21 Mar, 2008, Zeigfreid wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Hi

I just played my first MUD: Realms of Despair, as an Augurer. I played for about five hours and was mostly bored. Kill crow, rest, kill slug, rest, kill cow, rest, die lose xp, repeat. OK so I'm not a very smart player, granted, but I think that also: The Augurer is not a great class for leveling, so low-level play goes slowly and bores me. Not only that, but there is really very little to do but level. Hmm…

In my imagination the Augurer is a great class for low-level! In my imagination a class that is not designed for leveling by killing is designed for other things. It is designed to buff other characters, or to explore for exploring's own sake, or to do miscilaneous out of combat things that other characters, even higher level ones, simply can't do and so must approach low-level characters for.

The real Augurer class has some unique skills: discern lets them look into the next room, scan lets them look into the next too rooms, and crystalize allows them to use mental energies to create… a torch. Then, once they know what is in the next room and have a torch… they have to go into the next room and say kill slug. Or maybe kill crow.

The Augurer in my imagination is in high demand! When a player creates an Augurer, high level characters notice this and say "oh sweet, a new Augurer, let's see if he'll joing our clan." Because even though an Augurer can really only discern, scan, and crystalize right now, it will be their destiny to be able to scan distant rooms by entering a room name instead of a discription, learn the possible locations of saught after mobs, check the drop rates of items, learn embarassing facts about other characters - such as their wimpy, or how much xp they have, or who their alts are… The Augurer, while he never becomes the 100th level heroe that the Warrior does, is still an integral part of the game. He is a character for players who aren't so big into power leveling and doing dungeons. And, if finally a player gets bored with his Augurering, then they have the option to remort into a heroic class at lower level and join the killing.

You know what I'm saying?

I envision a list of classes to appeal to different styles of play. In my imaginary mud that doesn't exist, these classes would be the lesser spirits of the land, basically living moving suits of interesting spells and skills. They wouldn't be great in combat, but they wouldn't need to be because each of their levels would provide them with new uses for old skills, and new and interesting activities to occupy their time (and maybe earn them a bit of xp so that actually gaining that next level won't be so boring). These lesser spirits have earlier remort options, so that players don't end up sad when they realize that their thirtieth level Spirit of the Forge is never going to be able to slay the Phoenix King and get that cool unlockable remort race.

So this is it, my very first observation as a MUD player: not being cool and effective is always boring, so why should their ever be a character who is not cool and effective?

z.
26 May, 2008, exeter wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Zeigfreid said:
So this is it, my very first observation as a MUD player: not being cool and effective is always boring, so why should their ever be a character who is not cool and effective?


This is a great observation. My answer is that any character ought to be able to become "cool and effective," at least in certain situations. For example, maybe Clerics aren't incredible at bashing monsters, but they're great when partied up with a class that can tank.
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