Skeeta was the only bard whose notes I have ever read. At least beyond the first.

There is a letter out from Empire that looks like it was written by a crayon tapped to an elbow. Things like this aggravate me.

I would like to offer two ideas.

Bard Notes require a sort of Empowerment.
and or
Bard Notes Cost 50 gold to post.

If it were just people being lazy I could sympathise with it annoying you so but the fact remains that we have lots of ESL players and they do really well considering.

Well as Skeeta's player, thanks for the compliment. I have to say, I was *very* aware that my Skeeta's notes might irritate some players, and in fact, they DID irritate some players. I had more than a few people bitch to me that they found my notes annoying (and I'm differentiating here between the few players that were obviously complaining in a roleplaying context, and those who were complaining semi OOCly as players.) Since the compliments I received far outnumbered the complaints, I kept on truckin' with the Heraldic Post, but the lesson to take from this is - just because *you* are irritated by a bard note, doesn't mean everyone is.

I do recall a few occasions through the years where a bard got a little spammy with poor-quality material, and at that point an imm would step in and have a talk about being more conservative with the use of bardnotes. We do have the capacity to remove the bardnote ability from a bard who is abusing it, but I do not recall this happening in recent memory. At the moment, it is not as if there is a deluge of bard notes spamming the playerbase. It probably takes two seconds of your time (if that) to skip past them if you don't want to read them.

I'll also share that Skeeta was the fourth bard I've had through the years that generously utilized bard notes. The first I'm fairly sure was abysmally terrible (perhaps the poetry was decent, but surely not at all relevant or interesting to anyone else - I was 19 and being pretentiously poetic), the second did a series of haikus about every god in the pantheon (which may have been mildly amusing, but surely trite and after half a dozen, became spammy in the eyes of some, I'm sure). The third was Amberlea (which I can proclaim with some pride was the first bard to use notes for descriptions of visual art, but surely that is not everyone's cup of tea either), and finally Skeeta.

My point is that bards are the only class that has an initial, built-in mechanic to share creative use of the written word in public to the entire playerbase. Since the MUD is by its nature a virtual reality created with written words, it seems appropriate that we have one class that allows a player to do so. (Some MUDs out there, for example, have universal public notes, universal abilities for players to create objects and rooms, etc. These MUDs generally look like a cluster####, mind you, but CF allowing this *one* thing is pretty minor.)

Not everyone is going to be masterfully clever or poetic with the tool, but it's a mechanic with a single class that allows a player to stretch their creative muscle on a public, in-game forum. Not every attempt is going to be great, but then, neither is every attempt to PK, roleplay, or explore.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say another player's botched attempt to lead your group in some exploration or PK disaster is much more skin off your back than someone's terribad bard note that you can flip past and ignore in half a second.

To the bards who are flexing their creative muscle out there, I'm not a hater, and I will categorically oppose any attempt throw roadblocks in front of your ability to send bard notes. Keep on keepin' on!

Writing notes as Scaurus was a lot of fun, as they were with Bezzilan. Unless you're writing like many notes a day I really don't see how anyone could reasonably argue the skill should be taken away. It is literally the simplest thing to handle as a player: just type the word note, or not type it at all. Nobody has to read any note, ever, and as you say, nobody ever died or got into an xp hole because they had that extra note in their note list.

You win.

nt

Don't let that discourage you from posting notes or engaging people. I see many of people who can't speak english well and it is their first language. Hell, I screw up all the time, and I've been speaking English my whole life.

I imagine CF is a great way to get better actually, and anyone that puts that time and effort into their RP is doing well, so keep at it and don't worry about it. If your char is a bard, that's one of your skills. And good for you for pushing your cabal's ideas and trying to strengthen it.

Personally, I like the fact that CF is played internationally. While it is an English-based game (though I suppose I'm one to talk), it is still a game, so don't fret over English.

In my experience, reading and writing a foreign language are two completely different skills. Some languages that I read I would have no confidence at all trying to write, so I'm happy to applaud those that do.

EVERY TIME YOU DO THIS I FEEL INFERIOR. DAMN YOU. THERE ARE NO LATINS IN CF.

Classical Latin isn't too bad. Neo-Latin (Latin from 1500 to present), however, is an abomination. And it is an abomination that I regularly have to suffer. I will not suffer alone.

Quality aimed bullets can smell.

If you every have any trouble translating latin, just let me know. I'm a master of all Latin.

If only you weren't full of crap. :p

"tu sane iocaris"

You stain yoke hairs.

I've read most of the Loeb collection. It's really poorly translated. I'll be publishing my first true translation, Loeb style, in about a year or so. Once my first is done, the rest will pick up quickly.

Fair enough! I may send you one or two things and see what you think.

(EDIT: I sent you a PM with a short sample.)

I didn't even realize there were PMs on officials.

Fortasse malis exercere unum ex artificiis.

I enjoy deciphering Latin names. I never pass up a chance to annoy my daughter by making her breakdown words into their Latin/Greek/whatever roots.

I'll preface this with I play a LOT of bards, and I've written maybe three or four notes to all outside of my herald bard who wrote obituaries for people that asked and for friends that died. So I don't think it's as common a thing as you think.

At least most of the time. Yes, we've all seen bad poems and stuff, and seen some chars that post a lot of them. But these people are tryinhg and it is RP, so I don't want to see it discouraged, even if the writing is not necessarily to my specific tastes.

Given that lately the only time people write notes to all they are either doing informational or propaganda things, I don't think there is too much of a big deal about these.

When you get a bard who writes bad poetry or something you can just skip over it. If the subject line does not interest you, you do not have to read it. However, some people like seeing notes, some people like reading them, so I don't think limiting them by way of gold is wise. How would an outlander post for example?

Empowerment?
Nah.
Bards willing to take time to post other people's notes are rare enough, so I imagine any sort of restriction would ultimately just limit the flow of useful information that bard notes can provide.

Keep in mind, a bard who consistently abuses the note to all function will have it taken away by the imms, so it is policed. Any note that is done in an IC fashion, I'm fine with, no matter the writing style. It's their char's RP after all, and I'm never big on doing anything to discourage players from engaging in such or disapproving of any char's attempt to RP.

Also, don't shoot the messenger. Lots of these notes are not from the bard, the bard is just the acting scribe for others. And lots of bards will charge the poster for the service.

wervwer

Non oleum addere camino.