Storms

[theebie]

great ... we have storms.

they are meant to be annoying ? well, they -are- annoying.
to a point that makes me stop travelling.

we have weathers where you can see the city gates, and cant go there,
because you stumble in ANY direction but town. again, and again, and again again.

we have weather that lets you not see your hand in front of your eyes on daylight.

and its not predictable. you just stumble in a freaking storm and are fucked.

this pisses me off, personally, oocly and icly. (and its ok icly, even meant to be like that)

some suggestions:
-let there be LESS storms.
-announce a forecast (like: you enter a room thats 3 rooms away from mister-i-blind-you-storm and you get, you enter the room. the weather to the east is really really annoying)
-let there be LESS storms.

and i have another suggestion:
how about LESS storms.

[Cavus]

how about LESS storms.

Your post made me laugh. :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

But, that's good thing because I am agree with you. If anything about storm will not change, at least there should be less of them.

With all respect to our coders,

Cavus

[flurry]

You can check weather in adjacent rooms now (but maybe you know that).

Making the outdoors more harsh is a worthy goal, I think, but I agree the storms can be pretty frustrating at times.

[theebie]

regarding to: check weather in next room.

imagine you want to go the 18 rooms northroad westwards.
you'd have to:

without storm:
w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,... you get the point

with storm:
w,
weather w
[wait if a half-ler comes in and wants to eat you]
[you probably want to 'l n, l s' to scan for dangers, since you stay a bit more in the room]
[read what 'weather w' says],

repeat...

[Delirium]

Oh my, you actually have to pay attention when you're travelling out in that brutal desert! The horror!

[Bestatte]

Paying attention is important, with or without the storms, and typing n,n,n,n,n,n without looking in various directions is what kills a lot of people.

However..I wouldn't mind seeing something like this:

If the code lets you see 3 rooms away (very far: nothing) - at least it should let you also see if there's a storm 3 rooms away.

In addition, I wouldn't mind a precursor to a change in weather:

So you're moving along, things are a little sandy but nothing you can't deal with, not even getting sand on your cloak. The weather is about to change. You get an echo:

>The winds begin to pick up toward the west.

You now have exactly 20 seconds to do SOMETHING (or nothing) to prepare for the oncoming blinding nasty can't-do-shit-until-bootup sandstorm. Retreat, go in a different direction, set your kank running and try to get past that area before the storm hits, or make camp and hope you don't run out of water til the saturday reboot.

[Anonymous]

Oh my, you actually have to pay attention when you're travelling out in that brutal desert! The horror!

Now THAT'S sarcasm.

I haven't dealt with sandstorms in a while, but the ones that seem to rage on for 2-3 RL days are annoying.  Playing in Red Storm they are almost punitive.  Last I knew I thought there were some changes.

[ashyom]

A good reason to make friends with your neighbor ranger.

[JoyRide]

Though I have yet to suffer in the new storm-related code, I'm glad it's come around. There was a thread some time ago about people RPing the effects of a sandstorm and well, when you're dealing with incredibly fierce winds and nearly zero visibility, it seems like either it'd be enough to kill you or make you roam around blindly. Since they took the latter than the former, that makes me a little jollier.

It makes things a little more realistic I think. I've seen people (and I think I've even done it a few times though with a ranger) who would go out in a harsh or blinding sandstorm to hunt or travel unnecessarily. When you think about it though, would you want to go out and travel in a harsh sandstorm or snowstorm if you weren't accustomed to it (i.e. a ranger)? Or would you rather stay in the comfy home you have and pray to God your job keeps you within the sanctity of your city walls?

[Bardex]

You mean the friendly neighborhood ranger who will turn in your ass for being an evil magicker just trying to get from point A to point B?

[Cavus]

:arrow:  Giving a room echo for possible storm at next room is a possible solution in my opinion.
>north
>You are at Sand Wastes
  There is this and that, bla bla.............
   ......................................................
   .......................................................
   North of here goes x road, and south to small grove
   North is hit by fierce storm
   
:arrow:  Also, there should be some transition from clear sky to bad storm in a room. Generally storms do not hit suddenly. You start to feel the wind, then sky change, etc. So, an echo can be good. For example:
>You are at Sand Wastes
  There is this and that, bla bla.............
   ......................................................
   .......................................................
> A heat and strong storm starts to blow from south
.............
> Strong sand winds starts to make the visiblity harder.
.............
>Stining sand storm
.......
>Blinding sand storm
............
.............etc.

[Gaare]

Try to assume this code was implemented before you begin playing ARM.

A little "fucking" never hurt anyone.

[Xamminy]

Don't assume, know.  This is old, formerly-buggy code.  Xygax fixed a bug which allows it to work finally.

I have suffered by this code and think it glorious.

Frustrating and annoying at times, but glorious.

[Cuusardo]

A good reason to make friends with your neighbor ranger.

Or to BE the neighborhood ranger.

[Ghost]

What Xamminy said.

And to add a few more:

There were threads like RPing the long distance between each leagues outside.  And there you go.  Now you dont spam walk outside.  You check every direction (l n;l e;l w;l s) and you check for weather conditions of the adjacent rooms as well.

The code is now much better than the former.  It makes the discrimination between, who is accustomed to the harsh wastes, and who is accustomed to the relative safety of the tribe's and city's territory.

[wizturbo]

I love and hate the code.  I'd either like to see markers near cities so you can use them to get to the gates in a storm, or for the storms to actually come and go frequently so that your not stuck for 2-3 RL days being unable to get back to the city/outpost/village your trying to get to.  Sandstorms lasting 3 in game weeks is insane.

[Cuusardo]

People were looking for a way to increase travel time between places.  It looks like you've got it, folks!  

[halfhuman]

While it IS coded on how to avoid storms, I think that if you look in the direction of a storm, you should know.  You can't look at the touchdown area of a tornado and say, "Hey! That's a really cool lawn flamingo! I hope a tornado doesn't hit it!"

So, I think that when you look in a direction you should see:

look n
North of here you see the Hubba-Dubba Motor Lodge.
very far
A blinding gale of sand rages on.
far
A blinding gale of sand rages on.
near
The Hubba-Dubba Motor Lodge
A British man drinks tea
A cricket field

I've been walking along and I look in  a direction:

look s
very far
nothing
far
nothing
near
nothing

s

You can't see a thing! Sand swirls about you!

If i can't see a thing while I'm there, I damn sure can't see a thing from far off!

While this can all easily be avoided with the weather code, it's very inconvinient and kinda hacks at the fun. I don't wanna have to type:
look n
look s
look e
look w
weather n
weather s
weather e
weather w
Every time I enter a room!

I know I could macro it, but then I'd have to scroll up ever single time I entered it because directions are very space consuming.

[SewerRat_inTheOpen]

It's a few leagues away after all, not a few hundred metres.

[Ghost]

It's a few leagues away after all, not a few hundred metres.

Out in the wastes, one league itself is more than half a mile.

So one league, indeed, is more than a few hundred meters.

[Rhyden]

People were looking for a way to increase travel time between places.  It looks like you've got it, folks!  

Hell yes! No complaints about the new storm code over here. Although it's annoying as a half-elf, it's quote Xamminy: "Glorius".

- More accurate to realistic harsh desert climate
- Increased travelling time
- Rangers have more of a roll in the wilderness

Aside from the ooc reason of not being able to get to the gates when you can see'm, I love this code!!!

[runningwithscissors]

I guess since I'm still very new, my opinion won't be as important as another, but I have thought on some things regarding this topic.

I've read over many of the posts on the gdb. From the skills that rangers seem to possess, there comes a point when one has to say "Isn't that enough"? I like the ranger class, but it seems that if too many perks are given to one class in particular, it may unbalance the game.

Just my thoughts.

[Rhyden]

Your opinion is as important as anyones' on this board, runningwithscissors. As for the unbalance to ranger, I don't really see that. Every class has their good sides. Oh, and besides, it states in the helpfiles that rangers are most easy to hire for desert travel. This hasn't really been true since now.

[Cenghiz]

I'm sick of seeing merchant wandering around alone in European times. Storm's good.. Believe me.

[Xygax]

It's interesting that most of the discussion along these lines seems to consist of the following argument:  "Look lets me see three rooms in that direction, why can't I walk that way??"

It's probably better if you assume that "look" is erring on the side of allowing you to see too far, rather than assume that walking is too difficult.  If anything, look should be made still more restrictive.  I'm pretty satisfied with the tuning on this feature (as far as guild-balance and playability goes), and so without better arguments than "my warrior can't hunt enough anymore!" it's likely to remain the same.

Some things I'm -considering- but haven't gotten around to (or am undecided about):

• Making roads and cities somewhat easier to navigate through (this is pretty easy and seems to make sense, I've just not gotten around to it yet).
  
• Making "look" work more accurately (and thus restrictively) -- obscuring buildings, corpses, etc., and perhaps not allowing you to see into that room at all, ala darkness, though I'm inclined against this.
  
• Having some subguilds yield a small bonus to navigating through storms (though noone will be perfect but the Ranger guild)
  
• Items that yield small navigation bonuses. (if/when this goes in, you won't hear about it, but the obvious candidates may gradually receive the right enhancements.
  

As I've said before, this change was made originally, to force people to make some choices about what kind of life their character leads, and what decisions they make.  If you don't think you can safely trailblaze through the desert without being "frustrated" by the sandstorm code, then you probably shouldn't go.  You might get worse than "frustrated."

If you can't handle making this choice, make a friend instead.  

--X