Nattor
11-02-2011, 12:40 PM
from the officials
Reply
The initial changes to Curse, updated Nightmare, and Balefire are going through some final checks. I want to get you all ready for an aspect of Nightmare I hope you'll like.
I've added ten new nightmares for your victims to cope with. Everyone will have one in particular that haunts them, just as with the existing nightmares. That means that everyone now actually has two nightmares that they will typically suffer from, one from each group of ten. Finding out which two are yours is an exercise left to the reader (have fun with that). The new nightmares are what I've been calling "situational" nightmares as opposed to the nightmare of a phantom creature attacking you over and over again. You'll be able to see a full listing of them with the new CURSE verb (unless you're not a sorcerer), but they include things like being trapped in a burning house, or suddenly losing all of your teeth. That last one ends a little more gruesomely than it starts out.
I also fixed a few incidental bugs in the old code, made the AS/DS message from the old nightmares actually show up, and modernized the way it looks so it appears like an actual XML-linked creature is in the room attacking. Victims will be seeing some pretty savage high-rank crits done to themselves along with heavy HP loss, while in reality they're only losing about 5 HP at a time. That was the way it was always meant to display. Please don't bug it when you see it. It's supposed to be lying to you.
The main thing I wanted to discuss was customized nightmares. I feel that the ones I wrote are fairly representative of the kinds of disturbing dreams that many people remember having. I've had a few of them myself. However, after seeing them, you'll probably think you can do better. There will be an option in the spell to cast your own pre-written nightmare at a target so you can unleash your own vision of horror on them. How do you pre-write it? There will be a new merchant service available to record your custom nightmare. This is much like SWEAR MINE, except that I'm hoping to make this available to as many people as possible. In fact, I'll be offering this service in the games in some kind of guise over the next few weeks, and periodically after that, so watch for announcements.
I expect this will be a slow process because it will basically be like writing a couple of long-description alters every time for each person. With that in mind I want as many people as possible to come prepared.
Here's my slightly silly custom nightmare in the dev game instance:
Holding you in his gaze, Strath utters a foul curse upon you in Elven.
CS: +509 - TD: +31 + CvA: +19 + d100: +69 - -5 == +571
Warding failed!
You shiver as a cold wind suddenly blows through the area. It was probably nothing.
>
An ominous black haze edges around your vision. As you struggle to focus, you suddenly feel yourself teetering in the top of a very tall tree.
>
The tree in which you're trying to keep steady is very ugly. Oh no, you just fell out! Your body crashes into the boughs and limbs as they rush up at you...
>
You suffer a devastating strike!
... 62 points of damage!
You are stunned!
S>
You are able to move again.
>
An incredible strike leaves you reeling!
... 66 points of damage!
You are stunned!
S>
etc. etc. etc.
You've got three items that you'll need to supply to the merchant. You'll need to supply the first paragraph ("An ominous black haze..."), the second paragraph ("The tree in which you're..."), and a word that fits in the generic damage messages that follow ("strike"). The first two paragraphs are separated by a few seconds of build-up time. You're allowed to get wordy here, but I don't recommend it because your victims won't have a lot of time to read. 300 characters for each paragraph is way more than enough to get your essential point across, but there's no hard limit. Be succinct and pithy anyway.
For the damage rounds that follow, I have no way of knowing what kind of nightmare you're going to concoct, so I avoided any standard AS/DS numbers, critical hit messages, or even mentioning parts of the body that are hit in order to make your nightmare as believable as possible. However, I left you one word in those lines to fill in that will tie them together with the vision. It could be "strike", "slash", "burn", "hiccup", or anything that would make sense when substituted with the above.
A necessary word of caution. These are supposed to be nightmares, and they are supposed to be scary and grim. I know a lot of you are gifted with some extra dark imaginations, which might be what brought you to choose sorcery in the first place. However, working within the framework of game policy, it should be obvious that certain subject matter that is truly horrific can't be allowed as a custom nightmare. I don't want to start a discussion about what is/isn't/should/shouldn't be acceptable here. That's for the policy folder. If you need to know whether a nightmare you wrote about is going to be acceptable, just ask yourself if I'm going to get legitimate reports about it being abusive or disruptive if you're discussing your idea on the amunet or in town square or something.
Whatever you make your nightmare to be, make it a good one because each player can only have one at any time.
-Strath
"I just want to bury the hatchet. So hold still for a sec..."
Reply
The initial changes to Curse, updated Nightmare, and Balefire are going through some final checks. I want to get you all ready for an aspect of Nightmare I hope you'll like.
I've added ten new nightmares for your victims to cope with. Everyone will have one in particular that haunts them, just as with the existing nightmares. That means that everyone now actually has two nightmares that they will typically suffer from, one from each group of ten. Finding out which two are yours is an exercise left to the reader (have fun with that). The new nightmares are what I've been calling "situational" nightmares as opposed to the nightmare of a phantom creature attacking you over and over again. You'll be able to see a full listing of them with the new CURSE verb (unless you're not a sorcerer), but they include things like being trapped in a burning house, or suddenly losing all of your teeth. That last one ends a little more gruesomely than it starts out.
I also fixed a few incidental bugs in the old code, made the AS/DS message from the old nightmares actually show up, and modernized the way it looks so it appears like an actual XML-linked creature is in the room attacking. Victims will be seeing some pretty savage high-rank crits done to themselves along with heavy HP loss, while in reality they're only losing about 5 HP at a time. That was the way it was always meant to display. Please don't bug it when you see it. It's supposed to be lying to you.
The main thing I wanted to discuss was customized nightmares. I feel that the ones I wrote are fairly representative of the kinds of disturbing dreams that many people remember having. I've had a few of them myself. However, after seeing them, you'll probably think you can do better. There will be an option in the spell to cast your own pre-written nightmare at a target so you can unleash your own vision of horror on them. How do you pre-write it? There will be a new merchant service available to record your custom nightmare. This is much like SWEAR MINE, except that I'm hoping to make this available to as many people as possible. In fact, I'll be offering this service in the games in some kind of guise over the next few weeks, and periodically after that, so watch for announcements.
I expect this will be a slow process because it will basically be like writing a couple of long-description alters every time for each person. With that in mind I want as many people as possible to come prepared.
Here's my slightly silly custom nightmare in the dev game instance:
Holding you in his gaze, Strath utters a foul curse upon you in Elven.
CS: +509 - TD: +31 + CvA: +19 + d100: +69 - -5 == +571
Warding failed!
You shiver as a cold wind suddenly blows through the area. It was probably nothing.
>
An ominous black haze edges around your vision. As you struggle to focus, you suddenly feel yourself teetering in the top of a very tall tree.
>
The tree in which you're trying to keep steady is very ugly. Oh no, you just fell out! Your body crashes into the boughs and limbs as they rush up at you...
>
You suffer a devastating strike!
... 62 points of damage!
You are stunned!
S>
You are able to move again.
>
An incredible strike leaves you reeling!
... 66 points of damage!
You are stunned!
S>
etc. etc. etc.
You've got three items that you'll need to supply to the merchant. You'll need to supply the first paragraph ("An ominous black haze..."), the second paragraph ("The tree in which you're..."), and a word that fits in the generic damage messages that follow ("strike"). The first two paragraphs are separated by a few seconds of build-up time. You're allowed to get wordy here, but I don't recommend it because your victims won't have a lot of time to read. 300 characters for each paragraph is way more than enough to get your essential point across, but there's no hard limit. Be succinct and pithy anyway.
For the damage rounds that follow, I have no way of knowing what kind of nightmare you're going to concoct, so I avoided any standard AS/DS numbers, critical hit messages, or even mentioning parts of the body that are hit in order to make your nightmare as believable as possible. However, I left you one word in those lines to fill in that will tie them together with the vision. It could be "strike", "slash", "burn", "hiccup", or anything that would make sense when substituted with the above.
A necessary word of caution. These are supposed to be nightmares, and they are supposed to be scary and grim. I know a lot of you are gifted with some extra dark imaginations, which might be what brought you to choose sorcery in the first place. However, working within the framework of game policy, it should be obvious that certain subject matter that is truly horrific can't be allowed as a custom nightmare. I don't want to start a discussion about what is/isn't/should/shouldn't be acceptable here. That's for the policy folder. If you need to know whether a nightmare you wrote about is going to be acceptable, just ask yourself if I'm going to get legitimate reports about it being abusive or disruptive if you're discussing your idea on the amunet or in town square or something.
Whatever you make your nightmare to be, make it a good one because each player can only have one at any time.
-Strath
"I just want to bury the hatchet. So hold still for a sec..."