Welcome to the Barren Realms MUD Newsletter! Come visit BR at telnet://barren.coredcs.com:8000/ News from the Realms: Disaster: 3rd tgames weekly quest results Sun Oct 5 20:06:37 2003 we had three rounds of arena battles today. in the first, noone could reenter the arena after leaving it/dying. in the second, the last team with a person not to be killedwon, with people reentering arena as much as they wanted. in the 3rd, 5 rous were sent to arena, and the team bringing the most skins back won. kalonek won all three trials. krenv, please get your votes to me as soon as you can, results will be up tomorrow evening like usual Disaster: tgames 3rd elimination with two votes against mourdrydd and no votes against anyone else, mourdrydd is voted off. you know the rules, thnx for playing :) Disaster: tgames and thanksgiving as some of you may know, next weekend is thanksgiving (kiri .ed - in Canada). because of this, the quest will be a little different than normal this coming sunday. it will still be at 6:00pm system time, and it will still have some sort of effect as to your success in the tgames from this point onwards, but there will not be an elimination. that's all the details i'm giving out for now. please be sure to show up, and see exactly what i have planned for you. -dis Lairian: Heritage postponement To all the druids that would have quested this week, a formal appology comes from me and Leiland...we've overbooked ourselves, and as a result won't be able to run the quest this weekend...however, the Heritage quests will continue next week. We're terribly sorry for the delay, and any problems this might have caused, but trust us, if we could run it this week, we would. Thanks for your understanding. =) These characters need to log in or contact me: Borax, Cathal, Cygnus, Dimension, Elkys, Fallingstar, Icehawk, Kannibal, Merric, Odan, Opposer, Taerom ---------------------------- IDEAS: Strydar: isnt there someway to make a higher int or wis do more spell damage? you think this would work... Luc: customizable teleports, astral or summons. sort of like how bamfin and out works. this would be neat. Ghaleon: A quote channel to quote stuff... AMystery: bring back disintigrate but allow it to be used on players. no corpses, everything goes to recall. it would be like a slay but with a chance of a saving throw KITHRIM: what about an option to buy BR bonds? goes like this buy a bond for x dollars and growth on the bond increases per level you are given a bond item (which you must hold) if you die poof bond goes as well. Luc: i meant a flag such as (sneaking) on a player if they are sneaking and you have detect hidden on. WhouRang: kick people that have are idle for more than 20 mins Disaster: there should be a command, qah (for question and answer history) showing both the questions and answers in the proper order Ghaleon: Illithids should know someway to dispel their magic. They made it up, they should know a way to reverse it somehow. Exe: intelligence should have something to do with hitroll, dodge and parry... maybe disarm too, i mean, how many stupid people can seriously dodge a sword-swipe? Kithrim: BR drag races think about it!! ------------------ Replies to the last Newsletter by Anakin: Batman: dwarves should be able to break through locked doors/containers/chests with their axes >>More like improve bash. icon_biggrin.gif Mathiu: eat pills even when full >>I guess it'd make sense. Some pills even require you to eat before taking it... Redeemer: raise the betting limit on Hangman to make it more interesting and exciting >>Yeah! But I still bet 1, since I rarely play hangman. *shrugs* Strydar: A race to oppose demons...angels or serraphims. Similiar to demons, cept good aligned = better. >>Check this out: http://www.barrenrealmsmud.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=460 Exo: i know it would be VERY hard to code in, but i personally think you should get xp for EVERY thing you kill, even if it is only like 1 xp... i think no matter what you kill, your gonna learn from it, right? >>Are you saying that we must get xp when we do something silly (like flee, die, etc?) Cause... we also learn from our mistakes right? icon_razz.gif Bah! I disagree. Exo: i think lisette should buy EVERYTHING, not just weapons and armor, and if not that, then make the grocer and the magician not stoppile the stuff you sell them >>Sure, but I think there are mobs across BR that now buys everything. Yuber: make it so you can choose whether or not people see battle update when you die Kiri -- you can. Just turn off chan -battle, and no one will see when you die. Exhile: GIVE FRENZY TO ELVES EARLIER, illithids get it BEFORE elves OOG... wouldnt the in guild race get it first >>I thought the slist of the two are pretty funny. I don't know about the idea though. icon_lol.gif Crux: a cheers emote would be kinda nice to have, kinda like the beer emote but better Kiri -- Standard answer: Ok, write it. See help writesocial and help socialex. Delidien: Help killer, so if newbies see the flag on someone, they can understand why it's given, the etiquette surrounding it, etc >>And that the ones with the "Killer" flag should/would think that it is a punishment, not another design. icon_rolleyes.gif Luc: a fly showing that a player is sneaking >>Huh? "affects" shows when a player is sneaking, if that's what you're asking. Home: a new limb for demons, works onlt for demons with wings, a claw. it picks a mob up and you fly up and drup it, the better the wings the higher you can fly and the more damaging the drop >>Demons are done, no more addition, please. They are too freaking powerful already. Home: if your crushing someone it should act like trip and not let them flee, i mean come on you have them wraped in a tentacle and they just walk away? >>See "help vine" there's already a demon limb/command for this. Puppetmon: some sort of disarm for demons >>I'll say it again, demons are too freaking powerful already. If someone should get disarm, it should be the martial artists. Strydar: isnt there someway to make a higher int or wis do more spell damage? you think this would work... >>It would, technically and I still agree with the additional affects that our stats could do. icon_smile.gif Luc: customizable teleports, astral or summons. sort of like how bamfin and out works. this would be neat. >>You can make an alias for it, right? It's just a hero reward for the bamfin/out when using goto. ^,^ -------------------- Kiri's WWW of URLs: Want to know if California had an earthquake today? http://www.trinet.org/eqreports/eqreports.html The federal government's official job site http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/ The surprising benefits of being unemployed, from amystery http://www.dvorkin.com/essays/unemben.htm Queen of Wands webcomic, from Scavenger. Some of this may be adult material. http://www.queenofwands.net/ ---------------- Seinfeldisms Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle? Can you be a closet claustrophobic? Why is the word abbreviation so long? Is it possible to be totally partial? What's another word for thesaurus? If a book about failures doesn't sell, is it a success? If the funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their lightsoff? When companies ship Styrofoam, what do they pack it in? If you're cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right? If a stealth bomber crashes in a forest, will it make a sound? If the cops arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent? If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages? When it rains, why don't sheep shrink? Should vegetarians eat animal crackers? Do cemetery workers prefer the graveyard shift? What do you do when you see an endangered animal that eats only endangered plants? Do hungry crows have ravenous appetites? If a mute swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap? If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation? Instead of talking to your plants, if you yelled at them would they still grow? Only to be troubled and insecure? Is their another word for synonym? Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice"? When sign makers go on strike, is anything written on their signs? When you open a bag of cotton balls, is the top one meant to be thrown away? Where do forest rangers go to get away from it all? Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food? Why do they report power outages on TV? October 15, 2003 Welcome to the Barren Realms MUD Newsletter! Visit BR at telnet://barren.coredcs.com:8000/ Why? It's free! It's fun! It's friendly! ------------- News from the Realms: Brindar: Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians! I want to wish all of our Canadian members a very Happy Thanksgiving (or Happy Bird if you prefer). AMystery: Happy Thanksgiving I would also like to wish all of you a happy thanksgiving, but not a happy bird. Let the birds be thankful also and focus on eachother and not your stomachs. Ongoing Quests: DevilsAngel: Halloween quest If you are still waiting to get a chance for the haunted house quest, please send me a note with the name of the character or characters that you want to go through, and when you are primarily online. I will do my best to get as many through as I can. There is still plenty of time to get everyone in =), so please don't panic or anything. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check the forums under quests!! Thanks Dev --------------------------------------- IDEAS: feel free to reply to any of these: Kithrim: spell for kender 'locate (object) to locate objects with in there area/location Redeemer: automatic afk flags for idle imms (for say over 30 minteutes) so us heroes can take care of bad-behaving children when the grownups are away Spiderman: have women and men's bathrooms so we can do our business and girls can chitchat in them about the boys Redeemer: change the angry griffins in malathar from see invis aggro to regular noninvis aggro so morties can just go invis to get their corpses DwarfMan: Player stealing should be allowed in arena. Take "ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK" to another level :) DwarfMan: why can't i cast expose on myself outside of arena? But I can fireball and flamestrike myself? Every spell should work on yourself outside of arena. Redeemer: make death defeater potions cheaper because some lower mortals don't have thousands to spend to get pass door to get o their corpses Its: when ever a demon gets a new limb it always says agonizing pain somewhere, why not take hit points off for diffrent amount of pain, for example small bird wings would be alot less painful then large bat wings. -------------------------------------- Kiri's WWW of URLs: From Dakata, the cost of living calculator between states and cities http://www.homefair.com/homefair/calc/salcalc.html From Scavenger, very creepy vitamin ads! http://www.lileks.com/institute/dayalets/index.html Cries of a bounty hunter - it details the joys of Star wars galaxies bounty hunting http://www.cothernfactory.com/criesofabh/ Some of the funniest mistranslations of LOTR you have ever seen! Warning, some of the translations are naughty (and wrong) http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/engrish/ttt_captions/00-20.htm ---------------------------------------------- Replies by Anakin: Strydar: isnt there someway to make a higher int or wis do more spell damage? you think this would work... >>I think the flaming code already boosts the druid and elf spells but if you're referring to the non-flaming races, I think this could work. *shrugs* Not that big of a deal though. Luc: customizable teleports, astral or summons. sort of like how bamfin and out works. this would be neat. >>An alternative to this that I see people do is that they make a TP alias. It still shows you casting the spell but works perfectly with another message. Ghaleon: A quote channel to quote stuff... >>Wtf? Who is this guy? He's starting to get on my nerves! But yeah... Quotes from different movies/shows/whatever can be neat. AMystery: bring back disintigrate but allow it to be used on players. no corpses, everything goes to recall. it would be like a slay but with a chance of a saving throw >>Why am I not surprised it's Amy who suggested this? *shrugs* I have no use to this and I don't see any players that will (or are you referring to an imm spell?). KITHRIM: what about an option to buy BR bonds? goes like this buy a bond for x dollars and growth on the bond increases per level you are given a bond item (which you must hold) if you die poof bond goes as well. >>Anything new like this is a good on my list. I just remembered someone saying that if we have a better bank code, we should also code thieves stealing on our bank accounts and that's a no-no for me. icon_razz.gif Luc: i meant a flag such as (sneaking) on a player if they are sneaking and you have detect hidden on. >>Even better, improve Holylight so avatars can see characters/mobs sneak in a room. icon_biggrin.gif WhouRang: kick people that have are idle for more than 20 mins >>Does this apply to imms too? Nope. Better to just set up an AFK flag to whomever will get sucked into the void (or for people idle for more than 20 minutes). This way, if an imm forgets to put the flag, it will automatically put it up for them. I don't see why the others should have a limit to it otherwise. Disaster: there should be a command, qah (for question and answer history) showing both the questions and answers in the proper order >>Proper order? So if someone uses the question channel, the first to use the answer channel will get paired up with it? Sure. Ghaleon: Illithids should know someway to dispel their magic. They made it up, they should know a way to reverse it somehow. Exe: intelligence should have something to do with hitroll, dodge and parry... maybe disarm too, i mean, how many stupid people can seriously dodge a sword-swipe? >>Eh? It's better if intelligence is connected to spells or healing but... fighting? *shrugs* Kithrim: BR drag races think about it!! >>There are drag race quests held every once in a while. Just have to catch some people and poke them if they want to do it. ---------- Replies by Nyteshade: AMystery: bring back disintigrate but allow it to be used on players. no corpses, everything goes to recall. it would be like a slay but with a chance of a saving throw >>Why am I not surprised it's Amy who suggested this? *shrugs* I have no use to this and I don't see any players that will (or are you referring to an imm spell?). >>>I wouldn't mind this what is wrong wit it? WhouRang: kick people that have are idle for more than 20 mins >>Does this apply to imms too? Nope. Better to just set up an AFK flag to whomever will get sucked into the void (or for people idle for more than 20 minutes). This way, if an imm forgets to put the flag, it will automatically put it up for them. I don't see why the others should have a limit to it otherwise. >>> heh I think he was mad this day....or something made him say this. But what I think he meant was that if you are idle from br for a long period of time you should be booted there is no reason you should be online if you're not doing anything (talking to other doesn't count you should be able to do this) I mean you're not doing ANYTHING. stop being online you discourage people. when they try and talk to you and you are not even there it makes them feel bad (maybe they don't know you aren't there but just aren't tryin to answer their questions). Even if you have the afk flag on the whole day and you're sittin there WHY? what are you achieving, contributing to the mud nothin at all. ------------------- Replies by Everybody: We have a timeout system in place. People have circumvented it. This is what is called "anti-void triggers". If you can think of a better way to show that people aren't doing anything, great. I can't. More power to you. Basically, although the idea is decent, it's already in place, and simply can't be enforced through code. Too bad. ------------------- Signs You Have Already Grown Up Your potted plants stay alive. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to sleep. You hear your favourite song on an elevator. You carry an umbrella. You watch the Weather Channel. Your friends marry instead of hook-up and break-up. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 7. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as 'dressed up'. You're the one calling the police because those darn kids next door don't know how to turn down the stereo. You don't know what time Taco Bell closes anymore. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonald's. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt. You no longer take naps from noon to 6 p.m. Dinner and a movie - The whole date instead of the beginning of one. You actually eat breakfast foods at breakfast time. Grocery lists are longer than macaroni & cheese, diet Pepsi & Ho-Ho's. October 23, 2003 Welcome to the Barren Realms MUD Newsletter! Please visit BR at: telnet://barren.coredcs.com:8000/ News from the Realms: Ghaleon: Another Halloween Quest Just an addition to the already long Halloween Quests is a Costume Party. The object of the quest is to find 5 items that you'd wear for Halloween Simple enough? You can email me what you've got. kineyas@comcast.net Everyone can join the quest (from levels 2 - 155). There are different categories in judging (to be announced). There are no spell restrictions, locate all you want, I want to see some originality though. :) Quest ends in October 30. Remember, we're still looking for the costumes. On 31, we wear them. ;D Quest sponsored by Leiland. All questions can be directed to me. You don't have to WEAR these items, you don't have to POSSESS these items either. All you have to do is simply list them all, and email them to me. If the item has a really hard keyword, attach it cause it has to be in BR. >>Ghaleon Wings DevilsAngel: Haunted house quest The haunted house is set up and ready to go again. =) Some of you have gotten in touch with me about times and dates to go through. I will be around both Wed and Thurs between 1pm and 3pm to take people through this week. I've gotten a few notes on people wanting to go through, but unfortunatly none have really specified a good time for them. With varying schedules I know this can be difficult, but I'll be trying as much as I can. I have Tempo, Melissa and Drail all around the same level wanting to enter. So level 21-25 I'll run this Sunday at 1pm system time. I also am aware of Frai and Tiamet who are both the same levels as well so lets do 12-16 on Sunday at 2pm system time. If you are between those levels and would like to enter please come that day if possible. =) Sorry this note is a bit confusing, it has been a rough morning. If you have no clue what this note refers to, Visit the BR forums! http://www.barrenrealmsmud.com/forum/ Will get you there. Click on quests and read all about the haunted house there. Please show up following all rules of the quest. They are posted on the forums as well. Thanks again everyone for playing!!! Ghaleon: Image Battle Just a reminder for the Image Battle Quest. :) Details can be found in: http://www.barrenrealmsmud.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=559 Disaster: tgames quest for this sunday a bit of a change this week, there's some preparation needed before sunday. please send me a note with the names of all the tgamers and who you believe their alt to be. (see, told you it would be a good idea to keep your identity a secret) the deadline for sending me that note will be 7:00 system time this coming sunday. (7:00 not 6:00 since some people may not be able to be on until our regular start time of 6:00 and i want to give them an hour to write and send a note) i won't be telling you how i'll be assigning points until after i already have your notes and have had a chance to analyze them, so don't ask. oh, and i mean "all tgamers" in the sense of all those who have been tgamers, including those who are no longer participating/been voted out. you can send me your list of tgamers/alts by email if you prefer, but if you do please send me a note letting me know that you have sent me an email. my spam filter is rather unreliable, but if i know how many emails i should be looking for it will make my life a whole lot simpler. -dis QUEST RESULTS: Disaster: tgames Sun Oct 19 18:57:15 2003 To: all well, torr-penn won 20-17 in a game of drunken item gathering. Disaster: tgames hecete got 5 votes, inspire got 1 vote. hecete, fraid you're out. -------------- IDEAS: Its: when ever a demon gets a new limb it always says agonizing pain somewhere, why not take hit points off for diffrent amount of pain, for example small bird wings would be alot less painful then large bat wings. Robert: how about a message when weaken fails to have an effect? Exo: ok, when you get to the drunk condition, and then you sleep, once you are sober, when you wake up, you should have a hangover, make it so your mv/hp goes down when you hit sober Exe: ok, i think we need resitances here, we have save-vs-spell and save-vs-breath, but cant we take it further? mayve turn save-vs-spell in magic resistance and make a few more, like save vs fire ect? Kitsune: We have a music channel for lyrics and such, how about a movie channel for movie quotes? Just a thought :) ---------- Responses to last week's newsletter: Replies by Dreamkeeper: Kithrim: spell for kender 'locate (object) to locate objects with in there area/location In reply to Kithrim: Kenders already get the peek command in guild at level 2 and if I recall correctly with no cost to use it. I think giving them the locate spell aswell makes things sometimes just a little too easy. Redeemer: automatic afk flags for idle imms (for say over 30 minutes) so us heroes can take care of bad-behaving children when the grownups are away In reply to Redeemer: I wholeheartedly agree with this idea. Way too many times we have had the problem of being unable to deal with problems, I guess I wasn't the only one sick of seeing "Let the immortals deal with it" message. Then again they have done their best to help us solve the problem of afk Immortals so let's be patient, they have so much to do and only so much time to do it in. Spiderman: have women and men's bathrooms so we can do our business and girls can chitchat in them about the boys In reply to Spiderman: I must admit seperate bathrooms? I honestly dont see the need for it or how it would improve anything. Then again remember we have M/F/N not just M/F Redeemer: change the angry griffins in malathar from see invis aggro to regular noninvis aggro so morties can just go invis to get their corpses In reply to Redeemer: Isn't running into a aggro, seeinvis mob something we should consideration before going in the area in the first place? We know the risks and should either stay out or deal with it. DwarfMan: Player stealing should be allowed in arena. Take "ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK" to another level :) In Reply to Dwarfman: Maybe if it can be coded for the Alundra arena to be able to do that it would be kewl, but for the normal arena, it would cause too many complaints and I dont think it's worth it. Redeemer: make death defeater potions cheaper because some lower mortals don't have thousands to spend to get pass door to get o their corpses In reply to Redeemer: I totally agree, the death defeater really shouldn't be that expensive, low level chars dont have that sort of money, or tend to keep it in their packs to avoids the thiefs. A more reasonable price would be far better. -------------- Kiri's WWW of URLs: The CIA nation factbook is fascinating. Here's their review of the Netherlands. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nl.html From Scavenger, the Iowa Corn-Cam.. omg the excitement never stops http://www.iowafarmer.com/corncam/corn.html I have no idea what it is... but it's pretty http://www.boohbah.com/zone.html Virtual fishtank http://www.virtualfishtank.com/fishtank/fishtank.html ------------ Useful English System Conversion Units Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter: Eskimo Pi 2.4 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital: 1 I.V. League 2000 pounds of Chinese soup: Won ton 1 millionth mouthwash: 1 microscope Speed of a tortoise breaking the sound barrier: Mach Turtle Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour: Knot-furlong Half of a large intestine: 1 semicolon 1000 aches: 1 megahurtz Weight of evangelist: 1 billigram Basic unit of laryngitis: 1 hoarsepower Shortest distance between two jokes: A straight line Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement: bananosecond 453.6 graham crackers: 1 pound cake 1 million microphones: 1 megaphone 1 million bicycles: 2 megacycles 365.25 days: 1 unicycle 2200 mockingbirds: two kilomockingbirds 10 cards: 1 decacards 1 kilogram of falling figs: 1 Fig Newton 1000 grams of wet socks: 1 literhosen 1 millionth of a fish: 1 microfiche 1 trillion pins: 1 terrapin 10 rations: 1 decoration 100 rations: 1 C-ration 10 millipedes: 1 centipede 3 1/3 tridents: 1 decadent 10 monologs: 5 dialogs 5 dialogs: 1 decalog 2 monograms: 1 diagram 8 nickels: 2 paradigms 2 wharves: 1 paradox