A scaling magic missile spell was one of my favorite features of a MUD I've since forgotten. (More missiles+damage)

I'm a fan of D&D style spells where higher levels bring not only new, more powerful spells but also an actual improvement in each of the spells themselves.

I rather liked your game when I tried it a few years ago, and it seems like you've tweaked it even further. As I'm sure most of you are aware by know, I strongly believe a game should be about making the right decisions, and that not all choices need to be viable. The original Diku format, with elves being 'good for magic' because they swapped a few strength points for intelligence points was terribly lame. That it continued through several iterations into ROM I felt was inexcusable.

My race's differences are based on "specials", not on stats, so my Dragons 'wink' through space when they flee, a la Pernese Dragons panicking (hey, McCaffrey was Irish, so they're "Irish Dragons", no?) and Pookah can change shape as the legends portend. Thus, players are free to add and swap stats in Creation. Nor does joining a Guild (class) change your character, it just gives you access to a range of skills (here, I inserted the Merc const.c, so skills are restricted by class more so than in ROM). Trains and Pracs are combined as 'Guild Coins' (equivalent, it sounds, to Hades' 'AP') and players may earn as many as they wish by spending XP for them rather than using it to level. Similar in purpose to ROM's 'Creation Points', this makes you choose between leveling faster or having more skills, but doesn't impose a lifetime load on your leveling ability.

I haven't really focused on skills and spells yet, so many are stock, but I did redo the Sorcerers' skillset, and judging from those, I'm using a hybrid of skills that are low level and skills that expand with use. As Sorcerers can allocate any amount of "mana" to a spell, the lower level spells are still useful in situations where you don't want to spend it all. Higher level spells have more effects - similar, but of course simpler, to what KaVir outlined. Well planned Sorcerers finish their fights in one round, and have no use for weapons or armor.



Wow! You must have been playing what I refer to as "twink MUDs". Not that there weren't plenty around at the turn of the century. Giving players everything at the beginning might attract more players, but it's not going to attract players you necessarily want to listen to. ;) Me, I've always liked the players that liked my games, which has led me to a belief in "you get what you deserve" regarding game design.


Something related to this subject is the mechanic of skills being practiced to 75% at your Trainer. I'm always amazed at how many Imps don't understand this. Then again, perhaps it's a case of most newbie Imps are making a game they can win… :) There's also the issue of learning - if you learn from your successes, it's not only unrealistic but imposes a reverse curve on the desirable effect of learning being easy for newbies, while truly mastering a skill takes time. Again, the one to one ratio caused by using the skill percentage directly in the success roll is a bad idea.

I'll lay odds KaVir has 'fixed' this in GW II. :smirk:

To be fair, Diku and Merc didn't have races - those were added by ROM (with other Merc derivates such as Envy and Smaug adding their own versions).


Sounds good, assuming those racial specials are (more or less) equally useful for every class. Another option is to add race-specific classes (or just block certain combinations), if some of your races and classes just wouldn't work together.

For example if you've got a "Paladin" class that draws a lot of its abilities from wearing heavy armour and riding a warhorse, you may decide it's easier just to say that dragons can't be paladins.

Alternatively you could add a special variant for dragons that allows them to wear heavy barding and (instead of a mount) have an NPC rider. But if you're doing that, it may be less confusing for the players to simply call the class "Armoured Steed" and make it only available for certain races such as dragons, centaurs, etc.

However I fear I'm straying rather off-topic…

I'm in the process of completely ripping off the Final Fantasy Tactics Job/Skill system. I always felt it was well balanced and would work well in a MUD. Simply put, you choose your current class, and gain experience in that class that can spent on the skills/spells available to that class. Once you learn all the of skills/spells of that class that you want, you switch over to another class and learn those. You then need to configure your character with the skills/spells that you want available. Your primary skill set is based on your current class, but you have a secondary skill set that can be from any other class you have learned the abilities from. You also have a few support abilities that you can select from various classes. So you have something like this.

Primary - Fire, Thunder, Ice, Demi
Secondary - Charge, Disarm, Break Armor
Support - Dodge
Passive - Regen HP

None of the skills really become useless, they can all be useful in the right combat situation. The question is just properly "equipping" your skills/spells for the situations at hand.

Well, thanks :)



This might be a bit where our opinions diverge :p I at least -try- to make every combination viable. I'd hate for a player to invest hours in the game only to later find out that the combination of things they picked basically doomed them from the start. There are some builds that simply don't work as well as others (I have a high AGI/WIL Thief I've been trying to make work that just seems to more or less suck), but it is certainly a difficult goal.



Yeah, I failed to mention that the biggest affect race selection ultimately has on my game is the fact that you gain racial skills every 20 levels, and undoubtedly some races will find themselves with an advantage or better suited toward a particular class as a result. There have been some interesting uses for some of the skills in ways that aren't immediately apparent, such as a Fighter choosing one of the more magic based races and using their skills more as a means to defend or get through another's magic use more so than using the skills to enhance their magic as most might do.



Yeah, sounds like the same thing. I've always thought the distinction between trains and pracs was a bit silly. It costs 10 "ap" in order to increase a core stat, while it costs 1 "ap" for one practice session.



That's actually a good approach. I can't recall off of the top of my head if we add creation points for leaning non class defaults, but it is something I've considered. Spending exp is another viable option, as one concern I've had is people just stocking up AP, waiting until end-game, then learning all of their skills.

There's definitely a demand for that. Running a Final Fantasy MUD, I've encountered numerous players who were seeking out that system.

I've seen at least a few MUDs implement that in the past, and some of them were mildly successful (poor Administration ultimately was the undoing of every attempt I've seen).

I'll be interested to follow the progress of your game though :)

And if you think the point was to roast a pig, you totally missed it. The point was that your character is starving to death (and yes, in my game you do die if you don't eat), if you do a quest for these villagers, you get enough food to not need to worry about eating for days AND you might even unlock quests from the (now) friendly villagers who otherwise wouldn't talk to you. Lighting their fire is that quest.

But, I suppose the idea of quests are beyond the thuggish mentality of the Diku community. After all, their idea of a quest is the simple "go kill 10 of vnum 3001" or "go fetch me a spoon".

That statement strikes me as an unnecessarily harsh and uncalled for attack on an entire community. Particularly when you consider it was something over as trivial as a difference of opinion with one poster here.

I've seen and implemented myself quite intricate quests on various Diku derivatives that go far beyond killing a certain number of mobs or simply collecting items, so I find your characterization quite unfair.

I have also overseen or personally implemented tons of improvements in our Program system in order to allow for as intricate or complicated quests that a builder could think to implement, including the ability for storing progress and results of quests.

I would personally appreciate if you would take a moment to consider your statements more carefully before attacking an entire and significant sector of the MUDing community.

Just call me Guido.

So the point isn't to roast a pig, but to eat food instead. :rolleyes: So you've substituted one menial task for another.

Your point is interesting but your examples are, very honestly, somewhat lame. It would be far more convincing if you had better examples than roasting pigs and filling your stomachs. You criticize "go fetch me a spoon" and replace it with "light me a fire" – seriously…?


Wow. Umm. Well, that was a remarkably snide and insulting comment to make, to me personally and to the whole community. My comment was at most a criticism of the quest examples you have given so far (which, very frankly, I think are rather uninteresting), and most certainly not a criticism of quests in general. For the record, I am a fan of and build intricate quests with subplots with outcomes that affect your interactions with the world and so on and so forth. Anyhow, I'll just pretend you didn't say the above and move on.

I pinch.

Also: The majority of almost any type of game is constrained to this kind of action, as it's the most base way of dealing with things. Almost every RPG functions on these fundamental setups in one way or another. It's also the classic plot of almost any fairy tail.

Also: Mario.

Now go fetch me a princess so my strung out butler can direct you to the next castle.

*chuckle*
A bit touchy folks? Perhaps I hit closer to a nerve than you'd care to admit?

My statement was not aimed at anyone here specifically (even though my response was to David's response), but at the current and past state of DikuMUD's in general. If you don't *LIKE* the perception that DikuMUD's are seen as lumbering trolls that smack things over the head and do very little else… how about pointing out some exceptions?

I have no doubt there are exceptions, and I expect many of you are the ones who HAVE stepped outside the box and made them. However, just as TinyMU*'s have the reputation of being RP chat-rooms, and LP's have the reputation of being sluggish, so Diku's have the rep of being pure hack-and-slash games.

Sure, my example sucks. I wasn't trying to make a good example, I was trying to come up with non-combat uses for typical combat spells or abilities. Eating may seem menial, but even "heroic" people have to eat if they're still people. Then again, starships don't have bathrooms so….

Anyways, sorry for being a pain in the rear.

I'm not sure it's terribly helpful to "rub it in" with comments like hitting close to nerves. :thinking:

The point isn't to come up with any old example, the point is to come up with interesting examples. If there are no interesting examples, then the point is not made, or at the least, it is made but completely uninteresting. If the only alternative uses for a flame spell are roasting pigs and making campfires, it stands to reason that, really, their main point, as far as interesting gameplay is concerned, is just to kill people.

I actually agree with the idea that there are clever alternative uses for many skills. It's just that, in my opinion, you have done more harm than good with respect to presenting the idea by using bad examples. It means that you are fixing hack-n-slash by introducing cook-n-roast.

I appreciate your interest HK and as soon as I stop breaking my entire codebase I would love to setup a private test run of various features of my system. I will add you to my list of people to invite and if you are still interested at the time I would love to have you. =)

As far as questing is concerned…I can see where both David Haley and Quixadhal are coming from here. I do agree that the quests found on most muds are boring and offer little motivation(to me) to even complete them. Your typical "go fetch" quest is hardly the captivating, slowly unfolding story that most of us would like to see, but the implementation of such things is very complicated. And even the good ones, as mentioned before, still rely on the same basic idea.
The games I remember as having the most interesting side(and main) quests were the infinity engine games. Baldurs Gate 1/2, Icewind Dale 1/1 and I suppose even Planescape. All of them were a sprawling Epic of an RPG and had a large number of long and complicated quests, filled with an engrossing story and great gameplay. If you stop to consider the basics of each of those quests, they were still "go find this", "talk to this guy". What made the quests really fun in my opinion, is the reward that was offered for their completion. I don't just mean a shiny sword or a lot of exp/gold, I'm talking about something truly rewarding. You got to learn an interesting piece of a larger plot, you got to exact vengeance on a group of people or a person in the game that really irritated you and best of all (for me) you got to start things in motion that altered the course of the entire game.
I don't think we need to redefine the basics of the typical questing system. Go fetch this item works just fine as long as it's properly obscured by more interesting details. What we really need to do is motivate players to embark on and enjoy these quests. I propose we do that by finding the right kind of rewards. In any event, what I am trying to do is implement a system balanced enough to allow for players to really alter the game world that they play in. Through easy to understand but fun to follow quests that more than one person can be involved in. I will admit that I only have one quest outlined as of now and my quest system itself is far from implemented but I will give an example of what I have planned for that one at least.
This quest starts as soon as your character is made and is one of the first things you see after character creation. As a matter of fact, a second purpose of the quest is to teach you a lot about how the game itself works. You start off practically in the middle of nowhere, with little idea of what is going on. Weak, confused and basically unarmed. All that is nearby is a construction crew that is building a road across a large plain inhabited by an ever increasing amount of monsters. They are willing to answer your questions, give you the information you need and help you get to a more civilised area in exchange for you bringing them more of the building materials that they need. These materials are across the plain and difficult for them to get on their own. You escort their caravan across for more materials. Now this seems trivial enough, a basic fetch quests. Along the way however you learn about the combat system, the general feel of the game and several other tidbits important to playing. And as an added bonus(the reward I mentioned before) the crew actually uses these building materials to continue building their road, which will eventually allow access to new parts of the world, in different ways.
That might be another terrible example of a quest, and it really has nothing to do with skills but it's one of the things I find enjoyable in games, and the only thing I have to base a fun game on is what I consider to be fun. Anyhow, I'm done derailing the thread now, so continue. :P

That's pretty much what all quests are, when you break them down to their fundamental parts - a sequence of 1 or more activites such as "Move X to Y", "Perform action X on target Y", etc. What brings a quest to life is the cosmetic fluff you wrap around it, and those cosmetics are also what differentiates a heroic task from a menial one. Your players light cooking fires, mine burn down populated villages, but the underlying goal is much the same.

Also, I thought you developed a Diku derivative?


That doesn't mean it has to be an active part of the game. Eating, drinking, sleeping, defecating, breathing, etc, are all things that people do. But I wouldn't bother adding them unless they add to the actual gameplay. If all they do is force the players to jump through hoops, then that's the point I'd start rethinking the design.

I'm with KaVir on this one. I see no point in implementing a feature that doesn't enhance gameplay. Unless eating or drinking is somehow a vital part of the game (and depending on your game, it might be) there is just no point in adding it. As of yet, I've never seen a mud that should have had it, and I've played more than enough.

Ditto.

Eating, drinking, movement points, the need for lights at night in outside rooms… I've done away with all of that. There are a lot of things like that which seemed to be unnecessarily annoying. I can understand some gameplay designs that might make use of movement points, and I can see why some area designs might like to make use of dark rooms, but in the general sense, all of those always seemed to hamper the game than enhance it in my opinion. Besides, its entirely possible for a builder to script needing a light to get through a dark area (and probably make it more interesting in the process) if someone really wants to do that.

I see light as being much more directly applicable to combat tactics etc. than having to eat and drink. The latter also are a very good candidate for being mindlessly scripted away by players.

Just to quickly clarify my stance (in case this thread gets quoted against me at a later date), I'm not against the idea of adding eating, drinking, sleeping, defecating or breathing to muds. What I'm against are the specific implementations that treat these concepts as hoops the player is forced to jump through. If they are implemented in such a way that they actually add to the gameplay rather than detract from it, then I think that's great.

I think most games these days have moved away from penalties for not eating and drinking and instead offer bonuses in the form of stat enhancing food and drink. Of course if the game is balanced around the assumption that characters will have eaten these foods then it's arguably no different from having a penalty for not eating.

I've been known to immediately log off a MUD if I get a 'You are hungry' type message and forced eating and drinking are not something I have any plans to include in Maiden Desmodus. I may add some enhancing foods in the future, but right now the only thing you can do with food in our game is lace it with poison :)