I am quite verry new to the game, and i like CF a lot i must say.
Only one thing i want to point out, more for the older players.

The world of Thera is quite complicated to get the hang of,not easy to explore when you are not used to it, and usualy deadly because i keep finding myself in places where i ither get stuck and find no way out or run into something that kills me in one hit when i try to map.
All that is bad enough on it's own, but the fact that when a newbie like me hits level 11 they become "the hunt of the day" simply makes the game immposible to go on exploring.. An expereinced player can kill me with ease even without any obvious advantage. I tried all possible alignments and each time once i get to about level 15 i can't go on because i am simply being torn appart by people who starve for my blood just because they can. I hardly reincarnate from one kill, as someone allready kills me again. I afraid to join groups because i am called to join only to be killed when i come.
After the first levels it stops being a game of rp or game with other people, it becomes simply a frantic attempt to try and understand the game witout being slaughtered.

I don't post it to whine or to complain, i am just trying to give here food for thought.. Let newcommers to the game a chance to understand it before you tear them appart.

-Tan.

First off, I understand what it’s like to want perfection in your characters. It can’t happen try as you might. I may be stretching here, but I’m able to get my chars into the thirties and have a dozen PK’s under my belt with out being killed myself.

OH WOW! MY A DOZEN!??? Pfft! I can hear the laughter already. I only get a dozen because I pick my fights, if they go piss poor in a hurry I run. And I can run, better than most.

I have a few areas in the mud that I am absolutely familiar with. I can close my eyes and tap out the proper keys and know exactly where I am. I can run From Seantryn Modan to the Emerald forest and hit the healer therein blinded.

I’m not afraid to type Flee as soon as my Character Yells.

I typicaly go into a fight in stages as well.

I type in murder, and flee after one or two rounds, run off scroll back and see what they were using.
Then I base my strategy off of that.

I WHERE, not WHERE PK, WHERE, constantly. Use where because often Killers travel in gangs, and not all are able to hurt me at any one time. But if they are close to me I assume they have a partnr, especially Muters and Healers.

I have a few secret squirrel places, where I stash gear. I do this not because I will need it (I delete a lot if you haven’t heard.) but because I give it to potential group mates so they can help me rank, survive. I always am sure to remind them over time that I gave it to them.

For instance; I see a fellow a few ranks higher than me after I log back on a day later, “I see that armor I gave you serves you well.” Or I might be blunt and say “Remember who put you there.” And I leave it at that.

It’s useful to have these friends, because they can help you reequip, or act as radar. “I saw your arch nemesis on Eastern.”

(NEVER FIGHT ON EASTERN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

There is a post by Qaledus around here somewhere that shows how an Evil may be trying to help you. I’ve used very similar methods in the past, but often the new guy begins acting like a child. Don’t freak out if an Evil or even a good starts talking smack. Often they are veiled complements, or advice.

Don’t play the part of a prick if you are a newbie. No one will ever help you because you are, well, a prick.

Use the shift key, USE IT, it’s sloppy not to use it, and when combined with a shih-tay description, I take it as a sign that you really don’t give a ####. That being the case, why should I?

Never, ever, trust a duergar. If you get in bed with one, you can never get away. They see everything except for rangers, and two classes they have can summon. Bleh. I wish their detect hidden was more like Wood-Elf acute vision, but hey, what ever.

There is some good advice below, listen too it.

Hope this helps.

I feel for you. Keep your attitude positive through all of the dying. Every experience potentially can be a learning one, even if you do sometimes feel like a total lost wimp. It's easy to get upset after you've been killed again and again and again, but the game isn't completely about getting up to level 50 asap. There's fun to be had at every level, fun of the RP variety. As a newbie, virtually every area has secrets to be discovered, quests to be solved, and most players offer a good rp opportunity. Think of your role and how your character is affected by the deaths, or escapes from death, and use those opportunites to refine your role so that in the long run, you'll have a better fleshed-out character than you expected.

It's easy for me to say this because I'm applying it to my own character. I've been created for 38 hours, and I haven't even hit level 20 yet. I hope to reach level 20 in another 12 hours. I can't believe how god-awfully slow this is, and I've already lost 3-4 con points. I lose track because I can't actually see my attributes still. Worse yet, every time I get killed, I've lost all my cash, and the one time I was able to afford to be a recall potion I didn't have a chance to use it. Fortunately, it's easy to make enough cash so that you won't starve to death or die of dehydration because people always leave objects on the ground.

I agree that exploration is really really tough, but when I'm not out ranking (which is most of the time), I'm starting to learn the lay of the land. Most of the times I've died, the players have at least left me my eq so that I could have a chance against mobs. Hopefully you're finding the same thing to be true.

The thing I'm trying to tell you is: don't worry about dying. It's going to happen over and over again. It doesn't matter what class or race you are, because you're a newbie, and you're feeling the growing pains. Invis is useless, because anyone who can kill you is going to be able to see invis. Hide is ... not quite as useless, but again, anyone who can kill you is going to have some way to see you hiding. Accept the temporary setback with good grace, and in the long run you'll be a better player if you decide CF is still your cup of tea. And yes, I'm speaking from personal experience. It ain't fun to die in under 5 hits.... repeatedly, but at least you don't lose xp. (How do these lowbie players explain having access to uber eq if they are indeed supposed to act like they don't have any friends coming into this world?)

I'd like to correct/educate you a bit here.

>Invis is useless, because
>anyone who can kill you is going to be able to see invis.

Not true in all cases. For example, a low level giant warrior who is or wants to be a member of the Battle cabal won't have detect invis to hunt your lowbie mage with, even though he could probably kill you easily if he could see you. I agree, however, that it's best to err on the side of paranoia and assume all of your enemies have detect invis.

However:

>Hide
>is ... not quite as useless, but again, anyone who can kill
>you is going to have some way to see you hiding.

This isn't really true at all. In fact, you can always tell just by looking at the who list whether someone can see hidden or not.

It's slightly more complicated than this, but the following list is good enough for your purposes:

If someone is

1) A duergar,
2) A thief,
3) An assassin, or
4) An on-duty Tribunal (i.e., you see TRIBUNAL in front of their name)

they can see hidden. Otherwise, they can't, and there's no way* for them to get detect hidden.

>Accept the
>temporary setback with good grace, and in the long run you'll
>be a better player if you decide CF is still your cup of tea.
>And yes, I'm speaking from personal experience. It ain't fun
>to die in under 5 hits.... repeatedly, but at least you don't
>lose xp. (How do these lowbie players explain having access to
>uber eq if they are indeed supposed to act like they don't
>have any friends coming into this world?)

You'd be amazed what you can get 100% by yourself even from a very low level, once you know the game a little better.

* Yes, yes, there's that one thing, and that one other thing, and those other things, but none of those are especially relevant for relative newbies.

>>
If someone is

1) A duergar,
2) A thief,
3) An assassin, or
4) An on-duty Tribunal (i.e., you see TRIBUNAL in front of their name)

they can see hidden. Otherwise, they can't, and there's no way* for them to get detect hidden.
>>
There is a couple of scenarios under which a class or race can see "hidden" other than the 4 you listed.

Said the chicken.... I hear what you're saying, but my body ain't listening. If I see someone on WHERE who might want to kill me, I'm going to assume that they can see me and that they're going to try, and I'm going to RUN RUN RUN to hopefully keep my head from being cut off.

Maybe you should run TOWARDS the person and then beat their ass. Even if you lose you should learn something from it. Got bashed into the ground? Find an enlarge/reduce prep. Tripped? Fly potions. Plagued/energy drained into negative moves? Realize what's happening and your opponents battle plan and egress sooner. Got blinded and wittled down to nothing? Carry return/teleport potions and enough coin to cure blindness. Running all of the time will never get you the uber-eq. It also won't see your pk abilities improve. All it's going to do is make you a better runner, which is important no doubt, but that's not really what the game is all about.

If I think I have half or even a quarter of a chance, I don't mind running into the fight, but when if I have no chance, then there's nothing I'm really going to learn. Definitely as a lowbie, it's important to have as many spells up as possible: fly, detect invis, invis (though I don't see much value to it), and uh....that's about as far as I've gotten so far. Haste perhaps, except that it decreases regen. Slow is good because it increases regen.

It's also not my character's role to usually pick a fight, even if I see one coming. It's more his role to hope the fight won't happen and then try to survive/win it when it does. The one time it fit my role to pick a fight, I learned a client program is probably a wonderful thing. The opponent really impressed me. He picked a fight with a mob I would have to in role defend, and so I went running into the room to pick the fight, forgetting that I need to type murder, not kill, to initiate combat. Anyway, it looked in my scrollback like he fled the moment I ran into the room, then ran back in while I was typing where and killed me in 4 hits, from when I was at 100%. I was able to enter one command in that combat before I got pounded into paste, and that command wasn't flee. The lesson I learned was: that appeared to be one well-thought trap, maybe I should think of using a client other than telnet, and remember to use murder, not kill, although he still would have beaten me with ease. Each fight does teach something valuable, and it's a matter of putting the pieces together eventually.

I'm still looking for preps. It would help newbies if there were a table of preps somewhere, but I understand that learning preps is intended to be part of the learning curve, and that's fine. I finally found out where I can buy recall potions, so that's 1 down, buncha other stuff to go.

>If I think I have half or even a quarter of a chance, I don't
>mind running into the fight, but when if I have no chance,
>then there's nothing I'm really going to learn.

Wrong. You can learn a lot from a fight you lose. You can learn about what tactics people choose against you, so you know what to expect. You can learn that a disarmed person that can hit really hard doesn't really hit you very often. You can learn that groups easily able to kill you panic when suprised and you end up getting them all killed somehow.

> Definitely as
>a lowbie, it's important to have as many spells up as
>possible: fly, detect invis, invis (though I don't see much
>value to it),

Invis is very important. It often gives you the element of surprise and the ability to evade certain groups. It is particularly useful at lower levels when people can't afford to have detect invis up all the time.

> and uh....that's about as far as I've gotten so
>far. Haste perhaps, except that it decreases regen.

Haste makes you fight a LOT better. You really notice it as a fighting class. As a mage class, you might not, but it can help a bit.

Slow is good for when you are not fighting, if you are regen'ing. However, that's part of the reason invis is good. You might be able to jump people whilst they are still slowed. You fight really badly when slowed.

> Slow is
>good because it increases regen.
>
>It's also not my character's role to usually pick a fight,
>even if I see one coming. It's more his role to hope the fight
>won't happen and then try to survive/win it when it does.

My chars are far more likely to strike first and worry about hurt feelings later. That's because I learned that if you let the other guy strike first (or wait to see if he is peaceful), you will find yourself attacked about 75% of the time and dead at least 50% of those.

> The
>one time it fit my role to pick a fight, I learned a client
>program is probably a wonderful thing. The opponent really
>impressed me. He picked a fight with a mob I would have to in
>role defend, and so I went running into the room to pick the
>fight, forgetting that I need to type murder, not kill, to
>initiate combat. Anyway, it looked in my scrollback like he
>fled the moment I ran into the room, then ran back in while I
>was typing where and killed me in 4 hits, from when I was at
>100%. I was able to enter one command in that combat before I
>got pounded into paste, and that command wasn't flee. The
>lesson I learned was: that appeared to be one well-thought
>trap, maybe I should think of using a client other than
>telnet, and remember to use murder, not kill, although he
>still would have beaten me with ease.

Actually, whilst a client is very useful (for example, you could have blinded him before he fled, thus not getting hit at all, assuming you have either the spell or a scroll), the issue here is not "murder". Murder is sometimes the command to open with, but not very often, unless you are a shapeshifter, and even then often it is not. Usually you want to open with a targetted skill or spell, although there are times you won't because of counterstrikes that can be made if you do.

> Each fight does teach
>something valuable, and it's a matter of putting the pieces
>together eventually.
>

Yep. The secret here is to know that people will almost always flee when a defender arrives and then aim at you. However, if they flee, you can then move the other way past the mob, and then hit them again when the mob has re-engaged them etc. Or at the very least, you should expect to be the one he's going to aim at.

>I'm still looking for preps. It would help newbies if there
>were a table of preps somewhere, but I understand that
>learning preps is intended to be part of the learning curve,
>and that's fine. I finally found out where I can buy recall
>potions, so that's 1 down, buncha other stuff to go.

In all seriousness, you could ask for basic prep info from most people in game and they'd tell you. Not "where can I get preps", but "where can I buy a potion of teleportation?" or "where should I look in order to get flight potions". Some, like reduce and enlarge, are slightly less likely to be revealed, but an ally would probably still do it.

>In all seriousness, you could ask for basic prep info from
>most people in game and they'd tell you. Not "where can I get
>preps", but "where can I buy a potion of teleportation?" or
>"where should I look in order to get flight potions". Some,
>like reduce and enlarge, are slightly less likely to be
>revealed, but an ally would probably still do it.

Additionally, in my opinion, the above are all you really need to play the game very competitively (plus detect invis if your character doesn't have it built in.)

You desperately need to be able to recall to survive when you're starting out. Teleport helps a lot in certain situations where there's no other hope. Flight is necessary for some opponents. Enlarge/reduce, depending on your character, can sometimes be pretty useful. But honestly, that's all I roll with for most characters.

Of course there's the acute vision / wilderness thing. Pretty much everything else falls into the obscure examples I mentioned, no?

(Yes, I'm considering familiars / some few shifter forms to go on my 'you don't need to worry about this right now' list as vagued at above, in case you were wondering)

Take this (very common) scenario.

Two heroes fight. Lowbie stands next to them.

One hero dies. Lowbie loots because the victorious hero is almost certainly lagged by something that they used to prevent the defeated hero from escaping.

Voila. You have uber gear on a lowbie char.

Myself, I remember one time when I informed on an evil hero who I'd seen fighting a good aligned hero when said evil hero came into the area where I was ranking to recover. I was about level 5. The good aligned hero came, using my information, and killed the evil hero. He then took the couple of items he wanted, and butchered the corpse in order that I could have my pick of the rest of it, in return for my help.

thief
ranger
ranger
ranger
ranger
ranger
transmuter
thief

You can survive a lot better when 90% of the playerbase can't see you.

Assassins are handy when it comes to avoiding PK, as they have the ability to hide and sneak (quiet movement provided by sneak prevents others seeing that you are moving to or out of that room, also, you will not step out of shadows when you move if you are sneaking). use WHERE and WHO PK commands on regular basis. It is vital to know who is near you and if someone potentially dangerous is near you, can he harm you?

Assassins see invisible and hidden characters, so people should not be able to surprise you easily (even though they will, but you can see such a PK death as a reminder). As an assassin, it is vital that you hide and sneak all the time. hide is rather unrealiable command, which will not tell you if it fails, the echo is always the same. sneak is similar in that fashion, though you can see sneak in AFFECTS. Skills like detect hidden and heightened awareness are also seen in affects, be sure that you are always affected by detect hidden (ability to see hidden), heightened awareness(ability to see invisible) and endure (which gives you some spell saves and AC).

You hide in shadows at all time, only duergar players and thieves and other assassins can see you when you hide in civilized terrain. In civilized terrain, these are the adversaries you will have to avoid. When you look at who pk, see which characters in it are duergar. Avoid these characters and do not trust them, after all, they are evil.

When you hide in wilderness-terrain, the players that can see you are rangers and other assassins. You cannot see rangers, as they are camouflaged in the wilderness. If you see a ranger in the area, his presence is a cause for concern. At this stage, you can yell a greeting to the ranger, which makes it clear that you are nearby with friendly intent, as you willingly expose your presence to him. If the ranger does not respond to your greeting, it means that he is likely to be hostile and you should leave the area immediately, moving to civilized terrain and hide there, and lo, the ranger cannot see you and you are safe from him.

You can treat duergars in similar fashion as rangers. In this case, you will run to hide in the woods, where the duergar cannot see you. Do not try to yell greetings to the duergar, as the duergar is evil and you do not want to trust him that much. Just leave the area in such fashion that the duergar player is not on the way to the exit you use to leave the area, and even if he is, you can sneak past him (one more good reason to be sneaking all the time).

If you have a potion of recall, quaff it when the dangerous player arrives to the area where you are in(providing that you are not in the area where your recall location is).

Rank with good or neutral people only, as evils tend to be untrustworthy at times. Always know before what race/class the character that tells you something is.

Dealing with Imperials (or other evils). If an Imperial player speaks to you through tell, answer to him politely. If he asks you to group with him, you should refuse, as he is evil, and evil characters are not trustworthy.

Good and convincing refusals are 'I am practicing kicks.' (assassins will have to practice their kicks to 91% to get a next kick, very convincing reason). Others good excuses are: 'I will take my rest soon. Perhaps another time.', which will let him think that you consider him in as a friend. As you will, you just don't trust him enough to group with him, and letting him think that you will group with him in future will make him think that you might be useful in future, which is a reason not to PK you. Also, you should answer to these inquiries immediately, not letting the evil char wait. People don't like to wait for nothing, always answer to tells when you are not in immediate danger, such as standing in road. If you are in town, go to your guild to answer the question. And don't forget to be hidden when you type your answer. It is also good to remember that tell, say, cb and gtell take you out of shadows when you use them.

Know your way around in areas. One good way to learn is to use Dikuclan world map to find your way around better. Searching for Dikuclan with google will find you the web page where the map is.

I played my first character as an arial assassin, heroed and age died him. (He was a Herald called Fungor). Arial assassin is a good choise, as arials have INHERENT FLIGHT, and by flying, you do not need boat to cross waters and you can access regions only flying people can enter. Also choosing a remote hometown for your character, such as Udgaard, Tir-Talath or Eryn Galen will reduce the possibility that people in your PK range are waiting at your pit. Also, it is a good idea not to tell where you live to other people, unless they ask (and only if it necessary for them to know(they would be your groupmates/cabalmates in this case), which means don't tell it to evils).

The high xp penalty of arial assassin is not really an issue, as you are a newb and going to get owned anyway, so you'll be better off avoiding battles until you can find your way around Thera well. This was the attitude that kept Fungor alive (you can check from premium battlefield how well Fungor fared in PK (Fungor didn't PK anyone intentionally) and what classes got him etc.). As newbs can be generally expected to suck in PK, your victory isn't the dead enemy before your feet. Every time you survive from a threatening situation or run away from PK, you are the winner. He didn't get you. The newb lived.

Have both game time and wilderness/civilized in your prompt, as both are rather useful things to know. Command

prompt <%hhp %mm %vmv %Xtnl %T %W>

makes a prompt I would use as an assassin shows hp, mana, movement, xp to next level, IC time, wilderness/civilized.

It's too much clutter,

Use color roomnames instead, same affect.

>It's too much clutter,
>Use color roomnames instead, same affect.

The affect is not exactly the same, so having both on will maximize the informational gain. I had them both on as Agantas. Wasteland is seen as wilderness in the prompt, but has white roomnames, if I recall correctly. And what is too much clutter, is just the matter of opinion and depends on what you are used to.

- Be sure to read "Help Tips" (Helpfile 84). It offers some fundamental tips on exploration and how to avoid being pk'ed.

- Play a diplomatic character - uncaballed and neutral has worked for many in the past. Be assertive at making allies, as people are less likely to pk you if you establish yourself as a ally. Most players don't want to pk *so* aggressively that they cut themselves off from potential groupmates. The healer is a good suggestion save for that empowerment can be a difficult endeavor for a new player.

- Many people tend to find characters with concealment abilities easier to play if they are getting pk'ed often while trying to explore the game. Rangers and assassins are perhaps the most popular, as both these classes are fairly resiliant in combat yet also have concealment and utility abilities. If you give one of these classes a try, don't be afraid to run and hide at the first sign of trouble!

And the staff does frequently address the difficulties newbies experience in the game. We know we're a challenging MUD, and we take pride in that, but at the same time we are constantly working out methods to ease up the learning curve. Just in the past week, several affordable maps of newbie-appropriate areas have been made and put up for sale at local map shops, and we plan to add more newbie-friendly content of this nature in the future, both on the website and the MUD itself.

Most importantly, hang in there and have fun!

At least that way anybody asking you to travel (that isn't lying about their alignment - storm giants, high elves, paladins) won't be trying to kill you.

Than you become a prime time target for any a-p or necromancer, and once they realize you don't really know how to use your skills and fight as well as you could of, they simply leach on so bad you can't leave the temple and survive because they just wait and do nothing else.

-Tan.

When you are a ghost, don't sit in town. Sad cases will wait for you to unghost so they can kill you and pat themselves on the back about killing 100 people when 80% of those were newbies just unghosting.

If you have to go to your pit to get stuff (better to go to your corpse if you can), wait outside of town somewhere until a few hours (game time) after you regain corporeal form. Then run past the pit and take a look in it without stopping. Do NOT stand there. If your stuff isn't there, run out of town to somewhere quiet and make another pass at the pit in a couple of hours.

I would also suggest playing a good align OR a neutral healer, possibly. Then you are of use to everyone and not specifically an enemy of anyone. Some will still kill you because they are lowbie bashers, but if you roleplay well you should find it easy to avoid them (using gate etc) and people will take you along to gain levelsa lot.

.

They are relatively resilient, are great as groupmate, and can do some solo exploring.

Sorry but I am very new to this. I used to play achaea and I hope it is just as simple. Can I change Classes once I have chosen in the start of the game?

Once you make a character, he/she will be of the particular class he/she has chosen. The race/class cannot be changed. Each class has its unique abilities and is played differently than others. Each class is interesting in its own way, which makes playing CF a unique experience with every class. If you wish to play some other race/class, you can create another character, though I do not recommend having multiple characters existing at the same time, as it tends to be time-consuming. CF isn't the easiest of games, but the world is well made, the RP is deep (as it is enforced) and the classes are interesting. But do roll up and try! I haven't played Achaea, so I can't really tell how simple it is to compare.

However, roll up to the fields and learn it yourself! You will be a non-PK character during the first 10 levels, after which you can PK be PK:ed by the people who are in your PK range. The range consists of those characters who have about 30% more experience than you at maximum and the other way around, so the range has more and less experienced characters than you are (feel free to correct me if my figures are wrong, Imms).

I agree with most of what's said above, and I wanted to tack on:

Don't be afraid to try out a variety of different classes/characters to see what suits you. There's a lot of variety in character creation in CF, and characters play very differently and to different styles. An invoker is going to have a very different play style from a transmuter, and they'll both be very different from a paladin and so on. Similarly, fire giant warrior will even play very differently from an elf warrior, even though they start with identical skills.

Try out some different things, see what agrees with you, and most of all have fun!

SO I havent understood the deaths system. Why do we have a graveyard and a lifespan? Do the chars we make and eventually use hours after hours on perfection their role end up dying or become old and weak? and then woyuld all my eventual work be wasted? I am just wondering if this is the case
Thanks

As we do in real world too. The character lifespan is about 500-600 hours, though some live shorter or longer lives than that. My first char lived to age death, as I played him 627 hours, though he would have lived longer than that, but I accidentally worn a certain age + item, which killed him for good. Old age, which I reached approximately at 460 hours, reduced strength, dexterity and constitution. If you save practices to old age, you can compensate this negative effect. You will have one RL hour to say goodbyes to your IC friends after dying to old age. In my case, I played that character for ten RL months. I think this time is enough to play the one and same character.

The other way to die permanently is con loss. When you die IC, your constitution will be reduced by 1/3 of a point. So, after three deaths you lose one point of con. When your constitution is reduced to 3, you will die permanently. The characters that die to con loss are often suicidal or overly brave by nature, and thus die often. Con loss is seen as a death of a true warrior, and people tend to give their respect to the characters who sticked in there to con loss.

The most common way to die permanently in CF is character deletion, which means that you get tired of your character and delete him for some reason. Losing your character to age death or con loss isn't really something you should be worried about, as it is fairly rare insident, and others are likely to give you kudos for job well done in the cases you die by either of these ways.

Your work will not be wasted when the character dies, as you are probably a better player after playing that character, so you'll probably do better with your next character. And your character will still live in the memories of those who knew him.

Okay thanks. Then what about liches? can I become a darkelve necromancer and transform into lich and live forever?

Short of some items which will prematurely age you, if you are asking these questions you are at least three years from ever having to worry about age-death. I wouldnt' worry about it, and I certainly wouldn't play a necromancer solely on the hopes of liching and avoigind age death. 500 hours of playing a single character is a long, long, long time.

1) It is extremely hard to become a lich. First, you'd have to reach level 47 (spectre, cannot rank further as necromancer unless you are undead). Then, you will have to complete an Imm-controlled lich quest, looking for reagents of the elixir. Getting this quest might be tough. Then, you will probably need some friends to help you on the lich/mummy quest. You can also complete an automated mummy quest to become a mummy. Becoming a mummy is easier than becoming a lich. If you make the elixir from wrong reagents, the becoming will fail. The becoming is always dangerous and it has a chance to fail. If you fail in the becoming process, your character will die to old age, as he gave away his life to become undead.

2) If the highly unlikely event that you become undead will succeed, you don't have to worry about age death. Con loss will be a possibility, as undead lose one full con point for every death. Liches and mummies are powerful though, so you can avoid dying with more ease.

Yes, basically you can live forever as undead, but sooner or later, the undead delete when they get bored of their characters.

But seriously, play a character long and you find that age death isn't really an issue. When my character died to age death, I was basically ready for it. Most people delete before age death anyway.

Eventually, yes, your character will die if played long enough. As noted elsewhere, this is very rare on CF -- I'd say far less than 1% of characters disappear for any reason other than the player choosing to delete them.

Still, I understand that this seems a frightening prospect to people used to other kinds of MUDs or similar games. CF is a little different kind of game in ways that are hard for me to explain relating to this, but please try and trust me when I say it's really not a big deal. For the moment, try not to think about it and just have a good time.

I think the biggest concern for a new player is that once he finally learns how to play and gets that powerful character with the uber kit and feels virtually unkillable, then over the course of time, he is going to someday want to be a weekend warrior. I have played muds where years later, players logon to hang out, chat with their friends, participate in guildwars (cabal wars for CF), participate in group quests, and once in a while go on a mob killing spree. It's really just a cultural difference, and I would agree that three years of playtime on a character is a very long time. A player is far more likely to get bored of his character before age death, and it will be a welcome release/reward when it happens. I'd be more concerned about CON dying if my goal is to create that uber character and explore every last facet of the mud, but I guess that's why you can just create a new guy and do it again, except differently.

On games where involuntary permanent death isn't possible, it hurts new players a great deal. Characters will exist on those games who have been in play for RL years. They'll have every skill perfected, piles of quest rewards, etc. (On a game with a pay-for-perks model, they may have steadily spent a great deal of money on that character as well... one poster on TMS admitted having spent ~$5000 on one character on such a game... all on benefits that the character retains forever.)

In a game with an inherent competitive aspect like ours, eventual permadeath means that every so often, the most powerful and experienced characters (not players) are rotated out of the mix. This creates 'room at the top' that newer players can eventually aspire to.

Example: My first hero on CF (in 1998 or 1999) was in the now-closed Scarab cabal. It was a small cabal- I was only aware of maybe 5 or 6 members for much of my character's lifespan. I wanted one of the leadership positions, but the problem was that it was taken by a very skilled and interesting shaman (Shinkoujinei, for old-timers that remember him). I couldn't displace him- he had taken an interest in training my character, he had been a favored priest of the Cult for much longer than I, he played a large role in getting my character into the cabal, and my (Chaotic Neutral) character would have seen the downfall of an enlightened priest of the Cult as a tragedy. (Certainly not worth working against him when so many others were unenlightened.) So for 100-200 hours of play, I waited for him to die.

If age-death (or CON-death... Shinkoujinei fought constantly, and I don't remember which got him) wasn't around, I might have never been able to grab that position. Instead, turnover meant that eventually, the old generation went away, and there was a fresh opportunity for someone new (me) to step in.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Permanent death is a good thing for a game like this i think.
But i can understand the concern... My charecter (i am a new player this is my irst ever in CF) would be long dead if i was a human, and i only now am starting to get into the flow of the game.
All that without any sort of "chilling" out or just having a drink with some friends.. Mostly hunting, or exploring and collecting the shattered bits of my pride when the amound of asteaks of my own corpse in my sack is more han any other :/.

I don't know how much this opened for consideration at all, but may be if it would be possible to slow down the game time, to allow longer life span, that would permit people - who don't know every stone and branch in thera like their own handpalm - To just sit chillout and empty a keg of beer without worrying of being killed by old age before they get around to hunt.

Also a question on the subject of char death:
It is said that a charecter's name can nae be restored after it hits level 41. I am a person who (it might sound spooky) gets attached to meaningless things, and one of those is nick names/char names (which is part of why i don't enjoy the short lifespan).
What i was pondering on is, how is restarting a charecter with the same name is viewed?

This is generally viewed unfavorably, I believe.

None of your characters are supposed to know any of your others, nor can they "be related" to any of them. While you could say that this is an entirely new character that just happens to have the same name as your past one, other players that have interacted with the previous Vandir will either be confused or carry over things from the first character.

If your character never gets above level 20 or never makes an impact on other characters this might not be as much of a problem and it might not be as terrible for you to re-roll with the same name. Don't take my word for it though, especially on the level I gave out as a cutoff.

Just my opinnion on my newbie-ish problems
The issue of limited life and all, the traps are pretty bad. just exploring, i lost allmost half my con, without fighting or anything...
Traps where you walk in and the only way out is death, or exits close and something so big attacks you it's practicly instant death.. there are quite a lot of those i found, and they drain life bad...

What's worse.. is that i of coutrse go to get my body back... only to find out that i find it only to die again because not ghostly recalling and not potions get you out.. all you have left to do is sit and wait for whatever killed you to do it again.

And than if you are new, and just typed aladon when you first created charecter, there is a good chance to lose some bit of hard earned eq..
And all that... through exploration.. and i didn't cover half of it yet i think..
I lost a huge amount of constitution ever since i stated looking aroun and exlporing, without ever getting into a fight with anyone.

You can get out of most of the no-exit traps where you do not get killed by a creature with the help of a paladin or a healer.

Archons can also do what you refer to.

That said, some places are immune to that being done.

is that, 99% of the time, a CON death or even moreso an AGE death is met with a great deal of respect by the Immortals and the playerbase.

People here like those who can stick it out with a character, rather than deleting. I've been playing seriously for 5+ years and have never done it. Maybe someday I will have a character that keeps my interest for that long.