daevic
staff puppet account
Posts: 12 
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Post by daevic on Mar 16, 2014 17:23:06 GMT -5
Ok so, there were a lot of questions about Black Sands, and how it is very similar to Arm. I hope to dispell some of that since I created black sands and believe it has distinguishing points and a very different focus.
The principle idea behind the mud is to remove the huge game world, and force close, personal PC-PC interaction. So, less post-apoc more like, the current apocalypse. Humanity and every other race is on the brink of destruction, and have been penned into one last city which is built within a mountain wall (think helmsdeep with the orcs outside). All the races crammed together cause a high stress environment with no set status quo. There is a small valley for food, but the entire south of the wall is a sea of monsterous Mora, a malevolent corrupted creature that lives in agony with only the prospect of killing everyone left to grant it's release.
The focus is on the players actually having the weight to change things, since it is a small environment. No established nobility, no merchant houses, nobody so powerful that you cannot rise up. You can.
Ergo. If you want to create a merchant house, you can do it. Everything is made to be craftable, and the stores only sell the generic goods. To get something that is exceptional quality, you need to know, or buy from a PC crafter.
Consignment stores allow PC merchants to sell at all hours, not only when online, while allowing off peak players access to PC made goods.
Guild halls are rentable, as will be NPC guards, meaning you can start up your own clan, your own bank account, and your own structure, all without staff support. A major key in a lot of the planning is to make it so that PC's can actually make something through IC means, not only through staff.
We do have dwarves. They are rare and closer to extinction then other races. (I reveal this secret, of which the game has plenty more.)
We have a full rooftop/sewer system in place. Meaning there are on average three unique ways to get across the city. Leaving thieves, pickpockets, and the like much more freedom in making decisions, hopefully this will help with sneaky types popularity.
Now for similarities.
Archons are not like Templars at all. Archons are members of the city who have in some way saved the city. They are Heroes of the people. Archons are -never- selected by some authority like the Highlord. They are selected by the people, for outstanding deeds in the protection of the city. This means that yes, your PC slum dweller, can indeed one day rise to the rank of Archon if he manages to do a great enough deed. Is it likely? No, of course not. Is it possible? Yes.
Archons actually hold no direct obvious political weight, but they hold enormous political weight in the sense that the people of the city recognize their deeds, and honor them with their trust.
I agree, our magick system as it seems to stand at the moment is very arm like. Elementalists, and Sorcerers. The tar instead of ash, is an effect of dark magick, not all magick so it is a bit different, but the common folk dont know or care. What they know is that the world has been lost. The forests razed, the rivers polluted. That only one city stands, and it stands against a horde of dark magick. So yes, there is a hatred of magick.
That said, the magick that will be seen in game, will be much different in the coming time. The old magicks, socercy and elementalism are forgotten and mostly lost. ICly, you will likely encounter other forms which are used and more common:
potionmaking, rune crafting, enchanting, and druidic magicks (eg. call wolf ally), witch curses (eg. snip hair red - You take a snippet of the red haired man's hair - curse hair farts - You curse the red haired man to have farts), etc.
So. TLDR: The game is designed super small, to force PC interaction, you can begin a anything, and end anything. Nothing is static.
I know I'm missing some other points, so I'll answer them as I get the chance too here.
Thanks,
-Daevic, Creator - Producer Black Sands Mud
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daevic
staff puppet account
Posts: 12
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Post by daevic on Mar 16, 2014 17:29:59 GMT -5
Ahh, yes another point. Skills.
Yes, you start out badly, with crap skills. However, there is a massive curve. You learn new skills -very- quickly. In fact, you can get to a survivable stage without trouble, and pick up the basics fast. But the curve gets harder, and mastering a skill it what will take time.
Also, the way our "classes" work was mentioned as being similar to arm. They aren't.
They might have similar names, but in reality every single class can learn anything. Yes, your warrior can learn crafting, and become a master crafter. Yes your master crafter can learn backstab and become an assasin. You can learn anything, up a limit based on your INT.
So, no guild sniffing. Just because that guy used backstab means nothing. He could be a crafter, he could be a warrior, he could be a ranger. Anybody could be a pickpocket, anybody could be a sorceror. Yes, magick is something you can LEARN IC.
I feel this is an imporant point. I hate guild sniffing, and every single PC you come across is going to be different then the last one you came across.
This will be further added to when we put in place our PERK and BIRTHMARK system, which will also randomly assign variations to new PC's that are created.
-Daevic
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2014 18:06:34 GMT -5
Holy crap, Daevic, I didn't know that about the skill system. That's awesome.  The first post I was pretty familiar with but the skills. *salivates* I can't wait to see the perk and birthmark systems. |
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Post by jcarter on Mar 16, 2014 19:19:25 GMT -5
Hi Daevic, I'm glad you and Shade decided to come post here. Myself and a few others have created accounts and played games, hopefully we can get it to pick up more steam. Thank you for opening this up for questions. I do have a couple of questions/concerns though--
1)How flexible are you on the combat and healing system? As it is, combat is a very slow and tedious affair. From firsthand experience I've gotten a decent injury or two from fighting a turtle, and it's taken a good amount of time of healing up. Are there any plans to speed this up? How much are you guys willing to take into consideration feedback vs what sort of vision/system you have in place?
2)Sorcerers and void elementalists are hated and at the kill on sight status it seems like. How do you see them fitting into the game world from a gameplay point of view when, as you said, it's "super small" for PC interaction and the game is focused around a single major town with the majority of goods being player crafted? It seems like there's going to be a lack of hiding places for a sorcerer as well as difficult for them to be able to clothe/feed/get the bare item necessities if there's only one major area of play?
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Post by latrineswimmer on Mar 16, 2014 20:02:59 GMT -5
Argh. I enjoy that you can bleed folks dry and tracking a deer you have wounded is fun. But forage keeps crashing the MUD.
Anyway will keep playing, don't mind the slow combat and love you can inflict a fatal wound with a shitty weapon. Also staff seem really good.
Also love the fact that you can potentially be anyone.
Edit: They fixed the issue with forage.
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Post by lyse on Mar 16, 2014 21:09:50 GMT -5
I have to say I'm liking what I read.
I played last night and an imm jumped into a bear while I was hunting, I know I should've run, but it was so fun just fucking around. I'm actually looking forward to playing more on black sands and seeing how everything shakes out.
I'm getting the feeling a lot of classes are inter dependent on each other, or you truly need others to help you accomplish certain goals. You can be a badass warrior, but if you get wounded, you're going to need someone to heal you, etc.
I'll definitely be back to play more. My only question, is will more be done with emoting?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2014 21:22:19 GMT -5
That's really the only hitch for me is it's hard to always emote with the sdesc at the beginning and never being able to make it start possessively, because I emote, like, a lot. The command emotes, I'm not missing so much, but the emoting with @ anywhere in the emote, and a possessive emote... those I miss.
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Post by shade0of0ishahan on Mar 16, 2014 21:22:42 GMT -5
Hi Daevic, I'm glad you and Shade decided to come post here. Myself and a few others have created accounts and played games, hopefully we can get it to pick up more steam. Thank you for opening this up for questions. I do have a couple of questions/concerns though-- 1)How flexible are you on the combat and healing system? As it is, combat is a very slow and tedious affair. From firsthand experience I've gotten a decent injury or two from fighting a turtle, and it's taken a good amount of time of healing up. Are there any plans to speed this up? How much are you guys willing to take into consideration feedback vs what sort of vision/system you have in place? 2)Sorcerers and void elementalists are hated and at the kill on sight status it seems like. How do you see them fitting into the game world from a gameplay point of view when, as you said, it's "super small" for PC interaction and the game is focused around a single major town with the majority of goods being player crafted? It seems like there's going to be a lack of hiding places for a sorcerer as well as difficult for them to be able to clothe/feed/get the bare item necessities if there's only one major area of play? I wanted to speak up on the very little I have learned. 1.) Once you are outside the valley, combat becomes very scary, the slow pace + the true ability to get insta gibbed (and the huge amount of poisons) works out well. It really makes combat feel like two creatures with deadly claws/blades/horns/*censored* are fighting each other and the first to land a hit wins. The scog's I feel just let you learn combat versus something with uber defense but no real offense. Trust me that once you are out, you'll be glad you have time to type flee from fights where getting the first clean hit wins. Also, a medic can vastly speed healing up, from an entire real life day to heal a violent wound, to it healing in the time it takes me to drink a mug and have a conversation with another pc in the Ryk. 2.) Mages can learn any other classes' skills, I know of a certain magical person that hides it by, talking in mudding terms, being another class. Also the views about the hated thing seem to be largely stuck in the city only, the valley really is another entire roleplaying environment. The way I play when I walk through the gates it is like walking out of Tuluk and taking a trip to Allanak in one step. Not the same rules, but the same instant different vibe. That's really the only hitch for me is it's hard to always emote with the sdesc at the beginning and never being able to make it start possessively, because I emote, like, a lot. The command emotes, I'm not missing so much, but the emoting with @ anywhere in the emote, and a possessive emote... those I miss. I swear the @ emoting was there the very first day I played, I think it is disabled for some bug issue right now. I personally expect to see it back pretty fast, they seem to be actively working on any code that impacts our playing. |
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shade
staff puppet account
Posts: 16
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Post by shade on Mar 16, 2014 21:29:49 GMT -5
jcarter - If you didn't get your wounds tended by a medic (there's an NPC near the bar), you will definitely take longer to heal. If you get a wound tended to, it heals MUCH faster. Sure it costs some money, but hey.. life ain't free! The forage bug is fixed, for whoever posted that. Also, yes, there is a bug with emote where placing @ in your emote crashes the mud, which is why it's disabled. I haven't gotten time to get around to fixing it. I also plan to implement more emote protocols such as semote, hemote, pemote, psemote, phemote which would show the personalized he's she's emote you are wanting. There's also plans to make each echoing command offer the ability to tack an emote onto the end of it. Random tidbit of information, but check out set finisher  Edited to add: Some of the skill stuff daevic mentioned used to be in game, but it caused a great unbalance and we decided to stick with class systems, however we are pretty generous when it comes to giving a skill for extended roleplay. Subclasses are going to help offset this a lot, they will be diverse and useful.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2014 21:32:06 GMT -5
I didn't realize it was in recently! I'm sure it'll be back in soon too, though. Did you see how fast Shade got that forage thing fixed, shade0of0ishahan. So much love for the pointy-hatted wizards running this mofo. |
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Post by shade0of0ishahan on Mar 16, 2014 21:44:23 GMT -5
Oh yeah, set finisher = wahwowzyfuntimes
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daevic
staff puppet account
Posts: 12
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Post by daevic on Mar 16, 2014 22:24:58 GMT -5
1)How flexible are you on the combat and healing system? As it is, combat is a very slow and tedious affair. From firsthand experience I've gotten a decent injury or two from fighting a turtle, and it's taken a good amount of time of healing up. Are there any plans to speed this up? How much are you guys willing to take into consideration feedback vs what sort of vision/system you have in place?
Combat we still tweak, but I think Ishan was right. Things can get deadly pretty quickly. Sometimes it's slow, but things can escalate quickly. Heal times are indeed long if you let it fester, so yes, know a good healer, visit the medic, work as a team.
2)Sorcerers and void elementalists are hated and at the kill on sight status it seems like. How do you see them fitting into the game world from a gameplay point of view when, as you said, it's "super small" for PC interaction and the game is focused around a single major town with the majority of goods being player crafted? It seems like there's going to be a lack of hiding places for a sorcerer as well as difficult for them to be able to clothe/feed/get the bare item necessities if there's only one major area of play?
Here is the thing. The gameplay point of view isn't to provide some kind of even experience for all classes. The game specifically isn't built to provide some kind of "entry zone safe lvl up zone." This is a specific point in a world's struggle to survive, the end game, the last stand. Would people be "chill" with the mage they just met, even though he might just wipe out the only place left, even by accident. Does he actually control his powers? Or do they control him? What do you know about what can happen. Cause stuff can happen. Bad stuff.
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Post by shade0of0ishahan on Mar 16, 2014 23:27:33 GMT -5
There are a few things I can not find real direction about in the docs, I thought I'd ask them here.
1.) Elves, regardless of their feelings towards humans, seem to understand that their bias needs to take a back seat to the world ending river of tar in their front yard. To my knowledge though the Crimsons are a human only group, how do the elves participate in this daily struggle? I feel like there should be a definitive relationship between the elves who live their lives to defeat the mora hoard and the Crimson who are civilization's last line of defense.
2.) City rules aside, how would the tribal elves treat shamans or the like in their own ranks, I have not found any exact docs on that either.
3.) Crafting still seems complicated because no matter what your character knows how to make, you need to find it already made and analyze it, is that going to be changed anytime? If I have some meat, can I look at it and see my options at some point? (I mean I technically know my options already, with the current system I will not know exactly what to type until I've seen it already done, which is hard since the playerbase is still growing, but small.)
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shade
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Post by shade on Mar 16, 2014 23:49:37 GMT -5
1) There's a bit of documentation lacking on race specifics, though I can say that yes, they are more content letting the humans fight the war. Why should they die when they don't have to?
2) By Shaman, if you mean an elementalist, they would be treated as one of the tribe, used and abused for their abilities but also respected enough because of the power that they wield.
If you mean sorcerer, that's another matter that you'll have to find out IC.
3) I've stated multiple times in multiple places that crafting is not ready yet, I've got some backend work to do.. it will come soon enough.
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Post by shade0of0ishahan on Mar 17, 2014 0:11:24 GMT -5
Here's one I am just curious about, what made the staff at BSM want to make that mud, with that setting?
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The first post I was pretty familiar with but the skills. *salivates* I can't wait to see the perk and birthmark systems.
