Volume Two Issue Seventeen
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............./ / THE LEGENDARY TIMES
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..../ /_/..\______/./_____/./__/.../__/./_______/ MUD
.../________________/ running on sylvester.cc.utexas.edu 9999
128.83.108.29 9999
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http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/Web/People/johnmil/legend/legend.html
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VOLUME TWO, ISSUE SEVENTEEN Mar. 11th, 1995
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...:/:[ CONTENTS ]:\:...
CODE ADDITIONS AND CHANGES
- flop social plus, psst, there's a boggle one too -
- fixes to heal spells -
- oops, we zapped some others -
- new herbs and new herbal uses for old herbs -
- helps updated -
- flaming sword and dagger of ice -
- wierd bug in Seoni fixed -
ARTICLES
- Ramadan's Quickie Guide to Being a Bard -
FUND DRIVE STATUS
SOCIAL EVENTS
- Lirra's birthday! -
- Hunter_Rose's birthday! -
- Kiera and Tegid duel -
- And Dusty vs. Cheese -
- And Dusty vs. Greyscot -
- And Dusty vs. Kiera -
- And enough about Dusty, sheesh -
- Mercenary and Khelleck duel again -
- Ramadan retires -
- Eva retires -
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NEW SOCIAL COMMAND ADDED
Sadist saw this on another mud and liked it, so he made one here. Check
out the new FLOP social, with flops on people, objects, or by itself.
Also, people seem mostly unaware that there is a BOGGLE social because
it isn't listed in the social helps. But it's there... have fun. :)
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CRASHING BUG WITH HEALING FIXED
Most of the recent crashes were because of a bug which permitted magical
healing to sometimes put your hit points over your max. When this happened
and you were fighting, it caused a crash because there is no condition
message for 'better than best.' The heal spells should now only heal you
up to your max hit points.
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OOPS, SOME SPELLS ZAPPED
In fixing the above bugm, the latest spells were somehow overwritten:
sleep, binding, and some others. But they have been replaced as of this
newest update, so you should find them working just fine.
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UPDATES TO HERBALISM
Eleven herbs have had new effects added to them. We're not going to list
off the individual herbs for you, but here's a tantalizing glimpse of
what's in store:
4 more cure light poultices
a cure poison, cure burns, and remove rage potion
2 cure light potions
2 cure poison potions
sleep potion
dispel magic potion
strength refresh and preservation flavor
sleep foul
and 3 more amulets
Also added: seven new herbs. It will take a while for these to filter
into the mud as they will need to be placed in the various areas, but
look for the following plants growing around soon:
basil, bloodroot, bergamot, feverfew, hyssop, hop, and woodruff.
The powder skill from herbalism is being decommissioned. There will most
likely be a powder skill in the forthcoming stage magic set, but it will
be very different. Since tentative plans right now are for a skills wipe
when we put in the new skills system, people who currently have powder
are unaffected. All three herbs that were supposed to have powders now do
different things.
There was recently a meeting in the OOC Auditorium over the herbalism
specialty. Many ideas came out of this, including ideas for new skills
in the field. One immediate change is that the teaching acts for augment and
root reflect the prereqs that the people who met in the auditorium
mutually agreed on.
Herblore should be updated to reflect these changes.
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HELP FILES UPDATED SLIGHTLY
Item damage is now reflected in the helpfiles, as are the removal of
powder from the herbal skill set, and various frequently asked questions
such as the one about locking doors with pick lock. The following
help files were updated:
forge headbutt mend pick lock repair herblore powder
ride tailor tan throw foul purify
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CHANGES TO FLAMING SWORD AND DAGGER OF ICE
You may have noticed that since these spells went in, they have had problems.
At first, they were too weak, hardly useful. Then recently, they have been
extraordinarily overpowered, doing averages of around 40 damage.
Well, we have tried to strike a balance with this latest revision. A master
mage's flaming sword will now cast flamestrike around 80% of the time,
and will do up to around 25 damage, and it scales down to a mostly normal
vanilla longsword. ice dagger was revised similarly, only does less damage
given that it is a backstabbing weapon.
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SEONI BUG FIXED
Several people reported being unable to go south to enter the cul-de-sac
in the newbie section of the Seoni jungle. This should be fixed now.
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.' '.
.: FEATURE :.
'. ARTICLES! .'
' '
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THE BARD'S GUIDE TO SURVIVING AND THRIVING ON LEGEND
by Ramadan
with extra comments by Ptah
[Ed's note: this is a guide to play a bardic character and has nothing to
do with being a member of the Bard clan, the Order of the Scroll. I've
fleshed out some of the things Ramadan said with some technical details
about how the skills work, on the grounds that I wanted a longer article.]
The Bard is the newest skill tree added to Legend and remains one of the
least used (abused) skill sets. The most powerful of all bard skills is
the entrance, a skill that can only be mastered by "modern mages." Since
the upgrade of mobs, the ability to get rid of mobs' special attacks have
become even more important. Even after entrance was downgraded, it
remains one of the most powerful and deadly skills of all.
[Entrance lasts until the tick or until the mob flees. An entranced mob
takes extra damage commensurate with sitting or resting (that is, not
as much as a stunned mob, but more than if they were standing). Unlike
headbutt or stunning skills, entrance does not wear off based on the
caster's ability, but just at the tick, hence an entranced mob can often
stay that way during a whole fight. But note that stunning, sleeping,
or forcing rest on a mob will break the dance pattern and the entrance
will end. In other words, a headbutting warrior and an entrancing bard
don't make the best of teammates. - Ptah]
IMHO, the next most useful bard skill is calm. I have found myself in many
aggressive situations where fleeing is not a viable option(i.e. walking into
the old husband and wife's house at night in roman britain) With calm, you
can stop the fight, bandage yourself, open the door, then walk out(if you are
quick). At the very least, you can stop a fight, bandage yourself, switch
weapons without the draw skill, dance a little jig before attacking the mob
again. Unlike flee, calming a mob will stop it from "remembering" and
attacking you again. Aggressive mobs such as boars or wolves might still
attack after they are calmed.
[Calm carries with it a wait like the combat skills headbutt or kick do.
Since for low level bards who have not boosted the bard's main stats it
may fail frequently, this is a major issue for those who want to use it as
Ramadan describes. Of course, the image of a backstab-calm team is quite
seductive. :) It does NOT however remove alertness from mobs, so the
backstabber still has to wait for the alertness period to end. Calm may be
used in two ways. Calm by itself will attempt to stop all fights in the
room, and calm with a target will calm only that individual. If you want
to use it to stop someone else's fight, that means you have to calm the
whole room, because otherwise the still-angry opponent will hit the calmed
person and re-initiate combat. Finally, one of the most useful qualities
of calm is that it not only stops fights, it removes hatreds. Use it to
permit others safe passage by a mob they have angered, instead of suggesting
they rent out (which may not always be possible anyway). This also gives
it decided tactical advantages in pkill and backstabbing approaches.
- Ptah]
On the flipside, the inspire skill is less useful. Very rarely do you want a
mob to rage or most tanks who wants to rage, already have rage as a skill.
[As skill prereqs change, it is likely that rage will become a little harder
to get and a little more uncommon. So the ability to let someone rage who
can't on their own can be useful then. Inspire also works like calm does;
you may attempt to inspire everyone in the room. Since a case where
all fighters are raging simply means no fleeing, plus extra damage, the
main advantage of this is to speed up a slow-going fight on all sides.
Consider this the next time you are trapped in a fight you know you can win
but are poisoned. Also, of course, the ability to trap someone into a fight
and not permit them to flee may be useful in cases where you have a mob
whose damage you do not fear but that flees alot; or, deadlier yet, if
you want to keep a PLAYER from fleeing a fight and you don't like them. :)
Oops, they attacked the Abbot by accident? Darn, let me inspire them and
sneak out the door... - Ptah]
Praise and Satire are the two most fun skills in the bardic set. I am sure you
have seen some interesting praises and satires on the info channel a few
times. The added prestige and rent isn't all that bad either. There is a
mistake in the helpfile for bardic skills. You need both "play" and
"eloquence" instead of just one for the higher bardic skills.
[Praise and satire require you to have a decent prestige yourself in
order for your words to be heard. Also, I've noticed that many people
do not know how to use the skills to give custom praises and satires.
Simply use PRAISE , as in:
praise herman cookie baking abilities
Satire works the same way. Also note that you can praise a mob and boost
their prestige that way, which confers extra prestige upon you when you
kill it (the more famed the mob, of course, the more prestigious the kill).
Note that since you only get one prestige point for each kill of a more
prestigious target, this tactic works best on mobs whose prestige starts out
LOWER than (or equal to) your own. - Ptah]
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FUND DRIVE STATUS
Checks are starting to come faster. We've still got a long way to go,
however. Just about all of the donations recieved thus far are already spent
on 16MB of RAM for the site which we got for a remarkably low price. Next
we'll be looking for a motherboard and network card. The RAM is now
paid for, so all we need to to is pay back Sadist the amount he advanced
in order to buy it dirt cheap. We'll probably repeat the same process
to buy the motherboard and network card.
TOTAL CASH IN HAND: $525 up from $320 last issue
TOTAL DONORS: 6 up from 3 last issue
ROUGH TOTAL PLEDGED: $900
TOTAL PLEDGES: 14 up from 12 last issue
We suggest that those who have the money burning a hole in their pocket
go ahead and send the checks directly to the following address and we will
get the letters out to them as soon as we can, perhaps even crossing in
the mail. This is the address to send donations to:
(make checks payable to Raphael and Kristen Koster)
Raph and Kristen Koster
University Station
PO Box 1114
Tuscaloosa AL 35486-1114
USA
If you are an overseas donor who cannot write a check in US Dollars, please
email us at the LT address given at the end of this newsletter.
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o O | Wonder what folks are |
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Dusty did just WAY too much this week. Sometimes I wish she'd just go home.
But before we get to her activities, here's a rundown on some birthdays
that came up or are coming up this week! Be sure to hit Ringo's Flower Shop
and send cards and good wishes to:
Lirra whose RL birthday was this past Sunday the 12th!
and
Hunter_Rose whose RL birthday is Wednesday the 15th!
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As you saw last issue, Kiera took exception to how Sir Tegid of the Knights
of Legend was apparently speaking for Khelleck in the great Bremmar and
Greyscot and Khelleck and Sylia and who-knows-who-else battle that took
place. It seems that Kiera's annoyance was quite serious, for she and
Tegid have been exchanging words and yes, even fighting duels, since then.
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Dusty's back. *sigh* Nobody tried to kill her this time, though she did of
course die, as she seems to every time she logs on. But she did uncover the
fact that Cheese has been systematically invading the clan hall of the
Order of the Scroll for quite some time now. In response, she chatted this
little satire:
Cheese the false friend likes to hide his true nature
Behind the smell of his rotten and moldering face--
He loots from those who once gave him good shelter
And trades their secrets for shame and disgrace.
Let it be known that Cheese is anathema!
Cheese is foul and stale and low!
Don't let him into any of your sandwiches,
Don't trust him with aught that you know.
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Dusty also responded to Greyscot's killing of Bremmar while the latter
was at one hp after death with this vicious little piece. It is not known
whether Dusty was commissioned to write this, although it was greeted
with cheers from some quarters when she recited it. She did trumpet quite
loudly that she has been commissioned to write a satire on the theft of
Rusalka's whispers, but that piece has yet to materialize.
[Warning, the piece that follows contains sexual references and may not be
suitable for the younger among us. :) As it is, this is a cleaner version
than what was chatted publicly. - Ed.]
There once was a fair little minstrel
Whose name was gray as the hills
His great talent was at retreating
He'd shrink and withdraw, curl up and away,
No longer upright and alert
And hide himself deep in his cups...
Not even birdies could heal his hurt.
But one day in the fullness of time
This fellow felt much engorged
And strutted about to go slaying
Bremmar The Terribly Bored
He found him indeed greatly wounded
And slew him with one single whack
And then did he strut quite bravely
Another bantam cock on the walk.
And oh! the opprobrium, ah! the dismay
As the world thought him sort of sick!
But from past cruel knowledge I can attest
It's merely that he is a p****.
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But that's STILL not all Dusty did. Spectators were soon treated to a
squabble about a sweater. Yes, that's right, a sweater. It seems that
Dusty's sister Kiera (one cannot help but notice a family resemblance
not only in looks but in disposition) had borrowed one of Dusty's sweaters
and had accidentally gotten a bloodstain on it. Dusty accused her of
stealing her clothes, Kiera countered with childhood slights, and when
it had all settled, Kiera was dead! She was heard to say on chat, 'Damn,
entrance is nice.'
Not too long after Kiera was slain by the bardette, Dusty obtained a pair
of sweaters and gave one as a gift to her sister. This sweater, light and
grey with silver buttons and a lace collar, was regrettably lost to a
crash when Kiera was overrent. It is as yet unknown whether Dusty will
see this carelessness as yet another slight and will tackle Kiera again.
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Enough about Dusty and her antics--for they are not the only antics in the
land. Sir Khelleck, noble guildmaster of the Knights of Legend, and
the Mercenary have fought yet another duel. Once again Sir Khelleck was
the victor--many noted his careful use of some of the new spells he has
recently learned, such as magic sink, which absorbs the mana of spells
cast upon you. Mercenary seems to have decided that enough was enough,
for he has not tackled Khelleck again since.
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Finally, there are a pair of retirements to announce this week, of well-
known characters that have been around Legend for a while now. First,
Ramadan has decided to give up his sword and adventuring days and
retired to a simple life of music and poetry. "Come visit me at the
halls of legend soon," he says. Ramadan is a bard of the Order of the
Scroll.
And Eva, until recently a Hermetic, who went rogue soon after Rusalka
stepped down from the guildmistress position of the Hermetic Order,
has also announced her retirement. She didn't give any messages to her
fans, though.
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That's all the news for now... keep the articles and tidbits coming!
\|/ \|/ \\||// \!/
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Legendary Times is put out by the gods of LegendMUD. Please send all
replies/additions to [email protected] for inclusion in the next
edition. We, however, reserve the right to moderate this discussion,
and may object to some submissions. If you feel we have wrongly omitted
one of your messages, please talk to either Kaige or Ptah online or
through EMail and see if we did indeed receive it in the first place.
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