The Labyrinth: how to improve it?

[ThirdEye]

I run out of things to do in the 'rinth. I would rather see something to keep us rats occupied....Like, southsiders have mining etc (even though that can become incredibly boring).....

[Dakkon Black]

I think the solution is to have a good 5x more enterable buildings, with paths to climb through the rubble, and perhaps even get up onto rooftop hideaouts

[Sakra]

There are rooftop hideouts. They're just... hidden.

[Forty Winks]

But even with alot more buildings, it won't solve people having 'nothing' to do in the rinth, just make it take abit more longer before you've explored everything and get bored.  :wink:  Only way to solve something like that is to start your own plots.

[Beux]

You know all these gangs, that rule areas and need paying etc etc. Do they actually exist as PC's?

[Ghost]

You know all these gangs, that rule areas and need paying etc etc. Do they actually exist as PC's?

The most powerful or influencial ones are open to playerbase.  It is like, House Borsail, House Tor, etc.. The only difference is, it is not a house, there are not nobles, everybody is criminal.  The Guild from the westside, and Haruch Kemad from the eastside are two examples of powerful/influencial organisations.  Both are open to playerbase, and -usually- both have at least one PC (if not a few).  They are usually low in PC numbers, and sometimes the members are not active or sometimes the members do not do anything important, so it looks like they are empty in PC terms.  But I can pretty much say these two at least exist for PCs.

There are a few more gang/tribes, and often there are PC run gangs around the rinth, which adds color to the scene.  But they are most often temporary.

[Beux]

So isn't rinthi' lawless politics the really interesting thing about the rinth? So, really...there's not much entertainment there, not much spark, not much to do, because those clans aren't active enough.

Surely they should be the ones bringing life to the rinth, not apartments.

Saying that, I'm still all for rentable space in the rinth.

[Slink]

So isn't rinthi' lawless politics the really interesting thing about the rinth? So, really...there's not much entertainment there, not much spark, not much to do, because those clans aren't active enough.

Surely they should be the ones bringing life to the rinth, not apartments.

Saying that, I'm still all for rentable space in the rinth.

The clans of the rinth are, in my experience, just like anywhere else in the world.  Depending on what the flavor of the month is, any coded clan can have a boatload of players or just one or two.

That being said, I think they have very little to do with the entertainment value of the rinth.  What makes the alleys interesting, at least for me, is the unique ability to form your own gang and enforce your own rules.  In other words, if you're capable of making friends and get enough muscle backing you up, you -become- the lawless politics of the rinth.  Where else in the game world can you do that?  The only thing that comes close is the wilderness, but then you have seven thousand rooms to randomly run into another PC vs. the couple hundred of the alleys.  The confined space of the rinth ensures that eventually you ARE going to run into trouble and conflict with another PC.

By putting in "safe places" where players can run to and hide behind the code, you basically take that away.  A PC can no longer walk up to someone and say, "You know what... your now my bitch.  Give me your pack, cloak and boots.  Any profit you make I get half of.  Don't like it?  Me and my boys are gonna cut your fingers off and feed them to you."  

Instead of that PC actually being intimidated because they have no place to go, they'll just roll thier eyes and run off to some little coded safehouse knowing they can use that anytime they want to escape the reprocussions of thier decisions.

Keep the alleys cramped and dangerous as they should be.  Player conflict and tension is simply impossible if the PCs are too spread out or unable to get at each other because of the code.

In conclusion, Tuluk sucks.

[Barzalene]

So isn't rinthi' lawless politics the really interesting thing about the rinth? So, really...there's not much entertainment there, not much spark, not much to do, because those clans aren't active enough.

Surely they should be the ones bringing life to the rinth, not apartments.

Saying that, I'm still all for rentable space in the rinth.

I disagree with you so completely. I find that there's always something going on in the alleys. Sometimes you end up dying to some crazed criminal or unfortunate accident or tumble down a hole, or get ... anyway if you don't die before you find it there is always something going on in the alleys. And usually some of the best players can be found there. It's the players that make the rinth rock so hard.

[Ghost]

So isn't rinthi' lawless politics the really interesting thing about the rinth? So, really...there's not much entertainment there, not much spark, not much to do, because those clans aren't active enough.

Surely they should be the ones bringing life to the rinth, not apartments.

Actually the rinth is quite alive when someone active is there.  The flow of Allanakki politics is through the alleys of the labyrinth.  If there is someone with a little bit of vision is there, the alleys have a lot to offer.  

I had a character who later became a leader of an influencial gang there.  Nowadays looking at the old logs, I get awed the amount of politics/spying/crime kind of mind games he was involved.  

For a PC in a powerful organization, it is possible to be involved in almost all of the political strugle, the information trade, and the crime in the city.  It is just up to the PC in question.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

I agree with LoD's posts on the very first page that the rinth is like a ghost town.  There're a few dozen NPCs, all easily identified by the varying heights of the hooded figures. And most of them are spread out so far, that it makes the place seem deserted.  I want a hovel of life, overflowing with poverty and human trash, not a ghost town where everyone you see can kick your ass (with the exception of a vast minority of the NPCs)

What I think needs to be changed about the rinth:
1)  More NPCs  Not just more hooded figures standing around, dead as the grave. I want to see people on nearly every screen. Some, hooded bad-asses. Others, helpless bag ladies digging through stacks of refuse for stale biscuits. I want kids rushing around, kicking a skull up and down the street. Conmen on the street corners hollering out their pyramid schemes to work your way to wealth so that they can pay for the hookers the next intersection over. Ruffians trying to lure you down the dead end alley to 'help them move something heavy'. Street corner merchants selling things out of their many pocketed cloaks, and thugs that summarily knock the merchants over the head and steal their wares. Local goons watching over their streets in case someone unwelcome wanders in, or tries to start shit with the locals they're working stand-over protection for. Punks using chalk or paint to tag up the few walls that are still standing and flat enough to draw on.
   This would:
A) Make the place seem more alive. It would give the rinth the true pulse of an alley that never sleeps. You could come to appreciate the true numbers, and the ways of life involved in the rinth. Seeing how the NPCs earn their coin would, maybe, make PCs realise that maybe they DONT neccisarily need to be killers to make coins in the alley. It would spark more interesting ideas than protection money, mugging, and theft.
B) Perhaps deter some of the PC - NPC brutality. Honestly, who makes sid beating up folks that have none to begin with? Seeing the rinth as a live place with life bustling on every screen, might just make some of the southsiders think "Hey. There's people everywhere. What if this poor feck has an ally nearby?" rather than "Nope, no other NPCs around to join in his fight."

2) Animated NPCs:  And I don't mean the kind that sneak off, or hide every now and then. I want an NPC thug walking up and down the road he's claimed as his own charging tolls. A merchant wandering around a general vicinity selling his stale rolls. A pickpocket making his way down the street, trying to act casual. A shadowy figure who tails you a few screens before loosing interest.  And maybe (who knows) a small knot of blue bandana'd figures, on the warpath toward the alley owned by the guys in the green bandanas.  They could have a minor scuffle, then flee off  leaving one or two slain for that lucky scavanger to find.
  And again, this would help take the rinth from 'Ghost Town' to a place with an actual pulse of life.

3) More room echoes This goes hand-in-hand with the more NPCs thing. I wanna see stuff along the lines of:
  "You hear a loud cracking noise, as of a splintering door, accompanied by nearby hollering as three figures run full pace up the alley, their arms laden with small objects."
  "As you walk past a narrow, dead-end alley you spy two cloaked, hooded figures kicking and punching at a man on the ground, rolled up in the fetal position."
  "Up the alley you spot a scuffle between perhaps a impoverish figures, roughly half wearing green bandanas while the other half wears red."
  "A man bolts out of a nearby doorway clutching his head with one hand, followed by an irate, half-naked dwarf waving a thick cudgel, and a whore struggling to secure a few coins in her bodice as she quickly saunters off in the other direction."
  "A swarm of rats suddenly overtakes the alley in front of you, scampering frantically for shelter or a place to hide as half a dozen small children chase after in close pursuit, throwing rocks and shaking sticks."
  "A pair of figures, their faces hidden behind scraps of cloth, sneak up behind a merchant, selling things out of his cloak, and quickly drag him into a dark crevice he had carelessly wandered by."
   Set up an email and declare open submission season! I want hundreds of these things. It would take a PC MONTHS of play to see them all. And if people kept sending them in.... we'd have an infinite supply of one-liner humor to spice up the bored players day!
   This would:
  Again, convey a sense of the population. The shear numbers of desperate, impoverish souls packed into this small, decrepit space. All fighting for survival by any means neccisary.

4) Name the streets/areas Only a few places actually have names to them. Like, Hathor's Way, or the Gan Zein Market. What if that long, wide street on the west side was 'Half-Giants Walk.' And that alley extending more or less east - west perpendicular to Hathors was 'Old Caravan Road'. What about alleys with names like 'Obsidian Street' / 'Jakhal's Path' / 'Lawless Lane' / 'Southies Demise' / 'Breeds Boulevard'.
   This would: Add flavor and colorful grit. It would also aid in giving directions.

Code Select Expand


The tall figure in the dark, hooded cloak says, in sirihish:
  "Righ' mate. Tah get tah that shop, you gonna need 'ah take Old Caravan, down to Two Sids. There be an alley there to yer left. Take that down to Headless Jozhal. It be on yer right."

The lost newb moves stealthily to the west.

Tapping you on the shoulder with a grin, the tall figure in the dark, hooded cloak tells you, in sirihish:
 "Righ', mate. You follow him. I'm gonna take Twin Whore over ta Beaten Breed an' head him off at the far end 'ah the alley.

Maybe not get -THAT- carried away naming, but a few names here and there don't hurt. There should still be a descent amount of nameless alleys to not COMPLETELY remove the Labyrinth from the rinth.

5) And, with the street names, More small gangs and communities
   Perhaps, in order to survive, the people have formed into sects or communities. Like, down Half-Giants Walk you'll find a group of people who don't take kindly to elves from Two Sids Lane. A small, nameless gang of teens will fuck anyone up who comes down their street with the wrong colors on. This would help to diversify from the simple East side, or West side fued, and aid in backgrounds. Your character didn't grow up on the east side, he grew up in the Hookers Last Breath neighborhood on the east side, therefore he has a preset hatred for folks from Thug's Reach.

6) The entire point of this post to begin with... APARTMENTS!!
      -Small shanty towns: Just tents, lean-to's, tarps tacked at an angle, three-walled sections of alley, huts made out of scrap lashed together,  a crevice in a broken wall, a table with crates stacked on three sides of it to crawl under. Anything and everything, all available for the low, low price of, say, 50 coins per 100 days. They'd have no doors, no locks, no real privacy, but a landlord that could try and keep people who ain't paying him out.

Code Select Expand

An alley [NSE]
This is an alley. It is crooked and dark.
Down a dead end alley to the west lies a shanty town.

enter shanty
Shanty Town Entrance [W Leave]
The amply body-haired, portly man stands here, a cudgel resting over his shoulder.

w
You try to walk west, but the amply body-haired, portly man pokes you in the chest with his cudgel.

The amply body-haired, portly man says to you, in rinthi-accented sirihish:
   "Eh! You wanna enter the Alley Estate Shanty Complex, you's gotta be payin' -ME-. Got it? Now scram, bucko!"
So, next time that assassin backstabs you for massive damage, just run back to the shanty town and hope to hell he ain't renting there, and your landlord ain't susceptible to bribery. If you ain't renting, he'd keep you from going farther in, but once you're in, you're in and there's no doors, no locks, and no privacy. This could provide a fairly neutral place for your character to sleep. At least then, you'd be able to say you own something instead of just sleeping in a warehouse all the time. Maybe the landlord would do the occasional patrol to make sure everyone's in their right hovel (leaving the front door wide open for a couple minutes. )
      - More elite complexes: If people can safely own shops, taverns, and other businesses, then they can do this! Same concept as a southside apartment, only with way more guards. Maybe even one patrolling the halls to watch for tennents who ain't going to their own room. The dangers of running places such as this in the rinth would, naturally, be expressed by the high prices for the very basic rooms. Say, 350-500 coins. This is where you're truely high class, successful rinthis could chill knowing that there're five brutes downstairs getting paid good sid to keep any unwanted guests out of his private space. This would be where your PC turns once his fencing business is too big to keep in his pack.
      -Crummy, by-the-hour hotels:

Code Select Expand


With a grin and rousing chuckle from a few of his armed buddies, the tall, skinny elf tells you, in rinthi-accented sirihish:
  "Twenny-five gits you a room wit' a door for three hours. Thirty-five gets ya one with a lock. An' fifty gets ya one tha's already occupied, if'n ya get my drift."

list
The tall skinny elf has, for rent:
1) An empty, doorless room for 20 coins.
2) A cramped closet with a door for 25 coins.
3) A furnished, locked room for 35 coins.
4) Unavailable
5) A dingy back room, attended by a half-elven waif for 50 coins.
Okay, so maybe there's no need for an NPC whore, but you get my drift. This gives you a place to hide out for a while, and a place to bring that hooker. Adds a bit of neighborhood flava' too.

[ThirdEye]

I am SOOOO down with IAmJacksOpinion.

[Hymwen]

Yeah, that is pretty neat. I'd love to see those things in the 'rinth, it would be awesome.

[Doppelganger]

I don't like idea about named streets. Because they are not streets, roads, lanes and boulevards, they are narrow dirty alleys weaving in all directions between buildings. You may name and stick a label to every hair on your head, but does it really make sense?
Also, Rinth is not only lawless, but also divided. There is no authority figure to come across the Rinth pointing his finger and saying 'this heap of dung is now named Golden Palace and that dead end is now named Central Plaza'. I assume that gangs use names to describe alleys and buildings of their own turf and everyone can share ideas with their immediate friends, yet I think that sticking label to someone else's hair makes even less sense.

Everything else is fine and nifty and fascinating, but if there is no possibility to do it all at once, then I think that Slink's proposal about documentation is most important.
I too fear that huge chunks of important information are so forgotten that they never spread ICly anymore.

Like, once upon the time we got attacked by staff driven NPC. Before blade work he informed us that our mothers look indeed ugly and that we have trespassed into land owned by the tribe XYZ. I have asked around later, and to my surprise not only we knew nothing about origin, niche and estimated strength of the clan XYZ, but also those not involved into fight have never ever heard the word XYZ before. This lack of knowledge is sad and I think it steals more from the Rinth than all the boring room descriptions. The first is fatal; the second can be moderated, colored and brought to life with a single emote at your very whim.

[Kalden]

IAmJacks' ideas are all damn good. I don't get people who argue against apartments. It's a cheap, easy source of revenue. If something realistically should happen then it should be reflected IG. I think 'rinthers wouldn't even mind if poor southside families came into the 'rinth for housing because they couldn't afford 'nak's housing. It's more people to mug/exhort.

Apartments would likely be extremely dangerous anyway, because it's easy for an assassin or a thug to simply shadow you into your apartment. It's hardly going to make the 'rinth less dangerous.

As for the remark that the 'alleys aren't streets': all they seem like is crooked streets. Actually, I'd almost like it more if the 'rinth seemed more like a normal city with more alleys, rather than streets that twist and turn every which way. Oh well. The 'rinth is really not that confusing.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I think 'rinthers wouldn't even mind if poor southside families came into the 'rinth for housing because they couldn't afford 'nak's housing. It's more people to mug/exhort.

Indeed, that's probably one of the main ways the 'rinth repopulates.  People who have nowhere else to go naturally gravitate there.

[creeper386]

Even alleys get names. Especially in a place that is only alleys. They'd get named after gangs that held them, or individuals that made it famous.

They'd gang names after some large street fight between several gangs that left a few crippled or even wiped one out(Headless Jozhal Lane, named after the great battle many years back that ended with all the Black Jozhal's lined up and executed with a chop of an axe).

Stuff like this adds flavor and makes the place ... Seem like somewhere were people have/do live. I have been through the 'rinth a few times and it really seems lifeless. Some place where people just kill each other rather then acctually live.

[Vessol]

I agree, the Rinth could really use some more living work to flesh it out, if the suggestions by IAmJacksOpinion were made, I would promptly create tons of 'rinth chars.

[jhunter]

These are all good ideas. I think it would greatly improve the 'Rinth and make it feel more real than it currently does. Make it more of a living, breathing part of the city. A filthy, rundown, scumbag-infested part of the city, but a part of the city just the same.

[Doppelganger]

it's easy for an assassin or a thug to simply shadow you into your apartment

There are enough places where assasins are forced to do the trick of shadowing into apartment.

The 'rinth is really not that confusing.

There are enough places with named and straight streets that are not confusing at all. None of those places are known as Labyrinth though.

Stuff like this adds flavor and makes the place ... Seem like somewhere were people have/do live. I have been through the 'rinth a few times and it really seems lifeless. Some place where people just kill each other rather then acctually live.

There are enough places with flavor and echoes and apartments and flowers and named streets and forced tricks and contests where you can live and live and live and live and live.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

The 'Rinth needs food and water. Yes, you can already get it, but it's ridiculously expensive. I understand that the cost is meant to reflect the relative scarcity of food and water, but right now it seems like an artificial limit, at best.
A single meal costs about a hundred 'sids in the 'Rinth... how can most 'Rinthers, whose annual earnings (I imagine) are somewhere in the range between "bumpkiss" and "diddly squat" manage to eat? It forces players to do some rather ridiculous things to make 'sid (wow, every PC I've ever met just happens to be either a pickpocket, mugger or spice-dealer), or else just go southside for a 10-'sid sausage or bag of flour.
The 'Rinth needs cheap food and water (maybe foraged out of piles of refuse), simply because, right now, it's not clear how VNPC 'Rinthers manage to eat enough to live past infancy. This would add to more PCs actually LIVING in the 'Rinth, instead of going southside whenever they need to eat, drink, sleep or log out.

[spawnloser]

I...think I'm with Doppleganger.  Let me explain how and why.

I would rather not see the alleys all get names that show up in the title or description of the room like how roads are named in other areas...in completely OOC fashion for anyone that walks past to figure out or know in common with another.  There are enough virtual people willing to tell you the road names in 'Nak or Tuluk, I'd wager...same in Luir's and Storm even.  In the 'Rinth?  They'd probably be, as was said, this gang calls this unique intersection in their turf this...and name the stuff around it relative to it...and this place this and this this.  They wouldn't tell people what they meant when referring to those places, because then they have their own secret code for navigating around their territory.  "Let's split up, eh?  You go north and I'll go south.  Meetcha at the li'l three way between the big three and the hump in twen'y."  All the RP potential and complexity that leaving it this way allows?

My suggestion?  Have fun with it.  Name them yourself...spread those names to people.  If it becomes popular enough that everyone knows it, then we put it in the room title/description.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

I don't like idea about named streets. Because they are not streets, roads, lanes and boulevards, they are narrow dirty alleys weaving in all directions between buildings.

Right, but no templar ever said "These fair streets are too immaculately planned. Lets make some little, decrepit, fucked up alleys somewhere where people can wander around, kill each other, and bring spice into this fair city!"

The rinth was once Allanak propper, but then (due to the obvious lack of planning) it just depreciated into a bunch of ruthless, slum alleys. I imagine noone knew just how massive the city would become, so they didn't plan it out too much in the early days.

But, yeah, I guess the idea of codedly naming the streets wasn't too good a one. Basically caught it on a whim. I actually better like the idea of PC's making their own names and making alleys famous by their own foul deeds. Like the Folley. Everyone who's played a few minutes in the rinth knows where, or at least -WHAT- that is, but it's nowhere in the name.

I stick to my other ideas steadfastly though. There needs to be MORE rinth! More buildings. I'd love to see

Code Select Expand

An Alley [NES]
This is an alley. It's dark, and alleyish. There's probably people looking to kill you around here. Did I mention it's an alley?
A crack in the wall opens into an old mud-brick building.

Not neccisarily more NESW rooms, but more goodies that you have to pay somewhat close attention to find. As it is, I got a map of about everything in the rinth that is sensible and easy to follow. I DON'T WANT THAT! I want little hidden extras up the wazoo! Give me a reason to read and read and read those room mdescs. I want cracked doors leading up to forgotten lofts. I want a tunnel leading from one basement to another a few blocks down. I want to jump walls into long forgotten courtyards. I want holes in the wall that lead into warehouses. I want to climb the side of a building to that door-to-nowhere leading into the upstairs of a building. I want to find that nook beneath rotted out floor boards.

Seriously. The Imms wouldn't even need to do much writing here. Like I say, give it open season! I'd love to submit hidden rooms, colorful NPCs, room echoes.

On the subject of further documentation: YES! If there really is a God, YES! There's soo much your character should know, but doesn't. For instance, theres a town nearby where I live that holds a minor gang. They basically just smoke pot and the biggest thing they've ever done was stab a guy.  Now, I never go to that town, and I can't remember their gang name exactly. But I know that (for some god-forsaken reason) they have Star of David bumper stickers because they use a similar star as their symbol or whatever. AND I LIVE 15 MILES AWAY! Motto of this off-topic story: There's a lot of common knowledge that's not commonly known. Docs. PLEASE! Have a special little sub-catagory of the 'tribal peoples' documentation for the Rinth or something. Or have a 'rinth_gangs' list in the help files.

[Pantoufle]

I think the 'Rinth needs a bit of a make over.  More focus on the 'Rinth "proper" and less on the sewers, more focus on things which any average character will take note of and can utilize.  Tearing down a tavern and completely redoing it (perhaps with new ownership) would be a great change/update; out with the old, in with the new and all that jazz.  I'd also like to see some more original plotlines sprout from the 'Rinth rather than the all too predictable scary monster swarms which seem jarringly out of touch with the ArmageddonMUD theme.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

Yeah. As it is, the rinth is a ghost town. There needs to be a larger NPC population. Preferably one that ain't so hooded. It's like a weekend campout with the occult, and it needs to be more like a 3rd world country only more violent, and with no dictator (though someone's always after that role)

I imagine the rinth as a group of people fighting over scant resources and good squating spots, not a few ELITE cloaked people waiting on street corners to jump you for anything worth selling. The NPC population needs to be more than muggers. I think the fact that you never see an NPC trying to live off a craft, or a non-violent criminal trade (Pickpockets, Burlgars) gives the illusion that the rinth is nothing but a barren place to fight and spam sneak.

And there DEFINATELY needs to be more documentation on gangs and the social structure of the rinth, because noone's gonna live to the minimum character age of 13 without learning a few things! That's Junior High! If every day you went to school, there was a shooting, you would have to be damned lucky, or damned smart to make it to Junior High!