Muratus del Mur

A game of roll the dice against a gambler

Content:
[code]
<br/>Roll the dice, winning is nice
<!-- content separator -->
[[name]] rolled<br />[[di1]] and [[di2]]<br />Total: [[sum]]
[/code]

[code]
@vp = array(rand(1, 6), rand(1, 6));//create player's dice rolls
@vg = array(rand(3, 6), rand(2, 6));//create gambler's dice rolls and give him a slight advantage
@vs[0] = @vp[0] + @vp[1];//sum of player's rolls
@vs[1] = @vg[0] + @vg[1];//sum of gamberl's rolls

@vk = 0;//intialize player counter, could support more players in the game
@tpl = array();//amke sure @tpl is clear
//assign values to @tpl
@tpl[@vk]['di1'] = @vp[0];
@tpl[@vk]['di2'] = @vp[1];
@tpl[@vk]['name'] = uv('name');
@tpl[@vk]['sum'] = @vs[@vk];

++@vk;//increment player counter
@tpl[@vk]['di1'] = @vg[0];
@tpl[@vk]['di2'] = @vg[1];
@tpl[@vk]['name'] = "Gambler";
@tpl[@vk]['sum'] = @vs[@vk];

mds_template(@content[1],@tpl,false,2,'style="width:180;border:1px solid"');//call template function
retrieve(@vd);//get the player's scorign array
if(@vd == null)//check if the score were initialized yet, if not, initiliaze them
@vd = array(0, 0, 0);
//check for wins, losses or draws and increment appropriate counter
if(@vs[0] > @vs[1])
{
echo "You have won!";
@vd[0]++;
}
else if(@vs[0] < @vs[1])
{
echo "You lost =(";
@vd[1]++;
}
else
{
echo "It was a tie";
@vd[2]++;
}
store(@vd);//save the player's progress
//output the score
echo "<br/><br/>Your progress against the gambler<br/>";
echo "Wins: " . @vd[0] . "<br/>Losses: " . @vd[1] . "<br/>Draws: " . @vd[2];
[/code]

A little spoiler from the upcomming future...

Stage11 that will be announced this year, maybe after i finish my dev rampage, will bring a new, perfectly integrated way for people regardless of mp, role or citizenship, etc, to unlock the spelldocs. There will be new additions to the ancient spelldoc collection. Finally i have a way to integrate spelldocs the way they should be, as research and not as rewards.

More about this in stage 11

Memory Stones are all cool, but i can't find the logic in having them on the market as such.
As empty shells, they are practically worthless to anybody but 'the magician', who is solely able to store a valuable thought in them. Still, even the empty stones will be worth a lot because you gave 2 people the opportunity to create them, and the rest of us are dependent on their quasi-monopole.
To the magician, the memory stones are worthless, he can only charge them with something he already has. The only reason a magician would want to do that is to give the enchanted stone to somebody else, either in trade for a fee, or, and here i see the actual purpose of limited spells, as quest rewards for newbies.
For that purpose they can't be used now, though, because we just can't afford to pay for empty stones, charge them and then give them away for free in the long run.

And what's even worse, the reward for this doesn't reach the people who invested time and effort into getting spells, setting quests, and creating enchanted stones to give the newbies a little flair of magic, the end of the food chain are 2 people who happen to have the tools to gather stones. I don't see that as right approach. I'd rather have magicians be able to find and collect these stones on their own, with their superior senses for magical things they got from working with spells for a long time if you will.

That way we could have actual competition for strong spells, and we'd have a lot more enchanted stones given out to newbies for doing certain kinds of quests. I DO see the purpose of having the stones limited by 2 gatherers, but that limit doesn't help anybody but the appointed gatherers, and specially not the newbies. I never complained about woodcutters, because lumber is definitely not something aimed for newbies, and the people who want wood for creating an item are not that plentiful. But this thing is definitely meant to help newbies see some magic in MAGICduel, and that purpose is currently only badly served, if at all. Seriously, you can't ask us, the long lasting members who did some work to acquire spells, to PAY in order to spread some magic to the newbies.

Also, i'd like to be able to charge stones with a number of casts decided by me, not just 'all casts of that spell at once' as the announcement said.

Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Population will come, I wouldn't worry about that
Finish up your features, and once you think MD is "complete enough" to be advertised or something, then start a campaign, and just place a decent enough tutorial at the starts for new people to realize traces of what this World actually is.

Where's will there's a way x)

if requested i can look that up and tell you what the lowest id coin is...unless this is a quest of some sort..i don.t want o spoil anything if someone doesn.t want me to.

a bit of history:

the markings on the coins were supposed to serve for a future role/item/ability that would allow someone to identify collectable coins among common coins, and convert or mark them to show that somehow. That role/ability/item was never done but coins are still marked differently and one day that info will serve for such purposes (coin marking, authenticating, dating, etc - role based)

(i am currently away with no way to check that id from here but i can do that monday)

yeah, i'll make sure jester will be packing it carefully, specially, for, you.

yeah, i'll make sure jester will be packing it carefully, specially, for, you.

@Menhir, ..why i ask..well because in a vast complexity of questions and answers that sometimes looks like a dark impenetrable "forest", some questions aim to the end of the road in a straight line. While some questions find their answer fast or get lost in a pool of randomness, other questions take you further and reveal much more. I find this particular one (Why the sun?) to be aiming further away than my current borders. Isn't it then just normal to target outside the borders to see what is out there? For me that's a way of life.

yeah, i'll make sure jester will be packing it carefully, specially, for, you.

I am looking to buy any regenerable materials that I don't already have in my inventory. Buying only from TB citizens, i can't risk to have some non-citizen pass me some timeless dust pretending its simple sand and such, might affect my demonic eternity you know.

No need to post here, i will not hold an auction and I will only buy it while in realm. I need the resources for testing so even if i already have them now, it might happen that i will run out of them.

I am looking for resources, byproducts but also heat stones (no other stones for now).

I will not be considering real market price when purchasing these, this is a limited time need for my demonic purposes and i will not be needing a constant supply over time.

citizens only

yeah, i'll make sure jester will be packing it carefully, specially, for, you.

[b]
Jester can claim the ally back and assign it to whoever he wants (maybe this time he will be there to take care of it)... at the cost of one penalty point.

[/b]

@Menhir, ..why i ask..well because in a vast complexity of questions and answers that sometimes looks like a dark impenetrable "forest", some questions aim to the end of the road in a straight line. While some questions find their answer fast or get lost in a pool of randomness, other questions take you further and reveal much more. I find this particular one (Why the sun?) to be aiming further away than my current borders. Isn't it then just normal to target outside the borders to see what is out there? For me that's a way of life.

[b]
Jester can claim the ally back and assign it to whoever he wants (maybe this time he will be there to take care of it)... at the cost of one penalty point.

[/b]

the fact that some resources got a seriosu hit from the recent update (some places being on zero already), is balanced by the fact that i increased those resources repeatedly or given them out for testing during the initial period when they were implemented. Its not that tragic and it is a good opportunity to see how painful it is (for the land at least) to gather the entire amount of resources.

note: regarding uour comments to the deleted posts. i read them both. Show of force 3 will be mqde public next.


The Mirror

Thoughts too shattered to rhyme
to find their path in such short time
I'll tell them in my own rhythm
in a poetry without its poem

Excuse the clues i left behind
The riddles that i missed to bind 
These are things one of a kind
That only some will seek to find


So here it goes..


Once upon no time...
There was a guardian of time, not a being of some sort, or a monster in a fort, nor a wonder chest but an object at its best.
This guardian that i tell, was just a mirror on no wall. It was so perfect that it had, only itself and all its pride, nothing to fear nor flaws to hide.
 
So I was saying..
it mirrored all and trapped their imperfections, gave them back just empty reflections. It swallowed all that passed in front, be it object life or be it void, like a dark sun that has died, it gave them back just empty light, nothing escaped whatever they tried.
This perfect mirror trapped it all, nothing around to see anymore. It was alone and lost, like a body without its ghost, no reflections left to tell if anything was left at all. No time has passed since then at all, since time was guarded most of all.
The things it trapped tried to escape. They tried to show the mirror feelings, reason, beauty, but the mirror had no ears, no fears to fear, nor eyes to look, at the reflections that it took. 

A giant eye to see it all, and so it did, it saw it all. It stood alone, alone and blind, trying to remember what was there once to find. It slowly turned into terrible horror, the idea that there might actually be not even the mirror. It looked around but there was nothing. just pure perfection without expression.


It might have gone a second or a million years untill it happend, no history to write if no time to bend, to start or to end, but at some moment the mirror decided it had no purpose since it blinded. It gave up existing, forgot about the trapped time she was guarding and in all her sadness and furry became to doubt, it lost faith in its own mirrorish clarity, it became blurry. Time was waiting, its what it does. It found a tiny fraction of itself, so small that it couldn't even be considered time at all. It sent it out on a mission, to cause havok and destruction, to cause a crack, an imperfection, and so it did at times suggestion. 

When the mirror realised its first flaw, it had the proof was waiting for, to give it up, to end it all. More longer moments followed soon, time released its many faces, shattered all in an infinity of pieces. Time was cruel and did not forget, the "time" it lost in its imprisonment. It took the mirror shards so far away, that some forgot what they once were, time escaped, ran fast, very angry and still runs faster day by day. 

Within its dieing moments, the mirror saw the reflections in each of its shards. Like lonely lost eyes of what was once a great power, they filled the world they once devoured.  With their now flawed and shattered view, they took a humble look of what was for them now new.  It started for the first time to see itlself, not in whole, but in puzzles of it all. 

The mirrors wish was now fulfilled, to see the things it only dreamed, to see the reflection of its own face, at least small views of its power, infinity and grace. It now was sure she actually existed. It took to die to see it was alive, It took a flaw for perfection to arrive. It took to lose its purpose, no more prisoner, to achieve something new, we call it now freedom in our view. It lost however something  dear, replaced oneness with a fear. Scattered and lost, forever doomed by the curse time cast, it fears to forget, each and every piece that still reflect. So each eye keeps looking, searching, trying, digging deep in reality to see and remember what it means to BE.    

And so my story ends, almost..
What happend next? try to connect yourself the dots. They danced and danced two by two, just enough the first sees the other too. Paired together but still not united, they float in time, forever divided. Peaking at reflections to see others imperfections, to find their pair, they search their match with utmost despair. 

Its said that once a shard finds its partner, they both forget their initial purpose forever. You wonder why? Its very simple, just face two mirrors at eachother, to see the two already found, what other shards still look around. What could it be, two hide in two shards of infinity? 

It is there all, for them to see, to leave this world and find their own infinity. They will keep time away, find the greatness they once were, seeing all untill theire nothing there. They will do the same again, mirroring their past, recreate eternity untill one cracks. Time will escape, will run away, its a future action it already did, shards can't foresee this amazing deed. The two shards unite, becoming one, stepping the steps of the first one gone. 
Unavoidably they'll fall apart, shattered shards in a dead sun, launching time in its long run. Never ends and never will, time runs fast while shards stand still. They are always doomed to fail, plutting time back in its jail, shards can never be so fast to stop the future cause its past. 

Now I'll rest to think it all, rest my back to a strong wall. 
Yet..
There are some reasons still left to hunt, my feeling deep inside my heart...what if the mirror that once were was nothing else but too a pair.
 

Some say its us that shards are now, .. I say why not rocks, or socks or planks, or the multitude of plants, why not.. afterall their're all, just fractions of the whole.
They see it too, and share it all, 
rebuilding universe before the fall.
From smallest grain to biggest star
Everything still roots that far..


 
.
.... PART 2 .....
.



The Empty Wall

I stand in front an empty wall
And wonder what would happen
To have there hanging all alone
The mirror that once shattered


An unborn world within a world
Cruel chaser of all imperfection
A chest of secrets never told
No shards of incomplete reflection 


I stay there staring at the void
And demons start to whisper
I close my eyes and lose my mind
As letters start to glitter


Its written there on empty wall
Where mirrors never see
These things now keep to crawl
Beyond the reasoning in me


I see whispers turn to shapes
To symbols never seen before
I see my image how it fades  
It is the price if you explore


To help my mind to stay on track
I'd give the mirror its own wall 
A place to hide its unseen back
Somewhere to hang so it won't fall


I'd take its time and let it go
To free the mirror of its burden
If it casts its entropy on me
My fate will become certain.


My dreams begin to end i see
But something feels not right
The demons I no longer see
Perhaps I won the fight..


I see a stranger staring shocked
I feel a wall behind my back
Unseen something keeps me locked
I can't believe I see a crack



Mur


--
The story continues so does its relation to my character and md realm, but for now enjoy what it is.  




  

the entire spell , regardless of how many casts it has (needs to have 80% of them available) will go into one stone, stone that can cast 2 or 3 casts afterwards (3 if it was created using 100% spell casts available, 2 if it was less). You are storing information into the stone, not power/quantity. The ine using the stone recalls that information , the initial quantity is irrelevant. If you have 1000 identical books, all you need is to read one to know whats inside all. This is the reversed process of that, it transfers all your "information" on that spell to the memory stone.

clear enough?

I will now be accepting sand as payment for a memory stone, 10 sand for a stone. Sand will be given out randomly into players pants as they sleep.

East lands are not for newbies.
Labyrint should be a death trap.
Team work can be in many ways, traveling in teams is defenetly one.
Viscosity/name tooltips will be added whenever i have work to do in a place without and i consider it needs some. It is not priority. Eventualy in this way all will get their flags.
Eventualy the team work will stop and only some paths will be kept "fluid"

Theoretically, current popular places won't be affected in any way, while other more deep locations will be locked in a more natural way. In this way i can remove keys on certain places and let only viscosity to guard them. This means anyone could eventually enter if he manages to break the viscosity (team work again). Also visc leaves a new type of traces to see where people "migrated", longer and "different" than chat trails.

Those of you that were doing quests or had a "seed" creature and this public release of this very rare creature affects you in any way, i am willing to exchange the quest reward or current creature by an other one. At this point I know only of Grido being the only one to have the seed/Toxicodendrite before it was released and Zleiphneir that was working on a quest that might have involve it, but contact me if it is the case, or post here.

there are two options
1) have the stones in game sooner than ages later, like now, risking monopol and riduculous prices, missuse, etc
2) have the stones when everything else fits in, waiting ages for it, and oh guess what, the other things can't be in because the stones are not in and so on.

[b]You are severely underestimating my choices when it comes to selecting people[/b], and i am also getting increasingly pissed off on such atitude. I am sure everything would have been fine if one of the ancient players was to get this ability. MD is not a single-player game, there shouldn't be a way for each person to get what they need without player2player interaction. The only thing i need to be careful about is that these NEEDED things won't depend on money, and stones, or resources in general, don't...they depend on the gatherers, on the way they are, their activity, their personality.

The market price is simple to decide, auction.
You think they will get rich and popular? maybe..exactly why I don't want to pic a "veteran" for this job. A vet would ask those insane prices you talk about..or worse, they would use the stones for their own use.

when its none you complain its none and when is something you complain why it is. MD has been like that since when it started, experimental, with unstable and potentially abusable things always. Some people will work with what it is some will wait to see it finished without understanding "finishing md" will never happen.

After the memory stones there will be the learning stones and after that the research features , after that new resources, with other monopoly, and so on. The "edge" of the development will always be expensive and hard to get, compare it with the modern days technology.

You look at the incident and miss the big picture. It happens that each day i am surrounded by people that think they know better because the saw a flaw in what i do, yet nobody thinks that it might be intentional. It is offensive and patronizing to act like "I know better" and I am sorry i am forced to act like that, but I DO know better.

Guess what..the changes i am doing these days will cause a pissing contest in md. EVERYBODY will get their own reason to be upset on something. Newbies (as i;ve been told NOOBS is offensive) will think these features are for old players and that i keep expanding md when basic functionality is broken. Vets will think i am ignoring their progress and put power into the hands of unexperienced players.

I should stop this before i get realy angry. Time for an other 12h marathon.

Those of you that were doing quests or had a "seed" creature and this public release of this very rare creature affects you in any way, i am willing to exchange the quest reward or current creature by an other one. At this point I know only of Grido being the only one to have the seed/Toxicodendrite before it was released and Zleiphneir that was working on a quest that might have involve it, but contact me if it is the case, or post here.

you are not seeing all the possibilities (and you are wasting my time to point you the obvious out).
Here is a sample scenario:

Gatherer gets a 10 stone batch. He can't sell one stone he can sell only 10 because they behave like resources, and over time that amount increases.
So he can continue to increase stoc and ask for more, or sell and eventually he will sell. Using alts to store the stones will eventually reach a limit too. You are forgetting the resources regenerate and are endless so eventually their value drops as more are available. now, gatherer sells, eventuall, and he could do so to someone with spells. This someone could in exchange exchange him some stones because once enchanted they are usable/transferable individually. Wizard pays with something that is regenerable for him, spells, and stone gatherer sells something he continues to have access too. Now, the scenario continues, the wizard has no actual use for the spells because he HAS THE SPELLS, so the enchanted stones will eventually end up on the market in the hands of those that don't have those spells.

Everybody is happy

Am I missing anything here or you are just hasty to complain?

there are two options
1) have the stones in game sooner than ages later, like now, risking monopol and riduculous prices, missuse, etc
2) have the stones when everything else fits in, waiting ages for it, and oh guess what, the other things can't be in because the stones are not in and so on.

[b]You are severely underestimating my choices when it comes to selecting people[/b], and i am also getting increasingly pissed off on such atitude. I am sure everything would have been fine if one of the ancient players was to get this ability. MD is not a single-player game, there shouldn't be a way for each person to get what they need without player2player interaction. The only thing i need to be careful about is that these NEEDED things won't depend on money, and stones, or resources in general, don't...they depend on the gatherers, on the way they are, their activity, their personality.

The market price is simple to decide, auction.
You think they will get rich and popular? maybe..exactly why I don't want to pic a "veteran" for this job. A vet would ask those insane prices you talk about..or worse, they would use the stones for their own use.

when its none you complain its none and when is something you complain why it is. MD has been like that since when it started, experimental, with unstable and potentially abusable things always. Some people will work with what it is some will wait to see it finished without understanding "finishing md" will never happen.

After the memory stones there will be the learning stones and after that the research features , after that new resources, with other monopoly, and so on. The "edge" of the development will always be expensive and hard to get, compare it with the modern days technology.

You look at the incident and miss the big picture. It happens that each day i am surrounded by people that think they know better because the saw a flaw in what i do, yet nobody thinks that it might be intentional. It is offensive and patronizing to act like "I know better" and I am sorry i am forced to act like that, but I DO know better.

Guess what..the changes i am doing these days will cause a pissing contest in md. EVERYBODY will get their own reason to be upset on something. Newbies (as i;ve been told NOOBS is offensive) will think these features are for old players and that i keep expanding md when basic functionality is broken. Vets will think i am ignoring their progress and put power into the hands of unexperienced players.

I should stop this before i get realy angry. Time for an other 12h marathon.

Normal information can be copied indefinetly without being lost (xerox style). Complex thoughts, such as those for "spells" you can't multiplicate simply because you don't have either the "reading" device nor the "ink" to write a copy. Imagine to make a xerox copy of a 100$ bill...some things look similar, some things will never be similar. What happens in this case is that each copy of that sort of thought is still connected to the one that created it initially. That, in terms of MD dynamics, would mean that players mastering a permanent spell should be able to give away limited casts of it and each cast should drain them of heat as long as it exists. This will scatter the spell across multiple players but not duplicate its original power/source. This is not to far from how things are now ..but not with spells in md..with items. Items that create items, such as pickles and candy, have a limited amount that can be created, based on how many are already "uneaten". This concept was applied to candy and pickles so i could create the system for potential later use, like for now.

I don't know how much i will be able to bring the spells concept closer to reality, i will try hard , now and for years to come, thats for sure. Sadly some things are very very hard to achieve. For example the connection between inner and outer magic, how to create spells. In the outer world this would be "managed" and limited by ones abilities to understand the surroundings, in md there are tehnical limitations and the surroundings are quite different from the outer-world. I found a solution for that, it will be acceptable in terms of "game play" and will be close enough to reality BUT..but ...my quest will remain that one day I will find a way to perfect it. One day I want players in MD to be able to "learn" a spell and do it, and not "unlock" a spell and click it. It is possible, and all the things i change now point in that direction. However you notice how md population drops as MD goes further away from "gameplay standards". I could have created a branched magic system with points to distribute and such..but nooo, i had to do it my way..this drives people away. I..dont..care..

The priority in md development as long as i will be the one deciding it, will be to respect its concepts and to fine tune a central idea, same one for years.

I have connectivity issues with the server so i cant upload anything at the moment. There are several changes that are done but will be uploaded probably tomorow, unless a miracle happens and i manage to do it tonight..oh wait, no miracles, oh well..later then.