A new Idea to help in my opinion

[Resatimm]

Iolo,

Remember the Majicrealm? Dont you laugh when you hear people bitching about ranking?

Iolo and I started at a MUD that it took YEARS to rank. At level 25, it was MILLIONS of experience to the next rank, and you were hard pressed to kill anything that would give you more than 100 xp a shot.

When I came to AR I couldnt believe how easy it was to rank. And I STILL dont believe it. Its all a matter of perspective.

I understand what some of you are saying about making the game attractive to newbies, but this isnt the way to go. Ranking is the way it is for a reason. Sure some guys can power rank to 50 in a week, others of us it takes months. Its meant to be time consuming, so you have stock in your character, and you understand it, etc, etc.

[Thorgoth]

i mean i don't see how ranking is so difficult, you get a mercenary and you kill stuff. luckily the imm's have made it where you don't have to go from farmers to brownies, but can kill ofcol cityguard to make the transition. once you hit 22 it's smooth sailing from there because you can heal/monster/protection your rank to 50.

[Emilise]

Yeah ranking is insanely easy. I remember thinking I would NEVER hit 50 and thinking it was such an unobtainable goal. I have ranked up lets see... at least 7 50's in the last six months to a year. And thats with my taking the time to be active on them at 50. The ranking scene is not hard if you try. The items the way they are seems to work fine.

[Stiehl26]

I would just like to point out that to the casual player, the ones who have things to do other than mud 8-12 hours a day, as well as the players without OOC friends, the time to rank to 50 is quite extensive.

Couple that with the fact that very few people are on at any given time, and there is no guarantee that if people are on that they are in your range to level up, can make it frustrating for people to want to spend time mudding and ranking, but have no one to rank with.

There is training and such, which is fairly boring....but ultimately a mud where you can just sit there for hours hoping to get a "You have become better at..." isnt going to attract new blood.

Why not make grouping together give LESS xp than soloing? If you got less experience for grouping but could kill faster, the net gain would be that you would still rank faster than someone soloing. But, if solo xp was increased, people could feel a sense of accomplishment in making noticable progress towards their next rank when people we not on to rank with...which is an ALL too common occurance nowadays.

Besides advertising or telling friends, I have heard no mention from the immortal staff on any feasible ideas to attract more players or to keep the ones who are still playing. In all honesty, shouldnt the immortal staff be having a meeting where they brainstorm and make a plan of action? Ultimately, the MUD that has been worked so hard on will die. That is not a threat but a reality.

[Thorgoth]

Current mudders are here because they know what it's like to play other muds. I gave Forsaken Lands a shot recently and noticed how fucking lame it was to have all my skills at 90% by lvl 15, then fighting a fire warrior and STILL getting bashed to death by a fire warrior and getting full looted afterwards. Then it came to description writing time, I had to deal with a COMPLETELY dickheaded immortal who shotdown every part of my description because it wasn't "realistic" (isn't this a fantasy world anyways?) and they don't have any of the perks that we have in description edit like line replacement and inserts. It's pretty nice when you get down to the nitty gritty of the game aspects. They have made it EXTREMELY easy, like getting 600 per brownies at lvl 14 and it's just lame. It really takes the uniqueness out of a character when you can hit pinnacle in two days, rage delete and repeat all over again. Grinding your way to 50 is the best thing you can do because when it comes time to getting smacked and making the decision of deleting you sit there and think "oh wait, it took me too long to rank just for me to delete, why don't I just suck it up and keep going?" atleast then you have something to do until more people come on to start shit up. I hate the fact that a large percentile of the people who post on here think that their idea is the best and without it the mud sucks. You just have to learn whats best for the players as a whole and not what just benefits one faction of the people. So for god sakes, learn to be optimistic and enjoy the variety of great things about this game, because that's what going to keep it going.

[Ceridwel]

[Amdorin]

I get frustrated with there being no rares around just as much as the next guy. But after my experiences and my problematic innate need to fight fair or disadvantaged, I often rather fight without rares. The current situation we're in right now (rare recession LOL) almost forces you to learn how to fight first before relying on stacked rares and minimal effort past that (which is a big part of the introduction of combat modules, so "lord of the rares" doesn't play as big a part in winning).

So really I think the only ones really able to complain about rares are the ones who know how to fight and are amongst the top fighters in the game. The funny thing is, you won't hear any formal complaints from them because ..well.. they know how to fight, with or without rares, and will take your rares to prove it.

I will say the thing that still pisses me off is to see rank 30 chars running around in winter/underworld gear from vulture looting. If anything I say raise the gear restriction on lvl 45-50 gear (especially unique 50 gear)so that you have to be in range of human lvl 50s (or at least rank 40 [human necro wet dream])before you can use it. Carry it around all you like beforehand, but can't use it.

I do think hoarding is a problem (haven't seen blackened crystal rose in months lol), but even then they do have to show up in game to keep them. Mostly they will be healers with gates behind Kaddar Faeries or Exile, but if you want the rares that bad, ..go for them lol.

[Ceridwel]

[Thorgoth]

well like i said before, lvl 30's and below can get their rare and unique shit from people selling it on auction, so that is where they really get thinned out. i say keep them in the higher rank, and if you don't need it then sac it, but if the world could be like me then i wouldn't be the best...


lmao

[Erlwith]

Amdorin is spot on here. There's a low rare count because of a low playerbase, and the rares practically disappear once they start getting released into the low ranks (vulture/auction) and on top of that hoarders who will sit on rares any chance they get (dindenerhi, tenan, noliperus, etc. etc.) It makes getting any rares really a pain. I don't even bother going after most of them anymore, it's easier just to random from darkhaven.

And I've said it many times before, leveling is way too easy

[Thorgoth]

don't give amdorin my credit ho

[Erlwith]

[_Clifton_]

Implement a kill count system and the entire idea of rares being out of circulation is gone. Fixes everything.

[Thorgoth]

what's that saying..don't fix what's not broken..right. just because you are active and you pull hours doesn't mean that you won't get rares. Sure it could be a little more time consuming, but all I see is a bunch of impatient fucks."I WANT IT NOW MOMMY!!!" I don't see anyone pulling enough hours to be having rares except for the top four with 60+ hours, the rest of you have 20 and that's just sad. Sure you can't devote that much time, but it seems like all people want to do is log on and spam eq over and over to see (humming) (glowing) and jerk off to it. I know that when I was active I could have a full set of nice rares within a week, and that's a combination of pking and mob killing. On top of the gambled/forged shit I could have a very nice hit/damroll. Don't blame the Imm's or mud, blame yourselves for auctioning off rares, being lazy and simply not pushing enough hours to be around to catch the vulture and hoarders.

[goofy]

Theres no one else out there but us doing this. theres no other mud like this, we have playing killing, brains over brawn, full loot, we are pioneers and perhaps the last of our kind, the rare few who remain on the battlefields of the mind. Who willingly lives part-time in a fantasy virtual reality and concerns themselves in power, murder, and politics? The book is better then the movie. computers are like books, as a child you look at the pictures, but when you group up you 'read' them. the importance of learning about computer networks, the internet, and programing cannot be measured, these things are the future, this is the age of technology, and true power will come with knowledge of these things as computers advance. only on muds, like this one can you program your character, if you choose, by interacting directly with 'real world' objects like swords and potions, other programming that people learning are forced to start out with more abstract ideas. I am eternally great-full to the realms, because they showed me the light, the truth thats lays with computing, It is because of interest in compiling a mud i could play with out going online that i discovered one thing that might help save the world. Linux. so yo, I'm trying to say that I believe in this.

[RebornShadows]

Goofy lay off the crack. if everyone wants rares back then how about this all lvl 30 and above delete your characters all of them then when you roll something new hey what do you know rares are there but you wont delete cause you enjoy having all that shit trained. You enjoy the rares you got the kill count and all that other bullshit. In other words you want rares get rid of your characters that have rares. Then again you can invade the keeper cabal and take the keeper out and then grab the rares. If you dont want to do that then shut the fuck up and deal with it. You see a guy decked in rares try and kill him.

[Erlwith]

Lol. Those last 3 posts just went from bad to worse. Pip I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, stoned?

Goofy... Reborn is right about the crack. As the great Whitney Houston said "Crack is wack..."

Reborn, stop being retarded and learn how to formulate a paragraph. Edit: After the 5th read I actually understand. If all the 50s deleted there would be no rares because the game is coded to introduce more rares as there are more pinnacles to use them (I think).

[RebornShadows]

Erlwith as far as I understand it rare items come back if no one has them not that more 50's equal more rares. so your wrong about that.

A kill count would be nice but as other have said people can abuse it and what about the non-pk'ing people (nobles, Mystics, Patrons, Heralds) They would lose all their shiny items.

If it aint broke dont fix it. But as much as I hate to admit it the whole so many hours in a given week = how many rares you can keep sounds more useful than a kill count.

Example If i have a decked out character and i want to keep my items I am gonna have to log in X amount of hours a week. In logging in to get said hours people can and will attack me to take the rares. If I dont log in the rares get taken anyway and thus people can find and gain them.

[Amdorin]

[RebornShadows]

if you raise the lvl req of the end game rares then.
high lvl people can sell those to lower ranking characters that are newbs and seeing how they cant use it they will keep it till they get to that rank. keep it until another low lvl character kills them and takes it and then you would have a whole bunch of low lvl characters running around with rares.