I'm definitely keeping an open mind on this. However, I want a large player
base. I'm anticipating on it, actually. The theme of my MUD sparked interest
in a lot of players over the last two years. Unfortunately, it was never
stable.
I decided to rebuild it from ground up, using the old copy as a "parts" MUD,
like you have a "parts" car.
I'm designing some broad-sweeping systems for my MUD because they fit
the "feel" of the MUD that I want. Players of EverQuest will find a lot of
similarities. But it's my spin on things, in some instances things I was glad
to see EQ do because I was already planning on them. :)
And truth to be told, in all honesty, I have to say, you're wrong if you think
people aren't interested in this kind of system. The concept that every mob
could potentially interact with you for a quest changes a lot. The concept that
you can make items is something people like. Especially if you can make
your character rich by getting items other people will want. I honestly believe
that something that is strongly lacked amongst most MUDs is a good honest
player economy.
If you still think I'm wrong, take a look at how many people are playing EQ.
20-30 servers, average _online_ playerbase of 1000 per server at "normal"
times. Peaks range from 1500-2000+. When average is over 2000 normally,
they make a new server and split it, moving interested characters to the new
server.
I think (from an old quote), 300,000 copies of EQ have been sold. Approximately
at the time, 200.000 players were active. That's a pretty good ratio. And I
think
it definitely proves that there are people interested in that type of
system. :)
Quests are not "advertised" as such. However, once you get the hang of how
the system works, you find out how to find the quests. Or if you get XYZ item
you can ask others if it's part of a quest that they know of. Take a look at
this site:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/
Some of the quests span continents in a game that can take 20 minutes to
(non-magically) travel from one continent to another. And yet there are a lot
of people doing these quests.
EQ has done a lot of things that make the game have a lot of downtime,
which I can't agree with. The game should never be so tedious that it gets
boring. But even with a complex forging system, zMUD, MUDMaster, TinTin,
mcl, what-have-you will suffice for simplifying it more than I can codewise.
And I do aim at making it easy to use. That will be a topic of discussion for
a long time to come.
I'm not changing all of this on a MUD that is already up and running. I'm
planning
the complex systems which will be present from the very beginning. I honestly
believe that by doing so, when I open and it's a thought-out, stable
system, the
audience that is interested will come. "If you code it, they will come."
MUDs as stand are often too simplistic and boring. Levelling is simply a matter
of having the right equipment, maxing the right stats, and knowing what to be
killing. What I want to do is extend that with a LARGE selection of skills,
spells,
add a teaching system in, and have a nice combat engine (probably re-written
from ground up to account for what we want to be feasible). So, you can sit
there
and level if you want. Or you can enhance your character's financial
status. Or you
can find or make some nice equipment. Or you can gain fame and glory. There
needs to be more than just levelling. Otherwise, whip out D&D and go for some
good old hack'n'slash. The H&S mentality is not what I want to appeal to.
I've seen
and dealt with too many PK freaks to want that environment on my MUD. I want
something that will appeal to the RPer more than the PKer.
For example: the forge-scene in Ultima VII - Serpent Isle, where the
>Avatar forges the Black Sword, that is necessary, but it might as well be
>done without the advanced item-creation thingie you describe... I am sure
>some of the heavier coders in here would do it differently, but I could
>imagine I could do such a thing myself with a little spec_proc that just
>waits for items to be given/held/whatever, then if all requirements are met,
>take items and purge them, load a new object, voila... But as I said, I
>don't know jack crap about coding, more than what I've read in here, and
>what I've tweaked my own CircleMUD with...
Another interesting possibility. I'm leaning towards having some object that
they place items within or upon.
> I am interested in the outcome of this discussion about forges, I
>look forward to a conclusion because I want to try it myself...
Everyone has a different take on this. Personally when I originally started
thinking about this two years ago, I was going to have:
create armor
create weapon
enhance armor
enhance weapon
repair armor
repair weapon
For skills. Now I really don't think that system is good enough. :)
Please remember, though, that whatever system we design is going to
be for multiple types of artificing. Potential uses are:
smithing
jewelcrafting
fletching
baking (fills the body, refreshes the soul and body)
tailoring (charisma should be important. :) so an evening gown, while having
less AC, will have a better charismatic appearance on a woman)
and others I forget at the moment.
I'm also the type that is going to implement multiple corpse types. With object
durability, varying items will survive different methods of death. An
immortally
slain character will have a corpse that is a "stain of blood on the
ground". If you
get eaten by a LARGE flagged mob type, your items will end up in it's
inventory.
Get fireballed, you have a "pile of charred bones and ash". Get burned by acid,
and you have a "steaming pile of liquid". Which might hurt you when you go to
retrieve items from it.
If you think and plan well enough from the beginning about things, you can
acheive
wonderful results. The planning can often be much harder than the actual code.
Differing types of corpses, really, isn't that hard to do. :)
Sorry for the long rambling rant, but I have a strong vision of what I
would like to see
in a MUD. And most people who I have shared this with have been VERY interested
in it. If it lives up to half of my hopes, then it should be a fun and
interesting place
when we open up.
Gotta run, I have to get to bed soon and this weekend I have to work on
cleaning up
some issues after putting in MCCP within my MUD. Copyovers aren't working quite
right as a result of the compression... I know how to handle it, I just
gotta rework
some things.
Peace favor, all.
--
StormeRider "Peace favor your code."
thelastsunrise.net 9000 (http://www.thelastsunrise.net)
windsofstorm.net 4008 (http://winds.windsofstorm.net)
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