June was a fun month with a large focus on the implementation of our crafting skills. We have put a lot of work into making an easy to use, but highly dynamic system that allows nearly every crafted object to be further customized in some way, and we’re excited to see what players create!
New Features:
- We are working toward accessibility support and now have a SCREENREADER ON/OFF command that can be used to enable a handful of settings to make Mystavaria more screen reader friendly.
- We have implemented a new RP PREFERENCES system (that we’ve never seen done before, so we’ll be curious to see how this goes!). There’s too much to recap here, so we’ll plan on building out a page to explain the system soon.
- As part of this system, we now have OSAY and OTELL for speaking out-of-characterly. Players can also IGNORE OOC, which will make it so that they do not see/hear any out of character messages, so as not to ruin the immersion for those who are heavily RP focused.
- Additionally, players can select their own RP PREFERENCE with choices of: Minimal, Casual, Preferred or Serious. Those marked as “Preferred” and “Serious” now show up on an RP WHO list so that other players can quickly find and engage with others more interested in roleplay.
- Guilds now officially exist and the first guild – the Mages of Praestantia – has officially been founded! Players can use JOIN GUILD <guildname> in the presence of high enough ranked guild members (including NPCs) to be initiated in a guild. Guild members can also extend membership to others using GUILD INVITE <player>. A handful of initial commands have been created for Guild Leaders to set public guild descriptions, MOTDs, choosing a divine patron and more.
- All ranked clan commands slotted for Phase One have now been implemented. A look at some of the highlights:
- Private clans can now make use of an application system, and prospective members can use CLAN APPLY <clan name> to submit applications. High enough ranked clan members have privileges to review, approve and reject open applications.
- Clan Leaders now how privileges to construct new clan houses, as well as make extensions and renovations to existing clan houses.
- Clan Founders now have a special privilege that prevents them from being ejected from the clan – they must choose to leave on their own accord, being that they have the clan’s original ideals in mind. Additionally, Clan Founders have a unique privilege to propose CLAN LEADER IMPEACHments, but they must supply a valid reasoning which other high ranked Clan Members can review. Another Clan Founder or Veteran must SANCTION or VETO the impeachment.
- Clan Leaders have gained some new commands to set CLAN RULES, as well as adding CLAN HISTORY.
- The Tactician skill has gained an assortment of abilities to assemble and set traps, along with other new abilities, including: PARRY, RIPOSTE, DISARM, LURE, SABOTAGE, DISABLE, JAB and DOUBLE JABbing, FLICK THROAT (with rapiers), INSPECT <target> (to assess their active defenses) and VULNERABILITIES <target> (to assess weaknesses in their defense).
- The Artisanry crafting skill is now in play with abilities to POTTER <object> to craft pottery. Pottery objects can be kiln fired or left to dry as earthenware. These objects can have UNDERGLAZE applied to them, as well as various STENCILs painted on them for added customization. Artisans can also GLASSWORK and CRYSTALWORK <object>s and create custom GLASS PRESETS to store color patterns, primary and secondary colors to use with glass and crystal objects. Rounding out their main abilities is the ability to create PAINTings in different styles.
- The Lapidairy crafting skill is also now in play and Lapidarists are able to JEWELSMITH <metal type> <jewellery> to create an assortment of jewellery, which can be further customized with things such as width (for thin or thick ring bands), fitting (tight or loose), style (antique, bridal, simple, etc.) and jewel settings (for jewellery that can have gems placed into them). Jewellery with settings can now have stones INLAYed in them and the stones can be RECUT to change the gem’s appearance. Additionally, jewellery can be PLATEd in different metal, ENGRAVEd with messages and RESTOREd to remove certain customizations. Lapidarists also have abilities to STONECRAFT and METALSMITH a small subset of stone and metal furniture and other objects.
- The Woodworking skill has been completely overhauled to bring it up to the same level of customization as our other crafting skills, allowing players to WOODWORK <wood type> <object> to create objects with unique appearances depending on the type of wood used. These objects can then have their width, height, depth, shape and style altered. Woodwork objects can now also be WOODPAINTed and WOODSTAINed, or SANDed to remove paints and stains so that they can be refinished.
- Resource/trade shops now exist to buy, sell and donate raw resources from.
- Players can now gain and lose affinity with the major forests of Mystavaria via certain interactions (such as TENDing). This is especially important for those of the Sylvan profession, but having high forest affinity comes with benefits that even non-Sylvans can reap.
- Birds can now be bred and start laying eggs after a short number of days. Healthy eggs hatch on their own after an incubation period, and those with high enough Animals skill can now determine viability using the CANDLE <egg> method. Mammals can also be bred and will give live birth to their offspring after a gestation period, which varies dependent on the animal type.
Bug Fixes:
- A few bugs dealing with how NPCs acquire and find their target have been fixed.
- The “bleeding” affliction no longer multiplies bleeding damage, and also now appropriately removes the affliction when the bleeding has stopped.
- A handful of errors causing duplicate message output when moving have been corrected.
- Lots of messaging output has been improved for when a player’s command syntax isn’t quite right or when they try to interact with an object not in their presence.
- Command sets associated with skills now get appropriately attached to a player when they obtain the skill (and removed if they “forget” the skill).
Other Progress and Minor New Stuff:
- Players can now declare personal FRIENDS and ENEMIES.
- Poisons can now be rubbed on weapons to apply a variety of effects when the target is stabbed. Can also be used on Ranger’s arrows!
- NPCs can now become members of the Cultist profession.
- All basic object interaction commands – GET, GIVE, PUT, PLACE, LOAD, and DROP have been updated to allow quantities to be specified. Additionally, all these commands now work with coins, seeds, herbs and resource type objects.
- Some basic Locksmithing commands have been implemented to fashion locks and keys, meaning doors can now have locks attached to them so that they can be locked and unlocked. We’re trying to decide whether Locksmithing becomes its own crafting skill or gets merged into something else – so stay tuned as we figure that out.
- The “deaf” affliction now has actual affects and makes it impossible to hear SAYs, TELLs and ASKing. (We also learned how difficult it is to override Evennia’s default SAY command, so while seemingly simple, this actually took quite a bit of effort!) The “blind” affliction also has effects and makes it impossible to see room descriptions or use the map.
- Libraries now have actual functionality can be used to research CLAN HISTORY <clan name>.
- Built-in emotes have received a small update that now triggers small gains or decreases to friendship with animals and NPCs depending on the emote. Animals also respond differently to different types of emotes depending on their temperament, for a little bit of extra flavor.
As always, this is just a highlight of the monthly updates, so come join us in our Discord server to see more of our daily ongoings!
– Alora and Aion
Mystavaria MUD - Make Your Dreams Reality! 