June 1st, 2000

Head Admin

'Yes, something is being done,' LadyAce says to Jesus. 'Look for resolution on this topic before fall.'

Jesus says, 'Well, by Dom's presence last night, things were made pretty clear.'

'Yup I just have to catch up with them,' Kaige says. 'If you have a problem in the meantime.. drop me either mudmail or email.'

Crashes

'We don't really know... but it looks like a wierd pkok bug,' Ea! says.

A musician with dancing eyes says, humming quietly, 'Nothing to do with the AT runs that were going on?'

Ea! says, 'They didn't appear to.'

OOC

A musician with dancing eyes says, humming quietly, 'Anyway, the issue Sandra raised regarding enabled chars being able to go afk from anywhere was that people could go ooc from an enemy's favorite mob, then wait for them to get there, go IC and surreptitiously bs. Or something.'

A musician with dancing eyes says, humming quietly, 'I was wondering if Tarn's solution of there being an accept timer set on you whenever you went ooc from a place that isn't an inn would work.'

LadyAce says, 'I think the problem that this raises is about the nature of the ooc, its purpose, etc.'

'Definitely,' a musician with dancing eyes says musically. 'That's another thing i wanted to ask.'

Kaige liked the solution of making everyone have to go ooc from an innkeeper.

LadyAce says, 'The ooc isn't really meant as a zippy place to store your body while you leave, it's meant more as a place to spend time in an ooc-mindframe.'

'See, the help file on ooc only specifies that OOC should not be used as an extension of IC,' a musician with dancing eyes says, humming quietly. 'No further explanation is offered as to what constitutes an abuse of OOC.'

LadyAce says, 'There's a difference between help files & what we as designers intend the feature to accomplish.'

A musician with dancing eyes says, humming quietly, to Kaige, 'I think that makes sense though, it needs to be consistent.'

'Would waiting for morning be abuse?' Blossom says.

A musician with dancing eyes says musically, 'Perhaps there needs to be a set definition of what OOC should and should not be used for.'

Kaige says to Blossom, 'It's an ooc of character solution to an in character dilemma.'

'So it is a slight abuse of OOC?' Blossom says. 'So i shouldn't do it anymore?'

'A light source would give you lots more playing time,' Kaige says to Blossom.

Blossom says, 'I know... but i'm lazy.'

'It has ben the experience of some of my interviewees...if i may interject...that to walk about at night in strange areas can lead to death, and other unpleasant consequences,' Tuddle says.

Ea! says to Tuddle, 'Leave before the sun goes down?'

'I think stumbling about in the dark is indeed a great way to be eaten by a grue, and therefore people ought to carry lanterns,' LadyAce says to Tuddle.

Tuddle says, 'Er....caution may be preferrable to valour, so to speak.'

'But i think the fact that restrictions are placed on going OOC for certain chars makes defining the purpose of OOC an issue,' a musician with dancing eyes says, humming quietly, to LadyAce.

Tuddle says, 'Ahem...er ... might I just interject that some of my interviewees have reported the need to collect their thoughts. Erm...they use OOC to do so...'

PKOK

'I've heard different things like,' a musician with dancing eyes says, humming quietly. 'Eventually everyone will be automatically enabled. Is that true?'

Ea! says, 'I don't think that we have any plans to change how things work in that regard.'

'What about how unenabling will work then?' a musician with dancing eyes says, humming quietly.

'At this stage, I'd consider unenabling to be a penalty,' LadyAce says.

Ea! says, 'Simple, "reject all"'

'See, right now if you're not enabled, you can go OOC from any point in the game,' a musician with dancing eyes says, almost singing the words.

'Sure, but if we change that, then the problem is solved...' Ea! says.

Ea! leans towards Kaige's idea of making everyone need to go OOC from an Innkeeper.

Multiplay Rules and Char Remaking

No, there's not. Because from our perspective, they're different characters,' LadyAce says to Bauxite.

Kaige points to help multiplay ("using one character for the advantage of another")

Bauxite says, 'Bleah, then I'm stuck with a crappy character forever.'

LadyAce says, 'Within the fiction of the game, we don't have an allowance for reincarnation of that sort :).'

LadyAce says to Bauxite, 'You never know :) some people have said that about their chars, stuck them in storage, and found out later they were spiffy.'

Bauxite says to LadyAce, 'Its hard to be a spiffy mage with crappy cast levels.' Well I'm trying to find reason to keep playing legend as much as I used to and remaking an old characer was one way I was hoping.'

The Reasons for PKOK

'Actually, the players are still here, they have the habit of complaining, saying they're leaving, then logging onto a different alt,' Sandra says.

'I haven't seen that sort of shift in the raw numbers of players we get,' you say to Raydon.

'Err, i've seen lots of chars perma'd,' Raydon says.

'I never end up leaving I just end up making newbies,' Bauxite says, looking amused.

Raydon says, 'What was your reasoning behind putting pkok in?'

LadyAce says, 'Essentially to make pk more player-regulated, so that players could make more use of a very resource-intensive feature.'

'Ok, wanna say that again as if you were talking to a chimp,' Raydon says.

'Power to the people :),' LadyAce says.

'When a single code feature consumes 80% of our resources, and is utilized by 20% of our players, something is broken :P,' LadyAce says.

Kaige says, 'If only 20% of the characters were using it regularly, that's an awful lot of resources (coders and etc) going for 1/5 players.'

'Were you getting complaints from people?' Raydon says. 'Or just got bored and said lets tweak it, or what.'

'Hmm, pk system seemed pretty basic before = p,' Raydon says.

Ea! says, 'I think the original complaints were from the Admin department.'

Ea! quotes, 'We don't like pkill, let's pull it.'

Ea! says, 'That's what I remember of it, but I wasn't paying too much attention.'

'Yeah, but thats comming from an admin,' Raydon says. 'Not a player.'

'The old system put nice people at the mercy of mean people in a way that was poisonous to the mud as a whole,' LadyAce says.

Raydon says to LadyAce, 'Pk is about player killing, thats not a nice term, nor should people expect it to be nice when the get into it.'

Sandra says, 'People want different things out of pk, now they can have it.'

Huginn says to Raydon, 'Is that an excuse to be an ass?'

'Unfortunatly things got a little overboard, people got violent, started x-playing against players, yadda yadda yadda,' Raydon says to you.

Raydon says to Huginn, 'No, its not, like i said, things got outta hand more then once.'

'It's a pretty cool feature, I don't think we should abandon it to the biggest bully on the block,' LadyAce says. 'That's like giving the parks to the gangs.'

Bauxite says, 'Too many people take PK to seriously.'

Raydon says to LadyAce, 'Pkok takes away the spirit of true pk.'

Kaige says, 'Only if the players let it.'

'Now people are asking, 'anyone want to duel' rather then just jumping someone when you want to fight,' Raydon says to you.

Huginn says, 'What's the spirit? Vengenance?'

'It lets the players decide what they want the spirit of pk to be,' Ea! says.

LadyAce says, 'If the true spirit of pk is to make other people miserable, then it's ok to take that spirit away.'

Bauxite says, 'I dunno pkok seems a lot more play friendly to me than the old system.'

Raydon says, 'If you wanted it to be friendly, you shouldn't be pk.'

Sandra says to Raydon, 'Why?'

Fuego Inferno says tauntingly, 'Very rare is it that a person retires or permas and NEVER PKills again.'

'Well, now that attitude is no longer true,' Ea! says to Raydon. 'You can be friendly in pk, or not, depending on what you want.'

Bauxite says, 'I meant if you dont like be jumped by the same person who hates you you dont have to be.'

Fuego Inferno says, voice full of that nasty 'nyaah nyaah' sound, to Ea!, 'Im an asshole in PK, but i dont have anyone to be an asshole to.'

Ea! says, 'Or, rather, you can have people be friendly to you or not be friendly to you.'

'The biggest thing I found I didnt like about pkill was the same people always got killed by the same people,' Bauxite says.

'But thats not what pk is supposed to be,' Raydon says to Ea!.

'The idea behind pkill now is that you get to say what it is supposed to be,' Ea! says to Raydon.

Fuego Inferno says tauntingly, 'Duels are boring.'

'Use that power to make it what you want. Ostricize those who abuse "the way it is supposed to be"' Ea! says.

'Pk is player kill, you kill players, not when they want to be killed,' Raydon says to Ea!.

'Jumps aren't exactly fun either,' Legolas says gently.

'Of course they are,' Fuego Inferno says, voice full of that nasty 'nyaah nyaah' sound.

'I love when somoene attacks me,' Fuego Inferno says tauntingly.

Raydon says to Legolas, 'Jumps are the funnest thing in pk.'

'Sure they are... for the person jumping,' Legolas says, kindness evident.

Jesus says to Raydon, 'To some.'

'Nothing in the words "player kill" says that it needs to be harassing for the victim,' Ea! says.

Fuego Inferno says, voice full of that nasty 'nyaah nyaah' sound, 'Im happy with people jumping me.'

'The point is that they're not for everyone,' Huginn says.

'Pk is something to enhance playing the game,' Sandra says to Raydon. 'It should be fun for each person participating. Previously, it wasn't.'

Legolas says, kindness evident, 'What about the novice pker that gets owned constantly by jumps?'

'For some people,' Kaige says. 'This system allows more people to participate in more ways.'

'Yeah, the pansies and wussies,' Raydon says to Kaige.

Fuego Inferno says tauntingly to Legolas, 'They learn how to be an expert soon enough.'

LadyAce says, 'A bunch of you who want oldstyle pk should just pkok each other and agree not to unok. anybody who goes back on the code is a big dork :).'

'I LOVE the fact that I can reject those I don't want to deal with,' Jesus says.

'So?' Kaige says to Raydon. 'It lets more people get practiced and more willing to play later with the big boys.'

Bauxite says to LadyAce, 'I think they miss being able to always jump and beat the same 'easy marks' over an over again.'

Raydon says to Kaige, 'Yeah, well, if you keep getting your ass kicked, eventually you'll learn something, but if 2 people who know nothing fight eachother, they learn alot slower.'

Huginn says, 'The point is that alot of players don't care about anyone but their clique. That's fine for them but bad for the game.'

'But they're still playing the game and not leaving because they felt they were treated unfairly,' Kaige says to Raydon.

Jesus says to Huginn, 'Good point ;).'

LadyAce says to Raydon, 'People who want to learn from the school of hard knocks can always ok all, or ok a bunch of big meanies.'

Legolas says gently, 'Everyone who liked being able to jump should just accept all and leave it at that.'

Raydon says to LadyAce, 'The accept reject system is too complicated, pk is supposed to be basic and dirty, you get killed or kill by all, thats as complicated as it should be. No more, no less.'

'Yes, but the new system allows to test pk to see if you like or not,' Legolas says, kindness evident, to Raydon.

'If you want it basic and dirty, you can have it that way,' LadyAce says to Raydon. 'Not everyone wants to play that way though.'

'The funny thing is when tough people say "but if I ok all, people will jump and kill me and then reject me",' Huginn says. 'Wouldn;t it be a huge challenge to fight off that attack?'

'Rather ironic isn't it?' Bauxite says to Huginn.

Huginn nods his agreement with Bauxite.

Huginn quotes, 'The whole mud is against me!'

'Wouldn't it keep them on their toes to always be ready for that?' Sandra says.

Raydon says to LadyAce, 'Why don't you just open up pkok on a different port like when you do pk tourneys, to let all the people who don't really want to pk try it out.'

Huginn says to Raydon, 'Poor use of resources.'

Kaige says to Raydon, 'Because this way we don't have to separate the community.'

Raydon says to Huginn, 'So is pkok.'

Milo says, 'And what about people who do want to pk, but only for occasional rp?'

'For yourself and people like you, maybe,' Huginn says to Raydon.

'You're ignoring the whole pk clan part of pkok too,' Huginn says to Raydon.

Kaige can't wait to see the stats on pkok and accept all at teh end of the month.

'Yeah, I'm very interested to see how we've done,' LadyAce says to Kaige.

'Thing is, there's been more pk since pkok then there's been in the past 4 months prior to its install,' Sandra says. 'Guess the people have spoken.'

'It'll decline quite fast,' Raydon says.

Huginn says to Raydon, 'Why not use the pk clans and have them accept?'

Jesus says to Raydon, 'Your not used to being told no, and you have a problem with that, methinks.'

'Most people enabled, tried pkok once, and just stopped using it,' Raydon says.

Fuego Inferno says, voice full of that nasty 'nyaah nyaah' sound, to Jesus, 'Your not used to being told no either :).'

Fuego Inferno says, voice full of that nasty 'nyaah nyaah' sound, to Jesus, 'Nobody enjoys being told no.'

'But I like pkok ;),' Jesus says to Fuego Inferno.

'Yeah, thats why your the enemy!' Fuego Inferno says, voice full of that nasty 'nyaah nyaah' sound, to Jesus. ':P.'

Jesus says, 'Lemme say why pkok rocks.'

'Go for it,' Raydon says.

A stocky albino lad says matter of factly, 'I like being able to test things with all my characters now that i couldn't previously cause of the one char limit.'

Fuego Inferno says tauntingly, 'It just takes the fun out of it for the true pkillers.'

'Now thats very true actually,' Raydon says to a stocky albino lad.

Jesus says, 'In normal pk, someone can force me to fight, go out of their way to make my pk life miserable.'

Huginn can't count the number of times he's heard complaints about 1 type of char suddenly being useless

'If you didn't wanna fight, you shouldn't have enabled = p,' Raydon says to Jesus.

'In pkok, they can't do it, and it's those people who get their kicks from such which are suffering now,' Jesus says.

Jesus says, 'I find it amusing as hell.'

Balance Issues

Raydon says to a stocky albino lad, 'Yes.'

'Oh yeah, after the hit/dam change, and eq changes, mages can fight as good as pure fighters now,' Raydon says.

A stocky albino lad says neutrally, 'Why do mages have such ready access to skills that fighters have and have only?'

'Mostly because it takes a huge giant set of changes to make that work, and we haven't gotten there yet,' LadyAce says to a stocky albino lad.

A stocky albino lad says neutrally, 'You could put higher dual reqs on skills like headbutt and bash.'

'Is there some reason why i can't land a stunning headbutt anymore?' SkullKrusher says. 'And has wfw been toned down some or something... 95 mind and i rarely EVER wfw?'

'I don't think that code has been touched in a while,' LadyAce says.

'And tumble especially,' a stocky albino lad says matter of factly.

Raydon says, 'Parry seems to be working more often. I find myself parrying a bit more now.'

LadyAce thinks it is all in your head!

'I swear i never stun headbutt without dazing mysef,' SkullKrusher says.

'Luck comes and goes :P,' Shard says.

'Be nicer to your moms, that's good for your wfws :),' LadyAce says.

Sir Lancelot says, 'I have been testing lots of charas and with the new equ set out there, str and dex went down the drain.'

Sir Lancelot says, 'Con is the best chara out there by far.'

Jesus says, 'Oh, dex is fun, IMO.'

'When mages counter fighters with their fighting skills, fighters dont have much to strategically do except hope for better luck on the next skill,' a stocky albino lad says clinically.

'Yeah, I find that fighters tend to be a bit too static for my taste...but an influx of new skills means finding ways to keep mages from having those skills but still be playable...it's not a small problem,' LadyAce says to a stocky albino lad.

A stocky albino lad says clinically, 'If mages want good fighting skills i think they should have to give up more mage stats.'

LadyAce says to a stocky albino lad, 'Yeah, that's part of the trees thing...unfortunately it's something we're clearly having a hard time finishing, as an organization.'

A stocky albino lad says matter of factly, 'I dont propose adding a ton of new skills, but rather put higher dual reqs on ones we have already like headbutt, tumble and bash, etc so that mages either have to give up more mind, or loose the skills.'

Raydon says to Ea!, 'Rather you get in skill trees then fix bugs, screw bugs, sides, players are too afraid to exploit em, unless that bug crashes the mud, skilltrees more important.'

Cutter says, 'Don't take this the wrong way, but any idea when skill trees might go in?'

'None at all,' LadyAce says to Cutter.

'They're on hold,' Ea! says to Cutter. 'We're not actively working on them, but even if we were, they have a few months of coding left to go.'

'Thats alot of coding, what lang you codin in skill trees, c++?' Raydon says to Ea!.

'C,' Ea! says. 'C++ is overrated.'

Fuego Inferno says, voice full of that nasty 'nyaah nyaah' sound, 'Talking about backstab, FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT!'

A stocky albino lad says neutrally, 'No one else thinks cause needs to be looked at a little bit closer?'

'Why?' Shard says. 'Its not like they are the ultimate character.'

Jesus says, 'I'd just like to see flavor do something that cause doesn't.'

Raydon says to Ea!, 'I think new fight skills should be added in. Fighting skills, kick dirt, trip, etc etc.'

'They have too many options is all,' a stocky albino lad says clinically to Shard.

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