I disagree, because if somebody finds a build they want to play (because its stronger or whatever) then they would just make a new character instead of just rebuilding with the new system.

I'm of the opinion that most players have too many characters, and prefer to RP with characters that I have a history of interaction with, rather than constantly meeting new ones every day. So the new freebie rebuild rule is great in my opinion, because it encourages people to stick with their one character's story, rather than dropping their character just because the idea of a build thats 10% stronger is too tempting.

But I think anyone who badgers the DMs for that favor is a jerk.

Also, with the DM recruitment thing, I think the DMs are great and have a big job, so a few more would be beneficial to both players and the current DM team, lightening the workload.

But I do understand why they need to be super-duper careful with giving out that privilege, simply because of the power the DM client gives you to destroy things. And not just areas or transitions, but stories and plotlines. Imagine a new DM logged on and started possessing Cordorian councillors to go and hug adventurers in the street and creating chaos in the Commonwealth of Cordor plotline. That would suck so much (especially for Yoss).

The current DMs must trust each other a lot so I can see why they would criticise anyone severely before letting them into that circle.

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Vaylek - The Worst Guy
Pu Liu - Descendant of the Great River Dragon

DM's are people too, is basically what this boils down to.

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Dwagin [Duh-wa-GIN] N. - 1a. Small and cute thingum, particularly fond of four legged scaled creatures of the metalic and chromatic varieties.

-Extraordinarily ordinary in the mostest of ways.

Here here! How about the people who decided to offer rebuilds to keep the player numbers up have to deal with the consequences of their decision instead of saddling it on DMs who's rather be having fun than burning out three times as fast as they would otherwise.

(I personally think offering things like free rebuilds isn't necessary to keep the player numbers up. More DMs doing events? That'd probably keep player numbers up. Oh that's right, they're busy doing free rebuilds.)

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"When somebody headbutts, everybody looses."

Mmm, I'm kind of torn here. Having done my first ever free rebuild recently, I know how much it helps, especially with RP consistency. If I rebuilt Ranth the same way I rebuilt Garnith a ton of times back in the day (Back before I knew anything about mechanics. Didn't even understand what AC was.) then I would have had to not only re-level him manually from first level, but also somehow explain why he could no longer shift. My free rebuild allowed me to avoid that quite cleanly, while fixing up some long-standing issues I had with the character.

The rebuild was kinda hard to get going, as the only Dm's who were online at the same time as me either...
1: Didn't respond, even after asking once per hour for 5 hours. (Either a long-running event I didn't know of, or snoozing. )
Or...
2: Didn't trust the DM rebuild widget enough to make use of it. (Fair enough, DM shouldn't have to do something they think might come back to bite them in the ass.)

Once it got rolling, however, it went extremely well, with not one, but two DMs helping me overcome the bugs and my own ineptitude, even assisting across both servers. (I had to swap a few times to sort things out.) (Kudos to you two, by the way. It was quite touching that you continued to help even after I did some astronomically stupid things to screw up the process.)

Essentially, I am for free rebuilds. But perhaps warn players that the privilege may be taken away if it, or other parts of the server, are abused. It is a privilege, and should not be seen as a right. Anyone cursing at or otherwise acting disappointed when a DM can't help with something should realize that they can't help because they are helping someone else.

And then give me their address so I can go over and punch them in the face for being !@#holes. (Edit: The players, not the DMs.)

Edit: Edited for Grammar.

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"Hi, I'm Garnith, and I'm an Invisophile."
Garnith, Ranth, Rick, Burick, Elail, Deryl, Kane, Rini.
Suggestion Rule of Thumb: Don't think about how neat it would be to use, think about how neat it would be for people to use against you.

Now, this thread started because of me, so I'm going to lock it but not without explanation. Any other DM's can reopen it if they want to. I'm just scared of it getting off point and hurting feelings.

I made mention DM side that the rebuilds were getting thick. I've done nearing 70 myself because usually when I log onto the client I fly by the seat of my pants, and rarely have a plan. You guys know that from my shouts. I'm always, always willing to help. The whole team is always willing to help. But some of them don't go on without a plan. Thats why some are more occupied than others.

The hard fact was, the amount of time spent doing maintenance was taking over a lot of time. Some players mentioned it, it was frustrating. For you guys because we gave something we were having a heck of a time actually delivering, and for us because the "fun stuff" was getting put aside.

It's no one's fault. For the most part, all of you have been extremely kind and understanding when I'm helping or not helping you. I thank you for that, and I love you guys to bits.

Most of my points have been expressed by WonWon and Yoss and a few other DM's who replied to this topic. It's just hard. I know the last thing people wanna hear is rockstars bitching about the paparazzi but what you need to know is we're not rock stars. We're players who do extra because we've been given the chance to love it here, and show it to boot. Sometimes we come up with great plans that work, sometimes we come up with great plans that backfire in our face.

So basically, this was a concern I expressed and I think maybe my original point got lost in the mix. The point being, in our neverending quest to balance forums duties, tasks, lore, player concerns, storylines, mechanics, bugs, etc...sometimes things get unbalanced and they need fixing.

This doesn;t mean we're going to rip the free rebuilds away, but it does mean that I want it looked at so we can come to some sort of happy medium. Either way, it is always with you guys in mind.

Change never feels completely good, but if some of the old heads can begin to tell the new heads how many changes Amia has gone through to balance the server, this is a flash in the pan.

Thanks for everything guys.
Lally.

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We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.