Another idea, this one more important, and likely easier to implement, than the AC idea. Empowerment can be a bitch simply speaking. If you have an Imm that is inactive or plays comepletely opposite hours than you it can be diffacult. So here is my idea to help fix this a bit.

1. Fully Empowered Priests of the sphere/religion (maybe all three spheres?) of the God that are level 25 or above have the capability to grant partial empowerment in the name of their god to priests. This partial empowerment would be to 25 only. This would help ease the time spent praying at level 10-15 since you really are worthless much above that and will just die repeatedly. This would also leave some time for the immmortal to do other things.

2. High Preist. Perhaps have a High Priest of a God that can fully Empower, or maybe empower up to level 40 in the name of their god.

3. If neither of these are considered viable, maybe have a system where priests of a god can "recommend" a lower priest and then another god or high priest could empower the mortal in place of the god.

These are just ideas I had. I thought it would make religions more religous since people would actually be seeking to spread religion more and other seeking to learn from it. As a side, I also think a high priest of a religion (doesnt have to be an empowered char mind you) could give the religions tatto... a non glowing kind. It doesn't do anything but mark them. Only the god could give a tattoo of power, this one glowing. Just another idea to help spread religion and RP.

My take on IMMteraction...
I hear a Lot these days about empowerment issues, I have never had a problem, some times it took a while but it always happened.

I always thought of it sort of like, well the Imm's, are Gods! In the real world people believe or dont believe in God weither he/she/it actually comes down and talks to them in person or not. Why should this be any different? Did the greek gods actually appear in the flesh to the greeks? Of course not.

NOW I know there are issues with time and empowerment and such, but your a priest, HAVE FAITH in your God, if a PRIEST does not, who will? Maybe thats all their looking for when they spy on you is a bit of faith, instead of "pray Hail, I need to be empowered come do so." Not to say that's what is being done literally, but think in terms of a God, what is a God looking for in a priest? Hangning out at the shrine, is that really serving your God? And when your not at the shrine, hack and slash? Maybe, but who is your God? And is that really serving your God? Does that show faith? Okay so Im a druid and I dont kill bunnies. So what? What is your religion? If your a druid and you decide for whatever reason to follow someone like Eshval, I don't think she would care if you killed bunnies or not. Think about the religion you choose and what it means. Is your ENTIRE LIFE dedicated to it? If your a priest it should be, empowerment or not.

Thats my opinion anyway. I think this is the best damn game ever, and it's always growing and changing, keeps it interesting. But some things are the way are for many reasons and dont need to be changed. This I feel is one of them. My 2 cents. Good Luck!

While my CHARACHTER might have dedicated his life to his religion, I as a PLAYER have not dedicated my life to the charachter. While my CHARACHTER might enjoy sleeping late, I as a PLAYER do not enjoy idling at my keyboard while my char sleeps. Two things, charachter and player. Sometimes the integrity of roleplay just has to give in favor of the enjoyment of a player. Since that's what a game is all about.

Personally I'd like to see something like mortal mini empowerments happen, possibly with any level 35+ full empoweree being able to give it to level 15, and possibly an avatar able to give it to 20. Imho level 15 is a huge difference from level 10, since it allows you to hit the PK field with an up to par skillset. As it is now, every single minute of non-empowerment is excrutiating torture for me, as I'm forced to linger with a sub-pk skillset without any DEFINATE sence of progression (this is key for me).

Just raise the level at which you NEED to be empowered.

I'm one of those with sporadic playing times, and this would be great. I wont detail the pitfalls of trying to find 10 minutes during your chosen gods "playing" times, to try to find them, speak with them, and participating in an interview, because others in this thread have expressed my frustration better than I can myself.

I think the level at which you need empowerment should just be raised. There. No god is giving up interviewing their priests, and no massive coding needs to be done. Let priests / druids / shamen etc have their supplications to rank 20, instead of 10.

It is so quick to get to the 15 to 20 rank level, and sometimes so long to actually get an interview, this would just help everyone out who wants to play an empowerment class. Getting from 20 to ?? is much more tedious, and often an empowerment quest would be a welcome addition to things to do at that level.

Recently I rolled a paladin, spent an hour doing the basic quests, getting a little gold, getting a sword, etc, and at rank 5 grouped with a couple others, and we were a very effective group. Bam, about 2 hours later I'm sitting at level 16, unempowered, and having to break up the group so that I can seek out the blessing of my god. On the way to the shrine, I get called out by a level 22 duergar shaman, who would mop the floor with my guts more than likely, but it becomes an increasingly more one sided battle when I dont even have supps / skills beyond the 10th level.

Believe it or not, I actually suggested this same idea like 5 years ago

The benefits of priest/Avatar empowerment are obvious. It generates IC mortal/follower roleplay, involves the priest into the religion, and best of all, creates a sense of a "real" religion. Avatars are able to do these kinds of things.

The drawbacks, however, particularly to your skew on the idea, are these:

1. Mortals can not read Roles! This is pretty key.

2. Level 40 is WAY too high. The idea is to toss characters a bone to tide them over until they reach their immortal, not to put empowerment in mortal hands. Level 20 is more reasonable - and gives the character more time to seek his/her IMM to seek further empowerment.

3. To a lesser extent, Mortals are less discerning than Immortals. It's a rare character that gets rejected from a Cabal, for example. This is solved, however, by placing this intial empowerment only in the hands of an "Avatar".

4. This won't work for all religions. The religion has to have a certain sense of structure and order. So, you could just make the option to allow "Avatars" to empower in the hands of the Immortal.

I would love to have the ability to allow mortal priests to empower slightly.

What I would like to see is a combination/variant of 1 and 2, wherein the immortal has the ability (if it fits for them) to grant a follower empowerment capabilities up to a low level, I'm thinking level 15 or 20. Enough to get you started and moving out of the newbie ranks before you have to look for your god. The primary purpose, however, would be roleplay. Obviously being empowered to level 15 or 20 isn't going to make-or-break your clerical character, but it offers a great opportunity for roleplay between mortals that I think we should encourage, without entirely taking the rudder out of immortal hands. It would also add a bit of realism to our religion system, which I think is nice.

Aarn

I would vote against any of these being implemented. Level 40 empowerment gives a healer all but one supplication. Not much different for a shaman or druid. In the rare cases that someone is made the avatar of a religion, they might be able to send up a prayer for a small empowerment if their immortal gives them the okay to do so. That being said, there have been very few avatars of an immortal and I don't think that should be a normal thing to happen. I know for my religion, chances are extremely good that this will never happen.

The thing with this is that it is so rare that players have a serious problem with empowerment. For the one case where it is a problem for the player, there are hundreds who are empowered well below 20 hours. A less than 1% problem doesn't need a fix.

But show me statistics to support this statement please, otherwise, don't present it as fact when it is in fact, speculation.

The beating continues....

Laearrist

>A less than 1% problem doesn't need a fix.

That's an absurd number. Really. You know you're my favorite guy on the planet but its definately not less than 1%. Just recently an ex-Imm told me he deleted an Ordasen follower in favor of rolling an Eshval follower (recently being 2 months ago or so), because he was having trouble contacting Ordasen. I know I've done it numerous times. I know tons of other people have.

If it was really less than 1% do you think anyone would be complaining?

Lets try to listen to the players rather than quote some statistically irrelevant "Valg Numbers".

>The thing with this is that it is so rare that players have a
>serious problem with empowerment. For the one case where it
>is a problem for the player, there are hundreds who are
>empowered well below 20 hours. A less than 1% problem doesn't
>need a fix.

I've been playing CF on and off since 1994.. I've never gotten a priest empowered. (Mind you I don't play heavily anymore.. but still)

I'd love to play a healer, druid, or paladin.. (Done 1 paladin, but before empowerment) .. and I've started perhaps 5 or 6 of them total, and never gotten any empowered.

Obviously I'm doing something wrong (likely my allowable time), but it's not a "less than 1% problem".

...Rome...

I must retract my previous statement. I after writing the last post, I decided to test out my comments and try for an empoweree. I was able to get empowered in 7 hours with a little effort and a decent role. (Mind you I play so little now I'm basically a newbie again)

So, if this is any indication, empowerment gets my vote for OK.

...Rome...

Did you pick an active imm then tailor a role around that imm, or did you come up with a role and then decide which imm &/or sphere it best fit under?

One of my two gripes about the current empowerment system is that it fosters the former, and discourages the latter.

Picked the Imm first.

but I'm still waiting to get my character empowered... Haven't hit 7 hours... yet, but I'd put dollars for donuts that I surpass it easily before anyone even bothers to tell me to #### off.

I wonder, how many empowerments has cf seen during its history. I myself have deleted at least 4 or 5 chars due to no sight of an immortal. I'm not very patient, but I am sure there have been quite a few others, with more hours. So, let's say that the amount is as small as 50 chars with 20+ hours of game time, with a valid roleplay, who have deleted due to Imms disapearing under the face of earth or otherwise unlucky timing (the number is certainly higher, likely closer to 200 than 50). Now, let's assume that for each of these there are hundred<B>s</B> of charachters, say 200 at the least, of successful empowerees, who have <B>been empowered in well under 20 hours</B>. We are led to the result that we have had 10000 empowered charachters. So, for this 'under 1% problem' statement to be true, we have to assume that every day, at the <B>very least</B> three charachters (with actual numbers being more like 20) are empowered with well below 20 hours. This certainly can't be true, or we'd have a helluva lot more empowerment charachters.

I'm starting to feel sorry for the horse now.

To be constructive. What I see as the problem is the inability to do much while waiting for an interview. As it is, 20 hours seems like a long time to wait. After all, it's a full two and a half full working days devoted to a charachter without any certainty of success. Were the bar of empowerment raised to say, 15-20 or at least given a chance of raising the bar via mortal means, suddenly a wait of even 30-40 hours would seem much more feasible, since the time could be spent in the 20s, killing those infidels, or grouping/helping charachters that are a bit more credible in both roleplay and pk department than your average level 8 descless notell dude.
If this small dream of mine would ever be realised, perhaps a few key supplications could be moved a bit further off, just out of empowerment bounds, mainly to prevent a sudden uprisal of unempowered summoning gangbang shamans.

I think this sounds like a wonderful idea.. it would help relive some of my worries as well.

There can be no order without chaos

Well, this is only my feeling.

Personally, I don't feel anyone has the grasp on my religion and what I look for more than myself. Being an immortal does not automatically grant a religion, it is something that is written and re-written, edited and re-edited, and then it is poked at by a host of other immortals who have years of experience in such areas.

I have often wished I could have someone handle empowerment, but many times, those who seek me provide me with such pleasures of interaction that I would hate to miss it.

To have players empower other players can take the direction of the religion and worship out of the immortal's hands and make it into something unintened. Additionally, there is a possibility of misuse I don't care to experience.

Immortals have a system of empowerment that may not be the best, but it allows the control of the creation. Most imms allow multiple methods of contact, from email to pray, all are available. I can also keep an silent eye on supplicants and know the truth of their statements. I would hate to imagine the coding for each religion that would allow the empowerment of mortals by mortals that cover each sphere.

For me, empowerment keeps me in touch with many players, and that I do not wish to give up. But that is only me.

Eshval's email
BlackMarquessa@gmail.com

Eshval's slightly off-center (unofficial) blog.
http://blackmarquessa.blogspot.com/
Carnivàle
http://cirquecarnivale.wordpress.com/

Yeah, but you're a great empowerment Imm because you aren't hard to contact. The problem arises when someone goings MIA or drops off the face of the earth without warning or has some sort of situation arise where their hours drastically drop. Newbies for instance don't understand that certain Imms are easier to get in touch with than others. Typically I find myself picking imms that are most often available and least likely to disappear rather than picking a religion I actually want to RP. That's my problem with empowerement. I'd love to be able to pick any religion and not spend months (I have a char that's 74 hours old that I rolled two and a half months ago, to give you an indication of how infrequently I play compared to some people) waiting on empowerment. For me its like, I might have one hour one day, two hours that weekend, etc for CF'ing, so if I can't catch an Imm during those periods I either have to give up on my favorite classes in the game or go real time months waiting for empowerment.

Thats the biggest problem that I see is that you find people who pick their RP to fit easy empowerment rather than pick their RP based on what they want to RP.

Why do you think they would never be willing to implement something like this? A couple high level fully empowered priests can kill with a great deal of power grantedb y their god, but they can't bring others into their religion as minor acolytes or something? (empower to around level 25 only afterall). I don't really see this being abused to aany large degree or overpowered since it's only to level 25 and empowered chars are watched a lot. I think it would only benefit the mud by the following:

1. Imms have more time to do the big stuff since they get the lowbie who aren't going to make it or just suck not coming straight to them all the time to start.

2. More RP interaction of religions between lowbies and the higher level priests. This presents more opportunities for spreading the religion and a good reason to do so.

3. Lowbies aren't stuck hoping and praying and doing what I do now, wake up 4am, login and pray. Login before work at 6am pray. Login at lunch break at 12pm and pray. Login at 5pm and pray. Login at 9pm and pray. Wake up at 12am and pray. All without ever getting any kind of answer. I know it's frustrating for me and based off the massive amounts of posts of "When does ImmX play?" on the forums only proves that it is frustrating for the mass of us. With people playing from all corners of the world I really can't see how this would harm.

4. Lowbies aren't stuck at level 10-15. If they rank higher without empowerment, they will likely die a vast amount since they will be easy pickings to A-Ps and necros and such. Also no one would really want them in their group with only a few powers to help. They are stuck until they get empowered. I have heard of cases where people took as long to get empowered at the low levels as it takes me to hero most of my chars, even ones only getting 50-80exp a kill in the mid levels.

In conclusion I really don't see why this would be an issue by anyones standards. I can't see anything overpowered, underbalanced, etc. And I really can't see it being that diffacult to implement either. Granted I can't know how hard it is, but Imms have it. In my limited knowledge it seems they could just take their empower skill and copy it to a new skill that can only empower to level 25 or something. This is the idea I have that I would really like to see implemented in CF, not really for myself (My char I am sure will be past empowerment point before this is, if ever, implemented), but for others who want to play an empowerment class. Thanks for reading through all this if you did.

I like ideas 1 and 2. It would give a lot more emphasis on religions and priests. However, I wonder how it would affect balance.

Splntrd