Newbie vs The Brick Wall

[*cryptc]

Summons are also good minions to keep in mind... not finished adjusting summons, but summon monster I - IX is atleast updated

[*Lost and not Found]

(After all, what Ilythiiri jabbress would actually ask for help instead of commanding it?)

I can see it happen... Lil sargtlin elggar, uss jalil elar. :P


But if you make your new character a cleric, you got no worries in the world.

[*Farseer Wraith]

Cleric is a bit of a "Win stick".

I haven't had much of a leveling issue myself, but that's due to Will being a EK, therefore having access to Full Plate armor, large sword, and Defense buffing spells.

I'm at level 8 now, and I'll tell you, finding a group to level up with that is within 3 levels of you is a bit of a challenge. I am very grateful that the areas scale with you as you enter.

For me, it seems that brick wall is around level 10.

[*Dedic8ed]

Even if you can manage to solo with a character, the fact of the matter is that aside from a few places, the respawns don't happen often enough to make grinding anything but... well, a grind. The spawning system here ensures that a party of five is going to see considerably more monsters than one or two, thus allowing for faster XP and loot gain.

Yes, that can make life somewhat cruddy when you find yourself alone in Sigil, but again, we do have to remember that this server is on the RP tab; thus, actually taking part in RP is always going to be the top priority, not being able to strut about as a L30 demigod. Also, because there is not a premium placed on PvP combat, there's nothing to say that your L2 evildoer has to wait until she's epic to start doing evil. Well, unless your evil plans involve epic gates. XD

[*Ravel's Heart]

I agree with most of what has been written here.

One thing that I did not see anyone mention was the static quests. It's free XP and there are 4 or 5 within one transition of the bazaar. Solve a riddle, show Esmerlda a rock, chat with a gnoll, dart up the hill, and you have 4 quests that give gold and XP with no associated risk in the span of about ten minutes.

And as an aside, I have personally always thought that the notion of needing different weapon materials for different critters always struck me as feeling decidedly...non-heroic. I mean, I think of Aragorn saying, "Behold Anduril, Flame of the West! Unless I am fighting Barrowights, in which case I prefer this little number here. Good against those pesky incorporeals. Oh, balrog, did you say? That's practically a demon, right? I have cold iron in here somewhere. Or wait...is that a devil?"

In most of fantasy, the hero (or heroes) has a weapon that is quintessentially his. Sting, Anduril, Glamdring, the Sword of Truth, Excalibur, Perrin Aybara's axe, Matrim Cauthon's ashandarei, Roland of Gilead's revolver, the lightsaber...the list goes on and on.

I've always thought that having six different weapons and pulling out a different one for each foe felt more like...carpentry. The right tool for the job.

Just my opinion.

So...yeah...umm...

Static quests!

And crankiness, apparently! :P

[*Lost and not Found]

I have never been able to find those nuts.

But I would extend the journey to Under Sigil, dart there to collect three different objects and come back up.

[*mute83]

Cleric is a bit of a "Win stick".

I haven't had much of a leveling issue myself, but that's due to Will being a EK, therefore having access to Full Plate armor, large sword, and Defense buffing spells.

I'm at level 8 now, and I'll tell you, finding a group to level up with that is within 3 levels of you is a bit of a challenge. I am very grateful that the areas scale with you as you enter.

For me, it seems that brick wall is around level 10. 

Nichant is level 9 right now, so look me up, if you see me online :)

[*Infernalhavok]

As well, you might need to adjust your approach. Sigil is not the underdark, no matter how much a character wants it to be. Everyone makes compromises and sometimes partner (or avoid) with those they would normally detest, kill on sight, or harass because of the neutrality of the de facto leadership. Angels have to get along with devils, paladins have to live with undead roaming around etc... or be flayed and/or mazed.

So even the most xenophobic, racist and very short tempered jabress would have to compromise to adapt and survive in this enitrely new environment. Drow are anything except stupid and they find opportunities everywhere and often party with unlikely people they meet if they are alone and are in strange and dire circumstances. En mass, or in raiding parties they are in their element but alone in a strange world they will need to learn quickly to adapt to others, because it is really the only way to succeed.

I play a drow type that is evil as well. I pick and choose my parties and prefer discretion rather than randomly selecting groups. So far, I manage to stay in-character and advance while in mixed company. Normally, I just rp the reasons why I am in an unlikely situation since I basically play the character as what all drow are .. self-centered opportunists, this character trait is an easy way for travelling drow to find "temporary" alliances.

It's definately hard to solo and even the toughest builds have weaknesses that one or more of the planes that you raid will very much exploit. I think the mentality when designing the spawns and the dungeons is ... there is no perfect build, which is why you don't need a powerbuild because it won't get you very far and you will "eventually" (some immediate, some further down the road as Mr. O pointed out) hit a wall without a variety of skill sets from others.

My only gripe is that group raids = A LOT OF OOC chat and behavior.

I've been in several "raids" and I call them that because the majority of them felt like I was playing WoW again with all the ooc chatter in party talk. But when you need coordinated actions of all the members of your party it's prolly quicker to speak in ooc terms than typing everything IC. I admit that I see a lack of conflict in the server, everyone just gets along somehow... so I appreciate anyone that is attempting to stir things up a bit.

But I do know the reason why evil needs to be at a decent level of power, because you have to back up what you threaten or you become a joke. CVC is not serious here because people tend to shy away from conflicts, probably due to the loss of xp if a CVC fight occurs (I call this CvC because it is Character vs character and should never be considered a PvP unless it is greifing). Not many players want to loose a few thousand xp, gold and possibly get into an ooc arguement about greifing later on. It would be nice if there were some sort of sub-dual system so we wouldn't need to worry about loss to PvP which encourages players to make a stand when faced with a conflict.

The lack of conflict is something that I am personally not use to in an RP PW, I find Sigil mostly a PvE server that encourages group play. It's a bit passive and sometimes "carebearish" but what can we expect when we have angels roaming around offering hugs? :lol:

[*SanguineOrchid]

I think the "morning after" RP is almost as much fun as the foreplay plotting RP. That's where I get to res them OOC and talk to the player for a while to sort out details and make sure everything is still friendly OR I get to res them IC in the name of my patron deity of the character and enslave/befriend/antagonize the one I beat.. Or get the fun challenge of trying to turn the situation around to make it appear that although my character lost the fight, the victory was pyrrhic in some way. All around it means a lot of rapid considerations.

Enslaving especially can be fun!

I don't think losing a CvC battle ends the RP unless the players themselves allow it to happen through a lack of communication. Triss'a got beat up by an elf in the Ethereal, that didn't stop him from talking about it when she walked by later on, giving him further RP and me further RP later on when she started complaining about the situation to her minion and of course slapped him around for allowing her to fall while plotting revenge.

It's all about the plot management aspect. When you make a villain, you are buying a lot of freedom to be violent and evil at whim but you are also committing to the ideal that your character is designed to provide a proving ground for the "Good guys" and something to balance against for the "Neutrals". To me it's a good trade, I adore the tells after a conflict where the player is excited about the scene and I especially love seeing the RP later on where those involved are able to take pride in their abilities at thwarting the villain OR where they are sitting around brain storming on how to beat her after a lost battle.

There's always a bigger fish, even when talking about sharks.

Derailed threads are awesome as long as it doesn't crash into a wall or catch on fire!

[*Mr_Otyugh]

My opinion of the tidbits of:

1) Group OOC behavior

This is one of those things that just happens or it doesn't... it's player dependant... and generally can be changed by simply roleplaying, roleplay every single bit :P found loot and about to roll whom gets it? Well you can roleplay that too sometimes a few friendly even OOC notings "Lets get back to roleplaying" helps.

Exceptions exists, but just saying, seeing a bit effort to do something about problems fixes a lot ;)

2) Carebear behavior

Same thing really goes for carebear behavior. Want conflict? Do conflict :P it's just about as simple as that.

So far my Xaositect has created conflict with as low budgets as bag filled with rocks and a single letter and another when he tried to sell his own wares :P he was also lower level than everyone targetted in those. They might not sound very conflict making things, but when paladins and Harmonium members are shoved with carefully chosen words (to create chaos) against each other ;) it was a lot of frustration and anger created.