Message 11922 : [*LONG*] MUME suggestions, etc. (Kienna) Written on Mon Apr 22 18:53:04 1996 Warning. The following is a traditional Kienna (i.e. rather long), and the actual suggestions for MUME don't show up until the 2nd or third page on a 25-line screen. The total document is around 10 pages on the same screen. I see in this entire thread the same thread that keeps popping up over and over again... That about what exactly makes a "real" legend. And every time the question pops up, I can only ever really think one thing. Bah. MUME (the software) does not currently have the ability to recognize a real legend. PKs? Bah. Important only if that's all you play for, and if that's all you play for, you're a loser, IMNSHO. Go get a life. TPs? I used to think that was more respectable. What it really is is a measure of time played on the system. Exp? Well, that's what sparked this whole controversy this time, isn't it? Kind of scary that people like Phier, whom I personally despise, have gained a chunk of my respect by their very absence. That degree will serve you far better than another Valfaroth, Phier. Heh. Petrel's doing one of his informal on-line surveys right now as I'm typing this. One of the subjects was (rated from -5 to 5, 5 being strongly agree), "I think MUME has a strong role-playing atmosphere." Ended up with a mean of -3, I think :) Which is partially why I'm leaving. I came here because I happen to love Tolkien and role-playing, and the way folks here like to play, there's no way the imps can possibly keep this game either Tolkeinish or stimulate proper roleplaying without major reconstruction that will please nobody. Let's get this straight: MUME IS STILL A CHEESY DIKU MUD. It's a massively complex, highly detailed Diku mud with features up the wazoo, but it's still an exp, mobkill based mud that rewards mindlessness to the point where players like myself write programs to play for them since it's too boring to level and too boring to play at low level. This being said, let me be the first to send my kudos to Manwe and crew for doing a hard job in a hard spot full of ungrateful wretches, including myself. That done, let's get to the reconstruction phase. Kudos first to Sandello for the idea of removing the various protections from high level players. Some of the other things that might have made me more inclined to stay: - RP paths chosen for a character, complete with experience gain modifications. If I declare at the outset of character creation that I'm going to be a support/healing cleric, then I'll get more experience than normal from someone else's kills in a group, less for my own, and experience for healing others. If I declare that I'm a wanderer/hunter, I'll have a TP/XP run kind of like a BN. - Complete reworking of the attribute and class system. Make it variable, character chosen, and the numbers permanently concealed from characters. By this I mean that at the time of character creation, the player is asked questions about what type of things a character likes to do (anyone remember the starting questions in the Ultima games?) and what kind of physical/mental attributes a character has relative to each other. "When forced into combat, do you rely more upon your might, your speed, your stealth, or your magic?" "Are you stronger than you are fast, or swifter than you are mighty?" : You are very strong, somewhat stupid, have little care for the gods, moderately quick and are known for your strong will. If a character who has claimed stupidity to gain strength is caught leading tactical forays into enemy territory, demote him. This is going to make the Ainur very unpopular and should cut the MUME population down to a more manageable size. It should also cut out some of the problems with the "all-cut-from-the-same-mold" type characters. People who claim that they like to settle their physical problems with the blade, but choose speed over strength should get little experience for using a smiting weapon in a fight. Similarly, big brawling type folks who claim that they like to just stand there and take the damage until the opponent drops dead should lose proportionally greater experience than hit-and-run style players - Rebuild the prac system from scratch. Create skills that upgrade themselves. When you choose to learn cure light wounds at low level, and later reach the level for cure serious, the first skill becomes the second. The way the system currently is, a player has to wait a long time online not using his skill to cure light wounds so she'll have the pracs free for cure serious or heal later. This make any sense to anyone? I'd also like to construct a "prac-free" kind of a system, where one has a certain number of new skills that one can learn, but they start at the minimal usefulness category (i.e. 30%ish or so), and the ability to use them merely increases with time and use (note: not just use. The idea is not to create spamuse, which in theory should advance you in your skill exactly as quickly as someone who uses the skill once or twice per day in a real situation). Get rid of prac decay for skills that have advanced over 70% or so or make it a temporary loss until you put some work back into it. Does anyone here honestly believe that people forget skills that are sometimes crucial to their survival to such an extent that they have to go back to a master in the art to remember how to do it? Maybe if one doesn't use a skill for half a dozen years or so, but not in a matter of months. However, if that skill never left the 30% starting point, I can easily see it vanishing back to zero fairly quickly. Pracs outside one's RP-set should be learnable at the same base cost, but will improve themselves at a much slower rate. - On the other hand, prac resets should NOT be reinstated. If you're going to learn a skill to a high value, you better be willing to role-play a character that chose that path in life. This requires that any skill that could be made useless be either immediately removed from the game or be given an upgrade path. You should not be physically able to practice a skill in this game that is useless to you, and have it prevent you from acquiring other skills. - Along the same lines, rebuild the spells from scratch. I made a series of suggestions on the mage board for this a long time ago, which were completely ignored. If an Ainur wants to see them again, I still have 'em saved as a text file. Request them via MUME- or E-mail. - Alignment system revamping: Start every level 1 at dead neutral, which from the moral perspective of the posting players, will actually represent someone who is slightly evil. Neutral in this case to me will represent the social average, around which societies construct themselves. Let players demonstrate their alignment as time goes by. Anything that causes wanton harm to another lowers it. Being a giving/helpful kind of person raises it (this will take a lot of work to imp, but in my mind is logistically possible even to code this so that Ainur involvement is minimal). Killing bad guys raises it in an absolutely minimum fashion. Lower the penalties for being on the evil side of things, since the governments are going to be equally corrupt on average. Seriously raise the bonuses for being good. Reserve the Sent on Arda classification for people that have REALLY earned it and give the suckers permanent protection vs evil, bless, armour and sanct spells or some such. Don't mess with those whom the gods love... It's a bad sign when an up-and-coming Istar is told that it's best to have an alignment almost as low as you can swing it while still being able to sail west because you get the better Metas. - Equipment reduction: It's kind of silly when a L21 fully equipped can rock a L31 naked so badly that he can hardly see what hit him. This encourages munchkinism. Get rid of everything more powerful than a FGC. Keep the artifacts but lower the decay time. And while the changes are in motion, get rid of the idiotic "crumbling" descriptions. If they truly crumbled, they wouldn't be popping back up all over the place. Have them phase out or blink in and out around Arda. Give them multiple hiding places a-la the Majestic Oak Tree. Maybe limit their use to the Sent on Arda class of people. - Limit Teleport to be similar to Word of Recall in that it only goes to certain locations, the keywords of which are given only after you visit them firsthand. I'm not saying however that you shouldn't have lots of locations tho... This will immediately obviate (erm, similar but not quite the same as get rid of, for non-English speakers... suddenly realized that not all my US compatriots even know that word) the need for the misport mechanism. Having portals that only go between two specific points could be interesting as well. Massively increase the power of the Breath of Briskness for those that have chosen the Healing and Prayer based arts as their lifestyle. Limit the spell to personal use for those that have chosen Thaumaturgy. Give clerics XP for moving large groups across Arda. - Implement quest-type things that can be done. Now that I've done a bit of examining of other muds, I've found it extremely odd that MUME of all places seems to be so far behind in this area. - On Tolkeinism: Let's freely admit that you can't have a system based more than very loosely on Tolkein in an online, PK-oriented, AD&D based multiple player environment. It just doesn't work. Most of us by now know that if MUME actually followed Tolkein, there wouldn't be much in the way of PK, mages, magic, legends, killable supermobs, legend equipment, danger west of the Misties, brave suicidal bounders, visitable places like Fornost and Moria or any of the hundred other things we've come to expect from MUME. If the Ainur really want a Tolkein-based RPG system, I heartily reccommend that they examine GURPS Middle Earth by Steve Jackson games. If not, then I hope they stop making playability-style decisions based on Tolkeinicity. Making a change in an area because it doesn't match the description of Middle Earth is one thing. Making a change in how players can interact with the world based on the same thing is absurdity. - On the problem of high-levs: I'm guessing that if all the aforementioned changes are implemented, the problem will be much relieved for the simple reason that the rewards at high levels will inherently be different for people along different paths. If all the changes are made, a global pchar reset should also be made. That will herald MUME VII (or perhaps MUME X). That and the nullification of certain protections at high levels such as those Sandello/Syd proposed should keep things in line. As it currently is, it's not too much fun to play at lower levels as you keep getting nuked every time you go outside. At least with the new changes in porting, darkness and locate you aren't getting whacked by another player every other day except on the major battle sites. - On the problem of low-levs: If stat-hunting is made obsolete, low-levs will be mostly either real newbies or people examining another life-path. If all the life-paths are made equal in terms of role-play (and yes, some life paths will be easier to PK with than others, so don't take your support priest into the Warrens alone), and the landscape is made relatively non-lethal in most areas, and quests are implemented for the different paths, they should have a good amount of fun while more or less incidentally gaining levels. In my mind, gaining levels should not be a goal in an RPG. It should sort of happen to you along the way almost by accident. - On Darkies and their problems: I've never played a darkie thoroughly enough to give an equivalent analysis, and considering the average literacy level I doubt anyone besides the Ainur would want to read it anyway. For the purposes of this system, Darkies will be mostly a self-serving, murder-based path that will get experience for being greedy and lose it for helping each other out. That oughtta make things interesting for a while. I hear all this about darkies always being so nice to each other while whities are mostly scum to each other. Considering how blatantly anti-RP *both* situations are for the most part, I'd like to see the situation reversed. Of course, if major items are removed from the game, this will be a lot easier. - On Realdeath and aging: You gotta be kidding. In addition to the aforementioned PK problems with aging characters, I certainly won't bother to play at all once I realize that everything I've done over the last couple of years could vanish in my sleep. Though I admit it would be funny as hell to see some poor Istar rent and come back the next day at Level 1. Though I'm sure of course it wouldn't be funny to the Istar... Random realdeath solves fewer problems than a global pchar wipe, creates more, and will drive away more characters. I don't think anyone in his or her right mind would play in such a system (granted, that still leaves a lot of people playing MUME, but not perhaps the people you want to have playing MUME). So there you have it. It no longer makes a difference to me either way. By the tinges hit, I'll be one of two things: either a retired immort or an unretired, unplayed character that'll autodelete in a year or so. Depends on whether or not I can drag enough time free away from my studies to finish the quest in the next couple of weeks. But basically, unless when I come back in a few years I can only barely recognize MUME, I won't be playing again. E-mail address while I'm here, for anyone (especially Ainur) that want to discuss any of the above is: kienna@b65201.cwru.edu That address will expire, and all mail sent to it will bounce, after the first week of May. Don't bother trying to find me after that. - Kienna Eldanar, the Firestar - Elven Bardic Mage studying the intricate sound of the Ainulindale.