Posted by Ratatouille on 10/03/96
I know many players who left the Mud because the only way to level was to
kick mutyts, rats and childs. There's only a few quests that newbies can
do and XP reward isn't big enough regarding the number of these quests. See
a character at level 6... with 20 000 exp to level: there's a long way to go
and it's boring, because the only motivation at that point is to gain next
level the fastest possible without getting killed which often leads
characters to death because they try too strong mobs. What I would like to
do, is to gather a group of players interested in Role Play, and set a
quest scenario and within which each of these "mob-like" players would play
a defined role according to the quest. With the support of IMMs (even
if they told me they wouldn't do it), good roleplayers questers could gain
XP according to their RP performed in the quest (each player-mob would
report the behaviour of the quester and set a certain amount of extra-XP
which could correspond to RolePlay XP (there would be a fixed amount of
quest XP like ineach quest). This kind of quest has several interests:
It would be highly interactive since all "mobs" would be "real" players.
There could be several issues to the quest according to the behaviour of
the quester.
There would be several different quests, and many new ones if that works well.
Anyway, as IMMs aren't ready to support me in that project, I will give it
a try and start one soon. The reward will be a Coupon, but of course we'll
choose the quester randomly and noone will be able to know it except the
"adminitrators" of the quest.
If you're interested in that idea, or if you wish to append commentaries
(to approve, give suggestions, or criticize it) please do.
If you want to get involved in that project, please mud mail me :) .
Hoping to hear of you soon, Ratatouille the Role Play Quester of Legend Mud.
From: Tamurello
Tuesday, September 10, 06:23AM
I totally agree with ya Ratatouille..
The only RP things organised here are OOC contest like trivias or riddles.
And i want the mud to have IC roleplay out of clans.
On your levelling problems, it's true the mud is borring like hell b4 level 10,
and i know many friends of mine who stopped the mud because it was a quick
sport via telnet.
I will help ya to organize those RP quests and personnaly help to level the
winners. :) *clap*
From: Tenar
Tuesday, September 10, 08:01AM
I think this is a great idea, the only difficulty would be possible bias
in the judges when it came to giving out exp...however I'd love to be involved
From: Sandra
Tuesday, September 10, 08:00AM
I'd like to point out a few things from the last append to this note.
Trivia, riddles and other games aren't role play, they're immort run
games.
I've seen many characters roleplaying that aren't clanned. There's
nothing that says you have to be in a clan to rp, and its always fun
to get others involved in it as well. Whether they realize it or not :)
From: Tamurello
Tuesday, September 10, 08:42AM
U r right Sandra, but they r more RP clans on this mud than pkill clan, and
they r clans with rp!
I only want that a newbie with no special friends on the mud can gain xpfor ic
roleplay..i found the idea of ratatouille is great!
From: Egami
Tuesday, September 10, 09:35AM
I think Ratatouille's idea is really great... and I'd like to tell Sandra that
Ratatouille and Tamurello, I think, were pointing out the XP one could gain
when role playing. It's true that around level 6, it's like crossing an endless
desert... :)
If you can do that Ratatouille... I'll help! :)
From: Ptah
Tuesday, September 10, 05:01PM
Running tinyplots like this is squarely within the job description
of the PR department. As of yet none have happened, because Lirra, the
immort who immorted for this purpose, has been terribly busy with her RL
(family)...
While I fully understand the desire to grant XP for roleplay, please realize
that no matter HOW the immorts do it, we will be accused of being unfair. :(
If you can come up with a way around that, I would love to hear it.
Obviously, if we give the ability to give XP to players, then people would
pingpong each other up. If you can thin of a way to let players reward each
other for good rp, without creating a feedback loop like that, please
please tell me, as I would love to make that a choice available to players.
We are fixing level 6, but not until skill trees. The fix changes the entire
XP curve, and that is a radical change to make out of context. If yoplayers
truly wish to see it fixed ASAP, it is easily done, but it will be very
jarring...
Any better methods of granting XP for exploration would also be welcome.
This mud has a long history of supporting rp and a long history of players
largely ignoring it. I am very glad to see players taking the initiative
with a plan like the above. :) There are many features coded into the mud
specifically to foster roleplay, but there has never been a reward system for
the simple reason that nobody could think of a fair one. To read about
the debate on it, please visit this URL:
"Future of the Mud"
which contains some lengthy discussions held here a year ago about roleplay and
mud society.
Bets of luck in setting up tinyplots, I can't wait to see them happen.
-Ptah
From: Beam
Tuesday, September 10, 05:11PM
Although I have giving lists of xp rooms to people in my clan I
think they are kind of screwed up. Personally I would like to see
the value for them lowered to maybe 10 xp at level 1 and every
room in the mud made an xp room as long as your not following
anyone, the xp rooms could be turned off after level 10 or
whatever level or left the same on up to 50. Whether 10 xp is to
high or low I dont know that would have to be looked at i guess.
But recently I had my brother start another mud, (he was a
complete newbie to muds) because legend is just plain hard at low
levels, and many hometowns are seriously screwed up with a lack of
low level mobs.
From: Bulk
Tuesday, September 10, 07:16PM
Think the lack of low lvl mobs is true, and considering the mv
newbies get, it's kind of unrealistic to expect them to go around
other places killing stuff. But I do think the xp rooms give
quite decent xp, but not so much so you could actually consider
lowering them. I guess making more newbie mobs in hometowns
could also deter ppl from leaving, but since they'll have to
for skills and all, it maybe a good idea to do so.
I remember at first how trans quests boggled me, and personally
i think there aren't enough clues in the mud to point out
trans quests, and there are times when i thought i was
doing an xp quest when it suddenly tranferred to another time
period, etc. Moreover, i think it maybe worthwhile to consider lowering
the mv cost within a hometown to absolute minimum, or at least have
shops offer cheap refresh potions, and maybe a 'cure light' well
or 'refresh' wells that will do the above every so often.
Bulk. really wants to get around newbie mv.
From: Beam
Tuesday, September 10, 08:00PM
bulk my idea was to lower the xp for xp rooms and make every room
an xp room. to encourage exploring.
From: Bulk
Tuesday, September 10, 09:55PM
that really sounds neat. tho then ppl might just run through them instead of
actually 'exploring' places. *ponders on*
Bulk
From: Beam
Wednesday, September 11, 01:24AM
True havent thought of that. But if it was only for under level 10
a few more boars sprinkled around would fix that.
From: Zebulon
Wednesday, September 11, 06:29AM
Great idead Beam. I just come to lose everything in Salem's DT, and would
rather gain XP instead of losing everything while exploring... *sigh*
From: Ptah
Wednesday, September 11, 11:26AM
Saving a list of every room you have visited, and worse yet, looping through
it every time you move, would cause terrible lag. :( Which is a shame
because doing explore XP based on all rooms would be very cool.
If we put healing and low mv costs in hometowns it will benefit the high
levels as much as the low levels.
Adding newbie mobs and hints for trans quests and newbie quests and so on
is all part of the revision of hometowns for skill trees, which has been
ongoing for the last few months.
From: Shalindra
Thursday, September 12, 12:20AM
I disagree with cure light potions benefiting high levellers.
Newbie mv cost could theoretically be lowered, and progressively cost more as you go up in levels, perhaps?
From: Beam
Thursday, September 12, 12:37AM
I have 630 movement and it regens at 100 per tick i think, I
havent run out in many levels
From: Bock
Wednesday, September 18, 03:28AM
Back to the original topic of rp'ing... :)
On another mud I've played (which, I'll admit, was terrible even if it
did do some things right) rp xp was awarded through a report...
The report was reviewed by an imm & xp was granted, basically in 1
of 3 sizes (basic, advance, & expert rp). It would be a lot of extra work
for the imms, but it would solve the problem of 2 players just automatically
bumping each other up with false reports of good rp.
Another feature was special newbie prices on certain things (mostly food)
so that newbies could get around their horrible mv... after a certain
level, the shopkeepers would simply refuse to sell the refresh stuff
to a player.
From: Rusalka
Sunday, September 29, 12:58PM
Regarding tinyplots, the PR dept is working on some. Since we've never pulled
on of these off before, we'll probably be experimenting with various sort
of prizes to see what does and doesn't seem to work (same goes for different
srots of tinyplots). I would love to see exp rewarded for rp, but I don't
knw how to do it fairly either. Like Ptah, I'd love to see a fair way to do it,
however.
- rusalka
From: Bulk
Thursday, October 03, 05:44AM
Fair way of distributing xp..count and tally the number of ticks
spent rping for that char, with how many lines/acts they had,
and maybe some room for decision call points that are a fraction
of the above?
From: Ptah
Thursday, October 03, 09:17PM
How do we get the number of ticks spent rp'ing? It's not like you can measure
it with the code...
-Ptah
