I don't have a pony in this race, so in a rare display of independent initiative, I'm locking this thread. It's dominating the Battlefield and the discussion doesn't seem constructive at this point.

If there's anyone who did not get an opportunity to post a legitimate Battlefield farewell for Iunna, my suggestion is to post on the Padwei thread, which is still unlocked.

Edit: Didn't read the thread, now that I have what I originally said would probably be misinterpreted.

I remember when we were mortals and you applying for immortaldom. You only went in after I had deleted, I think. Maybe I should try again now :/ (just kidding, I have two small children and no time at all for anything right now). As far as I can tell you did a great job of being an immortal for the past 10 years or whatever it's been. I never ended up making a good follower of yours (had a couple early abandoned crappy ones), which is too bad. See you in the fields.

Just something to take into consideration. The imms are real people with real feelings. Some are going to rub each other the wrong way no matter what. I haven't been there for a couple of years, but this is nothing new. I rubbed some people the wrong way and when I got that vibe, I just did my best to not interact with them. Others I got along with very well and I gravitated more towards them. It's just human nature. I liked what Iunna did for the game when I was there and recommended a promotion for her. In her style, she didn't seem to think she deserved it and gave me some Iunna grumpiness for it. But, that's when we started to get along better. In any case, I wish you nothing but the best.

It's true. Not everyone is always going to get along all hunky-dory. The goal is to work past differences for the good of the game. I'm confident both RayBaer and Iunna did that as long as they possibly could have.

And FWIW, although you were a god-awful poster on these boards, you always told the truth (just sometimes...yeah, you really shouldn't have heh).

Hope all is going well with you, sir.

I was by far the oldest player/imm when I had the time (almost 50 now). And because of that, if I saw a "kid" posting like a moron, I told them so because of that human nature. And yeah, sometimes I shouldn't have.

Outlander could use some love

There's only a bajillion of you hiding in the forest of there sheesh!

We could all use some love, man.

Splntrd

Would you like to volunteer?

nt

I haven't choked on my own coffee in a long time from laughing, so
you must not even play morts anymore. and 50 can't be old man I'm
just around the corner there behind you and I don't wanna feel old
yet.

you would have liked how Balta's later half of life went...

hope you plan on coming back soon!!!!

we miss some imp!!!!!!

nt

You pull the tail of a tiny doll of a fluffy white fela.
A tiny doll of a fluffy white fela says 'Ffftt!'

Well, I don't entirely get the reason for your decision, but I do get walking away when it's no longer fun.

So on that note, I can only say I wish you the best. You'll be missed by many.

I don't agree with many of the things Baer says and does with regards to
this game. After six or so years this has created such an inexhaustible
source of anger and frustration in me that I decided if it's her way or
the highway (which it often is), it's long past time to save myself the
continued agony and hit the road.

I don't really play mortals anymore, so you won't likely see me on the fields.
Maybe if I get a proxy or new IP address, but probably not even then.

Good luck everyone.
padwei@gmail.com

I can honestly say I have no idea what the deal is here.

I can understand Iunna and I think a lot of people agree man. Perhaps the problem is you are too close to see it. I have had many great experiences with Raybaer, but I have also seen some shady things, or what appeared, from those on the outside looking in, to be shady. It is what it is, and I appreciate that Raybaer puts a lo tof time out there for mortals, but you have a large amount of the player base telling you what they are "perceiving" and it is that perception that is the problem.

No, I can understand how people would butt heads with Baer. But I understood the two of them to be getting along well lately.

>But I understood the two of them to be getting along well
>lately.

FYI, I don't remember a time when this was ever true, particularly lately.

Yeah.

I mean, I gather that the two of you have certain philosophical differences of how things should be done from an imm perspective (and in at least two of the cases I can think of I can see a reasonable argument for either of your perspectives) but I was under the impression that personally you were getting along pretty well.

Apparently not.

I've stopped commenting on a wide variety of things, just because I realized the headache that would follow wasn't worth it. In the interests of having my post read and considered, I won't even use anything CF related as an example.

I work with a woman named Kathy. Now Kathy is in her late 50's, has been doing security for five years (A fair length of time, depending on your assignments), all at extremely low level, low paying, low priority postings. She's never so much as held a gun, she's not very bright, but she is reliable. She's what I consider a "concierge" type of guard. The kind who will sit at their little desk, follow the post orders TO THE LETTER, without ever questioning anything, without ever rocking the boat, without ever thinking outside of the box. The sort who goes into an absolute tizzy if there is any deviation from her post orders or daily routine, and who can't think for herself. She punches in on the dot every day (after showing up 20 minutes early, just to make sure she isn't late) punches out on the dot every day, and just sort of trundles on ahead. She's the type of guard who will probably still be making the same wage the day she finally stops working for us, than she was the day she was hired. Maybe a buck or two more.

Then you have me. I'm in my 20th year of security work. In that time, I've saved 4 peoples lives via CPR, been in charge of entire Districts for various companies, body-guarded for the Trump family (and their assorted friends, relatives, and business partners) I've been an area manager, field supervisor, site supervisor, facilitator, handler (don't ask), and I've been nominated three times for lifesaver awards. I've handled some VERY lucrative, very secret things for some very influential people, strictly because of my reputation in the industry, the letters of rec that I carry, and my ability to above all keep my temper in check while at work, and remember the assignment. Previously I've held jobs where I made in one month what she makes in a year. I'm considered a professional in this industry.

Due to my current situation, I work with this woman. We make the exact same wage (until March). We are the same rank, and hold the same title. we have butted heads on nearly every single topic it is possible for two people to argue about, all because she insists on making a huge federal case out of every single thing she possibly can. Where on the desk the pen holder should sit, what constitutes "late" to work, what are matters we go up the chain of command within our company for, and what are matters of real urgency we go directly to the client for, essentially every single aspect of this job. She INSISTS on everything here being set up HER way, and despite the fact that we work different shifts and are only together five minutes a day, I loathe this woman.

Now knowing what I know, I could make this womans working life hell. If all I cared about was getting my way and making sure I rubbed her face in the fact, I could do it all day long. (Our bosses bosses boss once called me on my private phone to ask me to come in five minutes earlier the next day, to beat the woman with a 2x4, he was so sick of all the nonsense she stirs up.)

We have been working together this way for about 6 months now. For the first month, we couldn't even be in the same room and be civil. These days, I come in, we have some pleasant and polite surface chit-chat, she relays any technical issues she may be having with the PC to me (very bad with a computer. Why they stuck her at a site with such heavy computer use is beyond me) and then if possible I fix it for her. We don't discuss ANY of the issues that we know we will butt heads on. Know why? Because I realized after the first few weeks of going higher up the chain of command, with nothing being done about her, that nothing WAS going to be done.

It never mattered how bad her mistake was, how right I was vs how wrong she was, or what the potential for HUGE liability for one of her mistakes was (mostly because I always catch them before they can become problems and head them off). The higher ups were just not interested in replacing her to fix the problem. So instead of trying to fix her issues, I just worked around her and kept my mouth shut as best I could. Yeah sometimes things would flare up and I would have to put on my Ass Kicking boots, but by and large I just shut up, spoke to her as little as possible, and did my thing.

Why did I shut up and stop trying to force them to fix things? Because in March, the client is putting me in charge of all of their locations, at the very least in PA, possibly nationally. I WON'T be her co-worker, I will be the one she has to come to who tells her what to do. The problem will resolve itself.

Iunna had no such light at the end of the tunnel. I'm sure there were any number of times she was certain she was right and Raybaer was wrong (Not saying she was right in every one of those cases, but the law of averages says she had to have been SOMETIMES) and went up the proper channels, just to get shut down. So I'm guessing what happened to her is what happened to me. She just shut the #### up, so even if she wasn't going to win, she didn't have to deal with the headache from the struggle before being told "It is what it is, deal with it". She probably did what I do, and just avoided her as much as possible, and interacted with her when necessary with formality and politeness.

If I didn't KNOW I had this promotion coming in March, I would have quit by now and moved on to something else. You can only bite your tongue, KNOWING you are in the right and the other person is in the wrong so many times, before something has to give. What you saw as them "getting along" was probably just Iunna trying to just not say anything to make the situation worse(because her efforts hadn't been taken seriously before), while she seethed inside. In this sort of situation, eventually something gives. If people saw me and Kathy interacting, they would probably assume we were great friends, because I just refuse to discuss anything more than surface chit-chat with her. I refuse to engage her. That does not make us friends, it just demonstrates my ability to bite my tongue.

In this case, what gave was probably Iunna's ability to tolerate any more, and she split. Which was a HUGE loss for CF. But it's like they say, you can't fight city hall.

> I'm sure there were any number of times she was certain she was right and Raybaer was wrong and went up the proper channels, just to get shut down

I can't recall this ever actually happening (even if, obviously, I wouldn't be the person involved in any way in dealing with it).

But my best guess is that it's more like this whole Acolyte thing from earlier in the week, which is sort of an example of the differences in style in microcosm.

Iunna is of the mindset that promoting you should be this cool thing with RP involved and will happen when she can make time for to happen that way. If she can't connect with you, you might wait a while, but when it does happen it's going to be something cool. I think that's a perfectly valid take on it.

And, actually, there's some Fort tradition kind of going that way -- Shokai and Aarn were typically of the mindset that they'd decide you were ready to be Maran, and then start watching for you to do something cool. Once they were watching you and saw you do something cool, they'd Maran you on the spot. This was pretty cool when it happened but sometimes they'd keep missing someone, too.

Baer is more of the mindset that when you've earned it, you've earned it, and if she keeps missing you somehow she's going to try to get someone else to promote you, and if that isn't working or isn't an option she'll even do it offline.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the Iunna style on that and I don't think there's anything wrong with the Baer style on that either, but I can totally get why it would chafe to be Iunna and have someone complain that you aren't doing it Baer's way.

I'm not saying that this was THE thing; I just think there are probably were a lot of things like that. (And can think of a couple other examples, but nothing that I would have thought would be intolerable to anybody.)

Sometimes people think or feel things that we just don't understand, man. No matter how hard we try, how smart we may be, how empathetic we may consider ourselves and how willing we are to listen. Sometimes a feeling about someone or a situation just can't be vocalized.

Frankly, right now I still have exactly NO idea why my wife left me when/how she did. I was under the impression that everything was great. I was happier than I could ever imagine being. And in the space of a week she and my daughter were gone, and I was left sitting here going "What the ####?". To say I treated both my wife and daughter like gold would be an understatement. Hell, I make my living by noticing things and understanding people and their motivations. I still just have no clue.

Maybe this is the same thing. Maybe her reasons, or her feelings, and the reasons for those feelings just won't make sense to you. It's because we are all different, and once in a while two people will just completely not be able to understand the reasons each feels a certain way. There's no wrong in this, no shame, no blame. Sometimes people just don't get it. It sounds to me like this may be the case with you. I'm not going to blame it on your wife, or your marriage, or Iunna, or any sort of immortal conspiracy. I think maybe you just really don't get her reasons, and that's okay.

It sucks that she felt the need to leave, and it sucks that you don't understand it all, but that doesn't in any way shape or form make it in any way your fault. I recently upset Iunna, completely unintentionally because of something I said on Dio's. I never meant to, and I hope she realizes this. She wrote me an email basically saying "Hey man, what gives?" and I was absolutely mortified that I had upset her to the degree that she felt the need to email me. I apologized (and will apologize again here in case she reads this because I still feel like #### about it, since I always loved Iunna) but sometimes #### just can't be worked out.

For whatever it may be worth coming from me, I don't think it was YOUR fault.

nt

It makes Iunna look like a whiney child because someone didn't like her way and liked Baer's better. I am not Iunna's best friend, but I think I know her well enough to know this isn't all of it and probably in the scope of things is very small...very small.

I hope you will read this and hear what I'm saying, but I realize that this might be a futile effort. I do not believe I am alone in my feeling on this.

I feel like, and yes, I realize my feelings are subjective, that we get this kind of "I am the Great and Powerful Oz" vibe from you most of the time because we aren't good enough to know all of the secrets you know. We are told "not to look behind the curtain." That you take on a very dogmatic "This is how it is and that is it, stop asking" kind of attitude with the playerbase, but guess what man, most of your playerbase is getting older and we don't accept this kind of response anymore. I'll be honest and say that much of the time when I see your responses to things I say to myself "Why bother, he will just deny it is true, put down the poster in some semi intellectual way, or just completely ignore the issue. I say this to be productive, and not hurtful because in general I really do value all that you, and your wife do for this game, but people are right when they say her comments are snarky and mean on PBF's. I think Vlad gave a very good analogy to what the situation "could" be like and honestly I see your posts as being protective and defensive of your wife and they are an attempt to minimize that CF just lost one of its best RP immortals who has given a lot of value to the game. Not only that, but the response you gave makes Iunna look like a child because she didn't "get her way." I don't know how much power you have in the CF world, but could it possibly be that people take the approach that they aren't going to listen to the complaints of someone like Iunna because it might make you unhappy?

Maybe we should be setting a precedent that PBF comments should be constructive without tearing down the person. I realize that I have contributed little to this game in the way of ideas and other things, but I do know I've been donating since you have been asking for them, long before we did PBF. Maybe that shouldn't matter, but I've tried to contribute financially to this game because I don't have the patience to write an area and I've tried it three times. I've been in this game for nearly as long as you, and I wish you would believe me when I say that you come across very much the "My way or the highway" in your posts and that you do not come off as reasonable. You do it in a nicer way than folks like Valg though, so I give you credit there.

>It makes Iunna look like a whiney child because someone
>didn't like her way and liked Baer's better. I am not Iunna's
>best friend, but I think I know her well enough to know this
>isn't all of it and probably in the scope of things is very
>small...very small.

As stated, it's an example of the kind of clash of styles. It was the most relevant one that I could think of that I considered to be fair and didn't require me to say anything that I think would be taken as bad by anyone.

>I hope you will read this and hear what I'm saying, but I
>realize that this might be a futile effort. I do not believe
>I am alone in my feeling on this.
>
>I feel like, and yes, I realize my feelings are subjective,
>that we get this kind of "I am the Great and Powerful Oz" vibe
>from you most of the time because we aren't good enough to
>know all of the secrets you know. We are told "not to look
>behind the curtain." That you take on a very dogmatic "This
>is how it is and that is it, stop asking" kind of attitude
>with the playerbase, but guess what man, most of your
>playerbase is getting older and we don't accept this kind of
>response anymore. I'll be honest and say that much of the
>time when I see your responses to things I say to myself "Why
>bother, he will just deny it is true, put down the poster in
>some semi intellectual way, or just completely ignore the
>issue.

To some degree these kinds of discussions (around someone leaving) are always going to be weird and stilted, because it's not really our way to talk bad about the departed. So you have one party who is unhappy be definition, or they wouldn't be leaving (assuming it was their choice to leave -- which it is in this case, but isn't always) and one party that isn't really taking part in the conversation.

There's a few reasons for that. One is that if you look at the veteran imms who have left in the last few years, it's not the first time most of them did and we have in mind that it might not be the last.

Another is that we think everyone who's stayed around for a while has brought a lot more to the game than bad and that's generally how I'd like you to think of them, too. I know how people can fixate on the negative and I don't think it accomplishes anything constructive for me to point out the reasons we might be frustrated with immortal X, Y, or Z (and to be clear I'm not saying that was the case here) to counterbalance the reasons they might be frustrated with the rest of the staff they're leaving.

So, I don't know. I agree that the kinds of answers you end up with are not very satisfying and I don't know that I'd be satisfied with them either, but I don't know how to give you better ones. I'm open to ideas.

>I say this to be productive, and not hurtful because
>in general I really do value all that you, and your wife do
>for this game, but people are right when they say her comments
>are snarky and mean on PBF's.

Sure; but so are/were mine or Valg's or a lot of people's, often. I don't understand what's different there.

>I think Vlad gave a very good
>analogy to what the situation "could" be like and honestly I
>see your posts as being protective and defensive of your wife
>and they are an attempt to minimize that CF just lost one of
>its best RP immortals who has given a lot of value to the
>game. Not only that, but the response you gave makes Iunna
>look like a child because she didn't "get her way."

I understand that you're reading it that way but I tried very hard to *not* convey that message.

>I don't
>know how much power you have in the CF world, but could it
>possibly be that people take the approach that they aren't
>going to listen to the complaints of someone like Iunna
>because it might make you unhappy?

I honestly don't think so. Team IMP gets along and agrees more than it doesn't, but it's also not uncommon for one of us to disagree strongly with one or more of the others and piss each other off a bit about it.

>Maybe we should be setting a precedent that PBF comments
>should be constructive without tearing down the person. I
>realize that I have contributed little to this game in the way
>of ideas and other things, but I do know I've been donating
>since you have been asking for them, long before we did PBF.

If the playerbase actually could agree that this is what they want I'd consider it. Seriously.

But the message I've consistently gotten from a lot of people is that the negative comments are the biggest draw to PBFs for them.

In some areas there really is no pleasing everyone.

>Maybe that shouldn't matter, but I've tried to contribute
>financially to this game because I don't have the patience to
>write an area and I've tried it three times. I've been in
>this game for nearly as long as you, and I wish you would
>believe me when I say that you come across very much the "My
>way or the highway" in your posts and that you do not come off
>as reasonable. You do it in a nicer way than folks like Valg
>though, so I give you credit there.

That's not generally the impression I mean to convey; there certainly are areas where I'm interested in talking about better ways to do things.

But in some areas, yeah, I do get to have my way. I'm not, for example, going to delete just because Tolnum (whoever the hell that is) wants me to.

>But the message I've consistently gotten from a lot of people
>is that the negative comments are the biggest draw to PBFs for
>them.

I'm one of these people. I like PBF for two main reasons. One, to see my comments and improve based on them. Positive comments are nearly useless. I know when I've done something awesome. They're ego-boosting, but whatever. Negative comments tell me what I could've done differently.

Two, the snarky ones are funny. Far and away the most interesting part of anyone else's pbf. Call it schadenfreude, but the best pbfs have a mixture of positive and snarky comments. And to be completely honest, seeing egotistical people get all butthurt because they can't withstand the hint that people don't think they're 100% pure awesomeness makes me giggle.

That's ninny and far removed from anything that I think is actually causing problems.

.

One thing that I noticed in the recent PBF comments is that Baer makes a lot of negative snippets. In fact, I'd say that the majority of her comments are negative snippets. Other imms say stuff like 'oh, this is pretty cool; I did a RP thing with the character; Liked x y and z'. Baer is more like 'EXCUSE ME?' and some other #### that's pretty much unwarranted. It seems that she considers herself some sort of police.

Same exact drill that I put on qhcf - you want to attract more people? Put a positive spin on thing. Don't be a bitch or a #### to people - before putting negative stuff, really really really consider "is this warranted?"

Food for thought.

My last PBF comment on Kontoln was like "WTF?"

Sun Nov 25 13:01:43 2012 by 'Baerinika' at level 51 (392 hrs):
This dude is the king of "Caves Under Peer Pressure"

I dont know if I even want to know what she ment.

That being said, I was throwing myself against Fortress over and over until con death at the time the comment was placed.

Edit: Disclaimer: I've played a Baer follower and really enjoyed it. I just look at this pbf comment and ask "Did you really need to say that?"/"What does that mean?".

Not sure I have a problem with a staff member who comments on characters in a way that's predominantly negative so long as those negative comments are accurate. To a certain extent a "well role-played" character is one that never has ####ty moments. The guy with amazing role-play most of the time who spouts OOC racial slurs one time after dying is a substandard character regardless of how great he may have been 99% of the time. So I kind of like having staff around who ding pfiles whenever they see a character acting ####ty or exhibiting obviously poor role-play.

Unless it's one of her followers.

...doing well and all, but you're wrong here.

RayBaer is often positive for players that "aren't" hers. The problem is that sometimes she ####ing doesn't think before she posts here or on PBF's (we all have this problem to an extent) and she's NEEDLESSLY catty. She could just note: Character went OOC on Char. Seems to be a habit, note if you see this more. Instead she "sasses" it up, presumably because everyone wants to seem clever and witty on the internet (including me).

Then, people lose their #### about this (like we saw on the forums) and then you have "Hates Baer" or "Loves Baer" camps even though nothing could be further from the truth (there is like 8 people in each camp, and 200 in the "who gives a ####" camp).

If I were to guess, Iunna and Baer just disagreed with how CF should be run. It happens. I have no ####ing clue who would be "right" in this argument, though I do know Baer certainly has both more explicit and implicit power, which may have led to Iunna just saying "#### it it ain't worth it anymore".

People are allowed to do this. It's obvious to all of us that Nepenthe and RayBaer are a very critical part of CF now. They are not leaving (nor should they IMHO) but it's perfectly reasonable for someone to not see "their" vision and decide to leave.

Just bummed this whole sordid affair takes away (at least in perception) from all the good things both Iunna and RayBaer do.

What I think Iunna is saying, is whatever anyone thinks of your wife's skills/abilities/work on CF, SHE has become the driving force of CF.

And if you don't agree with her or get along with her, you're probably not going to enjoy CF.

Of course, since you're married, I assume you get along fine with her, so of course you don't notice her bad traits or bad side.

FWIW I'm not on the bandwagon of "RayBaer sucks balls and should go". I'm just saying your wife has a TREMENDOUS amount of power now and perhaps you guys should check that a little bit? Half the MUD is a Rayihn/Baer follower or in one of her cabals. Like it or not you've allowed her to completely determine the enjoyment level of nearly half the playerbase.

I just think you of all people can't see this because she's your wife man, and you obviously love her.

As a married person I'll add that I'm acutely aware of my wife's flaws and the ways in which she's annoying. And she'd say the same about me.

Nt

It's actually you, Daevryn, who need to step down, and let Baer keep interacting with her followers, because she is undeniably great at that extremely important part of being an imm. Take away imm-rewards? She's my favorite immortal, because of how hard she works to make this game better.

However, you are supposedly "Game-Balance guy", and its obvious you are blinded by your love of your wife (happens to us all), and can't see how the rewards she gives out unbalances the game.

You are also biased because your mortals tend to also get hooked up. If you went back to just playing stock mortals, I think the playerbase here would probably agree you are one of, if not the best, pk'er on the MUD. Unfortunately no one is ever going to see that because every character you play has an asterisk next to it, at least in my book.

What I see right now is this MUD hemorrhaging players as well as long-time staff, because of everyone's perception of shadiness that pretty much centers around either you, or your wife. If you can't see that the current situation has been and is detrimental to the MUD, I am not sure what to tell you.

Step back from being an imm, be just a player, and get back to enjoying the game. God knows you've earned it with the work we all know you put in.

You don't make an IMP that can code quit just because some conflict and 4-5 players that keeps whining about the same thing for years.

And shadiness accusations would just move away. If an imm is active they will get flack; that has always been true. Just look at Valg.

cmon, you and I both know its a lot more than that

alex, you, ORB, RobDarken, Kanye and kads is probably behind 95% of the whining

Thats just two of the imms who left and said something.

You also forgot Tzaritz, Kostyan, many others.

It's funny you say only a few are whining.

My counter is that there is only two people being whined about.

TWO

nt

Who else gets bitched about at least once a week, let alone once a day?

How about the wand system that Zulgh has coded? It is just that people are more polite around Zulgh but holy #### when the topic comes up the whining goes on for weeks.

For most it does not seems to be actual actions in game just that she rubs them the wrong way just like Valg rubbed people the wrong way. Everyone keeps mentioning overpowered rewards but NEVER actually mentioning actual chars.

Like you. You seem to be some champion for other imms here and how they cannot defend themselves from the Evil Baer and they need you with your lifelong experience to rescue them. What is that about?

I've been playing longer than most, including most of the staff. I've seen the various amounts of effort and hard work people put in, and there have been some people who worked and worked and worked, and got #### all over for their efforts from above.

Then there are a few imms who (for whatever reasons) were golden children from day one, could do no wrong, got promoted through the immortal ranks faster than the norm, and who seemed to rise much faster than was warranted.

You take these two different kinds of immortals, and if all behavior was equal coming from them (OOC posts, role entries, general attitude towards other lower staffers/players) then I would feel the same about each.

However if you get someone from the second group who bursts on the scene, CLEARLY (and lets not make any denials about this, really) gets preferential and special treatment, and then ####s all over both players and staff (some who have been here far longer) it's going to make me like them less, and the other group more.

At the risk of opening up a can of worms that I have struggled very hard to close, just in the interests of being the bigger person and trying to just enjoy the ####ing game, right from the start there was a HUGE chip on a particular shoulder. Not just directed at one or two people either. It made people not want to deal with this person. Some of those people decided to leave the game over it. When you have a situation where people have been here longer, and already contributed a great deal to the game leave because someone far less experienced who has contributed less is unpleasant to deal with but given preferential treatment, it tends to make me want to root for the side going "WTF? Who the #### do you think you are"?

I speak up because I can. Because I honestly don't give a #### about being punished for pointing out the obvious. But mostly I "champion" those other immortals because they have been around and contributed, and not given out one tenth of the piss poor attitude, even though most have far more reason to.

In essence, and I'm really sorry to say this because I really like Nep and because I have truly been making an effort to just keep my mouth shut about this particular issue, I just don't ####ing like Raybaer. We've lost multiple immortals, gods only know how many players, and over what?

We started bleeding both staff and players fairly early on, you're telling me whatever was accomplished by her at that stage was worth losing people who had already had years invested in the game? Think about some of the people who left over her. Think about their contributions to the game over the years. Do I wish she would go away? NO! I don't. But that being said, I don't think we came out ahead in the trade. The cost wasn't worth the value of what we got, and the fact that it clearly continues to happen and to be an issue tells me we're going to continue to lose players and staff over her.

When is it "too much"? I think the scales are already far overbalanced in the "loss" column. How many more good imms and players will we lose, just to hang onto Raybaer? Frankly, I'd rather she was taken aside and told "Look, knock your #### off. Or else". And to be truthful I have seen SOME change in her over the years. But still not enough to justify what we lost in the process. I feel like if she was going to change enough to be worth the price we've already paid, it would have already happened.

You can bitch at me "Wah wah who ####ing asked you?" but YOU just asked, and this is my answer. She may be a good immortal, but the price we paid for a "good" immortal (several truly GREAT immortals and more than a few truly great players) was just too high. The mud was made less than it could have been at this point.

>Then there are a few imms who (for whatever reasons) were
>golden children from day one, could do no wrong, got promoted
>through the immortal ranks faster than the norm, and who
>seemed to rise much faster than was warranted.

As one of those golden children in my time, I'll tell you exactly how it happens: you put more time in and you do more work than your peers are doing. You volunteer for the jobs no one else wants and you do them to the best of your ability. You actually get things done where other people promise to do it and then disappoint. (Name your top 10 favorite departed non-IMP immortals and it's very likely 8 to 10 of them were terrible about this. I probably loved the same people and would love to have them back around, too, but it is what it is.)

Pretty much anyone who's made IMP did this at some point, too.

The one constant to how things run in immland as long as I've been around is: the people putting in the time and effort tend to end up with the say.

>However, you are supposedly "Game-Balance guy", and its
>obvious you are blinded by your love of your wife (happens to
>us all), and can't see how the rewards she gives out
>unbalances the game.

Except... she actually doesn't, by and large.

In Fort in recent memory there's Jack Blaguar. That's admittedly a pretty good reward, although there have always been concurrent quest forms in other cabals.

And... that's it. Or it came from someone other than Baer.

I keep hearing that people in Fort have rewards that they actually don't. I don't know what to make of it other than that there's a segment of the playerbase that amount to the equivalent of catty, gossipy soccer moms. They can't hack it as players so apparently they make #### up.

And what can you even do about that? People believe what they want.

>You are also biased because your mortals tend to also get
>hooked up. If you went back to just playing stock mortals, I
>think the playerbase here would probably agree you are one of,
>if not the best, pk'er on the MUD. Unfortunately no one is
>ever going to see that because every character you play has an
>asterisk next to it, at least in my book.

Rather than give in to my natural reaction, I'll attempt to give this a serious response.

First: how do you even go about that?

Second: I have played "stock" characters, and even the last couple characters I've had that have had some kind of reward had managed what amounts to a lot (e.g. a hundred or more) of kills before ever seeing any kind of mechanical reward.

Interesting thing? It doesn't make a difference. At all. A character who beats people will get OOC or forum rants about how over-rewarded they are, even if they actually have nothing, and even if they beat someone who themselves does have some kind of solid reward. This occurs whether it's a power combo character or something that nobody else would have played on a dare.

Other than just not play, it's not possible for me to make people happy in this respect. At one point this bothered me, but I'm over it now.

>What I see right now is this MUD hemorrhaging players as well
>as long-time staff, because of everyone's perception of
>shadiness that pretty much centers around either you, or your
>wife. If you can't see that the current situation has been and
>is detrimental to the MUD, I am not sure what to tell you.

To the extent that that's true (and I'm not convinced that it is), I think it's perception. Why would it make sense to encourage the gossipy soccer mom faction by giving them what they want as a reward for (mostly) making #### up?

>Step back from being an imm, be just a player, and get back to
>enjoying the game. God knows you've earned it with the work we
>all know you put in.

I'm not inclined to let "Tolnum" (whoever you are) make those decisions for me.

People disagree, its cool.

I wish I had something like CF the wife and I could both enjoy so more power to you there.

I disagree on some of your points but no need to rehash

Most of those points are less opinions and more inarguable fact.

But I understand that you're in the camp of people that pretty much assumes I'm lying if I say something that doesn't agree with the way you view the world, and that being the case, what could I even reasonably do to make you happy?

nt

nt

But I don't think this thread would be here if that camp was as small as you are implying.

n/t

guess this makes it eight
a better stat would be how many unique posters in the thread? 25+


edit: you also missed the part where I said the thread wouldn't be here, meaning Iunna's deletion. That part's dead on, but your mileage may vary.

>But I understand that you're in the camp of people that pretty
>much assumes I'm lying if I say something that doesn't agree
>with the way you view the world, and that being the case, what
>could I even reasonably do to make you happy?

I don't think you are lying most of the time. In fact I don't know a place I have said you are outright lying, ever? Maybe I am wrong.

I am serious though when I say I think you have for a long time had a skewed view of CF because you have this impression that is so different than any other players'.

As a player, it's odd for Baer to not be commenting in this thread. We know you two have talked about it. We know she has something to say. She's a big girl, the reason people think of her as your wife and not her own badass self is stuff like this. A huge issue and it gives the impression you are speaking kind of for her? I don't know, this whole thing is odd and an eerie case of deja vu for me.

Everything else I've already said and that horse doesn't really need to be beaten anymore.

>As a player, it's odd for Baer to not be commenting in this
>thread.

She, basically, takes the point of view that there's nothing to be gained by feeding the trolls. I think she's actually correct in this.

But I have the personality flaw that I can't stand it when someone is wrong on the internet and sometimes it drives me to tilt at your windmill.

I almost NEVER post as an active character.

Its always better to keep forum/in game personas separate IMHO.

While its awesome to have immteraction on the forums, it may actually make it harder to have in game immteraction because of carryover.

Has anyone ever thought of active feedback from the "watchers"? For those of us that have roles I personally love to get some "ooc feedback. For example, when I was playing Busseltoff, she babbled and told jokes and absolutely took things the wrong way if ever possible. At one point I received a little blue message that said to the extent "someone is laughing at your joke." Now that for me was exactly the boost I like, to know that I'm spot on for my character... That it is both entertaining for me and for those that must sit and watch. If my RP is BORING I would like to know, and fix it.

-2 cents on the derailment train.

P_N

IT'S BEEN AGES!

You don't play to make people happier? Come on! Forget them and play mortals if it's the case. I'd like to see some more solid PKers.

edit: P.s. Is this called thread high jacking?

not that the current set of imms has done a bad job. they haven't. they've done some good things. they've done some things with flaws too.

all that to say, having multiple imms putting in less time is always better than one imm putting in a lot of time.

there are too few sitting at the circle of power. it is quite unbalanced. that's the repetitive theme throughout all the immrotals leaving the past 3 years.

CF is a hard itch to permanently scratch!

Our playerbase gets better if you come back and play mortals!!

You are not going to play CF anymory and basically you was barely playing (almost not playing) even when you had 2 immortal characters.

Baer is the main visible (i know there are "invisible" people like Sacer or Zulg, but it wasn't you either) driving force of CF who probably does more than 75% of all imminteractions in the last few years in CF.


Why the hell did you need to write it openly so everybody could read this ####? Good riddance!

Iunna has that right. Iunna is not trying to burn down CF with this post, but does have the right to vent frustrations. I came very, very, very close once upon a time to writing something similar, but never did. In time, mainly away from the game, off and on playing, I've come to appreciate Raybaers effort, even though I think the problems I saw years ago persist. Iunna was great as a mort, great as a heroimm, and from what I could tell, an excellent imm. At that point, you can call how you go out.

Acolyte wanna-be deletes and Iunna said something like "You was cool, but the few weeks weren't enough for me to find the time to speak with you and promote you". Then acolyte wanna-be (or someone else) writes something like "look at Baerinika who spends a lot of her time just for speaking and rewarding everybody around and you didn't have the time to even speak and promote me in few weeks?". Don't forget that he was only acolyte wanna-be - it was pure RP choice.

Next day Iunna deletes and blames Baerinika for destroying CF openly for everybody.

What the hell?

Sorry to see you go but I understand. You were always in the pro-Borkahd party and I appreciated it very much.

Be sure to keep in touch via AIM!

-----------------
"My view of Borkahd IC"
If you anger him, he'll rape you to death, eat your flesh, and sew your skin into his clothing. And if you're very, very lucky, he'll do it in that order. ~Twist

Considering you cannot code. How much influence and power were you actually, reasonably, trying to gather?

I am finding a disconnect in how your time was spent in agony. You said so yourself that you are a minimal reward Imm. Nothing is stopping you from rewarding people with those small things. Nor is anything stopping you from Roleplaying and interacting(Which, mind you, I have never seen in my 10+ years with carrionfields other than when you were a mortal in the Inn).

Maybe you were not just cut out to be an Immortal. I don't know. You could have always put your energies into a quality area. When I try to think of area you made I cannot really recall what it would have been.

Other than, of course, the village near Jade Mountains. But unless you are a felar and want to step a couple of paces in it for Catnip. I don't really see it used. That is something you could have really narrowed your focus on.

If you've deleted to play a char, it's acceptable! If not, the question is: Who did let you to delete that fine imm?

p.s. I hated Iunna OOC, because I never could sync my times to have enough interactions with her! Why your times didn't match mine?

Iunna, I just wanted to thank you for all the effort you put in over the years. I never had too much luck with a follower of yours, though I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with you as my pervert shaman Nemrar.

You brought a lot of energy to CF, and as someone who’s played this game for almost 15 years, I’ll really miss having you around. If you get the urge to mort again, I know we’d all love to have you.

Good luck with whatever you’re doing in life, and I sincerely hope our paths cross again.
Treebeard

I remember Leud pulling his hair out cause you were talking ooc about skills gains mid pk while his heart was pounding and you were just shrugging it off. Then later when you played Iunna and we battled on Strange Island for legacies (I was the retarded Mortheon, using fiery weapons on fire immune felar ). Then all the times you were a herald imm, and finally more recently dueling you with Cranlaw in the arena and having a bit of a giggle with you in Battle. Who will I hit up for easy empowerment on my next outlander shaman now?! Oh well GLWYL and all that.....

... It never feels good when I see an IMM list itself as dormant, but I always keep my hopes up that it's just a busy RL that's keeping them away, hoping they'll return soon again. But deleted imm-chars really makes me sad. Always feels so permanent and losing you permanetly is such a huge loss for CF.

I have had a lot of great interactions with you with several different characters, my best experience was of course as Arrna (female storm Maran.) who had your tattoo. (My only tattoo still on CF!)

You will be deeply missed and I hope it wasn't the vocal idiots of the playerbase that drove you away, I hope it was something you relly wanted/needed yourself.

Good luck with everything in your life, and I will always hope that you'll return some day.

Always shoot first and then call whatever you hit the target.

Just dropping a line for memorial's sake.

You played the hell out of CF - it stopped being fun - so you do what you gotta do - walk off into the sunset and don't look back. No sense in shooting up when you can't enjoy it anymore.

The important thing is you created some damn awesome things in your time - things that will live on for years to come - that affected you, and the entire CF community. CF can feel very... isolating and lonesome at times - but that's why I think it's important to remember the real human connections it facilitates, and to take stock of the things that we learn through playing with those connections. The blank canvas of your mind, or some####.

Maybe you'll go on to scratch that itch in WoW - whatever, y'know? A game is just a game, and you're King of this screwy little one already, so what is there to regret.

Splntrd

...but you could have....ARGHHHH! This makes me very, VERY sad. You should know why.

You had a great run, kid. Thanks for all the interactions. Going to miss the persona, and hope you continue to play some morts!

nt

Happy Holidays.

Ow! My ovaries!

You have been nothing but a pleasure to interact with through all of my Villagers.

My first hero (who had no idea what the f he was doing) tailed along for parts of your resurrection quest and it helped open my eyes to just how awesome this game can be.

Another of mine came to you for CON and we had fantastic RP in your shrine with one of your paladins.

You're great for the game and I hope you can come back at some point.

Thanks for everything.

As a chronic Herald player over the last 10+ years I loved Iunna and all she had going. When I heard about the Battle move it sucked, this though is a whole new level of suck. I even went through a password recovery on my HD just to post this...

Sorry Iunna, hope you come back!

See ya, kid.

I read this in a Bogart/Casablanca voice.

I just wanted to let you know. I always looked forward to interacting wih you on Kontoln. This really makes me sad. I am sure you have your reasons. But i will always remember the good moments. Thank you for being around and making the game fun for me. I hope things are ok irl. I hope to interact with you in some form in the future.
-Zephon

My most memorable immteraction (I suck so it's pretty rare) was when you were a relatively new immortal and were still at the inn all the time. Someone was talking #### to you just outside and I asked you if it would be okay if I killed them for you. You nodded at me then I killed them. Good times. That was back before the thief revamp when I could still occasionally kill someone . See you in the fields.

Thanks,
Rade

You'll always be the Fire for my Ice,
(besides, that !@#$%-ass elf left me for Scion.)

What was honestly in my heart the best time I've had on CF and barely anyone remembers him. But they remember you so I always got a win when I saw you around. I always regretted the way things turned out between us. I wish you the best!

Quesnel, Raven's Oracle of Fervor
(and yes, I do remember when I was also your wife. That island got what it deserved!)

Take some time off, go dormant for a few months or a year. But please come back.

I don't think words can express my sullen sinking feeling that is in my guts... I hope everything is ok, and that this is a decision for the better. I don't think anyone can fully understand how much of a loss this is to Carrion fields as a whole. Thank you for everything, every interaction, ever laugh, every questy goodness bit. I got to roll with you a bit when you were a mortal and it really sparked me to try and get involved with you later on through various char's. I really don't know what else to say. So sad to see this... So damn sad...

You were amazing to follow as Ejomhei. I saw you go dormant and I hoped hoped hoped hoped you weren't going to throw in the towel.

This is a bad loss to the CF community, but I hope you come back soon.

You and I have way too long of a history to be summed up in any kind of response, so I'll just say that I'm sad that the frustration seems to have gotten bigger than the fun for you (as it does to us all, from time to time.)

Don't be a stranger, and if you change your mind you know how to find me.

Fear the floofi Imperials!

But seriously, for Iunna, only interacted with you in game a few times, they were always interesting. You never let me down with any of the RP I ever got to see from you, so from one player to the next, thank you.

Hope you have a wonderful holiday season! Remember life's too damn short to get worked up about a free game, no matter how many hours you've invested in it.

Cheers!

Knowing that Iunna will be playing mortals now makes this much less of a bummer.

This makes my heart hurt. You are a lot of things to CF. To some players and people you are so much more. Thanks for making my experience that much more memorable and for being such a part of the character development of Thror/Battle.

Iunna is such a representation of you. Spirited, animated and chalk full of humor. Please let me know if you need anything. The song says it all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EEAnPtrHKg

Never gonna be able to take you seriously when you come to the village and start kicking ass.

I'm gonna make my warcry "BABY COME BAAACCCKK."

I am really, really sad to see this. I remember going around doing Macalla quests with you when they first came in as my Battle General Dragendor. Always top notch RP. Also, I had so many interactions with you at the Inn or with Thror around.. just wow, I'm very sorry to see this.

So sad to see this.