A Day Better Forgotten

Well, folks, it's been 5 years; today in 2003, at about 11 AM-ish, I made the mistake of replying yes to Rhialto's tell asking me if I was ready to be promoted. Now I am doomed to wander the halls of Wyvern, wailing to players about rules until the end of days.

But that's not where I made the first mistake that led me to this end. No, it all started at the beginning of January. In the previous year I came to the conclusion that games might be my best bet for the creative outlet I so desired. I tried learning how to write code, but as I have since realized it wasn't for me. However, while I was entertaining the idea of going down that path, I spent quite a bit of time on arcadepod, looking through games as I kind of liked the java applet format to game creation and I was busy generating game idea after game idea and recording them in .txt files. But, while doing so, I ended up finding this game called Wyvern that mentioned being able to make areas for the game and after checking out the link, I learned that no programming was required to do so. Excited, I thought this would be a great way to use Wyvern as a way to see if I was kidding myself in thinking that I could do this and if I wasn't it would be a great way to get some experience before moving on (naive does not begin to describe how I view that thinking today). So, I downloaded the client and logged in.

I was immediately impressed with the game as, while walking through New Verden, it felt very reminiscent of good classic games (needless to say I am a big fan of classic games). So I continued to look around and after getting to level 2, I headed over to Alaria and explored a bit. The big thing that I would do there is play Sokoban as I had a version of the game on my computer which I previously played so it was familiar to me and I enjoyed it. But every now and then I would head over to the towers and do a little fighting to get some XP. During this time, I also used the world map and went to every city, just looking into the first map or two, and then I headed back to Alaria (amusing tidbit: for a very brief time I didn't know there was an inn there so I would save in the Kings Road Inn and run there before every reboot to save again like the message said to).

Shortly thereafter, I thought I had a good enough feel for the game and so I sat down to work on some maps. I created a four map dungeon first that had a demon lord and some other random monsters in it; it was bad, but it was intended to be bad. I was trying to get a feel for the mapmaker and how things worked, so I simply filled it with a wide range of things. Once I was done with this practice run I deleted those maps (which, btw, had a plot to them as I am incapable of making anything without one). Then I opened up a new map and tried to think of something to make next.

That, of course, isn't the best thing to do as you should never stare at a blank map, hoping ideas come to you. You should generate those ideas ahead of time, plan them out, and then sit down and work on them. But rather than do that, I started playing around with the objects in the mapeditor again and I suddenly took the dark earth terrain and I just started drawing it. I didn't necessarily expect to be coming up with the idea that I would be submitting but, as it happened, I started thinking of reasons why would there be dark earth all over the place and then it hit me... this was a lifeless, ruined area.

After that, I was on a roll and idea after idea just kept jumping at me. I put some ruined structures down (I think one the guard towers came first) and then I added a little water. At some point I got to the right hand side of the map and for some odd reason decided to draw some grass under this mansion. Why would there be grass in that one spot if it was a lifeless area though? Hmmm ... magic. Yes, but who's magic? Well I went through the list of monsters and saw a hill giant in green clothes. I then looked back at the green grass and combined the two (as you can guess, I knew nothing about hill giants as I was not a fan of fantasy). Next thing I know there's a hill giant planning to conquer Alaria (I later changed it to New Verden) and he needed allies so there was a place for pirates. But wait, he couldn't go unopposed so there was the guard tower and the Orcs/Undead were what remained from the time when the village turned into a lifeless area. Meanwhile, somewhere in-between I came up with the name Forgotten Oak after seeing the word "forgotten" written on something to my left and I came up with the idea of the magical oak to explain the name. I think all of this took me about three days of doing nothing but sitting at my computer and, from doing that, I ended up with somewhere between 60 and 70 maps (I want to say 63, but I do not remember for sure).

To top it off I had two ideas for other areas that came about around the same time. One was the temple on Forgotten Oak which was to lead to a hidden elf area. I made one map for it (the one you enter when you use the teleporters in the temple) and left it as is thinking this could be my next project. The other was for a dwarf area on the land mass south of Forgotten Oak which later turned into a gray dwarf area. I never really did much with that one but generate ideas and draw the male gray dwarf graphic (which is what inspired the idea that it should be for them and not regular dwarves) and I have since realized I did not need to start another complex area considering all the other projects that I have yet to finish.

In any case, on the 11th, a little bit before midnight, I sent Rhialto these Forgotten Oak maps and the one hidden elf map. Well, not really. I screwed up and hit enter causing the email to send without any text in the body or my attachment. The only thing it had was a title saying; "Forgotten Oak (large map submission)" and I was horrified when Rhialto emailed me back (almost right away) to tell me my attachment didn't make it... which I didn't realize until after I sat down and finished writing my best attempt at a professional email describing who I was and what my area was. It was 746 words and included a joke which I cringe at when reading right now; "Why choose Forgotten Oak to be added: becus u lik itz da bes! ;)" I am really embarrassed by it now, but maybe in another entry I will post it (typos and all) for you guys to chuckle at.

Anyway, I got an email back telling me he would look at it. Then we conversed a bit about a problem with boats vanishing in maps. Ahead of time I was fully prepared to get an email back telling me more work needed to be done and was ready to make any changes that were needed until it was good enough. But, to my surprise, I got an email on the 13th, after he had time to look at my area, and to my utter shock he said he liked them to the point where he thought they were of exceptionally high quality. To this day I don't get that and I think you'll see why when viewing my early maps below. Maybe it was my ability to follow instructions and get the teleporter paths right (something which few people did, as I later realized) or the fact that it had a story for it, which is rare at the time... or perhaps even that I had another area in the works already (most wizards would make one area and then stop). I don't know, but at the time stupid me was pleased and unaware of what horrors awaited me. So I logged into Arilou (the account I made on the 8th to save the name as I knew that would be the name I wanted to be a wizard) and got to level 2 while waiting for him to find me.

I remember running through Garignor's a bit and then being in Alaria's main map when I got this tell from this Rhialto fellow. I was confused as my highest level account was level 6 (this was when the level 15 rule was just a suggestion) and so all I knew of the game came from reading the manuals and my little experience with leveling that account. Who was this Rhialto fellow? I knew him as Steve so it was odd, but after a brief pause I said yes without stupidly letting on about my confusion and waited in his workroom while he set everything up (incase you're wondering, at this point I caught on that he was the person I had been conversing with in emails - I'm not that dense, despite what Teshuvah may have told you).

After this, I devoted all my time to getting these maps online (which ended up happening on the 16th). I then met up with Legolas who took over and did the actual testing of my maps before they went live. It was a little odd and a lot to absorb at once, but he helped me out in ways I cannot put to words. The very first bit of advice he gave me was after a player sent me a tell asking me to give him something or whatever and would not relent (this guy must've thought the new wizard would be an easy target). I asked Legolas what I should do and he told me something along the lines of; "Before you silence, always warn them... and then warn again." Basically, I've modeled by entire attitude, (the real one, not the joking, 'I'll banish you all' one) in regards to being an admin, on that. After that he helped to make me a better mapmaker and a better wizard. I consider him to have been my mentor and on a good day, where I'm not trying to kill him, I cannot say enough good things about how he helped me and how much of a great guy he is.

I don't know what else to say after that, I really should end it now as nothing will top that last sentence, but I first must show you Forgotten Oak of old and even before that I just want to say one thing - When I was first promoted, I had no intention of being an admin. I thought it was crazy to get involved in it as I knew how bad people could get from my past gaming experience. But I'm the type of person who cannot see someone being abused because of someone else breaking the rules and not do anything about it. So despite my promise to myself that I would just be a mapmaker, I ended up becoming one of the most active admins. As such, my mapmaking has suffered since I have had less time for it. It also caused me to become the mean wizard in the eyes of some and it's generally a lot of stress, but I've continued always for two reasons;

One, I see it as a way I can give back to Rhialto and the game as I am very grateful for the opportunity I was given. The ability to express myself with my maps is something I love doing. Even if nobody gets to see them, I am just happy that my vision of something can be brought to life in the way it can when I upload it to the server or (to a lesser extent) see it in the mapeditor. So I am very thankful as I was given a chance I don't think I deserved at the time.

Two, I do it for players most of all. I know some of you like to complain, but then there are a lot of you who like to praise the game for its great community and even go so far as to say that's why you play. So, just knowing that you guys can login after a hard day and relax to have some fun with as little stress as possible because people aren't cursing at you to no end or doing a whole host of other stressful things, makes it all worth it.

Anyway, I hate being sappy and I hate talking about what I do like it's something of importance (i'm not curing cancer here) so remember this as you're probably not going to hear such candid talk from me again. In fact, if you repeat it I will probably threaten to eat you after roasting you alive. Now, let's get on to the part where you get to make fun of my awful mapmaking abilities of 2003 already. We both know that's what you came here for, after all.


I'm sorry to say I don't have the unedited version that was sent to Rhialto, but this is pretty close. Here is basically how it originally looked. I added the dark abyss crevices after the maps were live for a bit. So imagine the original with more open space. There were also no empty tiles in the left hand corner, (at least I don't think) no dirt hole, no undead unicorns, and no buildings with new graphics. Meaning, the graveyard was the normal graveyard, the inn was the normal ruined inn, the two small houses were these white ruined buildings, and the castle had blue towers. Also, there was no ruined wall in the right hand corner. I added that later thinking that, in an extreme bit of irony, I could add a plot point about how the villagers were just building a wall to defend the city before the attack and had only done that one bit.


For fun, here is an updated version of that map with all the new terrain I drew. It's a lot better, but still needed work. Specifically it needed to be split up into multiple maps and have a lot more going on in each. If you go to Forgotten Oak right now you can see how much better the west part of the map looks now. Well just think of that style continuing eastward with ever more maps, each with more buildings to explore and things to do, including monsters in each of them. That would be so great... when I get to it in 10 years.


Here's a really bad one for you to laugh at. It's a big square map that is way over the size limit and is filled with junk. I made four maps for the entire castle, one for each floor. Go there now and you will see about 20 maps just for the first floor alone (I didn't get to doing the other floors yet). It has all the same points of interest; the stables, the dining room, the entrance to the dungeons, and the throne room. However, there's so much more. There's an outer wall for extra defense that has space for archers to shoot out at enemies, there's a kitchen, (a dining hall without a kitchen was brilliant, but had to be fixed) and the entrance to the dungeons is fortified so if a break out happens they can't just run into the throne room and kill the king. Also, in the original version those stairs (which were white in the version Rhialto got since the colored stairs came later) were just random dungeons, but when I'm done with the castle there will be lots of good quality maps there instead.


Here's another bad one. I had this thing where I would make 25x25 maps and just fill them up with junk for no good reason whatsoever. I since have learned to make smaller maps and have them look like they belong to the structure that represents them. The current version you see when going to Forgotten Oak isn't the best and needs to be redone yet again, but it was better than this garbage. But anyway, another interesting thing about this and the Orc Tower is that it shows Alaria's influence on my early maps. It's all I really knew, so this is based off of the Southern tower in Alaria and the Orc tower was based off of the Northern one. Oh and for the record, the wooden floors you see in this graphic have updated graphics.


This is pretty close to the original, minus using Legolas' cliffs for walls. It originally used the cave wall terrain. When you see it today it's black and looks great, but back then it was this horrible looking piece of garbage that I hated having to use. So after a suggestion from Janica, I started using the cliff walls for cave walls (for the record, today I'm a cave wall terrain kind of mapmaker). Anyway, this map is an example of how far I've come. The original Elemental Dungeon consisted of 6 maps where as now, it's 15 and still not done. Plus it is what I consider to be some of my best work thanks to some of the brilliant new artwork we now have available to us, including that dark terrain that I came up with at some point. I just love making areas with it.


Here's just another example of my making 25x25 maps and filling it with stuff. This is unedited from what Rhialto got and there's absolutely no need for it to be this big. Go have a look at what it is now. I updated that map awhile ago, but it still holds up.


I don't want to talk about it and you don't want to know. Trust me, it's better this way.


Well although this was part of a different area, I'm going to conclude this entry with this "gem" (ha!) of a map since it was included with the package to Rhialto. As you can see, I knew next to nothing about fantasy monsters as the ones I placed here are all wrong (although I knew what scorpions were and I put them in a forest map so I can only use that excuse so much). The demons/undead are out of place, gorgons mostly live underground, same with umberhulks, the blood angel shouldn't have been next to the floating eyes, and best of all... it's so beyond amazing that the fox is just wandering around and has not been eaten. Of course, in today's map you will see that it links to other maps. That is something that I did when I tried to complete this idea and turn it into a quest (that story is for another blog). After deciding to scrap it all I took the 3 maps that attached to it, redid them, redid this main map, and left it there despite having to throw out 200 maps.

For fun, I'll let in you in on a secret - You know the map that connects to the serpents? That used to be a lich map. I mean liches, out in broad daylight, just hanging around a forest with dimwitted monsters. How amateurish was that?

The Ever Approaching Hour of Discontent

Greetings all. As it turns out, this Sunday marks the day that I became a wizard in 2003. So I will be doing a special blog tomorrow in honor of the day that began my prison sentence. There will a backstory regarding how I became a wizard for you to read, a look at what I submitted to get promoted in all its awful glory, what was going through my mind as I was making those garbage maps, and similarly boring content to look forward to...or similarly exciting content, depending on what kind of meds you've been taking.

As part of an early preview, I posted a map I once made of Oaken Village before its fall. It was made in the months following my promotion as part of a bad idea that will never come to pass. You see, I wanted it so you can go through the ruins in the middle of the lake and find a rift in time (and space) that lead to the Oaken Village of old. It was to take place in the days leading up to the attack so you could explore the island and find the Orc hoards surrounding the village while life within was tense, but went on as preparations were made.

The reason it never came about was because creating two versions of the same area, set in different periods of time, is impossible to do. I, of course, realized back then that Forgotten Oak wasn't the best set of maps and one day I would find a way to improve upon them. But if I created the Oaken Village maps based on the then current Forgotten Oak version I would end up having to redo nearly 200 maps rather than just 100. Then, if I ever ended up redoing them again, I would be in that same boat. So I scrapped the idea and with the plans I have in my head for Forgotten Oak now, trust me when I say it was a smart move.

That said, I would still like to have a way to let players see the glory that was Oaken village (my poorly designed 2003 map doesn't do it justice) and I think the way to handle that is simply to take the one map that exists for the village right now and make a second version of that which shows how it looked before the fall. Then, allow players to view it via a magical orb which made a viewable record of that one place 200 years prior. That way if I ever redo that section of Forgotten Oak, yet again, I won't have hundreds of maps to redo which are set in the past. Instead I'd have just one. The thing that prevents me from doing it is that it requires new graphics as I need a good looking magical oak, I need a version of the castle which doesn't look so spooky, etc, etc. Plus I don't want to do anything until I have all of the village done and decided if I am going to make any further changes to that one map. So it's just one of those things that is a lot of work for something so minor and can't be done for awhile anyway.

But I digress. As you can see, tomorrow's blog entry will be something to look forward to as if I can go off on this much a tangent regarding one map, all that I have to cover tomorrow should send me over the edge. Maybe I'll even begin to foam at the mouth as local kids poke me with sticks... yet again.

Logged Ideas of Wyvern - Act Five

I'm free! Finally free from this most horrid idea of using my blog to showcase player ideas. I can finally get back to plotting all the lovely ways at which I can torment Binyamin, which are on their way, oh yes. Yes indeed! Anywho... you know what's going on by now and if you don't, I stopped caring, so just read it, scan through it, or skip it entirely. Whatever.

Ideas That Are Suggested to Death

Quite often we get the same ideas suggested to no end. Many of these ideas are things we never intend to bring to the game. Here you can see a few of them and my replies as to why they will never happen. I'm ending this series with this as there's no humor meant to be found in here, just serious replies so you people will better understand why you need to stop bothering us about them. Mostly it's just something I can point to when people go on about it on the forum again rather than having to write a reply all over again.

2003-07-30 14:36:24: T [wiz/arilou/amita/inn 9 4]
u should make it so u know exactly how much damage weapons do seeing as though all other mmorpg games do

Arilou's reply: What's this "other" mmorpgs nonsense about? Wyvern is a MUD and there are many MUDs which do not show you damage. There's actually an interesting article at http://www.topmudsites.com/ that goes into roll playing games versus role playing games. The first makes everything about dice and numbers. The second focuses more on your interaction with the world you are exploring (Wyvern is somewhere in-between). In the real world, you'd never pick one sword over another just because one happens to be the equivalent of a game sword having one wc-cut point more than the other. There's just no way of you possibly knowing such a thing. Rather, you would get a general feel for it by testing it out in battle a bit, looking at the material it is made of, seeing if it's balanced or magical, (yes I know there's no magic in the real world, just go with) and looking at the value that was placed there by those who inspected it closely. This way you have to actually put some effort into finding the right weapon/armor for you and there's no official item which is the best in the game. Instead, you have options that result in people running around with a wide range of things rather than shooting for that one thing with two more points of whatever on it. As a result, you may end up going around with something weaker than you would have if you knew an item's exact stats and we like it that way. It's balanced, it's realistic, and it can sometimes be fun.

2003-07-30 14:36:54: T [wiz/arilou/amita/inn 9 4]
also on that weapon idea u could make it like runescape

Arilou's reply: This is the same person from above and, surprisingly, we get this a lot. People tell us we should make Wyvern more like some other game and what they fail to realize are two things; One, we have no idea what that game does unless you tell us. Two, we are not out to make the game more like what you are comfortable with based on your previous gaming experience. There are so many people with so many different systems that in the end, we are going to do what we decide is best and if you like it you can play. Otherwise there are other games out there that may be more to your liking. That's the great thing about games - There's so many out there for every type of gamer that you can always find something you will enjoy. But, some people don't get that and they want every game they find to be something that they, personally, like as they get bored with knowing everything in one game after awhile and go out looking for a game that offers new experience but is otherwise exactly like it.

What they fail to realize is that there are millions of people out there who think very differently from them in what system works best for a game and many of them also go around to various games with the same egocentric attitude, but instead of wanting a game to be more like Runescape, they may want it to be more like Wyvern, or World of Warcraft, or Everquest, etc. The bottom line - let games be what they want to be and if what they want to be is not to your liking, I have a list of free online games for anyone who asks.

2003-10-21 18:13:22: N [wiz/arilou/amita/inn 9 4]
create a monster list that tell what exp you get for each type of monster

Arilou's reply: This sort of goes with the reply two posts up. We don't want you to know how much experience a monster gives. That just leads to you trying to calculate how many of a certain monster you need to kill before leveling up and that takes away from the fun of the game. As such, monsters give you different experience points at different levels and we change the values on monsters quite a bit. Thus making attempts by players to compile their own lists a waste of time.

2003-08-29 21:23:10: D [wiz/janica/naga/castle1w 12 23]
an air spell like fireball/blizzard

Arilou's reply: Ball spells are way too popular. The fact that you guys want more versions of them simply shows us that you're ignoring the spray and bolt spells too much. Right now air mages are more balanced and we may be looking into ways of limiting the mindlessness of being a fire/water mage down the road.

2003-08-31 12:46:14: L [temple2 9 6]
make it realistic... make it so players can wear ten rings (one per finger) but can wield no weapon, or can wear 4 amulets, but gets weighed down

Arlou's reply: Okay I know I said no humor, but 4 amulets? Am I the only one that thinks it should be in the brain damage list for that alone? In all seriousness, what people don't get is we're doing you a favor by only allowing you to wear 2 rings. If we made it so you could wear 10, we'd cut the stats on the rings way down. A ring of fire resistance, for example, would do 1/5th of what it does for you now. Then your 80 inv spots would be eaten up by 8 extra useless rings that you have to wear and they would all add to your weight.

Also, people don't get that it's not really all that realistic. For one, try putting on 10 rings. It makes it harder for you to grip a weapon as they move your fingers apart. This situation worsens when dealing with one with thick gold bands, as you see in Wyvern - With one ring, it melts into the skin of the two fingers between it, with several, the bands touch. Secondly, any ring worth wearing is magical and so you automatically have to approach this from a perspective different than you would take in life. You see, in Dungeons and Dragons you can only wear two rings as well and the explanation is that having so many various magical items actively working at the same time, while so close to each other, is a recipe for disaster.

2004-01-10 10:30:19: M [wiz/arilou/amita/orcdungeon 10 22]
let us be able to open display cases

Arilou's reply: Again, I want to put this under the brain damage list, but you have no idea how many times this gets suggested. I can't imagine that people do not understand that we do not want you to be able to get the items in display cases as to do so would be too unbalanced. We put them in there for show and if you could break into them, we'd only be allowed to put a bunch of worthless junk inside like string, one silver coin, rope, and sharpening stones. Not only would you no longer care to break into display cases, but the game would become so much less colorful.

2003-10-12 13:31:06: O [village/village 16 20]
naga tail rings to subsitute for boots

Arilou's reply: Nothing with a tail will ever be given tail rings. It's just an attempt on the part of players to overpower races that are already fairly decent.

2003-04-24 17:52:15: H [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/mansion2 10 4]
all players being able to refresh a map that no one is in, people would get exp faster but it would not be an imbalance becuase every1 would get exp faster

Arilou's reply: Unbalances are usually exploited by everyone, that's what makes them unbalanced. Everyone who wants a map to unload faster or wants a way to unload it themselves fails to realize that we do not want you all to reach level 30 in a week and we do not want you going into the same map over and over again to no end. We want to challenge you with various maps that are fun and we want you to explore to find them. That is why the maps you find the easiest unload so rarely - The whole thing of players going into maps they really like so often to check to see if there are monsters there, making it so that those maps do not unload very often, is by design and is, in fact, real balance at work.

2004-07-06 10:44:34: A [wiz/arilou/amita/house2_basement 2 3]
a wyvern 3d cluient keep the old one too and let that be updated but do the same with the 3d one

Arilou's reply: Absolutely not. Wyvern will always remain 2D. We will also always be striving to improve the graphics... within a 2D model. 3D games make it very difficult to add new/original content and require a team of graphic artists working around the clock (which is a costly enterprise). It also ruins the flavor of Wyvern by leaps and bounds.

2004-07-15 14:53:41: S [continent 117 160]
you should make it so that there are like 5-9 different begining towns and that befor you star the game you get to choose whotch one you where born at and train in that one intell lv 4

Arilou's reply: There are four main problems with this:

1) We should never be telling a player where their race was born. This limits RPing as they should be allowed to say they were raised in Alaria, Minath Elion, New Verden, or wherever.
2) It makes no sense that everyone of an entire race are all born in the same small town.
3) It really limits the game when you can only group with Fire Giants, for example, until level four. Meaning you can't meet a wider range of people who could potentially become your friends and meaning that if you and your friend start a new account at the same time you can't group unless you both decide to be the same race.
4) This assumes that you are born in Amita, Davos, or New Verden. You are not. After deciding to be an adventurer, you ventured to the tutorial tower to learn your craft and then began to explore the nearby areas as it was suggested of you by your mentors.

2004-10-11 18:57:07: C [continent 147 148]
when you are in a boat or a hot air ballon there should be light surronding you

Arilou's reply: No, there really shouldn't be. Type "view in" when in a boat. That's the only place where a light source should realistically extend to. It should be limited to a small portion of the deck of a ship or to the basket of a balloon (yes, it looks nothing like a basket, just go with it). It makes no sense that your tiny light source should extend from your location in the air (which is so high that you can go over mountains) all the way to the ground. The same with a boat - The Ocean is massive, more so than you may think given that it is not to scale. Your little light source is not going to help you very much there, especially in bigger boats.

Of course, some of you don't care about what makes sense or not and just want to complain that it's hard for you to get around at night. Well guess what? That's the point. This encourages you to use departments of transportation (dots) and it encourages you to walk more with the aid of things which allow you to fly or walk over water. You guys are overly spoiled with balloons and boats - They're a nice aid for you, but they're not the end all and be all of transportation and we don't ever want them to be.

Well that's it, we're done. I just want to take this time to point out the obvious - I changed the template... again. I know it was like this originally and maybe one day I'll edit my own version. But while I liked the other one, the brown background was driving me crazy. It had these awful patterns that you expect to see on some floor from a tacky house in the 70s. I couldn't take it anymore, I just couldn't.

Logged Ideas of Wyvern - Act Four

Well it's finally back. The series that you all hate to love. I've been bored with it from the second the idea turned into a reality and I had to actually go through the process of putting it all together. So, let's just get this over with. After tomorrow's entry we are finally done and can move on to something far more interesting. Anyway, as I've said a million times, go to http://arilou-wyvern.blogspot.com/2008/01/logged-ideas-for-wyvern-act-one.html and read the first two paragraphs if you don't know what's going on.

Ideas That Just Don't get it

Oh the humanity! They just don't get it! They have no idea what we want from the game, they have no idea what balance is, they have no idea... well just read and see for yourself.

2004-04-27 20:11:15: D [wiz/arilou/amita/vault 19 14] A "disown" command, that allows us to drop things and leave them so that others can pick them up

Arilou's reply: Makes sense to me. After all the trouble Rhialto went to code it so you guys can't pick things up your solution is to have him code it so you can choose to abuse the no drop trading rule.

 

2004-02-04 20:57:20: J [wiz/arilou/amita/store 12 2] Some small reward for recycling

 

Arilou's reply: Okay, would 1 XP do the trick? You did say a "small" reward after all...

 

2004-09-10 18:17:27: K [continent 56 242] summon dinosaur.... lore 12.... life.... ask arilou for monster classes

 

Arilou's reply: Look up the word "summon." It does not mean to create. A summon spell works in fantasy by summoning a living being from somewhere else in the world (usually nearby) and binding them to your will. Since, as of yet, there are no dinosaurs found to be living in modern times and since you can't summon things through the magic of the well of time (which is highly unstable and never linked to the same place for very long) I fail to see how this would work.

 

2003-08-29 19:18:48: F [wiz/raeden/burashaan/High_Mountains_6 19 12] i should NOT be able to destroy, corpses or objects or signs on the ground with fireball

 

Arilou's reply: Of course you should. It forces you to be more careful with your spells, to the point where you might rather use bolt spells over ball spells. But, hey, why do that when you can try to get us to support your recklessness?

 

2004-01-26 17:38:09: M [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/forgottenoakvillage 19 22] let us do something other then quest for guild

 

Arilou's reply: Well if you insist, I suppose we could make you do mini quests instead. They're just as hard, but you don't get quest points as a reward.

 

2004-05-02 11:00:36: T [players/thaddiuz/wiz/kiz/samhoc/samhoc 9 8] fountain of energy in samhoc, it would help questers alot

 

Arilou's reply: I bet it would. As would giving everyone 50,000 levels in sk-healing.

 

2003-09-14 21:01:15: T [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/foi/forgottenoakisland 9 13] change the monks guild quest

 

Arilou's reply: No.

 

2003-09-03 15:27:28: N [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/undeadunicorns 23 15] if u can see a trap...you can 'disarm' it...some times a teleport trap blocks the way int oa quest area and u have to wait for it to unload to try again

 

Arilou's reply: Or, since we never put traps on teleporters, you could just keep walking into it until you're teleported to the other side. Having to keep walking up against it until you got across may have even been a challenge the mapmaker wanted to present you with.

 

2003-08-29 19:35:27: F [wiz/raeden/burashaan/High_Mountains_3 17 14] magic trap summons more and stronger monsters but no blindness

 

Arilou's reply: Eh? ... Oh I get it you want free XP! In that case, what part of the word "trap" did you not understand? Was it the "r" or "t?"

 

2003-04-22 18:35:12: K [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/forgottenoakvillage 38 22] there should be a typo report

 

Arilou's reply: There is... it's called the bug command... it's like the idea command, only with the word bug instead. Amazing, huh?

 

2003-09-20 14:48:58: T [wiz/arilou/amita/village 18 20]Earmuffs should block out all channels but LQ.

 

Arilou's reply: In this person's defense this was written before you could unsubscribe from channels and there did indeed need to be a way to not hear all but one channel if you so wanted to. That said... how self centered do you have to be to think that just because you want to only hear the LQ channel, everyone would be? This is clearly a case of; "What's good for the individual, should be good for the masses."

 

2003-08-29 19:36:42: F [wiz/raeden/burashaan/High_Mountains_3 18 5] new quests should give less quest points and made easier

 

Arilou's reply: Well okay, that's not too hard to do. Afterall, it's not like we make quests based on ideas we have and then decide on how many quest points it should be based on how hard the plotline ends up making it. Oh wait...

 

2004-07-06 13:18:50: S [wiz/thrain/prison/prison2 20 4] A lockpick that relies on lockpicking skill that never runs out!s

 

Arilou's reply: Sure thing! We just love to make things easier for you!

 

2003-08-29 19:38:08: F [wiz/raeden/burashaan/High_Mountains_3 18 5] when ur a pixie, or u cast fly, u should actually FLY!! like a hot-air baloon

 

Arilou's reply: Great idea! Since hot air balloons work by making the balloon non-blocking that means pixies can fly "over" (err... I mean through) walls and ignore mazes, zip through puzzles, and get that treasure in display cases/behind bank fences. Okay, you didn't know that and just wanted code that would allow pixies to go over mountains, but even so there's a reason we don't put balloons in every map that has mountains in them. I think it has something to do with us not wanting you to go over them.

 

2003-09-25 20:10:57: O [wiz/janica/naga/serpent 28 10] moving 4% faster a level, so at level 25, 100% faster.

 

Arilou's reply: Or you could just use the magical items that grant additional speed rather than trying to make them useless with your unbalanced and nonsensical ideas.

 

2003-05-27 07:28:54: W [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/undeadunicorns 19 22] make pit monsters killable (they are called hungry pit MONSTERS ,not hungry pit traps)

2003-05-27 07:29:42: W [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/undeadunicorns 1 4] its the only monster that cant be killed

 

Arilou's reply: Actually there are lots of monsters that can't be killed. We give them 9,999,999 hp and/or 9,999,999 ac and/or we put no-kill objects in those maps. Regardless, creative traps need not just be made up of rope, metal, stone, etc. Monsters can be used in creating a trap and limiting us to not being able to be creative with these things (because there is no way we're going to code it so traps can be attackable) is a crime against mapmakers.

 

2004-03-13 15:29:15: T [wiz/arilou/amita/brownie/westpath 11 8] need . . . healing . . .fountains . . . here

 

Arilou's reply: No . . . you . . . do . . . not ... although, actually, now that I think about it, healing fountains in training areas sounds like a good idea. Maybe there should be one next to demon lords while we're at it.

 

2004-03-13 16:23:32: F [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/golem_main 12 9] always get at lest 1 exp from all golems ie straw and wood cuz i kill lotso them

 

Arilou's reply: The whole reason low level monsters don't give XP to higher levels is because people like you kill them a lot. It encourages you leave them alone so lower level players can deal with them (even if you have to pass through a swarm of them without getting XP, you don't have to kill every last one of them so if someone else comes along, they're still there for them) and it prevents players from going through low level maps just to get 39 XP per map without having to worry about death.

 

2004-03-10 22:44:27: U [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/church_basement 11 3] make an artifact key that opens all chests

 

Arilou's reply: The fun thing about artifacts is that for a short period of time you have it a little easier in the game, but they do not radically change your playing experience. You can't suddenly get free XP by one hitting all powerful monsters and you can't make it so the need to train lockpicking or a magic skill is suddenly gone. At best, there could be an artifact lockpick that gives you more points in the lockpicking skill than the highest one regularly found in the game, but anything more is overpowered.

 

2004-03-13 08:24:05: V [wiz/arilou/amita/stirge_tunnels 5 6] the raks should see better in the dark

 

Arilou's reply: Greedy little bugger. You have it so much easier than most at low levels as is.

 

2004-04-04 11:47:32: S [wiz/arilou/amita/village/path1 5 22]change poisoned sword pic to have agreen blade

 

Arilou's reply: Green metal = Poison. Since when?

 

2003-06-04 14:43:01: J [wiz/arilou/amita/westorc 17 7] Ok.. arrows from the creatures are annoying me. Could you make them a little bit less homing like

 

Arilou's reply: Let me guess, the arrows killed you? Well in that case, sure, instead of training dodge and not fighting groups of them at your level, let's dumb down the game. *thumbs up* Great idea.

 

2003-07-10 10:04:21: D [continent 145 339] when you get out of a ship it should first check to see if your near land and put on land!

 

Arilou's reply: It does...unless you're, oh I don't know... swimming.

 

2004-04-07 19:15:11: A [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/castle2 34 11]delete this game

 

Arilou's reply: Umm... we'll get right on that, sir and/or ma'am.

 

2004-04-07 19:16:01: A [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/castle2 43 24]im jk i like this game but we need to have were people can give other people stuff for free

 

Arilou's reply: (same person from above) OOhh you were just kidding... well, hey, thanks for wasting space and making it harder for us to get to real ideas. We just LOVE when people do that. But, you only did it that one time so I guess I can...*reads the second part of this last idea*... ah I see, you did it again with that little gem about giving people items for free. Missed the part where we intentionally took it away from ya, eh?

2003-05-02 20:13:59: L [wiz/airick/maps/lq/lq2 15 29] replace town crier with game driver...ask anyone, they like game driver better

Arilou's reply: Really? Anyone I ask will say they like the Game Driver better? I seriously doubt that. It's no matter though as we switched it for RP purposes and rather than get that I suspect you and your friends just blindly like what is familiar to you.

I know what you're thinking, I'm getting meaner as these things go on. Well, I spent five and a half hours one morning collecting them all, separating them into groups, and writing replies. As it neared noon, my right hand needed a rest and I wanted to shoot myself for getting myself into this. Copy, paste, ctrl+i, ctrl+b, ctrl+z, type, type, type, edit, go back... ARGH! I'm not sure how yet, but I'm positive that it's all Teshuvah's fault. I just know it is and when I figure it out there will be hell to pay. That or I'll just whine and she'll laugh... it could go either way folks.

Binyamin's Wyvern Video

This issue of Wyvern Ideas (which will return tomorrow) has been interrupted to bring you simple minded little creatures a glimpse into what Binyamin has been up to lately. No, this has nothing to do with his love for singing songs about how great he thinks he is (but worry not as that is on the way). Rather the little devil with a love for all things Barney has put together an extremely cool Wyvern video (yes I said cool... stop looking at me like that). You'd be remiss not to have a look so here it is your for viewing pleasure (in case you were wondering, no this is not the Binyamin video that kills you if you watch it - I'll post that next week).



If you like it, head over to youtube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=SWgruMNI7oo) and let everyone know by rating it and/or posting a comment.

Logged Ideas of Wyvern - Act Three

The insanity is back with yet another entry. You all should know what's going on by now and if you don't, read the first two paragraphs of this post: http://arilou-wyvern.blogspot.com/2008/01/logged-ideas-for-wyvern-act-one.html ... ... .... All caught up now? Good. Let's begin then...

Ideas That Make us Wonder how you Function After so Much Brain Damage

The title says it all.

2004-07-15 11:16:21: Y [wiz/arilou/amita/village/ruins 8 10] Have especial penalties for people who kill neutral NPCs of their own race- i.e. elves become branded "Kinslayers," humans "Murderers," etc.

Arilou's reply: A human that kills an elf isn't a murderer?

2003-04-16 00:15:28: A [wiz/janica/balloons/arkillion 14 14] more board games like monopoly

Arilou's reply: Agreed, copyright infringement is fun!

2003-09-28 23:08:41: K [wiz/arilou/hidden_elves/unicorn 19 7] undead unicorns should have unicorn horns too cause without them they are undead horses

Arilou's reply: Having a horn cut off makes a creature into an entirely different species? Since when?

2003-06-26 11:25:14: A [minath/city/prison2 9 1]FIRE SHOULDNT HURT SO MUCH

Arilou's reply: Okay, we'll get right on that. Would you like anything else while we're at it? Free experience, perhaps? Maybe a few million gold? Oh I know... how about a sign that points you to a shop where you can buy fire resist items?

2004-01-01 12:51:53: P [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/special/skulldungeon2 2 6] instead of getting banned you should get exciled from that town (that you got banned in) for a certain amount of time, cause if this was real, banned would be death..but exciled would be more fitting to this RPG..thank you

Arilou's reply: Great idea! After silencing you, sending you to jail, and warning you that you need to stop to no end, all we can do is "excile" you from a town so you can wander between the others shouting quest information and offensive language while also abusing bugs, abusing people to no end, and spamming. All of which fits perfectly into your vision of an RPG, I'm sure.

2004-04-08 23:25:37: R [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/mansion2 11 13] people should go to jail for half an hour with over 5 trill gold bail and then do whatever they did for a banished or banned offince.

Arilou's reply: Great idea! After silencing you, sending you to jail, and warning you that you need to stop to no end, all we can do is let you go to jail for a half hour. After which you can go back to shouting question information and offensive language while also abusing bugs, abusing people to no end, and spamming... deja vu, anyone?

2003-06-28 12:43:00: C [wiz/arilou/amita/mansion4 12 15] mea an orc race that way all the orc axes and orcish bows and orcish armor and stuff could be used

Arilou's reply: Orcish armor and weapons can't be used without an orc race? Since when? What about all that pirate stuff? Do we need to make a pirate race too? If only we had orc monsters in the game that benefited from the flavor that exists thanks to them dropping orc items and if only all the races could use these items despite them being made by orcs... but alas, your logic has foiled me. Now we need to make a race to give these items a purpose even though dwarf and elf characters pretty much ignore armor/weapons made by their race and go for whatever is at hand or the most powerful.

2003-11-06 16:19:27: K [wiz/arilou/amita/enter 4 1] Kind of like Choasnaga was mayor of Lysegu, we should be able to elect a president of Wyvern.

Arilou's reply: What part of the whole medieval king system where one rules by blood did you miss? Never mind the concept of governments not being far reaching enough or friendly enough to unite under one rule.

2003-07-13 00:36:08: T [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/orctower 10 23] There should be some sort of 'Success' message when I summon a monster

Arilou's reply: I can see why a hulking creature appearing right next to you would be confusing. Instead, a line of text that easily gets lost in battle messages is obviously a must and requires our utmost attention!

2003-08-29 19:39:11: F [wiz/raeden/burashaan/High_Mountains_3 12 3] stronger monsters should give more xp when killed by weaker players

Arilou's reply: Grrreeeaattt... now we're rewarding unbalanced players who figure out how to kill monsters way below their level and giving more XP to mages and archers who can safely fight higher level monsters while fighters stand no chance against them.

2003-08-29 22:30:20: T [main/lighthouse3 5 5] you shouldnt be ale to talk to npsc when invisible

Arilou's reply: Okay, I guess I can see why not being seen by someone makes it impossible for them to hear you... wait, what?

2003-10-12 14:21:31: C [wiz/janica/castle/towersw1 6 27] Hydra's should be able to wear 5 girdle

Arilou's reply: I must need to get my eyes checked. I don't see 5 waists on the hydra graphic... how odd.

2003-09-26 19:34:02: K [wiz/avalon/city/blackrose_city 38 32] i was thinking since dwarfs are overpowered and nagas at hydra form can wear 5 ammys...if raks could wear tail rings

Arilou's reply: One race is overpowered so rather than suggest we balance them your solution is to add more power to another race? ... I'm sure that makes sense to someone.

2004-04-07 19:16:04: R [village/newbie_house3 8 2] I think it would be cool if u could put transporters in the new verden prison or any other prison the transporters can let u go to cell to cell to visit other players in the cells

Arilou's reply: Do yourself a favor, never design a real prison. You'd just be leaving yourself open to a lawsuit.

2003-07-13 01:41:53: S [wiz/legolas/zoo/bar 4 10] The minath arena should be like sokoban for every level you get a quest point or something like that

Arilou's reply: One quest point for killing a few kobolds, then another for killing a few elves, and so on... genius.

2004-05-16 17:07:09: O [wiz/arilou/amita/village/slums 8 17] maybe we should have a religion channel

Arilou's reply: Oh boy and while we're at it how about a quest information channel, and a complain channel, and an "anything else we don't allow and would result in you getting silenced just for using it" channel.

2004-07-04 16:10:06: Y [wiz/arilou/amita/village/path1 5 22] A whine channel for whenever you really need to vent.

Arilou's reply: (this is not the same person as above) ... another one... great.

2004-10-05 14:43:32: arhige [village/magicshop1 7 7]
i think pixies should get the pixie dust reagent for free, because, well, their pixies.

Arilou's reply: Well okay, pixie dust just appears out of thin air afterall. It's not like someone in a pixie community spends their day gathering it and even if that were true you're one of their kin, so of course they can give you their sweat and blood for free. Oh and while we're at it, dwarves should be able to get dwarven smithed weapons and armor for free too. Makes perfect sense to me because, well, they're dwarves, right?

2004-02-11 05:21:05: N [continent 69 152]
make a super monster suck-o-matic so you can suck up any monster

Arilou's reply: *laughs* Yeah, that's what we need. You and a bunch of other brain damage patients running around spewing demon lords and riagors anywhere you are allowed to. Never mind the logic behind being able to trap powerful monsters into something you can carry around with you.

2005-08-22 12:00:03: R [village/village 24 23]
this game sucks big can you make something actually good and worth it

Arilou's reply: Sure thing boss.

2003-06-28 07:53:47: L [continent 157 297]
i would like it if janica would make smithing bows, arrows, crossbows and arrows possible

Arilou's reply: How exactly does one go about smithing bows and arrows? No wait, let me guess. You hammer a little wood, some string, a handful of feathers, more wood, and a very tiny bit of metal for the arrowhead over an anvil and then... Wala! Presto! Smithed bows and arrows! Absolutely amazing!

2003-06-28 11:24:45: W [wiz/kiz/samhoc/barracks 2 1]
nagas need a high lvl 1 square player maybe diamond golem? maybe at lvl 18?

Arilou's reply: How exactly does a naga shift into a lifeless construct that is animated by magical means? How exactly do you think that makes any sense? How exactly do you feed yourself... wait, you do feed yourself, right? *crosses fingers* It could go either way with this one, folks!

Well that's it for today. I think there are two more of these left and then we can move on to discussing Binyamin's love of singing songs. So stay tuned... or not. Really, I don't care. It's just that all the cool kids end their ramblings with that and so, wanting to fit in, I feel obligated to do the same. That or I'm just too lazy to write something original here so I'm repeating common TV phrases. You figure it out.

Logged Ideas of Wyvern - Act Two

Greetings once again. Today we will be continuing with a series of blogs that address ideas players have submitted to Wyvern (for more information about what this is all about, read the first two paragraphs of the previous post). It's going to be a wild ride, so hang on to your seats and do your throwing up now before it's too late.

Ideas That Speak for Themselves

Watch and be amazed without any input from the peanut gallery...

2004-07-21 16:25:00: S [continent 158 154]
you know this is more of a knoledgable idea as something you COULD do its about the samhoc crown i noticed that you couldnt where that and sorcerers hel, but in fact a king when he went into battle would wear both

2004-01-23 17:20:35: L [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/castle3 14 22]
make less lag

2004-01-27 21:13:24: E [continent 79 152]
when you die you should loose the same amount of xp that thou monster gives you ^^

2003-04-15 14:01:39: W [continent 150 151]
player suck-o-matic (sucks up weak players lvl 1-5))

2004-07-17 13:16:34: S [continent 80 157]
i thnk when you join the magas guild you should get the bennifet og being able to wear 3 rings but not 3 of the same kind

2003-09-25 15:43:20: A [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/mansion 12 35]
instead of a giant shrinking it should show the giant on his hands and knees that way the hps would stay the same

2003-10-22 07:08:10: H [village/newbie_house5 6 7]
plz do not make us lose exp

2003-12-13 19:38:47: E [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/special/skulldungeon1 17 7]
shouldn't undead be less flame retardent?

2004-01-10 14:54:12: S [wiz/avalon/city/blackrose_hospital 8 14]
A demon city,it should have friendly demons and underneath the ground should be armys and armys of chaotic demons trying to make there armys big enough to be able to take over wyvern.This would make better roll play,add more sense to the enviroment,and hey.....you could even make a cool quest

2004-04-27 20:02:49: D [wiz/arilou/amita/village/creekpath1 4 13]
One word: Debit cards.

2004-03-11 17:43:20: S [wiz/arilou/amita/village/slums 11 20]As you level, you should get more 'shout points'. Just like Skill Points

2004-05-12 15:20:56: Q [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/mansiondungeon2 25 18]
there needs to be a phasing spell that lets you walk through walls.

2004-06-15 18:55:57: B [wiz/arilou/amita/westorc 18 5]
Maybe make the server not crash somehow.

2004-08-31 07:08:07: D [wiz/binyamin/oxbow/souvenirs 9 14]
T-shirts should be considered undershirts, so we can hate Arilou and be protected from the ice at the same time, lol

Mar 01 2003 09:42 AM: wyvern.lib.Kernel.log: grandalff [continent 92 159]
please make it so that nagas can wear rings and cloaks in ALL forms (maybe put the rings on a chain for the forms with no fingers?)

2004-10-06 14:28:11: H [minath/start 9 24]
this game is gettin worse dude...

Ideas That Make no Sense

It's not that these ideas are stupid, silly, or whatever. It's just that they make no sense. Where do I go with something like this? What do you want? You couldn't take a minute to explain yourself properly?

2003-08-29 19:32:25: F [wiz/raeden/burashaan/High_Mountains_6 14 0]
official wyvern rpg photographer

Arilou's reply: Okay so is this guy a player, an npc, a figment in your head? And more so what does he do? Does he go around taking pictures and, if so, what does he do with them? ... ... ... Well fine if you're going to be that way, to the recycling bin you go.

2003-09-05 05:31:25: L [wiz/arilou/forgotten_oak/oldchurch 7 10]
make a use for books. Make it so that with a spell, lvl 20's or above, you can learn high lvls spells with them

Arilou's reply: Maybe you meant "a use for BLANK spellbooks," maybe not. But in either case, how would casting a spell allow you write a spell in a spellbooks? Don't you traditionally need a pen for that?

2003-04-25 19:21:37: P [continent 78 151]
divorces
2003-04-25 19:21:52: T [dungeon: level 7 5 13]
divorces
2003-04-25 19:21:53: B [wiz/legolas/inside_raft 2 3]
divorces
2003-04-25 19:22:12: G [village/newbie_house4 6 9]
divorces

Arilou's reply: You can get your friends to suggest the same idea all you want (well really you can't - this kind of behavior is likely to get you in trouble) but I still don't know what you mean.

2004-07-19 01:25:53: S [village/auction 14 16] why arnt there necromancers to fight a thing that can summon any undead monster

Arilou's reply: It took me awhile to figure this one out. But I think I finally did it. It's like an optical illusion. It looks like a box, but all of the sudden something clicks in your eyes and it looks like stairs. Only that is done by design. Here we have a case of the person not being able to form a proper sentence. At first, I thought he wanted to know why there weren't necromancers who existed to fight another thing that summons any undead monster. Then I realized that he failed to break after the word 'fight' and didn't start the next thought properly. So it's really something like this; "Why aren't there any necromancers to fight in Wyvern? You know, the guys that can summon any undead monster." The lesson learned here is that you need to proof read your submissions and make sure they make sense... or in this case, learn to write in the first place.

The next edition will be a good one; "Ideas That Make us Wonder how you Function After so Much Brain Damage," so stay tuned kiddies.

Logged Ideas of Wyvern - Act One

We get a lot of silly bug reports and ideas from players. Some are down right awful, some are short sighted in that they are unaware of how we want the game to be, some are funny, and some just make no sense. In a series of blogs, I'm going to point out some of the ideas that fit those categories and comment a bit on them (anything in italics are the actual ideas that were submitted to us and anything bolded are my comments). In the past, the idea log was published on the webpage for you guys to read and even though it has since been removed, there are copies out there on the web that you can access. Even so, I will be editing the name people submitted these ideas under so just the first letter appears. Beyond that, they are as is without any alterations to the "brilliance" of those who submitted them.

Disclaimer: Although I realize some of my comments may sound mean spirited, I hold no ill will toward anyone who submitted an idea. I was simply trying to add some humor while explaining why it was a bad idea and after stupidly deciding to do so many at once I quickly ran out of funny replies (note: I actually wrote all parts at once, but after realizing how long it was I decided to break it up into a series of blog entries). I also, certainly, do not mean to discourage anyone from submitting ideas in the future. At best, I hope only that you will try to make better ideas that make more sense and do not fall into common trappings. Finally, I want to make it absolutely clear that I do this only because the idea log was publicly posted on the homepage by Rhialto. I certainly would never make public anything out of a private log and so before you start yelling at me for replying to your idea, please keep that in mind.

Ideas That Aren't Quite Ideas

Sometimes it amuses me a bit that people don't get what the idea log is for and so they end up sending all sorts of stuff to us via it. Some examples...

2004-03-04 02:34:06: Z [village/newbie_house4 7 10]
hey

Arilou's reply: Hey to you too.

2003-06-19 13:13:10: J [wiz/arilou/amita/village 28 14]I love the detail when you get drunk, keep up the awesome work!

Arilou's reply: Well thank you... I think. But do tell, what part of the 'idea' command sounded like the 'compliments' command to you?

2004-01-17 16:45:58: M [wiz/murlana/GPCity 19 7]
most castles are closed. Why?

Arilou's reply: Why do you think?

2004-06-01 21:28:51: D [wiz/arilou/amita/merchant3_1 14 9]
The "magic mirror" in Tyveris's house in Amita isn't quite magical.

Arilou's reply: I take it this was meant to be a bug. In any case, how do you know the mirror isn't magical? Let me guess, you weren't able to do anything with it? But how, for example, do you know that Tyveris didn't have a secret word that would cause gold to flow out of it whenever he spoke it?

2003-08-31 11:18:04: N [wiz/arilou/amita/enterorc 13 8]
how bout they get rid o these shout points...who's with me on this

Arilou's reply: It's a log, not a forum. Nobody can join you with shouts of; "Yeah, let's do it!" when you type something here. You could've, at least, tried to phrase your complaint in the form of an idea, but maybe you thought that 'idea' equaled 'shout'.

2003-08-29 19:11:38: F [wiz/raeden/burashaan/Bura_Shaan 13 27]
arilou shouldn't prosecute me for spammin for sayin 2 things
2003-08-29 19:37:03: F [wiz/raeden/burashaan/High_Mountains_3 18 5]
saying something twice will not be spamming

Arilou's reply: The game prevents you from saying the same thing twice for a reason. If it wanted you to say the same thing twice, it would let you do so and then stop after the third attempt. Instead you had to add a period or something at the end of your sentence to get around that. You don't see the problem with that? Btw, giving a verbal warning or a 5 minute silence, at the absolute worst, (unless it happened over and over again) is not "prosecution" (nor is it PERsecution, but I digress).

2003-09-26 22:16:47: H [minath/city/city 32 38]
ARILOU SHOULD BE BAN FOR BANNING PEOPLE FOR SPAMMING AND I AM RAELLY ANGRY BECASUE MY CHRACTER H GO DELETED I SPENT ENDLESS HOURS MAKIN FRIENDS TRAING AND ARILOU TAKES IT ALL AWAY FORM ME ALLL OF IT , I AHTE ARILOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arilou's reply: I love you too and I agree, I should be banished for following the wizard rules and moderating the game like Rhialto wants.

Note: We don't banish people for spamming one time. This person would've had to have been doing it repeatedly despite silences and other actions taken against them or they would've had to have been spamming seriously offensive language/quest information/you get the idea.

2004-05-08 00:37:42: R [wiz/arilou/amita/house5 0 7]
nagas are terribly weak at level 1...compared to raks

Arilou's reply: Okay, thanks for that little tidbit... I think. *slowly edges toward the recycling bin*

2004-02-04 16:39:11: L [wiz/kupior/maps/newbie/grove1/grove2 11 12]
make it so if ur over 5 levels of a person in the pkguild u can hurt them (not just don't get pkpoints)

Arilou's reply: This fellow actually ended up spamming the idea log like doing so would make us any more capable of understanding what he's going on about.

2003-04-15 23:22:38: S [wiz/janica/naga/cathedral 4 16]
this drowning thing is really annoying me

Arilou's reply: That's nice... want an apple?

2003-12-15 14:55:19: D [wiz/arilou/mini/dino/deinonychus 5 12]
Arilou's new area was my idea.....me and Galdor were working on it and they did it!Now i didn't even get included so i think i should atleast be on the sign or something..........Them wizards can't even think of there own ideas!

Arilou's reply: I take it he wanted to be a wizard since he was working on maps, in which case it's odd that he wouldn't get the concept of the idea log being for ideas, but I assume he was acting out of anger and not thinking. He ended up emailing Rhialto as well and eventually calmed down when it was explained to him (by Rhialto) that dinosaurs were an unoriginal idea that were in the documents for Wyvern since the very beginning and that I had been working on it for about six months (it was a real pain to try to get the graphics I needed from everyone and I ended up settling with a product that was less than I envisioned because it was better to just get it up). Anyway, I had originally been attempting to keep it a secret as I didn't want it getting to players since I knew I would be bothered with questions concerning when I would finish it and I also knew that it would be awhile. Thus, not all the wizards knew about it which lead to him (apparently) thinking that Galdor told me of his dinosaur idea and the two of us stole this grand concept. It's kind of gotten old, but at the time I found this one rather amusing.

Next time on Logged Ideas of Wyvern we will be airing Act Two; "Ideas That Speak for Themselves." It's a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat.