This year's April Fool's Event is not just a celebration of BatMUD's 35th
anniversary, but happens to also be the 35th seasonal event I've coded, going
all the way back to the Exomorph Event first run in 2006.
Spread around BatMUD are 35 coral rings, each of which require the sacrifice
(destruction) of four items of various types. The rings do not tell you which
items are needed, only if you chose correctly. You could try to brute force
the rings by slamming thousands and thousands of items into them...good luck,
there are 87 trillion combinations. Or, you could find the combinations,
written on magenta circles of paper, _also_ scattered around BatMUD.
Behind each ring is a new room and a new monster for your E% and holz
purposes. The monsters will vary in difficulty and give an indication when
you've done enough effort to get credit for the kill. In a bit of a change
this year, the bosses are not as tough as they've been in the past, and they
also reset. Once a ring unlocks a boss, it should stay open until reboot.
Event points are earned in two ways. You get one point for entering a new
room, and two points for a boss kill. That's three points per ring, 35 rings,
105 maximum potential points.
Event prizes will be made available for purchase at the end of the Event, but
each will have +greatly in three stats, such as str/int/wis or dex/con/hpr.
Each of the 35 bosses unlocks a new trio of stats when slain by _anyone_. You
don't need to personally beat the str/int/wis boss to buy str/int/wis eq, but
it does have to be unlocked and die at least once.
In other words, MUDwide teamwork is pretty much essential. No individual
mortal is going to discover all the combinations and unlock all the rings on
their own.
If you don't like the classic stats of str/int/wis/dex/con/hpr/spr, it will be
possible to change things. Each eq costs 30 points, so you'll likely have a
few points left over. For 1 point, you can buy an item that replaces one of
the eq's stats with a secondary stat (such as hit or avoid) at +slightly
level. You can buy multiple such cleaners and chest them for future reincs.
The Event eq has the usual features (only the buyer may use, eq is
invulnerable) and, for this special Event, is _permanent_. That's right, the
usual one-year lifespan for seasonal Event eq is not going to apply just this
once.
The Thirtyfive Event will run for 35 days. So get hunting!
Shinarae "Happy 35th Anniversary BatMUD" Lluminus