sywren

SyWren sat with her back to the wall at the edge of the bar where she could take in the tavern and be sure there were no dangers lurking behind her. Her soft gold eyes and the smudges of mud on the edges of her sleeves seemed to be the only color about her. All else about the elf was white. Her long white hair that always seemed to come loose from it's braid down her back edged out of her white hood and framed her pale skin. Her white cloak, tunic, and skirt had a softness about them from many washings. She fingered the mud at her sleeve and wondered if it were enough to cover the deep crimson spots beneath. She had not yet found the time in this journey to adequately wash her tunic and these dabs of mud would have to do for the time being. With her hood discretely covering her face, SyWren watched the newcomer, a draegoni, come into the tavern. The woman seemed to be looking for someone, and SyWren wondered if this was who had given her the note, but then the draegoni continued scanning the faces around her obviously still looking. When the woman sat down, SyWren felt her leg involuntarily flex as if to ensure the dagger were still safely secured there under the folds of her white skirt. This was reflex from having spent most of her life in a land where any stranger poses a threat. She had seen many good people killed for a common cloak or merely (it sometimes seemed) for pure amusement. An instinct told her this draegoni wasn't dangerous, but her surroundings and the presence of so many strangers had already heightened her senses and made her aware of every movement around her. Perhaps this was why she noticed the newcomer slip her hand into her pocket. From the corner of her eye, she watched the woman's fingers move with the folds of the cloak and again her leg flexed, reminding her of the dagger still there. When the woman pulled her hand from her pocket, SyWren's heart leapt into her throat. The woman had an identical stone to the one SyWren had in her pocket. At first glance, the stone seemed inconspicuous, but she had always found a beauty in the flecks of pinks and roses embedded in the grays and blues, the same pinks and roses in this woman's stone. There must be a connection. She pulled out the note and read it again. "We will meet at dusk at the Portland Tavern on the fourth day of the month of Viasia." No purpose or explanation had been given and the child who delivered it had simply shrugged his shoulders and run away when asked about who had given it to him. Could this draegoni have received a similar note? Why were they there? Who had given her this instruction? Were there others in the tavern with similar notes, perhaps even the same stone? Were others on their way? Curiosity had driven her here, and curiosity reached her hand into the pocket of her cloak and placed the stone on the bar.

Why assume that only high a/d levels are interested? I must be completely missing your point, but do those people who are on gargs not enjoy or benefit from a garg invasion? Since when does Mortos invade with only one mob? The entire concept fascinates me. I'd love to see how people respond to the idea of an invasion (which is often a cooperative event) while trying to PK each other. The inherent social dynamics at play are enough to make this worthwhile if only as an experiment.

I would particularly love if a few of them are announced in advanced so those who have PK server accounts but rarely log on to them would see that they have a good reason to be on more often.

Rostos are essential to PK, but more rostos to harvesters won't increase PK to the levels that I think most of the current PKers on the main server would like and certainly won't put more real money in Radu's pockets. I think the solution is indeed cheaper rostos. It might sound a bit paradoxical, but people are psychologically more willing to pay more money if they are giving it in smaller increments over a greater amount of time. The benefits of cheaper rostos: 1. Radu makes more money. Here's what I see happening: PlayerX buys 20 rostos at $20 and goes out and tries PK. He dies a few times, but hey, it's only a dollar. So, next week, he spends $100 thinking 100 rostos should last him a while. However, what actually happens is that he carries it with him all the time because he can use it to protect even cheap gear. This means that all those accidental PVP deaths equal $1. That adds up. 2. New players are more willing to try PK because there is far less of a risk. Every newbie PKer knows that PK requires a lot of expensive gear. Now there's no fear. 3. More gear degraded and destroyed because everyone is wearing their finest every time they PK. Before everyone slaps me with "but you're not a PKer!" let me remind you that I play on the PK server where rostos are $1 each. As for the NDD map with no exp, I think this is a good idea too. May I throw in the idea of a NDD capped arena for new players to get the hang of it?

I would love to take part, but unfortunately, I don't get back from work until later in the afternoon. Hopefully we can have them at varying times in order maximize the number of participants.

I absolutely love that we don't have trade bots on this server, but I'd love to see a better system in place for buying/selling items. If I told Gossip what I'm selling, and then someone asked her who was selling _____, could she then give them my name? Example: I tell Gossip this: /Gossip sell health essences, leather boots, book of special swords Then someone else asks Gossip this: /Gossip buy leather boots Pm from Gossip: /playerX I heard SyWren, PlayerExample1, PlayerExample2 are selling leather boots. If PlayerX is on my NoTrade list, either my name won't show up, or PlayerX gets a snarky Gossip message about someone selling them, but not to you. Also, perhaps there could be a "total items" command where she tells you everything that I have for sale. Just an idea!

Hm, I'm guessing you were also a huge supporter of the new C2 leopard. Ebul Jumpy! Will ants attack you, unless you are on their enemy list? ALL-OUT ANT WAR FTW!

Well, they could do it the same way they do in real life, with an apology. Until people are made accountable for their actions, they won't change them. Hiding doesn't encourage the type of social responsibility that an apology and a promise does.

I have no issues with this guild's formation, and I don't even see it as controversial. Religious freedom isn't gained by squelching all formation of religious groups. Guilds forming around a common interest isn't new, and if they don't want a member based on different religious beliefs, I have no problem with that either. People can choose to accept or reject whomever they want based on whatever they want. I'm sure many people have been rejected by a guild for far better reasons than "you don't share our common attitude/belief". Isn't that almost always the main reason someone is rejected? Here is where I do have a problem, and I believe this is where Vanyel is having concerns. The post title indicates "spreading God's love." EL has no place for proselytizing. What they do within their guild is up to them. They can discuss God's love all they like; I just don't want anyone trying to convert me. I don't believe we would be having this discussion had the post simple said "celebrating God's love" or something like that.

I'll bring the snakes! I believe we're limited to PL or Ida if we want multi because of new players. The portal's room spawn spot in PL might be good since those who need to take a break and run into the city; however, Ida city would be convenient because we could summon straight from storage (save trips). MM is also multi and offers the same convenience for summoners as Ida, but not good for newbs. I vote for Idaloran. And no, there should not be any PK during, directly before, or directly after the event. We want new players to come and feel welcome. Of course, if we're in Ida, it would be very easy to send the rule-breaker to the underworld and have a couple people ensure he/she stays there. Edit: Just realized I won't be home until evening (your time, lone).

Announced invasions might inspire some of those MIA people to come back for the invasions and perhaps stick around to train for them. The biggest reason people leave is the low numbers of people (which has been discussed ad nauseam). Announced invasions or special days always brings big numbers on the main server, so why not this one? If everyone knows something is going on "sometime on Sunday", we should see those numbers. If only half the people who have accounts on this server log on, we should have a decent number. We had 90 people on the day of the character wipe, and many more have joined since. Most of them are just waiting for it to pick up. Let's give them a reason to all be on at the same time and see how many there actually are. Then we really should pick up.

Hm, I'm guessing you were also a huge supporter of the new C2 leopard. Ebul Jumpy! Instead of a guaranteed death, I like the idea of ranged ants (random a/d/p/c perhaps with occasional resets so we can't keep track). (PS: I'm really hoping we get the C2 leopard on this server, too!)

Great idea!

I couldn't find a free wolf spawn on the pk server, so I switched to king penguins followed by unarmed male gob. I was in the teens, which pretty cheap gear, so I would rearrange it like this: Wolf Gentoo Penguin King Penguin Unarmed male Gob Large spider etc...

I absolutely love mine! Thank you so much! -Sy

Still in motion, I'm working on the coding changes needed to support this. Yay! The biggest issue seems to be potential for vastly unequal teams. Thought: is it possible for the guild bots to keep a tally of either the total combat levels or pk scores of all the members and share with each other? If one guild reaches a certain percentage above the other, it could reject new high level members and advise them to join the other team. This might help with social interactions since team members may be forced to occasionally switch up which team they join. Personally I'd like to see it based on pk scores so those of us who are new could still join either team since we're pretty ineffectual against the pr0s, and those are the ones who are going to throw off the balance.

Yep. In fact, I'd like to see some sort of public announcement made about name changes. I don't know what it is about this server (well, yes I do and so does everyone else) but we seem to attract a certain population that is most comfortable regularly changing names in order to hide. Our only true repercussion for outlaws on this server is through mass #ignores and no-trades (and obviously the whole pk thing). Skirting issues through name changes seems like cheating to me. If you want to be an outlaw, then go ahead and make your name infamous! Don't candy-ass your way out by changing it every two weeks.

Guerilla Warfare Day (formally Peace Day) Today traditional hand-to-hand combat tactics are not effective. No player, creature, or summons may initiate a fight; however, beware of non-traditional tactics while on PK maps. I realize the "non-traditional tactics and strategies" is a bit vague, but we don't really need to make radu update the day description with every new weapon implemented.

I must be completely dense because I've been sitting here reading all of this cannot come up with any possible way for this NOT to break rule #5 for all of the reasons already stated. I honestly had this conversation a while ago and oddly a similar one last night (please forgive me- I don't log chat). SyWren: Where are you? Idiot: Still walking. SyWren: TTPR ftw? Idiot: What's that? SyWren: Teleport to Portals Room. What's your magic level? Idiot: 30 Now come on. What moron spends either that much time in game leveling magic on heals alone and has never heard of a portals room, or spent time leveling magic and not bothered to spend five minutes looking up what he gets by leveling it? There is no way to sell knowledge. The only way to learn the game is by playing it. Buying a character you can't use is ridiculous. And the point of wanting to skip the time between just so you can have a character that can kick everyone's asses without putting in the work? I don't get that either. So I buy TopPlayer's character and kick Idiot's ass. I haven't done anything. TopPlayer kicked Idiot's ass because he's the one who has mastered the game and created the character. The only thing I've mastered is my ability to use a mouse and keyboard. I may be going on a bit of rant here, but it's probably because this week I finally did a #killme_yes on my first character (sygon). I didn't want her to be randomly wiped because I haven't logged on as her in months. Even though I only played as her for two months and haven't leveled her since June, I wouldn't consider giving her to someone else or even allowing someone to do a character wipe on her because she hasn't been logged on in X amount of time. My point is this: what is the point of playing a game you aren't really playing? And as for the creating of alts to sell, well that isn't EL either. That is an entirely different game, and I will never understand it. Edit: typos

I agree that we are having some vial issues, but personally I'd like to minimize what is available through the NPCs. I'm noticing that a lot of people have really branched out and are trying new skills other than fighting. I like the balance. Vial mold makers will be coming soon. I'm sure I'm not the only one working on it (though it's slow going since I keep getting distracted with other orders, but those orders are paying for the books). The EFEs are a challenge, though. Radu reduced the chance to get them on the main server before the PK server was started, so we're working with an EFE equation that was altered to accommodate a different economy. Personally, I would like to see the chance for an EFE changed back to what it was before that update, at least for a while.

Melisande, I saw Tempest's siggy and fell in love with it. I think your style fits me perfectly. Would you mind creating one for me? I love golds, silvers, and white. I'm not looking for any particular images, so that's perfect. I like it to have a regal, "queenly" look to it. Generally I go by "Sy", but I know that limited lettering sometimes poses artistic challenges, so if it is easier, feel free to put both of my ingame names: SyWren (main server and PK) and SyAnide (PK server). Please let me know if this is possible and when it might be done so I can be sure to have the gc ready for you. Thank you! -Sy

LOL! I can't think of anyway to pronounce it other than Sinus. Pretty appropriate considering how many people are allergic to cats. Ooooh, and instead of Scotty taking his cat to the vet, perhaps we can convince Snotty to take his cat to the vet. (I really shouldn't post anything when I'm sick. But it certainly explains why I have snot on the brain. This is about to turn into a long rant about my brain being gooey, so i'll just click add reply now.) Edit: forgot to add: I <3 your new avvie/siggy kaGen! Absolutely rocks.

Who the hell's example were you following? Stricken's? Grendal's? These are 15-year-old children. You're an adult. You don't follow their example; you set it. You sure as hell better believe that radu will give a shit if people are leaving the PK server because you can't watch your mouth. That's real money out of his pocket. There will be consequences if WE DON'T

Siate (pronounced C.A.T.) If you want an EL name, I'd go with Grue. Or Wraith (but only because Tutorial NPC is so common among housecats these days) Of course, I named my fish Fluffy, so maybe I shouldn't be participating.

Oh my, so sorry. Crom is right: it is the Prestige. Stop giving me that look! Edit: whoops, Johnnyfrog is right first!