desc checks... no more.

1. Hiring several new Immortals for the sole purpose of description checking. While the above change could fix the problem of people having to WAIT for a description check, a player character cannot (or at least should not) break RP to help a character fix their description, nor can they monitor names/RP the way an IMM can. Hiring more IMMs is the only way to fix the whole problem, but some of the other suggestions wouldn't hurt.

My idea would not put description checks into the hands of non-immortals. The note from Herald would simply be an interface, and an intro to the cabal for new characters.

I agree that descriptions should be checked, and my proposition gives no change to that. They would still be checked as closely as they are now (whatever that amount is), only not impeding our leveling by doing so.

For example, each player will stiff have a qualifier on their name to show that they have not had their description approved. This flag will be removed only when an immortal has checked it. The system is still in place, but without putting up a brick wall at level 15.

As a bit of a compromise, an interesting idea would be to keep the system in place, but instead of having it stop all exp gain at level 15 without a description check, it would instead hinder your exp gain.

Thus, you could still level, but doing so at 25+ would probably be pretty ugly. Perhaps each level past 15 starts applying a higher and higher exp reduction. You'll probably get checked out before its too rough, but it would be a good reminder seeing messages like this occasionally, "You have a feeling that if more knew what you looked like, new experiences would be much easier."

This could go along with either automated Herald notes at certain invervals proding for more information on what you look like, or an immortal could send this info to the player when they see a lacking description.

I wasn't responding directly to you, but rather toward the topic in general.

How does that song go?

"You're so vain.

I bet you think this post is about you."

Thanks to Carly Simon for making this response possible.

Well my post was most specifically "...the above change..." since it was spatially right above your post, hehe.

Plus it was a reason to throw out another idea, so you got stuck with the blame

.

For example, each player will stiff have a qualifier on their name to show that they have not had their description approved. This flag will be removed only when an immortal has checked it. The system is still in place, but without putting up a brick wall at level 15.

That is a very good idea, allowing herald/leaders/heros to check it... And then having a imm check it again later.. That would be brilliant.

So you have a process that one group of people are not "performing to your standard" so your solution is to insert another group of people...between that group and you in order to expedite the process??

Bureaucracy...pfft.

I wouldnt want any "mortal" approving my desc's, especially when later on I might be that "mortal's" enemy, friend, or what not and here they approved my existence? no thanks...Not to mention the rapid turnover rate of mortals compared to imms.

If your decs is taking to long for approval...note to imm...if your desc gets approved blank/unformatted/its of a pink bunny? note to imm with time/date. I am pretty sure it is safe to conclude that the immortals are involved in a process of supervision and checks and balances that allows those of higher rank to ensure that newer, lower rank imms are enforcing the policies of the mud to the best of their ability, and not shirking on things.

So you have a process that one group of people are not "performing to your standard" so your solution is to insert another group of people...between that group and you in order to expedite the process??

Bureaucracy...pfft.

I wouldnt want any "mortal" approving my desc's, especially when later on I might be that "mortal's" enemy, friend, or what not and here they approved my existence? no thanks...Not to mention the rapid turnover rate of mortals compared to imms.

If your decs is taking to long for approval...note to imm...if your desc gets approved blank/unformatted/its of a pink bunny? note to imm with time/date. I am pretty sure it is safe to conclude that the immortals are involved in a process of supervision and checks and balances that allows those of higher rank to ensure that newer, lower rank imms are enforcing the policies of the mud to the best of their ability, and not shirking on things.

Now I know you read the last few posts, however did you read the first post as well? You most likely did. I'm actually quite amazed that Savnt had such a variety of responses with the various 8 characters. Something obviously needs to be changed if that is happening because quite honestly that's ridiculous. Something has to change, and whether it's players approving players or a select group of players turned Imm specifically to approve descriptions and nothing else.

It's obvious that the Imms have some kind of life outside the game, we all do. I know Behrens has said he's got an engineering degree and has a great job that probably demands a lot from him. I'm amazed anything gets done code wise because I've known people I work with having those degrees and they work retail because they said those jobs demand you live them pretty much. The player base is obviously too small to really have more Imms even if they are just there to approve descriptions, that means that much less of a player base.

Here's what would be a decent idea even though it's already been mentioned. Allow Heralds to approve them, give them special owner only items (this could be their special Cabal powers along with the abilities they already get) and ONLY give it to Trusted and above. It's already a pain in the *** to get into this Cabal and people wonder why it's nearly dead all the time. I recall one person who used to play trying to get in with his Healer who had a chaotic ethos and he had to RP his *** off to get in. To top it off I got to hear what was going on play by play by play. I don't want a Herald partly because I don't want that rediculous green flag that says, "Hey, if I have any kind of decent rares, bounty me!" I get enough bounties as is without that flag. By the time the person hits Trusted in Herald they should be trusted enough to gain those powers of approving your description.

Now here comes the thing about going 'ooc' as the word seems to be coming back in hot fashion. I say let them do so to help someone with a description. What kept me logging on and on for so many years? I had someone who had an Avatar and their App posted on the website help me out a TON by breaking character and telling me what I needed to do to stay alive in the game. I didn't know about the forum, hell in fact it took Sirant telling me to join the forum so that I could get more familiar with the game. OOC may be considered 'bad form' in a sense if you're yelling at someone who just PKed you, so why should it be so to help someone out by helping them with a description? The interaction lasts maybe 5-10 minutes top. The rest of the time they're still able to play the game and be PKed. Perhaps the Leader of Herald should be given a quest and the quest would be for the elixir of life and they'd be granted 999 lives so that if they so chose, they could even be promoted to Immortal somewhere on down the line and not only help those few who really do need help but get to go to those Imm bash parties they throw by having Malchaeius slay Raargant a few times.

Now some of you may 'hate' the idea because as stated above, what if you become enemies/friends with the person later in life? Have it so that a Description is a Description and everything in that interaction should be strictly forbidden to be 'remembered' by those characters that way the two don't get confused as being both IC rather than IC and a description check. Everyone knows that not everyone is fantastic at the english language (not poking fun at anyone or anything) but not everyone will have a perfect description. There will be errors. Hell, I hadn't typed anything in a while and a lot of my grammar and spelling went down the tubes. Even my ability to type went down the ****ter. By going 'ooc' it will help with things like description errors and such and by having it be stricken from 'memory', you can't have them confused between it being real and character vs. character so you can be friends/enemies with them later in your characters life. So yeah, it might take a little extra coding, but seriously it would be better than being approved with no description because an Imm is too busy to look.

What he said.

Points to Tantangel

Give Heralds something to do other than re-equip.

Hiring New IMM's for Desc Checking:

Unlike an office where you can hire and fire with little to no worry of liability, an IMM must be chosen painstakingly and have already proved themselves. How many of us, be honest, can say that we have never cheated, that we would not go on AIM and be proud of the fact that we got an IMM or want to know all the ins and outs of the game with an IMM. To bring on an IMM just for desc checks would limit them and ultimately not fit the RP of a god.

Herald Desc Approval:

I have had many a Herald (as you all know) and let me tell you that I hit E with my first Herald as a complete twit. It's not hard to become a Herald, you just have to apply yourself to an idea regardless of how much you know about the game. Could it work, yes, but only through direct IMM intervention and NOT by cabal power.

Hero Desc Approval:

Would be great...if we had hero's.

Remove/Increase ranking cap for Desc's:

Why? Because you are powerranking and not enjoying the RP along the way? Maybe you can do both, but I personally take my sweet time ranking because I absolutely love it. I write my desc when I am offline and actually edit it as my chars progress, all the while noting IMM's to make sure it is okay. If you can't get your desc approved before 15, send a note to immortal and have them check it while you are offline. I have done it many a time.

I never knew you had a Herald until you mentioned it right now Dobson. I knew it was a pain in the *** to get in two years ago. Must've changed recently I don't know. Heralds members should never be a twit though I've always seen Herald as the Cabal to be the hardest to get into because it only accepted those who were true scholars and not just your average run of the mill people. Hell my first Cabal was Chaos and I'd never give that Cabal the opportunity to approve descriptions. I'd only ever give that option to Herald because Herald should be absolute scholars and know just about everything in the game therefore winning my vote to be allowed to approve descriptions as well as give out owner only items. Shouldn't be those who don't know anything, as they usually (at least used to) teach in the Academy as well.

Remove/Increase ranking cap for Desc's:

Why? Because you are powerranking and not enjoying the RP along the way? Maybe you can do both, but I personally take my sweet time ranking because I absolutely love it. I write my desc when I am offline and actually edit it as my chars progress, all the while noting IMM's to make sure it is okay. If you can't get your desc approved before 15, send a note to immortal and have them check it while you are offline. I have done it many a time.

Different folks, different strokes. Different chars, different rps. The good thing about this game is that you can choose to rp, pk, or hunt.

---When I immed medievia, you just had to grind quick for the first ten hours of your char to be talked to by anyone. No one wanted to rub elbows with the scrappy players. It was pretty bad, actually. No character attachment at all. Talk about rage deletion.

--- I also played AR for some time, in a gap between here. It is obviously similar to here, but everyone talked to everyone. Mostly OOC through says, which is annoying. The funny thing is, though it had a lack of rp... you were acknowledged by the pbase at a lower level.

--- We are at a happy medium here. Most people WONT acknowledge your existance or rp with you until they can swat at you. Some will. That gives the freedom to rise as you feel comfortable. Personally, I feel comfortable at fifty, and everything else is the trial by fire. There is no wrong way to eat a rees....err... rank to 50.

With those example in mind, the reason I come back is that this mud gives that freedom. I can pk or rp or just silently watch everyone and run winter myself. You choose you speed and go with it. And a nice part of that is that you can change with every char you make.

Believe me when I say that I am not a card carrying avid FL <3'er. I have my gripes with some of the staff, as we know. I also have my issues with some of the players. I feel little to no sense of community on the forums anymore, partially because the players that I learned the game with are gone... as are the staff.

The fact remains that after analyzing why I keep coming back, it is that I play how I want, when I want.

That is why I feel that description checks at 15 is an antiquated idea. That was for when the mud/pbase/staffbase was different. Now something needs to be done, I've recognized it for a while, and finally opened my mouth.

How about this, just remove the EXP cap. Leave everything as is, need to have one at 15 you get the green message and possibly a note from "HERALD".

Then the imms can look at them at leisure. I mean when you dont have your desc approved you have a little yellow "D" that both you and the imms can see. If an imm feels like it, they can look at you and approve you with a bonus and such. If not, then you keep ranking untill someone feels like looking at it.

In addition leave the by 15 rule in place but have it so that you get taken to the desc room when an imm looks at it and you dont have one/need fixing.

This way the play of the game is not affected terribly is there is no imm available.

Heralds can approve and recommend rewards, FTW.

Of the last 400 chars I played, I onky have 5 descs. And I have had several dragons and whatknot. In fact, I think the only person ever to catch it was eshaine, who always seemed to find the same error in the same desc, which I always thought I fixed and saved.

Now that I don't play I can let that out.

ANd I stole 4 of those descs. Changed a little ofcoarse.

EDIT: I wasn't totally serious in this post.

Now that I don't play I can let that out.

YEAH RIGHT! How can you be active on the forums and not play? That is impossible. The pull is too strong. Give up dale. Don't resist the urge.

Kahlos is right.

And now you're going to have to write a new desc.

Maybe Zrothum will sell you one in a package deal.

I think he means that he's not playing AT THE MOMENT only though coz he's at work or something.

He will be on after 2 hours only to find his 400 characters all denied.

Of the last 400 chars I played, I onky have 5 descs. And I have had several dragons and whatknot. In fact, I think the only person ever to catch it was eshaine, who always seemed to find the same error in the same desc, which I always thought I fixed and saved.

Now that I don't play I can let that out.

ANd I stole 4 of those descs. Changed a little ofcoarse.

I actually thought I knew several of your characters because of that. I always look at descriptions of players and was astounded to see multiple characters with this sort of thing over the period of many of my characters, can't remember it off-hand at all but it was something like:

A sloped back forehead..something something...bushy eyebrows.something something...long hair frames his face..something something...

Seriously, I saw it a LOT. It was so obvious.

Dey

Wait, people look at other players desc? :eek:

Yes they do. If you mean by looking at their description you see everything after "soandso is using:" then yes. I believe we all do.

Of the last 400 chars I played' date=' I onky have 5 descs.... ANd I stole 4 of those descs. Changed a little ofcoarse.[/quote']

Well if people are going to break the rules and steal their descriptions I don't think we can blame the system for that.