Poll: Would perma-2x-XP keep you playing CF if you normally don't play?

I like seeing new players and former players come to the game and double xp weekend really helps, I think.

If you've left CF and gave up, but came back for double xp weekend, would you stay if the xp boost was permanent?

.

==
You get 269938 gold coins from the corpse of Valguarnera.
==

Since my above post was already kind of long winded, in the spirit of making things more interesting and packing action into a narrower set of areas, how about giving more specific exp boosts like elf slaughter weekend or what ever. I think this would pack action into certain ranking areas, and make a healthy compromise between increased risk vs. increased reward.

30 % extra exp across the board
30 % increase in skill learning across the board

Ranking focused more into hot spots. The problem with having such a wide array of fairly equal ranking spots results in everybody always having a free ranking spot. People are so accustomed to avoiding forest areas when rangers are on, going to arial city when ragers are on, and in general going to ridiculous lengths to avoid PK confrontation while ranking that it all becomes a monotony of spamming mob kills.

Extra exp alone would not be enough to increase my interest in cf a lot, but it would be a signal of a positive change.

We could consider the value cf adds to its customers (players) as the fun derived from playing. Two distinct ways to achieve competitive advantage are price advantage and differentiation advantage, where the prior aims to create value at a lower price compared to competition and the latter creates more value (for a similar price). CF has for years now been on the path of trying to achieve differentiation advantage but failed to take into account the market. While increasing differentiation advantage by offering a wide and highly versatile environment for PK and exploration, the costs of acquiring this value has increased (as expected). By costs I mean the opportunity cost of time spent playing vs. time spent doing something else. In a market of high demand this would be an excellent strategy, when the increased value delivery will result in increased willingness to pay. However, cf operates in a declining market with a decreasing demand due to a constant decrease of time to spend.

With a declining demand, CF's cost-value ratio has blown out of proportion, where an ever increasing portion of the target segment simply is not willing to pay the price. To balance this, cf should be shifting it's strategy from a more value pov to an equal value cheaper strategy. There's a simple three step way of executing such a strategy. The first step in taking action with this new strategy is to identify core benefits which bring customers to CF. In a simplistic fashion three key elements can be identified: roleplay, PvP encounters, PvE encounters. The customers have varying preferances between the previous three. For a more scientific view these could be broken down into smaller segments, but for the sake of discussion and decision making it's not necessary. Second phase of the plan would be to make straight up improvements to the cost-reward ratio by decreasing the time it takes to achieve wanted benefits. This is done by identifying unproductive (from customer side perspective) phases in the cf value chain, and reducing them or altering them to create more value. Once a satisfying amount of changes have been made, it's time to move on to phase 3. Phase three is the hardest part, since it includes making compromises. The key aspect is to identify product features that do add value, but for a too high price. These aspects need to be either changed to create more value or reduce the cost of acquiring said features, and if neither can be done reasonably, removed.

At the current state there is a common misconception at work. Tons of people say hey, it's ok ranking/practice/whatever is slow, I'm not in a rush. But fast ranking and taking your time to hero is NOT mutually exclusive. Decreasing the work involved in ranking is not the same thing as forcing everyone to rank up asap. It just means that during the periods someone ranks, he's getting more done in a shorter span of time. Remember, the people who do continue to play, clearly have made the decision that the value gained is worth the cost. But this group of people is certainly constantly dwindling.

To re-emphasize my point, the number 1 reason for player retention seems to be lack of time. I have never heard anyone say they quit playing because of lack of content. Hell, I can say with 100% confidence there is not a single player who has seen and experienced every single area/race/class/piece of eq available. Yet most new changes are related to adding content.

And I'm not really hot for making huge changes, since they tend to go overboard or have unexpected effects. It's better to make small changes here and there all working towards a clear cut, commonly accepted customer oriented goal in mind. This is the very benefit of having a value creation strategy.

Now, the new question to be asked when making improvements should not be how to make PK more balanced, or how to make Thera more immersive, it should be how to decrease the time spent to be competitive in PK environment, or how to make the immersiveness of CF more easily accessible.

To provide some practical examples:

30% ranking boost:
No direct effects to RP/PvE/PvP
Reduces time spent to achieve benefits
Paces up RP encounters (roughly same amount of meaningfull RP is done during 1h and 4h conversation, after introductions and group hookup + first 30 mins of ranking things get repetitive)
+ Phase 2

30% skill learning boost:
Reduces downtime of characters who need masteries
Reduces time spent to achieve level playing field
Slightly reduces realism since younger characters are often quite equal to older characters
+ Phase 2 since value reduction is greatly outweighed by cost reduction

Shortening roads (say 20%):
Reduction in time taken to reach PvE and PvP
Slight alterations in PvP balance with skills such as summon being affected
Slight reduction in immersiveness and realism of Thera
+ Phase 3 since it is a positive tradeoff between cost and value

Do not get me wrong here, I'm not saying CF is bad, or everything should be thrown out into the trash can, but instead that due to arduous work done by the imm staff, CF has grown into an immersive fantasy rpg world, that has an outstanding value proposition, but as it is, cost - reward ratio has spiraled into a direction unwanted by the target audience.

Since the target segment of CF are players with limited time on their hands, a good way of assessing the productivity of a change made could be considering it from the pov of an old player. Just think, would this change work towards making cf a more appealing offer to him? I know for sure I'd be more inclined to seriously return if the CF staff openly announced plans to make cf easier, while trying not to much of it's appeal, where as a major substance update such as addition of a new class would have a lesser impact.

...I am writing an area that is much like the Maus (tons of reward but you can die easy as hell), and I'm going to try and put it as close to Eastern Road/Galadon as possible. I'm going to make both good and evil mobs that are great to rank on levels 20-40 with a ton of high level pimp gear on lvl 55 mobs. That way, it will be like a holocaust of group PK, with heroes running in the area to allow for set-up opportunities (mage heroes fighting tough mob with limited barrier rod and won't leave the area? call in the villagers;villagers fighting mob with village only gear? call mages;etc).

PS I'm calling the area Thunderdome

<3

>Poll: Would perma-2x-XP keep you playing CF if you normally
>don't play?

Yes. I would play more as I find, after 10 years at this game, that leveling is tedious, especially with fewer players.

>If you've left CF and gave up, but came back for double xp
>weekend, would you stay if the xp boost was permanent?

Yes, see above. I agree that ranking can be enjoyable and that a character needs to get fleshed out. But it simply rates too low on the fun stick. So I see this as a means to an end.

Addendum: As some folks are saying that the effect would wear off etc. Why not a) have XP boosts be random events and b) have these boosts trend toward zero as a PC levels up. Zulgh's scaled experience boost is also a good idea in this context.

****edited to make something clearer*****
As a long time player, it's not the actual act of lvling that I find boring, or tedious, or difficult. I find the rp interactions with groupmates while lvling some of the most fulfilling times in cf.

The problem for me, is GETTING to the lvling. Finding 1 or god help me 2 others of similar lvl, and relatively non-incompatable roles.

And to be honest, I've gotten tired of having this trouble force me into always limiting my choice of roles to classes that can do some sort of mob-killing solo during the hours and hours and hours and hours of no group available.


I would be perfectly fine with 1/2 xp weekends, or 1/10th xp permanently, and trippling the amount of xp needed to lvl up....as long as the problem of finding others to lvl WITH is addressed.

currently, the double xp weekend seems to address this, by having more people trying to lvl, increasing my chances of finding a group.

*******end of clarifying edit.




First, let me answer the question.

No.


I missed this passed double xp, because of the Melbourne Open, and working 12 hours a day ontop of that.

Although I haven't played cf in months and months because I do not have the time,
I really miss the ROLEPLAY. Yes, I cap'd that word on purpose, and for good reason.

If another double xp comes around, AND I've actually heard of it prior to it happening, AND I don't have to work through all of it, AND it's not during an annual event that I can't miss...I would definitely make an attempt at returning to some sort of regular play.

Notice, I didn't say "I would return just for the double xp then leave", I would actually, make an honest attempt at some form of regular play. because I really do miss the times when I used to be able to "step into" the skin of a completely different personality, have fun being surprised at how that person would react to different situations, and derive more pleasure from helping others to have fun as well.


Why don't I make the attempt now? Why do I put on so many "if's" on an attempted return to play?

Well, that's simple. I've always sucked at lvling. I can't tell you how many AWESOME roles and characters I have started, that get stuck between 26 and 36 for so long (not for lack of trying to find groups) that they become unfun, and fade away. My guess, is that probably 90%+ of the best (and FUN) roles I've ever written and played died this kind of death.

Of the roles that I have had during role contests(yes, plural) that I've won and/or placed in, I can honestly say that all of them were what I consider my "b game" stuff. none of my "a game" stuff has been around during a role contest, or survived long enough to take part, because of the lack of the ability to lvl, thus getting stuck.

Unfortunately, this weakness in my cf "game" (I struggle to lvl past lvl 30) has only gotten far far worse as cf has changed in at least two ways over the past 10 years. One, less people play. Less chances at finding a Pick up group. Second, of the people who play, cf has required more and more time investment to get to the "good stuff" for a character...so there is less character turnaround, so of the people who play, there are always fewer lowbies, as they are sticking with established characters that they have put so much work into.


But....double xp weekends....not only is it easier to get enough xp to lvl, but more people will be also trying to lvl. The chances of "waisting" one of my "top tier" role ideas on a character that can't rank up to the fun are dramatically lessened.

If, though, double xp is permanent. there will be no set time where alot of people will be trying to lvl, and the ability for me to actually find a group of 3 to rank with will fall again.

In short, .....

I'd love to make an attempt at some sort of regular cf play. But because I have ALWAYS struggled to lvl, I'm not going to even make an attempt unless I have time to put together a great role prior to an xp weekend, and have time to actually partake in the weekend.

I won't even bother making the attempt outside of an xp weekend, even if the double xp were made permanent, because it's not the amount of xp per kill that I have trouble with, it's finding 2 other characters of relatively similar lvl, and relatively non-incompatible-for-lvling philosophies that I have trouble with.

The double xp weekend is attractive to me, not because of the xp boost, but because it attracts other people who will be leveling during those hours.

If you take away the concentrated hours of multiple choices of groupmates all wanting to lvl by just making the double xp permanent, It would lose any and all purpose and attractiveness.

To me anyway.

How many of you told at least one other person who would likely roll up?

Separately, the general consensus of the poll seems to be either "yeah, it's good, but only have it once a month" or "no, it's bad except to have it very rarely".

Would you play more often, not just with throwaway characters, if you:

A) Had it once a month on a specific day for 24 hours?
B) Had it as a credit once a month to use 8 hours?
C) Never had it, except as a rarity?


And do you think it would be helpful if this were advertised in the MUD listing? Assuming people still look through the MUD list descriptions, would having a double experience day once a month make you more likely to play vs. a MUD where this wasn't advertised?

>I like seeing new players and former players come to the game
>and double xp weekend really helps, I think.

I went and posted on the Top Mud Sites forum that we were having this little event in a tiny marketing effort, and based on all the conversation I saw on the newbie channel, I think it may have been responsible for 1 or 2 new folks actually showing up.

I do want to say thank you to all of those folks helping out on the newbie channel, for the most part it was exactly what it should be.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

It's good for non-invoker mages trying to dodge the speedbump levels and for warriors who want to get to the pincer-svirf status.

I'm looking forward to seeing how many characters stick it out for any appreciable length of time.

This is exactly what I did, and it was boring as hell. I couldn't
even focus on it long enough to get to what I wanted, and I can
guarantee that's a character that will autodelete for me.

However - I wasn't looking to roll anything "serious" at this time,
so things might've been different if that wasn't the case.

How many character's from the first big XP weekend? Lenfelin was created then. How many others are still about? Did most just delet or auto? Not looking for names, just a rough idea of numbers.

Z, if anyone, probably has a better grasp on this info.

>How many character's from the first big XP weekend? Lenfelin
>was created then. How many others are still about? Did most
>just delet or auto? Not looking for names, just a rough idea
>of numbers.

I took a brief look through the player files, and it looks like there were a total of 8 characters created between September 30th (when it was announced) & October 5th (when double xp weekend was over) that made it to level 30+. Of those, 2 have deleted, and 6 are still active.

What this says to me, is that people played their current mortals using it as a boost to get closer to hero, or played some throwaway characters (didn't make it to 30 before deleting). Very little new character retention due specifically to that weekend.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

>>How many character's from the first big XP weekend?
>Lenfelin
>>was created then. How many others are still about? Did
>most
>>just delet or auto? Not looking for names, just a rough
>idea
>>of numbers.
>
>I took a brief look through the player files, and it looks
>like there were a total of 8 characters created between
>September 30th (when it was announced) & October 5th (when
>double xp weekend was over) that made it to level 30+. Of
>those, 2 have deleted, and 6 are still active.

It's not really easy to pull the data about how many characters were actually created during the first double-xp weekend, but it is easy to see how many were created for this event.

Between March 5th (when it was announced) & March 8th (when it was over) there were 159 characters created.

>What this says to me, is that people played their current
>mortals using it as a boost to get closer to hero, or played
>some throwaway characters (didn't make it to 30 before
>deleting). Very little new character retention due
>specifically to that weekend.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Double XP day announced: March 5th
Double XP day: March 8th

Number of characters created between March 5th & March 8th: 159
Number of those characters that are still playing: 51
Number of those characters that deleted: 108
Number of those characters that deleted and made it to 30+: 3


>What this says to me, is that people played their current
>mortals using it as a boost to get closer to hero, or played
>some throwaway characters (didn't make it to 30 before
>deleting). Very little new character retention due
>specifically to that weekend.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Don't ignore all the characters that weren't rolled during that time frame but got a ton of mileage out of the double-exp.

>Don't ignore all the characters that weren't rolled during
>that time frame but got a ton of mileage out of the
>double-exp.

I don't ignore them, I just don't factor them into the equation when we're talking about attracting and retaining NEW players. They are already here and already playing and it's a great bonus for them allowing them to plow through some of the more annoying sections of levelling (I'm looking at you 30's).

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

How do those numbers stack up against what would be an ordinary 3 day period?

That's not how you spell Zulg. There's no 'H' there.

I nitpick about this because it becomes important if you're trying to e-mail Zulg, or have recently.

asdf

>How do those numbers stack up against what would be an
>ordinary 3 day period?

Number of characters created between March 5th & March 8th: 159
Number of those characters that are still playing: 51
Number of those characters that deleted: 108
Number of those characters that deleted and made it to 30+: 3

Random 3 day period selected that I knew I could get data from...
March 22-24th

Number of characters created: 157
Number of those characters that are still playing: 59
Number of those characters that deleted: 98
Number of those characters that deleted and made it to 30+: 0

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

asdf

I hadn't played for a while before the first double XP weekend but decided to roll up a combo I've always wanted to try. This is still the only character I've had since then (yes he/she's still active), but I started another combo I've wanted to try for a while this 2xXP weekend so we'll see which one I'll stick with..

I think a point to be made is not necessarily that the 2x experience gets you so much further in and of itself, but the fact that so many folks are looking to rank during these times which provides the environment for easy ranking.

So yeah, for me the double xp is motivation to get me in there and "get hooked" enough into a character to play him for a while. *fist shake*

But of course, having it always be double xp would be a bad idea I think.

I'm still around. I wouldn't be had the double exp for New Year's Day not happened. I actually think I would not be playing at all right now and would have waited for the summer before doing something else (if able).

So. Success!

It has been noted several times that CF is not all about hero levels. What's wrong with characters who rank to 29 and run around pincering? At least they are actively interacting with their environment. So it's ok when someone makes a pincer svirf, gets inducted into rager and runs around doing call blood;pincer, but it's a major detraction to the game if someone rolls a svirf axe spec with no intent to hero?

I don't follow.

First, you have a non sequitur here: "it's a major detraction to the game if someone rolls a svirf axe spec with no intent to hero?" My issue is not with level sitting.

Characters of quality tend to have a role concept, and those roles frequently evolve, growing more involved as they interact with more people.

Characters of quality tend to play a long time, building relationships of love and hate, alliances and revenge.

Easy leveling opens up an opportunity for people to Level-Grief-Delete-Repeat. We've all dealt with the lowbie vulture who trashed talked, then deleted before he ever entered your pk range.

As a counter example, Beront targeted a recent character of mine for his rants, and although the Wii sounded a great deal more fun than CF, at least he had the decency not to delete so I had an opportunity to smack him. (To be honest, he ended up smacking me, but at least I had the chance).

Someone who defines his character as PK Smurf doesn't have a character at all. It's just a mob with (hopefully) superior AI, and although that may improve the action, it doesn't contribute to the CF saga in any appreciable way.

>Someone who defines his character as PK Smurf doesn't have
>a character at all. It's just a mob with (hopefully)
>superior AI, and although that may improve the action, it
>doesn't contribute to the CF saga in any appreciable way.

This is where I disagree, I often tend to enjoy playing against PK smurfs more than various random dip####s I encounter. When the right to play cf is based on contributing to a so-called CF saga, meh.

>It's good for non-invoker mages trying to dodge the speedbump
>levels and for warriors who want to get to the pincer-svirf
>status.
>
>I'm looking forward to seeing how many characters stick it out
>for any appreciable length of time.

The reason why they are only for "throw-aways" is because people are aware its not permanent. That really hasn't anything to do with the time/cost arguments Elmeri for instance are making above (which is absolutely true).

In reality, what is the cost of playing CF (a free game obviously)? Time. Period. That's the cost right there, time and creative energy. CF is huge. Some argue too huge. CF is also very time consuming (after all, characters with a limited lifespan are two hundred hours old often or more). If people who like the game and like the community aren't playing why is that generally speaking? Its because they can't commit the time. Therefore the 'cost' is too high.

Ever since XP holes were removed from the game, heroing in and of itself has never been much of a feat. Just an issue of patience. If learning speeds were doubled or even tripled I really don't think it'd take much away from the game - to be quite honest with you.

I think the best way to test this would be to leave double xp on for a month. Give people a chance to talk it up prior to that month and then collect the numbers when that month is done.

If:

A) Nothing changes, then why not leave it running anyway since it only benefits people who are trying to rank and doesn't seem to harm anything.

B) It positively affects the number of people playing, then leave it running.

C) It brings people back that haven't played for years, gets them to hero quickly and keeps them around (I would love to see more vets in the hero range, personally), then leave the double xp running.

D) It only creates a negative change in which fewer people play, RP is completely destroyed, or what have you, then just don't ever do it again.

Zulg, I feel your numbers are flawed because you ran an experiment over only a day or two and then used those numbers as "The benefit was minimal". What about all the people that were upset because they couldn't play during those hours? Would a long term study really cause so much harm?

>I think the best way to test this would be to leave double xp
>on for a month. Give people a chance to talk it up prior to
>that month and then collect the numbers when that month is
>done.

My suspicion is that this isn't going to change anything with regards to pulling in new players, or retaining existing players. If you treat this as the new norm, people will find another area of time sink to complain about (skills, exploration, wands, etc.)

>Zulg, I feel your numbers are flawed because you ran an
>experiment over only a day or two and then used those numbers
>as "The benefit was minimal". What about all the people that
>were upset because they couldn't play during those hours?

How are my numbers flawed...they are the numbers. Now you may have an issue with how I interpreted the numbers, and if so, how do YOU interpret the numbers? Tossing in a variable like "number of people who couldn't play" to me is irrelevant to the issue. It sounds more like "people who already play CF that couldn't play" and those aren't really the people I'm targeting with double-XP days/weekends. Go look at the 1 month follow-up and see the actual retention of those characters today.

>Would a long term study really cause so much harm?

Based on what I've seen during the times we've done double-XP, I think it would in the short term. I also think the novelty would wear off very quickly, and people would find other things to complain about (My skills are completely lagging behind, since I'm plowing through XP so quickly!)

At some point after this became the norm, what is to stop you from saying, yeah...we actually need to make it double-double-XP all the time, eventually becoming...why can't I just start at hero with all my skills at 100%!

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I thought a good april fool's joke would have been to make it 1/2 XP day and not tell anyone...

>I thought a good april fool's joke would have been to make it
>1/2 XP day and not tell anyone...

I thought about announcing double XP day, and making it a normal day (even without the scaling), but opted for my other devious plan instead.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

> If you treat this as the new norm, people will find another area of time sink to complain about (skills, exploration, wands, etc.)

Some of these are true. The game was designed with a high school/college student in mind. I think that the "feeling of accomplishment" with finding/gathering wands is much less of a benefit than the put off of finding/gathering wands.

There obviously should be a happy medium, my question to you is, do you think that balance should be something that adjusts as needed or something that will benefit the playerbase to remain static?

You're taking for granted that skill practice time, ranking time, etc should stay the same. I question why you feel that's the case.

>You're taking for granted that skill practice time, ranking
>time, etc should stay the same. I question why you feel that's
>the case.

Uhm...what information is leading you to these conclusions?

Two things I personally have added to the game recently, is making low-level int have better chance to learn, and adding a bonus of XP based on the numbers of players on. Both of those make skill practice time and ranking time take a shorter period of time.

There is a balance of time invested vs. return and as you can see I think we do need to improve that, just not to the degree that the vocal opponents want.

The problem I have is turning CF into a game where everyone starts at 51 with 100% in everything, which is where I can easily see this line of thinking going.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I don't mind taking my time while ranking.

I rank until I'm bored, then I go do something else. When I'm not able to go out explore (yet), or not obliged to do any cabal duty, that will usually mean something other than CF.

If it was once/month I'd most defenantly never leave CF. If it was one weekend a month, I'd roll up a new one each time one of my char con/age/deletes.

I don't think it's that bad for the game, really.

Always shoot first and then call whatever you hit the target.

Firstly, Ill agree with Theerkla on the (when does it become 4x).

If there was direct proof that a double EXP days/weekends whatever brought in a significant # of new players and not just old players I could be persuaded (this is prob extremely hard to figure out).

I also disliked have the quality of RP and ridiculous names re-appear, then again i am a curmudgeon.

When you have a big event like that, you're going to attract the kind of people that are not conducive to the atmosphere that the game normally has. Furthermore, for new players, what is the motivation to stay when, even in the hours after the xp boost, their leveling dramatically decreases.

Now, look at the old players that came back to CF just for this event. One of the most frustrating things for vets is having to level up. It's tedious and boring. With fewer players around, it's harder to level up anyway.

Now, make the xp boost permanent and maybe we have a chance to: a) keep the noobs while assimilating them into our style of gameplay. The longer they stay, the more they'll be accustomed to our atmosphere. b) make leveling less of a pain in the ass for vets.

As an alternative to xp boost, how about give everyone a monthly credit for 4-8 hours of double experience time? They can use it when they like, but once it's activated, it will stay in effect until it runs out, cumulative to the time you are on. (Example: you log two 2-hour sessions and use up your 4 hour credit)

Let's be realistic - CF loses to a lot of MMORPGs because they have graphics, but we don't. We have a lot more going for us as far as depth, balance, gameplay, RP, and other things, but in retaining players, we suck. It's really time that the people who run the game should think of creative things they could do to draw people in. I remember playing a few free MMORPGs that kept me interested because they had double XP all throughout December, had special Christmas prizes and mobs, and neat holiday backgrounds and landscapes. Not saying I want to see the same, but they at least advertised something neat that drew in new blood.

>Let's be realistic - CF loses to a lot of MMORPGs because they
>have graphics, but we don't. We have a lot more going for us
>as far as depth, balance, gameplay, RP, and other things, but
>in retaining players, we suck. It's really time that the
>people who run the game should think of creative things they
>could do to draw people in. I remember playing a few free
>MMORPGs that kept me interested because they had double XP all
>throughout December, had special Christmas prizes and mobs,
>and neat holiday backgrounds and landscapes. Not saying I want
>to see the same, but they at least advertised something neat
>that drew in new blood.


Stunna's been saying this since 2004 at least with various marketing lectures that nobody knows what to do with or there has been a conscious decision that it's not important. Kastellyn has been the one to make an attempt or two along those lines and otherwise it's been a task that's been bluntly admitted as beyond the grasp of Zulgh himself.

Stunna is also an ex-heroimm.

What does that tell you about the state of things between then and now?

> Now, make the xp boost permanent and maybe we have a chance to: a) keep the noobs while assimilating them into our style of gameplay. The longer they stay, the more they'll be accustomed to our atmosphere.

Rushing newbs into hero-range pk is a very bad idea. First they have to learn survive the lower ranks. If they don't, they're sitting ducks.

> b) make leveling less of a pain in the ass for vets.

Any vet worth his money knows where the high-end ranking areas are. And they know how to behave themselves, so that ranking is fun, rather than tedious.

Ranking is fun if you make it such. And generally, don't waste your time on slow ranking, unless you perhaps want to train your skills, or help out lowbies.

I'm for the Xp boost, believe I noticed a peek of 77 players on sunday which lets all agree is great to see that many players on to fight/rank/interact with. I also agree muds lose many players to online games such as Final fantasy and WoW. So anything that can be done to retain and draw more players to CF for longer periods of time is a plus.

As mentioned leveling is tedious for Vets, even more so for us noobs who generally take double to triple to time to rank due to mobile deaths and such.

Perhaps as a test to see if Double Xp would boost the player base as some think it will, I recall a Double XP weekend a while back perhaps if possible a count could be looked at that weekend and the previous weekend and the one after see if it drew more players in.

So if you peek at 77 it probably means that we only sustained 60. The MUD can swell as 20 people log on right before 20 people log off.

Lets look at it this way , if CF were shark fishing.

Imm = fisherman
XP = bait(chum)
players = sharks

The more chum the fisherman through out there the more sharks that are in the water come to the surface. Even if only to investigate what is going on. Maybe the fisherman could throw in 25% more chum on week days and 50% more on weekends see how many more sharks they can lure out.

P.S. sharks also feed on noobs so the more newbs I can get in the water the more chance I have on surviving swimming in the chum.

I'm all for it as an occasional perk. As a permanent change, I can't see it having a lasting affect. For me, the increased immortal presence & easy path to empowerment was a bigger draw of the double ex weekend for me than the learning boost.

But I guess I'm not your target audience since while I don't play the hours I used to, I do regularly play.

You're painting a "slippery slope," which is a logical fallacy.

The simple fact is, it's enjoyable and makes one of the most tedious aspects of the game less so. I know it's not gonna happen, but let's at least agree that it's universally good?

>The simple fact is, it's enjoyable and makes one of the most
>tedious aspects of the game less so. I know it's not gonna
>happen, but let's at least agree that it's universally good?

Theerkla may be going about it in a completely retarded way, but she's pointing out the opinion that, it isn't in fact considered universally good.

There's two camps to this and most of the immstaff is in the 'not universally good' camp.

I'm pretty neutral to whether it happens or not, but it would be nice to feel like I could log fewer hours in the game and some actually dangerous combinations of lesser-skilled players came around more often to challenge the more skilled folks and obtain/distribute their rare gear. This isn't happening right now unless some ####hat leads a single cabal and encourages massive gangs where it would be preferred that this happened uncaballed or across multiple cabals. That being said I'm not entirely convinced it's universally good, it'll just replace an old set of gripes (no one to play with, game takes too long) with a new set of gripes (more retards, overpowered and unbalanced chars hero faster, and the Imms will have less RP to watch. Not that they have a great deal to watch now due to the crappy pbase numbers.)

You would have to back up in your argument from 'Would more people play and the game be less of a boring godawful timesink if we permanently doubled the XP gain?' to 'Is double XP a good thing?' and finish hashing that argument out. As far as I know the latter hasn't locked any threads so it's clearly not done being discussed.

Personally I think the game could stand to be taken less seriously without involving Inn RP events or marriages and other stuff. This is why Zizzle was so enjoyable to watch, and he would have been fun even if he wasn't so successful in PK. It's a large part of what the game lost when Entropy went away for Outlander and Lyristeon and wasn't ever replaced properly, the incentive lies strictly away from the kind of chaotic behavior Zizzle did, and while most players missed the point, 'chaotic stupid' did indeed liven up the game a bit. You do more to encourage a mix of that and the more serious RP without inviting griefers, you'll do more for the people still around (i.e. player retention) than double XP ever did (player attraction, no retention, the people claiming they held onto their chars after double XP weekends are considered flukes).

Bard Repertoire Clarifications:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=23735&mesg_id=23735&page=

Bring back Entropy!

>Personally I think the game could stand to be taken less
>seriously without involving Inn RP events or marriages and
>other stuff. This is why Zizzle was so enjoyable to watch, and
>he would have been fun even if he wasn't so successful in PK.
>It's a large part of what the game lost when Entropy went away
>for Outlander and Lyristeon and wasn't ever replaced properly,
>the incentive lies strictly away from the kind of chaotic
>behavior Zizzle did, and while most players missed the point,
>'chaotic stupid' did indeed liven up the game a bit. You do
>more to encourage a mix of that and the more serious RP
>without inviting griefers, you'll do more for the people still
>around (i.e. player retention) than double XP ever did (player
>attraction, no retention, the people claiming they held onto
>their chars after double XP weekends are considered flukes).

If you thought Zizzle did 'chaotic stupid', you totally didn't understand the character at all. He did what Entropy was "supposed" to be about. The reason Entropy went away was because it became 'chaotic stupid'.

Entropy was done for long before I immed. Outlander was in the works before I immed. As in all religions, they go through an approval process. The biggest concern with the concept was to make sure that chaotic stupid would not be tolerated. That came from the top down at the time of creation.

*** In the interests of not derailing the thread, I'll move this to your forum. It may even entice some folks to reply. I'd like to see Jalim and some other folks take on it, and frankly I think Batman and Baron would have fit right in at that time and could benefit from seeing the discussion. ***

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=50&topic_id=43&mesg_id=43&page=

>If you thought Zizzle did 'chaotic stupid', you totally didn't
>understand the character at all. He did what Entropy was
>"supposed" to be about. The reason Entropy went away was
>because it became 'chaotic stupid'.

I know well enough that Zizzle was what Entropy was supposed to be about.

The inherent problem here, my friend, is not him getting your tattoo or lack thereof. In this particular case, your tattoo is irrelevant barring giving out exp rewards.

Keep in mind you're the same person that empowered and enabled, if even indirectly, Aunkdunell and then called him a sterling example of good Entropy RP. Other people rewarded him for his crappy behavior as well but I'm just saying there is no way you can take exclusive credit for guiding or having had Zizzle as a follower, he could have feasibly existed under Grumorum, Mayesha or Pico and their respective religions, even as dead Gods today and probably gotten as much love.

Zizzle was a good example regardless of whether he killed anyone or not. Aunkdunell was as interested in griefing his opponents as he was killing them, and you have comments plastered all over his PBF thoroughly enjoying his generally OOC malicious behavior. Whether you like to say there was no one better at that moment or not, Leadership is a reward even if you're the lucky last tool standing.

The comparisons and contrasts between the two probably don't need to be rehashed. Zizzle was clearly superior.

>
>Entropy was done for long before I immed. Outlander was in
>the works before I immed. As in all religions, they go
>through an approval process. The biggest concern with the
>concept was to make sure that chaotic stupid would not be
>tolerated. That came from the top down at the time of
>creation.
>

And it's an understandable decision. However much you want to justify it going though, the game lost something when it went that it never recovered since. Whether this is because only a certain percentage of the folks who were in that cabal have given you a chance at all is probably a topic you don't care to hash over something five years gone.

It was more accessible previously, and that it continued to liven up the game. Entropy, by it's very structure, couldn't really create massive permas or behavior of the kinds of players and people that have been making leader the last six months, or the well-structured roving groups that have been driving some of the real underdogs up the wall on both sides of the alignment spectrum.

Entropy wasn't about raiding persay, but the ones who were 'chaotic stupid' didn't get in unless the patron Imm was in a particularly good mood that day. Even then they usually got uninducted an hour later. It wasn't about PK ratios, although it could have been if your role was good enough, like Zizzle's for instance. It wasn't about making the patron imms laugh, but the members as a whole, even the PKers, darn well tried their hardest to do so over CB. It wasn't about praying they were watching either and not cleaning baby vomit or watching the Discovery Channel with the family, but I guarantee you with the advent of the IMM-XP-Edge system people would definitely 'get' Entropy and not act 'chaotic-stupid' anymore. It was, and still would be, also restricted to the numbers of Scion by nature.

Now the behavior of the hero level cabal leaders won't affect player retention unless it's players who have been here at least six months and started trickling to 40+ somehow, but my point is that if they met some 'chaotic stupid' wannabe Entropists (that weren't yet another air/off gnome shifter) it just might keep a couple more players around and ease some of the frustrations of the game, even if they were failures.

There's probably the argument 'If you want to do that, do that, you just won't be getting the original power set.' That may be true.

But more importantly you lost a camraderie and cabal channel that not only was full of potential allies, enemies, knowledgeable vets in the mood for a laugh and newbies who didn't have to care about preps and raiding. I only had one character in the damn thing and it sure was more memorable than any caballed character I've had since, and this is speaking from being involved in the quest to bring around Outlander as a Tribunal.

Plus I'm willing to bet at least one of the ex-imms of that cabal has gotten good enough in PK since to lavish attention on good solo killers without ever having to hand out a single point of Imm XP, and still has a good enough head on their shoulders to break their foot off in chaotic stupid's ass when it needs it. It was a safe bet that two out of three of the patron imms of that cabal were by no means masters at that point in time.

Things are different now, and more condusive to it being around. You might be happy there, and I really hope you turn out more Zizzles and less Aunkdunell with your religion and cabal leadership, just like I hope the Imms stop pretending CraftedDeception's cabal leaders are pleasant to play against the way he trucks 1-4 other people around constantly. But I'd probably find the game signifigantly less irritating as a whole if I was using Doppel on some cabal leader and then holding interviews and then writing notes to that leader's cabal. Just as an example.


Bard Repertoire Clarifications:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=23735&mesg_id=23735&page=

I moved my response to Lyristeon's forum as well.

At what point does it become 4x or 8x? At the point where the playerbase halves again and then halves past that again.

I get what you're trying to say but bottom line is a social game that you rely on others for tends to have cascading issues if you don't reduce dependency on others. And since CF is moving well out of its prime and into its inevitable (I mean nothing lasts forever sense) decline into lower and lower numbers I don't really see any reason why a 2x XP bonus wouldn't be warranted.

To be honest though, that wouldn't bring me back. What'd bring me back is if I didn't have to log in once a week to be competitive.

Edited to add: In Eve we have this saying "adapt or die". Well, its true. Adapt to the situation you're in. If you used to have numbers to easily do 3 person groups all times of the day and now you need to do 2 person groups, then that should be your target. If your issue is ganking/etc, then make lots of rewards/incentives for not ganking. If there needs to be timed events to get high turnouts, then have tournaments and other timed, marketed and publicized events. It takes some judgment to not "be all over the place" with your direction but that being said the branch that cannot bend will break.

Either way, ffs, adapt. Or die. CF is a great game but, its also never been one that's been willing to adapt much. Its a shame but ultimately, the PVP mechanics and the exploration won't make a difference if you can't find anyone to get a decent fight with or get groups big enough to do the exploration. Right?

I am playing CF with or without it, but if this helps to bring more players I am for this change (though personally I dont like it much) as well as make the game less tedious by reducing importance of preps.