A Better Idea for Increasing the Playerbase

[Vanisse]

Personally I still don't like OOC ranking. It all too often leads to lowered roleplay situations, i.e. three people just pop up like mushrooms and magnetically draw into a group and march away into Emerald without a word.

[Rem]

maybe they're roleplaying telekenesis.

[Insom]

Maybe it's how they can continue to play a game that's fun? Not everybody enjoys the gruel character building process called solo ranking. Not everyone can be like Judge Dav and Burzuk....."I am the LAW!!".....some people would rather power rank to 50 and tackle the tough stuff and not have to worry about 4-8 rank Pk differences, dying while ranking, and defend the cabal at 42.....

[Vanisse]

Not everyone enjoys sitting around training skills from 75% either. Hey, let's auto-set everyone to rank 50 with 100% skills. Hmm, why does this sound familiar?

[Erlwith]

[Davairus]

Basically this thread is now highlighting why this game don't actually have much playerbase. The reason is that most of the remaining mortal playerbase are nutcases. Period. You are a scary bunch of guys, and I don't mean that in a flattering way. The only people we ever seem to draw are more nutcases, whys that? Cuz they feel at home I guess.

Someone actually quoted Deiminos/Smus era as a "fun" time. We saw people logged in 8 people OOC specifically to kill him and he rampaged through them all with a well-geared and decently played character. I say decent because that is all Seth was. A decent pk'er who didn't mind rolling over anyone. From my point of view it was like, why bother with this? And just roll up gimp stupid characters to tool around with. I played a hardcore character (1 pdeath and its gone) in this era and I went on a killing spree with it, sacced so much spiked light steel it was stupid. So stick an OOC cock up your asses ok. You stink and always will. I've already given up on that ever improving. My only agenda is keeping you out of cabals when you let the facts slip. At least our cabals may still have a chance of some quality that way.

You want evidence? Its all over this thread and your hangouts. Its all over the way Legion is played year in year out. It isn't Good enough for you? It isn't good enough for me either. See ya in another week when I bother logging in again.

[Davor]

SMUS/Deiminos era was fun possibly just for those included in OOC pissing contest, for rest it was practice in frustration. I didn't like getting busted by N guys, and I sure as hell didn't like watching people get away with shit I thought was utterly unfair.

Drengar/Deiminos duo was something you would snarl at these days, furthermore Deiminos got away with things you wouldn't let Pip, Kalist or many other players even take a sniff at (Uguchak example).
On matter of player complaints Deiminos filled even my inbox, and you can recall number of complaints you got for him, some from quite decent players, but I guess those were merely amusing.

So I guess what I'm saying is that at that point you could/should have done something on both sides. Grilling the OOC logins and tightening the leash on Deiminos. (letting him get away with stuff was only antagonizing people motivating them to OOC coordinate in hope to bring him down). Instead you chose along two other active imms to join the two soon to be imms in "in game" gangbang rampage.

I don't hold particularly bad memories from that time, it was intense and interesting (buying Heralds parley for whole cabal for, what was it 450,000 coins... the gory days of seringale littered with corpses:).
But as a observer in that situation I wasn't really happy with how both sides acted.

You can take this as a recount of how I saw things back then or as a yet another jab at you, but I'd much prefer the first option.

[Niladein]

I had been playing for a while when that Deiminos thing had been going on but during that era I really got sucked in. I can tell you from experience because I led Legion, even though I was terrible, that the OOC during that period was ridiculous. We all had each others IM's we all logged in together I would come home from class and have 3 or 4 messages saying get home so we can get on together. It was really bad and made me see a side of Thera that I never knew existed. I realized at that point it was no wonder that the tides of Thera shifted like they do. Its because you have this small group of individuals that follow each other from one cabal to another and they sit there and wreck shit until someone or enough someones steps in to stop them. Then when that happens they don't sit around and fight it out, they delete and move to the next cabal that they can own for a bit and repeat. I really learned alot about AR then and afterward I had to take a break because I was spending to much time on something that was incredibly corrupt plus my grades were slipping.

So long story short, OOC will never be removed from this game because theres always going to be someone that it makes them feel better log on with their BF and make it to 50 in a night and start gangbanging folks. I don't really talk to anyone that plays anymore and I like it a lot better that way. I played as Regrem and had no idea that he was Groq and that was someone I used to talk to all the time on AIM. The player base isn't very big so it isn't hard to let things slip every now like who your character is. Its like a small town when someone finds out the gossip the whole world knows it before dinner time. So, I would suggest that all of you elites or vets or whatever take a turn just playing the game. Not worrying about the politics and just enjoy what we have here for simply what it is. A good way to take out our aggression from work, home, school, or whatever and rip someones spine out or pretend that we are fire giant warriors that have duergar brothers. Its supposed to be fun, not a job.

Bring back tattoos.

[Craginoth]

[Garion]

Most of the Legion is leaving because of it. I have seen several people talk about quitting and never returning because of it, and I LIKE playing AR. It is no fun to see all this going on.

[Insom]

SMUS gbed Deiminos into the next dimension but that's pretty much it. We didn't provoke anyone and only attacked people when we were attacked. Deiminos on the other hand, gang banged everybody else. So basically he was government sanctioned gang banger. How the hell is that better than what we did and how did he get to stay in that reign for such a long time?

[Kalist19]

My head hurts.

I know dav wouldn't deny someone just for spilling their identity on the logboard because he is a very rational guy and that would be a completely insane move. Other people knowing that you play a character sucks because it takes away some of the mystique but it has ZERO impact on gameplay. The forum/logboards and the mud are two separate entities. On the forum I could say "This knight is so brutal he needs to learn how to pk" but on the mud bow to him and kiss his ass because I'm a squire.

I believe that it is possible for people to repent and I'd give pip the benefit of the doubt that he was totally IC. I've actually been playing here and there for the past while with no communication and have found it really fun, though more time demanding. I've gained more respect for guys like slade who never reveal anything to anyone about anything.

To lose a character you've put a lot of time and effort into without fully understanding why is a horrible experience. I wouldn't wish it on anybody.

Like I said before though, dav is a rational guy so there must be something that would convince him you did something wrong. Maybe it's something as weird as an IP coincidence where you share the same ISP as someone else in Legion or something? It has to be something logged by the game itself because I have no idea what a mortal could provide as absolute proof that someone else is cheating. The only way to verify it would be for dav to go back into the gamelogs to check it, and knowing him I'm sure that he would.

As for legions raring out and killing people.....yes....that's what legion does. No, you wouldn't expect for a whole cabal to be totally rared out, but yes, it can happen, and it can happen legitimately. It's not like AR hasn't experienced times when one cabal has completely owned the others..actually...it's harder to think of a time when that hasn't been the case. I wouldn't say that a cabal owning all the others and having all rared out members would be grounds to assume OOC. Sometimes it just happens that you get several good players in a cabal while most of the players in the others are still learning. It only takes 3 active, skilled players to dominate AR if one of the other cabals doesn't have 3 active, skilled players of their own.

[Garion]

There wasnt anything OOC about it. I played Mordraith, and it was just that there were so many of us that You would log in, and some of the protecteds or another legion would be like. "Hmmm we have a shaman and a tank, lets go to winter, or redhorne, or underworld and get new shinies! And so we would go. and at 50 there really werent that many around for us to fight at any given time. So we could spend hours collecting rares and not even see anyone else to kill.

[Davairus]

If you don't like the cabal rules then don't join cabals. Simple enough. All this gum flapping is a waste of your time. Should have not blurted out who you played and even gone so far as to trash talk with it. I am disgusted with everybody else who I hear doing it, and all I have to say about that is it better fucking stop with this, because I won't stop kicking people out until it has. If you thought Imms would deliberately cheat and yet still continued to play that game then that makes you a crazy person.

[Dispater]

I'm sorry that my attempt of being an asshole actually succeeded...I regret posting all the OOC connections between different caballed people. I regret for giving out pip, who actually showed good RP standards ingame and was a respectable Forsaken in every way. I regret telling people that Clifton is Yurneepo, he as well has progressed from being a twat into being a responsible person, i guess i have just missed the process of people evolving thru years.

I admire stu's goal here, the more flawless RP people can produce, the better it will be. Especially for cabals, it just creates the atmosphere neccessary to enjoy RPing in first place.

But i also think that pip was definelty booted with unfair reasons, he did his best to keep his identity hidden, he even bitched his own char on forums (maybe it was a bit too obvious).

[Esivole]

there really was no logical reason to boot him.
ever been in chat? i was for a bit, pretty far back, and it was easy to figure out who someone was.... not to mention, when i actually played alot, or still played in general, i could guess alot of people anyway. point being, dav, it doesn't matter if someone knows who the other player is, it really just doesn't matter. I personally don't give out my id because i don't do anything really ooc, but would i care if i did? no. because the ingame rp should be better than that. given, last few chars i played i gave a shit less about rp just to see if i would get slayed... which i didn't. if anything i should have been booted long before tyrdeth for in game profanity to anything and everything. but founding out who someone is ooc is just that much worse than ruining all the in game experience for everyone.... hmm....

[Rezakhan]

I haven't played for a while here, so I don't really have a dog in this fight (but likewise, anything I say doesn't matter as much also).
That being said, if the reason for booting someone was seriously b/c he said who his character was on the logboard, then thats kind of shady. As far as I know, there isn't now, and never way, a rule about not letting people know who you play outside of the game. Didn't the logboards for years display the user name when someone posted a log? If that info is then used for OOC gangbangs and such, then yeah, boot/deny away. But absent any real evidence of that, just booting someone for outing themself seems like a bit of an overreaction.
I played for years, and throughout never knew a single person on the game. I still don't--the sole time I ever contacted someone from AR outside of the game was an email to Lydana with a herald. That being said, there were plenty of times I was with a cabal that was fully rared out. It certainly does not mean that people are necessarily OOC--as has been stated many times before, cabals on AR are a constant ebb and flow of one cabal being more powerful, then the other taking over that role. Basing a determination that someone is OOC based on eq is kind of absurd.
Basically, if you want disclosing your char outside of the game to be a violation, thats fine. Theres no reason you can't/shouldn't have that as a rule. It should, however, actually be a rule then. As I understand, Tyrdeth is being punished retroactively for something that pisses Dav off, but isn't actually a violation. That's just not good business.
All that being said, I don't know most of whats going on in this situation--if there is more to it that I don't know about, then feel free to merrily ignore everything I just said.

[Davairus]

This isnt a first offence, this is a REPEAT offence. He has made the exact same race/class/cabal/leader combo as the last time around, and proceed to start clearing out 50 pk range doing the exact same shit. Some people told me they already stopped playing because they can't log on for 5 minutes without a gangbang logging in right after. Those people are not coming back, do you guys even care? As long as there's some to type "induct me" for your cabal, right? Back the first time around, I said I would never let it happen again and he just rolled up the exact same character with a slightly different name. Even this time, I reminded them, the first whiff of trouble I got was curtains. I waited patiently (I won't say I wasn't irritated, but I waited) until I got things reported blatantly in-game about him, and it finally came, so that's that. There's nothing shady about it. The cards were always on the table and he knew. He's just lazy or doesn't care, whatever. He knows the finger is waiting on the button, he's been talked to and told what is expected from him. Same story with m1c0, give him chance and he is always multi-ing a week later. I don't know what sort of backgrounds you guys all come from, but you have to understand that skilled people in engineering fields like me are always honest hardworkers, and then there are the types that are always lieing, cheating and stealing... you might think there's good in everyone but its not true. Now look back over the thread, they didn't start by saying "this isnt right" they started out with "why dont you screw over Yurneepo as well" and trying to make me look bad for applying a non-existent double standard when they know full well I wasn't fully aware what he's been doing. Thats what I would call "not good business". Finally following that with "that isnt illegal" is absurd. I posted the helpfile extract in my first reply. Everything has been answered so I will just ignore this unless I see any new non-stupid questions. What you need to know is that you can't do the things that he got kicked out of his cabal for, or if you did, you better not say it to someone with a big mouth. And for the record, that warning is the first thing Odoacer ever said to me when I asked permission to make my first cabal character here, 8 years ago.

[Craginoth]

Wait wait wait woahhhhhh!! Did you seriously just say that my last character was the same race/class/legion leader combo? That's is the HUGEST pile of horse shit ever! I haven't played a duergar berserker since before Lothgar, and I only got him to level 35 before deleting. Lothgar (fire warrior) was the first leader I've had in Legion, and you promoted me to that. Second character was Voravith (drow ninja) in there who only reached Dreadlord, then I switched it up with Chauth (avian necromancer) in Justice, then I came around and made a duergar berserker for Legion. This is my first duergar/berserker/legion I've ever had in the existance of playing this game, and neither have I had a character with a similiar name. Nor have you ever gave me a warning in any fashion or form not to give out my identity and neither has this been a "REPEATED" offense. I have yet to be punished for something like this ever in my years of playing and I know that for sure. It looks to me like you have your facts mixed up man.

And for those people who complained and quit because they logged on and in five minutes were being attacks, all I can say is welcome to pinnacle, it's all fair game there.

[Dispater]

Haha, you can't blame a player for being too good at the game causing everyone to pee their pants. Rigwarl shoulda been goner as well then. Pip dead great job, making Legion fierce, altho he played a bit wimpy for serker style, but still. I only defend him because i once got banned from a mud just because people kept blaming about me to immortals as i was "overpowered" and they couldn't find a way to kill me. Noone even bothered investigating and noone even gave a shit that the race/class combo with certain EQ was broken as hell, i just got banned (i wasnt a cheater back then, but shortly after that i kind of didnt cared anymore).

So that's definatly a shitty way to treat people.