Back to business
Ok, I said I was going to do this last night and it's being done today, not bad for me. Hopefully this will answer all the questions on clan mazes and stones, if you still have questions after this, please post them as comments so other people may refer to them as well.
Clan Raiding
Once a clan requests its stones be introduced into the lands, that clan will be open for raiding. This applies to NPK halls as well, NPK halls may be raided.
Each clan is allowed 5 safe rooms, the clans may decide which rooms they wish to be safe. The altar room, jail cell and jail guard room may NOT be safe rooms. Please note Navarre with your safe room choices.
Why raid an NPK hall? Primarily to ruin their spells by taking a stone out of the altar but if you kill an NPK in their hall it's just like a normal PK. NPK halls will also have slightly stronger guard mobs as they're well, NPK.
Clan Mazes
As you know, each clan was granted 20 rooms to make their maze. The entry point of your maze is up to your clan, within reason. No, the Phoenix room and Avatar room and any hero run room are not places where you can have your entry point but there are enough rooms you can find one that's remotely located.
Maze entry points can be changed once a month through clan RP points received either through blogging or RP-board notes.
Mazes may have Guards posted at their entry point and exit into the hall point and they may have wandering aggro mobs (not overly beefy) in the actual maze.
Clan Stones
There are 4 stones for each clan. When all four stones are placed in the altar it activates the clan spell.
Clan stones are melt_drop, rot_death and pop once per reboot. Clan spells are powerful and we don't want them used too much and this way the clans actually have to defend their altar rooms as all it takes to break a clan spell is the removal of one stone from the altar.
The 4 clan stones will be reset (meaning where they will show up in the game when the mud is rebooted) wherever you say to put them. Unlike maze entry points, you MAY put stones in hero mob rooms.
The stones will show up to anyone who enters the room though, the long desc (what the player sees) can be anything, "a pile of dog feces" could actually be a clan stone. This is also up to you but remember, everyone can see them and take them so be clever.
Once a month for a hefty amount of platinum, clans may change the reset points for their stones.
Once a clan has its stones put into the game (resets added), that clan becomes able to be raided. You can die inside your own hall. This is the official word.
Questions welcome on comment.
I need to come out of the realm of silence to say a few things. There are times (what few and far between) that I become overly friendly with the players of ToD. Like Savitri in the past, some of us on staff get too chummy and do dumb things. As much as we endeavor to uphold the MOTD of ToD and stay sticklers to the rules, some things we do just aren't cool.
I'm a staff member of Time of Darkness first and foremost. I'm an employee...not a friend. I, like the rest of the Imm staff, am a bouncer in a cyber nightclub owned by Kali.
With that said I need to make a few things abundantly clear.
Those who may have engaged me IRL as in AIM, ICQ, MSN or The Dark Forums... those interactions are welcome AS LONG AS TOPICS DISCUSSED HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH TIME OF DARKNESS.
Do NOT say anything ESPECIALLY game related , to me that you DO NOT want to go back to KALI and THE IMMORTAL STAFF. Contrary to rumour, there are NO SECRETS in Immland.
I've been to lax in many of my Immortal duties and responsibilities. Too busy meddling in affairs I shouldn't be involved in have sullied the reputation of what it takes to be a ToD immortal. Expect many torrid changes in the future, if there is one.
So to recap: Many security changes are on the rise, there are no secrets in Immland and expect to have more rules kept than broken.
I apologize to any who have suffered any discomfort from the results of my overlzealous actions resulting in the MuD being shut down. I'd like to put this in the past...but NEVER to be FORGOTTEN.
Game on.
Here we go again.
The mud is down because the plug was pulled. No bugs, no problems, plug pulled. I've had it with the majority of what's been going on lately and the events of yesterday were the end.
I think a lot of you need to sit back and re-evaluate the way you treat people. No one has to be sugary nice all the time but the level of self centered nastiness and deceit I'm seeing makes me sick to my stomach and I'll be damned if I'm going to operate a game for people like that.
My week started with a player going on a tirade because his drama note was deleted. Too goddamn bad. Plain and simple. I stated a LONG time ago that ALL personal drama is to be left at the MOTD and that's that. NO PLAYER has the right to leave nasty notes to all. This person was also shown to be a hypocrite as he runs to Waterdeep to play but doesn't say anything about Nisstyre removing public notes. No, just bash Kali because you can get away with it.
Nisstyre has always been someone I respect and I went to him with the note situation and was told basically to stop it. No one has any RIGHTS to leave dramatic notes that serve NO purpose other than to cause more negativity. Thank you for that reinforcement, Niss.
Onward. I have always been good at letting people come back to ToD, I could think of a long list of names of people who have been wiped and asked to come back and were allowed, some of whom even got their pfiles restored. But I have also been clear that there are a few people who so violated the core of ToD that they are never going to come back. Small list, I think it had 4 people on it.
To find out that one of the people on the list has been back for TWO weeks and NO ONE said anything to me makes me want to vomit. The fact that a member of my own staff knew who it was and said nothing is an even bigger offense. I'm usually right on character, this person is a manipulator, a liar and a mudslut and on top of it all, has the NERVE to tell other players that my staff keeps secrets from me. To protect them. The ego hasn't changed any.
Yes, things may be kept from me but they never last, sooner or later the truth comes out as we see now. Unfortunately it comes with consequence.
The mistake has been mine in being there for people. I have spent my free time listening to mudders with problems, I have given numerous chances to mudders with problems, I've been a friend and Immortal. And all it's gotten me is called a bunch of names the first time someone hears something they don't like and lied to by people I'm supposed to be able to trust.
So if this is how it is, you all need to go find another mud.
Seems in being people's friends some of you have forgotten a few things. This is not YOUR world. Ultimately it is the staff and I who call the shots on ToD and while I do try to be a friend, I am first and foremost a mud owner.
I'm sorry some of you have chosen to take advantage of the friendship I have shown you and apply it to the mud. To think because I've given my personal time to you allows you to act like a self centered freak when the mood hits. To lie and deceive and cover the ass of someone else. To think it's fine to pull the wool over Kali's eyes in her own world. To bring personal attacks into the game in your flames because you don't like something Kali did, run to Hlyn with your sorrows but tear into Kali because she chastised you.
Well, it's not fine. None of this is fine.
There is no emotional reason to the mud closing. This isn't about emotions although I am deeply hurt at the deceit and genuinely sickened at the events of the week. The mud was shut down because I'm tired of having ToD taken for granted. It is NOT a democracy, it is NOT an anarchy and get the fuck over yourselves, there are NOT that many rules.
A few reminders people seem to have forgotten:
**This is space on a server that is NOT yours. You do NOT have the freedom to make your own rules.
**This is NOT a substitute for therapy. Your issues, your moods, your personal crap has no right being there.
**I call the final shot. I am under no obligation to explain to ANY of you why I do what I do, although I usually do out of courtesy. When you hit enter to go into the game, it's like walking into a club. Someone else's club. You are free within limits but there are boundaries.
**An Immortal's first loyalty is ALWAYS to the game. NOT any one person or clan.
**You don't have to like the rules but you damn well have to follow them. You don't get to make your own rules because you're 'oldschool' or because you sent a donation (the fact that someone this week used the money they sent in a statement that started "the money I sent should at least get me..." is disgusting. I'll send the money back and you can take your entitlements and shove them) or because you fancy yourself God's gift to mudding.
I've never really been one to care if there are one or two people on the Who list. I don't care if a large group of you leave, the way things are lately I'd welcome a few of you leaving and never looking back, take your alts with you. I do appreciate the long term players, I always have. But the inmates have taken over the asylum and kindness is being taken for granted and crapped upon and it stops here.
Look, I'm inviting you all to go find another mud and please, bring your crap with you. Go to WD and cry about not being able to run free as you want, go to Shadow Siege and sit on your ass socialising and not RPing, go to ANY other game and find a more caring staff, I double dog dare you. ToD staffers have been there above and beyond for players from listening to personal stuff to helping with money when needed, to any number of things I can think of.
The self centered have to go. Immortals are people, we are not your playtoys or slaves and we are not here to cover for you against each other, that will NEVER happen again. You think nothing of asking for attention when you need to talk to someone, when life's walls are closing in yet you think you have some god given right to turn on a dime into nasty, lying rumour mongers.
There is a word in the English language, I'm sure they have a version of it in Romanian. The word is 'appreciate.' It's a powerful word the ToD player base has collectively forgotten. Appreciation and the ability to look beyond your own selfish self. If YOU'RE calling for an Imm because you need someone to talk to, chances are someone else is too. Appreciation for time given to you freely and willingly. Appreciation for time put into areas and clan halls. Appreciation of time and skill put in by the coding staff. Appreciation at having a 24 hour place where you can go when you're not feeling great and even if it's just imms on, chances are you'll be made to laugh and feel a bit better. Appreciation for every smile ToD has put on your face when you needed it. Appreciation for having ToD.
Nastiness, moodiness, IRL issues, mud sluts, bloated egos, disloyalty, betrayal, cutting words, net cafe cheaters, constant irl fighting. I'm sick of it. And I pulled the plug. No other staff members were involved in the plug pulling, I did this. And it may come back with only 3 people in the player base but I've never been one to act based on numbers. People will always come back, people will always discover the mud, there are NONE of you so sacred a cow that the mud will suffer permanent damage without you.
It was your world too, I and the staff gave all of you a lot of leeway to run with and you ran, only in the wrong direction.
A long time ago Viwrathe said something about ToD that to this day sticks with me. Those of you who don't know Viwrathe, he is an old and wise mudder, Immortal and PKer and someone whose mind I have always respected. He said ToD was an AOL chatroom disguised as a mud. Never in my 6 years as owner has it been more true than right now with the level of personal crap I've seen this week. Insulting people's unborn children? Tossing gay around like being gay is bad? Comparing Imms to lunatics responsible for the slaughter of millions of Jews? Spending personal time on a ragging tirade on AIM about an imm?
No, it's definitely time to put ToD and its ranters on a forced time out.
So that's that. Yah, I pulled the plug but you all provoked the action. Appreciation.
Please, go take your IRL issues, your hostilities, your deceit, your mud slutting, your egos and your hate and go brighten someone else's world. Appreciation.
I will be reading email and a few of you can come hang in Chuck, get in touch with me if you wish but I make no promises. And I'd suggest some of you go out right now and get a therapist because never again will you have one in me. I am not a punching bag, none of us are.
This didn't have to happen.
Appreciation.