Review Submitted By: Mangan
Author Status: Player and staff member
Started on Mordor: 1997
Submission Date: Mar 28, 2008
TMC Listing: Mordor
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Mangan]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
First, I would like to thank you for your review. At the time of this
response I am writing, it seems that player reviews have been turned
off. I have gotten this changed, for I feel that is essential in order
to further develop Mordor. With that said, I will start by saying that
I have been around Mordor since before it actually became Mordor
(1997). I have gone through every stage, from newbie to alliance
leader, to Immortal. I am one of the current coders/programmers for
the MUD. Now, in response to your comment(s), here are my (personal)
opinions:
I am very happy to hear that you felt that Mordor was true to Tolkien
lore. It is something we strive for, and now we have even implemented
the long overdue area of Barad-Dur (Phase 1 of 2) so you may want to
come back and level up to check it out. :)
In response to the multi-classing and skills, I completely agree that
it is extremely hard to practice up skills through use. That is
actually one of the minor projects that I will be working on, although
it is not at the top of my current priorities. The skills currently
are practiced at the guild master to a proficiency that is much higher
than I believe it should be, and thus the practicing of the last few
percentiles has been made almost ridiculous. I plan on changing this
so that about half of the training must come through use, and so that
use will make you more proficient in the skill (or spell) much
quicker.
As for classes and sub-classes, it is very unique, as you said.
Everyone has a main class, and than a second class which is slightly
less powerful but still extremely important, and so on and so forth to
through the fifth basic class. The downside that many people may see
in this is that everyone seems to be part of everything... which is
where remorts come into play. Upon reaching level 70 overall, and
level 101 overall, you are allowed to gain a new remort class. Remort
classes on Mordor are just an extension on top of the 5 basic classes.
You can think of them as Knight being levels 101-200, above Warrior,
and Assassin above Thief, etc. The remorts hold much more powerful
spells and skills, and are fairly well balanced against one another
but each in their own unique ways. This is where players 'master' a
class, for anyone can learn the basic mage spells, but only a wizard
can learn the truly impressive ones. Also, the remorts expand the
power that the 5 basic classes have, again, each in their own fashion.
On a quick side note, I would also like to mention that although you
can cast cleric spells as a 4th class cleric, it is harder to cast
them and they would not be nearly as powerful as a primary cleric. The
sanctuary bonus, for example, would only be partially as effective
(although still worth the time of casting) and the heals get
exponentially lower based on class order. Then again, a warrior-ranger
combo probably wouldn't need the healing as much as a cleric-mage
combo. These are just a couple of examples that explain how all the
spells and skills are balanced based on order.
As for the questing system, it is much different than other muds with
not only the classic 'kill monster X' and 'find item Y' type
quests, but also other unique forms of quests that are only home to
Mordor. I have also upgraded the quest system to a tiered system. This
was done originally because players at level 10 would quest for the
quest items that everyone shared, and would suddenly be able to take
on level 50 mobs because they were equipped with the best items in the
MUD. The new tiered system makes lower tiers much cheaper than the
higher tiers, and you can upgrade lower tier items to the higher tiers
at the appropriate levels by only paying the difference in the costs
(which is nice since you don't get penalized for buying the lower
tier equipment that way). As for the reason that questing is not
allowed before an overall level of 25: the creatures/mobiles are
scaled to different level brackets. At the lower level brackets, the
game is meant to be easy, so that you can learn how everything works
in a convenient manner. For this reason, the lower bracket is easier
than other leveled mobiles even after taking the difficulty:level
ratio into effect. In order to stop experienced Mordorites from
creating a new character and questing in the lower bracket of mobiles
and essentially cheating the quest system, we decided that it was best
not to allow questing at that level. Also, for a new player, there is
already more than enough unique aspects to become accustomed to
without having to learn the ins and outs of the quest system... and
then throw into the equation that some of the new players may have
never played on a MUD before. For experienced Mudders, it should be
fairly easy to grasp the differences Mordor offers compared to other
MUDs, and in turn you can level up much faster and then receive more
possibilities in how you wish to advance your character (levels,
skills/spells, equipment, alliances, questing, immortal quests, remort
classes, etc.). As for the purchasing of stat-points for 22,000 quest
points: This is meant to be something that is purchased after you have
already gathered all the quest equipment that you desire. This is
meant to be one of the end-game character advancement options, but it
is available to lower players in the event that they wish to remain at
a mid-level range and still raise their stats. Each stat point that
you buy is equivalent to half of the total stats a maximum level (150)
item can give you, and it directly affects your character's stat
instead of taking up an equipment slot, so the players that have
bought the stats are more than content with them.
Dying before level 50 is an extremely easy thing to overcome. At all
stages in the game, your items stay with your corpse, but below level
50, your corpse follows you to your grave. At level 50 you are allowed
to join alliances, and are therefore able to request help from the
alliance mates if you are unable to get your corpse for any reason
(although it isn't a very common scenario that help is needed). There
are also almost always players that are willing to help others get
their corpses back, especially from locations where you may not be
able to get to the corpse easily (if for example a level 60 walked
into a level 125+ area and attacked something they shouldn't have).
It is also not uncommon to see good players helping evil players, or
vice-versa, in these situations. A vast majority of Mordorites are
able to separate in-character actions and out-of-character actions in
order to help everyone enjoy their time as a person (not just a
player). Also as an added bonus, one of our other coders recently
added a nice change so that your quest items stay on your character
even if you die, so that in the rare event that you do not get your
corpse back, you do not lose anything that you can't find on a mobile
that is your level or lower. The quest items that you spent
weeks/months questing for are not lost from your character.
As for the charming and summoning, players can only charm or summon
one creature. A cleric gets a bonus +1 creature limit, and priests get
another +1 bonus. Also, the summons are not introduced until you reach
remort levels. The summons set up is also another project I am working
on, where they will change so that they are no longer meat-tanks with
more hit-points than players, but are instead specialists that have
lesser or equal life as a player. An example would be where a summoned
fire elemental could cast different fire-based spells, or perhaps even
have their own unique skills not offered to players, once the wizard
is powerful enough. This way it would act as just another player in
the group, and not as something that everyone hides behind. I agree,
however, that the current process of summoning and charming is much to
easy to hide behind at higher levels... yet there is only so many
things I can implement at one time. I'm glad you mentioned this
however, as I am now more inclined to make it a much higher priority
on my list. :)
As for grouping, you don't lose experience in groups until its
quantity reaches 6 or higher. The experience punishment also becomes
higher and higher as the group gets larger. This way you won't see a
group of 10 players just slaughtering everything in an area in order
to speed through levels. At the same time, allowing up to 5 players
without any decreased experience results in much more cooperation
between players, as well as forming friendships and alliances, as you
mentioned.
