2017-09-15 21:08:32 (edited by blindndangerous 2017-09-24 22:54:09)

Hey all,
I didn't see anything about this posted here, so thought that I would post about it.  Materia Magica has released version 4.6 of their mud.  The changelog can be found at the following link.  It's quite a huge changelog so enjoy reading it.  Now all we need is a good sound pack for those using VIPMud or updated packs for the mushclient users.
http://forums.materiamagica.com/topic/3 … changelog/
For discussion of the sound pack for mushclient written by Victorious, please see the following thread.
http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.p … 89#p330689

2017-09-16 00:03:30

hThanks for sharing this man, this looks like a much more user friendly MM, for lack of a better way of expressing it. More help for blind players is awesome to note as well.

I'd have never seen this if you hadn't posted it here. May have to get back into MM once I can ease off some other games I've been obsessing over.
smile

2017-09-16 07:17:03

just wondering, could you solo through the mud?

2017-09-16 09:51:58

Maybe, but I don't know. I'm not that high level, so I can't answer that question reliably.

2017-09-17 15:37:10

Moderation!

Since we don't have an mm topic in new releases, I'll move this there. Heck, even if we had, a new version justifies a new topic anyway, and this looks like a very major changelog.

Mm is one of these games I've been meaning to try after my moderately disasterous first go at the game back I 2010 where I had to go through the newbie zone three times to actually get anything before I levelled myself too high, and then found I'd levelled myself too high for most other marks and couldn't do autoquests because of the timers.
Either way, apparently those sorts of things are fixed now and if there are more fixes for those crystals and what not that sounds helpful. I particularly like the idea of a "mark suggest" command to stop me having the first few problems I did, and freer multiclassing sounds good since I always through the system was a wee bit over complex, especially with how if you chose the wrong classes you could apparently screw yourself out of a lot of stuff, I even recall some people saying that once  had been through all the multiclassing and became  arken they found themselves basically unlable to function due to stat problems etc.

Unfortunately with coffee mud, lensmoor and such I still have more muds to try so when I get to this one goodness knows.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-09-18 12:32:59

Pretty interesting improvements especially regarding newbie areas. I created a new char a few days ago to try it out and am currently level 25.

2017-09-18 17:33:58

It's been years since I tried playing this game seriously. Gave it a brief spin last year in the winter, and then got bored.

I'm glad to see all the changes, but I confess that I'm extremely daunted. It used to be that you picked a fighter class first, and then went mage, cleric and rogue (so like barbarian, then monk, then druid, then knave, just as an example). Now people are suggesting you start with a caster class, and I never did get used to the casting/memorizing/using reagents. I created a new char this morning and it came with way, way more stuff than is typical, a whole pile of reagents, and I got busy so I couldn't play long...but I really hope that the newbie areas get into this a bit more than they used to.

I may give it a full-on try later on, I'm not sure. It looks like it's good across the board though.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-18 17:47:58

Thanks Dark for the move. Also posted in the MM facebook group.  I'm currently level 55, and am still learning. This is one of those muds where you gotta pay attention to what you're doing, but not so close attention like Hellmoo.  The only problem I'm having so far is the remembering where things are, and how to get to those places. But I guess that just comes with time.

2017-09-18 21:32:27

How are the autoquests and marks going? that was the area that worried me previously.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-09-19 00:44:54

I'm not high enough to do the autoquests, and I haven't messed with marks yet.  The marks I have are for doing specific things.

2017-09-19 08:50:40

I think the auto-quests are still going to be an issue, Dark. The changelog doesn't mention too many changes to them. I'll tell you the same thing I told you the last time this came up. If you want to do the auto-quests in, say, Rune, then figure out the lay of the land first. Find out where stuff is. Get a very strong fix on where you need to go. Then go do some quests. You may not be able to do every single one, but you should be able to do most. And the time limits are actually fairly generous when you're going. You shouldn't, for instance, need twenty-two minutes to find three shops and return to Lord Agrippa...but of course, if you've never bothered exploring a town or city or area and then try to quest there, then of course you're going to feel rushed. Nature of the beast, I'm afraid.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-19 16:03:18

There's also a series of plugins by Ruthgul that make getting around much more convenient. This includes an automapper, which remembers places you've been to and uing that info, automatically walks you to rooms you've been to before. There's also a pre-filled database of rooms you can opt to start with, but I prefer to explore myself, so didn't do so.

Autoquests can be done by anybody, since they're available for all levels. Marks are pretty fun. I immediately noticed that the boss fights are much more engaging than boss battles in most other muds, and there's definitely a lot more newbie content added compared to when I last played 4 years ago.

2017-09-20 08:06:04

Materia Magica is one of the most complex muds I've come across in my search for entertaining muds. I'm definitely going to check this out at some point though right now I'm stuck with a hellmoo spree that's lasted for several months. In fact I'm going to do a demo at some point to draw people to it and show that it's far more than sex and drugs.
But back to MM, the boss fights are ... so fucking awesome, and one of my favourite parts about it. Also how the world is just one big piece is also something I like, the things make sense with each other unlike in a lot of  other places where you'll have several builders working on separate projects and while the individual areas are good there's no cohesiveness (yes, I'm looking at you, Alter Aeon)

Materia Magica also has more user created info than anything else I've ever seen. I don't have the sources available on hand due to migrating from one machine to another, but there're several user made websites that contains articles and lists.
One of the most substancial ones have several tools like the obvious character builder, another one to keep track of when boats come and go to various places, keeping track of moons (since magic depends on this) and the wandering sidhe (the name of a tavern that moves location). It also has an extensive database of pretty much every item, npc and quest there is. So I'll come back in a bit and update you on what this site is, and would strongly advice using it if you're struggling with autoquests. Just search the database for the quest keyword, make sure the heading matches the quest ID too, and read the info. Not everything is accurate since things have changed, but 90 percent or more should be.
Some things are also tracked live from the game itself, which is just insane.
The quests does get a little harder at class 2, what with new areas and changing time limits. If I remember right Lord Agrippa for class 1 is very forgiving with his time, and usually allows several hours gametime to go.
It's a challenge but completely doable. Just not a big fan of how you literally have to do 10000000000000 quests to get what you want. The grinding system there is absolutely fucking horrifying, but it might be worth it to explore things I have not.
So hellmoo, yeah ... it's the perfect balance between grinding, but it comes with it's own set of issues of which I will outline in my upcoming demonstration.

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2017-09-20 16:17:39

I dunno. AA's cohesiveness is getting better. It's not perfect by any means, but it's definitely firming up, particularly at low levels.

A pet peeve of mine for AA, which does not at all appear in MM, is building quality. I hate to say this straight out like this, but pretty much any area build by Morpheus, or quest written by Morpheus, is gonna have grammar mistakes in it. he's famous for writing things like, "Thanks I been waiting for this", or "When your finished go talk to the druid". They're little things, yeah, but precisely because they're so little, it would be nice to see them addressed in the checking phase of build quality control. MM does not, in my experience, have this problem at all, or if it does, it's far less noticeable. Typos are far rarer there, and it's a much bigger game. Say what you want about the complexity of the game, the unforgiving nature of certain game systems or its somewhat spotty admin history - apparently they had something of a dark age once upon a time, where at least one admin was quite a tyrant - but MM's build quality is nothing short of professional.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-21 11:56:25

one thing I both hate and love about Materia Magica is the endless stretches of nothingness with no descriptions or anything. I like it because it gives the feeling that you're really a traveler getting from one place to another ... seeing as without special items you can't really teleport around (unless you're a wizard).
Unlike in AA where getting from one place to another, let's say hmm ... let's say you're walking up to the frost giants from temple of the Sun (I think it was?), it'll take you less time than a short distance between say Rune and New Rygel.
And I'm talking one of the longest trecks in AA here, but a relatively short one in Materia Magica. Travelling is a pain in the butt.
Another thing I don't like about MM is the autoquests ... it just feels like you're literally doing something automated for the sake of it. Sure the quest line / info will be a bit different each time, but if you hand out eviction notices to people or give them birthday cakes they'll all react the same. It's very, very generic.

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2017-09-21 12:57:10

I do plan to check out mm on the weekend, I'm curious though. What do you mean the boss fights are more engaging? More strategical?

2017-09-21 14:58:02

Please, does this game has any sounds like alter aeon?

2017-09-22 11:50:48

No, no sounds like mush-z. If you want that, go learn lua. It has a pack, but it's only to give you a bit of help, nothing like mush-z.

2017-09-22 23:13:31

I honestly don't like the already existed soundpack. May be at some point, I should make my own and share.

Why do ghost hunters have to hunt ghosts? Well, there's a fear of being ghosted out there. They may need therapy as well as their ghost hunting kit.

2017-09-23 01:51:22

Go for it, it needs it, I just don't have the care to do it.

2017-09-23 14:21:54

let's forget that you have all those plugins like speedwalk and quest helpers and boat thingies. It's not as easy as mushz to set up and learn, but then again materia magica isn't as easy as Alter Aeon.

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2017-09-24 07:29:27

To be frank, all those plugins did nothing but annoy me even more. I just found no use of it what so ever. Or may be because I don't know how to use it right, I dunna.

Why do ghost hunters have to hunt ghosts? Well, there's a fear of being ghosted out there. They may need therapy as well as their ghost hunting kit.

2017-09-24 16:43:17

I've released a soundpac for Materia Magica, which eases installation of the various plugins. The thread can be found at http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.p … 89#p330689

Please discuss soundpack-specific stuff there.