Talk:RubyMUD

Building: Balancing

It's important to keep your area balanced when creating content. Two commands will prove invaluable to that process.

• CHARGEN will allow you to see the typical stat spread of a class/level combination of your choosing. (Do not choose ALL for classes, it will crash the MUD.)
• DEVIATIONS will provide you a report showing you how your items and/or mobs in a given room/area compare to equivalent level standard items/mobs. In other words, you'll see how your level 5 great sword's stats compare to a stock level 5 great sword. Until we get a better idea of deviations, try to keep your stat spreads within 20% of the standard.

See AHELP CHARGEN or AHELP DEVIATIONS for assistance on either command.

Vote: Player Killing

Due to the MUD likely being rather small, I will vote for ALWAYS simply because if it gets out of hand it will generally be easy to solve the dispute. --Ashsflames 23:25, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

ALWAYS-5, levels provide large stat boosts, this way you couldn't have people one-hit-killing eachother. -Rosque

ALWAYS-5, if death is relatively painless, NEVER if permadeath :V --Driblis 00:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

ALWAYS-5 for players with lvl > x (some number) ("non-newbies"), and OPTIONAL-5 for players with lvl < x (the same number) ("newbies") --Zulfiqar 14:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Vote: Player Death and Penalties

I'd like to see how the ASTRAL idea works, it would promote teamwork and make the inevitable healer-player(s) a valuable friend to have. If we can though, I'd like to see a combination of ASTRAL and EXPERIENCE, but EXPERIENCE needs to be changed. From playing TGMUD, losing 100 exp per level is severely detrimental at any level, and I propose that it be lowered to 50 (or perhaps 25 if we want to be nicer) through use of the expression @x1*50 (or @x1*25). My vote goes to ASTRAL, @x1*50/@x1*25. --Ashsflames 23:25, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

1. That way bodies will be left to resurrect if need be, and practically no experience loss to worry about, especially because dying once often leads to dying multiple times in a row. If possible, proposed item binding with non-rare materials lootable. -Rosque

ASTRAL_RES because it's annoying to have to wait until a cleric is on before you can come back and play :V --Driblis 00:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

RECALL for "newbies" (see my vote on Player Killing), ASTRAL for non-"newbies". But: a non-"newbie" can either be resurrected by another player (priest) with no penalties, or by an NPC resurrector with EXPERIENCE penalties. --Zulfiqar 14:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Vote: Punishment for Fleeing Battle

NO PENALTY, hands-down. Fleeing is a tactical maneuver, we should never be punished for it. --Ashsflames 23:25, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

NO PENALTY. -Rosque

NO PENALTY. I don't think there's going to be any disagreement on this one. --Durandal 00:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

NO PENALTY. I suck and run away constantly and I'd rather not lose things for it. --Driblis 00:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

NO PENALTY. Maybe, a small alignment penalty, if you flee from an opposite alignment mob? Just a random idea, really, but it's kinda realistic imho - you don't become less experienced from being a coward, but that can be judged from a moral point. Or is this just not possible in CoffeeMUD? --Zulfiqar 14:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Vote: Playerbody Looting

In the interest of fun and fairness, I have to vote SELFONLY. Either of the others are likely a bad choice, especially if we get a high-levelled character picking on all the lower-levelled characters and stealing all their stuff. --Ashsflames 23:25, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Until more details are hammered down for items, SELFONLY. Even afterwards it may prove to be the best option. -Rosque

SELFONLY Because having to restock when someone kills me or stumbles across my corpse would be annoying. --Driblis 00:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

SELFONLY. ...Or PKONLY if it will result in a severe penalty (e.g., an alignment one) --Zulfiqar 14:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Vote: Injury and Limb Severing

Removed entirely or made inconsequential in some other way. -Rosque

100,1,100,100,4,8,15,20,100. No dismemberment, but still include bleeding. Although I don't know if it will take place in other instances beside dismemberment. --Durandal 00:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Severing should be an extremely rare event and should reset when you die/res. --Driblis 00:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Seconding Driblis's vote. Also, minor dismemberments like lost eyes, ears, fingers etc, scars from physical attacks and burns from magical ones, could be pretty cool for aesthetics and roleplaying. Does the system allow this? --Zulfiqar 14:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Vote: Show Damage

NO, it's more interesting and immersive if we can't tell numerically how much health the enemy has remaining. Over time, we'll learn how much damage enemies can take simply by fighting them. --Ashsflames 23:25, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

NO, definitely not. It kills the mood and makes things seem less organic. -Rosque

No. --Durandal 00:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

No, it's more fun to see the stupid "Your spiky fist OBLITERATES the Filbert!" messages. --Driblis 00:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

NO, we're not in a JRPG :) --Zulfiqar 14:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Vote: Class System

SUB I found was very fun back in TGMUD, but if we build a new class system I would also vote MULTI. Weird character builds make for fun challenges. --Ashsflames 23:25, 20 January 2010 (UTC) I'm changing my vote to just MULTI, we've got it in place and it seems to be working out very well. --Ashsflames 05:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Difficult to decide right now, some more class brainstorming would help. -Rosque

MULTI because I like having characters that have stupid builds based on stories I make up in my head, not just what the game says I can do. --Driblis 00:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

SUB, with a complex tree of subclasses, some of which could be mutually exclusive and/or dependant. --Zulfiqar 14:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

A few general questions

• The setting. Is the MUD based on the Unified Setting, or the Dwarf Fortress setting, or maybe a mish-mash setting from different dungeon/fantasy-based quests?
• The theme. The way you described it, sounds pretty fun! I like mischief :) When there will be more players, maybe we should think about adding more villages. Maybe race-based, with some fantasy racism present. That way different villages may compete with each other, and make mischief towards each other. Also, would there be pHouses and pShops? Would there be an option of, e.g., setting a pShop near a route often used by adventurers, or for an adventurer to set a pHouse near a promising dungeon part?
• Map. As my 2 cents: I think there should be many ways to go in the dungeon, and many routes between many various places. What I mean is, not 2-3 linear rows of increasingly different areas, but at least 7-8 or more ways to go, with some ways leading to large areas, some to lairs, some to more crossroads, some to small caves, some to obstacles like a narrow tunnel or a water-filled cave, some even to dead ends. You know, like in a real (albeit embellished) dungeon. So, a goblin village denizen can choose: to go fight gnolls in their den, to hunt lizards in a mushroom forest or on a clearing in a large cave, to explore a tunnel leading to more faraway areas, to investigate a labyrinth of several seldom-used tunnels with many mysterious exits, to mine gems or metal in a nearby mine-cave, to try to find a way across a large pit or crevasse, or to brave a winding underwater tunnel to see what's beyond. Actually, if Weaver's reading it, think your own campaign that you DM'ed on /tg/ before creating RQ. Actually, it was the read that made me think of cave exploring as no less exciting than overworld exploring :)
• Places. Would there probably be places from other quests available? I would like to wander around Metal Glen, or to meet a BiteQuest wizard, or to fight Rastin's cronies. Maybe make these worlds as bonuses of sorts, accessible by portals hidden in remote caves that need much exploring to get to? Would be awesome :) UPD: Actually, some settings may even be integrated into the dungeon world: e.g., the Cjopazean subterranean lair (which was discovered under Metal Glen) may be actually accessible from the dungeon - however, it should be very remote, very hidden, and very very high-level and dangerous. There, a player group brave (or stupid) enough to enter it, may fight the Dummy, the Watercooler, mutated anthropomorphical animals, and other cjopazean abominations ^_^
  • That was how TGMUD was planned, and it turned out to work rather awfully. We've decided to avoid any direct copy/pasting of quest material into this MUD, and instead opt for references or material such as races and items. --Ashsflames 05:47, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
• Races. First of all, I suggest that there should be no humans at all. It's a setting about monsters, and frankly, I personally never play as a human. I'm already one IRL, it's just not as interesting :) As for other races, I suggest (as a final goal) adding most races from dungeon-based quests. E.g., nedynvor, lohrke, etc. A slime (from SlimeQuest) would probably be too difficult to implement. Also, concerning voltos. I personally would play as a volto. And why would they make no sense in a fantasy dungeon game, if the quest we know them from is about a volto ruling a fantasy dungeon? You can make them, e.g., more intelligent than humans, and maybe more charismatic as well. And if there would be no humans, then this doesn't even matter. But that's only my opinion, of course.
  • I believe Weaver's stated his aim is for a more narrow race selection this time around. The idea behind the MUD is that all players are typical dungeon minions (thus the Goblin, Kobold, Ogre selections right now.) The goal is that we're on the other side of the coin - we aren't the adventurers, we're the adventurees. So civilized races like Voltos and such aren't appropriate.--TLE 05:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
• Classes. I suggest to make the Apprentice class obligatory for the aforementioned "newbies" (players with lvl < x, who can choose to be PK or not, and who autorecall into their village when killed instead of becoming a zombie goast). So. While they are "newbies", they all have the Apprentice class, during which time they could choose one of the mining/simple crafting skills, and create materials/necessary items for their village. When they reach lvl x, they can choose one of the adventuring classes, or probably someone chooses to continue learning higher crafting skills and become an Artisan (though I think, the latter choice will be mostly for alts, if they would be allowed). The reason for such system: I think very few people would choose Apprentice/Artisan as a starting class. But if every player has to go through the Apprentice phase, they would become a somewhat steady income of materials and necessary items for their village. If the income of new players stops at some moment... well, then it would be up to adventurers themselves to provide materials for their villages' artisans, so they would get weapons, rations etc.
  • I rolled an Artisan back in TGMUD and enjoyed it quite a bit. You'd be surprised at how many people enjoy a crafting character. Besides, all classes get crafting skills appropriate to their class in their skill tree. Forcing everyone to be Artisan would create a glut of players with every crafting skill and you'd have way more supply than demand. Outside of that, the fact that the vast majority of the MUD's item economy is going to rely solely on player-crafted commodities should ensure that we always have at least a few opportunistic Artisans looking to exploit a weakness in the market.--TLE 05:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
• Skills. You mentioned that there would be a need to remove several skills unrelated to the dungeon theme. That's true, but I also think there would probably be a need to add a number of skills related to exploration and survival in the dungeon. E.g., a skill of mushroom knowledge, a skill of seeing in the dark, probably skills of echolocation or heatview or smth, a skill of balancing on narrow ledges and bridges, a skill determining the chances of squeezing into tight openings (ahem... it sounded almost pornographic lol), etc. etc. Another idea: I would suggest no auto-mapping, and to frown upon players distributing maps via internet. Instead, to add a mapping skill, which would help produce maps of the portion of dungeon the player has explored. So, they could then sell these maps to other players, with more complete maps obviously costing more. Thus, exploring for the sake of exploring would become not just interesting, but somewhat profitable, too!
• Mobs. I suggest there should be not just mobs which logically fit into the setting and are appropriate to the biology of the planet etc. etc., but more humourous mobs as well (derived from various quests). E.g., a Grue, or a fGhost, or the aforementioned high-level boss Watercooler, etc. Now, some people would not be amused by this suggestion, but hear me out. First of all, it's TGChan's MUD, so it would be a pity if people couldn't meet many of their favourite quest chars, even as mob races. Second, a completely serious and totally logical quest is quite a rare sight - even the most serious of them are at least a slight bit humourous, and a slight bit illogical. And last but not least, it's a giant mysterious dungeon. Xom only knows what lurks in its depths! And, btw, if Xom knows, it even raises the chances of meeting weird and absurd creatures. So... it's my own subjective opinion, of course.

Feel free to delete these questions/suggestions, or move them elsewhere, if you deem them inappropriate here. --Zulfiqar 14:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)