what makes a mud *truly* challenging (was carving)

From: Diamond Wednesday, April 21, 10:20AM

From: Yi Wednesday, April 21, 10:59AM

From: Wuss Wednesday, April 21, 01:05PM

From: Wuss Wednesday, April 21, 01:26PM

From: McDonald Wednesday, April 21, 01:53PM

From: Jean Wednesday, April 21, 05:44PM

Because I think it should be a -requirement- to have a knife to cut certain creatures- in real life, it certainly is. if the knife were just 5 or 10 in value, i doubt itd strain us overly :-p.

From: Jean Wednesday, April 21, 05:51PM

An error occured during my last append, so rewriting.. Yi writes: I agree that its not the biggest of deals- to me, the top priority is straightening out mortal/immortal conflicts like the one Wuss had with Wraith and Sandra. Next would come the xp system and next the eq limits. After that, something like carving would come into play :-). is it -really- that hard to put in a carving knife as a necessity to carve some animals? Yeah, cause then they can make healing roots. Personally, I dont think this makes much sense- is there a myth or something

From: Jean Wednesday, April 21, 05:57PM

An error occured again during my last append, so rewriting again. with some changes.. hopefully that'll stop it from happening again.. Yi writes: I agree that its not the biggest of deals- to me, the top priority is straightening out mortal/immortal conflicts like the one Wuss had with Wraith and Sandra. Next would come the xp system and next the eq limits. After that, something like carving would come into play :-). is it -really- that hard to put in a carving knife as a necessity to carve some animals? Yeah, cause then they can make healing roots. Personally, I dont think this makes much sense- is there a myth or something from which this was gotten from? True enough. But trying to change -that-, well, i dont know of -any- muds who delete a char if they die.

From: Jean Wednesday, April 21, 06:03PM

An error occured during my last append, so rewriting, one page ata time. Yi writes: I agree that its not the biggest of deals- to me, the top priority is straightening out mortal/immortal conflicts like the one Wuss had with Wraith and Sandra. Next would come the xp system and next the eq limits. After that, something like carving would come into play :-). is it -really- that hard to put in a carving knife as a necessity to carve some animals? Yeah, cause then they can make healing roots. Personally, I dont think this makes much sense- is there a myth or something from which this was gotten from? True enough. But trying to change -that-, well, i dont know of -any- muds who delete a char if they die. well, if we just imagine oceans as much smaller bodies of water :-).. Well, i guess the idea is that we have magic protecting us from the bullets.. Well, again, with these innkeepers and such, the idea is that they have pretty heavy duty magic protecting them. As for surgery, I think the only way to really justify that on here is that its basically some kind of magical surgery. Well, that may be your goal. Personally, I want to add a brand new element to our every day lives- muds. I can see a future where itll be something like Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson or Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson. chuckle :-p. I cant think of killing people on a mud as killing- if that w chuckle :-p. I cant think of killing people on a mud as killing- if that were the case, peopled be deleted after dying. No, its more like looting or if its just a fight, like a fight to the unconscious type of thing.

From: Jean Wednesday, April 21, 06:17PM

Wuss writes: you just had to write a little more though didnt ya, he he he :-). Anyways, I may never get to 35, so perhaps it might be better if you tried to reason with me at a lower level as you have :-p. Itll just put a tiny scratch in your game play id think. And a good scratch, no less id think, but yes, thats my opinion, probably not yours. In which case you shouldnt care if one needs a carving knife to carve things or not. For non rpers, youre right. However, losing hps if you dont eat for a while might make it a little more attractive for people on long voyages atleast.

From: Jean Wednesday, April 21, 06:20PM

McDonald writes: Youre -severely- limited by the area you can cover. After a little mapping, I came upon danger zones to all the available exits surrounding tara- just south of the swamp, just northwest of the forest, and just northeast of the crossroads. What -is- it for exactly then? Yeah- itd be nice to be able to travel to most places unacompanied so I could map it all out.. Personally, I think its a real shame that some people see it that way- like levelling was more important then making friends on here. Levels cant be cheapened- theyre just things you get. I think what youre -really- implying here is that itd cheapen characters who got to level 50. Personally, I think it sounds shameful- the idea that a character could be cheapened simply because its easier to get to his/her level. Personally, if I were level 50, I would -still- welcome any changes to make it easier then it is now, because I dont want to see people spending so much time xping- Id rather be talking with them (something which I manage to do at present, but with difficult, due to the fact that most people are busy xping). For sure. To me, the challenge is in coming up with good ideas and trying to persuade others that theyre good ones. I also like listening to other players ideas- case in point- when Madison told me that, indeed, some animals -could- be carved with ones bare hands in real life, I was delighted- because then I could justify trying to carve animals with my bare hands :-). Nevertheless, he said some, not all, which is why I still think some animals should required a knife. I read it and it certainly had some good points. Im all for a hard level limit, like, say, 50 with the possibility of becoming an immortal. What im -not- for is that it should take so long to get there.

From: Wraith Wednesday, April 21, 10:51PM

On the idea of mobs having different sizes, that is an idea that has come up among the immortals in the past. It's not something that I would consider a high priority, but it would be worth coding. It is rather silly, after all, that just as many people can attack a mosquito at once as can attack a while at the same time. Skill use could be affected by the size of the user. Balancing this part could require players to all have the same size, or not. It would make sense to change corpses at the same time so that you would be able to carve off more if you had killed a whale than if you had just killed a bluejay. It is logical and not necessarily a bad idea to require players to use more tools; fishing rods, forges, skinning knives, or lock picks. Players already use some of these in their skills; instruments, scalpels, bandages, vials, herbs, guns, and swords. ;) Regarding the value of suggestions from new players, I have seen some extremely bad ideas from long time players. I've seen them from new players as well. However, I've also seen good ideas from both. Experienced players usually have a better idea of how to implement things, but new players tend to have better concepts. - Wraith

From: Yi Wednesday, April 21, 11:22PM

Jean, it seems to me that you're extremely selective in what you choose to accept without questioning, and what you choose to see as "unrealistic". For example, you're perfectly willing to accept the concept of magic, but you're unwilling to accept the idea that create mages can make yummy roots to heal themselves. You're willing to accept the idea of "magical" protection, or surgery, or characters, but you're unwilling to accept the idea that characters could carve themselves dinner without explicitly using a carving knife. You're missing the forest for the trees, here. Whether you choose to see muds as escapes from reality, or as extensions of reality, they are fundamentally -not- real by definition. My point is- if we make some things realistic, why not make everything realistic? Conversely, if we choose to accept really -big- unrealities such as magic, why can't we accept really -little- unrealities such as carving without a knife? Reality has its place, and I'm glad that Legend is as "realistic" as it is. No more, no less. But the idea that something as petty as carving is an unacceptable unreality while something as funamentally -unreal- as magic is an acceptable unreality seems really weird and off-base to me. Like you say, that's my opinion. And you're entitled to yours. But it also seems to me that you're suggesting a lot of changes that no one else really wants. Yi.

From: Jean Thursday, April 22, 03:08AM

Wraith writes: :-). Anyways, I agree that the idea of mobs having different sizes isnt a top priority. I dont understand this.. Anyways, I agree with everything else, he :-). God, i love the sound of that :-). But, to be on the safe side, Ill say that Im kind of different in some ways- I just have this craving to write and write whereas most other people prefer things like xping. And I agree 100% that us newbies arent good at ideas on implementing ideas- all the points in regards to, say, the raising of eq limits was ample evidence of how much I didnt understand regarding the whole thing (not that I still dont want better eq, just that I now see how complicated it would be to implement :-p). Interestingly enough, Rufus very recently said in the welcome board that theyve given builders the option of having random stats on items. If this is combined with random values, as in a 2dex ring could be valued at 2000 at one time and 200 at another, then this could start things off on the road to allowing newbies to wear higher level eq if they get lucky and find something nice like this. Then again, perhaps the stats will determine the value automatically in which case this doesnt apply :-p.

From: McDonald Thursday, April 22, 06:10AM

I too write on boards more than I xp now. Ive lobbied for many ideas under different char names etc. Its really a lot of fun. Mainly the players all agree that something is needed really bad, then nothing happens. Probably because imms have big backload of better things on their list. The random eq, was one thing we come up with, though the rent will stay relative, ie 1 dex ring 250 rent, 2 dex ring 500 rent, 5 dex ring 2500 rent, basically. If your really interested theres an archive of this board on the legend homepage, lots of good stuff talked about there. Given this, namely that this time other players are poo pooing your idea and not imms makes it look even less likely to go in. A couple things someone should point out, since you haven't gained levels to see this, as Wraith said theres quite a few little doodads we do use, and they take up quite a bit of space. Depending on how high your dex is, you can only have so many things in your inventory. Ie the higher the dex the more in inventory. Also any item weighs at least 1kg. Most don't want to have to carry a knife, and they also still want to be able to carve corpses. Its piddly and easy to add and will affect ppl very little you say, (not a direct quote hehe). But for the reasons stated above, theres valid reasons for wanting not to have to carry carving knifes. If only to be able to grab a filet off some nasty hell mobs. So I ask you other than realisms sake, is there any reason to have carving knifes? Just because you have to do it in real life is not a valid arguement in my eyes, and I don't see how you could say it has any Rp value either. If everyone carried a carving knife it wouldn't be very special to see someone using it would it. Rp value, falls along the lines of coupons in this case I think. Maybe we should fix you up with a strung carving knife and a belt strung as a knife holder. Then you could pull your carving knife out of its holder and then carve as normal. I think the main reason your getting such good response to your topic, is how strongly ppl feel against it. Personally I'm fairly adamant that I don't want to have a bunch of silly commands added. Yes, I've played many muds with stupid things like this, and I usually quit after a short time. The losing hp if you don't eat is a mudkiller also. You can hardly go afk at all. You know it could be made so you need a snack every three hours, and since one never knows where the next meal is coming from it could be made so you couldn't set up triggers to feed yourself, but this is not the sort of crap I play a mud for. Heck lets go all out, lets make it so dust piles up in houses, you have to bury corpses, hell make it so you gotta go to the coroners, sheriff take out a statement, find a shovel. Hrm, lets make it so you cant sleep till you get comfortable and remove some of your clothing and get under a comfy blanket. Lets make it so if you don't wipe off the blood off your weapon it gets dull, and it will need sharpening after any particularly hard fight. Oh and by the way, if it will make you feel better, I guarantee you any animal can be carved by hand well enough to get the meager sort of meal carve gives, anything short of elephant or rhino that is. But then again it hasn't been cooked has it, so maybe your just biting a junk out of that ol elephant or rhino's tongue.

From: Jean Thursday, April 22, 08:27PM

McDonald writes: lol :-). Well, atleast we can dream, he he :-). I keep on thinking we need a lot more imms :-p. the thing is, its so huge and id have a feeling that, like here, most of it wouldnt have much to do with what im interested in, like here. However, if you could tell me -specific- messages, id go, he :-p. Well, not all players are dissing my idea- some are even supporting it. Mainly covertly, though. Thats what bags are for.. Im sure everyone can manage with an extra kg :-p. from what ive heard, most people dont care about carving corpses. I think it does because in the ending, real life is what we judge everything else by. Personally, I think people online or using computers separate being online from being in the physical world too much- theyre both part and parcel of each other. The other day, my little brother did a class presentation saying how video games didnt encourage people to kill- the next day, as you know, 25 kids were killed. While there was no mention of video games, the trenchcoat mafia -did- have a site on hitler.. Yes, Im getting sidetracked here, but I think the most important thing im trying to say is that i think we should focus more of our attention on -doing- something with what weve killed, getting merchant skills as an imm has told me is coming and quit focusing so much on killing. the response I got to this was nothing compared to the response I got when recommended that the eq limits were raised. Hardly. Theres a mud that does it (valhalla.com , port 4242). Not if you go ooc. Another thing- I think that one should be able to see whos around and vis in both ic and ooc. (to be continued in next append)

From: Jean Thursday, April 22, 08:34PM

(continued from last append) Ok, ok, I wont live dangerously anymore, just 15 lines McDonald writes: I dont mind triggers- in fact, i use them at times, precisely for the tasks of feeding and drinking. The dust piling would be a nice touch, but I think itd be down the list.. As for the burial of corpses, I like that idea a lot- on Valhalla, they do it. chuckle :-p. In Kosovo, no such thing happens. In a way, when youre getting xp, you could think of it as a war zone- the burial of corpses is good if only because in real life, theyd start to stink up the place and certainly clutter it up too. again, we could do this one day, but one step at a time :-p. Kinda sounds nice, he :-). But again, there are more important things to work on right now.. Well, I think that blood could just be cleaned off- as for weapons getting dull, I think that can simply be thought of as included in the x damaged category. Youre saying you could carve a gator with your bare hands :-p? And I doubt you could carve a shark.. their skins like sandpaper! And a whale.. you think you could? In any case, as Wraith said, perhaps one will be able to get more then one steak ou of fairly large prey- perhaps only if you use a skinning knife :-). Personally, Id never eat anything on here if it hadnt been cooked- I believe cooking was the first skill I got.

From: Jean Friday, April 23, 05:13PM

Yi writes: Well, uh.. thats not quite true. The truth is, im not that hot on the idea of magic, unless were thinking of magic in the term that I believe it was originally known as- doing something marvelous by methods mysterious. Technology is certainly in this department and I -love- many of the marvels of technology, like muds, say, he :-). So basically, I like the idea of magic on here, because in a way its just another way of expressing oneself. Personally, however, if I ever run a mud, Id try to get it replaced as much as possible with technological things because realism in those things is a lot easier if only because technology has a base thats easy to draw on- the world most of us know. If magic is real, its -still- poorly understood it seems and you certainly dont see the types of things that you can do on here with it every day, he :-p. For this reason, its impossible to make it realistic because much of it just isnt. No, i just dont like the idea that they should be starving in order to do it. As Ive said, I dont really like the idea of magic the way its used on here, but trying to change that is like a mouse trying to move an elephant- the mouse certainly cant do it with brawn- it has to get the elephants attention so the elephant will cower in fear and hightail it out of there (i find it funny that Ive used a myth in order to illustrate my example.. especially since its mainly myths where the magic that we see on here comes from :-) ). I treat them as if they were. The people on here are certainly real- their characters are like masks, but behind them is a very real person. And although mobs arent technically real, they were created by real people. Not only that, but some of their actions can be pretty realistic, considering that we can only see them in a text world. Personally, Im dismayed that kill just about anything that moves- In a real life, would you kill, say, a nice stallion? Or a stallions groom? And yet on here, people do it with abandon. I actively try to find mobs where I can see justification in killing. After some discussion with a friend of mine on here, he convinced me that the royalty of Dun and all its warriors were corrupt and should be put to death. Personally, I kind of regret this though- Id rather exhaust other avenues to change to rid the Dun of its corrupt nature- like, say, writing the Royalty a letter saying that they shouldnt tax the populace so. And furthermore, this is just something Im rping. Id die if someone rp persuaded me that they were in love with, say, one of the guards :-p. Personally, if I made a mud, Id try to eliminate this indiscriminate killing and try to have people on quests during the whole game, with breaks in between quests or even during, depending on how difficult the quest was. Id encourage team work, because I wouldnt be making quests that one could do over and over again. No, these would be mud wide quests done once. They could also reflect things happening in the real world. For instance, lets take a real world incident- Yugoslavia invading Kosovo. As we know, a Tyrant is ruling Yugoslavia- Milosevic. But hes not ruling entirely by decree- many of his people remember that hundreds of years ago, his people used to own a neighboring territory and decide to take it. The world community has to decide what to do. Your choices are as varied as the ones people have in their lives, with the exception that money usually isnt a problem- If you want to become a reporter on the front, you can be. Or perhaps youd like to join the KLA in trying to stop Milosovic. Or you could be part of NATO, or a politician, trying to garner support for the KLA or, alternatively, for pulling back from the war. Notes could be posted for this. What would be ideal is if we could get -real- people from Yugoslavia and Kosovo to play in this- weve certainly got the North American contingent, he :-p. (continued in next append)

From: Jean Friday, April 23, 05:19PM

(continued from last append) Yi writes: A perfectly good point and one that Id simply have to answer- yes, why not? Only, remember that this mud -is- real. Real bits are passing to and from it. What you can do on muds is nothing short of magical, in the sense that its wondrous stuff. As the industrial age proves, the mud doesnt have to have magic in the official term of the word to still seem quite magical. And the thing is.. case in point- in the physical world, you cant portal from one place to another, say. But this isnt the physical world- here you really -can- portal from one place to another- no joke. So its not magic. If you have an invisible spell, you really -are- invisible to others around you who dont have detect invis. If you have magical protection, well, it may not be realistic if we were in the physical world, but were not. The only problem with complicated magics that things with it can rapidly get absurd simply because theres nothing to compare it with in the real world. we could, youre right. Its just that some people -like- having this mud more realistic. People want to be able to answer the hows. For instance, how is it that we can eat alligators with our bare hands? Wouldnt it be nice if we had a tool thatd make it seem like were here even more? Thats the type of thing im thinking of- to immerse ourselves yet more into this game. Ive suggested that one day minimal graphics could be added and the idea wasnt turned down. At first I was told that it didnt seem to want to be done because legend wanted to be really good at what it did and if it was really good with graphics itd get too complicated. But I said that simplicity can be very beautiful. Then I started going on into ideas of how mud clients could combine with muds to create a universal format for graphical icons and stuff, so that when a user is walking around north, south, etc., itd start drawing out a map of the area with oneself represented by a little icon as well. (I think some mud clients already do this, though I cant check them, since im using a mac). thered be like a flag for mob and when the users client got the flag, itd translate it into an icon that they could see. Players would have a different type of flag- im thinking if there was more then one player in the room, though, that it could just have an icon of another player with a [2] or whatever beside it and the names of the players in the room in another box. God, nows the type of time when I wish I knew more of what Ultima looked like, he :-). Actually, the most important changes that I want others -do- want. Lets start with the most important and work our way down- The thing with Wuss and the immortals. Ok, Wraith hasnt seemed to mention anything more, unless its in the FLI thread (what does FLI mean anyways? I decided I wouldnt read a thread when I didnt even know what the thread title meant). So Im just going to say that it seems that Wraith was trying to correct a problem and seems to have reacted a little hastily when he took away Wusss channels. In this case, I think an apology from Wraith would be the best course of action. As for Sandra, she, too, seemed to act a little too condescending with Wuss, saying that he was whining and stuff, when it seemed he was only protesting. Ok, on to the next problem- the xp system. Yes, I still think that one should have to xp less per level, and I know there are a few people who agree with me- the higher up the level, the more they seem to agree, he :-). However, as the most direct person in this told me, they dont seem to want to put themselves in the crossfire that im in, so i remain the only visible proponent. So I suppose thisll have to wait until someone gets more courage. I still think that newbie eq limits are too low, but this has received even less cheer then the xp system, probably because it could possilbly not affect everyone. So I suppose this will have to go on the backburner as well. Lastly comes the rest of my ideas, like carving, etc. While theyre not the most important, they do seem to be a lot easier to code and only arouse token protest compared to the very real protests in terms of changing the eq system, say. The xp system has been defended by more then one person, so I guess im out of the race for that one as well, since Id be the only proponent for change there. Well, thats all :-p.