For better or worse it seems some players receive what appears to be excessive rewards and others never do. Key words here are of course, "seems" and "players".

Because this is a competitive game, those rewards tend to give advantages in PK. As a player it is frustrating to fight player X when they have advantage Y that they normally would not have. It means that being a staff favorite who is rewarded can often give significant advantages in PK.

I admit as a player being constantly frustrated by seeing the same players getting rewards from the same immortals time and time again because it seems as if there is no criteria for what constitutes receiving a reward, outside of Role Contests, and the rewards there are all over the place, from amazingly overpowered, to downright worthless. I don't say that to mean there is cheating going on, only that some players are obviously going to be well liked by some staff members and they receive rewards due to this.

For staff members: Do you as the staff see this as a problem? If so is there a way to alleviate this problem? Are there any type of metrics in place such as "Oh IP address XX.XX.XX.XX has been rewarded by imm Y 23/23 characters".

I know as a staff member this kind of works in reverse if you are playing a mortal, because any reward an imm-played character gets is always met with a conspiracy theory.

Does the staff feel this is just because the players in question who receive these rewards are playing well and the others in question are not? If so is there a constructive way to guide other players to getting rewards? Is there a guideline for how strong rewards are supposed to be?

I hope no one views this as a "How long have you beat your wife?" question. This is a genuine attempt to open up a conversation which might guide those who don't receive rewards to maybe have a chance at receiving them in the future.

Thanks for reading and I hope we can have a constructive forum regarding this subject, for the betterment of all.

That being said, I've never been denied empowerment, quest rewards, leadership positions, etc. I know for certain things HAVE been done to my characters "behind the scenes" as it were, but those days are pretty far in the past.

My thoughts on how to be rewarded in general based on observations as a player and an administrator:

- The first thing to avoid driving yourself crazy is to try to make peace with the idea that rewarded is rewarded, and not tie yourself up in knots with whether someone else got rewarded more for a less cool character. Sometimes you get a good legacy or a great quest skill or a quest form. Sometimes you get a legacy that doesn't help you at all, sand lizard, or +1 INT. That's just how it goes. Lots of different people are on staff now and historically and they have different ideas of what's good and they have different ideas of what's appropriate. It probably isn't an editorial on the quality of your character.

These things tend to help you be rewarded:

- Longevity. Some of the people who are most consistently rewarded are also the most consistent about playing a character to or near age death. This seems pretty obvious when you really think about it: the longer you live, the more chances someone has to be won over by how cool you are. This is maybe the hardest thing to take as a player, because who knows if your character who hasn't hit the jackpot at 200 hours will have by 300?

- Good or interesting role or character concept. This can obviously pay out pretty directly in terms of a role contest win, but it has a lot of indirect effects too. The worst thing for you in terms of me being likely to reward you is if I see you on who and I'm like, who's that guy again? This ties in with

- Good/consistent RP. Having a unique speech pattern or jargon is one way to go at this, but it's not the only way. The first time I caught a few of Mhournul's tells there was no way I would have mistaken him for anyone else again even though he didn't do an accent or have any unique or catch phrases, exactly. He just talked about things and was about things that no other character of his time was about. I instantly wanted to watch him more in the future to see what he was up to.

- PK. Personally I have a soft spot for people who take on ####ty odds and still somehow manage to pull off a win. Novelty can help you out here, because in a sense what you really want in general is for me to be interested in what you're doing, leading me to watch you, leading me to want to give you stuff when you're cool. Being the world's first successful midlevel good-aligned water shifter mass murderer is probably more interesting for me to watch than giant sword bash spec #3983.

- Elevation. Do you make the characters around you better, or worse? There are some characters that log on and suddenly the RP or raid effectiveness of their whole cabal improves. That's a quality that can draw a lot of interest. There's a fine line to walk here; hardly anybody loves the drama queen characters who make a big show of being about to delete or kiss on Scarabaeus, forcing their whole cabal to RP in response, even though in a sense they do draw out RP.

- Exploration, sort of: In the sense that if you're trying to be the first group that kills Tiamat or some other notable PvE feat, it does tend to draw attention and that can be good for you.

- Caballed: Caballed characters tend to draw more attention than uncaballed characters, increasing their chances to be noticed doing something cool.

- Religion: Same thing. It's not worth shoehorning in if it doesn't fit the character, but this does draw more attention, which can be good or bad.

- Leadership: Same thing again. Again, scrutiny is a double-edged sword. If no one pays attention to you, you're not likely to be rewarded but you're not likely to be punished either. The more attention you draw, the more you have to be great 24/7.

More great advice. Thank you and all other imms posting here and not getting sucked into negativity.

Thanks.

Have had mostly negative Imm experiences in the deep past. And aside for getting Thrak's tat once, and some Imm exp here and there, I've never recieved a single reward.

What's more, Imm remarks have been conspicuously absent from my death threads (save for a couple exceptions) even when other players have good things to say about my characters. I'm left wondering on those few instances when I am applauded on the battlefield, "Wonder why they never indicated this in game?"

As a result of all that I just mentioned, I tend to burn out quickly when I reach a certain point in the chara ctes life and I have nothing smoovy to show for it. Delete delete.

And yes, the paranoid side of me does make me think I am marked.

I probably can count on one hand the number of characters I have that got something cool (I don't really count a tattoo in this, though you might) without placing in a role contest, so don't feel like it's just you.

I think I made my bed as well so I sleep in it. I don't feel entitled.

Since you are trying to make this about how to get on an imms good side, I'll chime in. Getting on any particular imms good side is pretty subjective. Not all immortals look for the same things. Every character is not the same so if a person makes five different characters they will not be rewarded the same. Plus sometimes you just have to get lucky. Such as you end up playing when your imm is really active at the same time you are, so they get to watch all that awesome.

Since you used Jalim as an example I'll use him as an example again. Prior to me knowing that Jalim was going to be my husband or me ever talking to Jalim outside of CF, he attempted to follow my religion multiple times. He still complains to me about how terrible it was to try to follow my religion. He still complains about the amount of wasted characters (more as a joke than being mean of course). He made one good follower of mine out of at least five attempts. His one good follower was in my opinion well rewarded, however, it took him five times previous to that to get there.

In general it is not easy for people to get heavily rewarded by me or even get a tattoo. My religion is about being Charismatic at the heart of it, and frankly if you are not a charismatic person in real life you will have great difficulty roleplaying my religion.

In my experience not just with my religion, characters that are charismatic (and no I do not mean they look good) are ones that are rewarded. One of my favorite characters to interact with mortal to mortal was a Twist character. Twist just happens to make characters you want to like, even when they're evil. It is definitely not secret imm magic that only he can wield.


Things that I frown upon:

.Ignore command - when used incorrectly it makes me want to take away your ability to speak at all

.Going OOC at anytime I don't care if 10 people just killed you and took everything. I've been there, I didn't go OOC.

.Full looting/saccing just to be a jerk or trying to make excuses to make it sound like you're not being a jerk

.Overly sexualized characters - Please don't inspire people to take their pants off it creeps me out

.Lack of capitalization and punctuation - I have denied full empowerment due to this

.Multi-killing - You are not a badass because you killed newb 5069 20 times

.Talking to me because I'm vis for no good reason

.Forgetting that I am a God. No, I'm not an evil one but I am also not the Goddess of baby bunnies.

.Stupid RP that you think is RP but it isn't, it's just stupid... BOAT BOAT BOAT comes to mind.

.RP outside the world of CF. For a long time people loved therunyourwordstogetherstyleofgnome rp. That isn't a CF gnome. Each race is provided with plenty of culture for you to draw roles from, do it!

.Lieing during an interview - Don't tell me you went to an area and you are an awesome explorer when I can see that you have not been there, also don't tell me you've killed five people when you ganged them down with two other people AND got zero KBs

That's a really long answer but all the reasons above are reasons not to reward for me personally. Some of those reasons don't bother other imms as much as they do myself. As mentioned, rewarding can be subjective in a way that has nothing to do with your IP address.

Everyone knows the Neltouda secret handshake is to use the word "inspire" in as many ways as you can in interview.

I'm pretty much in agreement with this, though I come from a pretty sexed up mud in my before CF days, so that kind of thing doesn't scare/bother me at all. When I started playing CF, I was actually really surprised at how forbidden it was. Baer's terrified of it and prudish as hell, but that's purely IC.

Capitalization and punctuation annoys me but I wouldn't withhold full empowerment from it. I know though that this is a pet peeve of a LOT of imms.

I view a character that has good sportsmanship in high regard. Some looting is ok, but I think someone who does it excessively (more than 2-3 items per kill) could do better. I respect someone who takes tough times and doesn't freak out.

I'm instantly more inclined to think highly of you if you've won a role contest, even if I haven't read your role.

So, like she said, it's really dependent on each particular imm, though I think we can all agree on RP, sportsmanship, and playing the game for the game, instead of playing it to be a jackass internet personality.

Thanks for posting, I love that this thread is getting specific feedback from different imms!!!

nt

This is a great list. For me it's never being disappointed in a character. This doesn't mean winning PKs (though, a gutsy PK win can be awesome), but more often is slogging through unfavorable odds, constantly being IC, picking substance and style over easy kills or avoiding death, etc. A synergy between your awesome role and your actions (ie, not only writing out a great role but really making it come to life) is a home run.

If I ever see you break character (this means OOC and things YOUR character shouldn't say...like an outlander advising a tribbie on law) it would be a cold day in hell before I considered tattooing you or greatly rewarding you.

Ditto on the ignore command, I've seen a few characters lately send an insult (IC, but still an insult) to a character and then immediately throw up ignore before they can respond. The latest one I saw was a rank 8 character had their groupmate killed. The killer seemed to be RPing and certainly wasn't harassing anybody with communication, so the rank 8 character sent the attacker an insult and then typed ignore immediately. LAME! I really only expect you to use ignore if you're being harassed by a player and there are no immortals online to help correct the situation. I've also been disappointed by seeing tribbies use it lately. Sorry, my opinion is, if you have the power to PK out-of-range, you have to RP when someone wants to discuss it.

Looting doesn't bother me if it's in character (especially if you can use the equipment or the gold from selling it). I'm in a constant dialog of disagreement on this point with many active staff members. My take is looting is an allowable command to enter in the game, and it's not breaking any rules to use it. Your RP mileage (and future experience with the characters / immortals involved) may vary.

Ditto with Nel on the overly sexualized characters...ick.

I'll also throw in that it would be helpful to not create a character that needs immortal interaction for you to be happy. I think this sets you up for frustration. You should have a long time horizon for expecting rewards. Role contests sometimes jumpstart a "career", but for the most part you're relying on being noticed consistently for being a solid character. There's luck in this, in that you're probably only able to be rewarded by a few immortals (your cabal imms, your religion imm, and high ranked imms that aren't afraid to step in on other people's turf to reward) in the way you hope to be and they have to see/notice you. Your odds of this are much greater if you're playing the character very consistently, almost daily, such that the imm notices your presence. I'm not sure there are that many 300+ hour characters that show that dedication and have some mediocre RP skills that aren't rewarded, though it may happen later in their life than they'd like.

And, a closing thought...you have to actively RP. There could be an excellent shifter in cabal X that has a solid role and shows up often and never breaks character. However, if they're always in form and don't TALK to people...what exactly are we judging? Some of the creativity is picking a religion/race/backstory that gives you opportunity to actively RP so that you can be noticed. Case in point, I feel I give a disproportionate amount of imm XP to orcs, and I don't have an orc bias. It's just that when I'm randomly snooping characters their orc persona comes out in talking to people more than say...human warrior #435 that I can't tell anything about.



>Things that I frown upon:
>
>.Ignore command - when used incorrectly it makes me want to
>take away your ability to speak at all
>
>.Going OOC at anytime I don't care if 10 people just killed
>you and took everything. I've been there, I didn't go OOC.
>
>.Full looting/saccing just to be a jerk or trying to make
>excuses to make it sound like you're not being a jerk
>
>.Overly sexualized characters - Please don't inspire people to
>take their pants off it creeps me out
>
>.Lack of capitalization and punctuation - I have denied full
>empowerment due to this
>
>.Multi-killing - You are not a badass because you killed newb
>5069 20 times
>
>.Talking to me because I'm vis for no good reason
>
>.Forgetting that I am a God. No, I'm not an evil one but I am
>also not the Goddess of baby bunnies.
>
>.Stupid RP that you think is RP but it isn't, it's just
>stupid... BOAT BOAT BOAT comes to mind.
>
>.RP outside the world of CF. For a long time people loved
>therunyourwordstogetherstyleofgnome rp. That isn't a CF gnome.
>Each race is provided with plenty of culture for you to draw
>roles from, do it!
>
>.Lieing during an interview - Don't tell me you went to an
>area and you are an awesome explorer when I can see that you
>have not been there, also don't tell me you've killed five
>people when you ganged them down with two other people AND got
>zero KBs
>
>That's a really long answer but all the reasons above are
>reasons not to reward for me personally. Some of those reasons
>don't bother other imms as much as they do myself. As
>mentioned, rewarding can be subjective in a way that has
>nothing to do with your IP address.
>

Love these specific examples, thank you!!

Don't type delete.

This isn't really my personal pet peeve, but it might worth making transparent that when you try to rage delete - it's logged. If you see a guy that's first response to death has been to start the rage deletion process it tends to paint a picture of someone that might not be around through tough odds. Like I said, this hasn't come into play for my own decisions (probably because I'm not actively involved in cabal politics), but I have seen immortals picks guy A over guy B for leadership because guy B had rage deletion tendencies.

Certainly rage deletion code is there to stop hot-headed consequences and it's not against any rules to "use" it, but it kind of suggests you're the opposite of a "play until age death...thick and thin" kinda character.

> things YOUR character shouldn't say...like an outlander advising a tribbie on law

Is this necessarily bad? I mean, the laws are public. Odds are an Outlander is going to know what the stated laws of the Tribunal are. He/she won't know about all the internal nuance that's only explained to Magistrates, but the public stuff should be fair game. If a Magistrate acts in a way that violates publicly available Tribunal law then it seems like it should be kosher for an Outlander to say something like, "You did X. Your 'law' says Y. Hypocrite much?"

> If a Magistrate acts in a way that
>violates publicly available Tribunal law then it seems
>like it should be kosher for an Outlander to say something
>like, "You did X. Your 'law' says Y. Hypocrite much?"

I think it's very possible to write an Outlander role that knows or cares about the law (or did at some point), but most of them that I've seen really wouldn't/shouldn't.

It's not that they couldn't get the information so much as they probably wouldn't care.

>> If a Magistrate acts in a way that
>>violates publicly available Tribunal law then it
>seems
>>like it should be kosher for an Outlander to say something
>>like, "You did X. Your 'law' says Y. Hypocrite much?"
>
>I think it's very possible to write an Outlander role that
>knows or cares about the law (or did at some point), but most
>of them that I've seen really wouldn't/shouldn't.
>
>It's not that they couldn't get the information so much
>as they probably wouldn't care.


Agree with this. It nearly always rubs me the wrong way when people do this (or similar things such as telling Ragers how they should fight.)

When my Outlanders are, for example, flagged in blatant abuse of law or notice a Trib not following what I might know of their cabal I've said something like "Victory is at hand! The seeds of chaos are sown even in your vile tower!" Wouldn't your Outlander, in many cases, be happy that they can't follow even their own order?

>When my Outlanders are, for example, flagged in blatant abuse
>of law or notice a Trib not following what I might know of
>their cabal I've said something like "Victory is at hand! The
>seeds of chaos are sown even in your vile tower!" Wouldn't
>your Outlander, in many cases, be happy that they can't follow
>even their own order?

I think it would be more like "Victorrry is at hand! The seeds of chaos arrre sown even in yourrr vile towerrrr! Rrroot, rrroot!"

I'm not saying the Outie would care about people following the laws, per se. Just that 1) he wouldn't be ignorant that they exist and 2) he'd be aware of the fact that a Magistrate who breaks them is violating his deeply held beliefs.

Maybe his reaction to this is "evil glee" because he's corrupted the lawfulness of a Magistrate.

But if I'm a Sunwarden and the Magistrate in question is a goodie, then maybe my enthusiasm for his budding lawlessness is tempered with concern for his also becoming a liar and a hypocrite. Now he's not just acting lawless but also arguably evil, which is something I probably shouldn't be overjoyed about.

In any case, I don't think a blanket statement that Outies shouldn't criticize Magistrates who break the law really captures the nuances of that situation.

>I'm not saying the Outie would care about people following
>the laws, per se. Just that 1) he wouldn't be ignorant that
>they exist and 2) he'd be aware of the fact that a Magistrate
>who breaks them is violating his deeply held beliefs.

But would he have cared to even find out what those laws were?

I'm picturing a world in which Christians and Muslims are fighting the Crusades and busting each other down on the nuances of their religions that they're violating thereby.

We arent comparing two EXTREMELY similiar religions we are picturing two opposites fighting. Maybe like Christians and buddists.

I've got a single #### to give...and it's just for you.

The Crusades weren't about Christianity

or

We are fighting a war against radical Islam. A few radicals have hijacked an otherwise peaceful religion.


In my civilian line of work, it's quite common for people to tell me what I can and can't do to them.

>
>In any case, I don't think a blanket statement that Outies
>shouldn't criticize Magistrates who break the law really
>captures the nuances of that situation.
>

I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to start a specific argument. My post was trying to quickly give a run-down of things that will kill a character for me. One of those is breaking character (aka OOC), and my post was trying to demonstrate there are two ways to break character: (1) Bringing in RL comments (sorry dude, someone rang my doorbell, did I miss a tell?) or (2) saying things that don't fit with the role of your character.

I really had no intention on fleshing out and debating my off-hand example, but I think I agree with what the other imms have already said. I'm not saying they couldn't know about the laws (depending on their role). But a stand-out Outlander (especially a chaotic one), probably wouldn't sit down to a logical debate and/or complain to tribunal leadership by using nuances in the law. We've seen some really bad examples of chaotic characters doing just that. Specifically, they seemed to be arguing, 'follow this law better!' not 'screw laws...see, you can't even follow them!' I'd be down with the latter. The former, however, is an example of that second kind of break to me and wouldn't be winning you huge RP rewards.

You might be able to think of some nuanced role where that's actually good RP. The rare exception isn't my point, it's that a player really be and react like their character would...no a player that knows the rules of the game.

>But a stand-out Outlander
> especially a chaotic one), probably wouldn't sit down to a
>logical debate and/or complain to tribunal leadership by using
>nuances in the law.

I agree with this. But I could see the outie guy sending the magistrate a snide comment about how he can't even follow his own laws. And I could see that potentially being misinterpreted as a "whine" if the magistrate's law-breaking resulted in the outlander's death.

>it's that
>a player really be and react like their character would...no a
>player that knows the rules of the game.

Agreed.

You dont think a drow would make fun of a tribunal about law? If i ever play outlanders as a drow or elf likely i would poke fun at a Magistrate if he ever broke the law. I would do it as an RP angel.

I've got a single #### to give...and it's just for you.

This is understandable. I think people get more irritated when they see random Outlander complain about a possibly shady flag. For example, if they're trying to get their item back from Trib and the Trib, to the best of their knowledge, thinks that guy is an app or maybe just attacking the Captain for kicks. He warrants this Outlander and the Outlander flips out about an unfair warrant. It's the quasi OOC stuff like that which is pretty well established as meh. I'd rather someone said something IC like "I'll wear this warrant with pride, it sows the seeds of chaos and proves the error of your order!" or something like that.

nt

I've got a single #### to give...and it's just for you.

It really falls under RP and whining. Good RP = Good, any kind of whining even when a small effort is to disguise it with rp = bad.

Other examples - evil battle guy complaining that Fort just won't leave him alone so he can go kill mages. I saw that one this week, and yes I did add history about it. Empire bitching about being ganged down, the fact that all people raid their cabal, etc. Neutral guy ranking on good mobs freaking out when a goodie pks them.

There's a lot of things, it boils down to common sence and sportsmanship.

Raiding the Spire for an item as a criminal, and as a non-criminal are two VERY different things. Nothing pisses me off more as an Outtie who is using their own laws against the Tribs, when I get warranted for an attempt at taking back the Fetish. I think this happens a lot and then after the raid is over "oopsie" is corrected.

These are the exact examples that I hoped to be able to see. Thanks you so much Neltouda!

sdfvds

If you were Pro you'd know the answer to that already.

In Pro's eyes at least

We had a Protrial and I was Profound guilty of Prospiracy against Pro with my Procomplices.

Until you confess, there will never be any healing between us.

What is this grudge about again? The biggest Pro flake out I remember was I had a dwarf paladin that said 'fuggin' who you said broke the code and demanded to be unempowered by the IMMs.

OH! No, you're talking about when I was playing Iktul or Iltch and you got looted by a felar lowbie who I admitted I said could take free reign with your corpse since you had been such a douche to me IC. You were saying it was me that full looted you and not him, even though he freely admitted on your death thread that he looted you and wanted to know why you were freaking out.

Although..is it a sexual healing? I could say you're right in that case..cause sometimes I get this feeling and I need sexual healing.

I however have not and that remains the factor foremost in my mind whenever I see a Jalim post.

I would call it a fluke, but it was not the only instance when I caught you lying in situations I was involved in.

I just thought it was odd to sell your integrity over a mud and there you have it.

Glad you and Nelly could hit it off though.

I'm after that Philippine chick that cheats. She's probably hawt, Not Iunna hawt, but still.

Yes. I didn't think it was a secret. I thought I posted something about getting married etc. not to long ago.

They LARP together too. Seriously.

Thanks for this list, Nelly! I'm going to piggyback on it and make my own comments since you've done most of the heavy lifting already


>
>Things that I frown upon:
>
>.Ignore command - when used incorrectly it makes me want to
>take away your ability to speak at all
>

I'll be honest--I never notice when people use this. The only thing that really bothers me about it is people praying about people putting them on ignore.

>.Going OOC at anytime I don't care if 10 people just killed
>you and took everything. I've been there, I didn't go OOC.
>

Yes. Yes. I like to make my involvement with a character last a long time and build up over time. If I see warning signs that the character is unstable it will scare me away from initiating.

>.Full looting/saccing just to be a jerk or trying to make
>excuses to make it sound like you're not being a jerk
>

Don't care about this unless people lie about it.


>.Overly sexualized characters - Please don't inspire people to
>take their pants off it creeps me out
>

I'm not really into rape roles or people trying to push it too far in interactions, but a hint of perversion doesn't bother me.


>.Lack of capitalization and punctuation - I have denied full
>empowerment due to this


In conversation, this isn't a big thing for me, and I make typos all the time while trying to interact on telnet at work, but it drives me crazy when roles and notes are riddled with bad formatting and mispelling. If you send me a note, it had better not look like Thror had his way with it


>
>.Multi-killing - You are not a badass because you killed newb
>5069 20 times
>

I actually take time to look at the individual PKs someone has had. If someone brags about their accomplishments but is killing the same sad gomer each time it makes me a sad panda.


>.Talking to me because I'm vis for no good reason
>
>.Forgetting that I am a God. No, I'm not an evil one but I am
>also not the Goddess of baby bunnies.
>
>.Stupid RP that you think is RP but it isn't, it's just
>stupid... BOAT BOAT BOAT comes to mind.
>
>.RP outside the world of CF. For a long time people loved
>therunyourwordstogetherstyleofgnome rp. That isn't a CF gnome.
>Each race is provided with plenty of culture for you to draw
>roles from, do it!

Yes to all of this. Especially the last point. Play to our vanity--we've put a lot of hard work into creating this world. Let us think that something we wrote is the inspiration for your role without being too obvious!


>
>.Lieing during an interview - Don't tell me you went to an
>area and you are an awesome explorer when I can see that you
>have not been there, also don't tell me you've killed five
>people when you ganged them down with two other people AND got
>zero KBs
>

This happens a lot in Scion too. It's far more cool for me to see someone talk about something Scion/magicky that is level-appropriate than something that his character isn't powerful enough to know without having learned it from past characters. Level 15 guy that can creatively articulate something he made up about the Kobold Warrens is much cooler than another level 15 guy repeating the same stuff about Maethien he used with his last character.


And especially in email: Do not lie. Don't tell me that this is your only character if it isn't. (I can't generally tell if it is or not, but if it is something that is a concern for me I will ask a higher level Imm whether it is indeed your only character and not the names of your others.) Don't keep threatening to delete. If I feel like my trust has been abused in an OOC way I will not forgive it.


I also do not like the feeling that my (or any imm's) involvement is necessary for a character's role. Empowerment is one thing, obviously, but other stuff that makes me feel like I'm adding another burden to my Imm workload by talking to you (or that you'll be SOL if I can't log on for a while) will make me avoid interacting at all.


I dislike a sore loser more than almost anything else in this game, (and I can hear everything you say after you die.) That said, coming to your senses quickly or after a little prodding can more than redeem your reputation in my eyes.


This was heavy on the frowny faces. I like to give xp for random interactions--usually I hope that one of us two gets struck by inspiration for something that can develop into something more down the road!

then you should take a step back, put on your big girl panties, and realize how much this doesn't matter in any way. You don't need IMM love to enjoy this game.

There most definitely is. Some Imms are worse than others. It's like office politics and for the most part you just have to accept it. The biggest issue I see is the worst offender not only rewards her favorites, but also likes to punish usually with ####ty comments but sometimes worse those who mess with her favorites or are on her #### list. It can be frustrating to see the bosses racket-ball buddy always getting your promotion, but it's a fact of life even in the digital world.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

nt

I've got a single #### to give...and it's just for you.

Which players do you think are unfairly rewarded?

The only one I can think of who regularly gets crazy awards is Twist. Do you feel his characters' rewards are the undeserved fruits of favoritism?

You are trying to make it about the player's ability, that's not what this is about. You give Twist Jalim's IP and hide their usual tells, and I guarantee he gets half of what he got on his characters. Hell it just happened on his Conjurer. It's obvious they don't reward every great character the same, just look at the death threads and then the PBF's. A character will get a ton of accolades for a great character and Imms will even chime in and agree half the time, but yet they get a fraction of the rewards of someone else. And it goes the other way too, if you are on their #### list then you can guarantee it's going to be that much harder for you to get rewarded or look out if you make any kind of mistake as they'll be all over you for it.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

>You are trying to make it about the player's ability, that's
>not what this is about. You give Twist Jalim's IP and hide
>their usual tells, and I guarantee he gets half of what he got
>on his characters. Hell it just happened on his Conjurer.

Sure, if you consider one of Jalim's usual tells to be being solid in PK, which I would.

But then how do you separate that from player ability?

Maybe a conjurer who PKs for #### shouldn't get more PK-deadly rewards than one that's a murder factory, but that's kind of what tends to happen.

Now Graatch, thats a much better example, for more reasons than I care to name.

I think the technical term is 'blow me'.

I am saying you are a player who often didn't get rewarded enough in my opinion.

Practice reading before you get all snippy.

That's now how it reads, at least to me or two other people I asked before posting. If you say you meant it differently however, ok, and I retract the blow me. Sorry about that.

>I am saying you are a player who often didn't get rewarded
>enough in my opinion.
>
>Practice reading before you get all snippy.

My forum posting skill is 23% so I fail constantly

sorry no, I think you are a player whose characters consistently seemed underewarded.

Jalim was a bad example as mentioned by Daevryn I mean hes had villagers with 4 legacies.

Imagine Vershelt with 4 legacies

>My forum posting skill is 23% so I fail constantly
>
>sorry no, I think you are a player whose characters
>consistently seemed underewarded.
>
>Jalim was a bad example as mentioned by Daevryn I mean hes had
>villagers with 4 legacies.
>
>Imagine Vershelt with 4 legacies

Actually I don't really have to imagine too hard... Azilaph had 4 legacies.

Though I have a general sense of agreement with your basic notion. From time to time I received excellent rewards, and other times when I thought I deserved, I did not. But other than once or twice, I think it was merely oversight or bad timing, not deliberate. Over a dozen or so years, that's not really too bad I suppose. And if I can say that, the one person the staff has admitted to altering the pfile on purpose, then I think you can accept it, too.

More trying to find a way for us all to know what imms look for.

Yes but Twist's just as solid in PK if not more so, so it's a wash on that.

I'm saying you guys aren't impartial on how you reward and punish.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

>Yes but Twist's just as solid in PK if not more so, so it's a
>wash on that.
>
>I'm saying you guys aren't impartial on how you reward and
>punish.

Respectfully, I think you're completely insane here.

Jalim's had a zillion role contest wins. He's had a warrior with four legacies!

I don't know what more than that anyone wants. Not every character from a good player is a gem and it seems crazy to me to assume there's some kind of grander conspiracy behind that.

Next thing I know Graatch has told me to blow him.

I just wanted to hear from the staff on some of the criteria they reward with so we can all be players.

Because the man is a convicted liar.

gr

Wait, so your argument isn't that certain players are unfairly rewarded but that certain players are unfairly punished? Or are you saying both are true?

We have Jalim in the latter category (unfairly punished). Who would you put in the "unfairly rewarded" category? Is Twist in there, or no? Anybody else? Me? Lightmage (back when he used to play)?

I'm saying they reward/punish the player over the character a lot of the time, depends on the Imm. Lightmage is a great example because he was a friend of the powers that be, he also has by far more quest forms then anyone in the history of the game.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

Look at Kadsuane he was friends with imms and hes banned on the forums here so that seems to be evidence this isn't correct. Its funny, I've heard Jalim is also friends with imms too and you are complaining he doesn't get enough love. Your evidence doesn't really seem to match up with your theory.

This is kind of what I wanted to avoid in this thread.

All Imms are not created equal. There is a ruling class and the rest of them.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

All Imms are not created equal. There is a ruling class and the rest of them.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

>Lightmage is a great
>example because he was a friend of the powers that be

Uh, how, or says who or with who?

But beyond that:

1) Dude had a ton of RC wins. Most of those are judged by people who can't see IP, much less be in a position to draw conclusions from it.

2) There aren't a lot of people who play the game who put more effort into RP than Lightmage on a good day. I sure don't.

You are telling me you and other Imms aren't friendly with Lightmage outside the game? Again I'm not saying these people are horrible RPers by any means, what I'm saying is they just need to hit the dart board to win where a lot of us have to hit the bulls-eye and then maybe we get a prize.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

I do not know any imm that is friends with lightmage irl.

I'm not friends with him, don't know his RL name, and I wouldn't even bet my life that I know what country he lives in.

Which disqualifies him from my friendship

Just kidding, I love me some Canadians.

...I do know that his role-writing-fu is strongly superior to mine.

Also his ability to play roles that would (and have) make me delete in under 100 hours out of sheer boredom is of particular note (I'm thinking about Harkan here. I believe that was LM but I'm not sure.)

NT

Aesrira was easily one of the best RPed shifters I've ever interacted with. Totally deserving of that quest form. Yes, Lightmage's shifter have constantly been in Imm favour by getting quest forms, after interacting with Aesrira, I'm inclined to believe that there's some merit behind that.

Who else? I mean, are we just talking about Lightmage here? Didn't he quit?

I sincerely doubt that imms are looking at an IP before rewarding someone.

They might know a bad ip or provider by name, and keep an eye on it, but my general belief is they reward independent of that.

Lol keep believing that. They don't always need IP, I remember a few times someone telling me who would win a RC before it happened just based on that they knew said IMM was OOC buddies with that character's player.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

If you make an effort to pretend like this isn't your 4,000th character, don't play a human in a funny suit, and punctuate, I will group with you.

If you ask me things like, "What terrain do you specialize in?" or Can you help me kill X mob for Y gear rather than saying, "I have heard of a fiendish X and would like to see him fall. Beware though! He has a Y!"

If you are esl, I tend to associate you with the Russian Mafia and I won't travel with you.

Nor will I travel with Nexuns or Gnomish Air/Off shapeshifters.

I'm sure Imms have their preferences and prejudices too.

I never feel like my characters get rewarded enough.

My understanding is it's like anything in life. You need preparation and opportunity.

Preparation comes in doing stand out things like giving your character an entertaining (as opposed to annoying) schtick. Like the only character I've ever had that got major rewards abused cloud giant speak - always. I got really into the whole Outlander native spirit role-play, and kept trying to incorporate it into whatever I was doing. I always raided, retrieved, never logged out in bad odds, etc. So doing all the "stand out" things is the preparation part.

And the opportunity is getting an imm online at the same time as you who is intrigued and not annoyed by your efforts, intrigued enough to watch you of their own volition as opposed to fielding constant prays/tells from you.

There ARE a couple players that regularly get incredible awards. Two i can think of are Twist and Yhorian. But Twist is the epitome of preparation meeting opportunity: Twist goes balls out with every character he plays, and only gets rewarded if he runs into the right opportunity. He just happens to play a lot of morts. I'm not sure what goes on with Yhorian - I think he has a personality that comes through and appeals to a couple people. That's not really something you can mimic so your best bet is to do what Twist does. Go all out with your best effort at all times, and maybe the stars will align for 20 minutes of that character's 300 hour life

I hope that helps.

ETA: heh I meant to say that in addition to doing stand out things, Yhorian has a pretty unique personality that comes across in text no matter what he is playing. It's not something you can really copy so you're better of of doing it the Twist way

Thanks so much very good to know any advice!!

...but you sorta told Reksah to #### off (far more nicely, but essentially that), I kinda feel like maybe you need to not ask questions like this.

There's a character out there right now who has a lich quest. I have no real knowledge of the player behind that character. Another has a really, really powerful ability (esp. for that character). Again, I have no clue about the player of this character.

What you're seeing is perception. I felt like Heben got screwed on immteraction and imm love - I felt like she should've been made Nightreaver, and I prayed for Thror for 2.5 months with no response except an attempted cranial by him at level 15.

These are just instances of bad luck on my part. Not any imbalance. My playtimes didn't mesh with Jasthrean. Thror was gone more often than usual, likely due to the holidays.

So the short answer is no.

But that said what are things Twist looks for in a character he rewards? I don't just mean a follower more what is the good stuff we can do to be in the running for that stuff as a character in general. I suck at posting my thoughts well in this forum and for that I am sorry. It just always comes off bad even if I do not mean it to.

I don't mean it like I don't get any rewards or anything just how can all of us make ourselves more like the ones who seem to constantly be rewarded. Players dont always have the benefit of watching those chars all the time as you imms do and sometimes pbf doesnt tell the whole story.

I am looking for advice to improve here, not to say I think people are being rewarded unfairly.

>But that said what are things Twist looks for in a character
>he rewards? I don't just mean a follower more what is the good
>stuff we can do to be in the running for that stuff as a
>character in general. I suck at posting my thoughts well in
>this forum and for that I am sorry. It just always comes off
>bad even if I do not mean it to.

I'll give an example of when I reward folks - the current Emperor got some loving from me a while back - probably 3 months. Basically I'd noticed this guy who stuck to one character, played it well, and stuck out against really terrible odds night after night. Even while I was playing Tavlin, he'd stick out loooong odds. He got pretty crapped on during the former Emperor's reign, ate a couple bad deaths, but kept on trucking. So I rewarded him with something that I don't consider OP, but that some people may end up complaining about once his PBF is published.

Hopefully that helps you understand what I look for.

Specifics will help all of us play better, I think. Thanks so much.

There is nothing that makes me feel worse than missing out on interacting with a stellar player. I missed Tontik's death. I feel terrible. I happen to wonder if he was given any parting globals because he was a great character.

I feel the same about missing out on Heben (Holidays and a new fantastic job both play a role in this) because Twist births some of the most fantastic characters to watch.

What are my criteria? Have some substance before you come to me. I'm the Lord of Hardships. I have to feel like you've dealt with some measure of hardship in your life before you come frolicking to me.

Stand out situations are typically raid in nature. If I see someone making a stand against overwhelming odds with a glimmer of hope and a whimper of a prayer, I am going to be highly impressed. Knacnar, Ghrummin, Tontik, to name a few, were outstanding followers of mine because they knew how tough they were and they would constantly push their limits by going up against multiple enemies.

In turn, they rarely never shied away from a defense.

Those are typically my criteria. Knowing your stuff and having a strong role are supporting criteria.

G'luck!

This is exactly the type of feedback I was looking for. Thank you.

Also - that above post was tailored towards my religion. When I'm looking to randomly reward (primarily with Sapper Training) - I'm looking for the same stand out items.

- Well RP'd substance.
- A great fight/standoff to perk my interest.
- The ability to interact so that my efforts aren't a waste of time.
(To interact for several hours and see a delete the next week takes the steam out of any imm).

Do you think perhaps that you wait TOO long before giving out rewards? I've heard people say good things about you but when I browse the PBF the rewards they show for it don't seem on par with the time and effort they seem to have put into it.

Just curious what you and others think.

I've had my peers suggest I give out too many rewards (and over reward for that matter).

I think at times work/RL tends to interfere with my ability to play the game/interact. I genuinely have the best of intentions and may at times reward heavily.

I am the God of Hardships. Typically my IC wrath is one that results in watching for something exceptional to prompt my rewards. I've asked several times for ways to CRIPPLE characters on account of their failure to meet my expectations.

Hope that helps.

our playerbase was higher on the maturity scale and could handle negative RP consequences. I'd absolutely love to see some crippling for failing a/your god. Feel free to track my IP and cripple away. Even if I probably won't ever follow you (no offense intended, just don't typically write thror-esque roles)

asf

Have you guys ever tossed around the idea of being able to preset global echos for when certain circumstances are met, the one for this instance of course would be when a character con dies or age dies?

It would just be cool to see some of the more exceptional characters have an interesting going out no matter if their Immortal was logged on or not. Cause lord knows Thera deserved to see a little global echo love when Tontik finally lost his last fight.

This is a great idea in the event players are on and croak when the imm is not!

Speaking for myself, I usually reward players based on interactions with NPCs or my immortal. Players that are rewarded typically: (a) make the game fun to play; (2) stay in character; (γ) surprise me in some way; and (ד) aren't clingy/needy during the interaction. I really don't care what your background or IP address is because a player only exists for me in that moment. Soar in the meeting and you're rewarded, even if you turn out to be a wreck at other times.

I always felt like I was learning interacting with you. Thanks for this post!

What is the good behavior that we players can do more of to get rewards?

Its obvious that these players are doing the good things, I just wish to know more specifically as a player what the imms would like to see better or rather what is done well by those players who get such good rewards. So what do you imms look for when you give out rewards? I know longevity seems to be a big one, good rp, consistent RP, what other tips can you give those of us looking to achieve more imm rewards?

I realize my first post comes off maybe not so well as I get easily distracted and my forum posting skill is at like 23%.

Nessecary? No. However, any time an Immortal rewards a character, the opportunity for "perceived favoritism". Personally, I'd still rather see others get rewards I don't, and have the CHANCE at rewards, than everyone get nothing.

A perfect example is Rayihn's recent comment for non-standard race/class combinations. She just told *EVERYONE* that it was possible, and said EXACTLY what she felt was needed to gain it. Will people complain at the first fire giant invoker that shows up? Absolutely.

Even things as known and structured as role contests create "favoritism" for those good at writing over say, myself.

Overall, you have differing people, rewarding people at different rates, and differing opinions of suitable rewards. Yes, there's likely guidelines to rewards, but overall it's always going to be subjective.

My personal philosophy is that one either needs to decide whether they believe the system is being applied in good faith, or not. If you believe it is, then everyone's generally happy. If you believe it's not, then the two options are grumble and choose to play against unfair odds, or to find other games. Otherwise, they're just not going to be happy.

>Nessecary? No. However, any time an Immortal rewards a
>character, the opportunity for "perceived favoritism".
>Personally, I'd still rather see others get rewards I don't,
>and have the CHANCE at rewards, than everyone get nothing.

Great point and one I agree with 100%

> Will people complain at the first fire giant invoker that
>shows up? Absolutely.

Have fun spamming the spells. Maybe give the guy masochism as a quest skill if he picks seven paths.

http://www.carrionfields.com/helpsearch.php?keywords=masochism

On thes erious side, that's generally my point. No matter how HORRIBLE the char is, and the fact that you probably wouldn't even WANT to be that character, someone's going to complain that they don't get to have it.

Also good role writing, good RP over a long time, and not breaking RP. I dont think IMMs favor others. I just think those same people who do a good job...continue to do a good job with they next characters. Truly i know why i dont get rewarded. Its because i cant keep to a character because i personally am trying to see what i like before i get to heavy into RP. That is just my own personal thoughts though i have been wrong a number of times. Personally even if i had a 400 hour character which i RPed hardcore I wouldnt expect to get any rewards id just be doing it for the fun of it. Once a character isnt fun im done.

I've got a single #### to give...and it's just for you.