Muratus del Mur

[if you plan to flood with replies better place in separate topic, its a long but important post. If not leave it here.] One thing i want to say about AL, more to remind myself that despite general impression AL not only is entertaining but also important, is that AL is anchored in md deeper than you think. Each story, at least those i wrote, has scattered clues about other things in md. I never use a detail without it to have a meaning. If something is said to much about something, it means it talks about something else. Back long ago when i was playing KC or SS i was also conducting side quests not presented in the AL. From time to time results in those quests were presented in AL, the most important is the KC lost soldiers quest -that is still not over-. Often these quests were used to tell things about the real unsaid before or said in forms that were ignored. MD has its own network of logic in its construction.MD as you see it its just the face of this logic but not its form. Why something is there and not someplace else, or why something is in a way and not an other, its all connected. There is a reason i started to hate "Ancient Lore" and among some reasons it is because it was presenting fractions of this logic network but in an allready assembled form and was tottaly blocking out the chences of discovering other related reasons. Some things have more than just one meaning and if you become blinded by only one of the meanings you will block out all others and you will never see the connections with the rest. Over MD history, some players (like 5 or 6 i think) found their way through this MAZE, because it is a maze, and discovered things. Unfortunatly these players were never popular enough. Actually its good they were not, i guess i was counting on it otherwise md secrets could not "entertain" other generations. You hated these players, especialy when they got things overnight, like RPC promotions or my sudden unquestioned respect, but there was and will be no way to advertise there achievements. One of them never got his own confirmation that what he discovered was of such importance, BT, funny and sad at the same time. Others like AK will never be publicly acknowledged or accepted because of their direct relation to me, regardless of their own efforts. Others will be envied and hunted down because they just seem a bunch of spoiled kids that humor me and are in my favors, when in fact they discovered things to earn my attention. And so on. I got accused of keeping around fossils, players that once did great but no longer keep the md spirit and only stay around like echoes from the past. It is true and will change. I plan to put bounties of concrete value at the end of such logic mazes in MD construction. After telling you this I can also tell you that I was sad and lost interest in AL when not so many pages ago I openly disclosed some things of enormous importance that were regarded as an other "nice story" and nothing more. In fact i heard voices complaining about how AL is not following reality. Well it will stop following reality from now on to be clear. SOme of you especialy the ancient ones think that the secrets in MD are never to be found. Well ,yeah, then MD would end. However, i believe they were found 70% over time but never by same person. Their nature was of such kind that whoever discovered a bit of them never told it to others and kept it to himself. Those that told it were not lissened. Never these people communicated their findings in an attempt to find out more, and that is good for me. Lands of The East, the Tribunal, brings in the final bricks to support MD puzzle. There is one more final stone that is not yet drawn but i have a feeling it will never be. Anyhow, it is a series of about 10 locations that in case everything else is discovered they will simply be unavoidable even if not there, so i don't worry about it to much. It is my only fault that focus was taken away from this mysterious matter and that AL started to look so unrelated. I will repair this IF/WHEN i will resume AL, by making it again what it once was, the offcial backbone of MD history and meaning. Of course the path the AL will take will never collide directly with the secrets, BUT, it will go close to them over and over again, providing a source of endless reasons and purpose, directed on same lines. Why this secrecy, what is this puzzle i am talking about? Well lets say when you know a series of things, if its long enough, you can forsee the other things. For example, if you realise that all the land walls are never a real physical impediment, yet nothing can cross them other than by the gate, you will understand more of those borders that look unpassable and that those walls that look the strongest are in fact the weakest. What i call the land balance is just one tool that once mastered offers enough logic support to understand things that normaly made no sense. Its like when you find the place of all soubtle details in a pattern, you realise one of them is missplaced, and there is where you find "it". Inner magic, is like an adventurer that steps over a trap course and tries not to fall. If you master the things i said above, then your logic can step through md like knife through butter, allowing you to prove things in that or that way, to "use" the land weapons, and so on. its like you need an object in your inventory to support your RP actions. you could pretend you have it, true, but if you actually have it, then nobody will deny that you RP using it. Imagine you are me, knowing things i do about md, knowledge is power. ...but its obviously not enough. So, what al will bring new in its _secret_ evolution, is that it wont be secret anymore, i don't have the time for it anymore. I will tell you the story, your story, and in certain decision points I will see who finds the right path and moves on and who not. I will place bounties where once it was just a pat on the back. Among other things, new "RP points" will be a trade currency to allow the smartest players to build their own items, sort of how WP are now for spells. I will tell you the story and not let you suppose it anymore. It makes me feel good, and allows me to present you far better chelanges. I still have to find a way to hide my rewards so you can pick them up yourself, codes, features, objects, secret bank accounts, gold stashes hidden in parks (joking!) Its same situation with the land weapons. Technicaly their logic is done. Long ago activating them mean just figuring out how they work, then you could use them by considering their use a fact and influencing everything acordingly. This is no longer enough. You lost your touch with such things, players now in MD want facts. I want facts. I can no longer listen you each one of you. You need to be able to work on your own. That will be my greatest task while i write the AL, to make it independent of my intervention, yet keep its secrets soubtle enough to be understood by someone and not by many. For this i have someone among you that will be helping me with the code. I finaly found someone to give MD core to work on. He will be working on the things i left unfinished and materialize the ideas i never had the time to do. By saving me this precious time, i will be able to work on the artistic part and bring life once more in md story. I consider md logic maze building a sort of art, because it has beauty, it has method, and requires most of all creativity manifested in an ordered form. I should remember you that MD started as a forum, with nothing more than a forum and promises of a future "game". Even back then clues from md were debated on the forum and md was its people, nothing more. Remember what's in the box question? Yeah, but you still have no clue what's a Mur

Situation: i messed it, nothing else to say, ..big time. Update... i figured out that a full restore on that domain should make things as the were yesterday and i can retry the upgrade this time _READING_ the instructions.I emailed hosting for a recent backup, I hope they have it (they should). I will keep you informed on the way.

I was convinced this matter was solved in a friendly way. Seems not. Well its solved now, comment removed, Shoeps sent to prison.

[quote]Peace - I am with Chewett on this one.... Chewett - How the hell can you continue a AL with one person having left, Another one lazy enough to not bothered to even stay in his own land instead he is farming Alts, and i rarely see HP around and moving... [/quote] How can i continue? by telling what already happen!! How selfish can you be to say that and ignore that those events already happen. The story was not finished and will continue with the rest of the following events then it will shift the the new kind of AL i described in the docs of the new AL page. Thats why AL can't be written by any of you, you see it as a reward of some sort to whoever appears there and judge it by the popularity of the people appearing in it. To write it you should consider the story, AL is not your top class popularity contest. You want me to break the story and ignore it just because those players are no longer as active as they were? Then the AL should look line a news panel with scattered info about everything in the realm. If you want that, fine, will save me from bothering about doing it anymore. Such a comment coming from "veterans" shows how different you see AL from how i do, makes me think realy serious about it, and makes others feel confused about wrong reasons. Don't worry, i dont feel like continuing your obsolete adventurelog now. You will be safe from the horror of seing "fossils" walk again. p.s. what about those in the al that are still kicking? p.s. replace "fossils" with legendary players without quotes.

My testing items are for testing. I was hoping the get from one player to an other several times a day, not that they will be hoarded by one player in this way. I will be taking them away soon. I also believe its a good point to mention that using them for trading is similar to fraud. Seeing how the TEST ITEMS were used, makes me think of much severe ways for a future place of this kind. They will probably get a time limit for use and id restriction so you wont be able to overuse them. Phantasm, try to imagine yourself in the the other person position before you judge.

as you already figured i can't [b]and dont want to[/b] take something from someone just because others wish it more. He didnt get them free, from what i saw he got his items fair, actually with more effort than any of you, so i don't see what is wrong with this. Yes he is hoarding them, but he could as easy create 5 alts and keep a low profile and what then?? I am much much more concerned by those of you keeping nice avatars on alts then someone trying everything to get items. If you don't like him hoarding the items that way then dont sell them to him, simple as that. Looks to me like a gangup against a player that is not that popular but keeps that top position on a popular list. Therefor also the topics about removing the item owner list. Its something like lets rob him or at least lets make him invisible to protect our ego. What about i make it so that people with drachs wont be able to use them on people without drachs? if you want communist rules so much. ps. would be nice to hear his intentions and opinion on this too, not so hard to write a post is it shape shifter, maybe a bit of social interaction would solve the problem faster than an official robbery you are asking me to do.

I'll let them a while to see if they fix it. If its still an issue later let me know. Thnx for telling.

My medicine for this ... if you cant unite them, separate them more. I think brutal separation on lands with motivation to fight in teams, one against the other, like torch,..actualy torch, but with higher stakes. The unity of a group is given by the separation from the others. Some big important dude said that, i cant remember his mighty name. To go with this, i would add a tincture of customization potion, to make you work and also see relusts for customizing your profile a lot more. but ..but..... thoughts...i have plenty, always...remains to see when, how, ..motivation and the right time. and please, stop suggesting to write for AL, it kills me... was i not clear enough that AL will be chaos if written just to be written and written BY players?? AL is written ABOUT players , not BY them, bit big difference. MD birthday is comming soon..makes me think in big terms I think its not only me that needs motivation, its most of all YOU that need it ...so lets find one for both of us, what should it be ..maybe we should seek outside md. To complicated to do mp8 stage, to few people, but maybe something else .... blak letters are still there, the most amazing puzzle i ever built....but ..no time to write them ....no motivation..... please do not jump to help me, i am just speaking my thoughts loud, let me be

All your points are very interesting to hear and come just when i was analyzing the same matter. Story is a driving force of MD, but who to do it? I don't want to offend anyone or ignore your efforts, but to put it like that, even Ady went derailed with stories when not kept within lines. Story went great when i took care of it. The moment i left it in your (player) hands it started to become exagerated and faded, as each is targeting its own interests, and its normal. I have more than one role to perform, it is the programming part, to build the tools so to say, it is the management part, to keep things going, even if slow, it is the content/story part that gives md direction. I rarely can do them all, and in recent period i dont think i can do any at all anymore. MD is now formed by veterans. This is something i appreciate a lot and its only them that keep it alive. Of course this scares off new players, but without the veterans to scare them off, MD would be justfull of scared noobs. Its been several month since i last focused entirely on MD. No its not because i was busy..i am always busy, thats not something to stop me. Its because i feel a burden, and that cuts off my creativity and most important it cuts my will to get things moving. I am a terrible worker, i do briliant when i am motivated and i do crap when i lose my motivation. I was like that always and i can't and don't want to change. Realising that i spend hours thinking what to do in md and not doing anything, i started to focus on other things to shift the stress of "having to do" something, away. I keep saying this in all forms and with all occasions i speak about this ... if i am not motivated i can not work. My motivation is MD are you the people playing it, to see it grow and also the tehnological treats i do from time to time to see if "i can do it". ..like the translation potions and such. I fear i am trapped myself in this downfall of MD, your lose in interest amplifies my ignorance to the matter and in turn makes MD stagnate and drives more people away. Have you at least noticed since when i stoped updating the newslog with relevant information? I have my batteries too, and if they get burned i have two options ..to push harder and risk destroying them or to backoff and retry when they are recharged. My life goes to big changes, i believe i finaly succeded to work only on my projects and not lose valuable time with shithead clients... but at what cost.. Recession hit us all and without money i risk to see all things i love, such as MD, fall apart around me. You might think at this point that this is about MD and not about ME ... well as arogant as it sounds i must say that these two things are tighlty connected. I want to get things going, i badly do. I plan "Muratus del Mur" to retire and actualy start to play. You have no ideea what quests i have for you. The veterans that know me from back long ago will be able to imagine a bit of what i can do now. MD world is much more ripe and a lot of features allow me now to do things that before could not be achieved. My plans to achieve that spread over a few month, like half a year. During this time i plan to establish a way of getting a constant flow of traffic to md, without depending on advertising money. At the same time i hope that in a few month to finaly trust someone to handle MD programming matters in my place. That will be the milestone in MD development. So far one guy tried but failed. I have so many ideas on MD, i always had and I always will...but i have only that much energy to give away. To be able to give more i need to receive more, and to receive i need to be happy with my achievements and enjoy the work i do , not just feel "I must do it". When i chat with someone in MD, it takes about 10minutes before someone starts asking stuff or puts questions or so. ------ There are so many things to say about this, so i will stop. What i want you to know is that MD means its players and regardless how long it will take untill i find the will to get back in action and resuscitate MD, i will do it, but if you think that you wait for that , you will be dissapointed. When it will happen it will happen.....can be a day, can be 100... I will only be efficient when my initiative in a matter still has a word to say, not when i am pushed by events to do something. So one day when i will feel to shake MD world with something new, i will sit on my chair, open md, and enjoy my every moment of it...then i guarantee you that you will enjoy it even more. it might be that by that time will be empty, full of tired veterans that are bored by anything else md will have to offer, or full of confused noobs upset things change...it might be md will be no longer because hosting shut it down, lol... I wish to think about you as friends, please don't think about me as a service provider because i am not. Enough said.. here is the thing that i started yesterday, trying to find my excitement about new and inovative projects once more: [url="http://playerdetective.com"]http://playerdetective.com[/url] Its watching you right now O.o

This kind of event is defenelty regretable, especialy when it comes from some people. Since the issue in cause is to be solved by him, i will do my part and work on a player ignore feature next. In the past incidents i heard about, from different people, i think such a feature will be most helpful. The first step will be a pm ignore option. The next much more agressive could be chat ignore, but its tricky to do it because it could be used as an advantage (invisibility). I am unable to do this change asap, but you will see it in a few days announced.

you should be now able to fight the guards again. do so and let me know if you still can't access something.

I wont disclose what i want to get ..i don't want you to get me a gift or something .. but if you are still curious, i will tell you after i get them. Handy, i'll pm you, THANKS!

You didn't got mine ?! .... (

I badly want to get some books from amazon.com but i can't use any of their payment methods. *!@#$%! I need a amazon gift card of 100$ and i can pay you back by paypal. Anyone with a "amazon friendly" credit card, that wants to help? I heard in US there is a way amazon can accept also paypal by using the paypal virtual debit card. I don't mind to pay you something more than you actualy spend with this if you require, and i assure you i wont run away with the 100$. Normaly i would hate my bank or my country for not being able to pay on such sites, but this time i hate amazon because its unacceptable that such a huge site is not taking paypal, or moneybookers and i dont have an issue with online purchases in other places. Thnx.

items will still be stplitted in rare and common items. Raw materials might get more common , such as silver for example, but if so they will also have a different dynamic. Maybe they will be just temporary untill you convert them into somethign or gain something for them. The rare or unique items will remain unique, their value won't change, in fact it might grow once they get any kind of usability. You better don't haste to make assumptions on what it will be. I am still not sure of the things i can do with the new features. It might surprise me as well in the end. The only stable things you can rely on are the things i place in the announcements. Here on forum i say ideas, how things might be , etc. If you want to plan ahead and anticipate if the item value will raise or drop, its your own risk.

I didnt forget anything, but i am afraid the changes i am about to do might change the "values" in the realm, and i don't want to close an auction like this one and then to discover that something that was considered more valuable will be less valuable after my changes. Its also harder then i anticipated to think of a common value for all the things placed as bids. The merchandise is still there, wont go anywhere, and for now bidders lost/payed nothing, so there is no damage.

Since server is down and hosting is not responding, i will write a bit about what i did today. Homing items, well, its possible now. I have a few ideas that might change md a lot in the future, for example: - pet items, you feed them with heat or me, or with creatures, they can weaken enemies or simply be cute. They have a fixed number of uses. While in your possession the number resets every time it reaches zero, but when they give them to someone, they will return to you once they are used a given number of times. - homing pigeons, owls ... You could give them to someone then when used they would return to you and their description would have a text written by the one that set them free. Of course there is no practical purpose because we have pms ..but maybe for a quest or something... - Tool renting. There could be a place where you could rent tools for different things. You pay something for them, like one silver, or other items (supposing there will be many raw material items), or for free, and you could use that tool for a limited number of time. Once its used entirely it would reset back to its "base", reset, and be ready for an other player to use it. - torch competition. Heheh...this one is related to somethign bigger and you will see when time comes. Nice part is that without this feature some things that i planned long ago would not be possible, yet back then i was not expecting such a thing. There are obviously a lot of new items possible. I just built myself a heat-to-vitality conversion device. It lets you store heat (that drops 1 per sec) and you can activate it whenever you want and heal anybody with that same amount of Ve. It has also the homing feature and limited use, so its very likely i will be passing my new toy around for some of you to test. Right now server is dead, and i am at the edge of eating my keyboard out of frustration, so i cant think streight about more possible uses, but i knwo there are. one question is most important. Economy or not economy, should there be raw items, and a sort of industry to convert and use them, and together with that skills such as mining, crafting of all sorts and such? I am a bit afraid of making that part of the game. Economy leads to abuse, and in time will need a lot of "continuation" i will not be able to provide ... (because i will be always working on stuff i enjoy and never on stuff i should). So its difficult to decide. For now i will be playing with the new toys and try to find a way to keep them balanced, or more towards the unefficient side. Items still have an importance just as such, without their use, so their use can remain on the luxury side for a while. Now, this is outrageos, server still down...i'm so gonna kill somebody/thing/....argggg

Just to make sure something is clear, there is no difference between the citizenship from the menu tab/form and the one given with the kings ring. The form will serv just as info for the king to know who gets it and who not, but for now that form is not working yet.

If there would be way to create raw materials, wouldn't it cause a huge inflation of items? The current usable items allow for dynamic item creation, for example you could have an lumber axe and if you are in certain places on the map the axe could spawn a certain number if wood chunks for example. This can be made for example for christals, metals etc. The other items such as tools , could convert a certain number of raw materials in your inventory into a more rare items. This sounds nice I know. There is also a restricted place in MB reserved for a possible mining camp...but...what is the impact of such a feature on the long run...how would you get a manufacturing tool or a gathering tool. I am afraid this will only make strong players richer and will cause a huge item inflation destroyin the importance of items overall. still thinking about it...

I was requested to investigate the demotion of Fenrir Greycloth as a forum mod. Here are my conclusions. Since the forum has a chain of command, in this order: regular user -> forum mods -> forum admins -> me, the decisions comming from the same people that placed you in that position can not be contested. You got accepted as forum mod by a forum admin, forum admins can demote you WITH OR WITHOUT REASON. Moderator job is to keep the forum going alright and clean bad things, organize topics, etc, and forum admin job is to keep a good team of forum mods and take important decisions about the forum. currently Chewett is the head of forum (since the beginning of times i might add), and akasha is also root admin (also since the beginning of times). Forum hierarchy in the admin section is mods->akasha->chewett->me. If fenrir was or was not demoted based on a good reason its irrelevant, because he could have been demoted also without reason. Once i have someone in charge of something it means i trust that person decisions regarding the matters i placed him in command over. In this particular case i think there was a very strong reason to demote fenrir because ALL mods, and admins agreed to his demotion. Even if it was not a good reason at all, the simple fact that you managed to get the other "team members" against you is reason enough for you not to continue to be a forum mod. For general knowledge, demotion up the hierarchy is also possible, meaning that for example more regular users can file a complain to a forum admin to demote a forum mod, for good reasons. The same way more forum mods can file a complain to me to demore a forum admin, but the reasons would have to be ridiculously strong to make me demote either chewett or akasha, so unless you have solid proof of abuse,insane acts, or such, dont waste my time. Forum admins usualy get demoted based on inactivity, so when they no longer come around to handle things when needed, i will replace them by someone else after a certain period of time. As for me, sorry i can't be demoted, you'd wish ..or lets say i can demote myself and get rid of the responsability ...ah, i'd wish So back to fenrir situation. I think that anyone that served the community for a decent period of time deserves a reward. Fenrir was a mod for a decent period of time over half a year if i know right. Being a mod means serving the md community. Regardless of the reason he got demoted, his work on the forum in previous times remains unchanged so his reward should be there for him. The reward will be sent shortly, and will consist (as chewett suggested) in a wishpoint for service to md, and a valuable creature. i will probably slightly change this reward after i think a bit how much time means how much reward. Right now i am not sure if this is too little for 8 month of moderating or too much. (feel free to make suggestions) and a personal note to fenrir: you being a mod wont prevent you from getting baned from the forum for rudeness to other mods or admins.

I was requested to investigate the reasons why fenrir was demoted as forum mod. i will post the conclusion in a separate topic so you can all rant and complain about my decision. On short there was no investigation, there is no need for one when you have a chain of command. read more there please.

postponed, sorry for the delay. merchandise and offers remain, its just me that cant review and sort them at this time. When they will be sorted I will update this topic with the highest bids for each item and we will resume the bidding from there.

I have a curiosity. How many of you are artists, ..i mean in a semi-professional way , like with a personal (or public) art gallery, composers, scultors, writers with _published_ books, things like that. If you have a webpage with things you made and its not just some myspace or deviant user account , but something of yours, or presented by others with your works in it .. post here. I might create a page with your galleries , i love artists of any kind a lot (but not wannabes). Thank you

Yeah, i must admit i was wrong about an aspect of the protection. It tottaly fails in front of mozilla save media feature, BUT its purpose was and still is to restrict people from seeing in advance unreleased creatures and avatars, beat that I will make the requested changes , consider function to be from now: mds_creature_icon(12345, params); the same for the avatar function