I logged on to another mud the other day and their were 500 people on it. And they were still using the original Midgard map as the primary town!!!

This must be very fustrating for the imms, the shear amount of work that has been put in to CF and there is no reward of a real player base. If anything its lower now than previously.

There is so much to CF that would just work better with a larger player base.

I say better to have 80-100 players who are immersed in the game and the majority of whom enjoy the complexity of CF roleplay, than to have 500 people who are playing a text based Diablo.

Lets say it takes 15 immortals to monitor 100 players to CF standards. If the playerbase increases to 500 then you have to have 85 immortals to keep up the status quo. Now we don't have 85 people who are even 1/2 way able to be immortal, so what would happen as a result? We'd get worse, more dip####ty immortals. Then you have 85 dip####ty immortals watching over 500 lames - and CF is completely ruined.

In short, The beauty of CF is the quality of whats here, not the quantity.

Qn: Who are you?
Ans: Long time (ex)player and family man.

Qn: Er, your point of this review?
Ans: A colleague of mine swears by the DOOM genre, another by Half-Life. And yet another SIMs. Myself? I like Warcraft (and CF, of course!). To each his own, can't compare apple to orange. So basically, don't compare one MUD with another. They all cater to different needs and satisfaction. With that...

Carrion Fields is NOT for everyone. It is not at all elitist; it's more towards 'CF is not for the faint-hearted'. What you need is time, dedication and many on-line hours. That is why many (like me) find it hard to maintain the on-line dedication due to work, family and real-life responsibilities and commitments.

Yet we keep coming back for more!

Qn: So you did quit, right?
Ans : Yeah, but I'm still contributing to the forums, reading updates and voting (read: voting) in the Top MUD rating. I'm sure if real-life commitments were toned down, I'd be back playing this awesome and deeply satisfying game in the long haul.

Qn: Why?
Ans: Because CF goes so deep in its on-line social and entertainment roots that you cannot just 'quit'. Having played the MUD for so many years with so many hours of contribution, it feels so attached to you. So many friends and people, ranging from the Imms (and the ex-Imms), the leaders of cabals, the RPers, the PKers and even the newbies (who have turned vets over the years) have contibuted to the growth and essence of the game, both in social gaming satisfaction and community spirit.

Like Dr Frankenstein said "It's alive!"

Qn: Did you play other MUDs that were less time-consuming? How did your on-line social life go?
Ans: I never thought of playing another MUD. Nothing, I repeat, nothing comes close against CF with respect to the adrenaline rush when you PK, solve quests (without spoon-feeding) and rewards when you RP and play well (you earn it = you keep it, what an achievement!).

I've tried a couple of other MUDs while playing CF, but didn't like them at all. Too social, too many players, no landscape change, no lines drawn between gods and mortals, lots of six-year-old talks about schoolwork, movies and subjects not pertaining to the game, etc.

Qn: And?
Ans: The way the Imms handle the environment and interaction process makes the game believable but challenging. For hardcore gamers and RPers, you will appreciate the tight control. For others, you will learn the tight-rope of RPing to a higher level and enjoy a close-encounter-with-the-divine kind of gaming.

So to sum up, CF is not for the faint-hearted. If you think you have what it takes to endure the high learning curve and the very challenging, everchanging landscape, you will be greatly rewarded in both the entertainment and equally satisfying and rewarding experience of mudding.

And savor it too, as I did!

Sounds like a review. Hmmm I'll be submiting it then.

Moderator: Please don't mention other games specifically. Keep things as general as possible.

The atmosphere in the MUD (I am assuming you speak of *snip*) is pretty much totally OOC and the regions there (I saw the entrance to dwarf city, Midgaard, Mob Factory and That train station place) were not written as well as the ones in CF (I had trouble guessing the mob names at times in the graveyard area, as the description(the 'mob is here'-description) did not contain the keyword). I rolled a warrior of the Vampire race. Who Vampire got me a list of 69 players, of whom 18 were not afk or linkdead. The MUD appeals to wider range of players than CF, as it is carefree and there is no need to RP at all.

In CF, the regions with descriptions of similar standards than those what I had seen are on the list to be removed or rewritten.

And if the AFK percentage of vampires (about 74%) is generalized to other races as well, We could think that there are about maybe 150 or so active characters in the MUD (providing that there were 500 on the MUD). While the number of players is greater than those who play CF, most of those people are afk. While these are likely to be different players, some are likely to be ones who come to the MUD to chat only. There are no people in CF online that are there to use the MUD as a chat.

I had a brief chat with Valg about this a while ago, and he brought up one good point I hadn't considered. Most of those muds that have 500 people on them, don't have rules against playing more then one character at a time, botting, permagrouping, or otherwise multicharing. Imagine if you could have a level 25 invoker spamming away in his guild, two level 35 warriors with simple damage-spamming bots to rank your level 35 transmuter, a roller spamming for a minotaur spot, etc. I bet CF could get pretty damn close to 500 *characters* online if we worked that way, but quite frankly, that would SUCK.

Also take into account that almost all of the other muds have OOC channels and optional pking, along with "optional" roleplaying (it's my experience that optional = never happens), and arenas for rampant roleplayless pking, and they're going to attract a whole different kind of player who has no interest in CF's style. Personally, these things sound horrible to me, being used to the incredible dynamics of CF and the way all the elements are tied together, and I'm more then happy to let those players play elsewhere.

And since we're on the topic, the other thing that pisses me off is that they advertise "free to play!", but allow characters to buy major rewards for cash. So in other words, it's free to play as long as you want to suck compared to the people who drop cash on it. I know Valg has posted on the various MUD sites complaining about that in the past.

Aarn

Long live CF, where it actually is free to play!

I've visited most of the larger MUDs that don't charge a fee up front for research purposes. While you won't see derivative or copied stuff on CF, it's helpful to understand why some MUDs do well and others don't.

Aarn touched on some mechanical reasons for that. I'll address other types of reasons in another post, but I also wanted to add that some MUDs have 'safe' areas, or characters with PK 'off', and very liberal policies about idling. So if you're going to be in and out all day, you just leave your character(s) logged in, botting or idling, and nothing will happen to you.

CF obviously can't have a permissive idling setting- you're either in the game (and never 100% 'safe') or you aren't.

That's fine for that style of game, but it means "number of characters logged in" isn't really accurate, since you really care about the number of players currently involved in the game. If someone is untouchably sitting in a private room, or sitting motionless in Midgaard Market Square, they're adding less to your game experience than a generic CF NPC. (Who won't provide interaction most of the time, but you can use them for combat practice, or an IMM could stop by and 'animate' them.)

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Are glorified chat rooms.

McDonald's will probably always make more money and have more customers than the quaint little restaurant down the street with nice deccour and excellent cuisine.

If you make things cheap, accessible, and fast, you're gonna attract more customers.

Not that I wouldn't love to see CF's playerbase increase, but keep in mind that the vast, vast majority of the 500 people on some random, crappy MUD would get frusterated with CF and quit for good after about one play session. We just aren't their kind of MUD.

That was the heart I was trying to get at. We have a few fundamental rules that frustrate a number of potential players:

1) We're not generic. Some places will have "PK optional" or "RP encouraged". We don't believe partial systems make sense. On the PK angle, think about how limited items would work if half the playerbase couldn't be harmed, or how classes like healers would work in practice. Similarly, in practice "RP encouraged" just means "No RP." You can't have a conversation with someone who is speaking another language. Some places will have one area full of dragons and wizards, and it connects to a place with Martians and ray guns. How does your character explain that? What happens when you bring a ray gun into the dragon's home?

Ultimately, we've decided to say "This is CF's niche. If you don't like this niche, CF is probably not your game. However, if you do like this niche, we've dedicated ourselves to being really, really good within our niche." Amaranthe's restaurant analogy is apt- McDonald's is the most popular restaurant in the world, but I have no desire to eat there. I think AOL is the most popular ISP in America, but I have no desire to use it. Usher had the best-selling album of 2004 (8 million), but I'm not buying one.

2) You can't buy success. RL currency gets you nothing. If you want to be on top of the heap, you have to out-play everyone else. This is fundamental to a level playing field. Would you want to enter a chess tournament where your opponent could start with an extra queen for $20? Sure, you could buy an extra queen for $20 to re-level the playing field.... and now both of you have received nothing for your $20 except keeping up with the Joneses. This is the fundamental result of the pay-for-perks model. It is also why it bothers me that several games with this business model call themselves "Free!", because you technically can play for free, even though no one does for long because it's a carefully-engineered uphill struggle if you don't put in money.

3) You can fail despite trying. On a lot of games, dying is no big deal. You don't really lose anything, no one can touch your corpse, and IMMs will do corpse retrievals for you if needed. It's like hosting a race, keeping no records of times, and giving everyone a medal afterwards. Where's the thrill in doing well? If you just like "winning" without fear of losing, buy a console game, set all the difficulty toggles to "Small Child", and win all you like. But if you want to play a strategic game with meaningful competition against other people, you're going to have to accept that someone has to lose that fight on Eastern, and that sometimes, that someone is you.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Sorry but you guys are missing the biggest factor in the fall of the playerbase. The game is too much damn work now. Instead of being fun to a large variety of people like it used to be. It is now a game loved mostly by elitest RP snobs and people who have played so much that only by turning up the difficulty level on gaining an advantage in pk to "Pain in the Ass" makes it fun. Challenges are fun, but you guys seem to think that the more annoying and ridiculous the challenge the more fun the game is. I think it sucks that most of the stuff my characters used to be able to handle solo now needs 3 people, especially in exploring. Also the slow pussification and elimination of Cabal Wars, that before I could with good RP get my character cabal'd by level 11, now I have to waste 60 hrs of my life to get into a cabal at lvl 30 with powers that feel like their wrapped in nerf. And that's why CF will slowly fade away as players join games like WoW and remember what it's like to play a game where the main goal is fun. While here on CF the game will continue to become more work like, with fun being an ocassional side effect.


P.S. I'm not saying the Imms are trying to take away fun. Just that the game is now run by people who rarely play it and whose skewed idea of what is fun is alot different then what kept so many players glued to this game for so long.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

Let's be honest, cabal induction at 11, while possible, was never remotely the norm on CF. Even in the days when the Master cabal was a tight 11-20 level range for induction, an induction at 11 was about a once in a year event. Just wasn't the normal way of things.

I don't think getting into most cabals is worse now than it ever has been. "Back in the day" I remember some quick inductions, but I also remember a lot of busy-work quests and requirements to get three recommendations for this or that. Nepenthe had to hunt down something like seven or eight different items that I'd never heard of to get into Master. If you tried to give that same quest today as a cabal leader/elder I bet you'd get laughed at.

My last couple characters that I've wanted caballed got in in less than five hours once I decided I wanted in and started making the effort. This isn't significantly different than ever before.

Induction levels are definitely skewing a little higher than before, but part of that is player self-selection too. A lot of players don't want the raiding and war aspect of a cabal to #### with their levelling or practicing and thus don't apply until later.

Cabal powers are definitely weaker as a general trend and that's not a bad thing. I'd never want to see powers like old-school Master again where they totally replace the class abilities of the characters who have them. On the other hand, some current cabals are weaker than others and that'll be tinkered with sooner or later, as these things always are.

I just don't think there's remotely as much legitimate beef as you seem to have.

Maybe I have the worst luck in the world, but I used to get inducted quick into cabals. Nowadays it takes FOREVER and a day, and I know my roleplay is much better then it was back then. It is partially leaders being stricter these days, but I know that was something pushed by Imms for a while now. I rarely play anymore, but when I was playing alot more about a year a go, I deleted at least 3 characters because I was bored waiting for induction. Like a lot of players I play mainly for the cabal wars, and it just sucks that I have to wait half a characters lifetime before I can even get fully involved in them. Cabals are the lifeblood of the game in my opinion and it's just a shame the direction they've been taken in. And I had at least 2 masters who got in at level 11, and dozens of characters who had gotten into cabals by 15 back in the days. I don't think it was nearly as rare as you remember.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

Where I think a lot of players get tripped up on cabal induction, and maybe you do and maybe you don't, is if they can't find the leader or get some of their time they basically give up.

Those cabals have imms. Take a chance and pray for them. Sometimes they'll end up telling you, in essence... hey man, we have a mortal leader and we think he plays enough that you shouldn't have problems going through him, so go do that. (I've certainly been told that.) On the other hand, frequently, especially with a leader that isn't logging on or a cabal that lacks a leader for your particular sect or what not, they won't.

>And that's why CF will
>slowly fade away as players join games like WoW and remember
>what it's like to play a game where the main goal is fun.

I played CF on and off for 5 years, and it was fun most of the time. I played WoW for 2 months and got bored. May be I will come back when they introduce the PvP Honor points, but I doubt I will stay for long even then.

CF requires a lot of time, I agree. At least it does for me, and this is why I do not play it anymore. But I do not agree that the time you spend in CF is "more work than fun". IMHO WoW is a lot more "more work than fun" than CF.

But I do not agree that the time you spend in CF is "more work than fun". IMHO WoW is a lot more "more work than fun" than CF.

While I'm not familiar with WoW, I know that Everquest and related games make our ranking system look like a picnic. This is a large part of the design- they don't want people to feel like they've "beaten" the game, so there's always more ranking and practicing to be done... popularly derided in the MUD community as "treadmill" gaming. Other MUDs use skill improvement that way- one larger game brags about how there's essentially no ceiling to skill improvement there... you can always get one notch better at Sword or whatever, but it gets harder and harder to do so. There are people there who talk about having spent hundreds of hours on a single skill.

CF approaches the problem from the opposite tack- a large portion of the game's challenge and interactivity comes from other players, not from nigh-endless (and often formulaic) dungeons. There's no way to "beat" the roleplaying aspect of the game, and it's extremely rare (and generally corrected by ganging) that anyone consistently dominates their PK range, or even goes more than 20 or so kills without a loss. The kind of PK/RP blend we highlight can't be "won" by simple strategies or algorithms, which sharply increases our replay value.... your next character can always be better.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

What would happen to that quaint little diner if one of the hosts was routinely caustic to guests?

What if another responded to "May I have a drink?" with "I've drank here before."

Like as not, we have some PR issues.

I agree with everything said on this thread in regards to different games for different types, etc. You'll note that CF is exactly the opposite from most MMO's.

CF = high reward, high penalties.
MMO = low reward, low penalties.
CF = Roleplay forced.
MMO = No roleplay enforcement, at least extremely more lenient than CF is.
CF = Necessity to maintain activity and pay attention.
MMO = You can walk away from whenever you want.

Those are just a few differences and you'll note that MMO's have that policy for the same reason muds like Aardwolf have those policies, ie, to be least discriminating of players and have highest overall playerbase. Games like that are always going to have more players as well as characters.

The post you have explains high in game numbers but they do also have a lot more players since thats really the only way they can cream us on vote counts too (unless they're cheating, which I don't have any reason to think they are).

The thing is, to have more players often compromises the fundamental things that make CF good. More players doesn't equal a better game, its a balance and thats just one factor. We'd all love to have 500+ players on at once but if that means CF is going to turn into another faceless chatroom MUD then I'd rather no play it.

I have to disagree with high reward - high penalties. The work to reward ratio has gotten ridiculous on CF. Cabals used to take 11 lvls and a few hours of RP, they now take 30 lvls and 60-100 hrs of RP. Cabal powers used to be good, now they suck. Good RPers used to get good rewards, now if your lucky after 600 hrs of insanely good RP you might get an extra virtue/legacy/etc before you die. It's too much work for too little reward in CF.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

HAR!

You can't seriously tell me that it isn't harder to get decent rewards now then it was back in the day? And I'm not talking the big 500 xp rewards or last names(though that was a great addition). I'm talking about the displacer beasts, wolverines, executioners grace, cool leader weapons, lich quests, etc? Anytime I see that the Imms gave someone something special it's almost always after like 500 hrs of play and those people are usually insanly good RPers. Drop some crazy #### on the average guy whose trying his heart out sometime. Overpowered is fine, You need some overpowered sometime, overpowered is your friend! And most importantly overpowere is fun! Bring back overpowered every once and a while.



P.S. I wish I was smoking something, just cranky and overtired from work and school killing every spare second of free time I had.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

and ive said this a thousand times. CF is becoming more and more and more time consuming. Im not a newbie and it has become very frustrating for me. Not the fact that I have to deal with others, which i enjoy, just simply the game itself. A lot of the changes that have taken place latey have been good, but others drain the time i would rather be RPing or ranking by an amount so large, its like taking two steps foward and three steps back.

I dont really understand why to get anything done you have to know some uber secret or go to the farthest corners of the CF or some sickly amount of exploration?

Anyway, just rethink it a little bit please and make some tweaks. If it works, great if it doesnt, take it off.

As far as RPing goes, hes right there as well. Some imms want you to have some very very interesting/cool/awesome/briliant rp to really give a damn. if you dont, they will let you strugle forever and ever and toss you a bone at the end of it. That was one of my problems with Laryia or whatever that elf paladin was, given the way she spoke to me her RP came across as not deserving of all the uber powers she had...but i wont get into that.

>That was one of my problems with Laryia or whatever that elf
>paladin was, given the way she spoke to me her RP came across
>as not deserving of all the uber powers she had...but i wont
>get into that.

Three virtue paladin is pretty good, but it's not exactly what I'd call uber.

The time-reward ratio has definately gotten to the more time required for less reward, I don't think that can even be argued.

When was the last char that got force-duel.

When was the last quest form (other than an extra form like sand lizard)...when was the last bullette or displacer beast or yeti?

When was the last imm-tat that had a really noticable effect (haste/slow?...deathblows?)

When was the last lich? For a while, cf was averaging 3 liches a year...

Now it's been over a year since the last lich, and I can't believe it's for lack of trying from the playerbase. (my personal opinion as it might be linked to a drop off in attention the every-day game might get from imms high enough to drop a lich quest on someone)

When was the last 1 night long, world-spanning quest that was fun because everyone joined in...some cabals for, some cabals against, some cabals free-agents...with rewards handed out at the end to the victors... I know Shea got in trouble for using hell mobs during one...but that was the most fun I ever had taking 3 mob deaths.....as opposed to some random imm-controlled mob deciding to fight you and eventually killing you after you've used all your preps and cash healing up over the last hour....with no plot/rhyme/reason involved that I could discern...sure that was kinda fun and broke the boredom...but there were other things I could have done, and I felt I got nothing out of that interaction other than a lost con and a few hours of lost prep-gathering time.

(this is opposed to the 9 month long quests where only 4-5 characters in that entire time have any clue what is going on...and there are long stretches where no char alive knows that one is even going on)

When was the last warrior to get a quest skill like executioner's grace?

I know a 2 virtue paladin at hero can be a force, but 3 virtue paladins are very rare (less than ten ever?)...and even lariya who was deathful with an *ELF* and had great pk/rp chops didn't get her third virtue until late in life.


I understand the drive to make special powers less "over-the-top" than they used to be. Because I am sure you guys got tired of the Favoritism and conspiracy theories. But in my mind, those people will be around nomatter what, and it's best just to ignore them than to let them order you into changing how you act.


It is true that the immstaff has been, in the last few years, increasingly niggardly when it comes to meaningful rewards for the efforts put forth by the playerbase to make this game fun/interesting...and I somewhat understand the desire to make the game less "monty hall" I think the old d&d term was.

But little enough has taken the place of those rewards now that they are greatly reduced in frequency and drastically reduced in impact. I think it sais something about the playerbase when many people I've talked to admit that even 3-4 immteractions that even give the appearance of "plot" would have turned their 200-400 hours of rp from a grind to a glorious shining memory in their own minds.


Now, I do understand how this post sounds coming from someone who got a statue put in a city...I still think that is the coolest thing of EVER....

but, I think if a player sees the vastly improved rp standard, and notices they are working harder and longer for little if any immediate feedback/benefit compared to the quest forms and searing light self-heal weapons and honorable combat and haste tattoos and the goto tattoos of the past...

I just somehow don't think it's right for his views and opinions to be so belittled by an 'nt' post that implies he would not come to that conclusion if he did not have chemically altered faulty perception of reality.

forgive my rambling, I've been up far too long, and can't sleep.

Which of those rewards you mentioned weren't also followed by a hue and cry of imm-favoritism? Lariya gets an extra virtue, and look at the stink that caused? Can you just imagine the forums were someone to be given force duel or a quest form like the Bullette?

When a medium-sized reward (extra virtue) is given to a 500+ hour hero cabal leader, and there is a giant bitch-storm about it, you have to wonder if the players really want strong rewards given out at all.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Where he said some people are going to complain about *any* reward given out? I had no problem with Lariya having 3 virtues, or anyone else. My favorite times of CF was when there was an "overpowered" char running around wrecking shop, and everyone else is trying to dream up schemes to bring them down. That's fun for me, and I'm guessing for much of the silent majority on this topic. Don't let a few bad apples ruin it for the rest.

That being said, silence never solved anything.

Lyria's character just seemslike an Immortal playing a mortal to many people.

There's enough fog in there to hide a troll, so people aren't ever really going to be sure.

For my part I've allways thought Immortals should be actively involved as a mortal so they can help set examples, nudge followers in the right direction.

It's not the rewards that bother people, so much as what we perceive as a cover up.

Really that is all.

Something that noone ever seems to consider is that certain characters could be played by Immortals who never tell the other Immortals who they were, even after death.

There is a situation.

I can't handle it.

Therefore it's impossible t resolve.

Then that player sees someone else do it and they think...

Only an Immortal could know that.
or
Only someone who knows an Immortal could do that.

Therefore they must be an Imm, or know an Imm.

I was calling drug use on the cabal thing, mostly.

What you're saying about special rewards and quests running I don't think is quite as bad as you're saying (cool rewards are still going out) but it's definitely something we need to work on.

Compared to other muds where you can't loot kills I'd say CF is very high reward. Namely because you can kill someone and take their gear. Most MMO's and MUDs you can't do that. I wasn't so much talking about the other stuff.

Compared to other muds where you can't loot kills I'd say CF is very high reward. Namely because you can kill someone and take their gear. Most MMO's and MUDs you can't do that. I wasn't so much talking about the other stuff.

Many games also give minimal rewards for character merit- the larger the game, the less likely you are to be individually noticed. In most large games, having a reward custom-designed for you is nearly impossible.

Also, many games don't feel a need to have merit-based rewards, because the purchase-able reward list fills that niche. Example from another game: "Most of the reward items are indestructible, cannot be dropped, lost in battle, mailed, stolen, or otherwise leave your character in any way. Once received, a reward item is yours forever." ('Reward' items can be purchased via credit card on their site. They include some of the best items in the game. Some cost up to $50-100 US.) Imagine CF's game balance if characters with sizable RL bank accounts could buy an indesctructible, unlootable set from your favorite PBF entry.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

That was your 100th post!

Confetti and Beer for everyone!

....you're buying, right?

Splntrd

Can I have permission to pronounce your name Aaaaaarrrrn! like a pirate might?

Get out there and pimp CF!

hardest part with this is that you dont have as much of a social affect with CF as you do with other muds, and the rule about not being able to play much with people you do know oocly makes it hard to teach friends once they get here, and the ooc rule hurts a lot when trying to point out little things to them unless you want to go strait through the newbie line just to say "hey billyjoe look at the sign, if you wanna talk to bobbysue about going to el paso you send a tell"

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. No one is going to bust on you for grouping with a friend you're trying to teach the game and helping them out through tells as necessary for let's say the first few hours worth of basics.

.

Ya, I understand what nepenthe is talking about, me and a buddy when I first started some 4 1/2 - 5 yrs ago, use to talk on the phone while we were grouped because I couldn't type fast enought to keep up with him. lol, I just remeber his healer leading me down eastern with me spamming old school cranial at every thief or assassin walking by. Now if im even playing something that would remotely speak with him, or group with him, we work everything out IC as it should have been then.

Hey there,

I'm not exactly new to CF, but I've never played anyone above level 25 I think, so I probably qualify as at least partly newbie, but I do read this forum pretty regularly as I find it really interesting. Anyway, I've finally found an idea/role that I'd interested in fleshing out, and so I'm planning to make a real effort to try to level someone up above level 25, and this thread kinda applies. Ok, now that that's out of the way.

CF is quite different from most muds that I've seen out there, which is great, and obviously it has its own cadre of loyal players. However, I have to agree with one of the reasons why CF doesn't have as high a following as some of the more social muds. That's it exactly. Mudding is social. At the end of the day, everything you gain on a mud is virtual. Last I checked, one of the reasons I've heard quoted for mudding is the social aspect. That's probably #2 to the desire to gain power. I'm sure that you've told people it's no problem to group with a friend to teach them some basics. However, that's not where many people want the line to stop. They like coming on and making friends with Joe from Texas and Juan from Mexico and grouping with them each time they're on, day to day, and week to week. I imagine that's at least one of the reasons for joining a cabal.

However, there is an effort here to discourage permagroups. I'm not sure how successful it is, but that's at least one deterrent to new players. Another deterrent is the discouragement of social channels. It definitely takes away from roleplaying if you can be gossiping about sports or whatever. I imagine if someone gossiped routinely about CF current events (in role), that it might get discouraged as well. Actually, I don't even know. Does a public channel exist besides and yell where it's possible? The mud can be a lonely place if you're new, don't have many friends, and don't have easy access to making friends. On top of that, once you reach level 11, you become target practice for half the characters you come across. CF's learning curve is steep because of all the deterrents that exist to make it easier, but that's by design. The tradeoff is that you will have fewer regular players, but to those who can appreciate CF, it's a great place.

Just wanted to make one little point in regards to breaking through to level 11. You don't become target practice for pks. People don't look at the pk list and see a big (Newbie) tag next to your name. It's like that for everyone, but the reason that it comes up alot is because the new players are less experianced to handle/assess the situation and run/fight when needed. It happens to everyones character when they reach level 11. I don't doubt that the learning curve is steep, but it really is worth it.

In my view you are correct about Cabals, they do make things alot more social because you tend to spend alot more time with your cabal mates, either from need or want, but you grow bonds with them usually and they offer a good support team.

With your next char, if your going to make a good role and have aims then for goodness sake, aim higher the just getting over 25! Go for gold! All the way! The view is so much better when your at the top. You can do it! (enter supportive cheers here.) It really is worth it, also go for a cabal, they really make things alot more fun (well that depends what you are aiming for)

Blobqirt

>Just wanted to make one little point in regards to breaking
>through to level 11. You don't become target practice for pks.
>People don't look at the pk list and see a big (Newbie) tag
>next to your name. It's like that for everyone, but the reason
>that it comes up alot is because the new players are less
>experianced to handle/assess the situation and run/fight when
>needed. It happens to everyones character when they reach
>level 11. I don't doubt that the learning curve is steep, but
>it really is worth it.

Just a comment on this. It's not that people see a big (Newbie) tag next to your name. However, in my experience so far, over the course of gaining two levels, I've seen 3 PK's. Two were me. Whenever I came across someone in my PK range, invariably he either asked me to join for a group (2 times), or attacked and tried to kill me or a groupie. Once a groupie was killed, the other 2 times I was killed, even though I tried to run. With my class and race combo, I'm running for the ills the moment any other class/race combo jumps me. I thought I had evaded one attempt so far, but 30 minutes later, I was in unfamiliar territory, and he was still chasing me, and I refused to quit just anywhere. Eventually, I did want to logoff even though he was chasing me, and I found I couldn't because 'It was too dangerous here.' The way i found my corpse? The guy who killed me was nice enough to help me out, so I wouldn't say that players are newbie unfriendly here. Just the system.

So from this partial newbie's experience, I do need to fear whenever someone shows up on 'where' in my PK range.

The reasons below are why I'm target practice for PK's:

*No great knowledge of where to rank.
*Anywhere I go to rank, I need to rest every few minutes because my moves get drained down to nothing from walking about 40 steps. This isn't true when I'm on roads, but that's probably not where I would get jumped most I bet. From the user perspective, it feels like every few minutes I need to sit down and sleep for a minute or three. Hard to escape from someone if I can't even walk.
*No great knowledge of what equipment does what, or where to get stuff for myself. I've received gifts from other players or scavenged from the ground. I have no clue what my stuff really does, except for when it changes hp/mana/move or some other attribute. I'd ID it, but I don't THINK I can afford it.
*No real ability to make money. And whenever I do make what I think is decent, I get PK'ed. On my scale, decent would be about 50 silver pieces and 500 copper pieces. I also can't sell much that I scavenge because the merchants don't seem to carry much cash. Actually, money hasn't had any value for me other than practicing and food, because I haven't gotten PK'ed near towns yet. Barter is cool, though...Extremely newbie friendly.

It's frustrating when it feels like everyone else is in a different class because of their knowledge of the world, but I understand it's part of the game that I accept if I choose to play this game.

Anyway, I think this is mostly a whine, but I tried to be less whiny about my specific newbie user experience.

If movement is really getting you down, you might try playing a class with pathfinding or refresh, with ranger being my suggestion. Once you have a better idea of your way around it can be easier to play something that needs to be more thrifty with moves.

>So from this partial newbie's experience, I do need to fear
>whenever someone shows up on 'where' in my PK range.

Yes you do. And not just because you are a newbie. It is a good idea to go through who pk and see what characters are on that can hurt you. At that stage, it is also wise to see which ones of them are likely to be hostile or potentially hostile (basically all evils, ragers if you are a mage, goodies if you are evil(if not, these fellows are reliable)). If an unclassified/unknown character is seen on where, treat him as a threat (assuming that he is in your PK range).

>The reasons below are why I'm target practice for PK's:
>
>*No great knowledge of where to rank.

Ask someone else to be the leader of the group, as ranking is done in groups of three. If you are the leader, you are expected to know the ranking area well. If you do not know the place, then you should not lead.

>*Anywhere I go to rank, I need to rest every few minutes
>because my moves get drained down to nothing from walking
>about 40 steps. This isn't true when I'm on roads, but that's
>probably not where I would get jumped most I bet. From the
>user perspective, it feels like every few minutes I need to
>sit down and sleep for a minute or three. Hard to escape from
>someone if I can't even walk.

Have potion of recall at hand for emergency situations where you have to flee. If you are attacked, you can quaff the potion and thus lose the opponent from your tail.

>*No great knowledge of what equipment does what, or where to
>get stuff for myself. I've received gifts from other players
>or scavenged from the ground. I have no clue what my stuff
>really does, except for when it changes hp/mana/move or some
>other attribute. I'd ID it, but I don't THINK I can afford
>it.

Cast identify (if you are a mage) or use lore to see what the item does. Note that lore is somewhat unreliable, so you'll practically have to use it multiple times to see what the item really does. Also, you need to have high % of lore in order to get the use from it.

>*No real ability to make money. And whenever I do make what I
>think is decent, I get PK'ed. On my scale, decent would be
>about 50 silver pieces and 500 copper pieces. I also can't
>sell much that I scavenge because the merchants don't seem to
>carry much cash. Actually, money hasn't had any value for me
>other than practicing and food, because I haven't gotten PK'ed
>near towns yet. Barter is cool, though...Extremely newbie
>friendly.

This is often the case with the shops. However, some shopkeeper somewhere tends to have some money, so you should sell the items to him. Basically this means that you might have to go through multiple places in order to get the items sold.

>It's frustrating when it feels like everyone else is in a
>different class because of their knowledge of the world, but I
>understand it's part of the game that I accept if I choose to
>play this game.

The knowledge of the world will improve as you explore it. Knowing the world and getting away from PK's is your first challenge in Thera. Once you know how to do this, you will survive just fine.