Shattered Kingdoms

oh sh- iceberg

Thanks.

This has got to be a bug then. Otherwise, there is no way for store item prices ever to go down as a result of increased supply. The only way to drive them down would be through a decrease in demand (i.e., abstinence from purchasing).

Also, I know D wanted to make it so you can make money by exercising your skills (e.g., a priest making money by brewing). Is that currently a viable option with the system as it exists? If I buy a 6 platinum vial, brew heal in it (with a 66% chance of success or something), can I sell it for more than 9 platinum so it's worth my while? Somehow I doubt it...

Not a bug, a "feature." As far as brewing for profit goes, it's a long and less than ideal process.

Even with the increased success rate of brew, you still barely turn a profit, and even then with the way the cost of the vials increases every time you go back for more raw mats, you still are not looking at much profit over the time invested.

As far as being an effective money making strategy, it isn't one. You'll still make far more money grinding NPCs in the same span of time.

No.

He basically wants you to sow your fields with time and water them with tears.

And then everyone's all surprised and bamboozled when reports flood in of salted earth.

Economy system, CRS, weapon system and damn near everything else that people have a problem with does NOT require a complete overhaul. That is unreasonable and inefficient. These things don't need revamped, they just need a lot of tweaking, observation, more tweaking, more observation and so on and so forth until things settle into their appropriate places. Revamping these systems and starting with a fresh system from square one, will basically get you stuck with what you have now. A system you aren't happy with, a bunch of immortals that don't feel like tweaking it because they just spent four months building it and players making the ground they are standing on salty with tears.


So, did you ever get that pesky source code for SK yet grep, or are you still having problems with that?

Honestly, after a certain point, tweaking is less efficient than starting over for most things text-based.

A sound coding attempt grounded in theory and developed in modular, revisable, and well-documented project format is better than the results of one man's binges, no matter who that man is. You seem to agree with me that observation, careful progress, and measuring are all important. I'd even say peer review would benefit a MUD, but that's probably just my ivory tower talking.

I've looked at the source code for open source DIKU family MUDs and have seen enough commonalities with SK that I think I have a good idea what it WOULD look like.

At this point, I'd like the artistic content of SK (areas, items, etc.) and documentation to be released into the public domain more than the code, since those things would probably be more useful to the MUD community.

As for your opening sentence, I agree with you. The economy, CRS, and weapon system don't need a complete overhaul. They need a complete removal.

But some people are annoyingly pro-life, you know?

Well, I'm not going to get into CRS, or the economy, but what would you expect in place of the current weapon system? Going back to where every weapon had its own stats regardless of type? I'd much rather have the weapon system we have currently, just tweaked for a better balance, but that's just 'cause I get attached to certain weapon types based upon how I picture my characters.

Since you asked, here's what I'm currently thinking about:

Good things about the current system:
- Weapons are predictable based on types. An iron dagger and a mithril dagger strike for the same amount of raw damage, but their material composition affects how this damage may be mitigated or suffered.
- That's about it.

Changes:
- Weapon speed is gone and replaced solely by how many 'X attack' skills and other such things you have. The current system limits viable choices. Haste provides a significant buff to accuracy instead of multiple attacks and increased casting speed, sort of like a mood aggresive+.
- Weapon types would be sorted into twelve categories reflecting D&D type systems: one or two handed simple, martial, exotic melee and ranged weapons.
- Classes gain proficiencies based on these weapon families with some exceptions for classes like Rogue.
- Damage and accuracy combine to form a weapon's overall 'value,' inherited from its category (simple/martial/exotic). This means that all simple weapons are, from a "DPS" standpoint, interchangeable. Based on your needs, though, you might favor a certain admixture that would be more effective.
- Each weapon category would have a selection of reach/trip/etc. weapons.
- Enhanced Damage, Finesse, Specialize, and other such things would be retooled, but pretty much do the same thing: add bonuses to weapon accuracy or damage when wielded.
- Add a 'non-lethal' property to appropriate weapons that prevents them from killing an opponent and adjust mode stun to allow a player to use a lethal weapon non-lethally at a cost to accuracy. Certain classes could potentially receive the ability to nullify this penalty.
- My favorite: Caster weapons. ranged weapons designed solely for casters with the intent of making combat less spammy and more flexible. Each weapon is keyed to a particular damaging spell, costs the spell's cost in mana per 'strike,' and deals comparable damage both in nature and degree. Skill in the weapon is determined from skill in its keyed spell, and damage/round scales based on the spell, caster level, mood, and number of attacks per round the character possesses. For example, a sorc could wield a Magic Missile caster weapon and 'stab' things with magic missile damage once a round for damage equal to what would be dealt if that sorc instead spammed magic missile for the entire round, with a mana cost to match. A priest could use a Harm caster weapon that, for one (or two) attacks per round dealt damage based on how much 'damage per round' harm is calculated to deal, and so forth. These items could be highly thematic and possess various traits based on their nature: two-handed versions might give some form of bonus to represent losing access to scrolls, and so forth.


- The Fist would be replaced by a more useful cabal focused on enhanced spellcasting and themed on the astral realms.
- casting 'certain weapon of light' could receive arguments to pass weapon properties onto the weapon for escalating mana cost. In other words, a two-handed reach weapon could be created, a blitzkrieg-capable weapon, or a finesse, one-handed version could be made, or it could just be the stock weapon.
- Size modifiers would be updated to reflect the changes seen in Pathfinder
- 'Masterwork' weapons would represent inherently superior versions of weapons, while mundane weapons could be 'customized' to a character for a price to receive the same benefits.
- Thrown weapons would be given range and 'return' after throwing but receive durability damage with use, to simplify but not eliminate the cost and upkeep process of ammunition. There's no reason not to import something that makes a lot of sense.

Everything else would involve more features than fixes, and I'll reserve those for the unlikely day I make my own MUD.

I like grep's ideas.

Perhaps this should be split into its own thread? It doesn't seem to have ANYTHING to do with economy.