Disclaimer: This is something I've been thinking about on and off for a while. It's something that even if I decide should be done, I may never actually get around to doing. This is a topic that is surely ripe to ignite old flame wars; I'm going to ask y'all nicely not to do that.

It's probably pretty obvious that I tried to do something fairly different with the first draft of the Silent Tower. I always liked puzzle-y stuff, and I thought it would be cool to have an area in the game that you could approach as you would something like Hell, with an oversized group trying to mow down everything for shinies, or, that you could approach with more of an explorer mindset, trying to figure out puzzle-y things, and that going at it that way, maybe there would be cool things that even a level 1 character (had they been able to get to the area) could do and survive, yet, could still kill a tough hero done wrong.

In practice, the area didn't see much in the way of groups trying to kill stuff and more drew the explorerish types. We all know what happens after that: some disgruntled yahoo posts everything he's figured out, I close the area, I change stuff, I reopen the area, repeat.

Zulg's said that in his opinion an area like this can't work in today's CF, and though it really, really pains me to admit it, I've come to think that he's right. I really, really liked the Shadow cabal, too, and the secrecy aspect of it (such as it is) couldn't survive for crap in today's CF, either. Sometimes that's just the way it goes.

You can see the evolution in my thoughts about area design in the dragon lairs. To be fair, Rayihn did nearly 100% of the area writing work for them, but the general concept and many of the more particularly cruel ideas are born out of a lot of my experience with the older explore areas and thoughts of how to build a better mousetrap. For those that haven't experienced them, they each are, in essence, very small, very aggressive areas with (relatively) smart NPCs. There's a certain small amount of knowledge to be gained as you explore them, in terms of the layout, what hazards to expect, how to deal with them, the "smart" way to go about killing these dragons, etc., but the long and short of it is, even with perfect knowledge of one of the areas, getting in and out alive with the loot is not trivial for anything but a huge group.

The thing I have been pondering, then, is this: what if the next time I decided to revamp/reopen the Tower, I did so with an eye towards eliminating or de-emphasizing the explore/puzzle aspects somewhat and turning it more into an always-aggressive/dangerous area that you'd more or less have to fight through with a decent-sized group? In a lot of ways, making it a little more like the lairs and/or the Inferno.

In some sense, it feels to me like I can save 90% of the work on the area and make it useful again by giving up on the other 10%, even if some of it are my favorite bits.

The question is, is this interesting? Or does this toss the only thing the people who did like the area found cool about it?

Personal, I love the puzzle parts of CF. Trying to figure out my way through a maze the first time, working my way through the Tower of Trothon for the first time, etc. Knowing that there are still things like this out there for me to work my way through and solve is one of the things that keep pulling me back in.

I have never made it into the Silent Tower because of First time I actually figured out how, it got shut down. I can not tell you how upset I was. Not because I wanted the shinies, but because I knew if was packed full of puzzles that I would need to figure out.

Nep, I understand why you want to change it to a Dragon type area, people are complete asses. But I beg you, if you ever do bring it back, please try and save the puzzles in some form. Even if I get nothing from solving other than a pat on the back, I'd rather have them in there than not have them at all. Besides, I know absolutely no one outside of ingame so it is not like I can get the answers to the old puzzles anyway!

There is in fact a workaround that will give solo-explorers a fair chance to explore and discourage (mostly) all forms of OOC cheating. I suspect you've thought of it already and haven't brought it up because, frankly, it is going to require more work on your part. Zulghinlour called it out further in the thread - it has to be Imm-controlled and one more thing to manage.

Morph the Silent Tower into an Imm-controlled world event. On some random day when enough Imms feel up to the coordination, one or several chambers of the Silent Tower become open for exploration. There is little barrier to enter, there is a set time limit to complete the event, and players accrue credits for reaching checkpoints and solving puzzles. At the end of the event, Imms tally up the credits and through their own discretion provide the rewards. Some people will lose out, and some people will gain. In some respects, this will dissuade DIKU1 from IM'ing DIKU2 to share information during the event because now it becomes a competition instead of cooperation.

Every future iteration of the event has new challenges so previous knowledge means nothing, only current ambition, cleverness, and luck.

At the surface I suspect this comes off as a major time suckage for you and may eat away at the original goal of ST, but maybe it's possible to code a sort of randomness engine for rooms, keywords, mob difficulty at the onset, so that when you have future iterations of this event it doesn't require a whole mess of replanning but simply a 'randomize' command.

Actually, as I write this I become a bit depressed because now I've left the whole territory of 'anyone can do this at any time they want' to 'staff policing is necessary for exploration fun,' but based on my own thoughts and what I've read so far in the thread it does seem like there is no concrete solution that will bring your original idea to CF in a fair way. Bummer. I never explored the Tower.

And now that I've re-read what I wrote, I become even more depressed by the realization that you guys have already been doing this for some time and have recognized it's probably the fairest way for these types of things. Super bummer. Start charging for CF, give yourselves a salary, and staff up some quest runners.

Sigh. Exit out.

Here's a possible idea?

If possible without a reboot, only make it open while you or another IMP that can monitor what takes place is online. That way if someone does a certain part of the tower and then someone else comes along and does the exact same thing without doing any actual observation or taking the normal logical steps, then you know something might be up and you can transfer them to the RotD for a little "chat". Also, if possible make it so it creates a seperate log, so if, lets say a group starts out while you're online, but you have to go, that won't necessarily kick the group out just because you have to go because you can just look at the log files quick and easy.

Perhaps make a global echo announcing when it is open or closed, so that way people will know and others that just logged on can ask around. Also perhaps set up an alarm at the entrance or something so you will know when someone is entering it, instead of having to monitor it off and on waiting for someone to enter.

And if information sharing gets too out of hand, well you could probably find out who was sharing the information and then give them a warning the first time and ban their ip or something the second time, seeing as how you put a #### TON (not just a normal ton) of time and effort into this game to make it enjoyable for everyone, but then a couple of people just have to go #### up all the effort you put in.

Anybody who achieved anything in ST would be accused of immortal favoritism, and on the flipside logs of an imm being mean to players would get posted the instant it happend and be accused of taking revenge for one of the players involved killing their mortal.

If you did all the exploration on an earlier character, then just walked in and did all the puzzles quickly on a later character you could be mistaken for a cheater.

I think I was one of the first morts to enter silent way back when it opened and after a few ventures into it I pretty much gave up on it. Its not that I found the area boring or too hard.. it was more of a time spent/reward thing. The area itself is really an awesome showcase of your creative talents and why after all my pissing and moaning about the great devil nep I still think you are a huge asset to the game. But I know first hand how quickly that area will sap con and equipment (Shokai stashed my 100 charge axe in the treasure vaults after I died to him there) Fistshake Shokai! Leveling a char to hero is probably the most boring part of cf for me so sinking 2-3 hero chars into learning the area and learn its ins and outs just didnt seem appealing to me.

I also agree with Zulgh on the whole it just doesnt fit into Cf as it stands today. First for the obvious reason that Zulgh already pointed out that an area like Silent just cant exist in Cf the way the creator wanted it to be. If you are gonna build a puzzle, sooner or later someone that can't figure it out for themselves will seek outside help to get the job done. Because in the end the rewards in this area are so over the top and out of whack with general cf game balance that people will overlook your intentions and your requests just to get the shinies.

I really really dig the new dragon lairs I think they are well done and I doubt players have figured all the #### you stashed in there. I've only been through a few of them and thought you two struck a great balance between area toughness and the whole time sink thing.

If you do reopen silent would you consider toning down the rewards but say maybe making them a little more obvious? I can't tell you how many times ST eq flowed through my hands without me knowing wtf it did. The whole behind the scenes affects that player won't exactly understand or know is just kinda bleh to me. I understand if you don't want to make some of the stats available via a simple identify.. maybe add a mob in Silent that you can take the stuff and have them explain to you what it does.. for a price ofcourse.

Parv

Some interesting ideas there. Thanks.

Keep ST exactly as it was (in style, if not in detail).

Make it so that the more of an object that is taken out of the tower, the less effective it is.

Therefore the more widely disseminated knowledge is, even if amongst an ooc group, the less the people with the knowledge gain from it.

I would apply this to both preps and armor.

People then have to consider... am I going to benefit more by sharing this info, or less? Or am I willing to share it just to be nice?

As an idea you could make the gear from ST rot when you leave the tower, just like some items in Inferno crumble when you get outside.
Maybe you would consider opening the ST as it is with this change? The powergamers would have no reason to go there and people who like exploring could still go and enjoy the puzzles.
Actually going there would be bad for powergamers as you could die, losing 1/3 con for absolutely no reward.
Speaking for myself I would gladly burn some con on my characters just to see the tower, read the story and figure some puzzles.

Similarly, put a rot timer on such objects that come from there. It could be lengthy enough to make it worthwhile going in for a temporary boost, but that would be all it could be.

The question of the silent tower really reflects a question I think CF has struggled with for a while as gaming has evolved. Gamers expectations have changed a lot since CF's original vision was changed. It is simply assumed, I think, that any rpg will have a comprehensive list of items, monsters, areas, etc freely available on websites.

The question is, do you want to try to maintain the isolation of information or not? If you do, I think you really need to approach it by establishing a system of user accounts and marketing hard for the sub-sub niche of gamers that want to play a solo, unshared information, roleplaying, pvp, text rpg. To some extent this could simply be a practical decision; Do you want to try hard for the kind of game you feel is best, knowing that there will be fewer players, or do you compromise in order to expand the user base?

That said, if you want to keep the information isolation idea afloat, then go for it, and keep ST the way it is. You like it better in its current incarnation and I think most everyone agrees it's more interesting that way. But if you're not going to make a serious effort to wind back the clock on gaming, then yeah, it's probably best to update ST to a form that is fun and fair in spite of information sharing.

The next question then is, would you be legitimizing information sharing by doing this? I think you would see people arguing "well it's fine to share it now because nep specifically changed it for that reason."

Personally, I would enjoy CF most either of two ways: with complete sharing or complete isolation. The current situation where I know that there's a lot of sharing going on but I don't really participate out of ethical obligation doesn't really thrill me. I think I actually would like complete isolation best, but since I don't think that's really possible I think it would be better to just open CF up considerably, and accept/allow people to fully share information the way they do for other rpgs.

P.S.
If you do change silent tower, you should put the original up on some sort of alternate-test server so I can explore the puzzle version just for fun.

This is about the one area in the whole mud that you can't brute force. As least, most brute force groups can't because they don't know how.

I'd really like to retain a top tier area with this property.

What Zulgh said, at least publicly, was about areas not working in today's CF was more akin to linear areas than puzzle areas not working in CF. Basically, you could develop the tower to a direction where it resembles a collection of dragon lairs instead of circles of Hell, all of which you have to pass through to get to the next circle.

So, instead of having a long ass puzzle sequence where you are stuck if you are stuck on one problem, you could have multiple medium to short length puzzles or buff mob lairs and the tower being a collection of such smaller subunits, you could pursue another puzzle (in the general sense of the word, this could be a big mob as well)in the tower if the one you were banging your head against doesn't seem to open to you.

There could also be a hybrid of this (where the shorter puzzle, one or multiple, could unlock the boss monster) if you want to hide some badass mofo a bit further away to buff it's prestige. The larger number of smaller lairs would also allow variable ways to reach the boss monster.

It's amusing cause just last week I found an old, old email from you discussing Silent Tower puzzles after I explored it with one of my early shapeshifters solo and detailing how I died 10-15 times exploring it and working some things out. This was probably in the first few months of it being released. Good memories.

I love the puzzle aspect of some zones, myself. I loved working out Kteng's, Loch Grynmear, and what little I did of Silent Tower and other places all by myself. I get a feeling of accomplishment, and I really enjoy the obvious thought put into it by the creator.

I think this game definitely has a place for puzzle zones.

Silent Tower might not work as one so much because it's seen as 'end game' with important gear. This raises the stakes and people will see it's knowledge not just as a fun puzzle, but as a bargaining chip/weapon to use against people. And lots of people would rather take the easy way in games like this.

Personally, I'd say if you open Silent Tower without the puzzles, call it something else, cause it really would be ruining what made the place so unique.

My personal suggestion would be to remove any real game changing gear in the place and just repoen it and forums be damned. I'd happily go in there just to work on puzzles and blow a few con points to see how far I could get. Gear is just temporary crap anyway, but I still happily remember some of those puzzles even though I haven't been in there in years.

Just my two cents. I'd like to see it back, but not if it's going to cause you to get annoyed/frustrated when the info leaks out, and it always does.

I liked being able to solo explore it at times. The downside was you could never really put together a group to go there ala hell. The puzzles and the amount of time the took just didn't make it feasible. I'd like a happy medium somewhere in the middle.

To be quite honest with you, the two are the same in some regards.

Cheaters more easily amass large groups and are more often dominant. It is an ugly truth of the game and I don't think anyone who has seriously played for a while would deny that outside friendships turn into in game powerhouses and cabal leaderships. So, you're still better off cheating. In fact, you're always better off cheating - that's why you'll never get rid of it.

I won't say every hell trip has been composed of people who knew each other OOC, I'll just say its more often the case than the opposite. At the very least one of the major stakeholders in the trip was shown how/what to do as part of what you'd consider a team of "cheaters". Including maps/et al.

More to the point though, the less people play the more impossible these things become for non-cheaters. People who do things "the right way", ie, playing the underdog, not cheating, etc tend to continually get shafted by the way the game works. I guess it is what it is.

At the end of the day though I don't think anyone will blame you for making a change that leaves it in a spot where you feel you don't have to modify it anymore. If you're 'Ok' point is that it takes a group of 10 to get through it then so be it.

First, I've had a few characters that have explored the Silent Tower, and as someone who wants to solo explore so they can take the time to look at objects and read special descriptions, ST was the place for me. Sure, as a non-powerhouse solo character, I couldn't get my grubby little fingers on the archmage stuff, but the ST experience was such that it was worthwhile nevertheless. The other area explores will never deliver something comparable to the characters I play. Simply learning the meaning of individual runes in that area and discovering hints to puzzles I haven't even found yet have given me untold hours of fun.

A few people have made a rainy day out of a beautiful area, and you have decided that you can't ban them for the damage they have done for the manner in which they have distributed knowledge. You could create an IP-based area explore ban for people who you want to keep around for some reason or another, but don't want going into those special areas that get created because they are the sort of people who are making a mess of things. And if you wish, you could extend that flag's power so that if somehow they were to obtain explore_gear, it would not function for them. Those wonderful explore musical devices wouldn't make music, weapons wouldn't harm, and armor would leave them vulnerable.

That wouldn't prevent some disgruntled, never-going-to-play-CF player from posting walkthroughs, but it would allow the rest of us to enjoy an aspect of the game that has been missing since Nyathl Ikalith and its sister(s) were closed.

I liked that there was the ability to do a lot of stuff solo. I disagree that it was all that reasonable to use brute force in the tower due to the fact that 99% of casters can't cast, communers were so nerfed, and the mobs in there do things that can seriously long term nerf warriors.

I think keeping the overall format and style of the tower would be ideal the difference I would make is the time requirement to pull groups through the riddle parts. For instance if you craft a certain timepiece having it could pull your whole group through things rather then having everyone take the time to make their own. Or if you get a certain thing to protect yourself from a ceertain trap have it extend protection to your group so you don't need to keep leaving and returning to keep collecting said item several times.

maybe make the silent tower only have silence for so long so that people can coordinate or make it somewhat easier or obvious to be able to talk because otherwise people will just do it with AIM open instead. perhaps make it like iunnas shrine with a 24 hour silence or something.

>I liked that there was the ability to do a lot of stuff solo.
> I disagree that it was all that reasonable to use brute force
>in the tower due to the fact that 99% of casters can't cast,
>communers were so nerfed, and the mobs in there do things that
>can seriously long term nerf warriors.

The flip side to that is, there's a lot of cool stuff you can't get without a throw down.

>I think keeping the overall format and style of the tower
>would be ideal the difference I would make is the time
>requirement to pull groups through the riddle parts. For
>instance if you craft a certain timepiece having it could pull
>your whole group through things rather then having everyone
>take the time to make their own.

In fact it does work this way (or is supposed to -- I *think* I tested this)

> Or if you get a certain
>thing to protect yourself from a ceertain trap have it extend
>protection to your group so you don't need to keep leaving and
>returning to keep collecting said item several times.

There's another way to do that for a group, which I've seen people do.

>maybe make the silent tower only have silence for so long so
>that people can coordinate or make it somewhat easier or
>obvious to be able to talk because otherwise people will just
>do it with AIM open instead. perhaps make it like iunnas
>shrine with a 24 hour silence or something.

There are ways to talk.

The fact that he's saying people will talk on aim suggests that his idea of a group is a bunch of people who know who each other are, ooc.

That stinks, even before you start considering "designer" groups.

I'd say stick with the puzzles, and if you find that a whole ooc group (e.g. russians, Dio VIPS, brits, aussies whatever) is using homogenous methods in the tower, ban them. That's almost certainly a sure sign of selective information sharing on an ooc basis, even if it is dressed up as being ic.

nt

My point isn't that they do. It's that IF you discover a group that is, ban them.

Every time it's been to spite you because they know you'll take it down. So have you ever thought about just making sure the stuff gets yanked from the websites, and just leaving the tower up? I know that every time I've heard about someone posting all their crap, I've never been one that has seen it, and I know of others that never saw it either. If the gear is relatively balanced by your thought, I think most of us would still be going in to solve the puzzles as you envisioned it. I would say that I also would not be for the hack and slash your way through change. That would totally destroy the "feel" of the tower as I have known it. I've always thought it seemed creepy.

I.e., there is no clear best answer, but there are many different possible results based on the ultimate states of the various magic devices in the Tower.

For a party, split them up and turn it into a race for survival that encourages treachery.

Furthermore, I think Seantryn Modan must be destroyed.

Honestly Nep, the issue for these sort of things is the amount of time people need to invest in these these puzzles. While you may think they are logical and well thought out, someone on the outside looking in might think that a crackhead designed them. If the casual CFer didn't have to invest 9 characters worth of hours in an area to find something out about it, they'd be less likely to ask their AIM buddies for the inside scoop so they can get down to what these areas are really about - phat loots.

Cheers,
Jhyrb

Pretty much. I don't have the ability to play 12-18 hours a day anymore to negate that kind of time sink.

Of course, I'm also beginning to think that maybe I don't have the mentality for this game anymore.

I wondered many times what kind of QA testing you put this area through before going live. If it were me, and I were designing an area of this type (puzzley and complex), I'd make just about every imm on the staff (short of greenhorn heroimms) do a walk through, without giving them an ounce of help. If too few, or none at all, could manage it...I would re-evaluate.

In lieu of that, I spent a lot of time watching mortals try to go through the area.

In practice, everyone struggled with let's say 20% of the puzzle-y stuff.

The thing that made me feel like it was all okay is that that 20% was never the same 20% from character to character, and there wasn't really any of it that most (if not all) people who put some time in didn't put together.

nt

There were about three different ways to do it, and I'd seen people using each of them.

...I think I may have found a bit of a loophole with that. It's not a bug abuse or anything, but maybe an "unexpected" method of doing things.


I'll try to say it ambiguously here, and if it doesn't make sense we can move to email.


Upon finishing a task, when given the opportunity to speak and gain rewards, you are ushered to the exit where, most likely, you would depart. But, if you choose to remain, you can speak so long as you're there.


That intended?

It wasn't, but after I saw people doing it I decided to let it stay. (Although how that whole chunk of stuff works is something that'll change if the area's ever reopened, I think, for other reasons.)

There's actually a lot of instances where people came up with more clever solutions to problems than I anticipated, or came up with more powerful uses for stuff I designed than I anticipated. Up to a point, this is one of the things that's really fun for me about watching people interact with an area like this.

Honestly, I think it ultimately comes down to what you want done with your work. Personally, I think the Silent Tower *IS* what it is, because of the puzzle-explorer type of super-area that it is. It's an area that I've only made it into about six times, died horribly without a sound each time, and absolutely hate because I can't figure anything out (I've never been good at puzzle areas). However, I see the changes you propose as a watering down of the area into a lesser form. Being the vindictive sort that I am, I would personally see it as a sort of "I gave you this shiny toy, and people abused it, so now you lose the toy". Unfortunately, the only people that it really punishes are those who aren't trying to abuse the area, and the work you've put into it. Mostly since those who you're trying to stop, aren't going to care either way, and internet semi-anonymity really prevents much further than that.

On the other side, as I mentioned, losing the area really is more of a punishment to those who don't deserve it, and your work as the writer. I don't see it as the area the writer invisioned, but it's still more of what you wanted than it sitting in limbo. On the plus to that, maybe I can actually survive in there ten minutes!

Functionally, I'd rather have an area to play in, than not, but if you'd rather the area enjoy it's full justice, I think it's perfectly reasonable if you don't want it to exist in any "half-ass" state.

Well, that's basically what I'm weighing.

I mean, part of the coolness to the area for me is its solo-explorable-to-a-point uniqueness, puzzles, etc.

But there's also a bunch of items in that area that I think are cool, mobs with really intricate/unique spells and progs I'd like to see people fight, a bunch of story I'd like people to be able to piece together, etc.

So it becomes, is the second list of stuff worth sacrificing the first list of stuff?

The other factor there is that it's not just 'to me'. Obviously as author / person who has to do all the work, I get veto power over what everyone wants, but it doesn't do me a lot of good to make the area into something people aren't interested in.

I'm surprised at how many people are saying that they wouldn't really be interested in a highly aggressive throwdown style Tower vs. the classic style, and it makes me glad I asked.

>I'm surprised at how many people are saying that they wouldn't
>really be interested in a highly aggressive throwdown style
>Tower vs. the classic style, and it makes me glad I asked.

This, I think. Is it still Silent Tower without being able to solo some stuff?

Although, at the end of the day, if you can't find a solution to keep the puzzles secret that satisfies you, I'd far, FAR rather have it changed to the aggro difficult version, just to have the opportunity to see it/fight it/experience it/piece together the story in any form.

A happy medium between the solo adventurer area and the massive group area.

Can an area be built that only allows groups of three and then have the place be built around a party that size? I tend to find groups larger than 3 to be incredibly chaotic and it really puts me out of my comfort zone. Additionally, I find solo exploring to be incredibly boring.

As it stands, brute focing a dragon with more people can be detrimental but overall it's always beneficial.

I like the idea of having puzzles based on 3 people interacting with the environment as a team, and it being detrimental to have too many. This might then lead to some elitism amongst heroes but I think it'd be minimal considering the amount of eyes that'll be turned towards anyone heading into the tower.

There were many aspects of the Silent tower I liked, and one of those was figuring out puzzles and trading the information with others to figure out more. I was very sad with the last big outting of it - it made me realise how small my precious secrets list was amongst other things - and that there were so few people out there with the knowledge to train and run a group through it that I'd likely never see some of the sweeter gear others had. If there was a way to enjoy that aspect the same way you can with dragon lairs (learning that there's ways to go about them, and ways not to) then that'd be a pretty neat middle ground.

Also, keep the treasure room the way it is. I still laugh every time I pk someone in there and steal what they grabbed

I tend not to like areas that require a big group in order to get anything done. Trips into these areas usually involve one guy who knows the area like the back of his hand accompanied by 3-4 "scrubs" who are only there to help the group leader mine the choicest gear.

What's your opinion on an area like the Jade Vaults? It's somewhat "doable" by a solo person (of the right class) or possibly a duo.

Or maybe Organia? I'm not suggesting Organia is anything like the Jade Vaults, but I remember enjoying exploring it for the first time. When I was actually into that kind of stuff.

Make it impossible to group up in ST, and if more than one person is inside, make the whole area no_where (or whatever the flag is that makes it like Organia). Furthermore, you can't hear PC's talk.


Then, make it completely viable for any solo character to conquer the place, through varying means.


*shrug*

I mean no IC cooperation at all and people in the know would rule with the eq they can get alone.

Unless of course you remove all eq

I think CF would be better off with more areas like ST and not just one.

I don't like Hell Trips because it's way too confusing to have a large group, it's hard to role-play or you get people who over role-play, or you get the little kids trying to have fun and telling stupid jokes that we all used to giggle and laugh at and you end up missing a LOT of the area. If you aren't leading and looking, there's no telling what little cubby holes with shinies in it that people just simply walk by. Sometimes when in large groups like that I just turn on a movie and put it in the upper right corner and end up watching/listening to that just to keep my attention.

The ST is an area where I can go when I have no PK range and nothing better to do than to spam spells/skills/sups to perfection that I very seldom use AND I get explore/observation XP which is cool to me because I like to try out edges and see what they do. The extra bump I get from that area is worth at LEAST one try-me edge (which also caters to the explorer mind).

I think you would get a lot of bang if you released two areas in tandem that catered to the group masses and the individual explorer and were still puzzle based. Solve the puzzle, tiamt-like creature bowls out of the ground and all hell breaks loose. Pleasant field turns crimson as blood zombies rise up from the ground and while you fight the big bad ass, it scatters the party into the little runts making it difficult to keep the party together and making it one hair-brained exciting time like raiding the palace against 5 opposers. A bunch of little fights break out. The PCs win and get the shiny gem needed to power the gate-room machine and go to the next level. Which would make these "make hell good kosher" people happy because then they'd have a place to take their massive fort horde to and get shinies. You could even have it so that one of the rewards is an alternate way into the depths of hell passed the "non-purity part" and in the process maybe reducing the time it takes to actually get down there to something managable in today's CF.

The ST is a place that's hard to really take a large group in and wreak havoc on things without having long term solo punishment. Plus until you solve certain puzzles, it's generally unfriendly to certain classes to begin with. But then, that in turn increases the reward for doing them, or the insansity of trying in the first place.

So my vote is bring ST back as much changed as you want (I personally don't care if everyone knows the secrets because it's a get out what you put in type place anyways) AND make another dragon-lair type place that is on the order of the Tower of Trothon in size but holds more shinier shinies and some different puzzles, or gives a way for said group to get into the deeper parts of hell faster thus making it useful for goods and evils alike to visit.

Why do people beat video games? Do they beat it to get mad loot? Remember those cheesy NES games you beat, got shown two or three happy images with some 8-bit soundtrack and do you remember how that was enough? If the reason for keeping it closed is that you are worried about people using OOC knowledge to get gear that will upset game balance, then tweak the reward. People who just want to solve the puzzle will be happy no matter what the reward is. Give them enhanced extinguish, throw an edge point or two at them. Make it so people are doing it for the satisfaction of doing it.

I have never gone to the tower, and I hope to...someday. If I do go, I will be using no OOC knowledge. I don't know where to look for that info, and if I did, I wouldn't bother looking. It wouldn't make it much of a puzzle if I did that. I bet there are plenty of people who won't use OOC knowledge, who have never been to this area and would love to. I am actually curious about how many people can solve the puzzle using OOC knowledge and how many have no clue what you're talking about? It might be a good poll to see how many people know ST through OOC or previous chars and how many have no clue how to do anything in the area.

I think that it's great having people be able to get this highly limited eq and throw it into circulation, but what I worry about is 'that guy' who uses his group to get himself loads of the stuff and then continues to play conservatively while being uber-geared. Using Ravon as an example, the guy was unstoppable BEFORE getting a heap of hell/silent tower gear. He totally deserved the eq. But having it at such a low limit, and on one unstoppable guy, it was the jewel case you'd never crack and that just led to disappointment.

What I want to see is all sorts of guys who can get this eq, put it into pk circulation but have a fair method of stopping people from combining too much of this onto a single shiny character. Maybe like a random gear repop (making it necessary to do many trips to get a full set) or a check that stops you doing puzzles if you currently have a piece of arch-mage gear.

That gear was obtained by cheating. I know because I was asked to be part of the cheating and refused.

Another way to make life harder for people with no OOC friends. I vote leave it closed.

Silent Tower just wouldn't be the same without the puzzles and it's unique way of offering people a way, albeit a complicated one, of making substantial progress alone.

I think Scar got it as close to right as you can. Hell is massive, yet the majority of groups basically act like tourists and follow the same path to the same key mobs for the same elite gear. While this suits those who simply want to form a potent group and get the equipment, there is more to Hell to be figured out if you're willing to actually explore.

One of my major gripes about Hell is it's lack of updates. I absolutely understand why it doesn't receive any attention, I just wish it did anyway. By attention, I mean in the form of modernization. CF, from a mechanics point of view, can do a lot more than it could the last time Scar worked on it, I would imagine. I'm sure if Scar were involved right now, there is a lot of code-support available to make Hell do some very cool stuff it couldn't do way back when.

Either way, what makes Hell fun is that it has ridiculous gear and some extremely useful objects that PK-oriented characters tend to gun for, but it's also a place you can explore, albeit not always solo (for many of us) just to learn new things and solve a few puzzles.

My suggestion would be to model New Silent Tower off the same principle. The great thing about Silent Tower is that there is already an amazing story behind it, and I'm sure you have even more material surrounding it that we don't know about. While some people are only going to come to Silent Tower for the equipment and other useful features, others will come to learn about that background and solve the puzzles, even if the reward isn't the equipment any more. Tweak the area such that 90% of the groups who go there travel the same path 90% of the time to kill the same 10 mobs, while still incorporating the puzzle aspect for those who desire it. Perhaps the puzzles simply need to be changed so that their reward is solving them and not something so appealing to “power gamers”.

As long as Silent Tower has such vexing puzzles and logic guarding some of the best equipment in the game, people are going to cheat to get past the puzzles and to the equipment as quickly as possible. While “that douche bag” had compiled a lot of information about the area and posted it publicly, he's definitely not the only one sharing. I'd bet dollars to ####ing doughnuts that most of the people posting under this thread have had chats with their pals about Silent Tower and it's puzzles, even if they don't say so. Almost everyone talks, at least a little bit, at some point. Even if it's tit-for-tat, eventually it snowballs into common knowledge. Even keeping it IC doesn't work, it just slows it down. I've seen a few players babble on and on about solutions to Silent Tower completely in-character simply because they wanted someone to be their meat shield, wanted wand info, wanted to show everyone else how much of a bad ass their were, etc.

I think the bottom line is that you and Zulg are right. Silent Tower doesn't belong in today's CF, but we love it so much we'd rather have Not-Quite-Silent-Tower than no Silent Tower at all. Regardless, the Silent Tower we've enjoyed in the past isn't coming back, and while what you come up with may be amazing and enjoyable and more fun than before, it won't replace The Silent Tower as we knew it.

First off, I consider myself fairly well versed in CF, but I still know next to nothing about what ST used to be, other than the VERY basic details. I've never been in, that's for sure. Puzzly stuff sounds really cool, but I can see how once this is figured out it's just done.

My 2 cents: a combination of puzzlyness and tough mobs, by this I mean puzzly mobs. Mobs that you need to fight more like a player. Dispel their haste/sanc/fly/whatever. Let them be lagged (somewhat) by players. Have them use specific smart attacks against players. If they're communers, worldbind them. If they're warriors, wither. Etc. If there's any interest to this idea I can help flesh it out more.

There's a reason I don't like Hell or the new dragon lairs much at all, and that's because you need a group.

Even if I hated that god damn ST for killing me and not really giving me any of the REALLY cool stuff despite my efforts, I still kept going back because it was something I could do on my own, without greedy people breathing down my neck and disturbing me with their near-OOC chatter which is what group exploring with more than 2 people seems to always be like.

I've been playing this game off and on since it was first derived from ROM code and I've always had ambivalent feelings about where some aspects of the game have gone. There are still a lot a places I've never gone to because of the requirement of a large, knowledgeable group that is largely uninteresting to me. Plus I know no-one else OOC to work out any details with

I think that might be the one problem I have with the dragon re-design and what you've suggested for Silent Tower - there's no room for the solo-explorer to even survive, much less acquire anything cool. Even areas that should be survivable in a general sense are disproportionately tough to do so as a solo explorer.

Personally I like some of the puzzles in various places though there are few that are so, well, sneaky, that I've never figured them out. And others that I cackle with glee when I see something that I missed the previous 100 times through. Losing this to the spam of working with a large group is, well, just uninteresting.

It's one of the reasons I've never done a Hell trip.

Aside from mobs just being too powerful for one person or there just being far too many of one mob...

Many,many more mobs now plague, poison, make bleed, and other seriously debilitating effects that either kill you or make you wait literally a half hour just to recover from.

I feel that is more unfun for the solo explorer than anything else in the game.

As for your post, I agree that solo-exploration is a large part of Carrion Fields. I have one person that I share things with, and that he shares things with me. And because of our lives, we literally never have the chance to play at the same times. We are our own two-man circle.

I admit and say that, because this two person click pales in comparison to the massive groups other people have. Which clearly is disadvantageous to players like you and players like me.

I am in favor of more solo exploration places that require brains vs brawn.

You can explore quite a lot of cf's area explore with the right classes.

I don't want to have to be a specific class just to explore.

Then you will have to grab a friend if you want to enter the hardest of areas, I don't see that as something unreasonable.

I don't see why you cannot spend the 40-50 hours it will take to hero a conjie or whatever if you really enjoy exploring.

But I don't like taking one or two combinations that happen to excel at exploration, just for the sole purpose of exploration. I like my characters to be able to do a lot of things. I enjoy the challenges of exploring with a multitude of class and race combinations.

The aforementioned afflictions are just things I have noticed. And I just happened to mention, whimsically, that these afflications are becoming far more prevelent in the new era, than in past times. This is a result of coders and builders wanting to make NPC's "smarter." All I am saying is, I happen to think there is becoming too many of these situations where particular race and class combinations simply cannot compete because of some very (more) common afflictions.

I understand quite well, as I've been playing for nearly a decade, that certain classes do certain things better than others. I'm not a retard. And that wasn't even close to the point of my post. But you've managed to try to turn it into the point. Your reading comprehension on this one is slightly off.

I would try to aim for more of a balance of both. Maybe make the lower levels more of a group combat challenge with a few puzzles you don't mind if they get leaked, aka root quest, or something like that. Then maybe the upper levels or secret chambers that would contain the puzzle like things that one player could get into without having to go through the group area. Maybe make the secret chambers/levels of the tower more of an imm reward, or at least easy to ban players who abuse it's knowledge. This way you can hopefully make more people happy, the people who want to challenge Hell but can't (AKA Goodies) and the explorer types who like puzzles, and yourself because you'd only have to change a few puzzles or ban a few people if someone posted.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

... to much work for imms I suspect...

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

Because unfortunately you get a little too much favoritism. We have enough attention whores playing this game already.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

Because I don't want one more thing to manage.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I think you over-estimate the power (and misjudge the motivations) of the current OOC knowledge market. I can think of one major "secret"-type thing (like Shadow) still in the game that still seems to be a pretty well-kept secret.

Personally, I hate the fact that OOC information sharing is so stigmatized. I feel like the underlying assumption you're making when you say things like "today's CF" is that most OOC circles are bad eggs trying to undermine the game, and this simply doesn't jive with my experience. We as human beings are social animals. We enjoy the game more when we are sharing it with our friends. And while it's true I don't have an administrator's perspective on this, my experience is that the vast majority of the other players I talk to outside of the game aren't interested in power-combos and perma-gangs. They're looking for role advice, or stats on certain items, regear advice, or just someone to share their triumphs and failures with.

Long story short, I think you need (and the staff in general needs) to reconsider what you think "today's CFer" enjoys and wants out of the game before you make these kinds of decisions.

Splntrd

nt

>I think you over-estimate the power (and misjudge the
>motivations) of the current OOC knowledge market. I can think
>of one major "secret"-type thing (like Shadow) still in the
>game that still seems to be a pretty well-kept secret.

If it's what I think it is...Meh, it's still a secret of sorts, but it's not really anything I'd care about if I knew anyway, unlike the Shadow cabal.

>Personally, I hate the fact that OOC information sharing is so
>stigmatized. I feel like the underlying assumption you're
>making when you say things like "today's CF" is that most OOC
>circles are bad eggs trying to undermine the game, and this
>simply doesn't jive with my experience. We as human beings are
>social animals. We enjoy the game more when we are sharing it
>with our friends. And while it's true I don't have an
>administrator's perspective on this, my experience is that the
>vast majority of the other players I talk to outside of the
>game aren't interested in power-combos and perma-gangs.
>They're looking for role advice, or stats on certain items,
>regear advice, or just someone to share their triumphs and
>failures with.

I have no problem with people sharing the game with their friends (the bolded section above), where I see things go awry is when you're sharing the game with your friends outside of the game. That's not actually sharing, that's just dumping information on them. It is why I think some place like Silent Tower won't survive the way the author originally envisioned it.

>Long story short, I think you need (and the staff in general
>needs) to reconsider what you think "today's CFer" enjoys and
>wants out of the game before you make these kinds of
>decisions.

I think you need to understand what we enjoy and want out of the game as well. I brought this up a bit with my J.J. Abrahms post. Part of the fun I get from building up areas/quests is seeing people get through them on their own. Follow the clues, kill the baddie, get the loot. When that boils down to a text document on www.gamefaqs.com I lose motivation.

One of the best times I had was running a group of folks through Trothon the first time. I had no idea how the transitions worked, what I was up against, and when I got through it there was a sense of accomplishment. The reason I haven't written an area in a very long time is because it won't be what I want it to be. I strive to build in that sense of accomplishment. I do think the Dragon Lair's do that well (there are tricks you'll figure out to build a group, and how to take on the dragons). You don't need a huge time investment (an hour maybe, instead of 5-10 in Hell), and even if you know everything there is to know going into the fight...it's still going to be a challenge. I fall back to Xoltrindar all the time as one of the more interesting AI projects I did for a mob. I know EXACTLY how he works, I wrote the entire prog, and I STILL die to the bastard (partly because of some of the randomness I threw into the AI).

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

> If it's what I think it is...Meh, it's still a secret of sorts, but it's not really anything I'd care about if I knew anyway, unlike the Shadow cabal.

If we're all thinking of the same thing, then ya, exactly! It's a secret, for the most part, but who cares? It doesn't give you any meaningful game advantage, 1337 gear, etc. Why is it still a secret? Partly because of how it's obtained, but also because it's useless to the “power gamer”. I can't use it to p0wn j00, so why bother get on AIM/IRC and hit up my pals for the info? It is, nonetheless, just as cool and exciting as Silent Tower or the Shadow Cabal, IMHO, when it's discovered. Maybe we can get our secret-jollies off without expecting such intrinsic rewards in return.

nt

...because I remember how awesome it felt when I figured out the special canteen quest.

Or the super lowbie sleeves quest (which I've been told I didn't even finish...boo).

Or figuring out 75% of all the tricks in the New High Lord's Keep (still can't figure out two or three things, damn you Kasty!).

It's a real feeling of accomplishment.

One of the differences I think “Today's CF” implies is that in the past few years, as opposed to many many years ago, there is simply more communication. I'm not sure I fully understand it, as we had IRC, websites with forums, etc back then too, but it seems like the information is just too easy to spread, and once it's out there, it's out there. These days, people have half a dozen IM clients. We have the forums (which people seem to check habitually), the Wiki, Google, etc. Once “spoilers” ignite, there's no putting out the fire. Maybe that wasn't any different 10-12 years ago, I didn't play then.

The other think that might make the current player base a little different is simply time. A lot of players quit and begin sharing info more liberally, become jaded and/or disgruntled and pass around their CF folders, etc. As with all secret(s), they become harder to keep with time as more and more people find out, legitimately or otherwise.

Lastly, perhaps the goals, objectives, and attitudes of the player base have changed such that areas like Silent Tower and things like the Shadow Cabal simply aren't appropriate, even if we do like them a lot. We aren't collectively up to the task of doing what's required to preserve them.

Warning: I've only been playing since 2001 and have never been to hell or the Silent Tower.

My impression of things is that the rules regarding secrecy are now much more tightly enforced when compared to the days of old. So your posit about ST not having a place in today's CF is really weird to me. I've always be a "glass is twice as large as it needs to be" guy so bear with me when I say my interpretation of what you're saying is that we now that we enforce secrecy we need to get rid of secrets. My suggestion would be to realize that puzzles are fun and complete secrecy is impossible. It won't be long until all of the wand locations are known and anything of that nature is just a ticking time-bomb of open-ness. Information wants to be free. There's little you could do about it. The problem is that many times when people on the immortal staff begin to come to grips with the reality of secrecy, they get their feelings hurt and huff and puff about quitting altogether. And every time the "punishments" punish the majority (non-cheaters?) more than they punish the cheaters. Because the cheaters will tend to gather the newer information than non-cheaters on average. My point is, change it from time to time to keep things fresh and interesting, but try not to get so upset when the inevitable occurs.

>Warning: I've only been playing since 2001 and have never
>been to hell or the Silent Tower.
>
>My impression of things is that the rules regarding secrecy
>are now much more tightly enforced when compared to the days
>of old. So your posit about ST not having a place in today's
>CF is really weird to me.

Mainly it's that there's a lot more out of game chatter / forums / etc. than when I first started playing.


>It won't be long until all of the wand
>locations are known and anything of that nature is just a
>ticking time-bomb of open-ness. Information wants to be free.
> There's little you could do about it. The problem is that
>many times when people on the immortal staff begin to come to
>grips with the reality of secrecy, they get their feelings
>hurt and huff and puff about quitting altogether.

It's not about hurt feelings for me. (Although, since piles of the Silent Tower puzzley stuff has in the past been posted specifically to try to attack me personally, taking it personally wouldn't be a completely irrational response.)

It's that redesigning / reimplementing everything that's been posted would be (and has been in the past) a huge chunk of my time that could be spent any number of other ways.

I've spent that time before, and I might again someday. Right now I'm not interested.

There becomes an appeal to the thought of doing it exactly one more time and then thereafter what gets out, gets out.

Obviously, another solution might be to try to cease to be the kind of person that people are driven to antagonize, but I've chosen not to go that route.

>And every
>time the "punishments" punish the majority (non-cheaters?)
>more than they punish the cheaters. Because the cheaters will
>tend to gather the newer information than non-cheaters on
>average. My point is, change it from time to time to keep
>things fresh and interesting, but try not to get so upset when
>the inevitable occurs.

I think it's cool if people help each other figure out stuff IC.

I don't think it's cool when someone tries to post a walkthrough to Dio's. This kind of thing always gets taken down, but if someone's persistent enough about it the damage is done.

>I think it's cool if people help each other figure out stuff
>IC.
>
>I don't think it's cool when someone tries to post a
>walkthrough to Dio's. This kind of thing always gets taken
>down, but if someone's persistent enough about it the damage
>is done.


I think there's a huge amount of gray area between these two extremes that should should be acceptable but is instead unwisely stigmatized. It could be I just haven't been paying attention, but it seems to me the kind of event you fear/describe is not only very rare, but fairly closely monitored and discouraged by the Dio's staff.

Splntrd

> It could be I just haven't been paying
>attention, but it seems to me the kind of event you
>fear/describe is not only very rare, but fairly closely
>monitored and discouraged by the Dio's staff.

It absolutely is rare and absolutely is monitored/discouraged....

but each time it happens amounts to a bunch of my time that I haven't gotten inspired to reinvest.

In a way I disagree, it is the rules that are so much harder now. Look at the groups that killed the arch devils and reached Satan. Imm-groups and DIKU pretty much?

Pretty sure there was a group very, very recently that reached Satan but didn't complete the quest.

Splntrd

I mean the first times those things happened, they are in Sacers Hell hall of Fame.

.

Splntrd

I don't think those groups comprise most of the hall of fame (unless there's a lot more DIKU out there than I ever knew)

For what it's worth I think the increase in OOC communication is the natural result of roleplay being somewhat strictly enforced in-game.

I hope you come up with a solution that makes you happy.

Cheers,
Rade

As someone who spent a ridiculous amount of time there, the puzzles
were pretty much what frustrated me most, but also made for the most
rewarding part of the area. If it's just aggro/pissed off, it's just not that
big of a challenge. I personally enjoyed the mental workout.

That's my $0.02.

My initial thought is: The Silent Tower, as it were, has too much good equipment to just be plowed through with a group, like you could with hell or the dragon lairs. It will simply become yet another gear farming area, and CF doesn't need anymore of that, in my opinion.

Leave it as it is--a puzzle. Change a couple things I guess. Then let the opportunity to enter be Imm awarded somehow.



To me specifically, this means two things:
1: I am a loner character and prefer exploring alone.
2: I almost never seek out an Imm for anything. So I'd probably never see this area under this suggestion. I'm okay with that.



Otherwise, just leave it closed.

Silent Tower stood alone in it's puzzliness. Yes - maybe it doesn't work in todays CF, but would changing it into something like a dragon lair or Hell add something exciting to the game? This guy would rather see the hard work go into something else.

That's just my opinion, fwiw.

The problem is, those other kinds of area are off limits to those of us who rarely have the chance to join significant size groups.

Also, I liked being able to go to ST to help get things that would level the playing field a bit, when I was outnumbered heavily.

Similarly, I liked being able to explore somewhere that was more than just a mapping job, when I was outnumbered hugely.

Personally, I thought Silent was excellent as it was (although I would have liked fewer mobs appearing and attacking you -- unless there's a way around that that I just never figured out).

Maybe I could suggest...
- you keep a list of players that are allowed in. To begin with, this includes everyone expect those known to have shared ooc info re the tower, or grouped ooc to do things in it. Also exclude those known to the posted info on it. Each player has a password.
- Imms need to commit to not checking this database to see who is playing who, under ANY circumstances.
- Then anyone who is found to be sharing info ooc, can be banned from it permanently, as can those they dealt with.
- Anyone who posts about it can be banned from it permanently.

After a couple of iterations at most, I doubt we'd have much of a problem.

I know tracing the ooc groups isn't easy, but there's probably more people that get disgruntled with them and "shop" them than there are people that post ST info.

If you have an area that has extremely good eq/preps/buffs that is balanced by puzzles you WILL have people who share information. And the availability WILL be balanced by how many who knows the answer.

So even if there will be no asshole that spams lists on dios there will still be groups who share within themselves. And they will not be revealed easily.

So in reality the design encourages OOC sharing in small secret groups for the extreme advantage you get when several people trying to figure out quests/puzzles, it's a 1+1=3 thing. And on the other hand you DON'T want to share IC because if things become too well known they usually get moved, changed or nerfed. As history has shown.

Puzzles in cf fits best in the Loch Grynmear style where the rewards are not so extreme. Or you could just remove the eq/preps from Silent and make people explore it for explorations sake.

right before it was closed this last time.

I was so very, very excited to see the stuff in there, even if Karel told me explicitly with my first hero that all I would do is die, die and die.

I would have loved to explore and try the real puzzles... but I have agree with Zulh and Mekantos... it probably isn't viable with the ease of information sharing.

I don't have a good answer besides what you've proposed: make it a mean, group-necessary area. The only problem being the current problem with Hell: how can you get a well-rounded group/big enough group online at the same time for a long enough time to get stuff done?

MMORPG's feature raids and bosses that essentially get whittled down to highly choreographed dances. I believe this is the affect of building large group oriented areas in CF, with the obvious extra downside of the difficulty inherent in putting together such a group within RP and cabal guidelines.

You end up with a problem just as large, just different. Instead of secret knowledge being passed around in ooc groups, you get more ooc groups coordinating log ins.

>I don't have a good answer besides what you've proposed: make
>it a mean, group-necessary area. The only problem being the
>current problem with Hell: how can you get a well-rounded
>group/big enough group online at the same time for a long
>enough time to get stuff done?

Im guessing silent tower as a group based place would be more wing-based like the new dungeons in WoW. Meaning that with a few hours available and a decent sized group you can probably explore one wing. Which means that a group dont have to dedicate huge chunks of time to progress to the point they died last time.

...albeit my bad past acts probably taint the honesty of the statement. There will always exist a QHCF, an IRC channel, a boat-load of IM friends, Russian comrades, and much more to spread any type of "secrets". Revolving door coding to handle this doesn't exactly work or takes time away from adding to the game to compensate (aka wands). You can't take any knowledge-based gain out of the game but you can limit the power that it gives. We've all seen what someone with full knowledge of the Tower can pull off or with even sub-optimal knowledge (fountain abuse).

In all three types (ST, Inferno, Lairs), you know my vote for style but I wouldn't think Silent Tower should be purely fight/skill-based. It needs some intrigue - you put a lot of time into a great area that needs to mix more of the two goals and not include the ability for abuse of one person. Depending on the size of the group you want to focus on, that group needs to have the knowledge and the skill to throw around - just not the extremes of both. Maybe even have a fixed size limit of three people with no more/less possible. If my rambling makes sense, I'm summarizing by saying remove the single man aspect but keep some of the puzzle-y.

If anything make it knowledge on-the-fly, and not something a written doc can keep up with. I know that requires a crazy amount of options but for comparable example - that riddle outside the Pyramid....if there were say twenty riddles and you had one tick to answer, it'd be a lot different than it is now You would have to greatly condense the encounters but they would be a lot more challenging.

And that goes for a lot of areas. Time bound riddles to get through with a few different ones. Making it damned hard to know/learn them all. And the set number ain't bad either. I'm at work right now, but when I get home and have time I'll put up some ideas I have myself.


GO ST GO ST! EVERYBODY LOVES ST!

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

I spent probably a couple hundred hours, over several long-lived characters, figuring out stuff and or just soaking up the ambiance of the Silent Tower. There was always so much I wanted to do with groups, but it was basically impossible because unless the person already had the same level of knowledge I would have had to ruin the puzzle aspect of the area to get them up to speed enough to not get us killed.

Being the kind of person I am, I really don't like the idea of opening someone else's presents for them, thus spoiling the fun. So, that kind of barred me from doing anything with groups. It was very rare that I had one other person with me.

In a sense, the concept shoots itself in the foot. My suggestion would be to make the solo/puzzlish stuff more plausible for everyone and consistent all the way through (like...if 90% I can do by myself, but that last 10% demands a group presence, then chances are that I have to rush the group through the 90% and basically ruin the experience for them).

I know I'm ignorant of a lot of the finer workings of the place. I've never killed an archmage, but I suspect there are clever ways to dispatch them all (or most of them).

One possible way to balance out the awesome ST gear with my proposed dumb-down of the difficulty is to make everything you get there rot_death. Just an idea. I'm sure you can think of something more cool.



Last thing...I realize I'm rambling like crazy. It was very nice to have this area available as a hero. I don't typically like getting together giant groups, and it was cool to be able to go there and just do things at my own pace, while not having to worry about my groupmates needing to leave or getting killed and leaving me totally up #### creek, etc. And the fact that the rewards were actually relevant to a hero level character was great. I miss it

It was by far the most perfect, intriguing, angering area on the mud. There's no way you can just scrap it and leave it be. I loved Silent to death, I figured all kinds of stuff out on my own without OOC help, and whenever I was done with it with each character.. I usually just became a defiler and made the golem my biatch for all his pretty crytal lovin' and pk'd people until I got a new char idea.

It HAS to keep some of the puzzly type stuff, there is totally a way you can make it be puzzly and still figure out a way to make the information not matter so much if it gets leaked once again. That's what made Silent Tower beautiful, it's mystery, it just oozed "wtf do I do next" do I use this axe to fight him? Maybe that will work? Sweet I found a breakthrough. Or damn I lost another con!

I personally like the dragon lairs... to an extent... but what's the point in just making huge areas of badasses that you have to round up eight people for just to have fun? And the loot in the end is no where near the prize for the struggle from what I've seen. The blue lair is just plain retarded, I've been in there with groups of nine and still wiped, and I finally just said #### the area because those stupid ass vines. CF isn't built for massive gangs of groups anymore, it's once in a great while one comes along and you have to hop on it or you're screwed. Then after that... damn I died once and just lost the piece of gear from my once in a 2-3 month group. It's just depressing.

Let the lairs be the lairs, but you keep Silent true to what made it man. If anyone leaks the info, relentlessly hunt them down and lifetime bans for them all. Silent isn't silent without the puzzles, anything even resembling the dragon lairs would leave a sour taste in my mouth and I wouldn't even want to deal with it. Yeah sweet gear is cool and dandy.. but getting it from Silent should require intense deduction, thought process, and unique prepping.

EDIT: By the way, has anyone even killed Tiamet yet? And if not.. don't you think with people like Ahtieli/Tarleton and these super tough badasses, that Tiamet might need changed? Why have an unbeatable dragon? You might say everyone isn't bringing the right group and whatnot, but seriously, how often is that perfect group around? And that's just considering the "perfect group" as far as classes, have you see the type of normal heroes there are lately? Some are really handicapped and trying to learn how to walk to the Dreams let alone face some big ass immortal dragon. They freak out and freeze up and ruin it.

First off, let me disclaim that I have never been to Silent Tower in any capacity. To be honest, it makes me pretty bummed that I'm going to miss out entirely on what was there in the first place because of a few bad apples. I can only imagine how you feel about it.

Second, I think its actually important to have the kind of explore area you can very slowly progress through on your own if you're smart. Not everyone likes the massive group method, and I think you're one of those people- like me. Perhaps the solution lies in not making it more like the dragon lairs and hell, but more unique, more solo-adventure-y(tm). The down side to this of course, is that its more work that you would have to do, and still has the vulnerability which closed the area in the first place.

Another idea: Change the area so that every class essentially gets a different area. Yeah, I know I'm good at ideas what take a lot of work. Questy class-specific entrances (probably through the same mob, but different), which leads into a small puzzle riddled area with whatever else you want to stick in it. I have all sorts of ideas for nifty things, rewards, traps that could be stuck in for a bunch of the classes that would be best to e-mail about if this idea is viable. If its not, well, its a lot of work and I love to theorycraft as they say.

Provided two things.

That specific single explorer type knowledge work almost like the Sanctum, IE one of the old problems I heard discussed about the tower is people in the 'know' could get juiced up and pop out of the Tower with some crazy affects. Maybe if you had whatever magics the Tower granted you crumble when you leave would mitigate that.

Second, that you make it slightly more hero-centric. It's kinda a super buzzkill seeing someone in the know with absurdly powerful items. The dragon lair gear rarely gets seen by anyone but hero's.

Well, if he would change it so it was more like inferno/lairs then it would be very hero centric because lowbies would explode the first step.

I love the idea by the way, the problem is that even as I explored it alone (never managed to figure out that much, found a couple of archmages though) I felt that "Damn, if I would cooperate with someone OOC this would go 10x faster". It would ruin a lot of the fun, but..