GNSmud

Hey, thanks for the port. New quest items are awesome. Especially appreciate the small chance for maxxed items to load. Already died in Luna's new zone.

Not sure about the new MANA SHIELD and MANA SHIELD IMPROVED spells. Help file for MANA SHIELD IMPROVED gives little info about the spell, including not identifying which class can learn it. When I type "help spell mana shield" to try to get the basic info for MANA SHIELD, I only get the MANA SHIELD IMPROVED entry. "Allspells" indicates these are Sorcerer spells only (i.e, not available to mages) with MANA SHIELD available at lvl 11 and MANA SHIELD IMPROVED available at lvl 31. That's cool. But the help file for MANA SHIELD IMPROVED indicates the lvl of the spell to be 37. So, a little cleanup in the help files is needed I think.

Hello. Thanks for pointing out help file incorrect info. Together with other bugs it got fixed.
Btw, someone promised to send updated help topics for sanc/resist/protection damage. Do you know who it was?

Cool. The entries still don't show what class these spells are for though. I gather from "allspells" that they are sorcerer class only.

I don't know who that other dude was that you are referring to. Probably some unreliable dweeb who should be banned from playing. But hey, for the good of the MUD, I'll step up and take care of this!

I have change the help file again to show that these spells are for Sorcerers only. Also updated Bless.
I couldn't actually remember if Mana Shield was Sorc only, or Mage and Sorc.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Hmmm.. For some reason (probably because I just made a tri-sorc?) I thought it was meant for sorcs only. But I searched for all mail in my postbox containing 'mana shield' and found you specifically saying for mages and sorcs.
Oh well, can make it available for mages too (not that I like them or the idea)

Might need to up those drop rates, really not seeing anything. I'm checking at least 8-10 items whenever I'm on and I've seen none of it. I'm all for them being fairly low but if I'm seeing nothing then I see no reason not to just give up.

Well, looking at the logs I can assure you - things are loading. But probably not the ones you like.
I haven't collected statistics (of how many times zones were inited and compared to that how many maxxed items loaded), but in last three days one item (weapon) loaded even though it has max of 3 (and of course it is maxxed). But the char who achieved this didn't bother to even check for it Even more, he did a locate on another item, but mis-typed its name

Doh! Must have been me. I mistype everything and I don't know where most of the good weapons load to even locate them

Still, #/1000 is pretty absurd. I'd rather just go play something else with better load rates. You are trying to fix a problem, which is things aren't loading. They still aren't really loading and no one these days is gonna devote 100's of hours trying to get one item, let alone 10's of hours. Plus you have the added complexity of there not being anyone around, so even if that sword loaded, was it something someone could get solo? If not then that person who might of been looking for it just lost their one chance at that item that they'll have for quite some time. Also with that low of a chance how are you going to attract more than a couple people and why would they bother telling their friends if the chance that they'll get anything is so slim? Especially once you add a few people gobbling up other not yet maxxed items. So consider increasing that rate to #/100. That still gives only a 2% chance on most resists (as an example), so 1 in 50 loads on avg. Still plenty of rarity but way more obtainable and between a number of those items then if there are a couple people on then maybe they'll have a chance to see one of them.

Things are not loading very often, this is true. But things are circulating even less.
There are currently 17/12 Cloud Armbands out there, but I don't see them in use often, and changing hands even less.
This shows that once, maxxed, another 5 have loaded, and that should be plenty for the current player count of around 5.
With the removal of rent, and with no other valid gold sink in its place, items are not changing hands.
Player habits haven't changed in the last 20 years.
I would like to hear any other suggestions rather than just increasing load chance, or removing maxes all together.

Perhaps removing artifact flag from the game and making things easier to scrap?
How about changing rent around a bit, perhaps characters lose all their gear after 20 days, but don't get wiped til 500 days?
I would like to get an auction command working.
Insurance?
Luck potions?
What about loading loot boxes instead of maxxed gear, check is made on open rather than on init.