Well, i for one am absolutely thrilled that they are allowing older characters to get this title. Scarlet and Amethyst will both be going for it as well as any other character I can manage to earn it on. Survivor is always a fun title to work on.
I understand the complaints from "the other side" but I just don't think they have a valid argument. Most of the time the complaint is that they've worked their butt off to keep their character alive and survived to bask in the glory of the title. They don't think it's fair that characters which have died should have the same title. I understand and agree up to a point. A made a suggestion a few years ago on Guru for a way to earn the title on older character. It was long and involved and any character earning the title by my route would definitely work for it!!!
However, here are my counter arguments of why I think our non-survivors should have a shot:
- This isn't a glorious title any more. If I see a survivor in town, I don't automatically think "Wow! Cool! He's a great player to have gotten 1,337,000 exp without dieing!!!" Nope. He may have played his way to the title or he may just have bought a bunch of hammers. There are too many lame ways to earn this title now. Hammers, boxing, hitting Stacey with a snowball a gazillion times, and mobstoppers (since you brought it up). If you want respect for the title, take out those options. If they aren't going to do that then let the rest of us have a shot at the title.
- Secondly, this isn't going to be a walk in the park for our main characters to achieve. Ok, well maybe for the Mobstopper King. I earn a lot of survivor experience with skill capping and quest/mission rewards. Both Scarlet and Amethyst have Legendary Skill Hunter and legendary guardian and have completed almost every quest in the game. Most of their options for experience are gone. I refuse to buy hammers or do mobstoppers. I'll earn my experience legitly, somehow. I think turning in books gives a fair amount. Yeah, another lame way, but at least it takes time. I'll be doing FoW runs at least for Amethyst. Not sure about Scarlet yet.
Prophet, we don't know yet the details of how the new survivor will work. All we know is that a clue was accidentally leaked into the Dervish build. Type /deaths. It used to say something like "You have died 3,443 times." Now it says "You have died 3,443 times and have earned experience since your last death." (note the extra space before "experience", a drop in variable will be there.) It's not counting up experience gained yet, but it will.
Many people have asked John Stumme about the change and he at first only answered with a cryptic "These are not the droids you are looking for" which most interpretted to be a Jedi mind trick trying to hide the upcoming change. He later said they are re-working many of the hard to obtain titles for the Embark Beach build. Survivor is changing. We assume it will be that we must earn 1,337,500 exp since our last death. We'll see.
He's strongly hinted as well that another big build will be released Thursday. Not sure that it's Embark Beach though. Perhaps Winds of Change?