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Old 09-30-2009, 02:02 PM   #1
Kal
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Looking for a mud with complex economy with crafting

Hi,

I have been playing a variety of muds since the mid 90s. Starting to fear for the extinction of goblins after all these years, I would now like a fresh start in some interesting mud, and focus on resource gathering, crafting and economy. Many muds offer some kind of crafting, but often as something you preferably do while regenerating from your last goblin onslaught. From the muds I have tried, the one that I found most interesting is Batmud. In the merchant guild I could spend lots of time mining and lumberjacking to get resources for building things like chests and complex ships. In the alchemist guild I first had to research my personal potion recipes, and could then collect ingredients and produce for a profit. They have made an excellent job creating these guilds indeed, and they offer pretty much what I am looking for. However, there are two main reasons I am looking for something else, so I will try to explain what I would like in my next mud.

There must be an interesting and rewarding economy for crafters. Even though it might be mighty fun to spend weeks or more to build a ship, it's pretty frustrating when nobody wants to buy it for any decent amount of <enter your local mud currency here>. Or when your potions are only so-so much worth to the adventurers that they are not willing to pay all that much for them. When you realize it's quicker to just bash another zillion of goblins and collect the loot - where you gain both experience and money - you will eventually get bored of crafting, even if the crafting is fun by itself. I understand there is a dilemma, the adventuring party must also feel it is worth their time to kill a difficult boss to get their über-fancy cloak of divine superiority rather than easily craft an even über-fancier cloak too easily. Are there any good muds out there that have made this balance work nicely?

The other thing I want, is to be allowed to use triggers. No, I don't want to build a bot that I start when I go to work, and come home at afternoon to find that it has built ten million potions, a castle and a couple of smaller planets while I was away. But I want to be able to use my mud client to set up the some triggers to do boring tasks for me. I'll give you an example. Let's say I have been walking around (manually) looking for a good mining spot. After some time I found a nice rock, where I use the command "mine gold" to get the process started. After half a minute I get a piece of gold, or possibly fail the action. Now I write "mine gold" again. After 45 minutes and 90 “mine gold”s the rock is depleted, I have run out of storage capacity, or Windows Vista has decided I needed a break and shut down the entire computer. In any case, this gets boring. It might be fun the first 10 times, while you learn how to do it. When you have done it 5000 times it is... not quite as fun any more. So let me put up a trigger that make a new attempt at "mine gold", until I can do it no longer. Or make the concept of mining fun and rewarding to do manually.

I know there are strong feelings about triggers out there, and I understand a good mud might very well get ruined if there are hordes of bots running around by themselves all day long. To prevent this, most muds seem to have some kind of anti-bot policy. In some cases you are not allowed to use triggers at all, in most cases you may use them to some extent, as long as you promise you sit at the keyboard and watch the screen. No laws work unless enforced, and I suppose the easiest way to catch a botter is to unexpectedly give them some question a bot wouldn't be able to answer. My problem is, if I want to stay at the same spot for 45 minutes mining that rock with my cool trigger, I will definitely also get bored from staring at the screen. Sure, often I can chat with friends, read bulletins, or open a browser and watch pictures of cute Russian tennis players while waiting. But more often than not I might read something interesting on the net, or find something better to do with my time. And I don't want to have my character deleted by a 15-year-old nazi-admin who has dedicated his (there are no 15-year-old nazi-admin girls) life to find and punish those who break any law. No, it hasn't happened to me, but you get the point. If there are rules, I honestly want to follow them. But I also want to enjoy my time while playing.

So what else is on my wish-list? I don't want the mud to enforce RP. I admit I am a nerd who actually think it is fun to chop down 5000 trees, make planks and build a vessel. Probably I don't share the psychological profile with those who write a minor novel for their character background and want to discuss the weather in dwarven tongue. But I certainly don't mind to share the server with them. It's also ok if I have to kill goblins to get exp for advancing or get goblins noses for my potion of invincibility, but I would prefer if I didn't have to kill mobs for two years until I am powerful enough to switch over to crafting. And I don't like PK. Ideally there are PK zones, where those who are into that kind of gameplay can compete, but I'd prefer to be left alone while picking my flowers.

Now, do you think there are any muds for guys like me? All suggestions are much appreciated!
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Old 09-30-2009, 04:17 PM   #2
Orrin
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Re: Looking for a mud with complex economy with crafting

I will mention as a game you might want to try although we don't meet all of your criteria. I'll summarise what I took as your main points:

1. Crafting and economy.
We have a skill based class system where each class is able to learn gathering skills and one of four trade skills; forging, goldsmithing, tailoring or herbalism. Two of the guilds also have professional skills which can produce goods (magical enchanting and potion making respectively). Our economy is entirely player driven and almost all equipment is player crafted with no loot drops from NPCs.

2. Triggers
We allow triggers and scripting, however we don't allow unattended botting. We are a professional game and don't delete accounts on a whim. If you were to do something that was against policy we'd simply ask you not to do it.

3. Roleplaying
We describe ourselves as roleplaying enforced, however this means simply that all public communication should be in character. You are not required to create a detailed background or type in a dodgy accent, all we ask is that you act as your character would in our world and if you want to chat about Russian tennis players you do so in private.

4. Playerkilling
We have (almost) unrestricted PK. Before you run for the hills screaming, there is very little penalty for defeat and you only lose XP if killed in enemy territory or if you are defeated twice in quick succession. You can also choose to be safe from attacks for an hour after a defeat.

We're still in beta and have only been open 3 months so we don't have the years of development of many other games, but if you'd like to try something new you can find us at:

Host: maidendesmodus.com
Port: 4000
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Old 09-30-2009, 05:56 PM   #3
Newworlds
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Re: Looking for a mud with complex economy with crafting

As mentioned I'm thinking you should give a try. They may not be exactly what you want but might be fairly close. While NWA has a nice merchant/trader guild structure, we do have very strict RP enforcement, pk, and do not allow triggers or other forms of automation.

Other options might be one of the Iron Realms games or Materia Magica.
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Old 09-30-2009, 06:48 PM   #4
Mabus
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Re: Looking for a mud with complex economy with crafting

seems to fit all of your conditions.

Address:

coffeemud.net

Port:

23

Play an artisan, and you can pretty well craft and gather your way to the max level. No enforced role-play, I believe it is PK-optional (not sure), and they may even allow multi-play if you wanted to make a fighter to slay some goblins while you bot away.

On the downside, not many players.
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Old 10-01-2009, 02:55 AM   #5
Kal
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Re: Looking for a mud with complex economy with crafting

Thanks for the recommendations, I will check them out.
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Old 10-01-2009, 01:40 PM   #6
Delerak
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Re: Looking for a mud with complex economy with crafting

The problem here is finding a MUD that has a realistic economy. Just because something seems complex doesn't mean it's at all accurate to what a true economy might function like. You'd need a few economists (possibly historians as well depending on the time line), to help a coder decide how to code the economy first, so until you find that, you won't find a mud that has a realistic economy coded into it.

Also the same can apply to crafting. While you may have more 'complex' code for crafting here and there, most of it is done in the same manner and tends to stray into the realm of fantasy.
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Old 10-01-2009, 03:35 PM   #7
Saire
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Re: Looking for a mud with complex economy with crafting

Hello there,

I'm going to tell you about a MUD that I have played for awhile... off and on. Given I don't know a lot about it I'm not sure how helpful it will all be, but maybe it will be.

Geas has crafting. It has four different types of guilds, crafting guilds are one of them. And, I personally believe that the alchemist guild could easily fall into that category too. I've played an alchemist, so I will tell you what that was like. You go around and search for herbs. You then analyze those herbs, otherwise, you won't know what they are or what they can be used in. You then mix potions, taking the appropriate herbs that will make the potion you're looking to create. You appraise those potions to learn more. This system as you can see is.. complex. Its very time consuming too. I'm not sure about the other guilds but in my opinion this can grow tiresome, at least at first while you are learning all of this. In the end though I think it would be worth the trouble.

I would suggest taking all of this at stride. Do some crafting, do some fishing, do some mining, do some hunting and then more crafting. But, that's just my style, I like to vary it up.

Lets see... I am unsure about the economy in Geas, I never got that far to see what it was like once I could sell those potions. But, I think you can sell the potions in the alchemist shop, OR to adventurers if you so choose. And that's just the alchemists, there are other guilds to choose from as well.

The game is labeled as "RP enforced" but I have seen no .... paragraph long, wind bagged emotes that have no meaning or the type of RP you have stated you don't like. There's no need to write long drawn out biographies. Just enjoy the world, the complexities of battle, crafting, gathering and whatever else your heart desires! Geas has MANY options, I have only scraped the surface of this world! You should give it a try
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Old 12-06-2009, 08:14 PM   #8
shevegen
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Re: Looking for a mud with complex economy with crafting

Very difficult. Basically you dont want to have anyone enforce PK onto your character.

But there are goblins (mobs) which your character would not mind to kill ... also you don't want to partake in more serious roleplay settings.

You sure don't make it easy!
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Old 12-07-2009, 10:24 AM   #9
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Re: Looking for a mud with complex economy with crafting

In the latter stages of development, Lithmeria will, when released meet all/most of your criteria.

1. (you mention liking the idea of gathering resources for ships). That link is actually an early proof-of-concept thing that was done to get ships into the game in some form. Ships are due for a complete overhaul in the next few weeks to make sailing and fighting on one every bit as intricate as fighting on land.

2. Economy and Crafting:
Lithmeria's economy is a very complex one. Various resources are generated at different rates by various villages, mining townes and strategic points spread across the world. Control of a point by a faction leads to an influx of that material. Control of a resource node also opens up quests which can be done to increase the speed and efficiency of that nodes production. On the flipside though, the enemy factions will be able to complete quests to sabotage and inhibit a nodes efficiency.

There will also be something of a sharemarket system whereby players can purchase 'shares' in merchant houses the fortunes of which will be determined by a wide variety of world events. Guard a merchant convey from pirates and see your merchant house remain strong and lucrative...

Some links for crafting:
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3. Triggers:
Triggers will be allowed and indeed expected, though it will be possible to participate in all game activities without them to some degree. Complete automation will be against the rules and there will be a number of mechanical elements that would make it extremely difficult. One example is that unlike most other games, mobiles in Lithmeria are vulnerable to all the afflictions and attacks a player can use... and require them to be used intelligently to kill. To kill a mob you're going to have to use a series of moves, much as if you were trying to kill a player. Automation under these circumstances is possible, but not nearly as easy as simply making a trigger to swing your sword every two seconds.

4. Roleplay.
Lithmeria will be IC enforced across all but a few selected channels. Though Lithmeria will not have dedicated PvP zones, you will generally be safe from enemy faction players if you remain on your continent and avoid hot-spots. The rarest harvesting components are likely to be found either in highly contested zones or places where powerful mobiles roam the land though... so you may have to gather an expedition to protect you on your quest for super plants.

----

As I said above, Lithmeria is in development (nearing the last few months 10x000 fingers crossed). Even if you're looking for something immediately playable, I hope you'll consider at least popping into the forums, checking it out and maybe giving it a try once it goes live.

Best of luck!
- Elvarlyn
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