There is sad news

So the drive returned, and the MySQL databases (which is what the Tiki data was) could not be retrieved. I'm sorry, J.

An update

The drive from the wikiserver is due for return on Wednesday. We should be able to pick our future course from there.

Building Fu

I apologize for being less than active recently. I've been occupied with making sure that I have enough work coming in so that Triv and I don't starve. That said, here's how we plan to put this very unique grid together...

London and Environs
This is the center of our world. Although we'd love to use the simplified borough structure from 1900-1965, the old district/vestry system from 1855 contains more flavor if less organization. These regions will be individual groups of rooms, only connected with themselves. For example, Westminster will be a collection of rooms that have no exits save those shared amongst other Westminster rooms. To get to other regional groups, we'd like to implement a +travel system, with a twist.

On CC, once we set up the Sky rooms, code provided a list once someone typed in '+land' or whatever it was. That list involved the numbered ground rooms that could only be reached by that sky room in particular, flagged appropriately if I'm not mistaken. We'd like to set up a single appropriate room per regional group (probably marked with an asterisk *) that allows folks to type '+travel' and bring up a list of the other single +travellable room per region. Whether the PC gets there by foot or by hansom is up to individual RP, and since every room within a regional group will be connected by exits to one another, players need only travel perhaps a single room before hitting +travel to get from, say, Westminster to Chelsea. Then another exit to the room in that region of their choice, if desired.

As we'd love to implement a form of the subway rail map that Prospero provided, +travel would only bring up the other subway rooms on their list. The same would go for aboveground railway to other parts of the country, once those get added to the 'grid'.

The Rest of the World
These rooms will be segregated into groups much like the regions of London, save that they'll be other places of note around the world. The asterisked rooms to get around these would be the ports, the airship docks, the hidden underground tunnels that lead from Tibet to Shangri-La and so on. World travel will always be a step away from the players.

The beauty here is that every player will know that when they're in an asterisked room, they can hit +travel and it will bring up the selection of destinations, whatever the RPed variety of travel it represents. If they don't hit one of the available numbers, the code will null and kick them out of the list and back to regular MU reality. I rather doubt I've got the code available that Forge on CC used to put this together, but it seemed a relatively simple process. At least from the building side, where we just had to make sure a certain attribute was set on all of the 'reachable' rooms. So, what's the concensus?

Frumple

So, the wikiserver is having a Moment with sufficient drama to keep a slew of tech-savvy drag queens happy for a while. It'll be back; ours is not the only domain hosted thereupon. It just...may take a little bit longer. I'm sorry for that, as it is quite the bother. What happened is that someone/thing hacked it and deleted everything it could. The worst of this means that anything that wasn't backed up may be lost for ever, though the drive was sent for such recovery as can be made.

I had written up some documentation on the wiki for the chargen and it was all entertaining and stuff. Being a genius, I also didn't back it up in a text file the way I do my code. Ah well! Here is a terse repeat:

Start with +setup. Do not start with anything else. I could not figure out a way to make the room force people to do this the first time they entered it.

Next, choose a background. Now, the backgrounds are listed on the wiki for the most part--but choose one first anyway! +bkground .

Then, set your attributes. +setstr # does Strength. Obvious variants are Dex, Con, Int, Wis and Cha.

Next, choose a role. There are seven total choices, also previously detailed on the wiki, and they are selected with +role . Man with the Machine is abbreviate to MWTM.

Next, choose feats, skills and powers. These can really be done in any order, but it's fairly important that they be done AFTER background, attributes and role. Feats don't limit your choices based on role, but powers do. The commands for this are +addfeat and +delfeat, +power , and +skill . Using +power or +skill for a power or skill you already have will delete it and free up the choice.

The usual stuff like desc, backgrounds, &etc is handled the usual way. I haven't installed a multi-descer, as I think about it, but I can probably find one somewhere, or if y'all have one you like we can use that. +notes are handled with +note--a command I had to write myself because the +cnote listed in +help is a lie.

+noteadd = to add, +notedel to delete, +nedit = to edit. +notes to list your notes, or +notes to list somebody elses. +note = to view notes. They are not limited in visibility at present.

+sheet views your own sheet, and +sheet looks at somebody else. Your innards are all exposed! Get used to it. My current revision makes feats that add a single bonus to stats show up in +sheet at this point, which means stuff like Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes and Wealthy should be reflected by immediate changes in stats. Things that have to manually set a bonus like Skill Focus and Talented will just have to be listed in +notes and remembered for now.

That should be it. If you can give it a shot, please do.

Enter the maze, rodents!

The chargen code is largely complete in its basic incarnation. This means I would like it very much if you all, especially those who love making characters, which is the same as saying "You all", would go try to stat them up for first level in my fiendish engine.

The commands are documented on the wiki under "MUX Commands" from the start page. They should all be accurate to the current version of stuff, but obviously if I mis-documented something I need to know. The code to view one's stats is +sheet . I will make it so you can view your own stats with just +sheet soon. Right now it does not add in attributes to skill ranks, nor does it add feat bonuses to specific things that can take feat bonuses.

Right as of this moment the wiki is inconveniently down, but it'll bounce back soon I'm sure. Along with our project it also runs a 24-7 NWN server, and those folks don't like their persistent worlds not to persist. It may also be the reason why the server itself occasionally crashes.

Lastly, I have turned on the Conviction system. This should not affect any player objects who have the Uninspected or Wizard flags. If you check +xp or +cp for any such characters and discover Conviction points accruing (most likely on Sunday), do let me know. You can also toy with +voting for each other to see how that works out.

Victorian Subway Routes

A helpful map with dates. I leave it to our builders to decide how much to incorporate.

Victorian Underground

Martial Arts

Adepts have their Hermetic Magic, their Mesmerism, and their Theosophy. Experts have their Inventions and amazing Vehicles. The Warriors out there are pouting because they haven't gotten any love. My goal is to make so much cool shit available in this game that everyone wants to make ten characters.

I use "Martial Arts" in the broadest sense, and my short list includes the following forms:

• Bartitsu: Publicized by Barton-Wright, this was a boxing/judo combination. It was made famous when, in "The Empty House," Holmes reveals he defeated Moriarty at the Falls thanks to his mastery of Bartitsu.
• Boxing: London Prize Ring and Queensbury Rules; John Sullivan is the greatest boxer of the age.
• Fencing: Foil, Epee, Rapier, and German Schlager fencing.
• Hung Gar Kung Fu: The style of Wong Fei Hong, star of over a hundred Hong Kong action pictures, and a valid Literary Character* from the period.
• La Cane du Combat: French cane-fighting techniques developed in the Napoleonic era. Now taught along with Savate.
• Quarterstaff: A popular British sport in the period, with many combat moves.
• Savate: The first Savate academy, the Charlemont Academy, opened in Paris during our period and accepted all classes and genders. Kicking, grappling, punching, and panache.
• Shao Lin Kung Fu: The style of Kane. The Shao Lin Temple was also notable for its resistance to the Manchus.
• Victorian Singlestick: This is a sport in our period; Teddy Roosevelt would later become an avid singlestick player.
• Wrestling: Mostly Greco-Roman in character.

My current plan is inspired by the OGL Martial Arts Mayhem: each style will have a list of requirements, with up to three degrees for especially robust styles. Characters who fulfill the requirements for a given degree of a given style will get, for free, a minor ability unique to that style. They will also gain access to a special technique, purchased as a feat. The system is designed to reward characters who collect feats and skills from a small list.

* This is the term I am using for what might be called a "Feature" in other games. That word is no good, as such characters are not actually "featured" in Penny Dreadful. They are no more or less important than "original characters" and are distinguished by one thing: they are Literary. Thus: LCs and OCs.