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[Rex Invictus]

Current Survey: Races and "Classes"

Introduction
I've been discussing on 8chan about making a MUD. A MUD is, essentially, a text-based MMORPG (more along the lines of Zork than DF). I'm looking for some input from B12G and see if there's any interest here as well.

Surveys & Decisions
So far, I have done two surveys regarding this. One was to find out information and compare interests between long-standing MUD players and newer (or not at all) MUD players and the other was to narrow down a setting.

Survey One Results

Spoiler: Poll Results (click to show/hide)

Current Information

Spoiler: The Arts of Magic (click to show/hide)

The Arts of Magic
There are (as far as we are aware) three different magical arts:
>Magecraft. The use of the body's magical force to manipulate some sort of element through knowledge. Known under a wide variety of names, it also includes the categories of druidry and necromancy.
>Spirit binding. The communion with (and binding of) elemental spirits to serve purposes. Often used in conjunction with magecraft to increase it's potential.
>Demonology. Although cosmetically similar to spirit binding, demonology is a much darker force.
There are a wide variety of magical traditions that could be used for any of these categories. Blood magic, as an example, is something that could be used by any of the above to boost their potential, as both blood and the act of spilling blood releases a great wave of magical power.

Magecraft
Magecraft is the use of magical potential (commonly referred to as "mana") to manipulate elements in some form. Almost always done by using tried and tested magical formulae passed down from generation to generation in grimoires (amongst druidic circles, these grimoires are usually carved stone tablets or wooden plaques although occasionally they may be paintings on cave walls or something as equally obscure) which the mana is passed through.

This category includes:
>Fire Magery - Fire is the element of dynamism, passion and blowing things up with giant balls of flame. It is dangerous to use but necessarily for survival. Fire mages often risk losing control of their larger spells.
>Water Magery - Water is the element of change, calmness and healing. All life needs water to survive. Water mages are often called upon as healers, although they may be dangerous in their own right.
>Druidry - Considered a blend of earth, water, life and death magic, druidry deals with the cycle of existence itself. Although it's components, goals and abilities change across civilizations and generations, those who practice it's arts are often difficult to defeat within their own terrain.
>Necromancy - Often referred to as "a corruption of magecraft", necromancy is the corruption and binding of magical power into a form that can manipulate the dead. It is extensively banned throughout almost all the known world. The use of it leads to those not using it to feel sickly and unclean.

Spirit Binding
The process of binding elemental spirits to a user's desires, it is banned in all major religious nations as the church considers it akin to demonology. Even less is known about this than about the demonology.

Demonology
The magic of summoning and binding demons to the user's will. Reality is naturally anathema to demonkind, although as far as we are aware no one has survived long enough to an unbound demon to say whether that is the case or not.

Most demonic bindings are done in three ways:
>Summoning and giving the demon a "face". This is often an elaborately carved mask representing the demon in some way. As an example, succubi usually have beautiful porcelain masks whereas others have bronze masks of twisted inhuman creatures. Quite often, demons bound in this way will serve an entire line of demonologists for generations.
>Summoning and binding the demon to an object. This allows for the demon to be bound into an object of some sort and for it's power to be released in a controlled manner. Demons chafe against these bonds and will try to escape. If they do, it is not unknown for an unbound demon to kill it's master and then everything else nearby. There are whispers in the academy of certain rare brothels allowing people to unleash unbound succubi for wild nights of passion, although I suspect these are completely untrue.
>Summoning and binding the demon to a weapon or suit of armour. I do not have much knowledge of this topic, unfortunately. I have heard it is an effective method of enchanting armour to great potential, although the demon can cause more damage to it's user than any enemy ever could.

Spoiler: The Art of Cooking (click to show/hide)

The Art of Cooking
Cooking is a fundamental art in the world that we exist in. Some may describe it as the fourth magical art (although those selfsame people are known to describe blacksmithing, alchemy and almost anything with a hint of craftsmanship in the same way).
In the lower echelons of society, cooking can mostly be describe as making some wheat into bread and then baking it. Not so for adventurers, kings and some less scrupulous priests.

Why? Simple.

Magical beast meat.

Magical Beast Meat
The centre of our culture and cuisine, the meat of magical beasts (of all their various shapes, sizes and types) is well documented as having a variety of health benefits, notably a longer lifespan, greater growth and stronger constitution.

There are, however, shorter term benefits that are not quite as well known. Each magical beast has a certain essence to it that, once properly prepared and consumed, increases the eater's mental or physical capabilities.

As an example, eating the flank of the Great Sky Cattle is known to increase the eater's physical constitution by a considerable amount.

Large piles of gold coins have been offered for high quality magical beast meats and adventuring groups often set out to make their fortunes butchering dragons and other monstrosities of that stature.

Magical Plants
Used more often in alchemical formulations, magical plants are only truly worthy of mention here due to their use as preparation and seasoning ingredients for the meat itself.

The System
So, the idea behind this system is to allow players to go out, hunt huge monsters (which, hopefully, I'll be randomly generating and placing akin to DF), cut them up and eat them. My goal is to make an entire system like that which makes sense and is engaging. Randomly generated meats which require higher quality chefs to work out what, exactly, they require to make perfect meals.

[Cheesecake]

PTW on this!

[Pencil_Art]

PTW m8

[DoctorMcTaalik]

PTW.

Also, are you thinking your MUD will be more roleplay-oriented (like Armageddon, for example), or more of a grindy text-based mmo (like Aardwolf, or really most MUDS)? I personally prefer a mix of the two.

[Arcvasti]

PTW

[Rex Invictus]

Spoiler: The Art of Cooking (click to show/hide)

The Art of Cooking
Cooking is a fundamental art in the world that we exist in. Some may describe it as the fourth magical art (although those selfsame people are known to describe blacksmithing, alchemy and almost anything with a hint of craftsmanship in the same way).
In the lower echelons of society, cooking can mostly be describe as making some wheat into bread and then baking it. Not so for adventurers, kings and some less scrupulous priests.

Why? Simple.

Magical beast meat.

Magical Beast Meat
The centre of our culture and cuisine, the meat of magical beasts (of all their various shapes, sizes and types) is well documented as having a variety of health benefits, notably a longer lifespan, greater growth and stronger constitution.

There are, however, shorter term benefits that are not quite as well known. Each magical beast has a certain essence to it that, once properly prepared and consumed, increases the eater's mental or physical capabilities.

As an example, eating the flank of the Great Sky Cattle is known to increase the eater's physical constitution by a considerable amount.

Large piles of gold coins have been offered for high quality magical beast meats and adventuring groups often set out to make their fortunes butchering dragons and other monstrosities of that stature.

Magical Plants
Used more often in alchemical formulations, magical plants are only truly worthy of mention here due to their use as preparation and seasoning ingredients for the meat itself.

The System
So, the idea behind this system is to allow players to go out, hunt huge monsters (which, hopefully, I'll be randomly generating and placing akin to DF), cut them up and eat them. My goal is to make an entire system like that which makes sense and is engaging. Randomly generated meats which require higher quality chefs to work out what, exactly, they require to make perfect meals.

PTW.

Also, are you thinking your MUD will be more roleplay-oriented (like Armageddon, for example), or more of a grindy text-based mmo (like Aardwolf, or really most MUDS)? I personally prefer a mix of the two.

Hopefully a mix. Roleplay enforced, not roleplay intensive so to speak.

If I wanted pure online roleplaying, I host a forum for that and there's virtual tabletops otherwise. Armageddon never really caught me due to a lack of things to do when other players weren't around and I wasn't exactly on at peak times. This might've changed due to the fact they've cut down their focus, but I don't really know.
If I wanted pure gameplay, I'd go play an MMO. Aardwolf just made me feel like I might as well be playing Kingdoms of Amalur or something.

PTW

PTW m8

PTW on this!

Cheers, guys. Feel free to drop any ideas here.

[DoctorMcTaalik]

I like the idea of randomly-generated beasts. Hell, I'd say randomly generated anything adds a degree of realism to games.

[Rex Invictus]

A couple of words on design philosophy. One of the primary goals going into this is to do something so that every player considers himself "heroic". Even the humble chef (a joke in most MMOs) should be feeling like he's having an epic battle against some meat to provide a food to buff an adventuring group. It's high fantasy, so every character should be doing something they consider worthwhile.

I don't want to overly introduce complexity, especially in the programming. Most of the stuff that I've gone through so far is pretty simple (demonology is by far one of the most difficulty concepts, but I've got several ideas on how to work that). The main thing I'm worried about is the timing in combat, but I'm going to look through some old codebases and see if I can't work things out.

I like the idea of randomly-generated beasts. Hell, I'd say randomly generated anything adds a degree of realism to games.

I'm not really aiming for realism. :p

[Spiderking50]

This seems really cool. But I am a little confused on what we can do to help if we don't know about programming? Are you looking or ideas or what exactly?

[Rex Invictus]

This seems really cool. But I am a little confused on what we can do to help if we don't know about programming? Are you looking or ideas or what exactly?

Ideas, feedback etc. I don't particularly trust other programmers on stuff I know how to do anyway. :p

[Spiderking50]

I would love to provide any sort of ideas, story plots, or anything. MUDs are incredibly cool.

[Rex Invictus]

Spoiler: Current Poll Results (click to show/hide)

Once this survey hits 50 responses, I'm gonna close it and get on with world building so get in now if you want a say.

I would love to provide any sort of ideas, story plots, or anything. MUDs are incredibly cool.

I feel as though MUDs, like MMOs, lose out on the possible potential they might have and it's a huge shame.

[Cheesecake]

I think randomly-generated beasts should be reserved for bosses or really powerful monsters. Weaker and more prevalent mooks should be set or premade.

Couple of ideas:

-Player-made quests! If some chef needs high-end magic monster meat, he'll put it up on a job board, and the first person to contact him to say they've got the meat gets the reward! (Will almost definitely need balance though)

-Player-houses! I think this is almost a given, but certainly not necessary for launch. Maybe later updates? Player houses just give a feeling of accomplishment and bragging rights, and even heroism. Walking down a hallway decorated with the bones of all the evil dragons you've killed is very heroic to me.

-Be the villain! There was this one manga where a gamer was trapped in the game world, and deciding that real-life sucked for him, tried to take over the new world. He also looked like a gigantic skeleton mage, which I thought was cool. Perhaps the ability to raid towns, kidnap princesses, etc. and make their own evil lair instead of a player house.

-Customization! This can be as simple as letting players write their character's description, which I think works best for MUDs.

That's all I can think about for now.

[Spiderking50]

Suggestion: Mutations. For me that's always a really cool aspect for a game. A real risk reward endeavor. There can be multiple ways to do it including potions and magic meat/food.

[Rex Invictus]

I think randomly-generated beasts should be reserved for bosses or really powerful monsters. Weaker and more prevalent mooks should be set or premade.

Completely agree. My concept was to spawn monsters Diablo-style (ie in zones populated by wolves, every 100 respawns a greater wolf with randomly determined attributes spawns).

-Player-made quests! If some chef needs high-end magic monster meat, he'll put it up on a job board, and the first person to contact him to say they've got the meat gets the reward! (Will almost definitely need balance though)

One of the primary reasons behind the Adventurers' Guild will be to facilitate stuff like this. Player buying the meat will have to put down a down payment and I'll like make it qualified by freshness (so not storing ten billion types of meat to give them up).

-Player-houses! I think this is almost a given, but certainly not necessary for launch. Maybe later updates? Player houses just give a feeling of accomplishment and bragging rights, and even heroism. Walking down a hallway decorated with the bones of all the evil dragons you've killed is very heroic to me.

Player houses is one of the things I wanted to do, but people don't seem all that interested in it. Definitely on the back burner.

-Be the villain! There was this one manga where a gamer was trapped in the game world, and deciding that real-life sucked for him, tried to take over the new world. He also looked like a gigantic skeleton mage, which I thought was cool. Perhaps the ability to raid towns, kidnap princesses, etc. and make their own evil lair instead of a player house.

Pretty much what demonology is. Seriously considering allowing players to found their own dungeons, though.

-Customization! This can be as simple as letting players write their character's description, which I think works best for MUDs.

Definitely doing this and likely allowing players to customise their equipment. One of the things I've seen most MUDs do is have "fashion festivals" where players can take their gear to be customised.

Suggestion: Mutations. For me that's always a really cool aspect for a game. A real risk reward endeavor. There can be multiple ways to do it including potions and magic meat/food.

I'd rather not turn this into Corruption of Champions, thank you.