Dead Horse? Think again, sillies.

[Forest Junkie]

I don't understand how every character I have played in the last year hasn't encountered this issue if it's so bad.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you're playing times are very erractic, and at times non-existant, therefore you aren't really in a position to truly know? Just a thought, j-baby.  :wink:

Only the last couple months FJ. I was playing more consistently before that and people were having the same complaints and I still wasn't experiencing a problem. I have started to play more just recently and have yet to encounter a problem with it.

I know, I was making a little joke on ya.

Like I said earlier, though: I consider you lucky.

[jhunter]

Looking at the aggregate experiences of your PCs over the past few months may be better.
How many times did they get mindbent (that you know of?) 0 in over a year at least.

How many discussions about magick did they overhear? 2 or 3 if that in the last year for my mundane pcs.

How many magickal items did they see/possess? 0. I've only seen one magickal item (that I also possessed in my entire stint with Arm)

How many times did they or someone close to them rely on magick for a plot? Only the few magickers that I played. 0 Mundanes.

How many deaths have you recently had to a mage? 0 deaths to a mage in well over a year. The last time I had a pc die to a mage, they were also a mage. (Thanks for that one Plainsman.)

[Janna]

Looking at the aggregate experiences of your PCs over the past few months may be better.
How many times did they get mindbent (that you know of?) 0 in over a year at least.

How many discussions about magick did they overhear? 2 or 3 if that in the last year for my mundane pcs.

How many magickal items did they see/possess? 0. I've only seen one magickal item (that I also possessed in my entire stint with Arm)

How many times did they or someone close to them rely on magick for a plot? Only the few magickers that I played. 0 Mundanes.

How many deaths have you recently had to a mage? 0 deaths to a mage in well over a year. The last time I had a pc die to a mage, they were also a mage. (Thanks for that one Plainsman.)

I'm almost exactly the same for numbers, give or take one or two here and there. Nothing very eye popping.

[Fathi]

Just to bring this up: What about karma races?

Anyone having a problem with the number of half-giants, muls, and so on?

I think the reason people complain more about high-karma guilds than races is that you aren't supposed to be clandestine about your race the way a Nilazi or a bender supposedly should.

After all, there's no documentation saying that all half-giants or muls or desert elves are immediately killed just for being what they are, and thus no tradition of those races having to hide themselves.

I say supposedly because everyone can have their own opinion on what's okay RP, but I'm in the crowd that thinks--for the most part--benders openly bending without even acting scared of retribution is a worse offense than too many benders.

[jhunter]

I say supposedly because everyone can have their own opinion on what's okay RP, but I'm in the crowd that thinks--for the most part--benders openly bending without even acting scared of retribution is a worse offense than too many benders.

QFTMFT.

[Tisiphone]

Fathi: I agree. I was just bringing those up because I figured that, while we're addressing the one, we might as well look at the other. I really did want to know, IS there anyone out there who thinks there are too many high-karma races?

[Cale_Knight]

benders openly bending without even acting scared of retribution is a worse offense than too many benders.

QFTMFT.

Word.

[Cutthroat]

...benders openly bending without even acting scared of retribution is a worse offense than too many benders.

I agree. Unacceptable RP of magicker/psionicist types is far worse than a high amount of those types. Therefore, I think it's okay if there are a lot of magickers as long as they play in an acceptable manner.

[Malken]

Hey jhunter, I wasn't trying to pick a fight with you or anything, I was being serious when I said that I don't think the IMMs will do anything until both side agrees that there is a problem..

If you are not seeing a problem right now, I'm not even going to try and convince you otherwise, because, like I said, we've been having this fight forever about this.. But what I am seeing now is that, a year ago, maybe we were two or three shouting that, but it just seems to me that there's more and more players starting to agree that there might be a problem..

I don't know how often you play or where you play or what you prefer to play, so I'm not even going to say that you are wrong, maybe I am, which is quite possible, since no Staff members ever participate in that debate, so it's really hard to say.

Anyway, I seriously don't care anymore at this point, I'm just drifting along, hoping that the new game will come out soon so I can try it and see if its my cup of tea or not. Right now, I feel like I am a bit wasting my time and that nothing really matters. Don't give me the, "We, the players, are shaping what the next world is going to be like." BS anymore, please, I won't buy it.

You, the few karma'ified and lucky enough long lived magickers might be, not the rest of us.

[Salt Merchant]

Over the course of around three months now, I've noticed not just a small amount of new high-end mages and max karma guilds -- rather, I've noticed a massive influx of said guilds. Not only are these guilds far more prevalent and visible, the players themselves flaunt their power openly and willingly, failing to even attempt to keep their identity secret. In past times, these characters would have been immediately slaughtered for such behavior.

Just to clarify, what do you mean by "high-end mages and max karma guilds"?

Do you mean psis, sorcerers and nilazis?

Or are you including Elkrosi and Drovians?

Or are you even including Krathi and Whirans?

Which is it?

[Shiroi Tsuki]

Having played for a while several years ago, and then having played for a while now, I missed the transition between then and now, so I have a much more stark idea of the contrasts between the period fall/winter 2002-03, and now.

Here are a couple of observations of differences now, compared to then:

Magick is definitely more common.
Magick is definitely more talked about.
Benders are definitely WAY more common, and WAY more talked about.  (Prior to this recent stretch of playing, I honestly didn't even know what benders did, or what a bender attack would look like at all.  Since I have been back, my character has had contact with three distinct benders, maybe more if some of them have looked like the others.)
The number of 'secret' magickers is, to all appearances, way up.
The number of magick-related deaths, seemingly way up.
Magick is definitely a whole lot less feared, and more 'mundane' than ever, judging from the vast majority of attitudes my character has seen.
The number of open magickers has skyrocketed.  I can only imagine what this says about the number of hidden ones.

For me, from the many instances my character has experienced, this results in:

Feeling like the docs do not accurately represent the game.
Feeling like the game is actually a different sort of game than the one I played years ago.
Feeling like my mundane character is useless, especially to the major plots.
Feeling like my mundane character could be offed at any time by any number of uber nonmundanes (having seen several friends go this way).

Note: These are my observations and feelings, I'm not going to argue them with you.  If you don't feel this way, fine, but don't try and tell me that I don't feel the way I do or that I don't have a right to.

This has not resulted in me having less fun RPing my mundane character, but it has resulted in high levels of frustration, especially at being largely 'useless'.

I don't have an agenda to push, other than at this point saying that Arm is claiming to be one thing, while actually being quite a different thing, and I wish that would stop.  We either need to admit and embrace the much, much higher level of magick, magickal tolerance, and so on and so forth, or get rid of it and go back to higher proportions of mundanes and lower proportions of nonmundanes.  With open karma at the beginning of Arm2, I feel that it is going to set the tone for the game with a high level of nonmundane activity, which will hopefully at least be reflected in that version's docs.

[Vessol]

I feel the same feeling of being useless.

Whats even worse is seeing these high-karma guilds dominating by morons who have the english skills of a 10-year old. Plus who constantly twink and use constant OOC knowledge.

[Cale_Knight]

Feeling like my mundane character is useless, especially to the major plots.
Feeling like my mundane character could be offed at any time by any number of uber nonmundanes (having seen several friends go this way).

I happen to think this is spot on, and I also happen to think that they're the biggest issues we're currently facing in regards to this thread.

[Salt Merchant]

seeing these high-karma guilds

Which guilds do you mean by "high"?

[Mood]

Excellent post, Shiroi.

I'm new to the game, so my opinion probably doesn't count for much, but even being new I see a major problem when I go into the Barrel and count more gemmed PCs than nongemmed. :\

[Salt Merchant]

I see a major problem when I go into the Barrel and count more gemmed PCs than nongemmed. :\

Not all gemmed are high karma by a long shot.

Maybe it's because the gemmed don't have anything better to do at a particular time (so much for driving all of the plots), so you see three or four together at the Barrel, while all of your buddies are free to go out into the wilds to hunt, mine and whatever, instead of populating the tavern. If you gathered them together and included the templars and the militia and the nobles and the aides and the retainers and the Byn and the 'rinthi and whatever, the gemmed in the Barrel would be vastly outnumbered. But no, all these other "mundanes" are off in their own multiple compounds and partitions. So all you see is a fraction of the "independents" vs. some gemmed as loose ends on a regular basis.

[Only He Stands There]

Feeling like my mundane character is useless, especially to the major plots.

Sorry... but this has a lot to do with who you are, who you know, and what you know, rather than what guild your character has.

[jhunter]

Feeling like my mundane character is useless, especially to the major plots.

Sorry... but this has a lot to do with who you are, who you know, and what you know, rather than what guild your character has.

So true. I've never felt "powerless" with a pc simply because of guild.

[Xio]

I didn't read most of this honestly and I'd just like to mention the only/main thing I don't like about this whole thing.

I have little to no problem with people powergaming so long as they still RP when it makes sense. If you sit there and kill every animal in sight simply to get stronger, which I kind of don't like but am not going to get all uppety about, but when you run into another PC actually RP at least somewhat decently or to the best of your ability, I have no problem. The thing I don't like, probably the most, is killing someone without a single emote or even saying a single word. Even if the emote was just the killing blow, its better than nothing in my eyes. I think everyone, and I mean everyone, would enjoy the game more if we all put a decent effort to RP. I don't want to gripe too much for two reasons, 1) While it may seem like someone is RPing horribly, from behind the scenes they may be RPing their char -perfectly-. 2) I'm not the greatest RPer on the block

[Gimfalisette]

I have absolutely nothing to add to this conversation that I haven't said previously, and/or that wouldn't give away huge quantities of IC infoz, however I will say:

I 100% agree with Cale_Knight and Shiroi Tsuki on each point.

[BuNutzCola]

nm

[spawnloser]

You want people to slaughter magickers for flaunting stuff?  Go get people to do it.  Do it yourself.  Be the change.

[Forest Junkie]

Be the change.

Tired..of...this...phrase...nothing...can do..about it..coming..in droves they are...can't..kill enough..too..many.

Just to clarify, what do you mean by "high-end mages and max karma guilds"?

Do you mean psis, sorcerers and nilazis?

Or are you including Elkrosi and Drovians?

Or are you even including Krathi and Whirans?

I have a feeling you thought I was including you in my op SM. Far from it. High-end mages would be nilazi, and "max karma guilds" are just that -- sorcerors and psionicists.

[Lizzie]

High end by your definition...doesn't seem to me to be all that many. I know there are a lot of magic types around, and I would agree proportionaly more than the docs suggest, compared to non-magic PCs.

Mindbenders - I'm pretty sure of one. If there are currently more, they haven't been brought to my PC's attention (and no one brings any IC info to -my- attention as a player, thank goodness!)

Nilazis - I'm sure of one, but I suspect it's an NPC, and not a PC. A second, currently, might be in the scope of "people my PC knows about."

Sorcerers - A few. One I'm very sure is an NPC. Currently, two other living to my PC's knowledge or "rumor-gathering experience." So that would make three total, including an NPC.

Note that to my knowledge, my PC has only interacted directly with -one- of these other PCs. And has only had first-hand experience witnessing the existence of -one- of the NPCs. Considering my PC is long-lived, isn't a town-locked character who gets out plenty, and knows lots of people, I'd say that's not too bad. Also this is the "current" up-to-the-minute count. There were more last week. And even more a month ago. If there are new ones coming out of the woodwork, I haven't heard in-game, and I don't use instant messaging on purpose to prevent people from spoiling it for me out of game. If there are others around that have been around, my PC hasn't heard of them. She could be drinking tea with them every day for all she knows, but she is unaware that they're anything other than what they present themselves to be. I, as a player, am blissfully ignorant of it as well

[Tisiphone]

There are also certain portions of the gameworld (speaking geographically here) that are dominated by nilazi/psi/sorcs specifically, and those that aren't. This could be another source of the differing experience of several people.

I could rattle off a list of names of places that, if you wandered into, you'd be accosted by a high-powered ostentatious mage, or a group of them, within minutes (less during prime-time). On the flip side, I could give you another list where you'd see plenty of mundanes, but not very many 'gickers (or at least, -I- haven't seen them there. They could be hiding around the corner).

And then, of course, if you want to meet no one, there are places in the game for that, too.