Messages

Maybe gray so it blends into the background more compared to IC conversation?

My main character started out as a forlorn elf. Or at least a forlorn-ish elf, with some knowledge of Elven culture, but very little connection to it.

There are no hard rules on how to stop being forlorn."Forlorn" is not a mechanical status, or a tag, or a flag, or anyting like that. There are no apps required to recognise the change, and there is no quest requirement. It all depends on how you want to roleplay it, which I personally think is the perfect way for handling it rules-wise. Becoming part of the elven community is a long-term RP goal that can be realised in quests, but it is also a very viable goal for RP outside of quests.

There are some things you MIGHT want to do. For example, learning Elven as a language if the character doesn't know it already (with an IC tutor). Or learning more about the Elven community through RP with other players. Or using RP to source more information on the Elven pantheon, possibly having the character convert eventually (depending on what the character's classes are, this particular thing might require a DM quest/approval). Or becoming more active in the local community (such as participating in elf-centric events like the Aelous or elf-centric plotlines).

Quests, are, of course, a possible and uniquely valuable avenue for character development, but are not strictly needed to progress elf-ification :)

Clouds become safe, too. There are few (very few!) exceptions. The only one that comes to mind right now is the epic spell Hellball.

I'll just chime in with the observation that it's perfectly possible to get RP outside of Arabel. I say that as someone who actually enjoys going to the Square every now and then, but gets most of their RP outside of that setting. I also know several players who straight up avoid the Square for IC or OOC reasons and still are able to RP. Though, generally, finding RP outside of Arabel does require taking initiative, and sometimes scouting out a new place to go and inviting people there, or organising something.

To me, the Square is a great place for hanging out when I don't really have plans or if I only have a little time. And for meeting new characters/new people. And for hanging out when you wait for your dungeoning/RP buddies to go online. Or sometimes just because it's fun. Taking away XP gain in Arabel would just be taking away a valid way of gaining RP from players who use it often. And I seriously doubt it'd boost RP elsewhere anyway. If you were to "kill" Arabel, I'm pretty sure a single new hub would emerge within a week.

I won't/can't comment on everything here, but I just wanted to say I 100% agree with NOT limiting crafting to casters if/when that gets implemented on the server. Casters don't need another XP sink when (1) getting that xp is very hard at high epics, and (2) casters already cannot meet server demand for scrolls for sale.

To be honest, I'd be very uncomfortable with a rigid numerical solution like those that have been proposed. Number of quests / month. Public spreadsheets. That kind of stuff. It feels like that would involve a ton of risks and potential for toxic behaviour and constant whataboutism. I'd much rather trust that the staff know what they're doing with their non-public spreadsheets.

For one, players don't always have the ability to see how many quests/month they'll be in. It can be weeks or months between a quest being announced and it actually happening.

And with public spreadsheets, we'd inevitably get into horrible, horrible arguments between people debating, angrily, if "two small quests are the same as one big quest" and "how many ad-hocs are equivalent to a personal quest". It sounds... not so great.

And I say this as a person who didn't even get close to being in a quest for many months after joining this server.

Yes, of course it would be nice to have more quests. But I really, really don't think it's helpful to see quests as something we're somehow owed to as players. Certainly not this way.