July 6, 2001 Hello and welcome to the BR newsletter! News from the realms: Joysinger: quest results - hey, no need to get all excited yet ;) due to a couple problems with my isp and my own laziness, ;), i'll be announcing winners for the MA-Quest this weekend. this far, i got two entries for the writing quest from you guys, but i'm not extending the deadline. apparently bluestar has ip issues, too, but she promised she'd mail me the entries she got (lucky you's if you did write one but forgot to send it my way... ;)) so, watch out for those notes on the weekend, i'll get MAquest done, but i can't make promises on the writing one yet. Kiri: New photos An updated picture of Uthar on the imm page, and a new pic of DevilsAngel on the hero page. Make sure you reload if you've been there before to see the new pics. http://www.coredcs.com/%7Ebarren/pics/ Just email me your pic if you want it up :) Divebomb: BAMF Quest I have finally compiled my list of overall winners of the BAMF Quest. Since the quest was entirely based on a combination of luck and skill, only the extremely lucky qualified for round 2 (they mave been a little skillful :P) Round 2 consisted of everyone participating to be transfered to a room in the area "The Underworld". Each player then had to return to recall by walking. Only those who successfully arrived at recall in round one on their FIRST try qualified for round 2. Of those who did participate in round 2, I am giving prizes to everyone with a time less than 2 minutes. Here are those people: 1) Racer: 45 seconds 5) OldGuy: 1minute 15 seconds 2) Doug: 48 seconds 6) Fnordie: 1minute 38 seconds 3) Eru: 1minute 7 seconds 7) Kharn: 1minute 52 seconds 4) Shiloh: 1minute 14 seconds Winners should contact me when they see me for their prizes. Thanks to everyone who participated, it was an awesome turnout (71 different characters). Armageddon: in game triggers. This would help a lot when I'm away and can only use telnet. Xorex: A way of looking at the areas in the order they were put in or at least a way to look at all the areas put in in the last year See: when you profile an avatar it should tell you what number avatar they are after there race Liubei: different colors in damp and dams Wasabe: Wouldn't it be nice for notes to allow color in them? Perhaps... only imms can mass post colored messages... and mortals and heroes(not AVA's) can post colour to people of lesser or equal RANK... mort's to mort's... heroes to heroes && morts... ava1 Wasabe: Locate object, with AND and OR ... maybe even NOT... && || !... etc etc... ;) Wasabe: How about when there is no second command passed to "profile" it shows my profile. Thrasher: As a a rare quest reward have the option to remove a flag from a piece of armor or a weapon. (anti-align or magic) Bender: humans should get disarm, they seem like a race that should Armageddon: make the ignore command filter out chats etc... as well Bio for dreamkeeper A What's your BR name? Dreamkeeper b. What race/ level are you? Elf (and proud of it) level 78 atm C. Howdid you pick your Br name? From a amazing book I read years ago but I cant remember it's name d. Whats your favorite area? I would have to say rhps (Rocky horro picture show) The eq there is funny and the descriptions rock e. Where do you live (state or province/ country)? I live in the U.K in a county called Yorkshire f. What do you do for a living? I am at full time mom g. If you're a college/grad student, whats your major? Um I went to college and studied to become a nurse h. What do you want to be when you grow up? Grow up what's that? i. Are you single deff single j. What are your hobbies? reading Stephen King, playing games with the kids and sitting with a sore bum at recall k. What's the hardest thing you've ever has to do? Watch my boyfreind drown and then have to tell his mom l. Who do you most admire? The aid workers in africa (or anyplace where they are needed m. What celebrit would you like to hook up with? I have to say christopher lambert (highlander, fortress and many more other films) n. What's the last book you read (including for school)? A book called Elle, about a woman who's nother in murdered in front of her and how she gains revenge o. What's the last movie you watched?did you like it? I watched the mummy2 and yeah it was ok but I kept wanting to sing george of the jungle p. If you could be anywhere in the world for a week, where would you go? I would go to my best friend's (devilsangel) and we could rock together in hawihi or texas depends where she is at the time Article: Amystery's Quest results: here are results for a number of quests: at least 2 that I can remember My Kinky Fetish Quest Everyone had a great time, even Racer who was repeatedly bamfed and left to die as a reward. The rest got cool prizes that I'm sure they would rather tell you about. The object of the quest was for all the questers to work as one giant group to find a full set of equipment that fit the theme of "fetish". It was intentionally an open ended quest. After about 1 hour the items were in and the results were tabulated. There were two groups participating: Sozzy, Thoren, Shiloh and Brona got 2nd place for their group entry described as: "a dominatrix whipping mr. goodbar." The winning entry was done by several individuals but they describe it as: "a lubed up dominatrix style fetish fest" The winning individuals were Solomnius with 20 points and second place. That's 11 items +9 unique points for the lederhosen, the elastic mask and the unbearable odor Gabriel claimed first place with 22 points. Also for 11 items and 2 extra points for being drunk. He got unique points for a hotdog and the ice pick. ---------- In other news: I held a "What If" Quest some time ago. People submitted entries about what they would do if the real world was like the Barren Realms. There were lots of great entries but the two best were: Second Place: Cruzzer: To start with i must tell u that if rl was like BR i would be a giant and powerful dwarf! It would be easy for me to tourture all mortals until they swear their loyalty towards me. Everyone who doesnt do so will be killed, then he will raise from the dead in the middle of the earth, so its best for me to leave some guards around there. After all mortals follow me, i will start do the same thing with the heroes. I will take them one by one, piece by piece, and when im powerful enough i will exclaim myself as Empress! I will drive around in a couch, just licking and torturing people, especially morts ;) Then its time to go for the imms and the higher ones, but with my giant army of heroes and stupid morts it will be a piece of cake. Then, finally, i will exclaim myself as God! I will send out all aggros hunting down morts, and if the morts resist, then ill kill em, over and over again! I cant forget to admit that the best part would be that its possible for me to drink like 500 beers without getting drunk if i like , and that would be awesome! =) All the defeated imms and even Kiri, will be chained..Then put up on crosses, bleeding to death every day, just to show the people how mighty i am!! MUHAHA!! ( I would also force all mortals to walk around naked , it would be much cooler to lick them that way, but THAT is my secret! ;) ) I would also change my clothes, they wouldnt look ok on a God! ;) Damn lucky this wasn't for real =) First Place: Armageddon: If the real world was like Barren... First, I'd go and get some corpses for cash. :) once I got about 100 mill (2 runs) I'd go and have fun I'd buy as much beer as I'm allowed to carry and drink it without getting drunk! then I'd go cruise in Divebomb's Pimp Mobile and pick up chicks ;) If I can't find anyone that liked me already, I could always glare a few... then we could all go to the land of MTV and visit all the neat people I'd take all of my friends with me, including this in RL;) after that, I'd try to take a bite out of the giant pickle named "Vain", throw snowballs at Dagmar... I'd go to the Casino with Slart :) go around and do cool stuff with Nugad, Cobalt, Dreemz, and all the others I'd probably annoy Dive some more just like I always do...Talk with bad grammar just for Rabiez misspyl some word's with bad punctuation's too ;) impress women, esp. the really hot girl I like ;) oh the possibilities! The world is a bright and beautiful place, you just have to look past the ugliness to see it. A special recognition goes to Arcane for his brutally honest entry: Arcane: I would die of starvation Responses by Cord: A couple comments.... > Kethan: back to that stamp idea.. mabey an area away from calathar > would have a stamp shop? would only work on containers.. dunno if > that would be hard to impliment or anything, but it seems like a good > idea :P Cord: Seems like a good idea to me, too. I'm sure we've all lost a pack or two during our time, and the ability to put a little stamp on it with one's name could be quite helpful. I second. > Sykle: Suggestion: show the date/time of the mesasage in chath, > heroh, etc. Cord: Hmm. In most cases, I'm guessing this would be pointless. But then, there is the time when you log in, do a chath, and proceed to answer somebody's question that was asked over an hour ago... so I can see how it would be somewhat helpful, tho I'm not sure about it being worth the effort. > Lehua: I propose a mob be added to Calathar called "The Village > Idiot" and he should be protected by the gods. He should also wander > around Calathar spouting various words of encouragement, insults, and > gibberish. Cord: Heh. I like this idea. And perhaps we could throw bits of wisdom and useful tips into the idiot's list of things to say and do; talk of "secret/special" weapons and the like... > Mathis: you REALLY should be able to eat when your drunk Cord: You can, just not when you are REALLY drunk. Which I would tend to agree with... >> Verdict: a defensive spell that prevents you from being poisoned > > Divebomb: it wouldn't be so bad Cord: I also think this would be a worthwhile additon. Responses by Everybody: Deathless: a speco for scared mobs, they will try to flee or leave whenever someone is in the same room as them, regardless of if they are fighting. They don't like being around any players I envision this being a pain in the butt to try and kill even one of these mobs (think how annoying fleeing mobs are) and not really worth the effort of actually coding it in... Wasabe: Perhaps be able to play a game while we sleep... to help pass the time... Kiri -- not a bad idea. Maybe we could have an option to exit to a logic game or the casino, although realism sort of suggests no. I sort of like this idea... I usually find myself playing minesweeper iaw as I heal up characters when I'm playing... Something like a mud-wide c4 game would be really _really_ neat, although I'm probably just dreaming... Wasabe: Color in the descriptions... that would be neat... mayhaps an extension to the prompt and cheer printing fn's? I could envision myself using this... especially if we implement Brodgar's idea to program a certain key (or key sequence) that the mud interprets as a line feed.... you could create some really pretty descs that way. Wasabe: how about another color INTENSE BLACK... this is one shade darker than ^w and one shade lighter than blain color 0 I think we're actually limited to what ANSI color can transmit for colors, so adding another one would be rather more than difficult, and I doubt that any of our mud clients would support it. Wasabe: I really wish we had a command to filter text from stdin... much like grep... list | grep black ... etc who | grep M Umm... some more explanation for those of us not familiar with linux systems would probably help... Wasabe: Fore ground and Background ANSI escape sequence color coding for Descriptions... It sure would look purdy... maybe no need for back ground coloring... but it would add some effect... :) I assume you mean the text of the desc when you say foreground, in which case, I covered that earlier... background color would be rather more difficult, since I think most telnet/mud clients just assign a color to the background (or allow you to choose a background color) and so most people wouldn't be able to see the background color that you painstakingly programmed into your desc. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong about that.) Wasabe: how about a level desciption for Candyland... at the front gate to the area? This would be a builder thing, but I rather doubt it'd receive much priority... too many other things to be having folks do. Wasabe: Be able to 'where' a corpse... would really help some. Simpler to just remember where you were when you died, as per our normal standard as of now. I typically don't have any problems finding my own corpse. Besides, where on the corpse would only show what room name it was in, which is somewhat unlikely to help much if you can't remember at least the general area you were in. Wasabe: How about a submarine for a vehicle? :) so we don't need scuba geer... But how much do people use vehicles as of right now, anyways...? Wasabe: How about when typing "affects" it lists just how terribly bad one is drunk... I mean how long will I have to mope around before I can eat a pie without hurling it? ;) I think the throwing up code depends on how drunk you got, and only wears off when you become fully sober (I could be wrong on this). But I've heard rumors that the drunk code is going to be revised so that we have more levels to show how drunk you really are. Wasabe: Is it possible to be able to add conditional statements to aliases? ex: if(!invis){get elixir leather;quaff elixir;} Umm... but how many people would use them? I don't think most people understand the full "power" of aliases as it is. Mathis: if your flying and you trip a flying mob, that mob should land Note: you can't actually trip flying mobs. (Try it for yourself, it just says, "Your foot sweeps harmlessly under them." or something of the sort.) See: have hide come up on the list of Spells: You are affected by Kiri -- this seems very reasonable. This actually always annoyed me, as well. Of course, it does do that send_to_char saying that it worked when it succeeds, which is something I wish sneak would do (on a slight side topic). Wasabe: How about a help file containing all the equipable areas on the body... for a quick reference... so we know if we're missing something or not... thanks I'd actually probably use this. It gets my vote. Wasabe: As you gain more experience... shouldn't you learn how to better step so to use even less moves? How odd that we continue to gain moves well past their true usage. Well... in true rp style, you're gaining more and more endurance, so you can move farther as you level more. In the mud, this is mostly useless as people just use fly (spells, potions or gear) so they don't have to worry about running out of movement in the first place. So... learning how to use less movement across varied terrain isn't very useful in any case, as everyone is always flying, instead. Howard: I just came to understand a past "repete last tell" command - so when someone is asleep and doesn't get the message, you don't have to retype it all. "rtell" or something like that - could be very useful Could be very useful for those of us without recent command buffers, I guess. Wasabe: How about a spell for dexterity for dwarves? Because dwarves are a stocky folk, known for their strength, not their agility? Arcane: i think you need to make the idea work probably so it doesn't say line to long when you put in a good, lengthly idea. Actually, this would require the mud to accept a larger input buffer for any and all commands (since that's what's limiting you sending a long idea via the idea command). And, allowing a larger input buffer would increase the memory requirements for the mud rather quickly, I think. So... probably not going to happen. Wasabe: How about adding the ability to know when there has been a repop... something like a configurable option. Kiri -- that's what the tick message is for. I get the feeling this is actually the ability to know when there's been a repop in an area you're not in.... which, of course, is totally unrealistic in any sense, and probably slightly unbalancing, regardless. Wasabe: Drunks should lose hp when they hit walls... I don't see why not, although it'd have to be a rather small amount... Kharn: we need a 2nd mud school .... its like impossible to introduce a newbie while another newbie is in the school (no trainees at all ect) no.... it just takes longer than it would otherwise... just like any other area when there's more than a person or two killing in it. Colador: Have an automated auction system. Kiri -- people don't even use auction on BR now. I think the point is that maybe more people would use it, then. But that's a game dynamic, and I don't think that it would work that way, anyways, as people either have or know where to get all the best eq for their given level. Wasabe: If an avian carries a player... said player should not need to be invisible... Umm... they don't, as far as I know. they just have to be following the avian. Unless you mean because the avian's invis, it should make the other player invis, which I don't agree with, anyways... Wasabe: how about an option to see how full a scuba tank is... 'look in tank' or something. Umm... go to lexie, stick your tank in the object by him... it'll tell you how full it is. AMystery: make learning out of guild not give an experience penalty immediately, instead have a small penalty for each use of the spell/skill. so some things have a larger xp penalty because you use them more. knowledge is free, use isn't Packor: What about second attack and the like? I am sure we like the idea of not leveling. Cures would also be used a lot less. Firstly, I'm ambivalent to the idea in general. It sounds like it could work, but there'd be a lot of balancing involved in it. So... cures and extra attacks may get used less. It would (obviously, since it'd be a drastic change) require some getting used to on the parts of the players. But I highly doubt that the xp penalty for using anything would be so great that it would prevent you from leveling. Nafailyn: Track should not take a percentage of your maximum mana, it should involve how far away the mob is. Its tough to find traces of something that is very far away. Steps / 2 maybe? Packor: I am sure some of those mobs are around 100 steps or more away. Including possible drunkness, mazes reseting, fleeing, and other factors that makes you lose the trail, I would say you'd never make it. Umm... right. I doubt there're more than a very few mobs that're over 100 steps away from recall. Once again, this idea would require a shift in how avians track... get close, then track to save on mana. Mazes don't reset often enough to likely hit you more than once on your way through while tracking, and if you're tracking something far away, why in the world would you be drunk? You'll run out of mana with the way it's set up right now, as well. I rather like the idea (but part of that may result from that I don't like spending several hundred mana just to track something... more than I have to spend for almost every other spell I have). Kino: maybe you cold separate the donation rooms in level you could start like just from level 1 to 10 or something like that it could be realy useful Packor: from level 1-50, that would be 4 extra levels, and also 12 extra rooms, people having to wander around all these rooms if they are just looking around, people looking for items for other levels will have to search... I would rather like it if the donation rooms are less messy and items are easier to pick up though. Well... it could be useful, if people actually used donations as a way to look for gear that they could use, but I don't know too many people that do so. Armageddon: a chat channel for other language speakers (ie, german, spanish, french, etc.) Packor: Pretty good idea, but this way you could have multiple sided conversations, or...one sided if you don't speak whichever language the 3rd person is using, so you don't even have that channel on, which also means you didn't know they spoke. Plus there are a lot of languages I can think of: Japenese, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Hawaiian? Port-(I-can-never-spell-this-one)guese. Feel free to add. I don't agree. Providing for separate chat channels for other languages just distances people from each other, which isn't something we really want to do (refer to old newsletters referring to the racial languages idea... I don't remember quite how long ago this was, though). Tallarn: make the xp penalty much higher for recalling out of combat Packor: It fails a lot more already. And is already higher than flee. Not to mention that you're unlikely to make it back to the mob before it heals a considerable amount. I think it's fine where it is, now. Tallarn: make scan a skill, not an auto ability Packor: I think the reason it's not is because WE liked scan this way. I can give an example. See, several people I know scans after every step, or so they tell me. They would be pretty darn mad if they can no longer see an aggro, way-over-their-level mob in the room they're entering just because you wanted to make this mud like other muds, and not take the advantage you are given. :> I wouldn't mind it being a skill, available to all races. Of course, most everyone can just look in all the directions you can and see that there seems to be a big, nasty, evil-looking thing off in direction, so keeping it as a standard command gets my vote. Naxias: How about a gmote, group-only emote. So that ppl within the group can communicate when drunk more easily. Packor: Emote is for doing a home-made and not in the socials action. It is not to communicate in the first place. How can you do an action on your group alone, when you are doing it in the open? Once again... drunkenness is supposed to be an obstacle to communication. You speak garbled and walk funny because otherwise you'd be getting this extra regen speed for absolutely nothing. Emote is used for specific actions, chath is a bug. It's not _supposed_ to be easy to decode what drunks say. (Listen to a drunk rambling sometime and see how many words you pick up easily.) Thus, the best option would be to learn how to read drunk, or make sure all your groupmates know that spacing out their words helps other people decode it... Joysinger: it'd be nice if locate object could actually be used with more then just one keyword. locating sword, or light or something similar tends to spam you out - it'd make searching so much more easy :) Packor: I agree. locate object is special. I think you should be able to cast locate object 1, or 2, and so on. Then it can show a prompt that number of times so you can specific several keywords. Could be a bit tough, being that the and some other words arn't part of the keywords even if they are in the name. Umm... no. That's a really lousy implementation. Much more likely, you'd just enclose the multiple keywords you're looking for in single quotes (much like casting a multi-word spell), and then locate object would go off and look for it. But I agree that locate object (at least) should be allowed to do a multiple keyword search. (Teleport, summon and track would be other good options, but that may make them yet more powerful than they already are, so there'd be a balance issue in letting them do that.) Armageddon: color in damp messages Packor: Yeah, make them White. Bright like the heavens. I think he meant using color codes. I'm all for it. Nal: when you walk into a wall have like a trap on some that will hurt you? Packor: Question, why do you want to walk into a wall? I know some items that have traps on them, but almost none of the ones I have seen work, but then I am just a lowly mort. Traps are still being worked on... I've only seen a couple that have ever worked on anyone. And, likely, from when you manage to stumble into one while drunk. Of course, I don't think most people would appreciate getting damaged by a trap just for bumping into a wall, so, although the realism is interesting (for dungeons, etc.), I don't like it. Fate: no spell lag for healing spells out fo combat? Packor: Once again I will have to say to you guys, the PAUSE is there because it's oog. No... there's a pause associated with in-guild spells, as well. It's just larger for oog spells/skills. I do think that the oog delay time for out of combat spells is somewhat excessive, though... lessening it would be a nice touch. Dio: a skill that makes a mob or character(in arena) stop flying Packor: It'll just be lovely if that was put into tail sweep, or blast, I think it was blast...right? I just thought one one problem though, a flying mob like one in the clouds would drop to the ground and disappear from your view in real life. Tail sweep is just like trip... can't hit flying things. Adding the functionality to blast of stopping them from flying could be useful, though. Or, at least adding some sort of spell/skill to get flying mobs down to the ground. Firestar: you know how the affect command lists the spells you're affected by, right? Well, maybe when you type affect/aff in and get the list...it could list what spells armor "casts" on you? Packor:what spells does armor cast? What are you talking about? The spell is -ac modifier, and as far as I know, equiped armor doesn't cast spells. Equipment status changes are not effects, if that's what you mean. The only one that does work that doesn't show up is fly eq. And that's fairly obvious to check if it's working or not: see if it's taking only 1 movement point to move through any given room. The bless flag on weapons and armor doesn't do anything, invisify eq makes a (very long-lasting) invis spell show up in your affects. -Everybody Kiri's WWW of URLs: Vote for BR! http://www.topmudsites.com/cgi-bin/topmuds/rankem.cgi?id=brkiri I wish I had thought of this site www.soyouwanna.com From Dove: Keywords in a woman's vocabulary and their meaning. FINE This is the word we use at the end of any argument that we feel we are right about but need to shut you up. NEVER use fine to describe how a woman looks. This will cause you to have one of those arguments. FIVE MINUTES This is half an hour. It is equivalent to the five minutes that your football game is going to last before you take out the trash, so I feel that it's an even trade. NOTHING This means something and you should be on your toes. Nothing is usually used to describe the feeling a woman has of wanting to turn you inside out, upside down, and backwards. "Nothing" usually signifies an argument that will last "Five Minutes" and end with the word "Fine." GO AHEAD (with raised eyebrows) This is a dare. One that will result in a woman getting upset over "Nothing" and will end with the word "Fine." GO AHEAD (normal eyebrows) This means I give up or do what you want because I don't care. You will get a raised eyebrow "Go Ahead" in just a few minutes, followed by "Nothing" and "Fine" and she will talk to you in about "Five Minutes" when she cools off. LOUD SIGH This is not actually a word, but is still often a verbal statement very misunderstood by men. A "Loud Sigh" means she thinks you are an idiot at that moment and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you over "Nothing." SOFT SIGH Again, not a word, but a verbal statement. "Soft Sighs" are one of the few things that some men actually understand. She is content. Your best bet is to not move or breathe and she will stay content. OH This word followed by any statement is trouble. Example: "Oh,let me get that" Or, "Oh, I talked to him about what you were doing last night." If she says "Oh" before a statement, run, do not walk, to the nearest exit. She will tell you that she is "Fine" when she is done tossing your clothes out the window, but do not expect her to talk to you for at least 2 days. "Oh" as the lead to a sentence usually signifies that you are caught in a lie. Do not try to lie more to get out of it, or you will get raised eyebrows "Go ahead" followed by acts so unspeakable that I can't bring myself to write about them. THAT'S OKAY This is one of the most dangerous statements that a woman can say to a man. "That's Okay" means that she wants to think long and hard before paying you retributions for what ever it is that you have done. "That's Okay" is often used with the word "Fine" and used in conjunction with a raised eyebrow "Go Ahead." At some point in the near future when she has plotted and planned, you are going to be in some mighty big trouble. PLEASE DO This is not a statement, it is an offer. A woman is giving you the chance to come up with whatever excuse or reason you have for doing whatever it is that you have done. You have a fair chance to tell the truth, so be careful and you shouldn't get a "That's Okay." THANKS A woman is thanking you. Do not faint, just say you're welcome. THANKS A LOT This is much different than "Thanks." A woman will say "Thanks A Lot" when she is really ticked off at you. It signifies that you have hurt her in some callous way, and will be followed by the "Loud Sigh." Be careful not to ask what is wrong after the "Loud Sigh," as she will only tell you "Nothing." July 30, 2001 Hi folks! This is a very late newsletter because I went to NY to be with the parents, and then hit Milwaukee on the way back to visit some of our very own MUDders. In NY, I met up with Vain & Dakata for dinner. In Milwaukee, myself, Scavenger, Faustus, Dove, her husband, and Everybody all met up at Bristol Renn faire (www.renfair.com) Pictures from the event will be forthcoming! We're already considering planning something bigger for next year, and we'll let you know about that one in advance. Feel free to respond to anything in the newsletter, sending me your bios, news, responses, and ideas. :) News from the Realms: * Scavenger: System Time If you type TIME, you will notice that the time isn't off by about a half hour anymore. Woo hoo! *Amystery: I am holding a quest, an unusual quest, but a quest none the less. Over the next week weeks I will hold numerous mini quests. I won't announce through notes when the mini quests will be, I will just hold them whenever I am on and bored. Victory in the mini quests will result in points and small prizes. Said points will be applied towards the insanely hard quest so it is in your best interest to win as many of the small quests as possible. The quest has already started but there isn't much ground to make up. Currently Thrasher is in first place with 2 points and everyone else is tied with 1 point. You don't have to do anything special to enter the Hard quest, just participate in the small ones. Play Hide & Seek, do the Scavenger Hunts And in case you were wondering, not all the smaller quests will be simple quests, I will have some harder/longer quests for you as time goes on. Naturally there will be more points awarded for a harder quest. * Brodgar: How Well Do You Know Your Months Trivia Quest Results Eitri wins with 11 months! For those of you curious, here is the complete list of the Barren Realms months ;-) Cthulhu, Sunflowers, Motherhood, Light, the Dancing Flame, the Samurai, Angels, the Wolf, Vanity, Isolation, Mischief, Boats, Remembrance, the Blazing Sun, Gas, Hypercubes, Starfleet, Fire, the Virgin Goddess, the Bully, Death and of course Zorro. Brodgar: Put Scavenger's name in the next newsletter so he'll read it ;-) Wasabe: How about when we identify a container... it gives us an indicator of how full it is... scuba tank ... half-full, pack, fourth full. :) Wasabe: I would like tildes to show up in my profile, thank you very much. Divebomb: remove the existence of no-exit areas (i.e. connect the area at least back to its entrance or some way to get out). No exit rooms are perfectly fine, but it seems illogical to have areas that you can't leave when you go there Wasabe: How about the ability to get something from inside a corpse... ex ... get item corpse backpack... to get the item from the backpack in the corpse Wasabe: How about an option to list areas by Creator's name e.g. 'areas Faustus' cause his area's rock! Wasabe: I believe the value of magically charged items... like a staff with 10 charges... should diminish in value each time one of the spells are discharged[sic] Wasabe: When we identify a container... it should show the total weight of the container as well as its contents. Wasabe: For Illithids... how about s spell that temporarily makes them a puddle of goo allowing them to pass through crevices in a door... 'pass door' ;) Wasabe: Can you folks please extend the length the prompt string can be??? thank you Rivan: make all maps level 0 or 1 to buy Xorex: flags for area building which would force people to play an area the way that the builder intended. For instance, perhaps doors that couldn't simply be walked through if finding their keys was an important part of the area's plot Wasabe: Well here's an even dumber idea... how about the ability to sac an item in your corpse? Kiri: increase time on hero corpses to hours, rl Thrasher: maybe somthing like a healer that offers offencive spells like frenzy & berzerk. Armageddon: saftey deposit boxes at the bank for heroes, we have some things like rewards that we would rather not lose with burned containers or our corpses melting AMystery: be able to put nodrop items in a container. have the container code check for nodrop items inside before dropping the bag. clean up inventories without defeating nodrop Shiloh: instead of create water have it be create drink so it will refill and drink contains like skins and barrels of beer Kannibal: when u cast create sound make people in the same room not see u utter the words so they dont know who casted it Wasabe: Please add ^K for highlighted black... a.k.a '^[[30;1m' dark gray Wasabe: How about a skill for dwarves to create objects out of gold bars or gold coins... Just imagine it... dwarves working all the live long day making shields and helms of golden glimmer. Wasabe: Newbies should be able to see drunk. Thrasher: a spell that raises max hp for a round or two. Thrasher: make word of recall in guild for all races at least we can get exp for it. Taipan: How about the 'locate object' spell showing the area the mob is in too? Colador: When you get killed by a mob have the mob brag about it :) AMystery: yeah, I know, its another history request but I have a valid reason:p History on the quest channel. It would probably help both quest masters and players. Be good for people who just logged on and missed the beginning. And it makes sense, even medie Thordain: The question of "Is multiplaying allowed?" is coming up a lot. Maybe a "help multiplaying" is in order? Kiri -- I have no problem with this, but it _is_ in help rules, which is required reading for all players. Horus: not wishing to be rude, but what's the point of allowing Ills to have an offhand weapon of they don't get dual? I mean, even elves get dual... Divebomb: antisocial for mobs - basically prevents teleport to the mob, summon the mob, and track to the mob regardless of room flags Wasabe: how about a social 'squishing' were we get the Kids in the Hall... 'I'm squishing your head... Wasabe is squishing your head... What the hell is Wasabe doing with his thumb and index finger? Kiri -- read help writesocial. Enjoy writing it. Wasabe: How about if bad ideas get a response of : That is a bad idea. Thanks for wasting our time. Kiri -- I only do that for the absolute no ones. I like to hear responses people have before I make a decision. Xorex: This may be to small a problem to worry about but you shouldn't be able to see the sunset or the rain at the bottom of the dark see Kiri -- this is a bug, be sure to use the bug command (help bug) to report that kind of thing when you see it (the rain, anyway) Wasabe: What if... a player could sit in meditation... and spawn a higher self... then use this higher self to navigate about 4 or so initial spaces away from the body(as they get higher in level they are able to move even farther)... This would allow the player to essentially scout the area for mobs before physically needing to move. As a balance, the physical body is more susceptible to being attack... This would be a good spell for solo/paranoid players who are wandering unchartered territory. ... Wasabe, the ever flying ever faithful sausage Bio by Everybody: a. What's your BR name? Everybody (or EB, as typically shortened), plus half a dozen or so other characters that I play from time to time... b. What race/level are you? 152/Human c. How did you pick your BR name? I actually chose it because I thought it would be amusing to speak of myself as plural all the time. And because I was amused by a then-hero named Nobody. d. What's your favorite area? Castle in the Clouds, easily... Mack wrote some dang funny areas. e. Where do you live (State or province/Country) Wisconsin, Land of the Cheese. f. What do you do for a living? College student. pick up extra cash by being a cook for a restaurant in town. g. If you're a college/grad student, what's your major? Computer Science. h. What do you want to be when you grow up? Software Programmer. Preferably working on game development. i. Are you single? umm... yes. j. What are your hobbies? Reading, computer games (most all sorts, recently Diablo 2's been the game of choice), mudding, Ultimate Frisbee and fencing when I find time for them. k. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to do? Attend my grandfather's funeral. l. Who do you most admire? Slart... he does a lot of amazing work on this mud out of his own free time (and it works really well, too ; ) ). m. What celebrity would you love to hook up with? So many to choose from! As of this moment... Heather Graham, probably. n. What's the last book you read (including for school). Did you like it? Slaughterhouse-Five. Yeah, it was really funny, actually. o. What's the last movie you saw? Did you like it? Traffic. It was quite good, in a tragic sense. ( : P to Kiri, who doesn't like tragedies.) p. If you could be anywhere in the world for a week, where would you go? Probably Tibet, but somewhere in the Far East for sure. Responses by BALTAR: > Wasabe: Autosplitting should not occur when the member of a group takes = > coins out a pack or other holding object... it should be up tto the = > users discretion when and how they split their coins. > > Kiri - I agree completely. This is a bug. THANK YOU!!! I've lost more money this way... > Wasabe: how about a level desciption for Candyland... at the front gate = > to the area? Well, the level desc is pretty much ALL levels. I suppose one might create signs for each "area" (the plum trolls, the mint forest, etc.)...but mobs of various levels wander throughout the path, so the signs wouldn't always be accurate. I can hear it now: "Hey! I was in the level 8 area and I tried to kill an m&m (without CONsidering it first, of course) and it killed me! How unfair!" Bleah. > Wasabe: I think like the fly flag... there should be a swim flag... = > since well swimming is flying under a liquid... and I still don't know = > how I tripped this fish ;) Makes sense to me...and yes, you probably shouldn't be able to trip a swimming mob (nor should a mob be able to trip you if you're swimming). > Wasabe: Be able to 'where' a corpse... would really help some. Actually, you get this when you make Hero... > Mathis: if your flying and you trip a flying mob, that mob should land You can trip flying mobs? Since when? I should pay more attention... > Wasabe: How about a help file containing all the equipable areas on the = > body... for a quick reference... so we know if we're missing something = > or not... thanks Or perhaps a default when you check EQUIP, like "Nothing." > Wasabe: A way to list things by level, cost... etc > > Kiri -- you can by level. List 20 30, list 12 32, whatever. Cost you = > can't. Although cost often corresponds to level... > Arcane: i think you need to make the idea work probably so it doesn't = > say line to long when you put in a good, lengthly idea. You can always send a note instead... > Responses by Packor: > > Naxias: How about a gmote, group-only emote. So that ppl within the = > group can> communicate when drunk more easily. > -Emote is for doing a home-made and not in the socials action. It = > is not> to communicate in the first place. How can you do an action on your = > group> alone, when you are doing it in the open? Not to mention that, technically, one shouldn't use emote just to get around being unable to speak clearly when drunk... > Nal: when you walk into a wall have like a trap on some that will hurt = > you? > -Question, why do you want to walk into a wall? I know some items = > that=> have traps on them, but almost none of the ones I have seen work, but = > then I> am just a lowly mort. No one *wants* to walk into a wall, but it can happen if (a) you're drunk, (b) you're running frantically in a particular direction until you run out of rooms, (c) you have an error in an alias, (d) you're just not paying close enough attention, etc. etc. etc. Responses by PACKOR: Armageddon: a corpse cooking idea. If you can tan them, why not cook them and eat them? - Stone stew, yumm.... agreed. there should be a devour or maybe butcher skill which lets you respectivly either eat the corpse or cut/tear out body parts from it. Deathless: a speco for scared mobs, they will try to flee or leave whenever someone is in the same room as them, regardless of if they are fighting. They don't like being around any players - Problem, you don't flee unless in combat, making a mob move when you come in requires it to go a direction. Since not all rooms have all directions, it cannot be randomly picked. To do so would require something extra that 'reads' the directions the room allows it to go. You could urge it to move though, with the sight of a character. That means increasing the chances of it moving, I believe that happens too when it's bleeding. Wasabe: how about another color INTENSE BLACK... this is one shade darker than ^w and one shade lighter than blain color 0 - Bogus!! Like the current dark blue it would be hard to see at all, actually, even more so. Wasabe: Be able to 'where' a corpse... would really help some - where is more a command to be used in conjunction with yell, like it's a greater room, hehehe. to use a where kind of command on a corpse is, unnerving. Wasabe: How about a submarine for a vehicle? :) so we don't need scuba geer... - Sorry, don't believe we've invented that yet. If we even had a rifle... Wasabe: Is it possible to be able to add conditional statements to aliases? ex: if(!invis){get elixir leather;quaff elixir;} - The purpose of aliases is to help you perform actions faster or without having to repeat very common stuff, not to automate your character... Mathis: if your flying and you trip a flying mob, that mob should land - How can you trip a mob when it's not standing? :> pure logic. something like, tail sweep or blast, on the other hand, should be able to land a mob. Also read newsletter Apr. 11 on my earlier reply to a similar idea by Dio. Wasabe: As you gain more experience... shouldn't you learn how to better step so to use even less moves? How odd that we continue to gain moves well past their true usage. - Really simple, really, recall takes away half mv. Explorers would fast run low of mv. When do you think true usage is exceeded? At that time, we would have to change the char a bit so they gain this "step better" instead of getting mv too. Wasabe: How about a spell to hide drunkenese... available from clericus. >Kiri -- Your own or other people's? Either way I'm not sure I want to take away the penalty of drunkeness - That wouldn't be my concern, I just think that to hide drunkness would be to postpone a major hangover, worse than the consequenses of being drunk. Wasabe: How about a spell for dexterity for dwarves? - Hmm, why would they be in position to gain this skill? I would think a class like elves would be more suitable for such a spell, as elves are supposedly agile and dwarves slow - To give them even 22 dex is wrong. :> Kharn: we need a 2nd mud school .... its like impossible to introduce a newbie while another newbie is in the school (no trainees at all ect) - Generally, a newbie can move on after level 2, encourage them on kill only 1 or 2 of each trainee. As you know, repop is faster in the school. Colador: Have an automated auction system. >Kiri -- people don't even use auction on BR now. - Yes, we do, sometimes for silly things, sometimes people do want to use it though :> Wasabe: If an avian carries a player... said player should not need to be invisible... - Well, no. The invisible field only goes beyond some of the target, therefore. The one being carried will only be 2 inches invisible. Wasabe: How about making the amount of damage bash can do be based on the amount of hp a user has? - Just one thing, why? Dwarves already do great damage and can maintain a fair ac while doing so, unlike avian. damaging skills for a fighter class should be secondary. Arcane: i think you need to make the idea work probably so it doesn't say line to long when you put in a good, lengthly idea - Congratulations, you have posted the idea of the month. I think Kiri would agree. Some ideas simple have need of more explaining than a line. While you could do this by mail, it IS what the Idea command is for. Wasabe: Drunks should lose hp when they hit walls... Foy: trip should do a tiny amount of damage - We also hit walls when not drunk, the only difference is a drunk doesn't walk right. Your butt hitting the floor doesn't seem so bad to me, hehe. It should put them in a resting position, therefore reducing their defense for one round though. Lehua: i think the guardian should sell popcorn, the Guardian should sell soda too ;-) - Oh yeah!!! Yummy, and no. :> Sell me some heads though! Packor's Own ideas: - I noted that when you have a corpse in a vehicle, you can't loot the corpse outside, but it does let you sac the outside corpse. (person died inside vehicle, leaving corpse) kills mobs, mob corpse is outside) - I had previously sent an idea about illithids being able to enchant shields, or perhaps druid?? if ills are not fitting. As I said before, this encourages the use of shields and does not make people too powerful. It would be like having the extra weapon people like to carry, except for armor class uses. People now mostly aim for damage and not evasion of attack, making it terribly unbalanced. Perhaps as a bonus, make bash damage better with some shields, and enchanted also ( A bit like Diablo II, I know, heh, but those dwarves are complaining about not having any devastating skills, maybe just have bash at the range of half a normal attack's strength would be good. Dwarves arn't the only ones with bash too, please note.) Also, some previous ideas brought out to me that weapons like nightbringer and lightbringer, ones devoted to either good or evil, aside from casting the evil and anti-evil spells, could also have ones that improve the good/evil wielder, independent of the weapon's anti status. This would make good weapons more to the cause of good and likewise for evil ones. Could apply to items or armor as well. Kiri's WWW of URLs: My Cat Hates You. Really. http://www.mycathatesyou.com/ From Scavenger, Test your IQ: http://discoveryhealth.queendom.com/access_iq.html From Amystery: A jet-powered Beer cooler (we all need one of those) http://www.asciimation.co.nz/beer/ from Fossil: Subject: Fwd: FW: The End of the Empire Darth Vader took two giant strides toward the immense visiscreen that occupied the forward wall of the bridge of his flagship Imperial star destroyer. "We've got them now," he rumbled. Whirling on the technicians cowering at their consoles, Vader snapped, "Tractor beam!" "Yes, Lord Vader," replied one, bending attentively to his task. Then he looked up hesitantly. Vader gestured dramatically at the screen, indicating the fleeing spacecraft. "I want a tractor beam on that ship," he declared. "Now!" The technician busied himself with switches and dials. "Where's that tractor beam?" roared Vader, his voice dark with menace. The other technicians turned frightened eyes on their peer. They knew what happened when Darth Vader's instructions weren't executed instantly. "The tractor beam seems to be down, sir," quavered the technician. "What do you mean down?" Vader inquired with a disturbing silkiness to his voice. "It's not accepting commands, sir," the technician explained. Another technician leaned over and examined the console. "That's odd. The beam itself is showing green," he pointed out. "Yes, I know," agreed the first. "But I'm not getting any acknowledgment to my 'Engage' command." He pressed a button several times to demonstrate. "Maybe the network's down again," suggested a third technician. "Oh, that could be," admitted the first technician. "The network might be down, Lord Vader," he informed the large black figure trembling with rage. "What network?" Vader asked ominously. The second technician jumped in. "Since we've moved to a distributed architecture on the Imperial star destroyers, everything is on a network. It was felt that the direct connections were too unreliable." The third technician added. "The tractor beam is on one of the peripherals sub networks, with the printers and the scanners. It's not on the main weapons network." "Why isn't the tractor beam on the weapons network?" asked Vader, now more puzzled than angry. The technicians exchanged sheepish looks. It was embarrassing to have to point out something so obvious to a superior. The second technician cleared his throat. "Well, sir, the weapons network is a higher priority. It makes more sense to put the less commonly used systems on a separate sub network that has lower QOS." "QOS?" Vader queried. "Hang on a second," said the first technician. "If the network is down, how come we're getting a green light for the tractor beam?" The third technician brightened. "Ah! Maybe the console is retrieving old MIB data and displaying that." "MIB?" rumbled Vader. The first technician answered "We use SNMP to monitor the network elements. When the server queries the element, it stores its current status. If the network goes down, it can't query the element anymore, and all you have is the latest status in the MIB." He turned to the other technicians, musing. "We really should have an indicator of when the last successful query was, instead of just a green or red light." "Good idea," said the third technician. "I'll call tech support." "Say," said the second technician. "How about if we ping the tractor beam? Let me bring up a telnet window." "Telnet?" asked Vader, now obviously confused. "Ping?" The first technician glanced briefly at Vader, a little annoyed at the interruptions. Why couldn't this guy keep up with the service bulletins? "The system runs Unix, but the consoles run NT 5000," he replied with exaggerated patience. "You need a telnet window to ping the element." He turned his attention back to the screen. "That's strange. It comes back 'active'. Listen, when you get tech support tell them we can't engage the tractor but we can ping it." "Right," said the third technician. "I'm still on hold." "Here's a thought," said the second technician. "What if we just call the guys down at tractor control and have them engage the beam manually?" Vader seemed to brighten up at this, and swiveled his head from one to another. "Good idea," said the first technician. He lifted his communicator and tapped the switch several times. "Nothing," he said. The second technician shook his head. "Didn't we tell them we couldn't do voice and data with that little bandwidth?" Suddenly Vader noticed the visiscreen and let out a bellow of anger. "They're gone!" he boomed. The third technician looked up smiling. "Hey, I got tech support!"