The recent changes to firebreathing, !hunger/thirst and the responses got me thinking about the direction of the mud.

Listening to experienced players, like Wrath, Shaba , and Red, with a combined 30+ years of playing experience and reading all the old realm posts got me to thinking about tempus.

I am a casual player. Definitely not as knowledgable in the technicals or the history of the game. It took me a few years and a lot of help from friends to get to gen 10. I got to asking myself, what drew me back in, and what made tempus fun?

Numvet one has been the friends i have made. The social aspect and connection is most enjoyable. The next would be the ease of combat (not an easy thing to accomplish on a mud) and the world to explore.

There are warts to combat and the world, primarily learned optimal zones to spend time on leveling, which leads to many unvisited zones. The player and mob damage is not optimal for new players and the pace is slow for new players (as opposed to being gen 10). The most challenging is the wide range of classes with many of them not as enjoyable to play as others. I cycled through a ranger, monk, bard, then mage. Mage was well worth the effort early. Many classes seemed unfinished or a poor fit for tempus as it is now, compared to the early 2000s or when the mud was more close to its diku/circle origins. Thief is an example of this, with only 2 remort skills. Bard is a clear example of a class that is complete and fits tempus, thematicLly and gameplay wise.

The rift with imm and players is harsh. With any changes comes adaption. Though the current changes seem a bit targeted on mages.

There has been a clear focus in 2014 on new player outreach. It may be a reality that the player base may not reach the levels of nostalgia. It is a mix o a shift in life for old players and a general shift away from muds in general.

Wouldn't it make sense to take care of our current player base as opposed to chasing new players that may not exist?

If tempus is fun new players will stay.

Wouldn't it make sense to make it fun for current players?

The challenge is manpower. The imms are all on a volunteer basis with full time jobs and families.

I thank and appreciate their efforts and do not expect them to make huge sweeping changes (though a harvesting/crafting system would be fun). Perhaps having a player driven discussion and prioritization with imms will help with workload on imms (they only work on what players see as fun and needed as opposed to what they see is fun and needed, only to be met with massive resistance and megativity because it was completely off the mark).

Tempus is fun. It could be more fun. If it is fun, players will stay and new players will want to play.

We have new players log in. I help them from time to time. They just are not having fun so they leave.

Take care of what we have and it will grow. There are great ideas and people working to make tempus better.

Perhaps a shift to approach may help things improve positi ely and make things easier for everyone.

My recommendation and prioritizations are based on quick and easy (from my point of view) changes that can see huge dividends on improvement.

1. Improve newbie eq. Have replicator give class appropriate eq to help with theme and skills. Example, a thief doesn't need a grass hula skirt, he or she needs a dagger. Merc would get a gun. Mage a staff. Phyz a calculator.

The weapons are mortal flag with decent damage 25 avg dam and 5 hit 5 dam.

1. Reduce mob damage in low level zones, halflings, hobgoblins, ecu, powerplant, etc. This is to make it easier lvl 1 to 20. Then they gotta learn tactics and strategy. Mob damage is fine for remort and higher areas.

2. High gen/old school player content. Reward long time players by making it more fun and give new players something to look forward to. An idea would be to have one quest a week every week at the same time. Consistency makes it more fun than random quests based on people being on or an imm's whim. I would enjoy helping and could commit to helping with this.

3. Improve classes. Starting with least used classes, like thief. Add skills or spells to classes to make them fun to play. This is an area old players can really help set the direction of improvements.

4. Corpse harvesting and crafting system. Allows for cariation in play and countless future updates on recipes and character improvement.

Please share your ideas.

I agree with you there, Diamond. Other than the corpse harvesting (I don't really know what that is), I feel you have made some very valid points, and are right on target with what you have said.

I would hope that with as few of us that are on Tempus, and with so many of that few of us having been around for far too long, that when we arrive at a consensus and provide that as feedback, that that feedback would be met with respect, and not ignored and called unproductive. I'm afraid one of the new Imms may be trying to clear out the old refuse cluttering up the place. It would be great if we could all work together instead of one person crapping on everyone else's opinions.

I can tell you that some of the things you mentioned are indeed being worked on, such as newbie equipment and zone difficulty. Maybe when they are done nerfing mages they will move on to actually adding things to the classes that need some improvements.

Hang in there. Hopefully we'll get there, even with all new faces.

Thank you Wrath. I am excited to hear about these improvements.

Tempus is a fabulous work of art and it would be a terrible shame if it fades away or devolves and disappears.

I appreciate all the people on the imm team putting their time into Tempus. It isn't an easy task.