2017-04-14 11:49:44 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-15 04:11:24)

Many thanks for all those useful informations Dark, now I can finally configure that VIP-client the way it suits me the most!

As for the exploration matter, unlike to those, who primarily aim to progress, and level-up during it, I generally like to explore to encounter new, so far unseen, unexperienced things, things different from those, which I already encountered so far.
(even if they differ only slightly from the already known elements, they are already worth the time, and efforts spent on finding them)

For example, if I met a brown, a grey, and a black wolf so far, merely running into a white one is already an interesting, or even exciting event for me.
The same goes for buildings, like stores or shops, finding those, which sell different categories of items from the already known ones, or just different variations of an already known item-type, is enough for me to spend a long time with the game, and very likely gett addicted to it even!

So we can say, that I usually don't explore for progress, but for the sake of...sheer exploration.
Normally, if that is also rewarded with a progress, it's fine by me, but I won't mind much even if it is not.
(as long I am not limited, or restricted while doing it)

I hope this helps you totally realizing my exploration-attitude, along with my preferred game-expectations.


Edit:
By knowing this, you can easily imagine, why tutorials, or quests, ordering me to "go to location X, kill 5 white wolves, or buy a violet in the florist-shop", will spoile all the fun of my free, independent exploration.
(btw, what if I would prefer to kill black wolves, or buy a rose instead?)

2017-04-14 12:47:09

Glad to help with vipmud, feel free to ask if you have other general question.
I'll admit that in all of the Gma titles, the in game manuals perhaps as straight forward as they could be.

I actually agree with you to an extent on exploring and seeing new things, indeed that is one thing I do like in manamon, hearing all the different creatures and getting their descriptions.

IN terms of text though, I will say I've played too many games bare bones one line differences in like your black wolf, brown wolf, grey wolf, white wolf example to find those sorts of changes interesting if the colour is literally all that changes and the wolves themselves don't react differently or require anything different from me to deal with.

Indeed I was recently playing a mud entitled 7th which you might actually like, but found myself losing interest precisely because! everything in the game has one line descriptions, though if that sort of thing doesnt' bother you 7th plane might be another mud you'd enjoy since it is pretty much all" free form exploration and the activities, crafting and stuff to discover is great, (see the topic in new releases).

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.)

2017-04-15 04:32:25 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-15 11:58:06)

Actually I don't like too extensive and diverse crafting-system in games, (like in Survive The Wild for example), I prefer when it's simplified to "combine 2 objects" level. (like in Dead Rising sequel, or in my newest favorite, Prometheus)
I am more fond of diversity in available options, choices, alternatives, and varieties.

I like encountering, and interacting with so far unexperienced game-elements, true, but crafting somehow always remained out of my interest.

Still, will you please post here the host-name and the port number of that "7th Plane" MUD?
Namely, it is not in the audiogames.net game-list...
(after all, what have I got to lose by trying it out?)

Edit:
This reminds me, the URL link given here for Prometheus is way outdated, (on the game's description page), plus it's broken as well, the current, correct one is:

http://www.prometheus-enterprises.com/index.html

And the most recent versions of soundpacks can be downloaded from here:

http://www.prometheus-enterprises.com/soundpacks.html

So You can correct these informations now for those, who may become interested in the game in the future.

2017-04-15 16:46:28

I actually have come to enjoy crafting a bit more just because I like being able to look around the environment and make things out of elements of it.
7th plane can be found at
host: 7thplane.net
port: 8888
And there website is here

As I said lack of descriptions sort of put me off but your mileage may vary, and I do love the systems and way the game works.

As to promethius, updating the links in the db is easy enough.
I probably ought to give the game another try and see where things are up to now. I know when I tried itpreviously I found it very difficult to start on activities due to a lot of things being a bit obscure if you hadn't played a mud of that type before, eg, knowing you need to go and talk to a given npc to get the in game radio working, or knowing which ship to buy and how to start on different activities, though do think that may well have changed these days.

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.)

2017-04-15 17:34:38

In Prometheus there is a huge help-database of contents, so in case you are not familiar with a game-element, or wish to find out all possible actions regarding an object, you just have to use either the "help", or the "commands" command, followed by the targeted expression.
(at least that's how the MUD is currently functioning, and I like it working that way)

2017-04-16 05:37:31

Actually most if not all muds have the large number of help files.
With promethius it was more a matter of lots of small things that didn't seem to be covered by help, eg I remember there was something about needing to go and talk to an npc to use a radio, and knowing where to start with activities or which activities you could do at which status levels was difficult.

Again though this was some time ago and the game may have changed since.

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.)

2017-04-17 08:48:35

I haven't noticed any radio-related feature in the game, (at least yet), all important communications, especially chatting, require a communicator now instead. (except the help-chat for newbies, which simply uses the command "new")
The only annoying part is, that in order to use the communicator, one must either fly, or teleport to some other location of the starmap, and find a certain office there, where he/she needs to "read, understand, and accept the chat-rules, LOL!

2017-04-17 11:34:06

Yes that was it, it seemed a bit of an arbitrary requirement given  at the time I played it wasn't mentioned in help.
I found similar problems with doing other things in the game as I remember, that and the fact that other things were a bit opaque, eg, once I'd done some salvaging and transported some passengers I was honestly wondering what there was to do next given that at that point I don't believe there was much indication of how advanced activities followed from less advanced ones.

that is one thing I alays liked in cosmic rage, there was always some new activity to try the help files would tell you exactly what you need to try 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.)

2017-04-17 19:58:21 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-17 20:09:56)

Well, in Prometheus-help, there is a list of available activities now, sorted by required status, so one can always check, which ones he/she is able to do at his/her current level.

As for myself, right now I need a small favor, regarding both my VIP-client, and the Prometheus MUD:
According the Prometheus homepage, the so called "new version" of the MUD, at port 2223 is currently closed, but the so called "classic one", at port 5551 should be still running.
However, I cannot connect to any of those 2 at the moment, so I need a clue: Is that other, "classic" version temporarily unavailable as well, or there is something wrong with my VIP-client configuration-settings???

Please, could someone of You people just check that out, by merely connecting to prometheus-enterprises.com, at port 5551, and see if the connection will work, meaning if the game will start, then post the result here?

Edit:
Personally I don't experience any further problems with my Vip-client, the other MUDs I started playing in it, (Miriani, 7th Plane, Vallhalla), are all running just fine.

2017-04-18 13:56:38 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-19 01:30:32)

Please ignore that last post of mine, it was obviously only a longer server-maintainance, both ports are functioning now.

I just wonder, are there any important differences between those 2 MUD-versions at all, because I failed to encounter any so far, except some minor, almost totally insignificant ones...

Edit:
On the other hand, I am starting to like Miriani more-and-more these days, mostly due its 4 times larger number of regular players, (round 40 compared to round only 10 in Prometheus), which results in significantly increased possibility of player-interactions and communications, making the gameplay feel much more "alive and active".
So it looks like instead of Prometheus, Miriani will become my so called "primary" game quite soon.

2017-04-24 03:50:02 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-25 13:55:35)

It seems I finally found a suitable fantasy RP MUD for myself too!
(namely, Altereon hasn't sufficiently fullfilled my expectations)

The name of my newest favorite of that genre is Materia Magica.
It might be quest-oriented in general, but none of its quests restrict the possibility of free actions, movement, and exploration, the gameplay is very diverse, the towns are large, the game-map is truely huge, (even in the starting, "newbie" area), with a wide variety of landscapes to visit, creatures, monsters to fight at will, lots of classes, and even their combinations to choose from, or decide for, and a significant number of regular players to communicate, or interact with, which makes the game feel quite alive and active. (despite its "old age")

2017-04-28 06:12:41

@HulaHoop interesting.
I have had recommendations for newmoon before, but looking at the website it didn't seem the game was getting any updates, a shame since it sounded interesting.
I don't know if it would suit caccio since he is not a fan of quests to progress but I might give it a try.

@Caccio I can say materiamagica had some of the best wilderness and exploration I've seen of any mud Ironically in  what put me off the game was the very reverse of the problem you mentioned earlier.
namely the marks and quests were impossible to find, and usually when you found them either woopse! you levelled too far to do them, or they required you to do them in some ridiculously short time with no idea where to go.

This meant either basically sitting around with a wiki constantly open, which is down right depressing, or essentially wandering around the game hoping to stumble on the right quest target sooner or later, essentially turning it into more of a grind fest than something like aardwolf.

As to Alteraeon, you won't like it if you don't like quests it is true. I love the quests and the progression and indeed some of the fixes for atmosphere that have been added to the game such as the ability to preview a corpse of a creature and get the description of it before it died (something I actually requested since I was tired of not being able to examine agro mobs), and the ability to actually be rewarded with experience for exploring an area.
Still if you don't like quests Alter is probably not the game for you.


As to miriani, I've heard too many nasty tales of unprovoked attacks, stranding and generally arsy behaviour from so called "pirates" who basically just like throwing their weight around and taking pot shots at newbies.

I did hear the game cleared up somewhat, though I don't really want to risk that sort of thing myself since personally interacting with other players is peripheral to me in a mud at best, and having my progress actually kyboshed by other players just because they feel like it is actively depressing.

hay if I want to experience people's arbitrary decisions to be arsy at me because they can I don't need to play a game for that big_smile.

Still maybe that has died off a bit recently?
it's a shame, I love the idea  some of those activities like exploring and artefact hunting and such, I just don't fancy trying to deal with the  along the way.

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.)

2017-04-29 05:06:36 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-29 05:56:36)

NEWS:
It seems my opinion about Materia Magica was too hasty, I pretty soon discovered it also has level-dependent limitations, initially restricting both the movement, and the activities allowed to be performed, plus the impossibility of purchasing any armor, weapon, or other equipment with a level-requirement.

However the good news is, that I finally did find a mud without such restrictions after all, right when I was about giving up the search, and the hope of its existence at all.

The name is: Clok
Finalyy, no leveling up system there, which usually prevents all types of the above mentioned, level-dependent restrictions, which were annoying me this much all the time!
Finally, I am allowed to do whatever I want, pick an activity whichever I want, (from the list of round 50 featured ones), go to explore game-regions totally at will, normally all that at my own risk, and the only requirement for getting, that is to buying items is game-currency, (instead of minimum level or experience), while the way of earning that currency is totally up to me, so all the choices, possibilities, decisions, are initially granted to all in Clok, without any limitations, meaning I am granted a total freedom of actions, right from the very start of the game!
Furthermore, in that MUD, there is no chosen path, meaning, no action, no move, no decision one makes totally in vain, all actions are monitored, and rewarded with skill increases in the adequate, related, or associated categories, professions, activities, or statistics.

There are only 2 things I regret in Clok, the 1st one is the lack of a more sophisticated soundpack, which would significantly improve the gameplay-experience, (the currently existing one is quite a poor one to be honest, especially for such a diverse game), while the 2nd lack is tightly related to the discussion-topic of this very forum-thread:
Namely, due the lack of levels, quests, restrictions, and story-line, the number of regular, active players in Clok is very low, usually it remains under 10 during the whole day.
But that is no wonder, after all the discussion in this forum-thread has proven to me, that my "old-style, old-fashioned" gamer-type, who prefers the total freedom of actions and movement in games, and disapproves all types of limitations and restrictions in them, (either caused by the leveling up system, or by the main story-line and its obligatory quests), has unfortunately fallen into a significant minority in modern gameworld.

2017-04-29 07:29:09

Hmmm Caccio where did you get the idea people hate clok? or hate the fact that there are no quests in the game? Indeed I submit for your consideration This topic about clok mud with 596 replies, and indeed if you look around the forum you will find more.

I would suggest myself that the major reason there aren't more players in clok has nothing to do with people wanting quests and constraint, and far more to do with two much more practicaly matters, namely 1: the fact that apparently the game has been experiencing very serious server lag recently (I didn't find this myself when I played but apparently a lot of people have, to the point it's been offputting), and 2: the fact that the doesn't seem to have been updated much.

When I played in 2014 a lot of things were promised, eg, more things to build such as lamps, glazing, glass making, a way to dig your own mines, more recipes  etc.

I personally really! wanted the ability to wear a miner's lamp in a helmet, or hang one on a cart, since having to put lamp into my wagon, thereby causing absolute darkness, memorize the exits then push my wagon into the enxt room and take my lamp out again just fiddly for the sake of fiddly (as if a lamp contained in a wagon wouldn't actually give light anyway).

yet when I look at what updates have happened to Clok recently they have all been in the matter of small, one time only events. That is fair enough for players, but last I checked it felt as if the game is standing still, which is likely why people aren't playing as much as they used to, nothing to do with people having sense of malice towards the game or anything like that.

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.)

2017-04-29 08:14:57 (edited by Caccio72 2017-04-30 05:40:42)

Well Dark, with all the respect, I must generally disagree with the reasons you listed, regarding the low number of active Clok-players.
Namely, when it comes to lags, I must admit, I am a quite impatient player myself as well, but still, after playing the MUD over many hours during the last 2 days, I haven't experienced too much annoying issues...ok, sometimes there indeed were a few second lags, but those were by far not enough to drive me away from the game! (and unlike those, over so many years playing Clok players, I have only just begun playing this MUD)
As for your other mentioned reason, Clok is already an extremely "rich" and diverse MUD, and the fact of not regularily updating, improving it even further, shouldn't drive its, accordingly, so persistent, faithful and devoted players away either.

Of course this is only my personal opinion, you, and the most of other VIP, or even sighted gamers may disagree with it, it all depends on what we actually expect from a game.

Again, as for myself, I would definitely not stop playing a game, which finally, initially fulfills all my primary, leading expectations, merely due occasional few second lags, or the lack of even further updates and improvements.
Sure, progressive new features and additions are always welcomed by, and exciting for me too, but to totally quit an otherwise just perfect game, which I am persistently, faithfully playing over many years even, merely due the lack of them...no way!

As for those players, who still stop playing a game-MUD after so many years, merely due the above discussed 2 issues, well...I wonder how much determined, and devoted they really were to that game...