New Zone! Rasking's Valley

-=ZONE OPENING=-

Raskin's Valley

Builder: Raschdar

In the southwestern portion of Medievia, much of the forested wilderness remains untamed. Periodically, settlers will split from the main villages and attempt to form their own colonies; sadly, many of these settlers are never heard from again.

It was through this unclaimed wilderness that Jaekin found himself running, with what had to be the devil on his tail. He had always considered himself an excellent woodsman, and though only seventeen he was fast becoming the greatest hunter of his village. Yet he had never encountered a creature likethe one chasing him through the maze of branches and vines.

He looked over his shoulder to see if he was gaining any ground, stumbled over a root that seemed to grab at him with malicious intent, and tumbled to the ground. When he regained himself he found himself in a clearing that lined the edge of a precipice. The view from the precipice was staggering.

A low snarl snapped Jaekin back into reality. With full knowledge of the horror he would see, Jaekin turned to face the creature that would bring him to his end. This was Jaekin's first chance to view the creature closely. It came closest to the shape and size of a large dog, but the resemblance ended there. Black- and green-striped scales covered its body, giving it a thick outer armor almost like plate mail. A red pug-nosed snout and bulging eyes made the face appear squashed and deformed. A lizard-like tail trailed behind the thing, and its scales clinked together softly as it moved.

The creature shifted its weight backward, and Jaekin prepared himself for the pounce. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain and looked down to see a four-inch stinger jutting out from just beneath the ribs on his right side. His fixation with the first creature had blinded him to the approach of a second from the forest edge!

Jaekin fell to his knees, and as consciousness began to escape him he heard a raspy voice from behind him say, "Oh, yes. He will do quite nicely."

---

Suggested Levels:

Solo: 26-31
Small Group: 24-28
Large Group: 18-24
Number of Rooms: 166
PK Types: NPK / CPK

Congratulations to Raschdar on opening his first totally new zone and doing a remarkable job! Raskin's Valley is designed as a mid- to high-level experience zone with some cool equipment as well. Thanks to Evelina and Kostia for editing the rooms, mobs, and objects, and thanks to Seraphyr for writing the procs. Once again, congratulations to Raschdar on doing a remarkable job!

--The WOMs

Tomb of Oblivion

"No, I never did find the oasis," replied Tumenjin with a sigh. "Gods know I searched every dune in the desert these past twenty years, wandering from town to town, bartering my tales for food and water."

The Sharif looked upon the wrinkled old man intently. "Tell me more of your travels."
Tumenjin took another sip of nectar from the glass, then glanced around nervously. "I ought to hide my head in the sand rather than tell you this, but I recently visited the royal burial grounds, concealed deep within the desert."

"They exist?" A skeptical look crossed the Sharif's face.

"Something is amiss, I fear," continued the nomad. "An ancient power has been awakened and come into its own. Legends say that the rulers of the ancient desert civilizations had special powers, and the people believed them to be immortals. The most tyrannical, most terrible of these rulers were imprisoned in the tombs for all eternity."

The royal scribe scribbled frantically on a scroll as he transcribed the old man's story.

"At night, bone-chilling howls emanate from deep within the crypt. The local priests say that the ancient rulers have awakened and started to regain some of their old powers. There is no telling what might happen if the seal on the crypt is ever broken."

---

We have resurrected some procs for Tomb of Oblivion that were written seven years ago but never finished. We also added several new pieces of equipment and revised some of the existing items. All of the changes are for the silver and gold days. Please report back to us with any feedback you have, particularly with regards to mob difficulty. Happy exploring!

--The WOMs

Announcement from Vryce

From Vryce, 3 things:

1. The 'nodet' spirit donation item is going on sale for a limited time from now until the end of May. This is the second time this item is up for sale. Normally the spirit donation item lasts a year and needs certificates to keep up. This older and more rare spirit is NO DETERIORATION, otherwise it has the same stats:
   
   SPIRIT OF MEDIEVIA (Specify SPIRIT with your donation)
   Seen as: the Spirit of Medievia
   Worn Over Heart (special location for this item)
   50 mana, 50 hitpoints, -1 Saving Spell
   Lasts forever instead of 1 year like normal
   
   Years ago we had this sale of the nodet spirit because we needed revenue to cover two expensive marketing campaigns. This time it is going on sale to get our cash reserves up. We need donations! We really need your support.
   
   I urge all players who are thinking about donating to do so this month. Now is the best time to give back to the game that gives you so much. This 'nodet' spirit sale is our way of sparking donation interest in times of need. We are in a time of need. We need your support. Please donate to the game this month.
   
2. My email was down for a few days. I have stopped using outlook and I just want to make sure no emails were missed. As of this moment I am totally caught up in email so if you are awaiting a response from me please resend the email to vryce@medievia.com as I do not have it.
   
3. The rest of this announcement should probably be a 'Vryce Journal' but that's ok. Feel free to stop reading but please don't forget to donate!

I have been 100% focused on the next changes for some time. It has been a few months since many have seen me very active on my mortals or as a god on public channels. The problem with Medievia V is that it is a huge plan and I just cannot explain to everyone how deep the plan is as everyone will just think I am nuts. It is my life's mission to create a living breathing world and this version will be it. My problem as the guy who codes these new features is the AI code. It is some hard stuff to be honest. The workers we have all heard me bragging about are still not in, except for the simple deckhands and jobless types. There are still not 1,000 worker houses with families living in them dotting the world and the roads. There are still not any clan businesses, worker pirate ships, Khrait wars, pets, new dragons, kingdoms, justice system, etc. Why?

Why has it taken so long? The answer is not a lot fun or interesting ( to non-coders ) but it is the truth. The answer is that this is hard stuff to code. Actually that is a lie. The coding is actually easy. The software engineering is the hard part. The hard part is figuring out the best way to code the stuff. Once figured out, the actual coding is the easy part, then testing and bug fixing is the hard part again. For the past 3-4 months I have coded almost nothing as part of my plan to finally break through. I was surrounded by many chicken/egg problems. I would figure one thing out just to realize that A had to wait for B and B had to wait for A which also had to wait for C and hell C is not even planned until next version. I struggled for many months and then decided that I needed to stop coding the stuff and do a total software engineering job on the WHOLE PLAN, EVERY FEATURE, EVERY PHASE.

For the past few months all I have done is work on paper, mapping out every finite state system for the AI, every event trigger needed, every spec of data that needs to persist, and every new features gameplan. This has been a brutal time for me and also very stressful. It took me over a whole month just to figure out how to code the new pets module ( think the game 'Black and White' except multiplayer ). It took me a month to figure out how to have thousands of workers living in thousands of houses when the houses do not actually exist until a player enters one ( tricky memory coding there! ), same with bloodline abodes that must exist even when players are not online. I wish I could share my struggles with others as I live such a lonely life knee deep in coding and thinking. I could go on for hours explaining interesting coding stuff but I will not, even though I really want to! Anyways I have just spent many months doing nothing but figuring it all out.

I AM DONE.

There is bad news and there is good news. The bad news is that there is no real way to move forward without Kingdoms and the Justice System. These are features that were planned for the next version but now I realize it all has to come now. So the bad news is it means more work for me up front, the good news is that Kingdoms and the Justice System will come sooner rather than later, in fact really soon. I am pretty sure I have it all figured out on exactly how to code it all, PETS, MF DRAGONS, BLOODLINE ABODES, WORKERS, KINGDOMS, JUSTICE SYSTEM, WARS, etc. There is no part of our plan for what Medievia will be in the future that I do not have a full coding plan for. I wish there was a faster way to do this stuff but in the end I was spinning my wheels trying to code workers without a complete understanding of how to code every single new feature coming.

What does all of this mean? It means I am back to coding, and theoretically I should not have to stop coding again to figure out how to code something until all planned features are done! Knock on wood. It means many changes starting in 2 weeks and constant changes from then on out until everything planned is implemented. It means we finally fill our nearly empty wilderness and ocean with adventure at every turn!
What is the justice system? What is kingdoms? I will make some Vryce journals soon explaining in detail but the basics are this:

In Medievia V workers take over the world. These are the special mobs you see with first and last names. They are our 'citizens'. They will run your clans farms and mines and other businesses, live in their houses, marry other workers, become pirates, become kings, get drafted into kingdom armies, etc. Workers will do everything and be everywhere. Even if you enter a normal zone you may find some workers in a tavern relaxing after a hard days work.

Very soon now, out of no where, there will be hundreds of new house zones dotting the landscape, especially around clantowns and major zones. These are houses you can enter where you will find workers living their life. In one of my many chicken and egg problems, these initial workers will be born as adults of varying ages, after that all new workers will be born as worker babies and raised by their worker parents and grand parents. The initial workers will be created with a lot of gold so they can own houses and I can get that all tested and done. The problem there is the justice system.

I realized we just cannot have houses that players can enter and not have any ramifications for doing so. It just will not work. What is the justice system? Many games have 'renown' which is a positive or negative number for how you are known, hero to villain. We will also call this variable 'renown' and it is coming very soon. If you enter a worker house at night and startle a sleeping family, your renown will go down some as they yell about the intruder etc. If you save a worker your renown will go up, etc. If your renown gets very low you will find worker posses after you. Think 'Elder Scroll' games where the locals all have an opinion of you created by your actions nearby. The problem here is another chicken and egg problem. I did not want 'global renown' I wanted 'local renown', and that means kingdoms. Kingdoms must come sooner rather than later. I really wanted to finish pets, bloodline abodes, new dragons, Khrait wars, and all of the other version 5 features before kingdoms came. I wanted almost everything done before kingdoms came. It just cannot work that way. What is coming next is workers and clan businesses. That means we need the justice system, and that means we need kingdoms as you will have separate renown for each kingdom. At first we will have fake kingdoms which will just be faked out doing nothing but giving us kingdom borders. Expect that change any day. In the end Kingdoms will be one of the deepest things ever coded in a game, a totaly DM run simulation of medieval kingdoms which will give our landscape awesome detail and dynamic gaming adventure at every turn from invading kingdoms, taking kings hostage, sparking new kingdoms through player run revolts, jails, wars, player managed kingdom armies, etc.

Anyways I am done the engineering phase and we can all expect changes to come fast from here on out, assuming I did a good job with the engineering so that the coding phase goes smooth! I will be more available on public channels again and may even start playing my mortals again somewhat ( once I finish command and conquer 3! ). It is a happy time for me as I am now so completely confident about what is coming and how to pull it off programming and data wise. What is coming is my life's challenge and my life long dream, the deepest - most realistic - and most fun game ever created, truly like being in a living book adventuring with friends.

Can a text game be the most fun multi-player game ever made? Can Medievia get to thousands of players online? We have laid the world out and that took 10 years. Now we fill the world which is nearly empty as is. It has taken around 6 years now to figure out what the best game ever made would be like and how to code it. Now I am coding it. Now we find out. Now we show the world what a text game can do that no other game can hope to achieve! Next comes clan businesses, workers everywhere, ship trading, and islands being finished. Pets, bloodlines abodes, new dragons, etc will follow right away. Hopefully it will be non-stop new features every month. On the other side will be a new game, Medievia V, the most fun game ever made.

Please donate to the game, tell friends about Medievia and your adventures here, and please support the game now. Now is when we need your support. We cannot market the game as we are in between versions. We must rely on our current playerbase to sustain us until these changes are in. We are relying on you and your belief that Medievia will eventually become the best and most deep RPG ever created. Do you

-Vryce