Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 9

Author Topic: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH  (Read 20957 times)

beorn080

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #15 on: August 16, 2011, 10:14:18 pm »

I just wanted to reiterate that feedback, both good and bad - is highly desired.

Deckeon has been alive for over a decade now, and there's a core few of us that remain (or revisit periodically) from the beginning.  Those of us who do obviously gravitate to staff orientated tasks, so while in a position to effect change - we've learned the game many times over in ten years and in a lot of cases forget where some of the early game challenges lie for newbies.

Activity is it's own catalyst with Deckeon.  Over the years we've seen it go from nobody playing - to daily averages of 30+ concurrents.  The more people that are on every day, needing help, and otherwise slowly learning the game - the more involved the staff get in effecting change where it's most useful, and doing roleplaying and run events once they have a suitable audience for them.

My one piece of advice that I do remember from my early days, is to stick with it.  I'm not a MUD person myself, never was engaged with anything else I'd tried - but I am a Shadowrun person.  Deckeon has appealed to me in so many ways that I keep going back despite many long breaks.  Now I'm back again, loving it as much if not more than ever - and helping bring in new players as well as build new content for a great game.

Gee, what a wonderful speech.  But your links are still dead, and I still don't know how to get out of the #$% bus station.  Please act upon your words.
Go west, then when you're in front of Pearl something, south a square, and use the taxi command. When the taxi arrives, I don't know. I went to the shadowclub and it was a pizza joint and Kim wasn't there, and I'm afraid to just go somewhere and start shooting.

Edit: Wandered around. Appear to have walked into a Gang clubhouse somewhere. I'd be surprised if the Doc Wagon can patch me up at all. I appear to have been shot about twenty times.

Edit2: HI EUCHRE! Ended up in jail walking into a place with a pistol on me. Guess who I met.

Edit3: Got out, withdrew some cred from the bank, wandered to the mall, went through a checkpoint safely, tried to go back through, claimed I was sneaking a weapon in when most I had were some pistol clips, got tased, and sent back to jail.

Edit3: Combat is very clunky. Seems macro commands are almost required to win combat. Likewise, can't find the command to take off armor or put away items.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2011, 12:56:12 am by beorn080 »
Logged
Ustxu Iceraped the Frigid Crystal of Slaughter was a glacier titan. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered carp composed of crystal glass. It has five mouths full of treacherous teeth, enormous clear wings, and ferocious blue eyes. Beware its icy breath! Ustxu was associated with oceans, glaciers, boats, and murder.

Kameleon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #16 on: August 17, 2011, 06:48:32 am »

I'll just start answering questions in point form ;

- type 'taxi' and wait for it to show up.  Type 'taxi list' to get a list of locations you can take the taxi, in the form of taxi <location> once it has arrived.

- Open/close jump/crawl and scan are all directions (command <direction>).

- If you need a safe place to stash some gear because you know you'll risk going to jail ahead of time (usually when you have a bounty you want to burn off), go buy a car from Wild Willies.  Hold your 'small key' in your left hand ( 'lhand small' ) then unlock the car, open it, stash your stuff in it, close it, and lock it again.

- If you need to destroy a specific object on the ground, try swing <obj> as well as swing at <obj>.  Ditto for shoot or cast.  Sometimes different commands end up with different syntax that nobody's noticed, bothered to report, or bothered to fix.  If you see one, bug report it.

- Ammo has legality ratings just as your guns do.  If you can't put it in your backpack for concealment, read above for car-storage.

And to make something clear before we proceed any further, beorn080 you are correct ; Macros are almost definitely required.  It is a text based game with lengthy syntax and oft-repeated (spammed) commands, it's in the players best interest to alias as much as they can.  I personally use aliases for mass commands such as speedwalking (up to and including getting onto/off of vehicle for the trip), or changing equipment, moving between two common locations, etc.  Take a bit of time to set up some aliases (MUSHclient makes this very easy, but Deckeon also allows up to 50 aliases to be pre-set) and play around to get a feel for how much/if they help you.

Also be sure to use a client that lets you hit up one or more times to find and re-issue a previous string of commands, allowing for fast repeat attack/movements.  Additionally, most MUD clients also allow you to string multiple commands together when broken by a specific character(s), such as 'open west && west && close east' or ' open west ; west ; close east' (or even 'open w;w;close e', unless you happen to have a container with a keyword starting with E nearby anyways).

Macros and Triggers are allowed on Deckeon in most forms.  As long as they are not playing the game for you, Deckeon only reserves the right to ask you to discontinue later if found to be unfair.

As an example, as a caster I get really tired of having to mash out 'cast 5 acid-stream bear' or worse yet 'cast 5 lightning-bolt...' or 'cast 5 flame-thrower...' only to typo something, miss getting my spell off as soon as my spell pool refreshes, dying and having to spend another 20,000 nuyen on docwagon contracts.  Instead I save myself some time and alias those spells as such;

acid - cast 5 acid-stream
fthrow - cast 5 flame-thrower
lbolt - cast 5 lightning-bolt
barrier - cast 6 physical-barrier
heal - cast 8 heal

Then all you need to do is provide a (direction/)target such as 'lbolt troll' or 'acid east banshee' or in the case of a door you're trying to bash down with spells, 'flame exit east'.  Ditto for healing yourself with those macros, or using utility or defense spells.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2011, 07:32:26 am by Kameleon »
Logged

Kameleon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #17 on: August 17, 2011, 07:28:56 am »

Other various tips off the top of my head.

- 'help' is your friend, but be warned there's some gaps in help files.  Try variants with a space, a - dash or an _ underscore if the help term you're looking for is (potentially) two words.

- help map, map a1, map a2, map a3 - all very useful.

- Denver's grid is based on a 5x7 structure.  Every 7 squares north or south is a major west-east street like 14th, 15th, etc.  Every 5 squares east or west are the north-south streets also as shown on the map.

- Turn your automap, autopeople, autoexits, etc ON.  It's not 1992 anymore folks, unless you're specifically looking for that throwback nostalgia - don't shoot yourself in the foot and ignore the vmap.  (ps - that's the command to look at your automap without moving, 'vmap'). Turning this stuff on/off is done through the 'option' command, 'help opt' or 'opt <map/exit/people/etc>'.

- info #(or <keyword>) while in a shop will let you get info on an item.  Once you've bought it 'look'ing at it or 'examin'ing it shows you some level of info, but the rest can only be gleaned through the 'identify' spell, or going back to that vendor to refresh your memory.

- Deckers, go for wealth as either your first (then buy best deck you can find out of the gate, and use that to make money / earn karma) or your last priority (build your character with high int/will and appropriate computer skills to speed up your early game decking grind, earn money with meat world autoruns from 'Johnsons' found around the city.

- Casters (shamans/mages/elementalists/etc) - willpower is your first key stat, but don't ignore quickness either.  Body and strength will keep your alive in a fight, so don't neglect there too much.  Combat spells are best cast @ odd forces (3,5,7) as there's increased TN's for your target to deal with them, but no increased TN's for you (those increase on the even #'s for you).  Spell foci are nice and all, but don't get caught up sinking karma into them early game.  They can be lost, destroyed, stolen, taken away, etc.  Shadowrun is fairly unforgiving, and if 1/2 of your combat ability is built up in various foci - you're in trouble if you find yourself naked.

- Casters with the 'conjure' skill will want to use the 'order <mob> <action>' command.  Remember the following ; they have to materialize first (order <mob> mat), then have them follow you (order <mob> follow <player>) and guard (order <mob> guard <player>) you.  Mobs can not cast spells, period - I know, it would have been fun... but so easily abused too.  Mobs can hold/wear armor/weapons, but they're also tempermental and may just up and decide they hate you some day (or you go linkdead/disconnect/afk, and they break their bond when you reconnect) and require killing to get any expensive gear back.

- Riggers are not 100% complete, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It's been this way for years, mostly because there's nobody who's played a rigger long enough on tabletop, willing to stick around and suggest/assist/expand, and test.  Mostly the stick around part though. That said, as a rigger there is a lot you can do, and a lot more you can do with GM's custom creating items for you to play with - but it's not terribly automated, and not as fleshed out as it will be (eventually).  That said your rigger would still make a damned fine street-sam / cyber-wared up combat character, as something to pass the time / break from Rigging until/when it's finished.

- The 'Shadowclub' and 'Mana Burn (east of Pearl Plaza) are the two hangouts for mid to high level characters, where you'll get the most/best RP.  Seven Shades and Club Apocalypse hold lower level J's (Johnsons, job-givers - help job, job info, job accept, job drop, job reset).

- The current job system has a 'job reset' command, that resets your wait timer and target #'s back to 10-12.  Please feel free to use this, if you should find yourself failing your rolls when asking for a job from a J, and your time/targets start climbing to 12, 15, 18, 20+.  Everyone else spams the reset command to keep targets @ 10-12 to get a job, over and over.  It means rooms with J's get a bit spammy, and characters with hearing amps have to learn to ignore it. 

- There are a lot of little hidey holes and secret shops that sell a handful of items all around the map, both Denver (south of 'the wall), UCAS (north of wall), or the UTE Nations (Grimmway Park/Redfeathers area, accessed via the Helicopter). 

- Find PC's, roleplay with them to break the ice, start asking about where you can find better gear - go from there.  Some players even have their own 'biz' license.  These players are able to act as merchants and sell items from their inventory to players.  You can quickly check for these such players with the 'list <player>' command, though they are rare at a cost of 1mil nuyen.  These PC's make a living out of knowing where to find the best of everything, and being able to get you kitted up.

- Spam the 'who' command, hell - map it to a handy button on the keyboard.  Sometimes people log in and out very quickly (30s - 5mins) as they're checking on something, or get distracted IRL.  If you have a quick question that's been frustrating you for hours, sometimes they can answer it quickly before leaving again - freeing you up.

- OOC and newbie help channels for assistance, just fire away with questions.  Be patient with waiting for replies, sometimes people wander away without marking AFK - for up to 15-20mins.

- Set up aliases for rapid-movement. As example, going from The Shadow Club to Pearl Plaza I set up a macro/alias called 'b2p' (bar-to-plaza) that exits the club, gets on and cranks my bike, goes east 30 times, north 7, east 2, north 1, gets off bike and draws weapon/shield/activates foci. Do the same in reverse to return, right down to the 'job complete' and 'job accept' to pick up a new one. This will make running jobs pretty mindless and easy, for some great coin and karma gain.

- Macro/alias for things like getting on and cranking your vehicle. It gets to be a pain having 1001 keys in your main inventory, but similarly painful to manually open the container, take out the right key, hold it, geton bike, crank, etc. Simplify by macroing these kinds of things.

- Learn to use the 'draw' and 'holster' commands well, as they'll save you actions in putting things into/out of containers, time in combat, and spam to your fellow players.

- I also use MUSHclient triggers to log all oocs and tells to a seperate notepad window within MUSHclient is very handy, especially when rapid moving as shown above. It's easy to miss tells and oocs in all that movement/map spam, and can save you having to page-up 50 times to find that flash of purple text you missed. It's an easy trigger for '* oocs *' and '* tells you *', send '%0' and output to a notepad(append). You can then mini/cascade the windows within MUSHclient itself, and arrange so the game window and notepad are both visible at all times, like this;

« Last Edit: August 17, 2011, 07:34:06 am by Kameleon »
Logged

Kameleon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #18 on: August 17, 2011, 07:38:34 am »

Oh, and the Shadowclub is not the Pizza place.  Look around the area that the taxi drops you off a little more closely.
Logged

EuchreJack

  • Bay Watcher
  • Lord of Norderland - Lv 20 SKOOKUM ROC
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #19 on: August 17, 2011, 11:34:40 am »

Thanks for the feedback.  Despite my earlier fustration, this still a fun game.

Super hint for new players: You can earn Karma (the game's level up points) by just talking to other players.  So for those who made lousy character choices (like me, lol), talking to fellow players will let you level up!

Also, me and beorn080 are starting up a B12 clan.  Get a radio, tune into frequency 1212, and chat with the coolest little guys in the world.

Oh, and I'd like to save up and purchase a penthouse condo with my fellow B12 players.  It'll provide a secure place for deckers to jack in and for everyone to stash their stuff.

beorn080

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #20 on: August 17, 2011, 12:00:40 pm »

Mmm. I've played a bit longer, and it is quite nice. However, it REALLY isn't newbie friendly. The first combat a character is likely to attempt are ghouls, and I suspect only a seriously tweaked starting character would be capable of taking one on right out of chargen. Perhaps giving that gentleman a few targets players can go after, some lower and some higher, unless ghouls are really the lowest of the low on the legal to kill spectrum.

Regarding Macros. I'm not quite sure on the specifics of the combat system, and I may be missing something, but it seems that any auto aggroing mob basically instantly hits you. That may just be because most of my attempts have been against ghouls, but still.

I'm not sure on how to order my conjured spirits into the material plane. I just projected and can't figure out how to return to my body, and when I order my conjure companions to materialize, I get a thing saying do it yourself.
Logged
Ustxu Iceraped the Frigid Crystal of Slaughter was a glacier titan. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered carp composed of crystal glass. It has five mouths full of treacherous teeth, enormous clear wings, and ferocious blue eyes. Beware its icy breath! Ustxu was associated with oceans, glaciers, boats, and murder.

Kameleon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #21 on: August 17, 2011, 12:13:42 pm »

Your initiative and reaction really help in combat, giving you first shot and forcing a wait timer on your (N/)PC opponent.

For magicals and non-cybered characters, get accustomed to hitting things from a distance.  If you can nuke it in one shot, you're safe.  Athletics, strength and quickness (not to mention unarmed skill, or edged or polearms with the appropriate weapon) will also save your bacon when you only do light damage on that cast and have to fend off attacks until your spell pool refreshes.

Also, use the advice I gave above for chaining attacks and movements together.  ie;  'north ; cast 7 acid-stream <target>' would move me north and immediately fire off the spell.  This can be handy in a lot of cases.

Flee with no direction will flee in a random direction, breaking combat (and the mob won't follow).  You can also flee <direction> to specify the route to take.
Logged

beorn080

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #22 on: August 17, 2011, 12:45:56 pm »

I don't know what you mean by Mages having it hard in combat. Simply summon up a layer of several bits ablative meat, order all mat, order all guard <yourname>, then order all swing <target>. Support with combat spell of choice. And the armor did help Kame, thanks. I think most of it is just figuring out HOW to do things initially.
Logged
Ustxu Iceraped the Frigid Crystal of Slaughter was a glacier titan. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered carp composed of crystal glass. It has five mouths full of treacherous teeth, enormous clear wings, and ferocious blue eyes. Beware its icy breath! Ustxu was associated with oceans, glaciers, boats, and murder.

Astral

  • Bay Watcher
  • [ENTER_TENTACLES:RIBCAGE]
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #23 on: August 17, 2011, 12:49:00 pm »

This looks interesting, and I may try it once I get bored of HATEMOO. The main off putting thing is the roleplay element; aside from playing a character in a way that I wouldn't normally act in real life, roleplay has little to no interest to me.
Logged
What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the Earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle. -Stephen King's Cell
It's viable to keep a dead rabbit in the glove compartment to take a drink every now and then.

beorn080

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #24 on: August 17, 2011, 12:50:23 pm »

Mostly, it seems to just be don't use hard numbers for stats and skills in IC chat and use shadowrun slang instead of curse words.

Edit: Hehehe, Shamans are overpowered. Those walls of ablative meat are much stronger when you start conjuring them at force 6.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2011, 01:22:08 pm by beorn080 »
Logged
Ustxu Iceraped the Frigid Crystal of Slaughter was a glacier titan. It was the only one of its kind. A gigantic feathered carp composed of crystal glass. It has five mouths full of treacherous teeth, enormous clear wings, and ferocious blue eyes. Beware its icy breath! Ustxu was associated with oceans, glaciers, boats, and murder.

Kameleon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #25 on: August 17, 2011, 01:30:09 pm »

Beorn is right, the roleplay element is really very minor.  Don't discuss IC (in-character) stuff/stats/info in OOC (out-of-character) is the gist of it.  Beyond that, roleplay your character a bit to get some conversation / banter going.  It'll only benefit you from RP % gains :)

Also, Beorn - that wall of meat is all well and good for newbies, but starts to lose it's utility later on.  Don't get too reliant on it, or at least be sure to keep your stats and skills growing as you progress so as to be able to survive without a horde of spirits surround you.
Logged

nenjin

  • Bay Watcher
  • Inscrubtable Exhortations of the Soul
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #26 on: August 17, 2011, 01:41:15 pm »

So, while I'm not really ready to dive into a MUD, even an excellent SR one, I have to ask.

What's the possibility of someone creating a graphical tileset to run with your client? Possible? Totally unfeasible? I'm asking on the off chance one of the people around here with a SR fetish who likes your game would want to make a tileset for it.
Logged
Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Kameleon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #27 on: August 17, 2011, 02:01:42 pm »

I'm surprised it took until page 2 for someone to bring up the topic of a tileset.  What with the audience and all  ;)

To my limited understanding, it *should* be possible.  Using LUA / MCL and even Perl scripting ontop of clients like MUSHclient, zmud, cmud, or mudlet - to create a tileset oriented client.

That said, I don't know that anyone's embarked on such a project to date.  You're right though, it would open the doors to people who would otherwise miss out.
Logged

nenjin

  • Bay Watcher
  • Inscrubtable Exhortations of the Soul
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #28 on: August 17, 2011, 02:04:12 pm »

I'm just remembering the look and grittiness of the old Sega Genesis Shadowrun walk around map, and thinking "yeah, that could easily work here." I do have a hard time getting into ASCII rogue likes, because I'm a graphics whore. I suppose if it hasn't happened with games like HellMOO though, I shouldn't be getting my hopes up. That and Deon hasn't materialized yet.
Logged
Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Kameleon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Deckeon : A Shadowrun 3rd Edition MUD/MUSH
« Reply #29 on: August 17, 2011, 02:05:32 pm »

Another tip, play with your prompt (help prompt) to customize it.  Add things like your spell, combat, or hacking pools to it, so you can mash a keyboard for look or vmap thus refreshing your prompt every 1-2s to accurately gauge when to fire off your next action.

Having pool vs not having any left, can make a world of difference in combat.  Especially for dodge rolls, and spell drain rolls.  For more info on your stance, which dictates how dice pools are used, try 'help stance'.
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 9