26 Jul, 2012, Elvarlyn wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Hello Mudbytes community!

You may remember us from this recruitment thread to which you all responded so positively.

Several years ago, a group of veteran MUD players led by a veteran MUD producer set out to take a long hard look at the genre. We wanted to identify what players loved and loathed about MUDs, what they wanted from PvP, PvE, Roleplay, Crafting, Trading, Lore and so forth. Then, beginning from an entirely blank canvas try to create a MUD that meets or exceeds industry benchmarks in every category.

It's been a (really) long journey and we've been blessed with fans and volounteers of near infinite patience and enthusiasm. Now, that wait is over.

On October 12th, Lithmeria: The Endless Siege will be throwing open its doors and we invite you all to join us.

Between now and then, we'll be doing daily announce posts and weekly contests (at the time of writing, the quotes contest is firing on all cylinders). We hope you'll join us at our forums and on our Facebook as we count down the days to release.

We would love to hear any questions, comments or feedback, you can:
- Post them in this thread.
- Post them on our forums.
- Post them on our Facebook
- Join us on IRC at: irc.solidirc.com, in the #Lithmeria channel
26 Jul, 2012, KaVir wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Elvarlyn said:
Several years ago, a group of veteran MUD players led by a veteran MUD producer set out to take a long hard look at the genre. We wanted to identify what players loved and loathed about MUDs, what they wanted from PvP, PvE, Roleplay, Crafting, Trading, Lore and so forth. Then, beginning from an entirely blank canvas try to create a MUD that meets or exceeds industry benchmarks in every category.

From the descriptions and discussions I've read, it appears that your staff are primarily from an IRE background, and this seems to have heavily influenced Lithmeria's design.

I'd be curious to hear which other muds you looked at, and how much experience your designers have with playing and developing other codebases.
26 Jul, 2012, Elvarlyn wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
That's a great question.

We're a pretty diverse team in terms of amount of experience beyond IRE.

Our overall producer and head coder, Selkrener, whose brain child this game really is and who sets the strategic direction has about 19 years in the industry, specifically listing:
- MUSH's
- LP's
- Diku's
- Circle
- Rapture (IRE)
- God Wars 2
- Evarayn (probably the game he would describe as having inspired him the most)
- A number of other custom codebases

I fall more in the middle of the pack, having gotten my start in Wulfenburg MUD before moving onto a combination of MUSH's, Aardwolf, Armageddon and all the IRE games.

Aerith and Cally round out the team, and they're primarily IRE background.

If you're looking for a specific example of where we went in an utterly different direction to IRE, consider our equipment and items system. IRE has historically tended to take a very limited approach to equipment. There's a selection of items you absolutely require to function (the basic curatives, armor, a shield and a weapon), but once you've assembled those, you're done. Sure if you're a weapon class, you may spend a weekend glued to the forge trying to craft a 225 speed sabre/rapier to replace your 219 speed one, but that's about it.

We looked at that and compared it to games from World of Warcraft and Diablo 3 to DIKU's, Circle and LP MUDs. We aimed for a system where gathering the perfect set of gear is not only a long journey, but also a very personal one. Everything from your weapon to your potions can be customized and tinkered with, built up over your career and fine tuned to do exactly what you need it to do.

See:
Selkrener's Thoughts on Arms and Armor
Brewing
Smithing
Artisans Tattoos and Crafting
02 Oct, 2012, Elvarlyn wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
We're now just 10 days away from release (I promise not to do a daily count down)!

We really do hope all those who have viewed our progress with interest will come and see what all the hype has been about!
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