[MUD-Dev] Character development [was Re: ]

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On 08:06 PM 4/14/98 +0000, I personally witnessed s001gmu at nova.wright.edu
jumping up to say:
>
>One large problem to overcome is the players who wander over from other
>muds and see no guilds.  The first thing they are going to do is call for
>guilds, and push towards them.

You know, in the AD&D system, at a certain level you start getting
'followers' and the ability to build a 'stronghold'. Maybe something like
this could be ported over to MUDs; at a given level, you can build and
'own' some sort of personal construct within certain boundaries that would
expand slightly as you rose in level. You could add special sorts of rooms
at higher levels. Each of these things would cost something, probably
really huge amounts of money or specific types of expensive items, and what
you could build and own would change based on your
race/class/skills/whatever and give some variety. I'm going to expand on
this a little using the idea of a standard AD&D clone MUD with the 1-50
level structure we all remember from Dikus.

* At level 25, you can build a one-room house in any location you desire.
Only you can enter this area, giving you a safe haven.
* At level 30, you can add another room and place a magical guard on the
front of the house that only lets certain types of people in. 
* At level 35, you can add another room and a single 'servant' -- merchant,
healer, or messenger.
* At 40, you get *two* more rooms and another servant. You can also now
have a single bulletin board.
* At 45, you get two more rooms and a third servant. You are now permitted
to have a second bulletin board and a chat channel.
* At 50, you get three more rooms (total of ten) and your own mail system
headquartered in the house.

Obviously, at any point after level 30, you can start a guild of some sort.
At level 50, you can rival most guilds as they exist on the average MUD.
Since these things are expensive as hell, just because you're *permitted*
something doesn't mean you can HAVE it. There should be some sort of price
list, and servants should probably draw a daily salary of some sort. 

This is coming straight out of my butt, of course, so it may be a load of
crap, but it's fresh so I can't tell whether it stinks yet.