Medievia & the fate of Adversary
Mike Smith
Ok enough "Adversary" talk, here's the scoop... Adversary is gone, it's
future is not known to anyone except for Abaddon himself, who may or man not
come in here and let you know what happened. Medievia didn't "Take Adversary's
port", nor did Adversary OWN that port or the machine it is on. Now here's the
scoop on Medievia...
Medievia is a Mud running on Merc 1.0 (HEAVILY Modified, and still being
modified) code. If there's something you don't like about Merc 1.0, chances
are, we changed it, or are in the process of changing it. MOST (I say most
because there may be others we haven't found yet) of the bugs have been ironed
out of the Merc 1.0 code we are using. IF however, you think you know of another
bug we may have missed, come on into the Mud, find Vryce or myself (Highlander)
and tell us about it. If Vryce is on (he's the programmer) DEMONSTRATE the bug
to him, and it will be removed PDQ! Medievia is not your average mud, we pride
ourselves on being a mud where the implementors and Gods get along well with
the players. We don't ignore the players (though sometimes we can't get to
every request immediatly), but we don't play the game as if we're better than
you just because we're (so called) "Gods" and you're "mortals". It's our job
to make sure you have fun. If we think you're not, we aren't having fun, so we
do our best to make things interesting. It's my personal job to create the
world you play in, and I listen to any requests players make. (Some of them
honestly stink, but a lot of them are good), and I use the ones that are good.
We go over our Bug, Idea and Typo text files daily and DO correct problems
regularly. We're not a fly-by-night mud, we don't plan to disappear tomorrow,
with a promise to return, yet never do. If we disappear, it won't be because
we (the implementors) chose to.
Yes, our mud is a "Fantasy" based "Combat-based" Mud, and yes, that may not
be your cup of tea. But if it's not, may I ask you, why are you reading news
postings in rec.games.mud.DIKU? Our mud's zones are often based on fantasy
novels, so there's a sense of familiarity in our mud's zones. We have a mix
of original ideas, and zones based on books (for instance, Robert Jordan's
_Wheel of Time_, Raymond E. Fiest's _Magician_, Anne McCaffrey's _Dragonrider's of Pern_, and so forth...) Medievia has special code in it, to implement
constant running quests, such as the "Fount of Wisdom/Dragon Crystal" quest,
or the soon to come _Kingdom of the Wall_ quest, plus we are the only Mud
that we know of with an acutal working river (has a current, waterfall, living
breating eco-system, fishing, etc), real atmospheric conditions (You can be
struck by lightning, knocked over by earthquakes etc etc). Medievia's
resources are large, we have almost exclusive access to the Bigboy machine,
located on the Temple campus, so we plan to make the game quite big. Currently
we sport 15 zones and around 1100 rooms, but the world grows on a daily basis.
We don't claim to be the best, we just claim that we're going to be! Come on
over and take a look, we'll appreciate your input and ideas!
msm...@bigboy.cis.temple.edu (Highlander - Medievia Implementor)
sp...@access.netaxs.com
Medievia: bigboy.cis.temple.edu 4000 (129.32.32.98 4000)
...where reality is a collective hunch!
Steve Lumetta
flame, but I'll try to be simply realistic and not derogatory (though
I'll be hard-pressed).
In article <1993Apr28.2...@cronkite.ocis.temple.edu> msmith@bigboy (Mike Smith) writes:
>Hello,
>
> Medievia is a Mud running on Merc 1.0 (HEAVILY Modified, and still being
>modified) code.
I wouldn't say it's heavily modified. From what I've seen, the one
coder is fairly slow.
> If there's something you don't like about Merc 1.0, chances
>are, we changed it, or are in the process of changing it.
This is a pretty subjective assertion. They have removed some of the
sillier features of Merc (no recall, added rent), but have done so in
a pretty bad way. For example, your character is only saved at two
times, when you rent and when you die. So if you come on, die, play for
10 hours, gain 6 levels, and the game crashes, you are back where you
started, except you have no equipment. Just an example.
They also completely eliminated player stealing and eliminated
pking except for inside the arena. You can summon to the arena, but if
they catch you, you get demoted to level 1 (demotion is hearsay, but
from a reliable source). There is no capability for vengeance--sleep
staves don't work on players, etc. Almost every mob (incl. things like
bats) uses skills like trip, disarm... and when your weapon drops,
lookout :) There's also a sacrifice command to keep the mud clean,
which is easily abused to screw others, who won't be able to do a thing
to you. Hmm, I'm not sure if one can still murder with spells--I assume
they've blocked this, but maybe not. Summon to aggressive is still
possible, and about the only way to kill someone I think. Oh, and when
you die you lose essentially nothing--your gold is removed, but there
is a bank. Your items are left on the corpse, which mobs do not touch
(except for janitors)..
> MOST (I say most
>because there may be others we haven't found yet) of the bugs have been ironed
>out of the Merc 1.0 code we are using.
Well, it doesn't crash too often (I'm not sure how stable the 1.0 code
is to begin with), but there are plenty of game bugs left.
> If Vryce is on (he's the programmer) DEMONSTRATE the bug
>to him, and it will be removed PDQ!
As I said, I don't agree.
> Medievia is not your average mud, we pride
>ourselves on being a mud where the implementors and Gods get along well with
>the players.
Boastful assertion. If you talk jokingly about pking/stealing, you
might find yourself frozen, purged, or forced to shout/gossip insults
about yourself. Well, happened to me anyway.
> Our mud's zones are often based on fantasy
>novels, so there's a sense of familiarity in our mud's zones.
Familiarity is a good word for it. Most of the stock diku items have
been ripped out and reused in 'new' zones. A number of zones use the
same mobs, and most zones only have a handful of mobs. The zones seem
to be mostly 1-hour hack jobs using a lot of cut and paste. There
are almost no aggressive mobs anywhere.
> Medievia has special code in it, to implement
>constant running quests, such as the "Fount of Wisdom/Dragon Crystal" quest,
This is one special proc which gives you 75 practices and a bag with
some potions (and maybe more) when you give it to a particular mob.
75 practices is on average enough to completely learn about 7 skills
(or 19 spells).
> plus we are the only Mud
>that we know of with an acutal working river (has a current, waterfall, living
>breating eco-system, fishing, etc), real atmospheric conditions (You can be
>struck by lightning, knocked over by earthquakes etc etc).
The river idea is ancient now, originally due to Scarrow and first
implemented on his server (and publicly on Silly). I assume most Silly
clones have this capability. The weather is kind of amusing, and mostly
consists of the occassional 'lightning strikes nearby' message. I don't
know what he means by 'real.'
> we have almost exclusive access to the Bigboy machine,
>located on the Temple campus, so we plan to make the game quite big. Currently
>we sport 15 zones and around 1100 rooms, but the world grows on a daily basis.
Hourly almost, since that's about how much time it must take to make 20
copies of 10 rooms and link them together in straight lines.
>We don't claim to be the best, we just claim that we're going to be! Come on
>over and take a look, we'll appreciate your input and ideas!
Here's my input: Scrap the Merc code, take out rent (or at least let
people save) and put it item damage, scrap the areas and spend more time
on writing areas with some motivation, reduce the power level (e.g.,
remove the 3d8+17+15 'callendar' which everyone and his mother has
and can wield at level 1--also remove the 10d2+6+5 enchanted shortswords
which do, what, 120 damage on a good bs n flee? And you lose 1k xp for
fleeing I think?) Rewrite the board code FASTER (it doesn't take one to
two days to write board code--one to two hours, maybe). Also, get more
writers and probably another coder, and stop making people level 35 and
leaving them on their own. Soon enough you're going to have a mud full
of implementors.
Well, that's my less-biased assessment of the mud. If you can't tell,
I'm not impressed.
--Steve
Henry McDaniel
>Hello,
>
> Ok enough "Adversary" talk, here's the scoop... Adversary is gone, it's
>future is not known to anyone except for Abaddon himself, who may or man not
>come in here and let you know what happened. Medievia didn't "Take Adversary's
>port", nor did Adversary OWN that port or the machine it is on. Now here's the
>scoop on Medievia...
Hmmm. For all the problems I had with Abaddon I think its etremely low
of you to advertise using Adversary in the title of your post. The only
reason I read this post (and many others I assume) is because the name
'Adversary' is in the title. You're responding to someone's post?
Funny you didn't include anything in your message from that 'message.'
For all my bitch**g at Abaddon I really wanted him to open or have a more
player-oriented game IMHO. I think you've beaten the fact you use his
old port and address into the ground enough times...
Heh. You didn't take Adversary's port? You are using the port and address
Adversary did for quite a long time... I understand that the address was
stolen... Its not polite to take another mud's port.. But I suppose its
too late to worry about common courtesy.
Maybe you should say you're using the "standard" Diku port... or something
and stop mentioning Adversary...
-McDaniel
>sp...@access.netaxs.com
>
>Medievia: [deleted...].edu [deleted...]
Mike Smith
This man's opinion is his own only, and he's pretty much clueless, he obviously
logged into the mud once or twice, and based his entire opinion on that. I have
my suspicions as to who he is, and if he is that person, he holds a grudge
because I spoke to the sysadmin of his server about him coming into our mud and
gossiping profanities a thousand times in a row, and disturbing the players.
We had to make all talk channels require a higher level because of his actions.
If it's not him, c'est la vie, all I can say is, if you don't like the mud,
then don't use it, there are hundreds of others to chose from. We invite all
people to come on, try us out, with the understanding that we intend to grow,
and listen to their ideas. We will not however, listen to flames, and walking
talking egos, such as you. Your opinions are duely noted, and tossed out the
window like the garbage they are.
Regards,
Mike Smith - Medievia Mud - 129.32.32.98 4000
Scarrow
Are there two Mike Smiths? *grin* This argument is much more reasonable than
the crap I just had to wade through. I will tell you, however, that I really
doubt (very strongly) that Steve would bother to spam your mud with crud. I
didn't really receive it as a flame as much as an opinion (Steve tends to
share a similar value system with me, and so I pay attention to his views). I
mean, I really do think making a Merc modified Diku is a waste of time.
Things like the u-store-it mentioned in the previous post are taken way out of
context from the fantasy environment. In a sense, you could cluster those of
us with these views and call us something like "Mud Purists" or something.
I've been having a long standing argument with the immortals of Perilous
Realms about adding more combat messages, etc. I'm of the opinion that if it
isn't needed, serves no useful purpose or is (in my mind) aesthetically
unpleasing, unrealistic, or simply stupid, I don't want it. If getting the
most players is the name of the game, you're welcome to them. I'd rather have
quality players. In fact, I'm fairly convinced that it will be an extremely
popular mud (Medievia, that is). You'll listen to the players, they'll say we
want ten free levels, fifty new mage spells that do more damage, twenty
attacks per round, etc., and you'll probably add them. God forbid that anyone
should dare to dislike it (I mean, you'll add anything the players want, how
could they?). That is, except for a few discriminating folk who will, and
rightly so I think, turn our eyes and ears elsewhere.
--
Shawn L. Baird (Scarrow) | "By all means, take the moral high ground --
bai...@ursula.ee.pdx.edu | all that heavenly backlighting makes you a
-------------------------| much easier target." --Solomon Short
F. Rodgers
In fact, I'm fairly convinced that it will be an extremely
popular mud (Medievia, that is). You'll listen to the players, they'll say we
want ten free levels, fifty new mage spells that do more damage, twenty
attacks per round, etc., and you'll probably add them. God forbid that anyone
should dare to dislike it (I mean, you'll add anything the players want, how
could they?). That is, except for a few discriminating folk who will, and
rightly so I think, turn our eyes and ears elsewhere.
--
Shawn L. Baird (Scarrow) | "By all means, take the moral high ground --
bai...@ursula.ee.pdx.edu | all that heavenly backlighting makes you a
-------------------------| much easier target." --Solomon Short
Hehe after all look how many players judy mud had ;-)
Power
Zwei-Tseng Chang -- ACF
|> sp...@netaxs.com (Mike Smith) writes:
|> >Hopefully the follow-up works on Net Access, if it doesn't oh well.
|> >This man's opinion is his own only, and he's pretty much clueless, he obviously
|> >logged into the mud once or twice, and based his entire opinion on that. I have
|> >my suspicions as to who he is, and if he is that person, he holds a grudge
|> >because I spoke to the sysadmin of his server about him coming into our mud and
|> >gossiping profanities a thousand times in a row, and disturbing the players.
|> >We had to make all talk channels require a higher level because of his actions.
|> >If it's not him, c'est la vie, all I can say is, if you don't like the mud,
|> >then don't use it, there are hundreds of others to chose from. We invite all
|> >people to come on, try us out, with the understanding that we intend to grow,
|> >and listen to their ideas. We will not however, listen to flames, and walking
|> >talking egos, such as you. Your opinions are duely noted, and tossed out the
|> >window like the garbage they are.
|>
|> Are there two Mike Smiths? *grin* This argument is much more reasonable than
I think so, this one puts carriage return at end of every line :-)
[stuff deleted...]
|> --
|> Shawn L. Baird (Scarrow) | "By all means, take the moral high ground --
|> bai...@ursula.ee.pdx.edu | all that heavenly backlighting makes you a
|> -------------------------| much easier target." --Solomon Short
Ray