So, being a mage basically is a sad trip if you cannot find your sleek wands. Especially for a new player. Or a returning older player. Ahem.

Using the extra barrier source is nice, but ultimately not really helping me all that much if I have few ideas on where to look. Even using other players as sources you still can come up short.

My suggestion is that you add a cheaper edge which gives you a hint.
Ei, say half of the cost of a sleek (appropriate type) extra location.
Can only be chosen once for each sleek type.
This will be of tremendous help for any new player and much less aversive. The hint's topography could consist of some elements of the room/area or mob type. (filled with the stench of the undead, those that dwell below the surface, the tree dwelling folk, and so on. )
Example: Look for one with a scorched wrist and a cabinet full of liqour. (this one may be to easy, but any hint of the area and or mob)

What this will do is allow players not in the know to atleast start to get an impression on where to look, and asking and searching may then be much less problematic, less deletations due to not finding their wands, and perhaps an increase in using the extra sleek location.

Just my 5cents.
Cheers Lars

4 of them bothered to look for their sleeks. The first 2 were when I had played in less than a year.

The first 2 found aura/shield, didn't hero so never looked for my black.

The third found aura/shield but not barrier, got into hero range but not to 47 for detect artifact. Looked for a few hours for the black, but didn't find it.

My fourth found ABS, took about 120ish hours from lvl 1 to lvl 50 with ABS. This was a outlander, evil transmuter, not the best range of groupmates to level with. heh

My fifth found ABS at lvl 40 or something, around 100 hours from lvl 1-40 with ABS. However, spent A LOT of that time looking for my black rod and learned a bunch of new possible locations by asking ICly.

The last two though was after I had played for 3-4 years, and heroed about 20ish warriors, so I had learned a bunch of possible locations by helping mages out, learning where I usually could see mages roaming around etc.

What I'm trying to say is that to me, the ABS system doesn't look so bad. (But then again, who am I to say that after only 5 mages?)

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

You do notice here that you are spending over half the char life looking for a wand?.

The thing is that if one looks at the average lifetime of a character and time spent looking for wands instead of role playing.

When you have to spend 5 characters + to find something that changes location every time, and the item can be in any of 100+ (200?) locations and you may or may not be able to get it on your own. It can turn very frustrating.

Im hoping that with an edge such as a "hint", would reduce this significantly and reduce some of the new player frustration. Just think how frustrating it is for those that have to learn all the lay of the land, and then are faced with the following dilemma : "Look for a sleek wand, its somewhere." You can be one of the most experienced players and still not find it, what are the chances that a new player will find it, even using the extra location?

I dont want this to be a rant, as Im quite capable of finding replacement wands, but this is due to having been around since just about the start of the mud. With breakes. I really love this mud, it gives a break from "reality", and I would love to see it grow. Making it somewhat easier for new players to find things that are somewhat crucial for a pk career I hope to see it grow.

Its my 5 cents, do with them what you like, but its a waste to throw them away. Pennies are cheep, ideas are not.

>what are the chances that a new player will find it
If that player has at least some brains to ask his buddies and cabalmates (and not being a douche at the same time) - the chances are very high.

My chars rarely die/delete before 300+ hours. My last few chars have been 350, 550, 710 and 200something.

I wouldn't call 80-150 hours half a chars life. 200 I'd say is near half of a chars life.

And the list I've built up, I haven't heard of any new locations for 2 chars now. I have about 30 amber locations, 30 sienna and 32 black on my list by now. (Then add quite a few limited I've learned as well.)

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

Last 10 players on the pbf average at 189,3 hours. Spend 100 hours searching for a wand and you have more than the average players time. Now most chars, not your chars(no ioa here, but ill let that rest). Dont last that long. (ei, half the chars life). Is that interesting for you to interact with? (also I do doubt most spend 100 hours searching, but even half that is way to much to find a wand, that you will need to defend yourself.)

New players probably shorter, hardcore older players perhaps longer, and search less as they are "savy".

The point as simple as I can make it. As a new player, searching 50+ (should you search for a hundred as was suggested, that is more than half the average players lifetime) hours for something that you need to survive in a pk environment is not encouraging. If they were given some hint at where it may be it MAY help them build the list old players have made over years of playing.

Anyhow this has turned into something I did not want it to. Most are not interested in helping new players be successful. I personally would love for those new to the game have some incentive to keep playing, and not be frustrated.

Cheers LH

and discussed a lot. The only thing Zulgh made is additional sleek spot edges.

If yes, send me a PM if you would, we know each other

go out and get detect artifact; level to say 40 and visit all the areas with a strong mage theme to them and you should find at least one or two of your wands.

Honestly its that simple. I actually tend to find my wands while doing my hero range gearing since mage gear often is on mage mobs and so are sleeks.

that being said there are non sleek sources some of which you can buy and one of which is in a very high traffic area (*cough* htos *cough* *cough*). There are widely available preps for protection (both in potion and stave form) and stoneskin (mostly in pill form). If you combine one or both of those with your inherent shield spell and perhaps a bough aura then that should be sufficient for 95% of all fights that you should be involved in in the first place.


I think mages not having ABS is actually very helpful to mages because it means that the mage you are fighting likely doesn't have it either so fights become more about in combat skills vs who can have the highest effective hp.

The problem is that a mage's success is seen by his availability of ABS. People don't say "man, that was a scary mage" unless he pretty much always had ABS. My last set of mages either never found their wands or their wands were in a rediculously impossible place for them to even hope to solo. I managed to find three non-sleek barrier wands with my last mage that I could easily get and that sufficed until I got bored with the lack of enemies that would do something besides quaff a potion or run into the cabal immediately. But I had something like 10,000 observe and explore xp each and still did not find my wands. I litterally ran out of mage mobs that I knew about to kill and had resorted to killing every single mob in every area.

But the system won't ever change because they have invested too much time into it. So griping about it won't do much.

Right now I'm more disgusted with the complete lack of RP from people (esepcially in my own cabal) and the obvious OOC connectedness with people (especially in my own cabal) than the wands I can't get. If I were to gripe about something, it would be that.

" I managed to find three non-sleek barrier wands with my last mage that I could easily get and that sufficed until I got bored with the lack of enemies that would do something besides quaff a potion or run into the cabal immediately."

if you don't want people to just avoid you then you have to provide incentive for them to stand and fight. To put this in RL terms, are you more likely to pick a fight with a guy about your same size that doesn't have any noticeable drastic advantages over you or some dude in an armored tank?

You need to create a situation where your opponent feels they have a chance to win if you want to prevent them running (we run when we feel we have no chance to win). So yeah your right that if you want to fight 3 people at once at their cabal inner guardian then yeah you will need a boat load of preps. But the fact that they are only willing to fight there is likely a result of you using too much preperation in previous fights and them just assuming that is the only place they should want to fight you.

If you are winning fights and not below 50% hp then you are likely reducing your chance for future PKs unless you can overcome an enemies tendency to avoid you through some other means (like stealth or traps)