Locked Why guard qrace info so closely.

so pali, you would not want to play here if everyone could get quest class/races at will?

why? That makes no sense, even in the context of your post.

You know how many rp ideas get crushed in the q creation process (often times just because there is another q)? How can you assume it will be all about PK. Same with the "toning" since this has never been done before you have NO idea how things will balance out. Frankly, looking at abilities and vulns, I imagine the GOOD's will dominate the evils....they can equip easier and every undead gets a vuln while every avatar/crusader does not.

Yes, this is a game, and this game is text based, old fashioned, offers zero eye candy. This game also takes its coolest origional artwork and hides it from everyone. The amount of hours just to get started with a Q far exceeds most high budget, more entertaining, titles. I am not trying to belittle the mud, this is just fact.

I know if the field was opened up, I would find more time to play here. If it didnt take 100+ hours to actually get to the meat of the game, well yeah it would attract more of my time at least....You would still lose, vamps would turn to dust, avcatars would fail at ever rising beyond their first level of favor, undeads (of every class) would fail, some would succeed..

How many of you have played vampires or undead ( i have never been on as undead with another regular undead), but NEVER seen the continumm. You know, this thing, that when another undead is blasted by a hellstream that you "feel" their pain (i figured this was lore so safe).

so pali, you would not want to play here if everyone could get quest class/races at will?

why? That makes no sense, even in the context of your post.

Because it would destroy a huge amount of FL's atmosphere as I perceive it. Vamps and saders and avatars roaming all over the place would destroy a huge part of what I view as their allure in the first place. If everyone can have one, what's the point of getting one?

You know how many rp ideas get crushed in the q creation process (often times just because there is another q)?

Already said I'm open to the idea that there are problems with current limits a half-dozen times now. I'm not entirely sold on it as anything serious, but I've brushed against it here and there and it certainly can be annoying.

How can you assume it will be all about PK.

Because a huge part of the reward (read: incentive) for RPing, and particularly RPing very well, is those very cabal spots and qclasses. I don't assume it will ALL be about PK, but I do think that it won't do anything good to the RP standards of the mud, and expect it would be a detriment to them.

Same with the "toning" since this has never been done before you have NO idea how things will balance out. Frankly, looking at abilities and vulns, I imagine the GOOD's will dominate the evils....they can equip easier and every undead gets a vuln while every avatar/crusader does not.

You totally missed my point. It has nothing to do with which is currently stronger than which. The point is that if all these classes become equivalent to the normal classes in terms of difficulty of obtaining - seriously, you guys are arguing druid-level at the toughest, unless I'm completely misunderstanding you - then they need to be toned down to the level of those classes or the game becomes horribly imbalanced. Having limits on how many there are is part of why they can be stronger and more special than the other classes - it is part of what balances them. Remove those limits, and we need to remove or weaken a lot of the abilities that make them special and interesting in the first place.

Yes, this is a game, and this game is text based, old fashioned, offers zero eye candy. This game also takes its coolest origional artwork and hides it from everyone. The amount of hours just to get started with a Q far exceeds most high budget, more entertaining, titles. I am not trying to belittle the mud, this is just fact.

I know if the field was opened up, I would find more time to play here. If it didnt take 100+ hours to actually get to the meat of the game, well yeah it would attract more of my time at least....You would still lose, vamps would turn to dust, avcatars would fail at ever rising beyond their first level of favor, undeads (of every class) would fail, some would succeed..

I agree that this is a problem. I do not agree with your proposed solution to it.

Anyhow. Sleep-time, and I think there's little more I can contribute to this. Have fun!

Personally I agree with getting to the meat.

I can beat ff7 and get halfway into 8 with the times I typically have to put up to get qraces. Granted I have heard that the times where reduced, but I have also noticed they seem to be creeping back up.

To assume that the pbase would turn into rampant PK is silly. This game has always had serious PK. Don't believe me? I bet you remember FAR more great pkers than you do great rpers. The bottom line is this game IS about pk, try to ride the high horse all you want turning your nose up at the notion of PK centric characters, you would not play characters that are on the stronger side of the PK spectrum if PK was not important.

Truth be told I want more psychotic fanaticism. I want more violence, and aggression. I remember the days of 4 v 4 cabal warfare. I remember one time me and Kyzarius (did not know it was him at the time) took my invoker and his shaman and lead Despair into a charge against Tribunal because we where bored. He literally asked me over clan chat how I felt about tribunal, and then we both ran rampant, getting outlaw status quite quickly. The other two despair members (necro, monk) joined in. It was fantastic. And you know what? It was not some big elaborate 2 hour RP event. It was 5 minutes of chatting that completely followed the lines our characters would have, and led us to some br00ta1ity. Knock me for being a PK heavy player if you like, but my PK is integrated to my RP. Anyone who has known me for a while knows I come up with RP, then build the race/class/cabal around that. My original plan for sader started as a storm giant. But the way the backstory molded the character I could not see a storm giant letting his more feminine emotions so heavily influence his life choices, which led me to elf instead.

The rest of the pbase has very similar notions. Morchial was a scary ****er. Flat out. The thing is his RP was very macabre, very gothic and dark. It suited his character reactions very well.

You also fit the bill Pali. You where the guardian of Shaz. You could have easily been the guardian as a healer, but you chose paladin. Why is that? Paladin can hang in a PK, and is a very solid choice to battle pretty much anyone. It may have fit your RP nicely, we never got into heavy talks when you played ilendriel because I was a fire giant zerk but you played passive, but pked when you needed to, and you really enjoyed battling us Warmasters. Why is that? Cause PK is FUN my brother.

To let anyone choose to play anything is only going to add to that PK/RP fun times we all love. So what if there are 10 demons running around. There are already demonic legions marching across the lands burning bastions and sacking lands. Why not some "generals" too.

With the uprising of demons, the gods of light have decided to bless more souls as divine avatars.

With the increasing wars the powers of unlife have begun to rise, death embracing more than just corpses now.

With the powers of death in such an upward trend, many dark mages seeking to bend it to their will have begun to reveal themselves, using the horrors of the shadow to empower their bodies, and infuse their minds.

I agree with Pali.

Just to add my 2 cents - there shouldn't be quests. Nothing brought me down more than the first time when I was approved for psi and failed the quest. I don't understand why you have to go for a quest after you have already been approved. This just promotes more OOC.

And if you got psi would you have thought the quest was a problem? Probably not.

**** you're joining a 'secret' society. The least you can do is learn the secret handshake?

**** you're joining a 'secret' society. The least you can do is learn the secret handshake?

By that you mean PMing someone in the FB group and asking about the quest?

Foxx you miss the point, if what twins and I am advocating ever happened...you would be able to roll psi's all day long. Any 50 mage meeting the req would just walk in and do the quest. No wait time. No "application"

That is a valiant idea, make the quests harder. CHANGE THEM MONTHLY OR SO. and make it so you can waltz right up to the guild/demon shrine and begin the quest. You fail, you take a penalty (perhaps a bit off your current max hp, or some stat loss, nothing insane, but a noticable penalty.)

You can still fail the quest, you can still succeed. Would allow anyone to try without waits. Enjoyable thoughts I dare say.

Foxx you miss the point' date=' if what twins and I am advocating ever happened...you would be able to roll psi's all day long. Any 50 mage meeting the req would just walk in and do the quest. No wait time. No "application"[/quote']

I didn't miss it. I just don't like it.

I like the fact that you apply and wait judgement.

I just don't like the fact that after you have been APPROVED, you have to pass yet another quest. In some cases, this quest is quite hard.

Either remove the quests, or make them symbolical, like the quest for crusaders.

Kinda like the way things are now. If you fail the quest than perhaps your character wasn't as molded to that qspot as they should've been?

I didn't miss it. I just don't like it.

I like the fact that you apply and wait judgement.

I just don't like the fact that after you have been APPROVED, you have to pass yet another quest. In some cases, this quest is quite hard.

Either remove the quests, or make them symbolical, like the quest for crusaders.

The quest for crusaders is not symbolic. You CAN fail it and get denied sader.

The quest for crusaders is not symbolic. You CAN fail it and get denied sader.

Sometimes I think you are intentionally trying to not understand me.

What I meant is that the sader quest is much easier than... say the psi quest.

Sometimes I think you are intentionally trying to not understand me.

What I meant is that the sader quest is much easier than... say the psi quest.

I failed the sader test twice, got it on my THIRD try.

I passed the psi test both times on my first try. I guess we just think differently is all.

Nameless, we can have crazy battles without having an unlimited number of qraces. Now, nowhere have I denigrated the PK aspects of the game - with good reason, as I love them. But the high-quality RP is what keeps me playing here, NOT the PK. I have no interest in removing some of the chief incentives for people to RP well, and if you think doing so would not have a negative impact on the general level of RP, I think you haven't really thought it through.

You did not respond at all to my point regarding how qraces would have to be nerfed for balance reasons if we do what you're suggesting, another thing I don't want to happen. I think that your suggestion for a way to make it easier for people to play the shiny combos is a suggestion that would necessitate us taking a lot of the shine off those combos, which would destroy a lot of their appeal in the first place.

As I said to Kyz, I agree that the timesink required is a problem, but I do not agree with your proposed solution to that problem.

P.S. Please do not tell us about how your combos are built up focused around your RP, and then in the next paragraph tell me that I designed one of my heaviest RP characters around his PK potential.

I never stated you built that way, and if it came out so I apologize. Ilendriel WAS an rp machine, and apologize if I insulted you, or your time invested in him in any way. I was merely stating Ilendriel could have guarded Shaz as a healer, but you chose paladin given it is a more combative class is all.

I am merely stating that Ilendriel was a strong PK combo as well. The RP was, as usual, top notch from you.

Yeah, I read that pretty much first thing in the morning, and reacted a bit more sharply than I otherwise would have. No worries man.

Edit: ironically, while I've certainly factored pk potential into a lot of my builds over the years, Ilendriel was one of the few for whom the choice was entirely RP-based. He was a fairly devout man taking a leave of absence from the city guard to undergo extra training - paladin simply made the most sense. Had you pointed at, say, Teladrien, you'd have been on the money.

By that you mean PMing someone in the FB group and asking about the quest?

If all you care about is powergaming your way into a qclass then sure.

The quests arent even that hard. Just a bit of observation. I've dont the PSI, SADER and VAMP quests. Not over the top. Took some time and some concerntration. But thats whats expected to play a 'higher' class.

If all you care about is powergaming your way into a qclass then sure.

The quests arent even that hard. Just a bit of observation. I've dont the PSI, SADER and VAMP quests. Not over the top. Took some time and some concerntration. But thats whats expected to play a 'higher' class.

I am pretty sure I failed my first Psi quest, I applied for one when psi's were first created. The second time around I took some stupid deaths and deleted, the third time around I completed the question successfully, leveled to 50 as a PSI and found myself in a rediculously OOC circle of friends in Savant. After getting abused repeditevely I deleted.

I couldn't remember the psi quest nowadays to save my life. Nor do I have the time to invest 100 hours in a character to get approved for the quest, then fail it and have to spend many more hours getting another approval or ranking and training another character. Infact, I dont even have time to play anymore really. Sometimes I want to, but I know that I just don't have the time.

Regarding elder vampires, I discovered their existence when Seium was romping around. I had played two vamps before this and knew there was something different about that one, infact, I thought he was flat out cheating at the time - this elder vamp just appeared out of nowhere, as in, the character had only been in existence for a very short period of time, so I knew it was an IMP. I knew the things he was doing just were not possible as a standard vampire. I was keen to find elder vampire status with Philantees, but that was never going to happen. Only elder vampires I personally know of were Gorath and Seium, though I suspect Messalantha may have got there and although I wasn't playing in the time of Despiser's Justice (or trib?) vamp, I think maybe they got there too? Appears to me that a large majority of elder vamps are Imms.

I am certain that since I played Gaeleran (1.0), Azaghtoth (start 2.0) and Amediarn (mid 2.0) that there was a fairly decent tone down of vampires. Philantees was actually very challenging to play and the large majority of fights were very heavily contested and not easily won.

There spell casting ability (in general) and a couple of spells in particular were heavily toned. Key spells had become very difficult to land, infact, I'd often go through 100% of my mana and not land a single spell. I personally think they are very well balanced. A major bonus is concealment however that is necessitated by weakness in daylight hours. I'd go as far as saying that Philantees would have been very much more challenging to play without certain extra abilities.

I am more then happy to help vampire players with tactics and tips. I won't outright tell someone how to do the quest, however, it is probably one of the easier qclass quests. At least for me it is, I am no good at riddles. I am good at noticing finer details however, that many will just overlook.

Wow.

That's a major bump in vampire knowledge there. Thanks Toten. Although, I don't know how "legal" it is to post this...

I am a sour old man.