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Development updates, balance changes, and announcements are posted first on the in-game
Common Board. This page mirrors that board, so anything
posted there appears here as well.
It is time for another update. The new achievements system is now live. This
finally adds a long-missing feature from the game.
You can see your achievements through the "achievements" / "achieve" command.
There are a half dozen different categories, and I am starting off with 65
different goals to accomplish throughout the game. The web client has a new
'achievements' tab next to the Chat tab (you can also disable it through
settings if you don't want to see it).
I will be adding more achievements as we go. Note that there will also be
HIDDEN achievements, that will show in the counters on the achievements summary
page, but you cannot see the details. If you unlock those, they will show up.
Please note that some achievements will not be fully available until post
Armageddon. I recommend waiting until after that before trying to accomplish
them.
With this in place, the two major pieces of work that I needed to complete for
the other project are now live. I am awaiting some approvals, and hopefully
should have some exciting news about that in the next week or so.
Z
In order to provide for a safer community, I have rolled out a set of updates.
These are designed to help protect players from unwanted content and
experiences.
"Options intimate" has been updated. It is now gated behind an adult
verification. In addition, only other players that are in your friend list can
actually perform any of these emotes on you.
There is a new "Options language". Any communication will be filtered for
profanity. If you want to disable the filter, you can use "options language
off". This is also gated behind adult verification.
There are two new commands that have been added, "mute" and "report".
Mute allows you to block any communication from another player. You can mute
them by name (online or offline), or description (if they are in your room).
They will not be able to target you for any emotes/communication, and their
mail/messengers will be blocked. They will not be able to attack you, or steal
from you. There is one caveat on this last part - if you have attacked
them/stolem from them in the last 30 days, they can continue to attack/steal
from you. Attacking guild NPCs will also limit your attack/theft protection
(this will be added shortly, with a warning of its impact on your attack
protection).
"Report" allows you to make a harassment report on another player. It will
automatically include any communication/emotes/messages/mail that the player
has sent to you for the past hour, and will track any messages for the next
hour as well.
These tools should help protect players, in particular anyone that is under the
age of 18. It has been one of my core stated goals that this game must be a
safe space, and I hope that these will help make that even more of a reality.
Z
It is time for another update!
There has been a lot of work going on, much of it under the hood, some of it
already announced here. The pace feels like it is quickening, as we run
through summer.
I have started to actively work on season 1. The storyline is largely
developed, and I expect to have a few dozen sub-events which each tie into a
larger season-event. Your goal will be to seek out the these events, put
together the pieces, and figure out what ties it all together. My goal will be
to make sure the puzzles are tricky, unique, and leave you scratching your head
as you work to reach the finish line.
Work continues on the client, with some new major features. You can now add
keybindings - press F1 to kick off a command or script, for example. I just
added sound support as well - this means you can easily set up javascript
commands to easily play audio files. It comes with some presets, which you can
also override as you like. Oh, is that a quest_completed audio preset?
Curious. Volume controls have also been added, and both the music and sound
systems should play well together.
I have also added some simplified triggers so you don't have to write as much
javascript code. This should help for some of the more basic kinds of triggers
many people write. You can also choose your font, from a half-dozen different
options, in the spirit of configuration. I added the ping/connection time
tracker and full-screen mode, and some quick-click buttons to make some actions
a little easier.
At this point, my goals for the web client have changed. It is no longer about
"is it better than the original", but rather "how does it compare to the more
advanced MUD web clients available on the Internet? How does it compare to
Mudlet?". This is a major paradigm shift. This may have some people asking
themselves "why?". I think you know why. I look forward to announcing.
I continue to actively develop the website, and you'll find the Player Guide is
more fleshed out. I hope to fill out some of the few remaining pages. I am
also dotting the I's and crossing the T's on some of the gnitty gritty that a
project like this merits.
I have made big strides on a new craftsman guild, which will launch (and you
will need to discover) as part of season 1. Something else to look forward to.
I continue to work on filling out the remaining missing maps as well.
Let's see what we can get launched in August. Full Steam ahead.
Z
I have made an update to how haste bonuses affects swing speed.
For decades, haste bonuses would reduce your swing speed at a fixed rate - so
going from 5 second swings to 4 second swings would require just as much haste
as going from 3 second swings to 2 second swings. This meant that haste would
give more and more bang for your buck, the higher it got. This was typically
capped, but occasionally bugs would show up - at one point the Shadow Union's
fling would instantly reset, with high levels of haste, for example.
The vampire guild of the early 2000s provided a haste boost. When combined
with the runed falchion (which provided double the vampire benefit), players
could have a consistent 2 second swing time, or 2.5x as many attacks and
specials as a player with no haste. The guild code can be see in the open
source repository at /d/Emerald/common/guild/vamp/ for those that wish to see
these details. Other equipment, such as the serrated obsidian halberd, gave
higher levels of haste, enabling players to reach these levels.
In an attempt to nerf these bonuses, the AOB team at the time decided to
significantly reduce how much haste any equipment would give. They also added
logic to add up each individual item's contribution to haste, in an attempt to
reduce its usefulness. They left the underlying scaling formula in place,
which was the core issue. In order to neuter the value of haste, they both
halved the strength of the strongest haste items, and also halved the strength
of all haste boosts. The exponential swing speed of up to 2.5x remained in
place.
This is unfortunately an example of what happens when a wizard in charge cares
more about nerfing things that they don't like, than figuring out what is
actually broken and fixing it. It was that same person that added the 60
second delay between herbs, taking them from being much too powerful in large
quantities, to being largely worthless.
The net result, up until now, meant that small haste boosts underperform their
expected combat aid. It also means that two small haste boosts would give you
less improvement than a single boost of double-size. It meant the weakest
haste imbuement has been significantly worse than the strongest haste
imbuement.
It did not need to be that way. At the time, the admin in question was highly
focused on nerfing the vampire guild, instead of fixing a formula that scaled
poorly. He was on record at the time of explicitly saying that this was his
goal. It is exactly that kind of motivated reasoning that led me to create
this game.
Going forwards, the overall haste formula has been updated. A 10% combat aid
boost will scale your hit rate by 10%, and so forth. Many small haste sources
will no longer be penalized. Most haste sources will give you a faster swing
speed from before. NPCs that are hasted may also hit faster (though some of
these were already at a cap).
With this now properly scaling, I can reevaluate whether some of these
double-nerfs (halving of their raw haste values, and the halving of what haste
provides) and potentially increase haste boosts on some items again. I will
put up a separate post regarding that if I do. For now, you should be able to
enjoy your haste items a little more.
Z
It is time for a major update. The Krynn commodity system has been greatly
expanded. This includes a series of changes.
For those that aren't familiar, Theros Ironfeld in Solace constructs masterwork
equipment from various materials, and he is also paid with steel coins and
gold. He also needs the materials, which can be sold to him. Some of these
materials were various metal bars, which also had to be processed from raw ores
by a separate seller in another area. This equipment has special gem slots,
where various gems that are dropped from the Krynn warfare system could be
inserted into them, giving them additional enhancements. There is also an
underlying commodity system, where buying and selling prices are dictated by
how much ore/bar inventory is on hand. There were a limited number of places
where the ores could be mined.
Going forwards, the custom armor and weapon makers will also be working on that
system. Bubba in Gelan, Calcamil in Minas Tirith (and his counterpart in Minas
Morgul), and Phinia in Avenir will construct their equipment from those same
materials. They will each need to be brought the appropriate bars (or raw
ores) in order to make these items. The two top tiered armors made by Calcamil
will have a random chance of being imbued, as will all of Theros' masterwork
equipment. Phinia will require a sybarun coin in addition to her current
price, but her customized gear will also have a chance of being imbued.
The Smiths guild has been updated to use these same iron bars for forging.
These will continue to be sold by Bores and the few others, but are no longer
be sold by them in unlimited amounts. Most blacksmiths throughout the realms
will buy the raw ores, and convert them into bars that can be purchased back
from them for use in purchasing custom equipment. As I mentioned, buying and
selling prices are affected by inventory, so you may find better deals from
different locations. All bars and ores will recover in your inventory as well.
Coal pieces can also be mined, and they can double as light sources. These
should work like the coal in Avenir, and are also ingredients for the custom
equipment.
There were only a few dozen specific locations where one could mine these ores
previously. Going forwards, there are over 1000 rooms that can be mined for
ores. Each region has its own mix of available materials, as expected. These
will provide a whole new system to make money outside of the herbing and
looting systems that most people have relied on for years. Given the
possibility of using these materials to craft high quality, potentially imbued
equipment, I anticipate that there will be a lot of action in the auctions for
these as the player base grows.
In addition to these ores, there is a chance to find uncut gems in the mines as
well. These gems can be brought to the various jewelers throughout the realms,
and for a fee they will be cut and polished into the typical gems found
throughout the game.
You will need to find mining gear to do the mining. The proper gear will wear
down very slowly, while a random dagger or sword will wear down quickly.
These changes will roll out in full at Armageddon, along with the previous herb
changes.
Enjoy!
Z
I have made a few more fixes as well.
Multiple people can simultaneously search in the room (such as searching for
herbs). One person searching will not break the other.
When magicals items are broken, or destroyed, the odds of them being spawned
will increase to account for the lost item. This more closely matches the
original behavior of how uniques were handled. Note that throwing an item
into the sea may cause it to fall to the bottom, not explicitly destroy it, so
be careful in how you attempt to dispose of these things.
These should be two important quality-of-life fixes. Both will go into effect
after Armageddon as well.
Z
I have made some updates to the herbing system, to make it a little more
friendly to guilds that have very high herbalism skill. Previously, only a
maximum of 3 herbs could be found per room, regardless of size and herbalism
skill. This reduced the value of having high mastery levels of herbing. There
are a few herbs that the highest skills are required to search for by name, but
that is not of much value.
Going forwards, there will be a chance of finding more than 3 herbs per room,
and those with the highest skills will have the best odds of finding more. In
addition, the gardeners guild (both craft and layman) will receive a bonus,
giving them better odds to find 3 or more herbs of the hardest to find types.
This boost will depend on their notebook quality, as well as their guild stat,
so those that garden a long time will have the best opportunities to find the
rarest of herbs.
This change has been rolled out, but most rooms will not be affected until
Armageddon. The Gardener boost is now in effect.
Z
It was the best of Bree, it was the worst of Bree..Oh wait, there are two of
those too?
Much of the work this month has been around cleaning up maps and code, and
trying to get better map coverage throughout the game. You can see maps for
every single ship now, and I am starting to add maps for regions that still do
not have them in the original. My end goal is full map coverage, along with
music, and in the longer term graphical maps.
During the Bree cleanup (oh, hello Hin guild code!), I spotted a major feature
missing from the mudlib. You know those ambient messages you see, birds
chittering, orcs nearby? Every single domain had to build their own
infrastructure for that. But now that I have more effective tooling, I can add
the feature globally, and move every domain over to it. Then I can start to
assess which domains have the least flavor, which areas and rooms, and then
figure out how to add more character to them. This is 30+ years of old code,
and quality standards shifted a lot over the decades (while leaving many areas
simply untouched). Its not showy like adding a new area, so it got ignored.
This one new code feature affected nearly 2000 files. This kind of change was
effectively impossible in the old game. And it rolls out at Armageddon. I have
run tests to verify that it all loads well, and I believe it should go out
smoothly. And each project like this makes it a little easier to attempt the
next big project.
On the web client side, there have been two major releases. First, there is
battle music (can be toggled on/off in settings). This is directly tied to
when you're in combat, and the music ends when your adrenaline fades.
Different regions have different sets of soundtracks, and I will be adding boss
battle music for some of the more memorable fights over time as well. Not all
areas have battle music yet, but I will work on full coverage shortly.
The other big web client feature is the dual-split window. This should help
you go through scrollback while still keeping tabs on what's going on
immediately around you. This can also be toggled on/off if you don't like it.
I am also trying to track down any other lingering bugs in the UI since moving
over to the unlimited-scroll window - if you see something weird, let me know.
My next big focus (beyond all the map work) is going to be on the Season
launch. I am starting to write up the specs and details, and what it may all
entail. I am also considering tying the launch of a new craftsman guild to the
community successfully completing the main quest line. I am also getting to
the point where I need to start thinking about how the game is going to evolve
in terms of new content going forwards. This may end up being a hard fork away
from the original, but I do not want to make major changes for the sake of
major change. I would love to hear from all of you about what you'd like to
see happen here.
I continue to enjoy working on this project, and hope that I am putting enough
focus on high-visibility changes that make the gaming experience better. I
recognize that growing the size of the community is going to need some
significant effort, and am building out the website documents, as well as
setting up social media accounts so I can start engaging with a larger
audience. This will include other players of the original, so there may be
some fireworks in the upcoming months.
Z
.-~-. ...-----~~~~~~~--------.........--------~~~~~~~----... .-~-.
| | | ___ ___ _ _ ___ ___ ___ ___ | | |
| `--' / __| __| \| | __/ __|_ _/ __| `--' |
| | | | (_ | _|| .` | _|\__ \| |\__ \ R E M A S T E R E D | | |
| | | \___|___|_|\_|___|___/___|___/ | | |
| | | | | |
|.-~-.| |...-----~~~~~~~--------.........-------~~~~~~~----...| |.-~-.|
|` '.__.` '.__. |
| |
| Ironstones |
| |
| |
| Ironstone imbues will now provide proper dulling and breaking |
| protections to armours and weapons. |
| |
| The different tiers of stones will provide varying |
| levels of protection, providing nondull at intense |
| imbuement. In addition, weapons will now notify |
| their wielder as they dull, like armours. |
| |
| The effects of this change will take place at |
| Armageddon. |
| |
| Thanks to those involved in helping with this improvement. |
| |
| Enjoy! |
| |
| |
|_______________________________________________________________________|
May has come and gone! It has been a whirlwind of activity upstairs, though it
may not always seem like it. For those that aren't constantly active, I want
to catch some of the things that have been going on.
Content updates
I have started taking on limited requests for guild improvements. Drow can now
summon spiders, and the dragonarmies have their intimidate ability restored.
Quality of life remains the focus, so if there are things that improve your
gameplay, please reach out.
All the game-wide messengers have all been updated, they now play well with the
chat window, and the there should be less difference in behavior between
various messengers now. If you hit one that acts up, let me know so I can take
a look.
The launch of the ogre event is a sign that I am starting to shift from fixing
issues and cleaning up, to adding new things. I'll make announcements as
content is added, and I do have some very fun plans for the launch of Season 1.
I've got an active project to fill in the gap the missing maps throughout the
game, with a specific focus on the ships. My goal is to get much closer to
100% coverage on the ascii maps. I am working on better tooling for the
graphical maps, so those are still delayed a bit.
I have much better tooling in place for the music, however. This coming
Armageddon should see about 80% coverage of all mapped areas. This is up from
about 20% this prior Armageddon. I added about a dozen new themes, and am also
exhancing places with room-specific sounds (like waterfalls). There will
continue to be some big improvements in this space.
Gondor should start announce its night/day cycles again next Armageddon too -
this was something long-broken. Its amazing just how much of the old code had
been broken for years/decades.
Web client updates
The web client has actually been much of my focus, even with all these other
updates. I have cleaned up the interface on aliases/triggers, make viewing
your custom damage more manageable, and upgraded the export package tools so
you can bundle even more up. The settings window now lets you control a whole
lot more. You can set up your client to auto-download your logs when you
disconnect, or when you close your window. Control-S also lets you save at any
time, like before. And scrollback is largely unlimited now, with a new search
bar. Oh, and aliases/triggers has a search bar now too. The APIs are
published onto the website, and I have been adding more features so your
scripts can be even more powerful.
I have also launched a separate export tool, for those that need to import
their scripts (including maps) from other places. You can see the instructions
here:
https://zizuph.github.io/genutils/
If you have friends that would like to visit, but dread starting from scratch,
I am doing everything I can to lower the entry barriers.
Finally, a word about Seasons.
Much of the game can be a grind, and the end-game experience is something very
front-of-mind for me. My long term goal is to have major episodes that cross
over all of the domains. Think of events on steroids. I have the basic
storylines worked out, and am putting the pieces in place that I need to make a
major storyline happen. There will be goals to achieve, special rewards, and a
bigger plot to try to solve. As I get closer to launch, I'll try to share
more.
Its quite a bit going on! Changes here have just begun.
Z
We have been launched a few months now, and it is time for an event!
On this Sunday, the event will begin. Head to the Village Green, and check out
the work of the Army of Darkness. They have contributed a massive gift in
their long-standing goals to collect more skulls for the Harvest. Come see
their handiwork, and help them out with their quest.
Anyone who collects 100 skulls or more will be given the chance to dig into
their big pile of skulls for buried treasure. There will be even more chances
for 1000 and 10k skull collections. In addition the top three collectors for
the event will get more changes to find more loot.
The event will run through July 15, since the ogres assured me that they need a
significant number of skulls. Any skulls found will also count towards your
total skull count if you do choose to become an ogre in the future.
Enjoy!
Z
The web client has been updated with some new features.
There is now a copy button, so now you can duplicate an existing trigger/alias
to make a similar version.
The input box now has tabkey auto-completion built in. It will look at all the
words in the last 100 lines of text on the screen, and you can autocomplete any
words from there by pressing tab (or shift-tab if you want to go in reverse).
Please give it a try and see what you think.
I have added the ability to automatically download your game logs. Type
control-S (or command-S) to save your files. The name will be auto-generated,
so you can tell exactly when you created it. It will grab everything in the
screen buffer (set to 5k lines right now, control over that size should be
coming soon).
Finally, imbued items will now be colored in the inventory screen. I plan to
add imbue and other colors into the highlights package soon. I also did a
bunch of work under the hood to provide better color control so you can tweak
all of the various lines easily on your own.
I have started working on the Palanthas maps, though their complexity has made
them slow going.
Now that the Sparkle maps are largely done, and with the big combat system
messaging changes in place, I think we are in a position to start encouraging
more players to join us. I will be working on these plans next. I may still
need to add a quick tutorial for new players on how to use the web client, but
I think the major pieces are finally in place.
Z
Hello everyone,
It has been a few weeks since my last note, but that does NOT mean that I
haven't been busy. But there have been a ton of cobwebs on this old code, and
have gone through more brooms than you could shake a..broom handle at. I'll
give you all a quick update as to where things are going, though.
First of all, I have finally moved all of the code into version control. This
involved going through roughly 80k files, cleaning up tons of dead code, and
separating the code from the books, logs, and all that other stuff. In this
process I came across: 2 ranger guilds, 2 morgul mage guilds, 2 merc guilds, 2
POTs, 2 Neidar guilds, 3 knight guilds, 3 Calian guilds, 4!!! gnomish inventor
guilds (including 3 Mount Neverminds), 2 Palanthases (Palanthasi?) and a whole
lot more. This was 30 years of accumulated technical debt that everybody was
afraid to tackle. This also means that as I attempt to make big changes, I can
roll back if things go badly awry. And it also means that I can attempt to
make big changes, which is NOT something you'll be hearing from another place.
I have a bit more work left, and once that is done I'll have us in a safe spot
from all sorts of catastrophic errors (such as the server blowing up).
Second, I have launched the new inventory screen, with custom artwork for all
the various guilds and races. You can also install the progress tab from the
available packages - put it in, have your startup script type "prog" and you
can watch your realtime progress without having to stop to read your
scrollback. This also means you can create your own tabs easily too - both
next to the inventory or chat windows as you prefer.
The web client definitely gets a lot of attention right now, and the latest
release comes built with another new feature. You may notice at login that the
magic map has a nice shiny piece of artwork. Hmm...what does that mean? A
heck of a lot more work for me - there are 1300 maps covering roughly 25k rooms
throughout the game. This will roll out piece by piece over time, and
hopefully will create a whole new way to enjoy the game as you explore it.
Much of the work recently has been about infrastructure and stability, and that
will continue for a while. Please encourage your friends to come visit here as
well, and we will build a wonderful community.
Web client projects still on my todo list:
Better color support
More prebuilt packages to make life for new players easier
Tab autocomplete for less typing
Clickable/highlighted links and other ways to interact with the interface
For guilds that aren't free to join, the following guilds can be seeded for
anyone that is expert or higher and wishes to start the process of running the
guild: Knights, Calians, Neidar, Secret Society, Rangers, Elemental Clerics.
The WOHS test, and choice of robe will be offered to anyone who reaches the top
SOHM title, as per the lore.
This leaves the SU, POT, MM, and Fire Knives as the four guilds that have a
more complicated story. There is a fair bit of interest in the POT,
considering the limits of access elsewhere, and I will need to find a fair way
to give all those that are interested a chance to join it. The vampires remain
free-to-join, and I believe the other guilds are available. Congratulations to
the Dragon Order for having their first elections!
Z
The help rules have finally been written up, and there are some modifications
made to help botting.
Please review these, and make sure you are familiar with them. The rules bear
a lot of similarities to the older game, but there are some significant
differences:
Alt discussions are treated very differently, given how inconsistently the old
rules were (and could be) actually applied.
There is a separate section on number discussions.
Botting rules come with a new requirement - scripts must respect the word
"STOP".
The rules (like everything else here) are all a work in progress. I am more
than happy to discuss them and work on tweaking them until we have a good set
of rules in place.
Z