Subject: Barren realms newsletter #6 (fwd) Welcome to the sixth BR newsletter! What do you think of this? For different races, there could be different languages. Like Elves would speak Elven. Really, it would be a choice. Like you could type a command like "Elven". Of course, with humans it might be a skill to learn a particular language. If one player was chatting in Elven, The other Elves would hear him perfect, but the others would see just babble like when you are drunk. It would be nice. An example is: if someone wanted to ask something about Avian skills to just Avians, He could do that and not be swamped. I think it would be a nice addition, and maybe even attract some newbies to sticking to this mud for a while, and see how great it is! -Caramon Also..I repeat, if you want the builders guide, contact me. if you need vnums, contact me. Thanks for all of the great stuff y'all have been submitting! I LOVE it! Please send in ANY ideas you have, or comments on Caramon's idea. Please check out the OFFICIAL BARREN REALMS WEB PAGE! Its at http://www.tmn.com/Community/travisr/barren.html Thanks Crymson. Also check out Atru's page at http://lenny1.albany.net/atru.html If you have code ideas, let me know. Also, we are still looking for ascii art, poetry, stories, or any other things you may want to submit. I am including some more sword songs from Caramon for your enjoyment :) MORTAL OF THE WEEK: Crymson! Thanks Crymson for starting our own web page! Hero of the week: DOVE! She goes out of her way to help new heroes and mortals *APPLAUD* Dove. If you would like to do projects for BR, contact me. I'll assign you something to do. :) If you can suggest ideas for Vampires, please do! We are always looking. Remember, BR is your mud! Keep it that way by helping out. -Kiri Subject: Barren realms newsletter #7 Welcome to the 7th BR newsletter! This one contains all of your comments and feedback. :) Anyway.. now that I have reread the message I LOVE the idea of racial languages!!!! A definite idea to be seriously considered. Possibly to make a command set that the language would look like this" chats in A elf speaks elven over the chat channel. All elven-speaking users (users with the speak elf flag) would see: chats in elven "Hi all you elves" All non-elven speaking users: chats in gibberish "UYsnjE JF IOWHF Jshei" Could also get some heros/players. to come up with relatively elven sounding phrases (use some lines from TSR's poems in their elven books) or dwarven sounding phrases (again, TSR has dwarven war songs printed in some of their materials). Maybe even make a language tutor who you could go to (like an enhance) to learn a new langauge. I wouldn't make it easy or the point would be lost. Hell.. maybe even a % chance to translate it.. run it just like a skill. Phoenix I think the idea itself would be great.. really, it would be cool to have 'a channel' for only your own race! Another nice little thing to the best MUD ever.. it could also be implemented so that there are say some 2-3 languages only; humans and dwarfs could have the same language etc so that not all the channels would give just some babble (yes I know you can turn channels of but still).. - Mighty this is the only ascii drawing i've done, but i like him (8 I I I I I I \ / \ / \ / | \_____________/ | | | | | \ / \ / \/ \/ *CHOMP* oh, so anywayz... CARS! i love the idea! as long as there's a pickup (8 as far as mortal rooms go, i just wonder how they'd be given out... seems like they should be more of a reward dealie... altho, i was considering of running a quest asking for people's coolest dorm room descrips for my br university area design, where i would put in the room and possibly personalized mobs for the neatest ideas... ok, that's it for now, i think. jello again >From muds I've seen that had this, it had similar effects as multiple recall points. It simply caused TOO many problems. People started to stick to speaking the other-than-common languages, and socialization was lost. Hell, I couldn't get ANY help on those muds, until I made a high enough level to develop a language that people liked, like "High-Elven" or something. While I like it, I don't think that languages would be a GOOD idea for BR. -Zaraq Oh the thing about different languages is a very cool idea. more later -Braxion Ok..just some reminders. Send me requests for the builders guides..vnums, and ideas for areas. Send me any ascii art, poems, etc. :) Also, keep commenting on ideas I throw out at you.. Caramon sent me some good ideas for Cars..but we are thinking more medieval fantasy, so if you'd like to work on that go right ahead! ADVERTISE BR! I am including a poem with this post... please keep sending em in... -Kiri Subject: newsletter #8 Ok..this one may be kinda dull..but read thru it and tell me what ya think :) More Feedback -- I completely agree with Zaraq, the idea of racial languages will socially separate this mud greatly, keeping people talking in their little cliches, or talking in a foreign tongue just for the hell of it. In any case, racial languages BLOW!! I don't know why people would consider them good, this could only lead to less socializing.. what is so great about talking over a public channel, and only certain people will make out what you say?? NOTHING, if you have an avian question, and the avians on don't reply or don't know -- then what?? I am sure a person of another race would be competant to answer questions pertaining to other races ... keeping conversations like that all gibberished is just anti-social, and not a good idea at all. As it is, a lot of the chat on BR is very minute -- why make it worse? Mortal Rooms - Well, if they are imp'd, they should not be easy to obtain. First of all, there ought to be a say .. 2 million gold per month rent, to be split between how ever roomates will share the room. (A minimum of 3 people per room) Also, you must write a note to whoever telling why you feel you deserve your own mortal room, and if selected, then you can have one. But you must share it with others too, since a room is a big deal. Also, being accepted should be tough, and you must pay a one-time fee of 150,000 gold per line of text in your room. You can also have objects in your room (if they aren't super) and pay a one-time fee of 300,000 gold per object, and have a maximum of 2 objects & 2 resets on those objects in your room. A pet may be purchased too for a one-time fee of 800,000 gold for it. It will reset in the room, and you may not have more than 1 pet in the room. Further, the pet must be level 1-40, and only players above level 40 may be CONSIDERED for a room. You may have extra descriptions in your room, for an extra one-time is when you go to a room, and typeription. "Looextra description is when you go into a room, and type "Look " where the word is the name of the extra description, and a message will pop up. (ie, "look sign" at mud school) ) The rooms can be accessed by typing "home" and you will magically be transferred to your room, and to get out, simply recall. (A good idea would be not to make your room no-recall ;) ) Cars - Cool, maybe an auto-store where you could buy a car for 100,000 gold, a car that you can pick up for 250,000 gold, and some miscellaneous little objects such as a pair of dice to hang on the mirror, etc. Also, there would be different models of cars, crappy ones would be cheaper than the above prices, nicer ones would be much more expensive. But .. they do not fit into the medieval theme, I think a lot of players would still like them. And if the medieval theme is neccassary, then they could be special brands of carriages, buggies, wagons, etc. :) Languages... I dunno... I've been on a mud with languages and, on a roleplay mud, it's kinda interesting... BUT... it does lead to more isolation, less socializing and more clannishness... which really isn't a problem on an exclusively-roleplaying mud, but would probably be a problem on a mud like BR. 1. A cafeteria. Maybe with soda and snack machines. 2. Locker rooms. I know this has been brought up before, but it might be a nice idea to be able to pay and be able to store a few choice pieces of equipment. The lockers should hold very little and players should only Firedaner c be able to rent one at a time. Also, the player is given a key and if the key is lost, so is whatever was in the locker. Lockers are one-use only. If the locker is opened, the player must pay to rent it again. 3. Practice area. An area similar to the arena where players can practice new spells or abilities without the threat of loss of xp. Maybe having a "mob machine" that dispenses mobs of a desired level or set level based on the players level. They should also not be able to get equipment from these mobs. 4. Information booth. Alternative to a map shop, this could work many ways. Which directions are available could be random and/or very expensive to disuade overuse. It would be nice if you could also receive the level of the area you are getting directions for. They could also be very vague in their instructions saying south-east of Malacandra, for instance, instead of exact directions. I also thought that maybe it could work like track. 5. Aviary. This is just something I thought would be neat. But then again, I am a bird :) How's that for ideas? If I come up with any more, I'll let you know. If you have any questions or want clarification of anything, just ask. (aka Dove) :) Brisket here. How about a shop which sells flag toggles for items? They'd have to be pretty expensive, but it would give us an alternative to the hangman for those 'nodrop' and 'noremove' items. Could also be used to turn on/off other flags as well...Today, a Dwarf player asked me where to get flaming capes, and I had to point out to him that only Elves and Druids can equip flaming items. If, however, the 'flame' flag was turned off... Well, you get the idea. Problem: When you think about it, gold is pretty plentiful in BR, so it wouldn't be long before everyone and their fido had a (Magical) (Glowing) (Humming) (Flaming) (Invis) (Flying) xcalibur, or whatever. Also, how about assigned jobs for morts? Could be kind of an ongoing quest thing, where morts could apply for piece-work in the Realms (maybe the imms could design a set list of quests for appropriate levels), and receive something of substantive value (flag-toggles, renames, etc.) as a reward for completion. A question about vehicles...Would they be pets? I could see the possibility of both living and non-living vehicles (horse, magic carpet), and I wondered how the two could be handled differently. If they were pets, you'd effectively be using their movement points, right? But what if they were inanimate objects? How about storage lockers? Players could use their passwords as the combinations. On those occasions where my corpse has dissolved before I got back to it, I've lost a lot of stuff that I wouldn't have been carrying, if I wasn't afraid it would have dissolved if I left it somewhere. They could have a limited storage space, so as to keep us from collecting more items then there are vnums to go around... Oh, and a question about the Vampire ability 'corpse walk'. Would they be able to use that ability for other players (probably for a fee)? Sure would make it a lot easier to do a CR from an aggie mob... Ciao, Bris