Khazarad

[Blake]

Can we go back to making the dwarven guards neutral?  You now have mobs of 30+ dwarven guards that extend 20 rooms out into the misty valley as well as into the dwarven mines.  You can't clear the rooms because of the 2 additional dwarven guards per round.

So if you want to play a non-sneaking evil character, you basically can't complete the third quest until you're level 50, and even then - it's very tricky.  Oh - sunstone wristband?  Yea, forget about that as well until you can NPP yourself.

This is really an area with monsters that should be neutral.  Silvermere is already off limits with sewer access being a pain in the ass.  So if you want to hit one of the two main banks, you're more or less out of luck.

[Greater]

This has been a problem basically forever, and it's definitely unfair for evils. Seems like it'd be a good spot to focus some future efforts.

[Ragnar]

Yeah this definitely needs to be fixed. Would have been nice to have had done prior to this last reset. I know I would have liked to have gone evil (particularly with how impossible it is to get a Goru-Nezar head) but stuff like this forced me not to be.

[Blake]

Can we get a response on this?  You seriously cannot third quest a non-sneaking character evil because of Khazarad until level 50 - even then, still tough - because of the setup.  That also makes the mod6 sunstone wristband quest a non-starter for well past lvl25. 

I get that evil should be punished - you cloud on people, there are some repercussions.  But cutting this part of the game off sucks.

Make dwarven guards neutral to evil people.

[Gardner Denver]

I went out there and cleaned them out a few days ago.

[Rage]

This ranks near the top of my WTF is this still here for things on gmud.  An evil non sneaker CANNOT get through all those guards at level 20 for sunstone....they need to be adjusted or removed from the game.  Imbalances the class align system in the early stages of the game.

[Vitoc]

So is there some spell or something they're casting that gets out of control?  What causes this to go crazy that doesn't happen in regular MajorMUD?

Before everyone jumps on my case, I'm asking so that I can fix it.

[Gardner Denver]

The guards have a call for aid spell that's going crazy and stacks the rooms.  Also in MMud the guards just kind of wander off and vanish after awhile.  This behavior does not happen in GMud.  Once spawned they remain until killed or cleared.

[Vitoc]

The guards have a call for aid spell that's going crazy and stacks the rooms.  Also in MMud the guards just kind of wander off and vanish after awhile.  This behavior does not happen in GMud.  Once spawned they remain until killed or cleared.

"just kind of wander off and vanish"

Surely there must be something in the content that's driving this in MajorMUD?  It's doubtful, although not completely unbelievable, they hard-coded something into the engine just for this mob.

[Stalkerr]

"just kind of wander off and vanish"

Surely there must be something in the content that's driving this in MajorMUD?  It's doubtful, although not completely unbelievable, they hard-coded something into the engine just for this mob.

Its not just this mob; its the whole angel group.

[Blake]

So is there some spell or something they're casting that gets out of control?  What causes this to go crazy that doesn't happen in regular MajorMUD?

Before everyone jumps on my case, I'm asking so that I can fix it.

The biggest thing is the guards are neutral in majormud.  They don't attack evils.  But yea, what other people are saying here - one guard attacks you just because you're evil.  And then he shouts for aid (spell: summon dwarven guard) and 2 more guards show up... then those 2 each call for 2 more... and you get to the point where there are 30 guards in a room and they'll round a level40 warrior in full plate armour.

This was brought up quite awhile ago, and was fixed by making the guards neutral.  See the thread below.
http://www.greatermud.com/forums/index.php?topic=4041.0

Again, I think the solution here is to make the guards neutral.  It doesn't make much sense to have the only two major banks, the ones that draw for ganghouse taxes, etc., inaccessible because you're getting lit up by guards.

[Stalkerr]

Monster groups

there are like fuck I think 40 groups, groups 0-5 are lair/wander/npc/living/wander/guard  technically these all have information hard coded about them that changes their behavior (example they all can ignore group limitations when moving, patrol routines, and specific blocked exit types).  I don't think we mimic any of it. The next 30 groups 6-35 are named group 1/group 2/group 3/etc.../group 30(these are standard monster and represent most of the monsters in the game) and the last 4 are Arena/Angel/Quest/Other Its possible that all of these have despawning mechanics, I can't recall off the top of my head I feel like they do though.  Techincally the Angel group despawns when it has had no viable target ---This is *of course* bugged.

There are multiple issues with the way despawning mechanics work in majormud, as a result you can prevent monsters from despawning, or even force them to despawn.  There is no real need to mimic any of that behavior.  I would suggest that angel type mobs should attempt to return to the room they spawned in once they've lost a target for 6 combat rounds.  Once they return to their spawn room, or find that their path is blocked by too many mobs or a door or w/e they should wait until they haven't had a new target or checked to see if a player in the room *should be* a target for like a minute then seppuku or sit down and meditate.


The list of monsters in the angel group are as follows
Angel/0 -- Zanthus the Lich(215), Argak the Grey(609), Choira Pyromancer(610), Lallim Whitemane(611), Sharh'Kur(612), death chicken(843), Dark Mage(850), giant locust(892), crimson mist(904), guardsman(905), Lorzina(1032)

Angel/1 -- guardsman(13), bounty hunter(32), warlock mercenary(70)

Angel/2 -- giant roc(1120)

Angel/100 -- dying slaver leader(365), ancient sand dragon(434)

Angel/999 -- obsidian statue(347), Kai Master(448)

Angel/9999 -- greater hellion(181), huorn(279), dwarven guard(396), dwarven royal guard(426), guardsman(538)

Its possible that you may think that several of these monsters normally don't despawn.  Given the proper circumstance they do but keep in mind majormud to like run on a 386.  So the active monster database to for majormud is cycled over slowly.  And without going into exactly what an area is in majormud, areas without players in them get skipped. So a monster, might stay in the same room for a long time and then despawn as soon as someone enters the room with him, or not attack back for a couple rounds then despawn, or might jsut decide that the new target looks good and start fighting like normal.  This action of skipping areas is one of the despawn mechanics don't always work how they should.

A despawned lord of the hunt does not have his kill timer reset, so he could respawn at any point the game rolled his number.  As a side note the skipping areas while cycling the active monsters database can also lead to monsters failing to receive a heal tick, failing to have active bless/curses removed, or even worse can create psuedo-immortal zombie monsters that take 65k damage to kill again.

I think, and I could be wrong about this, the initial creation of the lawful good 'dwarven guard(396)' is something that has to be willfully done by a player or their megamud unless all 'Good' type (type 0) monsters attack evil on sight. If good/type 0 alignment monster do this then they should not.  And the lawful good(alignment type 4) spawns which are group type Angel (which is like..group 37 or 38?) should  despawn at some point( wouldn't suggest cleanup because we have too much already happening at cleanup, lightball removal hype).  I was able to spawn large armies of Dwarven Royal Guard by enslaving dwarven noblemen and because we don't mimic despawning they stayed around until someone felt like dealing with them, which for players is no small task. 

Side note ---The angel group should despawn but as for following, their movement should not be restricted by group type, only exit type. This is of course an extremely minor issue with the angel type and only comes up with a few monsters...but this is significant in some areas such as silvermere where the guard type monsters should be able to move more freely around town. 

This was quite the ramble, please ask for clarification where needed.

[Blake]

^^^ Seriously, all of that.

But in the meantime, can you just make dwarven guards neutral?  Is that easy enough?  You did it once before.

[Blake]

I appreciate Gardner cleaning out the majority of Khaz.  But can he please clear out the way to the kobold king (a sub lvl 10 area).  I'm sure people thought it was funny to attack the wandering cleric and get mobs of 30+ spawned out there.

You've completely eliminated the ability to play a evil character by making dwarven guards lawful/attacking evil people.

I'm not trying to be a dick or jump all over you guys because i know you work hard for little-to-no payoff on this game, but you had fixed it once after this thread: http://www.greatermud.com/forums/index.php?topic=4041.0

[Blake]

At this point, access to the feather quest is essentially cut off too for any non-sneaking evil character.