Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas all, just last night got my machine setup dual boot, got gentoo and win xp on here now. XP is all set, but need to get gentoo working all nice so I can start my R&D stuff. Hopefully by the end of the week ill be moving ahead again. Also considering putting the old dynamic proto on my second machine and see if I can run it for the next month while im off of school. Anyone who use to help test or would like to play please express your interest here or get in touch with me so I can see if its worth it. Anyways, hope everyone has a great day/week.

-Toraux

Dynamic Spec Draft Complete!

Just finished the first draft of the spec.... printing as we speak(damn it took a while). I wrote up constructables tonight, which is the system that will cover constructing buildings, wagons, heavy weapons, and mines. The only really new thing people might not have heard of here is the blueprinting system for construction.

Blueprinting allows people specified by the tribe leaders to create plans for structures which mobs will try to complete, and players will be able to see and help work on as well. I really noticed during the prototype phase that group construction was hard if there wasnt very very low level micro management etc so this should help.

The spec is 61 pages at the moment. You can see it zoomed way out in the pic with this post. Ill be revising this over the month of January, and ill be working on finding the best system to design dynamic on in terms of programming language and other supporting architecture. Ill be reporting here as normal. Dont expect to hear from me until finals finish, time to buckle down. C-ya guys then.

-Toraux

Player Interface

This section basicly just outlined player accounts, prompts, etc. Not much to mention except for the following.

Players will own a single account, with a limited number of living player slots. They will also be able to purchase a warning system for this account. If their characters are at risk they may get an email or a text message etc.

We'll have custom prompts and a nice 3d hearing system.

Got 59 pages now and just constructables left. Ill write that up tomorrow or thursday, and post a screen of the zoomed out doc right after and get this printed for the next phase of editing. Finals and other tests starting next week too so ill be posting less for a bit. Once im done ill work on editing and testing languages and software stuff too. Laters.

-Toraux

Logging

Nothing big, basicly just outlined the logging section, not much of interest here except that it will log basicly anything and everything as well as track bugs and statistics. Got player interface and constructables left to do. When I complete the first draft I think ill get a screenshot up here of the document zoomed way out. Anyways, laters.

-Toraux

Events

Pretty busy today with all the hw. Did manage to write up the events section though. Basicly events will be preplanned occurances, they will be published in the book of prophecy mentioned earlier in the media stuff. These events may be triggered by various things etc. An evil magic user might unleash a demon, or an army might attack from afar. Staff members will monitor and track these potential happenings as well as make an attempt to guide events and keep the story fun.

Coolest idea I had with this was the method that staff will use to directly impact decisions. They will be able to play the concious(or lack of) in players with special commands, and trying their best to provoke them. They will also use a dream feature to make a player notice a message when they awake. They can reread it etc, but it will deteriorate each time it is read. This message will help show them the future or what they should do etc to try to get them to advance the story.

Anyways, three sections left, hopefully ill have more time tomorrow.
-Toraux

Effects

Effects include day/night cycles, weather, wind, and fire. Day and night will effect growth, and visibility at night etc. Might not see people on map at night smaller map maybe etc.

Weather is as is expected. Weather will damage items and wilderness rooms, impact growth, change visibilty, start fires, kill people etc. Heres a list of basic weather items:
Rain
Lightning
Hurricane
Tornado
Flood
Snow
Blizzard
Sandstorm

I also decided different areas will be predisposed to different weather, like wintery northern areas etc. Time of the game year will also impact weather.

Wind will effect weather and fire etc. My cool idea for wind is that it will be based on magic. Magic users, demons, magical events, fires, etc will all help to create high and low magic pressure areas. Wind will flow from high to low areas. This could cause players to notice large magical battles or demons or add to the enviornment or sense of urgency.

Fire will burn items, players, and the wilderness, it will spread based on fire, damage stuff and piss people off. Should be fun :P

Anyways up to 57 pages now, 4 items remain to be completed, expecting early next week ill be done with the first draft. Weeee! Laters.

-Toraux

Help and Advertising

Two small and pretty unrelated subjects. Help is pretty simple. Basicly just a normal help keyword system like most muds. We deviate from the normal scheme with an in depth scripted tutorial teaching newbies all the basics including combat and world interaction. Not much more to say about that.

Advertising is just mention of how we will recruit players for the pre release versions and post release. We will use the TMC and TMS forums pre release to got testers. We will use these methods as well as mud listings, web and print advertising to drive players to our game when the game hits release phase.

I know pretty small post but I should get back to some studying or something. Not going to be working on this tomorrow, but should get a decent chunk done on thursday, and expecting completion of the first draft sometime next week.

Later,
-Toraux

Busy As Ever

School has taken a turn for the worse. Lose 5 points.

School is busy this week, tests to be taken, big presentation on wednesday and lots of homework. Finally got a bit of stuff written up today, namely the rules and media sections. These sections include basic game rules(DUH!) and stuff on the website, generated maps, merchandise, and the cool plan to sell some books based on in game happenings. Other then that not much to report in. Think ill be able to catch up to the homework and get back on schedule but who knows.

Currently most of the way through my 54th page. Ill get back to trying to finish homework and if im lucky ill have another section or two done tomorrow night. Laters.

-Toraux

Items and Resources

Ok so I wrote up Items and Resources finally. Im onto my 51st page now.

Basicly Items and Resources are the same type thing, but resources are generated by the wilderness and items are made by players using skills and requiring resources. Players will be able to harvest resources from the world and its creatures and put them to use to make items and buildings etc. Items will be everything else like weapons, armor, etc. Players will create items using skills and also be able to repair them. The weather and other effects will deteriorate items and resources and can potentially destroy them. When their durability hits zero the item is destroyed. Players will be able to repair items at a cost of max durability, making all but magic user imbued items relatively short lived.

Not expecting to write up much over the Thanksgiving break.

Got this left to do:
Rules,
Media,
Advertisement,
Constructables,
Help,
Player Interface,
Effects,
Planned Events,
Logging

Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving, c-ya later.

-Toraux

Combat Completed

Ok so combat is now complete, added sections on Adrenaline/Battle Calm, Hiding, NPC control in combat, Magic in combat, and a small section on localized damage.

Adrenaline will benefit players who are outnumbered, giving them a bit of a combat advantage but even more importantly giving them speed and stamina bonuses. This is the fight or flight response of an unseasoned newbie.

Battle Calm is for the experienced player, giving them accuracy and defensive bonuses for being battle hardned. An experienced warrior wont have the adrenaline overload that a newbie would have and thus would be more effective in combat.

Hiding allows players to hide and not appear on the map. A player using hide will be able to do it better at night, and it will work well for ambushing players. Players will also be able to sneak into rooms, this will work with unarmed combat for sneaking up on people.

Magic will be a part of combat, look back at the magic section and youll see we got a bunch of magic abilities directly or indirectly based on combat.

Localized Damage will allow for some areas on a target to be more vulnerable. Im considering allowing the damage or destruction of limbs etc on a permenant basis.

In larger conflicts when players are controling large groups of NPCs they will be able to order them around by shouting commands. They will be able to give various orders including formation and tactics. NPCs attached to a player will follow his movements when in formation.

Im now got 47 full pages of text. Im planning on writing up the items and resources sections tonight, ill probably post again then.

-Toraux

Ranged and Heavy Weapons

Ok so finished up and wrote in the melee stuff, heres a basic list of melee weapons I wrote up:
- Short Swords
- Swords
- Long Swords
- Daggers
- Axes
- Spears
- Shields
- Clubs
- Maces
- Hammers

I also wrote up a small section on hand to hand combat allowing players to sneak up and attack players unarmed.

Ranged weapons will play an important part of dynamic's wars. Players will be able to fire their weapons both directly and indirectly at other players and mobs. Direct fire will allow players to hunt and try to snipe other players, but this will require much skill and will tend to not be an effective battle tool. Indirect volley is the use of volleys to saturate a target with arrows to weaken an opponent. Wind and weather will impact the accuracy of these weapons.

Heavy weapons will include catapults, cannons, and battering rams. These will see use in defending and attacking defensive positions like villages, and will also be useful for ships when they are added in the future. These weapon systems will be very slow to move and require large awkward ammo.

I also updated the ranks list and added a small new section to humanoid entities on titles.

Tommorrow I hope to complete:
Magic
Adrenaline/Battle Calm
Localized Damage
Force Control

Those four sections will round out the combat section. I am now onto my 46th page and still going strong. Hope to hear from some of you soon.

-Toraux

Melee Overview

The first part of combat will probably be the hardest to define. There will be many factors influencing melee combat. I havent yet written this part up, it could take me the rest of the week and beyond to complete. What I do know is this: weapons will have an impact. Quality weapons will do more damage, be less likely to break etc. Different weapon types will also impact combat. Spears will give a defensive advantage for example but suffering penalties indoors. I would like combat to be an unlocked system. Most muds ive played force you to use a flee command to leave the fight rather then just walking away. I hope to implement a system where the way you posture your weapon, your orientation to your target, and your opponent's posture and orientation will be the basis for combat. I want something that will be more of a thinking man's game when it comes to fighting, well mostly thinking, but a bit of fast reaction speeds. I might end up writting something on this level tomorrow about melee or I might try and think it through to a more in depth level. I have ideas on how orientation will play into fights but I have a lot of thinking to do. And remember with a system like this I intend to have it in such a way that in many cases if your armor or blocking skills arent adequate you might be dead when you get hit, looking for more realism and trying to balance abilities not stats. Anyways hopefully more tomorrow night. Im out.

-Toraux

Solo Herbivores and Pack Hunters

The next and final two creatures are Solo Herbivores and Pack Hunters.

Solo Herbivores are large lumbering creatures. They will eat vegitation and wander from place to place. Occasionally when they have kids they will allow company but most times they will be solo. They even throw the kids out at a very young age(how many parents wish they could do that?).

Pack Hunters will be like dynamic's version of wolves. They will hunt and stalk prey and wander around. Every so often they will settle down into a base camp from which most members of the pack will go hunting while others protect the young at the camp. The hunters will bring back food from the kill etc. These creatures will be very smart and team based, working to divide and conquer their foes.

This wraps up creatures for now, im thinking next week ill try to start on combat, but this is a very complicated set of descriptions so it could take a while. I also think I will be reexamining time in the next week because it seems like it needs to be tweaked a bit. C-ya next time.

-Toraux

Steeds and Solo Hunters

So the two types of the day are: Steeds and Solo Hunters.

Steeds are your basic mount. They will be commandable using both verbal commands as well as other controls when your riding one. They will also be useable for hauling wagons etc. Not too much more to mention here.

Solo Hunters will be very independant territory based creatures. They will be aggressive, stalking and hunting prey in their territory. They will have longer lifespans and totally abandon their kids when they are born. They will be very fast and make use of scent to hunt their prey. Dont think theres anything left on those.

Sounds like people took my side on mudconnector, guess I posted in the correct place anymore woo! Also broke 1k hits on this site but I think google is triple counting each hit :/ Got a solid 41 pages of written material now and going strong, got a few more creatures ill write up and post about on thursday and then ill be onto something new next week. I appreciate you guys reading this, thanks. Until next time.

-Toraux

Pack Herbivores

So next create I wrote up today was pack herbivores. Theres creatures will live in packs and defend their young by surrounding them. Players will need to force weaklings from the pack if they plan on scoring some kills to get food without dying. These creatures will pack tusks and a spiky tail to defend themselves. These creatures will also feature a male and female feature. The eldest female of the pack will become the matriarch and will lead the pack. They also will be very mobile, not staying in a single place for more then a day or two of game time.

I finally got approved to post on TMS but based on a response I got on mudconnector today I might not be posting anymore until im closer to the testing phases. Not sure what people think about that.

More and more I wish I was coding this thing, instead of planning, guess I will in time. Anyways im kinda tired so ill stop rambling.

-Toraux

Dragons and Army Ants

Havent posted in a while, friday I put something on the Mudconnector mud promotion forum and got about 300 hits for the day. Site's total is now about 750 hits since I started. Today I added three things to the spec bring it up to about 38.5 pages or so.

First thing I added was a slight change to movement. I had movement through deeper water completely unallowed. Players could wade across rivers, but if you wanted to go more then waist deep in the ocean it would be impossible. Im planning a swimming skill that will allow players to travel through deeper water for a high cost of movement and breath. Potentially even allowing them to swim underwater. This will allow for a bit more mobility now, but will really shine when ships and boats are coded. Right now ships seem like theyll be a DynamicMUD II feature. Your ship gets sunk? Well not so bad, just tread water and hope to be picked up.

The two big additions of the day however are a pair of creature types. Dragons and Army Ants.

Dragons will be large badass creatures living many many years. They will inflict massive amounts of damage and require large armies to kill. They will be very territorial, claiming and defending the land around their lair and aggressively hunting those who come too close. They will also hunt players and NPCs for food and try to raise their young dragons who they will pass their characteristics on to etc. When the young dragons hit a certain age they will leave the lair and start their own etc.

Dragons will provide two very useful resources when killed. They will provide dragonhides of the color that they are. These hides will bestow special effects to the items made out of them. Other dragons parts like horns, teeth and bones will also provide special effects when used to make items. Dragons will also have the ability to breathe fire.

Army Ants will be a collection of mobs working together. There will be different classes of mobs within this colony that will perform different tasks. Warriors for example will defend the colony and hunt for food while the Queen will produce young. These ants will live in two phases, a defensive phase where they will reproduce and become very territorial, and an aggressive phase where they will move accross the landscape looking for a new place to settle down.

I also wrote up a small portion on fish. Players and NPCs will be able to try their hand at fishing. Fish species will probably be thought of as schools that can be depleted and wander around the various bodies of water.

I plan to post something on Topmudsites when they finally allow me access to their forum. I also think I might begin recruiting a webdeveloper soon, I think the template for this site needs revamping, and I wouldnt mind a regular website in the near future.

-Toraux

Creatures

I decided to start working on creatures today, or basicly all non NPC game entities. I started today with the general details for creatures. Over the next week or two I will be working on my list of individual creature types and brainstorming their features and writing each up. I expect each of my posts for the next week or two to each be a creature type.

Creatures will have their own needs and groups. They will require food and might hunt or be hunted by other creatures of the land. Some may be domesticated, and others will require many players to kill. Creatures will need to reproduce, and some might even be heavily territorial. Creatures will also have lifespans like players, but with a much broader range of maximum ages.

Im also quite suprised at the total impressions I have had on the site today, no idea where you guys are coming from but thanks for the support, Im hoping to post on Mudconnector and Top Mud Sites forums on friday and see how many people I can get viewing this work in progress. Anyways C-ya later.

-Toraux

Communication

I added the communication section today. There were basicly five different ways to communicate with other players: shout, say, emote/socials, telepathy, and written messages. Shout is basicly a medium distance means of communication, becoming more inaccurate as the range between players gets closer to the maxium range. Say allows direct in room communication. Socials allow players to show actions that their character are performing. Telepathy allows magic users and immortals to communicate at a great distance. Written messages will allow for long distance communication between various leaders, and message boards will allow better group communication. I am now onto a 35th page, this thing is getting damn long damn fast.

I am planning to post this board on the mudconnector and topmudsites forums on friday. Itll be a kind of 'spread the word' kind of deal and see if we can drum up a larger viewer base, from which we'll be able to draw alpha and beta testers as well as other staff members.

I was also thinking today about the mud in general and my plans for perma death playerkilling. The mere thought of the system makes me smile, lots of adrenaline, and lots of fun. Almost has moral factors to it with 'killing' another player. I know a lot of people dont think they would enjoy this kind of a system but I think itll be quite fun, even for the non pker types.

I hope my readers enjoy this blog, thanks for your support so far.

-Toraux

Immortals

So I decided to write up the "Immortal" Section last night. Mainly includes the basics for staff, as well as a peak into ghosts. Legendary players who die will have the option to become ghosts. Ghosts will only be able to interact with other ghosts for the most part, players wont be able to see or hear them. Ghosts will be able to fight against other ghosts like players do. Some magic users will have the ability to sense ghosts and communicate with them.

My plan is for ghosts to become another layer to the grand scheme of good vs evil. Good ghosts trying to help the forces of good to find and vanquish evil, and the evil ghosts trying to stop them and vice versa.

I also did some very early preliminary research into some server hardware this weekend. I found a 1U rackmount server for only 1200 dollars, including a 3.0gHz p4, 240GB HD and a gig of ram. This info here along drops my suspected startup cost, making this project all that more viable. But anyways I should get some homework done before class.

-Toraux

Magic Users

Got a suggestion tonight to write up the magic system so I did. Three full pages of magic user specifications and im up to a total of 31 pages.

Basicly magic-users are seperate from the tribes and nations of the game and fight their own special war of good vs evil. The two guilds, good and evil recruit players who have a chance of gaining magic abilities. These players have various magic skills, I will list them a bit later in the article. Magic Users will also be very rare. For every 50 players the game might have one magic user.

The following is a list of magical abilities:
Energy Sword
Energy Armor
Energy Blast
Attribute Booster

Passive Sense Magic
Active Hide Magic
Wizard’s Eye
Telepathy
Sense Ghost
Last Act Item Imbue

Basicly speaking the first grouping is a set of self explanatory combat abilities. Energy sword allows the user to create a sword from his mana energy. Energy armor allows the user to create a shielf of magic, blast allows the user to shoot energy and the attribute booster as a buff abilitiy.

The sense and hide abilities involve identifing who is and isnt a magic user. Hiding these abilities and finding them will be very important for this good vs evil war. Wizard's Eye allows for better ranged vision, Telepathy provides ranged communication, and Sense Ghost will allow magic users to see ghosts(Will be outlined later).

The coolest ability is the imbue ability. It will a magic user to give his soul to an item when he or she is on the brink of death. This will make the item indestructable, buff it up some, and give the item the additional name of the player.

I think im going to go to bed, getting late, let me know what you think.

-Toraux

Humanoid Entities Completed

Well just finished up the rest of humanoid entities bringing me to 28 pages. Probably have 60 or 70% left of on the spec at least, this sucker will be pretty long I think.

Basicly I added stuff on tribes, alliances and territory. This system I think will be pretty cool, bloodlines are the same as tribes. This is kind of like clans from other games, the people you play with day to day and who you share goals with etc. Tribes have leaders who can choose who is considered friend or foe etc. Leaders can select heirs to their throne but if they forget (or die too fast) it goes to the eldest tribe member. Leaders also can form alliances with other tribes.. even selecting a form of government etc. Basicly speaking it would be possible to stage a coup over a tribe or alliance if you really wanted to.

Territory is a pretty cool system too. Tribes have villages, each with a flag in the center. These flags will exert some form of ownership over the surrounding terrain within a radius of the flag. Players will be able to see this, so your prompt might show hostile, friendly, constested, etc. Contested land is where two clans have conflicting assertion over a location. Tribes can also capture villages and destroy them so it is possible to try to have possesion of part of the world. I think this is pretty cool, and as far as I know not seen anywhere else. This will allow for wars for domain to occur which will be quite cool.

I also added a new humanoid entity type besides players and NPCs. Special Characters will allow the staff to take part in the game and direct it in a way. A special character might be that Greater Demon some guy released while trying to show off to his pals. The demon brings with it hell hounds that it can control. The staff member behind the demon would be running the campaign as players try to set things right.

Also added notes about the outlaw system. Players who teamkill get marked as outlaws and ousted from their tribe. Players who kill outlaws get tags if they kill enough of them. Plenty of incentive to kill team killers and not to team kill. And btw think dragons and other nasty creatures will be a bit harsher on outlaws :D

Anyways this is whats up so far. Starting to look into the idea of getting a website design underway. If you have experience with html, css, php, or webdesign let me know and maybe we can talk. C-ya next time.

-Toraux

Humanoid Entities

So I actually got more stuff done, seems im almost making time for myself instead of filling it. I wrote up all the properties for humanoid entities today, putting the spec at a full 25 pages. This now includes lists of skills and attributes. Also wrote about the cool logout system where players will still be available to be killed when they arent connected(Makes you want to be in a clan doesnt it?). That system also includes the potential for a means of letting players know when their chars are at risk for an added service fee. I also wrote about lifespans, bloodlines, real-death, genetic traits and auto-description.

Anyone who knows about this project either already knows or should know that all characters are intended to be vulnerable to death, making it a big part of the game. Players also will have maximum lifespans to keep players balanced. This also keeps people from over investing time and becoming junkies(tho is this bad for a game? :P ).

Bloodlines will be the main unit of player grouping in the game. Each tribe has a leader, some elders and a bunch of other players and NPC's. I wrote up a heir system where players can select their heir to their leadership position. Each bloodline will have characteristic genetic traits. Traits will mutate with time and be passed on to your kids, controlling both appearance but predisposition to attributes including magic as well. And finally the autodescription thing will use the traits to generate descriptions and survey messages that will be accurate to the individual.

I am hoping to complete the rest of the humanoid entities section this week. The more and more I mess around with this the more I wish I was playing it. I also think I might be starting to look for a webmaster/webdeveloper to design and maintain a website for me in the next month so stay tuned!

-Toraux

Time

Today I decided to primarily tackle the issue of time. There is a lot to think about when it comes to how time plays into everything else in a game. It especially matters when the world has limited lifespans and limited means of travelling far distances.

This is how time will work. "Day and Night will pass based on this in a way proportional to an estimated total planet size in comparison to how much of the world is available on the map. Passage of time during a game year will be a bit fuzzier. A game year is equal to a full real day. Game years will have names and symbols in a way similar to the Chinese zodiac. A game year will consist of 240 game days, each will be 10 minutes long. There will be 12 game months, each with a name. Each game month will be 20 game days long and thus about 3 1/3 hours long. A game week will be 6 game days long and thus an hour of real-life time." Yeah thats a quote, im lazy and dont want to rewrite it seperate for this.

Also got to starting player stuff, got a basic list of skills down. I now have a total of 23 pages or so in the spec. Im thinking this week will be basicly dedicated to finishing off the player stuff, not sure if it'll be done or not come friday but I think it's a good goal. Once again feel free to post a comment, any input I get could help a lot in refining features or maybe bring up new ones. For example my bro suggested something that would work well with the adrenaline system I got in mind that would allow experienced combatants to have a 'battle calmness' that would help reduce fumbling and stuff. Anyways im out.

-Toraux

Dynamic Abstract

I just wrote up the 'abstract' portion of the dynamic specification... or in other words a summary. Its still basicly unofficial but might give some of you people new to the project a better idea of what im trying to accomplish:



Dynamic Mud is my attempt at a better MUD. I realized that static zones can get quite boring. Game politics in MUDs I have played in the past became a big issue and the worst part was loosing friends and getting in fights. My intention is to create a game where player politics are part of the game. Where people will enjoy interacting with each other both cooperatively and competitively to change a world in their favor. In MUDs like Medievia for example it is hard to detach yourself from the game. It becomes a career and players ‘retire’ when they want to stop playing.

Dynamic’s Real Death System will allow players a more fluid connection to the game. It will become easier to come and go, and players will be able to learn not to become overly attached to their characters as they would in a game where characters last forever. This will also give players a chance to fade in and out, and become someone new. It also will prevent problems caused by all the power gamers ganging up on the smaller players.

Dynamic will be entirely free, it will pay for itself in various means such as advertisements on it’s game generated web-site and various merchandise sales online.

Everything in Dynamic will change from day to day, and even hour by hour. If one watches the map they will see the rise and fall of empires, battlefields, villages and other various changing features. The ability of players to change their landscape ads a whole new dimension of fun. Players will also interact with the occasional planned scripted event. Attacks from the underworld and afar as well as various player driven wars and campaigns. Creatures will also help dictate the landscape as players fight to protect their homes from monsters and dragons.

The game will include no levels, all skills and attributes will grow as they are used. The complete lack of visibly scoring of players will make it hard to judge who is stronger then you and who is not.

The mapping system will provide for much more interesting engagements. Other MUDs have maps but none that I know of have player highlighting on the maps. This system will display player locations in your vicinity, even representing battle lines in large engagements.

The combat system will be innovative with its lack of a combat locking mechanism, allowing for larger swirling melee environments. Ranged weapons and heavy weapons will also add an entirely new strategic element. AI driven beings will add to the scale of conflicts and the scale of the world as well.

The ships system will provide a means for players to travel far and wide across oceans and to battle in a completely different environment.

Dynamic will also include player grown and harvested foods, player created items and a limited resource model.
The coolest thing left to note is the plan to publish books each year that will detail the events of the year, provide maps and figures based on what players did. Players will be able to see their names written in a book when they help keep the world safe, or lead their empire to dominate the world.


Please comment if you would like to, I would enjoy some feedback.

-Toraux

World Section Completed

Whew so thats a lot of stuff. Eleven Pages of Room Types, Movement restrictions, growth and basic discussion of how the mapper will work. Page total is now at 20 pages, this will end up a long specification yet :P

Here is a preliminary list of Room Types:
1. Ironwood Trees
2. Construction Trees
3. Hardwoods Trees
4. Dirt Road
5. Gravel Road
6. Paved Road
7. River
8. Rapids
9. Lake
10. Lake Shallows
11. Ocean
12. Ocean Shallows
13. Wooden Bridge
14. Stone Bridge
15. Grass
16. Corn
17. Hemp
18. Wheat
19. Peas
20. Beans
21. Tomatoes
22. Walls
23. Doors
24. Under a Roof
25. Stairs/Ladders
26. Cliff Face
27. Steep Slope
28. Gradual Slope
29. Large Cavern
30. Cavern
31. Narrow Tunnel
32. Supported Tunnel
33. Walls
34. Gates
35. Guard Towers
36. Spike Pits
37. Flag pole
38. Portals

Yeah theres a lot there. Main things to note that are different from the old alpha test version of dynamic is the new water concepts and the new mountain concepts. And I guess crops because I never got to them. Oceans and lakes wont be totally impassable this time around with the shallow water room types. Mountains will be traversable both inside and outside. And 3d movement is in the design this time around. Also mentioned the Flag Pole room type which will allow villages to name themselves and have it appear on the map and do some cool stuff with the territory stuff.

Yeah kinda scattered thoughts hopefully ill do better in time.

-Toraux

Dynamic Mud News

So I decided to set up a little place to post as I work on the long daunting project of planning, designing, implementing, and eventually running Dynamic Mud. I will be posting my thoughts, changes to designs, and maybe even ask questions... though who knows who will respond.

Dynamic Mud is intended to be a 100% persistant world. No static zones like most other muds, everything changes, including the face of the world itself. Players die for real, creatures populate the world and breed, and everything including boundries and the stories behind them are shaped by our actions.

I currently have an outline for what the game will be. I started 10 days ago on the 16th and I now have about 5 pages of written descriptions and specifications that will one day make up this game. Speaking of which I should get back to writting.

-Toraux