In the meantime, anyone who doesn't have the keywords to the zone you made mention of would not have access the the mobs inside, OR the gear they drop. By definition alone, that would mean that some people would have what others did not.

The game has nothing but power, but the disperity between the largest clans and the smaller zoners is a vast gulf. If you redesign the sliding scale of gear power based disproportionately on the ability to slay the biggest monsters then you severely limit the ability of the smaller clans who don't want to 'get involved' with the politics.

On the other hand, if this small clan is comprised of well informed players, or even a series of well formed bots to access more monsters within their range, you increase their ability to excel in what's already a 'have' & 'have not' environment. Not everyone should have access to every area, so continually changing the keywords from wipe to wipe as well as shuffling loads keeps the game new & interesting.

If you're just wanting a game like World of Warcrap where you do the exact same runs, with the exact same mobs doing the same thing in the same order, go back to it. If you want some variety and flavor in a game with dozens upon dozens of continually evolving and changing zones then you stick with Arctic.

Walking the Dark Path Alone

LOL? WoW is the *exact* same as Arctic in this regard, it's an flaw to both games. The difference is that with WoW's millions of players once a secret is discovered it spreads to everyone in a very short time, while in arctic sometimes a secret can be kept for a little while.

I don't know if you are just making some stupid assumptions or if you actually do know something about WoW, because how it always goes when a new raid zone is released, this is what happens- elite guilds like Death & Taxes work hard learning the strategy for the hardest fights for weeks until they get a first kill, then suddenly as soon as D&T figured out the secret guilds all over the place start killing the same boss, because with the secret out it's not really a big deal anymore. Sounds a lot like arctic, doesn't it? Elite guild figures out the new super-hard zone, eventually the info trickles down and random groups are doing lunitari avatar like it's toede.

Did you read the whole thing or just skim it? Yeah people who don't know the secrets can't pop the gear, but neither can the people who *do* know the secret, unless they choose to give it away- it's not a soloable zone, yet to get to the group part you need to know the keywords.

There is such a huge variance in the way you explore in WoW and how you explore in Arctic that you can't even compare the two without being daft. However, I'll point out once more that to succeed in WoW you need only force of arms and healing power to win almost anything. Furthermore, you need only do a raid a couple of times to see when a boss is going to do a certain special to know how to react. The learning curve on that game is non-existant, they're appealing to children.

On the other hand, you have Arctic where you actually have to give some thought into getting into new areas of the game. You have to read every description and through it decide what might be the secret way to move on. In Arctic, you can't simply win the game by bot-healing, or typing assist and waiting for combat to finish. Even though people do those things, it still requires work on their part to get to the hidden places.

Also, don't bother putting stock into the fact that info sharing on Arctic is against the rules, while in WoW it isn't. I'm sure that doesn't invalidate your argument in it's entirety.

First of all, duh, the entire point is the secret has to be figured out in the first place.

Second, a leader does NOT have to broadcast a known keyword, that is info sharing. If people learn by watching his actions what the secret is, then that is acceptible and if I'm not mistaken-- the entire point of the game.

Some of us don't want to see Arctic devolve into a quintessential hack n' slash game requiring no other effort but to type a handful of commands. Why not take this into consideration before complaining about how hard it is, and how unfair you feel it is having to think. Some of us like it, and keep the whining to a minimum.

Walking the Dark Path Alone

Obviously you either never really played WoW to the endgame raiding point, or you were a really terrible player and are making excuses for your failures. While there are a small handful of fights which are just simply "gear checks", they are the minority, and most of the raid encounters require a certain strategy or else failure is a given. As I said before, there were fights that top guilds were stuck on for months trying to figure out the strategy. After they did, and the info leaked out, everyone was killing the same boss. The funny thing is that on the other hand, arctic has very little in fights that require strategy. The vast majority of endgame fights in arctic are simply tank tanks, healers heal, everyone else does damage. Instead the "strategy" in arctic is figuring out which synonym for "rotate" was used in a zone.

You obviously have never done Waterspan. The keywords *must* be shared.

Do me a favor. Please quote where I complained about the keywords being too hard. If you can't do that, then STFU.

These are the kind of responses I really enjoy; attacks from folks who clearly cannot win their own argument.

Walking the Dark Path Alone

You two should just get married.

Immortals will cheat, or they won't--the mechanics of the how and why don't matter. I agree that a "certain percentage of all people," will cheat given a chance, but only a fool would somehow extrapolate that to mean "all possible subgroups of 'people' must include a few cheaters." While obviously its impossible to know someone's character 100%, I think the staff has done a good job screening out that particular subset of the population, and even those few who slip through are fairly restricted in their ability to cheat.

Though you might see "hard kws" as a "fairly subtle" means of cheating, its really not. Obviously, when its something like the druid's nook quest, it's pretty hard to tell if an immortal learned that information through cheating, but at the same time the rewards are pretty slim, while the punishment for being caught wouldn't be that much more lenient. And for something like the stereotypical "Terk key word," well, there's really nothing subtle at all when the number of people who know to "stroke totem against rubber.duck" suddenly jumps from 5 to 6, and that person is a close friend of the most recent immortal to be given access to the creation documentation. A smart cheater who isn't too greedy can still probably get away with it for a while, but its not as easy and risk free as others have implied.

Even if kws were eliminated altogether, gear is still limited. Instead of slipping your friends secret kws, the devious immortal can still cheat very effectively by letting his friends know when something is up, or when an item of below the limit. And a smart cheater who isn't too greedy could get away with this just as easily as many other routes to cheating.

Also, I don't think "the best gear" is exactly free for the taking, unless there's some really nifty nobash loads I should be bribing someone for. There is some pretty solid gear hidden behind pretty hard quests, but I wouldn't call any of it free--in fact, most of the obscure quests with worthwhile gear are only borderline soloable because the guys who solve them would rather spend 6 hours calling in every possible favor and prepping than sharing kws they spent days solving.

So once again, it comes down to cost-benefit analysis. Some suggestions, like the idea that creators should always remember that a zone could eventually be "WoWified" in terms of secret information, makes good sense.

Everything else, though, should be disregarded. One of the great things about Arctic is its variety--its got zones where people with friends and no creativity (ie, me) can get a lot of fun out of the game (Storms, ToT, CK, etc), its got zones where persistent people with sharp minds and possibly no social life whatsoever (ie, Marq, Rob, Nate, Zack) can figure out some really nifty stuff solo or with a tiny bit of help, and its got the rare zone where you need both. Sometimes these zones overlap and most people don't even realize it. If certain zones are useless unless you solve the kw, then it becomes a secret sort of zone--as long as they don't comprise the majority of the mud content, and put off people who randomly stumble into more "dead ends" than doable zones, they don't hurt the game. People like me who just want to have some fun already have a lot to do, and even more zones to figure out, and it doesn't bother me too much that there are secrets I'll probably never do--on the contrary, I think its great that there's more depth to be found in case I ever change my mind about how I want to play the game.

Going back to the Waterspan example, why does it bother you so much? Almost every kw needs to be shared, but not all (I think anyone who knows the zone knows what I'm talking about), so you don't have to know how to lead the zone to do it, yet at the same time its not too hard to solve it, especially once you've been lead through. There isn't any elite gear in there--the stuff is pretty nice given the fact you can two man the zone, but its nothing that doesn't become obsolete if you zone with 5+ groups fairly often. So a group that wants to explore it can't do so without knowing the entry kw? How is that different than a group going into FC without the safe combo? If anything, Waterspan is a nice zone because you start doing your exploration right from the get go. You mentioned that you don't like "something for nothing" kws, and suggest that it would be more fair to put the gear on a mob that you need the key word to fight, and earn your loads--well, then isn't having to solve a kw TO EVEN DO THE ZONE pretty much already implementing your idea?

For 99% of Arctic players, there are always zones taunting you just beyond your reach. Sure, it might bug you that zones exist that you can't even explore without a kw (and once again, if you don't want to put in the time to solve the entrance kw, what the hell sort of "exploring" would you be doing once inside anyways?), but not more than it bugs you that there are zones that you can't do for other reasons, like not having the group for it. That feeling of frustration can get to you at times, but often it just drives you to delve deeper into the game--and more importantly, I don't think that eliminating that feeling of frustration is worth also eliminating the fun other people have in doing/solving these zones. Even without a guardian key word at the zone entrance, many people will never do Silvi, for example, except to donate their gear back to the mud, but that doesn't mean we should eliminate it so that these kids won't feel frustrated.

Take a group of players who have never done waterspan before.

They are looking for a zone to do, decide to check out waterspan, head out over to the zone... and then what? They kill a few mobs that could have easily been soloed, and sit around while the leader tries to figure out keywords?

If you don't already know the keywords, you are just wasting your groups time. After sitting in zone for 20 minutes and not getting anything done, most players will head out and look for something more rewarding.

Compare this to, for example, kender ruins- you need to know 1 keyword to get into the zone, but then you can kill numerous mobs, some of which drop good loot- so there is an incentive for a group to want to go. And there may be other "secret" things in kender ruins, but at least you can do a good portion of the zone without knowing about them. In my experience a group is a lot more willing to sit and let the leader try keywords while memming between fights in aa zone where they can do part of it than in a zone where you can't do ANYTHING without figuring out the keywords first.

Precisely. So what's so bad about a zone where some of the harder kws can be solved solo?

Again, all but one kw to be solved in Waterspan can be reached by a competent soloist.

Umm, or, since said mobs are easily soloed, you could grab some quick recall prep (i.e., glowing recall), go solo them, and try to piece together the hardest kws yourself, since, as you say, there is NOTHING to do before said kws.

Personally, I think this is actually better for solo exploration than zones where you need a group to get you to the first key word, because you don't need to keep people interested in order to try them, and you don't have to choose between being a jerk and not sharing the kw they've been waiting for ages for you to solve, and being a chump for giving away a kw that you've been trying to solve for ages.

There are a lot of zones that you can randomly pull off the help area list and figure out easily with no prior knowledge and the right group (such as Celestial Temple), many zones where you can do most of it, but can't quite hit the big fight/rewards without knowledge or perserverance (FC), and finally the zones where you really need to put in some work before even getting started. ToT is a good example of that--once you get inside, the zone is pretty intuitive key word-wise, but the ones to even get in are pretty horrifying, and I would not want to be sitting there in the group as the leader first tries to solve this sequence. But luckily, you don't need anywhere near a full group to get to the point where you can try, and a good soloist could conceivably try kws alone.

Certainly, it can be frustrating bringing a group to a random zone you pulled out of the zone list and getting immediately stuck on a key word, but is it not also frustrating to bring said group to one of "your type" of zones and get them slaughtered by a stabber without recovery, or DTed, or stuck behind a later key word or a puzzle you break? Those may be more exciting forms of suck for the rank and file in the group, but they still put a damper on your zoning.

If you manage to have a large group that wants to explore brand new zones with you, sitting for hours solving key words, and sharing the information equally, that's really great, and you should count yourself blessed. If you have a group more interested in keeping the action going, then its a poor leader who doesn't know his own group well enough to realize that after 15 minutes of exploring with no progress, its time to cut your losses.

Your groups aren't mindless fodder--even the nicest, least greedy of players are at least getting some fun and excitement from zoning with you. People usually won't explore with you unless you plan to share the information, they're helping you out of clan loyalty or friendship, or they plan to see some fun between key words. A competant leader will know to either reward them, even if its only with a promise to help them in the future, or only use such groups to explore zones like, as you say, the ruined city, where there are many fights/rewards that you dont need knowledge for. And since you're exploring from a blank slate, a decent leader also recognizes when he's stumbled upon one of the "boring" zones and learns to cut his losses and move on.

I guess then, your main problem is that such zones even exist on the help area file, or on road signs, and that explorers might accidentally stumble upon them while looking for easy zones. I'm sorry, but at least for as long as I have been around, I don't think the imms have ever expressed an interest in removing diversity from the game in order to make life easier for a certain segment of the player base. Though this is much less true now, when I first started playing many agreed that mages and druids were simply horrible classes for newbies and inexperienced players to learn the game on, yet numerous newbies started on those classes just because they liked the idea of them, myself included, and probably had a rougher learning curve because of it. Yet nobody called for the removal of these classes on the sole basis of this problem.

By the same token, while you personally dislike less obvious zones that require much effort to even open, others don't. In particular, the enterprising soloist who explores as much of Waterspan as he can. You may see key words as cheating waiting to happen, but I see it as a challenge and a reward for players who go through the trouble of cultivating relationships on Arctic, and have friends willing to help with the quests where one won't quite cut it.

So if it helps, think of Krynn as one big zone (like kruins), and zones like Waterspan as one big secret (like those in kruins that you don't mind). Hit up ranks, random loads, other zones, and if you're too cowardly to walk to a zone entrance past soloable mobs by yourself, on your own time, then swing the group past a zone you're interested in, try the key words while them mem and rest a bit, and if you solve it, great, if not, move on.

If a leader isn't smart enough to realize that "a zone you need a key word to even enter" is a great opportunity for a bit of solo exploration, then he should at least be sharp enough to realize that if you happen to drag a group to a random zone and can't even solve the entrance, then forcing the group to sit there for an hour while you solve it instead of moving to the next random zone down the list is just stupid. Especially with this mass refresh spell, any group willing to explore a new zone with you probably won't mind walking to a zone or two before finally finding one that looks like it'll be fun to explore.

Xyril seems to have this down pretty well.

I just want to say that if a zone like Waterspan is giving you trouble, you might want to try exploring some simpler zones so you get a sense of how to even explore in Arctic. Hjors Arena, Kalaman Training Ground, Fort Khalarm, or Dragonarmy Outpost might be a good start.

To be honest in most zones there is very little that is not done elsewhere in exactly the same manner as another part of the game. The more zones you learn, the better you will be at learning zones. From what it sounds like you starting on a zone like Waterspan seems
slightly too advanced. As Xyril says, you are trying to play the mage/druid when its much easier to level playing the Paladin or Scout.
The game lets you do that, but if you are getting frustrated--feel free to decrease the level of difficulty.

Don't tell me how to do it; it sickens me.

It's not. How could it be? Just by doing the zone once any halfway intelligent player will learn every keyword.

My complaint is that it's a poor zone design- 1 player figures out all the keywords solo, and then in order to *do* the zone all his effort has to be given away to everyone in the group.

Why have keywords at all if they must be shared with everyone?

There's only two key words that must be given away (possibly one, there's one that I'm not 100% sure of at the moment). The hardest part of doing the zone, in terms of puzzle difficulty, involves specific items and key words that can be found solo, and can be done without giving them away from the group. Obviously, by telling them the one or two key words that must be done individually, they get a slight leg up on other people, just like being dragged through any zone and keeping a log gives you a substantial advantage over truly exploring from scratch.

I haven't been doing the secrets thing as much as I used to, but in general I've found that there are very few zones where a certain key word that the entire group must do was even a substantial part of the zone--and those that are were, like Waterspan, doable by 2-3 players. Zones Quali, for example, have key words that must be given to the group, but in addition to the hard fights, they have numerous other solo key words meaning that in the grand context of zone secrets, the leader didn't give all that much away.

And like I said before, some zones are simply designed for an enterprising soloist or a very small, very trusted group of friends willing to share a secret.

My take is this. There are TONS of items in arctic. For the player that is mearly looking for equipment he can run quite a few solo zones and have a fairly elite set. There are plenty of dam/str/con/dex/primes/shield that are soloable or 2 manable. There are tons that take a 4 man group. None of these requires keywords. The zones that do offer a way to constantly pop the same equipment because no one knows it. Lets take a zone like drac's towers. Very little key words. A few nice items, a nice book, and some change. That zone is spammed, so the only thing your really going to get from that is the book, if its loaded. Yet, everything in that zone i can think of equivalent gear that loads on single mob fights, ones you do not have to do a whole zone to get. I dont think the keywords are a problem until they become the only way to get one type of item, or spell. For instance minor globes was done nicely. It's a pain to get, high chance of death, hard to learn the zone. hard to get into the zone. which is great, because its a hell of a reward. However no, a group can't just come in and 10 man it and give it to there mage. Thats the biggest problem i keep having. The keywords in a way keep the information 'elite'. however a few items and spells especially there are NO other way to get them then to learn the keywords, none which are easy. The nicest thing about minor globes is that you haveto figure out the zone after the keywords. I would like arctic to learn more tword that. to get into this zone i need to figure out a keyword, figure out a way around this, around that, and around that. Lets face it, keywords arn't really exploring, there simply a locked chest. You need a player with a good mind to pick it. Exploring is figuring out new things and new ways to do things.

As far as this immortal cheating crap. Yes, some immortals cheat. I think it's idiotic to think that no immortals have ever cheated and never do. I do however thing Aristox has done a HELL of a job in making sure imm's dont cheat. The cheating now is at most a cr while exploring, a keyword for a zone or a small stat set. where it use to be a character that had every spell and skill in the game that jumped a clan, or creating special rooms and items. Like the level wands. Infact a few of the imms that i know who play won't even lead zones simply because they have access to the creation doc's. So yea, some imms know some keywords. or may help there best real life friend to know the keyword, but stuff like that doesn't hurt you, the mud or your character. Once in a while there is cheating that is worthy of taking note, each time, reguardless if that person was clanned with, is friends with, or is even playing another game with him, Aristox always deals with it, and usually deletes them. I certinly dont agree with Aristox on alot of things, but he has run the cleanest, cheater free arctic, since wipe 1. So unless its a char of yours being deleted, or someone making a char with heal and prism, the few instances of cheating are not that big of a deal. Also, many imm's are actually good players. If you take a good player, they probly will figure out the keyword themselfs. Oh, and i've been accused of cheating with my imm about 2 weeks ago I dont have an imm. I think thats why alot of imms are sick of the acusations, mainly because the acusations are generally baseless. But yea, i defently thnk someting should be said if an imm is cheated, and its something bigger then knowing a keyword to get into a zone they never lead.