Abandoned Codex

Seph · Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:52 am Post subject: Future?

Ok, theres no beating around the bush...
This place is dead.
It's a chatroom for 2 people at a time.
I know, everyones busy, everyones growing up, yadda yadda yadda, but I've poured alot of soul into this game for many years, and I guess a naive part of me just kinda assumed it would never die. So, while we still have around 8 or so players left, lets figure out what the fuck we can do about this, and figure it out now!

I explained briefly the whole 'rune-based' magic system to Priest and Cedrick tonight, and they seemed to dig it, so that may be an option, although I dunno how much it'll do to bring people around again, but better than nothing. If it is an option we want to take, it'll take TONS of coding... but if it can be done, I'm all for mapping out the runewords/combinations/effects/elegablility tables. I've done it before, it's bitchwork, but what the hell.
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Cedrick · Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:59 am Post subject:

Like Seph, I've been here for a pretty long time - not as long as him, of course, but for the better part of the last five years I've played this MUD, and I'd like it much if we could bring it back to life. Although my coding skills are pretty minimal, I can help with the planning and testing of any new features we could add, and provided I knew I wasn't the only one helping, I'm more than willing to help build new areas as well.
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Huh?

Messiah · Joined: 17 Sep 2004 Posts: 5

No arguements here.. Place is dead.. Erilyn doesn't even log on anymore less I bug her to do so. You know somethings wrong when the idle queen herself moves on. Like Seph, I've dedicated a rather large part of my adult life to the mud, and I don't want to see it go. So, I'm hoping we can figure out something to do for us relics.

As for Seph's suggestion on the rune spells, it sounds cool enough, awesome really, but with that we face one massive problem, it's not the most user friendly, let alone newbie friendly. It's not that we have a lack of skills or spells I think, there's just too much to do unless you put forward several years of your life, then your still working at it. To me, the problem is that the game requiers too much time and effort to get where you want to. It's frustrating, and one easily losses motivation to keep on dragging themselves through the mire.

I don't want any of that to be taken the wrong way, I think the muds great, it has to be, while else would us decaders be hanging around, or trying so hard otherwise? I just want to put forward my thought, my reasoning.. We play games to have fun, not to stress, worry, or frustrate ourselves. New and old players alike are looking for fun, the ability to feel your getting somewhere, accomplishing something. Not instant gratification or anything, certainly not, but we've been losing newbies and those not addicted because the game just takes too much work, is too difficult to get somewhere.

I know all the work the admins have put into the mud and making it what it is today, and as usual, I hate being the one to move against that direction that has been taken, sounding unappreciative or ungrateful. Seriously though, anyone with a long enough memory can see it for themselves, as the mud has become more difficult and challenging, the playerbase has shrank, newbies haven't stayed as long.. Back in the days when things were "too easy" is when the mud actually thrived.

I remember all too clearly sitting in Nightmare clan hall, rampant pk action, constant roleplay, but mostly, the people. There was always people, things were always happening. I myself want a return to those days. Some people leveled fast, others slow.. Point being, back then, people got what they were looking for, be it challenge, or wracking up the levels quickly. These days, eh.. You've got to walk on broken legs for one level or that piece of eq that'll help you kill that mob for just a tiny bit more xp. So everyone is worried about losing that hard earned xp or equipment, not out having pissing contests with rivals or too uncomfortable with where they're standing to sit back and really enjoy rping.

Anyways, that's my two cents.
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Gareth · Admin 2 Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 525

It's all very well doing these things to increase interest for the endgamers (i.e. you lot), but for more people overall the problem's a lot more basic and fundamental to all muds: advertise. Big up the mud to your friends, to people online, in your email sig, on mud forums (where appropriate - respect the forum's rules), on whatever random unrelated forums you regularly post, on myspace, on other muds (where appropriate - just creating a char and spamming adverts is lame - only do this on muds you already actually play properly). If you're not on any mud forums, join some! http://www.mudmagic.com , http://www.mudconnect.com , http://www.topmudsites.com , http://www.mudlab.org are some. There's probably others.

And of course don't forget to bookmark the TMC vote page and vote daily.

Take a look at what Thy Quest MUD is doing - they've barely been going a month or two and they've already got a decent playerbase because you can't go to any mud website at the moment without hearing about Thy Quest. The guy that runs it has even set up Yet Another vote-based top muds site as a handy way of making all the other smaug muds indirectly link to his... that's the kind of marketing nous we need over here.

I can't stress enough that this is something you guys need to pick up the ball on - I can't do it on my own.

Norik · Avatar 2 Joined: 01 May 2004 Posts: 58

We can always try to sabotage WoW...

Nightblade · Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 8:24 pm Post subject:

Seph · Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 2:43 am Post subject:

ok... so I make about $36,000 canadian a year... whats everyone else make?
Whoever makes the most out of all of us has to fund a giant advertising run!
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"Sleep well, sweet child... the lord holds thee now."

neq · Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 4:11 am Post subject:

I'm a college student my net profit for a year is
$-6000 us dollars Sad

personally i think its all broadband's fault if everyone had to use Dial-up the mud would come back to life

Nightblade · Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 6:20 am Post subject:

Yea... Seph is gonna win this one.
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"Eye level for a kender is door-lock height for the same reason a chipmunk has extra cheek space."

"A kender will take anything that's not nailed down, and a kender with a good claw hammer will get those things too"

Gareth · Admin 2 Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 525

Vicks · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 4:12 pm Post subject:

Advertising is well and good, but from what I remember like 6 months ago (hell, maybe it was a year ... i don't know Razz

) we had a pretty substantial number of new players. Then they slowly started dissappearing. I know this'll probably be greeted with another "stop being such a pussy" response Wink

, but I can't help but think that making leveling easier would do a lot of good towards keeping players logging after they've found the place. I know there are certain players that can already level like a knife through butter (believe me, I'm not one of them Razz

), but for most people leveling seems to be an excruciating struggle. As long as I'm on a roll, although I know it's not the type of environment you like to cultivate, I for one would love to see more (any? Wink

) PK'ers roaming Arathnos ... many of the greatest times I've had in this MUD have involved PK.

Nightblade · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 6:49 pm Post subject:

Vicks · Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 5:08 pm Post subject:

Gareth · Admin 2 Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 525

I want to make levelling more varied and interesting, but I strongly believe that to say it needs to be 'easier' (in the sense of 'quicker' at any rate) is to focus too heavily on the av-game. You yourselves being avs no doubt feel differently about avhood, but I've always seen it as something that was tacked onto the end of the 'real' game as a diversion for those who'd beat it and didn't want to start over.
That said, it is true that there's a massive discrepancy between the rates at which different people level (ignoring class balance). So any suggestions on what that particular state of affairs might be would be, well, listened to.
More to the point, I'd interested in getting rid of anything that might exist along the lines of what happened to me on another mud I played a few weeks back that had no 'recall', movement points regenerated at about 8 a minute at level 2, and I was stuck in an area for half an hour only being able to move at a rate of 4 rooms per minute (moving cost 2 for some reason). I eventually got out by just letting myself get killed. So basically what I'm getting at is, are there any particularly frustrating treadmills that exist at lower levels that have been overlooked?

Nightblade · Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:29 pm Post subject:

Dunno how many of you have read this in the past, but it might be worthwhile... who knows, maybe it'll give someone an idea. I found it to pretty much hit the nail on the head, but there's only so much that can be done -
http://www.raphkoster.com/?p=214
(Make sure to read both parts. It's kinda long, but if you're bored at work it will probably relieve some of the dull worklife)
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"Eye level for a kender is door-lock height for the same reason a chipmunk has extra cheek space."

"A kender will take anything that's not nailed down, and a kender with a good claw hammer will get those things too"