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Re: Any future ahead? I guess not.

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 3:38 pm
by Timodeus
I thought about something as well for quite a while. I decided against it for two reasons:

A) I really do not want to promise anything that won't happen or happens too late or in a radically different way (we currently for example plan the improvement of xxx, but I have no clue when it will lead to something, so I keep silent).

B) I do not want to spoil people too much about upcoming areas. MUME is also meant to be explored, so if I drop we'll "add this and that or when you go to Dol Guldur, this or that might happen"... then that's too much information.

Between A) and B) I cannot think of too many things I could write about, since I wanted to write something that's worth to be read.
I also do not write about things I personally do not have control about, for example I could ask X how's the state in area Z is, then communicate that (all still with a "safe" level of detail). But then, some builder in that other project starts to slack, the SV starts to slack... and I do not have control about what happens and we suddenly have a delay of a few months. That'd suck as well.

We simply lack visible high-level-activity (*cough* at the moment) and nothing I could post here changes that. That does not mean there are no projects around that will lead to something. Eventually.
As for me, I am convinced I'll get a few things moving that'll be more as/different from "just" new areas once I am done with Dol Guldur. But pointing out what that will be and when it's done... I dare not to do that since it'll also create pressure for ME, pressure to finish something at some point (and it makes it harder to explain why it did not happen after two years).

Therefore, I will repeat what I said already (often): MUME is rather cool, even when some things are far from perfect. But there's also things that will come around the corner... someday. :)

Re: Any future ahead? I guess not.

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 4:21 pm
by Wobbler
Well... something along the lines of
"During the past fortnight 37 new room descriptions were written and 1 new zone was passed along for proofing. 4 bugs, 1 of which considered major, were fixed and a new feature was approved of by the upper management, although it remains unclear who will implement it. Unfortunately, implementation of a reasonably interesting quest had to be postponed due to lack of skilled mudllers."
would go very far towards giving players a sense that something is actually happening.

Re: Any future ahead? I guess not.

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 5:46 pm
by AndrĂ³g
Well, Wobbler, I can start that kind of reports with some data about the things I've been doing.

For those who don't know: before a builder can build anything bigger, he needs to have successfully finished a testzone. A testzone is 1/4 of a real zone. That means 25 standard rooms, plus a few extra rooms. He needs to use the preplanned map to design a layout, room names, room descriptions, room flags and a few other lesser details. All that needs to fit the location of that place on the Arda. Yes, they're building on the real Arda and if the testzone is any good, then it will get into the finished zone as well once the zone is opened for mortals.

So... since june 2008 sixteen players have undertaken a testzone. One of them has tried twice (failed both times). In total 8 of the 17 testzones have been a success. That's a 47% success rate. Out of the 8 successful testzone builders 4 have received their own full zone by now. (But well, some of the 8 haven't even shown interest, yet...) 2 of the 4 with their own zone have been promoted again, from Mc to Mb.

Overall, the large majority of failures have been failures due to lack of commitment and motivation, not lack of skill.

Re: Any future ahead? I guess not.

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:36 pm
by Timodeus
Also, I can anyone who wants to try to encourage to take a testzone. It's free and usually noone is angry if it turns out you really do not want to write desc or do not have time.

At the moment there are also enough testzones available.

Apart from that: I still want more unique threats (the stuff mobs say when you attack them) on unique mobiles (so bill ferny etc do not chose their says from the standard-lists). Any immortal who wants to contribute can send me stuff about that as well (the game has over 400 by now, before it was just like two dozen ones).

I lately had another idea what Maiar can do whenever they want... but I cannot remember it right now. ;)

Re: Any future ahead? I guess not.

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:55 pm
by Wobbler
Here's an idea regarding the mob say spam: make it visible only to people who play with spam on!

Re: Any future ahead? I guess not.

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:20 pm
by Twine
The last time I posted in here I asked for some sort of status update relating to the scout situation. I mean, discussing lack of communication is great and all, and it's fine if nobody wants to say anything because it would get our hopes up, but really, the damage has been done. A change has been made that nobody really liked with a promise to fix that change, but without any updates as to how that change will be fixed, when it will be fixed, or even if it will be fixed (note: by fix, I mean the tweaks that are supposed to compensate for nosneak, not the removal of nosneak).

I'm not asking for a status updates on status updates, I'm asking for a status update on scouts.

So I'll ask again: can we please, please, pretty please get a status update on the current scout situation?

Re: Any future ahead? I guess not.

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:48 am
by Timodeus
My status there is: I have no idea. I told several people to mail Ilie about it when they asked... but no one called me back with results, therefore I assume no one cared enough to inquire.

Re: Any future ahead? I guess not.

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:05 pm
by Belamir
That's funny.. my assumption would have been that they HAD mailed their inquiries, and just hadn't heard anything back.