Message 18749 : MUME (Juston)
Written on Sun Nov 19 02:44:52 2000

Bah.
Yep that's right. Bah.

Never have I seen a more blatant display of hypocrisy than
of the MUME of today. Suddenly, a famous player posts  a log
of his trophy/info/eq and then rabidly shouts and comments
how he's quiting, why he's quiting, and how overkill and trapping has been
all of MUME. Two weeks later, that same person/group of persons is 
doing what? Overkilling and trapping of course. Take this for example:

XXXX tells you 'spare some gold? i just came out of retirement'
You tell XXXX 'Didn't you post a log with 70+ comments about
quiting this crappy mud? What fantastic changes brought you back
so quickly?'
XXXX tells you 'Fuck you, i'll find someone friendlier'

It's not just me, right? the people ARE getting stupider everyday?

Not only are the 'quitters' hypocrites but there are people who bitch

and complain about how people are just posting crappy info logs
to gain sympathy. Where are those people? Hey, isn't that him with
the 'quitter' on Warrens/Bree raid XXVIIII?

************About Management**********

Some MUDs are poorly designed and well managed, some are
well designed and poorly managed. MUME is of the latter, though 
it's not entirely the fault of management. 50% of that is the mortals fault.
Let's say for example, Player Q hates a new change brought upon
by management. ALL his characters bitch and post audibly about how
the changes are bad and what "should be" the change. Pretty soon,
it appears to the unknowledgeable-of-characters Imp or A+ that 
'many' people hate this new change. They then decide to make a worse
change to 'balance it all out.' 

Pretty soon, the change passes, and while i'm trying to figure out 
why the ainu changed the ford zone, wussified the Old Pike, totally
fucked up move regen and yet STILL my supposed place of birth, Beorn,
goes unfinished well, it sparks up an anti-management mood within
me.

And, some of the fault IS management. Some either are very
sadistic or they are just clueless since they have never played as
a mortal. It's not comforting to hear that the new change that
will turnaround MUME is brought on by someone who says
"I should manage MUME because i played once for 20 minutes
3 years ago."
Not very comforting eh?

**********About MUME***********
Obvious fact #1) MUME is a eq-dependant mud.
Obvious fact #2) while indeed levels do help, past legend
they (the levels) are pretty worthless.

Kierra, one who made  one of the first posts of the board, had a term
that i will choose to use here. The EQ-dependentness of MUME
promotes munchkinism.

If you were to take some of the MUME giants (Scrape, Elestir, Kaldae,
Norsu, Nazgum, Diamonium, Mammoth, Vainamoinen) and pit them
naked against a group of level mid-40s with regular and thin metal
You'll find that without spells, the supposed 'giants' get killed
rather quickly.

It's sad and demoralizing to see this. If you look at it in a new light,
shouldn't the experienced slap the living shit who are eons behind
them in xp? Nope, levels don't matter after 25. If you took all the
legend levels from the giants and compress them til their like
the levels you get before legendhood (10 prac sessions,20 hp for
the high con ones) you'll find Norsu and Scrape are equivalent
to a compressed level 30. That seems too 'out there' for me.
This concept is pretty dismaying that management will
promote 'realism' and 'RP' in some stances yet completely
go off the wall on others.

***********Darkie Overpoweredness**********

It's a myth. 
You'd probably say things like:

-Trolls have huge amounts of hp and str though MORON!
-Orcs can get GREAT eq from kormock and pukes STUPID
-Bns have a smaller xp requirement YOU DUMBASS!
Ok, but except for the BM/Bree raids that have been happening lately,
how often do you see 40+ (or even 15+) darkies collaberating 
together?  Not a whole fucking lot before Norsu and co. came back
And while you might see this happening when NSL decides
it looks like a darkie month, these aggresive supergroups don't happen
They stay mostly stuck in closables.

***********Some changes that need to be done*********
Eq should be important, but not ninety precent of the battle.
Give those who walk around naked super move regen and higher max hp
than those who wear full shining, warswords, worm hides, elven swords
of wizkill, etc etc.
This might promote people to actually walk outside bree once in a while.

Fuck up the groups.
I commented on a log about how whether or not you actively
talk about it, we all have fantasies about besting an opponent one on one
sending him back to whether he came from. I can also
actively imagine that a group coming across a lone *enemy* 
will wound him, beat him, rob him, but leave him alive as a reminder
to others that they could be next. Make it so that groups have 
bigger move lag, smaller melee in combat, or have killing a solo
opponent impossible in a huge group. Such as:
*A fearsome Troll* tries to hit you, but swings his weapon right into
one of his followers' face! BOOM, crit wound to the head for the follower,
The *troll* now has to fight his follower too. While this may
promote a little more munchkinism, it decreases the huge groups down,
and that should be priorty #1. 

Quit making random changes.
Yeah, i'm fantastically excited about how map darkness is in color
now, or that sage is stronger, but how long has isengard
been in the works? Try to get all the gods working on separate projects
to move to one project together. This'll make changes faster (and quite
a bit less painful) and promote pro-management. I became cynical
and unhappy about MUME when they changed the gh zone. Why, i
wondered. What's the point of this? to detract newbies from 
learning the game? It's disenchanting and bad for attracting
new players when your level 2 has to fight autotracking
rabid grey wolves or a billion wild dogs/ravens. 

Up darkie defenses.
NOC, a place with about 100 or so orc/demon wolf mobs should
not be raidable by 15. Promotes MORE munchkinism and
hugegrouping (which management should be actively trying to change)
Someone once told me 'the reason the puke side is overpowered 
is because hardened rangers and puke-city defenses
are on swede links and Warrens troll and NOC mobs are on 
Austrailian links ;). 

If management tried, they could make the best damn Tolkien MUD ever.

                        -Juston Gustave the Second, hater of munchkins