Posted by The Arcane(VIP) on October 19, 2000 at 11:52:53:
In Reply to: A few comments...(long) posted by Umguy on October 19, 2000 at 06:30:06:
1. A fast link. Surprising how much this helps, but it helps. *shrug* True. Though 90% of Shaitar's life was done over AOL dialup... same with a decent 3 weeks or so of Dhaevor's life, all of my ranger's life, etc. 3. A plus AND a minus: You see things as they are. You seem to be largely unaffected by the roleplay aspect of the game (that doesn't mean you can't roleplay, far from it...what I mean is a large part of your skill comes from knowing when roleplay is important and when to kick ass). Mostly what I mean by this is I bet you have a hard time getting "lost" in the roleplay. You've probably never had a char that meant so much to you in a roleplay sense that when you lost that "special friend" or some such, you IRL felt like crying. (I haven't either, since my first char, and I look back at that and mock myself...this isn't a cut on you). True. Though I certainly can get very angry as a result of things that happen in the game, and not just on the level of "FUUUUCK!!!! I DIED!!!!" (actually, dying doesn't bother me at all anymore... kind of odd... that happened about halfway through Dhaevor's career... sometimes I'd realize "Hmm... I'm about to die"... die, lose a set of sweet gear, shrug, and start re-equipping).... Almost all of my most enjoyable times in the past year on CF, the more I think about it, entail a roleplayed interaction of some sort (with a couple of exceptions). Anyway.... You're jaded and cynical. Like an Imm. An Imm who is a good pker. The jaded-ness and cynicism is, by and large, what makes you a good pker. Being cynical about your fellow player makes you able to be confident that even if you DO fuck up, you'll lay the smack down, because the other player is worse off than you are. Hmm... I'm not sure if this is a product of me just being so badass. I don't think it is. I didn't used to feel this way, and it's because there were more people around that would beat my ass if I messed up. When I had Ihlrath chasing after me as Shaitar, I knew that I had no room for error... and sure enough, I made a slight error and lost a fight that I think I could have won otherwise, for example. As Dhaevor, I only really got that feeling fighting Zorszaul... a couple of other people, like Calessin, gave me problems, but I always had the sense of a good margin of error. Further points: Cador's gone. Cador played some feared chars. Diku is (by and large) gone. Sure they permagrouped, but even as individuals (at least, at hero levels) they had skills. Llorenthos, Zendrac, Remath, Haszak, Marzel, (I could go on, but won't)...at the time of Challen, these were all guys that you know could very well kick your ass if they got the first attack (ok maybe not Zendrac until he became emperor and got those shawtaby things, but the point stands). Smug permagroups are (thankfully) gone. As Challen, levelling up, they had what...2? 3? level 40-sitting summon/sleep/hold groups that I know of. Personally, I'd prefer smug playing caballed quasi-permgroupers like Raag/Serafim or Sko/Trodden/Jarmel to smug playing level 26 duergar warriors. The former made the game better, in my honest opinion... the latter doesn't, really. Same goes for neosoft, actually. I may have made jokes about their Arbiter, Rager, and recently Sylvan squads... but they made things more interesting for me despite it. Yet another point is this: You're now among the elite. You know how to play a warrior or a conjurer like a champ. Invoker too. Probably another couple of classes I'm missing. But you still don't know how to play all the classes like you can play a warrior or conjurer. "So Umwhat, Umguy?" Well, one of the things that shows people how to play a class is when they see an elite player kick ass with that class. Arial warriors are a good example. So are evil conjies. Pre-youplayinganevilconjie, there were...like...3 that I know of. Everyone thought an evil conjie sorta got screwed when it came to servitors, so they played gnomes and good aligns. If you took, say, a druid out and really layed down some smack (and by really layed down smack, I'm talking being able to pk effectively w/o being a sylvan and yet had people fearing to go out when you were on) there'd be several druids rolled up shortly thereafter. Hrm. The thing is, from my perspective anyway, that I have the sense that I could play a svirf utility muter and be feared, and not because I'm such a badass, but because of a watered-down playerbase (slightly smaller overall, but many fewer old-time elites and many more new players). The thought of "wow, I could make unplayedcombo X really work" becomes less appealing in that light. The long the short of this point is: The skills of the average playerbase haven't fallen that much, your standards have risen. I guess I still don't entirely buy this. I could name 20 people in the "highly skilled" to "damn good" range 2 years ago, and I wouldn't have put myself in that range. I can name a half dozen now, mostly imms. Do you disagree? My (hopefully) final point is this: the log board is not, in fact, a show-and-tell of the best players around, anymore. A few hypotheses for this: Possibly true. It is a bit of a self-selecting sample, though over several weeks of log-posting, that may level out some. Maybe not.