Ungod

Happy b-day

lol, Mago When I read "the effect of a spell", I thought about the drunk spell...how about making pickle juice that removes the drunk effect? (clickie: a jar; put 5 pickle in a jar and wait)

yep. also, there's no 'mark as read', which I'd like to use on...all those calendar events, for example. aand..there's no way to jump to last post, apparently? edit: gallery images don't work for me edit2: so, I guess everybody has the option of writing a reason for edit now? only forum managers had it before, if I'm correct

I only got 1 point of Loyalty and that was to my land, after idling at GoE. No homeland number stayed the same. I will not test it again, as I want to raise my MB loyalty for now and every day counts....thrice. (it makes sense that once you choose a land, you no longer should gain 'no homeland' loyalty points)

Funny, because the guy I talked to just returned from Glasgow :) I don't know if I want to visit UK in the near future. My fear is that humans can blow up their planet/home, not that they can create a society ruled by fear and other psycho tricks. Not that I can't see them trying, but over a certain line, it's suicide. And, yes, I have faith in the survival instinct that will prevent this suicide. Of course, every now and then such instincts fail, but I don't think we should fear it. Fear accomplishes nothing, and this book is not useful as a reinforcer of our survival instinct as a society.

I think the dagger has chosen targets...or maybe the new land itself did...freaky

Hah, nice observation, Ary, I was focusing on the whole dystopia thing I didn't pay attention to the other. @no one: well, let's put it this way: I had a talk with someone and video cameras on every street and 1984 came up. The feeling I got is that he (and people I talked to in the past) believe 1984 is here, that we're living it. So I wanted to read it - what's so compelling and believable about it? the way I see it, it's the image of a nightmare, it draws from reality just to paint a scary landscape; I don't see the value of it...for me. might be good for other people, who knows. (I appreciate the time folks took to read and write, btw)

I started reading Orwell's 1984 a couple of days ago and I couldn't go past 5 pages. True, it *was* midnight, so maybe that helped in letting it go, but I realized something the next day. From what I read (and I know the story, the 'message'- wiki), it was a somewhat correct depiction of the general feeling that people in Eastern Europe felt during the communist years, but it was so exaggerated...It was a painful read and, most importantly, boring. I understand the term 'dystopia', I understand that it has exaggerations, but such a society could.not.exist. The mixture of elements simply makes such a 'construction' impossible. More believable is Huxley's Brave New World, but that one portrays the human being as just hedonistic, and that is simply untrue. If man craved only pleasure, his book would have never been written. All in all, these texts not only bore me, but seem to me to be simply expressions of fear. But I remembered the reverse - utopias. And then it hit me - these are just modern (well, modern...there are utopias written from antiquity onward) heaven and hell depictions. Nothing more. I know it seems such a big difference - what's 'punishing your sins in an eternal pit of fire' have in common with 'a totalitarian government is watching you, cameras are everywhere and you can't say what you really think'? well, they're both untrue, for one. also, they scare you and, last, but not least, they give you a wrong perception of what a human being is. It seems so weird to me that all these texts ignore the bigger context - the natural one, and focus so much on the human-created environment, coming up with outlandish stuff. Now, I'm not particularly interested in correcting people's mistakes or beliefs, but I do have a huge list of books on my disk (and it's enough to visit some bookmarked sites and I can add a few hundreds easily) and for me utopias and dystopias are classified under 'bullshit, not gonna happen' category now. Yeah, I read a short version of the Bible and some sensible bits. To me, 1984 and (let's give an utopia name) City of Sun look like modern Bible bits to me, kind of saying "I dream of..." (and you can have nightmares or sweet dreams). Anyway, it's a long text, I'm wondering who will ever read this, but if you do, and you have an opinion, you can write it down here, maybe. I am more interested in opinions that disagree with mine, though it is unlikely I will change my conclusion.

I idled accidentally at GoE couple of days ago, midnight caught me there, and I only got 1 point of MB loyalty. I believe NML gives no 'no homeland' loyalty (which I partly understand why)

Happy b-day !

Happy b-day :)

Well, I'm afraid things won't go well for this 'bandit' if he is weakened and those 'sisters' catch him...

MRF :)

I'll try to write a short one; since this is not about Necrovion, I'll use spoiler tags. This might create some work for mods :)) [spoiler] I saw this question a number of times here, and I also talked to someone about it - why do allies have to exist in the first place? Isn't a land perfectly fine without them? The argument I heard was that :vets don't see allies anymore, they see only people (btw, jump in if you feel like it ^_^ ). People that did this or that, people they like or hate etc.; allies are pointless, in general. Now, I think this is a fact. It's not only an argument, I believe it's how things came to be. What I argued is that lands get more individuality with alliances and more 'character'. So, a land without allies is more undefined or less structured and powerful than one with allies. For example, I am very much interested that no MB alliance gets taken over and we retain our diverse purposes inside the land. It's not necessarily a "view from the top", it gives me further 'RP boost'. I guess what I say is not something new, you kind of know this, but you react to the situation at hand, in which having allies feels pointless, you see people instead of roles and so on. [/spoiler] This being the case, perhaps closing the land is a solution, because the moment it will be opened, new ideas will appear and a new identity, maybe, new energy into a "new" ally?

I think the way it works right now is ok, even if there are sidetracks, it's fine overall. If you wanna change it, that's fine as well, but don't eliminate some 'silliness' for the sake of 'efficiency'. Imperfect systems are more fun, generally.

Hmm, I wonder how the story will progress... :)

Happy b-day :)

Happy b-day :)

Happy b-day

wow, that pic, MRF... Happy b-day :)

All the above!

Happy birthday!

Hmm...I think I'll start wishing people well in these threads. Sorry to all that I didn't say anything to - I didn't think I'd stick for so long... Happy birthday, may you have it good for the year that follows.

The idea of creating a MD board game just came to me a couple of days ago, so I started working on it. Everything seemed to be in place, soon it was testing time, but then I got this awful cold (that hasn't passed yet) and I had to stop. Now, I would do the testing and present you the final version, but I'm not feeling so well atm; at the same time, I can't get this little game out of my head...so I'm throwing it here as it is and, if it's any good, maybe somebody will add the finishing touches. I like the way it looks, but in terms of game mechanics, a bunch of things can go wrong and also, there needs to be excitement when playing, I don't know if what I made delivers. [spoiler] First of all, the board is this one: http://storenow.net/download/ce601023b5e9a339d07ebe58eb81ecfc/game.jpg There are a few artworks there and the ones that matter are: Angien: There is one angien on the board. The purpose of any player is to reach the angien. Whoever has the most heat when reaching the angien wins. The maximum heat one can accumulate is 4400. Shade army: Just as there is one angien, there is one shade army. However, the army has 4 shade sentinels, each occupying the center of the 'bases'. The sentinels split into 4 shades each, as shown into the bottom base square, at the beginning of the second round (if you are on a black tile at the beginning of the second round, you will be attacked by a shade). The four new shades split again at the beginning of the third round, when they effectively occupy all the black tiles of the base(s). Aramors: They represent the player. On this particular board, there are 5 aramors, meaning 5 players. Maximum number of players allowed on a board is 8. They start on the yellow tiles at the bottom. Some game mechanics: The "center" of the board is the uplands. There are no black and yellow tiles there and it's where the battles between players take place. The surrounding squares are 'bases' where only battles with shades are allowed. Battles are fought with a dice. Battling a shade means choosing 'odd' or 'even' and throwing the dice. If you guess it, you won. Battling a player means each choose 'odd' or 'even' and then someone throws the dice. Again, who guesses it, wins. If they chose the same and both won, it is repeated (with no more heat gained) until one wins. If they both lost, heat gained is 100 for each. There is no battles between players in the base. Heat gain: heat comes from moving on the yellow tiles in your base (100 heat per each); there is no heat gain from moving on the tiles in the uplands. The other way of getting heat is through battles - attacking gives 100 heat, defending also gives 100 heat, but whoever wins gets an extra 50 heat (same applies to shades, but the penalty for losing is staying the next turn, though you get 100 heat and the AP is regenerated, so you'll have 2 AP when you get to move). Action points: action points are regenerated 1 per turn and you start with one(more players means the starting AP can be increased). You can only move forward, in diagonal or sideways, not backwards. Also, once you moved on a black tile, you can only move on those the next turns, until you reach the uplands (meaning you *have* to battle all shades). The uplands have different action points requirement - to move from the 3rd circle to the 2nd you need 2 AP and to reach the angien from the 2nd circle you need 3 AP. Also, a small exception here - when moving upwards (not sideways or in diagonal) in the uplands, you do get 100 heat per move. Because of the lack of interaction between players when 2 or 3 or 4 are playing, maybe adding leashes would work. A leash is obtained if you defeat a Shade sentinel on the second round and can be used to summon a player to your position in your base. [/spoiler]

All mainlands shared tools work the same, it's not only MB. Water is not so hard to get at, you can acquire water by trading, if what you're interested is the resource and not the waterhandling skill. You can ask people for other shared tools that you can use. Ask around and you'll find people willing to share. Resources are placed into your inventory, the buckets are not there to store water, but to collect water. You don't need buckets to have water in your inventory.