January 5, 2004

[kiri]

IDEAS -- please respond to these!


Exe: personally, i think all mobs should have the keyword MOB, i have made countless errors in attacking myself because of mobs that wander in the room, and a fully equipped elf with all flaming eq can do some serious damage to themselves

Criterion: chnge the enchant scrolls to have a scroll specified alignment... be kinda cool to have different types of enchant scrolls in the realm

Exe: inside each tent should be a padlock that is a key to lock/unlock your tent

AMystery: we need a positive spreading spell, how about a mob mentality caused by frenzy spreading amoung people?

Criterion: a much better druid healing spell with a better ratio

Criterion: illithid skill, breathe under water, also be able to enclose group members in a bubble so they can fight under water without scuba gear

Rhyme: take bless away from all the fighters, only druids should bless eheh, have a spell called, 'contrite heart', that results in a lesser for of bless

Rhyme: what about anti-login rooms, so if you try to login to the room it shunts you to recall or the start of the area?

Exe: humans have student of kung fu title, elves, apprentice of magic, avians and ills should have a special title too, since all the other races have one

Disaster: we should have a 3D tic-tac-toe room, like our C4 room

Aniel: trip should not be allowed underwater! sooo unfair

Lehua: a fantasically good weapon for mortals that takes away your hp while you use it

Disaster: a high level ill spell which would allow them to tp to a mob they first scry

AMystery: it just occured to me, preen really does make sense for avians, but just like normal birds, it doesn't really heal much (1-5hp per time) but it lets you smooth your feathers and recover from a pluck...

Ginsu: kender should be able to poison things besides weapons. I'm thinking they poison some food and leave it on the floor, scavenger mob eats it, mob gets poisoned. also be nice if it worked on guards and with throw. throw in a rice cake, guard eats it,

Ginsu: throw in a rice cake, guard eats it, dies, you walk in and take the treasure

Criterion: the key to the calathar map should list all the shops by alphabetical...

Reason: illithid skill called telepathic communications, which allows them to use tell to talk to people when drunk

Criterion: (Hide) should appear as a spell

Criterion: a config option that refuses all things being given to you till you turn it off

Disaster: body parts from players should be created with that player's name as a keyword

Criterion: A trivial pursuit game in the game room.

Criterion: a new parameter on the get all <container> command, where you can append things you don't want to get... say, 'get all corpse icicle ball', and you'll get everything but things with icicle and ball as keywords

Disaster: when going through the races and redoing them, why not instead of redoing them add new races? when dwarves are "redone", we can leave dwarves as they are and introduce the duergar race. for elves, introduce the drow, etc..

TheDude: Spells and abilities should say what the damage is based on such as level or hp.

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These characters need to log on their characters this week or lose them:

Aragail, Atrynn, Babymonster*, Basty, Blazedon, Chameleon*,Chrono, Crea, Decado*, Extax, Fera, Fitzhume, Fleet, Gorthom, Gruff, Hadhaig, Harlock, Hej, Izzard, Jatt, Jlocke, Karl, Kenneth, Kestin*, Koroc, Kronin*, Legs*, Lexos*, Lid, Llegolas, Loom*, Lorimyr*, Maestro*, Mallrat, Meson, Montgomery, Nalov*, Nate, Nazita, Nelson, Plaid, Queequeg*, Rafe*, Ranozz, Rastaman, Rathe, Redfox, Reidbollman*, Saibot*, Scyther, Shanater*, Shrike, Skaarj, Taper*, Theoutsider*, Tunigorn, Uhura, Windwalker, Xcrashx, Zane

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Responses by Anakin:

Rhyme: the degree of intoxication can affect spell casting...
>>It makes sense but I don't see the use for it. Then underwater should also affect spell casting, so does the weather since they all makes sense.

Rhyme: a new race that eats mob corpses instead of regular food...
>>You have to check on your doctor on this. Something's wrong with your head... No but really, they'd appreciate these kinds of suggestions for future races. icon_smile.gif

Rhyme: for a quest, pack the arena with mobs - have people make new chars to play - all level 1 chars, give the mobs tickets, person with the most tickets wins
>>10 more levels and you can finally work on this! Or maybe I can steal it from you. XD

Criterion: when you type prac, put everything into order by alpha
>>And maybe they can also sort them by % *nods*

Lehua: a self destruct command to make a charmie just die... or maybe a poison potion you can make them quaf for instant slay
>>. . . or you can kill them.

Criterion: put one of those dragon headed kiwi springs at recall
>>I think only imms can create them so why should they make a permanent one?

AMystery: help socialname, it shows the actual social with the variables. would be good for checking out what they do and learning how to write them
>>Anything that makes my lazy life easier is a good thing for me. icon_smile.gif

Criterion: illithid skill that swaps their place with another mob or char
>>I don't think they will be adding anymore things to the illithids for a while... good idea though.

Criterion: a meditation spell which converts mana into hp at 1 hp for every 2 mana points. you can grade the conversion based on level, so it starts at a conversion rate of 1hp/5mana. for all martial guids
>>Isn't this like medicine? Or are you talking more about like regen from Final Fantasy?

Lehua: If you happen to kill yourself for any reason, immediate alignmennt adjustment to satanic... Since suicide is technically a mortal sin
>>And whenever you use pray, immediate alignment adjustment to angelic... Since praying is religiously a good thing. No.

Exe: weapons should have a weapon damage type when you id them
>>Can't you just wield it and go kill something? (Get disarmed later on if it's noremove). It would neat addition though.

Klepto: detect invis potions don't last long enough
>>Just quaff it right before you look for something?

Org: there is some thing called gravity

Kiri-- NO WAY!!! Are you sure?

<a href="http://www.davidbass.net">AMystery</a>: we need another 30-35 area since all we really have is house of usher and rocky horror and there are no mobs in usher. make it something with ice dragons and gnomes and lots of traps
>>You were ignoring me earlier so all I have to say to you is "Go make your own" icon_twisted.gif

Criterion: when a mob repops with players in the room, the wind rustles and the room gets cold... and a mist coalesces into the mob
>>Sure, but I don't really see why... but then again I look in a room every 5 seconds.

Lehua: when someone has a killer flag, sacrifices to the gods should say something like, Even the gods have forsaken you... Your sacrifice has been rejected.
>>Better yet "When someone has a killer flag, no rules should apply to them"

Exe: maybe we could have special hero skills and spells for each race
>>Firm grasp doesn't hold you tight enough?

Criterion: when you do who, alignment could affect the color your nname appears as... red for evil and blue for good, and green for neutral
>>Nah, it's nice to know that everyone's as green as me.
_________________

Kiri's WWW of URLs:

Shake the snowglobe!

http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/snowglobe/globe.swf

Make a flake! (really cool)

http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/

The best smelling stuff EVER! I got the cinnabun one and it makes me want to eat my head

http://www.philosophy.com/ViewCategoryP ... hilcat0102

Wookie Armor (funny)

http://free.inkfrog.com/pix/poppapete/0132.jpg

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50 Fun Things For Professors To Do
1. Wear a hood with one eyehole. Periodically make strange gurgling noises.
2. After confirming everyone's names on the roll, thank the class for attending "Advanced Astrodynamics 690" and mention that yesterday was the last day to drop.
3. After turning on the overhead projector, clutch your chest and scream, "MY PACEMAKER!"
4. Wear a pointed Kaiser helmet and a monocle and carry a riding crop.
5. Gradually speak softer and softer and then suddenly point to a student and scream, "YOU! WHAT DID I JUST SAY?"
6. Deliver your lecture through a hand puppet. If a student asks you a question directly, say in a high-pitched voice, "The Professor can't hear you, you'll have to ask *me*, Winky Willy".
7. If someone asks a question, walk silently over to their seat, hand them your piece of chalk, and ask, "Would YOU like to give the lecture, Mr. Smartypants?"
8. Pick out random students, ask them questions, and time their responses with a stop watch. Record their times in your grade book while muttering "tsk, tsk".
9. Ask students to call you "Tinkerbell" or "Surfin' Bird".
10. Stop in mid-lecture, frown for a moment, and then ask the class whether your butt looks fat.
11. Play "Kumbaya" on the banjo.
12. Show a video on medieval torture implements to your calculus class. Giggle throughout it.
13. Announce "you'll need this", and write the suicide prevention hotline number on the board.
14. Wear mirrored sunglasses and speak only in Turkish. Ignore all questions.
15. Start the lecture by dancing and lip-syncing to James Brown's "Sex Machine."
16. Ask occasional questions, but mutter "as if you gibbering simps would know" and move on before anyone can answer.
17. Ask the class to read Jenkins through Johnson of the local phone book by the next lecture. Vaguely imply that there will be a quiz.
18. Have one of your graduate students sprinkle flower petals ahead of you as you pace back and forth.
19. Address students as "worm".
20. Announce to students that their entire grades will be based on a single-question oral final exam. Imply that this could happen at any moment.
21. Turn off the lights, play a tape of crickets chirping, and begin singing spirituals.
22. Ask for a volunteer for a demonstration. Ask them to fill out a waiver as you put on a lead apron and light a blowtorch.
23. Point the overhead projector at the class. Demand each student's name, rank, and serial number.
24. Begin class by smashing the neck off a bottle of vodka, and announce that the lecture's over when the bottle's done.
25. Have a band waiting in the corner of the room. When anyone asks a question, have the band start playing and sing an Elvis song.
26. Every so often, freeze in mid sentence and stare off into space for several minutes. After a long, awkward silence, resume your sentence and proceed normally.
27. Wear a "virtual reality" helmet and strange gloves. When someone asks a question, turn in their direction and make throttling motions with your hands.
28. Mention in passing that you're wearing rubber underwear.
29. Growl constantly and address students as "matey".
30. Devote your math lecture to free verse about your favorite numbers and ask students to "sit back and groove".
31. Announce that last year's students have almost finished their class projects.
32. Inform your English class that they need to know Fortran and code all their essays. Deliver a lecture on output format statements.
33. Bring a small dog to class. Tell the class he's named "Boogers McGee" and is your "mascot". Whenever someone asks a question, walk over to the dog and ask it, "What'll it be, McGee?"
34. Wear a feather boa and ask students to call you "Snuggles".
35. Tell your math students that they must do all their work in a base 11 number system. Use a complicated symbol you've named after yourself in place of the number 10 and threaten to fail students who don't use it.
36. Claim to be a chicken. Squat, cluck, and produce eggs at irregular intervals.
37. Bring a CPR dummy to class and announce that it will be the teaching assistant for the semester. Assign it an office and office hours.
38. Have a grad student in a black beret pluck at a bass while you lecture.
39. Sprint from the room in a panic if you hear sirens outside.
40. Give an opening monologue. Take two minute "commercial breaks" every ten minutes.
41. Tell students that you'll fail them if they cheat on exams or "fake the funk".
42. Announce that you need to deliver two lectures that day, and deliver them in rapid-fire auctioneer style.
43. Pass out dental floss to students and devote the lecture to oral hygiene.
44. Announce that the entire2-volume Encyclopedia Britannica will be required reading for your class. Assign a report on Volume 1, Aardvark through Armenia, for next class.
45. Ask students to list their favorite showtunes on a signup sheet. Criticize their choices and make notes in your grade book.
46. Sneeze on students in the front row and wipe your nose on your tie.
47. Warn students that they should bring a sack lunch to exams.
48. Refer frequently to students who died while taking your class.
49. Show up to lecture in a ventilated clean suit. Advise students to keep their distance for their own safety and mutter something about that bug I picked up in the field".
50. Jog into class, rip the textbook in half, and scream, "Are you pumped? ARE YOU PUMPED? I CAN'T HEEEEEEAR YOU!"

[Everybody]

Exe: personally, i think all mobs should have the keyword MOB, i have made countless errors in attacking myself because of mobs that wander in the room, and a fully equipped elf with all flaming eq can do some serious damage to themselves

This is what 2. 3. etc. is for. If that's not working for you, try using single letters of the mob's name... it'll respond to one of them, eventually.

Criterion: a much better druid healing spell with a better ratio

Have you tried cure critical recently?

Criterion: illithid skill, breathe under water, also be able to enclose group members in a bubble so they can fight under water without scuba gear

I don't see this as an ill skill, personally... seems more like something a druid or an elf would be able to do.

Rhyme: what about anti-login rooms, so if you try to login to the room it shunts you to recall or the start of the area?

We've discussed this at various points... I believe something like this will wind up going in for continent use at some point.

Aniel: trip should not be allowed underwater! sooo unfair

I'm pretty sure that's a bug we simply haven't fixed, yet.

Lehua: a fantasically good weapon for mortals that takes away your hp while you use it

Build one in.

Ginsu: kender should be able to poison things besides weapons. I'm thinking they poison some food and leave it on the floor, scavenger mob eats it, mob gets poisoned. also be nice if it worked on guards and with throw. throw in a rice cake, guard eats it,
Ginsu: throw in a rice cake, guard eats it, dies, you walk in and take the treasure

How would you work this, since mobs don't eat?

Reason: illithid skill called telepathic communications, which allows them to use tell to talk to people when drunk

Try casting telepathy sometime...

Criterion: (Hide) should appear as a spell

Agreed.

Criterion: a new parameter on the get all <container> command, where you can append things you don't want to get... say, 'get all corpse icicle ball', and you'll get everything but things with icicle and ball as keywords

And, while we're at it, let's make Slart's life needlessly harder!

Disaster: when going through the races and redoing them, why not instead of redoing them add new races? when dwarves are "redone", we can leave dwarves as they are and introduce the duergar race. for elves, introduce the drow, etc..

I actually like this suggestion, as a general principle. Not sure if redoing humans would matter (for instance), but I could easily see it from the kender/elf suggestions I've seen floating around.

[Slart]

Exe: personally, i think all mobs should have the keyword MOB, i have made countless errors in attacking myself because of mobs that wander in the room, and a fully equipped elf with all flaming eq can do some serious damage to themselves

Personally, I sort of wish that we still had to figure out mob keywords. Between the abbreviation mechanism and the 1., 2. scheme (which I would probably eliminate if it weren't so useful to so many people), it's easy enough to find the mob you want. If you're having problems attacking yourself, maybe you should check your command with a quick look first.

Criterion: chnge the enchant scrolls to have a scroll specified alignment... be kinda cool to have different types of enchant scrolls in the realm

After all, it's such a pain when you finally find a level 45+ elf, and he has the wrong alignment...

Exe: inside each tent should be a padlock that is a key to lock/unlock your tent

Why do they need to be locked? Do we have mobs that open them?

AMystery: we need a positive spreading spell, how about a mob mentality caused by frenzy spreading amoung people?

This sounds interesting, but I don't think we have any real gameplay aspects where that would have an effect.

Criterion: a much better druid healing spell with a better ratio

Better than cure critical? Hmm...okay, how about "cure very light," which heals one hit point and costs zero mana. The spell lag, unfortunately, will be three hours long.

Criterion: illithid skill, breathe under water, also be able to enclose group members in a bubble so they can fight under water without scuba gear

Sounds more like elf magic to me, though I personally like the fact that demons are the only race that can get scuba without equipment.

Rhyme: take bless away from all the fighters, only druids should bless eheh, have a spell called, 'contrite heart', that results in a lesser for of bless

I think you miss the whole point of out of guild skills. They are a subtle form of multiclassing. You are not obliged to play a dwarf as a pure fighter. At the expense of a higher TNL, you can become a limited spellcaster as well. Some of the spells are very useful -- identify, detect invisible, giant strength; some are only marginally useful -- fireball, bless, cure serious; and some are practically pointless for dwarves, but the player gets to decide which are worth the price to use.

Rhyme: what about anti-login rooms, so if you try to login to the room it shunts you to recall or the start of the area?

We have been considering an idea like this for some time. It has its merits, but it has its problems as well. I won't belabor the point beyond that.

Exe: humans have student of kung fu title, elves, apprentice of magic, avians and ills should have a special title too, since all the other races have one

I haven't paid much attention to this since everyone chooses their own title anyway.

Disaster: we should have a 3D tic-tac-toe room, like our C4 room

I have no idea how to try to represent a three dimensional tic-tac-toe board intelligibly in ASCII.

Aniel: trip should not be allowed underwater! sooo unfair

I have been convinced that this is a bug. It will be fixed.

Lehua: a fantasically good weapon for mortals that takes away your hp while you use it

How about one that's fantastically good (for mortals, anyway), but cursed, and drains experience while it's wielded?

Disaster: a high level ill spell which would allow them to tp to a mob they first scry

I remain unconvinced we need any more forms of teleport in the Realms, though I suppose the rampant use of client pathing has made my stance on this sort of pointless over time. I still believe we'd be better off if more people learned to walk from point A to point B in the Realms, especially the mortal areas.

AMystery: it just occured to me, preen really does make sense for avians, but just like normal birds, it doesn't really heal much (1-5hp per time) but it lets you smooth your feathers and recover from a pluck...

Birds spend a lot of time preening. For this, I propose a mere ten minute spell lag.

Ginsu: kender should be able to poison things besides weapons. I'm thinking they poison some food and leave it on the floor, scavenger mob eats it, mob gets poisoned. also be nice if it worked on guards and with throw. throw in a rice cake, guard eats it, throw in a rice cake, guard eats it, dies, you walk in and take the treasure

Mobs don't eat. Maybe tainted projectiles instead?

Criterion: the key to the calathar map should list all the shops by alphabetical...

This is a reasonable enough suggestion, but the thing that pains me about requests to sort this or that in general is that almost no two requests want the thing sorted the same way.

Reason: illithid skill called telepathic communications, which allows them to use tell to talk to people when drunk

Requests for features we already have always give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Try help telepathy.

Criterion: (Hide) should appear as a spell

Yes, it should. I'm not sure offhand why it doesn't.

Criterion: a config option that refuses all things being given to you till you turn it off

Or maybe we shouldn't be AFK in very public places quite so much?

Disaster: body parts from players should be created with that player's name as a keyword

I'm not sure it's my problem that you can't manage your own body part collection.

Criterion: A trivial pursuit game in the game room.

Computerizing the verification of answers is almost impossible to do well with the resources we have, and that's aside from the problem of getting the questions themselves into BR.

Criterion: a new parameter on the get all <container> command, where you can append things you don't want to get... say, 'get all corpse icicle ball', and you'll get everything but things with icicle and ball as keywords

I'd love to improve our grammar engine for both input and output, but I'm not really an expert in that field and I think we have more urgent needs at the moment.

Disaster: when going through the races and redoing them, why not instead of redoing them add new races? when dwarves are "redone", we can leave dwarves as they are and introduce the duergar race. for elves, introduce the drow, etc..

Humans will be redone differently than illithids were, in that I am not planning to convert existing characters. I was, however, planning to remove the old humans from the character creation menu, because it would be difficult to explain two entries for "human." I suppose with that project still so far in the future, this could still be up for debate.

TheDude: Spells and abilities should say what the damage is based on such as level or hp.

I think it's more fun if people have to figure this out for themselves. I generally only answer direct questions about these sorts of things for avatars and immortals; I don't think I'd want that information in the help files, personally.

[Anakin]

Ginsu: kender should be able to poison things besides weapons. I'm thinking they poison some food and leave it on the floor, scavenger mob eats it, mob gets poisoned. also be nice if it worked on guards and with throw. throw in a rice cake, guard eats it,
Ginsu: throw in a rice cake, guard eats it, dies, you walk in and take the treasure

How would you work this, since mobs don't eat?

Ginsu: kender should be able to poison things besides weapons. I'm thinking they poison some food and leave it on the floor, scavenger mob eats it, mob gets poisoned. also be nice if it worked on guards and with throw. throw in a rice cake, guard eats it, throw in a rice cake, guard eats it, dies, you walk in and take the treasure

Mobs don't eat. Maybe tainted projectiles instead?

Maybe add a drain_hp on foods that have been tainted by kenders? *shrugs*

[Kitsune]

Most importantly, those professor tips were awsome.

I am with Exe on the MOB tag. I have blinded myself enough...

[Divebomb]

Criterion: (Hide) should appear as a spell

Yes, it should. I'm not sure offhand why it doesn't.

Reply by "appears as a spell" i'm assuming you mean appear in the affects list? Working on that assumption...

The last time I saw an answer to this the response was: "You may try to hide, you may even believe you are hidden, but you may not actually be hidden. That's why typing "hide" usually says "it works!" but you may not actually be hidden at all.

I don't really see the point of "hide" when you can't sneak while hidden, they are independent abilities that should be joined together, but since our aggressive code only takes into account when you actually enter the room, sneak is the only one that matters. However, with the addition of the hate_spec mobs (hate_race, hate_align, etc), the combo of hide+sneak could be useful in you would be sneaking around hidden so that neither aggros nor haters would attack you (unless they had detect hidden or the yet-to-be-seen-still-non-existent-so-far-as-i-know detect sneak flag).

I'll reword for clarity:
- Sneak should be the ability to enter/leave a room without being seen.
- Hide should be the ability to remain in the room without being attacked.
- These two things should be able to be used together, but moving while hidden breaks hide, rendering it a pointless ability.


It was a bit off topic, oh well.