[MUD-Dev] Interesting dilemma

[Ronan Farrell]

On Mon, 3 May 1999, Peck, Matthew x96724c1 wrote:

> I am currently facing an interesting and complicated dilemma in my mud.  The
> problem is what I call "Illegal Equipment."  This is equipment that is
> unbalanced for normal gameplay in one way or another.  Most of this
> equipment has a legitimate in-game purpose, whether it exists on mobs or as
> artifacts.  However, I have discovered that several immortals will load
> multiple copies of the items and distribute them for various reasons, from
> quest rewards to level bonuses or other reasons.  In addition, they will
> often restring the items to personalize it, yet also making the item
> difficult to detect.

In the mud that I imm on, no matter what restringing is done to the item,
it is impossible to change the original vnum.  That will allow tracking.
I've also seen two systems that overcome the problem of imm loading of out
of balance equipment.  The first, used in our game, is to have a
bit-setting, which makes it imposssible for players to pick up the items,
hence mobs and imms can use it, but players can't.  The other way I've
seen is for imm-loaded weapons to be temporary, "trash" items in many
muds, and upon renting they evaporate.  In this way imms can load up items
for quests and for fun, without effecting the long term balance of the
game.  Both of these methods are very simple and don't restrict the
freedom of your immortals to do their jobs as they see fit.

Ronan







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