Hi there,
I happen to be somewhat of a new player, I played about five years ago regularly, but have just picked it up again very recently and am still trying to learn about all the new features. So please forgive my ignorance if I happen to suggest things already implemented or in the works.
I thought I would post my thoughts because I think DL is a great game, and after looking at many, many muds out there I ended up back here, I simply couldn't find a mud in which I felt more comfortable, even though I thoroughly enjoyed some of the features offered by others, they just couldn't measure up to DL. My humble suggestions may not be practical, or even possible to implement, and I hope they aren't taken the wrong way, I am by no means complaining or dissatisfied with the site, and am very appreciative and often in awe of all the hard work that is put into it. But in any case here they are:

1. As a new player, and I believe this was brought up in an earlier post, my first and lasting impression of a mud is their website. For that reason, I think that having more artwork, literary material, perhaps a section of player drawn maps, and areas would make a good impression on those most interested in rp'ing and a well fleshed out world. This of course is dependant on the playerbase because we cannot expect the staff to do more than they already do! However a competitive edge, meaning regular contests may provide more of an incentive, prizes are not necessarily required. In any case at least making the artwork and writing areas more prominent, and using perhaps some of the winning artwork on the webpage itself might encourage us narcisstic artists to submit more work. Because we all love to see our stuff displayed, I think that artists would be encouraged to work harder if they new that just maybe, if they draw a really good specimen of an elf they may be rewarded by having it on the section of the site in which races are described or something along those lines... just an example. And here I will admit I am guilty of laziness and should have submitted more work, and promise to do so.

2. This is along the lines of the Guild speak, but race specific. I think having racial languages, and a common language would allow for interesting scenarios while roleplaying. In addition i think that having somehow the ability to study and learn languages, perhaps independant of guilds would be another interesting feature. Perhaps the library or some school could offer a way to study, and learn a language other than your racial language, and one would improve by practicing. It could even be the case, (forgive my ignorance about coding I have no idea how it works) that when you are a beginning language learner what you type and attempt to say in that language doesn't come out quite right, to further emphasize your lack of skill. It may also be possible to "pick up" a language" as it were by listening to people speak it enough. One's ability to learn languages should, in my opinion be contigent on one's intelligence, perhaps the amount of languages you can learn, your overall proficiency, and the rate in which you learn could all be influenced by your intelligence.

3. The previous point brings me to the next one and that is a way of learning new skills in a theoretical sense by means of reading, or listening to a teacher perhaps. When I was first a player here(5 yrs ago) I wanted to play a very nonviolent character, but my main problem was that I had no way of advancing the character because other than killing things there was no way for me to gain experience. Perhaps if one could gain experience by studying arduously in the library, or exploring, and healing (I apologize if this is already possible, like I said many things have changed and I am not familiar with it all), it would allow for more realistic RP. In the case of this type of character it would be understood that simply by reading all you gain is the theoretical knowledge, and that in order to hone your skill you must practice it. Of course if you read about healing your fighting abilities should not reflect an improvement, to perfect this you would have to train and practice fighting, and so on. Here too it should be assumed that learning in this manner is not easy, and it would be time consuming.

4. Along the same lines, I feel that one's guild, at least at low levels offers little more than a place to practice. I think that to set new players on the right RP path it would be helpful if the guilds had more depth. Perhaps according to your level you could be assigned tasks by your NPC guild leader (which by the way I will say I really like having guildmaster's be NPC's, I tried muds with players as guildmaster's and I never felt it worked quite right). In the case of an assassin say, as a youngling, you might not really understand what a sinister profession you are getting yourself into, and assassins being the secretive sort might not let you know exactly what you are unknowingly training to be, perhaps your first few tasks are to eavesdrop on some people, work as spys reporting on the where abouts of potential targets etc, and in turn you are rewarded with some shelter (your guildhouse) and a paltry wage. Before you know it however you find out that now that your "in" you have to perform more gruesome tasks, and leaving the guild with your lide may not be an option. The same with thieves, as a beginner you may have to prove you worth by retrieving a particular object etc. In other words these tasks would in a sense test your mettle, just to see if you are the right sort to be in that particular guild.

5. I'm sorry if these seem to overlap. The ability to read and write may or may not be something that everyone has. If we somehow had the ability to write books in the game, poems etc that could be housed in the library, than necesarily we would have to have some way of dertermining who is, and who isn't literate. Perhaps these skills should be among those you may chose to learn or not learn within the game. Literacy can be a very interesting RP tool, determining your social status, or defining you as a particular kind of character. Did you spend your time as a child learning to read and write, or use a sword, or if you were priviliged maybe both.

6. a couple of thoughts on character creation. In the part where you get to chose your race, it would perhaps be interesting to allow players to chose the race of their parents. Of course certain racial combinations may not be permitted. This might affect at random what traits you do get from each parent in terms of racial abilities. In addition for background purposes and scenarios it would simply be interesting. The other point is about the section where you get to chose your modifiers I guess, not sure what to call it. The section were you decide if you want to add dex or +1 with a certain weapon, certain abilities etc. Perhaps if one could take penalties, say you are a mute, or your terrible with swords, or have a nervous tick, one arm, etc.. By doing this you could get more points to add towards positive traits, of course at the expense of some other major or vital ones.



Well that will do, I'm sorry if I'm incoherent at times, and I know that much of this might be impossible, but I thought it was worth sharing at leas. I know I have more ideas somewhere, but I won't subject you to more dull droning. Thanks for taking the time to read some of what's in my wacky mind.

Smog

Smog, you're my dad. Loving your ideas. I'll reply later in great detail.

LOL Thanks. I'm flattered that you like my ideas. I can't take credit for all of them being original though, some stuff as you probably know is in use in other muds, although these might be slightly modified versions. In any case, thanks.

One little thing though, I'm afraid that due to my gender fatherhood isn't really a possibility. So, no, I'm sorry, I can't be your dad.

I would like to open this by saying that nothing is impossible. It may take a long time for something to happen, but that doesn't mean it's impossible

I agree 500% on the point you make of the website. I'm just the one who maintains it, and yes I've created the current layout, but I'm -always- open to any ideas. Think of me as a middleman; I just use my tools to get the job you want done. I would love to see more artwork and writings on the website, but it's a matter of players (and staff, too!) sending things in If you've got any original artwork or writings, please do not hesitate to send them to us! web@dl2.net is the place to send it, and whenever reality allows, I update the website.

Languages are definitely something that adds depth to any roleplaying game. Whether they be race-specific or even locale-specific. Languages that can be used when roleplaying is something that's on my to-do list of stuff to code, so rest assured that gem is something that will be put into the game. Perhaps you guys can suggest some languages, or more accurately, what they should be called? Elvish, Dwarven and such seem too generic to me. Perhaps they can have some kind of unique name to these languages instead of denoting them by race? With languages could come new roleplaying skills your character can use, like the example you give for assassins. The ability to pick up on and learn new languages from hearing and studying them would definitely be something cool.

On the subject of learning skills and 'leveling' without combat, I cannot agree more. The cleric I play is a non-violent goody two shoes, but the only way I'm able to level is by smacking things with a mace... doesn't make for very good RP, does it? How do you justify things like this? Also for other classes where combat is an absolute last resort (think of a thief getting caught in the act), how do you justify killing entire towns just to level up? More incentives and ways to level while roleplaying is something that's long been bubbling in my mind, but just haven't been able to find a way to effectively put it into a game such as DL. Have you any suggestions and ideas to elaborate on this?

As for the guildmaster giving tasks, it can be done with the existing code. Using the example you've given of a thief obtaining some kind of item as a 'test of worth' is definitely something that can be done with the task system that's currently in place. Being that you've just come back to the game, I don't expect you to know about it, so I'll take a moment to explain it briefly:

You find an NPC that's designated a task master. You'll see the flag (task master) behind their name, and when at one of these NPCs, you can use the 'task' command to see what ones are available. Currently tasks are only for those who are roleplay-approved, but since a lot of newer players don't know about this, I'm going to put in reminders for the first 5 or so levels, so whenever you log in with that character, it will tell you about roleplaying and how to apply.

Being able to study at the library is definitely something that would be very cool. It would go along the lines of the non-violent character who wants to advance him/herself without the need of smashing everything. Currently, you can gain experience for nearly everything you do such as touching a new item, using skills and exploring rooms. There really does need to be more ways for players to gain experience without the need for combat, and studying in the library is a good way of doing this (for the scholars among us.)

And finally, on choosing your parents during character creation, this I believe may be best left up to your player's background. Currently, when you want to apply for roleplaying, you have to write a description and background for your character. Perhaps somewhere down the road we can include features to allow basic merits and flaws for characters so that they can be more fine-tuned.

Ideas are ALWAYS welcome, and don't ever think that something is too hard to code, because given the talent between Nezmar and I, we can make anything happen... it just might take a while because we both have reality to deal with as well

Thanks for the ideas, keep 'em coming!

Thanks for replying, it's encouraging and very cool to know that staff are interested and open to ideas, as well as talented and hard working!!! THANKS.
Now I'm really excited about working on names and fleshing out languages, just one more thing to daydream about when I'm supposed to be working, but anyway, I can't wait. And I'll see if I can dream up some more concrete ways of leveling during RP, now that I know it's a possibility.

On that note, heh, here's some other things I thought about on my commute to work today .

1. now this might be a bit silly and maybe unnecessary but here goes.
Now I don't know about anyone else, but I sometimes wonder at the fact that clothing and items seem to just "all hang out" on people, so to speak. I mean there's no concept of layering when one looks at an individual, everything is just plastered on them. It's kind of like walking out into the street and seeing someone's sweater, pants, undershirt, socks, shoes, toe ring, gloves, ring, and underwear in one glance. It might be nice if certain items were to conceal others you were wearing. If you wear a certain kind of cloak, or coat etc.. it would make sense for it to conceal your shirt. This might allow for layering of clothing, maybe now you can wear a shirt, a vest and something else all on your torso. In any case I think it might at least reduce the visual clutter you get when looking at people. An other convenient element of this is that it would allow you, or afford you a way to conceal what you are wearing. Often times it seems that certain wearable items give away your class in a sense, and some classes might rather not be recognized so readily.

2. Now this is somewhat related but a bit more serious. Now I keep going back to assassins and thieves, but hey, I like them. An ability to conceal oneself and yet be able to interact with others would be particularly useful to these slippery and sinister sorts. Therefore, I think that allowing them a way to disguise themselves would be a very interesting and exciting tool. Now it doesn't need to be limited to these classes, and it might be that it can be learned outside of a guild, though assassins at least seem to me the ones that would make the most use of this skill. I think, however, and I feel this way about most of the skills that I suggested, that it should also be a time consuming and difficult skill to learn to do properly. I mean you can just put on a wig, but chances are everyone will know who you are. In terms of how this would work more practically, it might be necessary for this skill to allow one to temporarily override one's permanent description. Perhaps at lower skill levels you can only override it for short periods of time, or you can only change a certain number of characters, I really don't know what the best way to go about it would be. But I do know that one thing that happens, is that if you have a particularly striking description, most people will tend to remember what you look like, much like in real life, and it wouldn't take much time before they begin to associate your desc with your behaviors, etc... This to an assassin can be extremely detrimental, but they still have no choice but to interact with the general populace from time to time. The solution would be either complete concealmet, and or an ability to appear as something other than themselves, hence the overriding of your description. Now I understand then that we might fall into a problem of not so well written "disguise descriptions" which might then call for a way to pre-approve or screen these. This would of course mean more work for staff!! which is not too good, but one good side is it would force people to be selective and careful about the number of times and places they disguise themselves, because their disguise/s would have to be the same from time to time. In any case, I've already gone on, an on, and on, enough. Maybe if someone can tell me wether or not even doing this is possible, and how it might potentially work, then I might be able to come up with a slightly more coherent scenario. well thanks again for listening to my babble.

Well I’m back with another long one. I’ve been giving the whole language thing a lot of thought, especially since Vulsin, you mentioned that you were wary of having the same old language classifications etc. Now I’ve come up with a few things that, as you may imagine, are probably more complicated than they should be, but let’s see what you make of it all.

I agree that simply defining languages by race is a bit overdone, and I am absolutely in accord with you on the naming system. Let’s face it, most likely the Drow aren’t going to call their language DROWISH, that’s the name we’ve given their language in our own language. They would most likely have a word in “drowishâ€

I love long idea lists. I like the idea of covering yourself so that you can hide your identity to others. It would be great for roleplaying. I hardly ever look at people anymore because I'm not usually caring what eq someone is wearing since I already expect some certain people to have the best eq in the game due to hording or certain clicks. I usually glance at people just to see their health level and see if they need my healing (I'm a cleric) or if they need a sanc. Then I ask if they want it and I know who to usually ask first rather than just give it to them. Sure it's nice to have great eq, but in a reality in DL right now, I'm not on the high list to get the better eq it seems anymore. People have also been loading items that I've worked hard to try and get, but hey, that's part of the game. So personally, the hidding eq under a cloak, coat, etc. wouldn't affect me much, but I don like it. If you're wearing gloves, no one can see what rings you're wearing, but when you type eq to look at yourself, of course you can see what you're wearing on every slot. It would probably lower some memory or whatever required to run the game if everything wasn't always listed. Only problem I see with that is with newbies and when I try to outfit them with armor. If I can't see certain pieces of their eq, then I can't tell what they need.

Eq hording is a massive problem. I've seen characters with 5/6 bags of holding and they're full of eq I'm sure. I'm sure that some of the items I'm looking for are just sitting around in someones bag and not getting used at all. I'll ask someone if they have anything useful to me and they may have something they know I can use, but want to hold onto it because it's rare. One character I can think of, he shall not be named, I feel hordes a ton of items and it's the rumor going around in the game that he does. There was a recent event that changed my mind a little about him even though he has always shown kindness to me and my character. I'm not passing judgement yet until I talk to him and get his side of the story. Is there not a way to lower ones ability to store multiple items on them such as bags of holding and portable holes. Sure then someone could just drop the item in their house if they had one, but atleast it'd prevent them from holding onto it. Although then you also have someone say loading an emp ring and they already have two in their bag or are wearing them, they'll just remove one and give it to a mob somewhere obscure, load the new one and give to someone, then go back and get theirs.
Bags of holding. I think some sort of larger sack should be given to newbies when they start and definitely give them better eq to start with based on their class rather then the general zero stop eq they get. Maybe give them all a black leather suit to start with even, then they can work from there. I think an elf skin sack would be decent to start them off with. An elephant stomach sack would be great for a newbie. I'd say a bag of holding, but then people can just create characters and drop the bag over and over and then their alt can trade around bags of holding so they have a ton of them. The house I have has a few items we're storing for newbies to use, but there is a shortage on good low level eq. I really could use getting on my builder and finally creating the zone thats in my head and is for newbies to go in and actually load decent items for themselves and items that stop working at certain levels making it useless for hero's to go into the zone to even bother killing mobs other than for loading eq for newbies. Heck, maybe even make the entire area anti portal and can't get through the front door if you're over a certain level unless you're a cleric in case of a corpse run to resu someone. Who knows.

Con loss is a huge issue in DL. Vladikus just permi died not too long ago. His last like 4 deaths all lost con. When he had one con I gave him some mpp and he bought back another con setting him to 2 con. The next week, and first death since getting back up to 2 con, he died and lost that con again. The next week, and next death, he died and permi died. I have lost 4 con in 6 deaths and that's 3 deaths and con loss in a row. Something has to be done to allow characters to get their con back up to a safer level. Maybe even tasks that allow one person to get their con back if they're below say 5 con. Allow the person to do this task once a reboot maybe until they have 5 con and once they lose that 5th con again and they haven't done the task since the reboot, the task is now available to them. I'm thinking the task should be allowed through their guild leader. Only problem could be that after a while the task is well known to that person and easier for them to do. Maybe even have a con quest and all those wishing to get a con can participate in the quest. I recently happened to be here for a roleplay and died to the colossal beast and lost a con putting me to 3. I'm actualy thinking my con loss record is 6 deaths 5 con, but I like to give DL the benefit of the doubt, though it's not looking too good. When you permi die, that's it and don't even think about touching any previous eq with your new character if you recreate. There is no thank you from staff that you've spent hours and hours with your character on DL helping to keep it alive when you permi. Vladikus has permi'd 4 times now I think? He's recreated each time. He was level 124 when he died in the negs. I got a character above 100 when I last permi died and here I am again level 124 with 3 con and the outlook not so good because I'll prolly sit a while before I can get a quest once I get into the negs. If there must be con loss and it's going to be so easy to lose the con, allow it to be just as easy to gain it back. Let there be a struggle with it though. Put more flask around DL on mobs in areas people actually go. Don't let all level 150's and up load the flasks. There are flasks loading in some areas I know of but there need to be more in the game.

I rather enjoyed the rp with the fisherman and the colossal sea monster thingy. I dislike how it is the immediate mindset to try and kill the massive mobs that pop up during rp. I admit to attacking it as well and immediatly I knew this was a beast not meant to be killed. I started to summon warhorses and it was rather happy eating though and left me alone and attacked everyone else that walked into the room. Especially giants, they are crunchy and good with katsup I believe the saying goes. I was getting ready to feed it again when everyone who was rp walkied in, sent a large group of charmies, and someone casted blitzkrieg. I don't know who, but it hit me as well. The beast then turned on me and I fleed with my life and lost a few items. I healed up, went back in to speak with the beast. I told him to eat everyone and use their bones to pick his teeth then recalled and talked to some people for a little while. The beast was huge and happy eating what it could. Here is a fisherman who's boat I'm sure was full of fish he'd caught. Where is a colossal monster gonna find an easier meal in the shallow lakes of Turien? Not to mention the beast was good aligned. If it was evil then maybe we could assume it was out to kill just because it can. The beast gave others a chance to run. Giants wouldn't listen to me when they walked into the room while I was trying to feed it and would get attacked after a moment or too when the monster gave fair warning for them to run. I hear the weary and tired fisherman had to end up helping to kill the beast. Obviously that was not the correct method of going about completing the task.

People need to think outside the box of just running around killing mobs during rp to complete rp's. Staff needs to do this as well although I feel they were trying to do this with the last rp and it didn't happen. So why would staff want to rp with us if we only think about killing and how will it benefit me. If that's your characters rp is just getting money and how can it benefit you, then so be it but I doubt staff will want to roleplay with you if it's all about you and not about having fun. I'd love staff to come down and start an rp with no reward but the mpp... which I think should be more than just one point per rp. Staff interaction is rare and valuable to me and I just can't get enough of it. Running arenas is great, but I'd like to see more mobs turned rp running around asking for help or wanting people to complete tasks for them or even just a simple "will you deliver this item to so and so and I'll give you a little gold (and mpp) for your effort". The more we rp with staff and keep them happy, the more staff will want to rp with us. I always try to make it interesting by continueing to use emotes to show my actions. I hope whomever was controlling the monster on the recent roleplay could tell I was trying to do so and that I was having a blast playing. So in short, killing is not always the option for completion and personal gain is not always the reward.

There seems to be a bit more money going around DL and I'd like to see more. People are paying more for items on consignment and people are able to gain more gold to add a little of money here and there with trades. Trading items for items still seems to be the main method for gaining better items. Sometimes some people need to understand that one can't trade items for it because they have no means of getting other items good enough for trade. I try to group whenever I can and get my hands on what I can in hopes of trading. I recently did make a trade and it was my first trade in a few months. Thank you to the group that traded with me if you're reading this. Eq is hard to come by and it may all go back to the whole hording thing. Eq is even harder to come by if you've permi died a few times and everyone runs out to load your items and then the item load gets maxxed and you have no chance of again loading that item. Exibit A, Vladikus. He'll probably never be as strong as he was this round, and he was definitely weaker then the last Vladikus. My Gydin is a little bit stronger because of my methods of killing mobs and what I've gained from exp about DL, but my gains were massively lower and it took me 3 hours just to roll what stats I have which are considerably lower than last Gydin. My mana is by far lower based on what items I've been able to obtain. A few items I was trying to load with a group I was not able to get because others will go in behind to check the mobs we were killing and low and behold the items loads for them. This has happened a number of times. Enough times that I have just given up on those mobs when I'm alone and just depend on grouping and mentioning on the side that I'd like this item and can we go kill and try to load it. Gydin is more or less and hand me down character. I'll group with others trying to load better items and then ask for the item they just replaced, which 9/10 times is better than what I currently have. Still there are items out there that I could really use but probably won't obtain for a while due to hording or characters that never play and when they do play they are only on for a moment to run around and check loads and load what's there then they go back to whatever. Never gives me a chance to try and talk with them about items. There is one person who I assume is nopurge and never plays that I could really use some of their items while they're not playing. But if someone wants to go nopurge to keep their character and hardly play, that's fine.

Shops are buying and selling more but I feel need to continue doing so. I'd love to buy a few more things for the house to get the weapons off the floor and maybe add a little regen to it and clear up the crates we have with potions, scrolls etc.

I don't see many true newbies to DL but try to help them when I can. It's hard to help when I don't have eq. People have been good about giving me items that they know will help out and that I'll give to someone. I recently resuited someone up a little bit when they lost all their items to somone they had no hope of getting it back from. The Advocates of Genesis is here to help people in need of some items. It has been going well and I hope the guild will continue to grow with people wanting to help out.

Hrm, lost my train of though so I'm gonna get back to DL. I hope some of these ideas help out. I'm excited to see what new class and spells, skills etc will come of the reboot of dl after the DLDS. I'm also happy for the DLDS because it seems we get a few new players during it.

Umm all i have to say what always hits me is the freedom to do anything. I would like to give dl2 props for this. NO other game is like it. By far my favorite game in the world. I would like to thank the staff for keeping it interesting. The only thing I think would be cooler, is more customization. especially with items. BEING ABLE TO MAKE CUSTOM ITEMS WOULD BE AWESOME. It also has the possibility i mean the coding would be hard i know, but maybe a player could get payed (in dl2.) like a job to write codes, and restrings on names. he could then send it to staff to get approved. Somewhere , im not sure were, but it talked about how people could get non-violent exp this could possibly be a way. havent gave alot of thought into this, all i know is that more custom stuff would be awesome. I really think it would also help with hording, cause items could be obtained outside of mobs. I dont know just a thought feedback on this would be great. And thanks again for such a great game staff.

While it's a painful and long road to travel, it's possible to get/create items currently via intensive RP, item accumulation, and a request (which are screened rather carefully not to underbalance the game, so think carefully) to the staff.

There are also ways to obtain other things, such as normal game items, MPPs, and other such novelties by submitting requests to the staff members. Currently, there's only a few of us able to perform some of these tasks, so they might take a bit of time to complete. But, you'll only get the chance if you ask.

The proper people to address would be included in the email: gm@dl2.net

Happy mudding,
Jorlain