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.

MUD's Aren't Dead

With the recent 20th anniversary of the Realms of Despair there has been much celebration and nostalgia of the game's history and introspection about the future of it. A large part of the feelings of the future of the game and MUD's in general have been pessimistic with concerns about the number of players - both retaining older players and recruiting newer plays along with the competition of other games.

Around the same time I've been reading as much as I can about MUD's in general and the academic analysis of them. The most proficient writer in recent years is Michael "Drakkos" Heron. He is one of the people responsible for the new Imaginary Realities Journal. I've already written about my feelings on some of his writings in an earlier post. Today I want to write a few comments about his paper “Likely to be eaten by a Grue” – the relevance of text games in the modern era which is all about why text games are still important today.

The first point he makes about why people play the games is summarised in the quote below:

These kinds of games are fun in and of themselves.  They are not fun because they hark back to simpler days of game development and remind many of us of the games we played when we were younger.  If that were their only appeal, we would never have played them in the first place.

I love that quote. It really expresses how I feel about the subject better than I could ever say. The paper then goes on to talk about the advantages of a text game over other games, mainly:

1. The low cost - it costs little in money to play/make a MUD. Along with this it is (at least in theory) possible to quickly modify and update parts of it.
2. The ergodic nature of a MUD over other games adds a different dimension where your actions and choices early on can affect you character long into the future.
3. Accessability - MUD's are accessible to people with disabilities with the text nature of them easy for other programs to interpret.
4. The players generally have a higher than average level of literacy. While there is the odd exception to this rule this higher literacy and intelligence can lead the game to be better than many others.
5. The use of imagination is required to visualise the world in a way that graphics which become outdated quickly can not. For example consider the following room in the Daichall area:

For Her Pleasure
Pain wracks every vein of life that enters this hellish domain. Lifeless eyes stare from every corner. Bodies lie heaped upon the ground, each torn from life in macabre defeat. The shrieking of countless souls rips through the air and shatters any hope of escape. No suffering goes unexplored in this place and whole new worlds of torture are opened for the victims who enter. Knelt nearby, a lone paladin still clutches a holy cross, fingers locked forever in rigor mortis, his plea unheard. Perhaps not even the gods themselves can wield power over such wretched despair. A crimson light seems to filter up from the
floor, though no source is apparent.
Exits: none

So what can be done to modernise MUD's without losing their history and charm of what them popular in the first place? Obviously there are ways to promote games through various MUD related sites and social networking sites. The Realms of Despair does a great job of this through the use of votes on the topmudsite and has twitter regularly updated along with facebook and google+ groups.

Then there is the aim of getting new players to go from experimenting with a new game for the first time through to making it past that early newbie stage to becoming proficient at the game before reaching the final mastery stage with several avatar characters. The Newbie Council and Guild/Order/Clan structure does a good job helping players through this though of course there is always room for improvement.

The most exciting part of the paper to me though is discussion of the use of MXP protocols. Basically this newer protocol goes beyond what is possible using telnet. There is potential to include some graphics, buttons and I can even imagine going down a path to making keyboards almost optional which would also make it easier to play on a tablet. The best part of the potential in this is that it would allow players to merge the old methods of playing with newer ways.

This is already available to a degree in the game though taking a quick survey of half a dozen players about it responses varied from it being the greatest addition to the game in recent times, to it being no big deal to what is MXP? The other big advantage of using MXP well in a mud is it will give it an edge over other MUDs. In short more accessibility can lead to more players than what is available to mere traditional means of recruiting and advertising.

Finally to end this post a quote from  Michael Darkkos Heron:

"I make this case for text gaming not because we lack the technology for graphical games, but because text games have a charm and appeal that is unique.  I make this case because text games are fun, and more people owe it to themselves to find out why."

Enjoy

Bonus Weekend

This weekend I logged on to not one but two exciting events in the Realms of Despair. The first was a change to the announcement of the day to:

The second exciting event was the following questnews:

 

I didn't waste anytime with the summer breeze quest, logged on my ranger and started running around all over the place to find them. My first success was in Transylvania as follows:

A Trail In The Eastern Forest
As you push through the dense forest growth, you notice blood stains cover almost all of the forest floor.  The silence is ominous, and you wish for the peacefulness of more familiar territory.  You may travel north or south along the trail, or head west towards a lighter area of the forest.
Exits: north south west
A summer breeze drifts through the air.
A little brown bunny rabbit nestles into the greenery.

>g summer
You get a summer breeze.

>c id summer
Object 'a summer breeze found by Jessyl' is infused with your magic...
It is a level 51 treasure, weight 1.
Special properties:  none
This treasure has a gold value of 0.

I continued questing after this and found another four summer breezes between Northern Plains, Dunhill and a couple of other places. In the end I found my fifth summer breeze and handed in 5 minutes before the end of the quest:

Darkhaven General Assembly
This vast room--the largest in the whole building--was designed for meetings of massive segments of the population. Rows upon rows of blue-padded benches line the walls like bleachers, and a small stage rises above the floor at the south end of the giant room, lit by gigantic torches. The floor of the room is tiled  in glimmering silver-veined marble, and the walls are draped in luxurious gold velvet. Crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling like icy stalactites. Despite the ample seating, there is still plenty of room to walk, and grand balls have been held here in the past.
Exits: north
(Ascendant Goddess) (Red Aura) Destre is shrouded in a demonic aura. [Sanc]

Destre smiles happily.

>ngree
You nod in greeting to everyone present.

Destre says 'all set :>'

>give summer dest
You give a summer breeze found by Jessyl to Destre.

Your glory has been increased by 10.

>tail
You wag your tail. Feeling happy?

Destre cheers you on like it's going out of style.

>say Thanks for the quest
You say 'Thanks for the quest'

Destre says 'welcome :>'

After this it was time to get into the levelling spirit. I started myself a new druid after losing the password to my old one and with the double experience I got it levelled up fast. One thing I found exciting was while levelling the druid I came across a low level quest I had never seen before:

 > The Darkhaven Bakery
Upon entering the Darkhaven Bakery, you find yourself surrounded by citizens of the marvelous city, each waiting in line for their daily bread.  Gazing eastward, you see a farmer's shop which sells all forms of dairy products.
A butcher's shop also lies to the west, while an opening in the tent to the south leads back out onto Market Street.
There is a small sign here.
Exits: east south west
An important looking scroll hangs from a wooden board.
Nimmith, Darkhaven's famed baker, is here.
Nimmith Looks you over.
Nimmith says to you 'Yes, you will do.'
Nimmith claps you rather roughly on your back.
Nimmith grumbles.
Nimmith goes on 'My usual shipment of flour from the Shire is three days late and I am running low. There will be some unhappy customers if I dont have their bread ready when they come in. I suspect marauders in the Forest of Tears. Go to the mill there. And hurry! I must have that flour.'
Nimmith rolls up his sleeves and starts kneading dough.

 This led to a short trip to The Shire for the following:

Bywater Road
You stand on Bywater Road, the busiest street in all of Shiredom.  The road
continues to the east and west.  A large, imposing building lies to the south.
You catch a glimpse of the Brandywine River to the north.
Exits: [north] east south west
The Miller is here, overseeing his busy mill workers.
'You're from Nimmith. I can tell by the flour dust all over you. No respect for personal space is all I'll say on the matter.'
The Miller chuckles politely.
'I knew that he would send someone when we were late. 
A wolf got my last delivery boy and I havent hired another yet. '
The Miller snaps his fingers and a millworker appears with a sack of flour.
The millworker gives the sack to the Miller.
The Miller gives you a sack of flour.
'Hurry now. Nimmith relies on these shipments.'

The flour was then returned to Nimmith for the following result:

The Darkhaven Bakery
Upon entering the Darkhaven Bakery, you find yourself surrounded by citizens of the marvelous city, each waiting in line for their daily bread.  Gazing eastward, you see a farmer's shop which sells all forms of dairy products.
A butcher's shop also lies to the west, while an opening in the tent to the south leads back out onto Market Street.
There is a small sign here.
Exits: east south west
An important looking scroll hangs from a wooden board.
Nimmith, Darkhaven's famed baker, is here.
Nimmith says to you 'Varlok, did I mention that the Western Trade Route would be the best way to go? Did you find the Shire?
If you have my flour, please give it to me.'

Nimmith says 'The Shire better bring that next flour shipment soon...'

> give flour nimmith
You give a sack of flour to Nimmith.
Nimmith claps you rather roughly on your back.
Nimmith exclaims 'Well done and just in time, Varlok! My thanks!'
Nimmith gives you 100,000 coins.

It is amazing the little quests scattered through the game you can easily pass over.

I thought it was great idea for the immortals to test the double experience out. It has been well thought out and advertised on the twitter account:

The proof of the success of this initiative will be when the mudstats site updates its numbers. I can't wait to see what new initiative the immortals have lined up next...

Arcane Adventures

I've been really enjoying myself in Arcanes lately. There's a great group of players who get along well, are active and I feel as if I'm contributing to the organisation while still getting something out of it. New members both experienced players and newbies are joining up, the Arcane Forums are filling up with information and there have been plenty of successful killing of some of the larger mobs in the Realms.

While I haven't managed to be online at the right times to join in with kills of the Fire Elemental I have joined in with kills at Justice, Corsterix, Percival, Overlord Graajchzrakil and an unimaginable nightmare. Out of these my two favourite kills were:

Your rending grip wounds Overlord Graajchzrakil!
Overlord Graajchzrakil is DEAD!!
Overlord Graajchzrakil utters an obscene shriek as its lungs poison their last breath of air. Its body falls out of the shadows, revealing a twisted blackened exoskeleton, slowly withering away.
Victory has been achieved as this source of death and decay has been defeated. But evil cannot be beaten this easily. Rest assured that this creature will be given unholy life once again. Evil is forever.
Overlord Graajchzrakil catches its guts in its hands as they pour through its fatal wound!
You get 84755 gold coins from the corpse of Overlord Graajchzrakil.
You split 84755 gold coins.  Your share is 28253 gold coins.
The corpse of Overlord Graajchzrakil holds:
     (Red Aura) A blood-covered cleaver
     (Red Aura) clinging strips of parasite fungus

and:

Your slash gashes An unimaginable nightmare!
An unimaginable nightmare is DEAD!!
The shimmering forms coalesce into an aged gnome.
'Free' he says 'Of the nightmares, of the Demon Prince. But the nightmares he will unleash on this world, I pray my children survived what he tried to bring to pass.
The gnome spits black blood from his mouth.
The mage pulls a shimmering key from his rags as he slumps over.
The eyes of the mage close as he breathes his last.
An unimaginable nightmare drops the key of fear.
Light flashes over the gnome's hand, then vanishes.
An unimaginable nightmare hits the ground ... DEAD.
An unimaginable nightmare has no gold.
The corpse of An unimaginable nightmare holds:
     a ring of gnarled wood

I enjoyed killing the Overlord as it was a run I hadn't done in several years and I'd like to do more of for the items he sometimes pops (including his ring). The second kill above is one that I've had trouble with in the past getting to pop those rings. The unimaginable nightmare is an enjoyable kill as his combination of powerful attacks and his sleep attacks keep you on you toes. Previously I've done about 10 kills in a row without any rings popping but in recent weeks the pop rates have been better. Seems to be one of those mobs that you either have a lucky run with or no luck at all with nothing in between. I'm happy I've now got rings of gnarled wood for my cleric.

It's More Than a Game

Lately I've been doing a bit of thinking about my future including goals and what I'd like to achieve. One of these aims is to get a masters degree and then get into teaching at a higher level. While considering this possibility I had a long around online for some research papers on various topics including MUD's. Reading these papers I came across a research project titled "Ethnography of Online Role-Playing Games: The Role of Virtual and Real Contest in the Construction of the Field" written by Simona Isabella. It took me about five attempts at reading it before I could my head around it all. What I did find really interesting about this particular paper was that it made comparisons between the players of Realms of Despair and an Italian MUD called Extremelot. Here I am going to post my thoughts on Simona's conclusions - what I disagree with, agree with and parts I am still not sure about.

1 - Realms of Despair is a game.
I agree with this though there is more to it than just that. Getting the most experience, gold, equipment, glory, etc is a part of the game. This part of the game can be done to a large degree without much interaction with other players but it is required to interact with other players to get the best equipment either through working together as a team or finding someone to trade with. Adding this interaction and the relationships and friction between players adds another dimension that I believe makes more than a game.

2 - You can interact with people you wouldn't otherwise have anything in common with.
This is definitely true. One of my favourite quotes from the paper is:

"Lots of these people have good relationships through the text and we don't care if you are 150 tons … who cares!!!" (CA/13, F, 28).

This is completely true. A lot of the time I have no idea what other players look like, how old they are, education levels, wealth, race, religion or nationality. This is a good thing about the game and can occasionally result in some odd conversations with points of view I wouldn't otherwise see.

3. - A sense of belonging can occur.
This is a big point in the thesis. The idea is that people can feel as though they are connected to a community where they fit in and belong with others like themselves. Players can develop this feeling and I personally believe this is a big reason why a lot people keep playing this game. I think that this is the challenge to retaining players after they have levelled a couple of characters up to level 50. It also shows to me the importance of players being prepared to make new connections with other players as time goes on and some players leave.

4. MUDs are considered outdated games.
I don't fully agree with this statement. Especially when the writer says:

a very obsolete kind of game if we compare them with the modern graphic games (such as the famous War of the War Craft).

I think that a lot of the ideas behind the more modern games have been borrowed from MUDs. If you look at the money raised from some of these games (including the taxes raised and employment made) they certainly benefit the community. Without MUDs and research on them where would these games be? I certainly don't think they are obsolete.

5. Players are attached more some of their characters than others
I currently have 23 avatar characters and am working on a few more. I am only really attached to 3 of them. I doubt that many of the people who know me in the game can name any more of my alternate characters. I think most players feel a similar way about their characters.

6. Every player lives in Eastern Canada and is not welcoming of new comers
This is so not true. I accept that there are some cliques within the game and it is hard to break into them - but what do you expect from a game where some people have been friends for many years? I have met a handful of players and live about as far away from Eastern Canada as you can get. I know of several players from other parts of the world too - England, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa...

7. Mudders are geeky deviants
I laughed when I read this one. Very debatable. I was going to say this was definitely not true then I remembered I have a degree in mathematics... Maybe there is some truth in this.

The final conclusion of this thesis is:

Moreover, virtual communities like these created around MUDs can be considered as communities of practices: the participation is voluntary and the process of socialisation is more oriented to sharing experiences than to reaching common purposes. Members of these communities have in common the desire to take certain routes together, interpreting events as they come and create meaningful environments. They behave freely but always respecting some rules. The satisfaction that participants get from this union becomes a founding value of the community in itself.

It's an interesting thought and achievement to consider what has been done in the Realms of Despair over the last 20 years. The author has a PhD in part from her work in this. I like that the Realms of Despair is getting it's place in history and officially published in academic research. It also makes me think that perhaps Thoric deserves an honorary doctorate for his work and commitment over the years.