Ever since the MUSH opened, we have found that a lot of prospective players struggle with or have no interest in going through the full CharGen process. Based on player feedback, we have continuously tried to improve the process as well as added alternative ways of getting started on the game. As things stand right now, a player is able to get started quite quickly by selecting a previously played character. But we still get a fair number of prospective players who don’t like the idea of taking up a character that someone else made and who also don’t want to go through the CharGen process. We are now going to experiment with a new approach to this problem.
If you would like to play in Sunspear, but you do not want to play a previously played character and you do not want to do the CharGen setup yourself, we can do the CharGen setup for you from a written concept that you send in. This offer applies both to current and prospective players, and the following limitations and caveats apply:
1) At this time the offer is only valid for characters based in Sunspear in Dorne. This means that it is preferred that you have read A Storm of Swords and maybe also A Feast for Crows. Exceptions can be made for experienced MUSHers. If this experiment turns out well, we may extend the offer to King’s Landing-based characters too.
2) We ask that anyone interested in this offer first take a look at the CharGen process, to decide whether or not they really want us to do it and to give them a sense of what to put into the concept writeup.
3) The concept does not have to be lengthy, but the less information that it provides, the less likely the character will be just what you were hoping for. It is definitely suggested that it includes anything you are totally against as part of your character.
Thanks to a suggestion from one of our players, we have introduced a new switch to the +CDB/VIEW command: /ALL. This will display all information concerning a character that you are authorized to see. It is a compliment to +cdb/rview’s /all switch, and combined should give a very good overview of any character on the game.
Based on the nominations for September, a Story Point (SP) has been awarded to Andry, and Experience Points (XP) were awarded to Dagur, Desmona, Fiona, Janden, and Joleta for their contributions to the game over the last month.
For more information concerning the Advancement system (how to use SP and XP, how to nominate, etc), see +HELP ADVANCEMENT and SYSTEM ADVANCEMENT.
Balerion has been hard at work on filling out some of the articles in the Theme wiki. The articles on Geography and Organizations have now been completed, leaving only Lifestyle and Society. We’re not quite sure what to do with these yet, and would appreciate any suggestions for what people would like to see. The same goes for any suggestions for additional articles to add to the wiki. Keep in mind, however, that the Theme wiki is intended as an overview of key elements of the setting that can help those who are more or less unfamiliar with the books.
The CharGen process for previously CGed characters has been tweaked slightly to allow them to pass straight through the CharGen, just like Cameos. This means that once the initial Setup (the email & alt registration) has been completed, both Cameos and other CGed characters will enter CharGen, get moved automatically to the last room and there they can choose to exit and be automatically approved without setting anything extra.
If anyone has any other feedback on how to make the process of getting a character on the game quicker and easier, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’ve been working continuously on streamlining this as much as possible, but sometimes our perspective is the wrong one for seeing that something doesn’t work or how to fix it.
Based on the nominations for August, Experience Points (XP) were awarded to Humfrey, Janden, and Sarmion for their contributions over the previous month.
For more information concerning the Advancement system (how to use SP and XP, how to nominate, etc), see +HELP ADVANCEMENT and SYSTEM ADVANCEMENT.
The alt policy has been modified to remove the requirement that a player’s first character has to be at least 1 month old before the player can acquire a second character. However, the first character does have to be approved before a second character can be requested. We are hoping this will encourage more players to try out a Dornish character now that the rebellion is about to begin.
Almost three years have passed since King Daeron I, the Young Dragon, invaded and conquered Dorne, the last independent realm in Westeros. Within the next month, the fires of rebellion will sweep through Dorne, and in light of this we would love to see more PCs in Dorne, either Dornish natives or members of the Targaryen occupation forces. Considering that roleplay will likely be sporadic to start up, we encourage Dornish PCs primarily as alts for those who already have a PC in King’s Landing, but we will also advertise outside of the game and anyone who wishes to have just a Dornish PC is of course welcome.
While the broad outline of the events is already planned out, as we will be following what canon knowledge there is about these events, the fates of individual characters are very much up to their players. The option definitely exists to work with the Admin to tie new character concepts to current and forthcoming events.
We are hoping that as the rebellion progresses, some plot locations may be added to the grid on a temporary basis to allow for the playing out of battles and other important events that do not take place in either King’s Landing or Sunspear. Temp alts (in the form of puppets or player objects setup specifically for that purpose) will likely be made available to take part in such events, but there will also be room for actual PCs (not the least non-Dornish knights) to relocate to Dorne.
All questions and comments are, as usual, most welcome.
Based on the nominations for June, a story point (SP) was awarded to Stevyn for his contribution to the game. Experience Points (XP) were also awarded to Ethos and Janden for their contributions over the previous month.
For more information concerning the Advancement system (how to use SP and XP, how to nominate, etc), see +HELP ADVANCEMENT and SYSTEM ADVANCEMENT.
Based on nominations for June, story points (SP) were awarded to Ethos and Tancred for their contributions to the game. Experience points (XP) were also awarded to Aurana, Dagur, Janden, Reyna, and Sirona for their contributions over the previous month.
For more information concerning the system, see +HELP SP and +HELP XP. For information about how to use story points or experience points you’ve earned, see +HELP ADVANCEMENT and SYSTEM ADVANCEMENT
+Rumors has seen several modifications, following recent feedback.
* Botched investigations will now only return PCs from the area of play as possible sources. Currently, the code does not check for connection time, so some of the results may remain implausible (from an OOC perspective). We will evaluate whether checking for connection time is also desirable.
* Rumors with an obfuscation of 2 or higher (ratings run from -4 to 4) were previously impossible to discover the source of. This how now been changed somewhat. 4’s remain impossible to discover under any circumstances—the person who has started the rumor has simply covered their tracks too well. However, if your investigation roll is superior to the obfuscation value of a rumor, its obfuscation rating will fall by one point. This means that a rumor with an obfuscation of 3 will, after two superior roles, be reduced to a rating of 1 which would then mean a subsequent successful investigation will discover the source.
Finally, each time the source of a rumor is successfully discovered, the obfuscation rating is dropped by 3 points. This means that when it hits -4 (the lowest value), +rumors/view will show the source of the rumor to all people.
Some of these changes are, again, experiments in an attempt to find the perfect balance for the system. Please take that into consideration when using the system and providing us feedback.
The guidelines for the Rumor system have been expanded on and, we hope, clarified. The following addition was made:
For targetted rumors it is important that the contents of the rumor actually constitute a positive or a negative rumor that realistically would affect someones Influence or Renown. This means that although targetted rumors still can be false, they need be believable. Players who feel that a targetted rumor fails in adhering to these standards should report this to the Admin via +jobs (+HELP JOBS).
Since the system is seeing a lot of usage now, make sure you have read the whole Rumor Guidelines file and make sure to direct any questions to Admin as soon as possible.
The nomination code has now been overhauled to be a general nomination code as supposed to just nominations for SP. Players can now submit 5 general nominations per month, and the Admin will base their decision on what to reward on the reason given in the nomination. Options include SP, XP, Influence and Renown (not yet). Please see +HELP ADVANCEMENT for the new in-game helpfiles for the code and SYSTEM ADVANCEMENT for the helpfiles on the web which discuss other aspects of the system.
We have been tweaking a few things about the in-game boards. Most of the boards now have a longer timeout, and we are also adding more detailed descriptions of the board to help players see what they can be used for. To see the timeout and the description (as well as some other information) about a board, simply type +bbinfo
.
The most significant change so far has been to establish the Plots board. We are hoping to use this board as an easy overview of on-going plots that guests and new players can be pointed to. Players are welcome to post plots to the board as well, just make sure to follow the established format.
If there are any suggestions for boards to add (or drop), please let us know. The current list of boards can be seen with +bblist.
As a further step to making influence more useful, we have now instituted code that will automatically increase or decrease current influence levels at the beginning of each month. Influence points available to be used shall be raised or lowered each month, depending on whether they are presently above or below their current base level, and by what margin. Players who are significantly below or above their base influence will automatically gain or lose influence at a higher-than-normal rate.