Good Morning,

A while back you suggested I roll up a char post-edge changes and see how it went. I have come up with some feedback for you.

While all in all the experience was good, and I didn't seem to mind not having as many edges - there was a specific side effect of obs/explore/pk/etc edge removal that did kind of stand out to me.

In comparison to pre-change I noticed that almost everybody unless spending time maxing skills simply races to hero now - which I don't necessarily think is a good thing "The game doesn't start at hero". Wheras, prior to the changes you'd have more folks taking their time.

Also: I found that time spent without a ranking group can truly only be consumed by skill spam/practice now. Wheras before, I might go try to go rack up some explore/obs exp or some PK chops for edges. I find myself simply grueling over skill %'s.

In turn, this also lead me to take less risks, as I didn't bother to agonize myself over things like "Hey, the vicious spy has killed me every time I've tried to sneak a peak at this level...BUT THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT".

Or risking the lich in barovia/taking a peak at certain dragons..

All in all, I actually miss the explore/obs edge rewards more than I do PK edge rewards. Granted, observation gives you skills as a reward - but I do not consider the skills worth eating a mob death for (wheras I might consider EP worth it).

I'd like to suggest that you find ways to provide more things for folks to do while they are not ranking. Obs/Explore EP rewards were great at incentivizing this kind of behavior.

Now it's spam skill/PK/spam skill. I don't go to Trothon on 35-40 anymore because what for? What for would I go to aboleths, and many other areas. Because... what for would I risk? Why would I risk exploring Octagonal tower now?

So, explorer's gameplay is almost castrated. Let's just sit in the inn and have some nice mudsex!

> Why would I risk exploring Octagonal tower now?

Because you enjoy exploring areas you've never been in before.

If you *have* been there before and you were just going there to farm observation/exploration xp then I'd say you weren't actually "exploring" it. You were just doing a walk-through to get edge points.

NT

And I've explored 90% of it. Still, I do enjoy risk/challenge for EP rewards. I repeat, now I do not go to such areas (where I would likely die, and that would be absolutely okay) because the risk does not worth it now.

Well, that's worthy of reward too, unless you are doing it with a perma.

I genuinely feel a sense or accomplishment when I get, for example, my midbie Druid through trothon before lvl 40, say. It's not risk free at all.

1) Time spent without a ranking group can be consumed by player interaction. Visit the Inn sometimes, chat with a Trib sitting on duty, argue with a priest about the tenets and merits of their religion, tell a mage exactly how much you hate them, anath some of your imperial underlings for fun, etc.

2) The "new" ABS mechanic provides a great way to busy oneself for long periods of time. Ancient instincts is also useful for this. The game could definitely use more of the same general idea.

3) Edges were great and the changes to them sucked and continue to suck. CF is a watered down shade of itself, and NOT because of the numbers.

On subj.

Recall that during the heyday that everyone has such fond memories of there were no edges.

I have no fond memories of the "heyday" with no edges.

But I do have fond memories of having enough edge points to actually try something new edge-wise without dedicating a character to it.

And he rage deleted because he did not have edges afterwards.

Edges were killing CF.

Murphy has no argument

I don't think it's accurate to say edges per se where killing CF, but I do think the way points were doled out was counterproductive. Excessive PK success, excessive observation/exploration, PK at specific level ranges, etc.

My suggestion for how to handle this is to award edge points for these things, but in such a way that a "normal" character acting the way we think "normal" characters should act can expect to max out his points from these sources over a reasonable lifespan w/o resorting to farming. Throttle how many points can be "claimed" based on character rank, to prevent people farming and getting all their points at 11.

This incentivizes meeting a modest threshold of observation/exploration, but beyond that point there's no benefit to having more. So the incentive to farm goes away if you're someone playing a character like we want people to play characters. If you're a newbie then you may need to make an extra effort to explore/observe in order to get your full compliment of edge points from those sources. I'm okay with that.


Same deal with PK. Give edge points for PK, but only up to a point. Maybe 10 PKs. Doesn't matter what rank you get them at. Apply restrictions as necessary to disincentivize multi-killing, ganging, killing hapless newbies, etc.

Same deal with role XP. You get edge points for role exp, but only up to a fairly modest threshold. So you don't have people entering pointless role entries just to get more edge points.

Imm exp I might not want to cap, since we always want people to do stuff that's worthy of being rewarded by imm exp. Maybe cap the amount of edge points you can get from imm exp from a single imm. Priest who has regular meetings with his deity that frequently result in imm exp shouldn't get tons of edge points just because he's playing a priest class.

I would be more okay with the edge nerf if they just halved the cap, instead of making it award points every 2000 obs xp instead of every 1000 obs xp.

I also agreed with the removal of edge points for PK tiers.

I disapprove of the fact that no compensation was given. They wouldn't even start giving EP for PK loss, nor reuse the AP charge code instead of removing PK EP completely, nor follow on any other suggestions of EP sources.

Promise was given to compensate for it by giving out more immxp, but I since then had played a few chars who had less immxp than they had hours.

People constantly claim it but I honestly don't recall it ever being said. I would like to see the source.

gr

I've done a few different searches trying to chase it down and have yet to be able to. I imagine someone has the link saved just so they can reference it whenever they want.

Because that's what you guys ALWAYS do ))))

It was pretty specific about increasing imm xp because of ongoing changes to edge points.

Not sure if it was in a bigger thread or it's own thread.

Lots of people remember things incorrectly, or they misinterpret what was said. Its a pretty common thing and one that I myself am also guilty of from time to time. That is why I am asking *someone* to show this post that everyone cites as a promise the staff made to the players.

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=57181&mesg_id=57217&page=

I don't know if it is what everyone else is remembering and I'm not trying to put Akresius on the spot, since I don't know if he's even very active anymore, but, he says he is trying to up his imm xp and in his next post he says he isn't the only imm doing this.

Mmm hmm

Got it, so 1 staff member said they would "try" to improve the amount of imm xp they would hand out, and said that another staff member was also going to "try" to do it. That is quite different than the entire staff promising to do it.

But the reality is that this has been repeated so many times that at this point you would actually be issuing a change to the stated policy to say that Imms *aren't* going to do more Imm exp to compensate.

It doesn't actually matter whether it was stated or not, since it was allowed to be repeated without correction for long enough that even if the initial thing was a misinterpretation, it became the reality.

Feel free to point out that this correction really isn't going back on previously stated policy because it wasn't actually stated, but people are still going to feel like they were promised a thing, never got it, and then you went back on the promise. It's a service industry thing.

I was just genuinely curious to see what the *actual* post people cite as fact said. And its very different than what people wanted it to say.

If people were misinterpreting the intent/actual statement, which appears to be the case, the staff should have corrected them long ago...

Which, until today, I had no idea what anyone was talking about.

Honestly curious... It isn't like this is the first time it has been mentioned... I'd hazard to guess the specific item has been in nearly every edge related series of posts since... well the changes...

And this is the first time someone has actually shown what they were talking about.

I tried to find posts by you asking what people were talking about...

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=66185&mesg_id=66185&listing_type=search
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=65771
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=64827
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=64041&mesg_id=64041&listing_type=search

Seem to be related topics where you posted, but none asking WTF people were talking about. Obviously this isn't a comprehensive search, and looking at post history is hard because the forum software sucks, but I see no evidence that you've done so every time.

I don't see someone referencing a promise of more imm exp being handed out, so I don't really get what you're looking for here.

How about you point out one of those times you've asked WTF are you talking about re: more ImmXP? You know... outside of today.

That's just the one I found

I did find some posts that seemed reference a statement like this being made when role xp was changed in regards to EPs. I didn't look further myself.

The only reason why I searched to begin with was because like others I seemed to remember something similar being said. But I'm not trying to accuse the staff of anything by doing it. I was more curious if I could find something.

More imm xp for players would always be welcome though

1 staff member trashed pk edge points while eluding to building towards other ways for edge points to be rewarded.

Then the same staff member trashed exp/obs edge points in reaction to a single player being a douche (same player that has been a douche to other imms and made them react poorly as well). Then stepped away.

This is similar to someone moving the goalpost and then taking the ball and going home while all the other referees and players are standing on the field wondering whats going on.

It didn't work the way it was intended, and people remember a statement that was made to alleviate some of the negative consequence to the action. We all need to stop pointing the finger at other people and realize what happened isn't the answer and find a way to adjust it appropriately. But guess what, players can't do that they can only offer suggestions or reference past posts that suggested other fixes.

(I know I know, if you want to make it better imm and do it, guess what that isn't an answer)

As with all decisions about the mud, there is a discussion about things before they go live. While there is only 1 staff members name being associated with the changes to obs/exp xp it was not a decision made by a single staff member.

I will agree that the current system isn't perfect, and the previous one also was far from the mark as well. Its too bad that the project never got to be finished because of all the other nonsense.

Why is it not an answer to suggest people join the staff if they want to help shape the game? Every single member of the staff started out as a player and they put in the time and energy to get where they are. I still stand by my near constant challenge to the masses that if you really want to help change CF then go through the steps to do it.

>Why is it not an answer to suggest people join the staff if
>they want to help shape the game? Every single member of the
>staff started out as a player and they put in the time and
>energy to get where they are. I still stand by my near
>constant challenge to the masses that if you really want to
>help change CF then go through the steps to do it.


Having very recently tried this, and been turned down, I'm not sure this is as a legitimate avenue as you point it out to be. It seems like it would be easier (see previous discussion on the topic) for an old coder who's been away from the game for a decade to return and get code access/be able to make coding changes (obviously based on consensus or however the staff decides these things) than for a new person to do so in any reasonable time frame. I don't know exactly how long it would take for a new programmer to get access to key code in an enterprise environment, but if you were told 4 years in an interview, I'd have to believe you'd look to work elsewhere... Who would spend 4 years on probation before they could do the job they were hired to do? This is even more so the case in volunteer work.

I tried to find some data on why volunteers quit, but the studies aren't clear or I can't find them... However one of the common themes I did find was that volunteers wanted to feel like they were contributing to the core mission immediately... otherwise, why put in the time?

This isn't meant to be an attack, but rather some (hopefully) constructive feedback. You are working on the staff process, but at some point you are going to have to trust someone with code in order to get things done...

-While there is only 1 staff members name being associated with the changes to obs/exp xp it was not a decision made by a single staff member.

Yes, there was certainly a discussion and there have been many discussions about many things. But the reaction to Warren being a giant ####ing douchebag was almost instant. And to everyone observing how it went down that did NOT seem like a well thought out answer to Warren's b.s.

Maybe it was discussed before, and maybe if the pk edge points going away and the idea of obs/exp edge points going away was coupled with some other way to obtain edge points then it wouldn't have been so sweeping. But I think you are largely discounting how much this truly effected the landscape of CF when coupled with pk edge points and it is disheartening that no one seems to give a #### and instead wish to play the argument game

I honestly think at this point, the best thing the Imms could do is bring back EP in a variety of ways, but not make it public so it doesn't get prone to abuse.

Once people got the details about the system, they actively worked to break it. CF suffered as a result, and it probably has not recovered from that yet.

But if players started seeing more edges becoming available to them, they might stop complaining or falling off as quickly, even if they don't know exactly why they are getting them.
Maybe it was a quest.
Maybe it was a raid.
Maybe they logged their 77th hour.

I would guess at this point players would be happy just to know more opportunities were available than presently are, even if they don't know precisely what to do to earn them. People would gradually figure out the sources, but Imms just randomize the sources every so often so that people won't always know what is actively awarding it. Keep the core standards as always available, and randomize some others.

So on set intervals it would shift from obs/explore/to PK/to quests/ to whatever other creative things you can think of to grant EP. The amount earned in a week or whatever interval would always be capped at a set amount. Make the payout an accumulated total at the end of the period, so people would never know what exact behavior was rewarding until the end.

So after every Sunday your guildmaster tells you in the next discuss, your tales of X these past... intrigue me slightly / moderately / greatly. The char gets EP in correlation. If they don't log in or discuss before the next period closes, they lose out on the EP.

Probably way too hard to code though.

You, and everyone else, KNOWS that Umiron f*d up and destroyed important part of the game. Don't be beront of the staff, admit it already and start working on the solution. Unless you are enjoying such discussions over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and again.

ADD: And from what I know several players applied to the staff, and one of them having his MUD. And for the sake of secrecy he wasn't accepted, because oh my, he would steaalll so many mechanics from CF to his MUD!

Stop trying to turn yet another imm responsible for forum management into a douchebag by throwing ####s at him. The result will be exactly the same and it will not be satisfactory.

I was not refused my application because "I would steal their code", or at least it was not said outright. I'm not sure even if it would be possible; we're both far, far away from the original ROM, and in entirely different directions.

Borrowing ideas or design would not require being an Imm anyway -- so long as you could reimplement them elsewhere from scratch (and I can).

No, the reason actually stated was that CF's staff thought that, as boring as heroimm process is, I would constantly have the temptation to just spend all my time working on my mud instead of CF.

I was very angry that I was not given a chance to prove them wrong. FFS, I'm the only guy in here who plays morts to age death and then complains that lifespans are too short. There are dull periods in that time too. Does it not prove I can devote time to CF?

However, by now I honestly think CF's playerbase would find me just as disagreeable as Umiron or Destuvius, only in a different way.

and if that's the way things are done with applications, I don't
see why anyone would waste his time with them.

I've posted before that I think it's totally ridiculous they won't accept
professional software engineers who work for some of the biggest
corporations on the planet (meaning people who have forged
actual reputations over years of hard work and whose consulting rates
are in excess of 500$/hour), citing "code theft" concerns but that's their decision to make.

To disqualify someone from the heroimm process over the hypotheticals you mentioned, is ludicrous.

In an effort to not sound like I am disagreeing with you I would ask what about people like me? I can almost promise that if I applied I would be turned down (minimal coding ability, game knowledge is severely lacking, etc.) but I would LOVE to help out. I have been around for several years and thought it would be neat to IMM but have never been able to retain what I feel like would be the basic requirements of Knowledge and skill to be an IMM. What should someone like me do? Should I apply anyway just to be turned down but turned down armed with the knowledge of what to do to get better and oneday be accepted?

It tends to help if you can name at least one "high profile" character when you apply, but its not necessary. A lot of the staff members that I am aware of often played a long list of under the radar characters before taking the plunge on one of their first big successes.

One of the biggest reason for failure as a heroimm ends up being that the game becomes more like work and less like fun as you start to be thrust into behind the scenes aspects of it. Its something that I don't think is inherently a problem, but it is certainly not something that a lot of people care to do (in turning an enjoyable hobby into work).

But...

1) I play super sporadically and that helps NO ONE (like, I've put 6 hrs into CF since mid Decemeber). No one wants a deadbeat IMM.

2) You guys don't like me You guys think I'm erratic and impulsive and an asshole (and you're right 99.5% of the time!).

c) I love Dio's and am not sure I could stop posting there. Just being honest. I had a Dio's account 2 years before I started even playing CF.

iv) The things I would want to do as an IMM probably would require me to be relatively high level, and I'm not sure I want to pour thousands of hours to get there.

Why don't you want to create player's suggest council?

And vote there?

Lets say, four players, all imms. All imms have the veto.

It will make things more clear and remove the butthurt from forums.

I nominate Ilsidur, Darwyn and Kstadia and Starbright (sorry Sam, you overreacting too much! This time is without you ). They are all coders, they are positive, they all had high quality chars.


PS: I'm the coder with more then 10 years in varios specs, mostly sql, but coding CF will kill all the magic. Especially that I'll be forced to interract with other imms, and especially Iunna. MUHAHAHAHA

"One of the biggest reason for failure as a heroimm ends up being that the game becomes more like work and less like fun as you start to be thrust into behind the scenes aspects of it."

Isn't it more likely that it becomes more like work and less fun because you forbid heroimms from PLAYing and make them spend their CF time WORKing on their given task no matter how much time they have to devote to CF??

Seriously, that rule and what you describe as "one of the biggest reason for failure" are one in the same.

Perhaps it's time to reconsider this, and other rules, in the IMM process to reflect our current needs and not what they were a decade ago when they were last updated.

The reason we ask people to focus on their job as a heroimm is because we need to make sure that it actually gets done. If someone actually cares enough to sit down and blast through their work, it can be done in 2-4 months. That is a drastic improvement from the 12-16 months it used to take for people who were busting their hump to complete their work to get past the heroimm hurdle.

You didn't even try the process because you didn't want to stop posting on Dios. I have a hard time accepting your criticism of the process when it was never actually started. (Sorry if I am confusing you for someone else who applied to the staff if I am mistaken.)

I understand the reasoning behind the rule. I'm talking about the effect of the rule. If a rule says "all work and no play" and you say the biggest obstacle to success is people feel it's "all work and no play" it seems obvious that the rule is a major contributor to the problem if not THE problem.

My job for many years was predicting consequences of process changes at a fortune 100 company. The goal was to identify unintended consequences before you hit them during execution where it could cost many millions of dollars.

So, I think it is not only valid, but preferable to critique a process without having to go through it.

The rule keeps people with your way of thinking out of the staff. Therefore the rule works well.

What I commonly see is "Hey let me in to staff but keep in mind I'm not going to part with some of the privileges". Well no, power comes with responsibility. And the set of rules is designed so that in majority of cases, only people who are able to take the burden of responsibility rise up and get power.

Real life works in the same manner, so I guess some of the CF higherups (or those people who designed the scheme) knew how things work IRL and have actually managed some serious people and were in charge of some serious projects as their primary occupation.

I'll assume so.

People like me? You don't know anything about me. So, here's something...I was a project manager, have managed global teams of software engineers for a major SW company. I have a comp. sci. degree with a GPA of 3.9

So, I'm familiar with completing projects, RL AND responsibility.

BTW, I wasn't seeking "power", I merely offered to help with some coding.

Also, if the process was working well, we'd have more than one coder and trying to find more IMMs to contribute wouldn't even be a conversation.

Why don't you just address the point I made about the relationship of the rule to the "biggest problem" Dest brought up? Did that occur to you before you wrote your snarky, condescending response?

other than the fact that you refused to abandon Dio's which means that you were not motivated enough to join the staff. Period.

You may be a cool person, great coder, a project manager, amazing roleplayer and have as much goodwill as US GAAP can possibly ever allow anyone to account for.

But your motivation is not enough. Check. Thank you, we'll call you back.

"I don't need to know anything about you..."

Well, unless you just enjoy being an ass, you should before you start disparaging me as the kind of person you want to weed out who doesn't know how things work IRL and cannot complete a task.

I'll just leave it at that as you seem determined to be insulting and petty: "Thank you, we'll call you back." Really?

Seriously, you are taking something way too personally.

>Seriously, you are taking something way too personally.

It's the other way around.

I have no relation towards you and I don't generally care. I liked your characters and your attitude. But you keep insisting that you would be a good addition to the imm squad, but fail to understand why you were rejected. And me trying to explain you the reason gets you pissed and attacking me personally (which I don't give a f- about, but still).

Which I imagine might be the second reason why your application was rejected.

Now you're just making things up. Why would you say that my application was rejected? That is simply false.

I *withdrew* it via a note to the IMMs when I decided that the restrictions (which I did not know about until my interview) made the effort unappealing to me at the time.

Since this is going nowhere, I'm happy to end it on that note. I hope you will try to not post any new assertions/assumptions about me or my interactions with others that require yet another post to correct.

NT

You seem to be convinced that asking someone to do the work that they agreed to do is unreasonable. At a certain point in the process that occurs before you leave "the heroimm phase" people are often allowed to play the game again. It just so happens to occur AFTER they have completed the assignment that they agreed to do when they joined the staff.

Whether you agree with the system or not, it is in place as a sort of safeguard to weed out people who aren't actually invested in the improvement of the game. Because for the game to keep moving it requires people to do things that are "unfun" to them.

I get it. During that period between starting and finishing the project, you cannot play a char.

That lends itself to the problem you identified.

And in fact, this rule doesn't seem to weed them out at all considering the heroimm deletes I've seen over the last year.

This rule does discourage people (or at least one) who love to play CF and would like to give back to the community a good portion of the 40+ hours a week they may spend on playing, but not all of it.

Anyway, I appreciate your responses and not taking my criticisms personally.

that a heroimm spent so long proving they can dedicate to CF, and then after they received their Imm tag they went AWOL and stopped dedicating to CF whatsoever.

And I'm sure it's one of the reasons not everyone is allowed to try. Because when you're sure that a person will flame out, there's no reason to start what will obviously end in another player quitting CF whatsoever.

Which is why there has been a fairly substantial overhaul of the entire process of how heroimms and handled over the last few years. The system is still not perfect and I doubt it ever will be. But we can continue to evolve it based on the commentary of people.

a question about imms in general. So I think the most obvious interpretation of his answer would have been that it related to imms in general.

If other imms had interpreted it differently or disagreed they might have commented given it was a hot topic at the time?

Anyway, if that's not the post I was thinking of it's effectively saying the same thing.

>Edited to ask: Are IMMs going to be giving out a lot more IMM
>EXP and being more hands on with RP things to offer more
>opportunities at getting edge points via that direction?

Yeah, we are trying to give out more imm xp for cool descriptions, prays, interaction with other characters, etc. I'm making it a personal goal to triple my xpadds from last month, so I'm going to be on the lookout for cool RP.

The most logical conclusion from this is that yes, Imms (the we in this scenario) are planning to add morre imm xp. This particular imm plans to triple theirs (other imms may not set such a high goal, but the assumption is they will all try to do "more").

My post was a personal goal that I set and does not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of other imms at that time or now.

Ultimately, I saw a lot more mediocre to outright bad RP (threats to full loot because of some whiny reason or another, blatantly going OOC) than good. I would snoop random people for hours on end and even in groups would see little to no interaction besides "speed, heal, sleep, need to train." It frankly got to be a chore. When I did find someone who RPed a lot whether in groups or especially by themselves - a scarab conjie comes to mind, don't remember the name - I'd look at their history and see them loaded with immxp because they were exceeding others' expectations. Now, I am in a bind - do I reward something cool even though they just got immxp for being awesome yesterday and more immxp for being awesome last week? I suppose I should have; h8rs gonna h8.

I met my goal for that month, but not the following and then other things took my attention away from the game.

Please don't use a two year old post as some sort of weapon with which to lob shots from a perceived moral high ground. I set a personal pledge, not a unilateral standard to be met by the entire staff.

>http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=57181&mesg_id=57217&page=
>
>I don't know if it is what everyone else is remembering and
>I'm not trying to put Akresius on the spot, since I don't know
>if he's even very active anymore, but, he says he is trying to
>up his imm xp and in his next post he says he isn't the only
>imm doing this.

Generally, people don't know they're being watched and the chances of you actually roleplaying and not gathering/hunting at the rare moment you are watched is a rather rare set of circumstances. I think it would be appreciated by a player base if that behavior is rewarded, even on a well-rewarded char.

I've tried my best to RP with dozens of people, everyone I came across and all the appropriate newbies. Don't know if you meant me or some other Scarab conjie, but regardless, good behavior should be encouraged more often. Chances are, it goes completely unnoticed 90% of the time.

I say 50xp when you see some nice RP regardless of what happened in the past is always nice.

Stellar RP characters will get 50x50 which will give them 2500 xp which is totally reasonable for stellar characters.

Ok characters will get 10*50xp which will give them 500 xp and feel like they're appreciated.

#### characters will get none, screw those guys.


Nice rp moment snooped = 50immexp. No matter the past of this character, has he -2000 or 5000 immexp does not matter.

I say this policy would quickly result in encouraging a lot better behavior on average.

This will help keep people motivated, feeling appreciated, and to a certain extent dissolve Umiron's hideous edge conspiracy.

That will release the problem of "Oh how much immexp should I award this dude with? 900? No, that's too much! 200? No, that's too little. Ah well I can't decide, screw him I'd better do something else".

nt

Before immxp split.

I'll try again to look it up but by now it's kinda difficult since it's been brought up dozens of times on the forum.

"That is what we've done so far. In addition, we will continue to brainstorm new and interesting ways of rewarding people for good RP and character development."

IF this is the quote, I'll say four things:

1. That doesn't even remotely mean the same thing as the staff promising to make up any lost edges / edge points with what amounts to unconditional Imm XP.

2. Similarly, "new and interesting ways of rewarding people for good RP" means what it says if you interpret it literally. It doesn't mean "ways of getting people more edges".

3. In my defense, we did continue to to brainstorm. Nothing got implemented because all desire I had to work on those projects, and ultimately CF, went away and because nobody else wanted to work on those things. I can't imagine why.

4. If the current staff feels like there is a problem they shouldn't feel like they have to maintain the status quo on my behalf. By all means, pour out a 40 for Umi's terrible, horrible, no good edge changes and do something else. I have no skin in the game, despite what 2-3 conspiratorial players per month tell me via email.

Gr

I can't find it anymore, but it doesn't matter because I found a better one: http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=59724#59747

It quite explicitly states that the promise was never made to actually "compensate". Only that characters were gonna be more watched for good RP to reward.

You even bring up statistics showing that, in fact, more immxp was given out to people for a while after the change. Well, the character I was playing at the time (Kowelu) had gotten 2100 immxp total. The one just prior to changes (Einrai) had 3100, if you exclude the 2500 from role entries.

Anyway, that's not really it. It's the next ones that had all zeroes or very low amounts (300 on Laeden, 0 on Aerafr and Efarem). I guess that falls under #2 in your post because I got plenty of other rewards.

>went away and because nobody else wanted to work on those things. I can't imagine why.

Perhaps you should try to stop being such an *** and people would want to cooperate with you. Everyone are bad, but not you, everyone are wrong, but not you. Reminds me of beront again (wow, what a great example he is).

And second thing. You broke the edge system and left because no one supported you (see above). While you could just do your work that you pledged to do when you was destroying the current edge system.

And now, instead of defensive posts like this, perhaps you could be a outsource volunteer that would finish started work even without being an imm.

Really

The one where you had a team and funds assembled, but then you scraped it because you felt unappreciated and didn't want to help people for being so toxic towards you?

Guess what: you are the toxic people right now. Take a dose of perspective and quit being a turd because you aren't getting your way.

I'm also going to leave this here for you in hopes that it helps as a little reminder of what you said you were going to do re: your forum presence.

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=66605&mesg_id=66629&page=

I didn't try to be toxic, if I was, I'm sorry. Not intentional, just upset about those events, when someone came, ####ted and left. It's not now the man should act.

About the steam project, mostly it was cancelled because of two reasons: Umiron told me to f*ck off and banned me (I still have to use proxy to post), and on dios I've been mixed with ####e when I offered that project. That time I felt that no one need it and no one want it to happen, so yes, I've cancelled it and coders are occupied with other project now.

So I'm not sure if I want to revive that project, if it's needed, if there is a reason to do so. And last events that rings hard OOC+cheating (you know what I'm talking about) are not encouraging to begin that work, though IC everything is fine (thanks to that imm who catched things up, can't name it here).

Though I'm still sure that I had a good idea and game like this would be accepted on Steam. BTW, greenlight is going away this spring, so things should go much easier.

ADD: and steam community are used to play in teams and contact OOC. This limitation, if they'll be punished for it, might cause waterfall of downvotes, which will put end to the project instantly. You'll have to review rules about OOC, since obviously everyone are playing that way anyways.

Dunno where the link is but it was said that there would be more given out by imm exp and creative ways yet to be thought of.

But then there was a fall in imm numbers, which kind of throws spanners in the works of both of those things.

about how vaccination kills more people than the disease.

You are wrong and you don't know what statistics is and what a false correlation is.

Bron was so pissed not having balanced percussionist

####ing precise aim can suck a bag of ####s.

>In comparison to pre-change I noticed that almost everybody
>unless spending time maxing skills simply races to hero now

Not sure it's as different as you say, but maybe. If so, though, then that's a feature and not a bug. Before, people would intentionally try to avoid ranking so they could farm observe/explore xp at specific ranks. That was a perverse incentive.

>Also: I found that time spent without a ranking group can
>truly only be consumed by skill spam/practice now. Wheras
>before, I might go try to go rack up some explore/obs exp or
>some PK chops for edges. I find myself simply grueling over
>skill %'s.

How is farming observe/explore to power up your character via edges different from spamming up skills in order to power up your character via higher skill percentages? Is one more enjoyable than the other? My algorithm is generally:

Am I low on key preps, including gold? If yes then gather them. Otherwise:

If I'm following a religion, has it been a while since I last visited the shrine and prayed? If yes, then go pray at the shrine. Otherwise:

Is there an enemy online that I could reasonably kill given my current gear and skills? If yes, then hunt that person. Otherwise:

Is there some limited gear I could use that might have a reasonable chance of being in? If yes, then go check for that gear. Otherwise:

Are there high-ROI skills I could spam? If yes, then work on skills. Otherwise:

Are there marginal preps I could benefit from gathering, or do I need to farm gold for Empire and/or thief guild donations? If yes, then farm gold and/or marginal preps. Otherwise:

Go spam up skills with low ROI until someone logs on that I can hunt.

If I get to the point where there aren't even any low-ROI skills to spam, nobody to hunt, and I'm fully stocked on preps, then I just quit.

>All in all, I actually miss the explore/obs edge rewards more
>than I do PK edge rewards. Granted, observation gives you
>skills as a reward - but I do not consider the skills worth
>eating a mob death for (wheras I might consider EP worth it).

If you've already explored a lair then it makes sense that you'd wouldn't view it as worthwhile to risk death to go peek at a dragon. Why would you want to anyway if you've already explored that area with a different character? Seems like you're basically saying, "I like to go check dangerous places for pimp gear, and previously it was worth the risk because even if the gear wasn't there I'd get some edges for my time. Now I can't justify checking for that pimp gear because there's no guaranteed payoff to offset the risk of dying."

>I'd like to suggest that you find ways to provide more things
>for folks to do while they are not ranking. Obs/Explore EP
>rewards were great at incentivizing this kind of behavior.

Observe/Explore xp provided a rote, mechanical way to power up your character when there was nothing else to do. Honestly, less rote, mechanical things seems like an improvement to me. If we made it so players could earn edge points for sitting in their guild and using the "yawn" social 10,000 times, would that make the game more fun?