Great news!

I am pleased that mid range experience is being tweaked sinse I confess that is one reason why my playing of alter has at times been a bit sporadic, sinse I did find my progress into new areas etc around arkase seemed to go very slowly.

I am also glad to hear of the high level exploring fixes, sinse being someone who really doesn't enjoy grouping at all I was a little worried by what some people said regarding higher levels absolutely requiring grouping to go anywhere!  I'll drop a healing or protection spell on someone who needs it if I pass them in the wild, and I don't mind saying hi in chat or having a conversation while I wait for my mana to refill, but fundamentally I'm not really interested in playing with other people.
So I definitely like the idea of the solo and grouping areas being distinguished, and there being plenty of soloing to do at higher levels.

I do know that  it seems od for such an unsociable git as myself to go and play an online mud, and I will confess that had I access I probably wouldn't be playing online games at all but single player rpgs, however one thing I have enjoyed in Alter is the way the game does very nicely cater for explorer types like myself unlike some other muds and many browser rpgs I've played.

I did try grouping, but firstly I didn't like being dragged around with the follow command (especially through new areas), sinse I tend to prefer to explore  more slowly and take in the atmosphere and descriptions, and secondly I don't like being responsable for other people sinse I'm always worried that I'll miss some incoming text or otherwise mess up and get someone killed by say not noticing their in crytical, ---- I know MushZ and Alter itself have lots of triggers for this, it's entirely irrational on my part.

In fairness this is partly a personality thing, I'm not entirely a team player normally, even with things like music (solos or duettes are fine, but being part of a huge choire holds no interest for me at all).

I actually ought to give alter another go sinse I definitely fancy seeing how some of these new quests and the fetch item jobs work, although my character will probably need quite some rejiggerment given I am a cleric warrior necro so will want to do a bit of rebuilding, indeed sinse I've been experimenting with a couple of other muds for the database it'll be interesting to try alter again from that perspective.

An interesting idea Mr. And! erson! but how will you play a mud when you have no hands to play it! .

Mmmmm, Sorry, (I just think Smith is cool).

On the one hand I agree I'd love to see some other activities in the game besides hack n slash. then again, alter is going that way. I am looking forward to trying the fetch jobs sinse I always find it much more interesting to go to an area (particularly one I have already explored), and be on the look out for six black spiders to kill for an npc than just to walk around depopulating the environment, even if it's a generic generation type of thing like Aardwolf has where your just randomly assigned one or more mobs to kill as opposed to being part of a pre written story.

Then of course there are jobs that specifically have other ways to get experience, like the druid's suntrap ability (I'm looking forward to trying some druid skills and indeed might replace druid as my 4th class rather than mage).

On the other hand, the combat in Alter is more fun than in most other muds I've played, sinse it does make a difference what you do, and you have to often think on your feet as opposed to just pounding away. Plus, I am not sure that a full scale wilderness and survival system would really be appropriate and correct for Alteraeon, just because of how many of the areas work, sinse alter seems to me more based on some specifically designed areas populated by mobs rather than having a generalized wilderness zone with randomly occurring materials and animals, much less one that you could do skills like woodcutting or crafting in.

Generally if I want that sort of experience I'll go and play Clok, which has taken the art of wilderness survival to a very fine detail, to the point that even making a campfire is an achievement and an involved process, not to mention the fact that the animals are realistically dangerous (don't pick fights with bison), and I happen to say I love clok for that reason.

But, why should Alteraeon just do what other muds do. If I want a realistic game where I need to manage food and cook it, think about cold, hunger and thirst, cut down trees and craft things, in a world where even a wolf can kill you and a trained human can be instantly deadly, I'll play Clok. If I want a great fantasy game where I can be a mighty warrior and slay my way through a deadly and twisted swamp full of evil undead and nasty creatures, or descend into a dragon filled dungeon to pick off nasty dragons, I'll go and play Alteraeon.

Thus, I'm not really convinced too many wilderness survival skills or changing the butchering and skinning would fit! in the game.

If I were to suggest some none combat activities in Alter, I'd suggest something more based on exploring and gathering and harvesting. Maybe some randomly occurring items would appear in an area that you'd need to find, eg you'd be told "the green spotted mushrooms are growing in so and so, go and find me 10 of them" , or maybe you'd need to go from one town to another say carrying goods for merchants or guarding a merchant's caravan.

I'd also love to see some expantions to the shipping mechanics with ship to ship combat, fights on the sea and lots of random places to discover, indeed perhaps some random sea encounters such as finding desert islands, having your ships attacked by seaserpent or  occasionally running across sunken treasure.

I actually think Thelok might need a little rejiggerment generally sinse when he was created there was no druid class and also clerrics didn't have that charisma thing, but I'll have a look.

I actually am considering restarting to try druid or some other classes, particularly sinse I'm fairly sure slo and Kordon have some new places to see sinse I last started, (and I know I can refund the practices I bought for another char),but then again I did put a lot of time and trouble into thelok to do lots of quests and raise lots of skills like his 100 perfect turn undead, so I don't know.

Hay, there's an idea! How about a new family character option whereby you could play a level 1 character, go back to Slo and Kordon to try out the new stuff or another primary class but still get some sort of tangible reward for your main character.

What I'm thinking is something like this, when you hit level 30, you get an option to create a son or daughter character of your main char who starts off on slo like a newbie and plays through all the quests etc afresh. Once that character hits level 20 (or gets to gad's landing), you get the choice of whether that character continues on as a main character or chooses a different life. if you choose the first option, that son or daughter character just carries on and you have two new chars to play. If you choose the second, your main character's son or daughter tells their ma or pa all about their adventures, but then decides to go off and be a family man/woman and quit adventurering, effectively making them lost perminantly. through listening to the tales of their son's/daughter's adventures though, your main character then gains an xp reward. I don't know how much exactly, but enough to be significant and mean that your time trying out a new class and the newbie islands again isn't wasted entirely.

Obviously it'd take some balancing, but considering that Slo and Kordon keep getting updates too and obviously more classes get added to the game this might be a fun option to try things out, sinse hay I'd love to try a primary druid or necro.