[Ornir Elunari]

I am not so sure about removing skill lag – Since even removing the lag after a successful attempt would allow you to potentially sneak in, stab a mob, and flee out without the other mobs in the group getting a chance to react. It may make sense, however, to reduce the lag somewhat, as I know that it is very long in some cases.

Think about it this way, the lag represents opening yourself up to ‘Attacks of Opportunity’ to use a dnd term. Potentially, there are ways to remove or lessen this affect.

Regarding flee lag, I agree, it is a bit too long. It would be better if the flee lag were dynamic, changing based on your level of panic (or via some other mechanic.) This is something I plan on looking into once we get more into the testing and polishing phase of the current iteration.

Please, keep the comments coming.

– Ornir Elunari

[Ornir Elunari]

Hi Fez!

Yes, we could most certainly use some help with zone testing – We just added 20,000+ rooms to the mud and have a bit of a task ahead of us to go through and test out all of this new content. I will let you know when we start opening zones so you can check it out.

Thanks for the interest!

– Ornir Elunari

[Ornir Elunari]

So – I changed some parameters to make the terrain more interesting, and here is what I have as a result:

(Click for a BIG verison, 1 pixel = 1 room.)

I am actually very very happy with this and might just run with it if nobody has any objections. I am currently running around this wilderness on the development port and it is really nice and diverse. Now to add more sector types and make it even more filled out!

– Ornir Elunari

[Ornir Elunari]

New Map:

[Ornir Elunari]

Here is a decent map I have generated:

This has had a bunch of transforms and is a different seed from the map I posted earlier. I like this map because of the mountain range, and how there is a narrow pass that would be a good place for a town, “The Gateway to the North” or something.

The black anomaly in the mountains is nothing in-game, just a graphic artifact.

The map is still a little boring, I am going to try to add another layer of noise with a different seed to try to change things up a bit.

For example the single big forest is pretty, well, boring

More to come.

– Ornir Elunari

[Ornir Elunari]

I used a graphics library in C – I have since done some refinements, and now we have one continent in the center.

Right now I am working on getting it less circular and more organic looking. I’ll post a picture when I am happy.

One of the continents i generated looks like a big Yang symbol 😛 Pretty cool. I saved the seed for that, in case we want to use it.

More later…

-Ornir Elunari

[Ornir Elunari]

Thanks Nashak. 🙂

The plan is, moving forward:

• Refine the sector types (mixed forest (Y&A), deciduous forest(Y), coniferous forest (A, light hills (n), rolling hills (m), etc.) This is still in the works and may change at any moment! 🙂
• Move the landmasses away from the edges
• Increase the feature variation, more mountains, better distribution of features, etc.
• Include biomes with temperature modeling
• Simple weather modeling (related to biomes)

Etc.

That is just a top-of-my-head brain dump on what I am working on with this. Also, of course, refining the in-game representation and navigation. The basic plumbing is in and working, but I am sure there are bugs and you can also go off the map into negative coords! It works, as the algorithms are near-infinite, but for practicality i want to limit it to positive coordinates.

-Ornir Elunari

[Ornir Elunari]

Here is a map of one of the generated wildernesses, from (0,0) to (1024, 1024) :

Every Pixel is a location in the wilderness.

The colors are self explanitory, the blues are water, light green is plains, dark green is forest, light brown is beach/cost, brown is hills and grey/white is mountains. The black in the mountain to the nw seems like some kind of volcano-anomaly.

Is anyone else excited about this? 🙂

– Ornir Elunari

[Ornir Elunari]

With the advent of the new wilderness system – This is going to change significantly. Once we choose a generated worldmap I will post it up here so that everyone can take a look (and a jab :)) at it!

Thanks for your patience with this.

– Ornir Elunari

[Ornir Elunari]

Strange, try copy-paste?

[Ornir Elunari]

Yep, the items are generated based on level.

[Ornir Elunari]

@Isis wrote:

Being as I seem to be one of the only one of us without Dungeons and Dragons experience, I may have a differing opinion on this but I think it should be pointed out anyway. Having only played other MUDS, I do not feel like the help files explain the way we are to use and implement spells in game very well. While I am perfectly capable of following directions such as: To prepare spell you must do A, B, C and D first and then 1, 2 & 3 to do it again. I don’t feel like it is simply explained in the help files. Maybe this is just my unfamiliarity with the way it works and the game in general, but I think if we want a player base to grow (eventually) it needs to be user friendly. Meaning that they should be able to come in, read a help file or two and be able to cast on something, otherwise, they will get discouraged or just annoyed and go find something else that is easy to ‘jump into’ mechanics wise.

This is a very good observation. The magic system in Luminari, while intuitive to those with some experience, is not intuitive to most mudders, and especially seasoned ones.

Many players do not bother to read help. Therefore, I have a suggestions. What about a ‘HINTS’ channel that is by default on from levels 1-5 or so. This channel is toggleable, of course, and would provide hints to new players regarding what they should be doing. For example, if a player gains a wizard level, then they might receive a message like:

[HINT: Before you can cast spells, you must first MEMORIZE them. HELP MEMORIZE explains how to do this.]

Where HELP MEMORIZE is an MXP clickable link to the ‘help memorize’ command.

This channel could be used for other things as well, like helping the player train, boost, etc. also, upon entering a zone, it could check the player’s level against the zone’s level and warn them if necessary. This requires that we review and set these zone levels correctly (they are off right now).

Updating the help files would also, as Isis said, be helpful. If you have nay updates, feel free to post them and we can add them in game. Any other ideas on creative solutions to the problem Isis presentd are welcome!

– Ornir Elunari

[Ornir Elunari]

Tyrion you have a good point here, and I have been considering this very subject.

We DO need a lot of play testing on the existing zones, as well as a considerable amount of tweaking/cleanup to get to where we need to be. I understand that there has been some talk of doing X zones in Y months, etc. but what I – And the rest of you, I would imagine – want, is to have quality, solid areas that can be played through and enjoyed fully without loose ends, overpowered gear and mobs that are way off on the power scale.

To that end, what Makiel and I are currently working on is a revamp of the way object statting works. We are trying to bring it back to d20 level stats, as that is the system we are trying to emulate here. Of course, there are challenges in translation and there are some things that are done better in the MUD world and vice versa.

The current plan is to have object types/templates, so that when you are building an object you first choose the object type, then the appropriate template. The templates are somewhat analogous to the current mold system for crafting. Once you choose a template you will have a generic object of that type with all fields automatically pre-filled. From that point you can customize the object. Ideally, as you add bonuses and maluses, the level of the item will change accordingly, thus preventing any overpowered items. All of this can of course be overridden by World Forgers and above (lvls 33-34) in case we have a special need. A check, similar to zcheck, will also be created that will go through all of the objects in a zone and attempt to match them with a type and adjust their stats accordingly.

The same with mobs, we wish to utilize race, size, level and class to automatically determine things like hit points, attributes, etc. It will be possible to modify these things but a lot of the burden of balancing will hopefully be taken off of the builders’ shoulders.

I am not saying that building will be like legos, not at all – Descriptions, names, stats, everything will be in the builders’ hands. All this system will accomplish is providing a baseline of power that we can rely on to provide balance in the game with a minimum of builder effort.

SO, that is what we are doing regarding items and mobs in existing and new zones wrt balance.

I will be contacting you Tyrion, regarding building. If any of the staff would rather have a different task, by all means, just ask. I would love to find everyone a position where they feel they are contributing to the best of their ability and having a good time doing it!

(Tyrion, regarding monster photos, if they are public doman then I would LOVE them for the website! A bestiary would be pretty sweet :))

Sorry for the wall of text –

tl;dr: If you want a different task, please just ask, I want you to contribute to the best of your ability and have fun doing it!

– Ornir Elunari

[Ornir Elunari]

This post was just copied from the wiki, but I need to comment on it.

Nobility is the concept of ‘being a player character’. It is NOT nobility in the traditional sense. Therefore, this section:

RANKS of NOBILITY

0 RP points Peasant

10 RP points opens a Quest for you to become a Citizen
The Quest would be to buy a house in a city.

20 RP points opens a Quest for you to become a Squire to a Knight
The Quest would be to join your Kingdom’s military

40 RP points opens a Quest for you to become a Knight
The Quest would be successfully killing 5 players in PVP

100 RP points opens a Quest for you to become a Baronet
The Quest would be to join a Clan

200 RP points opens a Quest for you to become a Baron
The Quest to be a leader position in a Clan

500 RP points opens a Quest for you to become a Viscount
Quest to be leader of a clan with atleast 10 members

1,000 RP points opens a Quest for you to become an Earl
Quest to have successfully killed a Dragon

2,000 RP points opens a Quest for you to become a Marquess
Quest to be leader of a clan with atleast 20 members

5,000 RP points opens a Quest for you to become a Duke
Quest to kill an Avatar

10,000 RP points opens a Quest for you to become a King
simply acquire the RP points and be a Duke

Was removed from the bottom part of that post.

– Ornir Elunari

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