Volume Five Issue Seven
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............./ / THE LEGENDARY TIMES
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..../ /_/..\______/./_____/./__/.../__/./_______/ MUD
.../________________/ running on mud.aus.sig.net 9999
199.1.78.16 9999
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http://mud.sig.net/ ftp://mud.sig.net/pub
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VOLUME FIVE, ISSUE SEVEN November 24, 1997
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The Editor's Note.
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Petal's wrap up of the fortnight that was.
From the Imps.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
In which our esteemed implementors discuss their weeks.
Departmental News and Updates.
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A report which aims to keep YOU up to date on the work done in the
various departments.
News and Reports.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This week: An important announcement about pkill.
The results of the third annual pkill tourney.
An update on the Legendary Times short story/essay contest.
Croaker's trivia report.
Legendites.
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A special report on mobs unrest from Voloya.
Parox gets a new description.
The next installment of Kinch's wildly popular
zdmud, tricks and tips!
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/__| EDITORS NOTE |__\
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It has again been a very busy week on LegendMUD. The admin and PR
departments have been all out organising the huge games blowout that
was held from the 15th to the 16th of November. I believe that we
succeeded in running 24 hours of continuous games during that period!
The highlight of the days festivities was the third annual pkill tourney
(for a full list of results please read the report found later in this
edition). Sandra and ParticleMan should be very proud of the way things
ran so smoothly.
ALSO, all those interested in pkill should pay special atention to the
extremely important pkill notice from Ea! in this edition of the LT.
In upcoming Legend news, be sure to look out for Croaker's 2nd trivia
blowout which will take place in the next couple of weeks. Also, be
sure to get your entry in for the first ever Legendary Times short
story/essay contest. I know from talking to you all that there are some
fabulous budding authors out there... take this opportunity to show off
your cool funky lit-type-stuff and win big prizes!!
'til we meet again,
Happy mudding,
- Petal
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/__| FROM THE IMPS |__\
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Spent most of the week getting better organised and working on code.
Also updated lots of area files to use the new door description thing
Rufus added, so doors with double names (such as "the double doors"
and "the small wooden door") should look right now.
- Kaige
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/__| DEPARTMENTAL NEWS AND UPDATES |__\
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ADMINISTRATION
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Kept their collective eyes and ears well tuned to the channels and the
boards in their ever-vigilant role as mud administrators.
Chocorua deleted a few characters by their request, helped one person
perma and ran snowball hunt.
Flagg looked up some save log incidents, archived a few chars and worked
on a spell. Govan deleted/unarchived a few characters as requested
Particleman ran the feather and middleweight Pkill tourneys. Sandra
had her hands full running the games fest (with the invaluable assistance
of LadyAce). She also held a GM meeting and found a few things that needed
to be worked on in the fight system during the pkill tourney. In addition
to all of this, she somehow found time to start an expansion to Salem!
Solomon caught a few multiplayers and some eq swapping. He ran a conference
dealing with the new mind requirements for fighting skills. During the
games fest, he played 'Coupon Fairy'. He scattered six coupons (1 multi,
2 half, 3 non-colour) around the mud for players to find. The coupon
sitting with Duncan in Tara went undiscovered for almost 15 minutes. :)
PLAYER RELATIONS
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This week we all did the usual online work including helping newbies,
restrings/strings, registers and clanning. In addition to this:
Croaker ran the last trivia of the cycle. He plans to hold the Trivia
Blowout Session in the next 2 weeks.
Flagg ran some games. Rusalka organised a game for the fest (Official Non
Game Event) and did stuff to help with the games day.
BUILDING
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The building department has done a lot of polishing this month. Our
projects included:
1. Updating all the area files to use some new features, the most
noticeable of which is probably the new doors messages, i.e. when you
open and close double doors, the messages are now grammatically correct,
and many doors now have multi-word, descriptive names. Immorts working
on these updates include Kaige, Charity, Wraith, and Sandra. These
updates allow new features to be installed into the mud code.
2. Area enhancing, typo and bug fixing: Kheldar, Charity, Croaker,
Sandra, Kaige, Deanna, Flagg, Ptah and Rufus. This includes making the
new code for burning/poisoned arrows accessible to players, and using a
new builder tool which allows us to give similar mobs varying
descriptions (check out the dogs in London Port to see this).
3. Playtesting: testing on Peloponesian Isles (Croaker's area) and
Dreamtime Australia (Deanna's area) is proceeding, allowing the
builders to make some fixes to their areas. Testers include Charity,
Leila, Rufus, Kheldar, and Deanna.
4. Areas still in production: Leila is polishing up London and adding
quests, and estimates that the area will be ready for playtesting by
Christmas. LadyAce reports further progress on Crusades, including 2
quests and more object descriptions.
5. Help file updates: small updates to choke, go, enter and paralyze.
Ignite and dip were added. (Sandra and Rufus)
6. Conversion of damroll on every +dam item to reflect the recent
changes to damroll -- Rufus
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/__| NEWS AND REPORTS |__\
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Announcement! Player killing will return to the world of LegendMUD
for clanned characters starting one week from this date. We've put in
the one week notice to give players time to make sure that their
characters are ready for pkill.
We'd like to thank all of the players who participated in the pkill
tournament and were on the pkill testmud (for the little time that it
was up), you were a great help.
-Larry/Ea!
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RESULTS OF THE THIRD ANNUAL PKILL TOURNEY!
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The results of the pkill tourney:
Featherweight division:
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+ Austin beats Matrim, Fizzgig beats Nienke.
+ Austin beats Fizzgigg.
+ Austin is the featherweight champ.
Middleweight division:
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+ Satan beats Ezekiel, Aisha wins by forefeit.
+ Satan beats Aisha.
+ Satan is the middleweight champ.
Heavyweight division:
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ROUND 1:
+ Aeolus wins over Latissimus, Gil-galad wins by forfeit, Huma wins
by forfeit, Uma beats Papillon, Dameon beats Dede, Nereus wins by
forfeit, Terrizano wins by forfeit, Destiny wins over Chaos
Gareth beats Marauder, Vengeance wins by forfeit, Vladamir wins by
forfeit Cran wins by forfeit, Parox beats Obscurus, Swatch beats
Quimby, Tybalt wins over Zero, Cap'nHaddock wins by forfeit.
ROUND 2:
+ Aeolus beats Gil-galad, Nereus beats Huma, Terrizano beats Vengeance,
Uma beats Vladamir, Dameon wins over Cran, Destiny beats Gareth,
Swatch beats Parox, Tybalt beats Cap'nHaddock.
ROUND 3:
+ Aeolus wins over Nereus, Terrizano beats Uma, Destiny beats Dameon,
Tybalt wins over Swatch.
ROUND 4:
+ Terrizano beats Aeolus, Destiny beats Tybalt
ROUND 5:
+ Destiny beats Terrizano
FINAL:
+ Destiny beats Morphine.
Destiny is the heavyweight champ.
I'd like to thank everyone that played, I hope that you all had fun
in the tourney and the free-for-all afterwards.
Congratulations to the winners and to everyone that played, you all did
Well.
-Sandra
ESSAY CONTEST!!!
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The deadline for LegendMUD's first ever short story/essay contest has
been extended. If you are interested in possibly winning a colour coupon
you should send your piece of creative brilliance to:
[email protected]
by no later than November 30th.
The theme of this year's contest is:
"WHAT I DID IN THE 3 WEEKS THAT LEGEND WENT DOWN"
RULES:
Entries must be less than 300 words.
Entries should be sent to the LT by no later than the 30th of November.
The winning entries will be printed in the next edition of the Legendary
Times.
The contest will be judged by Tad, Starbiter and myself, and our judgement
is final.
First prize is a COLOUR COUPON! There will be other prizes for the runners up.
THE TRIVIA REPORT
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Summary of my last trivia game:
Siegfried first with 7
Voloya and Nhoj tie second with 6
Aginor Morphine 3
Parox Zelda Shalindra 2
Delirium Austin Tony_Stark Rubymay 1 each
This is the last trivia in this cycle, cumulative winners are:
Siegfried
Jen-Creature
Nhoj
Zelda
Buffalmacco
Aginor
with Voloya and Morphine alternates for the great trivia blowout to be
held in the upcoming next two weeks !
More info on that when I know it :)
-Croaker
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o O | Wonder what folks are |
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/__| LEGENDITES: Information Regarding the People of Our World |__\
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LEGEND MOBS THREATEN STRIKE, POSSIBLE REVOLUTION
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Exclusive to the Legendary Times.
Often the needs of the hardest working members of society are ignored, their
labours and loyalty are taken for granted. However, history has shown us
that this is a dangerous blindness, often leading to divisiveness and
even upheaval. The latest chapter in social unrest is being written in an
unlikely place, among the largely anonymous men and women known as 'mobs.'
'I've never seen it this bad,' says an important ecumenical leader
who spoke on the condition of anonymity from his cramped home on the
outskirts of Paris. 'The common people have lost all faith in the cosmic
order of things.'
'I've been in this bloody rathole for 40 years,' says Samuel Norton
of the Jolly Beggar Inn. 'Look'e here. 'Thar Be Dragons' all over the
walls. Who's seen such a silly mess? And do them folks even give me a
hello. No! I'm sick of 'em all.'
A man who says he plays 'a stupid sheriff in a meaningless little
town' claims he has received offers to play King Lear in Europe but
cannot because of a contract that binds him to his current role for
perpetuity. 'All I do all day is mouth the same three or four lines,
smile, nod, make the same old rounds. They call this acting?' Another
mob complains of the fact that he is given no pants to wear.
'I am oppressed by my pants,' claims another. 'What point is
wearing deerskin leggings if it only an incitement to murder?,' he asks.
'I guess people kill me so they do their little jumping-jacks faster, or
run quicker to chat with their friends. Although God knows what these
people do in their spare time, with my pants.'
The actors who play the peasants of Sherwood are now universally
lauded as the first to see the true state of things. One actor sat down
with this reporter recently and gave this statement, 'EXP, they say it
stands for experience,' he laughs bitterly. 'Have you ever noticed it
could also stand for 'exterminate peasantry?', and 'PC' is used to
describe people who are anything but politically, or morally correct. A
classic bit of misdirection. You just have to read between the lines
here.'
Lastly, a farmwife gives us this frightening glimpse into the life
of typical mob. 'The first two or three times I was actually happy when
they brought my kidnapped son back to me. But after the ten-thousandth
time, do you think I really feel any emotion? Do you think my heart is
not an empty drum for tedious misery to beat upon? And my son is an
alcoholic anyway. They all are. You would be too if you had the life
expectancy of a firefly.'
So what do mobs want? With the exception of Freddy the Monkey's
unprintable (and anatomically impossible) demands, they cry for better
work conditions, more free time, and an end to the constant dying. Will
they get their desires? Only time will tell, but until then, they will
continue to live like Robin Hood of Sherwood. On this chilly November
morning, he grudgingly struggles into his tunic, takes a long bracer of
rotgut whisky, and heads out into the pale winter morning,:
Just another day of work, and perhaps another day of death.
- Voloya.
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I'm changing my long and short desc.'s:
My old long desc. (A rugged mage is here leaning on a staff nonchalantly)
will become:
A rugged Celt is here leaning a staff nonchalantly.
My old short desc. (A rugged mage) will become:
A rugged Celt.
My reasons are as follows:
1) I'm not and cannot ever become a "true" mage. This is because I'm
from Tara.
2) I'm thoroughly tired of people asking me for magical help which I
cannot supply (ID'ing, cure criticals, etc.).
3) I want to use a desc., but not this one. I prefer one that is more
true to my character or at least not misleading. He's certainly not a
mage... ;)
4) I get way to many people mistaking me for Magius. You know how
annoying that can get? -chuckle-
Jeesh is that guy popular on here...
(the "mage" in my desc. catches many tells directed to "Magius")
I look forward to now becoming "A rugged Celt"... :)
-Parox
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/__| Kinch's zmud Tricks and Tips |__\
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PART THREE: ADVANCED AUTOHUNT
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In this week's episode, we'll complete the Autohunt function, and introduce
the concept of aliases and buttons. I'd promised you some door-opening
techniques, but we'll leave that for the next edition as a stand-alone
utility. Remember, if you get stuck with any of this, feel free to mudmail
me. If you've got access to a printer, you might like to print this article
off so that you can refer to it (it's pretty much step-by-step, so it's also
fairly lengthy.)
But first, a bit of housekeeping.
A couple of characters pointed out a danger inherent in the way we set up
the Autohunt triggers - thanks for the feedback, guys. (Remember triggers?
Go back and read the last few editions of the Legendary Times.)
If some-one with an 'interesting' sense of humour - and they're out there,
believe me - decided to send you a tell containing the phrase 'The trail to
your prey leads' they could follow it up with a further command that could
have your character burping or sleeping or worse.
The first thing to do to prevent this is to edit the original trigger.
Tick (check) the box marked 'Trigger on newline.' If you want to be really
cautious, delete this trigger and make six new triggers (remember to call
them all Autohunt) to cover the six directions:
The trail to your prey leads north.
With the command that is returned to the mud:
north
The trail to your prey leads down.
With the command that is returned to the mud:
down
And so on. At least then if someone decides to mischievously activate your
trigger (yes, there is still a way, but I'm not telling), the worst they
can do is send you in a certain direction.
Now that we've got that out of the way, we can jazz up the Autohunt device
you've made. The problem we have to get around is that it's quite a nuisance
to have to type
#T+ Autohunt
every time you want to turn Autohunt on, and then remember to type
#T- Autohunt
whenever you want to turn it off.
What we're going to do then is allow you to chose whether you want to hunt
manually or use Autohunt (you might want to 'hunt' a mob to see if they're
around, and not necessarily go haring off after them right then and there.)
First, we need to create a couple of new triggers.
The first trigger picks up the fact that you've been successful in finding
a hunt trail to something.
Set the trigger to respond to the line from the mud:
You pick up the trail.
Call it Hunting (for instance), and make sure you set it up so that it is
not enabled when you start zMud, and that it only triggers on a newline.
The command you want to execute when the trigger is activated is the
command that triggers Autohunt:
#T+ Autohunt
The second trigger will turn off the autohunt facility when you reach your
target. Use the same class name as the previous trigger (Hunting), and set
it to respond to the line from the mud:
You have found your prey!
(Again, make sure the trigger is not set to enable when zMud starts, and
that it only triggers on a newline).
The commands you want to execute when the trigger is activated is the
command that disables the original trigger, and turns off Autohunt.
Separate the commands with a semi-colon, and make sure you don't have a gap
before or after the semi-colon.
#T- Autohunt;#T- Hunting
To get really snazzy, you should also create a trigger in the Hunting class
which responds to the line from the mud:
You could not find a trail.
(again, not enabled at start-up, triggers on newline) which executes the
command:
#T- Hunting
Now if all this hasn't triggered a dire need for aspirin (remember, if pain
persists, see your doctor or Taran herbalist), we're on the home straight.
To get this all up and running, we need to create an alias. (No, I haven't
covered aliases yet, I'm doing it now, ok?)
Click on the button marked 'Aliases' on the zMud toolbar and then click
'New', or select make Alias from the Action menu.
In the box marked Alias name, pick a name that's meaningful and easy to
type. Autohunt would do, or even ahunt. Make sure it's all in lowercase,
so it's even easier type.
In the box marked command, type the following:
#T+ Hunting;hunt
remembering that you don't leave a space on either side of the colon.
Now, when you want to autohunt something, you can type:
ahunt rabbit
(for example) and you're off and running.
Let's trace through how all this works.
When you type ahunt rabbit, you activate the trigger marked 'Hunting' and
send the command 'hunt rabbit' to the mud. If you find something ('You pick
up the trail') the Autohunt feature will be turned on, so that when you are
told 'The trail to your prey leads ' you will move in that
direction.
Once you find your rabbit ('You have found your prey') the whole thing will
shut down again, (the trigger classes will be disabled) ready for the next
time you type 'ahunt'.
If you don't find anything ('You could not find a trail') the whole thing
shuts down as well, ready for next time.
If you just type 'hunt rabbit', (instead of ahunt rabbit) you will simply
see the message "The trail to your prey leads ', but you've
chosen not to follow just yet, haven't you?
*bounce*
The only time this process will *not* work is if you do a normal hunt, then
try to ahunt from the same room. This is because the second time you hunt,
you do not get told 'You pick up the trail', so while the Hunting trigger
class is turned it never gets to see the 'You pick up the trail' response
from the mud and so doesn't enable the Autohunt trigger class.
Kinch looks up into the sky and ponders.
Kinch mutters 'Let's see if we can get around that.'
Ok. Here's the deluxe model with the optional extras. What we're going to
do is make a button that will tell you when Autohunt is enabled, and will
allow you to turn it back on if required.
Select Make Button from the Actions menu. In the Off Caption box, type in
what you want to appear on the button when it is off (Hunt Off seems to
make sense). In the On Caption box, type in what you want to appear on the
button when it is on (um... Hunt On?).
In the box marked On Command, type the command:
#T+ Autohunt
In the box marked Off Command, type the command:
#T- Autohunt
In the box marked variable type Autohunt. This assigns a variable called
Autohunt to the button (this is different from the trigger class Autohunt,
in case you were wondering). The variable Autohunt has a value of 1 when
the button is 'on' and 0 when the button is 'off'.
Let's go back to the Hunting class trigger that responds to 'You pick up
the trail'. Remember, the command that is executed by this trigger is:
#T+ Autohunt
(which enables the Autohunt trigger class)
Change it to:
Autohunt=1
(which toggles the button 'on', which then turns on the Autohunt trigger
class anyway)
Similarly, change the Hunting class trigger that responds to 'You have
found your prey!' to:
Autohunt=0;#T- Hunting
This will turn the button 'off' and shut down Autohunt and reset it when
you've finished.
You'll also see a tab on the buttons window marked 'Location'. You can
elect to position the button at the top, bottom, left or right of your
screen. Pick a location that floats your boat - don't ask me, I'm not
your mother.
Having done all that, you can see at a glance when your autohunt facility
is on. This gives you a quick and easy 'abort' if you change your mind
(You'll have to turn the Hunting trigger off by typing #T- Hunting though).
You could also use it to keep Autohunt on permanently. Simply click the
button, then use the 'hunt' command instead of 'ahunt'.
In the situation where you typed 'hunt', then decided to 'ahunt', you can
now continue from the same room by clicking the Hunt button, then typing
'look'.
There'll be the odd occasion where you've aborted or restarted autohunt
where it might not reset perfectly. You should be able to avoid this by
deciding whether you are hunting, autohunting, or permanently autohunting
before you actually do anything.
ROLEPLAY!!!
Now that all the grunt work is out the road, let's have some fun.
If you think about all this in a role-playing context, it looks a bit
strange if one minute you're standing there, and the next minute you've
zoomed out of the room without a word. Here's a couple of suggestions, but
remember, you're only limited by your imagination and Anti-Spam
legislation. Have a think about how your character learned to hunt. Is it
from growing up in the forests? Or did you learn it when you trained as an
assassin? Is it a gift from the gods, is it something that comes easy to
you, or do you have to really work at it? Is it sheer fluke?
You could modify the 'ahunt' alias by putting a couple of socials and some
dialogue as the command, separated by semi-colons. For example:
emote looks at some scuff marks on the ground with a practised eye, and
sniffs thoughtfully at the breeze.;ponder;say It's taken me years to
perfect this skill;#T+ Hunting;hunt
You could add some extra commands when you find your prey (or when you
can't pick up the trail) in the same way. Do you say 'So THERE you are!'
or 'Prepare to die!' or simply beam delightedly? Tinker around with it!
I'll leave you to play around with it. Next week we'll cover the
door-opening facility, some aliases for absentminded spell-casters, and a
few other suggestions for using triggers, buttons and aliases.
Have fun!!
*bow*
- Kinch.
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Legendary Times is published by the gods of LegendMUD. Please send all
replies/additions to our address at [email protected] for inclusion in the
next edition. We, however, reserve the right to moderate this discussion, and
may object to some submissions.
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