The Deck of Many Things (round 8)

Found the Deck again today straight after reboot. It did not end well as follows...

The Deck of Many Things lies in wait for a brave soul.
The Deck of Many Things says 'If you can find a card within me, you might be lucky enough to draw something of value.
However, once you submit to chance, you put yourself at the mercy of the cards.
The Deck of Many Things winks suggestively.

>who imm
-----------------------------------[ IMMORTALS ]------------------------------
Newblet         [WRITING] Loril Gemstone-Edelstone, on Cloud Nine. (Ringbearers)  [Co-Head of Newbie Council]
1 player.

>g key deck
You get the Key to the Deck of Many Things from the Deck of Many Things.
The Key to the Deck shudders menacingly.
You drop the Key to the Deck of Many Things.
Vl'aresch gives you one gold coin for your sacrifice of the Key to the Deck of Many Things.
Be Forewarned : You could lose all that you own.
Sashell has been given the chance to draw from the Deck of Many Things.

>g card deck
You get a card from the Deck of Many Things.
A mystical being appears and points at you. Your senses reel as you are flung through the void to another place. The card twists and wriggles in your hands. A great flash of light envelopes the room, blinding you momentarily. When your vision returns, you see that the Deck of Many Things lies before you once more. It is highly recommended that you examine the deck before drawing from it. When you are ready, simply take the card.

>g card deck
You get a card from The Deck of Many Things.
You see that you have drawn the Five of Swords.
The chill of the void starts to fill you as the Deck begins to seal your fate, but you somehow find the means to resist.
You drop the sigil of Vl'aresch.
You drop a brown leather satchel.
You drop a fate banshee's pouch.
You drop a small birch chest.
You drop a rune-covered bag.
You drop a small pick axe.
You drop a small birch chest.
You drop a pair of giant dragon wings.
You drop a bone handled carving knife.
You drop a sanctuary potion.
You drop the silver tipped staff of guarding.
You drop a slender, broken chair leg.
Finally, the void releases its grasp upon you and returns you, battered and very nearly defeated, to the mortal realm.

It could have been worse but it could also have been a lot better. I don't think I lost anything too valuable. Guess I'm due for better luck next time.

Accounting

One topic of talk in the area of modernising MUDs focuses on the use of accounts. Basically this would allow one account to give access to all of player's characters. Recently I've read two different people's thoughts on the topic. First Matthew “Chaos” Sheahan wrote an article for Imaginary Realities titled "Your MUD Should Have an Account System" and secondly Tharius wrote a blog post titled Looking forward, the Realms of the future? Reading both of these close together got me thinking and scarily enough creating a plus/minus/interesting list on the idea. Here are my thoughts:

Positives:

• Quicker for established players to make a new character. No need to spend time in newbie areas.
• Not having to remember passwords/names of several alts. I've lost lowbie characters from this.
• Personal configurations can be saved for a player. This will mean every time I make a new character I won't have to worry about going config -compass, config +gag, config +brief...
• Achievements can be stored between characters.
• Easy to identify a player from their account instead of characters. For example being a member of Arcanes only my mana using classes can be inducted. If I am playing ip 1 on a thief or barbarian a lot of people don't know that I am on.
• You can supply more information about yourself.
• If it was linked to some other account i.e. email, facebook, google+ it could be possible to allow achievements in game to be shared through other platforms

Minuses:

• Depending on how it was implemented it could take a lot of a coders time that may be better spend on other updates.
• Some people wouldn't want all of their characters linked together in one account.
• Character sharing/trading could be more complicated.
• It may make it a little longer for completely new players to the game to get into it and hence more likely to give up before they've started.
• If someone gets/hacks your password they have access to ALL of your characters and equipment.

Interesting:

• The impact on multiplay. Currently the rules are you may only have 8 peaceful characters or 1 deadly character logged in to the game. This has always been enforced by looking at ip numbers but this approach has its own flaws. Nowadays people can easily get around this to use more characters than the rules allow by using multiple ip's. This was a fair system in the old days 20 years ago when most people only had a single ip through a dial-up access internet account. Nowadays they could use a wi-fi connection on one computer to log 8 characters and then use their 3G connection on another computer to log another 8. At the same time if you have two different people in the one location sharing the same wi-fi connection then it can appear as one person using more than one character. An account system could be a different way to enforce this rule.

Either way it's an interesting idea to think about.

Monkey Business

During September the Order of Arcanes ran a competition to increase the knowledge on our forums board. This included information on low level to avatar challenges. This got me thinking about the mysteries of the game that I don't fully know about but sort of know a little on. This list included the following:

• Low level mysteries: Golden Gauntlet, eight monkeys, Sapphire Blade, troll hide helm and Macmillan Family Farm.
• Avatar mysteries: Long Lost Boots of Ranger Thoric, dark matter, acidstroke, Absolution, Orcus/Hastur, Underworld beyond Satan and KoTR armor crafting/Starre's project.

The one that has been bugging me the most is the mystery of the eight monkeys. They are spread mostly though the Southern Mountain Ranges geo with trips to neighbouring areas for some of the monkeys and parts to make them. These often involve mini-quests of differing sorts. For example to get the quartz monkey you need to do the following:

>Inside The Run Down Shack
This structure barely qualifies as a shack. Bits and pieces of trash are poorly hammered to cracked strips and timbers, all of which would collapse were it not leaning against the cliff face outside, plainly visible through the cracks in the walls. The shack sits in the low trough against the cliff face and what is left of the rotting floor is very damp. An unkempt bed rests on stone blocks in one corner and a crooked square table stands with the help of the wall. It is possible that this is someone's home.
Exits: north
An old ranger stands very still here.
Begbee looks up at you, seeming a little surprised.
Begbee thinks, 'Hmmmm.'
Begbee says 'I don't often have visitors...'
Begbee says 'Are you lost or is there reason for this intrusion?'

>say cress
You say 'cress'
Begbee looks a little shocked.
Begbee wonders 'Oh, you know Cress. Tell her her daddy would love to see her soon, wouldya?'

A Low Spot On The Canyon Rim
This natural low area on the canyon rim provides a beautiful view of the canyon stretching far to the southeast and the canyon floor below. A small fire has been built here and still smolders warmly. The rim trail follows the higher parts of the rim, passing this spot by. The east wall of this depression has a slight overhang of the sandstone at the very top, providing a tiny space of shelter, just enough for one person vertically.
Exits: north
(Glowing) A fire has burnt down to a bed of hot coals here.
(Hide) A young girl hangs by her feet in the shelter of the overhang.

>say begbee
You say 'begbee'
Cress says 'Yes, he is my father. He gave me something but I've... I think it fell into the canyon. I search for it every night but I think it's...'
Cress looks very sad.

The Northwest Corner Of The Enormous Canyon
The canyon floor is rather flat here, devoid of the hoodoos and other rock formations that fill this canyon with wonder. The high canyon walls are extremely crumbly and climbing here would be impossible. The balancing rock formation to the southeast looks precarious as if it ought to topple to the east into a nearby hoodoo at any moment.
Exits: east south

>search
You begin your search...

Your search reveals a quartz monkey!

>give monkey cress
You give a quartz monkey to Cress.
Cress says to you, 'That's it. That's the little monkey! It's not broken, it's perfect.'
Cress looks both happy and very sad at the same time.
Cress says to you, 'Thank you for showing me. I'm glad I didn't break it. You keep it, though.'
Cress gives you a quartz monkey.
Cress says to you, 'Take good care of that, I can't keep it, it makes me sad.'

As you can see it involves talking to various mobs and searching in random rooms to get the monkey. Similar missions are involved to find the other monkeys, but I am stuck on the last two monkeys. The jade and sugilite monkeys still have me stumped but hopefully they will pop up soon for me.

One of the good things about joining an organisation in the game is that players can share information and put questions out there like the above for others to answer or solve themselves. Hopefully someone will have the answers.