News from the Realms: Fixed Area bugs Kiri: * Thanks to Alienx, the parts of Thieves Forest that should be indoors (Houses, Caves) are indoors. * Thanks to Dalton, the unopenable case in Snakemen is openable. * Thanks to an unspecified immortal, name witheld to protect the honest, 2 wearable weapons in whitelotus are now normal weapons. * Thanks to Cobalt, the cocoon in Pirate Isles is now openable. * The boatseller in ultima now sells his boat, and that area actually is fixed to go all the way through now. * Thanks to Ankou, the Devilish Talisman in Astral Plane is a normal necklace (it used to be an unusable staff.) It still sucks as an item though. * Thanks to Inferno, the RHPS Urinal is openable. I wouldn't recommend it, though. * Thanks to Budgreen, you can open a door in Guard Commander Central in Calathar that was unopenable. * Thanks to Sting, no more rain in the chit-chat room. * Thanks to Xorex, there's a very major plot extra added to Lershar that had originally been omitted. There was an error in the numbering of White Lotus, as well. When I took care of that, it seems to have renumbered and removed from your inventory certain white lotus items. You might want to re-get them if you still want them, they are no longer wearable weapons now though. Sorry for the inconvenience, it was not intentional. PLAYERS WHO NEED TO LOG IN: Arc, Athlahir, Bipu, Bod, Brazen, Crowe, Cyanide, Cybol, Geech, Gilgaden, Gungnir, Hackeysack, Harkonnen, Haudruff, Jak, Jerry, Kyrie, Moyat, Orangepeel, Querulant, Runestaff, Shonuff, Splork, Stangg, Starlight, Sufi, Techno, Torque, Tranquilo, Wargod, Weed, Wutho. IDEAS: Teach: I think it'd be convenient that when going from recall to the trainers, for the stairs to be 2-way. Stars: It would be cute to have starting ages differ according to race. Humans might start at age 17, but what about elves? They would be quite young at 17 to go out adventuring. Teach: if there's a light source on a corpse, the corpse should at least be visible to the owner to loot Goddimus: I think there should be the ability to flee in a particular direction using the command "flee dir" i.e. "flee w" Gilvain: A spell that is like "nightmare" which can be combined with sleep and can be damaging Polgara: make the peck skill on/off Anakin: People who are afk don't deserve additional ages. They don't even budge when I poke them! Suicide: new human skill, like medicine but creates random healing/curing potion (or possibly poison) Claxem: Where should work on hidden/invis mobs, if you have detect hidden and/or detect invis casted on you. Duvin: be able to do something with those extra practices once so many are accumulated. Demonizer: to make it easier to keep up with multiple mobs we are fighting. at the end of each round when it says Someone is in awful condition. list all of the mobs and their conditions, not just when their turn ends Stars: Let's give alcohol its own command to drink, like "imbibe" or something. Alcohol should make someone thirsty, and not prevent water and other beverages to be consumed. Anakin: If you have -battle channel, your deaths shouldn't be announced. Helps when an avatar is killing a level 1000+ mob Anakin: If a wizinvis talks in a chat, it should say something like AMystery heroes '(wizinvis) blablabla' so people that can see them will know whether to say their name or not. Some people don't check their who list to see who's wizinvis and who's not all Teach: flaming should help with the heal spell Amarilla: have the healers use Immortal names that currently are on the mudd Stars: Put the commands listed in "commands" in alphabetical order. Polgara: make Valence grocer and magician able to buy more like Lisette does Shadowhawk: What about a more powerful locate object spell. I mean one that gives the area name the item is located in? Just an idea. Lairian: The tunnels in the underground lag prizon should probably be tagged indoors... Sketchy: I think the personalized afk message should be displayed on your prompt so you know what it says Duvin: more level 50 mobs, it only takes 2 people trying to level to make it suck, TOO much waiting! BIO: NAME ON BR: hondaone, damious,demonone,etc BR RACE/LEVEL:ken ava3 YOUR REAL AGE:27 YOUR REAL LOCATION (State/province & Country):iowa, usa YOUR OCCUPATION: industrial engineer YOUR GOALS FOR THE FUTURE:nurture my family and get rich FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=Smiley emoticon" WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO DO BY POSTING HERE? PUT AN X NEXT TO ONE OR ALL: NETWORKING x FRIENDSHIP x FIND LOVE WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A MAN/WOMAN? WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A FRIEND? outgoing, smart, friendly WHAT KIND OF JOB ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? IF YOU GO TO COLLEGE, WHICH ONE? HOW TO CONTACT YOU - ON BR VIA NOTE OR EMAIL? br IF EMAIL, PUT IT HERE:artgsxr1000@msn.com Kiri's WWW of URLs: Confused when fellow realmers are talking about money in their countries? here ya go! http://www.xe.com/ucc/full.shtml Viking Kitties! http://www.rathergood.com/vikings/ Microsith http://www.microsith.com/ Totl.net parodies http://totl.net/ Responses by Everybody: Dawne: how about with a higher percentage in roundhouse, you become able to get up more quickly after falling? Not a bad idea... the main drawback of roundhouse really is that possibility of tripping yourself. I think I'd rather see it be a function of your dex how quickly you get back up, though. Anakin: how about a muzzle that has track for demons? They get the bloodhound's snout, which is the next best thing... yeah, I suppose it takes a bit more typing, but it'll let you find the mob. Plus you can learn track at 51, anyways (or should be able to, at least). Its: a light on the ground should light up a dark room just the same as a light that someone in the room is holding Perhaps. I can see that you wouldn't light something like... a lantern and leave it sitting around on the ground. On the other hand, I can see people doing that... and balls of light are theoretically "always on". I wouldn't mind seeing this in. Anakin: A "deposit all" command that deposits all the gold you got at that moment. I would be for it. Electron: instead of the "you cant let go of it" message, you should replace it with the item name Agreed. Radicaled: as a demon allow yourself to know what level each of your limbs are, as to not replace the wrong level I would definitely like a way to see this. I assume that most of the time when you're replacing, it's not going to matter overly much which limb you replace. Except, obviously, that a switch will be more desirable when replacing an older limb. Radicaled: make it so when traveling/trackgin u don't get spammed and disconnected You don't. It's just a matter of which commands you're using. The spam protection on BR doesn't kick in if you're using only 1-letter commands (i.e. the short versions of the directions, inventory, look, etc.) So, if you travel by using shorthand directions, you should never be kicked off for it. Auto-track triggers are usually problematic in this in that they respond with the full length word. Just do something while you're traveling in certain directions and you'll be fine. Amarilla: a command called glance, where instead of LOOK showing all the characters eq you could "glance" at them and just see their condition to know if you need to heal them I could see this being useful for following healers that aren't grouping with the other char. And it shouldn't be too hard to put in, really. Isis: be able to buy things that are up to... say... 5 levels above you instead of 2, so you can keep them for later I wouldn't actually mind being able to buy any level object, except (obviously) that it would allow some things that are only sold by shopkeepers to become perhaps too easily available. After all, you can't really use most of those objects until you're the right level anyways. Maybe just have the code check the player's level when buying potions/wands/staves/scrolls/pills. Anakin: more games (i.e. C4). I mean more kinds of games. I'm very much for this. Radicaled: make it so when you die you go somewhere besides recall.... people complain about battles I don't see what much of the point would be... people would start simply congregating around the new place where you reappear after death. If they're having a problem with spam at recall, move to a different room. Disaster: how about making all the shops in town a different terrain from the rest of the city, say inside vs. city, then making aod a stay-terrain, to stop him from getting in the way in shops. not a big deal, i know, but it would be nice for the newbies The only real problem one is the pet/merc shop, last I knew (as the buy format doesn't work in there). Since we do have that format, it's not a huge problem to simply tell newbies about it when they're having problems with aod. Liubei: a shopkeeper that can change the personalization flag to you for 100k No. The personalize code is there for a reason: so that you can't use the item unless you get it yourself. This would defeat the whole purpose of it. Amarilla: have the pills tell you what spells are on them when you identify them Nah. They've never shown that, and I don't think they should. It's part of the fun of randomly trying pills to see what spells it hits you with. Anakin: We can get a body part by typing the name like "get Anakin backpack" will get a body part of me on a backpack. I don't think that would be too hard to work out, and considering the size of my heart collection, I'd be appreciative of it, too. Araby: "where mob" showing who's the nearest mob This seems like it would make leveling too easy, either way I look at it. Either by a special case of where (typing "where mob" to find the nearest mob as a whole), or by using "where " to find the nearest mob of a specific name. It defeats the purpose of having to search to find things to kill, in part. Equinox: A meditation skill for druids that's kind of sleeping/resting that regains mana faster This is what alcohol's for. Moldfinger: we should change the point social to point in a direction. point north means you point north... But then it wouldn't fit with the structure of all the current socials.... it seems like a lot of work for not much gain. Grond: Fireproof spell. 'Nuff said. I don't understand what you're trying to say - a spell that makes bags unburnable? one that prevents "fire" spells from damaging you? what? Sej: in a fight both sides lose mv with each blow so that way you can wear down the opponant or vice versa. cause sometimes ya get tired in a fight I wouldn't mind having movement be affected by battle. Utena: A skill "visify" to visify items How long would making these items visible last? Permanently seems far too long. Doesn't seem particularly useful, except perhaps to those who expect to die shortly and frequently forget see-invis when grabbing stuff from their corpse. Puppetmon: A option on the "aff" screen that shows how long or how many ticks your drunk for We have different levels of drunkenness, actually: hunger/thirst shows, drunk, very drunk. I think this would make becoming undrunk much less interesting, personally. Geko: i think it would be neat to be able to put color in you title, you could personalize more We've talked some about doing this... specifically as a neat sort of quest reward. There are some logistical problems with it, as well as the eye-blinding effect we now get from gratz - a frequent reason why people have that channel off. Goku: it would be cool to see death messages... IE. you use kick to kill a mob, you see "You kick 's head right off its body.", or a spell like Acid shows "You melt into a sticky pile of mush." it would add a bit of texture i guess, to get a ni If it wouldn't be too hard to put in, I'm all for it. Sej: mobs randomly fighting other mobs to make it more life like? This is one of the problems with mobprog code, actually. Making mobs fight each other outside of specific times (when a pc's there, namely) would take up a lot of processing time for something that wouldn't be seen much, as well as making mob-hunting stranger. RadicalEd: add a help drunk for those low morts that get drunk and can't eat or drink anything I'm surprised we don't have one already, actually. Sej: be able to eat mob corpses like body parts when you are hungry I could see this happening, except that the code considers body parts and corpses quite differently. Plus, you wouldn't really want to be walking around with a lot of corpses, since they're very heavy. Divebomb: a reverse version of the room_damage speco that heals instead of hurts Divebomb: a regeneration speco that does the opposite of the drain_hp speco but without any echos (to eliminate spam) I'm for both of these. Shiloh: tellh should unscramble drunk like chath Chath unscrambling drunk is technically a bug, but people would've been too annoyed if we fixed it, so we left it in. Alcohol is supposed to have negative side effects. Paladinkain: things that steal from you should not be allowed to have a good alighnment What about kender? They're good and steal all the time. Araby: I read that elves can see far away and can hear better than anyone, shouldn't they have a skill called hunt that's like birdseye/track? Elves here are magicians... they've ruined their eyesight by poring over magic texts for too long. Araby: Dwarves are more of a miners shouldn't they get like a skill called "mine" that they can do some minings on mountains and get some treasures, or probably gold? I wouldn't mind seeing more ideas for new dwarf skills... they're underrepresented, imo. This seems like a decent one (can only mine on terrain marked "mountain"). Sej: when someone assists on an attack you attack has a x% chance to actually hit the other person also I think most people would be good enough with their weapons to not hit their comrades. Elrond: for the vehicle your in should recall with you Would it recall along with _anyone_ who's inside it? I think this could be too easily abused, although I like the idea for getting vehicles out of stuck spots. Xornot: it seems silly that black is the only ascii color that has a longhand version (black) but no short code, because you can only use shorthand in prompts and "black" shows up as a nice grey. Anyway, I just found this mud today and i love it! I plan on Black shows up very ugly on my screen (black against a black background becomes invisible). However, I agree that we probably should have an inline color code for it. Sej: be able to use things by feel when blind so the cure blindness potion in my inventory is usefull But how would you know which potion was the cure blindness one? Liubei: heroes should automatically always have autosac on so they cant turn it off Nah... this would prevent people from ever doing corpse runs again, as one instance of a negative side. Of course, you're always supposed to have it on, but that particular rule gets relaxed when you're fighting in herodom. Cord: how about making it not-possible to summon a fighting mob? Agreed. Araby: Put a command like "put all.coins " so it doesn't have to type in all those numbers We have this. "put all coins " Paladinkain: mobs should not be allowed to start off combat by disarming as the VERY first thing they do as players are not allowed to do this for the most part they have to wait one round, so should mobs Mob combat works very differently than pc combat. To fix what you mentioned would require a revamp of our entire combat system, probably. I'd like to see mobs lagged more after they do certain things (or have them done to them... like disarm), but I'm not sure how possible it really is. AMystery: i don't think imms should be effected by align on eq I'd like to see that, actually. -EB Driving School The following are a sampling of REAL answers received on exams given by the California Department of Transportation's driving school. Q. Do you yield when a blind pedestrian is crossing the road? A. What for? He can't see my license plate. Q. Who has the right of way when four cars approach a four-way stop at the same time? A. The pick up truck with the gun rack and the bumper sticker saying "Guns don't kill people. I do." Q. When driving through fog, what should you use? A. Your car. Q. How can you reduce the possibility of having an accident? A. Be too shit faced to find your keys. Q. What problems would you face if you were arrested for drunk driving? A. I'd probably lose my buzz a lot faster. Q. What changes would occur in your lifestyle if you could no longer drive lawfully? A. I would be forced to drive unlawfully. Q. What are some points to remember when passing or being passed? A. Make eye contact and wave "hello" if he/she is cute. Q. What is the difference between a flashing red traffic light and a flashing yellow traffic light? A. The color. Q. How do you deal with heavy traffic? A. Heavy psychedelics February 11, 2003 Newsletter February 11, 2003: Come visit BR at telnet://barren.coredcs.com:8000/ NEWS: Kiri: Winner of January's typo quest Sat Feb 8 This month's winner is STARS - with 7 typos. See me for your prize (once again, only 500 stat because of the lack of typos reported this month.). Runner up was Anakin with 6. Thanks also to Golbez, with 2, and Polgara, Ankou, Codo, Lairian, Xorex, Grogar, and Kilagro, each with 1 typo. As a reminder - just reporting a lot of typos in the mud each month will win you a stat raise. Characters that need to log on: Crowe, Dariel, Flutter, Frag, Gilgaden, Harkonnen, Igon, Jak, Kara, Kenji, Kevin, Krynn, Moonlivia, Moyat, Nubbz, Orangepeel, Payne, Riker, Runestaff, Starlight, Taipan, Tatsu, Vapour IDEAS: DuVin: I'd like to see roundhouse perhaps gain hits, such as buck does for demons... The race has no standout feature like a backstab/fireball/enhanced damage. So at least let the one skill be helpful. we always are told about the races being balanced and I think Humans are under that par. Moldfinger: I'd like to be able to throw potions at mobs and have the potions effect the mob Polgara: Make it so that Aod cannot go into rooms where there are other shopkeepers Polgara: make a hero version of purge, so we can keep hero and mortal lands cleaner AMystery: I'd like to see higher max levels for all of the attributes, perhaps up to 40. Right now you can't really go for just one attribute you get a decent level across. It would especially be interesting at higher levels as people improved themselves Amarilla: Lisette should buy everything sellable from you regardless of level. If it is to low instead of alot of money or value, she could just give you one gold piece for it. However it would get rid of the pesky no drop low level stuff Moldfinger: it seems that you should be able to tell which way a mob flees during a fight. Perhaps not if you are blind, but in general you would see the enemy running away AMystery: I'd like to see it so that there is one note pool per person, not per character, with only personal notes and those directed at groups going to individual characters. there's no reason for me to read the same note on every char Polgara: program clericus and newbie courtyard instructor (especially later) to ignore hero and up. AMystery: it would be nice to get the messages about people's conditions while they are in a fight. such as "AMystery is pretty hurt". These should go to everyone in the group, make arena better, make grouping better RadicalEd: when you give an item/drop an item/sell an item it should show the condition flag. i.e. (Like New) so that way you know what exactly you are giving =) DevilsAngel: yellh would be handy BIOS - feel free to fill out your own and send it to me: NAME ON BR: Anakin BR RACE/LEVEL: 151/Demon YOUR REAL AGE: 17 YOUR REAL LOCATION (State/province & Country): Woodbridge, VA YOUR OCCUPATION: Student YOUR GOALS FOR THE FUTURE: Have a nice family WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO DO BY POSTING HERE? PUT AN X NEXT TO ONE OR ALL: NETWORKING-X FRIENDSHIP-X FIND LOVE **BOREDNESS-X WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A MAN/WOMAN? Honest, Smart, Humorous, esp. Beautiful. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A FRIEND? Honest, can be relied. WHAT KIND OF JOB ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Work for my aunt in a data processesing company. IF YOU GO TO COLLEGE, WHICH ONE? n/a HOW TO CONTACT YOU - ON BR VIA NOTE OR EMAIL? All of the above. Profile me for my ICQ and AIM accounts. IF EMAIL, PUT IT HERE: angelofequinox@hotmail.com or zerochocobo@msn.com Kiri's WWW of URLS: From Amystery, this would make life much easier: http://www.onzin.nl/internetdownload/ From Scavenger. What is he trying to say about you? http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-10-11 Caution: dirty link (but funny) http://www.nbc5i.com/news/1536190/detail.html Another dirty and funny link. Probably fake, but worth a chuckle - this one care of Sgetsuo. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/16903.html RESPONSES TO IDEAS BY ZEROCHOCOBO: Replies from Zerochocobo: Its: a light on the ground should light up a dark room just the same as a light that someone in the room is holding -I agree, it just makes sense that if there's a light in a room, it will lit up. Radicaled: as a demon allow yourself to know what level each of your limbs are, as to not replace the wrong level -This is very useful for demon_reheroes who wish to see the level of their appendages that will get replaced. Radicaled: make it so when traveling/trackgin u don't get spammed and disconnected -It doesn't disconnect you if you are tracking. You just get spammed and disconnected if you have a trigger :P Amarilla: a command called glance, where instead of LOOK showing all the characters eq you could "glance" at them and just see their condition to know if you need to heal them -I'm gonna like this if implemented. I don't like going through those messy inventories Divebomb: Add a one-way connection from somewhere in Calathar to the Arena so that people can walk in as well as use the command (this is in light of the recents notes complaining about random squishing of morts by heros) -Some mortals just wouldn't learn their lesson and they are the ones who actually attacks us first. Heroes fighting mortals should be in the hero etiquette, they know they will win, what's the point of fighting a mortal? Anakin: more games (i.e. C4). I mean more kinds of games. -Just to add, I meant like chess games and what not. (2 or more player games) Liubei: a shopkeeper that can change the personalization flag to you for 100k -I agree, 110% Grond: Fireproof spell. 'Nuff said. -I really don't get this, is this like a spell to raise save vs breath? Cowculator: we need a joke channel -There's already tons of jesters in BR that I consider all the channels a joke. Abaddon: A way for demons to see at what level they got their appendage. Perhaps using examine would work. I dont know how feasable this is, but it would be nice. -Yeah, what I said above. Geko: i think it would be neat to be able to put color in you title, you could personalize more -One of the reasons I took the gratz channel off is because of this colors, please stop annoying me. I'm about to blow up. Sej: be able to eat mob corpses like body parts when you are hungry -No thanks, eating a corpse of a giant is not a great task. Shiloh: tellh should unscramble drunk like chath -I don't see why not. :) Sej: be able to use things by feel when blind so the cure blindness potion in my inventory is usefull -Stuff like these are always confusing, they are basically useless. I saw a wand that has summon and one that has teleport in it. How can you use that wand if you can only summon or teleport on a mob on the same room you are in? Disaster: damp1, damp2, damp3 to represent increasing amounts of damage -Is this another one of your tricks to show people that my damp suck? ;P Liubei: heroes should automatically always have autosac on so they cant turn it off -I don't think this is necessary. :smirk: I still like carrying corpses for corpse runs Cord: how about making it not-possible to summon a fighting mob? -It's absurd to summon a dying mob from a trying-to-level newbie, isn't it? Signs of the Nineties - (already out of date) You try to enter your password on the microwave. You haven't played patience with real cards in years. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3. You e-mail your work colleague at the desk next to you to ask "Do you fancy going down the pub?" and they reply "Yeah, give me five minutes". You chat several times a day with a stranger from South America, but you haven't spoken to your nextdoor neighbour yet this year. You buy a computer and a week later it is out of date. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do not have e-mail addresses. You consider Royal Mail painfully slow or call it "snail mail". Your idea of being organised is multiple coloured post-it notes. You hear most of your jokes via email instead of in person. When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally insert a "9" to get an outside line. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies. Your company welcome sign is attached with Velcro. Your CV is on a diskette in your pocket. You really get excited about a 1.7% pay rise. You learn about your redundancy on the 9 o'clock news. Your biggest loss from a system crash is that you lose all your best jokes. Your supervisor doesn't have the ability to do your job. Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get long-service awards. Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual budgets combined. It's dark when you drive to and from work, even in the summer. You know exactly how many days you've got left until you retire. Interviewees, despite not having the relevant knowledge or experience, terminate the interview when told of the starting salary. You see a good looking, smart person and you know it must be a visitor. Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet. The work experience person gets a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop with all the features, while you have time to go for lunch while yours powers up. Being sick is defined as you can't walk or you're in hospital. You're already late on the assignment you just got. There's no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department is short of, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising your boss's boss on strategy. Your boss's favourite lines are: "When could you fit this in?" "In your spare time..." "When you're freed up..." "I know you're busy but... "I have an opportunity for you". Holiday is something you roll over to next year. Every week another brown collection envelope comes round because someone you didn't know had started is leaving. You wonder who's going to be left to put into your 'leaving' collection. Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with computers". The only reason you recognise your kids is because their pictures are on your desk. You only have makeup for fluorescent lighting. You read this entire list, kept nodding and smiling. As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your "mates you send jokes to" e-mail group. It crosses your mind that your jokes group may have seen this list already, but you can't be bothered to check so you forward it anyway. February 18, 2003 Welcome to the Barren Realms MUD newsletter! Come visit BR at telnet://barren.coredcs.com:8000/ NEWS FROM THE REALMS: Andasa: Upcoming quest! Sun Feb 16 02:51:22 2003 To: all Hello all. This note is to announce a roleplaying quest that will be happening in a week. It will be taking place at 6:00 pm system time on Saturday the 22nd There are no level restrictions, but those that are very low may find it more difficult Astral, teleport, and track will not be allowed Since it is a roleplaying quest joining times can vary, though those who start at the beginning will have the most advantage. This quest is being sponsored by Everybody, so you know that the prizes will be excellant. And as always, the more that participate the better the prizes will be That is all for now, specifics will be explained at the beginning of the quest on Saturday. And again, it will be at 6 pm -system time- next Saturday evening. Hope to see you all there, IDEAS -- feel free to hit reply and answer these: Dawne: is there a good reason that low level chars dont see how long spells last? it would make many low level chars very happy to be able to see that... Beanis: not have fleeing mobs be memory mobs? Moldfinger: a skill for avians whereby they fly from a fight (like normal birds do) the avian flies high into the air out of reach of non flying mobs and players, this ends the fight but doesn't leave the room Amarilla: that Clericus cast giant strength for those who need it to get all corpse AMystery: weather should have a bigger impact on fights, perhaps rain lowers hitroll, hot days make mobs more likely to flee Beanis: make a deposit box, like the bank accounts, only make them like the chests in the game diablo, and i know alot of you know what i'm talking about =) Moldfinger: some randomness in the damage messages. instead of an owl is in awful condition, have a list of possible messages for that damage range. an owl wants to die, an owl is falling apart Suicide: a "dive"/etc command (similar to land), allowing a flying character to attempt a waterlanding Liubei: when a demon avatar tans a corpse the item should become demonwearable Gilvain: Make a time adjustment from military to normal (9 PM instead of 21 o clock) for lazy people like me who doesn't like to do math Shiloh: when berzerk and frenzy wear off they should deal some minor damage to the person who had the spell cast on them Moldfinger: when you are fighting one mob, it seems like you should be able to use skills on another. for example, blast. while fighting a condor I can't blast a warbler, i get a message say I'm already fighting someone else AMystery: it doesn't seem fair that a poison of that magnitude 20000 can be cured by one spell. i think poison should be harder to remove the longer it lasts Cord: a "help parts" that provides a menu containing all the help-file keywords for demon body parts BIOS: I'm starting a new bio section that I ask anyone who wants to participate to go ahead and do so. The purpose of this new bio section is to provide real life information in order to promote networking for jobs, ways to make nearby friendships or even find love. Basically I'm going to ask you guys to fill in as little or as much as you'd like to, reply to this, and I will include it in future newsletters. If someone wants to contact you, they will via the mud or an email you might provide. NAME ON BR: Dove BR RACE/LEVEL: Druid/Immortal YOUR REAL AGE: 33 YOUR REAL LOCATION (State/province & Country): Wisconsin, USA YOUR OCCUPATION: Currently enemployed YOUR GOALS FOR THE FUTURE: Find a job I love WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO DO BY POSTING HERE? PUT AN X NEXT TO ONE OR ALL: NETWORKINGX FRIENDSHIP FIND LOVE WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A MAN/WOMAN? N/A WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A FRIEND? N?A WHAT KIND OF JOB ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? Either something to do with my major (Marketing) or working with animals. Both would be ideal :) IF YOU GO TO COLLEGE, WHICH ONE? Graduated HOW TO CONTACT YOU - ON BR VIA NOTE OR EMAIL? email IF EMAIL, PUT IT HERE: dewdove@telocity.com RESPONSE BY CORD: > Moldfinger: it seems that you should be able to tell which way a mob > flees during a fight. Perhaps not if you are blind, but in general you > would see the enemy running away Cord: has to do with the mob sneaking, and most mort chars not being able to see sneaking mobs. Course, how easy it would be for a mob to flee a fight without being seen is somewhat questionable... Kiri's WWW of URLS: Fans Outraged at New Character in The Return of the King http://www.bbspot.com/News/2003/01/jaromir.html I can still tell your wife, Bill (some nudity) - from Amystery http://icanstilltellyourwifebill.com/ Dumb things this guy and his girlfriend have argued about. (From Amystery too). Mouse over the picture, it's creepy. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mil.millington/things.html Tell me you all haven't had this before with "females" on the mud http://www.paranoide.ch/misc/media/iwhore.gif These are actual answering machine answers recorded and verified by the world famous International Institute of Answering Machines... My wife and I can't come to the phone right now, but if you'll leave your name and number, we'll get back to you as soon as we're finished. A is for academics, B is for beer. One of those reasons is Why we're not here. So leave a message. Hi. This is John: If you are the phone company, I already sent the money. If you are my parents, please send money. If you are my financial aid institution, you didn't lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money. If you are a female, don't worry, I have plenty of money. (Narrator's voice:) There Dale sits, reading a magazine. Suddenly the telephone rings! The bathroom explodes into a veritable maelstrom of toilet paper, with Dale in the middle of it, his arms windmilling at incredible speeds! Will he make it in time? Alas no, his valiant effort is in vain. The bell hath sounded. Thou must leave a message. "Hi. Now you say something." (From a Japanese guy in Toronto.) He-lo! This is Sa-to. If you leave message, I call you soon. If you leave *sexy* message, I call sooner! "Hi! John's answering machine is broken. This is his refrigerator. Please speak very slowly, and I'll stick your message to myself with one of these magnets." "Hello, this is Sally's microwave. Her answering machine just eloped with her tape deck, so I'm stuck taking her calls. If you'd like anything cooked while you leave your message, just hold it up to the phone." "Hello, you are talking to a machine. I am capable of receiving messages. My owners do not need siding, windows, or a hot tub. Their carpets are always clean. They give to charity through their office and do not need any pictures taken. They believe the stock market is a random crapshoot, and the entire insurance industry is one huge scam perpetrated by Mafioso accountants. If you're still with me, leave your name and number and they will get back to you." "Hi. I am probably home, I'm just avoiding someone I don't like. Leave me a message, and if I don't call back, it's you." "This is not an answering machine: this is a telepathic thought recording device. After the tone, think about your name, your reason for calling, and a number where you can be reached, and my owner will think about returning your call." "Hi, this is George. I'm sorry I can't answer the phone right now. Leave a message, and then wait by your phone until I call you back." "If you are a burglar, then we're probably at home cleaning our weapons right now and can't come to the phone. Otherwise, we probably aren't home and it's safe to leave us a message." "You're growing tired. Your eyelids are getting heavy. You feel very, sleepy now. You are gradually losing your willpower and your ability to resist suggestions. When you hear the tone you will feel helplessly compelled to leave your name, number, and a message." Hello, you've reached Jim and Sonya. We can't pick up the phone right now, because we're doing something we really enjoy. I like doing it up and down, and Sonya likes doing it left to right...real slowly. So leave a message, and when we're done brushing our teeth we'll get back to you." February 26, 2003 Welcome to the Barren Realms MUD Newsletter for February 26, 2003. News from the Realms: Slart: fixes/updates I've gone through and cleared out a few of the easier things from the (in?)famous to-do list. Here's what's new this boot: - Items created by spell backfires, create potion, create food, and continual light will now melt normally. - Flying chars can no longer be damaged by earthquake. - Fixed a bug that caused a low-level potion to give adrenaline control for a negative amount of time. - Character kills and deaths can now increase to 2^31. If your kills were negative because they wrapped when you had your equipment restored to a demon avatar, it will be positive now...not what it should be, but much much closer than it was. - Fixed a buggy message sent to avians when the char they're carrying flees. - Circle will now make use of tainted weapons when applicable. the mud will tell you that you can't drop them, not that you don't have any. - Heroes can now use the jail command if all visible imms are busy or afk. Andasa: Results of last night's quest The roleplaying quest that occured last night went off quite well. Everyone who participated did an excellant job at roleplaying and made the quest quite enjoyable. Disaster was the overall winner, playing his role as an honorable demon quite well. Streak and ElfinAngel were the runner-ups, as Streak returned my sword to me (which was the main part of the in-quest quest) and ElfinAngel did a great job at roleplaying her part. I hope that everyone who played is pleased with their prizes, and if you have not yet received them contact Everybody Perhaps the future will see more quests like this one, though if that is going to happen more people will have to participate :P Much thanks to those who did participate. Until next time, IDEAS: Prodigy: i think that the general info channel (the one used for emotes, eyc) should be included in the color menu and be customizable Prodigy: we should really be able to "look #.item" in our inventories. after all, what reason could there be to explain why you can only look at the last item you picked up, not at the item of your choice? Disaster: i think every race should have atleast one skill at level 2, to make it easier for heroes to show newbies about practicing skills Suicide: demons should be able to save at level 1, to avoid problems with link death and unsaved pfiles Comatose: a hero that flees should lose exp Utena: A "help bot" for those people who doesn't know about it and for people to know that it is illegal. Kiri - great idea. Next boot, it's in help rules. BIO -- I'm all out, send me more! NAME ON BR: Rachel and Dawnfire BR RACE/LEVEL: Elf/65, Avian/60 YOUR REAL AGE: 25.. lol, and it really is finally after telling people i was it for the last half year when i was really 24 YOUR REAL LOCATION (State/province & Country): Dallas Texas YOUR OCCUPATION: Software YOUR GOALS FOR THE FUTURE: To be with someone i can love WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO DO BY POSTING HERE? PUT AN X NEXT TO ONE OR ALL: NETWORKING ? FRIENDSHIP x FIND LOVE x WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A MAN/WOMAN? cant say i look for anything in men, minus being left alone.. sowwies guys. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A FRIEND? anything really WHAT KIND OF JOB ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? one where i get to help people IF YOU GO TO COLLEGE, WHICH ONE? n/a HOW TO CONTACT YOU - ON BR VIA NOTE OR EMAIL? Email is best ^.^ IF EMAIL, PUT IT HERE: darkness@sorceress.cc Responses by Disaster: IDEAS -- feel free to hit reply and answer these: Dawne: is there a good reason that low level chars dont see how long spells last? it would make many low level chars very happy to be able to see that... -spells, as all things, require a certain knowledge and experience to evaluate correctly. a new character is simply not experienced enough in the arcane arts to properly estimate the duration remaining of a spell, while older, more experienced characters are. Beanis: not have fleeing mobs be memory mobs? -fleeing and memory bits are assigned individually by an area writer, and if they are both used, it is surely intentional. if you don't like those mobs, the answer is simple-don't fight them again. Moldfinger: a skill for avians whereby they fly from a fight (like normal birds do) the avian flies high into the air out of reach of non flying mobs and players, this ends the fight but doesn't leave the room -if this were to be implemented, it would imply that non-flying characters would never be able to attack any flying mobs. also, what happens when the mob is using a bow and arrow? or when the mob is cooking up a nice bucket of KFA wings with a fireball spell? Amarilla: that Clericus cast giant strength for those who need it to get all corpse -there are certain items, if one looks carefully enough for them, which can be used to cast giant strength. it is also possible to get specific items from the corpse first, namely those that boost str, before attempting to get the rest. failing that, it is a VERY rare occurence that there are NO characters on capable of casting giant strength, and most are generally very helpful after a death. all that being said, i still think it's a good idea, just not a very useful one in general. AMystery: weather should have a bigger impact on fights, perhaps rain lowers hitroll, hot days make mobs more likely to flee -interesting idea. problem would be determining what weather should do what, and in trying to keep everything consistant. for instance, an orc may very well decide to pack it in and call it quits when it's blizzarding outside, and try to flee, but a yeti would most likely have a very different reaction. perhaps this could be tied in with a previous idea on localized weather? giving each area its own weather instead of just one global weather condition would make this idea much more interesting, and would also (possibly) allow max/min types of weather for an area (no more blizzards on burning lakes of fire, for instance) Beanis: make a deposit box, like the bank accounts, only make them like the chests in the game diablo, and i know alot of you know what i'm talking about =) -this idea comes up every 6 months or so, and has been for atleast 7 years now, and has been tossed out on every single one of those occasions. as a hero, you have no need of a box. as a mortal, if you REALLY feel the need for one, just start a lowbie and use it to hold extra gear. Moldfinger: some randomness in the damage messages. instead of an owl is in awful condition, have a list of possible messages for that damage range. an owl wants to die, an owl is falling apart -nice idea, put a little spice and uncertainty into it. Suicide: a "dive"/etc command (similar to land), allowing a flying character to attempt a waterlanding Liubei: when a demon avatar tans a corpse the item should become demonwearable -i couldn't agree more. of course, tanning corpses is pretty much useless in the first place, but the tanning demon should certainly be able to fashion the eq in such a way that they can wear it. Gilvain: Make a time adjustment from military to normal (9 PM instead of 21 o clock) for lazy people like me who doesn't like to do math -there's lazy, and then there's LAZY! what i want to know is what possible reason a coder would have to NOT be lazy, cook up some code, and implement this idea, all just to save people the 0.3 seconds it would take to do 21 - 12 = 9. Shiloh: when berzerk and frenzy wear off they should deal some minor damage to the person who had the spell cast on them -this would quickly turn into an abusable bug which could be used to kill players (slowly, sure, but it could still be done) if this were to be implemented though, there are some other spells that should take priority-like fly. if fly wears off when you're in the air, that would probably be alot worse than just calming down and not being so angry all of a sudden. Moldfinger: when you are fighting one mob, it seems like you should be able to use skills on another. for example, blast. while fighting a condor I can't blast a warbler, i get a message say I'm already fighting someone else -i agree, most skills should be able to be used in this way. some skills though, make sense to only be usable against the current target. you could always just use "kill warbler" to switch to the warbler as your primary target, then blast away to your heart's content AMystery: it doesn't seem fair that a poison of that magnitude 20000 can be cured by one spell. i think poison should be harder to remove the longer it lasts -that does make sense. have the cure spells remove a certain number of hours affect from the spell and/or magnitude of the spell, instead of wiping it out entirely. Cord: a "help parts" that provides a menu containing all the help-file keywords for demon body parts -i couldn't agree more, it would be extraordinarily useful for people on their first remort. Kiri's WWW of URLs: From Amystery, click on the horses to activate, again to disable. What a great site! http://svt.se/hogafflahage/hogafflaHage_site/Kor/hestekor.swf From the boards, 50 reasons LOTR sucks http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/film/50reasons.html Also from the boards, Elvish dictionary http://www.dragondesign.com/TheLair/elf.html Because plenty of people have been asking me about Morrowind lately, a Morrowind site http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/ Women should not have children after 35. Really... 35 children are enough. Shopping tip: You can get shoes for 85 cents at bowling alleys. After all is said and done, usually more is said than done. I am a nobody, nobody is perfect, therefore I am perfect. I married my wife for her looks... but not the ones she's been giving me lately! No one ever says "It's only a game," when their team is winning. I gave my son a hint. On his room door I put a sign: "CHECKOUT TIME IS 18" If carrots are so good for the eyes, how come I see so many dead rabbits on the highway? How come we choose from just two people for president and 50 for Miss America? Ever notice that people who spend money on beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets are always complaining about being broke and not feeling well? On my first day of school my parents dropped me off at the wrong nursery. There I was... surrounded by trees and bushes. Why is it that most nudists are people you don't want to see naked? I earn a seven-figure salary. Unfortunately, there's a decimal point involved. The next time you feel like complaining, remember: Your garbage disposal probably eats better than thirty percent of the people in this world. I just got back from a pleasure trip - I drove my wife to the airport! Snowmen fall from Heaven unassembled. My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met. Home is where you can say anything you like 'cause nobody listens to you anyway. I live in my own little world, but it's ok, they know me here. Sign In Pet Store: "Buy one dog, get one flea..." Dyslexia means never having to say that you're yrros. If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the "terminal"? I see your IQ test results were negative. Regular naps prevent old age... especially if you take them while driving. I don't approve of political jokes. I've seen too many of them get elected. How much can I get away with and still go to heaven? The most precious thing we have is life. Yet it has absolutely no trade-in value. I have learned there is little difference in husbands, so you might as well keep the first. If life deals you lemons, make lemonade; if life deals you tomatoes, make Bloody Marys. Travel is very educational. I can now say "Kaopectate" in seven different languages.