** DISCLAIMER **

This page is by no means intended to be disparaging or make little of all the work done by the various Immortals, and it is by no means an angry attack. It is meant rather as a place to express opinions and concerns of my own, and also ones voiced to me by many people I've talked to. The use of a webpage, while unconventional, is to allow a full explanation of all grounds for concern in an easier to read manner (I hope) than notes on the mud or through the feedback provision on the DB website. I would like to eventually turn this into a forum for the serious opinions of knowledgeable players but that is in the future. Apologies for the poor formatting but I'm very much a rookie at web design.

The FACTS as I have been informed (I'm not responsible for misinformation):

1. Clans will be given 15-20 clan points (CP) when they begin. They MUST buy 5 rooms (which may or may not come out of those points) and the rest may be spent at their discretion. These points are only enough for 1 good guard, 1 good healer or 1-2 potions, that is, unless you feel the need to have 15-20 empty rooms. However the guard MUST be a gateguard and thus is not aggie and resides at the very front of the hall. Not only that, while you may have a closed door, locked doors cannot be bought and thus doors are a waste of money. Gateguards can both be sneaked past and blinded before they announce intruders. This means gateguards are a reduced to a VERY expensive leveling mob. **Drueth has since told me that he believes we will be getting locked doors. I'd like to point out that the help file for clan prices on DB2 says, under door flags, closed only. So... I'm rather confused :P Perhaps the help file needs updating. Thanks Drueth.**
2. Gate guards were introduced due to the fact that newbies and no-pks would go exploring and stumble on aggie guards after ignoring the warnings in the room descs beforehand. No-PKs and newbies can't enter halls now.
3. Further CP may be earned through mkills and pkills. 250 mkills * the number of members = 1 clan point. The number of pkills needed has not been disclosed to me. Mkills are only counted if the mobs give 40 or more exp. A decent lvl 100 clan guard (sanc, haste, regen, detects, dodge, parry, stun) costs 19 CP. That means every member of the clan is required to kill 4750 mobs giving 40+ exp each.
4. An empty room, a fixed, open container, 50 extra regen points, a new wand and a pill shop, all cost 1 CP each (this is not a complete list). A new clan guard costs the same as a fountain of milk.
5. Killing a pk who is naked, weaponless and at 1hp (for example one the has just reincarnated) counts the same towards CP as a kill made in a hard won fight against multiple spelled up opponents.
6. Ranks from leader and all the way down, are given set names and purposes. **I have been informed by Gogh this is only a temporary measure and further customization will be allowed when Imms implement more code. Thanks Gogh.**

OBJECTIONS

1. Clan halls should be allowed at least ONE locked door and gate guards should be aggie once more. Locked doors are more than easy enough to get through given that no matter how many guards they've got before the door, ALL of them can be sneaked past or blinded so that merely the guard with the key needs to be killed. But this way clans would get at least a slight delay in being invaded giving them slightly more time to 'where' and chance on noticing the invader or if they're lucky, hear a warning yell. If a delay is not put in, clan halls WILL NOT be used for anything more than a place to grab more potions. It is too unsafe unless you have a long line of guards (horribly expensive guards) guarding the entrance. And particularly when clan halls are small, they are more of a death trap than a place to be proud of, since it is the first place enemies look and thus is more fraught with danger even than leveling. Also, if locked doors are not allowed, clan guards and very especially gate guards should be cheaper given that their purpose and effectiveness is GREATLY reduced. **Locked doors may be in but I'd like to get that help file fixed up in that case. Ta.**
2. On the subject of pricing, there is nowhere near enough variety or scope in the prices. the fact that a plain empty room with nothing in it, or a fixed useless object used as a decoration, costs as much as a potion shop or a magical item seems VERY unbalanced. I cannot speak for the other clans but I know that we in Light would prefer to have a large hall with lots of interesting rooms: personal rooms, a park or caves or lake, a battle arena, official administration rooms.... we'd far rather have a lovely big hall that makes us feel at home and that we can truly RP with than several shops with beefy items and an impenetrable entrance. However the price of empty, purposeless rooms and fixed "trash" objects or containers is soooooo EXORBITANT to be totally unrealistic. Thus small utilitarian halls attempting to churn out superpotions and superweapons are now encouraged far more than halls based around RP.
3. As pointed out above, cheap naked and weaponless kills, particularly at reincarnation count just as much as hard won battles. And with the high price of clan halls, unscrupulous or even indifferent clans will be encouraged to kill as much as possible. I predict that we shall see the amount of cheap and nasty kills skyrocket and the clans with morals and principles will be the ones that pay for it. And as a side point, I TRUELY hope you've ensured that clan points aren't awarded for the killing of TWITs or KILLERs or THIEFs. I don't care to see and enemy clan suddenly buy 2 clan guards and a flaming twohanded lvl 90 weapon the day after their members sat in healer magic missiling a TWIT.
4. Finally (or at least so far), having named ranks in place and the exact descriptions of what each rank is supposed to do is terribly constricting of clan RP. I may decide that Ranks 8-6 aren't military ranks at all but rather they are golding or mob killing or newbie helping ranks. Or, as is the case in Light, Rank 3 is an Elite rank purely for killing and striking fear into the hearts of our enemies (RP rank description), and thus Rank 3s have nothing to do with the administration of the clan. I know I plan on ignoring the names and purposes of the ranks and I will continue to use my own ones because these better fit Light's RP. **Due to the above info, this is now an invalid point... sorry :P And hope the code comes in soon.** An added point we just thought of is, Rank 2s should be able to promote and demote. I get my Rank 2s to do half the admin of the clan if I'm not around and so long as they can't promote members up to rank 2, I think it would help a lot.(Woodrow and Bron agree)

SOLUTIONS

1. Allow at least one locked door **See above :P **and make gate guards aggie. :P Other than that, perhaps brainstorm for other methods that may be used to prevent people from sneaking/blinding/fleeing their way in almost as fast as if there were nothing there. (And yes you can sneak past clanguards, aggie ones, which have detects. If I'd had the key for the door I could have snuck into Storm hall without disturbing Harkoth and Saboth.) OR lower clan guard prices!
2. With regard to having more variety in pricing, things that don't serve a great purpose; things that don't neccessarily make the clan powerful or better at pk or harder to kill, should logicly be cheaper than things that do. And having to pay the exhorbitant prices of those special items for simple, relatively useless things is ridiculous. So perhaps make clan points easier to get but raise the prices of things. That way empty rooms and "trash" objects can still be 1 point (a cheaper 1 point than now), regen rates can be 2 points, a healer can be 5 points, a shop can be 3 points... I'm just giving vague values here but I think you get the point.
3. I'm not sure of the answer to this third point but just as mkills only count when you get 40+ exp from them, there should likewise be a limitation on pkills. I'm not sure if that would prevent cheap kills from becoming rampant and I can almost guarantee that sleep/bludgeon will be more prevelant even were a limitation imposed but it'd be a start.
4. Remove the names on ranks and allow any purpose for ranks as decided by the individual clans. **See above.**

I'd like to encourage everyone to please SIGN the book. The support, or differing opinions of different people would be greatly appreciated. Please keep all comments brief to encourage the Imms to read them all. :) Appologies for the guestbook itself, it doesn't seem as userfriendly as I'd hoped but it'll do for now. Remember to answer the QUESTIONS, not just write your name, because this is how we get feedback. Finally, I reserve the right to remove any stupid, brainless or misunderstanding comments so that the Imms don't have to wade through the stupid ones as they do on the mud. I will not use this right to bias the feedback and I believe many people, not just my clan members will stand by my policy of freedom of speech.