Board News.old [context]
Sender Astark
Date Wed Jul 16 15:55:05 2014
To all
Subject Astark Blog / Reflection Post - Part 2
{C3. Tools, Utilities, etc. - 95{x This includes updates to the Lua prog system, immortal only commands, changes made to make building easier, cleanup of old code / commands, and other changes that mostly operate behind the scenes. {wMy favorite Tools, Utilties, etc.:{x {w1a.{x Added 'bugs' to wiznet. (Vodur) {wWhy? :{x Wiznet is basically an automated channel that immortals have access to, that sends us information about various events happening on the MUD. It's how we know when you're cheating! Wiznet 'bugs' made it so that any time a bug would be recorded and send to the logs, it was also sent to us real time, in game. It has been instrumental in tracking down bugs. {w1b.{x Verbatim color mode added (Bobble) {wWhy? :{x This seemingly minor change has made it drastically easier to do things like rewriting help files or rebuilding equipment without having to manually type in really long color codes. It's not used often, but it's very useful. {w1c.{x Automatically parse http urls in public channels. (Vodur) {wWhy? :{x Although this change primarily affects zMUD, I feel it's had a pretty huge impact on the social element of the MUD. Players can share content from other websites and it's now easier than ever to visit those websites. It's not that copy/paste was ever particularly hard, but I think this has had a visible impact. {C4. Mechanics and Balance - 109{x Mechanics and Balance includes nearly all of the changes that have an impact on balance. New skills, changes to skills/spells, math changes on the code end of things, NPC adjustments that affect combat, equipment/building changes, etc. {wMy favorite Mechanics and Balance:{x I don't actually have a favorite in this category. Most of the changes made were incremental, and even though some required a significant amount of code work, there weren't many changes (again, in the past year only we're talking) that single-handedly changed the MUD. Combined however, the changes are very noticeable. {C5. QOL Improvements - 91{x QOL (quality of life) improvements cover tons of minor changes, ranging from changing the way output is displayed to adding commands or info that make the game less cumbersome to play. I've also included some changes here that were extensions of changes in other categories, such as "adding more achievements" to the existing achievement system. New achievements didn't get their own entry in new feature, so they land here. {wMy favorite QOL Imporvements:{x {w1a.{x Previously hidden level-based bonuses to hitroll/ac/saves made explicit (Bobble) {wWhy? :{x This was just one example of many steps we've taken to be more open about the mechanics of the game. In a world designed around min-maxing it's a bit hard to figure things out when there are tons of hidden bonuses. {w1b.{x Dirs command calls the help dirs helpfile. (Astark) {wWhy? :{x 15 minutes of work to make navigating Aarchon so much more convenient. We should have done this 15 years ago. {w1c.{x Public playback history persists through copyover/reboot. (Vodur) {wWhy? :{x Playback in itself was a pretty important change, but making this information persist through copyover was pretty huge. It allows players to keep in tune with what's going on without being logged in 24/7. In addition to the above changes, many undocumented changes have been made such as typo fixes, help file updates, website updates, and server administration. Some of the more prominent behind-the-scenes changes that went on here were: 1. Throwing a bunch of game information into a database so that we could run queries against it. Why was this important? Because it allowed us to make more informed decisions about many of the changes that were implemented. 2. Automating off-site backups of the MUD, Website, and Builder port This ensured that we would never lose more than 24 hours worth of progress on the MUD. A lot can happen in 24 hours, but imagine losing a few weeks or months worth of work. Not just as players, but as builders or coders too. End Part 2