Best Of
Black Lives Matter
Over the last week, millions of people have protested the murders of
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others. Citizens of the
United States and other countries are demanding justice and equity.
We're seeing a movement for change that hasn't been seen in our
lifetimes, and it's long overdue.
First, we stand with the Black Lives Matter movement. We stand against racism. We stand against police brutality. We stand against systemic injustice.
That said, what are a bunch of words from our little company going to do in the grand scheme? Not much. Real change doesn't come from making posts on social media and sending newsletters. Real change comes from taking direct action. Real change comes from replacing ineffective and bad leaders and changing harmful laws and procedures.
We recently watched Barack Obama's speech about the George Floyd protests. We're not going to pretend everyone shares his political views, but we feel Mr. Obama made good points that transcend our differences.
His main point was that while the protests highlight problems in our society we need to combine protests with action and create realistic solutions based on research and data shown to effective. We need to make local leaders put evidence-based procedures in place that we know work. If you haven't watched this presentation, here is a link:
In short, protest if you're willing, and then take other action as well.
What action can you take? You can call local and national leadership,
sign petitions, and donate to charities and programs. And, of course,
you can and should vote out those who act as impediments to change.
Many of us at Iron Realms have been out protesting and making donations to a wide variety of groups related to Black Lives Matter, and we strongly encourage you to do the same. Here are some of the groups we've been giving to, in case you're looking for somewhere to give and aren't sure where:
In solidarity,
Jeremy Saunders, Matt Mihaly, and the Iron Realms team.
First, we stand with the Black Lives Matter movement. We stand against racism. We stand against police brutality. We stand against systemic injustice.
That said, what are a bunch of words from our little company going to do in the grand scheme? Not much. Real change doesn't come from making posts on social media and sending newsletters. Real change comes from taking direct action. Real change comes from replacing ineffective and bad leaders and changing harmful laws and procedures.
We recently watched Barack Obama's speech about the George Floyd protests. We're not going to pretend everyone shares his political views, but we feel Mr. Obama made good points that transcend our differences.
His main point was that while the protests highlight problems in our society we need to combine protests with action and create realistic solutions based on research and data shown to effective. We need to make local leaders put evidence-based procedures in place that we know work. If you haven't watched this presentation, here is a link:
Many of us at Iron Realms have been out protesting and making donations to a wide variety of groups related to Black Lives Matter, and we strongly encourage you to do the same. Here are some of the groups we've been giving to, in case you're looking for somewhere to give and aren't sure where:
- https://blacklivesmatter.com
- https://www.restoringjustice.org/
- https://www.knowyourrightscamp.com
- https://www.naacpldf.org/
- https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd
- https://action.aclu.org/give/now
- https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory
- https://www.nlg-npap.org/donate/
We're living in historic times. Let's all work to make sure we come out of this better than we were before.
In solidarity,
Jeremy Saunders, Matt Mihaly, and the Iron Realms team.
Skuf
1
Re: Mudlet UI
So, this hasn't gone anywheres, I just haven't been posting to the forums.
I have renamed the system after another spelling of Valkryie since I managed to snag it as a domain, Valkryja
It now has a launch screen that allows you to jump into any of the supported MUDs:
Many classes' default bashing strikes are now concat'd, as well as mob deaths, to cut down on the spam when bashing:
You can now target up to ten different targets, which Valkryja will iterate through if you send just st:
When reporting targets, it will also send it to ring if that is enabled, including your room num (this can be disabled). If the PVP mode is enabled, it will automatically unally and enemy the current target.
I have created a means of provided text of both Valkryja system messages and the mud messages captured with my new Logsogumandr module. Included is an incomplete and probably dodgy norrønt translation of a very limited number of things.
You can now gag all the spammy realm messages from the plagues and Fight Club. Thank the dead gods. You can disable/enable that as you desire. They're separate options.
The autobasher will automatically wield weapons it you set left and right to appropriate vnums. I need to work on automating this further.
Gold and credits display on the hotbar is now updated much more reliably. I need to take the tokens display out, but I've been lazy about it since you still technically get them.
Non-binary gender now captures properly.
Defences squelching for repeat messages now much more reliable.
We now track the number of curatives we have available, and loss/gain of clotting balance, and work has begun on tracking what abilities the player has available to a given character.
There are now icons for the various balances:
The code for tracking the gain and loss of different statuses now is much better optimised. It also throws events your own code can work off of.
The ingame ASCII map is now displayed along with room information in a Map panel. I prefer it to the Mudlet mapper, which I've never gotten to work properly sticking it into the UI. But I suppose someone enterprising could overlay it if they desired.
Hotbars for several classes have been filled in, though I still want to get some consensus for quite a few of them as to what people value having on there:
There's a lot of boring backend changes to better clean up, modularise, and optimise the code, too, but you can find the boring details on the gitlab instance if that appeals to you.
So to end on, lets step back a moment, here's what the full UI looks like:
A gentle reminder that Valkryja's free distribution is under the AGPL, which is a copyleft license which requires clear and present attribution if you creative derivative works.
My next focus is on redoing an auto-installer, I had one, but it was hacky anyways, and stopped working.
If you have any questions or comment, feel free to leave them here, or join the discord I have for Valk, here: https://discord.gg/U5aTNY
I have renamed the system after another spelling of Valkryie since I managed to snag it as a domain, Valkryja
It now has a launch screen that allows you to jump into any of the supported MUDs:
Many classes' default bashing strikes are now concat'd, as well as mob deaths, to cut down on the spam when bashing:
You can now target up to ten different targets, which Valkryja will iterate through if you send just st:
When reporting targets, it will also send it to ring if that is enabled, including your room num (this can be disabled). If the PVP mode is enabled, it will automatically unally and enemy the current target.
I have created a means of provided text of both Valkryja system messages and the mud messages captured with my new Logsogumandr module. Included is an incomplete and probably dodgy norrønt translation of a very limited number of things.
You can now gag all the spammy realm messages from the plagues and Fight Club. Thank the dead gods. You can disable/enable that as you desire. They're separate options.
The autobasher will automatically wield weapons it you set left and right to appropriate vnums. I need to work on automating this further.
Gold and credits display on the hotbar is now updated much more reliably. I need to take the tokens display out, but I've been lazy about it since you still technically get them.
Non-binary gender now captures properly.
Defences squelching for repeat messages now much more reliable.
We now track the number of curatives we have available, and loss/gain of clotting balance, and work has begun on tracking what abilities the player has available to a given character.
There are now icons for the various balances:
The code for tracking the gain and loss of different statuses now is much better optimised. It also throws events your own code can work off of.
The ingame ASCII map is now displayed along with room information in a Map panel. I prefer it to the Mudlet mapper, which I've never gotten to work properly sticking it into the UI. But I suppose someone enterprising could overlay it if they desired.
Hotbars for several classes have been filled in, though I still want to get some consensus for quite a few of them as to what people value having on there:
There's a lot of boring backend changes to better clean up, modularise, and optimise the code, too, but you can find the boring details on the gitlab instance if that appeals to you.
So to end on, lets step back a moment, here's what the full UI looks like:
A gentle reminder that Valkryja's free distribution is under the AGPL, which is a copyleft license which requires clear and present attribution if you creative derivative works.
My next focus is on redoing an auto-installer, I had one, but it was hacky anyways, and stopped working.
If you have any questions or comment, feel free to leave them here, or join the discord I have for Valk, here: https://discord.gg/U5aTNY
Havamal
2
Re: Paying credits shouldnt be a solution to a balance problem.
I agree with Eo and Glij. A credit item is a bad idea. Make it an engineering item to be bought in stores or made by crafters. Perhaps offer an engineering item that requires shards, and a credit item that doesn’t. Now the glue is like a desublimator - pay for frost bracers and avoid using shards, or use shards and avoid paying credits. Call it a “glue mixer” or something.Glijije said:I think the glue is a bad idea too. What does the veil have to do with it?
i believe Deklan is referring to the Veil because it was a credit item that negated all manner of scrying, essentially allowing players to “pay to avoid detection” and thereby nullify many critical class features. The glue is similar - “don’t like boots/berserkers? Pay to stop flipping!”
Ryse
1
Re: The issue with the state of raids, and raid objectives
I don't really have a horse in this race anymore, but this all seems very complicated to me. It sounds like the problem is being able to opt out of being raided (that seems fine) while still being able to raid (that's just dumb).
- The monument gains an actual purpose: this objective must be repaired in order to sound the drums of war.
Why not?
- The monument gains an actual purpose: this objective must be repaired in order to sound the drums of war.
Why not?
Septus
3
Re: March Forum Townhall
My question for January got skipped over so I'll just ask it again here.
Would it be possible to bring back events like the valentine's festival/Halloween festival with all those minigame things. I do need to collect another crown. Guess it would Anti-magick's queen of love. I realize it is probably not as easy as flipping a switch and would likely involve having to update the spaghetti mess of code used from before, but those were quite fun and we haven't had them for a while.
Would it be possible to bring back events like the valentine's festival/Halloween festival with all those minigame things. I do need to collect another crown. Guess it would Anti-magick's queen of love. I realize it is probably not as easy as flipping a switch and would likely involve having to update the spaghetti mess of code used from before, but those were quite fun and we haven't had them for a while.
Sumie
2
Re: Quick question
The answers for January and February are posted as a YouTube link in the respective threads. I’ll post a transcript soon.
Eoghan
1
Re: January Forum Town Hall
Hi! Thanks for having this open! I don't post much on forums but I think this is a really great method for players to get involved.
My question is... are there plans to balance the beacon/quartz system?
My understanding is, when shards were first released, they were riftable. This caused some issues because players were able to stockpile vast amounts of shards. We're having a similar problem here with quartz. Currently, Magick cities have absolute dominance (5+ beacons) in all areas where beacons can be placed. This happened before my time, and I imagine that there is also a considerable amount of quartz in their stockpiles that doesn't decay. Because of this big gap, it's virtually impossible for other cities to compete in this environment, and thus, discourages new players from getting involved in caravans. New beacons we place get destroyed relatively quick because there is no way for us to overcome the quartz gap. This essentially makes it so organizations with beacon/quartz dominance will maintain a permanent advantage of sentries/caravan alerts that other organizations do not have, thus further compounding the problem.
Thanks again for this opportunity to be heard!
Casyia
2
Re: March Forum Townhall
Alright, went and reviewed the other two, I'll bite here -
1) Any plans to address the issues with power creep or ideas how to address them?
For context: When I first started playing over a decade ago you could stand your ground in top tier PK with just trans class skills. Some months, maybe a year, after that you needed trans survival and antidotes at a bare minimum. Average damage started going up, so you needed to trans all non-crafting skills to stand a chance after a couple years. Now when I show up it feels like you need multiple level 3 artifacts while being an Aspect to compete. With the playerbase being so small the problem is exacerbated as you are pretty much guaranteed to be facing an artifact-boosted opponent. I imagine a PK-oriented newbie would find this anathema and just quit than suffer with it.
2) Not too long ago I recall one of the staff acknowledging that flip boots disrupted the meta in a way they didn't anticipate. Are there plans to address these? Can we expect more looks at how artifacts impact game balance in the future and will there be options for classleading artifacts in the future? Frankly the pay-to-win model is grating... and honestly I think the current system is ultimately making Imperian far less money than it could, not more.
3) Since I was ranting on something not related to the main question I was asking in 2, I suppose I will ask it separate - will you consider adjusting the value of a credit both in terms of what it can get you and what they cost to buy? A substantial boost to the in-game value of a credit would work wonders for the bottom line. Consider the following two value propositions and ask yourself which somebody is more likely to say sounds reasonable -
"You can grind dailies every day for a month to get that level 3 artifact, or you can pay $50 to get it now"
"You can grind dailies every day for 75 days to get that level 3 artifact, or you can pay $450 to get it now"
Reducing the disparities between level 1 and level 3 artifacts could also work. And you should never underestimate the value of "cosmetics" - you'd be surprised how much somebody would pay for something that makes it so no matter where they go, everybody knows they have money to burn (artifacts that tick a custom message regularly, some special cloak that waves in the breeze visibly when somebody enters or leaves, pretty much anything where the 'plebs' are reminded that one of their 'betters' walked into the room). I know the medium makes it hard to exploit the value of preening, but if you are questioning it, look at your numbers for deathglory orbs and ask how well they sold on introduction compared to other artifacts. I could be wrong, I don't know the market as well, but there are a lot of ways to make money without making your broke/free players feel totally screwed over.
4) Circles - will we see adjustments to these in the near future? I'm fine with deleting them entirely. I see circles and affinity as merely dividing an already shrunken playerbase. I'd also like to point out that psychological studies have shown that you can sort people into random groups and put them in invented categories and it will create an 'othering' effect. I'm not saying hard circle lines are what causes bickering among the playerbase, I am saying that most of the bickering I see today (and a lot of what I saw in the past) was usually across circle lines and rarely within the same circle.
Suggestion: maybe keep affinity but make it so the player is only hurt by cross-circle buffs. Circles have done nothing to stop alliances from being formed (like the current Khan/Ithaqua one), so trying to balance team compositions is DoA, but I see no reason why you can't keep it so an undead templar suffers debuffs that make undeath not worth it for them without stopping cross-circle citizenship, religions, or even simple meet n' greets. Making circle-specific buffs require the receiving party to accept can keep this from being used as a combat tactic.
1) Any plans to address the issues with power creep or ideas how to address them?
For context: When I first started playing over a decade ago you could stand your ground in top tier PK with just trans class skills. Some months, maybe a year, after that you needed trans survival and antidotes at a bare minimum. Average damage started going up, so you needed to trans all non-crafting skills to stand a chance after a couple years. Now when I show up it feels like you need multiple level 3 artifacts while being an Aspect to compete. With the playerbase being so small the problem is exacerbated as you are pretty much guaranteed to be facing an artifact-boosted opponent. I imagine a PK-oriented newbie would find this anathema and just quit than suffer with it.
2) Not too long ago I recall one of the staff acknowledging that flip boots disrupted the meta in a way they didn't anticipate. Are there plans to address these? Can we expect more looks at how artifacts impact game balance in the future and will there be options for classleading artifacts in the future? Frankly the pay-to-win model is grating... and honestly I think the current system is ultimately making Imperian far less money than it could, not more.
3) Since I was ranting on something not related to the main question I was asking in 2, I suppose I will ask it separate - will you consider adjusting the value of a credit both in terms of what it can get you and what they cost to buy? A substantial boost to the in-game value of a credit would work wonders for the bottom line. Consider the following two value propositions and ask yourself which somebody is more likely to say sounds reasonable -
"You can grind dailies every day for a month to get that level 3 artifact, or you can pay $50 to get it now"
"You can grind dailies every day for 75 days to get that level 3 artifact, or you can pay $450 to get it now"
Reducing the disparities between level 1 and level 3 artifacts could also work. And you should never underestimate the value of "cosmetics" - you'd be surprised how much somebody would pay for something that makes it so no matter where they go, everybody knows they have money to burn (artifacts that tick a custom message regularly, some special cloak that waves in the breeze visibly when somebody enters or leaves, pretty much anything where the 'plebs' are reminded that one of their 'betters' walked into the room). I know the medium makes it hard to exploit the value of preening, but if you are questioning it, look at your numbers for deathglory orbs and ask how well they sold on introduction compared to other artifacts. I could be wrong, I don't know the market as well, but there are a lot of ways to make money without making your broke/free players feel totally screwed over.
4) Circles - will we see adjustments to these in the near future? I'm fine with deleting them entirely. I see circles and affinity as merely dividing an already shrunken playerbase. I'd also like to point out that psychological studies have shown that you can sort people into random groups and put them in invented categories and it will create an 'othering' effect. I'm not saying hard circle lines are what causes bickering among the playerbase, I am saying that most of the bickering I see today (and a lot of what I saw in the past) was usually across circle lines and rarely within the same circle.
Suggestion: maybe keep affinity but make it so the player is only hurt by cross-circle buffs. Circles have done nothing to stop alliances from being formed (like the current Khan/Ithaqua one), so trying to balance team compositions is DoA, but I see no reason why you can't keep it so an undead templar suffers debuffs that make undeath not worth it for them without stopping cross-circle citizenship, religions, or even simple meet n' greets. Making circle-specific buffs require the receiving party to accept can keep this from being used as a combat tactic.
Alitis
1
Re: Soliciting Ideas and Feedback - Membership Bonuses
I'm unsure where this idea belongs the most, so I'll just put it here:
Here is an idea:
After getting the 20 daily credits, each character can attain three of the new currency. (call it Lalwan Loot). The following things can be done with Loot:
- each loot can be turned into the character's city/council (more on that later)
- 4 loot can be redeemed for 1 bluestar leaf
- 7 loot can be redeemed for random aesthetic fragment (aethetic ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY)
- 16 loot can be redeemed for 1 moonwort leaf
- 16 loot can be redeemed for 1 green shard
- 16 loot can be redeemed for 1 yellow shard
- 22 loot can be redeemed for random average fragment (as listed in HELP FRAGMENTS)
- 22 loot can be redeemed for specific aesthetic fragment (aesthetic ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY)
- 31 loot can be redeemed for random ethereal item
- 91 loot can be redeemed for specific ethereal item
- 101 loot can be redeemed for specific average fragment (as listed in HELP FRAGMENTS)
- 101 loot can be redeemed for 1 ritual point (cap at 14 ritual points total)
- 301 loot can be redeemed for random major assembly fragment (major ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY: brush, statue, lasso, etc)
- 301 loot can be redeemed for 1 extra tattoo slot (cap at 14 slots total)
- 901 loot can be redeemed for specific major assembly fragment (major ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY: brush,statue, lasso, etc)
City/council loot uses later (potentially)
Here is an idea:
After getting the 20 daily credits, each character can attain three of the new currency. (call it Lalwan Loot). The following things can be done with Loot:
- each loot can be turned into the character's city/council (more on that later)
- 4 loot can be redeemed for 1 bluestar leaf
- 7 loot can be redeemed for random aesthetic fragment (aethetic ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY)
- 16 loot can be redeemed for 1 moonwort leaf
- 16 loot can be redeemed for 1 green shard
- 16 loot can be redeemed for 1 yellow shard
- 22 loot can be redeemed for random average fragment (as listed in HELP FRAGMENTS)
- 22 loot can be redeemed for specific aesthetic fragment (aesthetic ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY)
- 31 loot can be redeemed for random ethereal item
- 91 loot can be redeemed for specific ethereal item
- 101 loot can be redeemed for specific average fragment (as listed in HELP FRAGMENTS)
- 101 loot can be redeemed for 1 ritual point (cap at 14 ritual points total)
- 301 loot can be redeemed for random major assembly fragment (major ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY: brush, statue, lasso, etc)
- 301 loot can be redeemed for 1 extra tattoo slot (cap at 14 slots total)
- 901 loot can be redeemed for specific major assembly fragment (major ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY: brush,statue, lasso, etc)
City/council loot uses later (potentially)
Glijije
3
Re: Improving Imperian
If it isn't a tremendous overhaul, would it be possible to have keywords appear on mobs when probed? Or add it as a secondary function of some other skill like DISCERN if you want to keep probe more RP focused.
I am starting to realize that nothing is actually an animal in this game, at least not in the bashing areas that I regularly frequent.
I am starting to realize that nothing is actually an animal in this game, at least not in the bashing areas that I regularly frequent.
Naruj
2