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Sure! Thanks for the suggestion.
Kinda the reason it's not there now is that there was talk at one time of making a ReadSkill, and thus you *had* to use Read instead of Look, had to have the skill, blah blah. Maybe that's too complex for right now! LOL.
--Mark
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Yes, in fact it's the next thing on my work list now that subway programming is in QA. And, I think the way it'll be done is going to be pretty cool.
--Mark
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Sure, and thanks, that's a great idea. I'll add it to the work list.
There are a lot of enhancements to the client applet pending, BTW. These are not the highest priorities, but they'll help you customize. You'll be able to set your own choices of text and background colors and fonts; set an auto-greeting message for when your friends login; review and re-use your command history; and a bunch o'stuff.
--Mark
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So you're looking for sort of a way to *hide* things by burying them? That's pretty interesting. Maybe only those with special tracking skills could find them: the search for buried treasure. Thanks for the suggestion!
Re corpses and disgust and stuff -- I don't want to give away Poobah's intentions, so I'll just shut up now.
--Mark
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Corpses will decay after a bit. There's also a use for them in Poobah's game plots. (Hint: they're edible. Ewwwwwww!) So there's not really a *need* to bury them, other than keeping the world more immediately tidy.
Does this address your issue? If not, let me know!
--Mark
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Hi Sunni:
It'll change shortly, when the Hood Gang are properly doing the things they're supposed to be doing. You'll still be able to get in there, but not so easily. Hopefully the change will make sense, and it'll become more clear why that area is called "alignment".
~Poo
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Truly sorry to learn of Agular's death. We hardly knew him.
It's important though that Flee have a random result. Flee is an act of panic, blind desperation. If anything it should have even worse consequences, IMO, than it does now, for instance, automatically throwing one's weapon away. It's not intended to result in an orderly retreat.
There have been about a dozen player deaths the last three weeks or so. I think this might indicate that players are overreaching: trying to use violence to tackle opponents they're not ready for.
I understand peoples' impatience, 'cause it's really difficult right now to gain experience after about level 6. But I want to strongly encourage everybody to learn from these deaths that you have to be very, very careful.
In the future we'll probably want to tell lower-level characters that they should only fight in groups with a higher-level character who knows the Rescue command. This is likely to be the most "safe" way to fight things that will try to kill you. Even then, it won't be completely safe, it'll just be the best odds.
Meanwhile, my strongest encouragement is to stay away from the toddlers until level 10; don't attack anything unless you're at max health; and ideally, only fight in groups.
We should do something special for Agular, he's been one of TC's great friends. I'll huddle with the Gods and see if there are any reasonable ideas. Really sorry to learn of his death.
--Mark
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Every light source will warn you before it goes out. The light will "flicker" or "sputter" or do something else to let you know it's going to croak pretty soon.
You can use that knowledge to keep yourself illuminated. You're right to carry a spare light source with you into those areas. If you're deep in a dark place, hold the fresh light when the first one warns you. Then get out of there, and get new lights.
The alternative of course is to get a permanent, or long-lived light source. Again Poobah can tell you for sure, but I think there are quite a lot of them nowadays.
Hope this helps!
Mark
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LOL!
Poobah should probably offer the more difinitive answer for you, but my suggestion is this.
First, go ahead and bug them, it's always good to point out stuff that seems odd. Poobah's good at fixing the reported bugs before he does anything else.
But second, in this case, I very much suspect Poobah's up to something plot-like. I hate putting words in my colleague's mouth, but I think not all shops are willing to be buyers, and the ones that are willing are subtly flagged with some signal, such as "Allworthy displays his new (and used) wares." The "and used" is maybe your clue here.
Re not buying things anymore, the explanation is simple: the shopkeepers run out of money after a while. They need to sell things, too.
--Mark
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Equally important IMO are nonviolent ways to gain comparable experience.
Violence has gotten a little over-emphasized at the moment largely because the Violence Skills were among the first to be implemented. We've been a bit old-fashioned that way: we kinda chose to prioritize some of the traditional MUD stuff over some of the more radical departures from tradition we have in mind. This balance will begin tilting the other way very shortly, and I think the differences will become increasingly visible.
BTW be careful attacking things outside the "hidden" areas such as the spider or vampire forests. Any cop that comes along will kill you fast. And remember that in NW all the citizens are all cops, in their way (although they don't necessarily use lethal violence). I think you might have been pretty lucky so far!
--Mark
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I very much agree.
I think Poobah does too.
There really are several balance problems like this one which all follow from the basic fact that several of you have advanced far faster than Poobah or I can keep up with you. IMO the world right now is ready for your first five or six levels, but after that it becomes very difficult to gain experience, earn money, learn skills, and basically grow.
So, the world needs to grow to its next "level" before it'll be able to support your growth in a fun and sustained way.
Here's what I mean by that. These are the things Poo and I are working on over the next while:
1. The subway. You need this to reach the Good and Evil Temples, required for step 2 below. The code is complete, Poobah's finishing the Green Line and it should be online in a day or two.
2. Conversion. You need this as a precondition of Good or Evil Roles. The code's in QA and looking good. Probably be online at the same time as the subway.
3. Roles. Necessary for the more advanced Skills. Initially will concentrate on a small number of Roles, adding more over time.
4. Advanced Skills. Quite a lot of these to support the early Roles.
5. The areas of the world necessary to contain all this stuff and make it interesting.
6. Inns and Inkeepers.
7. Citizenship of the Thirds, necessary for character-owned businesses and other stuff.
8. More ways to earn or find or steal money, including Roles that are focused on commerce, etc.
So this has been a roundabout and long-winded answer, but I hope it makes sense!
--Mark
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Thanks Dante, that's an awesome suggestion. Have to consult with "the Gods" about where it should land in the queue, but anyway I think it rocks.
--Mark
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Thanks Fairfax. You're totally right about links to international amazons, and I don't think anybody among "the Gods" had thought about that at all. (So you're smarter than the Gods...not that that's hard to be! LOL.)
It's not *quite* so trouble-free to implement, though. I'll have to do some locale-testing, that is, have our Web server figure out what country you're in, and then serve links to the appropriate affiliate. Everything on the site is dynamically-generated, so that's certainly do-able...it's just more work. I'll raise it with my colleages and we'll figure out how to prioritize it.
Re suggestion #2, there sortof is something like that at the bottom of the page called "Reviewers' Guide". We'll expand the list of sites included there as we get to it; meanwhile many thanks for suggesting others we should know about. I'm not sure that's exactly the same as what you're suggesting, but it seems close.
Many many thanks for taking the time to think about these things, very much appreciated!
--Mark
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I was thinking that maybe if we renamed it the "Newbie Channel" that would make the point really clear? So the command would be Newbie: "newbie even pigeons will kill you at level 3"
What do you all think?
--Mark
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Hi Sunni:
Thanks, really appreciate the feedback.
OOC was created at the request of several players. But if it's being abused we can easily yank it off again.
The real point of the thing is to allow experienced characters who are grumpy or unhelpful or hostile to offer help to newbies, something which the character wouldn't do while in role.
My suggestion to those who want to hang and chat -- which is totally cool -- is to meet together in a room they like and use the 'say' command. Literally a chat room. Everybody's very welcome to do that.
But please lay off the OOC for routine conversation.
Thanks all!
~Poo
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