2017-02-03 14:59:29

Okay, I'll admit this introduction will be rather brief, because I've only given the mud a try this morning, indeed I suspect we've probably got players who're more familiar with the game than I am, but since we haven't had a dedicated topic or discussion I thought I'd start one and post my thoughts on playing.

As to why I started playing 4d, for various mundane real life reasons involving listening for things, I needed to play a text game, thus alteraeon and cosmic rage were out, and since I've not decided which of the 3k/3s muds to try or which class and four dimentions is one I've heard about on occasions I thought I'd dive in and give it a go.

The mud's main website is here and the connection info is 4dimensions.org port 6000.

The game has a rather unique theme, and indeed part of the reason I thought of it is that it reminded me somewhat of 3k since it involves time travel across several different rather random time zones.
prehistoric, which seems to range from neanderthals and dinosaurs to bronze age cities of antiquity like ancient egypt and Griece (complete with gods), medieval, which is your standard fantasy dwarves dragons and trolls type of affair with a bit of norman England thrown in, wild west, complete with six guns, outlaws etc, and future which seems like a mix of Startrek and edgar rice burrows Carter of mars series. They have also apparently more recently started a Victorian London type of setting with sherlock holmes etc.

The game in some ways is a fairly standard circle mud type affair, and though some of the races are rather interesting, like martian and centaur, the professions seem to be a lot of the expected ones such as espa, mage, gypsy, hunter and ranger..
Combat seems fairly usual of the style of alteraeon, though it does feature ranged weapons as a matter of course.
What however really distinguishes the game is quests.

I'm halfway through the newbie school, and the place is absolutely littered with stuff to look at, people who give you tasks to do, npcs who react, even vehicles, and this is one mud where doing quests seems to advance you rather further than just random slayage does.

Really the only game I've seen with this much by way of interaction with the environment is Frandom, particularly since 4dimentions has a lot of diferent ways to examine the environment, for example look atat, in, on or under, listen, smell and even apparently feel as alternatives to examine. I also like the fact that you can look in a given direction or listen in a given direction, which makes life rather interesting.

apparently the game does have some alternatives to hack n slash too, including trading and crafting of some sort, though I've not got into those as yet, indeed I'm still working my way through the mud school, which is a mini zone in itself, ---- if nothing else, 4D probably has the most fun mud school I think I've seen in any game.

There are apparently clans, pvp arenas, registration as a player killer for those who want a more immediate pvp experience, as well as less violent clan competitions such as who can collect the most zone flags available.
Unfortunately death apparently does drop your corpse with it's equipment, but there is an auto corpse retrieval service available which I suspect costs gold, though I've not got there yet.

Screen reader wise the game does have some adaptations, I'd strongly advise anyone playing to type nographics to get rid of the aski, nodisplay titles to remove titles from the who list and make it briefer, and also check out help prompt and help prompt codes to customize your prompt to something a little less spammy.

Levels seem fairly quick, which is good given this is a remort game with lots of questing to be done, though it does have a teered skills system which takes a little getting used to.

Thus far it seems this one is almost like frandom meets a hack n slash with random environments, so while the combat at the moment doesn't look particularly interesting, people who like something extra in a game should probably give this one a go.

My char is dark on there (yes inventive I know), though as I said, I'm still investigating myself and there is a lot I still don't know.

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.)

2017-02-03 18:49:55

Ok,
I'm trying to create a character, and I enter the name I want to be known by, but when I get to the password prompt, I enter a password and it keeps saying wrong password.
Am I doing something wrong?

2017-02-03 19:18:21

Hello folks! Maybe there is an existing character with the same name, or the name prompt ask you to type new instead of just the name.
4D is a cool place indeed, but requires lots and lots and lots of reading and careful searching. Some pusle even follows no apparent logic, I imagined they were derived from internal jokes or something.
I'm considering another trip to the mud, but I'd love a sound pack to enhance things a bit.
Best regards, Haramir.

The true blind is the one who refuses to see.

2017-02-03 19:25:44

@audiogamer101
, I'd guess this is because the name you've chosen is already in use and the game is thinking your the player with that character.
Try a different name. The process didn't run into problems for me.

@Haramir, I haven't noticed anything like bad guess the verb type puzzles or illogical things yet, though I have noticed that some objects don't have propper interactions on them, like the tuft of grass in the maze in the wild west area, and the tank in the cadet's quarters in the future area.
Hopefully this doesn't become too much of a problem.

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.)

2017-02-03 20:05:50

Yes, I remember playing this game I played it about a few months back.  It is really fun, thinking of going back.  Admittedly, I have not played in a while but thanks for the reassurance that this game is still awesome

“The fear of loss is a path to the dark side. Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealousy.
The shadow of greed that is. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.” —

2017-02-03 20:09:10

Sounds good, I'm going to give it a try when get some free time. And yeah, agreed, a soundpack would be appreciated. big_smile

Sincerely yours... Lucy.

2017-02-03 20:11:16

Well I've played a little more and I can say this is one mud where conventions are a little different to most games.
Players do seem very friendly though which is nice.

As one general hint to everyone, look in is as important as examine since in this game even things that don't look as if they contain things, contain things big_smile.

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.)

2017-02-03 20:16:14

I tried this one. I gave it up.

There are definitely guess-the-verb puzzles. Just wait.

Also, the newbie area had a silly stage to its quest near the end, or it did last time I was there.
slight
spoilers
You're supposed to figure out a captain's name or something, and you're given a clue about a TV which is showing a Bogart movie. No word of a lie. I had to go use Google for a few minutes to figure out which freaking movie was being referenced.
end
spoilers
...in a newbie area. Seriously. No thanks.
I don't mind quests - love them, in fact - but when a guess-the-syntax issue pops up, where the phrase "push dresser" doesn't work, but "shove dresser" does, even though the word "push" is used in a nested description, or other issues of same, I stop trying. I have better things to do than to want to read a developer's mind, thanks.

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

2017-02-04 00:49:26

Well Jayde I don't like guess the verb puzzles anymore than you do, it's why I quit playing interactive fiction.
I can't speak for most of the game, but at least the captain's name puzzle you mention in the newbie area seems to have been tweaked since all I needed to do to find his name was
(beware the spoiling spoilers of spoilery spoiagiousness below).

Look at a computer in the cadet's quarters, the description of which had a screen, and once I looked at the screen it simply told me streight off what the captain's name is.

I do get the impression that staff are ready to help, or at least with the miner puzzle I got stuck on involving "look in" (which in fairness I am kicking myself about), another player turned up to help and gave nice hints, very different from say Aardwolf where if you have problems with a quest your just told "well don't do that quest then"

I've also been asked to report any screen reader issues, but given the game already has a relatively usable text alternative map with nographics mode and a customizable prompt it seems okay thus far, though if I run into anything else I'll report it.

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.)

2017-02-04 01:10:07

Yeah, don't even get me started on Aardwolf. Virtually no story to speak of, tons of syntax issues, and the attitude that you should just not do the goal if you're stuck. This, despite the fact that clans specifically have goal-solving pages for members only.

But I'm glad the captain's name thing was fixed/tweaked. That, or it was always that way and I just never found it, which is technically possible I suppose.

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

2017-02-04 05:46:23

Well I'll give this one a try and report what happens, but certainly from what i heard on the gossip channel I can say people were asking for quest assistance and others were responding quite readily.

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.)

2017-02-04 12:12:39

Hi, Dark.
What client are you using to play this, and other muds in general? I've tried VIP Mud, but maybe there's a better one.

2017-02-04 14:37:55

Hmmm, I personally really like Vip mud, and accept for alteraeon with the mushZ soundpack I use it for all muds.
What problem are you having with itt?

and also what screen reader are you using? I use Vip with sapi, occasionally using supernova to read bits on screen for speed, but I've heard there have been one or two issues with other screen readers such as Nvda, though whether those are related to Vip itself or the Nvda settings I don't know.

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.)

2017-02-04 14:55:30

There's not a specific problem with it, the interface seemed just a bit weird for me, that's all.
I think I've got used to the mush z interface, since I've plaied Alter Aeon

2017-02-04 19:04:41

Weerd?
The interface is fairly simple. There are two main tabs, the edit window and the output window. This means the stuff that you type into the mud is separated from the stuff that the mud sends. It's sort of like having the output in notepad in MushZ, accept that it's a separate tab not a separate window and it only shows what the mud sends to you not what you send to the mud.

Mostly however you don't really need to worry about the interface, since the mud text should come in automatically, though i do sometimes find the reverse find function fairly useful.

The connection and character info does take a little getting used to I admit, but is fine once your used to it.
Basically when you open vipmud or go to the menu and hit character list you'll get an up and down list of what characters you have. A character is simply a reference file with the character's name, the mud connection info, a "character reference", so you can call the character something like "my bard" or whatever, and an optional password field if you want auto login.

The first you'll see is fred on valhalla, though i'd recommend deleting that and starting with your own.

To connect to 4dimensions with vipmud go to the file menu and find quick connect and hit enter. if you have played on the mud before it'll be in the dropdown list, if not, just tab to the boxes for host and port name and type in 4dimensions.org and port 6000.

When you've played for a bit you can create a perminant character to get to the mud quickly and log you in, by going to character and hitting create, after this just select 4dimensions from the dropdown and fill in the fields.

I'm afraid I'm not up on all the scripting and such, indeed other than the odd alias, (and usually I use mud side aliasing function anyway like that in Alter), it's not something I do, then again if i have to literally script my own interface to a game before playing it's probably not for me, I prefer to get into the game asap, and indeed all of the muds listed on audiogames.net are ones which can be played out of the box with no scripting, as indeed is 4dimensions.

Hth.

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.)

2017-02-05 00:07:06

hello there dark. I started playing and i enjoy it. though i could use a tip on making my prompt, what did you set it as?

Why didn't the Romans find algebra difficult?
because x is always 10!

2017-02-05 09:33:08 (edited by chrisfaelnar 2017-02-05 09:34:22)

Hi guys. How do I set up the game? I have the info but what should I put in the address field? there's also another port there. Should I type also there 6000? O and the cliant that I used is mush-z.
Thanks

2017-02-05 12:57:51

@zub0
, since I'm playing a rogue, I just set my battle prompt to hp percentage since it's more important for me to get the battle messages quick, and I turned off the other prompts entirely while I'm wandering around in the game.
It all depends upon your preference and what information you want shown, also what character class your playing since obviously if your a magic user you want to know how much mana you have.
Look at help promptcodes for information on how to include various things in your prompt.

Btw, one suggestion I might make to the game admins is to have individual commands for checking hp, mana and movement without having to view the hole scoresheet given that it's probably not necessary to display movement on a hole prompt.

@Chris, First, make sure you've unloaded all of the alteraeon scripts and triggers from mushZ, since otherwise it won't work correctly with other games.
I forget the command to do this, but I do recall there is one.
After this, the address is 4dimensions.org and the port number is 6000. That is the information you need in the address and port fields to connect to the game, just delete anything else that is in there, eg, if the address was listed as alteraeon.com you'd delete that and write in 4dimensions.org, and if the port was listed as 3010 you'd delete that and write in 6000.

Hth.

If your still having trouble you might want to ask more generally, since while I enjoy the mushZ client for alteraeon, for general mudding I prefer Vipmud as I said.

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.)

2017-02-05 13:44:27

Uhm, the VIP cliant, is it free like mush-z?

2017-02-05 17:38:24

Yes and no.

Vip is free to use for as long as you like, though it does come with a nag screen, however you'll get access to all functions accept for one.
That is msp, or mud sound protocol. This doesn't mean the free version can't play sounds, quite the contrary, but there are one or two muds that play sounds directly from the mud itself rather than by a script, I think materiamagica and six dragons are probably the only ones I know of.

That! function is missing in the free version, though as I said for other muds with soundpacks like cosmic rage, indeed most muds with soundpacks it won't be a problem. I will admit I mostly only bought the program because I wanted to support Gma games more than because I actually needed what it did.

Hth.

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.)

2017-02-08 03:30:31 (edited by Valmorian 2017-02-08 03:30:56)

only problem with vip and nvda is that nothings labeled in character creation when creating new muds but that isn't really a problem it doesn't take much to figure out where to put things there was a thing with always repeating your commands you type in but I can't actually remember how I fixed it

2017-02-08 19:01:35

hi all, is there a soundpack for this, and as i have just started getting in to muds now, and have alter aeon with the mush client, do i need another client to play this mud? assume the alter aeon and mush package only for that mud?

2017-02-09 09:15:48

Hi William.

This mud doesn't have a soundpack, indeed it's worth noting that even the muds that do! have soundpacks don't have half as many sounds as alteraeon does so if you want to get into muds your better off considering them text games.

As to clients, yes, the mushZ client is specifically for alteraeon. There is a way to unload most of the scripts and things and use it for other muds but I'm not sure how.
You have two main choices, mushclient (the client the Alteraeon mushZ pack is based on), and vipmud from gma games.
I'd personally recommend vipmud as you don't need to do any configuration or anything else you can just start playing with it and I've found it very easy to use, where as I believe with Mushclient you need to install some plugins to get it to work.

Then again there are people who sware by mushclient , so it's a question of which you prefer.

I can't really assist with setting up mushclient or unloading the plugins from the mushZ zleraeon client, but if you want to try other muds, just go to www.gmagames.com and download Vipmud, then type the host and port number.
See post 15 on this topic for a bit more info on Vipmud.

Whichever way you choose, there are some very good muds out there so it's a good field of games to get into.

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.)

2017-02-09 19:26:02

Okay, I noticed my first issue with the mud.
The quest academy is really! extreme. I went in to finish mud school but couldn't remember one of the greeting commandss, so if people are bent on getting everything qust wise from the school it seems a good idea to do it in one go.
I'll restart my character and give it a propper try when I'm feeling up to it.

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.)

2017-02-10 08:49:24

how good is vip mud, with sound triggers?

Why didn't the Romans find algebra difficult?
because x is always 10!