Subject: A new Newsletter IMPORTANT NEWS: If you are a hero and don't get the hero newsletter, please email me and let me know. There is a new BUILDERS GUIDE! If you want it, note me on barren with your email address or email me at karen@li.net! See ya, Kiri > Gorzak: how about special player flags ... have suggested this > before ... to let people know what's up... like a or > flag that players can set how are you going to set a flag for this? 's cool. make it configurable like the AFK message. > Cord: make is so that if you are free from nutrion, that you > cant get FULL > Kiri's note: not a bad idea. when you enhance this, just eat enough to say that "you're not hungry any more" and then do it. if you enhance nut right after you eat something and get the "you are full" message you won't be able to "eat/drink" anything if you wanted to. Crymson I have a suggestion: The other day, i was at the altar, and some vagabond tried to rip off my money. So, naturally, I tried to kill him. As i was engaged in battle, i decided to use an alias i had created, being an Avian, It used my peck, then my shriek skills. The peck hit the vagabond, but the shriek missed the vagabond, missed my pet ferret (Thank goodness) and hit Clerius the Healer. Pow. He hit me with one blow and I was dead. I don't think this was very fair since i didn't try to kill him. This is just a suggestion, but you should change it so you can't kill people like Clerius, the Guardian or other shopkeepers. -Proximus, Die Hard BR player (Well, almost) I'm not sure if such a thing already exists, but it would be nice if >there was some point in mud school that mentioned that there is a map of >the city in "help city". And in addition, no matter how many times I chat "type>'areas' for a list of all the areas in the game, and what levels they are >good for", there are still newbies and lowbies who ask "where can I go for >xp" every time they level. ===> Really, save some time and just tell them to type 'help map'... it works And I have heard newbies/lowbies chatting 'What area is good for me?' all the time, I just chat 'Type "area 10 15 (an example... good for a level 12 or so)" If then they chat something like 'It didn't work!!' You know they are either lying, or didn't even try and just want to do it in an easier way. I've actually had newbies/lowbies asking me to teleport to a good area and summoning them. I just say 'Wanna meet Ciquala?' ===> Loved the kids comments Kiri :) <<>> > power-hungry heroes are going around using their >super-aliases to kill shopkeepers (not like this has happened to my >knowledge, but just in case) ===> Yes, I've seen heroes do this as a mortal, but i kept quiet. Might as well since they were killing Beich... Also... I believe it's illegal... VERY illegal >> Gorzak: ok... a serious idea... how about a new skill which >> protects the caster from aggressive mobs (see invis/hidden or not) for a >> short period of time (as long as sanct perhaps)... would be an elf skill >> and cost a lot of mana ===> Doesn't Clericus already cast invis on people? >> Silverfox: make detect invis castable on others :) > >nah. that's what potions are for. ===> Hear, hear. :) > >> Earthshaker: Hi Ya :) I'd like to suggest that the slist >> command be modified so that a person can see only the spells for their >> guild ie.. 'slist dwarf' ==> Yes... like for us heroes slist only shows our mortal spells, and practice shows us a list of hundreds of spells. >I had an idea that I thought might work well for Br. What if we made a >room upstairs from the pet shop, where players could take their pets and >leave them for a short period of time. ===> Yes, yes, I love that idea. :) >Handcuff: >Syntax >A Kender can sneak behind a mob and tie his hands together, making him >harmless for three rounds. Note: This can only be used to start a fight, >or if the mob is blinded. ===>Hmmm.... sounds a bit to easy... if they DO put this in, it should only work on mobs 5 or more levels below you. >Snare: >Syntax >Kender tend to finish thier fight, especially if they are winning! One >can set a trap to ensnare his opponent before or during battle. ===> See above comment >Also, I tried this once and it didn't work, but if there isn't one, a >"group all" command would be cool, that would group everyone following you. >There could also be a cap on this that would not automatically group >heroes, say if a level 46+ typed this. It isn't really all that >functionally useful, but it might save the trouble of possible >miscommunications in a group. ===>Er... it would make it pretty confusing... -Caramon Hello, this is Squirl from BR and I just thought of something that might be an appropriate addition to BR. I recently realized that it increases the experience needed to level when you practice spells out of guild. I heard that there were suggestions about unlearning spells that didn't go over to well, and I thought of something different that might work. What if all out of guild spells had to be relearned after a certain number of levels? The spells would run out sort of like the mirrors or magical items do, only with levels instead of charges. The experience needed to level would drop after the spell ran out and go back up if the out of guild spells were relearned. The spells would have to be relearned at 0%. ALL out of guild spells that have been practiced would run out after a certain amount of levels. They would all run out at the same time as in all the Dwarven spells learned by an Elf would run out after 5 levels or whatever. This gives players the advantage of losing spells they don't want, but the disadvantage of losing all the spells they learned out of guild. They would have to relearn the ones they wanted to keep. Every five levels, no matter what, you would have to relearn the ones you wanted out of guild. I feel that this reflects the way mages in traditional fantasy realms have to relearn unnatural spells after using them. (see Dragonlance Chronicles, Legends, etc. for an example.) This is just a suggestion that might help. Thanks for your time. Squirl, the oldie but newbie. "And out of the confusion Where the river meets the sea, Something new will arrive, Something better will arrive..." Sting ("I Was Brought to My Senses") I was wondering.. as a dwarf, when I cast cure serious more than 1 time in a row there is always a pause of around 4 - 5 seconds before the next one actually happens. Is this on purpose? I see other races healing faster than I can read it on the screen . I understand that dwarves are dumb and don't have much in the way of spell casting... but it takes me over 1 minute to heal 100 hps... earthshaker ps... this is the GREASTEST adventure on the 'net. :) Subject: New newsletter here :) Some people seem to feel that There is a need for a newbie channel. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't play on a game where I couldn't talk to other people as a newbie. Thats when you need the most help! And if a hero isn't on, who would help these people? so many mortals help, a newbie channel just isn't fair. And in defense of Gorzak, it isn't just him suggesting it...read on: Gorzak: In defense of that newbie channel idea thing, that isn't to isolate newbies, it's so if imms or heroes need to handle a large amount of newbies at once (shortage of heroes, etc), we can talk to all of them without spamming all of the playe rs with st Trill: make a spell or skill that negates charm person and glare you could call it "release" this will remove a charm from a mob that you no longer want charmed,,only affects mobs that you yourself have charmed... Kiri's note: I like this :) Drai: How about a Hold skill that would remove the chance of being disarmed. Available for warrior classes...maybe dwarves, avians and humans out of guild for some of them or all. correction...not remove the chance of being disarmed...just reduce the chance of being disarmed...sorry. Kiri's note: not for Avians tho..they have it easy. Gorzak: allow players to add one or two extra descriptions to themselves :) can be quite interesting... of course there will be rules... to prevent perverts and such from ruining it for us all... and the penalty for violating these rules would be extremely Kiri's note: uhhh its called description + . MasterMage: What about a "sac all" option? Axle: Automatically display instructions on how to communicate (chat, tell, say, etc.) when a newbie creates an account. Kiri's note: I REALLY like this. Brand: Why can't there be some sort of heal mana that gives more than the current one does? There are different levels of healing for hps., and heal mana gives you as much mana as heal light gives you hps. Sylvester: Have a mode where, if you're actually gonna be away from the keyboard, you're character won't become hungry or thirsty, but you won't be able to go anywhere or get expereience or anything, just for when actually AFK Kiri's note: I dunno, I see people abusing this.. Vercertorix: Make pets autoassist when grouped. MasterMage: How about being able to order your pet to do something while you are in another room? Now if you had a dog, and he was in another room, and couldn't see you, how could you order him to do something? Fireflash: make a comfort channel to comfort deaths You can always use the Gratz channel for that. :) Caramon: how bout a 'sell all.(object' (e.ge sell all.sugar) so it wont take as long Kiri's note: You can make an alias for it. Spar: there should be a second areas command,you should be able to type in a level number after it and it will tell you the suggested areas for that level Kiri's note: just type areas 10 20 for example. That shows you the areas in those levels. Charmian: we need a help file that tells how to read armor class. That is easily the most asked question. You know... the difference between class and affect. Sure..you wanna write it? ;) Earthshaker: I would like to suggest a limit on gratz length... i.e. 3 lines. It is really good to see them when you make level... but tonight I saw 16 'cheers' totaling 79 lines. And a moment later another almost as long. Two people had them 9 l ines long. Earthshaker: I would like to suggest that at the temple area of clericus... that an added, different color line be added that says something like: For a whole map of the city... type HELP CITY. I think this would greatly assist newbies. Gorzak: a sip command to take a taste of the drink in a container to determine a) what type of liquid it is and b) perhaps whether or not it is poisoned... extremely small effects would be felt... perhaps make a skill (maybe dwarven) Kiri's note: I don't like this. Just look in container to see what color it is. Some people have detect evil and magic and something that shows auras around food to see if its poisoned or not. This would make poison almost..well, useless. And that would be too easy and NOT fun. Lets think of things to make the game more interesting, not easier to win. Delton: Alignaggro mobs, only attack players of certain allingments. That could be cool :) Delton: PRO command shows last time on... maybe in game terms to ad realism (3:00 4th of Strikehammer: an easy way back to the practice arena like the their was for the savannah Strikehammer: in the config have a +summon -summon that will allow you to be summoned by another character. Kiri's note: in fact, this can be done with teleport and astral too. Naicisum: How about a tic tac toe game?? I think it would get alot of use (from me, anyway :) Delton: be able to turn PEEK off. Moriarty: add a food section to donations Baltar: Is there any way we can change the command for attacking CHARMED mobs to 'murder,' as if they were players? It would prevent lots of unfortunate mistakes... Gorzak: how about since we have a quest idea room, let's also have an area idea room, where builders can leave their opinions, ideas, and suggestions on area building... Kiri's note: thats what the builders forum is for. If you want to be part of it, Email barren@chaos.coredcs.com with your barren name and we'll put you on it. Gorzak: a speco_fun like a healing chamber... an object where if you enter it, it removes all spells cast on you... can cost a certain amount of money or be in an extremely hard place to get to, but has major potential Kiri's note: again, making things easier. WHy can't we just try to make them more...well...D&d, fun, roleplayingish....*shrug* Delton: lvl 1's don't get hungrey or thirsty.. Axle: i think it would be pretty cool if there were some chalkboards or signs or something that people could write their own messages.. like the 'graffitti wall' on some bbs's Jassel: for avains i think it would be cool to be able to pick up a mob and drop it from high up to cause damage....of course it would have to be used at initial attack..but i think it would be nice to do Dove: to avoid problems, what if we not let newbies chat, but put in a newbie chat channel that hero's can have on so they can still ask for help? Kiri's note: this again, see me first comment. Emperess: Make a switch called autosave. It could save the player every 5 minutes or so so crashes won't be as bad for players Kiri's note: we suggest you save after every kill, but the same DOES autosave you without even telling you. MOST IMPORTANT NOTICE: You all know we have coders who work full time for us, Raptor, Res, Fuzzman and Hop. We also have contributing coders, who mail things into us when we give them jobs to do. These are who we consider to make coders when we are looking. If you are interested in being a contributing coder, contact me on BR or just email me back with the information. Tell me a little about yourself. -Kiri Subject: ALL NEW NEWSLETTER ----------------------IDEAS SECTION---------------------------- > > Cord: make is so that if you are free from nutrion, that you > > cant get FULL > > Kiri's note: not a bad idea. > > when you enhance this, just eat enough to say that "you're not hungry any > more" and then do it. if you enhance nut right after you eat something > and get the "you are full" message you won't be able to "eat/drink" > anything if you wanted to. > Crymson [This doesn't work if you are planning to ever be drunk again. While you can still drink as much as you want, drinking ale/beer/wine/etc adds to your food (so it fills you up in addition to making you not thirsty and making you drunk.)-Finality] > I was wondering.. as a dwarf, when I cast cure serious more than 1 time > in a row there is always a pause of around 4 - 5 seconds before the next > one actually happens. Is this on purpose? I see other races healing > faster than I can read it on the screen . [This is deliberate... BR has modified the wait state code quite a bit (spells that are in-guild for you don't slow you down as much as out-of-guild spells)...-Finality] I don't know if all the bugs have been worked out of it; this is a case of "what did the coders intend and is this it?" I have noticed, oddly, that as a human, I can cast druid spells with much less lag than elf spells. Maybe it's my imagination, though. Personally, I think it wouldn't hurt to have the wait-states for using a staff altered to match (a druid using a wand of create food has to wait a long time where in the same amount of game time he could just cast it 5 or 10 times...) -Finality > > Gorzak: how about special player flags ... have suggested this > > before ... to let people know what's up... like a or > > flag that players can set [Ummmm.. why not just put "I'm busy" in your afk message..... save the additional coding-Phoenix] This is just a suggestion, but you should change it so you can't kill people like Clerius, the Guardian or other shopkeepers. > -Proximus, Die Hard BR player (Well, almost) [It's best just not to use aliases that have area effect spells in town.. It might take a bit longer to kill a mob without an alias, but it still can be done.-Phoenix] > >> Gorzak: ok... a serious idea... how about a new skill which > >> protects the caster from aggressive mobs (see invis/hidden or not) for a > >> short period of time (as long as sanct perhaps)... would be an elf skill > >> and cost a lot of mana [Elves?? Don't need any more skills.... give kender a more powerfull version of hide... something that does what you are talking about.. they need the skills and if any race should be the masters of moving undetected it's the Kender.-Phoenix] > >I had an idea that I thought might work well for Br. What if we made a > >room upstairs from the pet shop, where players could take their pets and > >leave them for a short period of time. [Why? Just find a room in town somewhere.. like the bar.. and recall from there.. that way you know where your pet is. Or use the cliffs north of town. That way if they do become uncharmed they can't wander away.-Phoenix] > >Handcuff: > >Syntax > >A Kender can sneak behind a mob and tie his hands together, making him > >harmless for three rounds. Note: This can only be used to start a fight, > >or if the mob is blinded. [I am definitly all for finding more skills for kender.. but this does sound a bit too much.. I like the idea of limiting level of mob that it can work on.. though I think that this might make the skill useless... usually when a mob is that much lower than you you aren't gonna get all that much xp from him.. so why attack in the first place.-Phoenix] ---------------------------------{KLASSH}--------------------------- I think you should make centaurs an additional race!! they would be very fun...their class could be...uhm....archers? hehe...well think about it :) also maybe you should think about making more races, then a whole new section of classes.....so you could be a human cleric, or a centaur cleric, or a centaur archer...you know? many MUD's are like this ---------------------[NEW SECTION: MEET YOUR HEROES]--------------------- Hello, my name is Mazrim, I'm 85 years old, and I'm a mud addict. It all started years ago, when I still was new to the internet, and unaware of its potential. My parents are divorced, and because of this, I have all my friends in one place, and nothing to do in another. My stepfather, in all his wisdom saw my miserible boredom. He sat me in front of his '85 IBM, with its 1200 speed modem, and its nonexistant hard drive, and showed me the world of mudding. At first I was sceptical, but after my first mud, I was hooked. Since then, I have continued to search for a mud that I truly could love. I found Baren Realms. In real life, I am a 15 year old student, trying to live in San Francisco and Davis at the same time. I love both places, but I also love my family at Barren Realms. Sincerely, Mazrim {:+) NOTE: ALL HEROES are welcome to send me your own bios! Let the world know about YOU! :) ------------------------[NEW SECTION: MEET YOUR IMMS!]------------------ I'm Kiri on BR, but in Real life I'm Karen. I go to school in Washington DC and work in a cheesy summer job in New York, where I live most of the time. I love to read, I sing opera, and plan to be a lawyer specializing in Computer science. Although it may appear that way, I DONT have a lot of time for the computer (well, not as much as I used to). And yes, a lot of you have asked recently, I am dating Oakley and have been dating him for almost a year. Since I was around level 53 or so, so don't get any funny ideas in your heads :P I've made quite a few real life friends from BR. Oakley, Dakata, Vain and I all live near each other in New York and see each other often. Crymson, Phoenix, Xaos, Propane, and Tomas and I live near each other in the DC area, and see each other often. We're all pretty much a great big happy BR family :). NOTE: IMMS AND MORTALS ARE WELCOME TO DO rl bios for me! Send them to me to be included in these mails. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Misc section: Email me if you want the builders guide, the builder's forum, the player's guide, or just any various information. BIRTHDAY/STATE/IDEA quest: This is for this section. I will award a small prize for everyone who emails me their birthday (rl), the state they live in (OPTIONAL: ONLY IF YOU WISH TO BE INFORMED WHAT PEOPLE LIVE IN YOUR STATE-WRITE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK), and an ida for BR. SOMETHING ORIGINAL PLEASE. Instead of an idea, you may substitute a poem, short story, or jokes of your own. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: First of many...Newsletter! Axle: Make Quest HQ a non-social-able room Why? Maggee: Some sort on-screen indicator of the letters when you type in your password would be helpful to us senile types who can't (con't) remember where we were in typing when we get interupted. Xena: the sign in the South Chamber should include about help city since it has about recall in it Wildfire: How about programmable colors, for people to put in their titles and prompts and stuff? Mort: please keep aod out of the bar Sylvester: How about as part of the newsletter, you put down a list of things that have changed, like level changes on items and things that have been discontinued or new items that were introduced Charmian: since humans are martial artists, shouldn't armor and weapons be less effective as they gain in level. It should be that their armor and weapons are their hands and feet. Axle: maybe kenders should get a new skill called 'repair eq'. which tries to repair equipment, and if it fails, the equipmnet would be ruined Leghorn: Add chartreuse as a color Leghorn: when you type help it should tell you what guild you practice it in Kiri's note: I'm always willing to let people do the work and put the guild name in every help ;) What if you put it a command block so the only command you can type is AFK. WIZZI ----------------------------ADVERTISEMENT---------------------------- Visit Wildfire's Barren Relams Homepage today!!! Located only at = http://www.dragonfire.net/~WFire/barren.html Not much, but much more to = come in the future!!! Watch for SLISTS OF ALL THE RACES!!!! Visit = today!!! -Wildfire ---------------------[NEW SECTION: MEET YOUR HEROES]--------------------- Most of us would like to know more about each other, but mostly only the imms and heros do any "real" sharing. Maybe you could run a contest to see who can come up with the "most outrageous" (but clean!) bio as well as accepting "real life" stores?? Oh! Wait ... how would we tell the difference?!?!?! Keep up the good work! I really enjoy getting the newsletters! Love, Lizzie Kiri's note: I love this :) ANyone wanna send in real life AND most outrageous (but clean) stories, go RIGHT ahead! Kiri > [This doesn't work if you are planning to ever be drunk again. While you > can still drink as much as you want, drinking ale/beer/wine/etc adds to > your food (so it fills you up in addition to making you not thirsty and > making you drunk.)-Finality] ok, so i enhanced it before i was full and got drunk a bunch, now im full. so now what do i do? everytime i want to eat another players head, i get the you are full message. how about having it stay perminaly at you are not hungary, so i can eat all those heads? :) -Cord --------------------------MEET YOUR HEROES------------------------------- Hi... Im Bushwhacker. Birthday : August 8th City/ State : Boston, MA I was born and raised in Indonesia. Being the kind of person who likes new places, I moved to Hawaii as a teenager. I spent my high school years there, in a private boarding school with a bunch of friends, such as: Opus, Criterion, Chris, Odie. After graduation, I moved to Boston for college, and yes, I finally experienced my first 'true' winter. Anyways, I started BR in Sept 95, i think...There, I've met some of the nicest people. I heroed when i was 100, so for those 'slow movers' out there, dont feel bad. Since then, I havent really been on as much. Im only 150s year old right now..Well...that's about it folks, c-ya on BR! A suggestion : Skill for Kender: c 'cloak' It covers all the 'glowing','humming' eqs and weapons so that you can still use hide and sneak, I mean...hide and sneak for kenders are kinda useless now, since there are tons of glowing and humming eqs out there... ---------------------MEET YOUR MORTALS!------------------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=[Proximus]=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Hello. This may come as a shock to some of you, but my name is not really Proximus. I am not older that 18. I am a 12 year old Calgarian and I'm going into grade 8. As some of you might know, my best friend is Doomhammer. We go to the same school. I like QBasic because it's all I can afford. It's free. I live in the quiet suburbs and I spend most of my time on Barren Realms, playing SimTower or outside playing soccer. I go to St. Stephen's School and I love Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (Not the video game.) I'm sitting down on a 486 dx/33 with 4 megs of RAM right now. I have a 14,400 modem and a really lagged Internet connection. I've played lot's of MUDS, but Barren Realms is the only one I like. (The rest all suck) Sincerly, Proximus ------------------------MEET YOUR IMMS----------------------------- My name is Strikehammer. In real life my name is Kerry. Blame my = parents for the awful name, I am named after a county in Ireland where = some of my ancestors were from originally. I live in Jamestown, NY and = I am 6 foot 2 inches tall, and 175 pounds. Thanks to my MUD addiction = Barren Realms helped me shed 40 unsightly pounds in the last 4 months! = :) I have brown hair, brown eyes and was introduced to Barren Realms by = my friend Trill. I also know Mylo, Thunderbolt, and Skyblade (They all = go to my college). I enjoy hiking, scuba-diving, traveling, anything = involved with computers (comp-sci major). I enjoy plaing baseball, = although my part-time status hasn't allowed me to play for the college = team in the last 2 years. My favorite past-time though is talking with = Celestrial on the phone every night, ALL night long. :D ======================state/birthday/idea quest======================= ODIE: Lives in Hawaii. Idea: howabout a inguild detect invis or detect hidden spell for kenders...since we are the masters of indetection and detection...hmm...wonder why this hasn't been put in..oh well PROXIMUS: Lives in Alberta, Canada. Idea: In the weapon shop, sometimes there are so many items on the list, you can't see which level is each. So there should be extra variables that show for each level like "list 5 10" would show items levels 5 through 10. AXLE: Pennsylvania Idea: A chalkboard at Clericus's. Similar to the program "Graffitti Wall" on some bulletin board systems, I think it would be reeally cool for people to be able to write one-line messages on a chalkboard. For example. if you typed look chalkboard, you'd read: A green chalkboard stands here. There's some writing on it. Axle: yoyoyoyo Drakar: hi everyone Klassh: I have a clan insignia for sale. 3000 coins etc. etc. And you could type "erase chalkboard" and it would erase all the messages of those people who wrote in it who are lower level than you. And you would type like "write chalkboard Phoenix rules" and the message 'Phoenix rules' would go on the uppermost line of the chalkboard. (with a limit of like 20 or so one-liners). Well, i don't know. It would be cool. Useful, too. A chalkboard would be more informal than a note. - Axle - Subject: newsletter > Maggee: Some sort on-screen indicator of the letters when you > type in your password would be helpful to us senile types who can't > (con't) remember where we were in typing when we get > interupted. It isn't THAT hard to just type in your password again if you mistyped it the first time... :-) > Mort: please keep aod out of the bar That's kinda hard to do, since that's where he repops...if it's really a problem, just ask over the channels and someone will usually take care of him pretty quickly. *btw*: we DO have more than one bar in the city. Aod can't be in both at the same time. :-) > Leghorn: Add chartreuse as a color Umm...the MUD only has ANSI color. Within that range, all the possible colors are present (with the exception of hblack, which produces "[0;38m" instead of "[1;30m"... > Leghorn: when you type help it should tell you what guild you > practice it in > Kiri's note: I'm always willing to let people do the work and put the > guild name in every help ;) Well, they have to know what guild it's in or they can't put it in the help, now can they? :-P > A suggestion : > Skill for Kender: c 'cloak' > It covers all the 'glowing','humming' eqs and weapons > so that you can still use hide and sneak, I mean...hide and sneak for > kenders are kinda useless now, since there are tons of glowing and > humming eqs out there... I thought the whole point of glowing and humming eqs was so you would have to give something up to remain in the shadows... It is possible to get good eq that doesn't glow or hum. (The real trick is in finding a light that doesn't glow. -The dim lightt are out there, though.) -Finality "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 Skills Report By: Wildfire A few days ago, I was on as a second character briefly (I think you all = know who ;) and I wrote down the skills for all the races. Originally = intended for a project I'm working on, I found out some interesting = facts that I decided to share with all of you. This may help you in = some way, it may not. I hope it will. First off, common skills. Each race seems to have a common thread in = skills. Each race seems to have some sort of healing spells, most = notably, cure light and cure serious. They also seem to have some sort = of protection spell(s), such as armor. Also, a lot of races have some = sort of what I call "door passing mechanisms." (ie pass door). The = exception, for all of these it seems, is the Illithids, which I discuss = later. All the races have some sort of special fighting skill, ie dual, = second & third attack. All the races also have some way to detect = creatures that normally can't be seen, iow detect hidden & detect invis. = All the races have attack spells, such as fireball. Secondly, there's what I call "Illithid Isolation." The Illithids have = all their own skills, many of them simply variations of skills other = races have. Instead of armor, Illithids have thought shield, which is = basically the same thing. There's inflict pain instead of fireball. Of = course, these are only a few examples, but there are a lot more. In = fact, the Illithids have only ONE out of guild skill, dual, at level 25. = I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Illithids. It just seems = strange to me that Illithids have all their own skills when they are = just variations of other skills that all races have access to. Next, there's the leveling difference between races. To understand = what I mean, first look at how many skills each race has and how many of = them are out of guild, and the percentage that are out of guild. Avian: 27 skills, 3 out of guild (11%) Druid: 71 skills, 26 out of guild (37%) =20 Dwarf: 45 skills, 34 out of guild (76%) Elf: 59 skills, 25 out of guild (42%) Human: 51 skills, 37 out of guild (73%) Illithid: 36 skills, 1 out of guild (3%) Kender: 52 skills, 40 out of guild (77%) Now, take an example of two heroes, myself and Zebulac. For those who = don't know, I am a Kender, and Zebulac is an Avian. Both are = fighting-type classes, Avians being more specialized. As you can see, = the races that rely more on spells have less out of guild skills. Now, = when I heroed, I needed over 5 million to get to level 51, while Zebulac = needed only about 2 million. As you can see, Kender have many more out = of guild skills than Avians. This one example is by no means = conclusive, but I have seen other examples. I have a request to make of = the heroes and imms out there. I ask you to note me on BR how much xp = you needed to hero, and what race you were were when you heroed. Thank = you. It was my pleasure to share my findings with you, please, if ou have = anything to add, note me on BR or email me. My address is in my profile. -Wildfire Hopefully my point is clear. Thanx in advance. Wildfire ----------------------------------------------------------------------- GORZAK: Bio: I began MUDding thanks to my friend Matai, whom I have known since the first grade... He went to a high school that had a computer lab with a MUD running called HunterMUD... I immediately got hooked to this Circle MUD... One MUD led to another and one day I was addicted to one MUD, then the other... Until I found Barren Realms. Here I stayed and was happy... I started many characters (some of which I still use today), but soon grew tired as character after character practiced too many out-of-guild skills and I started to slowly drift away from the Realms. At that time I started a character on a MUD that was in ... shall we say competition ... with the Realms, which turned out to be short-lived as I realized how complicated, difficult, and anti-social the environment had become, so I returned to my true home, the Realms, and started Gorzak, my current character, who I intently played until I heroed, which is where I am today... -------------------------------MORT BIO------------------------------ BR Name - Gerald Town/Country - Oxford/England RL BIO - My name is Nancy and I'm 21, was born in Manchester in England and have just finished my degree at Oxford University. I was doing maths and I am about to go on to do a masters at Southampton. OK boring bit over... My major passion in life is Ice Hockey (yes we do play it over here!) and most of my free time and spare cash goes on that. I am pretty much a non-violent person except when i get on the ice when I become a bit of a raving psychopath (or so I have been told!!) Still I have never lost a fight (grin) and I have rarely been sent off without taking one of the enemy with me! This is the only MUD I have ever tried and although I don't get to play it as much as I would like I am pretty much hooked on it and any time I can spare time to come down to the computer room in college I do. I stumbled upon MUDS when I was reading a book on stuff to do with a modem other than Email and BR was highly recommended so I gave it a few hours and I haven't looked back since. Gerald. Subject: A new BR newsletter I just started an illithid char and noticed there weren't any non-magic skills. I think there should be some, like kick,trip, or disarm or something, because I am constantly running out of mana. -Beaker How about a skill called "butcher" where you could butcher a corpse and turn it into a steak of some sort for you to eat.....I dont know who this would go under, but it is a great skill I have seen used on other MUD's.... Here's an idea for a new race that I've been thinking about for quite a while... The race would be called "Ecomancer"... The general theme of the race is that they have the power to control nature... Their spells would be offensive in general, with little or no protection or healing... a true magic attack race... ECOMANCER ECOMANCERS Ecomancers are a race of powerful wizards who have the power to control the very forces of nature. PRIME ATTRIBUTE = INT 2: control weather 5: icy blast, create water 10: call mist 13: create spring 17: earthquake, web, call lightning 20: circle of flame, call shadow 22: oxygen bubble 25: blizzard 30: tidal wave, fireball 35: summon titan 40: healing rain, planeswalk 45: elemental blast 47: ecomantic touch 50: meteor rain here's the info for the non-standard spells ICY BLAST - caster calls a cold arctic wind to hurt enemies... (low level attack spell... comparative to magic missile or chill touch perhaps) CALL MIST, CALL SHADOW - caster summons to their side a force which damages the enemy, then disappears (would look like this to target - 's summoned mist (or shadow) ***PUMMELS*** you.) Basically an attack spell... mist would be medium to low power and shadow would be a combination of an attack spell and blindness... OXYGEN BUBBLE - allows the caster to form a bubble of air around their head so the caster can breathe underwater without assistance from scuba gear for a short time. BLIZZARD - comparative to fireball... slightly weaker though TIDAL WAVE - combination attack spell (slightly weaker than fireball) and trip (knocks target off his feet) SUMMON TITAN - glorified earthquake, somewhat stronger though... Definitely whole room affect... HEALING RAIN - caster calls upon the magical properties of rain to accelerate their healing... (must be raining for it to work...) PLANESWALK - Allows caster to walk on any terrain for 1 movement (glorified fly, except it's a skill not a spell) - also allows movement through the air or water (the type that needs boats or fly spell) ELEMENTAL BLAST - high-powered attack spell (comparative to acid blast or cause critic) ECOMANTIC TOUCH - glorified charm person METEOR RAIN - extremely high power room affect attack spell... What do ya think? Gorzak Can the areas command be modified slightly? When you type in, say areas = 10 15, you only get the areas that have {10 15} or whatever it is. It = misses some in the area range, ie Fun HOuse, which is {12 17}. Make it = so that the range also hits those not at the extreme. Kinda confusing, = but I don't know how else to put it. That should be it, if anything else crosses my mind, I'll let you know. -Wildfire There is one problem I've had on BR that really bugs me...If I type in too many commands when killing something sometimes they carry over to another mob in the area. I was killed by a highetr level mob because of this, and have killed other players pets. Is there anything that can be done about it? -Ghandi -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, my name's Wildfire, but where I live, people call me Chris. I'm 14 = in rl, but 105 on BR. (Last time I checked. Old, isn't it?) I have a = brother, Ryan, who's 13 and who I HATE!!! (IOW, he drives me insane. If = you were wondering where my insanity comes from, he's the cause.) I live = in a small town in Central PA, 50 miles north of Harrisburg. I mean = REAL small. Isn't on most maps. Zebulac introduced me to BR, and I've = been hooked ever since. Matter o fact, Zebulac, Hearb, Salamando and I = are real close friends. Another BR family, this time in Central PA. = Doncha just love it? ;) My best, Wildfire SECOND!! My birthday's 7/14/81, I live in PA, and my idea for BR is a skill = similar to the Avian skill track, except it's for Kender and you have to = retype it when you lose the smell. It's called sniff. (I believe I = pitched this before, but I can't remember.) Another skill for suggestion = is where a Kender could cover up humming ang glowing things so sneak and = hide would work. It does however require extreme concentration. Wildfire 1,2) So - I was born on February 16th in the year 1967 in Germany where I still live. 3) Some ideas for BR >>>--------> The "con" command should grow with time. Instead of resulting in ever the same statements it should give weathered veterans of more than level 10 (15, 20, 25 etc.) more detailed statistics of the mob. When you live about 40 or 50 years in game time in BR I think you should be able to estimate the levels the hp and perhaps more statistics of the mobs with ever increasing accuracy. Concerning Kills - I know it's not easy to implement in a real time game and definitely should only apply to players wandering alone, but perhaps it could be possible to implement a flag, which activates a round based combat, where after each clash the program waits to accept player input. This would make it possible to play even with a bad lag. Normally in this situation, if I'm unlucky or misdo the first attack, I'm plain dead, before my flee command is processed by the game. The only two alternatives are setting wimpy extremly high (which is no good) or disconnect for another night (which is a punishment right below the death penalty...). It should be implemented, so that only commands concerned with combat are possible (personal combat skills like shriek, windblast etc., flee and recall) and that hitting >>enter<< just continues the combat like it now is. In this way abuse should be impossible. Concerning Roleplay: Since you asked for ideas which add to the role-playing flavour of BR.... How to do that in a solely killing-based game environment???????? Maybe it could a step (though only in the longer run) to implement possibilities to gain exp without killing mobs and to implement at least a simple way of communication with mobs... getting information about items, locations etc.; adding a way to implement real storylines in the areas which may be as open as in the wizardry series... As by now the only real fun in playing a (Diku-Type) Mud is grouping and communicating with others, finding or getting new eq and making levels. Not that this isn't sufficient (would I be playing otherwise?)..., but ROLE-PLAYING which IMHO consists of more than mere killing is virtually impossible by now, isn't it? ---------------- MEET YOUR MORTALS ------------------ Well, I was born in the winter of '67 in Germany in the area called "Ruhrgebiet", exactly in the city of Dortmund. After moving around a little I came back to that area to visit grammar school. After that I lived some strange years which are of no particular interest to anyone but me... But that is old history by now ;) At the moment I'm working in a (small) publishing house (with the benefit of my "boss" being my girl-friend since 7 years) and do all the typesetting and all the computer-related stuff there. It's a nice living now here in the rural north germany (a village with about 1000 people) just about in the middle between Hamburg, Hannover, Bremen and Berlin) and the only drawback is, that fast and cheap internet providers only stay in the big cities which results in the fact, that I can play only from 2 to 5 am and that is REALLY hard for an old man like me ;))) My other hobbies are reading, Reading and READING and oh, yes travelling, drinking beer, playing Doom and Duke 3d with a friend and playing other games alone. The rest is silence ;X Since I work in my home my eq in R0 is not too bad: a Pentium 133 with 32 Megs of RAM running OS/2 and an ISDN connection. But what (beside the work) is that good for, when your provider manages blasting speeds of 150 to 250 byte/s before 2 am (grumble, m60, slap , hug , cackle)? Besides BR i didn't play many Muds and each not for long. It's -mostly- very nice to be here and -always- very nice to meet the people I met. Thanks for very many hours of fun and hope to meet you soon. Taar Subject: Barren Realms Newsletter ---------------------[Various Ideas..from YOU!]-------------------------- heya - how about having when you log on show you where the last site address you logged on from show up.. ie... Last login in from
. and also show if you've had anyone else trying to log onto your account. basically have a counter for everytime there is a incorrect login on your name. There have been <##> attempts to login as since . or something to that extent. it can be reworded to however you want it to look. possibly even list the addresses the attempts were from. Crymson Well, I've seen several people asking for a cover up of equipment for kender, so I've got an idea as well. I propose a skill called cloak which would require a very high intelligence (20+?) that would allow the intelligent kender to realize that his glowing/humming equipment was preventing him/her from sneaking & hiding. The smart little kender would then be able to find some mechanism for covering up the humming noise or glow. Another idea is that the alias command be edited to allow adding commands to an existing alias, such as alias + Command, or alias - to allow the last command on the alias to be deleted. Just a few suggestions, -Quiver Ok, here's my suggestion: How about entry and exit channel just to let people know you're on-line. Like for example: [PROXIMUS]: Attention: Proximus has left the MUD! That could be an exit message. It might make the MUD more intresting. -Proximus |--------------------------------------------------------------| | BARREN REALMS NEWS FLASH | |--------------------------------------------------------------| | -New skill for Avians, Elves, and Druids: create potion | | -New skill for Kender: dirtkick | | -New skill for Illithids: vertigo | | -New area: Kyoto, by Riel | | -New area: Hamelin, by Gorzak | | -We now have a unique MUD school, designed by Temper. | | Check it out!! | | -Kick can now strike multiple times for Humans. | | | | PLEASE note any new news to me or email me at | | naumiler@sunlink.net | | | | -Wildfire | |______________________________________________________________| Could you please advertise in the newsletter the need for news, and to note me or send me an email? Thanx!!! -Wildfire Kiri, I propse we modify the help system somewhat. (This is for skills only.) = What this is is it will tell you the name of the skill, which races get = it at what level, what type of spell it is (offensive, defensive, area = affect, etc.), what things it affects (if any), and about how long it = lasts. I can show you a mud where they have what I'm talking about, if = you have any questions. Hope this helps. -Wildfire --------------------------[MEET THE PLAYERS OF BR]--------------------- My name is Marcus, but most of you (if you know me at all) know me as Guadalupe. I am 16 years old and am soon to be a Junior in High school. I was born in Fairbanks, Alaska and lived here several years before moving to Sweden which is where my dad is from. I then moved back to Fairbanks which is where I have been ever since. My main interest lies in music, as I play the trumpet and piano, sing, and enjoy composing. I also play soccer and run for Lathrop High School, which happens to be the best one in the world. I was first introduced to BR about a year and a half ago, which happened to be the same day I was first introduced to MUDing. I love it here and have never had any desire to leave, and that is because of all of you! And my luve is like a red, red, rose. -Guad Simple : Not a man, but a way of thinking. Playing Barren Realms is fun. Thinking this while your playing helps keep your levels flying and a smile on your face. :) PLEASE READ: Send me your rl bios or little blurbs (like what Simple sent) - poetry, funny stories, fiction, or questions and comments. ALSO: email me if you want the BR official builders guide, to be on the builders forum, or if you'd like the players guide. Thanks, and Have a Great mud day! LEVEL TONS!