2019-10-19 10:42:16

queenslight wrote:

Two things to share I guess from my view:

1. If a vision impaired specific world is made, how many blind folks would actually wish to join it and/or how dynamic will it be vs the normal world for the sighted.
2. More people need to spread the word about Triad Cities in general, as many blind gamers aren’t browsing through said forum on the daily (if they travel to here at all.) Spreading the word on FB, Twitter, and MeWe possibly too, are the best ways these days.

In addition to the above, one other way to get the word out is through the ‘Talking Computers” magazine:
http://talking-computers.org.uk/
NB. It is not just dedicated to just ‘United Kingdom” listeners, it is opened to everyone.
PS. It needs more North American contributors!

Thanks so much for the tip re "Talking Computers" magazine!

TriadCity is here on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TriadCity-295456477228706/. Very grateful if you'll "like" us there and share with your friends. Ditto Twitter: https://twitter.com/TriadCity.

Cheers!

--Mark

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2019-10-19 10:49:47 (edited by TriadCity 2019-10-19 10:51:09)

Thanks so much to all of you who've shared feedback re our "world without vision" idea. Very grateful indeed for the insights.

TriadCity is currently evolving from a "world" to a "universe", meaning a network of interconnected worlds each with different characteristics and capabilities. So, the nature of new worlds is very much top of mind for us right now. Really appreciate your thoughts. There'll be detail on our web site in a few days.

--Mark

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2019-10-19 10:57:53

Frustratingly, I am already trying to connect via 9094. That, in fact, is the only way I'm even managing to get the log-in prompt wherein I chose to type either join or guest. I sort of figured MUSHClient would choke on the SSL connection, so didn't even try it at first, but I did try it and I was correct -- I can't even connect at all on 9095. I'm just gonna see if I can get my screen reader to play nice with PUTTY for Windows, since I think the raw scripting power of MUSHClient might be overkill for Triad City.

Kai

Spill chuck you spots!

2019-10-19 18:52:12

Xoren wrote:

Frustratingly, I am already trying to connect via 9094. That, in fact, is the only way I'm even managing to get the log-in prompt wherein I chose to type either join or guest. I sort of figured MUSHClient would choke on the SSL connection, so didn't even try it at first, but I did try it and I was correct -- I can't even connect at all on 9095. I'm just gonna see if I can get my screen reader to play nice with PUTTY for Windows, since I think the raw scripting power of MUSHClient might be overkill for Triad City.

Kai

Perhaps even more frustratingly, I installed MUSHClient just now and logged right in with no issues.

Why don't you PM me, we'll try some diagnostics to find out if we can learn what's happening.

--Mark

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2019-10-20 04:25:56

I started the account creation process but was interrupted before I could name my character, and now I can't use my email to restart the process. Suggestions?

2019-10-20 08:23:09

KenshiraTheTrinity wrote:

I started the account creation process but was interrupted before I could name my character, and now I can't use my email to restart the process. Suggestions?

You can create new characters from the web site. First use your email and password to login to the site, then go here: https://www.smartmonsters.com/TriadCity … racter.jsp to create a character. (You'll have to be logged-in to use that link.)

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2019-10-20 09:25:37

Thanks, appreciate it.

2019-11-05 23:52:37

This Mud is so unique in the way that it makes your character's experience of the world subjective.
Things look different as your character learns and grows.
In the beginning, you do walk around and look at things, and that's the main way to gain experience.
This Mud deemphasizes violence, which I find to be interesting, since you have to discover other ways to gain XP.
I am intrigued, after checking out the website, about all the roles you can play when you advance a little bit. There are healers and warriors, a few roles which are incompatible with one another.
But you can have several roles - actor, comedian, historian, cop, cosmetologist, etc. You'll learn different skills for each role, and gain XP by using them.
You can go to clubs, watch TV, and lots of things like that. You gain XP for those things, and the performers gain XP and currency if you watch their performances.
A quick tip: If you find yourself watching a performance, "applaud" because that will give kudos to the performer.
This Mud looks awesome, and I am so grateful to the devs for all the accessibility fixes that are ongoing.

As for the world question, I'd like to see this world as it is, with added sensory descriptions, as opposed to a blind-centric world.

I'm Dhustie on there if anybody logs on.
I don't know much, but I'll try to help if I can.

2019-11-12 23:22:12

A couple more unique experiences.
I am currently trapped in the vampire theme park's version of miniature golf.
There is also an "angry birds" cavern where you can go and blow up tweets, literal tweets from celebrities, politicians, etc. You can use your own weapon, or buy one from the gift shop, and shoot at the tweets as they fly through.
So fun, and innovative!

2019-12-05 13:11:23

Triad City has just updated its introduction page, and its "getting started" page in the user guide.
You now have a much clearer definition of what to expect in the Mud.
The new "getting started" page is particularly helpful, as it tells you how to go about leveling from 1 to 10, at which time you take on roles.
If you tried the Mud and felt lost, read these two pages again, and give it another try.
I think you'll find it much easier.

2019-12-05 15:59:04

Oh nice, this is exactly what I needed. The mud seemed pretty sparse at first glance, and I had no idea what I was doing. Will give this another shot.

Take care, it's a desert out there.

2019-12-05 19:35:52

The coolest thing about this Mud to me, among many, is that they give you real information inside the Mud.
That winery has hundreds of signs that tell you all about the history of winemaking all around the world.
It's like that all through the Mud, - pop cultural references, literary references, historical references, it's fascinating!

2019-12-08 00:37:38

Hi all, happy Saturday. smile

Quick update on our quest for accessibility. We're still bumping in to corners of the game world which require special handling for MUD clients - things we hadn't anticipated but have learned through experience. Recently we've enabled writing on in-game writing surfaces such as bulletin boards and 'crypt scrolls' - these are notes which players can leave outside the crypts of characters who've been killed during game play. To the best of our knowledge the final remaining feature not yet converted is customizing player houses. We'll do that in the coming week.

Cheers!

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2019-12-08 14:33:26

Yes! Player houses! Woohoo!
One of my great loves in a Mud.

2019-12-08 16:38:33

I haven't played this game much but I have gotten to level 3 so far. One thing I like is the various reference characters walking around and such. For example, I found Jughead from Archie Comics and though I'm not an Archie fan, it was cool to see and I also came upon Antonio from "Merchant of Venice" which was pretty cool and more up my literary alley.

As for the blind world that has been discussed, not really a fan of that idea, firstly, I don't think a group that I don't think contains a lot of blind people would make it properly. I don't mean that they would be insulting or intentionally rude, I just don't think, even if they look at stuff that explains blindness, what exactly that is like and I think they might unintentionally open up a can of worms there, even if they consult actual blind people. I also am unsure of how many people would actually play there and they might be wasting their time in the long run as well as resources.

It is a neat idea, but one I think is ultimately not worth it.

also, just so I can plan, how many roles is a person allowed to have? I want to know to know how careful I have to be in selecting them. I'm often a fan of "do all the things"  though I know just from hearing this that 1. some roles are incompatible and 2.  there might be a hard limit as to how many I can do.

Also, I haven't been in combat (only level 3 and not particularly interested in combat if I can avoid it anyway because it is a cool and welcome change)  but a lot of stuff in how the mud runs is refereshingly relaxed in pace, though hunger, thirst, and energy are still rather tiring at this point.

2019-12-08 23:06:46 (edited by TriadCity 2019-12-08 23:51:59)

Heya bookrage:

There are no abstract limits to the number of Roles your characters can have. However as noted some Roles are incompatible with others, so that implies a certain practical limit depending which ones. You can't be both a Healer and a Malopath for example, as the two Roles are logical antitheses of each other. Also many of the Roles listed in the Players Guide are currently NPC-only - they exist to concretize certain AI behaviors. They're on the list 'cos the intention is to open them all to players over time.

Re energy, there are high-level Herbalists who will make herb sachets for you which basically eliminate the need to rest. Also since you've gotten past level 1, we'll give you a thanks-for-playing spiff, a ring which is powerfully fast regen, again meaning in practice you'll seldom have to rest up. See Gwene for sachets, Mark or Poobah for the ring.

Cheers!

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2019-12-09 03:17:36

This sounds like a very neat concept.  The closest I've seen to this level of literary complexity would probably be Lost souls, and only in that it also contains a lot of subjective content.  Characters only know what their skills allow them to know and sensory traits affect how much of a location is perceivable.  their system is still very simplistic though, as your alignment has no affect on descriptions, neither does anything else really, for that matter. 
I actually find the idea of a non-visual world fascinating from a literary perspective.  Not only are MUDs biased toward sight, but I feel like the English language is as well, and I've never seen anyone try to create a world where vision does not exist.  I've found plenty of short stories or books that feature blind protagonists, but they're still aware of what seeing is, what colors are, etc.  So what would happen if the concept of sight wasn't even a thing?  How would people live?  What kind of art would they produce?  etc.
That See show on Apple Tv Plus tries to play with that concept, but it doesn't really delve very deep into the cultural/societal aspect of things and I lost interest midway through the second episode.

I also love the concept of worlds within a universe.  A non-vision based human race is only the beginning.  How would you write up a world where whatever sentient race you played as could only feel their environment? or perhaps had all five senses, but another one, such as smell being their primary sense?
Anyway, neat concept!  Unfortunately for me, I have finals week coming up this week and I have terrible self-control. sad

I'm probably gonna get banned for this, but...

2019-12-18 03:33:51

aaron77 wrote:

The closest I've seen to this level of literary complexity would probably be Lost souls, and only in that it also contains a lot of subjective content.  Characters only know what their skills allow them to know and sensory traits affect how much of a location is perceivable.

Hi aaron77:

I'm not familiar with Lost Souls, but from your brief description it sounds like a subset of TriadCity's implementation of subjectivity.

TriadCity's room, item, exit, and NPC descriptions can all vary by the observing character's alignment, skills, gender, life experience, medical condition, attributes, temporary affects, and many other factors including objective ones like time of day, plus AI secret sauce. Which of these factors come in to play in any situation is under the control of world authors, who for the most part use them subtly. The example we like to cite is that your character and mine may enter the same room together, but find it described differently. Yours may find the fireplace warm and inviting; mine may find it harsh or even unsettling. This all depends on what the author of the room is trying to achieve.

But we can also go nuts. We can impose hallucinations, one form of which attempts to model Schizophrenia. We can generate conversations only one character can hear, so the character appears to others to be talking to the air. Or we can change street names, or include threatening or frightening asides in room descriptions or convos with other players.

BTW these subjectivities aren't limited to players - all characters experience them, including NPCs. NPC AI is appropriately impacted.

TriadCity's code base is designed from the ground up to enable these transformations. The early MUDs were written in C, and we understand that some which are still popular today have continued on that basis. One reason we rejected C for Java was that our design goals were better implemented in an OO language. The code for the effects I'm describing is pretty straightforward. The real effort is writing a compelling world which makes use of all these possibilities.

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2019-12-18 03:39:42

aaron77 wrote:

I actually find the idea of a non-visual world fascinating from a literary perspective.  Not only are MUDs biased toward sight, but I feel like the English language is as well, and I've never seen anyone try to create a world where vision does not exist.  I've found plenty of short stories or books that feature blind protagonists, but they're still aware of what seeing is, what colors are, etc.  So what would happen if the concept of sight wasn't even a thing?  How would people live?  What kind of art would they produce?  etc. [...] I also love the concept of worlds within a universe.  A non-vision based human race is only the beginning.  How would you write up a world where whatever sentient race you played as could only feel their environment? or perhaps had all five senses, but another one, such as smell being their primary sense?

Your thinking here is very similar to ours. We're intrigued by the same questions you pose: how would such a world be described and how would the characters function in it - and I love your comment about the nature of art. I think we're going to go ahead, on a small scale, with implementing a sub-world within the TriadCity universe where as you say the concept of sight doesn't exist at all. We'll start it small and learn what we learn, and if it interests people we can expand it from the initial seed.

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2019-12-24 18:26:32

Hi all.

There's a new TriadCity feature we're super excited about.

Certain types of magic users - Healers, Malopaths, and Magicians - now have the ability to project their disembodied consciousness throughout the game World. This enables them to explore potentially dangerous areas without risk of physical harm; and it allows access to rooms beyond locked doors or exits guarded by sentries - one's Astral Body simply passes right through.

High-level magic users can additionally perform certain operations remotely through their Astral projection. Healers can remotely heal, Malopaths can remotely harm, and so on.

Magic in TriadCity isn't the "cast fireball dragon" variety from D&D or earlier MUDs. We model the western ritual magic tradition descending from Neoplatonism through the Renaissance Mages to the Golden Dawn and its descendants. Ritual is required to achieve necessary states of consciousness. Robes, magical implements, incense, magical circles and so on can contribute. Practitioners must be very highly skilled. Achieving the necessary level of ability is difficult and time-consuming.

Astral projection enables a form of player-versus-player conflict. Characters with the Magician role can detect projected Astral Bodies and repel them. Characters at extreme skill levels can potentially send harmful spiritual charges via the practitioner's Astral connection which can cause physical harm to the magic user.

Our players who've helped test these new features tell us they're really fun. smile

We hope you think this is as cool as we do!

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2019-12-26 01:02:03

Astral projection rocks!
This is just the kind of awesomeness I would expect from Triad City!

2020-03-14 05:55:07

Hi all:

For the duration of the national emergency, we've extended our usual 25% weekend exp bonus to the entire week. For those working from home: hang out with us, we'll keep each other company.

Stay safe out there!

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2020-03-14 10:39:55

Okay, given the great work that has obviously gone into the games' accessibility, and some interesting thoughts on visionless worlds, (which is a subject I have some thoughts about anyway), it's obviously time tc got a page on the audiogames.net database.

I've read through the player's guide and created a character, you can find me as Lerandor, I've also poked around sanctuary island and got my first level. I do however have some questions, both general ones about the mud, and about later player experience, since I'd like to get a game database page for triad city done fairly quickly.

Firstly, is the question of activities and rolls, since it is not clear from the descriptions how some role types actually gain xp.
for example, I gather that the combat oriented roles all involve xp by fighting npcs, and the thieving roles gain xp by stealing from npcs (or freeing slaves in the case of the liberator). However, I'm not entirely sure whether say herbalists, healers and doctors get npcs to treat in addition to helping out combat characters, ditto with other roles that involve interactions.

I am also unsure whether combat generally is just the province of warriors and the like, or whether other characters will eventually be able to learn enough combat skills to protect themselves, even if it isn't the primary source of advancement, or whether they will always be essentially playing support to other characters.

I am also not entirely sure how much the game has via quests, other things to do and so on. I do gather the game has a lot of things to explore in the world and many items to look at, which is awesome as far as it goes. The players guide does mention something about "puzzles and challenges", but other than the obvious ones directly related to hacknslash, or simply getting experience for the sake of exploration, I'm uncertain what is exactly around.

This is particularly of interest to me since I'm a bit of a questing fan, and while I am always happy to just explore and poke things, and I'm more than happy to treat combat as an optional extra, , I do like tasks to do and to feel that I'm doing something useful.

Indeed, I wonder how Triad city compares to a game like Frandom, which is pretty much a giant interactive fiction game, with so many tasks, questions and things to discover it's not funny, where combat is quite possible, but very much not the focus (you don't get any xp in Frandom for slaying monsters or the like).

Lastly, I am wondering about the other worlds mentioned on the smart monsters website such as midgard and Dungeon. Are those accessible from within Triad city itself?
There is mention of them from within the game help, but nothing about them in triad city. IS there a command to switch worlds? or are those only playable via the website for now.

Btw, I am currently playing using Vipmud on port 9094.

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.)

2020-03-14 17:43:14 (edited by TriadCity 2020-03-14 18:54:12)

Heya, we'll be thrilled and honored to have a page in the database. Thanks so much!

I'll spread my answers out over several messages, there's a lot of info requested, it'll be easier for me I think to tackle them one at a time.

Dark wrote:

Firstly, is the question of activities and rolls, since it is not clear from the descriptions how some role types actually gain xp.
for example, I gather that the combat oriented roles all involve xp by fighting npcs, and the thieving roles gain xp by stealing from npcs (or freeing slaves in the case of the liberator). However, I'm not entirely sure whether say herbalists, healers and doctors get npcs to treat in addition to helping out combat characters, ditto with other roles that involve interactions. .

They do. For example - by ironic coincidence - there's a nasty cold going around the TriadCity world right now. While you were exploring Sanctuary Island you may have noticed the Monk who gives out robes at the Origin Stone sneezing and sniffling. A Healer with enough skill could cure her.

The larger answer is that, in addition to simple exploration, xp is awarded for successful use of skills, while roles are essentially enablers of groups of related skills. A Herbalist who succeeds in creating a fast heal sachet gains xp for use of the appropriate skill ("actuate", in this case). This is even true of combat: the xp you're awarded if you win a fight is not based on the strength of the opponent so much as your success in using your fighting skills - your xp award will be an accumulation of micro-awards for how many hits you got in, how many times you successfully parried, and so on. In all cases, the greater your skill, the more xp you'll earn. Thieves gain xp not only for stealing but also for hiding, sneaking, peeking, lockpicking, and the other commands that require skills to use successfully. Correspondingly, if your skills are not very advanced you'll succeed with commands less often and will receive less xp. Any command which requires a skill awards xp based on difficulty and skill level. The moral here is that skills are very centric to your experience with TriadCity.

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2020-03-14 17:53:10

Dark wrote:

I am also unsure whether combat generally is just the province of warriors and the like, or whether other characters will eventually be able to learn enough combat skills to protect themselves, even if it isn't the primary source of advancement, or whether they will always be essentially playing support to other characters.

Any character can learn basic fighting skills - hit, parry, flee, consider, probably some more I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. Everyone's encouraged to keep their parry and flee skills maxed, just in case. The Warrior role enables advanced weapon skills other roles don't have, and also tank-centric skills like bash. But note that other roles than just Warrior enable combat skills unavailable otherwise, for example Ranger and Magician can both learn the "staff" skill which enables non-lethal combat with staves, the "trip" skill which does what it sounds like, and so on.

The mix of roles and skills your character chooses to learn is a big part of how characters become uniquely differentiated as they gain levels. In Midgaard by contrast a level 12 Thief is a level 12 Thief: every level 12 Thief has the same abilities and the same xp total. In TriadCity your character may be level 12 and may have the Thief role; but it's likely that your character's specific abilities and attributes will be considerably different to others.

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