delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,656
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Post by delerak on Sept 6, 2015 7:14:14 GMT -5
I wish you the best with this, it's going to be interesting to see where you take things.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2015 0:17:02 GMT -5
I'd personally like to see it be a queen, since Arm has 2 kings. It'd just be a subtle way to set it apart, and be interesting to see, in my opinion at least.
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riesen
staff puppet account
Posts: 5
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Post by riesen on Sept 7, 2015 0:26:18 GMT -5
Queen Elsa the Terrible I'm serious though. No really, I am.
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ccp
staff puppet account
Posts: 32
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Post by ccp on Sept 7, 2015 10:23:24 GMT -5
dark sun is a great world to draw from. even if it were just using 1 or 2 other cities/geographic areas in the world of athas, it'd be a fantastic start and I'd play it fo sho.
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Post by lyse on Sept 7, 2015 10:41:45 GMT -5
Can't wait to see where this goes.
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Post by shadycharacter on Sept 7, 2015 18:07:11 GMT -5
So, a bit of random factoids for you all:
• We'll be following Athas as it existed in the AD&D 2nd Edition timeline. Although we've committed to accuracy, some details will be changed to suit our needs or to clear up any gaps left by the books.
• The year is presently Year 1 of what we're tentatively calling the Age of Risen Kings. It directly follows the Decade of Heroics, during which slaves rose up in Tyr and killed King Kalak when he attempted to undergo all ten stages of draconic transformation using the life force of his subjects.
• The Age of Risen Kings is so named because, after the death of King Kalak, the world knew that the sorcerer-kings could be opposed and the remaining rulers had a swift tendency to change their ways. Where once they went unseen, they tend now to actually be witnessed by at least their nobility.
• Our chosen city of focus at this time is Nibenay. It is ruled by the Sorcerer-King Nibenay, who shares the same name as his domain. Not surprisingly, he styles himself as a god. In ancient times, when he was a Champion of Rajaat, he was tasked with - and succeeded in - committing genocide on the gnomish species. Since the death of the Sorcerer-King Kalak of Tyr, Nibenay has actually been appearing in public on occasion, holding court with his nobility. This is a strange change in tradition, puzzling the nobility (though they are eagerly taking this chance to try and garner the Sorcerer-King's favor).
• Nibenay is located east of Tyr, at the northern tip of the Crescent Forest.
• The nearest city-state to Nibenay, but a stone's throw away compared to the distance between most city-states, is Gulg. Gulg is located more toward the southern end of the Crescent Forest, actually having been built within and from the forest, and is ruled by the Sorcerer-Queen Lalali-Puy.
• With the exception of the forest, the terrain in all directions surrounding Nibenay can be considered hostile merely based upon its natural traits (which is not to say that the Crescent Forest doesn't have its own share of threats in the depths).
• Nibenay's primary commodity is the wood it harvests from the Crescent Forest. In the hands of the city's crafters, it can be expertly fashioned into armor, tools, and weapons sought across Athas. It's the next best thing to metal, due to its remarkable sturdiness.
• Also of curious note is the commodity of water. The Crescent Forest is kept well watered by moisture which descends from the Windbreak Mountain, but salvaging it from so deep within the woods is dangerous. Instead, there is a closer source: bubbling springs which surround the city. However, these are both cared for and controlled by the nobility of the city, meaning they are not freely available for anyone to come and (legally) have a sip from.
• Trade is very lively from Nibenay, its wood aside. In particular, the city's merchant houses deal in copper, rice, fruits, and spices. They sell throughout the Tyr region, but deal most busily with Urik, Tyr, and Balic. Nibenay's client village of Cromlin, on the shores of the Silt Sea, also provides virtually exclusive trade access with the city-state of Draj.
• In the past, Gulg and Nibenay fought actual battles over control of the Crescent Forest's resources. However, they never actually declared war, which is fortunate for the comparatively smaller Gulg.
• Something interesting is afoot between Gulg and Nibenay. In recent times, relations have been better than ever. The Sorcerer-King and Sorcerer-Queen have actually met on two occasions. What was discussed during those meetings will likely never be known, but Nibenay's treatment of the forest has been *somewhat* improved since. For every agafari tree uprooted from the ground by a slave, two more are planted, thus ensuring that the Crescent Forest is not worn away from the face of Athas.
• Nibenay is in the process of building up its already formidable military, another of those mysterious events the people don't quite understand. The army regularly practices in the arena, and there has been a dramatic increase in patrols of the nearby countryside. Some free citizens and nobles have also been ordered to serve in the city-state's defense, and the Templars are busily organizing them into part-time militias for training purposes.
• The Templarate of Nibenay is exclusively female. Aside from this unique trait, they're about as corrupt and powerful as the Templars of any other city-state. Even though Nibenay has been taking some steps out into the public, he leaves the day to day governance of the city in the hands of the Templarate. Nibenay's seemingly more interested state hasn't made dealing with the Templars any easier, either. Should a citizen or visitor break a law and find themselves unable to afford a templar's bribe, they're likely to end up in the slave pens.
• Both the Sorcerer-King and his Templarate reside in the Naggaramakam, the king's walled sub-city.
• The local branch of the Veiled Alliance, the Nibenese Alliance, has a virulent hatred of defilers. They do what they can to protect preservers, and though they consider Nibenay himself much too dangerous to challenge, they do pursue other defilers in the region. As well, they have come into alliance with a certain force right under the city-state's own nose ...
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riesen
staff puppet account
Posts: 5
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Post by riesen on Sept 7, 2015 19:03:41 GMT -5
Prism Pentad is not canon, I hope?
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Post by shadycharacter on Sept 7, 2015 19:10:13 GMT -5
Prism Pentad is not canon, I hope? Aside from Kalak having been killed by slaves (who are not the characters in the book), no, it isn't canon.
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Post by shadycharacter on Sept 8, 2015 1:49:45 GMT -5
For those of you who would actually like to hang out on the game, you can private message me with an account name and email address. I don't yet have the mailserver set up, but I would be happy to manually create your accounts and approve characters so that you may congregate. Please note that there is really nothing to see or do, and a LOT of work to be done just in rooting out files used by prior games and such. However, the option's there if folks would like to hang out and talk to each other.
Secondly, I will be contacting those of you who private messaged me about building tonight or tomorrow to similarly get you set up on the build port.
Coding volunteers: I frankly do not know anything about coding, and anyone could BS their way through a conversation about it with me. So, I will try and mediate a time for you to talk with our current head coder and let him make the call on who we'd like to hire. OpenRPI has some requirements which are of a sensitive nature when it comes to coding, so we have to take care here.
There's a long road ahead for this project, particularly since I was unfortunately not able to get Delerak's code up from the SourceForge page. Something's up none of us could figure out. So, I'm afraid it won't be in the near term that we'll have a playable world. We'll get there, though.
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bastilleangel
Clueless newb
Wielding the Power of Love and Investigation Since 2013
Posts: 119
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Post by bastilleangel on Sept 8, 2015 2:41:23 GMT -5
Goodness, you've really been on the move! Kudos for a strong start. And I'll reply to your email during normal-people hours. =)
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jesantu
Displaced Tuluki
Posts: 339
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Post by jesantu on Sept 8, 2015 5:39:29 GMT -5
If this ends up getting off the ground it'll be interesting for Coca-Cola MUD to finally have its Pepsi counterpart. Say what you will of the other RPI muds out there but arm really has the sole monopoly on it.
Just some thoughts you may care to contemplate as your game progresses are..
I've seen many MUDs fail by promising to open many many months ahead, stating that things are still in a testing phase. And then nothing ever happens and we never hear of it again. If all you had was a rough code and a small tent encampment with no more of your world yet created, why not open that to the public! You can add onto it while the players create a history for you. You can even make up an ic reason why the characters cannot yet travel beyond your tent camp or village etc. Something suitably apocalyptic would be perfect for the setting you're after.
Consider what key points allow Arm to succeed while all the other rpis either fail completely or at best lurk in its shadow. I chalk it up to two points alone: a concentrated game world and layman psionics. Here's what I mean..
Argue against the whole notion of concentrating the player base if you wish, it's been argued over endlessly. But the game succeeds because it really truly is concentrated. Travel from tuluk to luirs happens in the blink of an eye. The idea of going on long journeys and camping along the way, enduring something of a fellowship of the rings scenario is fun in theory only. Spam walking for literal hours of real time won't make for a more interesting game. The dark sun theme is perfect for an rpi because it involves scarceness and scarceness keeps things simple.
Where Arm also shines is the use of the Way. Other rpis have tried creating a system of sending written messages and it just pales in comparison. Sometimes you don't have as much time to play as you'd like. Sometimes you need to hide away in your char's apartment and fire off a few messages to your companions and help set your plans in motion, then log back out again. Templars do it, merchants do it, indies do it. We've all been there and the Way is just so perfect for online gaming purposes that there are few alternatives which could beat it. It allows for interactions that simply wouldn't happen at all were it not for the Way.
Consider what key points Arm has failed at. In the days when the game was desperately trying to progress into an RPI it made an effort to define the different races ad groups. It was hotly contested on the old gdb that elves were just humans with pointy ears so a movement was initiated to define them, and all the other races too. The imms did a great job on that. The problem is they did too great a job. Suddenly the races were so well defined that no one had an ic reason to interact with anyone else. "you're a dwarf and we don't like your kind", was seen as good rp. Halflings stopped interacting with others, blackwing elves stopped interacting with others, even the gypsies became super recluse, interacting with others only selectively, and magickers are practically pointless. I guess my point is..... don't do this. It's inspiring the number of races you want to feature as playable options. Now find a way to define the differences between each race while not making them so distinct they become separated. If you incorporate a reason why race X strongly dislikes race Y, that's cool, but also incorporate a reason that forces them to interact despite their negative sentiments towards one another.
Good luck with this and I hope we get a chance to try your game out in the foreseeable future!
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deadelf
staff puppet account
Posts: 42
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Post by deadelf on Sept 8, 2015 8:30:48 GMT -5
I mostly agree with jesantu. Only difference is I think Arm succeeded because it was being played at the same time it was being developed. I remember being part of a couple of Circle muds that never got off the ground. They just had developers/builders until interest ran out.
Hope to see it up and running soon.
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Post by shadycharacter on Sept 8, 2015 12:05:03 GMT -5
I appreciate the advice, jesantu. Odds are, we will have a means of psionic contact. That should not be a concern. As to the rest, some of that racial separation is thematic (tribal halflings living apart in the forests, elves living in clans both within and without, the thri-kreen having an entire empire, etc). However, we have a much more confined play area given the geography surrounding Nibenay, so odds are these groups and others will cross paths more often than we're accustomed to. It's important to remember that, while we may be offering an alternative, we're not Armageddon. There's a lot that will be different. On Edit: The reason we aren't allowing people in for anything more than hanging out in the guest lounge is because we're *far* from ready to have people playing even at the testing phase. Even as we build and code the basics, we're still clearing out junk data from old games which have used the database over time. It's going to be a while, there's no denying, but I will do my best to keep interest up as we work hard to bring this about with a limited team.
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bastilleangel
Clueless newb
Wielding the Power of Love and Investigation Since 2013
Posts: 119
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Post by bastilleangel on Sept 9, 2015 0:01:51 GMT -5
I thought these videos put up by Sanvean some years ago might hold some good "nuggets" for folks to chew on, given that we're talking about/cheering on the birth of a new Dark Sun MUD: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko1jGL4InGo
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bastilleangel
Clueless newb
Wielding the Power of Love and Investigation Since 2013
Posts: 119
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Post by bastilleangel on Sept 9, 2015 0:06:56 GMT -5
And I'll add, it's bizarre to me that it's already more than 8 years out from what I think of as "fairly new" videos!
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