TriadCity Message of the Day
2014-01-24

An early iteration of a new hack-and-slash zone is online for fans of BCU - Blowing Crap Up. Go to Zaroff Park, work off your crummy day womping game critters rather than your real life landlady. Like the Spider Forest, Zaroff Park is intended to present compelling challenges to lone players, unlike say the Tree of Wealth which emphatically requires groups.

Here's the interesting TriadCity spin. The NPCs available for destruction are condemned slaves. They've grown too old to work, or they've behaved rebelliously, or displeased their owners in some other way. Their masters have condemned them to Zaroff Park, where they'll be hunted for sport Most Dangerous Game-style by big-game types bored with tigers. Players who want to kill things are welcome to join the hunt.

So are NPCs who want to kill things. ZP is frequented by NPC Bounty Hunters honing their skills, Warriors seeking practice, bored nannies looking for diversion. NPCs from all over the city go there to hunt and kill other NPCs.

Which means that you Liberators or other anti-slavery do-gooder types may want to go there too - to interfere with those seeking to harm the condemned. And it means that NPCs who hunt Liberators may go there to hunt you, and NPCs who are themselves Liberators may go there to help, and Players who hunt Liberator Hunters may go there for their own purposes. So that we've got NPCs hunting NPCs who are hunting NPCs, and of course there'll be yet other NPCs who'll be interested in hunting those NPCs hunting other NPCs, and there are Players who are hunting the NPCs who are hunting the NPCs who are hunting Players, and you'll see how this all gets pretty convoluted pretty quick.

Fun, hey?

ZP NPCs vary in ability from level 10 to level 30. Their levels are chosen randomly within this range when each is instantiated, so, different instances of the same NPC type may have varying abilities. Use your Consider skill carefully. NPCs may be Hiding, and they may be Tracking you. Maintain situational awareness.

Zaroff Park is part of a larger complex of blood sports arenas in the neighborhood surrounding the Circus Maximus, in the NorthEastern Third, natch. Hunter and hunted NPCs will undergo refinements as we iterate, and we'll tune the number of NPCs there as we work out balance in practice.

One last note. Zaroff Park is a new TC 2-d maze type in which the Rooms themselves are shuffled around a grid - not just the Exits leading between Rooms. You'll find the same landmarks there after server boots, but they'll be in different two-dimensional spatial relationships compared to previous boots. After a bit of experience you'll see what this implies. Note to Cartographers: probably not worth the effort.

Feedback welcome via Fora. Have fun!

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