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Here is my observations from when I was NPCing and doing combat.

The PC's are broken into two groups.

Group 1 - Knows how to use their combat skill in combat and work as team. They are very formable opponent and usualy stomps the NPC monsters into the ground. To give them a challenge, the NPC's need to use all combat call's and use stragety and tatics agianst them. The eat 1 damage monsters for lunch.

Group 2 - They know what their skills do, but do not understand how they work in combat. They tend to try to be the hero and attack monsters by themselves or in lose groups using very little tatics or stragety. They typical are overwhlemed by a few NPC's. 1 damage monsters can make combat tough for them and are scared of monsters with speical calls.

I found it was hard to balance these to groups out. If only attacking with 1 damage monsters, group 2 feels they have a challenge, but if the same thing is tried against group 1, they just laugh and get boared. If monsters using all the combat skills attack group 1, they like the challenge and feel good when they win. If group 2 gets attacked with the same creatures, they feel the monsters are over powered and many tend to fall.

It is not easy to appease everyone in combat senerio's, but I know the NPC do try.

The Good: funky IG setting, monorail wars, treasure machine jackpot, the "final" battle, amazing character interactions, the rainstorm, crushing mosquitoes.

The Bad: Fri. night heat/humidity, sinus issues, a few things others have already mentioned, mosquitoes.

The Ugly: mosquitoes...

Thanks to the NPC's for bringing everything together as always, even with an odd start. Still sleepy, bitten, and burnt to a crisp but had some good times.

Yes the PC's were very split up this event, so while we would walk around we would find groups of 8-10, or groups of 2-3, or we would walk into a cabin expecting a large group of people and finding a few, stuff happens, we try to do our best.

meh, the diversity of pc's at this event wasnt anyones fault, neither was the strength or lack thereof on part of the npcs. a series of things came together to make this event a difficult one for the npc's to guage themselves too, such as the distance between the cabins, the lack of people wanting to travel that distance between them, and certain groups of people wanting to sleep when others wanted to adventure. but altogether it wasnt all that bad, and i applaud the npc's for their quick thinking and adaptation to walking into cabins set to kill when there are only two people there, one sleeping and other putting on makeup.

I just wanted to say that I had an absolute blast NPC'ing on Saturday night. I missed all of the Friday badness.

Most of you don't know me. I've known Chris, Bill and Wayne since college and was there in the "good ol' days" of CARPS since the first event they ever held in the basement of Barnes Hall. I pc'ed for the first year of Final Haven and I've always loved both the game, and the character and quality of RP of the GM's of old (and also of new... I think Karen, Mike, and Todd are fantastic).

Ever since Final Haven moved out to Ionia, and then even FARTHER out to Kzoo, I haven't been able to come due to my hectic schedule.

When Wayne told me that you all were having an event in Brighton, I jumped at the chance to come play for a bit. Wayne told me that you all were coming to Elthinaar and said that they had written my old character from CARPS, Llyshon into the plot.

I loved every minute of it.

I enjoyed the quality of RP, and I liked the plot ideas and themes. It was fantastic. And playing a PC that had lived and been an integral part of CARPS history who got to interact with current players was just really neat.

It was great to see you and RP together again. Very surreal considering who we each were playing and the location of the event both in and out of game. Definitely some echoes of the "old days"...

The meeting between Llyshon and Mohdri (who FYI have a very rocky history) was one of my favorite moments of the event as well. Both being able to put the past behind them to work together. I just wish Mohdri had had a chance to say goodbye.

I am doing this on a blackberry. I'm in nashville fixing dell and my dell laptop died.

I unlike some others had a really good event. We got there late missing much of what got fixed.

I have not come late before but it makes it hard to figure out what in the holy hell is going on. Gives me a new appresiation for what erik goes through, cuz of his work.

Friday night was amazing. From the minute we found vaun and gab it felt like we stepped into another world. No lights execpt for fireflys. Mist every where. It was cool.

Stayed up all night talking with stark the man of a million tales. I love listening to them but I'm bringing duct tape next time.

Saturday we got up and ate. Theminute we got back it was go time.

Todds damn golems were so cool. You could tell they were not malevelent but you still feared them. The entire dream plot was great. Abaddon who unlike the other valkyn vi neither dreams nor has visions and raw realism they felt was juicy.

I actually enjoyed the inn fighingon saturday. It was classic. Very funny.

The battle saturday night was the mostamazing fight I got to pc at. It was epic and scary and awesome.

After thatn sitting around with the town wascool. We missed that lastevent. Andkamifreaking out was great.

Anyway I am out.

Nelkie, you missed one of the groups.

Group 3: This group contains players who understand how their skills work just fine, but the particular character they are playing either is not a level 84 character with advanced skills, or they are bringing in a newly created character into the game who is not fully optimized yet, or they are simply a support character. They are ready for action, but when coming up against monsters who give the hardcore players from group 1 a challenge, they are easily overmatched.

I’m going to skip over the heat and bugs, as well as the distance between cabins. They’ve all been covered in detail, and I’ve got nothing more to add to what’s already been said.

Going back to Brighton was really cool, but I certainly missed those two frontier cabins. The last time we were in the family cabins the town was very different, and it didn’t seem to be such an issue having people spread out. This time it was, and that may be due to the preponderance of new or nearly-new players. Still, it felt good to be home.

I got there early Saturday morning, so there was nothing going on as I arrived. I slept for an hour or so and then got up when Mike came calling on our cabin. The first thing I noticed was Rhul’s (CJ’s) new outfit. I felt for him having to be a monkey-man in that heat, but it looked awesome. I leaned about Kelsey dying and thought Dani was a real trooper for rebounding with Fiona so quickly.

A number of things stood out from what was overall an enjoyable event for me:

-Meeting Kels and listening to him and Sethreal talk about the Phoenix Guard. It was very interesting to be on the outside looking in.

-Having Kels walk up to Mohdri and I holding a glowing magic rock. Somehow, I just knew it was going to happen.

-Three words: Zombie Killing Supersoaker. “No, no, wait. Let them get closer… I wanna see the milky-green whites of their eyes!” 100% pure awesome.

-Fesko’s always amusing reactions after getting blasted with the aforesaid Zombie Killing Supersoaker. Doug was one of the reasons Korrigan never let that thing out of his sight once he got his hands on it. I never knew Korrigan wanted to blast someone off of a Segue, but I guess he did. When it finally ran out of juice at the Saturday Night battle I think he damn near cried.

-The Saturday night battle in general. There’s something about that field, I swear. Standing there, getting our collective asses kicked… it’s like a tradition. At one point when the lines were looking particularly weak I thought to myself, “Well, if we’ve gotta run, at least I know where the trails are”. We managed to pull through, but it could have been pretty damn ugly. Gotta love that feeling.

-Good times with my new friend Vaun. Lordy be, my lady; do we have things to talk about!

-Giving Ingram his seven gifts late on Saturday night. I’m sure the House of Chance will get a lot of mileage out of them.

-The fireside conversation with Malamhin, Sethreal, Eilonwy and Aurora. Deep, entertaining, and revealing all at once. Excellent roleplaying, one and all.

There are a dozen other things, like Treeman and people from our collective history, but this list will have to suffice. It was good seeing everyone and, as usual, I can’t wait for the next one.

Don't forget the monorail ride when Aurora was talking to Korrigan when we were heading back to Fin about the grab and dash and all that. That was fun!!!!

Yeah, I loved that fireside chat to see all the different ideals in people's characters.

I personally would like to applaud the players for both their organization and tactics, especially during the final battle on Saturday. I've never seen you guys so organized, following orders, and working as a unit, which is a big reason why you survived nearly impossible odds. Well done!

My turn!! My turn!!

First off, when I started this character I created him as an archer. I spend over $75 for bows and several hours redoing my arrows so I have something to shoot them, on Friday night about 2am or so I quit using them because I couldn't see what I was aiming at and didn't want to hurt anyone. I then, for the rest of the game, only used my path skills or the skill the weapon I had gave me, no bow. When I first quit using it I was sad but, as I played him further I realized I *really* like the way we were doing things and what I was doing with him. So, at the end of game, I rewrote him. Oh boy is he going to be fun now. Anyways onto game stuff.

Here's what stood out for me.

-Dieing 45 minutes into game. Yeah it sucked but, I got brought back so it's all good

-Korrigan saying, "That's MY archer!"

-Playing one of the "bad" guys late Friday night.

-Neutralizing cabin 2 in 15 seconds.

-Finding out about the crystal's abilities and resetting to before the wipe out.

-The monorail chase and taking out a zombie through the sunroof with the super soaker

-Dieing *again* and having my armor and sword taken.

-Being brought back to life.....*again*

-Camm

-Going out with Sethreial, Gabriel, Kels, and Calhoon to fix the portal and get Last Resort

-The fight when we got Last Resort...I hate cockroaches.

-The moving tree we had to fight

Eric, Sorry to hear about your mom, I hope she gets better as expected.

Heidi, glad you're feeling better

I had a blast and can't wait till I get to use my new skills at Winterhaven. It's going to be great.

So there’re two players upset with me. One, because I refused to label her cabin a safe, combat-free zone because she was using unsafe lighting phys-reps. The other is pissed because I would not improperly play a character nor overturn a killing blow for OOG reasons – namely, because he was afraid his girlfriend would stop playing if anything bad ever happened to her IG. Do I have this correct?

well dang, which cabin was that one, and where was I?