Carrion Fields has a unique place in mudding from my personal experiences. It has a very in depth class/race combination system that adds great depth and strategy to the PK atmosphere it provides. That being said, that diversity also adds to the signigicant roleplaying enforced environment provided there. The reason I enjoy CF so much is because each of those elements add challenges within themselves in such an atmosphere. Roleplaying a good paladin and being able to actually you know, smite evil are two very different things. Dealing with that adversity and admiteddly steep learning curve can be challenging from a roleplaying perspective as well.
What makes CF different is a very interesting and detailed Cabal system in which players can join factions and receive different powers and skills with each one. Each has different dogmas and distinct positions within. From the Emperor of Thera to the Sunwarden of Thar-eris, there are a ton of fun options and growth potential within these cabals.
Immortal interaction is an important part of CF, while you won't see immortals fighting in the mortal battlefield, they often provide guidance and empowerment to characters who wish to embrace the religions they teach. It provides even more depth to a character on the PK and RP levels.
CF is vast in terms of areas with a huge amount of secrets and hidden things for explorers. Characters can and do get created simply to explore portions of the vast world. Be it journeying to Hell, Shadow Planes or mysterious Silent Tower, there is always something to do that provides significant challenge and reward.
I'd encourage anyone looking to challenge their reflexes or their roleplaying prowess to give CF a try. I had been out of mudding for years but CF brought me back into the fold and i haven't looked back.
Post a commentComment posted on Sun Aug 7 22:08:00 2016 by Ahrizin:
The problem with that mud, that even after imms removed two cheating peoples from their crew, they still have imms who do extremly bad things and treat players like the s.. Imms can deny your char or remove you from the cabal and throw away your 100-200 hours - if they don't like you OOC. On another hand they can give you some OP skills/spells if you are their OOC friend. It had happend in the past, and it happens now. Just scroll the official and the unofficial forum. Numbers of players are decreasing and such things don't help to bring us new players. Typical answers from imms - Its our mud, we can do whatever we want here. And its a bit strange for guys who run the social game.
Comment posted on Tue Feb 7 09:10:22 2017 by Daurwyn:
Not so much commenting on the original review, which I thought seemed fair enough, but on the subsequent comment by Ahrizin. But to give it some context, here's my background.
I no longer play Carrion Fields. Not because I have a problem with it, but because I simply haven't got the time. That said, I do still keep tabs on what's going on because it's a lot easier to pop on and off a website than to log onto the game itself and spend more than a few minutes that. However, I have played the game since 1998 or so. I can't even remember precisely when I started. A few gaps of several years in there until I stopped a few years back.
I think the allegations of imm favoritism or picking on certain players probably contained a kernel of truth once upon a time, but not for a long time now. I can't remember a case in the last several years where the person who suffered a 'bad outcome' from the imms hadn't been breaking the rules or mouthing off to an imm trying to be reasonable. Those banned or forced to delete have invariably done something wrong.
Where there is a grey area is where roleplay leads to a bad outcome for the player. For example, if your good aligned character does evil stuff on a regular basis, he may get an alignment change applied by the imms. That tends to leave him without most of his skills and spells for a long time; it's intended to encourage sticking to your alignment and making the old 'Drizzt' cliche something that happens rarely rather than often. Another example of a bad outcome for a player was where the player decided to play a paladin who hated the gods or something like that (maybe it was didn't believe in them). Said paladin ended up losing a lot of his powers because paladins get their powers from their gods -- and this one didn't have a god. In some ways, a shame, because it probably would have been an interesting role, but in other ways, nothing more than the application of the game's world to the character. Indeed, the imms did offer to give a highly sought after boost to the character that is normally only available to characters who have turned their backs on the gods. So while the player took a hit to his power, his character had uniqueness and could have become something great had he not deleted in frustration. Indeed, people have been reminiscing in the last month about a warrior character who practiced no skills because he was too lazy (and I don't mean failed to spam skills, I mean failed to use them ever). He may not have been deadly, and he made doing stuff slow because his character was often stopping for naps at inappropriate times, but we still remember that character as someone who was a lot of fun to be around.
Also, in terms of rewards, they tend to be less significant than in the old days. For example, the last character I played, who was pretty high profile in the game, got a couple of nice 'edges' (customisations) but they were ones that gave me uniqueness at the expense of raw power. (I had to use seriously suboptimal weapons for the edges to function, but they fit my role and it was nice to have that recognised by being able to do something that my class normally couldn't, even if it never actually benefitted me.)
Personally I think the mud is less corrupt and friendlier than it has been at any point that I can remember, and the imms fairer. There are a couple of minor game balance issues (in my view) that have arisen because of changes to keep the game fresh, but nothing that should put a new player off. Also finding someone to travel with seems to be a bit tricky at times because a lot of players are fixated on spamming up skills alone. You can, however, minimize the impact on you by choosing a particular class or cabal (a group with common goals).
Overall, I'd recommend this game, and I consider myself pretty unbiased since I don't stand to lose or benefit by you playing it.