It seems to me that six years ago the pulses came quicker and the ticks came quicker. Maybe the mud has just slowed down so much because I can process so many more things that much more quickly, but it's hard to take. I admit it, I'm annoyed. Annoyed!

I think that's just time gilding memories. They've always taken a little under a minute for as long as I can remember. Changing that isn't trivial-- using your example with the troll, if it didn't take ~7-10 minutes to recover (unaided) from a severe beating, PK and raiding would be very different-- anything except a kill would be a very hollow victory. Right now, if you drive off a defender, you know they're going to stay gone for a bit unless they really plow through some resources.

It would also change the dynamics of combat. You'd either have to speed up rounds (which would make the game close to unreadable-- it's pretty fast now), or have fewer rounds per tick. If you have fewer rounds per tick, all affects (positive or negative) effectively lose duration-- a 2-tick spell might only represent 8 or so rounds of combat, and then it becomes easier to outlast it. (Or if it's positive, your preps and such will "fall off" mid-combat much more frequently.)

The tick lag has been reduced significantly-- mostly from hardware upgrades, but also through some streamlining of the most intensive calculations. There were points where there was a sizable pause in the game, and that's how you knew a tick happened. This also suggests that the game isn't slowing down out of processing lag. Despite the continuously increasing code complexity, hardware always seems to outpace it.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com