Nyxl

In this, my dear, I fear you are going to feel like Hell during the following three months. Summer holidays usually coincidate with a sudden onslaught of not-so-good-mannered newbies who soon join the uncountable cohorts of n00bs. Bear with the rest of the community (and I mean, the *real* community, those who actually play the game and make it fun for their friends, not the nOObs aforementioned), it will get quieter again around mid-September...

Nothing to see ? Mmh... As stated in your signature, m'Lady, that's your opinion...

Tsk tsk tsk, so many short-term views here... Human mythological landscape is waaaaay richer than that, Piper. I'll try to explain, and for the need of it, I'll have to put religion and myth in the same bag (no offense meant to any believer, as Pratchett said, all religions possess the Truth, for a certain degree of Truth). The belief in a "Beyond" comes from a very old concern and is not exactly related to religion or myth. Death is the only certainty in the Universe, as far as us, living, sensient (and sometimes intelligent) beings are concerned. It is also, by far, its greater mystery. We cannot possibly fathom what lies Beyond unless we experience it for good (don't talk about NDE's, please, or ask neuro-scientists about it), and all we can do is, from a philosophical/religious point of view, put some metaphors around it, to alleviate the feeling of loss that always go along with death. There's two phenomenons common with the attempts to explain the concept of death, in mythologies. The first one is the "reification" or "personification" of death, as a self-aware character. Thus, we have Charon and Thanatos in Greek Mythology, Anubis and Osiris in Aegyptian Mythology, etc. The second phenomenon is the existence of a "Beyond", a place where the dead go when, well, they're dead. I would like to point out that, apart from the Buddhism, there's always at least two of such places. In Greek Mythology, there're the Underworld and the Elysian Fields. In Norse Mythology, there're also an Underworld and a Whalall (or Valhalla, or whatever way it's written). So Christianity is not so different in that regard. The poles are just being different. From a Heroic-Common dichotomy in most polytheist religions, we have come to a Good-Evil dichotomy in monotheist religions. With a tremendous invention from the Catholic Church, that is the Purgatory (a place where the dead may come to dwell to atone for their sins to deserve access to Heavens), which was a wonderful commercial stroke to draw more converts. The "Great Beyond" is not so easily described. So, to get back to the topic, if the Underworld is neutral, it is so in the sense that "common" people go there. Special people always go to special places (I mean, according to mythologies). Being special means being heroic, being holy, being an unbeliever, being damned, etc. In the context of Eternal Lands, either we're all common (woohoo, I'm so gonna get flamed), either we're all special (since we are creating/building characters according to our specific beliefs/desires/drives/urges/whatever pushes us forward). So the Underworld as it is feels quite enough to me. Besides, it's warm and dark, comfy as I like it for m'time off.

1°) This is the Guild & Clans forums, not the "outlaws" section. 2°) Subtitle of "Outlaws" goes "Scammers, bag stealers, troublemakers, no-good doers! Criminals! Most wanted lists, post them here!" I do believe that you suffer, as The One might point out, from "selective reading". And therefore, judging by the consistency of your interventions so far, you just subscribe to these boards to play the Forum Troll. Thus... Don't feed the Troll, let him starve for attention.

Mainly typos in the messages. I'll post as I find them. First is when accessing the underground passage below the Draegoni Council Hall. "You've seem to have entered an underground passageway." -> "You seem to have entered an underground passageway.", I think. "A felling inside tells you that this is a pillar room." -> Wouldn't it be a "feeling within" ?

That behavioural pattern reminds me of someone who's already been banned once or twice before. Delosek is the name he used then, and he used all of the above tricks regularly.

She also has a Silver Tatsu as a pet friend...

As a stubborn miscreant, I assure you that Godless characters just would not care about maps being watched by this or that god. At least, the RP'ers wouldn't. As to the Karma system being religion related, that is more annoying to me. Most suggestions, so far, imply that the karma is related to a "Good vs. Evil" polarity. Let me post my "vision"... 1°) Karma, a geometric definition. Karma, in my opinion, should be more of a four-poles entity, with Good, Evil, Entropy Chaos and Order. Most of you are familiar with the "alignment wheel" used in most RPG's, but I'm more attuned to a "Sphere of Alignment", with four poles placed as the summits of an Archimedian tetraedron, each of those being an "extreme" (see the figure below - taken from here). It means that Good is not the exact opposite of Evil, but that the dipole Good-Evil is in balance with the dipole Chaos-Order. It gives infinitely more nuances of personalities (or alignments, or Karma) than a mere line joining point Evil to point Good crossing the point Neutral. And it makes the Neutral alignment even more delicate to maintain ! I will spare you the definitions of Good, Evil, Chaos and Order, you all know what those are. 2°) Karma attribution/retribution. There're two ways to "give" Karma to a character : from direct actions, in an automatic fashion, and from people reports, in a pro-active way. Both have already been discussed and what has been said looks nice already. The first difficulty here would be to discriminate in which direction (toward which pole) one action should lead. When it's obvious that one who kills another without reason or warning is "evil", it's harder to categorize some "crimes" or "good deeds". One who heals indiscriminately, at all times and all costs, may be deemed "good", when one who heals at beam because s/he is under a "patriotic work" compulsion would be "lawful" (goign toward Order). I also have the feeling each deed would be aiming between two poles in some proportions (distributing random items among newbies would be Chaotic-Good, killing someone out of revenge would be Lawful-Evil, etc.)... The second difficulty would most certainly be the prevention of abuses. Trollson already told us about some "memory effect", how to prevent mass-accusations. I was thinking of a careful scaling of the Karma, where the closer you get to a pole, the harder it becomes to get even closer. No sensible proposition here, I'm still in the abstract... 3°) Karma effects. A few ideas... Relationship with NPC's : it's already been discussed, how "higher karma people should get better prices at merchants'". I'd rather have NPC's with Karma too, so the closer you are from "their" Karma, the likelier you are to get advantages when dealing with them. Joker would then be an extreme Chaotic-Good, and would give better items to Chaotic-Good characters when giving junk to Lawful-Evil people (just rephrasing a used example here). Access to some areas : some cities, villages, temples could become forbidden places for specific alignments. Or worse, those characters with forbidden Karma might become pk-able while walking those areas (I don't really like that, but I'd rather suggest it immediately than hope noone will think of it). For instance, Aluwen Temple would become a deadly trap for evil characters. Etc. Random events : people would endure Day-events accordingly to their Karma. A Scholar day would have more benefits for Order-abiding people, a Healing day would be more in favor of Good people, etc. Specific quests : there, I'd refer to the prior suggestions. With one concern, though : implementing specific quests might bring along a subliminal class system and EL is not class-based. Or I'm misinterpreting this idea.

Keep it as it is. I think there are more interesting things to do right now (like giving some use to Charm & Perception) than tinkering with a feature that has already been improved several times since the beginning of EL...

If it's a routing problem, there won't be any rollback, since the server is not concerned... At least, that's what I understand.

I'll keep around Palon Vertas for now. You know I'm not much into fighting, and am not likely to "play" a knight... ____________________________________ The Mother-Panda, having bite-grabbed her child by the skin of his neck, turned around. After a ruffle in the bushes, the she-bear had vanished and Niklosyan let out a sigh of relief. The Elf re-adjusted his cloak and went north, aiming for the city. Reaching the murals, he called a guard and explained quickly the situation in the jungle, about the gathering of Orcs, different from all of those creatures he'd ever met before. The guard, sceptic at first, decided that it was more careful to warn his chief and colleagues, instead of shrugging off what could have been a bad joke. The Elf did not look like a prankster. Besides, the guy was well-known in the area, for being a very calm and constant Healer. Most miners had learnt to appreciate his presence, down in the caves... Later on, Niklos was warning the people on the southern bank of the river, where most of the miners and peasants lived. There, he received more credit, and the men (and a few strong women as well) started arming themselves, and set a watch at the border of the jungle. Satisfied for the moment being, the Healer resumed his activities around the caves. He soon found himself caring for a newcomer, a young man who'd taken a few breaths of a pouch of gaz, released by an unfortunate pickaxe hit. "Wow, thank you..." "Thank Mother-Panda, for I would not be here but for her..." "What is that ? A religion ?" Niklos grimaced. He'd never been into god'ish stuff at all. Since he'd lost Kaliopi, and then Xylonia, he'd completely shunned the Pantheon of Eternal Lands. "Nay, just a self-depreciative comment. Here. Get out of the cave and breathe some fresh air, that will complete nicely my treatment." "Huh... Okay, I guess." "And be careful. Orcs are planning something nasty, they might be attacking Palon Vertas some day soon." "Really ? Woah, I'd better pay attention..." "You do that." The Healer turned back and went in the tunnel where the pouch of gaz was released, in search for other people to help. The young miner then noticed how the lower part of Niklos' cloak was shredded...

Looks like a texture mapping problem to me...

all that work just for a test when for most of the time the 'no' votes were ahead?for a better idea, ask them to implement stuff that more people want... I'm sure people could come up with some really desired features (Just like adding some use to Perception & Charm cross attributes, like setting a few barmen on Irilion taverns, like unlocking the new resources, like consolidating and documenting the current version of the code for maintenance purposes, like silencing some of the EL-boards trolls until they have something interesting to say, etc. There's always something to do in a vast application such as a mmorpg.) Sorry, couldn't help myself. Now I'm out.

Yeouch ! Love you too, Kayliana dear.

More of an Dark Queen, then... Note : if you find a pun in this, be assured that it is no coincidence. No Gnome were harmed in the making of this post.