OTD -- an introduction to FREGA and Kolob From: "Thomas M Worthington" <WORTHINGTON1@prodigy.net> Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000 Pardon the use of bandwidth here, but I wrote a letter to Eric in response to a request for more information about my organization in this game, and several (three actually) others have also requested info, so I would like to post the letter for anyone interested. Most of you can just click and go elsewhere. The opinions are mine, and I am sure players in other sects in the game would see things differently by far than I do. This is just the way I see the game, from my own perspective as a FREGAN. No offense is intended to other sects. Here's the letter: I'm writing you today to give you some tips on being a new player on Kolob. Things to do, and things to avoid doing. Take my advice for what it is worth, realizing I am a staunch member of FREGA. I will try to keep my comments even-handed, because it is more important to us that you are a happy and satisfied player in the game than that you join FREGA. Realize, though, I am biased towards my own sect. Firstly, don't sell anything to anybody, not even me. Your coins, portable light, and other equipment are very valuable on Kolob. You will be much more welcome in your future sect if you still have these items when you join. As a new player, you will have very little use for these items (the coins are used in the casting of magic spells, and the portable light in solving riddles and changing deities, among other things). If you HAVE to sell coins, sell as few as possible, and make SURE you get at least 500,000 each for them, no matter who you sell them to. They are really worth more, probably close to a million apiece. Secondly, wait. Wait to join a sect, wait to choose a god, wait to choose a PDN or specialization. Look around, write all the other people you can and wait for their responses. You very well may be playing this game ten years from now, so it is very important you make the right decisions at the first, because changing later is somewhat difficult. If you are like I was, you just about can't wait to fully get into the life of Kolob, but I advise you to wait. You have ten turns to make up your mind about anything, and I suggest you use it. Look around. Write letters. Explore places. Make up your mind. Things to do right away. Well, other than exploring, the things that will come in handy no matter What you do on Kolob are, first, exercising. Wear your Battle outfit, and use the command [Exercise (x hrs.) at RBME]. RBME is located in every civ, in the commons area (meaning it doesn't show up on Area searches). If you exercise more than four hours in a day, eat twice a day. Exercising allows you, eventually, to do more things in a day. Once your stamina is up, you will be able to only sleep 3 or 4 hours a night, giving you more time for other things. Second, take the seminar on Advanced Hand Combat. It gives you immediate basic fighting ability. Third --- go to the market, wearing your civ clothing, and use the command [Market, 1 hr., 1 transaction at Deva Bazaar --- buy Elektra Pill Vitamins all]. These will help you to avoid getting ill, so no matter what you do, they will come in handy. You take them automatically if you have them. Fourth, and most important, read the rules again. Every player who comes into this game THINKS he understands the rules, but what you think is not always what is real. Ask questions about the rules. Two FREGANs are very good at answering new player questions --- Dave Zeller, who I told you about earlier, and John Gergel, AM-1553, P.O. Box 99901, Pittsburgh, PA 15233. Believe me, even though these guys are snail-mailers, they are two people who can give you more good advice and guidance than any others in the game. Take the time to write them. You will not regret it. In other sects, Larry Barnhill, 813 Oak St. #137, Conway, AR [Yenro], and Kurt Wicklund of the OTHERS are also usually good sources of advice. I will send you Kurt's e-mail address as soon as I locate it --- as I said, I'm running a computer that is new (my son's Christmas present [ha]). Do not worry about money. I, and many other people in the game from the different sects, will be sending you millions just to allow you to survive until you can make your best sect choice. You don't need to sell anything that you haven't already to get money --- you will have plenty on the start of turn 3. Remember you will have to Withdraw money from the Bank to use it, though. Good places, relatively cheap, to patronize at first are: Sleep at Thatcher Inn, or at Tortuous Hangout; Eat and Drink at Hackers (Meeko's favorite watering hole); Dance at Skeeve's Roadhouse (wear formal clothing); Gamble at Meinkland (use a bet limit of 50, though); Sex at Five X Saloon; Bathe at Morgan's Teahouse; and do your Marketing at Deva Bazaar. As soon as you get plenty of money, though, after people start transferring funds to you, start to stay exclusively at either the Best Inn, Asterix Inn, or Vitalstatistix Hotel (helps you rest better, and increases your social status). Eat at any of those three, or Morgan's Teahouse, or Quick Tavern. And Dance at Vitalstatistix Hotel or the Tanda Canteen. All will help improve your social status, which affects many actions in the game. If you plan to engage in any covert-type activities, start to shop at Chumley Path Vendors. It is a smaller market, but caters to thieves and arsonists. (You will also want to consider getting in touch with B Shafer, a NPC, after you join a sect. He can provide unusual items from time to time.) If you think you may need rare or specialty items for unusual professions, shop at Artisan Plaza. It will help to Explore any market before you shop there, though it is not necessary. The key to doing anything effectively in a civ is getting Known in the civ. You need to do Civ Feelings on Sects, Races in Civs, Explore Phinder Phar's, Explore every area in the civ, throw at least one recruitment party (spending about 100,000 MUs), and try to do Something in each area of the civ --- eat, drink, train, pray, etc. If you do all that, you will get Well known, and Everything will be easier for you, from recruiting, to shopping, to just about anything you can name. Before you choose a PDN or a god or a specialization, you need to choose a sect. Once you are in a sect, your goals and needs will be very different than while you are an indy. In order to be the best you can be on Kolob, you want your PDN, god, and specializations to all be focused on aiding you toward a common path. For example, if you were in FREGA and wanted to be a covert operative, you would probably want a PDN of "spy", arsonist, or thief, something like that --- you would want to worship White Wolf or the Eef, and you would want maybe a specialization in magic (to help you sneak in places) and maybe one in theft. If you wanted to be a White Guard knight, you'd want a PDN of Warrior, worship Groundsweller, and double-specialize in Mercenary. You need to kind of get a conception of who your character is, and what he wants to do, before you make any decisions. Choosing a sect is a BIG decision. Your game experience will be very different in each sect. Some sects have lots of communication, some little; some are democratically run, some are not. Read what each sect sends you carefully. Do not be offended if some sects are very slow at responding, or do not respond at all. You are joining right at the time when sect leadership changes, and some of the people listed as New Player Contacts will not be so after this turn. Also, some sects, for one reason or another, just are not interested in having new players, or at least they do not seem to be. Sects that depend a lot on combat, and have huge armies, are not as interested in brand new players, since it takes a good year for a new player to get up to speed enough to participate in combat. In most other fields, though, new players can make an immediate impact. In arson, especially, a new player can be making a big mark in only about 12 turns. Magic, mentalism, and artisan are also fields where you can quickly become quite accomplished (NOT gain mastery --- that would take years --- but you could cast useful spells as a mage in only 10 turns or so). Remembering my biases, here is what I think would attract people to the other sects. If all you want to do is to fight, either in siege combat or personal combat, the White Guard or the Black Guard would be very attractive. Both are heavily combat-oriented. The Whites are also very strong in archaeology and magic, the Blacks are strong in magic and also thieving skills. If you want to be a thief type, though, the OTHERS specializes in that. They have superior training facilities, and have, in Muhammad Aieee!, one of the premier power gamers in the game. Why would anyone want to join the Yenro? That's a hard question. I personally think the Yenro would be the worst choice for a new player, and not just because we are at war with them. Their sect is run almost exclusively by players who have been in the game for years and years, they don't communicate much, they don't care for new players, they are really unimaginative in their strategy (they have been playing essentially the same strategy for years and years, forcing the game into a two-sided configuration). I guess, on the good side, if you want to win, to the extent an open-ended game could be won, they would be a good side to be on. They have powerful armies, and, due to historical emphasis on trade and all the real world money they spend on camps, have a lot of money in the game. A lot of new players join the Yenro, and then drop out because they think the game is terrible, and they get ignored. If you DO join the Yenro, and after about 6 turns start to think the game sucks, DON'T drop out!! Write Werner and ask to be in a different sect --- the game is great! It's just the Yenro suck!! To my knowledge, in two years they have only been able to attract and keep one new player, Nathan Alexander Sharpe. Why should you join the FREGA? So many reasons, it is tough to count. We are oriented to new players. Only three FREGANs have been in the game for over two years. We don't require you to worship any particular god, we welcome ANY specialty, we NEED you. Some other sects don't need new players, and don't really have anything for you to do. ASK every sect what you can DO for them, to help out, right away. Several will say, "Ah, improve your character," or "whatever you like." That is because there is really nothing for you TO do in that sect. They couldn't care less what you do, because they don't need you anyway. Their power structure is set up, they've been doing things the same way for years. After you have been in the game a year or so, they may think you are useful enough to let you carry the water bucket. If you join the FREGA, I can give you a mission to hurt the Yenro and help us NEXT WEEK! I kid you not, the FREGA needs you, and could use you. Here, we are a close-knit band of brothers who keep in touch constantly, and are fighting for survival against sects with incredible resources and power. We are a gang of trash-talking newbies with attitude. We have more information about most fields than any other sect in the game. Our magic and mental skills knowledge tops anyone's (we know over 80 magic spells, and we know every mental power (only about 20) that has been discovered. Ask the other sects how many spells and powers they know.) We need everyone --- we have riddlers, explorers, fighters, politicians --- we have and need every type of player. Plus, we have a load of fun at this. We are trying to win unconventionally --- we don't have huge armies, and we don't have guys who can beat the crap out of everyone in personal combat (not yet --- we are growing, though, and are really looking to pick up some more combat types.) Why NOT join the FREGA? Well, hmmm, that's a bit harder, but to be fair, I will lay it out. We are in a tough situation. The Black Guard and Yenro are allied, and are both rich and powerful, and pursue a single-minded strategy of trying to bludgeon everyone else to death with superior wealth and armies. In general, we try to resist them, to restore a balance to the game. FREGA is all about maintaining a Balance on Kolob, Balance of Forces, of Power, of Kolobian life. FREGA went into a neutral shell about three-four years ago, basically withdrawing from the politics of the game, and concentrating on its mental and magical studies. In the meantime, the Blacks and the Yenro started running wild. About a year ago, our neutral stance was shattered when, for no apparent reason, the Yenro attacked us, taking three of our civs. They blamed it on "the malicious gossiping of a particular little FREGoid." That FREGoid was me, and the gossip I was doing was in saying that we could no longer stay in our neutral shell and let the White Guard be butchered. I'm sort of the Winston Churchill of our sect in that regard. (modest grin) Of course, unless you are an aggressive bully spoiling for a fight, the gossip of a newbie who had been in the game then less than two months would not make you declare war on a neutral. It's kind of funny the way people perceive the Black Guard and the Yenro --- the Blacks Openly say they want to take over the planet, and everyone likes them. They are some of the gentlest, most creative people in the game (their characters are nasty --- the people are not.) On the other hand, the Yenro do not openly say they want to take over the world, and just pursue it one backstabbing, one broken treaty at a time --- and everyone hates them. Go figure. We were totally unprepared for war when the Yenro hit us, and I mean totally. Only one member of the sect had any combat ability at all, NONE of us had ever been in a siege, none had ever torched a building. We were a helpless, hopeless wreck. We had not ONE single soldier, other than the static garrisons in our camps and civs. For so long, we had been successful in avoiding combat because we were neutral and basically harmless, focused on information-gathering. Everyone left us alone for that reason (and also because, historically, we had been a tough sect, and our reputation lingered on.) We were in worse shape than France in 1940. It was really pitiful. So for about a year we have been undergoing a crash course in warfare. We now have several arsonists, a fine covert operation, political operatives, and the nucleus of an army, but, to tell the truth, we are in trouble still. We have made a major turnaround in the last year, gearing up for war, but there is a LONG way to go. Why not join the FREGA? We are in for a long, desperate war, and there are going to be a lot of losses before we turn the corner. It's about the equivalent of July of 1940 right now, the Battle of Britain is going on, if you get my allusion. Victory is so far away as to be a DREAM. I think it will take us four years of dedicated and total commitment to really smash the Yenro. We are a gang --- a big gang, but still a gang --- of mostly new players, facing an incredibly rich enemy. True, as I told you before, we have been able to get a stalemate, basically, against the Yenro in the last year, BUT a lot of that is due to the Yenro also being at war with the Whites and the OTHERS at the same time. Had they not overreached, deciding they could wipe us all out at once, and focused solely on the FREGA, we would be in serious, serious trouble now. We Have excellent political skills, and those are going to be an increasing factor, but that is SLOW in effect compared to the slam-bam-crash of Yenro armies. So why NOT join the FREGA? You'd be joining a desperate struggle, against steep odds, and with the end nowhere in sight. We have a big sect now (we were down to five members when the Yenro attacked us) and we are growing like crazy, due to the total devotion of members like Tolstoy and Llewella and several more. In a few years, we can be a tough and brutal machine. Right now, though, in terms of actual Power, actual ability to influence the game, I would say we are probably in last place, or tied for last place. But we are 100 percent better than this time last year. We will get better. We will kick the Yenro's butts. We will win this thing. But it ain't gonna be easy. So, if I had to say why not join the FREGA, that's what I'd say. There are advantages to being in FREGA, of course. We have the finest role-playing of any sect in the game. There are two secret organizations within FREGA. Many players are asked to join one or both after they have been in the sect for a while. Other things I can't really talk about right now. It's well, the Yenro look at this thing as strictly a wargame. We look at it as a role-playing game, with powergaming aspects. It makes a difference. You'll see. FREGA has good facilities for training in every pursuit, (artisan is kind of weak, but we are trying to get some artisans on board). FREGA has whatever you are looking for. The Yenro knowledge base is the smallest in the game -- they know next to nothing about magic, mentalism, or art (to my knowledge, no Yenro has EVER researched a magic spell). For more information about different aspects of FREGA, these are the people to contact: Head of Covert Operations and Assistant Sect Leader: Kane Wasserman d/b/a David Cunnius, 1 Alexis St., 3rd Floor, Pittsburgh, PA 15207 Scholar of Quests and Riddling: Frank Heath, P. O. Box 14, Concord, NH 03302 Military Head: Septus Steel d/b/a Brian Gray --- bgray@metronet.com Foreign Minister --- Cassieopeia J. Sands --- cypris2kaz@aol.com Wonktnodu Defense Force --- Rocky Greer d/b/a Luvvy --- greer@neelix.udayton.edu New Player Contact --- David Zeller d/b/a Llewella --- P. O. Box 14, Concord, NH 03302 Department of Special Projects --- (Tolstoy) John Gergel, AM-1553, P. O. Box 99901, Pittsburgh, PA 15233 If interested in any special aspect of FREGA, I suggest you write to any of these people for more information. All will be happy to help you make the best decision about which sect to join. Brian is a little covered with work right now, and Tolstoy is Assistant Military Head, so you can direct military questions to either one. If I can be of any use to you in any other way, please let me know. Mike Worthington worthington1@prodigy.net Referenced By Up