Full disclosure: I haven't played CF since this summer and have only played this year and last year when directly and persistently asked to by other players. I am only commenting because I feel that getting feedback on this and other issues and slightly adjusting the way the MUD staff thinks overall would encourage me to play again rather than replace all the time I'd spend on CF on Dark Souls and League of Legends. I also never interacted with Torak's character as a result.

Daevryn comment in Torak's PBF.

>After a while you start to get desensitized to roles. Wait, this >necromancer is also secretly a demon? sigh. It starts to take harder >and harder stuff, stranger and more unique roles to arouse your >interest. Eventually that role better have a goddamn midget in it if >it's going to break through the fortress of ennui in your role-pants.

This probably says more about the 'flaws' in the risk/effort/reward system, both for players and imms, than it does about any one person. Take that for what it's worth, nothing I'm about to propose changes the volume of time investment the staff currently does in regards to roles and PBFs and probably reduces or streamlines how it's used.

Ergo, how to rework the system to deal with creative burnout. Role contests are a fine model to begin with and you could probably go further with better rewards across the board by making them the actual 'role review' model, rather than where you flag some 5-40 hour douchebag (I've had imms fail to read my role till level 45 over the space of a week or two before getting 1000 xp) after rolling to be reviewed at some point for the initial well-deserved infusion of edge points he may or may not need to compete in the 1-40 levels.

This means that when you get a random infusion of XP, they will be rarer, but higher overall, because it really is someone reading your role for S&G as Rayihn said, rather than some avatar keeping an eye on lowbies to make sure they don't turn into roles that lack realism or credibility in an effort to garner attention. via gimmicks. In other words, you actively give the overall impression that a solid role is more likely to meet the middle of the road 1000 xp reward in RC's but you only try gimmicks every so often to be outstanding because you will only get near-guaranteed role XP once a month as opposed to once per character w/ role. It means avatars can help with RC's by giving the RC judge a summary for further review of each role, where the player didn't already provide a bulletpoint summary in a separate role entry out of courtesy.

Warded and warrior familiar, which requires well over 3 hours of observation xp on top of 1500+ role XP to get in tandem together, and which are extremely valuable when you are too low a level or too new or casual to get serious competitive damage reduction at low levels to handle warriors, ragers, assassins or shamans or possibly solo level, but are difficult to make useful without both together unless you like losing CON by guesstimating your familiar's HP in PK. Also a few thief, shaman or bard edges come to mind as not-quite-essential-but-almost in the same vein.

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

And I would disagree that it requires 3 hours of observation exp. Even if I stopped to farm obs exp and nothing else, it wouldn't take more than about 1 hour tops.

If you insist on a familiar that is good for finding people you want to pk, but is frail, live with the drawbacks. The tough but less versatile familiars are quite viable pre-edge.

And it was a (detailed) example that purely because it involves edges at all, is opinion and conjecture regarding PK strength. Let's not jack the thread, please.

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

I don't think role contest rewards should be increased. They are already very significant.

A huge part of the reason I think this is that a written role does not always translate into a well role-played character. People can therefore pick up rewards for roles that they don't actually PLAY consistently.

rolePLAY. Not just Role that is interesting but actually irrelevant when it comes to what the character says and does.

I am proprosing rolling the 500-2000 xp you get for just writing a role and rolling it into the monthly or bi-monthly role contest. This increases the amount of contest entries but shifts the workload in reviewing them into presumably favorable ways for the staff.

Again, the intent here is to avoid burnout from reading a steady stream of what the RC judge ends up perceiving as stupid crap, and instead boosting the quality of the writing and reducing the amount of gimmicky roles by centering them around the contest and clarifying rules and guidelines for the role contest itself in order to get more 'solid' writing with average rewards instead of chaotic stupid shooting for 2000 xp and crossing their fingers and getting 500 xp for time travelling negromancer, or Galadon cityguard who fancies himself a superhero and thus puts on tights and a feathered cap to be a ranger on weekends to play both sides of the Tribunal/Outlander war or something else equally retarded.

About what you are suggesting. Are you suggesting that the monthly role contest replace random role checking? So if I want to play a character that gets some edges early I have to create my character and then wait for a role contest before begin playing in earnest?

Honestly, I'm just more than a little confused about what it is you are asking for.

I would love to pick up a little rant from my handle's namesake. Just because I don't write down a role for your lazy asses to read doesn't mean I'm not playing a character. Perhaps roles should really be "optional" and quite a bit rarer instead of mandatory for edges*

Tac

(*) And certain quests, which makes me very very angry, especially if they are low level since the only way to get imm xp at the required amount at that low a level is to write a role.

>About what you are suggesting. Are you suggesting that the
>monthly role contest replace random role checking? So if I
>want to play a character that gets some edges early I have to
>create my character and then wait for a role contest before
>begin playing in earnest?

More or less. And believe me, I agree with you. But the imms have already stated if you're playing purely for edge points or for their attention in order to have fun you're playing for the wrong reasons. Regardless, if that becomes the case, you still have a more regulated flow of characters and information back and forth. Obviously the way to deal with RC roll spamming is to announce that no characters with a creation date past the RC announcement (not role written) can enter the role contest. But centering role examinations around the contests will streamline the process for everyone and increase the quality of writing overall. Whether they are merely whoring for edge points by doing so is irrelevant, as the volume should not significantly increase or decrease either way. As things are right now if you aren't extremely lucky, you are pretty much under the radar until and unless you break the rules if you don't have a written role, particularly if the same imm doesn't snoop you consistently.


>
>I would love to pick up a little rant from my handle's
>namesake. Just because I don't write down a role for your
>lazy asses to read doesn't mean I'm not playing a character.
>Perhaps roles should really be "optional" and quite a bit
>rarer instead of mandatory for edges*

Most imms don't bother to snoop people who have no role, even if they don't bother to read said role except as it pertains to prays.


> *) And certain quests, which makes me very very angry,
>especially if they are low level since the only way to get imm
>xp at the required amount at that low a level is to write a
>role.

My suggestion wasn't meant to make things any easier for people who don't write roles. You should consider the fact that if you had outstanding roleplay they can reward you when they snoop it. However there's other factors:

They can reward you more XP if they have a role to compare it to beyond your sphere, align and ethos. e.g. a 200 xp reward for good RP goes up to 500 or 1000 entirely subjectively in light of your written role. Again, this goes along with many imms feeling a good portion of the roles they see are gimmicky or trying extremely hard to reach in order to get attention.

They also, if you think about it, are almost completely inable to give you offline rewards (e.g. they hear about something you did from another imm or players or related to cabal promotion candidates) if you don't have one typed up. The role, after all, as it is written has to speak for you in your stead. If your role isn't a fantasy novel then it won't necessarily be rewarded on it's own merits as much, but an imm that can concisely compare those bullet points to your actions means they can potentially double what you ordinarily would have gotten.

Hence why I suggested RC's become the norm for rewarding roles. You will still get your 'oh hey you wrote a role' reward (the benefits of which are debatable at best, now instead of no roleplay you get questionable and outlandish stuff) but it can be given in a more controlled flow of work that it takes to read and evaluate it (having avatars read and comment, then give a reward based on said comment or read role further if it sounds interesting) It would also help to a large degree with the role burnout Daevryn mentions because he's in a situation where if he isn't running a role contest he doesn't have to put up with pants-on-head time travelling necromancers or robot conjurers, a class that virtually requires you to have an outgoing and open-minded personality that a robot or construct cannot have.

Please tell me you understand that the post you're referencing is a joke.

I've been playing/working for enough years to understand that tech guys in general need their innuendo to get through the day. You and Twist in particular have your own special and unique flavors of innuendo Twist's for instance, shows up in 80% of his roleplay, but it's also possible to mistake him for Jalim.

I was understanding the underlying point that roles sort of blur together, I am not 'intentionally misquoting' you to get you in trouble for enjoying midget porn.

That would be like implying jalim bangs goats named Oldril. That would just be impolite.

Happy Thanksgiving, midget voyeurs!

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