This is mostly complaining but there are salient points here that need to be addressed. Please.

I've never had cause to regret taking an edge before. I've always had more edge points than I needed. But with this character:

-No edge points from PK.
-Almost nothing from commerce (sucks to be a wight. Probably worth it though)
-No edge points from cabal wars. Doubly tough to be uncaballed since this is basically the only way to earn a decent amount of edges for a player like me.
-No role exp. Maybe ooc role entries aren't acceptable but I'm sure I've read somewhere before that they are. It should be more clear. I'm also of the belief that beautifully written prose entries add nothing to the game.
-Unable to accrue exploration exp due to level caps. I spent lots of hours and lots of con going through difficult area explores to discover they were worth 0 exploration. This was bad for me and bad for the game, because I could have gotten stuck in earlier and stayed stuck in longer if I hadn't needed to do this.
-Forced to spend edge points from immxp on resurgent vitality in lieu of a real con quest. The 1000 from that quest wasn't even enough to pick it, I needed to participate in the global quest to break 2k to qualify. I love you Emnon so please don't take this the wrong way but I'm venting here.

Yes, after much struggle and loss of con I managed to take the make-or-break edge I needed to be able to PK, but would it really have been so terrible if I also had cursebringer or sightbinder? Would it have been so terrible if I had both of those and blasphemous art? I assure you Bilgritik would still have sent me running every time. I would have loved to pick defiler for role reasons, and it probably would have even made my life harder. Most edges are very slight advantages, and while it might be silly when everyone can pick 30, it's also kind of harsh when after 400 hours of prolific terrorism I get 6 most of which are very cheap.

Most of this is probably unique to this character, but I'm going to refuse to group with people because I can't hit level 30 before 5k explore/10k observe with every subsequent character from now on, just like I used to do with getting PK's before level 25, and I'm going to hate it, and it's going to slow the game down, but I'll be gimping my character if I don't. Anything that makes you have to stop levelling/interacting is a bad thing with current player counts. We want people getting stuck in and mixing it up, not running scripts.

>This is mostly complaining but there are salient points here
>that need to be addressed. Please.
>
>I've never had cause to regret taking an edge before. I've
>always had more edge points than I needed. But with this
>character:
>
>-No edge points from PK.

Right. You rolled in February and I pissed on the PK parade back in January.

>-Almost nothing from commerce (sucks to be a wight. Probably
>worth it though)

You received some prior to becoming a Wight, but yeah, you made the trade.

>-No edge points from cabal wars. Doubly tough to be uncaballed
>since this is basically the only way to earn a decent amount
>of edges for a player like me.

Sounds like you really boxed yourself in then.

>-No role exp. Maybe ooc role entries aren't acceptable but I'm
>sure I've read somewhere before that they are. It should be
>more clear. I'm also of the belief that beautifully written
>prose entries add nothing to the game.

Your role was bad and there are helpfiles that explain why. You didn't need to write like Chaucer to get Role XP, you just needed a real role.

>-Unable to accrue exploration exp due to level caps. I spent
>lots of hours and lots of con going through difficult area
>explores to discover they were worth 0 exploration. This was
>bad for me and bad for the game, because I could have gotten
>stuck in earlier and stayed stuck in longer if I hadn't needed
>to do this.

You made the Top 15 List for OXP and EXP. I can't tell whether you view that as an accomplishment or a punishment. Don't care.

>-Forced to spend edge points from immxp on resurgent vitality
>in lieu of a real con quest. The 1000 from that quest wasn't
>even enough to pick it, I needed to participate in the global
>quest to break 2k to qualify. I love you Emnon so please don't
>take this the wrong way but I'm venting here.

You weren't forced to do anything, and you weren't viewed (by multiple immortals) as being worthy of a con quest. Thus, the bar is high.

>Yes, after much struggle and loss of con I managed to take the
>make-or-break edge I needed to be able to PK, but would it
>really have been so terrible if I also had cursebringer or
>sightbinder? Would it have been so terrible if I had both of
>those and blasphemous art? I assure you Bilgritik would still
>have sent me running every time. I would have loved to pick
>defiler for role reasons, and it probably would have even made
>my life harder. Most edges are very slight advantages, and
>while it might be silly when everyone can pick 30, it's also
>kind of harsh when after 400 hours of prolific terrorism I get
>6 most of which are very cheap.

I don't even.

>Most of this is probably unique to this character, but I'm
>going to refuse to group with people because I can't hit level
>30 before 5k explore/10k observe with every subsequent
>character from now on, just like I used to do with getting
>PK's before level 25, and I'm going to hate it, and it's going
>to slow the game down, but I'll be gimping my character if I
>don't. Anything that makes you have to stop
>levelling/interacting is a bad thing with current player
>counts. We want people getting stuck in and mixing it up, not
>running scripts.

You do what you gotta do.

Because I feel like this was probably my best character thus far and I've had con quests with far more run of the mill characters who were far worse at what they did and with less distinctive roleplay.

Is it just that my role entries were so bad or was it something I was doing wrong in-game?

Again I don't think it's fair to say I boxed myself in, other than by virtue of playing a wait who responded to some very atmospheric and well-done RP by an immortal besides Scarabaeus.

Disclaimer: I didn't observe Melissa much and haven't been around in-game a lot in general.

Based on feedback I heard from others, it boiled down to:
- the name
- the role (lack thereof)
- having been warned once or twice to knock certain things off

In your defense, based on the history alone it appears that you were being rewarded (via xpadd) for something. It just may not have been enough to outweigh the fact that Melissa came off, to some, as a very one-dimensional character who was only CE because Wight.

That's the best answer I can give with the information I have. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have said anything since, like I said, I don't really have a ton of first hand observation to go by.

If it was about being pulled into ROTD - I didn't instigate that incident but I can't prove that and I can see how it would have counted against me, and that's fair enough.

I feel like I did well at in-game roleplay. I suppose I should accept that generally most of that goes unseen and that most immortals will judge me instead by role entries, and I should put more effort into them if I want to have goodwill upstairs.

>I feel like I did well at in-game roleplay. I suppose I should
>accept that generally most of that goes unseen and that most
>immortals will judge me instead by role entries, and I should
>put more effort into them if I want to have goodwill
>upstairs.

I don't know about this. You were rewarded with Imm XP multiple times, though it does appear to have been later in life.

But yes, a it's hard(er) to reward good RP when the subject does not have a role. If you specifically care about being rewarded for RP then a basic role is probably a very good idea.

Any character who ends up in RotD is going to have to do a lot more work to earn a con quest than a character who never went into RotD.

While Melissa wasn't bad, I also didn't enough redeeming qualities in you to offset said RotD stuff.

It's clearly is no shocker that player #'s are lower than ever. You don't remove features without replacing them with something tangible and expect people to appreciate it. And that whole rap about "not enjoying the game as we intended" what is that? If someone is enjoying the game - that is fantastic. Encourage all aspects of enjoyment PK/RP etc. This is a PK mud after all, and always has been. Please rethink the absolute folly that was the PK edgepoint change.

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=62963&mesg_id=62963&page=

That said, other people that walked away because of these changes (yes they are out there) are unlikely to pop in to respond to such a poll.

I'm not even suggesting to bring them back as they were, maybe find other interesting ways to incentivize cabal wars further (rewards for going on the offensive vs simply retrieval).

It'd also be nice if IMM's kept up on the promise to toss out more IMM xp as a result of player to player interactions.

They have something like confession or a therapist visit feeling with them.

Check out Khargurln's early role entries to grasp the idea of what OOC role is.

But I do think they gave at least some kind of explanation as to what I was trying to do with the character's RP

I've read it because it had a blog style and was easy to read. But really no insight on:
- playstyle
- sphere
- cabal choice

I mean, I've had an OOC role entry rated 1000 recently, and it's just structured brief explanation of the character's goals and idea with short background description.

nt

"...would it really have been so terrible if I also had cursebringer or sightbinder?"

and

"I assure you Bilgritik would still have sent me running every time"

Are the edges necessary or won't make a difference? I can't tell from your post.

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=62997&mesg_id=63031&page=