Aardwolf MUD Blog

While playing Aardwolf as a new user things move along quite nicely until around level 70 or so, at which point there starts to be a big slowdown. After looking at the game balance in this level range, we have made a few changes. Combined with the equipment finding commands added during the last update, we hope these changes make the game a little more enjoyable for newer players and the faster leveling speed benefits everyone.

Mob Hit Points:

The amount of HP that mobs have has been lowered for most levels above level 60 You can see the old vs new chart at:

Very high level mobs haven’t changed much, but most of the other mobs on the way up have.

Weapon Average Damage:

The amount of damage allowed on game load weapons has been increased at most level ranges. If you use game-load weapons you might want to consider acquiring new versions. The old vs new chart can be seen at:

As you can see, this flattens out the curve and allows for a decent increase while still leaving a large gap between game load and aard weapons.

New Goal - Realm of the Firebird (formerly Falcovnia):

High above the tsarist fertile lands, a small blotch of gold and red streaks across the skies. Meanwhile, Tzar Vislav and his advisor are deep in discussion, trying to determine who or what might possibly be stealing apples from the castle orchard.

Surely in a land of petty despots, there must be more to be concerned about than the theft of fruit! To find out, head on up to Tzar Vislav’s domain. The answer begins with the Tzar’s question, “Who or what is stealing my apples!”

Level Range         : 80-110
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 100
Goal Converter      : Lumina
Area Author         : Lumina* 

*This area is based on the original
 design by Dahr & Zane (Falcovnia).

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Other MUD changes in this update:

A number of other changes and bug fixes were made during this reboot, here’s the list:

• The consider command will now show flags such as good/evil at the front of the mob name. It also respects ’shortflags’.
• There is a new ‘mobdeaths neutral’ option.
• The ‘autoeq’ messages when you level will now only show every 5 levels and will not show at all when you are already level 201.
• When using the ‘eye of discovery’ spell on yourself, you will see an unexplored room in the current area rather than random from the entire MUD.
• The ‘fill’ command can now take an optional argument to specify which fountain to fill a container from. This only matters in a handful of rooms such as the Beachcomber Cafe in the Zoo area.
• Fixed ‘wear all’ trying to wear things like pies, bags, etc
• Equipment score based on your compare settings has been added to the ‘invdetails’ command - it is the last value in the {invheader} section.
• The teleport spell when cast by mobs was not working. This has been fixed which means that if you don’t have the ‘noteleport’ wish you will probably start to get teleported by some mobs during combat.
• The ‘note threadinfo’ and ‘note threads’ options showed the red * next to everything as if they were all unread. Now fixed.
• If you failed the ‘hide’ skill with spelltags on, you would sometimes get duplicated fail tags.
• Shadow Form had a chance (1%) to fail even when at 100%. This has now been fixed.
• Using the wtype, wset or wflag trivia spending options on a weapon will now cause it to be flagged unique. This fixes an issue with changing flags returning on items that have been set to remove them.
• I changed the default compare scores for hp/mana and moves to zero - I think the value of these compared to stats just isn’t there, particularly for new players. You can use ‘compare set’ to make your own scores for these whatever you like.
• The vorpal message will now show the weapon you used instead of just saying “your weapon”.

Building on the equipment scoring and compare options added recently, there is another new command called ‘eqsearch‘ that can be used to check if there are equipment upgrades available in open clan halls.

Eqsearch works like compare, but is based on a flagged list of items in the game that are considered ’searchable’. The searchable item list is mostly open clan equipment plus a few easy to find items with decent stats from among the game load equipment. The syntax for using eqsearch is:

eqsearch [item]            : Searches eq against carried item.
eqsearch [wear-loc/group]  : Searches eq for given wear-location.
eqsearch all               : Lists best option for all eq slots.

The scoring is based on your “compare set” options. Eqsearch will also only return items you can actually wear. For example, it will not show items with anti-evil flags if you are evil.

The second part of ‘eqsearch’ is to run through wear locations and and for each wear location; if there is an item on the searchable list that has a higher score than the one you’re wearing, display it. It is basically considered a “shopping list” of items better than the ones you are wearing. Here’s a screenshot of how eqsearch all looks:

When using ‘eqsearch all’, an equipment slot is only displayed if a better item than the one you are wearing (based on score) is found and it will only display items you can actually wear. It should also be aware of which items slots are in use - for example not displaying a better shield item if you’re dual wielding. Aard items will never be suggested for replacement. You should also only see weapons for which you have the skill.

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‘Autoeq’ Command:
There is a new config option called ‘autoeq’. If this is on, when you level you will receive a message when there are items on the searchable list considered better than those you’re wearing. Default is on.

New Goal - Necromancer’s Guild:

There exists in the world a tiny village, so small its name is unknown to mostly all but the residents. Once prosperous and idyllic, the town became host to a guild of evil necromancers and was almost completely wiped out by decay, kidnapping, and even sacrifice of the villagers themselves. Necromancers now come from all over the continent to attend a school buried deep beneath the village.

Seek out the elder as he roams his decimated village, and find out how you can help purge the evil of the Necromancers’ Guild once and for all.

Level Range         : 15 to 30
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 30
Goal Converter      : Purr & Domain
Area Author         : Timeghost & Gimlei

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New Goal - Astral Travels:

As you enter the Astral Travels, the atmosphere is unsettling. A paranoid dreamer begs for your help. Will you save the dream realm….?

A woman stands within the mists, heavily breathing and her eyes piercing with fear. She looks for help. She looks for your help. The Astral Travels have been unsettling recently, maybe you should see what’s wrong and help out? It might determine the future of dreams to come.

Level Range         : 180 to 201
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal recommended at : Level 190
Goal Min Level      : Tikuranari
Goal Max Level      : Trippitaka

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Other MUD Updates:

Other updates this reboot include an area flag to help with corpses in epic areas, superhero campaign time reduction, and a whole bunch of fixes:

• The daily campaign timer is now 23 hours rather than 24 hours. Just gives people a little slack with the exact timing.
• There is a new option to ‘compare’ that will show only items you can actually wear right now. For example, ‘compare belt all wearable’ to see all potential replacement items you can wear, along with their scores.
• To help enable unclanned players to join OC and Inferno runs, there is a new flag on those two areas - any deaths in those two areas will cause the player’s corpse to go to their default “death” room (aylor hospital usually) as if it were a morgue. This was always planned for inferno but we only just got around to adding it.
• There is a new tags option - ‘tags scan on’ puts tags around the scan command.
• Ventriloquate and Create Sound can no longer be used against mobs that are immune to mental damage types.
• When returning from tiering, you will no longer get the newbie outfit equipment. Most people just remove and sac this anyway, and it is really intended for new players, not tiers.
• The title max length now ignores color codes, so people setting color titles won’t have the ‘displayable’ length of the title shortened. The other change that goes with this is that when a title is too long, instead of truncating the title automatically, you will just get an error message.
• The ‘lastkills’ command now accepts an argument in the range 1 to 50 to list only that number of kills.
• Changed the msg when you market bid below the existing bid to the same message as when you don’t bid enough - the new version shows the actual minimum bid needed. Also added some color on the gold amounts to both of them.
• A wrenched mob will no longer return home during the middle of a fight. Neither will a mob that tracks you because you shot at it, but nothing is triggering that code here yet anyway
• Fixed a voting booth bug with max level being 30,000 - we now have players over that level.

New Goal - Xyl’s Mosaic:

There are those who slowly wither away when outcast from their community. There are those who elaborate an alternative. Among the bleak crags of a dark and forgotten land, one such alternative is said to exist. An alchemist of exceptional powers is said to have created a living artifact, an enigmatic habitat, that contains, some say incarcerates, an intricate array of eccentrics and abominations. It is also said that anyone able to unlock the structure of this artificial land may gain an envelope of egress.

Level Range         : 100 to 120
Goal Difficulty     : Difficult
Goal Recommended at : Level 115
Goal Converter      : Carissa
Area Author         : Gastro & Carissa

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Other MUD changes in this update

• You can no longer whisper to anyone who is in deaf mode.
• Added “comma formatting” for gold received when picking up items that crumble into gold. Did the same for sacrifice, sell all and clan tax.
• When a character gets strangled, hide, invis and stealth affects will be removed from both the attacker AND the victim as if they had entered combat.
• Shield block was essentially broken unless you happened to be fighting another warrior. Should be resolved now.
• The ‘exprate’ wish was not working at exactly 10 experience - now fixed.
• New characters with the Inquisitor subclass will now start with their skill in whip set to 90%, not flail.
• Some items with unlimited supply in a store could be sold to a different store and would have unlimited supply in that store too. For example, the ‘beer key’ in Beer Goblins could be sold to Bagger in First Ascent and would be unlimited there. Items should count correctly now in shops other than one they reset in.
• Showcase auctions should be working again. Please let me know if this is not the case.
• You can no longer to in-room rooms on a player you are ignoring or on a player that is ignoring you.
• Doing something like ‘rlook east’ was defaulting to inventory before the room which should not happen with ‘rlook’. Fixing this also involved a change to the regular ‘look’, so please try combinations of these to make sure they still make sense.
• When using remove curse on someone else, the target would get no message if there was nothing to uncurse. Also noticed the caster got no messages in a ’silentspell’ room and fixed that too.

There is a new ‘compare’ command that allows you to compare different pieces of equipment to see which is better.

The idea of having a ‘compare’ command to compare two pieces of equipment is not a new one, and a simple compare that shows which object has the most stats or the most damage is easy enough, but of limited use. What determines whether one item is ‘better’ than another will vary based on the player and the stats they want to focus on. Because of this, the compare is based on a scoring system in which you allocate how many points each stat is worth to you. The “score” of an item is then based on those settings.

To see the points assigned to each stat, type ‘compare set‘. Use the syntax ‘compare set [stat]] [score]‘ to change how many points are allocated to each stat, or ‘compare set defaults‘ to reset the score to the default amounts. The default settings are based on your primary class, with slightly higher points given to primary stats for your class. An example of the ‘compare set’ output is below:

To see a detailed breakdown of how the score is calculated for a single
item, use ‘compare [item1] detail‘.

To compare two items, use ‘compare [item1] [item2]‘. You can compare
items that use different wear locations but will receive a warning as
these items are not considered replacements for each other.

Using compare to find better equipment:

• Use ‘compare [item] all‘ to compare an item in your inventory with all similar items in your inventory.
• Use ‘compare [wear loc]‘ to see check an item you are already wearing with all other equipment in your inventory. Type ‘wearable’ to see a list of individual wear locations for your race.
• Use ‘compare [item]‘ to compare an item in your inventory with similar items already worn.

Each of these three options is sorted in order of score to help identify which items you are carrying are the “best”. Here is an example of comparing a worn belt to other items in inventory:

As the compare feature is implemented more fully, you will see options to filter auction lists, shop inventory, etc by items with a particular score or items considered “better” based on your compare settings.

A new command was added to Aardwolf MUD today that shows a summary of connections sorted by MUD client. Client is determined using the telnet ‘ttype’ option.

Here’s a screenshot of the summary at time of writing:

Most of the clients in the ‘unidentified’ category are returning NULL. From asking the players connected, this seems to be a mix of JMC, GMUD, Rapscallion and various telnet combinations.

Most of those in the “unknown” category are covered by “screen” which seems to be various forms of linux telnet in use by a player who logged in then used ’screen’, a few where the value returned is actually the literal string (null) a handful of players who customized their ttype.

I am surprised by the relative absence of Mudlet, although that is a fairly new client. Also expected Mushclient to be higher, although it does still have the highest count of any actively maintained client.

Additional changes made to Aardwolf MUD in the 26th March 2010 reboot:

• When using ‘campaign check’ to see which targets you have left to kill, if no instances of that mob exist in the game it will show in red with.
• ‘Dead’ at the end of the area/room name. This lets you know not to bother hunting for that mob right now, there’s none alive. Purposely did not make the same change to gquest.
• If more than 10 minutes pass without a global quest target being killed, the quest will automatically end at the next tick. The timer for this can be seen in ‘gquest info’ labeled ‘inactivity timer’.
• The telnet handling in Aardwolf has been completely redone this reboot. Everything should be ok, but if you notice any strangeness in handling telnet options, particular with MCCP or the Aardwolf ‘telopts’, please let me know.
• If a map in a room can’t be drawn because the room is nomap, nothing was being drawn at all. This works fine for the main game screen, but for clients putting the map into another window - that window would never get updated. If you have maptags on, the map will still be drawn in those rooms but will draw blank, which means scripts capturing the map off to another window will now also work correctly.
• There is a new flag called ‘noauction’ that prevents an item from being sold via regular auction or marketplace, and also prevents it from being sold to a shopkeeper. We will set this flag on any manor item or similar that even remotely looks like it could mislead other players into believing it is something else. Not going to endlessly debate whether changing one more character makes it ‘different enough to be allowed’ — if theres any doubt the flag will be set.
• The ‘mobdeaths’ command now shows up to 100 mobs when used depending on how much data is available.
• The conditions for access to the newbie channel have changed - all players on their first remort can now access the newbie channel, unless they reach 300 hours online before remorting.
  
  Suddenly cutting them off past level 50 just doesn’t make sense, there is still so much more to learn. While this will put an additional load on the helper and advisor teams, we would also appeal to more experienced players level 50+ who will now have access to the newbie channel again to jump in and offer help of their own - nobody remembers what it’s like to really be new to Aard better than those who only just left the channel.
• Fixed a bug with ‘examine’ used on a container while blind giving a double message.
• Fixed a couple of bugs in ‘telopts’ - correct status was not being sent when coming out of AFK mode or when coming out of node mode.
• Fixed a buggy ‘flay’ message when target is immune.
• The old lasertag area has now been removed. Shouldn’t affect anything but worth a few games of lasertag to confirm.
• There is a new market option - adding ‘bylevel’ to lbid / market list will sort the list of market items by level.

New Area and Goal - Umari’s Castle:

High in the mountains sits a castle. It is here that the wizard Umari studies and works his magic. Oh, he has no need for company, for the griffons he so loves wander about his castle. Yet, he has found them far too wild to keep as pets. Thus, they either wander his castle freely or they are subjected to his strange experiments. Do you dare venture into the depths of the mad wizard’s castle? While a half-griffon may find their origin, surely only folly awaits those who venture into the abode of such a mad, obsessed wizard…

Level Range         : 201
Goal Difficulty     : Difficult
Goal Recommended at : Level  201
Goal Min Level      : Level  201
Goal Converter      : Lumina & Rayna
Area Author         : Rayna

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New Goal & Redo - The Lost City of Atlantis:

Far beneath the surface of the ocean, a civilization flourishes. Merfolk fish and swim and play and shop. Unbeknownst to them, their god, Neptune, has been angered. Neptune’s cleric has received visions of the end of the world. He is searching for someone, someone who can save them. Will that person be you?

Level Range         : 20 to 40
Goal Difficulty     : Very Hard
Goal Recommended at : 36
Goal Converter      : Domain
Area Author         : Domain (original concept by Jaromir)

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New Goal & Redo - The Slaughter House

A decrepit mansion stands on a barren plain as a solitary beacon of evil. The denizens who reside there are drawn by the demonic power source that lies beneath, and filters through the mansion. The power source has drawn forces of evil from all corners of the realm, all vying for sole ownership. A fearless explorer may be able to tip the balance of power, discover the source of the dark magic, or uncover the mystery surrounding Nox, the mistress of ‘The Slaughter House’.

Level Range         : 120 to 145
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level  145
Goal Min Level      : 0
Goal Max Level      : 0
Goal Converter      : Kergin
Area Author         : FireW

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New Goal - The Shadows of Minos

Long ago, the land of Minos was spoken of with awe and respect with just a touch of fear. The people of the world knew the Minotaurs as a proud, cunning, and aloof race, and few were there who could enter the lands of the Bull people as free men. The people of Minos were traders, sailing Aphasia and later the other oceans with an expert seamanship envied by many. They were warriors of great pride, often fighting in the arena at Reme just for the sport. None of this could last. Inevitably war came to Mesolar, and the Minotaurs, being a warrior race, and proud of their abilities, were not to be left out.

They eagerly joined with the Trolls and Ogres who lived in the nearby Greenwart swamp. At first, the Minoan forces raided up and down the eastern coast of Mesolar, but soon, several of the warriors grew restless for true battle, so the Minoan ships dropped the Minotaur soldiers in their homeland and sailed around the southern tip of Mesolar as a diversion. Those soldiers left back on Minos marched across to the main continent of Mesolar and prepared to assault the Elves living in Silverwind.

For a time, battles raged across the land, culminating in a large, decisive engagement west of the Silverwind forest. Aylor and her allies were victorious, but both sides had taken heavy losses. The minotaurs retreated back to their homeland to regroup and plan for a counterattack. Everyone, including the Minoans figured that the war was over, and the current king of the Minotaurs, Asterion wanted to plan for revenge. He wasn’t to have his chance, however. The Remans called a council of war and since they had the most numbers left after the war, they proposed to lead a punitive force to Minos. The Remans had long been jealous of the wealth of the Minotaurs, and they hated the Minoans above all other races. It is no wonder since so many of the Reman’s most favorite gladiators had fallen in the arena against Minotaur berserkers.

There were several willing to join with the Remans on this surprise attack on Minos. The Elves living in Silverwind were not eager to wait and see if the Minotaurs would return to burn their homeland, and the Aylorian forces had not yet made it back to their new city. The emperor of Reme put one of his best generals in charge of the expedition, and a few Silverwind Elves and Aylorian knights joined the legions on the march to Minos. It isn’t known what happened in that now cursed land. Most of what is known has come out of the land with screaming men who had once been treasure seekers. There was a large battle over the entire land of Minos, and it is rumored that the land itself rose up in a curse against all who were involved, for vengeance and hatred ruled that day. The forces of light spared none, even children were slaughtered by the Remans and their allies.

Not one of the soldiers sent into Minos ever returned, and no Minotaurs alive today will speak of Minos, not outside their own circle of friends and family anyways. Still, men and women go into the land chasing the rumor of Asterion’s great treasure. Historians go to seek the truth of the end of Minos, and adventurers go because they’re adventurers, and because they’re fool hearty, or so some in taverns say when they speak of the matter.

Level Range         :5 to 35
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 30
Goal Converter      : Paramore
Area Author         : Aardwolf Community

New Area and Goal - The Fractured Lands:

Centuries ago, The Fractured Lands were one, not divided as they are today. There was much violence and warfare in the lands that after a century of the most violent times in history, the gods grew angry and split the lands. They also placed a curse on the lands that they would cease to exist if not for the help of outsiders, free to travel amongst each of the worlds of the Fractured Lands.

Free travelers, take pity upon those who dwell in The Fractured Lands and help renew their existence!

Note: Fractured Lands and Darkside of Fractured Lands replace Dominia and Darkside of Dominia.

Level Range         : 20 to 40
Goal Difficulty     : Very Hard
Goal Recommended at : Level 40
Goal Converter      : Zafirah, Tzitzimime and Domain
Area Author         : Zafirah (original concept by Valkur)

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New Goal - The Seven Wonders:

The Museum of Seven Wonders is a magical place that lets you experience all these wonders in one place- from the Great Pyramids of Giza to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Come explore the museum and all of its spendor.

However, in spite of offering all of these wonderful exhibits, deep budget cuts have hit the staff. A helpful hostess has noticed you visit the Museum quite often, and wonders if you could help them out. Will you help out at the Museum?

Level Range         : 100 to 120
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 120
Goal Converter      : Domain
Area Author         : Zendalonii

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Other changes in this update

• Gamestat 11 shows a summary of players by how many friend slots they have used. This was actually in last reboot but wasn’t announced and has changed a little since then.
• A low level inquisitor using ‘outfit’ will now get the Aylorian Whip instead of the Flail. Other paladin classes still get the Flail.
• New quest item: ‘Bow of Aardwolf’. Nothing special about this, just more preparation for Archery. The “new quest items” part of deadideas is still valid, this was only added because of the new weapon skill.
• The effectiveness of spirit shield is now determined partly by the int/con of the attacker vs the int/con of the target. The effect won’t be that noticeable unless the stat difference is huge, but is definitely there.
• When targeting mobs in a room for mob actions, you will no longer find yourself with an abbreviation. For example, if I type “kill la”, I will not attempt to kill myself, unless I type the name in full. The syntax ’self’ still works. There may be some commands not yet covered by this, but it should work for most things.
• Added a simple ‘qp’ command as a quick way to check your qp earned, completed, etc without having to view all of ‘whois’.
• The command ‘rt’ is now a global alias for ‘runto’.
• The auction channel now has an ‘Auction:’ prefix to make it consistent with marketplace and rauction.
• The ‘practice’ command with no argument, and the ‘learned’ command will now show spell/skill numbers. Makes sense to add this here as you can practice to speed things up a little.
• When searching who using ‘from’, ‘afkmsg’ or ‘www’, colorcodes will now be ignored (Velian). Also made the same change to searching channel history (Tikuranari) and to searching for socials.
• Fixed Gaias Focus being able to improve from a failed syntax.
• The +1 wisdom training on the Diva race has been switched to Int to better fit its description.
• Using ‘tame’ will be easier against higher level mobs if you are a primary class ranger.