Genesis Forums

A friend of mine talked about an idea(don't want to take credit from him) and I think Archie was fairly close to it as well.

What if darkness became a personal thing? Any darkness worn will cloak that person in darkness, and they can use it to attack one target at a time when fighting grouped enemies. And stay safe from sunlight. But the darkness does not cover the entire room? Then all other players can see "The darkened figure is fighting the huge purple dragon.", or "A darkened figure" could be standing in the bank - and everyone else could just continue playing the game without being blocked by the blob of darkness.

Personal darkness is an interesting idea, but is a large and very risky
global project all to avoid using existing available resources to avoid minor
inconvenience. Wouldn't you prefer new content over reworking old content?

Is there tension between "annoying blobs of darkness" and "rude people who
light up my dark room"? Yes, there is tension. Tension is the key element for
the plot of any story or game. Without it, there is no story to tell. What is
important is that everyone has the ability to participate in the tension, or
to defuse it. In this case, the matter is entirely defused by using darkvision,
moving away from the darkness or by waiting a few seconds for the blob to move
on. If escalation is the name of your game, flare up those torches or join the
dark side yourself. The beauty of Genesis is that is all up to you!

How about ideas for new content you'd like to see?

Santetra wrote: ↑

25 Dec 2023 04:35

Personal darkness is an interesting idea, but is a large and very risky
global project all to avoid using existing available resources to avoid minor
inconvenience. Wouldn't you prefer new content over reworking old content?

I think that if people complain, calling it a minor inconvenience will perhaps cause a discussion to derail, and lose focus on the actual topic.

To answer the question above, I would rather have working content, old or new, then patching existing content which creates further problems or perhaps doesn't really solve the problem.

It does feel, regardless of where it ends up, that light/darkness needs a revamp. Perhaps a new vision, then a look at what we have to see what gaps there are to getting to the vision. Naturally, things like complexity and lack of resources might mean we never get the vision, but I do think the current light/dark solution is far from perfect. But maybe challenging the existing situation, like things are done in other areas, could be a good thing here as well?

Santetra wrote: ↑

25 Dec 2023 04:35

Is there tension between "annoying blobs of darkness" and "rude people who
light up my dark room"? Yes, there is tension. Tension is the key element for
the plot of any story or game. Without it, there is no story to tell. What is
important is that everyone has the ability to participate in the tension, or
to defuse it. In this case, the matter is entirely defused by using darkvision,
moving away from the darkness or by waiting a few seconds for the blob to move
on. If escalation is the name of your game, flare up those torches or join the
dark side yourself. The beauty of Genesis is that is all up to you!

How about ideas for new content you'd like to see?

Tension is fine. Light/dark existed before the vampires. None (or very few) took damage from it though. If light is supposed to be a negative trait for vampires and they threaten anyone with light sources, so that there is less light, then I would say that is both a bad introduction of tension, but also less of a negative trait if people use less light.

Secondly, not all players will use dark vision for RP reasons. There are a few good aligned guilds that are pillars of light, while they can from a game technical perspective use dark vision, they might not do so for RP reasons. So not entirely defused by using dark vision.

As you write, carrying many light sources is a solution. That is what happens today, just like people carry many sources of darkness. I am also all for balancing out how light sources and sources of darkness work in comparison, neither dark/light sources should benefit from their effect unless it comes with some kind of cost (like mana, effort to acquire, length it lasts, etc).

Archie

Here is one out of my ass.

Remove all items for darkness and light. Make global darkness and daylight. Day and night time.

So the evil doers can stalk the night and the holy ones can prowl the day.

If you want to see in the dark, bring a lamp. otherwise *A Dark room*

Cheers.

Alorrana wrote: ↑

29 Dec 2023 22:26

Here is one out of my ass.

Remove all items for darkness and light. Make global darkness and daylight. Day and night time.

So the evil doers can stalk the night and the holy ones can prowl the day.

If you want to see in the dark, bring a lamp. otherwise *A Dark room*

Cheers.

Hey bud!

Im one of the quitters due to the nerf on lights. Should really only require one lamp or torch to make it light enough, stupid a lamp wont light up the surrounding for you to take out stuff from your pack ( like 10 more lamps ).

I used to say wizards had no experience in how changes affected players, the last few years show I was dead wrong. Darkness was breaking the game 30 years ago and not much changed there, except it got a whole lot easier aquiring darkness.

OgreToyBoy wrote: ↑

31 Dec 2023 00:34

Alorrana wrote: ↑

29 Dec 2023 22:26

Here is one out of my ass.

Remove all items for darkness and light. Make global darkness and daylight. Day and night time.

So the evil doers can stalk the night and the holy ones can prowl the day.

If you want to see in the dark, bring a lamp. otherwise *A Dark room*

Cheers.

Hey bud!

Im one of the quitters due to the nerf on lights. Should really only require one lamp or torch to make it light enough, stupid a lamp wont light up the surrounding for you to take out stuff from your pack ( like 10 more lamps ).

I used to say wizards had no experience in how changes affected players, the last few years show I was dead wrong. Darkness was breaking the game 30 years ago and not much changed there, except it got a whole lot easier aquiring darkness.

You can beat the possible obtainable darknesslevel created by any vampire by 3 shop items in the game. Infinte supply.

1 item will beat atleast 50% of the entire vampire population, 2 items probably 95% and 3 items will beat them all. Buy 4 for good measure.

I thought I'd tried all of them. Where did you find this magical wizard only lamp that we all want?

Quantum wrote: ↑

03 Jan 2024 13:57

I thought I'd tried all of them. Where did you find this magical wizard only lamp that we all want?

Haha, we were all thinking it

OgreToyBoy wrote: ↑

03 Jan 2024 17:01

Quantum wrote: ↑

03 Jan 2024 13:57

I thought I'd tried all of them. Where did you find this magical wizard only lamp that we all want?

Haha, we were all thinking it

Its in the game, available.

Here's the perfect solution that fixes everything and I'm certain everyone will love and agree with:

If it's dark in a room, you can open packs and get items from packs.
It just takes a couple seconds.
>Open Pack
You fumble in the darkness attempting to open the brown backpack.
... 2 seconds later...
You manage to open the brown backpack!
>Get torch from pack.
You fumble in the darkness attempting to get a torch from the brown backpack.
... 3 seconds later...
You manage to get a torch from the brown backpack!

Now you can use your fancy torches in the dark! It's realistic! There's an advantage to darkness, but it's easily countered!

THanks, I give this brilliant and perfect idea to the amazing admins of Genesis lpMUD for the low low price of 1 platinum out of great respect for the game.