New rooms / new regions

[theebie]

I've played the game since many years, and know most of the regions / animals by now. There's few to no possibility to explore something fresh and new.

I personally would like the world to consistently grow. Maybe it'd be possible to take some parts of the arm2 world into the game ? now that arm2 isn't coming ?
Or how about players beeing allowed to write new rooms, and how they're connected, and staff places them into the world where it may fit ?

And/or how about players writing new animals that then can be placed somewhere, either in the existant or new regions ?

regards,
theebie

[BleakOne]

I love new rooms and locations.

We've had a bunch of new ones added in the recent past. Both revamps of old locations, and the addition of some new ones.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I always love these ideas of expansion. So yeah.

[Nyr]

I guess we'll just ignore the building we did last year...?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

No. I'm just voicing support for new regions and whatnot - not suggesting that you're not already doing that or that you have not already done that previously. Obviously you are and have. I think the OP was just suggesting consistant growth ... wait, no, I see what you saw, Nyr.

That said, I still love the addition of new material, Nyr, and expansion. Theebie, there actually are a couple of new locales in game, that while not exactly expanding the world, have created new areas within the framework of the Known.

[theebie]

I did see some changes in the world itself, but I haven't noticed new areas that haven't been there in the one form or the other before. (Though that of course doesn't mean that there are none, I might have just not found them).

I thought though about areas the size of the grey forest, or the eastern plains. There should be thousands of rooms from arm2 for example ?

[Nyr]

Yes, there are thousands of rooms from Armageddon Reborn.  However, there's not as much that is easily usable from Armageddon Reborn.  A large part of it were settlements that were very fleshed out but do not fit into this game.  A large part of it is regional stuff that overlays what we already have.  Like scrublands that are south of the Grey Forest.  Or Tablelands.  Or the Grey Forest itself.

We put in or altered about five hundred rooms last year.  I think we did okay.  We'll continue to build as needed.  We've already said we'll use what we can when we have time and effort devoted to those kinds of expansions.

[slvrmoontiger]

I love exploring as much as the next person that's the reason a majority of my players are hunter types. There are still many places I haven't seen and might never see. I don't think its possible for the OP to have seen EVERYTHING. I'm also wary to say sure lets get new places. It will only cause the population to become more and more sporadic (something the staff is trying to discourage based on the making of two taverns in Tuluk virtual).

When you walk through Tuluk at 10pm Server Time and run into maybe one or two PCs in the whole city it gets to be quite concerning that people are requesting new places to be developed. I think we need a bigger player base to encourage social interaction before new rooms get built. And as mentioned new rooms were opened and built during the last HRPT.

[Molten Heart]

I'm a big fan of whole new areas.  Exploring far off lands and discovering the hidden mysteries, dangers, treasures to be found there.  Areas like the silt sea and the chasm north of Gol-Krathu are prime examples of areas that could be expanded.  Building is always a huge project.  When new zones are added they add value simply because they'll continue to be there long after they've been added.

[RogueGunslinger]

New rooms/areas are always sweet.. The ones added recently to the labyrinth are amazing.

[manonfire]

I think OP is talking about expanding the borders of the gameworld, not editing room descriptions or adding to current areas.

Examples: the area north of the Grey Forest, east of the Red Desert, and west of the Mal Krian canyons. All are perfect places to expand the gameworld borders. Hell, the area east of the Salt Flats is a prime candidate for overhauling. That entire area is kinda wasted.

But, you know, red tape.

[RogueGunslinger]

I think OP is talking about expanding the borders of the gameworld, not editing room descriptions or adding to current areas.

Examples: the area north of the Grey Forest, east of the Red Desert, and west of the Mal Krian canyons. All are perfect places to expand the gameworld borders.

But, you know, red tape.

Not sure how many people even get out to the edges of the known in the first place. I'd say maybe 5-10% of the playerbase lives long enough to be able to deal with the shit out there.

But definitely more stuff out there isn't a bad thing. The more the merrier.

[manonfire]

I think OP is talking about expanding the borders of the gameworld, not editing room descriptions or adding to current areas.

Examples: the area north of the Grey Forest, east of the Red Desert, and west of the Mal Krian canyons. All are perfect places to expand the gameworld borders.

But, you know, red tape.

Not sure how many people even get out to the edges of the known in the first place. I'd say maybe 5-10% of the playerbase lives long enough to be able to deal with the shit out there.

I think you answered your own question.

[manonfire]

Something I've always wanted to see is a mirror of the 'In the Air' rooms, but underground. The same sort of 5:1 ground to air room ratio that connects the top part of the gameworld would also connect the underground.

It'd be accessibly by <redacted> via <redacted>. Why should Whirans have all the fun?

[Saellyn]

Don't we have a sewer that conceivable runs a pretty long distance? Oh, wait, that's not magical... is it?

And that place is fucking dangerous too isn't it?

I like the idea of expanding the game, but it -is- pretty big as it is. I do appreciate the mass overhaul, although I haven't seen the Rinth yet to know -what- exactly was added, I imagine it was pretty cool. Wasn't it something ike 50-100 new rooms in just that one area?

[RogueGunslinger]

Don't we have a sewer that conceivable runs a pretty long distance? Oh, wait, that's not magical... is it?

And that place is fucking dangerous too isn't it?

I like the idea of expanding the game, but it -is- pretty big as it is. I do appreciate the mass overhaul, although I haven't seen the Rinth yet to know -what- exactly was added, I imagine it was pretty cool. Wasn't it something ike 50-100 new rooms in just that one area?

Only about 25 new rooms, about 15 new NPC's. But it's a major facelift with some neat... things that should be found out in-game.

[HavokBlue]

People are talking about a bunch of places in this thread that aren't really documented and might not be common knowledge.

[Lizzie]

People are talking about a bunch of places in this thread that aren't really documented and might not be common knowledge.

Hey at least no one's brought up that Smurf Village east of the yellow brick road. They'd have to flood that bitch if anyone found out about it.

[Desertman]

In 15+ years I haven't seen the majority of the game world. Well, maybe a slight majority, but I know there are tons and tons of rooms I have never seen.

I don't play non-mundane classes though, so my ability to "explore" is limited based on mundane skills and the needs/wants/desires of mundane roles.

I am pro-expansion, because who isn't pro-expansion?

That is like asking if you want cake with your ice cream. Have you seen how zaftig I am? If course I want cake with my ice cream.  

Of course I want more rooms and places to potentially explore one day, even if I never actually explore them.

[BleakOne]

The game world is huge and awesome, but I'm not ashamed to say I'd always like more of a good thing. 

[slvrmoontiger]

Try exploring characters get to know people in your home town. That in itself is a great exploration.

[Molten Heart]

Try exploring characters get to know people in your home town. That in itself is a great exploration.

And then get a noble/merchant house to sponsor you and your new friends on an expedition into the unknown world.  This would be a great character idea.

[JustAnotherGuy]

I don't think the game needs to get any bigger, especially no new cities and such.  There have already been some new building that has gone out. What I think needs to happen is existing areas need to be reviewed and cleaned up.  There is some really old crap around that is for old plots, some of it makes no sense to even be there.  Quit/Safe rooms should get mixed up, added, changed.  Mobs should get some changes in other areas, old areas that haven't seen attention or really are hard to find (I can think of a few), should be renewed and made a bit easier to find so those that enjoyed the challenge of exploring might find them.  Some areas that have near instant dead traps without much of any warning, I can think of one right now that is a common death, need to be fixed.

Fix and refresh the world we have, don't add on.  I could think of several places that could really use some love, but I can't mention them here sadly.

[Molten Heart]

What I think needs to happen is existing areas need to be reviewed and cleaned up.  There is some really old crap around that is for old plots, some of it makes no sense to even be there.

Great idea.

[Barsook]

What I think needs to happen is existing areas need to be reviewed and cleaned up.  There is some really old crap around that is for old plots, some of it makes no sense to even be there.

Great idea.

[Delirium]

What I think needs to happen is existing areas need to be reviewed and cleaned up.  There is some really old crap around that is for old plots, some of it makes no sense to even be there.

Great idea.

Completely agree. While the new/revamped areas are great, there are a lot of things missing from old rooms and/or quirks due the inevitable results of hasty/timecrunched building. Missing links, no air rooms, misleading paragraphs refering to things that are no longer there, etc. I'd love to see all that cleaned up and detailed out.

Heck, if there was a "builder only" position on staff, I'd jump on that in a hot minute.

[Saellyn]

Given some direction, I would be all for working as a builder with no other insight into the game.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Given some direction, I would be all for working as a builder with no other insight into the game.

Agreed.

[shadeoux]

While just saying we want new rooms give us some direction, how about brainstorming some and perhaps give some insight in what may be wanted by the playerbase...
Personally, I've AWAYS wanted to explore Steinal it would be a great area to add and would be another reason to go that direction (from nak). Then it would maybe open up the far far mountains into a more useful purpose than it currently is, plus there is already history behind it in the first place...

I would help in this endeavor as well if you would set expectations for us to follow in creating it.

Thanks

[theebie]

as a hunter right now, i know in all parts of the world pretty much what expects me, and if i can take it or not, or what things/events i have to be afraid of.

i think changes that would make that more difficult/thrilling would be great. i'm not exactly sure how to achieve this, but it'd be neat to have more unexpected moments.
and i dont mean just buffing up stuff, since that'd not change much in the situation, would just mean that where i can go now as 10day hunter, i could go as 20day hunter.

maybe it'd be possible to spawn in a great variety of tough mobs ? from very weak gortok to really really strong gortok ? (and i know that they aren't all the same even right now,
but maybe have the variety be bigger ?)
or maybe some sort of travelling herds of something ? that aren't always found in the same places ?

[ditchhook]

I think lots of folks posting here could benefit from Prof. Richard Bartle's essay on Players Who Suit MUDS
(http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm).

To summarize quickly: he identifies four archetypes of player values/goals/styles: Explorers, Socializers, Killers, and Achievers. One can even go to http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology and take a test to see how one fits on his 2-D graph.

But Bartle's main point is that a successful MUD needs all four types of players, even though the different approaches will often compel players to demand different things from staff. For example: Explorer types want an ever expanding world to explore, while Socializers will be convinced we all need a small world which would force everyone into a small area and thus foster more role-play and social interaction. Bartle's analysis makes clear that a balance is needed: without new things to explore-- without happy explorer types-- the socializers end up without much to gossip about in the tavern: (who got killed/rich doing what stupid/brilliant thing) and without an audience of socializers, the explorers don't have anyone to come back home to and tell their tales of adventure.

The task of the administrators isn't to choose one side or the other, but to constantly keep their thumb on the pulse of the game, read the signs, and subtly encourage or discourage one group or the other when necessary, to keep the community in balance. Each player type needs the other types around to enjoy the game. If the game gets so out-of-balance that one type of player largely quit for other venues, the MUD is doomed to wide-spread player abandonment.

It's a difficult task for staff: the web is over-populated with literally hundreds of failed MUDs run by staff who don't get-- or can't achieve-- the balancing act.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Traveling herds are an excellent idea. I would love to see more mount varieties. I'd love to see rare but unstaff-animated super versions of critters, although this is already semi possible (*conjecture) now based on the way that NPCs appear to learn.

I think that adding areas to the further reaches of the world is an excellent idea, because I don't think it dilutes the playerbase at all, in any meaningful way. We're not adding livable locales - we're adding exploration. I think we should see more villages and outposts. These are places to visit, not live with any sort of real comfort - we're talking five-ten room places. Some shops with items that can be considered exotic, and a tavern/dorm. No apartments, no crafting stations ... these are the mid-points of RPTs or a stop in the trading route of a traveling trader.

I think development of features that already exist within the confines of our current world is a great idea. We're talking about valleys, canyons, mountains, etc.

I love the idea of a constantly expanding world that allows for true exploration. I'd even roll it out as the location was actively explored. Some ranger might discover the entrance to a valley hitherto undiscovered, leading to a race for resources. Some House might set up a camp site and dig for a RL week and uncover a massive old ruin. These areas would have been prebuilt, just waiting to be linked into the game upon discovery.

Or add areas without announcement, allowing people to truly be shocked by discovering it.

[FreeRangeVestric]

On a somewhat related note, I'd love it if somewhere down the line, the distance between the cities was upped quite substantially. Even if it meant copies of the rooms we have now being the 'filler' between them. It just doesn't feel right that someone can spamwalk across the civilized world in less than a day.

I do love the traveling herds idea, as well. It would add to the variety in going out to hunt in a really positive way.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I wish the cities were farther apart too. Ideally, it would take two days of HARD riding with no interuptions to get from one gate to another, three days at a decent pace. Yes, this does indeed require rest stops. Hi, settlements, ruins, villages, etc. Yes, it does require either longer RPTs or successive days of travel. Hello, interaction.

Alternately, a stop gap measure is lowering movement points on both PCs and NPCs, including mounts. We can already walk a stupid amount of distance in the desert without stopping. However, this solution would hurt playability, I think.

So the ideal solution would be a remapping of the sections of the world between Nak, Luirs, the Tablelands, and Tuluk. You could leave those areas alone and redo the world mass around them.

[FantasyWriter]

I would love more of all of our wildlife to be made into MOBs, especially those animals that only exists virtually or only in selected places in the game but could/should exist in the wild.

Wild barakans, chaltons, escru, some kind of really shitty (codewise) but tamable mounts available near the cities. The ability to keep a herd of animals together other than having a breed/merchant/ranger "twinking" skill ride.

Also, different day/night habits for animals. Meks going into their burrows at night, bats and big cats coming out to hunt. Day animals "hide" at night and night animals "hide" during the day for those people who know where to look for them.  Predator animals would only chase after you during their active periods, but would still attack if you enter the same room. 

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Oh hell yeah.

[Delirium]

Again: detailing and fleshing out and fixing the world we have now before slapping on a bunch of extra stuff would be amazing.

As the ideas above illustrate, making the world more detailed and alive would go a long way toward combating "seen it, done it" boredom, even for explorer types.

edit: it would also fix some rather immersion-breaking stuff like - not being able to go 'down' from an air room.

[Narf]

I wish the cities were farther apart too. Ideally, it would take two days of HARD riding with no interuptions to get from one gate to another, three days at a decent pace. Yes, this does indeed require rest stops. Hi, settlements, ruins, villages, etc. Yes, it does require either longer RPTs or successive days of travel. Hello, interaction.

Having longer mundane RPTs would probably be a problem. Travel-oriented RPTs (where all you do is go from one civilized place to the next and keep someone safe doing it) are usually ideal because they take a predictable and easily schedulable amount of time. Increasing an RPT from 2-3 RL hours to 6-7RL hours would make them a prohibitive time sink.

Now if you were designing the world from scratch you could take care of this by putting important settlements in between, and stretching the RPTs out across multiple RL days (with stragglers having nice populated areas to play in when they log back on). And technically this is kind of what Luirs is, but that means Luirs at least needs to be a nice easily scheduled trip.

With the world layout we have, the only thing you could really realistically do without boffing Clan travel is to move Tuluk farther away from Luirs, or... make roads less cost effective stamina-wise to travel (which would effectively do the same thing).

[MeTekillot]

Maybe have a few little settlements pop up where you can get fed/watered, but not really cut out a decent living, so people don't decide that they'll live there from now on.

[FantasyWriter]

To further agree with what is being said, even as a primarily "explorer" type player, I would be more satisfied by new/expanding content than I would be new areas (not that I am against someone finding a new hole in one of the borders of the world that leads to somewhere new!).
I've been in the sewers and farther below, the far off mountain ranges, the silt sea, north of the grey forest. Give me REASONS to go to these places, and I think that is better than giving me somewhere new to travel once or twice just to tick it off on a list.

[Eyeball]

I'd like there to be more reason to leave the cities beyond grebbing and hunting.

It'd be great to see the Silt Sea be expanded upon and some new ideas of some sort built into it.

-----

I'd like to see the return of the days when PCs could buy small houses. Maybe give a housing merchant PC the commands to add rooms in one small area of a city. For the first room of a new house, he/she pays something like 10 large. 20 for the next, 40 for the next after that.

It could even just be one room, with the housing merchant PC adding enterable facades. For example:

A small, square mudbrick house slumps by the side of the road here.
A narrow two-storied building rises up near the turn in the road here.

And so on. House owners would have to go visit a Nenyuk office and register their ownership each year or the house becomes available for purchase again.

[Nyr]

I think lots of folks posting here could benefit from Prof. Richard Bartle's essay on Players Who Suit MUDS
(http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm).

To summarize quickly: he identifies four archetypes of player values/goals/styles: Explorers, Socializers, Killers, and Achievers. One can even go to http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology and take a test to see how one fits on his 2-D graph.

But Bartle's main point is that a successful MUD needs all four types of players, even though the different approaches will often compel players to demand different things from staff. For example: Explorer types want an ever expanding world to explore, while Socializers will be convinced we all need a small world which would force everyone into a small area and thus foster more role-play and social interaction. Bartle's analysis makes clear that a balance is needed: without new things to explore-- without happy explorer types-- the socializers end up without much to gossip about in the tavern: (who got killed/rich doing what stupid/brilliant thing) and without an audience of socializers, the explorers don't have anyone to come back home to and tell their tales of adventure.

The task of the administrators isn't to choose one side or the other, but to constantly keep their thumb on the pulse of the game, read the signs, and subtly encourage or discourage one group or the other when necessary, to keep the community in balance. Each player type needs the other types around to enjoy the game. If the game gets so out-of-balance that one type of player largely quit for other venues, the MUD is doomed to wide-spread player abandonment.

It's a difficult task for staff: the web is over-populated with literally hundreds of failed MUDs run by staff who don't get-- or can't achieve-- the balancing act.

There was a thread about this a while back.  I still don't buy that Bartle's stuff suits all games (particularly a sort that is itself a niche/minority in the grand scheme of things), but I don't really want to beat that dead horse again--you can read that thread.  The task of the staff of this game isn't to keep the community in balance based on Bartle's theories, but to staff the game.  Seeing as how our staff contract covers all of this and goes beyond it into the realm of roleplay (which ties all of these Bartle types together), I think we're okay.

[Nyr]

It'd be great to see the Silt Sea be expanded upon and some new ideas of some sort built into it.

When near or on the Sea of Eternal Dust, the weather command will indicate the level of the silt, based on lunar effects.

Not that it's a ton of rooms being built or anything, but the silt does that now, so it's got that going for it.

[FantasyWriter]

It'd be great to see the Silt Sea be expanded upon and some new ideas of some sort built into it.

The Sea was expanded on (content, not space) a few years ago, and even a new "mineral deposit" added. I am not ashamed to say that I've spent a couple characters trying to explore this new content and haven't even scratched the surface yet. I would have done more, but I don't like making consecutive PCs in the same area/with the same goals.

>POINT RED STORM VILLAGE!!!   Hoo-ah!

[Delirium]

This thread reminds me that the quit safe rooms in the wilderness of a certain couple areas got zorched in the last few rounds of building.

Replacing those would be nice.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

It'd be great to see the Silt Sea be expanded upon and some new ideas of some sort built into it.

When near or on the Sea of Eternal Dust, the weather command will indicate the level of the silt, based on lunar effects.

Not that it's a ton of rooms being built or anything, but the silt does that now, so it's got that going for it.

That is such an awesome feature ... curiously, though, does the level of the silt actually change, or is that an atmospheric message? In other words, does a room entitled knee-high silt change to chest-high silt if the weather command says that the tide has risen? Does that, in other words, mean that there are times when insta-death Sea rooms are not insta-death Sea rooms?

[ditchhook]

There was a thread about this a while back.  I still don't buy that Bartle's stuff suits all games (particularly a sort that is itself a niche/minority in the grand scheme of things), but I don't really want to beat that dead horse again--you can read that thread.  The task of the staff of this game isn't to keep the community in balance based on Bartle's theories, but to staff the game.  Seeing as how our staff contract covers all of this and goes beyond it into the realm of roleplay (which ties all of these Bartle types together), I think we're okay.

It isn't my intention to "sell" Bartle's work as a whole to you or anyone, but rather to glean from it the idea that what one person believes is obviously exactly what ARM needs can be exactly NOT what another player believes is needed. I believe there can be an issue here sometimes where people insist that there is one and only one best way to RP, to run a MUD, to use talk/say, to emote or use socials, where actually it is the very diversity of styles and approaches that make a game like this more enjoyable.

[Jingo]

What I would like to see is a more meaningful solution for city based clans to explore the wilderness. For mundanes of course.

Because realistically you don't get to explore if:

You can't commit to three hours a day.

You can't find two or three other characters to commit to that same three hours.

You and your friends don't have the relevant skillset (I.E. A couple of bricks to fight the big mobs and a set of ranger skills)

Any retards in your group that are liable to get you killed.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I think this could be doable if camps could be produced by leaders that were defensible.

Now, I know this will sound off, but for all intents and purposes, it would simply be a tent object that led to a camp, complete with NPC guards and all of that. So you would RP having a crew with you, then drop and make the tent object, and make it the base of your operations for the next couple of RL days, or pack up and move to wherever you were going to go, and make it again. It could have different messages for setting it up than the tent object has, but it would do the same as the tent object does. Save in the room, and save objects inside of it.

Then you could have folks wandering somewhere, and then have the luxury of not having to have them all come back at once when they logged off.

[HavokBlue]

I think coded camps are actually an extension of the wagon code so that sounds pretty tricky to implement but I like the idea. Wagons kind of do this already for some clans, though there are obvious issues with romping around the known leaving your wagon codedly vulnerable for real life days at a time.

[FantasyWriter]

A camp would be just a codedly vulnerable, no?

[Patuk]

Any old merchant can't just abscond with a camp, so there's that.

[Molten Heart]

A camp would be just a codedly vulnerable, no?

It's the difference between tents and an RV.

[FantasyWriter]

Gotcha.

[Armaddict]

I'm not so sure about entire new regions, but expansion would be good.  In my experience, it is a constant crawl of expansion...building for armageddon actually requires more than just building rooms from what I understand, because it fundamentally changes -travel- and -time-.

I would, however, enjoy seeing the wilderness getting much larger, and seeing resources both more spread out (further away from cities and each other) and condensed (this thing is found here and nowhere else).  This is somewhat in the game.

Really, the push is for 'grebbing' to remain lucrative, but at greater risk.  Promote raiding as a viable alternative again...if you have to travel sunback-like distances to get to things other than more common stones/salts/what have you, it exposes you, but with greater risk comes greater reward.  Those resources become more rare, and PC crafters, in particular, will snatch up those resources.

Granted...this assumes those resources can actually be crafted to make a living, so it may not be viable.  I just like the idea of more wilderness-based pc's, encounters in the desert being scary once again, and for those skilled in desert survival to be truly valuable as guides and raiders alike.

[Dakota]

What I think needs to happen is existing areas need to be reviewed and cleaned up.  There is some really old crap around that is for old plots, some of it makes no sense to even be there.

Great idea.

[Evilone]

Just some things  I'd like to see in the Tuluk area.

Undertuluk, or the Warrens made bigger and nastier. I'd prefer Undertuluk back (though I wasn't playing when UT was still in game, so I'm guessing as to how it was from stories etc), but Warrens would be more similar to Rinth, and it's nice to have a slight difference with UT, but I think there needs to be a 'unlawful' area for more rowdy behaviour. No clans even, just PC gangs or such to rule if they choose too. It shouldn't interfere with any Shadow Artist system too much? Maybe the Legion could send patrols every now and then... definitely spice up their action.

More Camps around the Gol or such. Wether they are tribal, or actual Legion camps themselves. They only need to be small, easy to build then. If 'raiders' or Kryl or whoever build up a force to attack something, there's only a few options, which forces larger conflicts to be feasible, which requires more staff work, and makes it more difficult than it would be for small defence plots or rescues etc for Legion/Levies/Whoever.

An entrance found to a new valley behind unclimable mountains never before seen. Possibilities are endless in how it's discovered/found. Could lead to a battle-front, against an NPC new army/force? Supply runs, increase in demand for food and supplies. Over the years I've found battles to be easier when it's PVE. This doesn't necessarily have to be Tuluk area... maybe in a more neutral area that either side can get access too. Maybe it even unites both states against the new force?

Let's rock the boat!

[HavokBlue]

Maybe it even unites both states against the new force?

absolutely disgusting

[Saellyn]

Considering one state subjugated the other at one point, and then threw a volcano at them... I -REALLY- doubt Tuluk would be at ALL for allying with Allanak over anything.

[manonfire]

> subdue volcano

> release volcano north

[Jingo]

I kind of wonder why nobody ever uses wagons as a solution to my problem. They would be a perfect solution to clan outings.

If it wasn't for the fact that they can't traverse a lot of terrain and are liable to get capsized.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. Like why the fuck arn't we rolling over the Soh Lanah Kah in a war argosy right fucking now?

[Molten Heart]

I kind of wonder why nobody ever uses wagons as a solution to my problem. They would be a perfect solution to clan outings.

If it wasn't for the fact that they can't traverse a lot of terrain and are liable to get capsized.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. Like why the fuck arn't we rolling over the Soh Lanah Kah in a war argosy right fucking now?

Because Chosen Consort Leisera (I forget her real name, I think she's the one).

[Armaddict]

I kind of wonder why nobody ever uses wagons as a solution to my problem. They would be a perfect solution to clan outings.

If it wasn't for the fact that they can't traverse a lot of terrain and are liable to get capsized.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. Like why the fuck arn't we rolling over the Soh Lanah Kah in a war argosy right fucking now?

emote plays a noble.
emote sends his minions to find various resources.
emote uses his stipend to buy more resources.
emote conducts research.
emote creates design and documents it.
emote submits idea.
Someone sends:
 "Denied."
emote has gone back in time two or three years to convey this message.

War machines have been in the realm of certain groups for awhile, but it unfortunately does not fit in time with various things at various times.  Granted, there are War Argosies already in game, but they aren't real -war- argosies.  They just have a fancy name.

[Molten Heart]

One day a nearby volcano explodes and destroys the city formerly known as Tuluk...   meanwhile sailors spread stories of a mysterious settlement discovered while sailing the silt.

[Eyeball]

So, no building of wagons. That's fine, but why not carts. One room, open, single sunback drawn, easily stolen, limited carrying capacity carts.

[Reiloth]

This thread is rife with postulation that is pretty funny. I imagine Staff is probably working on shit as we speak that lines up with what's being said in this thread...

In the 12+ years i've been here, i've seen a ton of building and changes to the world. When I see a problem with a misleading description or a bug, I use the bug or typo command, and usually it is fixed within a week. That's more than can be said of pretty much any game out there. There were literally so many changes to Tuluk recently that (during a period of inactivity on my PC) I had to double-take several times to figure out what was going on.

Similar to the 'why don't leaders do more' threads that crop up, I find this kind of thread silly. In a game with 20k+ rooms, and probably more being added every week or month or whatever, we still 'want more rooms, expansion for the sake of expansion, I may never see the rooms, but Staff should build them'.

Play the game! I bet there are entire areas you haven't discovered yet. I surprise myself often on new PCs when I find an area of the game I had no idea about previously. For example, I am probably going to play something in the Tablelands next, because I have no idea about that area of the game in the same way I do with the Red Desert or Vrun Driath.

[X-D]

Play the game! I bet there are entire areas you haven't discovered yet

Heh, I rather doubt that.

Anyway, chiming in, for about the first ten years the game was open, it increased in size...drastically...from around 5k rooms to more then 20k.

In the last 14-15 years the actual world size has remained rather static...have areas changed, sure, but changing an existing area does not increase the size of the world.

Now me, I would love if several virtual areas that you can see in room descriptions in some areas became real.

I would love just as much if certain other areas were given some real love and fleshed out more...most of those places need about another 1,000 rooms added...they seem rather unfinished.

(edit) Sorry I cannot say more here, but many of these places are likely unknown to many of you...and I will not be the one to spoil that bit of fun.

[Reiloth]

Well, there's only one of you, X-D. I imagine 99.9% of the rest of the population hasn't seen 100% of the game world.

"Let's just add 1000 rooms to one area of the game". What? That's a silly amount of work, and what's the payoff exactly? So seasoned vets get their willies for a few days before they map out the next region to put into an excel sheet?

[X-D]

You seem to think 1k rooms is a lot.

It is not really. There are several areas where 1k rooms could be added and though you might notice the change, it really would not make much of a dent in those areas. Silly amount of work...Meh, not really, I could do that in 2 weeks working only 2 hours a day in any old diku. True, it is unlikely I would, because I am lazy, more likely I would work 1-2 hours, take my time and do 5-10 rooms a stint.

But that is all beside the point. The number does not matter, 100 rooms to this area, 30 to that, 300 to the other, flesh them out, or at least make them seem finished.

Adding totally new areas, now yes, that can be a reasonable amount of work, because you can easily get to several thousand rooms to finish a single "zone".

As to payoff...shrug, maybe exactly what you say, though some of us don't map. Or maybe a labor of love to have areas finished that right now only exist in room descriptions of things you can see far away. More places for outlaws to hide, more places to hunt outlaws, more things for the Byn, salarr or insert name of clan here to do.. The payoff is the world...with your way of thinking, hell, the entire game could be in one room and we could call it a mush...after all, what is the payoff to have anything coded, we could just emote everything.

But don't worry Reiloth, with the rate places have been closed, removed or shrunk down...I doubt you have anything to worry about in this matter.

[Nyr]

You seem to think 1k rooms is a lot.

It is not really.

lol

[Reiloth]

How is 1000 rooms not a lot, X-D?

I'd almost challenge Staff to let you build 1000 rooms just to see how long it took you.

I also don't have anything to worry about on this matter, because I think the game world is expanding at a natural rate that I enjoy. The new Labyrinth rooms for instance, and the volcano caldera region. Seems to come in time, with patience, slowly, sure, but not overnight. Some things come, some things go.

I think there are some players that enjoy what they have with ArmageddonMUD (through the fluctuations and additions and subtractions), and there are other players who expect more, either from Staff or other Players or the game world. I don't think it's wrong to expect more, but I think you should also prepare yourself for constant disappointment. The game is pretty static, and the thing anyone can easiest change is attitude and expectations. If the latter group could make their own fun, and not 'need 1000 more rooms here and there', or 'leaders to do more' or 'staff to do this' or 'players to stop doing this', they might have a bit more fun playing the game.

[X-D]

You would likely be amazed.

But, I would only think about it if it was dedicated builder only. I understand that staff has other things to do, sure, 1k rooms is a lot if you have to run clans, respond to request tool moderate the board, run rpts etc etc etc. I am not putting down staff one bit, they do get a lot done with everything on the plate.

And I think we do actually agree on one point...not sure if we are arguing that or not. But I do prefer to see areas fleshed out/finished. New Labby rooms yup, badass...and in fact, that is the sort of thing I would start on. I think many areas need that and to be more 3d. I could happily spend a year or two doing such things, starting from the play centers and working out.

As to the make own fun yadda yadda...shrug, we do, but everybody can wish.

One thing I think rather odd about arm is that it is the only mud I know of without a dedicated building team. Now sure, back when arm was run off private servers with finite resources, I could understand the limits on building, be it rooms, mobs, objects. But that is no longer the case.

BTW, I am lazy, 1k rooms would likely take me about two months...sure, I could do it faster...but meh, now days I take my time and make sure everything is perfect...that and believe it or not, I actually have a life.

[Delirium]

Heh, I've been saying for a while now that I'd love to be a builder - but only a builder. In fact I probably said it in this thread.

I'd want to see them focused on fixing all the quirks with what we've got now, though (maps, npcs, items) rather than expanding new stuff right away.

[Eyeball]

How is 1000 rooms not a lot, X-D?

I'd almost challenge Staff to let you build 1000 rooms just to see how long it took you.

Considering how so many rooms in the outdoors use the same description when they're part of the same area, a lot less than you seem to think.

Simple enough to write a small script and execute it locally to produce the necessary commands, then cut and paste that into the client session too.

[Reiloth]

I question how 1000 more rooms with the same background description equals 'cool, well thought out expansion of areas'. Sure, it's a bunch of rooms. It's almost the same thing on the scale of 'one room being a MUSH' that X-D mentioned. What purpose does a 1000 cookie cutter rooms serve, without the things that bring those rooms to life? (NPCs, NPC's on a brain so they aren't dumbies, settlements, objects of interest, things that break up the landscape, etc.)

I agree with X-D that 3D fleshing out of areas is cool. I don't think plopping in new areas to the game of 'undiscovered landscapes' really does much to enhance the atmosphere (without a bunch of other shit added to that).

[Eyeball]

What purpose does a 1000 cookie cutter rooms serve, without the things that bring those rooms to life?

I don't know, why don't you ask the Salt Flats?

You could just as easily write a small script to produce a varied area with a few shared descriptions as well.

Then go in and add custom features by hand after, which would take a lot longer, but you stated it would take a long time to make a thousand rooms, not a highly customized area.

[Reiloth]

The Salt Flats is probably one of the least interesting areas of the game, due to its mundanity. It's a cool concept, and I love it as a concept, but it isn't a blast to explore. Unless you like exploring Mekillot mouths.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I'm pretty sure the Flats could be spiced up with some additions, like a Sea, complete with aquatic life, and maybe a village on the edge of that - just four rooms of a village. Maybe some cracks you go in and explore, discover bnew life, and what ab ... that's spicing up an area.

[Eyeball]

The thing is that you need the distance too. You can't have some fortress or cave or wagon wreck pop up every five rooms, or things start to feel crowded. You need the vastness as well as the interesting parts.

But I agree that spicing up the existing areas in subtle ways would be good too.

[BleakOne]

Salt Flats also isn't 1000 identical rooms, technically.

[Reiloth]

The thing is that you need the distance too. You can't have some fortress or cave or wagon wreck pop up every five rooms, or things start to feel crowded. You need the vastness as well as the interesting parts.

But I agree that spicing up the existing areas in subtle ways would be good too.

Agreed with that. Spice isn't the main dish, but it enhances the flavor.

The Tablelands is a great locale by example, where it has some flavor, but also vast wastes in-between.

[Zoan]

I think the world should always expand. Not necessarily in girth, but in interest. Add to existing areas, not tack on 600 more desert rooms.

[FantasyWriter]

You can't have some fortress or cave or wagon wreck pop up every five rooms, or things start to feel crowded. You need the vastness as well as the interesting parts.

Make them temporary, once the first PC finds something, give it a certain amount of time before it degrades based off what it is.  It makes little to no sense that some of the wagons at the bottom of the shield wall, for example, have lasted over a hundred years.  Thinks break down when they are not maintained....

*Have a fissure open up in an unstable area, and once it is found (assuming staff has some kind of way to know this) it only has 30 or so RL days before the landscape will reclaim it.  
*A raider camp that spawns in random places with has roaming NPCs of varying combat abilities.  The camp itself is defended (also at varying levels of strength), and has a decent amount of loot to be reclaimed by those who wipe it out (tents/mounts/weapons/coins/plot items).  Once destroyed staff can choose to drop another somewhere else.
*Landslides that block off certain pathways that either have to be cleared or replaced, changing they way PCs have to play without NEW STUFF!
*Have a certain flavor of spice start acting differently (foragable grains at first, then processed spice later on after the bad stuff would have started finding it's way into the mix).
*A new poison type.
*A random jewel/stone stars becoming scarce due to over mining. (OMG the obsidian mines are drying up! [the actual mines, not the deposits]) Suddenly obsidian becomes much more valuable.  Eventually a noble or templar-led expedition finds a new vein and mine building plot begins).
*A disease starts killing trees in the Grey and the nearby groves, Dasari must find a cure before all is lost!
*[redacted because I want to try to do this with a future pc of my own]
*New resource deposit found in the north or south that the opposing team REALLY REALLY wants.
 -Want to see Tuluk thrive? Find a reason to get people (characters, not players) from the rest of the world to come there (with or against the wishes of the powers that be) and Tuluki PCs popping in to either give them hugs or run them off!


Have the world ebb and flow, a single desert elf shouldn't be able to search the entire Pah in one RL day and examine every single "safe" place to hide.  Same with the criminals/law in the city.  I would like to not have to choose between using my OOC knowledge of the game to find safe places or avoid dangerous ones or making my PC suffer because I don't want to use that info which means I have to purposefully avoid safe places.  I'd like to stumble across a new cave/wagon/abandoned building or tent/random cool item dropped in a wilderness room or back alley.  I'd also like to fall in a hole I didn't know was there, run into a gith outside of Red Storm or Tuluk, or mantis making a move toward the Pah.

I like the idea of player ran plots, but there are so many beings and forces in the known that aren't controlled by PCs, I don't feel like the rest of the world should remain static just because a PC didn't push the Cycle Start button.

Edit: Changed "players, not characters" to "characters, not players" because that's what I meant.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I've kind of gotta go with FW here. I love player driven plots, but I love staff plots too. And they don't have to be big. They don't even have to really be plots. But staff making the world come alive means a lot, in the end. Recently, I've seen something like this happen second hand, and it scared the crap out of the people involved in it, but it was the world coming alive. Players are best at conducting plots regarding politics, and minor exploration and gathering. They are best at these because the world doesn't really react to them unless staff makes it happen, and these plots require little coded assistance.

But you can't find anything without staff. You can't build anything without staff. You can't effect a single room in any meaningful way without staff - or magick, and even that is temporary.

I am glad that we are given the power to conduct our own plots, but I want the staff to know that just about everyone appreciates all the plots and events that only staff can make happen, even when we curse you out for killing or harming our character in it.

[FantasyWriter]

They don't even have to really be plots. But staff making the world come alive means a lot, in the end.

This is most of what I was trying to say.  Staff animating the world in response to us is awesome.  Having to/getting to change the way we play our characters in response to staff animating the world is also awesome.

*misses being a noob*

[KankWhisperer]

You can't have some fortress or cave or wagon wreck pop up every five rooms, or things start to feel crowded. You need the vastness as well as the interesting parts.

Make them temporary, once the first PC finds something, give it a certain amount of time before it degrades based off what it is.  It makes little to no sense that some of the wagons at the bottom of the shield wall, for example, have lasted over a hundred years.  Thinks break down when they are not maintained....

*Have a fissure open up in an unstable area, and once it is found (assuming staff has some kind of way to know this) it only has 30 or so RL days before the landscape will reclaim it.  
*A raider camp that spawns in random places with has roaming NPCs of varying combat abilities.  The camp itself is defended (also at varying levels of strength), and has a decent amount of loot to be reclaimed by those who wipe it out (tents/mounts/weapons/coins/plot items).  Once destroyed staff can choose to drop another somewhere else.
*Landslides that block off certain pathways that either have to be cleared or replaced, changing they way PCs have to play without NEW STUFF!
*Have a certain flavor of spice start acting differently (foragable grains at first, then processed spice later on after the bad stuff would have started finding it's way into the mix).
*A new poison type.
*A random jewel/stone stars becoming scarce due to over mining. (OMG the obsidian mines are drying up! [the actual mines, not the deposits]) Suddenly obsidian becomes much more valuable.  Eventually a noble or templar-led expedition finds a new vein and mine building plot begins).
*A disease starts killing trees in the Grey and the nearby groves, Dasari must find a cure before all is lost!
*[redacted because I want to try to do this with a future pc of my own]
*New resource deposit found in the north or south that the opposing team REALLY REALLY wants.
 -Want to see Tuluk thrive? Find a reason to get people (characters, not players) from the rest of the world to come there (with or against the wishes of the powers that be) and Tuluki PCs popping in to either give them hugs or run them off!


Have the world ebb and flow, a single desert elf shouldn't be able to search the entire Pah in one RL day and examine every single "safe" place to hide.  Same with the criminals/law in the city.  I would like to not have to choose between using my OOC knowledge of the game to find safe places or avoid dangerous ones or making my PC suffer because I don't want to use that info which means I have to purposefully avoid safe places.  I'd like to stumble across a new cave/wagon/abandoned building or tent/random cool item dropped in a wilderness room or back alley.  I'd also like to fall in a hole I didn't know was there, run into a gith outside of Red Storm or Tuluk, or mantis making a move toward the Pah.

I like the idea of player ran plots, but there are so many beings and forces in the known that aren't controlled by PCs, I don't feel like the rest of the world should remain static just because a PC didn't push the Cycle Start button.

Edit: Changed "players, not characters" to "characters, not players" because that's what I meant.

This is sort of like an idea I had. Don't expand the rooms, just make little neat things pop up to mix things up. Sometimes it's an empty ragged tent. Sometimes it's a random corpse. Sometimes it's a temporarily uncovered ruin to explore. Sometimes it's a rare animal native to that area. Have them pop up in certain areas sort of like those dunes blocking the routes. Each zone will have zone appropriate little 'extras'. They could build more and more so each individual 'extra' is rarer and rarer.

[Evilone]

Nice post FW..

[Dakota]

RSE and the the Silt Shores near there get invaded by a new race of beings from somewhere across the Silt Sea.

Boom. World goes nuts.

We don't need new areas. Just new content now and then. But I have a feeling staff is working on this.

[FantasyWriter]

RSE and the the Silt Shores near there get invaded by a new race of beings from somewhere across the Silt Sea.

Or just have the race that already did become active in the world.
Even if an ant has no quarrel with a boot, it may occasionally run into one.

[theebie]

How about allowing players to create and submit rooms/areas ?
Define a certain for the coders useful format (like XML or whatnot) and have people go for it ?
The staff could even give out "area-orders" that could be fulfilled.

"We need a 15x15 grassland with a little village in the middle"

Format could be something like

<room>
  <x>3</x>
  <y>5</y>
  <exits>n,e,s</exits>
  <desc>You walk across some nice well described grassland, lorem ipsum origal dutor.</desc>
</room>

Same idea for animals / npcs / whatnot. "We need a little grass eating rodent"...

This way the players who really long for new areas/content could help to create it.

[FantasyWriter]

Writing room/item descriptions is the fun part.
Staff would still be stuck with all the "work" end of it, I believe.

Staff does call for player submissions at time, there is an entire portion of the GDB devoted to it, in fact.  I absolutely love stumbling across items I wrote during submission calls. 

Just a random thought:  More than a few players, including myself, have offered in this thread and in the past to do building work, so that leads be to believe that staff doesn't want dedicated builders for some reason or other.  It's even possible that the staff (at least some of them) we have -like- building work but are too busy with other things to do much of it, so hiring builders would be like giving candy to the late-comers while the current staff is stuck eating the vegetables? *shrug*

[Saellyn]

What you don't get is that rooms and items require extra code. There's a lot of values that have to go into item making. I've worked on Smaug, which is a diku variant, and it's not SUPER tricky to create rooms or items, but you also need to have the proper flags, modifiers and whatnot, that go into each of these things that is created. In essence, by writing room descs and names, you're doing like 5% of the actual work related to making a room functional.

Just some food for thought. If you really want to see what making rooms and items is like, go into a smaug codebase and try making about a hundred items and a thousand rooms. It's no joke.

[Eyeball]

In essence, by writing room descs and names, you're doing like 5% of the actual work related to making a room functional.

Sorry, but "5%" is just total bullshit. I've made rooms in this game, and writing the desc, night desc, edescs, door descs and the like were always the most time consuming part. Setting flags like indoors/outdoors and linking rooms together were easy with the area already planned out.

[valeria]

I wish there was a nonstaff position for revising descriptions.  Room descriptions, item descriptions, all the descriptions.  I wouldn't want to deal with the player crud on a day to day basis, but I'd love to help with what I'm good at.  Ah well.

[Adhira]

I wish there was a nonstaff position for revising descriptions.  Room descriptions, item descriptions, all the descriptions.  I wouldn't want to deal with the player crud on a day to day basis, but I'd love to help with what I'm good at.  Ah well.

People who have to deal with the player crud need something to look forward to. 

[valeria]

I wish there was a nonstaff position for revising descriptions.  Room descriptions, item descriptions, all the descriptions.  I wouldn't want to deal with the player crud on a day to day basis, but I'd love to help with what I'm good at.  Ah well.

People who have to deal with the player crud need something to look forward to. 

SWEET, SWEET EDITING SOLITUDE.