Favorite feature from another game or MUD you wish KotL had

[Chalgyr]

Just what the subject line says. What is your favorite feature you've played on another video game, or MMO or MUD that you wish KotL had - and then follow that up with 'why'? What is it about that particular system or mechanism that really appealed to you?

[Algorgon]

Well I haven't played very many MUDs other than KOTL so I don't have too many mechanics ideas, but here's some stuff.

I played one MUD that had a Medieval theme but it had one area that was based on the Eagle's Hotel California. You entered the area on a Dark Desert Highway. It was just a fun area.

On other RPG's I like the idea of Mulitclassing - gives my character more flexablity

[Daklore]

The ability to play chess. >P

As for multi-classing, technically, we already have it with augments... which is an iffy mechanic for me. I don't hate multi-classing, but I don't really like it either. >P You should make the classes -work- without having the player feel like they need to multi-class to offset the weakness of their preferred class/path of roleplay.

Uhm... if KotL were actually PvP balanced(which it's not), PvP world-type objectives -can- be fun. In the case of Achaea, this constitutes two forms right now. Icon wars(lame) and city-raiding(not -as- lame as icon wars, but can be lame because there's no end-goal objective to say, "okay, you've won. Stop doing it for a while).

In the form of Guild Wars, you had the Faction battles in Cantha. Where Guilds would align with either the Luxons or the Kurzicks and battle on PvP maps(3 groups of 4) where the outcome of these many battles fought at the same time in seperate instances and can move the border of an in-game map and give some small benefits to Alliances(groups of guilds) at the top of the alliance ladder. Considering Guild Wars is pretty balanced, especially in PvP, it was -really fun-. Also, the lack of long-term penalties for death(Guild Wars only has a temporary death penalty that causes you to lose 1-60% of your HP and Energy until you return to a town--which occurs at the end of a PvP instance, usually).

Achaea also has wilderness maps, which make the world -bigger-... which can be bad(I mean, all sorts of area to cover can be irritating for non-mages), but... they can be nifty. And since you don't need room descs(since you'd get an ASCII map for the "desc"), it lets you make a larger overworld that... yaknow, has geographical sense.

That's about all I have, I guess.

[Elendil]

Pfffft.......

You want a pain in the neck in travel, try playing Imperian Ero-sennin.  But there is one feature I think could prove to be very useful, which is a classtalk channel.  That can be the place where new priests, rogues, scouts, fighters can use to ask questions about tiers, customs, skills, and so on that are not covered by the help files, but can be answered by the more experienced players.  I think that would be the better alternative than newbie and outgame channel, where more often than not one tends to see snarky or wiseguy answers than actual help. Just a thought for your consideration, Chal.

[Daklore]

You'd still have snarky or wisecrack comments on classtalk. Only the rest of us wouldn't be able to hear it.

[Tylon]

To be honest, I think there's more muds that need features that KotL has. 

I do like multiclassing, and while augmenting seems to fill in that gap here I think I prefer more structure to it. One mud I played on had multiclassing where if you stayed with the pure class there were clear benefits, or you could multiclass and lose some of the first class's stuff and gain some of the second class's stuff. It was actually really balanced and fun. I do think there's potential here to sabotage one's character when given free reign of skill/spell selection and that's a no-no.

That same mud took a different approach to "questing", where there was a code-generated random multi-level maze that people would run for tokens. First level - 1 token/kill, Second level - 2 token/kill etc. It was norecall and free pk. The entrance point to it was also randomized. I always thought it was a pretty fun approach.

I also like it when MUDs are open ended as far as character progression. Its nearly thus here with only a few players hitting the higher levels... but its kind of nice to never really cap out. At least in terms of end-game development of one's character. One MUD I played even had taken level caps out altogether. I think here I would like to see some kind of next step implemented for when someone does reach 275.

[Chalgyr]

Very cool list of ideas so far guys. As to your chess one Dak - know any MUDs that actually have it? I know Thalia looked around a bit and found checkers, but not chess. :p

[Daklore]

Achaea has chess.

It uses an ascii type-grid, I think they use letters to denote pieces.

The commands(that I remember) involve MOVE <piece at co-ordinate(such as E7)> TO <new location, that should follow the rules of the game> .... ... that's the only command I remember, but I'm pretty sure it supports castling. They also save games internally, so you can pause a game and pick it up at a latter time if you have to leave, and you only have to -start- the game at a chessboard, after that you can play it anywhere.... that may not make sense, but, it does.

People can also view the chess match by the id it was given. I'd have to log in and steal the help chess file, probably. I don't feel like doing that right now.

[Chalgyr]

Any thoughts on Tylon's alternate version of 'questing'? Like, dislike? something different.

[elios]

I do not think that would work here Chalgyr if anything it would be far too much aggro for too little reward.

[Chalgyr]

Likely, and probably wouldn't necessarily the PK part of it, but the randomized dungeons with different rewards at different levels was more what I was curious about - though I've heard randomizing dungeons on MUDs can be a PITA

[elios]

Ayup aggro on the part of the builders and simply too much for too little.  A bloody pain in the arse all around.  But I will say the idea about the classtalk is a good one at least I know that I would be more than willing to answer any questions posed there.

[Tylon]

The way they had this one setup there were more or less repeating room descriptions with each room a sentinel mob that would aggro. There were maybe two or three different mobs per level. The dungeon entrance reset on each server reboot, and I heard but never confirmed that there was a code generated map the imps could look at if they wanted to. Perhaps 100-150 rooms per level, and I myself never got beyond the 8th level b/c it was sort of an attrition game killing that many mobs without recalling to regen. I don't recall ever being attacked but I had heard some players could get territorial about who was in there with them.

But builder-wise it would be pretty low key to make maybe 20 rooms and a couple dozen mobs. The IMP at the time mentioned it was one of the easier pieces of content they had implemented. But as far as the coding side goes, I guess that depends on how much can be 'borrowed'.

To get any use out of it in KotL the rewards would have to be equal or greater than afk questing. But mechanics like this do keep eyes on the screen longer... 

[sye]

I could get you guys an LPC model of Chess if you wanted to tweek it and add it in to KOTL.
have the code already

I think that LOOT, I would love to see LOOT drops,  a chance to get custom equiviant gear but generated randomly from mobs, like Diablo 3.   I would like to see a rare small chance to get a legendary piece of loot that would be an awesome custom, but with better benifits or more sockets.  Unrestringable if that is possible would make it fun, and have unique names that wouldn't be silly like.  Odins Hammer 'could be a weapon that is amazing, maybe does otherworld damge and lightning.  You could sit there and litterally make like 20 items that could drop at random, have some be quest str, some be custom str and some stronger.

One of my favorite aspect in any game is getting stronger, and seeing nice loot drops as grinding is a great way to increase str in one way or another and this would add spice.

Even adding legendary shards that enough of them make a legendary stone, or a token that summons a legendary mob with a slightly higher chance to get a legendary stone.

Adding a new mox or two, that are slightly better than quest or equal that drops from mobs.

Just love seeing the mob drops!

[Daklore]

If there's one thing Sye and I can agree on, it's that loot drop/tables are probably infinitely more useful for a game like KotL.

But following the MMO route and having these ridiculous OP but hard to get items is stupid. Custom level should be the power-cap baseline that drops can rarely hit. "Legendary" type drops could only be slightly better than that, and probably would have to have a trade-off.

But yeah, loot tables/drops.

We don't need more ways to get legendary stones, though. Outside of adding a new legendary mobile. Downside, obviously, of loot tables is that some people hate grinding for that set of gear they need to compete at whatever. Personally, I hated it when I played D2. I'd usually go with "that's good enough". Not everyone is going to enjoy the grind, after all.