[MUD-Dev] Aetolia

[Ian Collyer]

Matt Mihaly wrote:
 
> I'm pleased to announce that Achaea LLC is going to be opening a
> second version of Achaea. This in itself is hardly interesting
> news as the shard model is well-established. The difference,
> however, is that we're going to develop them on divergent paths,
> so as time goes on, the two worlds will become more and more
> different. We've hired Josh Olson, who built Everquest's guide
> system, and was a partner in The Sapience Group, to run Aetolia as
> an entrepreneurial undertaking under the banner and ultimate
> control of Achaea LLC. An October 2001 launch is planned.

Ok, two reasons for this mail, the first unashamedly aimed directly
at Matt as I can't see me getting this chance again, also a general
appeal to all MUD designers.

One of the things I felt was a missed opportunity in Achaea was the
way a character's skillset was defined completely by their guild
membership and at the same time a lack of depth to the races in the
game.

Membership of a guild (or more precisely, a class) grants access to
three unique skillsets containing many individual abilities.  On the
other hand, choice of race defines some simple racial differences
which (with one minor exception) do not change at all during the
game.

This sparked an idea in my mind that I did not bother Matt with
earlier because I felt it almost impossible to introduce into an
established game.  But now with Aetolia under development, well,
time for my pitch.. ;)


I feel it would add greatly to the diversity of characters if a
class added only two (or perhaps only one) skillset to your
character.  Your choice of race would gain you another skillset with
abilities suited to your racial ideosyncracies. (And perhaps the
third skillset added based on another factor, giving more scope for
choice.)

So a Tsol'aa monk and a Rajamala monk, instead of being quite
similar with some difference in health/mana levels and attack speed,
could be quite different characters indeed.

With text based MUDs in general, it is all to easy to clock up many
in-game hours without knowing or even caring what race your
companions are. Quite a bizzare state of affairs when you consider
how different these races are actually supposed to be!


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