Jinxed's thread of Feedback and Questions.

[BadSkeelz]

Combat is definitely very fast. I very much recommend hunting and fighting with allies so you can watch each others back. Preferably they'll be watching yours while you learn the ropes. When you're in a fight, keep an eye on your own HP bar first and foremost. Be ready to flee when it gets low.

[sleepyhead]

I tend to play in the same area of the game just because there is one particular area where I seem to actually have fun. Most other areas tend to result in my taking long "breaks" and storage. :\ I'm sure this speaks negatively about me, but it's just the way it is. I do try to shake things up from time to time, but I never have the great experiences elsewhere that I have in [the area in question.]

[RogueGunslinger]

There was a point there where I played in the Byn every other character or so. And I almost exclusively play from Allanak.

Like Sleepyhead I know where I have the most fun, and what sort of roles I have the most fun in.

[Jinxed]

The warning about posting recent deaths on forums is noted.
Assisting someone's metagame was not in my intentions.

Meanwhile, I got a character concept which requires a collective effort of two players.
Where would be a best place on forum to team up with another player?

[Kalai]

If you have a family role idea, there is information under Player Announcements in this thread, and once approved Player Announcements is the forum where you'd be recruiting:
Guidelines for Recruiting

Aside from family concepts, you are expected to find most partnerships in-game. Good luck. 

[Fujikoma]

The warning about posting recent deaths on forums is noted.
Assisting someone's metagame was not in my intentions.

Meanwhile, I got a character concept which requires a collective effort of two players.
Where would be a best place on forum to team up with another player?

Everyone requires some sort of collective effort, some classes more than others... ok, I guess -besides- ranger with crafty skills, and even they will find benefit and fulfillment from cooperation (especially as a newer player). I find a lot of fun can be had forging the alliances and hoping for the best. A lot of tavern sitting can be involved, and a lot of doubting, worry, and possibly inevitable betrayal can be involved. A lot of the not knowing is fun, and makes you feel like you really accomplished something when you finally -do- build some lasting friendships and partnerships that pay off. In the meantime, errors and failures are their own sort of fun, and also educational, perhaps providing lasting memories you'll look back and laugh at about in a year or three, but at the time leave you screaming at the login screen before eventually cooking up another character concept, submitting, crossing your fingers and playing the waiting game again.

[Jinxed]

I have no problem with my characters dying or making friends with my characters, even if they are anti-social unpleasant ones.
Roleplaying a family is exactly what I was thinking about.

[Harmless]

you can definitely look into doing a family role call. This is when you make a request to the staff with the website (armageddon.org) with these things:

a.) the concept for the family, the history and background of it, where they will live and where the characters will start from,
b.) the approximate (or exact) age of each family member,
c.) (optional) the appearance and gender of each family member
d.) the restrictions to what roles can be chosen from in the family, if any.

After the staff approve your family, they will reply to your request with a special number that you hold onto. Then, you make a post in the "Player Announcements" as a new thread with the subject "Family role call: etcetc."

You invite people in your family role call thread to send you their requests to join. I suggest you look through that forum and look at old family role calls to get an idea of how that looks. People will message you privately on the GDB and you will eventually select who you want in your family. Then, you send them the number you received from the imms, and then they make the character and put that number at the first line of their character's background, during character generation, like this:

Please enter the background for your character. Terminate on an empty line with ~.
0=========10======20=========30=======40=====50=======60
FAMILY ROLE REQUEST # 666348
So and so was born in wherever-town as the third sibling in a family of four. Their parents...
...(the player of your sibling will make up the rest partly based on what you tell them,
plus their own added details.)

My personal advice: Continue to roll up solo characters while you're still so new to the game. It's very easy to jump right into interesting situations as a solo player, and if you look for busy areas and taverns, then you are more likely to find people to group up with. Family role calls are very difficult, and most of the time I see people who have gotten more grounding in the setting trying them. But, you're welcome to try, just make sure you understand that A.) Family members don't have an obligation to play with you, at the same time as you, etc, and B.) Family members are roleplaying a role as they think their role should be played, which may lead to unpredictable, undesirable consequences for your PC.

Good luck and I'm glad you're still here trying to figure things out. Rejoin the Byn! It's always an option.

[Jinxed]

I noted that helpers are not allowed to provide skillsets of guilds.
What is the reason?

[Kol]

It's not to snub you, it's more to keep the game, and how we play it, in line with what it should be.

A guild is not the be all and end all, an assassin, for example, can be a perfectly acceptable Hunter, if that's what you want him to be. Your merchant too, sure, they won't be the greatest hunters in the known, but you chose to play them that way.

As you gain Karma, and access to more restricted Guilds, the skills and abilities of these Guilds become less widely known. This is, in part, to keep the IC mystery around these guilds powers alive, and in part, to allow you to discover them for yourself.

Although if you read a guilds description, you can usually get an idea of what they're capable of, and will become capable of.

Rangers

(Guilds)

A ranger possesses two primary abilities: to aptly find their way even in storm or darkness, and to stalk and kill prey (for food). Because of the emphasis on these two things, rangers are often greatly sought after as companions in the desert.

Ranger skills involve hunting persons or animals, exceptional powers of observation, a strong aptitude for archery, and some moderate skill with weapons and strategic retreat. Exceptional rangers are able to move silently and remain unseen in the wilderness, detect sounds from far away, work with poisons, and parry enemy blows. Rangers are also often able to rescue friends from deadly situations, bandage serious wounds, and have a well-known rapport with animals, and can ride beasts of burden from the beginning.

While apparently an astonishing array of abilities, rangers are far poorer at combat than warriors, and their skills with poisons and healing powers are actually quite modest.

Rangers are usually the second easiest persons to employ, next to warriors. Any traveller would be a fool to neglect to take a ranger along as a guide, and good rangers can make large sums of money in this profession. In addition, rangers are excellent scouts and spies, able to eavesdrop without being noticed. If nothing else, rangers are superior hunters and can typically feed themselves in such places as the Grey Forest (q.v.), and can bring back skins of animals to sell

So, from reading this, we can pretty much clearly tell that Rangers get two key skills. Direction Sense, the ability to find ones way in a storm or darkness, and Hunt, the ability to track animals/people (not all hunting is the beastie kind!)

We can also see that they're more capable from the offset with a bow than other guilds, and have a small boost to Flee, and is obviously an exploration/combat orientated guild.

I've bolded the most relevant part here.

Exceptional Rangers.....this pretty much means, with enough time played, and focus in training (don't forget to RP it!) That a ranger may one day, be able to work with poison, this is what's called a branched skill. Bear in mind, however, it takes a long time, and most usually never manage it.

If you read each guild's description, you can pretty much guess their skillset without much difficulty. The Higher the Karma requirement, the more vauge and less information given. This is because, in Zalanthas, your average Joe wouldn't know too much about what abilities that sinister gicker has, he could, for all you know, be able to kill with a look, and turn beautiful flowers into raging kryl.

Hope this helps!

[Jinxed]

To prevent unnecessary metagame, understood.
Yet it may be quite usefull to publish the skills for three of _highly recommended_ newbie classes, which are hunter, merchant and the warrior.
I doubt that those three can do anything that is not expected from them.

[Kol]

Truthfully, I'm sure there are people who agree with you.

However, I'll try and explain the way I look at it in a way you might understand. (I make no promises, I'm weird, and my thought processes are convoluted beyond all reasoning to most)

I used to have a teacher, Mr Godber. He taught me science for the last 4 years of my school life, and was the best teacher I've ever had in my life, bar none. This is not because he used to own a rivet-bolted, ex-military Land-Rover Discovery (No, not the Tomb raider version, the pre 2000 one) Or because he was one of the few people in my teenage years who encouraged and supported my choice of music (Metal and rock) Or because he used to end each lesson with a Joe Cartoon (Frog in blender, anyone?)

It's because he was an amazing educator. Where other teachers would drone on (including our other science teachers) In an endless monologue of facts, dates, chemical compounds, actions, reactions, verbs and verses, Mr Godber would give us a question, then provide us with the tools (not always physical tools) to discover the answer for ourselves. He wouldn't laugh, yell or shout if we go the answer wrong, he'd ask how we got to that answer, then explain the parts we got right, and ask us to try again, and again, and again. Until we got it right.

He taught science, a subject I sucked miserably at, despite his best efforts. Yet, whenever I look back, I always feel I achieved more in his lessons because I learnt those things for myself, rather than being given the answers, than any other lesson I took in school, college, or any educational course I've been on since.

One of the many, many reasons I love playing Arm is because every time I learn something new, whether it's a new location, bit of lore, or a skill for a guild I haven't known about before, it's because I managed to learn that for myself, rather than have it given to me.

I'd like to think that's part of the reason why staff don't give solid skillsets, and only hint at what skills a guild gets.

[tiptoe]

Reading the descriptions of the guilds is close to getting a list.

Assassins, for example (bolding for emphasis):

Assassins are expert killers, skilled in dealing swift and deadly blows to their victims. Among the other talents of an assassin, he/she can move without being heard, hide easily in the shadows, and employ a variety of thrown darts and small sharp weapons in order to strike at his/her enemies from a distance.

Highly skilled assassins tend to become more akin to warriors late in their careers. Having mastered the basic skills, an assassin will often begin to learn a mastery of parrying enemy attacks, as well as how to more easily get out of combat. The excellent use of poisons also becomes available, as does the ability to climb sheer walls. Also late in their careers, assassins can learn how to effectively knock out an opponent from behind with a sharp blow to the head and take them elsewhere for committing their dirty work.

Assassins are often the simplest people to employ, for various warring factions usually have a desire to see their enemies slain quietly and simply, with minimal risk to themselves. For this reason, skilled assassins are almost never without work.

Aside from all of their varied talents, the most important aspect which assassins must strive to develop is their reputation. No other single characteristic of an assassin will be more amenable to finding employment than an excellent reputation for performing jobs cleanly and efficiently, and for protecting the identities of those who hire him/her.

Jobs which require espionage are also well suited to assassins, though they are perhaps not the very best at this task.

They even specify what skills you gain (branch).

...and I just realized that Kol did this just a little above me, oops!

[RogueGunslinger]

I know I'm late to this thread, but I just wanted to chime in that all keeping lists muddled and vague does is benefit the veteran players who know it all already, while keeping the new players in the dark about what sort of character they can create. Limiting their ability to tailor a character more directly to their background. I mean, if we're going to put the skills all in the help-files with vague wording anyways, why not just make a list?

I'm probably fairly alone in this thinking though.

For instance, how many people know which guilds get master cooking? I just saw that question in another newbie thread of someone wanting to make a chef character.

[Saellyn]

Probably the same guild that masters every other crafting skill in the game.

[RogueGunslinger]

Probably the same guild that masters every other crafting skill in the game.

"Probably" is just the level of vague that confuses newbies. As reasonable as it sounds to you, already knowing it, I played this game for about five years before realizing it. I had always just assumed Rangers got it. And clearly I'm not the only one. So, why are we being "somewhat" vague about skills? I think clarity is a good thing in this instance.

I remember having a lot of frustration as a noob ending up with a cool character concept and the skills didn't jive with it.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Honestly, the probably and other vague responses to queries of certain sorts hurts this game more than it helps it, to me.

Questions about skills, classes, and other OOC machinations used to support IC play should be answered with facts. If a Newb asks if activity x helps skill y, I should be able to say yes, not find out IC. If he asks if skill is something that comes with class, likewise, I should be able to just say yes. If he asks if Clan Y is better than Clan Z, I should be able to say ... Find Out IC.

Mechanics questions being hazed over irritates me, despite the fact that I do agree to uphold that standard because I'm a helper. I think we say Find out IC about all sorts of things we should never say that about. Find out IC should be about IC secrets, IC plots, IC stuff.

Not code.

[Delirium]

Honestly, the probably and other vague responses to queries of certain sorts hurts this game more than it helps it, to me.

Questions about skills, classes, and other OOC machinations used to support IC play should be answered with facts. If a Newb asks if activity x helps skill y, I should be able to say yes, not find out IC. If he asks if skill is something that comes with class, likewise, I should be able to just say yes. If he asks if Clan Y is better than Clan Z, I should be able to say ... Find Out IC.

Mechanics questions being hazed over irritates me, despite the fact that I do agree to uphold that standard because I'm a helper. I think we say Find out IC about all sorts of things we should never say that about. Find out IC should be about IC secrets, IC plots, IC stuff.

Not code.

I agree completely.

[wizturbo]

Mechanics questions being hazed over irritates me, despite the fact that I do agree to uphold that standard because I'm a helper. I think we say Find out IC about all sorts of things we should never say that about. Find out IC should be about IC secrets, IC plots, IC stuff.

Not code.

Some code is IC secrets, but in general I agree with you.  If it's code related to the starting classes, especially their starting skills, I don't see why we need to be so cagey about sharing information.  It just makes the already steep learning curve that much steeper.

Code related to karma classes, races, or roles I'd say find out IC.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Yeh wiz. I agree about karma class sorta stuff.

[nauta]

As a newb, I enjoy not knowing what skills guilds/subguilds offer (beyond the vague), as well as which skills in mine will branch, and when, and how.  Mostly it's about mystery: oh, neat, let's see what happens if I play an X.  Also, I can't guild sniff worth a crap.  Even if I were to progress beyond newb, I'd have to put in some effort to guild sniff / remember the skill listings, which I doubt I would, so the mystery will remain.

There -are- opaque aspects to the game which are infuriating, e.g., the various ways of picking plants, hitching a second mount, etc., but hiding skills doesn't strike me as one of them.

[WanderingOoze]

As a newb, I enjoy not knowing what skills guilds/subguilds offer (beyond the vague), as well as which skills in mine will branch, and when, and how.  Mostly it's about mystery: oh, neat, let's see what happens if I play an X.  Also, I can't guild sniff worth a crap.  Even if I were to progress beyond newb, I'd have to put in some effort to guild sniff / remember the skill listings, which I doubt I would, so the mystery will remain.

There -are- opaque aspects to the game which are infuriating, e.g., the various ways of picking plants, hitching a second mount, etc., but hiding skills doesn't strike me as one of them.

As A Fellow Newb, I agree with this 100%.

[Jinxed]

How to mechanically dispose of humanoid corpse?

[whitt]

How to mechanically dispose of humanoid corpse?

Most commonly potential options are:
- Wait for a reboot
- Use the wish command to ask staff to remove the corpse after appropriate RP

Only the last is reliable. 

[Jihelu]

I recommend eating corpses as burying them in the sands would have to be quite deep.

Can scrabs/wildlife eat humanoid corpses?
I know they can eat other wildlife.