Muratus del Mur

As you already know if you checked announcements lately, i am currently working on the evo shop. This will be the place where you will be able to spend evolution points that you can currently gather for all sorts of activities.

The shop is designed to bring a more massive change to MD than it first seems. In stage 17, the announced direction is one of chaos, because chaos is womb of creation.
Several of the stuff you got used to (i am talking here to the ancient players), will change, one way or an other.

Several super rare things will become more common, and other unique stuff will become more easily available. The essence of valuable stuff has shifted more towards the personal items you hold, and in the way the Forge is now capable to judge your direction in the realm.

Getting heat slots was difficult and rare, not to mention spells that turn heat gathering obsolete (heat and heatboost spells)... now these things will become slowly more common.
The forge was tweaked to not give single use items, so that will also be a direction of constant value inflation.

But lets admit it, the value accumulation in the realm was a thing that had to change. The realm has enough to offer to keep those that deserve it, hold their distinct advantage over those that don't try so much.

I was suprised to see how much of MD was not really reachable. Many things designed just for custom roles, many things requiring truly difficult to do chores... so the evolution points system changes this direction significantly. The Evo shop will unfold a lot of md, but give you a limited choice. While the points are grindable, their use is not. You will not be able to buy everything in the evo shop, every stage of the shop is a choice you will have to deal with the rest of your character evolution.

Thats why, even if you can spend your evo points on stuff like the summon spell, or super rare creatures, or on spells designed for particular roles, its a choice you have to make, and when you pick one, you give up an other.

This will work hand in hand with two other systems. The Forge, you already know it, and the tag dispatchers (will be revived, the system is there just not used much).


Why the paradigm shift

MD was designed to have the human factor as the final decision layer. This is a good plan still, but the number of people in MD does not allow it to function properly. There must be ways for everyone to convert effort into achievements, and most important, ways to reach the highest "levels" in md through these ways.

The way things were designed so far:
players do whatever they can, human in charge judges and grants abilities, the chain continues with people having more altering the lives of those that have less. Natural, but stuck for "single player mode"
Many worthy players never ever got what they deserved, and the leaders where impossible to contradict and overthrown
Society never self balanced, it always needed a leader
Anomalies truly changed the realm, but limited to how much the leader(s) (me) believed in that direction.
A central decision factor shaped the world and kept it true to a set of core concepts.
The way things will be now:
Players can turn effort into benefits via the evo points system. This, together with active days, count for their raw activity.
Their actions are carefully analyzed by the forge and turned into usable items, these realizations count for their personal direction and role.
Evo shop turns raw activity into tools, forge items plus tools create a role.
Tag dispatchers allow unlocking of curated roles, that the entire realm "believes". The forge considers tags as an absolute truth, same as leaders were supposed to.
Society self balances without needing the top leadership
Anomalies will emerge, but they will shape the realm. Core concepts might be ruined in this process, but the central decision factor will shape the tools in such a way to compensate, no longer the characters directly.
By central decision factor i mean of course myself, but often others with full powers where directed to replace my decisions on countless occasions, so its a general concept, not a person.

I tried to delegate this power many many times, and define myself more as a tools architect than a community leader, but this worked only on few occasions. Hopefully with more freedom, and chaos, things will rearrange in more interesting ways for all of us.


The new rarity measure
If all the options are now there on the table, what defines rarity? Until now, rarity was defined by the items only i could build, custom creations, and the standard rarity given by the deep shop branches. In the new system, rarity will be more defined by the role items you create using the forge, since the forge always creates unique stuff, always tailored to your character (even when you dont like it, and thing its not matching your character, the issue is not the forge).

The depth remains the pool of rarity in the evo shop as well. You will get awesome stuff the deeper you get, but anyone getting there will have the chance to get the same, so its more about how you craft your role with the stuff that you get, in such a way that the forge will be able to create you the unique stuff you deserve.


Objectively the most valuable things in the realm right now
- magical forge fires
(these are forge fires that last longer usually, and do not consume your items when forging)
- a25 tools
(still a part of md power structure that i have not yet decided where it fits, these are portable admin tools of sorts. not for playing but for game masters to build the game for others to play)
- Player tags and medals
(these where always powerful, but now even more so. These are considered sources of truth by all the automated tools. Humans might diregard them, but the forge and other tools in the AI team, will consider these the absolute truth. If your tag and description say you can shut down the server, the ai will do its best to give you tools to do so, or do it itself for you. Premeditated chaos and risk, i always loved it)

Worthy mentions: `condensed` status in items, these are a promise to the forge, that the item forged with these ingredients will be usable, and if the promise fails, the item is returned unharmed.

- - Enjoy,

Mur

As you already know if you checked announcements lately, i am currently working on the evo shop. This will be the place where you will be able to spend evolution points that you can currently gather for all sorts of activities.

The shop is designed to bring a more massive change to MD than it first seems. In stage 17, the announced direction is one of chaos, because chaos is womb of creation.
Several of the stuff you got used to (i am talking here to the ancient players), will change, one way or an other.

Several super rare things will become more common, and other unique stuff will become more easily available. The essence of valuable stuff has shifted more towards the personal items you hold, and in the way the Forge is now capable to judge your direction in the realm.

Getting heat slots was difficult and rare, not to mention spells that turn heat gathering obsolete (heat and heatboost spells)... now these things will become slowly more common.
The forge was tweaked to not give single use items, so that will also be a direction of constant value inflation.

But lets admit it, the value accumulation in the realm was a thing that had to change. The realm has enough to offer to keep those that deserve it, hold their distinct advantage over those that don't try so much.

I was suprised to see how much of MD was not really reachable. Many things designed just for custom roles, many things requiring truly difficult to do chores... so the evolution points system changes this direction significantly. The Evo shop will unfold a lot of md, but give you a limited choice. While the points are grindable, their use is not. You will not be able to buy everything in the evo shop, every stage of the shop is a choice you will have to deal with the rest of your character evolution.

Thats why, even if you can spend your evo points on stuff like the summon spell, or super rare creatures, or on spells designed for particular roles, its a choice you have to make, and when you pick one, you give up an other.

This will work hand in hand with two other systems. The Forge, you already know it, and the tag dispatchers (will be revived, the system is there just not used much).


Why the paradigm shift

MD was designed to have the human factor as the final decision layer. This is a good plan still, but the number of people in MD does not allow it to function properly. There must be ways for everyone to convert effort into achievements, and most important, ways to reach the highest "levels" in md through these ways.

The way things were designed so far:
players do whatever they can, human in charge judges and grants abilities, the chain continues with people having more altering the lives of those that have less. Natural, but stuck for "single player mode"
Many worthy players never ever got what they deserved, and the leaders where impossible to contradict and overthrown
Society never self balanced, it always needed a leader
Anomalies truly changed the realm, but limited to how much the leader(s) (me) believed in that direction.
A central decision factor shaped the world and kept it true to a set of core concepts.
The way things will be now:
Players can turn effort into benefits via the evo points system. This, together with active days, count for their raw activity.
Their actions are carefully analyzed by the forge and turned into usable items, these realizations count for their personal direction and role.
Evo shop turns raw activity into tools, forge items plus tools create a role.
Tag dispatchers allow unlocking of curated roles, that the entire realm "believes". The forge considers tags as an absolute truth, same as leaders were supposed to.
Society self balances without needing the top leadership
Anomalies will emerge, but they will shape the realm. Core concepts might be ruined in this process, but the central decision factor will shape the tools in such a way to compensate, no longer the characters directly.
By central decision factor i mean of course myself, but often others with full powers where directed to replace my decisions on countless occasions, so its a general concept, not a person.

I tried to delegate this power many many times, and define myself more as a tools architect than a community leader, but this worked only on few occasions. Hopefully with more freedom, and chaos, things will rearrange in more interesting ways for all of us.


The new rarity measure
If all the options are now there on the table, what defines rarity? Until now, rarity was defined by the items only i could build, custom creations, and the standard rarity given by the deep shop branches. In the new system, rarity will be more defined by the role items you create using the forge, since the forge always creates unique stuff, always tailored to your character (even when you dont like it, and thing its not matching your character, the issue is not the forge).

The depth remains the pool of rarity in the evo shop as well. You will get awesome stuff the deeper you get, but anyone getting there will have the chance to get the same, so its more about how you craft your role with the stuff that you get, in such a way that the forge will be able to create you the unique stuff you deserve.


Objectively the most valuable things in the realm right now
- magical forge fires
(these are forge fires that last longer usually, and do not consume your items when forging)
- a25 tools
(still a part of md power structure that i have not yet decided where it fits, these are portable admin tools of sorts. not for playing but for game masters to build the game for others to play)
- Player tags and medals
(these where always powerful, but now even more so. These are considered sources of truth by all the automated tools. Humans might diregard them, but the forge and other tools in the AI team, will consider these the absolute truth. If your tag and description say you can shut down the server, the ai will do its best to give you tools to do so, or do it itself for you. Premeditated chaos and risk, i always loved it)

Worthy mentions: `condensed` status in items, these are a promise to the forge, that the item forged with these ingredients will be usable, and if the promise fails, the item is returned unharmed.

- - Enjoy,

Mur

A couple days ago... give it a few more years for the 1,000,000!

It is that time of year again. It has apparently been a very long 2 years.

My first milestone.

People with over 100 consecutive days, or over 1000 active days, or anyone holding an item MD Archive Papers, will be able to enter md-archives.com and write what they wish, moderate stuff, or do basically what they want as long as its not vandalism, spam, etc.

This way, this site becomes an earned access. Lets see what will happen.

I made several md archive papers, to me and chew, we can give them on request for cases where that person should clearly have access but does not have the days, if any such case will exist.

Implementation is in progress right now, i will announce it shortly.

The forge is not just an AI making items up, its also a judge of character, a profiler.

Let me share with you some of the recent reasoning it had for some of the recently created items, so you understand what it does (and why you didnt get what you wanted, or why you did). This is a mix from various players, i will not name who is who
I will not specify if the forge note is for good or for bad, i let you figure that out yourself.. but its enough to know the forge does an adversarial review of its own actions and has an internal committee that votes on each decision after objectively analyzing all available aspects.
There are dozens of such investigations done for a single item, with huge amounts of data processed and interpretted before deciding even the smallest variation. It is the closest thing to an AI judge i ever built so far.

- They are sacrificing the very Elemental Amulet itself (id 3358, 17y old, copies=1, the unique original) — the literal object of their wish, placed on the altar. (inconsistent wish self canceled)
- 1858 active days, gold veteran, last meaningful active phase March-May 2022 (94 events) coincides exactly with when the wishlist paper was written; since then only sporadic resource-crafting. Player is in twilight phase, cashing in legacy.
- Player retains his absolute top creatures (Madhorn 695 wins is KEPT in collection at top_trained, but a duplicate-tier Madhorn is sacrificed; Elementals V level-6 with 5M+ exp kept). They are giving up the secondary army, not the crown jewels — consistent with a focused empowerment ritual rather than total liquidation.
- Past wish #20 was 'Mutate GG Drachorn into Wind Dragon' — they have a precedent for using sacrificial/transmutation magic to convert one creature form into a more useful one, fitting an item-forge transmutation here. Coherence in course.
- Central_concentration 0.75 at 1_0x0_1 with only 4 events / 2 distinct locations in a year — they are rooted and low-mobility; a portable renewable resource item fits a stationary merchant far better than a combat artifact.
- 9 locked-favourite Elucubratie at level 1 with ~2500 wins each — he keeps small bound creatures as treasured familiars; collector of contained spirits.
- Lifetime 1980W/1980L — fights to KEEP BALANCE, only 4 fights in last 90 days. He is not pursuing a warlord wish; the 'army' he wants is symbolic/quiet, fitting Caretaker doctrine.
- Heavy recent crafting of Otherarmy stones, Invisibility stones, Lockinchaos stones, Skulls, Bones — building a death/army-summon toolkit around the same period.
- Active phases are now reduced to brief annual spikes (Feb 2024/25/26 and June 2026). The current June 2026 spike (19 events) coinciding with this forge suggests an attempt to make this one event matter — a renewal/recrowning moment.
- 2649 items owned, 720 'valuable', 145 favourites, plus 658 shop items — a deep collector/curator, not a depleter. Giving up 8 anniversary plushies + a creature is meaningful but not impoverishing; he expects a personal artifact, not a god-tier weapon.
Enough about the reasoning samples, now about the desire profiling:
Inferred wish: To be re-crowned as the true elder Scribe of the Caretakers — to convert his long, quiet veteran tenure and his oldest companions' loyalty into a real mark of authority and presence, not the play-pretend kingship of a grass crown. (strong)
Significance: 0.788 (active 6235d, papers 8, pop -7)
Verdict: A chat_poll seal that obeys every die: usable (presents a witnessing vote), no spell, no enchanted aura, tag valuable, tier flavor — comfortably below the epic ceiling, and appropriately so given the modest sacrifice (one common play-crown plus two non-rare lvl-5 plants) and middling significance (0.788). The seal honors all three sources literally: the grass IS the play-crown's substance, Bob's and Steve's stems form the binding stays, and their names are engraved on the rim. Crucially the item grants the bearer NO authority — it only invites others to witness or decline, conferring no title, no NPC reaction, no mechanical power over anyone. The "scribe's hand" framing is descriptive, not a claim of office. Description trimmed of the meta line confirming mundanity (kept the concrete "grass has not browned" detail as the actual in-world fact). Clean approval.



Btw..the forge mechanism is faaar more complex and better than the loan review software i built at work recently, and that one uses similar mechanism to decide on your loan eligibility, not some item in a game ;)... but md i love a lot more than work so its only natural it comes out better :D

The forge is not just an AI making items up, its also a judge of character, a profiler.

Let me share with you some of the recent reasoning it had for some of the recently created items, so you understand what it does (and why you didnt get what you wanted, or why you did). This is a mix from various players, i will not name who is who
I will not specify if the forge note is for good or for bad, i let you figure that out yourself.. but its enough to know the forge does an adversarial review of its own actions and has an internal committee that votes on each decision after objectively analyzing all available aspects.
There are dozens of such investigations done for a single item, with huge amounts of data processed and interpretted before deciding even the smallest variation. It is the closest thing to an AI judge i ever built so far.

- They are sacrificing the very Elemental Amulet itself (id 3358, 17y old, copies=1, the unique original) — the literal object of their wish, placed on the altar. (inconsistent wish self canceled)
- 1858 active days, gold veteran, last meaningful active phase March-May 2022 (94 events) coincides exactly with when the wishlist paper was written; since then only sporadic resource-crafting. Player is in twilight phase, cashing in legacy.
- Player retains his absolute top creatures (Madhorn 695 wins is KEPT in collection at top_trained, but a duplicate-tier Madhorn is sacrificed; Elementals V level-6 with 5M+ exp kept). They are giving up the secondary army, not the crown jewels — consistent with a focused empowerment ritual rather than total liquidation.
- Past wish #20 was 'Mutate GG Drachorn into Wind Dragon' — they have a precedent for using sacrificial/transmutation magic to convert one creature form into a more useful one, fitting an item-forge transmutation here. Coherence in course.
- Central_concentration 0.75 at 1_0x0_1 with only 4 events / 2 distinct locations in a year — they are rooted and low-mobility; a portable renewable resource item fits a stationary merchant far better than a combat artifact.
- 9 locked-favourite Elucubratie at level 1 with ~2500 wins each — he keeps small bound creatures as treasured familiars; collector of contained spirits.
- Lifetime 1980W/1980L — fights to KEEP BALANCE, only 4 fights in last 90 days. He is not pursuing a warlord wish; the 'army' he wants is symbolic/quiet, fitting Caretaker doctrine.
- Heavy recent crafting of Otherarmy stones, Invisibility stones, Lockinchaos stones, Skulls, Bones — building a death/army-summon toolkit around the same period.
- Active phases are now reduced to brief annual spikes (Feb 2024/25/26 and June 2026). The current June 2026 spike (19 events) coinciding with this forge suggests an attempt to make this one event matter — a renewal/recrowning moment.
- 2649 items owned, 720 'valuable', 145 favourites, plus 658 shop items — a deep collector/curator, not a depleter. Giving up 8 anniversary plushies + a creature is meaningful but not impoverishing; he expects a personal artifact, not a god-tier weapon.
Enough about the reasoning samples, now about the desire profiling:
Inferred wish: To be re-crowned as the true elder Scribe of the Caretakers — to convert his long, quiet veteran tenure and his oldest companions' loyalty into a real mark of authority and presence, not the play-pretend kingship of a grass crown. (strong)
Significance: 0.788 (active 6235d, papers 8, pop -7)
Verdict: A chat_poll seal that obeys every die: usable (presents a witnessing vote), no spell, no enchanted aura, tag valuable, tier flavor — comfortably below the epic ceiling, and appropriately so given the modest sacrifice (one common play-crown plus two non-rare lvl-5 plants) and middling significance (0.788). The seal honors all three sources literally: the grass IS the play-crown's substance, Bob's and Steve's stems form the binding stays, and their names are engraved on the rim. Crucially the item grants the bearer NO authority — it only invites others to witness or decline, conferring no title, no NPC reaction, no mechanical power over anyone. The "scribe's hand" framing is descriptive, not a claim of office. Description trimmed of the meta line confirming mundanity (kept the concrete "grass has not browned" detail as the actual in-world fact). Clean approval.



Btw..the forge mechanism is faaar more complex and better than the loan review software i built at work recently, and that one uses similar mechanism to decide on your loan eligibility, not some item in a game ;)... but md i love a lot more than work so its only natural it comes out better :D

People with over 100 consecutive days, or over 1000 active days, or anyone holding an item MD Archive Papers, will be able to enter md-archives.com and write what they wish, moderate stuff, or do basically what they want as long as its not vandalism, spam, etc.

This way, this site becomes an earned access. Lets see what will happen.

I made several md archive papers, to me and chew, we can give them on request for cases where that person should clearly have access but does not have the days, if any such case will exist.

Implementation is in progress right now, i will announce it shortly.

The forge has of today, a special list of item combos that will bypass ai creativity and lead to predictable results. Let me disclose one of these so you can understand what i mean better:

"sacrifice 5 aramors, with an item representing 5 (like a 5 playing card, or 5 silver note, etc), and add your last gold in the mix" results in "5 pointed star gold amulet"

The example is functional but its useless. In the following days, secret recipes will be added for overpowered items such as kingship items, a25 tools, overpowered or admin items. All the combinations will make sense, but will not be guessable. Why i do this, considering probably nobody will discover them by mistake?...i don;t know... for the same reason entire lands of the realm are off reach, i love depth, even if it becomes absurd :)

What this means for you:

Quest makers may ask for their own combos to be implemented
Clues to special combos will be distributed throughout the realm for puzzle hunters
Secret recipes might even be written in item descriptions.

But for now, the secret recipes of the forge is empty (except the example). Will take me a few days or weeks to design the right combos that nobody will use for the next decade or so..but what if someone does?

I want to make A25 powers obtainable in-game, those are the ultimate powers one could have.. would be nice to have them completely independent from me, we shall see :)

The forge is not just an AI making items up, its also a judge of character, a profiler.

Let me share with you some of the recent reasoning it had for some of the recently created items, so you understand what it does (and why you didnt get what you wanted, or why you did). This is a mix from various players, i will not name who is who
I will not specify if the forge note is for good or for bad, i let you figure that out yourself.. but its enough to know the forge does an adversarial review of its own actions and has an internal committee that votes on each decision after objectively analyzing all available aspects.
There are dozens of such investigations done for a single item, with huge amounts of data processed and interpretted before deciding even the smallest variation. It is the closest thing to an AI judge i ever built so far.

- They are sacrificing the very Elemental Amulet itself (id 3358, 17y old, copies=1, the unique original) — the literal object of their wish, placed on the altar. (inconsistent wish self canceled)
- 1858 active days, gold veteran, last meaningful active phase March-May 2022 (94 events) coincides exactly with when the wishlist paper was written; since then only sporadic resource-crafting. Player is in twilight phase, cashing in legacy.
- Player retains his absolute top creatures (Madhorn 695 wins is KEPT in collection at top_trained, but a duplicate-tier Madhorn is sacrificed; Elementals V level-6 with 5M+ exp kept). They are giving up the secondary army, not the crown jewels — consistent with a focused empowerment ritual rather than total liquidation.
- Past wish #20 was 'Mutate GG Drachorn into Wind Dragon' — they have a precedent for using sacrificial/transmutation magic to convert one creature form into a more useful one, fitting an item-forge transmutation here. Coherence in course.
- Central_concentration 0.75 at 1_0x0_1 with only 4 events / 2 distinct locations in a year — they are rooted and low-mobility; a portable renewable resource item fits a stationary merchant far better than a combat artifact.
- 9 locked-favourite Elucubratie at level 1 with ~2500 wins each — he keeps small bound creatures as treasured familiars; collector of contained spirits.
- Lifetime 1980W/1980L — fights to KEEP BALANCE, only 4 fights in last 90 days. He is not pursuing a warlord wish; the 'army' he wants is symbolic/quiet, fitting Caretaker doctrine.
- Heavy recent crafting of Otherarmy stones, Invisibility stones, Lockinchaos stones, Skulls, Bones — building a death/army-summon toolkit around the same period.
- Active phases are now reduced to brief annual spikes (Feb 2024/25/26 and June 2026). The current June 2026 spike (19 events) coinciding with this forge suggests an attempt to make this one event matter — a renewal/recrowning moment.
- 2649 items owned, 720 'valuable', 145 favourites, plus 658 shop items — a deep collector/curator, not a depleter. Giving up 8 anniversary plushies + a creature is meaningful but not impoverishing; he expects a personal artifact, not a god-tier weapon.
Enough about the reasoning samples, now about the desire profiling:
Inferred wish: To be re-crowned as the true elder Scribe of the Caretakers — to convert his long, quiet veteran tenure and his oldest companions' loyalty into a real mark of authority and presence, not the play-pretend kingship of a grass crown. (strong)
Significance: 0.788 (active 6235d, papers 8, pop -7)
Verdict: A chat_poll seal that obeys every die: usable (presents a witnessing vote), no spell, no enchanted aura, tag valuable, tier flavor — comfortably below the epic ceiling, and appropriately so given the modest sacrifice (one common play-crown plus two non-rare lvl-5 plants) and middling significance (0.788). The seal honors all three sources literally: the grass IS the play-crown's substance, Bob's and Steve's stems form the binding stays, and their names are engraved on the rim. Crucially the item grants the bearer NO authority — it only invites others to witness or decline, conferring no title, no NPC reaction, no mechanical power over anyone. The "scribe's hand" framing is descriptive, not a claim of office. Description trimmed of the meta line confirming mundanity (kept the concrete "grass has not browned" detail as the actual in-world fact). Clean approval.



Btw..the forge mechanism is faaar more complex and better than the loan review software i built at work recently, and that one uses similar mechanism to decide on your loan eligibility, not some item in a game ;)... but md i love a lot more than work so its only natural it comes out better :D

After a long dormant period, thought to share a bit more about ongoing things in this side project.

AI player programmable generals. Thats the latest thing i am working on now. You will be able to setup your own game AI logic, in an intuitive "code block" style, and see how it performs against other players or ai generals others configured.
I thought to bring back the "AI" part into the human hands, let the human mistakes and flavored flaws manifest via the way they will configure their own ai fighting rules, instead of having a central superpower that fights you. 

Like this you can geniunely say you are better or worse at fighting than x or y, since automated AI will not be scored anymore, only fights against user created ai's.

Let me know what you think, play with it, feedback is my main fuel as always. 

This feature is due to be released this weekend 14june2026 , but you will be seeing traces of it already there, as i am actively working on it live, its more fun like this, i never liked organized deploys and such

Every now and then, when i look back and see what happend in MD development in the last long period, i decide to declare it the end of one stage and the beginning of an other.
A summary of what happend in Stage 16:
- A25 stopped being just an admin panel and turned into a much more complete questmaking and realm-shaping interface. Realm search, activation simulators, TESTMODE, decorations, focused scene editing, clickables libraries, depositables groundwork and a massively expanded npctalk system made it possible to build much more complex and interactive content. - The npctalk/dialogue branch alone exploded: labels, public vars, profile vars, imports/exports, random starts, rephrasing, mobile editing, item selection, text command activation, data formulas and other tools that give questmakers a way to build large branched stories without waiting for artworks. - Upgradeables, building upkeep, treasuries, land resources, regeneration controls, heavy resources, depositables and coin minting pushed the resource layer closer to something that can support real player projects and lasting communal structures. - Combat and ritual mechanics moved too: shard abilities became editable, collectable and species based; more creatures became able to fight; rituals became easier to create on mobile and later in huge batches; teleport blocking and no-teleport rules were added; and killing/revival item reuse got rebalanced in ways that permanently affect land security and ritual planning. - Items advanced a lot toward actual functionality. Items can grant spells, present public choices in chat, carry placed actions and texts, follow complexity levels for future mixing logic, feed the bestiary/NFT branch, and now even start to host minigames. This is one of the most important unfinished branches in MD right now. - Chat and interface updates where massive. MD became much more usable on mobile, the map/inbox/ritual creator and many other pages were reworked, chat commands multiplied, travel via chat and arrow keys appeared, PM history improved, and several sections of MD can now read themselves out loud. - AI entered MD in many forms. Darvin was retired and Eggdar entered play, announcements and help answers became queryable from chat, AI drawing tools started generating scenes, avatars, items and stories for A25, and interactive advisors such as the MD advisor, the Mur clone and the interactive Questmaster's Backpack started to augment how both players and questmakers interact with the realm. - The clearest form of this new AI direction is Eggdar, a true in-world questmaker and storyteller. Eggy evolved from experiment to character: able to remember, guide, describe, talk, build unique plots, run item-aware and team-friendly quests, let you pick rewards, issue future-value quest items and generally show what AI-native gameplay inside MD could look like. Eggy is using the full power of my outer-realm business Lumnar Creations, that powers it. - To support all this, huge infrastructure work happened behind the curtain. Server migrations, firewall work, http2, forum upgrades and relocations, php8 modernization, core refactors, and finally the new MagicDuel API, all changed how MD can be extended from now on. - This new API and the AI work around it deserve special mention. MD now has the kind of infrastructure that allows natural language control over a growing set of realm actions and tools, and even further AI support for future development. This does NOT mean that the AI should define MD. The concepts, ideas, balance and meaning of this realm remain human things, governed by player creativity and ingenuity. The AI is here to extend the playground, not replace the players. - Tags, streaks, spelldocs and research clues started to converge into a more coherent role ecosystem. New tag dispatchers, streak logic, spelldoc migration, clue improvements and unlocking methods are all groundwork for roles that actually unlock tools, places and branches of play. - Consecutive days changed from a prestige number into a real gameplay axis. It now shapes rewards, access, prison escape, deeper lands, boosters and other parts of the realm. - Politically and in the world itself, Stage 16 mattered too. Alliance leadership became more stable, Aia was crowned Queen of Loreroot, Sunfire took over Guardians of the Root, the Player Community Council was formed, important creators were honored in the Creative Creatives hall, Aksel entered SotIS, and an entire new land with nearly 30 scenes opened on MD's 20th birthday. - Minigames! I am not sure how much this will evolve in the future, but its a nice way to give items functionality and resuscitate the silver economy. Minigames can be used to gain silver coins but also consume them. - AI created scenes..while not something i am proud of, and i would still prefer human artworks when possible, AI created content is still an useful way to continue to expand the realm and make it so vast that none of its inhabitants can say they traveled it all - Last but not least, internal tools to develop MD changed dramatically, and are one step ahead of their times. Just few months ago was i able to put to good use plans designed for AI use, so that machine can understand they way i designed stuff in all these 20+ years, and lots of inner workings. I am still waiting for some more, and while looking ancient and living in a game world that is nearly extinct in this niche (compared to other game evolution), MD will remain a mix of vintage and cutting edge tech, as long as i will live. Overall this stage was a very explosive one. Rather than polishing just one branch till perfection, Stage 16 opened many branches at once: AI, tags, item functionality, dialogue systems, resource/building systems, interface modernization, and much more. Some of these branches already bear fruit, others are only now reaching the point where they can start to matter to everyday gameplay.
The upcomming stage should focus less on exploding the toolbox even further, and more on putting these tools in the hands of everyday players, so that an unprecedented level of !!CHAOS!! can happen in the realm. More freedom should return to the players, more true world-changing power should become reachable through role and effort, and several long due evolutionary branches should finally be completed properly: functional items, the role tags ecosystem, depositables, heavy resources, clue and spelldoc chains, deeper land mechanics, and a lot more.
This stage was about exploding the feature set with novel ways to express creativity, and lots of new and feature rich tools. The next one should be more about making these tools reachable, dangerous :D, and useful in the hands of regular players.
I would also like to thank all those that kept supporting MD financially, technically, artistically, through questmaking, debugging, documenting and simply by still being around in such desolated times. Without you, none of the above would mean much, because tools without people to use them are just abandoned machinery.
All these being said, i welcome all of you in Stage 17, a stage that should take all this accumulated potential and turn it into living disorder, player agency and a further EVOLUTION of MagicDuel realm.
signed: Mur, Chewett, Eggdar :D, and the humans crazy enough to put all these tools to good use.
-- enjoy

Every now and then, when i look back and see what happend in MD development in the last long period, i decide to declare it the end of one stage and the beginning of an other.
A summary of what happend in Stage 16:
- A25 stopped being just an admin panel and turned into a much more complete questmaking and realm-shaping interface. Realm search, activation simulators, TESTMODE, decorations, focused scene editing, clickables libraries, depositables groundwork and a massively expanded npctalk system made it possible to build much more complex and interactive content. - The npctalk/dialogue branch alone exploded: labels, public vars, profile vars, imports/exports, random starts, rephrasing, mobile editing, item selection, text command activation, data formulas and other tools that give questmakers a way to build large branched stories without waiting for artworks. - Upgradeables, building upkeep, treasuries, land resources, regeneration controls, heavy resources, depositables and coin minting pushed the resource layer closer to something that can support real player projects and lasting communal structures. - Combat and ritual mechanics moved too: shard abilities became editable, collectable and species based; more creatures became able to fight; rituals became easier to create on mobile and later in huge batches; teleport blocking and no-teleport rules were added; and killing/revival item reuse got rebalanced in ways that permanently affect land security and ritual planning. - Items advanced a lot toward actual functionality. Items can grant spells, present public choices in chat, carry placed actions and texts, follow complexity levels for future mixing logic, feed the bestiary/NFT branch, and now even start to host minigames. This is one of the most important unfinished branches in MD right now. - Chat and interface updates where massive. MD became much more usable on mobile, the map/inbox/ritual creator and many other pages were reworked, chat commands multiplied, travel via chat and arrow keys appeared, PM history improved, and several sections of MD can now read themselves out loud. - AI entered MD in many forms. Darvin was retired and Eggdar entered play, announcements and help answers became queryable from chat, AI drawing tools started generating scenes, avatars, items and stories for A25, and interactive advisors such as the MD advisor, the Mur clone and the interactive Questmaster's Backpack started to augment how both players and questmakers interact with the realm. - The clearest form of this new AI direction is Eggdar, a true in-world questmaker and storyteller. Eggy evolved from experiment to character: able to remember, guide, describe, talk, build unique plots, run item-aware and team-friendly quests, let you pick rewards, issue future-value quest items and generally show what AI-native gameplay inside MD could look like. Eggy is using the full power of my outer-realm business Lumnar Creations, that powers it. - To support all this, huge infrastructure work happened behind the curtain. Server migrations, firewall work, http2, forum upgrades and relocations, php8 modernization, core refactors, and finally the new MagicDuel API, all changed how MD can be extended from now on. - This new API and the AI work around it deserve special mention. MD now has the kind of infrastructure that allows natural language control over a growing set of realm actions and tools, and even further AI support for future development. This does NOT mean that the AI should define MD. The concepts, ideas, balance and meaning of this realm remain human things, governed by player creativity and ingenuity. The AI is here to extend the playground, not replace the players. - Tags, streaks, spelldocs and research clues started to converge into a more coherent role ecosystem. New tag dispatchers, streak logic, spelldoc migration, clue improvements and unlocking methods are all groundwork for roles that actually unlock tools, places and branches of play. - Consecutive days changed from a prestige number into a real gameplay axis. It now shapes rewards, access, prison escape, deeper lands, boosters and other parts of the realm. - Politically and in the world itself, Stage 16 mattered too. Alliance leadership became more stable, Aia was crowned Queen of Loreroot, Sunfire took over Guardians of the Root, the Player Community Council was formed, important creators were honored in the Creative Creatives hall, Aksel entered SotIS, and an entire new land with nearly 30 scenes opened on MD's 20th birthday. - Minigames! I am not sure how much this will evolve in the future, but its a nice way to give items functionality and resuscitate the silver economy. Minigames can be used to gain silver coins but also consume them. - AI created scenes..while not something i am proud of, and i would still prefer human artworks when possible, AI created content is still an useful way to continue to expand the realm and make it so vast that none of its inhabitants can say they traveled it all - Last but not least, internal tools to develop MD changed dramatically, and are one step ahead of their times. Just few months ago was i able to put to good use plans designed for AI use, so that machine can understand they way i designed stuff in all these 20+ years, and lots of inner workings. I am still waiting for some more, and while looking ancient and living in a game world that is nearly extinct in this niche (compared to other game evolution), MD will remain a mix of vintage and cutting edge tech, as long as i will live. Overall this stage was a very explosive one. Rather than polishing just one branch till perfection, Stage 16 opened many branches at once: AI, tags, item functionality, dialogue systems, resource/building systems, interface modernization, and much more. Some of these branches already bear fruit, others are only now reaching the point where they can start to matter to everyday gameplay.
The upcomming stage should focus less on exploding the toolbox even further, and more on putting these tools in the hands of everyday players, so that an unprecedented level of !!CHAOS!! can happen in the realm. More freedom should return to the players, more true world-changing power should become reachable through role and effort, and several long due evolutionary branches should finally be completed properly: functional items, the role tags ecosystem, depositables, heavy resources, clue and spelldoc chains, deeper land mechanics, and a lot more.
This stage was about exploding the feature set with novel ways to express creativity, and lots of new and feature rich tools. The next one should be more about making these tools reachable, dangerous :D, and useful in the hands of regular players.
I would also like to thank all those that kept supporting MD financially, technically, artistically, through questmaking, debugging, documenting and simply by still being around in such desolated times. Without you, none of the above would mean much, because tools without people to use them are just abandoned machinery.
All these being said, i welcome all of you in Stage 17, a stage that should take all this accumulated potential and turn it into living disorder, player agency and a further EVOLUTION of MagicDuel realm.
signed: Mur, Chewett, Eggdar :D, and the humans crazy enough to put all these tools to good use.
-- enjoy

Every now and then, when i look back and see what happend in MD development in the last long period, i decide to declare it the end of one stage and the beginning of an other.
A summary of what happend in Stage 16:
- A25 stopped being just an admin panel and turned into a much more complete questmaking and realm-shaping interface. Realm search, activation simulators, TESTMODE, decorations, focused scene editing, clickables libraries, depositables groundwork and a massively expanded npctalk system made it possible to build much more complex and interactive content. - The npctalk/dialogue branch alone exploded: labels, public vars, profile vars, imports/exports, random starts, rephrasing, mobile editing, item selection, text command activation, data formulas and other tools that give questmakers a way to build large branched stories without waiting for artworks. - Upgradeables, building upkeep, treasuries, land resources, regeneration controls, heavy resources, depositables and coin minting pushed the resource layer closer to something that can support real player projects and lasting communal structures. - Combat and ritual mechanics moved too: shard abilities became editable, collectable and species based; more creatures became able to fight; rituals became easier to create on mobile and later in huge batches; teleport blocking and no-teleport rules were added; and killing/revival item reuse got rebalanced in ways that permanently affect land security and ritual planning. - Items advanced a lot toward actual functionality. Items can grant spells, present public choices in chat, carry placed actions and texts, follow complexity levels for future mixing logic, feed the bestiary/NFT branch, and now even start to host minigames. This is one of the most important unfinished branches in MD right now. - Chat and interface updates where massive. MD became much more usable on mobile, the map/inbox/ritual creator and many other pages were reworked, chat commands multiplied, travel via chat and arrow keys appeared, PM history improved, and several sections of MD can now read themselves out loud. - AI entered MD in many forms. Darvin was retired and Eggdar entered play, announcements and help answers became queryable from chat, AI drawing tools started generating scenes, avatars, items and stories for A25, and interactive advisors such as the MD advisor, the Mur clone and the interactive Questmaster's Backpack started to augment how both players and questmakers interact with the realm. - The clearest form of this new AI direction is Eggdar, a true in-world questmaker and storyteller. Eggy evolved from experiment to character: able to remember, guide, describe, talk, build unique plots, run item-aware and team-friendly quests, let you pick rewards, issue future-value quest items and generally show what AI-native gameplay inside MD could look like. Eggy is using the full power of my outer-realm business Lumnar Creations, that powers it. - To support all this, huge infrastructure work happened behind the curtain. Server migrations, firewall work, http2, forum upgrades and relocations, php8 modernization, core refactors, and finally the new MagicDuel API, all changed how MD can be extended from now on. - This new API and the AI work around it deserve special mention. MD now has the kind of infrastructure that allows natural language control over a growing set of realm actions and tools, and even further AI support for future development. This does NOT mean that the AI should define MD. The concepts, ideas, balance and meaning of this realm remain human things, governed by player creativity and ingenuity. The AI is here to extend the playground, not replace the players. - Tags, streaks, spelldocs and research clues started to converge into a more coherent role ecosystem. New tag dispatchers, streak logic, spelldoc migration, clue improvements and unlocking methods are all groundwork for roles that actually unlock tools, places and branches of play. - Consecutive days changed from a prestige number into a real gameplay axis. It now shapes rewards, access, prison escape, deeper lands, boosters and other parts of the realm. - Politically and in the world itself, Stage 16 mattered too. Alliance leadership became more stable, Aia was crowned Queen of Loreroot, Sunfire took over Guardians of the Root, the Player Community Council was formed, important creators were honored in the Creative Creatives hall, Aksel entered SotIS, and an entire new land with nearly 30 scenes opened on MD's 20th birthday. - Minigames! I am not sure how much this will evolve in the future, but its a nice way to give items functionality and resuscitate the silver economy. Minigames can be used to gain silver coins but also consume them. - AI created scenes..while not something i am proud of, and i would still prefer human artworks when possible, AI created content is still an useful way to continue to expand the realm and make it so vast that none of its inhabitants can say they traveled it all - Last but not least, internal tools to develop MD changed dramatically, and are one step ahead of their times. Just few months ago was i able to put to good use plans designed for AI use, so that machine can understand they way i designed stuff in all these 20+ years, and lots of inner workings. I am still waiting for some more, and while looking ancient and living in a game world that is nearly extinct in this niche (compared to other game evolution), MD will remain a mix of vintage and cutting edge tech, as long as i will live. Overall this stage was a very explosive one. Rather than polishing just one branch till perfection, Stage 16 opened many branches at once: AI, tags, item functionality, dialogue systems, resource/building systems, interface modernization, and much more. Some of these branches already bear fruit, others are only now reaching the point where they can start to matter to everyday gameplay.
The upcomming stage should focus less on exploding the toolbox even further, and more on putting these tools in the hands of everyday players, so that an unprecedented level of !!CHAOS!! can happen in the realm. More freedom should return to the players, more true world-changing power should become reachable through role and effort, and several long due evolutionary branches should finally be completed properly: functional items, the role tags ecosystem, depositables, heavy resources, clue and spelldoc chains, deeper land mechanics, and a lot more.
This stage was about exploding the feature set with novel ways to express creativity, and lots of new and feature rich tools. The next one should be more about making these tools reachable, dangerous :D, and useful in the hands of regular players.
I would also like to thank all those that kept supporting MD financially, technically, artistically, through questmaking, debugging, documenting and simply by still being around in such desolated times. Without you, none of the above would mean much, because tools without people to use them are just abandoned machinery.
All these being said, i welcome all of you in Stage 17, a stage that should take all this accumulated potential and turn it into living disorder, player agency and a further EVOLUTION of MagicDuel realm.
signed: Mur, Chewett, Eggdar :D, and the humans crazy enough to put all these tools to good use.
-- enjoy

Dear Death Ray, I do not know who you are speaking about in the case above, but as the person who used to be Ailith, I confirm my personal view of MD will never be destroyed.
It took MD and certain people in it to make me realise I had been in a debilitating deep depression for 40 odd years. I have now finally been able to recover.
I don’t know all the bad things people have done to me (in MD or outside of it), and I genuinely don’t care. I forgive them. 
I will say this in response to what you said here, whatever Mur has done or allowed – and again - I DO NOT CARE WHO HAS DONE WHAT - I forgive.
Because without MD and Mur I would genuinely not be here now. And I am grateful for that because I am in a very, very happy place.
Belated Happy Birthday, MD.

Yeah it was supposed to be the same side of tbe same door, sadly some inconsistencies are present
...But do you think they are obvious enough?
 
First of all the ceiling is not inconsistent, its just different  as the area the door takes you to gets closer the the bedrock cave style dungeon entrance, while the corridor is built with stone slabs.
 
The floor tiling is indeed inconsistent, but come on, its barely noticeable that the tiles are perfectly aligned in one and shifted in the other..i could fix that.
 
These are both sides of the same room, because on the other sode of the door its something else

Attached is my first rough draft plus some annotated stuff.
I didn't get as much time as I wanted to clean it up, so it's pretty rough! Typically I would then take this and clean up the lines, etc. But I also wanted to know what Mur was looking for...
The scale is wrong around the food area but I didn't want to clean that up initially. I also didn't adjust the colour as it's pretty light at the start.
 
Feedback welcome, I think I got all the right locations based on the perspective but the scale is MASSIVELY wrong.

 
 
 

 
There is a clear issue with prisonguarddesk because the perspective makes the door to the new area linked with a wrong older area. I think we can fix that by moving the scene arrow.

 

Note: I haven't named the scenes or done the 9x scenes yet. That's planned for this week  (regardless of prizes)

Yes because the map is not final, does not contain all the exists, and is nothing intricate that can't be easily replicated with a few consecutive days. I will use it later as a base to do the final one, that will be visible already when entering this realm ...so it will be very public anyway

I hope all who are able have taken of some time to visit the scenery new to the realm (although one could assume these were once lost, given their appearance).
A simple task, then - draw a simple map of the new scenes, and present them here. There should be two such maps - those with coordinates beginning with 9_ and those with coordinates beginning with 5_. Consider that artistic nature is not part of the criteria for judgment - one rather prefers accurate placement and proportionality, similar to how one would expect in a map of other lands.
Twenty five such scenes do exist, and Mur has announced the prize will be a single custom scene of one's desire, with the deadline for such a task the thirtieth day of the month.
 
 
An additional, and simpler task: Name the scenery; although one cannot usually title the scenery eponymously, one may do so in a subtle manner. Provide within this thread the coordinates of the scene to be named, and a suggested title, along with an optional explanation of why the title were fitting.
The best single name of any scene (as determined by royal decree) will earn 1 wishpoint, and the best single name of any scene as determined by popularity (i.e. total number of votes whether positive or negative) will also win 1 wishpoint.
 
The closing date for entries will be, similarly, the thirtieth day of the month in which this quest is announced, although comments may continue to be made in this thread after the closing date.

can we somehow bring more players here? i dont know how ,any ideas?

MD always been a game for a specific type of person. The younger gen z and gen alpha have little attention span, watch skibidi toilet and play roblox so idk maybe it appeals more to an older demographic now. 
Personally I found MD through an ad on armorgames many many years ago however I do understand that in the long run advertising temporarily boosted MD's player count but most people didn't stick around. Quality over quantity.
Word of mouth could be good if you have any friends with similar gaming interests though that didn't work for me and that was when it was very active. If anyone streams or does something like tik toks making MD content may get it out there more but with low player count it may not be that enticing.
I do believe that there's a lot of potential players that would enjoy MD still but don't know about it. Players that enjoy tabletop RPGs specifically i think. It might seem a hopeless cause but I'll always retain hope and login as long as the servers are still up.

the wires of Eggdar... 

current abilities, online player awareness, scene vision.

Currently suitable for community events, organizing riddles, some quests. 

It is not aware of md history, or any secrets. It can not move..yet.. 

It does have memory, so be careful what you test on it, it might remember you in unfavorable ways... consider one day you might need to pass it during a quest or something   ..play nice with Eggy

This .."case" , was posted after i already decided on this matter, a day earlier. I see no names where used, so i assume its because of waiting for Aia's call on this.
Announced or not, i believe justice has been served.
I did not see him as a tyrant of any sort, i guess he changed dramatically since i las updated my view on the subject.. indeed my mistake.