Pyramid of DOOM

[Aneyou]

Having a holiday quest be connected to DOOM in any way is a bad idea, just asking for complaints, and I even agree. As for the other complaints, I've never heard of anyone running Doom complaining about it or asking for it to be shut down. Doom is extremely difficult until you figure out how to run it. It takes alot of time and alot of deaths to map and figure out the zone, but once you do, it'll just take a little while to get accustomed to it. The zone does change every reset and sometimes you cant even get past the first couple levels. As for making it change even more than it does, I have some easy to implement ideas for that, but consider how people dont run it already...imagine if it constantly changed even more. Would any more people run it? no, the same old people will figure it out anyway. So just take some time and go learn the zone.

[eniac]

Jan 6, 2009 13:13:19 GMT -5 Aneyou said:

Having a holiday quest be connected to DOOM in any way is a bad idea, just asking for complaints, and I even agree.

Why is this a bad idea? There are always complaints every holiday quest.

[Mal]

I completely agree with Tarbal. Yes, a quest zone is needed on JediMUD, but most of these resources could be better spent elsewhere on say class revisions. Adding gates will solve nothing.

DOOM has been solved, and has had what, one or two significant change in 12 years? Lets be realistic. The equipment that is loaded from doom is of quest zone quality (although the gear was made without exceptional stats in mind). You can run DOOM and get said quest zone gear without having to overcome any new challenges, its a free chance at quest gear. Quest gear should not be so easily loaded. You want to keep DOOM in - change the quest gear into normal gear or get someone to maintain it. A mob that requires an eq group, would load eq-group normal eq, a mob that requires mage squad, would load mage squad gear etc.

Quest zones require a lot of work and maintenance. It'd be nice to see it changing once a month at least. There are plenty of people with good ideas who have wanted to step up to the plate myself included. Although, it would be a lot more fun running in the quest zone.

As a quest zone, I think perma death if you hit max deaths and die in there would solve a good number of problems and naked exploring would come with some cost. As it stands, you can explore freely with a naked char (and a gate or summoner) and try and figure out the zone without risking anything.

DOOM hardly changes every uptime, there are no new challenges in each permutation. It's the same mindless routine.

I am sorry Eniac, I disagree, closing doom is a viable solution, look at its history, look how it has changed, look what classes run doom, look at all the new and difficult challenges players face regularly, look at the great risk these players are taking on running the mobs in there, this is not a quest zone, this is a stagnant zone that reminds me a time before you came along and started coding for us. I'd rather see your efforts toward class revisions and fixing other problems on JediMUD then fixing a zone that loads quest gear. It's simple enough to close it until other more pressing issues on JediMUD can be fixed.

Aaron

[eniac]

So are you wanting to close doom because of the gear that loads or because you don't want more to load?

I also find it slightly humorous that we're discussing risk vs return. Take a look at any Jedi quest and the prizes that were handed out. Can you think of any quest where players lost all their eq(I can't, not even in Mantra's)? The only quest I can think of where players got screwed was my last quest. They were out 300m.

So DOOM may not be what it used to be and nothing ever is as you said it has been solved. Leave it open remove its coveted quest status and allow people to still run it. Someone else (maybe you) write a new zone and give it the "quest zone" status.

[Mal]

Jan 6, 2009 13:13:19 GMT -5 Aneyou said:

Having a holiday quest be connected to DOOM in any way is a bad idea, just asking for complaints, and I even agree. As for the other complaints, I've never heard of anyone running Doom complaining about it or asking for it to be shut down. Doom is extremely difficult until you figure out how to run it. It takes alot of time and alot of deaths to map and figure out the zone, but once you do, it'll just take a little while to get accustomed to it. The zone does change every reset and sometimes you cant even get past the first couple levels. As for making it change even more than it does, I have some easy to implement ideas for that, but consider how people dont run it already...imagine if it constantly changed even more. Would any more people run it? no, the same old people will figure it out anyway. So just take some time and go learn the zone.

I ran DOOM and complained about it, and asked for it to be shutdown. I was not alone either. I was arguably the best doom runner on here at the time and I refused (and still refuse) to be a hypocrite by running that zone again until its 'fixed'. DOOM is not extremely difficult. Anyone who says otherwise is just scaring people into not going to keep a monopoly, or more likely trying to show off their elite mud skills - which is a joke and laughable at best in context with DOOM. Again with the word 'map'. This is a quest zone we are talking about. It shouldn't be mappable, which I proposed how to fix, and to fix it but was very professionally rejected.

Getting past the first few levels or not is irrelevant. The zone is a cake walk once you learn it, sure lots of deaths, of naked chars, result in mapping a zone that shouldn't be mappable. You lose nothing but a bit of time for chances at quest gear that is too easy to get. This is a repeat of what the old doom was, people scared, go learn the zone before you complain, blah blah blah, its all the same.

If the zone was changed into a real quest zone, I'd run it, and I am sure others would too - and knowing that the gear that loads this month, might not be their next month, is all the encouragement I'd need. Given that all the holes in the zone are fixed, and constantly changing challenges. Starting with perma death and having two powerful purging aggro neut mobs immune to magic/bs as guardians to it so you need a group just to get in. (and perhaps more of this throughout the zone to require eq groups, and have drop on death, so no just 'checking' them)

Aaron

[Mal]

Jan 6, 2009 14:35:34 GMT -5 eniac said:

So are you wanting to close doom because of the gear that loads or because you don't want more to load?

I also find it slightly humorous that we're discussing risk vs return. Take a look at any Jedi quest and the prizes that were handed out. Can you think of any quest where players lost all their eq(I can't, not even in Mantra's)? The only quest I can think of where players got screwed was my last quest. They were out 300m.

So DOOM may not be what it used to be and nothing ever is as you said it has been solved. Leave it open remove its coveted quest status and allow people to still run it. Someone else (maybe you) write a new zone and give it the "quest zone" status.

I'll junk all my DOOM gear, if its removed. I still have some from back in the day. How about instead, you just reduce doom eq into non-quest status across the board including in the db. You'll piss a lot of people off though. This would make the 'coveted quest status' go away. This still doesn't solve the problem of jedi lacking a quest zone though.

I think many people would be interested in writing a quest zone, the approval process is quite daunting considering the difficulty of just getting a regular zone into the mud.

How many people have lost all their eq in DOOM? Real eq - not just a sacrificial set of eq. None to my knowledge, unless it was a fluke crash death.

Aaron

[antrus]

Your idea of having a char with max deaths die permanently if they die in DOOM is absolutely absurd. The majority of the player base and their chars are getting very old. Several of my chars that I run with(that are not naked mages) and are legitimate chars have 127 deaths. I don't think anyone would run a perfect char with dozens of remorts into a zone if they risked the chance of losing the character permanently... no matter what the reward was.

[Mal]

Add an option on remort to reset death counter.

[antrus]

Jan 6, 2009 15:38:28 GMT -5 Mal said:

Add an option on remort to reset death counter.

And whats to prevent people from just remorting their mage squads? Like i said previously, perma death from max deaths in doom is an option that makes zero sense.

And yes, there have been sets of gear lost in Doom. Junk/back up sets have been left to rot from people not being able to get them back. And there have been full eq sets that have been lost of crash deaths. I fail to see how the possibility of a crash death does not make the zone more risky. Are you more likely to die in Doom than say, Rhyoden or Aralu? Of course you are. There are plenty more things that can go wrong. When is DOOM usually ran? Right after crashes/reboots. What often happens after a crash caused by a bug? Another crash! Ta-Da theres a nice little risk of crash deaths right there.

[Mal]

I don't know of any full sets of gear being lost to DOOM. You are more likely to die/dt in quests hosted by Eniac, Mantra, Ching, etc. and therefore, more likely to lose gear. Whens the last time you dt'd real gear in DOOM?

Remorting an entire set of mage squads takes time. At three deaths per mage lets say, and lets say for theory sake, it takes 5 mages to kill a mob. That's 15 deaths. You could only reset said mob 8 times before racking up the cost of "120" deaths - almost max deaths - and thats not take into account any deaths while leveling up the mage. This also discourages exploring for free.

Aaron

[antrus]

Jan 6, 2009 16:01:49 GMT -5 Mal said:

I don't know of any full sets of gear being lost to DOOM. You are more likely to die/dt in quests hosted by Eniac, Mantra, Ching, etc. and therefore, more likely to lose gear. Whens the last time you dt'd real gear in DOOM?

Last time I lost real gear in Doom: a thief set a couple years back. Full set of eq. And if I recall, out of all the major death quests and gauntlets and all those fun things, there was only one huge moment of massive eq loss. You can find a record of that in the chronicles. Aside from the quest a month or two back that Eniac and I ran(where the group lost 301m) most quests don't involve the player risking anything.

[Mal]

A lost set of thief gear from summon/backstab - is a wonderful thing. I sure hope they've fixed it so you can't do that anymore. If only it was maintained.. no more squadding.. no more backstab.. no walking in without going through mobs that require grouping and can't be taken down by anything else, and drop on death, etc.

And from the polls (gauntlet & death fests) are ranked highest - hopefully more will be run. But... You die. You die. You die. Lets hope it doesn't crash.

There have been lots of dt's etc during quests. I dt'd my bard with good amount of quest gear on it. I also dt'd my cleric in one of the quest zones, of course, I didn't think they'd have a dt in a recall quest.

When's the last time you dt'd real gear in DOOM?

Aaron

[antrus]

Jan 6, 2009 16:13:29 GMT -5 Mal said:

A lost set of thief gear from summon/backstab - is a wonderful thing. I sure hope they've fixed it so you can't do that anymore. If only it was maintained.. no more squadding.. no more backstab.. no walking in without going through mobs that require grouping and can't be taken down by anything else, and drop on death, etc.

There have been lots of dt's etc during quests. I dt'd my bard with good amount of quest gear on it. I also dt'd my cleric in one of the quest zones, of course, I didn't think they'd have a dt in a recall quest.

When's the last time you dt'd real gear in DOOM?

Aaron

I'll start out by addressing your last question. Nobody with any sense whatsoever is going to DT gear in Doom. The gates are easily checked for dt's with a naked char. And as dt's do not count on your death counter(as far as i know), it wouldn't matter even with your fix. And DT's have nothing at all to do with the risk of a quest or zone, they happen to be the players fault. If you watch where you are going, and play carefully, you don't need to worry about DT's. Chalk that one up to your own faults, not risk.

And perhaps you should try running the zone again if you don't even know what has or hasn't changed in years. Might give you a little more insight into how its changed, and then your b*tching would at least have some credibility to it.

[Mal]

I can see from the sidelines whats going on in DOOM often enough and from the class selection, you know exactly whats going on. I know most of the changes, and how it works. It is still a stagnant something or other.

I never particularly cared for timed dt's though, if your connection gets zapped. As for walking into a dt, it's your own damn fault I agree. Although in a recall quest in an unfamiliar quest zone (since I was fresh from retirement) - I dunno about that one.

Are you saying you used your thief with eq for something other then summon/backstab? Cleric summoning mage squad mages to.. oh I don't know.. curse a mob lots and lots?

Aaron

[Tarbal]

so it seems to me that what is needed is someone who will update this zone...what kind of changes do you guys think should be made? eq? rooms? mobs? rewrite the whole durn zone?? i mean really...do we want to sit here and complain about the zone, or try to get it fixed? i am sure that some people would love to leave it as is....but i think that would completely negate the entire purpose of the zone and what it was originally intended to be....

[Tarbal]

oh yeah....i also do not think that perma-death would be a fitting fix...i am sure that there are other ways of making this zone very challenging....

[Aneyou]

I run through Doom with eq'd chars all the time, I recently killed a blocking mob with an eq'd bard. I have eq'd clerics on the floor or the zone to summon me when I need, where mobs can potentially wander in on them. It's not just a death squad zone at all. You can kill certain mobs with mages and other than that you do actually need a group. Backstabbing requires 4 people unless you have 3 amazingly eq'd chars and even then its almost essential because of the two big aggro mobs in a !magic room. The eq in there loads rarely enough and requires enough people that after having run it for YEARS, we actually don't have that much doom eq, since everyone gets a roll that helps out. If the zone was as easy and as stagnant as you claim Mal, then everyone would run it. Clearly very few people run it because its not that easy...it is a quest zone and not an easy zone to learn, but it is extremely runnable and not too much, that I can agree with. With all the holiday quest eq coming into the game, and the remort system, alot of people don't like to use DOOM eq since they all are well balanced with nice stats and solid drawbacks, including -dex -str -int and lots of rests. Doom eq is still fairly rare, even to us that run it alot, and if everyone ran it and it was a competition to get in there every uptime, it would be even rarer and more spread out so there is no reason to call the eq overpowered or the zone "too easy" for a quest zone. That's ridiculous. There is a balance that comes with making a hard zone, and its easy to overstep that line. Unless people who run the zone have a problem with it, I don't see any reason to actually remove the zone.

[Mal]

Wow I remember the day when you actually went in the !mag room with a group of warriors and fought for your lives. As it should be. I can't believe this hasn't been fixed already.

'unless people who run the zone', namely you, are enjoying the handing out of quest level gear in a non-quest zone. Mysticism, Causes, Paragons, Torques,(on a str-spell class), etc all are still better then anything that can be found regularly. I am sure there are some quest eq that might outpower some of these but very very few. I would run doom, meaning I fall under the group 'people who would like the zone to be fixed so they'll run it', but until this happens I will not.

DOOM is in fact too easy, its a mappable zone, that is never changing, no new challenges are faced to get quest gear, period, it should have been removed long long long ago before I ever stepped foot into it. You can't honestly tell me DOOM is difficult. Run it twice and you'll know all there is to know about running DOOM.

The number of people running DOOM is proportional to the number of players we have, and not everyone wants to play in DOOM, some, including myself, find it quite repulsive. What's the point of trying to run a quest zone the honest and true way - with an eq group - where you actually risk some of your best eq to get something better? On top of that, not everyone has a power'd thief to cheat the system with, or a set of mages to squad down mobs, neither of these should be methods that are allowable to be employed in a quest zone. As long as you aren't going in with a decked out eq group - the zone isn't right, and should be fixed, and until its fixed, should be closed to keep the free handouts from flowing.

The fact that you can still bs and mage squad boggles my mind. You might as well just remove the purge from the mobs and call in all the rangers.

DOOM isn't stagnant? Seriously? I am all ears. Well, eyes. Tell me oh great one, how exactly this zone isn't stagnant. It isn't easy? Tell me, what new challenges have you faced that you haven't faced before?

Aaron

[ching]

Jan 6, 2009 14:35:34 GMT -5 eniac said:

*snip*
I also find it slightly humorous that we're discussing risk vs return. Take a look at any Jedi quest and the prizes that were handed out. Can you think of any quest where players lost all their eq(I can't, not even in Mantra's)? The only quest I can think of where players got screwed was my last quest. They were out 300m.

*snip*

It is in the Chronicles entry. During Unicorn's super quest (where The Grand Master & Rhyoden were effected/changed including items and mobs) I lost 2 full sets of eq. A perfect Ranger (I was on my ranger) and a perfect Cleric (I loaned it to Ford) were both crash died. Total loss of a bunch of stuff (because of his 'new' skeletal warriors which crashed the system right after they killed most of my group.

Now, that was years ago . . . I have not seen anything like it sense.

[Tam]

*sigh*

Well, it's no real secret how I feel about Doom. (Sorry Cog/Charis) The idea of a "quest zone" is a complete joke, imho, if there is no quest to it.

The idea of the zone was, indeed, to make it regularly changing. This was intended to be the justification for the slew of "top-shelf" gear. Changing does not mean that the gates move or other zone file tricks are executed - in my opinion. Those are just parlor tricks that can be done in any zone. What it means that the maps should change regularly, the mobs should change regularly, the eq should change regularly and so forth! This was Cog's original idea, too! It simply wasn't executed.

Look at it from a very simple standpoint. What is Doom? It's a big pyramid where some bozo named Cottonman performs wild experiments on things. That's the setting and the mechanism by which it was justified that things would constantly change. New mobs would start running around and old ones would die off because new things were created, which in turn, ate the old things. New sections of the zone would be created because "renovations" would be needed to accomodate new hordes of mobs. The idea, in itself, was genius. It just, again, wasn't executed!

This stuff is the whole reason I've boycotted Doomcrap from the beginning. To me, Doom ended up being nothing short of an excuse to raise bars and pollute the mud's elite's rent files with new toys. If it would have constantly changed, like it was said, my feelings would probably be different. Therefore, in the years Doom has been around, I've explored it and run it with others so I could understand it. I've never taken squat out of it. Maybe someday if that all changes, I will. Until then, I respectfully remain to be a "non-looter".

So, do I think Doom should be removed because it's no living up to its expections? Hell no. It -does- have potential and I'm willing to admit that. Conversely, do I think that Doom should be treated as "just another zone" whenever the justification for all that top-shelf gear isn't being lived up to? Absolutely not. It would need reigned in and I don't think the players want that.

That leaves us with one option. Give Doom to someone who is willing to commit to regular updates -- monthly, if possible - quarterly, at minimum.

It's pretty cut and dry in my eyes. Yes, I know I'm draconian in my standpoint about this but with the gear that people can pull out of there, I think it's pretty warranted.

-D

[hazel]

I'm one of the few people who still play in doom and there is definitely a list of things about the zone that could be improved:

Most importantly:

1. The zone is crash only (Yes, you can reset a few mobs/items, but with all the conditionals and dependent loads, it's not really practical). With a stable game (nobody will disagree that having a stable game is a good thing) the zone is not available often. In that aspect, it's not really a quest zone - it's a "who's on when the game crashes/reboots and knows how to run it" zone.
2. The zone has a steep learning curve - it takes a few weeks to learn and map it out - but once you've done that, you can check/kill everything that's loaded in 15-30 minutes in a small team of 2-3.
3. Configurations - Yes, sometimes, I miss paths that more experienced players (like Ross and Anton) would not, but there are only so many gate set-ups and configurations. Once you've experienced a couple up times, there's not much left to figure out/learn.

Have a meeting, will continue post soon.

[Aneyou]

I find that all this 'great eq" being handed out so easily, and everyone being kind enough to not run the zone because they disagree with it is very hard to believe. If the zone were as easy as you want to say it is, then everyone would be running it. It's not easy, but it's not crazy difficuly either. It's a tough zone and back when Mudstud was around and there was actually competition to get in there, it was harder to get eq in there. If everyone learnt it, with how rare the eq actually loads, it will be even harder yet again, so how about everyone stop meanieing and start running and see why the eq is what it is. If you want to stay on a high horse and decide not to run the zone or take eq from the zone, then good for you. I actually enjoy running Doom, it's one of the *only* thrills I get out of Jedimud. It's fun to figure out what paths to take each uptime, because sometimes it can actually get quite complex figuring out how to get around the zone. And no, it's not the crazy zone you want it to be, but it's very easy to break the balance between difficult and too difficult. Anyway this is my last post on this topic, keep arguing all you want about it.

[Mal]

Tam - I agree with you wholeheartedly. I don't want to see doom gone, I want to see it fixed. The issue then is, how do we get doom fixed.

Hazel - I agree.

Aneyou - You didn't answer the stagnant or new challenges questions in your final post, but far be it for an old bitter mofo like myself to take away some of the fun you have on jedimud. I also agree, it is hard to differentiate 'difficult' and 'too difficult' at times. Hence our last gauntlet pairs - but it sure was fun. The doom points that we disagree on have been made, I'll agree to disagree.

Charis - I believe you are currently in charge of doom, I mean no insult through my posts, RL takes priority, and doom takes a large commitment of time to keep it running properly. Maybe we can get someone else to step up to the plate and alternate or take over updates of doom

I don't want doom gone, I want it fixed.

PS: The person who thought of summon/bs trick was a great way to reset certain mobs. The reward would have been an easy reseting of said mobs for the month until it got fixed on the next revision. Part of the challenge is finding these holes (sometimes intentionally made by the designer, sometimes not)

[Dank]

Doom is easily fixed by adding the tiered mob load methodology that Nino uses in Ravenna. Sometimes you get panicked citizens, sometimes you don't. But don't base the current state on crash... use a long zone reset time, if necessary, much like Pagoda.

[Simba]

For some of us that ran DOOM way back in the day before Fusion owned it....I know that once they made every mob purge it took the fun out of it for me. I liked running rangers around up there killing the lizzies and minotaurs. And once the zone got changed I stopped running it also. I had a great time back in the day and yes there was a race to get into doom. Partially because it was new and exciting...i.e. eniac's statue or dragon city haven't had much of a break lately.

I agree with Tam somebody constantly changing the zone would be best for the mud. Not just making everything purge, !nuke, !magic to make it harder. I also think the eq should be updated, it was top shelf eq back before the stat over 18 happened and before the skills got tied to stats -int, -dex, -str didn't matter as much. Another idea is why have all the big mobs load the items? It is easy to just map where the mobs are and run to them to check them...how about some items randomly loading on lizardmen or minotaurs so you have to search everywhere? (If they already do I apologize, I'm going off of memory 6 years ago)