The initial changes to Curse, updated Nightmare, and Balefire are going through some final checks. I want to get you all ready for an aspect of Nightmare I hope you'll like.

I've added ten new nightmares for your victims to cope with. Everyone will have one in particular that haunts them, just as with the existing nightmares. That means that everyone now actually has two nightmares that they will typically suffer from, one from each group of ten. Finding out which two are yours is an exercise left to the reader (have fun with that). The new nightmares are what I've been calling "situational" nightmares as opposed to the nightmare of a phantom creature attacking you over and over again. You'll be able to see a full listing of them with the new CURSE verb (unless you're not a sorcerer), but they include things like being trapped in a burning house, or suddenly losing all of your teeth. That last one ends a little more gruesomely than it starts out.

I also fixed a few incidental bugs in the old code, made the AS/DS message from the old nightmares actually show up, and modernized the way it looks so it appears like an actual XML-linked creature is in the room attacking. Victims will be seeing some pretty savage high-rank crits done to themselves along with heavy HP loss, while in reality they're only losing about 5 HP at a time. That was the way it was always meant to display. Please don't bug it when you see it. It's supposed to be lying to you.

The main thing I wanted to discuss was customized nightmares. I feel that the ones I wrote are fairly representative of the kinds of disturbing dreams that many people remember having. I've had a few of them myself. However, after seeing them, you'll probably think you can do better. There will be an option in the spell to cast your own pre-written nightmare at a target so you can unleash your own vision of horror on them. How do you pre-write it? There will be a new merchant service available to record your custom nightmare. This is much like SWEAR MINE, except that I'm hoping to make this available to as many people as possible. In fact, I'll be offering this service in the games in some kind of guise over the next few weeks, and periodically after that, so watch for announcements.

I expect this will be a slow process because it will basically be like writing a couple of long-description alters every time for each person. With that in mind I want as many people as possible to come prepared.

Here's my slightly silly custom nightmare in the dev game instance:

Holding you in his gaze, Strath utters a foul curse upon you in Elven.
CS: +509 - TD: +31 + CvA: +19 + d100: +69 - -5 == +571
Warding failed!
You shiver as a cold wind suddenly blows through the area. It was probably nothing.
>
An ominous black haze edges around your vision. As you struggle to focus, you suddenly feel yourself teetering in the top of a very tall tree.
>
The tree in which you're trying to keep steady is very ugly. Oh no, you just fell out! Your body crashes into the boughs and limbs as they rush up at you...
>
You suffer a devastating strike!
... 62 points of damage!
You are stunned!
S>
You are able to move again.
>
An incredible strike leaves you reeling!
... 66 points of damage!
You are stunned!
S>

etc. etc. etc.

You've got three items that you'll need to supply to the merchant. You'll need to supply the first paragraph ("An ominous black haze..."), the second paragraph ("The tree in which you're..."), and a word that fits in the generic damage messages that follow ("strike"). The first two paragraphs are separated by a few seconds of build-up time. You're allowed to get wordy here, but I don't recommend it because your victims won't have a lot of time to read. 300 characters for each paragraph is way more than enough to get your essential point across, but there's no hard limit. Be succinct and pithy anyway.

For the damage rounds that follow, I have no way of knowing what kind of nightmare you're going to concoct, so I avoided any standard AS/DS numbers, critical hit messages, or even mentioning parts of the body that are hit in order to make your nightmare as believable as possible. However, I left you one word in those lines to fill in that will tie them together with the vision. It could be "strike", "slash", "burn", "hiccup", or anything that would make sense when substituted with the above.

A necessary word of caution. These are supposed to be nightmares, and they are supposed to be scary and grim. I know a lot of you are gifted with some extra dark imaginations, which might be what brought you to choose sorcery in the first place. However, working within the framework of game policy, it should be obvious that certain subject matter that is truly horrific can't be allowed as a custom nightmare. I don't want to start a discussion about what is/isn't/should/shouldn't be acceptable here. That's for the policy folder. If you need to know whether a nightmare you wrote about is going to be acceptable, just ask yourself if I'm going to get legitimate reports about it being abusive or disruptive if you're discussing your idea on the amunet or in town square or something.

Whatever you make your nightmare to be, make it a good one because each player can only have one at any time.

-Strath
"I just want to bury the hatchet. So hold still for a sec..."

Strath is awesomesauce incarnate. That is all.


-Aulis

Mufasa's Nightmare:
Holding you in his gaze, Rolfard utters a growl that sounds more like a series of grunts
CS: +540 - TD: +31 + CvA: +19 + d100: +69 - -5 == +600
Warding failed!
You tremble and feel unsteady but quickly right yourself. It was probably nothing.

You suddenly feel pushed quite hard, and fall to the ground. Confused, but seemingly ok, you begin to stand up when suddenly you feel a trembling in the ground. You look and are surprised and terrified as you see thousands upon thousands of stampeding roltons heading right for you! Their slathering, foaming terrifieded visages don't even seem to notice you and proceed to trample you flat into the dirt!

You are stomped quitely thoroughly!
... 62 points of damage!
You are stunned!
S>
You are able to move again.
>
An amazingly unlucky hoof plants itself in your face!
... 66 points of damage!
You are stunned!
S>

etc. etc. etc.

>>This is great. I would like to thank you especially for wanting to make this as widely available as possible. If you can consider your times with the merchant if possible to be other than normal hours for those of us who have different schedules.

I'm very excited about Strathspey's addition, and the option of making it so available for everyone to offer as a service. I have no specific dates in mind, but after Ebon I'll definitely make a few merchant appearances still this year, probably in the Landing Sorcerer's Guild, to customize nightmares.

Freddy Krueger, eat your heart out.



-GM Kenstrom-
The First Male MHO Guru Ever
Wehnimer's Landing Guru
Giantmen Guru

The Ultimate MHO Guide
(www.gemstonemho.pbworks.com)

For some inexplicable reason the nightmare that I envision is of a halfling having a huge cookie appear before him. Then the cookie starts crumbling and turns into dust. The poor halfling throws himself on the ground, wailing and hitting his head against the ground again (strike!) and again (strike!).

Great job, Strathspey. It's obvious you've put a lot of time and effort into this.

One of my earliest memories of Gemstone is curse related. I had just arrived in River's Rest after learning to get there you had to drop an amulet into a boot by hiding in the shadows and watching someone do it. Soon after arriving in River's Rest I was greeted by someone who noticed I was new and gave me some candy to celebrate, black licorice. I ate some.
Soon, a shadowy black rolton appeared in the room. I stood up, grabbed my sword and shield and prepared for combat. The rolton then struck me for almost half of my HP. I yelled out for help, but everyone in the room could not seem to care less about my imminent demise. The rolton struck again, I figured I must have like 10 HP left and I was not going to make it. I was still yelling for someone to come to my aid, but not a single person even bothered to stand up or draw a blade. In fact, one of the sickos was laughing at me. I was struck again and again, by then I should have been dead two times over. I was extremely confused, but continued to cry out for aid. Eventually, the rolton vanished as quickly as it appeared. I was still alive.

When everyone in the room explained what actually happened (Amid much laughter), I resigned as an empath, rolled up a sorcerer and to this day haven't looked back.

Thanks for bringing back the actual creature attacking again!

> Mufasa's Nightmare:

I know this was just for comedy, but I'm going to pick on this one for illustrative purposes so we all know what to expect.

> You suddenly feel pushed quite hard, and fall to the ground. Confused, but seemingly ok, you begin to stand up when suddenly you feel a trembling in the ground. You look and are surprised and terrified as you see thousands upon thousands of stampeding roltons heading right for you! Their slathering, foaming terrifieded visages don't even seem to notice you and proceed to trample you flat into the dirt!

After a little technical editing ("terrifieded"?), I'd break this into two chunks. The second sentence seems like a good spot to break:

You suddenly feel pushed quite hard, and fall to the ground. Confused, but seemingly all right, you begin to stand up when suddenly you feel a trembling in the ground.

> a few seconds pass...

You look and are surprised and terrified as you see thousands upon thousands of stampeding roltons heading right for you! Their slathering, foaming terrified visages don't even seem to notice you and proceed to trample you flat into the dirt!

For the damage rounds, we need one word that can plug into the following.

An incredible xxxxxxxx leaves you reeling!

Extremely painful xxxxxxxx!

You suffer a devastating xxxxxxxx!

Xxxxxxxx after xxxxxxxx puts you in agony!

You seemed to indicate from highlighting the word "pushed" that that was the word, but that won't quite work the way you intended. How about "stomp"?

You suffer a devastating stomp!

... 62 points of damage!

You are stunned!

etc.

I hope this makes things a little clearer and helps everyone plan.


-Strath
"I just want to bury the hatchet. So hold still for a sec..."

These changes look really fun; will the bystanders of these nightmares see anything different?

Clowns...

---

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. - Albert Einstein

>>Clowns...

Well... there goes that idea...

>>"In essence, Spirit is always with me, but Judgement and Revenge will be my weapons in the end."

Is there someplace we can see the existing 10 nightmares, along with the 10 new nightmares that have been added so we don't end up writing something extremely similar for our custom nightmares (provided we're lucky enough to receive such services)?

This is supposed to be available in every sorcerer guild but myself and a few others are slightly confused as to... where in the guild. Is a portal going to open for us or something?

>>"In essence, Spirit is always with me, but Judgement and Revenge will be my weapons in the end."

I am bumping this thread so everyone remembers the requirements for this service.

>You've got three items that you'll need to supply to the merchant. You'll need to supply the first paragraph ("An ominous black haze..."), the second paragraph ("The tree in which you're..."), and a word that fits in the generic damage messages that follow ("strike"). The first two paragraphs are separated by a few seconds of build-up time. You're allowed to get wordy here, but I don't recommend it because your victims won't have a lot of time to read. 300 characters for each paragraph is way more than enough to get your essential point across, but there's no hard limit. Be succinct and pithy anyway.

>For the damage rounds that follow, I have no way of knowing what kind of nightmare you're going to concoct, so I avoided any standard AS/DS numbers, critical hit messages, or even mentioning parts of the body that are hit in order to make your nightmare as believable as possible. However, I left you one word in those lines to fill in that will tie them together with the vision. It could be "strike", "slash", "burn", "hiccup", or anything that would make sense when substituted with the above.

>A necessary word of caution. These are supposed to be nightmares, and they are supposed to be scary and grim. I know a lot of you are gifted with some extra dark imaginations, which might be what brought you to choose sorcery in the first place. However, working within the framework of game policy, it should be obvious that certain subject matter that is truly horrific can't be allowed as a custom nightmare. I don't want to start a discussion about what is/isn't/should/shouldn't be acceptable here. That's for the policy folder. If you need to know whether a nightmare you wrote about is going to be acceptable, just ask yourself if I'm going to get legitimate reports about it being abusive or disruptive if you're discussing your idea on the amunet or in town square or something.

>Whatever you make your nightmare to be, make it a good one because each player can only have one at any time.


~Vanah

One last bump before tomorrow's event.

>You've got three items that you'll need to supply to the merchant. You'll need to supply the first paragraph ("An ominous black haze..."), the second paragraph ("The tree in which you're..."), and a word that fits in the generic damage messages that follow ("strike"). The first two paragraphs are separated by a few seconds of build-up time. You're allowed to get wordy here, but I don't recommend it because your victims won't have a lot of time to read. 300 characters for each paragraph is way more than enough to get your essential point across, but there's no hard limit. Be succinct and pithy anyway.

>For the damage rounds that follow, I have no way of knowing what kind of nightmare you're going to concoct, so I avoided any standard AS/DS numbers, critical hit messages, or even mentioning parts of the body that are hit in order to make your nightmare as believable as possible. However, I left you one word in those lines to fill in that will tie them together with the vision. It could be "strike", "slash", "burn", "hiccup", or anything that would make sense when substituted with the above.

>A necessary word of caution. These are supposed to be nightmares, and they are supposed to be scary and grim. I know a lot of you are gifted with some extra dark imaginations, which might be what brought you to choose sorcery in the first place. However, working within the framework of game policy, it should be obvious that certain subject matter that is truly horrific can't be allowed as a custom nightmare. I don't want to start a discussion about what is/isn't/should/shouldn't be acceptable here. That's for the policy folder. If you need to know whether a nightmare you wrote about is going to be acceptable, just ask yourself if I'm going to get legitimate reports about it being abusive or disruptive if you're discussing your idea on the amunet or in town square or something.

>Whatever you make your nightmare to be, make it a good one because each player can only have one at any time.

~Vanah

For a refresher on writing a custom nightmare, see posts 1084 and 1096 in this topic. I seem to remember a helpful thread after the first custom nightmare event in which people shared their creations, but apparently I did not save it.

Vanah, I'm a few days late, but are you aware if the damage messaging has been fixed yet? Last I checked, at least two characters with custom nightmares, as well as any of the generic "non-critter" nightmares display NO damage messaging at all.
________________________________
>Barnom exclaims, "I smell delicious!"
>Barnom says, "Like sage and nutmeg.

>"Walkar says, "Yes, too many kings never work. Especially when there's only one throne. It's a wicked game."
>Shameless plug.

>I did pass it along to Strathspey, but I haven't been able to duplicate it myself in either the live game or dev instances. Do you use any third-party program like lich that intercepts XML?

No. I first noticed this at the first custom Nightmare event this year when Azimar cast his custom Nightmare at me. Instead of recieving actual damage cycle descriptions, you get an out-of-place blank space then a "You are stunned!" line. This happened when I tested my own custom Nightmare as well. I cast it on another player, and he had the same output.

To reiterate, however, I use no outside programs, and I use Stormfront as my FE.
________________________________
>Barnom exclaims, "I smell delicious!"
>Barnom says, "Like sage and nutmeg.

>"Walkar says, "Yes, too many kings never work. Especially when there's only one throne. It's a wicked game."
>Shameless plug.

Is it possible for you guys to email me logs, please?


~Vanah