Ok, criticizing someone is always a touchy subject, so I'd like to expose the facts that led me to this conclusion and only then my opinion.
But first, I'd like to explain that I'm not exactly a strong player in the server. Since I don't have many hours a day to play, I have only two mid level PCS that rarely engage in any big event or roleplay a lot with others because, basically, since I can't have a consistent gaming schedule, I don't like to assume many compromises.
So, let's jump to the facts:
1) Two days ago I logged with Hedien (I decided to give her some more attention) and was chatting with Violet and Shinzo. While we were chatting, I saw an NPC getting near (an Archer). Since it seemed a little lousy to simple point to the players "look, an ordinary looking person that probably isn't ordinary at all, let's see what he is planning?" I let it go.
Suddenly, the archer turned hostile and started to fire petrification arrows. He petrified three of us, then Melgrin started to beat the crap outta him and I nailed him with arrows. However, he was made invincible by the DM.
I rested and informed I would go to the Mage tower to buy some Stone to Flesh scrolls and try to save them when the Archer came back full buffed and petrified the rest of us. We spent some time petrified until a mage came and saved us.
Then we came into the church discussed a little of the incident and I had to logoff.
2) Yesterday I was roleplaying with some people when one "player" (Bootslightknife) attacked another player (Sacha). In front of the assault, we tried to save her and attacked the attacker. I ran after Boots and rained imbued arrows on him, when I saw it was an "Impersonator" (a monster controlled by the DM), which apparently hid in plain sight and made me lost it.
Well, I tried to search it a little more (no success) and came back into the church, where I saw that Sacha was there and suddenly another Sacha appeared, making clear to everyone that something strange was happening.
The thing left the church, I asked if we would do anything, and everyone started to chat about many different subjects as if nothing had happened.
Well, those are the facts, and I'd like to state right here and now that I don't know if the attacks are part of something bigger or no, I'm just assuming that they aren't because tehre's no DM event note about it, nor gossips in the forum, so, here's my opinion.
a) It was a cold shower.
So, two times, two subsequent days, one "monster" appear, attacks everyone, presents a bigger threat than the usual PC vampire hunting victims or loup-garou raid and everyone is like "Soooo... what did you eat this morning?".
So, this is my piece of criticism to the players: a DM spawn, creates a good roleplay opportunity with possibly a good partying better than "Oh, let's loot the alhoon again! ROFL" and everyone is like "I kill the alhoon every saturday, but I can't stand to fight a creature that flees from us".
There's no way a DM will create any sense of enjoyment if the players don't adhere to it.
b) But the DM's also have it's share of guilt...
Well, why do the players don't risk? Because they don't know what is going to happen to their PC's. They prefer to fight the alhoon, or 30 Vampire Warriors instead of fighting one single archer they don't know what can do.
And why? Because that archer was invincible. We could knock him down, see him bleeding, punch the hell outta him, and nothing. He was getting beaten to a pulp but simply wouldn't die.
Or the impersonator who was getting shot by me and all of a sudden, HIPS.
The fact is that the DM's have infinite resources. If they want to beat us to a pulp, they will beat us to a pulp. But it's not fun trying to fight something we cannot defeat. It's not fun being bullyed by a monster we cannot defeat. It's not fun hitting someone that simply was made invincible by the DM. It's not fun seeing an ability like HIPS, which has only one class that has being spammed by the most improbably creatures. It's not fun fighting someone that has a weapon that is not accessible to the players: Low magic is the world, not the PC's.
And tough the DM's don't have anything to lose, we have. We have our money, weapons and even our PC's!
I've seem more than once more than one DM spawning to present us with a fight we cannot win.
And I'm not saying a tough fight, that we may die or win, neither a fight we cannot win because the challenge is too big. It's a HIPS spamming, an invincible opponent, or maybe something that is simply impossible of being hit.
Ironically, the most fun parties I ingressed were the ones I asked the DM to set a dungeon to full spawn for our party and we have to fight the vampire crypt full of vampire warriors, rogues, priests and sorceress, or the alhoon with more enemies than I could even count.
We were hit, we sweated, we had to prepare tactics, we had to advance slowly, and some of us even died. But that was a hell of fun, because the chalenge was big, and tough the reward wasn't that high, we at least did overcome it.
Well, your turn: What do you think?