Tuluk and Allanak distance.

[Agent_137]

Taken from another post:

I think buzzing from 'nak to tuluk in half a IG day is crap unless you're roleplaying hauling ass and burning out your mounts, leaving them on the side of the road dead.

But that's just me. I'll always be stopping around luirs, so it's sensible for me to go in, regardless of having to scoot around the gates.


p.s.
horses walk at about 4 miles an hour.  (i'm assuming a kank would walk around the same pace)
that's one mile in 15 minutes.
One way to imagine the RL equivalent would be to take our half of daylight, 6 hours, 360 minutes, 24 blocks of 15 minutes, therefore I imagine the towns being only 24 miles apart if it's normal to walk your kank there in half of daylight. If you take hours more literally and say "three IG hours" to get to the other town, then it's only 12 miles! I could hike that EASILY in one day. Too close.

Anyway, we'll stick with the 6 hour RL approximation, then. So in 24 miles, you have an entirely different culture and environment. Hrm. Doesn't sit right with me.

Also consider the outdoor rooms are popularly represented as "leagues." A league is 3 and a half fucking miles. I don't know how many rooms are between 'nak and tuluk, but there's surely more than EIGHT! (3*8=24)

So, therefore, going from 'nak to tuluk in half a day is ludicrous. slow the hell down or roleplay galloping down the road. And if you slow down, stop in the comfort and safety of Luirs.

p.p.s
I am NOT an advocate of increasing the distance between tuluk and 'nak. Not only is it impossible, but it's not the easiest way to fix the twinkage. There are two easier ways:
Increase lagtime for moving in outdoor rooms or create greater awareness and let the players choose to roleplay well and show newbies and twinks ICly the proper way.
"you got here in half a day? Krath! How man kanks did you leave dead on the side of the road?"
"You didn't leave any kanks? OMG MAGICKER!"


thoughts?

[jstorrie]

Playability versus realism? You can't quit out between Allanak and Tuluk, and making the trip take longer than a full RL hour makes it prohibitively inconvenient for people who don't play for eight hours at a time, I think.

[flurry]

I am inclined to agree with the original post.   While I think it's always a little tough to attempt to make realistic sense of time and distances, I think there has to be some consideration to what is sensible beyond what the code allows.

Generally speaking, day trips from Tuluk to Allanak seem pretty unreasonable to me, bordering on ridiculous.  Yeah, playability vs. realism, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that playability demands that you should be able to zip from one city-state to the other in a few IC hours.   On the other hand, I am sympathetic to the occasionally "fast-forwarding" a bit due to OOC considerations, e.g. needing to wrap up an RPT within a reasonable time frame.   That should be very much the exception, though, IMHO.

I remember more than one occasion hearing people in game talk about how just that morning they were halfway across the known world.   Like someone in Allanak casually saying how just earlier that day they were hunting in the grasslands or grey forest, or something equivalent to that.  That always struck me as wrong, although it certainly could be a case of IC boasting and not intended to sound realistic.

[Maybe42or54]

When I ride a Kank, I imagine that they are pretty damn fast. A walking pace being about 9 to 15 miles an hour and a running speed to be about 20 miles an hour.

If I watch ants outside the house, they move pretty fast for their size.
http://www.lingolex.com/ants.htm

If a man could run as fast for his size as an ant can, he could run as fast as a racehorse.

That means that a man would be able to run about 42 miles an hour.

Now, make that ant 120-ish times bigger and they can run like hell, IMHP.


So I don't see why kanks wouldn't be able to be faster then 4 miles an hour.

I would guess that there is about 420 miles between Tuluk and Allanak.
9 hours in the day, which means that my kank would have to move about 46 or 47 MPH.

Then again if a kank wanted to get to Tuluk from Allanak in 6 hours, it would have to move about 70 MPH. Which is a little past my assumption for 20 miles per hour.

If a room is 1 and a half miles then..
210 miles from Allanak to Tuluk.
9 hours in a day.
23.3 miles Per hour.


So perhaps a kank's walking speed is 23-28 miles per hour? And running speed is 36?


Not a far off assumption from my side of the screen.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Playability versus realism? You can't quit out between Allanak and Tuluk, and making the trip take longer than a full RL hour makes it prohibitively inconvenient for people who don't play for eight hours at a time, I think.

I guess Luir's is out of the question?  I've heard they've done some screwy things with their walls, but I didn't know that made it impossible to quit out there.

Maybe42or54:  Kanks are not giant ants.  They're kanks.

[Maybe42or54]

http://www.armageddon.org/general/beasts.html#kank

Kank : These large insectoid creatures, not wholly unlike gigantic ants, are commonly used as beasts of burden for riding and packing. They are both strong and quick for their size, eat relatively little, tend to be hardy, and when food is plentiful and younglings nearby certain drones produce a highly nutritious honey on relatively little supplied water. In the wild they form loose clutches, but survive well independently. As such they are favored for domestication by most of the nomadic desert tribes.

I think they are pretty much built like ants.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Yes yes, but there's certainly a difference between something BEING something else and something being not wholly unlike something else, now isn't there?  

[elvenchipmunk]

Playability versus realism? You can't quit out between Allanak and Tuluk, and making the trip take longer than a full RL hour makes it prohibitively inconvenient for people who don't play for eight hours at a time, I think.

I fully and whole-heartedly agree with this post. I myself can usually only manage an hour of playtime every day, and so it is quite often extremely inconvenient for me on an OOC level to stop in Luir's all the time. Although there are atleast a couple days a week when I can manage more than an hour, and I usually do trips during these times. But if I need to go during that one hour, no way am I going to stop somewhere if I don't need to.

[sarahjc]

As far as I can tell, it should be hard getting from tuluk to allanak in one day. Back when I was was riding wagons around, we could never seem to get it done in under 3Rl almost four days.

That said, kanks move a hell of a lot faster. But even still, I would assume that most people take at least a 5 count between moves and that should put you at the halfway point within 20 minutes and if you ride straight through without any baddy attacks, you'll be at the other desination well before sundown.

Maybe what should be done is make kank movement slower? Force a 5-10 second delay on ride depending on your skill level? It would definitely make trips longer and also make them more dangerous as you wouldn't be able to outrun bad things so easily.

I was thinking on that the other day. Slow down the movement of your kank, and make use of the run/flee command mounted, costing your mount a lot of stamina.

ie:

s
s
s
s
look w
s
s
emote moves along the dunes slowly
s
s
A brown, MASSIVE Carru arrives from the north

Think Shit!

flee south
You kick your foot at your kanks rear and it takes off at a run.

This way if you do see something bad, you have the option to kick your heels in and outrun it, but only at the the cost of your kank burning down it's stamina a good deal.

Also you may want to have a fail on this that gets you thrown.

Flee s
Your kank gets spooked and throws you from it's back, taking off south.

Just an Idea.

[Nao]

As far as I can tell, it should be hard getting from tuluk to allanak in one day. Back when I was was riding wagons around, we could never seem to get it done in under 3Rl almost four days.

That said, kanks move a hell of a lot faster. But even still, I would assume that most people take at least a 5 count between moves and that should put you at the halfway point within 20 minutes and if you ride straight through without any baddy attacks, you'll be at the other desination well before sundown.

Maybe what should be done is make kank movement slower? Force a 5-10 second delay on ride depending on your skill level? It would definitely make trips longer and also make them more dangerous as you wouldn't be able to outrun bad things so easily.

I was thinking on that the other day. Slow down the movement of your kank, and make use of the run/flee command mounted, costing your mount a lot of stamina.

ie:

s
s
s
s
look w
s
s
emote moves along the dunes slowly
s
s
A brown, MASSIVE Carru arrives from the north

Think Shit!

flee south
You kick your foot at your kanks rear and it takes off at a run.

This way if you do see something bad, you have the option to kick your heels in and outrun it, but only at the the cost of your kank burning down it's stamina a good deal.

Also you may want to have a fail on this that gets you thrown.

Flee s
Your kank gets spooked and throws you from it's back, taking off south.

Just an Idea.

Fine for travellers, BAD, BAD for hunters. Hunting around allanak is already hard enough, exspecially when you're not a warrior. No need to make it near impossible.

[Idealist]

Instead of failing to move your kank, how about a boost in lag?

Experienced riders can get their kanks moving around pretty damn fast outside a city. Since they are totally aware fo how to ride. Whereas my newbie, 60 year old life long warrior just takes a bit more time to get from room to room.


EvilRoeSlade, I know they aren't ants. And I know that they aren't horses.

That was my explanation. Giant ants would move pretty damn fast.
And if a kank is anything like an ant, it would move pretty damn fast.
I am interested though, what handicap do you think kanks have when it comes to moving that ants don't?

[sarahjc]

Fine for travellers, BAD, BAD for hunters. Hunting around allanak is already hard enough, exspecially when you're not a warrior. No need to make it near impossible.

I can't see why this would make things bad for hunters except it would make hunts longer. It's not that you wouldn't have the option to outrun something, you would just have to choose what you want to outrun more carefully and choose were you want to hunt a bit carefully as well. Which if you are smart, you should be doing anyway.

Understandably the south is a really hard place to be a hunter, but slowling down your kank a bit Especially if you are a ranger, shouldn't effect you too bad.

[Nao]

Fine for travellers, BAD, BAD for hunters. Hunting around allanak is already hard enough, exspecially when you're not a warrior. No need to make it near impossible.

I can't see why this would make things bad for hunters except it would make hunts longer. It's not that you wouldn't have the option to outrun something, you would just have to choose what you want to outrun more carefully and choose were you want to hunt a bit carefully as well. Which if you are smart, you should be doing anyway.

Understandably the south is a really hard place to be a hunter, but slowling down your kank a bit Especially if you are a ranger, shouldn't effect you too bad.

Slowing down wouldn't maybe. Unless all critters are faster than you. Or you run out of stamina quickly before you can get away, because you suggested more stamina drains. Knowing where to go or not doesn't help too much, because critters move from their usual locations from time to time, exspecially when someone ran into them before. And they don't move back. So a spider after your ranger and you can't even run away, also because you make fleeing very hard? Or even a newbie warrior. Strong scrabs, too, for rangers. This would kill off southern hunting even more because no one survives in the long run. If you're a hunter around Allanak, you will run into some beetle or spider sooner or later, even with looking around and all that. Making you unable to run away because either the spider bites you for not running fast enough or your kank runs out of stamina, or you can't flee because you fell off your kank, or can't outrun it before you reach the city gates? This would just ruin the playability. Also, making hunts longer would also mean makig them mroe boring, how much time do you want to spend walking before you get to that spot 10 rooms away, especially if you are solo? 5-10 seconds lag would mean a LOT of boredom there. Bad.

[sarahjc]

Well, Rangers are great riders to start with, which is why if this were something "coded" per say. It wouldn't be that big a detriment to them.

What it does prevent is the spam running all over the desert with a lightening bolt kank, which you should not be doing anyway, not that we all aren't guilty of that.

But a 5-10 second delay (depending on skill) would not be that horrendous for rangers I doubt. Try it a couple times in game,

N
Count to five
N
Count to five
N
Emote
N
Scan
N
Count to five.

Can something catch up to you? Yeah.  Can something jump out of nowhere at you? Yeah. And if you are going to be setting your kank off to a run, you best know the way home.  Or at least the fastest way to safety, then you could set your kank walking again.

I think it just adds a better sense of "realism" and a little more thought process in hunting as well as traveling instead of just spam walking away from things that want to eat you and getting to your destination as fast as possible.

Could you still type:

Mount
Flee s
S
W
S
W
S
Walk

And get away just as fast? Sure.. It would just take a bit more out of your kank to do so.. Which it really should if you are "running" away.

Yeah it would be a slightly harder.. But I don't think it would be terribly hard. Also for warriors who are much better with strength and weapons skills from the jump, it would give them a bit more of a balance by not being as good at riding after a few days.

[Nao]

Well, Rangers are great riders to start with, which is why if this were something "coded" per say. It wouldn't be that big a detriment to them.

I'm saying it's hard enough already, don't make it harder. It's not broken as it is, plenty of people die to critters already.

What it does prevent is the spam running all over the desert with a lightening bolt kank, which you should not be doing anyway, not that we all aren't guilty of that.

Well, how come those critters lightning-bolt after us then? A five second delay would make it completely impossible to run away from pretty much every aggro southern thing at all. Unless the crittes get slowed down too, which would make everything end up being the same. Doesn't make sense to me.

But a 5-10 second delay (depending on skill) would not be that horrendous for rangers I doubt. Try it a couple times in game,

N
Count to five
N
Count to five
N
Emote
N
Scan
N
Count to five.

Can something catch up to you? Yeah.  Can something jump out of nowhere at you? Yeah. And if you are going to be setting your kank off to a run, you best know the way home.  Or at least the fastest way to safety, then you could set your kank walking again.

I think it just adds a better sense of "realism" and a little more thought process in hunting as well as traveling instead of just spam walking away from things that want to eat you and getting to your destination as fast as possible.

Could you still type:

Mount
Flee s
S
W
S
W
S
Walk

See above. Sometimes you need to walk long distances for hunting, at least 30 rooms. Solo-hunting isn't the most exciting now, why make it longer than you have to? Also, this would be more than 5 seconds if you look around in between and don't just spam-walk into another room without knowing what's in it.
I don't play this game to wait for a lag to pass. This would just stretch out hunts by factor two and get more people killed without a real benefit (I think the death rate is just fine at the moment, if I want anyone to die more often then it's those characters that never leave the city). Ugh.

And get away just as fast? Sure.. It would just take a bit more out of your kank to do so.. Which it really should if you are "running" away
Yeah it would be a slightly harder.. But I don't think it would be terribly hard. Also for warriors who are much better with strength and weapons skills from the jump, it would give them a bit more of a balance by not being as good at riding after a few days.

slightly harder with a five secodns delay when the npc gets none? Running drains stamina, you know. and kanks are mounting animals, I don't see why they get tired from walking less than a 7-hour day if they really go that slow.

You also talked about making flee harder. Which is another thing I really don't like. In arm, you can see theee rooms to the south and three rooms to the west but you can't see one room to the southwest where that giant thing is lurking and trying to eat you (why!?). So you run right into it. even with smaller dunes, you would see those creatures before they get close enough to bite you, so you should have a chance to run.

[Sholdyn]

I say.. leave things alone.

It's the critters and the raiders that should make it hard to get from Nak to Tuluk and visa versa, not the distance.

There are better things to worry about than this. Do what makes you happy.

Just my opinion, and I'm sorry about it.

[EvilRoeSlade]

EvilRoeSlade, I know they aren't ants. And I know that they aren't horses.

That was my explanation. Giant ants would move pretty damn fast.
And if a kank is anything like an ant, it would move pretty damn fast.
I am interested though, what handicap do you think kanks have when it comes to moving that ants don't?

The way I see it, the biggest handicap a kank would have is its propensity to wink out of existence due to being physiologically inconcievable.

My jest is not without meaning.  Comparing a kank to a giant ant is a bad analogy since a giant ant could not exist.  If you want to say that kanks can move at unbelievable speeds, use the documentation to support your statement, not real life biology and mathematics.

[IntuitiveApathy]

EvilRoeSlade, I know they aren't ants. And I know that they aren't horses.

That was my explanation. Giant ants would move pretty damn fast.
And if a kank is anything like an ant, it would move pretty damn fast.
I am interested though, what handicap do you think kanks have when it comes to moving that ants don't?

The way I see it, the biggest handicap a kank would have is its propensity to wink out of existence due to being physiologically inconcievable.

My jest is not without meaning.  Comparing a kank to a giant ant is a bad analogy since a giant ant could not exist.  If you want to say that kanks can move at unbelievable speeds, use the documentation to support your statement, not real life biology and mathematics.

ERS, the comparison comes from 'help kank':

Kank     (General)

These large insectoid creatures, resembling giant ants, are one of the standard mounts of Zalanthas, and are available in the stables of most cities and villages. They are both strong and quick for their size, eat relatively little, and tend to be hardy. Some are kept for the honey that they produce, although these are a somewhat different breed from the riding kanks, being generally smaller and darker of chitin. In the wild they form loose clutches, but survive well independently.

Anyway, I think that:

a) Distances or travelling time should be increased (because you really can go on kankback from Tuluk to Allanak in like twenty minutes) and

b) Quitting anywhere should be available to everyone.  I've never understood the rationale that rangers can automagically make themselves safe in the wilds.  I don't think it's a matter of abuse, unless we're saying that since it's limited to only one class, it's not so bad.  I think it's probably more the idea that rangers deserve some kind of special bonus to help distinguish them from other classes (as if they don't have enough already, what with automagically finding their way through storms, their array of coded skills, etc).

[Rhyden]

I agree completely with you, Agent. It should take a hell of a lot longer to get from Allanak to Tuluk or vice versa.

Also consider the outdoor rooms are popularly represented as "leagues." A league is 3 and a half fucking miles. I don't know how many rooms are between 'nak and tuluk, but there's surely more than EIGHT! (3*8=24)

I may be wrong, but I've never ever considered one outside room to be a league. Three miles a room? I'm not gonna spend a freakin' half hour RPing out every room. I won't even spend 10 minutes per room. I highly doubt every room is a league in diamater and do not condone in calling a room a 'league' IC either.  :wink:

[Maybe42or54]

Ok Support.

From our very own website.

Kank : These large insectoid creatures, not wholly unlike gigantic ants, are commonly used as beasts of burden for riding and packing. They are both strong and quick for their size, eat relatively little, tend to be hardy, and when food is plentiful and younglings nearby certain drones produce a highly nutritious honey on relatively little supplied water. In the wild they form loose clutches, but survive well independently. As such they are favored for domestication by most of the nomadic desert tribes.

Looks like an ant. By Amoeba


Agent started out this thread with a (which points out to me that kanks are damn fast):

"you got here in half a day? Krath! How man kanks did you leave dead on the side of the road?"
"You didn't leave any kanks? OMG MAGICKER!"

Hasn't this topic come up a lot? Which means mounts are damn fast, to me.
http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11873&highlight=kank+travel
http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8459&highlight=kank+travel
http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6708&highlight=kank+travel


Each of them have good points in them.

We could change things to reflect that kanks are faster.

There is my reasoning. All I can think of, so I am done.

[Angela Christine]

Not exactly like an ant though, or they'd be able to climb straight up sheer surfaces, at least unladen.  

I remember when hunting was made harder buy having large numbers of viscious predators wandering the south.  It was really cool.  Oh, I didn't even try hunting, but by carefully riding around (and frequently running away) you could make a damned good living just from stripping corpses.   :twisted:



Angela Christine

[Maybe42or54]

Gravity has got to kick in somewhere. Much to the dismay of a few byn and salaar groups.

That is my defense for why it can't climb.

[EvilRoeSlade]

You keep on showing me that helpfile.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

Being a human, I am not unwholly unlike a chimpanzee.  But I cannot swing naked through the trees (THOUGH I HAVE TRIED), and a chimpanzee cannot type this post.

Simlarly, an ant cannot be trained to be used as a pack animal, and a kank cannot climb on ceilings.

That phrase doesn't mean that you can declare that a kank has any number of abilities that a giant ant might (though in truth such a creature would have only the ability to cease to exist if anyone thought too much about it).

As a matter of fact, I think that the only reason that was written was to give the reader an idea of what a kank looks like.  Appearance is where the similarities between kanks and giant ants ends.

I don't think claiming that a kank has such prestigious speed is any reason to speed from Allanak to Tuluk in ten minutes.  If kanks were truly that fast, no one would bother fighting on foot, they'd just ride each down on these unbelievably fast beasts.

[Armaddict]

Playability versus realism? You can't quit out between Allanak and Tuluk, and making the trip take longer than a full RL hour makes it prohibitively inconvenient for people who don't play for eight hours at a time, I think.

While normally I support this point of view, in this case I don't.

Travelling from one end of the known world to the other?  No, it's not -supposed- to be convenient.  It's not -supposed- to be something you do every single RL day.  It's not -supposed- to be as short a time of possible.

This is TRAVEL.  It was one of the largest impediments on early peoples.  It's not safe.  It's not easy.  It's not convenient.  It's not commonplace.  Taking a trip from one side to the other, or even to Luir's, should be something that you don't just do spur of the moment.  It's something you plan for.

Just my opinion on the matter.

[Cale_Knight]

Playability versus realism? You can't quit out between Allanak and Tuluk.

Luirs.