Hello everyone. I just started playing Carrionfields um.... yesterday. I know that most people don't take new people very seriosly when they have ideas but here it goes anyways. Oh and just as a sidenote I have been mudding in general for several years.

Suggestion Numero 1: Include the ability to apply colours to your prompts. This allows a player to tell where the first and last line of a new room or battle tick to be seen and comprehended easier. It also often makes it easier to read and distinguish the important stats that everyone has in thier prompt. Since this will not effect other people (just the individual with the prompt) I do not see why there would be a problem with this.

Suggestion Nombre 2: (Yeah well nombre means name in spaniish but it still sounds good) Allow carriage returns to be included in prompts so multi-line prompts would be available for those of us who just have to have every available option in thier prompts and want it to be a bit easier to read (HP MP MV on first or last line. Other stuff on other lines to be easier to get the information you need to look at and ignore the rest)

Suggestion Number 3: (So I'm not very well versed in other languages sue me) Allow searches of the who list to be done by more catagories such as class and level (not just PK, Nebie, Imm, and Race). If you're looking for that one Level 30 Paladan because you need the skill that he has it's certainly a pain to scroll through often three or four pages of WHO to find him. (Had this experience myself allready when looking for a healer.)

Suggestion Number 4: (You thought I was joking about my language skills didn't you... didn't you!!! *shakes his fist* heh) Include a format command (Or auto format) for descs and other such things so then a desc will automatically will be adjusted to 80 charachters to the nearest word. This would make descs easier to read, provide the lazy person who doesn't care so much but is willing to type in two words to format it easy access, and save time for those of us who do attempt to make our descs formatted for easy reading (like me!)

Suggestion Number 5: I've heard (from nameless immortals) that you are very proud of your "Extensive Help Fileage". And yet I noticed that there is no help file on Immortals, Avatars, or Implementers. I coming from other muds who do not use Avatars was instantly curious when I saw them on the who list and looked for a relevant help file. This would also help MUD newb's who read a whole bunch of help files but need more clear ideas of what Immortals and the such do in both an IC and OOC role. As well as contact information for the immortals would be nice in this help file as well.

Well that's all the suggestions we have for you today. We hope you had a swell time reading them and I hope to hear back from anybody who has an oppinion as well as from Imm's who have either decided to nix my ideas (though I think they are pretty sound) or have decided to implement them. I would greatly appreciate feedback especially if you do plan to implement them.

Suggestion Number 5: I've heard (from nameless immortals) that you are very proud of your "Extensive Help Fileage". And yet I noticed that there is no help file on Immortals, Avatars, or Implementers. I coming from other muds who do not use Avatars was instantly curious when I saw them on the who list and looked for a relevant help file. This would also help MUD newb's who read a whole bunch of help files but need more clear ideas of what Immortals and the such do in both an IC and OOC role.

This was added a couple days ago. Thanks for the idea.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Your ideas are pretty good.

Unlike others, you haven't come here with some preconception of imbalance based on limited experience. Instead you've come and pointed out stuff that would genuinely be useful to new players.

Your suggestions (while all supported alreadly through alternatives) are all heartily endorsed by me, because the new players should find them helpful.

(while all supported alreadly through alternatives)

What do you mean by that?

Most if not all of what you've suggested can be done already with a client. However, it would be easier for newbies if it were supported in game.

Well unfortunately my client (which I've used for so many years that I probably won't ever bother changing it) doesn't support any of that and I'm sure most total newbs don't want to bother fiddlin around with a client they don't understand and slight newbs (New to CF but not new to mudding) are put in two catagories. Either they have a good client and can manipulate all that stuff the way they want. Or are like me and have a client that won't let them do all that stuff. But I do understand what you're saying now and I thank you for your support.

if you're are using windows get yourself the jmc client, it's small easy to use and freeware...

>Hello everyone. I just started playing Carrionfields um....
>yesterday. I know that most people don't take new people very
>seriosly when they have ideas but here it goes anyways. Oh
>and just as a sidenote I have been mudding in general for
>several years.
>
>Suggestion Numero 1: Include the ability to apply colours to
>your prompts. This allows a player to tell where the first
>and last line of a new room or battle tick to be seen and
>comprehended easier. It also often makes it easier to read
>and distinguish the important stats that everyone has in thier
>prompt. Since this will not effect other people (just the
>individual with the prompt) I do not see why there would be a
>problem with this.

I dont really see any need for this. You have played for a day, give it a few days or weeks and you will adjust. Detecting how hurt I am, or any other info from the promt has never been any problem for me. I just try to keep the prompts as clean as possible, with just the info I need. No more, no less.


>Suggestion Nombre 2: (Yeah well nombre means name in spaniish
>but it still sounds good) Allow carriage returns to be
>included in prompts so multi-line prompts would be available
>for those of us who just have to have every available option
>in thier prompts and want it to be a bit easier to read (HP MP
>MV on first or last line. Other stuff on other lines to be
>easier to get the information you need to look at and ignore
>the rest)

If you keep your promt clean, you wont need two line prompts. For example, as a ranger/sylvan the only important prompts are hp/mana/moves and if you are in wilderness. And if you want to distinguish hp/mana/moves you put () or similar around it to highlight it.


>Suggestion Number 3: (So I'm not very well versed in other
>languages sue me) Allow searches of the who list to be done by
>more catagories such as class and level (not just PK, Nebie,
>Imm, and Race). If you're looking for that one Level 30
>Paladan because you need the skill that he has it's certainly
>a pain to scroll through often three or four pages of WHO to
>find him. (Had this experience myself allready when looking
>for a healer.)

I think the has been answered elsewhere by Uller, he is not interested in such who commands unless the amount of players increase towards 200.


>Suggestion Number 4: (You thought I was joking about my
>language skills didn't you... didn't you!!! *shakes his fist*
>heh) Include a format command (Or auto format) for descs and
>other such things so then a desc will automatically will be
>adjusted to 80 charachters to the nearest word. This would
>make descs easier to read, provide the lazy person who doesn't
>care so much but is willing to type in two words to format it
>easy access, and save time for those of us who do attempt to
>make our descs formatted for easy reading (like me!)

I advice you to visit www.qhcf.net. They have a wrap chop tool that cut your text into 80 letter lines, and put 'role + ' before each line.


>Suggestion Number 5: I've heard (from nameless immortals) that
>you are very proud of your "Extensive Help Fileage". And yet
>I noticed that there is no help file on Immortals, Avatars, or
>Implementers. I coming from other muds who do not use Avatars
>was instantly curious when I saw them on the who list and
>looked for a relevant help file. This would also help MUD
>newb's who read a whole bunch of help files but need more
>clear ideas of what Immortals and the such do in both an IC
>and OOC role. As well as contact information for the
>immortals would be nice in this help file as well.

I cant answer this, but my take on it is that immortals/avatars is supposed to be a bit mysterious. The imm tag is often imms with religions. Avatars is new imms that just became immortal, and dont have a religion yett.


>Well that's all the suggestions we have for you today. We
>hope you had a swell time reading them and I hope to hear back
>from anybody who has an oppinion as well as from Imm's who
>have either decided to nix my ideas (though I think they are
>pretty sound) or have decided to implement them. I would
>greatly appreciate feedback especially if you do plan to
>implement them.

>Suggestion Numero 1: Include the ability to apply colours to
>your prompts. This allows a player to tell where the first
>and last line of a new room or battle tick to be seen and
>comprehended easier. It also often makes it easier to read
>and distinguish the important stats that everyone has in thier
>prompt. Since this will not effect other people (just the
>individual with the prompt) I do not see why there would be a
>problem with this.

I dont really see any need for this. You have played for a day, give it a few days or weeks and you will adjust. Detecting how hurt I am, or any other info from the promt has never been any problem for me. I just try to keep the prompts as clean as possible, with just the info I need. No more, no less.
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I wasn't saying there was a "need" for it I'm saying it's something that would be a little more newbie friendly and it would make things easier to look at. Of coarse if you've played CF for forever then you would be used to it. But I would like to see what you would say after you have actually played on a mud that allows this.
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>Suggestion Nombre 2: (Yeah well nombre means name in spaniish
>but it still sounds good) Allow carriage returns to be
>included in prompts so multi-line prompts would be available
>for those of us who just have to have every available option
>in thier prompts and want it to be a bit easier to read (HP MP
>MV on first or last line. Other stuff on other lines to be
>easier to get the information you need to look at and ignore
>the rest)

If you keep your promt clean, you wont need two line prompts. For example, as a ranger/sylvan the only important prompts are hp/mana/moves and if you are in wilderness. And if you want to distinguish hp/mana/moves you put () or similar around it to highlight it.
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I don't keep my prompt clean. Or at least what you think is clean. I'll copy paste my prompt here as it doesn't really have any sensitive information.
<100%/100%hp 100%/100%mp 100%/100%mv 1 PM 10000xp civilized>
That's what my prompt is right now I would also like to include System time, Current age, Current hours, and Position in my prompt but this would obviously go over eighty charachters. I use this kind of information often but not every time I look at my prompt. adding in a carriage return allows me to group the information by any catagory I choose and makes it easy for me to look at the info I want when I want it instantly. Whether or not that's what works for you doesn't mean it works for everyone. Once again I encourage you to try a mud that lets you do this and see the difference for your self.
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>Suggestion Number 3: (So I'm not very well versed in other
>languages sue me) Allow searches of the who list to be done by
>more catagories such as class and level (not just PK, Nebie,
>Imm, and Race). If you're looking for that one Level 30
>Paladan because you need the skill that he has it's certainly
>a pain to scroll through often three or four pages of WHO to
>find him. (Had this experience myself allready when looking
>for a healer.)

I think the has been answered elsewhere by Uller, he is not interested in such who commands unless the amount of players increase towards 200.
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I'm curious as to why. I've seen upwards of one hundred players on the mud at any one point and the who list displays a max of twenty two lines then if you include the extra two lines at the end of a space and current visible players. That means that if I want to find that one class or level of player then I have to read through five pages of text and then I have to remember the names of the people who fit my criteria (and thier often difficult to remember because spelling does count). I don't understand why you can list people by race in the first place. As far as I can tell your race, while determining some special abilities, for the most part doesn't really leave much of a cohesive unit (with the exception of Orcs). Just because Joe Blow is an elf and I'm an elf doesn't mean we will be more likely to get along then Jane Doe the human and I. And this isn't because that's what it should be but more along the nature of mudding.
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>Suggestion Number 4: (You thought I was joking about my
>language skills didn't you... didn't you!!! *shakes his fist*
>heh) Include a format command (Or auto format) for descs and
>other such things so then a desc will automatically will be
>adjusted to 80 charachters to the nearest word. This would
>make descs easier to read, provide the lazy person who doesn't
>care so much but is willing to type in two words to format it
>easy access, and save time for those of us who do attempt to
>make our descs formatted for easy reading (like me!)

I advice you to visit www.qhcf.net. They have a wrap chop tool that cut your text into 80 letter lines, and put 'role + ' before each line.
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Once again doing that makes people have to go out of thier way to format thier descs. I want to see something that is easy and convenient within the mud so that people will do it. And not everyone knows about the site.
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>Suggestion Number 5: I've heard (from nameless immortals) that
>you are very proud of your "Extensive Help Fileage". And yet
>I noticed that there is no help file on Immortals, Avatars, or
>Implementers. I coming from other muds who do not use Avatars
>was instantly curious when I saw them on the who list and
>looked for a relevant help file. This would also help MUD
>newb's who read a whole bunch of help files but need more
>clear ideas of what Immortals and the such do in both an IC
>and OOC role. As well as contact information for the
>immortals would be nice in this help file as well.

I cant answer this, but my take on it is that immortals/avatars is supposed to be a bit mysterious. The imm tag is often imms with religions. Avatars is new imms that just became immortal, and dont have a religion yett.
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Well then the help file can be mysterious to thier roles. Though it shouldn't be for thier OOC roles. ie. We run the mud. We do the coding. We watch for cheaters. We help provide a safe and fun gaming environment. We also play the roles of gods and goddess' in the form of Avatars Immortals and Implementers. Is more or less what I'm looking for. Something that explains who they are and could even include what you said about them. Remember the help files are "memories" from prior life times. And considering my charachter is allready several hundred years old he would at least understand the difference between an Avatar and an Immortal when he sees one. (and considering all Theran's have the mystical power to see who's active in the land he's probably seen more then one of each).
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>Well that's all the suggestions we have for you today. We
>hope you had a swell time reading them and I hope to hear back
>from anybody who has an oppinion as well as from Imm's who
>have either decided to nix my ideas (though I think they are
>pretty sound) or have decided to implement them. I would
>greatly appreciate feedback especially if you do plan to
>implement them

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For the most part, I'll simply say that I also would like it if prompts could be longer than 80 characters and if they could contain embedded newlines. I can think of a couple reasons why the imms might not want that (bandwidth/lag and forces players to make choices), but I don't know if those are real reasons.

I also agree that "help immortal" should probably give you something like "help wizlist" -- newbies, especially, would benefit from not having to realize that "help wizlist" is what they really wanted to type. I suppose it would also be nice if "help implementors" gave you something like "help admin".

I also like the idea of a built-in reformat command, where it would reformat everything between blank lines. But, even more than that, I'd like it if I could somehow set things up so I could modify my description without having to see the whole thing every time I change a line. Life is already hazardous here, it's a shame that putting effort into your description should spam you.

Thanks.

>>Suggestion Numero 1: Include the ability to apply colours
>>your prompts.

>>Suggestion Nombre 2: Allow carriage returns to be
>>included in prompts

These are fine ideas, the question with any suggestion is: Is this more worth implementing than other things? Sure, some people would like to see even more customizablility. But any coding done along these lines is coding that isn't being done somewhere else. It's not as if the coders are sitting around thinking "Gee, I'd really like to code something, but there's just nothing to work on"

> But I would like to see what you would say after you have actually
>played on a mud that allows this.

I have played muds that allow this. I like it, I use it, but I'm not that overwhelmed by it. It's convenient, but there is a variety of things I'd rather see first.


>I'm curious as to why. I've seen upwards of one hundred
>players on the mud at any one point and the who list displays
>a max of twenty two lines then if you include the extra two
>lines at the end of a space and current visible players.

Again, part of it is the coding time issue. It's not that hard to look through a list. Also, there is a command "scroll" which allows you to increase the display length beyond 22. You can set it to pause as seldom as every 100 lines, which will usually make the entirety of the who list scroll by in one shot.

>Remember the help files are "memories" from prior life times.

I'm not sure that's a given. Where did you find that out? There are a few different explanations I've heard, such as "help files constitute what is common knowledge in Thera". Really though, I don't think there is any kind of concrete IC explanation for it. It's just an OOC thing that makes the game playable.

> And considering my charachter is allready several hundred years old
> he would at least understand the difference between an Avatar and an
>Immortal when he sees one.

Until recently, you could see what level the immortals are, and they changed it so that is no longer the case. The idea is that the Gods aren't really in rank and file order. There are more powerful and less powerful Gods, but for the most part immortal level is an OOC distinction.

I'm not sure that's a given. Where did you find that out? There are a few different explanations I've heard, such as "help files constitute what is common knowledge in Thera". Really though, I don't think there is any kind of concrete IC explanation for it. It's just an OOC thing that makes the game playable.

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If you read everything that they tell newbies when they go through the academy it says they're memories.
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>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>If you read everything that they tell newbies when they go
>through the academy it says they're memories.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------


I should've addressed this yesterday when I first thought to: I've seen the memory metaphor in the Academy, and although it's a fairly cheesy explanation it works fine. I don't however remember word one about memories from past lives, just 'past memories', which merely implies things your character learned before going out on his own.

If you've seen anything in the Academy that actually mentions past lives, I'd like to know what it is. I'm sure some of the Imms would also, as I believe they didn't intend any reference to past lives and would probably like to correct those references if they exist.