Bright Ideas and Blight Ideas - May 10, 2002


Welcome one and all to the first edition of The Wizard's Corner, my weekly outlet to talk about the happenings of Astarian life. I want to thank Aarkin for hosting this endeavor and I hope I get at least a few readers. I'm more than happy to discuss each week's column if you can catch me online. Feel free to mudmail me your feedback each week. I'll include the best comments in the following week's column.

Astarian players submit an average of 22.3 idea reports per week, outnumbering bug reports (21.4 per week), typo reports (11.7 per week) and praise reports (3.6 per week). Most bug reports and nearly all typo reports are genuine problems that get fixed within 24 hours of being submitted. The few bugs that don't get corrected are usually unfixable due to the way the realm works or turn out to not be bugs at all. Idea reports are a very different beast, though. The large majority of them never get implemented and the person who submits them will usually never hear a response.

These results aren't because the wizardry ignores incoming ideas. Invariably, within 10 minutes of logging on, I'll begin reading the latest reports starting with praise, then ideas, then bugs and finally typos. I believe every other active wizard (the ones that can be found on 'help wiz') goes through the same daily routine. Yet despite the frequency of submitted ideas and the number of eyes that reads each one, I am frequently asked if anyone at all looks at them. So why is it that idea reports seem to die once they leave your keyboard? Frankly speaking, it's because most of them suck.

Some types of ideas will nearly always be ignored. The most common type of report submitted is a request for a new guild power or a major improvement to an existing one. Paladins ask for warhorses, mages ask for invisibility - these ideas will almost never come to fruition. Most people will argue that another guild is more powerful than theirs. If you really feel that these other guilds have it so well off, it's time to roll a new character. You'll quickly discover that it's the same no matter what side of the fence you're on.

Another type of report that is frequently ignored is the wannabe wizard. This is an idea for a huge new area or a new guild and I've yet to see one even considered. It's not that the ideas are without merit, some of them are quite good and would make excellent additions to Astaria. The problem lies in finding the manpower willing to code it. Quality new areas take months and new guilds can take years, so wizards tend to use their own ideas for such large-scale projects.

Joke reports are another type that will usually be easily dismissed. These are ideas that usually start with "I think it would be funny if." I was a huge offender with these when I was a player. Here are some of my old idea reports that seem ridiculously dumb in retrospect:

- I think if a fighter were to make a player corpse into food, it should certainly come out as Soilent Green.
- Can you add a <wear fangs> command, so that when you have ivory fangs in your inventory, they don't actually get worn, but a room echo sounds saying something to the effect of:

Lloyd momentarily thinks he's a vampire.
Lloyd exclaims, "I VANT TO SUCK YOUR BLOOD!"

- I'm not a big fan of the keep/unkeep commands, and often see them overused. So I propose to see access to the keep/unkeep commands as a reward for completing the keep quest. It'd be highly appropriate.
- The 'exile' command should output "The tribe has spoken."

Even when these reports are funny it's doubtful they'd be implemented. Wizards usually need to trim out their own jokes while building areas ("the Watering Hole" in Lentide was originally dubbed "the Seamen Tavern" and that was possibly the least offensive part), so the chance they'll use submitted ones is pretty slim.

So what kind of ideas does that leave? Personally, I'm most likely to use an idea report that describes a single new item. I'm always on the look out for new armor, weapon and miscellaneous item ideas. However, bear in mind that it's always more important to describe what an item looks like than to describe what it does. A wizard will have a much easier time than you will determining what an appropriate skill bonus or resistance bonus is. Take the following two idea reports:

I think it'd be really cool if thieves could get a draining weapon. You could make it suck the light out of things and so it'd give you a +10 bonus to stealth. It should assess to 6/5 so it can be the new ebony longsword and be thrusting so we can slit with it.

I have an idea for a new weapon called "Dagger of the Void". It would be made out of onyx and have a leather-wrapped hilt. It was created by demons as a prison for celestial souls and listening to it you can hear faint cries of imprisoned angels. As a possible special, it could absorb part of the soul of holy beings. If it delivers the killing blow, the soul becomes trapped in the dagger and it is impossible to raise the victim back from the dead.

Those two reports could easily be describing the same item, but with one major difference. The second one is an idea; the first one is a request for an upgrade disguised as an idea. If I received an idea like the second one, I'd probably code it up right away and keep it in my directory for inclusion into my next area.

So now you know what kind of ideas work and don't work, but what's the best way to get that idea from your head to us? Most people will be struck by an idea and instantly start filing the report. Unfortunately, this often leads to completely indecipherable submissions. When I read an idea report hours after you wrote it, I can't see your screen. I don't know what mob you've been fighting or what sword you're using, so when you say, "this mob should stun" or "that sword needs some color" it's of no help to me. Use the full syntax of the idea command (e.g. 'idea frost drake' or 'idea sword') if you're near the item - when the wizard reads the report later, the filename of the object will be included. If you're not near the item, be sure to provide its full name and where it comes from.

Also, be sure to proofread your report before submitting it. If it doesn't make sense to you a minute later, it definitely won't make sense to us. For those of you using zMUD, I recommend using it's built in editor (Ctrl-Enter or Ctrl-Shift-Enter, depending on your version). You'll be able to type it out, proofread it and send it directly to the MUD without even using a Copy-Paste.

Several months ago I created a poll about Astaria's report system and only 17% of people could remember having an idea of theirs implemented (37% weren't sure). While that number sounds low, it should be a clear indication that there is an audience in the wizardry for idea reports. Before you submit your next idea report, take a second to think about it. You wouldn't expect a wizard to release a new feature without considering all aspects of it and you shouldn't allow yourself to throw around ideas that carelessly. Consider if your idea is feasible, if it doesn't affect the current balance and if it has long-term merit. Type out the idea report ahead of time and read it yourself before submitting it. You never know… the next time you're killing mercenaries you may just find yourself holding your very own creation.