Thror follower though he didn't talk at all much he seemed to find me at the most coolest times, when I earned it. As far as Aurilimilis he knew Padwei was Iunna was working hard to help after the purge and trying to hold a stable life so he was like eh as long as we keep prayen an tryen to kick ass then she will talk to us eventually. Some how we got everything but Virtues out of the ordeal which sucked at three hundred hours plus... So I can kinda see how come you deleted cause I sorta did just cause I was getting rocked with lack of virtues, but kept folks alive really sometimes well. I dunno, kinda figure just keep at a character for more then a month doing good and sooner or later you will get that once in a character's lifetime. Another thing Thror told me was to never expect him to give you ####. Lol I loved that on our first interaction. God dam puny elfs. anyways keep plucken have faith sooner or later itll turn into a kick ass character. Just my two cents. and well playd I have watched you for a few.