:The Future of ToDJuly 10, 2005
SJ 005 - Long Overdue Updates
Wow, I am a hypocrite of the highest sort.. I bitch at the Imms
for not keeping an updated Staff Journal and look at me.. Oy.
There's a tremendous about of stuff going on over on ToD, we've
pretty much shared most of it with everyone but I want to list
it here.
First, a welcome to our new Immortal Vondur. Don't ask who he
is, he'll tell you when he's ready. He'll be coming up with
some RP stuff to keep people occupied and although he may be
a new Immortal, he is a seasoned player.
There are still two open slots for Immortals and three people
who have yet to get their 10 day audition. This is my fault,
I've been caught up in other stuff and I've been remiss in
getting these people up there with us. Sorry about that, I'll
try to be more attentive in the future.
We came to a major decision regarding Chuck a couple of weeks
ago, I want to discuss this in detail. Chuck is pretty much
a completely different mud than the main port. There is a
huge amount of finished and unfinished code in Chuck and only
18 of the same stock areas.
The problem has been working on two ports at once. We've
added the clan spell system into the main port and a lot of
other pithy new code changes and areas. Add to this every
time I would get into something in Chuck, something would come
up on the main port.
Up until recently, the plan has been to add the main port code
to Chuck and do it that way. That's been the plan for the 5
years Chuck has been in the making.
We have just changed that plan.
After much discussion with the Seal, it was decided that it
would make more sense to take what's in Chuck and add it to
the main port, piece by piece. Yes, this is going to be a
huge amount of work but Meathe has proven he can handle any
obstacle tossed his way (except perhaps Kaiko's recent lust
for his Sealy manhood).
The areas in Chuck present a problem we are working on. There
are 143 areas in Chuck, only 18 stock ones remain. Much work
has gone into these areas and coming up with a way to port
them from one to the other is looming upon us. We are adding
some major code to the main port and hopefully this will make
it easier to move areas. I personally have 83 areas in Chuck,
the idea of re-linking them all gives me hives.
Currently in the main port the plan is this... Meathe is
busting his humpus to add 4 'things.' I call them things for
now, I'll expand in a minute.
Once these 4 things are done and in the main port, we will
then open a mirror copy of the main port on another port and
this new port will become the future of Time of Darkness. New
code will stop being added to the port everyone plays now and
it will all be about the second port.
This is also when the beta-testers and builders will finally be
called to active duty. The new mud will NOT go live until it
has been tested, raped, assaulted and beat on in every way
possible and those who ask to build will also be asked to beta
test. Beta testers and builders will be rewarded with one
Apostle character once the new mud opens (I'll explain that
in another post).
The 4 things that are being worked on now will be used
in the main player port, people will be able to enjoy them.
And by now, you're probably wondering what the 4 things are
so let's get to that.
1. Object and Room Progs: What we are adding here are
fully functional object and room progs. Short of common sense
things that are mob-specific, rooms and objects will be able
to do all mobs do. This makes for amazing possibilities for
area quests, clan mazes and other good juju. This is also a
large and complex deal to add as we have custom commands for
our builders to add and progs are confusing enough.
2. Seasons/Climate: This serves a few purposes. We
use weather as one of the possible elements of item corrosion
so that's one. Weather will also be able to damage players,
for example getting hit by lightning in a storm or bonked on
the head by a hail stone.
The system works two ways. A builder has an option to set a
climate for an entire area in the aedit. This will disallow
any other weather conditions except for what fits with the
selected climate. For example, I would want to make the area
with the ice bats climate frozen. Now inside frozen I would
use the weather system to determine what weather conditions
I want to use. The 12 months of the mud will be broken down
into seasons and weather conditions will look something like:
Weather Patterns:
Spring Weather
1. rain showers
2. thunderstorms
3. fog
4. calm sunny day
5. overcast
Summer Weather
1. arid heat (heat patterns shimmer in the air)
2. humid heat
3. hot sunny
4. warm breezy
5. thunderstorms
Autumn Weather
1. chill winds
2. fog
3. overcast
4. sleet
5. rain
6. heavy wind/thunderstorm
Winter Weather
1. biting windchill
2. frost
3. hail and sleet
4. light snow
5. heavy snow
6. heavy wind/heavy snow (blizzardish)
This also has great potential for season-based area quests,
I can see Nav getting giddy already.. It will also add some
RP-reality to the overall game, would you stand outside IRL
in a lightning storm and fight with someone?
(Meathey, don't have a heart attack here, I know I didn't
really explain it right but this is an overview. It's ok)
3. Item Corrosion: Again adding more realism to
the game, item corrosion is being added. Not all items will
corrode and corrosion will not be something that will wreck
your precious eq in a tick.
EQ can be corroded in up to 3 ways; time, weather and certain
types of attacks. Items will corrode as designated by the
builder but will allow ample time for players to get to a
mob to fix their item. These mobs will be in each hometown
and the cost to repair an item will not be a high one.
4. Arena Revamp: To put it bluntly, the arena system
sucks. What began last night as discussion about stripping
clanspells in an arena fight brought about the revelation that
the arena system sucks. It sucks less in Chuck.
A few things need to change. The insta-trans from accepting
a battle into the arena being the first one. After a player
accepts there should be a tick pause for clanspells to be
stripped and to give the player a chance to re-spell or to
re-sanc or whatever might be needed after the clanspell goes.
People should have to walk to the arena to watch and not be
frozen during battle.
I know people have asked for arena betting. We had it once
before and to be honest, I have yet to see a way around the
cheating it creates. It becomes a quick way to make plat and
that's not what it should be. We are open to ideas if any of
you have them, how can we implement an arena betting system
that won't let people use it to get rich quick. We've already
tossed about not letting clannies bet on clannies and setting
a bet limit so no one gets rich (50 plat or so).
And those are the current big four. You'll be seeing more
of these as I have created a new category called "The Future
of ToD" and this is where I'll be posting to keep track of
things for myself.
As always, please feel free to comment or question here, I
will answer here, I can't promise to answer on the mud. As
things move along I'll be spending more time in the other
port and less time on the main port so use this blog and
ask what you want.
There, staff journal update done! Now I can get back to
harassing all the other Imms except Meathe to get back to
their own staff journals. Once a week, guys.
Huzzah!
Posted by Kali at 09:44 PM | Comments (1)
