Barren Realms MUD

Apologies in advance on the size of this post, but it took me a good three hours of combing through back posts to grab any and all ideas that related to area formats in any manner to get them all. Also, I'll edit in any other ideas that are brought to my attention (outside of this topic) as they relate.

All that I'm asking for as a response from anyone is their opinions on Slart's two lists: i.e. the top ten items from this list twice, with one taking into consideration coding time/difficulty, and one without.

• Object stuff
• cursed flag - causes negative side effects when zapping, brandishing, etc.
• !dodge, !parry flags for weapons (preventing opponents from dodging/parrying).
• !quit, !area flags - items disappear when player quits, or when taken out of the area, respectively.
• !recall flag - player cannot recall while carrying that object
• option to set level for object repops
• option to set price on all items sold in shops
• option to set timer length on timed objects
• set eq (diablo-style... wearing/having multiple pieces of the set has generally positive affects on the items' stats)
• limited-use keys
• customizable damage types for weapons (i.e. your snivel <damages> <mob>)
• rare eq
• fix traps so that all spells work on chests
• fix potions/pills/etc. so that negative spells on them will affect players
• ranged weapons

• Mob stuff (I did not include any suggested specs as they aren't really part of an area format decision)
• magic resistance bit (with a percent that it resists)
• super-sentinel affect bit - the mob wouldn't move despite thrown objects, when injured, etc.
• detect sneak (with a percent detect option)
• !summon, antisocial affect bits
• option to set what level range an aggro is aggressive to
• mob races/species - groups that have certain behavioral patterns, resistances/weaknesses, etc. (cross-reference with schools of magic for more depth)
• ability to have multiple specs on a single mob
• additional mob reset options - mob follows other mob on repop, mob picks up object on repop, etc.
• classed mobs - use more player skills/spells
• improved mob AI - use summon, track, teleport, follow blood trails from fleeing pc's, etc.
• improved mob assistance AI - certain sets of mobs will always assist each other, occasional mob assists with pc, etc.
• improved mob interactivity - i.e. can give mobs the four items they're asking for for a quest, and they'll give you some other specific item to take to another mob...
• rare mob load

• Room stuff
• options to set allowable numbers of mobs/pcs (preferably separately) in a room - customizable solitary/private flag
• per-area, per-room, per-terrain weather effects
• ambient messages - would echo in a room either randomly or at set intervals
• !flee flag
• !quit flag - user who quits there will log back in at recall
• !alias flag - slows avatar aliases to "normal" speed
• interactive environments - push/pull/speak to trigger events, keyworded doors, teleports, revealing hidden exits/chests
• creation of traprooms
• trapped doors
• weighted doors - need a certain amount of strength to open it
• "port" doors - take a pc walking through it to (one of several) random destinations
• !pass door flag
• bash as a door-opening skill, and !bash door flag
• long desc for doors - so someone can open "the portal of Myzzlthim" instead of just "portal"

• Other stuff (much of this is not area format specific)
• higher max stat levels (i.e. 40+)
• stat levels affect combat more - i.e. con has damage reduction, dex increases dodge base percentage, etc.
• experience gain from using racial skills - offensive magic in combat, healing magic on the injured, steal, etc.
• steal expanded to include equipped objects
• search skill - to find "true" hidden objects/doors, a limited version of interactive environments
• reworking/expansion of the 2. system, to allow viewing of second, third, fourth, etc. object/mob/room ed/exit description/etc. in the room.
• limiting tp/summon to area-wide - alternately, a flag preventing out-area teleports and summons to mobs in the area.
• schools of magic - four elemental, plus possible additional. can add weaknesses/immunities to these schools to mobs, and elemental property attacks to weapons

All right. Remember, it's one list of ten taking into consideration time and difficulty and one with no consideration of that. This list above is fairly complete, but feel free to use any ideas not in it in your lists. I'll be posting my two top tens within a couple of days.

I'll add to the post as ideas come back to me. For the moment, I'd like to second all of EB's ideas, and add:

"interactive objects" - levels, switches, buttons, etc. that can affect thinks in the area, such as opening up a new exit, teleporting players somewhere, loading a mob or item, and so on

I'd like to take some more time to think about these before I post "officially", but I noticed there was no !locate flag for objects, which I think would be very beneficial for puzzles and end of puzzle mobs etc.

As it stands right now, if you want to give a prize for solving a puzzle you best put it in a container, or you want a mob to be a teleport target as part of a puzzle, that mob can't carry any equipment.

-Brodgar

I'm not totally sure about how long these things will take to code, but as far as I can tell, my two lists are about the same so I only have one (for instance, I'm assuming it's not that hard to make room specs an option; the actual coding of the specr's might take time...). Here it is:

1. Room Specos (Specrs?)

2. Room Containers

3. Enter only doors (you have to do "enter portal" and can't go in one of the cardinal directions)

4. Make trip not work underwater (Trip is ridiculously effective after about level 20 or 25. No one complains because everyone just flies. But you can't fly underwater and this makes all underwater areas even less appealing. Since I'm working on a fairly large underwater area, I'd really like it to be somewhat playable. Plus, it's not that easy to trip someone when they're swimming).

5. Room effects triggered by say

6. !quit,!area bits for objects

7. Mob races/species

8. Added complexity to the flaming code (It's nice that it works now but I think it is too powerful and too simple. There's not much incentive to change equ as an elf/druid once you have a full set of flaming equ as long as it doesn't get smashed. Maybe make level of equ or other stats factor into the damage as well).

9. Possibility for multiple spec/o/r's on one mob/object/room (I think this is coming any way but just making sure because it's nice ).

10. Improved weather code (don't spend too much time on it but ideally it would stop snowing in the desert and weather would have a little more effect on players than in its current form...there's no difference between snow and rain. I want to make a snow man ).

I guess we'll see what everyone puts and compile it into one list?

A vote or 2 from me...

cursed flag - causes negative side effects when zapping, brandishing, etc

could be interesting, like an random spell or something...

!dodge, !parry flags for weapons (preventing opponents from dodging/parrying).

Not too sure about this one, i can't offhand think of a weapon that i would be un-able to dodge or parry - if you think of one let me know.

!quit, !area flags - items disappear when player quits, or when taken out of the area, respectively

ouch! use this as a last resort if unable to stop people 'log, take, quit...etc'
example - no-quit areas (takes you back to recall on quit)
Although this idea would be good for area specific items.

!recall flag - player cannot recall while carrying that object

evil - i bet whoever thought of this wanted to cause someone some grief
- I can think of some nice ways to implement - has potential (if not overused)

option to set level for object repops
option to set price on all items sold in shops
option to set timer length on timed objects

The more options the better - as long as it doesn't corrupt the rest of the mud

set eq (diablo-style... wearing/having multiple pieces of the set has generally positive affects on the items' stats)

are'nt we trying to get away from everyone looking the same?

limited-use keys

like use them once and then they snap? hmm, it's not a bad idea....but is it that important?

customizable damage types for weapons (i.e. your snivel <damages> <mob>)

not sure if you mean damage - as DAMP works fine for me
or do you mean: your PIERCE knocks a smurf
or your SLASH knocks a vagabond' etc?
it would be fun to add A : your SCRIBBLE knocks a teacher (if using a pen as a weapon) - but again, it's not that important.

rare eq

so only the first who solved your area would get the eq - maybe if it only re-popped every re-boot or month... or something *shrug* not much of an opinion on this.

fix traps so that all spells work on chests

yes and yes, it's all there, it just does not work properly - lets fix it up

ranged weapons

if i was an archer who was badly damaged in group combat and i managed to flee from the mele before i died, i would like to be able to shoot my arrows into the next room and aid my fellows who are still engaged in combat.

Here i jumped over mob stuff (i'll come back to it)

"interactive objects" - levels, switches, buttons, etc. that can affect thinks in the area, such as opening up a new exit, teleporting players somewhere, loading a mob or item, and so on

YES! - definately in the "top 10 list" in my book

no !locate flag for objects

this again would be a nice addition (if not overly used)

Room Specos (Specrs?)

this would allow rooms to notice a player in the room and cast a spell etc?
this would be nice!!...but how hard to implent?

Room Containers

Yup, then we can add secrets without the blank line giveaway on "no descriptioned" containers

Enter only doors (you have to do "enter portal" and can't go in one of the cardinal directions)

this would allow more secret doors - i'm all for secrets! (can you tell?)

Make trip not work underwater

it shouldn't, your right - but where do we put this in priority?

Added complexity to the flaming code

how about an !enflamable flag for some eq items?

Improved weather code

put this with the 'not-too-important' bunch - it would be good if you got hit by lightning occasionally (if it did not burn my pack)

instead of quoting (sorry bout that) I have selected 8 of the ideas
MY TOP 10 LIST

1. "interactive objects" - levels, switches, buttons, etc. that can affect thinks in the area, such as opening up a new exit, teleporting players somewhere, loading a mob or item, and so on interactive environments - push/pull/speak to trigger events, keyworded doors, teleports, revealing hidden exits/chests

2. fix traps so that all spells work on chests, creation of traprooms, trapped doors

3. Room Specos

4. !quit flag - user who quits there will log back in at recall

5. improved mob AI - use summon, track, teleport, follow blood trails from fleeing pc's, etc.

6. 3. Enter only doors (you have to do "enter portal" and can't go in one of the cardinal directions)

7. ranged weapons

8. Room Containers

without respect to difficulty:
1)reworking/expansion of the 2. 3. etc.. system. as i've said before, it's one of my pet peeves that i can't look at whatever i want to look at because i have more than one item with that keyword
2)interactive environments (though i really don't even know the extent to which this is being proposed, if it's taken too far it might become a little rediculous)
3)option to set level for object repops (for instance, if the mortal actually manages to kill the level 65 aggro in the no_magic, underwater room, they should be able to use its equipment if the builder wants them to be able to)
4)option to set price on all types of items sold in shops
5)option to set timer length on timed objects
6)customizable damage types for weapons
7)limited use keys
fix traps (and if possible enable room traps/door traps that trigger upon entering/exiting a room)
9)!pass door flag
10)options to set allowable numbers of PCs/mobs (having the option to do so either seperately or as a total would be greatly prefered) in a room
11)change weather as it's been proposed
12)slow_alias room flag

with respect to difficulty:
1)!quit flag (preferably character restarts at a vnumb chosen by builder instead of always at recall)
2)nosummon and antisocial affect bits
3)see_sneak affect bit
4)super_sentinel affect bit
5)!recall object flag
6)long descrips for doors (or would it be more accurate to say short descrips, since the equivalent of long descrips already exist?)
7)setable aggresiveness (both to character level ranges and possibly other criteria such as carrying a certain object?)
have negative spells from potions/pills/etc affect the character using them (EB edit this into master list?)
9)modifications of !nosummon option, to allow the mob to be summoned only into the area (also a related option, allowing the mob to be summoned into the area without regard to the level ranges of the area so that high repops don't stop an important mob from being summoned)
10)cursed flag for wands/staves/etc..

Is the purpose of the quit flag just to prevent people from amassing repops of a valuable well hidden object? I guess the player would receive some sort of message when they log off or when they log back on to know what was happening. I think that being able to set what room they get moved to would be useful since some well hidden objects could be in a place where you wouldn't want the player to be able to escape by recalling.

Also, I like the idea of setting the level on object repops. I was thinking this was meant for shops but it would be nice to make some harder to get equipment.

My lists:
Without respect to difficulty: 1) interactive environments/objects/search skill, 2) !pass, 3) !quit, 4) ambient messages, 5) weather effects, 6) bash skill/!bash, 7) limited-use keys, 8) schools of magic, 9) mob species, 10) set aggro level range.
With respect to difficulty: 1) !pass, 2) !quit, 3) limited-use keys, 4) bash skill/!bash, 5) interactive environments/objects/search skill, 6) !summon/antisocial affect bits, 7) !locate, 8) set timer length, 9) ambient messages, 10) set aggro level range.

yes, xorex, the idea of the !quit flag is to make sure people go through the entire puzzle every time they want to get a particular powerful object (or gold pile...)

about the cursed flag: i believe that it's !recall and !arena intentionally, since if players could go to arena with it they could then simply go from arena to recall, defeating the entire purpose. for heroes maybe cursed could be changed to not affect going to arena, as it doesn't affect going to recall. if there's anything else i'm not understanding about "fixing" cursed flag, please let me know.

i'm not a fan of set eq (same reason, we want diversity not everyone using same stuff). i don't like !parry and !dodge because any weapon i can think of can be parried and/or dodged, even magical ones if parried by a magical weapon/shield. rare eq would have to be carefully arranged, so that on reboot the eq doesn't show up right away but has to wait however long it takes before it becomes available (otherwise people become encouraged to find and exploit crash bugs so that the eq repops with the reboot). if crashing the mud makes the eq take LONGER to repop instead of shorter, that wouldn't be a problem.

The problem with the cursed room flag is that it also makes the room !magicout. !recall and !arena are fine, I just want it to not automatically make the room !magicout.

Edit: I just checked in the mud, and this has apparently been changed since the last time I knew. *goes to remove it from the master list*

In Order:
* !pass door
* Increased Mob AI + mob classes (I don't think they're different)
* builder-specifiable built-in quests (including rare-load mobs and mob interactivity)
* limiting tp/summon to in area for mobs only - no limit for players - leave astral alone
* Interactive Environments/objects/Search
* detect sneak (with a % fail rate) - i.e. 50% chance to detect sneak instead of 100% or 0%
* area-based weather
* Mob resistances/weaknesses
* limited use keys
* option to set "aggressive to" level range/race/align/sex, replace spec_hates with this feature


Notes:
* Classed/increased-AI mobs should be worth more XP.
* Along similar lines, a balanced system for more/less XP based on resistances/weaknesses respectively.
* !pass door is #1 because the lack of it counters a lot of the benefits of the other suggestions.
- limited use keys falls in this category too, but not as badly
* spec_hates suck compared to immediate aggression - and i wrote the hates... Combinations would be more interesting (i.e. level 40-50 goody-two-shoes male dwarf-hating dragons. )

Is there any new news?

I'm hoping for contributions from several more builders (Faustus... you, Brodgar... a couple others, hopefully) before compiling anything into a tentative couple of lists that we could decide on collectively. (or work on until we could mostly agree on)

Well, since I've been called out, I'd also like to be able to designate sertain mobs as being more resistant to or more vulnerable to certain weapon types. Thus, a skeleton, for example could take more damage from crushing type weapons than from, say, piercing type weapons.

Also, I forget who mentioned it above, but being able to use say to trigger certain events in a room with key words is an amazingly kick ass idea...