If I was Supreme Entity...

I genuinely believe that the immortals of the Realms of Despair do a pretty good job of administrating the game. Some of the recent changes such as pre-authed names and questlines have been great. Overal the immortals have shown a commitment towards the game and the community of players/builders/smaug developers which is appreciated. However there are certain areas of the game I would like to see changed. Some of these I am sure that the immortals would like to change too but haven't got the resources or time to have done themselves. So in no particular order here is the list of things I would do if I was Supreme Entity of the Realms of Despair.

1. Change pre-auth.
What I hate about pre-auth is when I make a new character and see the following:

Path of Sages                                                   
A tunnel beneath the Sunless Sea leads directly to the far side of the distant mountain. Here there is no distraction from the goal ahead. While the tests of identity and of life choices yet remain, the test of ability is bypassed. Those who walk this path are confident in their ability and know their own destiny.
Exits: up
Dblojqgaazya the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Sbhysvpgmhmo the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Iiheksnhovmx the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Jvvufqgqnmow the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Jyninhhojffr the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Ymawvduepllh the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Ccmxlkrxmoka the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Corsyysvbcus the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Qaimtwmjmcfv the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Edbbxurncfox the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Cqhewurmoahp the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Irjtcenyhezg the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Ikwcnbjnuhwe the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Rzetwmpdfxac the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Ybuzsyhpmqtf the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Rjzjrvlxwajy the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Offotyidwupp the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Gmfngsypmwox the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Beygxmerqiqe the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Arxwddwggzqr the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Oezzlkvigpsx the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
Xlunxrcpjgsp the Fledgling of Blood is standing here.
You hold a glowing beacon as your light.
A burlap sack filled with equipment materializes in your inventory....

A whole screens worth of spam from people rolling new characters. I have no problem with people logging a heap of characters and rerolling them in the hopes of getting the perfect base statistics for a thief or vampire. What I don't like are the gibberish names filling up a whole screen. I then think if I don't like this then what does it say to new players for whom this is one of the first rooms they see? I believe it would be better if people could go to one particular room to reroll where their names do not show up to others or the reroll process is done in the new character section before they get into the pre-auth rooms.

2. Rerolling
The above room filled with rerolling characters could be avoided by making it easier to get the statistics you want. If they could make the reroll command accept an argument of which statistics you want most.
i.e. for a thief: "reroll dex str luck" that would only generate characters with those 3 statistics higher than the other statistics.

3. Bring back the lizardmen.
I've already posted enough about this but please bring them back.

4. Housing/apartments
There have hardly been any houses or apartments for sale this year. Apartments are a lot less expensive than houses due to the reason that items in apartments do not save over reboots. This is crazy to me. Houses will always cost more due to them having extra rooms in them which is how it should be but still...

5. Some banners to advertise with
On the Realms of Despair promote page it talks about "Coming Soon - Sample banners for promoting us on your blog or webpage". I've got a blog here and am trying to promote the game. I understand making these things takes time but if it could be done soon, I'd appreciate it.

6. Tank potions
One area of the game I find unenjoyable is having to organise tank potions. Sorting out empty flasks, setting up brew scripts and then waiting around is not fun. One of the best moves made in recent years was the lowering of the price of heal potions. This removed the problem of having to brew heals yourself. What I'd like to see are some cheap tank potions sold in Darkhaven. For 100k if you could buy a single potion that cast all of the longer tank potions and another potion that cast all of the shorter ones it would remove a less enjoyable part of the game and speed up the fun.

7. More quests
The recent addition of the questnews command that advertises quests that run over several days and add to the storyline of the game are great. Would love to see more of them.

8. More class differences
Sometimes it can feel like the classes are too similar. I would like to see the magic classes especially have more of a focus on different areas of magic - fire, cold, electricity, draining etc. If more mobs were made with particular weaknesses i.e. some new dragon was susceptible to cold then that would make that class more useful against it. Scatter some hidden clues to what weakens what mob would go well with it.

9. A better trade system
I don't like the idea of having to make trading bots to sell equipment. If there was some easy system where we could get a mob to hold an item until it sold at a price set by the seller and list all items to be sold it could save people problems with unreliable bots, connection, problems, etc.

10. More solo challenges
It can be hard to get together a group big enough to kill some mobs. Having an area that needs people to be able to solo mobs without help from other players/alts would be a fun challenge.

11. Bring back Tagertale
One of my favourite mobs in the old days was Tagertale. He could transport characters below level 20 to suitable areas for levelling after answering a riddle. I found it great as a new player to get me started in exploring new areas that were appropriate for my character's level. Now all he does is transport people to their racial nations.

Eleven ideas on how to improve the game. Feel free to agree or disagree but hopefully at least if anyone reads this it will get them thinking.

Cheers,
V.

Why (and how) the Lizards Should Return

In my last post I wrote about how I have one of the few remaining lizardman characters. What this post is about is why it was wrong for them to be taken out of the game, why they should be brought back and how to make them more popular.

Lizardmen disappeared in early 2001. I still remember logging on and trying to make a new lizardman warrior only to find it couldn't be done. After asking around I heard that they'd been removed because they weren't popular enough. This bothered me as there was no official announcement, no warnings, no attempts to make them more popular and no mention of any ways for them to return. Even when they have the occasional raffle where the prize is to be able to make a character of any race/class combination there is always an except lizardman clause. Generally I respect the decisions the Council of Elders makes and believe they are in the best interests of the game. This decision I did not because afterall what harm were the lizards doing to the game?

I can understand why lizardmen weren't very popular. They could only be warriors or rangers and the base stats for them were generally terrible. The base stats for my lizardman ranger are:

Your base stats:    18 str 9  int 9  wis 11 dex 17 con 12 cha 9  lck.
Your current stats: 25 str 12 int 10 wis 20 dex 17 con 12 cha 12 lck.

Tyring to maximise strength, dexterity and wisdom for a ranger with those stats is tough. The funny thing is this problem has been fixed. When they removed statnames from the game they replaced it with a system where all new characters had their statistics add up to 100. This has been tweaked so that now new characters  have their statistics add to 95. The above stats only add up to 85.

The second problem of only having two classes for lizardmen has also been fixed. Since lizards have gone they have added barbarians, bladesingers and fathomers which I think would all be perfect for lizardmen.

The next problem with lizardmen was the lack of special equipment. Half-orcs, half-trolls and half-ogres were always more popular due the racial equipment they had available. Recently there have been racial sets available for dwarves, halflings and gnomes as well as several other minor pieces of racial equipment. Bringing in a lizardman set of equipment would make the race more popular and could be used to develop a series of quests or a storyline for the race.

I believe there is a lot of potential for the lizardman race in the game and I know people would like to play a lizardman character if they could. I was once asked by an immortal how I would feel if they brought back lizards and mine was no longer rare. My response was that I would be happy because I'd love to make a few new lizards myself.

The Last of the Lizards

I am lucky to be one of the few people to have a lizardman character left in the Realms of Despair. Sadly someone made a decision 12 and a half years ago to remove the race from the game. Since then the number of lizards left have slowly autodeleted away until the last I heard there were only 37 lizards left. What it has allowed for is a story that about the struggle for existence and futility of attempting to survive to develop for the handful of lizards left that few players get to see. Themes of survivalism, anger and camaraderie are present throughout the realms for the lizardmen.

Not far from the entrance to the lizardman hometown is an egg. When examined most characters see this:

You take a closer look at A dried out egg shell on the ground...
Several things are immediately clear about this egg. It has been cracked
straight across the centre - surely no lizardman hatched from this egg.
In spite of its age, it is apparent this egg was licked thoroughly clean.
Surely, the lizardman bias is justified. This was the dinner for some egg-
thieving mammal.

When a lizardman examines it they see this extra bit:

Pausing a moment to reflect on the life that never was, the blood within you stirs ...
Grrrrrrrrrr ...

This running theme of the loss of lizardman eggs is also seen in Ockwater Fens when a non-lizardman character enters the room with the traveller in it you get this message:

The traveller sneers at you in contempt.
The lizardman growls at you 'Away with you, egg thieving mammal!'
The traveller growls.

 For the lizardman entering the same room you get this message:

The traveller nods in agreement with you.

 Throughout the whole area the lizardman mobs treat lizard characters differently. Instead of glaring at you the lizardman warriors peer at you quizzically. Anger towards the situation can also be seen when wearing a lizard hide from Salburg. When a non-lizard character wears one it says:

You sling a thick piece of lizard hide on your back.
You marvel at the strength and warmth of a thick piece of lizard hide.

While when the lizards wear it you get:

You sling a thick piece of lizard hide on your back.
You grimace in disgust as you feel a thick piece of lizard hide slide upon your back.
The strength of the hide combines with your own and makes you more powerful.
 

To me though the most interesting lizardman only message is the one you get from the lizardman totem in Vast Horizons. The lizardman totem is the crocodile and it's message is:

The crocodile spirit totem says 'Be strong. Gain strength from overcoming all things.'
You find yourself somewhere else, contemplating the vision your totem has shared.
Was it only a dream?

Surviving. Anger. Camaraderie.

I do wish they'd bring back the lizards. There is so much potential for it to be done and tied in with a storyline through quests and possibly new areas.

Here's hoping.