Assumption: The gear you carried belongs to the guy that killed you.

Because you, the victim, will not be able to prevent him from killing you in your regear, and you will not be able to get anything better when someone has inherent abilities (murder healer, murder shifter, murder conjie) to find you, you will end up dying again.

This sounds like an argument to go read a book rather than play CF. That isn't a good marketing strategy.

That it was the norm in the not-so-distant past does not justify it now, and the hypocrisy that it is supported behavior for one character but condemned in others strikes me as bizarre. Admittedly, at least Shura's friends benefited from her generosity, but similar full loot/saccing behavior in Jindicho led to him being seriously handcuffed.

Note: I did not interact with either character in any way, shape, or form, pk or rp, and so what I see -appears- as a glaring inconsistency.

Full saccing isn't just black or white.

What will happen after you full loot someone? That one will try to avoid you at all cost and it will be much harder for you to seal another kill on him.

What will happen after you don't take anything from someone? That one will know that he will only loose 1/3 of con and will have next 2 rl hours free from being hunted. He will die to you many times and you will be happy to have more pk kills.

I actually saw some really strong characters don't loot a single thing and tell their allies to do the same when they kill someone who doesn't mind dying to them. Then they would also say on the forums something about respecting the ones who gave them many pks.
But when these strong characters meet someone whom they can beat, but can't really kill they will full sac them (whenever they will finally have the chance to do it) and write about them being cowards on the BF.


I am not sure that not looting in such situation is a sign of good sportmanship.


But that's the real reason why many people almost never loot.

For me full saccing is the punishment for something done for your chatacter. Different characters hate different things. I'm sure warrior who lost only 1 thing after he died - swordmaster's gauntlets will always full sac the one who took it (even though that one looted only 1 thing). But staff spec warrior will never full sac someone who stripped their staff of striking because it's just one of 20 average staffs for warrior.

I'll take me and you as the exemple.

My warrior, an arial spear spec, couldn't beat you, the healer (Forgot the race). I couldn't do damage enough, if I'd switch with things to dual wield, my HP would get screwed by the rings of lightning/prayer beads/etc.

So what I did was disarm you trying to discourage you because I COULD NOT beat you.

So yeah, I'd eat a full loot. You said 'If you loot someone, it will discourage him to come to you' It didn't stop you to return to me afterward to kill me and fullsac me again (Or try but fail since I'd be able to get away somehow)

Honestly, I think the worst I did was looting 4-5 pieces because I had crap but never full-saced someone for any sake at all and I've been full-looted/full-sacced/multi-killed a few times.

I'm not saying 'Do like me' though, just saying you were crap and your actions was, even though you call it ARPEE was unjustified and unnecessary even though you were rewarded for your later redempted actions.

..you're an asshole regardless of how you look at it.

..was a bit drunk when I wrote that. Didn't mean to be so harsh. It's true though, people put too much time into justifying their actions. If you feel like you're justified in full looting/sac'ing, it's fine, but it's a propagation that really does reduce the playerbase's overall fun stick and we should be desperately trying to keep that as a high as possible to keep as many players as possible. From reading Dioxide's it sounds like you really turned off a ton of people from the game so I just don't see how your actions were justified, but it's definitely not technically against the game rules.

-thinnie

Dude, you were a d-ck. Just admit it. You lost your staff and then you sacrificed everything. You had others sitting at recall points waiting. You justify it by saying, 'what if' comments.

Most people dont loot, because most people are not d-cks. You had an annoying healer with proging gear that gates to othes all the time. Continually killing people over and over. You sacrificed their things because they took your staff, or sacrificed it? give me a break. that was their only time in trying to escape you. Your knowledge of the game lead you to get more things, so it's easier for you.

I'm sure you've played this game much longer than others. But, you made it no fun for anyone else. You annoyed and hassled everyone. That is why you were not liked. NOone likes being killed like that when they try to play a game.

i'm sure your response is, "it's a pk mud" that might be the case, but you still can have some kind of respect for the characters.

Dont sugar coat anything. Just come out and say, "I'm a ####, and I was wish Shura when things didn't go my way."

This sounds and feels exactly right. Mainly because, when a kill actually happens 1 on 1 there is usually a large skill/gear disparity, and the crappy player doesn't have anything/much that fits the better player's build.

This is all excepting the unstable griefers (the Krilcovs, etc.) of the game).

And when Guy and JMC full-sacced my sad-ass, ####ty elf warrior because they couldn't pin down Crafted's bard. Bah.

d

I still remember, one of my first chars to make it past 20 was a n/n bard that grouped with a cloud giant Trib of yours that asked me outright: what would you do if I bashed you?

I said, well, it would be at hero (dumb newbie talking) so I would sing 'when you don't see me'. And then you asked, "what would you do if I bashed you right now?" Then you told me about enlarges and diminutions, and the importance of having teleports and return potions. So I pretty much have total faith that you, whatever you're doing, do SOMETHING to help the newbies.

Because, yeah, you were the first (and one of the few) to really help me, even if it didn't really sink in. /end dikslobbering

I ####ing hated you with that char. Which made my world feel right.

And now I find myself liking you. I attribute it to the drugs.

You're right, as well. That char was pretty much crap.

Cheers, to a me-less-douche CF, aye? Funny how we were forum enemies for a hot minute: now, not at all.

I think there is a fundamental disconnect with how the playerbase views looting.

Key points: Full-looting is not bad. Full-looting just to make the OOC player upset is bad. Full-saccing is mostly always bad with the cavaet that if you have a specific char/role in mind, it's not horrible. But, here is the rub. YOU CANNOT ROLE THAT CHARACTER EVERY TIME YOU PLAY. Otherwise, it isn't the character that's an evil prick, it's you.


Point #2: I'm a proponent for sportmanship. I'm also a proponent for looting. How is that possible you ask? Because somehow sportmanship began to trump RP. Is it bad RP to not loot someone's pimp gear because you don't want the player to be upset? Yup.

'But Sam' you ask, 'Don't we want to keep players? Isn't looting people keeping people from playing?' And I answer, perhaps. But no more no less than having a life, having a job, playing some other game, etc, etc, etc.

So, what are you actually saying Sam? What I am saying is instead of having these 'tea parties' like Lyristeon talks about (and he is completely right about that, it started to disgust me around playing Aeinrez when mortal enemies would be handing gear back to each other and chatting and basically acting like two people playing a game instead of two characters), how about you act in a RP-centric manner.

'But Sam' you ask, 'How can we do this and still show sportmanship. My dark-elf AP has every right to full sac that dwarf paladin trying to viciously murder me if we followed your advice'. My answer, how about you do things like this (PS another reason why Dulmisa ruled):

Tue Nov 15 05:09:49 2005 by 'Khasotholas' at level 51 (513 hrs):
On full looting... You tell Feichin 'I do allways leave what I do not need and I will continue doing such, I know that not one of you stands a chance against me on your own, so I want you to have the best chances of giving m

Tue Nov 15 05:10:34 2005 by 'Khasotholas' at level 51 (513 hrs):
continue doing such, I know that not one of you stands a chance against me on your own, so I want you to have the best chances of giving me anythin close to a fight.'

Now that's how you show sportsmanship without sacrificing RP. My main man in Amsterdam Vincent Vega shows us all how it's done.

C'est fin. PS Gear isn't the end all be-all. I guarantee you if you pimp a newbie out in full hell gear and give me a practice sword and fine leather, I'm rolling his ass 99 times out of 100. Yet laughingly, it's the main reason people cheat and break RP. Says something about all of us huh?

C'est fin. PS Gear isn't the end all be-all. I guarantee you if you pimp a newbie out in full hell gear and give me a practice sword and fine leather, I'm rolling his ass 99 times out of 100. Yet laughingly, it's the main reason people cheat and break RP. Says something about all of us huh?

This doesn't hold. I'm not sure why people insist it does, but having good eq is one of the major factors that seperates strong characters from weak ones. If it wasn't, who would care about loots? In melee class matchups a practice sword dude literally can't beat an überloaded guy even if said überloaded guy was afk for the fight.

Listen, all other things being equal, gear plays a HUGE part. Possibly the biggest.

But player skill ALWAYS trumps gear. ALWAYS. If you suck, it's not because your gear sucks, it's because you might not be that great at the PK aspect of this game.

What's funny is that as the game grows and gets older, gear becomes both more important AND less important. It's more important because if you are a solid player, certain gear allows you to do things you couldn't with fine leather + practice sword. However, it's less important in that the newbie Fire Giant with a full Hell set doesn't see your necro walking up invis and gets slept and killed.

Understand where I am coming from?

I hope you at least agree with the cheat/break RP thing?

Skill does not always trump gear, especially in situations where the class/cabal matchup doesn't favor the more-skilled player.

I'll include "preps" in the same category as gear, since many times people are utilizing limited preps that they can't just go re-get after having them looted.

Being more skilled helps. Having better gear helps. Having mastered your skills helps. Having a lower-latency connection helps. But I don't think you can really say that player skill trumps all else in every situation.

My last thief was able to one-shot some duergar thieves with backstab. That was gear. Take away the dagger and some +dam gear and I can't one-shot them. It took virtually no skill on my part. They may have been supremely skilled; all I had to do is get into the same room and get first command.

Now if we're talking about someone of extremely low ability, then even with gear they're going to struggle in situations where success requires player skill. But not all PK situations do. You don't have to be a PK genius to spam bash. If you're not very skilled then sooner or later you'll spam bash when you ought not to have and die because of it, but in situations where it's the right thing to do...all you have to do is keep entering the same command. With super-pimp gear (or powers) you may get some kills that way against players who are legitimately more skilled than you.

Another example: Shura + staff of striking. Shaapa is clearly very good at PK. Take away the staff and Shura's deatfulness is greatly impaired, despite no change in the player's skill. There were probably some characters Shura could beat with the staff that he could not beat without the staff.

Because then, well, you probably should be looting the piss out of everyone you fight to get the best possible set of gear. Seriously. That is what you are saying (which I don't necessarily COMPLETELY disagree with).

I do disagree with this line of thinking though and here is why. IE Give me Nepenthe in fine leather v. Torak in Hell gear and Nepenthe wipes the floor with him 99 times out of 100. Obviously if Torak is a Fire AP with 100 charges and Nepenthe is a gnome thief in Outlander, that may change, but all things being equal...

You said you couldn't have one-shotted those duergar without gear. Does that mean you couldn't have figured out another way to kill them? Because I would imagine given your small amount of skill and ingeniuity you would have still killed them, just not as easily.

An example. I got fulled a long while back with a Fire Sword spec of mine. I grabbed a rapier from the sewers and a black iron broadsword, and managed to kill a decked dwarf warrior who had levels on me mostly because he spammed bash and I abused the #### out of his ####ty tactics.

PS I disagree about the Shura example. The staff wasn't what killed people, no matter what you think or what people complain about. It was Shapa's utter RELENTLESSNESS that led to him getting kills. If he didn't have the staff, well, he'd just use other ways to kill. I'm sure having the staff made it EASIER to kill for him though. Does everyone forget the log of him killing the group of three with no gear?

PPS You just said Hunsobo was a total gear whore with no real player skill. I mean, I'm just saying

Where did I say gear was the most important thing?

My basic point is that "being more skilled than your opponent doesn't make every fight tilt in your favor." Basically sometimes "the other stuff" overwhelms the skill element.

>Because then, well, you probably should be looting the piss
>out of everyone you fight to get the best possible set of
>gear.

I do. If someone has something better than what I have or that I think I can quickly trade for something better than what I have then I'll probably take it. Usually people don't have much worth taking. And my tolerance for "carrying around crap just to trade" is very, very low, so unless it benefits me directly I'll probably leave it alone.

>Obviously if Torak is a Fire AP with 100 charges and
>Nepenthe is a gnome thief in Outlander, that may change, but
>all things being equal...

That's the problem with your reasoning: it is rarely the case that "all else" is equal. In a fight between two characters who are clones of each other, sure, skill (and link) are the deciding factors. But rarely do two characters fight who are copies of each other.

>You said you couldn't have one-shotted those duergar without
>gear. Does that mean you couldn't have figured out another
>way to kill them?

I could have. But it would have been lower percentage than just walking up and backstabbing, which means I would probably have wound up with fewer kills against those characters.

>An example. I got fulled a long while back with a Fire Sword
>spec of mine. I grabbed a rapier from the sewers and a black
>iron broadsword, and managed to kill a decked dwarf warrior
>who had levels on me mostly because he spammed bash and I
>abused the #### out of his ####ty tactics.

His gear (vs. yours) wasn't sufficient to overcome the vast chasm between your two levels of skill. What I take away from this:

1. Mediocre (or in some cases downright sub-standard) gear doesn't prevent a skilled player from killing someone who does the absolute worst thing he could do in every phase of a fight.

2. Mediocre (or sub-standard) gear may prevent a skilled player from killing some opponents of average skill (i.e. they don't do anything amazing, but they also don't bash themselves to death).

>PPS You just said Hunsobo was a total gear whore with no real
>player skill. I mean, I'm just saying

No I didn't.

>That's the problem with your reasoning: it is rarely the case that "all else" is equal. In a fight between two characters who are clones of each other, sure, skill (and link) are the deciding factors. But rarely do two characters fight who are copies of each other.<

You may have missed my original point it seems. I started the argument with 'If you give a newbie Hell gear set, and me practice sword + fine leather I am whupping that ass'. And I actually said if two PLAYERS are near copies of each other, GEAR IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING (IE two fire sword specs played by Vets). I never mentioned clones of characters etc etc etc. What I meant by SKILL trumps GEAR was that if I have a choice between a semi-decent guy with a pimp set or a 15 yr vet former IMM who rocks 95% ratio's in full midnight, I'd bet on the 15 yr vet and take him everytime.

But whatever. Basically, what I am saying is the vocal members of the playerbase seem to have become a bunch of giant whining pussies and if you want to have sportsmanship, you better not sacrifice RP to do so. Take that for what you will.

The example of fine rapier and red dragon vs. 'decked' dwarf warrior is not comparable for to practice sword vs. really decked for two reasons

#1 disparage between fine rapier and practice sword is huge, fine rapier is so so so much better, not to mention red dragon eq. vs fine leather. So what you gave an example of was regear, not practice sword

#2 I don't think dwarf warrior was really decked. He may have ok hit/dam/hp pieces, but 'decked out in hell gear' to me means exactly that - I want weapons of avg 30 minimum, norem or nodisarm, preferably progs, healing items, mark of dwarven crusader etc. I want damroll of 70 or 80. He also has perma haste. Said enemy is hitting straight deva, hasted and progging straight deva or more very often.

To make it more simple, in the matchup you told as an example, gear disparage was where you have silvery rapier and he has ivory wakizashi. The disparage I am suggesting was one where you would hit mutilates and he hits devastates. That's 5 times as much damage/hit. Not to mention his progs alone outdamage you, and you have no way of outdamaging him even when he is afk. GOGOGOGOGOGO!

Trust me on this one, but back in the day what you proposed held true. Darkened eq and wide coppers was king. Now if you have darkened eq and wide copper you have 'decent' set. Check out Cabdru, Ravon, Zorszaul etc. and see how many pieces of darkened eq they were wearing in their set. There is eq in the game that just makes things very lopsided, but it's typically very rare and very hard to get.

In the long run skill is ofcourse deciding factor. That's why powerhouses are consistanrtly played by same characters. But what makes Twist's or Acaga's fire warrior own other fire warrior when it comes to bashbashflurrying? The previously mentioned two are consistantly doing it with armageddon, humansunder and a pair of happygauntlets. Your random noob might get one piece with luck (unlikely), and then lose it.

asdf

Some of other posters are going over an old fallacy-- that most fights are one-on-one mandatory death matches where both competitors are locked in a box. Controlling there where and when of the fight is a lot of the difference between successful PKers and less successful ones.

It's also ridiculous to posit a matchup where one character has a full set of Hell gear and the other guy can't find anything outside the Academy for some reason. Part of player skill is area knowledge, and even moderate command of our areas means being able to rapidly put together a set of equipment appropriate for your level.

The difference between 'skill' and 'gear' is what happens after you're killed and looted. The skilled player recognizes that gear is no big deal and they'll just get more, without relying on luck (pit loot, normally-maxed item is in, etc.) or other players. The guy who is relying on gear he begged for or lucked into is just hosed.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Which just emphasizes on how ridiculous it's to say that pk skill somehow trumps eq, when a big part of skill is in fact being able to get and keep that eq.

CALL THE POLICE CALL HOMELAND SECURITY ITS A DISASTER

ITS ALMOST LIKE THEY'RE ACTUALLY PLAYING A GAME

oh wait.

Seriously.

I'd rather have a game full of tea parties than a game full of players with this attitude.

I play games to have fun, and I quite simply don't have fun when other people waste hours of my time forcing me to regear.

I don't have fun while I'm regearing from a full sac - I've done it hundreds of times and quite frankly it loses its charm after the first two or three.

You wanna know why vets leave this game? Its cause they don't have time for it. You wanna know why they don't have time for it? Because they know that the fun they get out of the game (when they're fully geared and ready to fight, explore, RP, whatever) is not worth the #### they get when they are forced to spend hundreds of hours per character getting more items, gold, preps, whatever.

It's the manner in which you play them that matters. If it's "I'm here, come beat me!", great. If it's "I'm going to be an a-hole to as many people as I can, especially those that don't offer any kind of challenge.", not so good

Not sure when a goodie healer has become a high-end power combo, but the concept is right.

.

Outlander goodie covers both the issues.

One issue was that healers couldn't prevent escape, but outlander leader can. You could say he killed lots as a lowbie, but lowbies often don't have the magical escape they need, and any clash with refresh and curse can run them down. I remember most of my shaman kills at low level were just down to refresh, really.

Then you have the ability for the healer to run them down, with windwalk.

Then you have beastcall to do the damage.

It's not a combo I'd personally like to play, but it covers all of a healer's shortfalls. What they then lack can be made up for by the ability to find the enemy, although I accept that going in blind is potentially very risky. However, there will be lots of times when you basically know you won't be in danger because the people online are insufficient to put you in danger.

I just want to point out that I hate this argument to death. Yeah, X years ago looting was Y times worse. Great, but during that same period, re-gearing was much easier. An by re-gearing, I mean getting close to or equal in quality gear to what I lost. Why? Because back then there were more people and more fights and more raids and more cabal pits overflowing with equipment and looting was more common (so I could actually do it without starting a ####ing riot) and looting was easier (no corpse guard, mobs that could carry tons of eq, etc.).

"Back in the day", one could eat a full loot and within 30-40 minutes, phat loot would practically find them because of all the mayhem going on AND because (ding ding ding) looting was common, so equipment was being circulated a LOT more.

Today, most of the time, when you eat the loss of a full loot, you aren't able to reap the benefits of looting (or even loose gear in pits, on the ground, etc.) because there are fewer players, fewer fights, less bloodshed, AND most importantly, because it's so frowned upon and/or gets too many people all butthurt.

I could eat 4 chic-fil-a sandwiches in a sitting and then go play soccer. I could drink all night and still make it to Friday class (I just chose not to go, but I could have!!). I had time to work on skills that needed work or could go regather gear for 45 minutes and not be put out.

Back in the day we could run off 5 people a month and not take a hit in the numbers.

I can't do those things any longer. It takes a toll. And my life doesn't fit the requirements, even if they've loosened up a small bit.

Back in the day doesn't matter. The game should be structured for today's environment. As is, I can't play and haven't. I get my fix by running through the the academy once every couple of months and I'm done playing. Back in the day that didn't happen.

d

I agree.

I don't think anything to do with the past in CF should automatically serve as a valid justification or explanation of why things do/should work today.

Part of my point was that in the past, the way things worked (re: looting) weren't a big deal because those same conditions made it far easier to remedy the problem.

For example: I find the various "denial of ranking" tactics to be FAR more annoying than looting. My time is limited. I can't play 12 hours a day like Shura. On the rare occasion I get a really good group together and actually find myself in a scenario where I can bang out a good chunk of levels, I'm going to be really, really upset when someone griefs me or my group all night long and prevents (or makes far more difficult) my ability to level up. Years ago, groups were more plentiful and I had a lot more time to MUD, so I could shrug it off and say "Whatever, I'll rank later." Today, that's less appealing.

The same goes with looting. These days, the "punishment" I get for using "dirt;disarm" on someone's favorite weapon or taking a couple choice items from a victory kill puts me behind for a lot longer than it did in the past, and generally requires more effort to make up (especially if I choose to do so without using tactics that start flame wars and whatnot.)

The philosophy CF used to exist by was that gear comes and goes readily, but that's just not true anymore. As I said on a battlefield post, you can't just quickly regear, bash someone down and be back to normal. You can't find a corpse full of stuff on eastern. There's a certain critical mass of players that is required to make the flow of gear really work, and I think we're below that threshold.

What has happened is a cyclical degeneration. It gets harder to get gear, so people play more conservatively, which makes it harder to get gear. There's a more gear in the game, but the size of the playerbase is even smaller, so you basically never run into someone who isn't geared well anymore. And while that sounds like it should mean it's easy to regear, what it really means is that unless you also take the time to go get that greate gear, you're at a disadvantage.

With a larger playerbase, you could count on there being at least a few people running around in crap like you are, and you could just dodge the guys who dramatically outgeare you and have fun fighting the guys who are in your position. With the smaller playerbase, you're lucky to have six enemies, and they probably all have good gear. So if you don't also spend time getting good gear you're at a sizeable disadvantage. And that, in turn, makes full looting a lot more of a pain in the ass than it used to be.

That's why sportsmanship is more important now.

The world of RPG video gaming is very different from what it was back in 1992.

Back then, the Dragon Warrior model was common. That is, you run around killing monsters for points, do a little bit of plot and then go back to killing monsters for points. The biggest evolution since then is away from drudgery towards more constant variation of action and plot. Very few game are released these days that involve a lot of skill boosting.

The other big one is the assumptions people made about available information. Information about games used to be called "spoilers" and it was assumed that when you played you wouldn't know where anything was most of the time. Finding the secrets was a big part of it. Nobody plays games that way anymore. Full knowledge based on community sharing is not just the standard, but a multiplayer game with information restriction is foreign.

Finally, a lot of games had permanent loss. In those old RPGs you had to save a lot because you might permanently ruin your ability to win. Games like Moria and Angband were popular, and in general dying meant a lot of loss. Now the world has evolved to an ideal of ever-increased character development.

When CF was first developed, none of these features were unique. Most RPGs involved skill grinding, most RPGs involved secret information and most RPGs involved serious penalties. These were not features that differentiated CF from its peers. Now, they are, and I think some of them are good features, and some of them are relics.

I think there is a niche for CF, but it has to adapt, or it will continue to languish regardless of marketing. In my mind, the core feature of CF is that it is absolutely the only game that combines both PVP and RP effectively. There are other games with PVP and RP, but every other one I've seen, one of the two domains thoroughly trumps the other. The other big feature is permanent death. This is huge, and is what keeps CF constantly fresh. There are other good things, like the distinctive atmosphere, balanced game mechanics, etc, but in terms of the main reasons you play CF instead of another game, those are it, for me at least.

Now some of this is selfish, because as I've aged, my tastes have changed, but I think that CF really needs to consider some major updates in order to remain attractive. Here are my opinions:

Information hiding. The ship has really sailed on this one. It's not more fun than the alternative, and it's not even feasible. The fact is that it unbalances the game by allowing people to very easily get away with cheating, and there is essentially no remedy for that. I think that competing based on equal knowledge of the game is more fun in general than gaining secrets. This goes for everything from basic mechanics to area knowledge. You don't have to reveal the code and data files, but lifting once and for all the restictions on what can or can't be shared would be a good first step. Things have been moving this way for a while, I think it's time to just bite the bullet and accept that the times of discovering information being an advantage are past.

Skill practice. Gone is the time when sheer drudgery was viewed as the fun part of a game. Many RPGs involve grinding, but how many of them also include permanent death. Back when Diku was written, the idea of skilling up was interesting and novel. Now gamers have lots of alternatives that don't include doing boring stuff for points. I think it's time to overhaul the skill practice system to make it so that drudgery methods no longer confer *any* advantage. Make skills increase only by level and age, if rewarding older characters is what you want. There is no serious realism argument to be made here, because the skill system is fundamentally unrealistic.

Serious penalties. Looting is also a core element of CF. The existence of limited gear and the way it is exchanged is fundamental. In this regard, I don't think any hard-coded restriction is warranted, but more of an attitude shift. I think that "your gear is forfeit if you die" should not be the default attitude. That made sense in the harder-core past, but not anymore. The solution, as far as I'm concerned is for the staff to collectively nudge people in the direction of sportsmanship. That means not rewarding people who are routinely poor sports, and even just sending people tells saying that what they're doing is not approved of. This isn't mean to be a hard fix, but more of a soft pressure in the right direction. Also, the playerbase is primarily responsible for the atmosphere of the game. The staff can only do so much.

And nobody read more than the first paragraph of that, but oh well.

> And nobody read more than the first paragraph of that, but oh well.

Don't underestimate people!

> Information hiding.

The mystery is a large part of the allure. Taking it away will kill the game.

> Skill practice. Gone is the time when sheer drudgery was viewed as the fun part of a game. Many RPGs involve grinding, but how many of them also include permanent death. Back when Diku was written, the idea of skilling up was interesting and novel. Now gamers have lots of alternatives that don't include doing boring stuff for points. I think it's time to overhaul the skill practice system to make it so that drudgery methods no longer confer *any* advantage. Make skills increase only by level and age, if rewarding older characters is what you want. There is no serious realism argument to be made here, because the skill system is fundamentally unrealistic.

Skill practice is only as important as you make it. The more important skills go up anyway and the rest don't matter all that much. If you go wild on rows of 100%s, feel free. Personally I don't think it's as much an issue as some make it.

> The existence of limited gear and the way it is exchanged is fundamental.

The sad part about this is that there is gear about that I may never ever get hands on, no matter how long I keep playing. The really sad bit is that it's often hoarded by people that can't even use it. That's a shame, but not all that important.

Having flurry at 100% with a level 31 fire giant means wtfpwnsauce. Seriously, it does. And there is NO way this happens without grind. Same applies for weapon skills for example. The fact that you are ok with having sucky skills (and getting your ass beat, mind you), does not mean that someone is not gaining an advantage on you by grinding it out.

In fact I have a feeling people are spending much more time solo ranking or straight up grinding than some 5 years ago, but I could be wrong.

Personally I didn't mind having it mastered only gradually, which I did with my last Storm sword spec.

That grind is just so mindnumbingly boring, I don't do it.

>That grind is just so mindnumbingly boring, I don't do it.

That's how I've always felt, but you know what, it makes a huge difference. Maybe the difference between 99 and 100 isn't that great, but getting them to at least 90 (and probably 95) make a huge, huge difference. I used to believe what the Immortals said about skills not being important, until I actually did it myself. So when you say it's only important if you make it important, I guess you could mean that someone might decide that winning isn't important, and that therefore skills aren't important. But if you're competitive you don't want to play at a disadvantage.

Anyhow, I see almost no difference between grinding to 90% and grinding to 100. Once I've decided I'm not actually going to play my character I'm going to grind skills instead, whether I spend 1 hour or 3 makes no difference. Because at that point I've already decided I'm going to just be reading a book or something and not actually playing the game for a while, just mashing macros and glancing over once in a while.

Personally, having to do skill practice completely breaks my IC feeling, so now I just decided that it doesn't count, and I just zone out and pretend like it never happened.

But most of the time, like you, I simply refuse to do it. And it's part of why I suck.

But I currently have something like an 80-90% win percentage with over 30 kills (probably closer to 50, but I quit counting honestly). I have died in pk six times now (two of those don't really count cause one fight I purposefully lost to ditch a wanted flag and the other I was too drunk to type in whole sentences...) And here's the kicker... I lost one fight because I failed word of recall... it's sitting at 80% as we speak. It will probably stay sitting there cause I lost interest in my role so I'm not spamming up a spell for a char I could delete at any moment. I had a return potion in my hands so if I wanted I could've fled/quaffed. I haven't even mastered my "supreme class spell". It's at 92%. I have more kills under my belt when the spell was resisted than when it wasn't. I have not died in one on one combat except for getting bashed down by a giant bash pre-25 and in one battle where I over extended myself by accidentally casting a spell one more time than I meant to. (Also pre-25). So to finalize my point, me with my 80% and 90% skills has a better win/loss ratio than most people who "grind" away at their spells. I am NOT conservative. I have logs of fights where I had NO protections, no bash protection, going up against axe specs with pincer. They were very short, but did not result in a PK loss.

On the topic of looting, I agree with what Valg said. And it was an ooc rant someone gave when I took virtually nothing from their corpse (another guy, however, did take a lot). But the whole event just killed my enjoyment of the game and after that I lost interest and I seriously doubt I'll get it back with this character.

The problem with looting now though is that back in the day you could kill one mob... one single mob... and get a decent enough set of gear to get back into it. Get a crap weapon, get a shield, kill the blue dragon (or request green armor from giant guardian, kill two spitfires, poncho from the high tower) and then you go get a better weapon and poof, still a ghost, and back in the game. You can't do that now. The standard has risen (a 22 dam roll won't get you the mileage it used to). Right now I'm fighting warriors that dish out *** devestates *** with standard non-vuln melee strikes and I don't have a barrier rod I can get... at all. I recently ranked up enough to make use of ONE non-sleek source, so I can stand a small chance (if it's in). I can't even pay people to help me get it. (Yes, I found it. It's on the one mob that my class can't solo without sacrificing a whole hour of play time. And I will need two zaps of barrier to complete the kill so it's not exactly efficient.) So if I ever manage to kill one of those decked out f*ckers, you had better believe I am taking EVERYTHING. If for no other reason than for the hour it takes them to regear, I can have enough peace to attempt to get my black rod.

..but are you just taking out your bitterness on people for having a random barrier spot and the way the game has been structured? I've definitely looted in times where my cabal is far far outnumbered, but for the most part, I find it leads to a stifling environment where people don't take chances and fight less often due to the given penalty of having to gear from scratch.

-thinnie

What you mean is "Winning is only important if you make it important", which is still true.

Grinding out skills/spells has a HUGE impact on PK. It's up the player to decide if that margin is worth it, but that margin still exists whether you "make it important" or not.

And that's all well and good, because the guy who spends the extra time grinding the skills, for example, deserves to whoop me when my spec skills fail and his do not or I fail the blackjack/sleep and get toasted, etc.

>Serious penalties. Looting is also a core element of CF. The
>existence of limited gear and the way it is exchanged is
>fundamental. In this regard, I don't think any hard-coded
>restriction is warranted, but more of an attitude shift. I
>think that "your gear is forfeit if you die" should not be the
>default attitude. That made sense in the harder-core past, but
>not anymore. The solution, as far as I'm concerned is for the
>staff to collectively nudge people in the direction of
>sportsmanship. That means not rewarding people who are
>routinely poor sports, and even just sending people tells
>saying that what they're doing is not approved of. This isn't
>mean to be a hard fix, but more of a soft pressure in the
>right direction. Also, the playerbase is primarily responsible
>for the atmosphere of the game. The staff can only do so
>much.

Might as well make it a mush or moo. Sorry, but this is pk-mud. Being an asshat for the sake of being an asshat is frowned upon. Overexaggerating is ignored. Many people complained. Most of the complaints sounded more like, "Hey! Goodie healer isn't supposed to kill me!"
>
>And nobody read more than the first paragraph of that, but oh
>well.
>

I did.

>Might as well make it a mush or moo. Sorry, but this is
>pk-mud. Being an asshat for the sake of being an asshat is
>frowned upon. Overexaggerating is ignored. Many people
>complained. Most of the complaints sounded more like, "Hey!
>Goodie healer isn't supposed to kill me!"

I think it can still be a PK mud, with gear passed around, and still have an atmosphere of sportsmanship.

You can even play to win (a la http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html) and still be sportsmanlike. It's basically all about OOC respect. IC, no respect, you go for thekill. OOC, you respect the player. I'm not advocating for a full-loot free mud (go see my other posts), but all but a tiny, tiny fraction of full-saccing, for example, is about OOC disrespect. That's the only part I want to see go away.

I appreciate that you read it, thank you.

I'm not advocating for a full-loot free mud (go see my
>other posts), but all but a tiny, tiny fraction of
>full-saccing, for example, is about OOC disrespect. That's the
>only part I want to see go away.

The problem is that most people can't eat a (real!) full loot and walk away from it. At that point, it's all about escalation.

Joe kills Bob.
Joe fulls Bob for IC reason.
Bob's player vows to get revenge on Joe's player for being an "asshole".
Bob kills Joe.
Bob fulls Joe out of player-anger.
Joe's player vows to get revenge on Bob's player for being an "asshole".
This continues, fueled by player emotions and is no only entirely IC.

I'd REALLY love to see what would happen if the Immortals implemented a (HYPOCRITE) flag that prevented looted and sacrificing of any kind once a character has broken the "practice what thy preach" rule. Even if it were just a temporary exercise / social experiment.

>Might as well make it a mush or moo. Sorry, but this is
>pk-mud. Being an asshat for the sake of being an asshat is
>frowned upon. Overexaggerating is ignored. Many people
>complained. Most of the complaints sounded more like, "Hey!
>Goodie healer isn't supposed to kill me!"

I understand Immortals such as yourself being skeptical for things you didn't see firsthand, but we're not only talking about murder healer specifically, but rather griefing in general. No one is saying for you to purge/slay anyone for doing anything within the rules, but rather put some effort in to keep players especially new players from getting frustrated and leaving. If a player doesn't have a chance to get immersed in cabal wars and everything else that makes CF unique, then they will never have a chance to really understand how badass CF really is. Do you think that the numbers for CF solely dropped due to graphical games emerging or the playerbase "growing up"? There was a definite attitude shift into power-gamey mode along with ooc connections being heavily punished that made it really difficult for fresh blood to enter CF and we're hoping that could be reevaluated so that the numbers can be increased.

-thinnie

There was a definite attitude shift into power-gamey mode along with ooc connections being heavily punished that made it really difficult for fresh blood to enter CF and we're hoping that could be reevaluated so that the numbers can be increased.

Please let me know when the era was where no one was power-gamey and OOC connections weren't being punished. I'm pretty sure SMUG, neosoft, and other groups were getting denied left and right in the late 1990s, and it wasn't because their roleplay was just too awesomely non-power-gamey.

It may have overlapped with the CF era where no one took anything from a corpse, and no one threw OOC tantrums, which I also missed.

Otherwise, the major difference between 2010 murder and the age before restrictions on permas is that he didn't have six guys in the same college lab attached to his hip, and that those seven people looted you every time. The whole reason the anti-permagroup rule was made was exactly because of widespread abuses by the playerbase.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Please let me know when the era was where no one was
>power-gamey and OOC connections weren't being punished. I'm
>pretty sure SMUG, neosoft, and other groups were getting
>denied left and right in the late 1990s, and it wasn't because
>their roleplay was just too awesomely non-power-gamey.

Well, actually, smug started out as Arolin and Zharradam, transmuters in masters, who were attached at the hip and they were actually never denied to my knowledge. Zharradam was actually given the displacer beast if I remember right. I had to fight them both constantly with Baldur and loved every moment of it. Neosoft,smug, etc. was denied at times for good reasoning, but at other times, I had to scratch my head. Is it really that awful to break up the monotony of skill practicing and leveling by doing it with your friends? I guess it reduces roleplay by having a trust advantage, but if you're in the same cabal, seems pretty harmless. I myself played the leader of masters and inducted all of neosoft along with two current high level Immortals because I enjoy playing the game with my friends. Did I decrease the fun stick for anyone? Not really, I also inducted a few complete newbies. I also made sure that ragers outnumbered masters 2 to 1. No denies there. I know I played twice as much while my friends were playing with me then when they weren't and so did they. Now, I'm not saying players magically changed their attitudes, but with a lack of influx of new blood due to the higher knowledge curve and lack of ooc connections in playing, you ultimately have a higher concentration of veterans who feel like the game is only a positive experience if they have a positive record. Nothing wrong with that, but ultimately someone has to die which leads to an attitude shift/concentration that lends itself to a more power-gamey focus as I suggested. Of course, I'm not opposed to being wrong, as long as it opens some discussions here.

>It may have overlapped with the CF era where no one took
>anything from a corpse, and no one threw OOC tantrums, which I
>also missed.

I know you guys hate having to deal with people like me. The supposed know-it-alls and I apologize if we come across like that, but sarcastic remarks like this really serve no purpose and don't endear the players to the immortals and this seems to be more the norm these days.

>Otherwise, the major difference between 2010 murder and the
>age before restrictions on permas is that he didn't have six
>guys in the same college lab attached to his hip, and that
>those seven people looted you every time. The whole reason
>the anti-permagroup rule was made was exactly because of
>widespread abuses by the playerbase.

I'm all for denying people who walk around in droves killing everything in sight. The point I was trying to make is that perhaps it's easier for new players to play with their friends to learn the ropes and maybe we should encourage this. Possibly having a command called "connection" where two players type "connection <player>" to show that they're openly playing together to the Imms and not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes would make it easier. Possibly looking back at a time where the only prep was a purple potion from a large hobgoblin to see what they were doing to get so many people might be a solution. Anyways, these are just suggestions to build the playerbase back up. I only have a few friends left in the game and I probably have only one decent hero left in me if that at all. I would just love to see the game flourish again.

-thinnie

Neosoft,smug, etc. was denied at times for good reasoning, but at other times, I had to scratch my head. Is it really that awful to break up the monotony of skill practicing and leveling by doing it with your friends?

First, we don't deny for this, and it does bother me that you keep constructing strawmen.

If there's blatant permagrouping, etc. you'll get pulled and someone will make a judgement call about the extent of the permagrouping. In most cases, the talk is of the form 'Break it up some. Group with other people more often.' unless other factors are in play.

Basically, we're charged with 'global fun' not any one player's fun. If players A, B, and C are attached at the hip, it may be fun for those three people, but there will be a larger group of people who will complain:

'I can't fight A. He always has B and C in the same room.'
'A, B, and C just raided my cabal. I'm on alone to defend. Why can't I get the upper hand once in a while?'
'I'm playing an evil character, and I just got backstabbed by my groupmate again. Of course, evil guys A, B, and C never have to worry about this.'
'I'm in a cabal with A, B, and C. Wow, color me surprised that they all just backed A for leader.'

It's also worth mentioning that you're asking for a highly subjective rule, where it's OK if A, B, and C permagroup if they're nice, and not OK if they aren't. Try to imagine starting that conversation in the Realm of the Dead. I guarantee you that the first sentence you will get back is "Why don't you bust D, E, and F? They're always together, and they looted me once, and..."

There's some level of subjectivity in the current rule (and I'd argue there needs to be) regarding what constitutes 'excessive' help, but that is much easier to evaluate and enforce than 'Do I personally approve of how you conduct yourself while you're permagrouping?'

Now, you could say that we should allow all permagrouping, except that we tried that experiment pre-1996 or so, and it was a total disaster in practice. 'Seven guys in the same lab ganging you down repeatedly' isn't apocryphal. It happened so often that the staff of the time was forced to create a rule about OOC coordination, because it was becoming clear that in order to play, you basically needed a permagang to survive against the other permagangs.

If you disagree about the level of subjectivity, try writing a rule that covers what you want. I don't think it's nearly as easy as you're implying.

Possibly having a command called "connection" where two players type "connection <player>" to show that they're openly playing together to the Imms and not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes would make it easier.

Some form of this is not a bad idea. We presently usually handle this by requesting a pray and/or email, but something attached to the pfile would be easier to check.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

That was an awesome post. I think it definitely clarifies a lot of things. I never knew about the pray and/or email thing to make sure the Immortals are aware of group situations like that. Do you guys just drop something into player comments for both players and do you prefer prays over emails? I also understand that it's definitely difficult to blanketly allow something that could easily be abused. It's just good to know that you guys can politically say that you don't frown on the perma'ing as long as the fun stick for others isn't ruined.

>If there's blatant permagrouping, etc. you'll get pulled and
>someone will make a judgment call about the extent of the
>permagrouping. In most cases, the talk is of the form 'Break
>it up some. Group with other people more often.' unless other
>factors are in play.

I'd just like to point out, sometimes people are pulled aside not for what their characters did, but who they are played by. The subjective nature of the enforcement of the permagrouping rule leaves, I feel, too much room for harassment of players unpopular with the staff. I'll give an example, and since I'm a nice guy I'll even leave out the attitude.

When I was playing, I think it was Elahrairas, I got pulled aside once into the ROTD. I was playing a Kasty follower Maran, and Ekirhal was playing another Fortress character (I don't remember the specifics of her character, pretty sure it was a healer in Acolytes). We hadn't rolled up at the same time, in fact she was a hero already by the time I had even created my character. I had been harassing Fortress types for an interview for about a week, and kept getting blown off. I DELIBERATELY avoided asking her character for an interview (Which basically penalized me IC just because I knew who she was OOC, just because I was working hard to avoid any hint of impropriety because I knew my characters were constantly scrutinized) until I was specifically directed to by the then Cardinal or whatever, because he was sick of me asking him for an interview and she was the only other Fortie on. She gated to me for the interview, and while we were talking I got attacked by a group in front of her. Obviously a Healer from the Fortress isn't going to just stand there and watch a paladin get ganked down, so she tossed me a heal, (heal being singular, I've even posted the logs of the incident in question, her help really made zero difference in the outcome of the fight since even without the heal I would never have gone below like 50%) and after the attackers were dead, we continued the interview.

Fast forward I don't know how many weeks or months, well into my hero hours. Her healer and I had grouped for Fortress defenses and attacks on other cabals, and nothing else, (possibly an exploration run or two in groups of 5 or more, hardly anything exclusive to the two of us or even the two of us and a random third. We were just seldom on at the same time) and on the day in question I had been logged in for several hours before she logged in. The Fortress was attacked. When I got there, we ran off whoever it was and then Ekirhal logged in and proceeded to take off her gear and start handing it out to everyone who was gathered there (about four of us), because she was preparing to delete. I got a few rather nice items, but being that I was wearing jack #### at the time (recently dead in the Cabal attack) I admittedly got a bit more than most (Some of which she put in the pit, and I was just the fastest to type get "item" pit) but even as things were it wasn't like I was what I would consider "geared", and in the end I would say I got 4 or 5 pieces of gear from her total. Had I been doing anything OOC related I would have had her log in during the raid, because what I had before my death was far FAR better than what I had after.

Next time I log in, I'm in the ROTD and being accused of permagrouping, and of having her hero follow me around at low levels while I hunt down groups of people, and basically accusing me of all sorts of #### that not only never happened, but was completely incapable of happening (Can't group a level 15 and 51, no matter how hard you try) and on top of it our characters had only even ever been on at the same time a handful of times. I pointed this out *REPEATEDLY* and after about an hour of giving me ####, I was let go. As long as things are open to "judgment calls" I think the potential for harassment by an imm with a bug up his or her ass about a certain player (not character, player) is high, as is the risk that said player will finally just say "Screw you guys, I'm going home". I know I continued to play for a time after this, but this incident really was the nail in the coffin of my time on CF. The game doesn't need any less players.

This of course doesn't even begin to cover the sheer number of times my whole server was pulled aside "for being a perma", when most of us hadn't ever even grouped or interacted. How the hell are you a perma with someone who isn't even alignment appropriate who you have never even met IC?

>Basically, we're charged with 'global fun' not any one
>player's fun. If players A, B, and C are attached at the hip,
>it may be fun for those three people, but there will be a
>larger group of people who will complain:
>
>'I can't fight A. He always has B and C in the same room.'
>'A, B, and C just raided my cabal. I'm on alone to defend.
>Why can't I get the upper hand once in a while?'
>'I'm playing an evil character, and I just got backstabbed by
>my groupmate again. Of course, evil guys A, B, and C never
>have to worry about this.'
>'I'm in a cabal with A, B, and C. Wow, color me surprised
>that they all just backed A for leader.'

I don't think anyone would argue that characters who are permanently together is bad for the game. But unless you have more of a firm guideline than just "Whatever the whim of whatever imm you talk to happens to be at that time", it's just bad all around. Again, I'm not saying there should be no perma-grouping rules, but just leaving it up to whim is counterproductive too and has and will continue to cost the game players. Usually the players who are given this sort of treatment are veterans, people who have rubbed staffers the wrong way for whatever reasons (justified or not) and the vets are the players you should be trying hardest to hold on to, since they have kept the game going all these years, as have you the immstaff. Without players, you imms are just jerking each other off in the ROTD and slaying heroimms, and without the staff we have no game. We can't afford to lose too many of you, and you can't afford to run off too many of us.

>It's also worth mentioning that you're asking for a highly
>subjective rule, where it's OK if A, B, and C permagroup if
>they're nice, and not OK if they aren't. Try to imagine
>starting that conversation in the Realm of the Dead. I
>guarantee you that the first sentence you will get back is
>"Why don't you bust D, E, and F? They're always together, and
>they looted me once, and..."

Why not have some more rigid guidelines then for enforcement? For years we've been told it's fine to play with people you know as long as you role play and don't stay joined at the hip, but that's clearly not the message I received, and I know others have gotten the same treatment. If I can't play with people I know, JUST because they are people I know, what's the point in playing? I want to play with my friends, be they friends or enemies IC or just background noise in the inn. I'm sure other players feel the same way. What's the point in playing a game, if I can't play with my friends? Why is it only okay to play with them, if we're trying to kill each other all the time?

>
>There's some level of subjectivity in the current rule (and
>I'd argue there needs to be) regarding what constitutes
>'excessive' help, but that is much easier to evaluate
>and enforce than 'Do I personally approve of how you conduct
>yourself while you're permagrouping?'

I don't think the rule too subjective, it's the enforcement, and too easy for imms to take their own dislike of a player and use it to #### with people they don't like and hide behind the subjectivity of the rule. You could argue that nothing was actually done to punish me, and yet this incident was what finally made me decide to hang it up after so many years. Similar things have happened to other vets, with similar results. Is that what you really want?

>
>Now, you could say that we should allow all permagrouping,
>except that we tried that experiment pre-1996 or so, and it
>was a total disaster in practice. 'Seven guys in the same lab
>ganging you down repeatedly' isn't apocryphal. It happened so
>often that the staff of the time was forced to create a rule
>about OOC coordination, because it was becoming clear that in
>order to play, you basically needed a permagang to survive
>against the other permagangs.

Again, I don't think anyone thinks allowing this sort of nonsense is acceptable. But there has to be a hard line you can draw somewhere between the above situation, and what I described, and how you should handle it.

>
>If you disagree about the level of subjectivity, try writing a
>rule that covers what you want. I don't think it's nearly as
>easy as you're implying.

You know, I just had a whole big thing typed out and I was quite happy with it, then I read the current perma rule. I have to say, yours is better. The problem becomes when "Two people joined at the hip" becomes "Two people who spent maybe 5 hours total together out of a 100 plus hour character lifetime, and who never grouped for leveling purposes are in violation of the permagrouping rules". I think the way the rule is written is very clear and that's good, but the way it's enforced is really just far too open to abuse by a staff member with a chip on their shoulder or an axe to grind.

>
>Possibly having a command called "connection" where two
>players type "connection <player>" to show that they're openly
>playing together to the Imms and not trying to pull the wool
>over anyone's eyes would make it easier.
>
>Some form of this is not a bad idea. We presently usually
>handle this by requesting a pray and/or email, but something
>attached to the pfile would be easier to check.

Pardon my language, but what the ####? If this is not a bad idea, then what was I even pulled aside for? I was accused of permaing with a character I had maybe a handful of interactions with over the entire span of a characters life. I know I know "That was two years ago and you're holding onto the past and blah blah" but you know what? That was the last time I played the game, and it was the straw that broke the camels back in my desire to play. Others, who aren't as attached to the game as I was, would take less to leave the game and never look back. Ekirhal has also never played since, and she was another of the type I would consider "Roleplay characters" (her insane number crunching and need to have neat rows of 100% skills aside).

Say what you like about me OOC, but don't act like my characters weren't good for the game. It wasn't my powergaming or permagrouping or any of that crap that I was known for (since I didn't participate in either), it was my roleplaying. It was making a character and immersing myself in the role and sticking it out, even when I had handicapped myself with certain character quirks. Why the hell would I do that, and then just piss all over it with cheating? Part of the fun of CF for me was deliberately making a flawed character, then playing those flaws out no matter the results. I've NEVER been a gear whore, I'm perfectly content to play with whatever crap my characters can request or kill to get for themselves. I'll admit my forum postings and abrasive nature may not make me the most likable person OOC, but all the "subjective" nature of the perma rules enforcement managed to do was run off two more quality players in an already declining playerbase. I can't see this as good for the game.

>valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Possibly having a command called "connection" where two
>players type "connection <player>" to show that they're openly
>playing together to the Imms and not trying to pull the wool
>over anyone's eyes would make it easier.
>
>Some form of this is not a bad idea. We presently usually
>handle this by requesting a pray and/or email, but something
>attached to the pfile would be easier to check.
>

How about a slightly different sort of deal?

Connection <character> mentor
(I'm bringing a new player into the game and
am teachin them the ropes)

Connection <character> location
(we mud from the same place, but other than that
will try to have little to do with one another)

connection <character> other (I dunno ooc? something else?)
(We know each other and talk in some form or fashion about
cf stuff.) While these last might be more watched, the fact
of the players giving a 'heads-up' might mitigate things
especially if what they normally do is: "my mithril wielding
pally is gonna steam-roll your punk drow"
"oh yeah?... See how you like being knocked out on eastern. Sukka"

Just poppin' in my 2 coppers again, I just thought the idea
was neat, but needed a step.
The mentor thing I especially feel should be put into this
game in some fashion or other. If people could do this then
new player retention imho would be higher. I know some take
longer than others to get the hang of things, but still...
imagine: New guy gets full looted, gets depressed, buddy
says 'hey man don't sweat it, here let me show you where to get
some stuff, we'll get you back on your feet.'
Even in this sort of case I can see the potential for abuse
but it would be much easier to see, and so in the end less
potential for abuse than what we had when I started.

Okay I'll run along now.

The players who know each other OOC are many. If you did things this way, some players may have half the damn mud that they have to remember to toggle for, just on the basis that they talk to the player and know who it is. If we did something like this, DC or Isildur would never have time to type anything but connection <character> other, over and over. I know I used to talk to a lot of people OOC but those two guys know EVERYBODY. Mostly on the basis of them being decent guys to talk to who won't tell everyone who you are playing, and who don't themselves have any taint about their names.

I probably know less than the next guy, most of the time. Besides DC and Feirshay (neither of whom plays anymore) I talk to...six people. Of those, I think I know who 2 of them are playing.

You and DC were just examples, but I am admittedly out of the Cf loop. Some people know a large portion of the playerbase, and who plays who.

In those particular cases do you believe the imms have no clue who
these people are?

Connection freakin'_everyone *rofl*

It was just a nifty little idea expanded from the
connection idea to help separate out who just
happened to know people ooc from those who are
purposefully ooc groups to perma or otherwise
ignore/'work around'/or whatever the rules.
Nothing will be a 'perfect' solution. period.
Not to worry though, it really won't get much
attention from already overworked programmers.

I find one of the problems we experience with being players is we're fast to criticize, but we don't offer any better ideas in return. It's good that you're thinking outside of the box, and in all honesty I can't think of a better idea (that doesn't involve two imms to handle every single case) than yours, I was just pointing out what I saw as a problem.

Sorry I actually got that you weren't trashing it just pointing
out a major flaw you saw. Did I come off like an ass? I truly
did not mean to. 90%+ of anything I say imagine a goofy grin
on my face as I say it, and that's pretty much dead on.
<-- If one of those is there especially treat it as
my slightly twisted sense of humor.

But I realized while I had pointed out what I saw as a problem with the idea, I hadn't given the pat on the back for even thinking about it in the first place.

I think that "your gear is forfeit if you die" should not be the default attitude.

It should be your default attitude when you die. It saves you from being butthurt and ashamed after all that whining for gear when you get looted. It is also less stressful to your opponent who can then enjoy his kill without having to put up with the whining. If you don't have the gear, it's up for grabs. That simple. The corpse is no longer your property (Tribunal law excluded).

No one is talking about whining, but rather the disheartening feeling players can have when returning to a corpse of basic gear to find it's empty. Obviously well equipped people shouldn't expect much and truly it isn't the end of the world coming back to an empty corpse, but if it happened repeatedly to someone like me at this point, I'd probably give up CF for a good while, possibly forever. I'm the guy who isn't going to practice #### for skills, isn't going to memorize any areas except for eastern road, and is going to die a hell of a lot. I'm truly just here for immersing myself into the game and any extra monotony (ie regearing) especially with a low playerbase is going to keep me from playing. A new player is going to have an even lower threshold. So I'm hoping people are realizing that they can roleplay anyway they see fit, but their actions are going to ultimately drive the playerbase up or down. The immortals can obviously help nudge the game to increase people's fun sticks like double xp weekends and cool quests, but it will take a concerted effort from both immortals and the playerbase to make sure that everyone has an immersive experience that they can walk away from feeling positive.

-thinnie

Long long ago in CF I played a sphere destruction cyradia ranger. Now there had just been a very prominent scion zurcon conjurer who full sacced everyone (this is in the time period when get all corpse was reflective motion for everyone coming across a corpse). I thought hey, mass sacrificing seemed like a legitamite way to role play out sphere destruction, I mean it is destroying isn't it?

I played up to the mid ranks for about 30 hours or so and maybe full sacced about ten or fifteen people. I did one of those sacs at cyradias shrine to pay tribute to the demon goddess of destruction and she poped out and basically said something along the line of blindly destroying in such a way was a weakness and not a strength. A few days later i accidentally replied with my handle to a log board post and got summarily pulled into the realm of the dead and denied for exposing my character (I think the post got deleted a few hours after I made it).


You know what I don't do now, full sac people. I has enraged at the time at the imms who took these steps because I knew they were related to my saccing. I am now glad that they did it because I modified my behavior and a game where full looting/saccing is not the standard is more fun for everyone to play.


I think retaliation needs to be a part of the game and I don't think we need to have hard rules on it. I also think that the imms are both administrators, referee's, and public relations. If we the players don't feel you are doing enough to protect our interests then we are going to try and take that duty on ourselves and that is where you see the OOC coming into things. In this particular case Lyri didn't do a very good PR job (and actually he is likely digging himself into a bigger hole).

The current issue I think upsetting players is less the full saccing itself but more the impresion that this kind of behaviour was condoned by the referee's because there was a lot of overt rewarding of this player. It sounds like a lot of the rewards were justified but there was apparent attempt to discourage the behavior that should have been discouraged it is possible to have both rewards and discouragement handed out for the same char.

Something as simple as Lyri posting that he found the saccing to be in bad taste but that it was not as frequent as people believed at the start of the death thread would have saved a lot of greif. The repeated defending of the players right to retaliate in a way that most of the player base views as unacceptable behavior just gives the impression that he supports that kind of behavior.

Kudos to Cyradia for steering you in the right direction.

That is Cyradia's religion. It was rp'd out. I could almost see instances in religions where someone might give them something more powerful to make the player harder to kill next time. Of course, gear is not the lead reason player A beats player B. But, player B might think it. So, when player A beats player B again, player A's legend grows even more.

Of course, gear is not the lead reason player A beats player B.

Skilled players engineer situations that minimize their opponent's advantages (gear, preps, movement, reinforcements) and maximize their own strengths.

I'd say that better players typically utilize better knowledge of the environment
- which helps them acquire material (gear and/or preps) advantages and
- have a strategic advantages (terrain, blitzing, and escaping)

and better players will have better judgment regarding
- fights they can pick
- fights they should avoid
- how the present fight is going,
- and how best to respond to the current situation.

That said, most melee folks fair better with 80 damroll than 20 damroll, and if I'm fighting a duergar I'd rather wear two sets of prayer beads than two wool cloaks.

Some huge differences in the situation between Jindicho and Shura.

Jindicho did it to everyone he could.

Shura did it to anyone he should.

The difference is quite vast. Shura did it for revenge of things done to him. Jindicho did it just to be an ass. The fact that Shura only did it to a select few who did something in game to him and not just anyone that he killed showed that he had restraint.

I watched Jindicho kill a dark-elf thief. The thief did die a few times to him. The thief got stuck in a norecall area. He asked Shura for help. Shura got him out.

I think your overexagerattion and misrepresentation of what jindicho did is exactly the same way the player base is reacting to Shura. I think the fact that both players exhibited extremely similar behaviors. Neither player used the tactic against everyone and both did it when they felt was neccesary.

You can't say one was better or worse than the other and still be credible.

I think it's necessary to point out that Jindicho had "friends" too. He was nice to certain people and, to a degree at least, somewhat loyal. Which people fell into which group still made sense IC, as was the case with Shura of course.

Shura was probably a lot more helpful and altruistic than Jindicho because of alignment, but nonetheless, both made friends and split the player base into two camps, the "Huh? (Shura|Jindicho) is cool to me!" crowd and the "(Shura|Jindicho) is a rioting fag!" crowd.

I didn't know much about Jindicho other than what his history showed.

My ap at the time, Votingol, had numerous interactions with him. We were both evil, quite evil. Mutual respect for sure, and as close to IC friends I think as either of our chars could have.

I was utterly flabbergasted with the way he was treated, considering I never saw any of what he was accused of.

I also fought/was completly dogged by Shura a few times with my battle assn Elkaar, and found the experience probably as frustrating as most people. But she didn't sac me or take more than 1-2 things, so I couldn't really complain...until it happened again an hour later.

Moral of the story: none of us, as single chars, see the whole story. I think its dangerous to believe what others tell you, and/or assume you'll get the same treatment.

Treebeard/Votingol/Elkaar

Edited because Lyristeon only read my history.

Which makes perfect sense. Thanks again Cyradia!

>I watched Jindicho kill a dark-elf thief. The thief did die a
>few times to him. The thief got stuck in a norecall area. He
>asked Shura for help. Shura got him out.


Should have been...watched Shura kill...not Jindicho.

A murderer killed someone's child

Before the father dies, he disarm the knife of the murderer to avoid being stabbed to death

So is the murderer righteous to kill the father because the man tried to take his knife?

I mean, sure, it's ''revenge'' but griefing because of a staff, common.

Since when is murdering ever righteous?

A murderer kills someone's child. (The child is a defiling enemy of the murderer)

Before the defiling father dies, he takes away the holy relic used to kill the defilers.

So, is the righteous defender of his ways a murderer for killing a defiler?

I mean, sure.

Points is, griefing because of a staff is a bit over the edge.

But, if that's your vision of how the game should be, alright.

It sucks but I don't feel like interacting with you in any way because of that. In 8 years, I haven't seen such disrespect of the playerbase. I mean, I don't mind being looted. I don't mind being full-looted. I mind when, and I'll put it in bold, <b>when someone attacks me (even though he killed me at least once) many times and each time it results as a full-sac, simply because of a character, even though he is but a healer, has the capability in the low level (For exemple : A combo who is limited with any kind of firepower and his opponent has 48237492 items that does random damage)</b>

Of course, I could:

A) Gang him
B) Escape him by hiding somewhere he can't gate
C) Find a death trap and make him flee

But is it your way of having fun when you have to worry that X player is logged on, you gotta find a gang (When the player base doesn't always allow you to do that), try to find a place to rank where he can't gate or sit on a death trap because you know that X will gate to you.

Prep? Sure. But MANY players usually delete when prepping becomes a chore. And if a newbie plays, he doesn't really know those preps, so he should just die and regear automatically? Way to be a newbie friendly game.

So yeah, saying that it's either morons who say loudly that they do not approve a player being rewarded or encouraged to do such actions or just say that it's ok because it's a PK mud...that's sad.

EDIT: Yeah, I don't know how to put it bold. Haha.

To beat the supreme court's horse, I can't define excessive full looting but I know it when I see it. What it comes down to is good sportsmanship. Are causing the other player annoyance just for the sake of doing so, or are you doing it for a reason? Here are some pretty clear indicators. Bear in mind that to me, full looting means taking everything or almost everything, including at least a few things you won't be using. If you just swap gear with someone, that's not a full loot in this sense.

Destruction: Full-saccing might be warranted on very rare occasions, but it's a pretty clear sign of griefing. If you're not taking, just destroying, then 99% of the time you're being an a-hole.

Uselessness: If you're full looting them, and their gear is all unlimitted regear stuff, chances are you're an a-hole.

Repetition: If you full-loot them more very frequently, then chances are you're being a jerk. If you full loot them once a week you're fine, if you full loot them every day, you might be okay, but a few times a day? Mmm, probably you're an a-hole.

Combination:
If you full-loot in combination with other douchebag moves, that's a bad sign. So if you invite someone to group and then kill and full them, there's a good chance you're an a-hole.

I should probably explain what I said on the battlefield thread.

1. I don't have a problem with full looting/sacrificing in general.

2. I don't have a problem with "punishing" people in-game (via full loot or full sac) for things done in-game.

3. I do have a problem with "punishing" people in-game for stuff that doesn't deserve punishment.

Some things that might deserve in-game punishment:

1. If an enemy with a decent chance to kill me attacks me, then instead of trying to kill me just steals or destroys my gear.

2. If an out-of-PK enemy sits in an area doing nothing just to prevent it resetting so I can continue ranking there.

3. If an enemy with a decent chance to kill me never ever fought me without a gang.

4. If an enemy talks obvious OOC trash or whines OOC after dying. For instance if he calls me a "####ing Jew" after I kill him. (It's happened.)

5. If an enemy becomes unrealistically reckless with his own life in order to gain a small chance at killing me with a one-shot skill, e.g. AP who runs up and cleaves while wearing only a practice weapon, dies, then tries the same thing again as soon as he un-ghosts.

Some things that do not deserve in-game punishment:

1. A solo enemy attacks me, kills me, and loots some things from me.

2. I attack a group of enemies who are ranking, I die, then they loot (and wear) 3/4 of my gear. (Because it was better than theirs.)

3. Someone kills me and takes my preps, including wands. Either to use for themselves, or to give to allies.

4. Someone attacks me and, in the course of a legitimate attempt to kill me, somehow takes or destroys my weapon.

5. A thief who has very little chance of killing me knocks me out and steals a few primo items.

6. An enemy engages in some IC trash talking, gloating, threatening, etc. (It's pretty easy to tell the difference between the IC and OOC versions.)

Said it better than I could.

I am guilty though of looting lowbies with hero gear pretty hard (as a fellow lowbie)

things like this should reside there and be linked by the help rules helpfile or something.

1. Someone talks trash to my hero character when they are a lowbie, and starts to go ooc with it. Usually this turns out to be the same people as number 2.

2. Someone who I know full loots newbs. And full sacs. And does the same to any corpse they find whether or not they took part in the killing of said person. I have such a person on my list for my current character.

3. Someone who says crap like "You only beat me because you got all that gear from the tribunal pit" or because "You only have that gear because your friends geared you up" when in fact none of it was from the pit and I don't think I've ever helped a friend ic, (apart from when DC and I both ended up killing the same guy because he fled from Hamsah into me). Ditto for any other cabal but I hear it more when I play tribs than other cabals.

4. Someone who says "Yeah, but you'll never rank up because you'll just take your own life when you die" if you kill them as a lowbie, even if you've only just reached that rank and don't stick at it. I hear this a lot and it is extremely rare for me not to spend a long time at hero and I can't remember ever deleting over a single death unless someone acts in such a way that I dislike the playerbase.

5. Someone who says "I was afk" when they blatantly weren't because they were entering commands when you jumped them. Especially amusing when you are an assassin and were in the same room stalking them while they switched their weapons around.

6. Someone who drops link to avoid pk. If it's a newb I'll probably just warn them. If it isn't, I'll full sac.