What do you want?

What do you, the potential players (and cheeky staffers), want to see out of the MUD? Read over the introduction announcement post and the thematic snippets, and respond with scenarios you would like to see unfold, achievements you would like to obtain, roles you would like to play, foes you want to vanquish, and so on.

Kithrater wrote:(and cheeky staffers)

Oh, you know you love us.

Though, to keep it on subject, since you ask - I know it's not currently in the plans (at least, I don't think it is), but I would like cooking to be one of the craftsets that we consider adding in. It lets the "non-warriors" contribute SOMEHOW. I mean... dude... even epic heroes have to eat.

Animal Runners!!!

So... when a rabbit has an arrow sticking out of its foot, it shouldn't be able to move ten rooms a second. Now... one room, okay... but... would there be any way to slow the hunting game down if they've got any sort of gushing, terrible wound... rather than them running like mad and bleeding out twenty rooms away, when they shouldn't be able to get that far?

Well, a change like that isn't too difficult to put in. I was more asking for broader "goals" or neat things you would like to see.

Such as coding in exposure penalties for the harsh weather of Dorthonion. People suffer from the cold if they're outside in sufficiently cold temperatures with insufficient clothing. So the pelts and hides of wolves and bears become very valuable substances in protecting you through the winter months. Prolonged exposure can lead to chills, fevers, pneumonia, frost-bite, and even death. So, when you and your mortal enemy battle it out in the woods fifteen miles from town, and you beat him to an inch of his life, instead of ending his wretched existence with your sword you can leave him lying naked in the snow, and then watch from afar as he struggles to make it back in to town through the snowfall before he freezes to death. And then laugh when his friends go out to hunt the next morning, finding his stiff blue corpse feet from the town gate.

Kithrater wrote: So, when you and your mortal enemy battle it out in the woods fifteen miles from town, and you beat him to an inch of his life, instead of ending his wretched existence with your sword you can leave him lying naked in the snow, and then watch from afar as he struggles to make it back in to town through the snowfall before he freezes to death. And then laugh when his friends go out to hunt the next morning, finding his stiff blue corpse feet from the town gate.

And you call US cheeky. Sheesh.

... kidding. That actually rocks. I think I've known about that for a while, but.. I'd forgotten about it.

Weather penalties would be sweet.

Something I've always wanted and never seen would be a nautical code. Not sure what the region's like, but would there be room for some river-combat? All sorts of things could be extrapolated from that - crafts for laying logs in the river, boarding parties, fast troop transportation...

Just a thought. Everything looks so cool.

I would like to see three major things in particular.

1) The ability to be a part of those battles involving the dragyns, balrogs, orkish uber hordes, trolls, and the like. To be able to at least in a glancing way, be a part of those awesome stories of the first age we find in the Simirilian.

2) The ability to play elves, dwarves, hobbits, dunadan without having to wait 2-3 years to earn the RPPs. That is just far too long to wait and I think it really hurts a game when there are players that could play awesome dwarves or elves or hobbits, but they don't have a certain number of subjective points to play them.

3) A more interactive combat system with the occasional manuever and a true bonus to actually 'mastering' a combat skill. When you see a person who has mastered anything, you just know it by looking at them. They are quicker, more agile, confident, and urgent in everything they do. Mastery of a skill should be more than reaching a certain number, I think it should open further combat avenues and advantages itself.

Those are my ideas at present.

Poe

Janarc wrote:Something I've always wanted and never seen would be a nautical code. Not sure what the region's like, but would there be room for some river-combat? All sorts of things could be extrapolated from that - crafts for laying logs in the river, boarding parties, fast troop transportation...

Not something I had actually thought about, but it could be very interesting. The Sirion is a major river and artery in to much of Beleriand, and while it doesn't form part of Beta, it will be an important geographical feature in Open.

Poe wrote:I would like to see three major things in particular.

1) The ability to be a part of those battles involving the dragyns, balrogs, orkish uber hordes, trolls, and the like. To be able to at least in a glancing way, be a part of those awesome stories of the first age we find in the Simirilian.

I agree. I can see the PCs, Beor clansmen deeded to fight for the Noldor, clad in buckskins and armed with hunting bows marshalled up on a hill, and seeing the horizon blacken with orcs preceeded by Glaurung. Or be part of the bandit encampment led by Beren after the fall of Dorthonion. Or shoot arrows in to Sauron as he leads the assaults on Tol Sirion.

2) The ability to play elves, dwarves, hobbits, dunadan without having to wait 2-3 years to earn the RPPs. That is just far too long to wait and I think it really hurts a game when there are players that could play awesome dwarves or elves or hobbits, but they don't have a certain number of subjective points to play them.

Well, hobbits and Dunadan don't exist in the timeframe, but I am hoping to make Noldor, Sindar, dwarves more accessible. "Reward" points (or roleplay points [RPP] for the uninitiated) will give a lot more. Common elves and dwarves will be 1 RPP, rarer elves 2 RPP, and trolls, werewolves, and other fantastical intelligent creatures in the 3 to 5 RPP range. While beta is unlikely to have any RPP races, in the open game I hope there are plenty of elves and dwarves wandering about with humans.

The necessary trade-off is that elf and dwarf PCs won't have significant coded advantages over human PCs. As we're all heroes or aspiring heroes here, everyone will be roughly equal (although elvish NPCs will be far superior to human NPCs).

Likewise, I am hoping to institute standards of behaviour for non-human races. Elvish PCs that don't act like elves will be "asked" to retire. Sinda PCs who spend their time cruising for MUDsex with humans will be removed. Dwarves who teach people Khudzul will mysteriously disappear.

Something yet to be decided is what "reward" points are meant to represent, and how they should be accquired and reduced. If it only takes 1 RPP to play an elf, then maybe you lose that RPP, if it only takes a month or so of good behaviour to earn a RPP in the first place. Or maybe not.

3) A more interactive combat system with the occasional manuever and a true bonus to actually 'mastering' a combat skill. When you see a person who has mastered anything, you just know it by looking at them. They are quicker, more agile, confident, and urgent in everything they do. Mastery of a skill should be more than reaching a certain number, I think it should open further combat avenues and advantages itself.

This is something that I've been focusing on. There are advantages to mastering a variety of weapons, there are new "weapon style" skills which grant special manevours at higher levels, combat messages reflect your skill with a weapon or defensive skill, weapon types are interestingly different and armour type matters, what attributes you choose for your character affects your combat style, you can aim for specific locations, unarmoured or low-armoured characters can do things heavy-armoured characters can't, and so on.

My aim has been to make combat require more thought on behalf of the player, and allow a lot more room for development of the character. Skill levels will go from 0 to 90, and someone in peak form who choses their weapons and tactics carefully will be able to rip through a dozen or so plodding grunts.

I'll be the first to admit, I love crafting, I find it a very interesting and rewarding system. Crafting has always in my own mind, allowed a playerbase to grow and influence the culture and health of any gameworld. Maybe if combat is necessary or required have the crafters taught one weapon, or keep them restricted to the town walls unless accompanied by a guard or two. Why? Because crafters are a valuable resource. You don't want to lose a cook or whatever to an aggressive wolf, because they wanted to see outside the city/town walls.

Crafts I'd love to see involve the usual gamut, and perhaps the ability to a few new categories: Cooking, Baking, Sewing, Weaving, weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, hideworking, carpentry, and the ability to build both wood and stone structures, given the proper time and material.

Crafts are definitely going to focused on the martial aspects. So, lots of crafts to make weapons, make armour, with not so much focus on making dresses or apple pies. However, the major improvement will be the introduction of multiple variable objects for crafts. So instead of producing "a simple iron longsword", you take an oak hilt, a serrated blade, and some black tassels, and make "a serrated sword with a black-tasseled oak hilt". Or, the same sword, but an alder hilt, a curved blade, and a silver pommel, and you get "a curved sword with a silver-pommeled alder hilt". Similar things can be done for shields, armour, and whatever takes your fancy.

Carpentry and masonry are long term plans though, particularly allowing people to build houses and structures for themselves - either to live in out in the wilderness, or to add to locations they have captured and are managing.

Without question, the thing I'd most like to see is a revolutionary (not evolutionary) change in NPC AI, NPCs in combat, etc. A secondary addition I'd love to see is the ability to have huge battles spanning multiple rooms, but I think there would need to be several big changes to realistically accomodate that end.

What do you mean by "evolution"? I'll be the first to admit my coding ability is subpar, and that a lot of the changes that need to happen is merely more intelligent application of existing code to difficult circumstances. The only real "evolution"s I think I'll be putting in place is two long-term aims:
1) NPCs that, on their own, stake out land, build settlements, send out patrols, and eventually amass strength to lay full assaults on player territory, and then the individual NPCs using their weapons and group-strengths in a smart fashion such they're more or less indistinguishable in the sophistication of their tactics compared to PCs -- that'll be years away, and even then is more or less just adding, refining, debugging and building upon systems already in place.
2) grid-based rooms in some form to solve the constant griping about combat.

Will one have the ability to amass NPCs of their own to do large scale combat? If NPCs are mentioned to eventually do this, will Pcs be able to do the same?

As some will know, I have been also keen for PCs to be able to amass NPCs to fight wars for them, but it has usually fallen short of expectations for a number of problems. The big one has been a lack of a reasonable way to manage NPCs, either in combat or out of combat, or a somewhat realistic way to reflect their upkeep and recruitment.

Mid-term plans are for a detailed system that allows PCs to set up camps, and then recruit from the virtual populace. Once recruits are drawn in, PCs will be have to feed, clothe and pay them, and will be able to train and equip them, deploying them to patrol static locations or accompany PCs out in to the wilderness. Likely this will be handled by a simple interface that displays how many NPCs are in the PCs clan, how much food and cash there is, how much is needed for the next payday, and what the NPCs are doing (x on patrol, y in training, z recovering from injuries). Rather than simply "buying" NPCs, players will have to set up recruitment points, with the more prestige their clan has and the more places it recruits, the more potential fighters joining up.

To feed, pay, and equip NPCs, your camp will have rooms for food, money, and armour, and when a NPC is drawn out of the virtual camp and in to an actual mobile, they outfit themselves as per pre-determined guidelines (e.g. recruits get the worst armour, veterans the best, people with high-strength get big weapons, people with high con take shields, and so on)

For in-battle command, I'm developing better NPC AI, so your NPCs will automatically rescue wounded or out-numbered clan members, use their weapons as the situation calls for it, and be able to be set to fall back to locations when injured. So rather than going in to battle and having your NPCs fall like flies, they'll fight nearly as effectively as PCs, guarding, rescuing, using good weapon styles, and falling back when injured. So rather than becoming a pain in the ass to take out in to the wilderness, NPCs are just as useful as PCs - though likely inferior in skill and armanents.