From: "Kiri" Subject: Newsletter March 8, 2001 Date: Thursday, March 08, 2001 10:40 PM Sorry this is VERY late. I've been dealing with some very time consuming personal issues lately. ;)Feel free to reply to any of it, and if you want to do a bio, just hit reply and add your own info. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mathis: when a spell is running out, and it has 1 our 2 hours left, you should be able to recast it and renew it Dio: duplicate for druid they make a duplication of themselves that gets hit for one round then dissapears Blackwing: a remember command.. so you can remember an item if you had it and need it again, should show what mob it is on, or where you had gotten it before Mishael: alcohol tolerance.. as you drink more, you build up a tolerance, but then the alcohol doesn't do that much for you.. of course there is a tolerance limit, but people would have to drink A LOT to get a buzz, or seek stronger liquor. Mishael: newbie channel.. so people not helping newbies can turn off newbie babblings, and newbies can stop flooding chat channel.. or mabey just start using the question... err whatever. Kiri -- I don't feel right about segregating newbies. This is supposed to be a friendly mud where everyone pitches in to answer questions. Segregating newbies doesn't promote that. Mishael: ok. last idea today. how about a ban on characters from books.... kinda lame seeing all these dragonlance names being used. people should be more original. Kiri -- I HATE HATE HATE HATE muds that do this! It is SO obnoxious. Togarmah: get someone (oo not me!) to make a replacement for Solace (mabey "Ecalos"?) to get rid of some of the generic areas Kiri -- I know you couldn't possibly remember this, but Solace isn't a generic area, although a lot of people have it in their mud. The author actually gave us this area to use with modifications for one of the original immortals on the mud (She has her very own hidden room in there.) In addition, this area really fits with the theme of our mud. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's quite an interesting, well-written area. Brak: As I saw in previous newsletters, the mass teleport, well maybe a create portal, which created a portal to the mob? it would last for a tick or 2?? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- a. What's your BR name? Christine b. What race/level are you? Human/151 c. How did you pick your BR name? I'm a big fan of Phantom of the Opera, and I got it from the lead female actor, Christine Daae. d. What's your favorite area? Palace of the Glories e. Where do you live (State or province/Country) SC/USA f. What do you do for a living? I'm a full time high school student g. If you're a college/grad student, what's your major? not in college, but want to major in microbiology. h. What do you want to be when you grow up? Doctor i. Are you single? For the moment, yes j. What are your hobbies? Singing, dancing, shopping k. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to do? Quitting caffeine drinks! l. Who do you most admire? My grandmother. m. What celebrity would you love to hook up with? Keana Reeves(sp?) n. What's the last book you read (including for school). Did you like it? The Hot Zone. It's the best non-fiction book I've ever read. o. What's the last movie you saw? Did you like it? The Patriot. It was pretty good. p. If you could be anywhere in the world for a week, where would you go? To Italy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Replies by Fury: Fury Replies: >>Armageddon: Make it so that you can send and recieve email through >>BR. I don't think this would be too hard to do, just modify the note >>code. Then have the player specify server and accout. Maybe have them type >>in the pw manually each time. or have a choice of -Fury: I dunno, how much bandwith would this suck away from the mud? >>Firestar: how about a new argument (or whatever it is called) for >>the command "who". Something like... "who mort" >>Kiri -- try who 1 50 -Fury: Don't ask what the Coders can do for you! Ask what you can do for yourself! =) Actually, just use the tools in place, they are pretty easy... BackLash: i don't know how bothersome this would be, but a book in the quest room with a list of names and what quest the've won, maybe only like 1st place winners -Fury: Cool idea. BackLash: One other thing, a board in the quest room to attach notes on with rules about a quest as long as that quest is going, so you don't have to keep re-posting notes when they scroll off the list -Fury: Also a cool idea Divebomb: reorganize BR so that some of the CONSTANTLY visited areas are further/harder to get to, move the less visited ones closer to calathar/away from mazes -Fury: Been done before for other things, most likely will happen again too. Sykle: Is it possible to have the HIT / DAM effect of tainting a weapon displayed (like what you see when you identify an enchanted weapon)? -Fury: Is it possible? Certainly, but... well I dunno. Sykle: another suggestion for tainted weapons...can we see how much time is left on them? -Fury: Thats part of the fun... You <<<>>> some mob your dagger disolves You tickle some mob *shrug* Not all things can be certain! BirdBeak: SLIST should show which skills are OOG (perhaps with an asterisk [*]) -Fury: Yet another good Idea, your on a roll folks. Naddarow: 'who avatar' Kiri -- who 151 151 does this -Fury: Try it! Try it today! Cord: allow "slist" command to take full race names... ie. "slist druid" doesn't work, "slist dru" does... have it so both work -Fury: You must be the first person who wants to do it the long way, rather than use a simple shortcut =) If this is easy to put it, it would be a nice tweak, esp for newer people. Cord: a 'swimming' idea a 'swimming' flag... like flying... so you can't trip a jellyfish, etc. Kiri -- this will be for remort -Fury: Kiri said "remort" bahahahaha! Winner: er... since many heroes are complaining about transfering practice sessions to enhance... but i think making more skills and spells for heroes sounds better Kiri -- submit ideas for them then ;) -Fury: Get to Submitting! Dio: saving the ignore list when you log off. whenever i ignore someone and then leave and come back later i have to ignore them again -Fury: You have that many people you need to reignore? I sense a deeper problem here =) This actually might be a bug tho.... Huh: should make charmed or hired pets able to rescue player -Fury: Except for the really dumb ones... sure =) You:"Spike! Help! Help!" Spike: "woof!" You: *dies in agony* Your buddy: "Here lassie!" Lassie: "kamakazi!!!!" Something like that? Saffron: We could use a group all command -Fury: Hmm, could be cool, might encourage more grouping! Bluestar: for heroes: How about when a hero/avatar dies, instead of being sent to recall, how about being sent to hr? -Fury: Makes sense... Nal: maybe for avains when they walk around one feather may fall out? -Fury: Eh? Random Feather Fallout! Egads Batman! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Replies by Baltar: > Morstanya: I find that I wake up and have people tagging along at > times. I think there should be a way to see who is following you or you > should be awaken if someone follows you while you sleep.=20 Or we could always add CONFIG +NOFOLLOW... > Bubbles: does it sound reasonable that you can trip someone while > you are flying? Why not? You can't swoop down and whack at their legs? What am I missing? Baltar -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This week, Kiri's WWW of URLs is being pre-empted by Scavenger's WWW of URLs: Some of you may remember that I used to send out lists of hand-picked funny and/or interesting links. It's been a long time since I've done that and I'm getting sick and tired of the collection sitting in my "Postponed Messages" folder. So I figured I'd send them out and let you guys delete them as you see fit. Enjoy. A little behind-the-scenes info about the Darwin Awards: http://salon.com/people/feature/2000/01/03/darwin/index.html http://salon.com/people/feature/2000/01/03/top_darwins/index.html I'm a little late with this; the movie's been out a while... http://www.ucomics.com/tomthedancingbug/viewtd.cfm?uc_full_date=19991211&uc_comic=td&uc_daction=X Your favorite video game stars of the 80s; in wacky cartoons! http://www.panic.com/~stevenf/8bits/ About time someone made these official http://www.shotgunrules.com/ So you've decided to be evil http://www.darksites.com/souls/horror/evilguide/index.html Since you've decided to be evil... http://www.cadaverinc.com/ Star Wars Gangsta Rap http://www.allergictolife.com/starwarz.html Not any cat scan you've seen before... http://www.cat-scan.com/ Guaranteed delivery in 30 minutes or less, or we commit Seppuku http://www.ninjaburger.com/ The domain name really says it all http://www.hatsofmeat.com/ Make your Big Mouth Billy Bass say "Pork!" http://www.ai.mit.edu/~vona/bass/bass.html New York City?! Get a rope. http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/jan01/onion26012501a.asp My new favorite programming language http://www.cis.rit.edu/~jerry/Software/brak/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EXPRESSIONS FOR THOSE ON HIGH STRESS DAYS 1. You - Off my planet 2. Not the brightest crayon in the box now, are we? 3. Well, this day was a total waste of makeup. 4. Errors have been made. Others will be blamed. 5. And your crybaby whiny-assed opinion would be...? 6. I'm not crazy, I've just been in a very bad mood for 25 years. 7. Allow me to introduce my selves. 8. Sarcasm is just one more service we offer. 9. Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed. 10. I'm just working here until a good fast-food job opens up. 11. I'm trying to imagine you with a personality. 12. Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you were not asleep. 13. I can't remember if I'm the good twin or the evil one. 14. How many times do I have to flush before you go away? 15. I just want revenge. Is that so wrong? 16. You say I'm a bitch like it's a bad thing. 17. Can I trade this job for what's behind door #2? 18. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it? 19. Chaos, panic, and disorder--my work here is done. 20. Earth is full. Go home. 21. Is it time for your medication or mine? 22. How do I set a laser printer to stun? 23. I'm not tense, just terribly, terribly alert. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 15, 2001 Ideas: Lehua: a spell for illithids that lets them understand what drunk people are trying to say, if they miscast however, they are affected by not being able to understand what people say Armageddon: maybe have it so that you can change the name of your character. I have a few high level chars that have been abandoned because I realize I didn't quite like their names. Keleios: illithid spell.. images? it'd make copies of the person, and the enemy would have to hack through the images (well mabey he 'd hit the real mccoy) but they'd dissapear one at a time as they were hit.. great mind spell Scavenger: Make HELP BUY include the "buy " syntax. (Does that syntax work for sell and value too? Quanin: if you lose exp for fleeing, shouldn't you gain exp for making someone else flee? Keleios: colors OFF for gratz channel! and don't tell me to turn it off.. its fun to read them. BUT, i don't want to lose all the colors either.. hmm.. Keleios: make hungry spell. Keleios: longer limit on damp length? Mylo: incremental healing - each tick you heal a standard amount - how about the more you got hurt, the more you'd heal each tick, and as you got closer to full health the heal would lessen. This wouldn't really change the amount of time to get to full he Keleios: mabey.. have a messsage telling you weaken didn't work? Hiddukel: To start it all off I'll talk about weapons. Do you have anything against weapons having dice damage, ie most 2 handed weapons doing 2d15 or 3d8 points of damage etc. Then having their affects randomized, ie it has a base chance of getting +1 to hit and +2 to dam... while a random item could have -1 to hit and +4 to dam. Then depending on the item, have an even smaller chance (1 in 1000 or even less) of doing something magical, ie casts blindness on hit, permanent stoneskin, etc. The same for armors, each kind has a base AC with a random chance for modifiers to AC. Then have a small chance of magical affects, ie helms that have detect invis, boots with fly, etc. I don't know if you'll go for this or not, but some particular items may be too powerful in the right characters hands or just don't fit the class.. so have 2 handed swords restricted from mages and wands restricted from warriors unless they have the skills to use them. Possible affects of this: #1 this would really change the way people look for eq #2 no two people would necessarily have the same eq #3 low level characters could come up with something that higher level characters would drool over and pay heavily for it #4 the auction channel would have a purpose also about the auction channel.. make it more automated, allow a command to see the mods of an item being auctioned and maybe have it transfer money and equipment when sold BIO by KAI: a. What's your BR name? Kai b. What race/level are you? Level 151 / Avatar, and I *think* I started as an Avian c. How did you pick your BR name? It was my 'usual' characters name for tabletop AD&D adventures d. What's your favorite area? Fav Old School Area: Sesame Street Fav New School Area: RHPS e. Where do you live (State or province/Country) Nothern Michigan, USA f. What do you do for a living? Pizza cook, but I wouldn't call /that/ what I do for a living... :-P g. If you're a college/grad student, what's your major? Will be a college student this coming fall, gonna be focusing on Network Administration h. What do you want to be when you grow up? Computer Network Administrator i. Are you single? Nah, currently dating a beautiful quarter Japanese girl j. What are your hobbies? All things that are MUD, camping, hiking, partying with friends k. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to do? Off the top of my head I can't think on anything that has been extremely hard in my life. l. Who do you most admire? Bob Marley m. What celebrity would you love to hook up with? Any of the 3 'Charlie's Angels' from the new movie *purr* :-P n. What's the last book you read (including for school). Did you like it? Last book I read was a AD&D Forgotten Realms novel, Prince of Lies, it's a story about the god Cyric's life and treachery, good read o. What's the last movie you saw? Did you like it? Hollow Man, wasn't that great plot-wise, good special effects though. p. If you could be anywhere in the world for a week, where would you go? One word... Amsterdam :-P Newsletter Article: Mortals Make Greedy Grand Abbot A Mark The Grand Abbot, one of the more formidable foes in the MUD. At level 64, he kills with impunity and cares less about one's own belongings. Dreemz, a member of the Barren Realms family, decides to pay a visit to a poor exploration minded dwarf named Lehua. In the process of returning his sword, which he dropped, she meets the Grand Abbot. By this time, naturally Lehua has met the Grand Abbot and has escaped his clutches but unfortunately Dreemz does not escape. Enter the heroic Claxem. With apparently little else to occupy his time, he arrives to help. He too tries to directly reason with the Abbot, but his negotiating skills weren't sharp enough to gain a small reprieve for Dreemz and he too ends up dead. Together they prepare and attempt two cunning plans. In the first Claxem attempts to blind the Abbot. This fails. In the second, they heal up and wearing some basic equipment they run in almost in the nude... Flashing the Grand Abbot, they are able to gain a precious few seconds in every attempt to gain their equipment and flee with their lives. *lol* Responses by PACKOR: Morstanya: I find that I wake up and have people tagging along at times. I think there should be a way to see who is following you or you should be awaken if someone follows you while you sleep. - Knowing someone's following should be a good idea, but I think just knowing whenever someone is following you is a little unrealistic. I suggest that there's a probabilty that a message will show up during a tick or the like saying that "someone" seems to be watching/tailing you instead. I guess that wouldn't really help much since you'll know when you move anyway though. Naddarow: something like "holy symbol" for druids, to extra damage against undead mobs :) - Played too much Diablo II? :> There is a item called holy symbol already, it does bless, I think. Personally, I don't think the gods and hades have any conflicts between each other, so they probably wouldn't have such a spell, I know the undead don't have really good mortal damaging attacks. Bubbles: does it sound reasonable that you can trip someone while you are flying? -Yes, and you can, too. Nal: when putting all pack or bag from inventory but you want to keep out an item like 20 anti cyclops elixirs have put all pack but anti - So drop all.anti first, and then put all pack and then get all the anti back. Or get another pack to put the anti in first, and put all 2.pack afterwards. Brodgar: An option for Wizinvis that works like a selective invis for people on the list, like the ignore feature - Thats really more like a personal kind of thing, isn't it? I would rather have a spell that makes a person not able to see you, but that's kind of impossible... Kiri's WWW of URLs: Go ahead, guess your gender http://test3.thespark.com/gendertest/ Ok, required reading for all BR people (courtesy Rabies/Slart) http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif The official Janis Joplin page. Pretty impressive. http://www.officialjanis.com/html/main.html The X-Files spoilers and guide: http://www.xfiles.stylicious.com/season8/8x08.php Silliness :) Forwarded to me by DOVE: Help Desk Horror These are stories from help desks around the country. At 3:37 a.m. on a Sunday, I had just looked at the clock to determine my annoyance level, when I received a frantic phone call from a new user of a Macintosh Plus. She had gotten her entire family out of the house and was calling from her neighbor's. She had just received her first system error and interpreted the picture of the bomb on the screen as a warning that the computer was going to blow up. ---------------------------------------- Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop." Customer: "Ok." Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?" Customer: "No." Tech Support: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?" Customer: "No." Tech Support: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?" Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'." (At this point I had to put the caller on hold to tell the rest of the tech support staff what had happened. I couldn't, however, stop from giggling when I got back to the call.) Tech Support: "Ok, did you type 'click' with the keyboard?" Customer: "I have done something dumb, right?" ---------------------------------------- One woman called Dell's toll-free line to ask how to install the batteries in her laptop. When told that the directions were on the first page of the manual the woman replied angrily, "I just paid $2,000 for this damn thing, and I'm not going to read the book." ---------------------------------------- Customer: "I received the software update you sent, but I am still getting the same error message." Tech Support: "Did you install the update?" Customer: "No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get it to work?" ---------------------------------------- Customer: "I'm having trouble installing Microsoft Word." Tech Support: "Tell me what you've done." Customer: "I typed 'A:SETUP'." Tech Support: "Ma'am, remove the disk and tell me what it says." Customer: "It says '[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery disk'." Tech Support: "Insert the MS Word setup disk." Customer: "What?" Tech Support: "Did you buy MS word?" Customer "No..." ---------------------------------------- Tech Support: "Ok, in the bottom left hand side of the screen, can you see the 'OK' button displayed?" Customer: "Wow. How can you see my screen from there?" ---------------------------------------- Customer: "Uhh...I need help unpacking my new PC." Tech Support: "What exactly is the problem?" Customer: "I can't open the box." Tech Support: "Well, I'd remove the tape holding the box closed and go from there." Customer: "Uhhhh...ok, thanks...." ---------------------------------------- Customer: "I'm having a problem installing your software. I've got a fairly old computer, and when I type 'INSTALL', all it says is 'Bad command or file name'." Tech Support: "Ok, check the directory of the A: drive-go to A:> \ and type 'dir'." Customer reads off a list of file names, including 'INSTALL.EXE'. Tech Support: "All right, the correct file is there. Type 'INSTALL' again." Customer: "Ok." (pause) "Still says 'Bad command or file name'." Tech Support: "Hmmm. The file's there in the correct place-it can't help but do something. Are you sure you're typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the Enter key?" Customer: "Yes, let me try it again." (pause) "Nope, still 'Bad command or file name'." Tech Support: (now really confused) "Are you sure you're typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the key that says 'Enter'?" Customer: "Well, yeah. Although my 'N' key is stuck, so I'm using the 'M' key...does that matter? ---------------------------------------- At our company we have asset numbers on the front of everything. They give the location, name, and everything else just by scanning the computer's asset barcode or using the number beneath the bars. Customer: "Hello. I can't get on the network." Tech Support: "Ok. Just read me your asset number so we can open an outage." Customer: "What is that?" Tech Support: "That little barcode on the front of your computer." Customer: "Ok. Big bar, little bar, big bar, big bar . . ." ---------------------------------------- And the best for last!!!! Customer: "I got this problem. You people sent me this install disk, and now my A: drive won't work." Tech Support: "Your A drive won't work?" Customer: "That's what I said. You sent me a bad disk, it got stuck in my drive, now it won't work at all." Tech Support: "Did it not install properly? What kind of error messages did you get?" Customer: "I didn't get any error message. The disk got stuck in the drive and wouldn't come out. So I got these pliers and tried to get it out. That didn't work either." Tech Support: "You did what sir?" Customer: "I got these pliers, and tried to get the disk out, but it wouldn't budge. I just ended up cracking the plastic stuff a bit." Tech Support: "I don't understand sir, did you push the eject button?" Customer: "No, so then I got a stick of butter and melted it and used a turkey baster and put the butter in the drive, around the disk, and that got it loose. Then I used the pliers and it came out fine. I can't believe you would send me a disk that was broke and defective." Tech Support: "Let me get this clear. You put melted butter in your A: drive and used pliers to pull the disk out?" At this point, I put the call on the speaker phone and motioned at the other techs to listen in. Tech Support: "Just so I am absolutely clear on this, can you repeat what you just said?" Customer: "I said I put butter in my A: drive to get your crappy disk out, then I had to use pliers to pull it out." Tech Support: "Did you push that little button that was sticking out when the disk was in the drive, you know, the thing called the disk eject button?" Silence. Tech Support: "Sir?" Customer: "Yes." Tech Support: "Sir, did you push the eject button?" Customer: "No, but you people are going to fix my computer, or I am going to sue you for breaking my computer?" Tech Support: "Let me get this straight. You are going to sue our> company because you put the disk in the A: drive, didn't follow the instructions we sent you, didn't actually seek professional advice, didn't consult your user's manual on how to use your computer properly, instead proceeding to pour butter into the drive and physically rip the disk out?" Customer: "Ummmm." Tech Support: "Do you really think you stand a chance, since we do record every call and have it on tape?" Customer: (now rather humbled) "But you're supposed to help!" Tech Support: "I am sorry sir, but there is nothing we can do for you. Have a nice day." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 26, 2001 Hi everyone! Here's your somewhat-weekly newsletter. Kethan: stamps for backpacks, etc, so we can label them as outs. it really stinks to lose a backpack, and when people find them laying around they don't know where they go 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 Mylo: silly as it may be, can you make :) a shortcut for smile, I have a bad habit of typing that instead of the whole word. AIM dayz. Wiegraf: can you add the race felinoid? (half human half cat) Teumen: for the illithids you should have a skill (not spell) called mind devour which does a good amount of damage and heals your character alittle bit Sykle: Suggestion: show the date/time of the mesasage in chath, heroh, etc. 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. Mathis: you REALLY should be able to eat when your drunk Nanifun: Please increase the prompt string to something > 50 perhaps 128 or so? I would like a very in depth and colorful prompt, but it seems as if I am limited to 50 chars. Adieu. Characters that need to be logged in this week: Aegis, Ambrosia, AnthraxBkp, Anthraxguzl, Azuth, Batuzai, Chiouzu, Dachande, Darkstorm, Dimde, Dreamwalker, Duncan, Eden, Fal, Fargo, Fearitself, Flagor, Fozzy, Georges, Gerrod, Goku, Gothica, Hahhehhee, Homicidal, Jai, Jiz, Johanna, Jonnie, Kalik, Kallen, Kaylea, Krillen, Laka, Lanfear, Lara, Lau, Macbeth, Madhatter, Marie, Mars, Milambur, Mojoe, Mrhat, Nashkel, Peregrine, Pinky, Ragnorak, Rayn, Shure, Simkin, Smicvuh, Sori, Survic, Tasha, Tylin, Vlad, Wazup, Xaos, Zorander BIO by "Generic" and or Armageddon / Anubis / Stilgar: a. What's your BR name? Anubis, Armageddon, Stilgar, Kenshin, and Generic. b. What race/level are you? Avian-some hero lvl,illithid-hero,dwf-high enuf to bash orcs good,human-not high enough,dwf-ditto c. How did you pick your BR name? Anubis is the Egyptian god of the under world. I thought it would be cool to be death himself. Armageddon is the end of the world. It's another cool allusion. Kenshin! It's an awesome anime. Generic. Hehe, I like this one. I like it 'cuz I feel like I'm being mass-produced by society. d. What's your favorite area? I like to hang out in valence emoting and waiting for newbies to show up ;) e. Where do you live (State or province/Country) St. Louis, Missouri. USA f. What do you do for a living? I'm still living at home with my parents. Hopefully I'll get accepted into Harvard either this year or next year. Then everything will be better. I did some life-guarding a year or two back for a summer. I did some volunteer work for the St. Louis Science Center (visit it if you're in town) this past summer. Now I applied to Borders but they haven't called back for an interview yet. g. If you're a college/grad student, what's your major? I might as well be. I'm dual enrolled at Washington University. Currently I'm almost got a math minor. I'll be done with multivariable calculus this semester and next year I'll start up liner algebra and dif. eq. h. What do you want to be when you grow up? Err... I think I'll go into law or economics. I currently have a band. The name of it is "sexual misadventure." I sing and play guitar. I play violin and piano too. (violin is probably what I'm best at) But we have a few original songs and I think we sound pretty good. i. Are you single? Unfortunately yes. I've had extremely traumatic experiences with relationships, or at least I'd like to think so. I'm currently looking for people I like at my school. Too bad not many girls are interested in a guy with intelligence, well at least not any of the really hot ones. I blame it on the fact that I'm Chinese living in an all white community. I've gotten pretty far in a couple of relationships only to find out that I'm not really satisfied. This is probably one of the 2 single most stress inducing parts of my life. Sometimes I suffer periods of slight depression between relationships. That's when I go download depressing music and spend my time online listening to it. j. What are your hobbies? I've tried to stop video-gaming except BR. I'm currently on a hiatus form BR till spring break. I like to play music and listen to it. I like spending time with my friends esp. the females. I've taken a break from web programming. I can program quite well, but I'm no longer fond of it. I like to run cross-country and track. I also like to swim. k. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to do? I usually find that I'm able to do anything that I actually want to do. l. Who do you most admire? I had a best friend of mine who went to Berkeley that I really liked. I think he is possibly one of the 3 people, around my age, I have met so far that are as smart as I am. m. What celebrity would you love to hook up with? Britney Spears........ drool.............. n. What's the last book you read (including for school). Did you like it? I'm currently reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. It's really good. I just finished reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand before that. That's another good one. o. What's the last movie you watched? Did you like it? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It kicked ass. p. If you could be anywhere in the world for a week, where would you go? I'd like to go to Europe with some of my friends. Article by Amystery: I'm sure all of us who are in the United States have listened anxiously to the reports of school shootings. I have a hypothesis that I believe explains why they are becoming more common and also points to the steps being taken to prevent them as counterproductive and quite possibly fatally flawed. I believe that all of the work lately to make all students feel equal and happy in the name of political correctness has removed the traditional hierarchy of authority among students. When I went to school there were certain people we looked up to and respected and others we looked down on and tormented. Now, the field has been leveled. There are no more leaders to respect and everyone is a target for torment. Without someone to respect and strive towards becoming, students feel lost, they have no way to differentiate themselves from the masses. Sports have been de-emphasized so that they are not a sure path to success and respect. Students have been forced to turn towards more extreme measures to become noticed, i.e. to guns. It is the politically correct idea that everyone has to be equal that has led to this rash of violence. Without the historical outlets of respect and abuse, students are acting out to draw attention to themselves. The solution is to admit that not all students are equal and that there is a need for a hierarchy within which students can define themselves. By mainstreaming every student we are ill preparing them for the world beyond academia where everything is a hierachy, you are not equal to your boss. One of the most horrible curses that can be inflicted on someone is loss of identity, which is exactly what we are doing to an entire generation of American students. Responses by DIVEBOMB: >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 -- Since when is knowledge free? I have a $60,000+ debt because knowledge isn't free. And, as a matter of fact, my use of that knowledge IS free (to me at least, maybe not to other people). > >Armageddon: Hero reincarnate races that are only available to heroes. > > >Kiri -- remort is coming as soon as Slart finishes it. The race will be demon. -- patience is a virture >Armageddon: have it so that you can use all with coins, like put all coins purse, or deposit all, withdraw all. > > >Kiri -- put all.coins purse > >Armageddon: heal restore for morts at clericus for a non-variable price of 100000+ -- Heal restore is one of the perks of hitting level 51, relish that fact. >Firestar: how about a bagpipe social? > >Kiri -- help writesocial and help socialex, and then email it to barren@coredcs.com > >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? -- Perhaps steps * 2 is a better idea. Since King Kandy is pretty far and he's only 139 steps from recall. But it's kind of a neat idea to have closer mobs cost less in a track. Although in my experience with numerous avians, i think i've probably run out of mana 3 times. > >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 -- I totally don't understand what you mean, but i'll guess. I'm thinking you mean donations for 1-10 are in one place, 11-20 are in another place, so that the equip donated is separated. I think it's too much work for something that doesn't matter that much. I don't really think people really use donations that much anyway. >Naddarow: make it so Ventriloquate can except Capital letters for peoples names:> (I know..never gonna happen, but I can dream:) ) -- Maybe one day all your dreams and wishes will come true. >Armageddon: a chat channel for other language speakers (ie, german, spanish, french, etc.) -- as far as i've seen 100% of the mud speaks English to some degree. Why should we segregate conversation because only some of the people can understand what's going on? >Tallarn: why not make weapons damageable too? easy code > >Kiri -- I don't like to take away without giving. -- she's the boss >Tallarn: make the xp penalty much higher for recalling out of combat -- *shrug* it is higher than flee at least >Tallarn: make scan a skill, not an auto ability -- I think this is a good idea, but I also believe the complaints would outweigh the worthwhile of this minor attempt at making adventuring interesting. >Tallarn: remove some of the spammy messages for kick, fireball, etc, they are irritating -- If you're using zmud you can use the #gag command to block out sentences with certain words. For instance if you did: "#gag misses" no sentence containing the word "misses" would show up on your screen (if you want to get rid of it, it's in your triggers menu). >Tallarn: not EVERY kick is going to be a flying kick, for example, especially from a dwarf... -- Big deal. >Naxias: How about a gmote, group-only emote. So that ppl within the group can communicate when drunk more easily. -- Drunkeness is SUPPOSED to be a penalty. Chath is a bug. Emote is a cheap way around being drunk so it >can< be considered a bug, but not really. So adding a group emote is like purposefully programming a bug into the game. Chath wasn't fixed because of the guarantee of massive complaints. >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 :) -- yes, yes it would. >Anubis: have skills do the same thing as spells. This way, newbies from other muds aren't confused -- i guess... >Anubis: an auctioneer that helps you auction off equip for gold. takes player bids on an item, exchanges item and gold for you. > >Kiri -- I envision a ton of spam from this. -- I've seen it and it does, but auction might actually be used legitimately, because where i've seen it you can only auction items you actually have. You lose that item til the auction is over. If it sells the person loses the money and gains the item and you gain the money, if it doesn't, you get the item back - resulting in auction ONLY being used to actually auction real things. >Armageddon: some way for heroes to silence foolish morts. Like a temporary silence for say, a few hours (151) game time? Like a spell. That should teach em a lesson... > >Kiri -- You don't earn trust by heroing, you simply gain a level. I wouldn't want to give someone a dangerous thing like that that can be abused simply because they leveled higher than someone else. -- only 153+ can silence and im betting it'll stay that way >Armageddon: color in damp messages -- it'd be nifty >Nal: when you walk into a wall have like a trap on some that will hurt you? -- chests and bags/packs can have traps if area designers put them on them, but i dont think a wall can have a trap on it >Fate: in status for enhancements this level put what we enhanced? i forget sometimes what im enhancing -- why does it matter? Look at what your stats are and just pick something if you've still got enhances left. >Fate: no spell lag for healing spells out fo combat? -- I find that to be a pain also. >Dio: a skill that makes a mob or character(in arena) stop flying -- Theoretically, I would think Vertigo would do that (illithid skill), but my tests have shown that it does not. >Verdict: a defensive spell that prevents you from being poisoned -- it wouldn't be so bad >Dio: when you log off have the ignore list stay -- i think it should, and unless you have real problems and have a million people on your ignore list, i dont envision this bit of info sucking up hard drive space >Arcane: retell command -- what would this do? we have tellh as it is >Sabin: Update The God list for sacrifice...*shrug* -- *shrug* >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? -- do you mean what armor is casting on you? like flying? that's the only thing I can think of affecting you offhand that DOES NOT show up on the aff list (because it never goes away). Invisify does... >Brodgar: A symbol that BR would recognize as a line feed, in the same way it understands %Y for yellow, so that oset can be used to make descriptions just so. Would be particularly useful for making maps and things for quests. -- useful in repops/bamfs/etc too DB Kiri's WWW of URLs: Amateur Railgun Construction by MIT students: http://www.railgun.org/ Guess my Name http://www.zerotv.com/games/name_game/ Want to do a player review of BR on Mudconnector? Here's the link: http://www.mudconnector.com/mud-bin/prev/submit.cgi?mud=Barren+Realms Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and George W. Bush were set to face a firing squad in a small Central American country. Bill Clinton was the first one placed against the wall and just before the order was given he yelled out, "Earthquake!" The firing squad fell into a panic and Bill jumped over the wall and escaped in the confusion. Al Gore was the second one placed against the wall. The squad was reassembled and Al pondered what he had just witnessed. Again before the order was given the Al yelled out, "Tornado!" Again the squad fell apart and Al slipped over the wall. The last person, George W. Bush, was placed against the wall. He was thinking "I see the pattern here, just scream out something about a disaster and hop over the wall." He confidently refused the blindfold as the firing squad was reassembled. As the rifles were raised in his direction he grinned from ear to ear and yelled, "Fire!" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------