June 2, 2003

kiri · Post by **kiri** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 3:27 am

Welcome to the Barren Realms MUD Newsletter!

Visit us at telnet://barren.coredcs.com:8000/

NEWS FROM THE REALMS:

Slart: fixes/changes
Sun Jun 1 00:33:43 2003
To: all
- Fixed some weirdness in the color command. The right colors should show
up for all characters now. I didn't add any channels to the configurable
list, though.
- Fixed a bug that could happen if a demon used a tentacle on a different
mob from the one it was already fighting.

And last, but not least...
- Fixed bug that allowed mobs to dodge/parry demon tentacle damage.

That's a little bigger deal than it sounds like it might be. The bug there
was a logic inversion bug...ALL demon limb attacks EXCEPT the tentacle
prevented dodge and parry. I have fixed that...it should now do what it's
supposed to, which means that manual attacks like crush and buck can't
be dodged or parried, but autoattacks like the stone leg and disjointed
knee can be. This may have a serious effect on how strong demons will be.
Since this is a bug fix, we won't be entertaining any requests to change
it back. Consider yourselves warned. If we discover that there is a
serious game balance issue with demons, we'll address it, but it seems
like there's probably a fair amount of wiggle room right now. Let's see
how it goes. --Slart

Sozz: BR Limerick Quest is CLOSED
Sun Jun 1 09:37:41 2003
To: all

Hey everyone,
Thanks to everyone who participated in the BR Limerick Quest!
I will be accepting no more new entries, from anyone.
Unless you've got a fantastically good excuse, that is.

Judging may take a couple days, so everyone needs to just sit tight.
But remember, Everybody is sponsoring, so the prizes will be worth the wait

I'll be posting a few of the limericks in the forums once I get the judging all cleared up.
Thanks again to everyone who participated!

Sozz

Rorin: Grad Quest
Sun Jun 1 18:45:57 2003
To: all
QUEST QUEST QUEST!!!!
It's been a while since I've made a quest.
This June, we present you a "Happy Graduation" Quest!
It's been planned by Ginzor, Enter, and I with the help of
the Quest Team. Sponsored by one of the greatest, Everybody.

Now here's how the quest works...
Of course, before you get out of school, you'll have a
final exam. This final exam will be held this Sunday
June 8, 1:00PM System Time.

After we have checked the results of this exam, we'll
announce the results (and also give the rewards)as soon
as Everybody comes back from his vacation. And then,
we'll have a nice Graduation Ceremony.

On behalf of the Quest Team,
Annie

Disaster: quest!
Tue Jun 3 19:12:55 2003
To: all
this is going ot be a mob dress up quest
judging will be rorin and myself, and coma if he's available, saturday afternoon (no fixed time yet, we'll try to be flexible for you if you have scheduling conflicts
the mob does not need to be able to wear the item (align/level restrictions, etc) but the item must exist in the realms
preferably, you will obtain the items, but if you are unable to (due to level, etc) send rorin and myself an email with your desired items, they'll still count for partial points
points will be awarded based on an obscure, complicated formula (that is, we don't have a bloody clue yet how we'll be judging them *grin*)
but both the mob chosen and the items used will be considered
multiple entries are welcome, mortals and heroes will be judged seperately, mortal items only for mortal character submissions
any questions, ask rorin or myself, or any of our multiple alts
-Dis

IDEAS (go ahead and hit reply!)

Disaster: a command option, birdseye here (instead of just birdseye direction) to see the room including oneself,
as someone would see it using birdseye from the room next door

Ghaleon: What's the point of having hazardous climate if someone will ask "Can you please fix the weather please?"
I'm sure it's useful to have better weather for quests but it could be added to an imm spell.

Contact: make it so that you have to be a certain age to buy liqours

Ghaleon: We should be able to change emote colors like most other texts

Eldaron: have a seperate color for other-character-in-combat's damage

Eldaron: an anti-assisty spell: disencourages assisties from, well, assisting...

Xorex: could we add something to count like the total number of levels or xp gained or mobs killed since last reboot?
would be neat

Suicide: allow the sacrificing of mob turds, but have a message saying that the gods punish you for your impudence,
and have the player randomly teleported

Beanis: find another command for the demon's arm - squid-like tentacles, cause then you can't do the crush social

AMystery: a way to make the demon tentacle more useful. have the damage it does increase not with time,
but with each crush command. cap it somewhere to keep avatars from abusing it though

Ghaleon: linkdead should appear in "group"

Rabies: Add %t to the prompt to display current system time, and %T for military time.

Desire: could it please be done so that grouping doesn't require following each other after the first time needed
to group? it's annoying i have to regroup when the leader changes to avoid this strange following bug.

Squiddy: you should be able to tp from mortal cursed areas if you're a hero

Beanis: show empty eq slots when type eq as demon avatar

Ghaleon: It shouldn't show you who's giving you something while you're sleeping for obvious reasons

Cord: in the "demon" help file, include "see also" for the remort, fetish, revenant consecration, and
"deamon parts" help files

Moldfinger: pets, at least bought ones, should autoassist their owners

Rorin: When you try to enflame a non-weapon item. It should say something else instead of "The _weapon_ must be
magical"--like "This is not a weapon" or something *shrugs*

Suicide: for arena combat, determine who hits first each round randomly, instead of it being the character who
logged in last

Ack: How about making it so that all races get 3 styles a normal, a defensive,and a relaxed style.
But Humans get the extended versions (once they get revamped). Def would not attack at all, but would have
increased dodge/parry/etc

-------------

RESPONSES BY KAMIKAZE:

Utena: Coffee should counter being drunk

Coffee doesn't counter drunk in the first place so why would it do it on br *pokes Birdy*

DevilsAngel: that only Ken can use tainted weapons, like how only Elves and druids can handle flaming

Amystery It makes some sense. I'd rather see it so taht when a non-ken got a tainted weapon it would damage them and poison them, but they could still get it. You drop something burning, but taint is a slow killer. You could use it for a bit until you complete died. Even better, have a non-kender with a tainted weapon be unable to heal.

well I think it was shadowhawk that had got a sword and was tainted by a kender and was given to him an Imm or something had gave it a personality and i kept shouting "return me to my rightful owner" I kinda liked that it was funny

and it was no drop *wiggle*

--------------
Kiri's WWW of URLs:

From Oakley, Online etch-a-sketch

http://www.etch-a-sketch.com/html/onlineetch.htm

Escher Web Sketch

http://www-sphys.unil.ch/escher/

Cowruns -- Diablo 2 fans will appreciate this (not in English)

ftp://62.93.201.249/hosting/gamevision/ ... -anime.swf

From Amystery - How to Stab Kings and Injure people

http://sunflower.singnet.com.sg/~yishen ... acbeth.htm

------------------------

Appropriate Swearing
Top Ten Times In History When Using The "F" Word Was Appropriate

10. "What the *&%# was that?" -- Mayor of Hiroshima

9. "Where did all these *&%#ing Indians come from?" -- Custer

8. "Any *&%#ing idiot could understand that." -- Einstein

7. "It does SO *&%#ing look like her!" -- Picasso

6. "How the *&%# did you work that out?" -- Pythagorus

5. "You want WHAT on the *&%#ing ceiling?" -- Michelangelo

4. "I don't suppose it's gonna *&%#ing rain." -- Joan of Ark

3. "Scattered *&%#ing showers... my ass!" -- Noah

2. "I need this parade like I need a *&%#ing hole in my head!" -- JFK

1. "Aw, c'mon, who the *&%# is going to find out?" -- Bill Clinton

Ginzor · Post by **Ginzor** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 5:02 am

I just love those 'F' words ^_^

Lairian · Post by **Lairian** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 12:29 pm

Eldaron: The anti-assisting spell is having a high alignment. Good people get jumped less. From what I can tell, it's the side benefit of good characters giving up certain spells and equipment, though Amazon Village went far in rebalancing the latter...

Anakin · Post by **Anakin** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 1:37 pm

Eh? If flaming items are not mostly anti-evil I'd go evil! Not only do they assist each other but mobs in Diablo are also hate-good!

Lairian · Post by **Lairian** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:25 pm

It does confuse me that most flaming items are anti-evil, but that's probably just Westernized thinking.

And I've not played in diablo, but if things are hate_good, you've got more to worry about than assists.

I could be misinterpreting everything here.

Everybody · Post by **Everybody** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 8:22 pm

Actually, it's only recently that there's been any decent evil-only eq added into the game. So being good wasn't really a drawback from the eq standpoint. I would assume most flaming items are anti-evil as a continued holdover from my previous statement.
From what I've seen, though (from re-avataring a demon), a low alignment does play into being assisted against quite a bit (aside from guards jumping in... that's a bit different).

disaster · Post by **disaster** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 2:53 am

Disaster: a command option, birdseye here (instead of just birdseye direction) to see the room including oneself,
as someone would see it using birdseye from the room next door

Ghaleon: What's the point of having hazardous climate if someone will ask "Can you please fix the weather please?"
I'm sure it's useful to have better weather for quests but it could be added to an imm spell.
-any of those who prefer hazardous weather are welcome to wake it worse at any time they so choose....

Contact: make it so that you have to be a certain age to buy liqours
-18? 19? 21? what area of the globe would you want to base it on? besides, since characters start out at the age they do, would a year or two of not being able to drink really affect anything? even without those reasons, i'm opposed to limiting characters in regards to alcohol simply because they're new. new characters after all often require alcohol since their spells cost so much mana to use and they aren't able to kill mobs with healing items yet.

Ghaleon: We should be able to change emote colors like most other texts
-by this i assume you mean change the colour of the emote like one would change the colour of chat. i agree with that, i think more message types need to be customizable, i hate being locked into certain colours for certain message types. if you mean change it as we can change it in cheer, that would be an interesting idea but would probably be more annoying than it's worth, same reasoning that coloured items have been repeatedly turned down. hardly anything important ever gets said on cheer, so those that hate the colour spam can just turn it off, not so with emotes.

Eldaron: have a seperate color for other-character-in-combat's damage
i totally agree, though not just a seperate colour, a seperate message type with colour customizable like other channel types.

Eldaron: an anti-assisty spell: disencourages assisties from, well, assisting...
-it's an interesting idea, but would need more clarification. we already have sleep and blind, both of which work very well if you don't want a mob to assist. since avatar spell-downs are against the rules anyways, i don't see the need for a spell in addition to sleep.

Xorex: could we add something to count like the total number of levels or xp gained or mobs killed since last reboot?
would be neat
for each individual character? or for the sum of all characters? and would that include exp gained by avatars that doesn't change their exp tnl?

Suicide: allow the sacrificing of mob turds, but have a message saying that the gods punish you for your impudence,
and have the player randomly teleported

Beanis: find another command for the demon's arm - squid-like tentacles, cause then you can't do the crush social

-i agree, or add the social crushs, for crushsocial, which would be an exact copy of the crush social that demons could use instead of crush

AMystery: a way to make the demon tentacle more useful. have the damage it does increase not with time,
but with each crush command. cap it somewhere to keep avatars from abusing it though
-perhaps have it increase with time and with repeated commands, with an extra command having the effect of one bonus round worth of damage multiplier?

Ghaleon: linkdead should appear in "group"
probably a good idea, though in any group i've been in the fact that someone is linkdead has been immediately apparant

Rabies: Add %t to the prompt to display current system time, and %T for military time.
-i would rather see military time as standard, and see %t be system time, %T be your set local time

Desire: could it please be done so that grouping doesn't require following each other after the first time needed
to group? it's annoying i have to regroup when the leader changes to avoid this strange following bug.
-all that has to happen is for the person who is the group leader to follow whomever is going to be leading the way, just a one command change. if what i'm understanding is that you want all the people in a group to be leaders simultaneously, what about drunk people? one person leaves, the next leaves in a different direction, and you have a huge mess. just have the group leader follow whoever is leading the way.

Squiddy: you should be able to tp from mortal cursed areas if you're a hero
cursed and no magic out have nothing to do with each other except coincidental mutual occurance. if what you're suggesting is that heroes be allowed to tp into and/or out of mortal nomagic in/out rooms, i'd disagree. we already get tp, astral, and track in guild at 51, area builders should still be free to restrict tp into certain areas, even for heroes.

Beanis: show empty eq slots when type eq as demon avatar
i love this idea. the addition of empty eq slots showing up was a wonderful idea, and i think it should work for demonavatars as well.(though only at avatar ofcourse, since for non avatar demons it would be useless) anyone who doesn't like the extra half-page of spam could juts type l self, so i think it would be a great idea for this to be implemented

Ghaleon: It shouldn't show you who's giving you something while you're sleeping for obvious reasons
i guess that goes into the "duh" category, but there are lots of similar situations that go along with it. "someone wears a helm" if you can't see the person, how can you see what they're wearing, doing, or anything of the sort. determining gender of the invis person also seems a little funny.

Cord: in the "demon" help file, include "see also" for the remort, fetish, revenant consecration, and
"deamon parts" help files
-very good idea

Moldfinger: pets, at least bought ones, should autoassist their owners
i'd love to be able to order pets to autoassist/not autoassist, that would be the best

Rorin: When you try to enflame a non-weapon item. It should say something else instead of "The _weapon_ must be
magical"--like "This is not a weapon" or something *shrugs*
good point. possibly "you can only enflame a magical weapon" to cover both possibilities at once

Suicide: for arena combat, determine who hits first each round randomly, instead of it being the character who
logged in last

Ack: How about making it so that all races get 3 styles a normal, a defensive,and a relaxed style.
But Humans get the extended versions (once they get revamped). Def would not attack at all, but would have
increased dodge/parry/etc
an interesting idea, but with the ac cap working the way it would probably be a long way off, if it happens at all. perhaps the human revamp would be a good idea to test this type of an idea, and see if it should be globally implemented

Anakin · Post by **Anakin** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 3:50 am

The 3 human styles are pretty interesting. I think by the defensive style, he only meant raising the percentage of parry/dodge (besides they are martial artist, they should dodge and parry more often than a dwarf).

Ghaleon: We should be able to change emote colors like most other texts
-by this i assume you mean change the colour of the emote like one would change the colour of chat. i agree with that, i think more message types need to be customizable, i hate being locked into certain colours for certain message types. if you mean change it as we can change it in cheer, that would be an interesting idea but would probably be more annoying than it's worth, same reasoning that coloured items have been repeatedly turned down. hardly anything important ever gets said on cheer, so those that hate the colour spam can just turn it off, not so with emotes.

I just like to clear out that I meant was the emote to be in the color config. I don't like the idea of changing it to different colors like cheer my self. It's just useful for quests and usually the 20 Question Quest. Hehe.

Divebomb · Post by **Divebomb** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 9:37 am

Desire: could it please be done so that grouping doesn't require following each other after the first time needed
to group? it's annoying i have to regroup when the leader changes to avoid this strange following bug.
-all that has to happen is for the person who is the group leader to follow whomever is going to be leading the way, just a one command change. if what i'm understanding is that you want all the people in a group to be leaders simultaneously, what about drunk people? one person leaves, the next leaves in a different direction, and you have a huge mess. just have the group leader follow whoever is leading the way.

Many many times you will group around someone simply because of their level. Maybe you have the following group:

Dwf 23
Elf 19
Avian 16
Kender 16

The group has to be around the elf, but maybe the Dwarf is the best leader in the group. What you're saying is all the Elf has to do is follow the Dwf and he becomes leader. That's true. However, elves are known for their drunken stupors. This means everytime the dwarf moves, you have a pretty good chance the elf has moved the wrong direction or smashed into the wall, thereby seperating the group. If the avian and kender could group around the elf but then follow whoever they choose, then it wouldn't be a problem.

The change simply needs to be that you follow a player to to be grouped, they group you, you can then follow anyone and remain grouped until you type a different command (like "ungroup") or you quit or the group holder types "ungroup <player>".

Cord · Post by **Cord** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 1:10 am

The change simply needs to be that you follow a player to to be grouped, they group you, you can then follow anyone and remain grouped until you type a different command (like "ungroup") or you quit or the group holder types "ungroup <player>".

I'm with DB on this; it makes sense and sounds like a good addition to me.

(I mean, logically, following someone else after you've grouped really shouldn't effect your grouped status.)

Cord · Post by **Cord** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 1:18 am

Lairian wrote:Eldaron: The anti-assisting spell is having a high alignment. Good people get jumped less. From what I can tell, it's the side benefit of good characters giving up certain spells and equipment, though Amazon Village went far in rebalancing the latter...

Well yes, this is true. As a mort/first time avatar, I tend to spend a fair amount of time at allign good.

But even if you're hovering around a 1000 allign, you can still get attacked by an assist mob. (I'm fairly sure of this, but am willing to listen if told I'm wrong.)

But even if that is incorrect, it could still be a useful spell. Make it an aura similar to sanctuary that affects you as opposed to a spell cast on the mob.

As the game gets more balanced between allign good and allign evil items, and being good is the only way to trim the amount of assisting you're subject to, such a spell could be pretty handy and cool.

Cord · Post by **Cord** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 1:26 am

Rabies's time %t, %T suggestion:

I'm all for this one, too. I'd follow with Disaster's suggestion these times be 24-hour based, %t local, %T system.

And, if I remember right, it's already been coded - it's just waiting for enough people to ask for it to be implemented...

So everybody reply and say you'd like it! ;-)

Anakin · Post by **Anakin** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 5:09 am

I'm all for the time suggestion! Anything that will change that cursed time is always good.

Lairian · Post by **Lairian** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 2:54 pm

I suppose if we really want a spell that lowers assist rate, we could give evils a cloak of shadows or somesuch...though in my opinion it should be as expensive as sanc and equal duration. Also, it'd have to be pretty restricted in my mind...

Probably elf and illithid...if we group drow into elves, then both are shadow races, and evil. Add kender for assassin training of keeping the fight quiet, sudden, and unobserved. I'd think dwarf too, if we include the possibility that evil dwarves are dreugar, for the same reason as elves/illithids. Dark Druids could easily swing it too, manipulating nature to cloak them.

Really the only race that I don't see is avians, what with the shreiking and berzerking and all, unless we say that avians can be owl based...

I'd think that it would be restricted at the very least by the same equipment guidlines as sneak. On top of that, I'd add that it breaks if the mob crys out in pain etc. (which they do do if you pay attention...). Also, I think damping should drop it, since it's kind of hard not to notice such obscene displays of power flying about...

Looking back, I guess I'd say in guild it for kender and illithids, out of guild for the rest, and restrict it like no other, since that's a very powerful spell we're talking about. Then again, this is just me babbling.

Cord · Post by **Cord** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 4:09 pm

Sure. Most or all of those restrictions would be fitting for a spell of this variety.