Hi everybody! Thanks for tuning in. I wanted to a weekly segment but the onus of writing, recording, and editing a weekly piece is simply too much for me to do. Instead, I will shift the focus of the segments to be written topics, which take one third of the time a finished segment takes.
Please keep the suggestions for topics coming along. Thanks again for all your support!
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Topic 1: Newbie Fun
Minozaiah tells you ‘My honey got started playing and loved it for a while. But now he’s finding that it’s all grind and no fun. He’s not big on questing, and doesn’t like the “fetch me this; go kill that” routine. What else isthere to do in the game that might help him stay interested?’
Great question. When i was a newbie, i had a large pool of newbie buddies to hang out with and explore new areas. Also, i wanted to be a party leader so i did a lot of socializing with others to learn about the guilds they played in order for me to build more effective parties. It’s a great thrill to find a challenging monster and defeat it of your own accord.
I also posed this question to my friend and teacher, Presence.
Presence tells you ‘Bat is semi-heavy on grind, but accepting that,there’s lots to add flavor to it.
Leading parties can broaden the areas you can visit and the things you can do, and adds elements of teamwork into the mix.
You not only have to know your own guild, you’ve got to know the guilds of your party too.
The grind itself can be made more fun if you start focusing more on numbers.
i.e. I made 20k gold this hour, wonder what I could do to improve that number.
Planning runs, learning good cash guilds can all be diverting.’
Presence tells you ‘Exploring can of course be fun. There’s several flavors
of exploration too. You can go for room count, try to learn the hidden secrets
and syntaxes, find certain flavor items that no one uses, eg the punisher, the
poker. There’s also bug exploring, which can make for some very interesting
metagaming. “How can I break this?”‘
Presence tells you ‘I swear, 50% of the time a new shop gets added to the
game, there’s something you can get tps for if you notice it first. I remember
once, I found out the Sesmia merchants would buy mineral nuggets!’
Presence tells you ‘Then there’s building an eq set. Maybe newbies might
try visiting Pietro Decrystato. He gives the gems to use at the newbie
enchanters. He’s just a bit south and one east of pleasantville, and can help
you make your very own custom eq set, if you can master his scavenger hunt.
Spr, hpr, str, what stat would you like to push?’
Presence tells you ‘Maybe one is planning a reinc? How about finding all
the ways you can screw up your character! Take lots of banes and see what they
do. See what happens when you try to kill the hugest monsters you can find.
Who cares, you’ll be reincing!’
Presence tells you ‘Presence takes no responsibility for eq destroyed while
engaging in this behaviour however.’
Presence tells you ‘And finally, the grind really shouldn’t be too
grind..y. All newbies need to know that the more a monster is killed, the less
it is worth. Good play involves finding runs that have many different areas,
that one can move between, that have the widest variety of easily killed
monsters as quickly as possible. That’s a learning project that can occupy one
for years.’
The true flavour of BatMUD is in the hand crafted areas. Each one brought to life through varying wizard’s imagination and desire over the course of 20 years, and the wonder that is BatMUD!
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This topic of this episode is Minecrafting
Help skill minecrafting:
Help available on topic:
Skill duration: 4.
Type of skill : neutral skill.
Affecting stats: Str/Wis.
It uses 156 endurance points.
The ability to mine minerals is a notable craft, but to tunnel underground and
create a mine to search for more is the true challenge. The art of
minecrafting is a tedious one to learn, but it will reward you in the end. To
correctly balance your hunger for valuables with keeping your mineshaft intact
requires patience and nerves. The true treasures wait one in the depths of the
earth. Just don’t dig too deep…
treasures. I love me some treasures.
Minecrafting was created by the merchant wizard extrodinarre Acidia
And when I asked him about minecrafting this is what he had to say:
as you dig down, you will encounter monsters, hidden treasure chests,
gems, lost artefacts and anything else that has been buried by time.
If you manage to dig down deep enough,
you will encounter the breach that leads to a dungeon that connects the continents together, which you can traverse with your merchant friends.
beneath there the rock itself is alive, and deposits of precious gems can be found
.’
He adds,
oh, and what inspired me to do minecrafting, is actually a game called minecraft
(minecraft.net), like in that game, you can dig any kind of a cavern you want.
a figure 8 if you will, and anything you find there you can use as a material for building.
This skill was introduced days before I reinced out of merchant,
and while I did check it out, I found that I had barely scratched the surface.
Curious as to the design and approachability of the skill I asked Acidia
Is minecrafting a newbie friendly skill or does it require high % in mining?
is it something that newbies can do as well as trained merchants?
He replys ‘minecrafting is a newbie-friendly-skill. mining, double mine,
tools and such will enhance your results, but since the minecrafting skill %
can be obtained from the mine, it is not exp-relevant-skill.’
Acidia feverishly inundates you with sales and marketing information.
Your mind begins to reel… you wants to buy, BUY, *BUY*!
Yes indeed, that’s the wizard’s sales pitch.
want to know how a player feels about it?
Let’s ask everyone’s favorite Master Merchant, Granny Sprite.
Sprite tells you ‘minecrafting is both fun and can be profitable- If one has the time to spend.’
I’ve hauled as much as 350kg diamond from one outterworld square with mining, minecrafting and mining in a breach deep down into a mine.
One can also find quantities of weenite and other rare materials.’
I asked Sprite how deep she had been into the mines
And the answer was ‘ 40 plus levels down, but one doesn’t have to go down. one can mine n s e w also.’
‘if one supports the mine properly, one can get deep enough to surprise monsters.’
monsters?
nameless beings, dwellers. grues (shudder).
Though sprite says “even as a merchant, I can kill them all…. eventually….
after lots of running!”
‘and the rats. (rat noise?) one might find nests of rats. lots and lots of rats.’
PROTIP: One can not make a new mine with minecrafting until the ole mine is cleaned out of alllll monsters and stuff.’
When asked about the newbie aspect:
Minecrafting can be very useful for a new merchant.
By mining near the surface rather than going deep, one can minimize risks/monsters and maximize the specific mineral deposit that was on the surface.
Chests and boxes are relatively common at deeper levels, along with monsters of course.
Sprite recounts hauling out as many as 4 chests from one deep mine.
And she suggests Having a BIG friend to help open those chests and boxes.
Ah yes, treasure boxes. Always to opened with a battle cry: It is a good day, to die!
What kinds of treasures have you found in your tunneling?
Sprite lets us know that she has found both wands and scrolls in the mines;
even one youth scroll. Gemstones are relatively common also (at mid to deep levels on into the breech)
A breech? What’s that?
In the immortal words of geordi laforge that he never actually said:
If you’re having hull problems I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems but a breech ain’t one!
Sprite says:
“I’ve never taken the time to print out a map of the breach. I should. I get lost in there a lot. Taking in a few bags of cheap arrows or bolts helps. They can be used as road signs by labeling and dropping them as one wanders the mysterious breech.
Oh and, The rock monsters in the breach are major cool, especially if one is OLD and remember the episode of the Original Star Trek in the 1960s thank featured the Horta. (grin) They may well be of special interest to newbie merchants who may not yet have the ability to easily alloy weenite.”
That’s all folks
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