Hello Ladies, Gentlemen and Phantoms.

I know that I'm probably going to hear someone giving me feedback about my weak pun in the title, so I'll try to confuse you with another. If I was to become an aspiring pirate and I would stack two zeroes in a pile, would I already have two pieces of eight?

So this time the devblog is revolving around everything that starts with CON and I'm not trying to con you either (wait, did Ulath already tell the same joke? Crap, he did, in updates group, id 1136). Well, let's proceed anyway. It's been a while when I wrote the latest devblog, which makes me think how I've managed to stay so busy that I really didn't have time to do this before.

The first CON is the Convention. There was KepuCon in Oulu last weekend and all things considered, I think it was a success. Although I think I already thanked the organizers, I'll thank again here, because this devblog space is really really cheap, as is the author of the blog. Although the convention place was different this year, it was still very enjoyable and to me it's usually the people that make the con. Mr. Capula was running his weirdo olympics which people seemed to like and then there was the annual poker tour as well. I think there was 4 or 5 start tables and on our table there something like 7 competitors two of which would make the final table. From our table Necrobarbie and me qualified and since I'm rusty because I haven't played fold'em for a few years, I was quite happy with the final table spot. I was punched out by Gangi who had pocket kings against my offsuit AQ and I finished 5th or at least so I'd presume. Nosunrise eventually won the whole tournament, but Nosunrise if you're reading this, I still think it took too much time for you to win it! Better luck next year!

So the other CON-related topic is CONtent. It has nothing to do with tents though! Unless you would code content with tents. Or they would be some sort of hybrid terminator ents called T-ent. Or..humdidum. Where was I? Right! Content! I'll ask you first: What is lore and what is content?

As nobody answered after that chapter, I suppose it became a rhetorical question, so I'll just answer myself. If you haven't already realized, I'm sort of Lore Archwizard and that's why my devblog often touches lore related issues. So what is lore in BatMUD then with all the smurfs running amok etc? Tricky question. The game is old and has been running since 1990 so of course it's difficult to make everything change overnight. But if you ask me, I'm currently interested in the continent lore and trying to make the world look more "realistic" so that maybe someday we would have nations etc. These are thematic aspects, but to present any of this to the players, we need content and with content I mean code implementation of some lore-specific ideas, such as areas and guilds for example.

So what is content? Content is pretty much anything that you'll see. Our current content mostly consists of areas, guilds, races, equipment and different kinds of quests. One of the most typical content coder projects that there are in the works are of course areas.

BatMUD is one of those character building games in which you basically do two separate things: 1) You access the content (quests, tasks etc.) which are available to your character's power level or 2) You try to improve your character's power level (with exp, reputation, equipment, dating archwizards...oops).

In either case, the game is depends on new content so that it doesn't get too boring for anybody while we should also be concentrating on providing some other challenges as well. Many people tell me that reincarnation is one of the most fun things to do (or maybe it's always Shar tellling me every other day and I just don't pay attention) and while I didn't do that too much, I think I know what the reason is. Usually the people who enjoy reincarnation are those guys who have been playing the game for a long time, don't really have too much uses for experience or can't much improve their eqsets (am I describing Shar again? Go away from my devblog dude!). For these guys reputation and guild systems are often what they still may do and maybe that's the main reason why some people enjoy reincarnation so much. Or maybe it's twiddling with the reinc generators, so I wouldn't know Make your own conclusions, as I don't mind because it's not the point of this text.

My point is that on some level we are running out of challenges. I think that we still shouldn't abandon the experience concept, not even for highbies as killing monsters is mostly what the game is about and experience is the most common thing that you usually get from it, thus making it the main function of monsters. The things that people gather in this game is experience, equipment and reputation of different sorts. I think these 3 mostly cover it, although there are a few other status symbols and things to possess, like player cities and ships for example. Ships are a good example of content which offers different kinds of enhancements and takes another direction to the game. To add, I think that in the future we're going to need more of these new directions that players may take to make the game more interesting. I actually have a few ideas, but nothing too specific yet. The point would be to create some other goals and awards for players to pursue.

This would also raise a logical question. What awards? I stumbled into a problem a few days ago when I was thinking of some new content and I was trying to figure out the motivation for the player to participate in any of it. I think the idea would be quite fun even if it didn't give anything, but most of us look for some incentives as well. For me the problem is to actually being able to come up with something new. The most cliché choice of awards is just giving more stats when you do something, so I often try to think of something else. The problem with most rewards that players can have is that they can get the same rewards from something else as well and sometimes even with less work. Also offering some new and awesome content with some experience award or a couple of batium coins just sounds a bit like waste. At the same time, making new content takes time. If I come up with something like "tenacity points", the mud doesn't support anything like that at the moment. It would take quite amount of work to build the whole concept if I wanted that those points would actually have any effect anywhere else than two places. These are quite bad examples perhaps, but I hope you understand the point.

One thing to consider with new rewards and new content is the concept of balance. In many ways if you keep inventing new content and new rewards and a few years pass by, the overall power of the player grows as more and more ways to improve your character become available. At the same time monsters don't often get too many uptunes or new tricks to use, which at some point might make them less interesting and less challenging and eventually boring. Introducing new content is always possible, but often takes a lot of work so sometimes it would be easier to figure out more global solution (like uptune monsters or downtune players). Since I mentioned tune here, I ask you to put your revolvers back to your drawers and plead you not to do anything desperate now as I'm not doing any tunes now, I was merely stating how I see it, and how I figure the future is going to look like. From my point of view downtunes often lead to better balance, uptune through value modification is often a stupidity and uptune through content is often the most advised choice. If the choices are a) increase damage by 20% or b) introduce quests/tasks/guild systems which allow players to get the increase of 20% through playing, I'd choose the latter choice every time. The combination of sensible downtunes and introduction of new character building choices through new content is the most rational way maintain balance and in my opinion makes it more interesting for the player.

Hopefully this at least raised some thoughts even if you wouldn't entirely agree with me on my opinions.