http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/13/call-of-duty-red-orchestra-2-interview/

I saw this article a little bit ago and it says something interesting about CF I think.

I'm going to go back to the beginning. At the very start, the skill gap in CF was considerably smaller than today. There weren't a ton of people who were accomplished MUDers, and few of them played CF. Even if they did play CF, it wasn't so incredibly similar to other MUDs that they could instantly dominate. There was also a much lower gap between even the best CFer on thepoint.com or maple.can.net. After all the world was much smaller, and the choice of preps, tactics, and equipment was a fraction of what it is today. Grab a purple potion or two, kill the red dragon, wield the nightmare blade and go to town.

At this time CF was pretty popular. Lots of players. Lots of group fights, lots of ganging and full looting and general mayhem. In fact, the skill gap was small enough that random people that stumbled across the game could get into it, and if they could get a few friends to join in, they could essentially compete with anyone. Sure they would still get killed and fulled on a regular basis, but then if you are playing the text game equivalent of CoD, you expect that and you just wait for a re-spawn.

One of the things we've known for some time is that CF is incredibly difficult to get into as a new player. The amount of ramp up time to be even marginally competitive is a barrier few new players are willing to get over. We've sort of hand-waved at what we could do to lower this barrier, but I think we lacked a clear idea of what the goal is.

Now, I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not even sure that compressing the skill gap is something that CF should be shooting for, but if increasing the number of players is the goal, I think it is probably the best thing we could do to accomplish that goal.

So, what are steps that CF could take to compress the skill gap between the very skilled (vets) and the brand spanking new?

As a test, I'm also posting this to reddit here: http://www.reddit.com/r/MUDCarrionFields/comments/1d8yo3/compressing_the_skill_gap/ which would allow folks to vote up good ideas if they chose to use reddit to respond... Maybe it will be worthwhile, maybe it won't.

I'm not sure this will help but it would be interesting getting some feedback.

Back in the day things like jeweled broadswords were not limited, how about making those unlimited again? Together with stuff like blacksmiths forge hammers, notched axes, 2+ dam bracers etc?

Would that make it more difficult or easier for newbies? Would it affect the game negatively?

Instead of doing an area rewrite/add next time someone has the itch, design a comprehensive quest that will take a newbie from 1 to 11 in ~1 hour and outfit them with everything they need to be competitive in that time frame.

So, class appropriate gear (from the relevant places), a bag with food, a couple of drink containers. A light-ish raft... A recall potion or two, a teleport potion or three, ~5k gold in the bank and perhaps flight, prot vs. align, and enlarge/reduce. Basically everything a vet who was planning to start pking at level 11 would have, but gathered quickly-ish so that someone who is new to the game can hit the ground running fairly quickly.

A quick primer on trip/bash lag and perhaps a pk-like NPC arena style battle would be nice to throw in. Basically you run around and grab a bunch of stuff quickly, and get thrown into the deep end like back when 5k exp put you in PK range.

And yes, I do expect I would use said quest, but perhaps you have to answer yes to the are you a newbie question (which has some drawbacks like no brief) to be eligible for the quest.

Sure, the newb will still die horribly, but hopefully they will remember where to get stuff to get back on their feet from the quest they just did. So if they really tried they could be ready to go again in under an hour by following roughly the same steps.

Thoughts?

But, for example, that bank quest west of Galadon has an atrocious risk/reward ratio, it's great that it sends you to places that far out of the way but some of them like Hillcrest I can't see a player touching their entire first year of play let alone needing to go there to PK pre-40. Even for someone who knows where to go and what to get with a pile of garbage in their inventory to refresh with at every stop it takes about an hour to complete. Most people in that timeframe will/should end up with a group instead interrupting that quest.

I think this could be better achieved while making a more self-reliant player by having Simon give a laundry list of people to visit for more quests both old and new after the academy quest with it's max level of 5. The cabal locations quest needs to be reworked, the complexity and tedium of the bank quest needs to be toned down, possibly by lopping Prosimy and Hillcrest off that list. Quests that send people INTO the high tower of sorcery pre-11 would be good too, preferably to buy stuff from the shoppies on the first floor. It would also swing them by the drunken transmuter whereupon they would get the quest to join the tower, after which you can get the obs. exp available there from wandering around and being directed to chat with a few of the named mobs for 50 plain xp each that would elaborate on the info on the banners and sigils in the Academy on each mage class.

Honestly if you can direct a player to find an avg 18 +1 hit +1 dam sword and a couple damage rings, or the elegant silver rapier, that would be plenty for PK at level 15 even if you were still going to get your ass kicked. Get a quest in there that explains flight lets you cross water, avoid trip and legsweep, and a quest that succinctly explains enlarge and size/bash mechanics, as well as holy water in Galadon and that's really all anyone starting out needs to compete at 15 even against people with better gear considering they can gang. Even just mentioning enlarge lets humans wield two handed weapons in one hand and that it makes you generally more resistant to bash is more than sufficient.

Mostly because it is one of the few I can't/don't avoid triggering but almost always refuse to complete.

I agree that most of this stuff is probably already in game, but tying it together and making it fast enough that even someone who has never played a mud before (but successfully navigated the academy) can get into the action ~11 or 15 in a reasonable amount of time seems like a good start to me. It doesn't really compress the skill gap significantly, but it could boost the new player (and not so new player) up that curve a bit without them sacrificing too much of the learn as you go stuff.

You'll get more Krilcovs than you will actual players, they'll disappear for six months and only then return and try to be half-assed productive. Like Stevers, who despite his bizarre behavior actually contributes to things now. Admittedly addressing the skill gap will not only help newbies get up to speed faster but also allow returning vets to not give up in frustration due to the timesink.

If you want to address the skill gap you need to address the skill gap baseline. I think only the imms and players who frequently manage to make cabal leaders can address the question 'What should a player who has been playing for a year generally know and how can we expedite this process down to three months?' or some similar question.

I think that a player who has been playing for a year:

1) Should have a solid grasp on how to play/gear at least 3 classes and a general idea of how to PK with at least one even if they are completely PK averse. At least one of the above classes should generally be warriors, assassins, rangers, offense/defense shapeshifters or bards. (chosen on the basis of utility, gear reliance, and ease of use respectively.) A corrollary to this is they need to know how to at least check all the protected cities and ranking areas opposite their current alignment for PK, but I don't expect a year old player to know how to check for people to kill who are spamming skills.

2) Should know how to regear all the way up through level 30 fighting mobs that are no more than lucky blows and finishing within 10 minutes of their ghost timer wearing off with both a return potion and 5k copper in their inventory regardless of class or level.

3) Should know the general layout and have memorized/be able to look up the shopping lists of all the protected cities and the 3 largest non-protected cities but not necessarily all the shortcuts in and out of them.

4) Should know enough about the a/b/s system to at least find their sienna and have a general idea of the standard difficulty curve to the respective wand locations but ONLY if they play MORE THAN ONE mage class. Without feeding them ALL the locations, but probably picking a dozen and maybe 3 aura locations can't hurt just because shield is already built in on a reasonable timer for all the mage classes and the 3 aura are just to give a general idea where to start looking and what kinds of mobs to ask about IC from there, a more specific idea than 'lol check anything related to magic'. The reason you don't reveal more than that is because the scarcity of alternate, class-specific sources of stoneskin, aura and shield with the appropriate drawbacks are plentiful enough pre-40 to PK even players more skilled than yourself at a modest gold cost (I wish you didn't have to kill the shopkeeper mobs to ensure a repop of these limited items when under limit however).

5) Newbies should also be encouraged to stay below level 40 for that yearlong time period, and the reasoning for doing so needs to be explained straight up: "Over the course of normal gameplay killing mobs you need to explore or get gear from you will gain 1 level every 3 days roughly, and will get a more solid grasp on your class as well as learn the layouts, shortcuts and secrets of the lower level areas faster with a wider margin for error than you will powerlevelling to hero and inevitably deleting in a week due to the skill gap." Cabal politics are independent of that explanation, in every cabal but Empire you can't be booted for not levelling.

That is a ton in even just a year but it's pretty much a good solid timeframe for remaining competitive assuming about 3-6 hours of play every 7 days.

Now, how do you get a player up to speed on all that in a 3 month timeframe? Because just giving it all to them in a wiki won't work either, you not only need to give access to the information but streamline the process such that it's faster (but not the only way) to ask groupmates, cabalmates, or Heralds about it IC, but also need to ensure that at general points along that 3 month timeline these issues are guaranteed to come up and therefore the newbies know what questions to ask. The latter is probably more essential than just giving them the info itself, and this info needs to be answerable on the newbie channel, or at least allow people to point to something more specific than 'ask IC'. 'Check the wiki' should be a legitimate answer with a disclaimer that the wiki won't have the entire game, or even all the non-explore areas archived.

People can turn off the newbie channel so relaxing the limits on 'spam' will markedly improve how much people learn from it both newbies and vets. Imms can still step it and shut down discussions of, for example, 'Skill X is countered by tactic Y or Z except when edge A is in play...'

The nuances of edges do need to be explained more bluntly with regard to mechanics in the helpfiles. Example: Student of Vice/Abyssal Adept/Infernal Adept will, RNG allowing, boost the base level of your servitor mobs as well as make them easier to bind. And you can elaborate the conjure spells with 'As with all conjure spells, more mana can EITHER or BOTH extend the servitor's stay by several ticks or increase the servitor's level potentially giving it access to a wider variety of skills/spells and improving it's melee against lower levelled foes.' and 'As with all binding spells, more mana increases the chances of success beyond your charisma, which is helpful when dealing with servitors above your level.' Then add 'CONSIDER' and the Veil helpfiles to the conjure and bind helpfiles.

I get that writing the helpfiles gives ways to explain stuff ICly in order to avoid breaking immersion but it's more confusing than it is helpful to the theme of the game.

>3) Should know the general layout and have memorized/be able
>to look up the shopping lists of all the protected cities and
>the 3 largest non-protected cities but not necessarily all the
>shortcuts in and out of them.

I can't think of any other RPG game offhand where you have to buy stuff first, before you can get a good idea of what it does. Can you imagine playing Diablo/WoW/GW/BG/etc and having to purchase each of the items for sale before you can see what it does?

Find something in a dungeon? Okay, maybe you have to identify it somehow. Buying from a store? Share that info.

The browse command is a great idea that Valguarnera had, but wish he had carried it a lot further. As is, it isn't useful in a lot of situations.

Can someone make the game design case for why this info should remain hidden?

I like the guy in the Inn that ids stuff, but it is prohibitively expensive. CF just has way, way, way too much stuff to make regular use of him. It's more of a one item here and there kind of identification. Not any way to really learn what stuff does.

For a lot of games, once you know what an item does, that information is permanently connected to the item for that character. So when shopping at a store, it is easy to compare what you have to what's for sale. In CF, unless you have a great memory and know what to look for (for a long time I went purely off AC values and tried to get "divinely armored" on every character thinking that was best), it's all a mystery.

Shopkeepers will shrug and not tell you the effects of an item or it's stats, and while that's awesome for immersion and makes perfect sense for a shoppie in the middle of nowhere or the mage Consortium or something, it should almost never happen in a large city where the shopkeeper in question has been doing business for years. Browse should probably show the weapon average as well as tell you ALL the stats a piece of armor boosts, not just one. AC can remain safely ignored though.

And yes Alduk's current pricing formula could halve the result and be more in line with what it should cost. I can see it getting exponentially more expensive depending on the notoriety of the item but if I am forced to buy a sword from Galadon and then take it to Alduk to figure out if it's even worth using in PK at my current level, I shouldn't be spending 50%% of the value of the object.

If you're buying a sword in Galadon, then it's not worth using in PK at your current level.

99% of that stuff is primarily only good for easy regearing/ranking. 0 out of 10 game designers surveyed would place something competitive in Galadon for cheap.

Splntrd

.

Probably, if CF is something that interested him.

Splntrd

I don't object at all to the discussion that you're trying to get going here... I think it has the potential to go to some interesting/useful places.

But I have to object to this:

>I'm going to go back to the beginning. At the very start, the
>skill gap in CF was considerably smaller than today.

This is so, so, so not true. The gulf of skill and especially knowledge between the top players and newbies (i.e. me) back in '94-'95 was so much more pronounced than the modern era. I can illustrate that with examples if you're really curious.

Of course back then usually quit ranking my warriors when they got bash (I think that was lvl 5) and my APs at lightning bolt, so there may have been some parts of the game I was missing. I still have bad memories of dieing to killer angel and that other guy though (forget his name).

Perhaps I'm mistaken. I sure wasn't any good (I was also a teenager) so perhaps my perception was simply not a very complete picture, but I suspect the difference between what you know today and what a newbie knows today about CF is much larger if for no other reason than the game being much larger and more complex than it once was.

Off the top of my head:

- No real way to know who is in a cabal or who the leader is, much less anything about the cabal dogma. Good luck getting inducted into a cabal as a newbie. (Usually, a new player's first long-lived-ish caballed character ends up being an enormous leap forward for their game knowledge.)

- Most people don't know what powers cabals even have, much less what they do and how to counter them.

- Knowledge of cabal locations not widespread, and cabals tended to move locations whenever that changed. (Good luck getting your item back from Shadow when you have no idea where it even is.)

- The best players had a sense of how to gear; most players didn't and geared literally everything for pure damroll.

- The best players know tricks to get gear from some really difficult high-end mobs that you weren't realistically going to beat honestly unless you rounded up a dozen people.

- Charm person was still a thing, and one of the consequences of that was that top tier mage/a-p/ninja players knew what and how to charm to stomp you into the dirt.

- Top tier players understood that skill percentages mattered (in many ways, more than today, prereq-based skills/spells excepted) and how to bot them up; most players had no idea they were even all that relevant.

- Mud-wide summon into deathtraps (and a lot higher percentage of characters with summon to go with it) radically increased the advantage of aggressive players.

- One-shot and near-one-shot kill abilities are much, much more common/unrestricted, again increasing the advantage of aggressive players who already have good gear.

- XP being much harder to get + 15k unlimited-stacking XP holes per death = lots of players literally could not hit 50 at all despite constantly trying to level. Imagine playing a character for 200-300 hours and you're like level 20, and you've spent almost all that time trying to get XP.

That's just off the top of my head.

>Off the top of my head:
>
>- No real way to know who is in a cabal or who the leader is,
>much less anything about the cabal dogma. Good luck getting
>inducted into a cabal as a newbie. (Usually, a new player's
>first long-lived-ish caballed character ends up being an
>enormous leap forward for their game knowledge.)

This is something that has definitely been changed for the better, but knowledge of where cabals are isn't exactly spelled out in a helpfile. I'ts available from the diku wiki map, and there is a quest, but the quest isn't exactly something everyone (or anyone) would stumble upon. Perhaps making that quest more tied into Simon's quest would be a good idea. Knowing who is in a cabal has really only changed for a few cabals as well, and for a leaders mostly.

>- Most people don't know what powers cabals even have, much
>less what they do and how to counter them.

Cabal powers might be mostly demystified, but there are plenty of skills/spells/songs/sups that are still a mystery. To the true newbie, there isn't much that really spells out where bash is useful or how to play a conjie or where to find herbs as a druid (or what they do). There are also a lot more abilities out there than there were, so I'd call this one a wash at best. Sure, cabal powers have helpfiles, but keeping track of what you opponent can do at what level is a whole lot harder in the class/character customization era.

>- Knowledge of cabal locations not widespread, and cabals
>tended to move locations whenever that changed. (Good luck
>getting your item back from Shadow when you have no idea where
>it even is.)

Woops... see above.

>- The best players had a sense of how to gear; most players
>didn't and geared literally everything for pure damroll.

This has changed, but at the same time gear today is a whole lot better than it once was, and the true newbie doesn't know how to gear any better today than they did 10 years ago and the amount and quality and variety of gear today is much more, but there is a still a lot of worthless crap out there. There is also the truly high-end gear that not so many people know where to get and even fewer can truly gather with confidence. How many folks have had Mel-Kartha? (yes I'm picking on you specifically, but it illustrates my point nicely)

>- The best players know tricks to get gear from some really
>difficult high-end mobs that you weren't realistically going
>to beat honestly unless you rounded up a dozen people.

Regen rings? ST gear? Dragon lairs? Has this *really* changed? Seems like more loopholes have been closed and rounding up a dozen people is harder than before more than anything to me.

>- Charm person was still a thing, and one of the consequences
>of that was that top tier mage/a-p/ninja players knew what and
>how to charm to stomp you into the dirt.

NPC pets (outside of class abilities) are less important than they once were, but other things have more than covered that difference I'd say. Preps (number, variety) would be a good example.

>- Top tier players understood that skill percentages mattered
> in many ways, more than today, prereq-based skills/spells
>excepted) and how to bot them up; most players had no idea
>they were even all that relevant.

Meh... On some muds, practicing something to like 10% is a thing. Depending on how new the player and what their background is, they still may not know this. It isn't like there is a help file that spells it out (I just checked and didn't find one anyway).

>- Mud-wide summon into deathtraps (and a lot higher percentage
>of characters with summon to go with it) radically increased
>the advantage of aggressive players.

Hard to argue this one except to say that mud-wide summon was something everyone had a shot at. A gang of noobs with summon could be just as deadly as a vet with summon in most cases...

>- One-shot and near-one-shot kill abilities are much, much
>more common/unrestricted, again increasing the advantage of
>aggressive players who already have good gear.

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but assassinate used to be just a base chance or something... so that's improved-ish. You recently nerfed cleave, but I'm guessing it hadn't changed before that for essentially forever... PWK is just as deadly... Hold person has dissapeared, but neuro is somewhat the same... Dual backstab is the only one that comes to mind as being more or less totally not as likely to kill you as it once was... mostly because it's been completely nerfed... Am I missing something?

>- XP being much harder to get + 15k unlimited-stacking XP
>holes per death = lots of players literally could not hit 50
>at all despite constantly trying to level. Imagine playing a
>character for 200-300 hours and you're like level 20, and
>you've spent almost all that time trying to get XP.

I would actually argue that being unable to rank up actually compressed the skill gap instead of making it larger (so the opposite of what you are implying). After all, lots of people rank into hero range now and promptly get steam rolled until they delete. Many more so than before as they would never have been able to make it to hero (given their skill level). I didn't enjoy the infinite XP holes, but I think the PK ranges might actually reflect skill levels more closely if they were back (and dying to PK was XP loss).

>That's just off the top of my head.

I'm mostly arguing here for the fun of it... I really wish I could combine this forum and reddit somehow without having to repost stuff...

>This is something that has definitely been changed for the
>better, but knowledge of where cabals are isn't exactly
>spelled out in a helpfile. I'ts available from the diku wiki
>map, and there is a quest, but the quest isn't exactly
>something everyone (or anyone) would stumble upon. Perhaps
>making that quest more tied into Simon's quest would be a good
>idea. Knowing who is in a cabal has really only changed for a
>few cabals as well, and for a leaders mostly.

I think being able to pledge and even just knowing who the leader is is a huger help than you think.

I remember spending weeks trying to just find out who the leader of Masters was, much less get inducted.

>This has changed, but at the same time gear today is a whole
>lot better than it once was, and the true newbie doesn't know
>how to gear any better today than they did 10 years ago and
>the amount and quality and variety of gear today is much more,
>but there is a still a lot of worthless crap out there.

Now, understand that I'm mixing contexts a bit in my bullet points -- some are things that newbish players didn't know, and some are things that almost no one knew. This is in the "almost no one" category.

I mean, seriously. Circa '94-'95? Pick the top 10 PKer mages on the mud and probably 9 of them are wearing some red dragon gear and wide coppers. The small handful of mages who thought to gear saves or HP were like unstoppable gods.

>There
>is also the truly high-end gear that not so many people know
>where to get and even fewer can truly gather with confidence.
>How many folks have had Mel-Kartha? (yes I'm picking on you
>specifically, but it illustrates my point nicely)

Mel-Kartha's kind of a weird case -- just because I can get it if you give me a character with super gear, wands, 3000 HP, and 200 damroll does not mean I can just get it with anything short of that.

But to your point, yeah, the gear knowledge gap has shifted a bit. But I think this is still on more of an even keel than it used to be, even with some cool unique stuff out there.

>NPC pets (outside of class abilities) are less important than
>they once were, but other things have more than covered that
>difference I'd say. Preps (number, variety) would be a good
>example.

This still seems like a smaller gulf to me.

Imagine you're playing Battle, and I'm playing a mage that can charm something that you literally can't damage, and once I rescue you can't redirect. My other two pets are unspeaking you. Can you win that fight?

Is fighting someone who takes, say, 30% normal damage as daunting as that? I don't really think it is.

>Hard to argue this one except to say that mud-wide summon was
>something everyone had a shot at. A gang of noobs with summon
>could be just as deadly as a vet with summon in most cases...

Well, not really: the high-end vets would have a way out of that deathtrap; they'd also have some saves gear, whereas most people wore literally zero even at very high levels. (And they might just be able to kill the gang.)

>Perhaps I'm misremembering, but assassinate used to be just a
>base chance or something... so that's improved-ish. You
>recently nerfed cleave, but I'm guessing it hadn't changed
>before that for essentially forever...

I don't think cleave has been touched since, like, the 1900s. (Excepting adding the edges that effect it.)

>PWK is just as
>deadly...

It's really not.

>Hold person has dissapeared, but neuro is somewhat
>the same... Dual backstab is the only one that comes to mind
>as being more or less totally not as likely to kill you as it
>once was... mostly because it's been completely nerfed... Am
>I missing something?

Ambush, dual backstab, and assassinate were the biggest ones.

Bonus points if you knew to haste yourself to get a triple backstab or double ambush or assassinate. These did more damage that you could realistically survive for most characters and all you could really do was not let them have the first shot.

>I would actually argue that being unable to rank up actually
>compressed the skill gap instead of making it larger (so the
>opposite of what you are implying). After all, lots of people
>rank into hero range now and promptly get steam rolled until
>they delete.

Yes, but they usually get to be caballed and have allies that teach them something along the way.

Remember that pre-heart-exploding and pre-distention, people who were level 15 for 500 hours was a thing. The biggest PKers on the mud were NEVER at the high levels. So you actually got steamrolled a lot more as a guy who was stuck at, say, 23 because you can guarantee that there's about 3-4 level 30 thieves with 60 damroll and dual backstab ready to one-shot you repeatedly.

Roving gangs of 3-4 people in the midlevels looking to clear their range were a thing, too. Why that doesn't happen anymore is a whole other discussion really.

...because I completely want to talk about one point!

>Roving gangs of 3-4 people in the midlevels looking to clear their range were a thing, too. Why that doesn't happen anymore is a whole other discussion really.<

I really, really really really really miss this type of ####. Some of my favorite times on CF were ranking during the Palmer era, or Imperial butt-rape fest, or whatever, and trying to rank KNOWING I'd get attacked and probably killed once.

CF hasn't felt the same since most people decided that power-ranking is the way to go and anyone who infringes on that is persona non grata (or a "griefer").

>CF hasn't felt the same since most people decided that
>power-ranking is the way to go and anyone who infringes on
>that is persona non grata (or a "griefer").

I really agree with that.

Leveling with a heavy threat of PK is fun. Leveling with no threat of PK is basically just grind.

>- Top tier players understood that skill percentages mattered
> in many ways, more than today, prereq-based skills/spells
>excepted) and how to bot them up; most players had no idea
>they were even all that relevant.

Skill practice is tons harder now. Nowadays, I don't even try, I just accept the disadvantage of having everything around 80%, because perfecting things is way too time consuming for my level of patience. When you could just fight infinity weak mobs to perfect defenses fast, and every skill went up easy and fewer mobs had troublesome combat moves, it was easy to perfect anything that mattered.

And I can't speak for everyone, but as a newbie I greatly overestimated how important skill percentages are. For example, I just assumed that it affected the potency (not just success rate) of all skills (including mage spells). Furthermore, it was only a couple years ago I really accepted that the whole "skills don't matter" vibe the staff used to promote is bs.

>Furthermore, it was only a couple years ago I really accepted
>that the whole "skills don't matter" vibe the staff used to
>promote is bs.

You're arguing with a bit of a straw man here.

It's not that they don't matter, it's that they're well down the list of what determines who wins a PK fight. (Assuming neither person did something completely masochistic like keep all their skills at 1%.)

In some way you are obviously correct. I believe Twist seems to play that way and he kills a ton. But on the other hand you seem to like those 100% skills and while I could reliably practice skills to 100% before when you you could practice on 1xp mobs I really don't know how to do it anymore.

I assume some players have some favourite mobs, tricks and the right gear to practice effectively because I take way too many hours for tiny improvements.

So in that way it has become one of those skills/techniques that people don't tend to share and a few possess.

I started playing the game by just running FoN-Galadon-Emerald-Hamsah-Tar Valon and back, attacking anything that moved.

All the stuff you listed are defnitley valid points, but they don't really come into play until level 25 or so.

And you can't really play the game like an action shooter in the low ranks anymore, for a number of reasons. Ranking areas being more spread out, less lowbies, etc.

My first experience with CF was watching Gareth pk either as Deena, or Ihlwar, over his shoulder (forget which one he was playing at the time.)

I still have NO idea how anyone can process mud text and respond to it as quickly as he did.

Raw telnet as well.

>But I have to object to this:
>
>>I'm going to go back to the beginning. At the very start,
>the
>>skill gap in CF was considerably smaller than today.
>
>This is so, so, so not true. The gulf of skill and especially
>knowledge between the top players and newbies (i.e. me) back
>in '94-'95 was so much more pronounced than the modern era. I
>can illustrate that with examples if you're really curious.
>

I have to second this, seriously. I haven't posted in months, but I logged in just for this.

By the time I was actually able to approach hero and get into cabals, Knights was around. Being the goody-goody that I am, all my first characters were Knights. The sheer level of imbalance was mind-boggling, and I don't think it was so much a game imbalance thing as it was a skill imbalance. There were Shadows who were virtually untouchable, even though they were playing the same classes as everyone else. They just, you know, had a clue. The dissemination of even the most basic info is so much easier today.

Someone else mentioned Gareth, so I'll tell my favorite anecdote. I was playing a pre-spec dwarf warrior in Knights, back when all clerics cast instead of communed. There were three of the steam-rolling Shadows online, and three of us Knights online, huddling in the Knight cabal. Because that's what you did when that many Shadows were on. One of them alone would probably come and kill you in the cabal anyway, but hey, you did what you could.

Then Gareth logs on, a guy I've never seen before, same race and class and cabal as me. I don't even think he said hi on the cabal channel; Gareth's characters were never particularly friendly to anyone. A few minutes later he arrives in the cabal... and starts dropping all of the most epic gear I'd ever seen exclusively held by Shadows before (usually while looking at them as a ghost while they finished raiding). I recall he glanced at me at one point, then handed me two wide coppers. Once he unloaded he ran off again. Check who pk, and lo and behold, two of the three Shadows were ghosts.

None of us had ever seen the like. Wide coppers were only for gods!

So maybe Gareth was an outlier even then, but either way, the skill imbalance between the upper crust of players and the average peon was staggering.

Aarn

"Don't worry cutsy buttons. Tonight, dyin's not on the menu!"

- Strong Bad as Dangeresque

Oh right, this closely mirrors the way QuakeWorld slowly faded away. Everyone talked about ways that the engine could be modified to retain and bring back players to the competitive scene. Mods were launched, a veritable litany of versions of QuakeWorld popped up- lots of which had begun to integrate Anti-Cheat systems and made popular (previously hidden) settings easily adjustable for competitive players. The game became temporarily ideal as the dreams of many players were fulfilled by the release of the QuakeWorld sourcecode.

Yet none of those promises of returning players ever came true. No new interest amongst gamers was generated.

We just ended up with a bastard version of a game we had loved, filled with undetectable aimbots and maphacks.

The situation is less dire in CF. We aren't in a technical arms race with cheaters the way QW was. Frankly, I don't think we can engineer our way out of reality. You just plain can't make it 1998 again.

1. This has resulted that the community has not created an updated item db because you are so discouraged to do it. Being able to find the items you found in the item db or look around for suggestions what to upgrade to was huge as a newbie.

2. Not discussing preps at all. People are afraid to say that you can buy protection potions in Galadon or kill gargoyles in Barovia for them. Who does that help that some newbies don't know those? Are they missing some amazing discovery in game by finding those clues on a web page?

3. We now have quests that give xp, that helps veterans that wants to solo but newbies will get even more behind as the gap between those that are able to solo and newbies that needs a group is getting bigger. Peoples obsession with secrecy leads to retarded stuff like newbies being told that they should not ask about the fine leather quest on the newbie channel. That is just stupid. I'm not saying that we should give out a guide how to do quests for mega secret item that allows you to gate. But having things like this on dios would only be good I think:

1-10 Seek Olgakar in Aldevari.

4. We now have tons of area explore and some of the secrecy is pretty silly here too. Logs getting deleted because someone wielded a spear that progs against shapeshifters. Zero tolerance against all id's. I just think there is a difference between a bow from ruined dragon tower and a hammer from the artificer in silent.

Speaking of Silent. This is not really a newbie thing but that place has truly just become a place for a very few power gamers and imms. People refuse to share info, even IC because they either don't want to share power or are afraid that if too many starts going there it will be closed (if it is not already again).

Most common entrances seems closed and while I understand there is a 2k imm xp requirement to disuade power gamers or russians that are ####ty role writers that just means you need to power game your role and not your roleplay. You need a 1.5k first update and two 400xp updates, for most people they don't really NEED to do that nor will their role better explain their character. But just like one runs around and looks at paintings at htos with every char you do it for in game benefits. That was slightly off topic.


Anyway. I do get that people should experience and explore CF in game. People don't want a WoW style game where you get exact instructions for everything. But there must be some middle ground here so newbies feel that the gap is not that extreme.

1) You are dead on about preps. Daurwyn just edited a post I made about the spidersilk bracers. Not sure why. I've had posts here and on Dio's deleted because I talked about #### that should be talked about (like you said, where to get protection potions, where to get stoneskin, where to get blah blah blah).

2) The quest #### is absurd. I could see about the happy sleeves quest or the happy canteen quest, but fine leather? Really? Newbie channel is general is just relatively useless. Half the people use it to blow off steam OOC (you're looking at one), half use it for a comedy/####-talking hour, and the other half don't even know what it is. Some of the quests, like the rat trap quest, you're not going to figure out unless you talk to someone OOC or IC (I got lucky and had someone run through it for me IC...something I try to do for every player that asks).

3) Silent. My brother has done a lot of things I disagree with, but posting a walkthrough of Silent isn't one of them (though I disagree with why he did it...story for another time). This area ####ing sucks, as you said it's totally for like 8 people who power-game the #### out of it (24 haste and sanc...sure!). And it's not only players, IMMs do this too. And if that wasn't bad enough (!!!!), Nepenthe changes #### like once a year when too many people start learning it (I honestly think Nep should be banned from going to Silent...but that's just me).

While I agree somewhat with Nepenthe's statement above (that the gulf of knowledge/skill between veteran/newbie was much greater back in the day), the simple fact of the matter is this game is very newbie-unfriendly (which is understandable), but what is worse is that our player/IMM culture is even MORE newbie-unfriendly.

It is what it is. It's why the 4 people I introduced to CF no longer play, and why I no longer play.

As of last week you no longer played because the mountain you were pretending to walk up was just too high for pretend walking.

Weird huh.

I'm like the Glenn Beck of CF.

...to suit the social agenda of your peers with the hopes of swaying dumb people to your views, but most people with common sense just really don't like you and know better than to listen?

You said Glenn Beck right?

=P

Understood the reference, but the implied meaning went over your head.

It's cool.

I don't think that's actually true.

Honestly, all of the people who, let's say 5 years ago would have made my list of those I knew to be the worst about leaking (intentionally or not) who played who to non-staff players and/or maintaining long player grudges* are no longer on staff.


*This isn't to say I don't hate on people who keep doing the same #### that pisses me off with every character a little. But people who can get their act together are fine.

Why is it relevant information to staff players?

It depends. Sometimes it's relevant to doing the job.

For example, if you're caught cheating and trying to play dumb, it's relevant that I know you're a 15 year veteran of the game.

Or maybe you're the guy who prays about 2-3 "bugs" that don't actually exist per character. I'm sure going to warn the person who fields your pray not to waste too much time trying to reproduce something that probably didn't occur.

Or maybe somebody is looking at making a character of yours cabal leader, and I happen to know you already have two of them that you aren't playing.

Since he did a whole spiel of "The only way to get rewards if you aren't loved by the IMMs is to proxy".

Because if that was true, who the #### would want to play this game?

I pretty much only play this game casually these days and I love exploring solo. I've had tons of exploration characters and I don't even know how much con I've spent in Hell, Yzekon, Silent etc. solo.

I really like the challenge and those areas are generally well written and it is fun to come up with class combinations/preps/eq that can solo large parts of those areas. Or you grab a friend and get both killed in an interesting way.

This is why I get so disappointed of what the state of exploration in CF has become. Hell is closed for some reason (can't it be open until the rewrite is finished), Shadow Plane (or what it is) is invite only, Silent needs imm xp and people are keeping all information about it to themselves. I love exploring and I like a lot of Silent (some not so obvious things might need to be tuned) but it would be nice to get a feeling in game that the players are exploring things together. That the areas are for everyone and not just a few power gamers/imms that holds the cards.

Why not write the start quest to silent in the helpfile for example? Why have an imm xp requirement at all? Why don't we want MORE people experience that area? Why is not this one of the bigger more awesome challenges that most heroes try? If some stuff you easily can get from there are too overpowered and you don't want too many people knowing about it, then nerf them. Make them disappear when you leave Silent. Because right now 9/10 you see Silent gear/preps you see it on imm chars or guys who you know have decent OOC connections and those people sure as hell did not experience the game the way people expect newbies to do.

You fail to mention that you posted where quests for certain things are. Not for the first time.

No one is stopping you from sharing this info ic. So go share it ic.

I kind of disagree.

it was cutting into your forum time

dur

[Newbie] newbie1: do you still get a Statue of Svirfnebli  at
creation or is it moved?
[Newbie] me: try outfit
[Newbie] An Immortal: We dont talk about quests on this
channel.

Your newbie channel privileges have been revoked.
[Newbie] An Immortal: Me has lost their newbie channel
privileges

*** after around 10 minutes ***
You once again have newbie channel privileges.

My preference would be to reduce available preps and give more innate class damage reduction. I almost always find my sleek sienna and black (never learned ambers because in the last system I never bothered with shield), but it is still a chore. W melee classes I tend to never bother w anything but store bought preps.