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Molly · 03-16-2003, 12:23 PM

We’ve been out of beta for about 5 years now.
We have 16140 rooms (155 zones). Of these about 6000 rooms are Wilderness Grid or Mine, that still leaves 10000 rooms, 140 ‘real’ zones, (all custom, there are no stock zones in 4D).
We have 7360 prototype objects.
I’d say this is a pretty large world, right?
Our player base is still a bit limited since we don’t cater for the mainstream. We rarely peak above 25 players, but I don’t really see what that has got to do with things, since each new feature we add gets on top of and integrated with everything already existing.

Our mud started out as pure hack’n’slash and went from that to being heavily Quest based. We are now in the process of adding the craft skills on request from several players, who want a more roleplay oriented alternative to killing mobs.

So we started out with adding simple trades like fishing, farming, gardening and lumberjacking, so Newbies would have a chance to earn some money without risking their neck too much. Then we added a 1000 room mine, with 10 different kinds of metal ore. Players are mining all the time, but not mainly for the ore, even though that already pays pretty well in certain shops, but because somewhere in that mine is a totally awesome sword, that develops when you use it. You gotta give them an incentive, hehe. (Incidentally that sword is so hard to get that only a couple of players have managed so far, even though the feature has been in for almost a year).

So now we are in the process of adding farming, to get leather, wool, milk and eggs, and a whole scale of integrated craft skills to get an economic and IC use for all those basic raw materials. Our craft system might be different from what other muds usually use, we do tend to do things a bit differently here.

The fact that our world already is pretty big is not a hinder for this, it’s actually useful, since the crafts are based on raw materials, and some of them need to be pretty hard to find. So many of the materials already exist, which makes things easier, and in the cases where we need to make some new stuff, the large world presents an opportunity to spread this out in the already existing zones. You don’t have the same opportunities in a small mud.

Naturally there is the question of balancing, but you have that same problem each time you add a new zone to the world, or the stats of the objects in the game would keep spiralling up all the time. So it’s either a question of dealing with the problem or stop developing the mud.

Balancing in our game is based on two things: Time and challenge.

Time: It takes a given time to kill a certain mob. How long depends on the level of the mob, the level of the player, the equipment of the mob and the equipment of the player. It also takes a given time to get to – and above all to FIND – the right mob, with that choice piece of equipment you want.

Challenge: Basically this depends on how tough you are compared to the mob. In our game challenge is also based on Quests. To find a certain choice item, you may need to solve several puzzles, find some hidden ‘portals’ or containers, run errands for a picky mob all over the world, and maybe on top of all kill a tough mob too. This too takes time, and also the smart players get rewarded rather than the ‘powerplayers’.

So all we need to do is to apply the same balancing principle to the crafts.

Each craft naturally is a bit time consuming. Not too much, that would be just boring. But basically each craft has several steps. You can sell what you produce at each step, but the more you develop the product, the more valuable it gets. Also each craft is based on raw materials. The more rare the material and the harder it is to get, the more the product is worth. And to actually produce armour or weapons that equal what you can find in the game, you have to go through all steps, and use the absolute top raw material.

Take one of the easier crafts, cooking, as an example. You use a cooking book with 10 different recipes; each dish has a market value in different inns, based on how hard the ingredients are to get. So let’s say you want to bake a simple apple pie:
You can grow the wheat for it yourself and have it ground to flour in a mill, then milk a cow and have the milk processed to butter and cream in a dairy.
The eggs you get in a chicken farm, but they need to be fresh, or they will either hatch or rot. *snicker*. (Of cause, if they hatch, you get one of the ingredients for chicken casserole instead).
The apples you can pick from a tree in an orchard, but since apples only ripen in autumn, the season needs to be right. Sugar and salt were luxuries in medieval times. Naturally they already exist in the game, but only in a pretty remote city, which is hard to get to. (This city was originally made as a centre for poisoners, and the salt and sugar was put in as a decoy for arsenic. Now they get a new economic use).
Finally the spices; ginger and cinnamon. These grow in Mediterranean countries, a pretty long journey for most.

Or take one of the more advanced trades, like weaponsmith. You don’t just sit down and type ‘forge sword’ and then listen to a number of echoes. Making a decent sword involves several crafts, like woodworking and leather working (for the handle), metallurgy, forging, honing and perhaps tinkering, for the blade and finally jewel-cutting and goldsmithing for the hilt.

So to start from the bottom, you need to fell a tree, get it sawed at a sawmill, and then whittle a handle. And to get a top product the wood you use must come from a very rare tree which only grows on a remote Greek island.
Then you must slaughter an ox for its hide, scrape the hide, tan it, cut it to straps and wind them round the handle.
For the blade you need to first mine for the metal ore (a pretty risky business), then smelt the ore and make an alloy (and for a top result you need all ten kinds of ore in the right proportions). Then forge the blade, harden it and hone it - and maybe tinker it to increase the damage, (but with a percentage risk of shattering the blade and destroying all the work you put down so far).
And finally you need to find a rare gemstone for the blade, cut it (with a large percentage risk of shattering the stone), polish it, and finally use goldsmith skills to assemble the weapon.

That’s why I believe a player economy will develop from the crafts, in the same way that it has developed around every rare or hard-to-get item in the game. Depending on disposition and game style, some players, who prefer to roleplay and socialise, will do the actual crafting. While others, with an interest in exploring, will specialise in getting the raw materials together and then selling them to the crafters for a price set by the ‘market’. A simple matter of supply and demand.

And that’s why I don’t think it’s hard to implement a new craft system in an already existing mud. All it takes is a careful design of the craft system, a Head Builder with a good grip of the existing world, a couple of basic scripts, which can be variated with different echoes and vnums for different crafts, and a good Building staff to help with the work. Because this is mainly a build project, not code.

03-16-2003, 12:23 PM	#27
Molly Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Sweden Home MUD: 4 Dimensions Posts: 574	We’ve been out of beta for about 5 years now. We have 16140 rooms (155 zones). Of these about 6000 rooms are Wilderness Grid or Mine, that still leaves 10000 rooms, 140 ‘real’ zones, (all custom, there are no stock zones in 4D). We have 7360 prototype objects. I’d say this is a pretty large world, right? Our player base is still a bit limited since we don’t cater for the mainstream. We rarely peak above 25 players, but I don’t really see what that has got to do with things, since each new feature we add gets on top of and integrated with everything already existing. Our mud started out as pure hack’n’slash and went from that to being heavily Quest based. We are now in the process of adding the craft skills on request from several players, who want a more roleplay oriented alternative to killing mobs. So we started out with adding simple trades like fishing, farming, gardening and lumberjacking, so Newbies would have a chance to earn some money without risking their neck too much. Then we added a 1000 room mine, with 10 different kinds of metal ore. Players are mining all the time, but not mainly for the ore, even though that already pays pretty well in certain shops, but because somewhere in that mine is a totally awesome sword, that develops when you use it. You gotta give them an incentive, hehe. (Incidentally that sword is so hard to get that only a couple of players have managed so far, even though the feature has been in for almost a year). So now we are in the process of adding farming, to get leather, wool, milk and eggs, and a whole scale of integrated craft skills to get an economic and IC use for all those basic raw materials. Our craft system might be different from what other muds usually use, we do tend to do things a bit differently here. The fact that our world already is pretty big is not a hinder for this, it’s actually useful, since the crafts are based on raw materials, and some of them need to be pretty hard to find. So many of the materials already exist, which makes things easier, and in the cases where we need to make some new stuff, the large world presents an opportunity to spread this out in the already existing zones. You don’t have the same opportunities in a small mud. Naturally there is the question of balancing, but you have that same problem each time you add a new zone to the world, or the stats of the objects in the game would keep spiralling up all the time. So it’s either a question of dealing with the problem or stop developing the mud. Balancing in our game is based on two things: Time and challenge. Time: It takes a given time to kill a certain mob. How long depends on the level of the mob, the level of the player, the equipment of the mob and the equipment of the player. It also takes a given time to get to – and above all to FIND – the right mob, with that choice piece of equipment you want. Challenge: Basically this depends on how tough you are compared to the mob. In our game challenge is also based on Quests. To find a certain choice item, you may need to solve several puzzles, find some hidden ‘portals’ or containers, run errands for a picky mob all over the world, and maybe on top of all kill a tough mob too. This too takes time, and also the smart players get rewarded rather than the ‘powerplayers’. So all we need to do is to apply the same balancing principle to the crafts. Each craft naturally is a bit time consuming. Not too much, that would be just boring. But basically each craft has several steps. You can sell what you produce at each step, but the more you develop the product, the more valuable it gets. Also each craft is based on raw materials. The more rare the material and the harder it is to get, the more the product is worth. And to actually produce armour or weapons that equal what you can find in the game, you have to go through all steps, and use the absolute top raw material. Take one of the easier crafts, cooking, as an example. You use a cooking book with 10 different recipes; each dish has a market value in different inns, based on how hard the ingredients are to get. So let’s say you want to bake a simple apple pie: You can grow the wheat for it yourself and have it ground to flour in a mill, then milk a cow and have the milk processed to butter and cream in a dairy. The eggs you get in a chicken farm, but they need to be fresh, or they will either hatch or rot. snicker. (Of cause, if they hatch, you get one of the ingredients for chicken casserole instead). The apples you can pick from a tree in an orchard, but since apples only ripen in autumn, the season needs to be right. Sugar and salt were luxuries in medieval times. Naturally they already exist in the game, but only in a pretty remote city, which is hard to get to. (This city was originally made as a centre for poisoners, and the salt and sugar was put in as a decoy for arsenic. Now they get a new economic use). Finally the spices; ginger and cinnamon. These grow in Mediterranean countries, a pretty long journey for most. Or take one of the more advanced trades, like weaponsmith. You don’t just sit down and type ‘forge sword’ and then listen to a number of echoes. Making a decent sword involves several crafts, like woodworking and leather working (for the handle), metallurgy, forging, honing and perhaps tinkering, for the blade and finally jewel-cutting and goldsmithing for the hilt. So to start from the bottom, you need to fell a tree, get it sawed at a sawmill, and then whittle a handle. And to get a top product the wood you use must come from a very rare tree which only grows on a remote Greek island. Then you must slaughter an ox for its hide, scrape the hide, tan it, cut it to straps and wind them round the handle. For the blade you need to first mine for the metal ore (a pretty risky business), then smelt the ore and make an alloy (and for a top result you need all ten kinds of ore in the right proportions). Then forge the blade, harden it and hone it - and maybe tinker it to increase the damage, (but with a percentage risk of shattering the blade and destroying all the work you put down so far). And finally you need to find a rare gemstone for the blade, cut it (with a large percentage risk of shattering the stone), polish it, and finally use goldsmith skills to assemble the weapon. That’s why I believe a player economy will develop from the crafts, in the same way that it has developed around every rare or hard-to-get item in the game. Depending on disposition and game style, some players, who prefer to roleplay and socialise, will do the actual crafting. While others, with an interest in exploring, will specialise in getting the raw materials together and then selling them to the crafters for a price set by the ‘market’. A simple matter of supply and demand. And that’s why I don’t think it’s hard to implement a new craft system in an already existing mud. All it takes is a careful design of the craft system, a Head Builder with a good grip of the existing world, a couple of basic scripts, which can be variated with different echoes and vnums for different crafts, and a good Building staff to help with the work. Because this is mainly a build project, not code.