Regarding The Upcoming Chargen Change

[brytta.leofa]

Kastion, I think it's fair to say this: prior to these new options, karma was mostly not used as a reward.  It was used to (a) protect the game from inexperienced players wielding powerful or hard-to-play guilds and races and (b) to keep magick (and escaped muls) relatively rare.

The specific option to do mastercrafting with a subguild, which doesn't translate directly to Uber Combat Power, does feel more like a reward for good play than like a balancing mechanism.

Skilling up at chargen or putting weapon skills in a subguild, now, those are legitimate newbie-power issues. The world doesn't need more crazed dwarf attacks.

[Kastion]

The explanations for how to obtain karma have not been my experience at all. I have played the game for over 2 and a half years, I think that should be clarified.


A number of subguild options will be available to 'purchase' with your CGP.  The cost of purchase will vary dependant on the subguild chosen.  These subguilds will have higher caps than existing subguild options but will not exceed caps placed on similar main guild options.  The subguilds are designed to increase the lifestyle and playability options available to a character.

Extended subguilds include options such as "Master Tailor" which will allow a character to excel in the area of tailoring, including producing work at a mastercraft levell.  For the more adventurous Cutpurse or Master of Defense might be more applicable.  Subguilds will be available for those who wish to trade, craft, fight, roam or follow a path to magick.


Players will also have the option to spend their CGP 'bumping' their base skills.  This will give them the option to bump starting skills one 'level' of mastery per CGP spent.  Only starting skills are available to be bumped (so if you branch something from using CGP, you can't spend CGP on the branched skill). Skills that are available to everyone with training (like ride, pilot and watch) would be available for bumping.  Some skills will be limited/restricted from being bumped. For instance, weapon skills will not be bump-able more than one or two at most. Offense/defense will not be an option.


It seems like alot of you havent read what the official plans are. They will definently be making karma characters stronger over their karma deficient counter parts. Thats not even in question. I will once again state that I dont see any different between a "karma" subguild and a regular subguild. I see that a player with karma gets to be stronger then my character. Its the same subguild with tweaks to give them an advantage over me. I dont see how much clearer I can be. If you dont have a problem with being stronger then someone else because you have more karma then cool. I unfortunately do, and all of your explanations have done nothing to convince me otherwise. They have infact made me feel like you all WANT to have more advantages over the average player for whatever reason. Cool whatever I will just keep trucking in game and doing my thing. Im done arguing here because this is pointless.

[Delirium]

It's always been this way... all non-mundane races and classes require karma and can definitely be stronger than out of the box warriors.

I suspect the reason none of us are really getting your complaint is because you're approaching this issue from a flawed perspective.

[Nyr]

What's wrong with that, though?

There's nothing stopping you from earning karma yourself and then making a warrior/threadmaster.

why does that line of thought creep up so much in life? half the worlds problems are caused by thinking like that

Ever asked for account notes?

[Kastion]

What's wrong with that, though?

There's nothing stopping you from earning karma yourself and then making a warrior/threadmaster.

why does that line of thought creep up so much in life? half the worlds problems are caused by thinking like that

Ever asked for account notes?


yep and they had no feedback at all after 2 years of playing

[Talia]

yep and they had no feedback at all after 2 years of playing

You don't think it counts that the resolver of your account notes request gave you a few tips on what you could do to come to the attention of the staff, in the future? Huh.

[Nyr]

That's disingenuous. You were given specific feedback, please reread it (even a blurb on why you had few account notes).

Anyway, back to karma. Yes, some people have more trust from us.  They earned it. They also aren't guaranteed to keep it if they screw up.

[Kastion]

Kastion,

  As you look this over you will see there aren't a whole lot of notes.  Some suggestions I would make to you to help bring yourself to the attention of staff:

Submit regular character reports.  Whether or not you are in a clan you can submit character report requests and help staff keep up with what you are doing and what drives your character.
Add biographies to your character.  You can do this in game or through the web interface.  Staff can view these and also help them understand your character better.
Join a clan.  Joining a clan can get you more involved in plots and gets you directly noticed by staff running those clans.

I had no comments what so ever about if I was doing things wrong or right. No specific feedback whatsoever. Just generic post that looks like something you post on every single reply.
i have since sent in some reports although not regularly enough. I admittedly dont mess with biographies because im not much of a writer. Join a clan? Ive been in a clan on every character that ive had more then 2 days.

[Talia]

I had no comments what so ever about if I was doing things wrong or right. No specific feedback whatsoever. Just generic post that looks like something you post on every single reply.
i have since sent in some reports although not regularly enough. I admittedly dont mess with biographies because im not much of a writer. Join a clan? Ive been in a clan on every character that ive had more then 2 days.

You've sent in 1 report since then, not "some." Also, when staff says "join a clan," we mean "join a clan and stay in it a while with a character who lives," not join a clan and stay in it a week, then jump to another clan, and then repeat. How do you expect that staff will get you know your characters, and you as a player, if you don't give us the opportunity to observe? When you jump from a GMH to the Byn to a noble house and back again, you've just crossed through three clan groups, which is 3 totally different sets of staff. I get that you are frustrated, but you are frustrated about something that is in your own control. Staff aren't superhuman, we can't read your brainz, and we're not really in all places all the time. If you want something from us (karma), then you need to do what you need to do to get it, not expect that it will automagickally come to you just because you've been hanging around the game for a while.

[Nyr]

I'd recommend asking again for notes since the last time. I'll be glad to elaborate on several points and look over things since the last report.

[Kastion]

Joined a gmh realized the clan was filled with people I would not get along with, resigned after 3 days. Went to the byn for training for a year, completed that year like normal people. Went indy for a while, then decided to join a military organisation, shit happened I died. You make it out to be like I never stayed anywhere for more then a week when that is completely false. How many characters have I even had since that account note? I know you know the answer and make it to look like I have had a ton when that is not true. I have sent in more then 1 report, they must have been BEFORE the account note then so that makes this even more stupid. I know I need to improve on stuff but to make it look like ive put forward no effort is a complete farce. This is just causing me more frustration then you think and im starting to get pissed off. So lets just leave it at this and I will try to "Work" on this stuff.

[Nyr]

Three things that don't lie:

The request tool history
mud email history
Shakira's hips

You will want to take this to the request tool.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I'm sorry for the tone of my post, Kas. Perhaps I do feel entitled to some extent - pardon that. But I've been here since 99 or 00, so perhaps I feel like I earned it. When I did not have karma, I did not feel deprived. So many stories are available with the stock options - collectively more in fact, honestly, than with the super powers.

[Gunnerblaster]

Cool whatever I will just keep trucking in game and doing my thing.

Should've been your first response.

If you meet a warrior/tailor who can kick your ass, are you going to assume he's some karma-beefed character? And just because someone uses karma to buff up their PC doesn't mean they're buffing them up to be godly. A warrior/tailor with poor strength spends some karma beefing it up to average - You roll a normal PC warrior/tailor who starts with AI strength. Are you going to suddenly say, "Hey - that guy spent karma on his PC - He should be stronger than me"?

Anyway, back to karma. Yes, some people have more trust from us.  They earned it. They also aren't guaranteed to keep it if they screw up.

Nyr's post is pretty self-explanatory. Especially the bold-text portion.

If someone with Karma makes a warrior for the sole purpose of PK'ing, then uses karma to beef up the stats - Unless there is some purposeful roleplay behind it, I doubt staff'll let it slide.

[NOFUN]

Just out of curiosity, with the new system in place will the prices for certain guilds be revisited? It kind of sucks that a Mul will never be able to have an extended sub-guild.

[brytta.leofa]

Just out of curiosity, with the new system in place will the prices for certain guilds be revisited? It kind of sucks that a Mul will never be able to have an extended sub-guild.

Anybody with mul karma can special-app a mul with a 3-CXP subguild.

[Talia]

Anybody with mul karma can special-app a mul with a 3-CXP subguild.

Brytta is correct.

[LauraMars]

Kastion, maybe this has been suggested, but in my early days, I found that special apping a low-karma class or race, and then playing that race or class well, resulted in being noticed by staff, and sometimes being awarded the karma for said race or class.

[John]

Karma always let's you start out stronger then ordinary people. Some Karma let's you play stronger races. Other karma gives you access to magick and psionics. These new subguilds let's you play more wellrounded characters. Yes you'll still need to play a merchant if you want to get a master tailor if you don't have enough karma. However as a merchant you can branch into jewelry, furniture, stonework and other items. Take advantage of your strengths and with a bit of patience it won't matter if you 7 karma or no karma.

People that roleplay well will always get more options. We don't try to balance the different options like D&D does. Instead it's simply restricted. Want more options, roleplay better. After 10 years I still have plenty of room for improvement. I fully accept they're better at certain facets of the game and I love that they're rewarded for it. I could probably get a karma boost but with the new system coming in I'm sure everyone and their dog are putting in requests for reviews. I'm happy to simply wait for now. I'm sure next time I earn my next point my karma will be double checked.

As for the initial idea of boosting scores during character generation, nothing gets saved between aborted character creation attempts so  people can keep aborting until they get AI stats. We can't keep the same stats between attempts because different races and classes need different stats.

What's more it moves towards a point buy system which leads to optimising. We already have enough of that with some people playing certain races for certain classes, a situation Instrongly dislike.

[DustMight]

Karma always let's you start out stronger then ordinary people. Some Karma let's you play stronger races. Other karma gives you access to magick and psionics.

Not true.
 
Many of these guilds start out weaker by far.
Magickers can't magick effectively to start (and are often hunted) psionists can't necessary explode your head off the starting gate  (note: I do not know if psionists actually can explode your head) and muls are hunted and are unable to enter civilized areas without support / guile / game-play savy.

These roles become powerful over time, perhaps.  To me, a frequent player of karma classes/races the opportunity you gain from karma is the ability to explore the mindset of these odd creatures in contrast to the rest of the normal civilization.

That said, the simplicity and beauty of a "regular" merchant or "regular" warrior is anything but and some of THOSE characters are really the most interesting as they are the average joes that struggle tooth and nail in this blasted land - and their lives are anything but simple, their situations anything but easy or boring.

[Yam]

Karma doesn't represent strength so much as level of difficulty, roleplay restrictions, and abuse potential.

[Fathi]

Karma doesn't represent strength so much as level of difficulty, roleplay restrictions, and abuse potential.

And also rarity in the world, I've been told.

[Yam]

Also penis size.

[janeshephard]

I had no comments what so ever about if I was doing things wrong or right. No specific feedback whatsoever. Just generic post that looks like something you post on every single reply.

I think I only have three or four comments total after 2+ years of playing. They edit out some stuff before you get the notes.

Character reports are a good thing. At the very least it shows you're trying to RP within Zalanthas.

[Drayab]

I don't like the idea of adding money/stat boots at character creation because this begins to create an atmosphere where new players feel left out because they think, founded or unfounded, that they can't make a warrior that can compete with a vet's warrior because the vet bought a strength boost.

I think it's easier to accept that a magicker will have terrible power because they are strange creatures. However, when other warriors are systematically more powerful than you, it is discouraging because it gives a feeling that the cards are stacked against you.

When old players further say that they are entitled to make extra strong/agile characters it only reinforces these notions.

To be clear, the power reward for playing a long time is knowledge of the game world. Any vet should agree that makes you more powerful than any stat boost could. Asking for karma based stat boosts hurts the game because it makes our atmosphere less egalitarian.