Category Talk to Simutronics (34)
Topic GM Announcements (5)
Message The Biggie (91)
By SIMU-SOLOMON@PLAY.NET
On Aug 28, 2000 at 16:53

As I said...people presented us with the data we needed and we "gave the critters back their teeth".

Now, thanks to the hard work of some REALLY skilled Dev GMs, some critters are getting brain transplants and "smart"
critters are actually going to start acting smart.

Starting this weekend, critters that qualify as being "intelligent" or "semi-intelligent" will start to pay more
attention to their balance, position, and the situation they're in. Then, they'll evaluate and act accordingly. This
will be focusing on higher level critters, more evident with those over level 20.

Instead of "randomly" or "semi-randomly" choosing their next move, critters with higher IQs will choose the best move
for the situation. Are they unbalanced? They'll choose combat maneuvers that will improve their balance. Are they out
of position? They'll handle this the same way, evaluating their next moves more carefully and choosing the best thing
to do in that situation. Are they beating the snot out of you? They'll probably tend to start beating it out of you a
little more effectively once their see you're weak and vulnerable.

Personally, I tested this out with a 26th level warrior mage fighting swamp trolls. The trolls, to me, seemed to cast
their spells MUCH more effectively, instead of how I remember them casting. They were able to tell when I had them
unbalanced and they reacted accordingly, by either casting the appropriate spells or changing their attacks around.
Once I was unbalanced, it took me a lot longer to regain my balance because it felt like they KEPT me off balance.
Now...that's my personal take on one single critter after only an hour or so of combat, but it should give you an idea
on what I mean.

We've done just about all the testing we can do. We've looked at it about as many times as we can look at it. In order
to make sure everyone's READY for this, and since we're not TOTALLY sure how noticeable it will be on every critter
since they're all different anyway and every player handles combat differently too, AND in light of the recent
problems that have been plaguing everyone lately (including us), we've decided to test this out by "throwing it to the
wolves", so to speak.

So to make this transition a little smoother and to maybe make everyone a little happier this weekend...death will
take a holiday...

THIS IS NOT A FREE FOR ALL. There will be none of the invasions-from-hell like there were on the test server. We're
suggesting that people hunt normally, but pay more attention to the critters, since they may actually act noticeably
more intelligent with this change. (This isn't to say that some weird things may not happen, but "out of the ordinary"
isn't a guarantee this weekend.) Policy will be enforced, including PVP, vulgarity, etc. so again, this is not a
test-server-hell-raising-beat-your-neighbor-over-the-head-with-a-shovel-and-don't-expect-to-get-locked-out sort of
thing.

The DragonRealms Team is doing their best, trying to make the realms more fun, more challenging, and more
exciting...hopefully this will be a big step toward reaching that goal.

GM Solomon