General News

Juggernaut 8 to 10...bw party wins in the end.

All of my characters those being Balzen, Cymor and, Darren need gold to
train up skills/spells with. After the long hiatus I had from RetromUD.
Then with all the changes I had to do reincs and start a new character. To
fullfill the needs of the current player base. At this point I am not
currently looking for equipment runs because, all of my characters need to
first get the necessary training done. To be affective in groups to do
those equipment monsters. If the party reaches a decision to go after
highbie equipment monsters. I am going to drop from party until, I can
recieve adquate training for all my characters that are requested. To go
after said equipment bosses. I want our time here to be enjoyable and,
without many deaths. That way we can do those equipment runs, earn levels,
get the gear we need and, live to tell about it.

Feast and the bite attack involved in the snatch skill have slightly
different targetting restrictions. This is related to the fact that feast
isn't just ripping stuff with your teeth but also feeding on the target,
while the bite stage of the snatch combo does not provide sustenance. Thus
the differing restrictions are Not-a-Bug(tm), despite the common overlap
with the bite skill.

-Kereth Midknight

Deaths by the Crew  : Bane/Odie/bahamut  ..

Please mudmail me with info if you know where Cimmerii tiro tert is
located.

Registration for RetroCon 2019 is now officially closed.  If you registered
(or thought you registered) and didn't receive the final details, let me
know.

-Rita

If you know where evil spriritual crits shrine is please let me know. The
one I know the location of calls the die function at me.

Stuff

Less Stuff, more usefulness.
Fundamentals should be more inventory friendly upon reload.

Wxyz

Hi. Yes. I'm here. I've been away about a month or so, letting my
retro-related motivation regen and considering possible options if it did
not. Then I got told that somebody repped a problem with something I coded,
and suddenly I feel like doing stuff again. Fascinating self-discovery
about how my sense of motivation works. Anyway. . .

I've got a dozen or more mudmails and a lot of news and new bugreps to dig
through. Please be patient while I take time to process stuff and work my
through it all. I'll get to whatever you personally sent eventually, I
promise.

-Kereth Midknight

Just to publically acknowledge this, since I've known about it for a few
years and haven't dug far enough to find the source yet: Yes, the "gear"
items from Tiran's area and several of the items used by some of Duke
Ferdinand's soldiers will sometimes come up as valueless and unsellable.
Not really sure why this is, but I suspect the two things are actually
related. This is a Known Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

The resists command should now only work for those in your party.
Several other minor issues have been fixed as well.

Wxyz

Newly found animal, mineral and plant components
have new object handling targets:
<rarity> animal/mineral/plant
<planet> animal/mineral/plant

Wxyz

Wizstaff: you rule

A certain special attack from a certain axe whose name begins with 'K' does
not show damage numbers. This is Not-a-Bug(tm), because the attack does not
deal damage.

-Kereth Midknight

I've been playing Retro for well over a decade at this point, and while
I've left from time to time, I always end up coming back. There are many
reasons why I do so, the host of races and plentiful guild options or the
challenging, interesting and varied areas and bosses that give the worlds
cohesive theme. But above all of those things, the main reason I always
find myself coming back is the community, whether they're roleplayers,
theorycrafters or anything in between.

Without the patience and craftsmanship of the wizard staff, none of these
things would likely be around for people like me to come back to. As a
result, I believe they deserve our thanks for their hard work and for their
dedication to continue working on our beloved game in the face of life's
challenges. From the bottom of my heart, I'd like to thank you one-and-all
for your past, present and future efforts!

May your days be full of peace and prosperity, and may your code never bug
again.

Sincerely, Alise.

I would like to extend my thanks for how patient the wizard staff has been,
especially Kellin with how they have been doing their utmost to work with
players to address issues, or even just socialize with us players.

It is a huge thing to be able to actually chat and shoot the breeze with
wizzes, and while I know we as players tend to be quick to get negative and
grumbly, we definitely do all appreciate all the hard work and effort that
you put in to try and help keep this game we love, going strong for years
to come.

I also am extremely happy that Kereth has started working to alleviate the
level lock issues  so that low levels can feel they can advance without
being punished immediately for it, especially with being able to explore
the zones again on my main.  I myself was -extremely- happy to get to
explore Tanglewood proper on my main without having to feel like I am
pushing someone to go explorer path solely for my benefit.

Nerina has been actively fantastic to deal with as a player liason, and her
answers to questions given feel well thought out and give hope that we as
players are listened to even when the Admins are not about.

Lightfoot areas, while we do meme on him for his propensity to typo,
usually just ooze solid theme, which is a wonderful thing to see on a game
like this- areas crafted with love instead of being quickly-created
hackjobs with no substance beyond "Farm XP here", which seems to be the
norm on MUDs besides this one.

Wxyz, your work on finding ways to fix things is very much appreciated,
even when you aim to be outside of the limelight and stealth-fix things in.
It made me extremely happy as a player when my request regarding Gogira
Polearms got put in so quick after talking to you about it.

Leonia, you were very fun to play alongside as a player, and I eagerly
await to see the areas you bring into this MUD.  Knowing you are also
willing to listen to issues and aim to bring them up at wizard meetings is
a great boon for this MUD.

Fjorn, your levity helps quite a lot on channels in making the mud feel
like the wizards are present and care, even when your workloads are
monstrous.

Rita, your work on the bugrep mountain that we have submitted your way has
been truly massive for this game, seeing the bugrep counter go down so much
when you were pounding away at it was huge for player morale and I feel
that we as players very much appreciated this.

Thank you all for all of your hard work in keeping Retro going along!

Sincerely, Kumog

Wizzes, you don't get nearly enough credit for what you do behind the
scenes.  I want to take a minute and thank you all for the stuff you've
done, recently, that I've seen.  And there's a *lot* more you do that I
don't get to see.

Thank you for un-bugging people stuck in War.
Thank you for fixing fights halfway through.
Thank you for making a way to rescue a certain Bone Court NPC.
Thank you for everything in 'help object handling'.
Thank you for all the quality of life in general, come to think of it.
Thank you for giving naked NPCs gear, and useable gear at that!
Thank you for updating the Gogira polearms so they're super cool looking
and also have names.
Thank you for being transparent about what projects are going on.
Thank you for being friends and just good human beings in general.
Thank you for all of the backend work you do so the game will run smoothly
without anyone aside from your fellow coders knowing what you did, or that
you even did anything in the first place.  You'll never get people saying
"Thanks for fixing this thing I never knew existed!", because, well, we
don't know a damn thing about backend.  But the kind of unsung backend work
keeps us alive, and it deserves more attention than it gets.

Also, thanks for kicking me out of necromancer leadership with a very
confused penguin[undead] that one time.  That was hilarious.

Dear wizstaff,

The occasional 'praise' doesn't do justice to the amount of time and energy
you spend creating and maintaining (and converting!) this place. And you
sure don't do it for the money! So for wanting to create something for
others to partake in, for feeling the urge to fix bugs and even typos in an
imaginary world, and for generally being helpful and kind, among other
virtues, I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude. Obviously every
single character here owes you a debt of existence.

Thank you!
-S

Like many others here, I have spent a good portion of my life playing
Retro. I started my journey into Mud'ing here and I always found it to be
the one I returned to. When I started playing Retro, I was still in high
school, with lots of free time on my hands and no real responsibilities. as
I aged though, I came to find that my free time was less, and I had more
responsibilities as I got older. Becoming employed, having a child, trying
to start that wonderful transition into "adulting", it all took it's toll. 

In spite of all that, Retro still played its siren song and drew me back
in, sometimes for short periods, sometimes longer. Each time I returned it
was with more life experience and an ever changing view on how the world
works. This change also brought about new views on other things as well,
which I recognized others would be experiencing the same changes as myself.
We are no longer without demands on our time, and that free time soon
becomes very budgeted.

I bring up this long winded point of view to address something I have
always felt, but do not often vocalize. An appreciation for the Wiz staff
and all they are doing for us as players. In Retro we don't have the paid
staff of a Triple a gaming company, yet after my 15 years, I still find the
work they have done to be far superior. The staff here has given us a lot,
at the cost of their own free time, so that we may have a game to play with
our free time.

Something I have experienced since entering the workforce, is that you
often hear nothing when doing a great job, but when something is not to
liking, the complaints are the loudest. Personally, this has always struck
me as wrong, and I'd like to ask the players to join myself and the others
in being more vocal about our appreciation for the Wiz Staff and all they
have given us over the years, let them hear not just our complaints, but
our praise and accolades for the jobs well done.

Lathern

I'd like to thank the wiz for being awesome people too. I sometimes
complain about stuff here but I do appreciate it you too. I used to play
sometimes around 12 hours per day and while I never have the energy to play
that much any more I still do a few hours here and there

I appreciate some of the changes that makes casual play easier. Things like
threading so you don't lose your eq if your power goes off, things like
disabling events like thiefs/angels/demons which just killed people who
idled, things like starting at 10 with max training for new chars and
higher free maxes and other things I'm probaly forgetting.

Anyways thanks to the wiz.

Atlantic bluefin tuna weigh an average of 225-250 kgs at adult age.
Specimens regularly exceed 300 kgs and have been known to reach almost 700
kgs. That the tuna often found around the retroverse weight in the ballpark
of 225 kgs is, therefore, Not-a-Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

F.Y.I.: I'm not dead or burnt out. I'm playing Pokemon. Still have 21 more
pokedex entries left. Brb.

-Kereth Midknight

I had a medical event at the beginning of the year.

Working it out, but don't expect much word from me until after
February 12th as I'm focusing on that right now.

--Kellin

Loot selling service available - I'm committing to being online in US
Central Timezone UTC -05:00 / 06:00 depending on daylight saving time)
sometime between 9 PM and 2 AM every day. I have a peel 3sw of chantry. If
you want loot sold, feel free to label it and drop it at the peel (if you
don't have access just let me know you're interested) and then mail me with
split for your label. Be careful not to match your label to anybody else's
loot. I take 10% currently, and will post if and when that changes.

I need an unlocked pentagram. To that end, who want to kill krugg and
gules/murrey with me?

Components should now keep their labels.

If some still have issues, let me know.

Wxyz

Could the Druid tertiary (Toghairm) Stone Colossus pet be reviewed for
possible performance issues?

1) At level 74, 791 Wis and 92% training, a Stone Colossus (L20 summon) has
just the same dpr as a Wicker Colossus from summon faerie (L17).

2) Stone Colossus skillset is just bash and, of particular concern, push.
Other faeries have more varied and damaging skills/spells e.g. throw
opponent, strike, dirty tricks, immolation etc.

Missing gear from my mercenary assassin - if anybody's holding my
Splinters, eagle sights, etc, please let me know. M-ALL and M-A labels.

Some bug or not-bug related notes:

1. Imprisonment effects do not seem to act as shelters vs mobs, but nor do
they seem to actually imprison mobs. Mobs simply lack the bit of code to
make them care about imprisonment effects. This is beyond my ability to
personally fix right away at my wizlevel. It has been noted for future
correction. For now it is a Known Bug(tm).

2. Project force is a 3-round spell, not a 4-round spell. The fact that it
does not have the same final casting time as some 4-round spells under the
right circumstances is thus Not-a-Bug(tm).

As a general note, please be aware that if you rep something and it goes to
the wrong file, there is no need to rep it again.

-Kereth Midknight

Could the Undeadslayer spell, 'Cleanse', get a spell description similar to
Templar's 'Inquisition', showing the damage range?

The current description is too ambiguous to determine if it's worth pathing
into.

The battle-rage spell scales its duration with con, as the helpfile
suggests. There is no bug. Assumptions that it does not scale, or that it
scales based on another stat, are likely based on inaccurate assumptions
about the duration of other iron will effects.

-Kereth Midknight

Shields should now properly handle the threaded by/to syntax

Wxyz

PSA: If you put loot in my loot castle past about 9 PM Central time (this
post going up at 8:30 AM) I will be asleep and you'll need to make
alternate arrangements or watch it get eaten by armagg. I've had multiple
people doing this so I want to ensure this is clear.

Rule of thumb - if it's more than a few hours into boot you can check my
login status. If I'm online or linkdead I plan on being able to sell loot,
but when I "quit" I'm out for the night.

Polite reminder, if you leave loot for me to sell and it is NOT labeled I
will be selling it for myself.

I'm looking for someone who has the 'craft furniture' skill to verify for
me what furniture can be crafted and, if it's a valid option, to craft a
trashcan for my loot castle 3sw of chantry. I'd like the list regardless.

If you craft the trashcan just LMK and I will pay post-facto, or I can pay
in advance if you LMK you can do it.

Pets able to tank have more tightly restricted hp totals than other pets.
This is a deliberate design decision. Thus the fact that, for example, a
mercenary knight may have less hp than other kinds of mercenary pets is
actually Not-a-Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

So, FYI - Heavy Weight does NOT block greater summon.

The HW helpfile doesn't make this clear, but the gsummon helpfile does.

Selling loot for "STRINGCHEE" but I don't have a mail on it, please LMK who
this split is for.

The hunter's cowl's weight is appropriate for a bulk 3 cloak. This is
Not-a-Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

Just a reminder about mplay rules. From "help multi-playing":

    If a party member obtains an item in the party and decides to sell
    it on the open market, the alt of another party member may attempt
    to purchase that item at a fair price. The second party member may
    not take any action to ensure that the item reaches their alt,
    rather than another buyer.

Note that transactions of this kind are legal, but PLEASE bear in mind the
rules about "open market," "fair price" and "not take any action to ensure.
. .". Exceptionally cheap sales to party members' alts should not be made
without, at least, a reasonable chance for other people to see the low
price and bid it up if desired.

-Kereth Midknight

Evil spiritual crit wish shrine is a thing now, in case y'all missed the
post about it.

Hi MUD,

So lately, I've done a number of skill/spell/pathing updates, and that's
understandably gotten a lot of people thinking about the kind of changes
and improvements that can be made around here. That's awesome.

Unfortunately, the number of tells I've been getting about new ideas has
reached the point where it's making it more difficult to actually code any
new stuff. I've had a couple days in the last week where I didn't get much
coding done, because multiple people, sometimes simultaneously, had ideas
they wanted to discuss with me. They were good ideas, many of them, make no
mistake, but I can only do so much.

To try to alleviate this problem, short of spending all my time wizinvis, I
have a request:

For the time being, if you have a great idea you want to share with me,
-please reconsider sending me a tell about it.-

The best way to share your idea with me specifically is with the 'idea'
command, and the best way to share with the staff as a whole is probably
with ideas-wanted news. I can make no promises about what, if anything,
will come of any given suggestion, but I'll do my best to review whatever
comes in. As always, ideas about a specific race or primary guild should be
filtered through the relevant leader.

I hope this request doesn't offend anyone too deeply, and I apologize for
the inconvenience.

-Kereth Midknight

Be aware, 95%+ of the time, if you cannot target a monstar as "monster,"
it's because there's something else in the room, hiding or invisible. It's
not that "You cannot see that here." means there's no monster in those
cases. It just means you "can't see" it, and the monster you're seeing is
"monster 2" or "monster 3" or so on. This is Not-a-Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

You should now be able to display any skill/spell/category
bonuses that you have recieved upon advancement.
The training sign has also been updated for clarity.
(Requires reload of training room or upon reboot)

Wxyz

Found a pile of gold in Abarack, please send me mail if you think it might
be yours. I picked it up for safe keeping so it didn't vanish if left
unclaimed.

Question regarding the new weapon paths: If my secondary guild doesn't
offer access to the "sidestep" option, will I be able to take it anyway?
Specific example: Shinobi isn't pathable from puppet master, but sikh is
and allows sidestepping.

courtesy of Ghalt

https://matrix-client.matrix.org/_matrix/media/r0/download/matrix.org/ykwGy
LQKktNTbdUESsmNlSqc

Cliff wrote:
>courtesy of Ghalt
>
>https://matrix-client.matrix.org/_matrix/media/r0/download/matrix.org/ykwG
y
>LQKktNTbdUESsmNlSqc
>
Or for those of you who want it without the breakage...
https://tinyurl.com/Retro-WeaponPaths

Loktai wrote:
>Question regarding the new weapon paths: If my secondary guild doesn't
>offer access to the "sidestep" option, will I be able to take it anyway?
>Specific example: Shinobi isn't pathable from puppet master, but sikh is
>and allows sidestepping.
>
Yes and no. The requirements for shinobi terts 2-6 are just having the
previous tert, whether in its own path or an adjacent path. Shinobi 1,
however, requires the necessary secondary, so it won't be accessible from
puppet master.

-Kereth Midknight

Kereth wrote:
>Loktai wrote:
>>Question regarding the new weapon paths: If my secondary guild doesn't
>>offer access to the "sidestep" option, will I be able to take it anyway?
>>Specific example: Shinobi isn't pathable from puppet master, but sikh is
>>and allows sidestepping.
>>
>Yes and no. The requirements for shinobi terts 2-6 are just having the
>previous tert, whether in its own path or an adjacent path. Shinobi 1,
>however, requires the necessary secondary, so it won't be accessible from
>puppet master.
>
>-Kereth Midknight
>
Er, to further clarify, YES on shinobi 2-6, but NO on shinobi 1. 
Basically, if you meet the requirements in "paths <tertname>" you're solid.

-Kereth Midknight

Targeting by race is a perk of enhanced olfactory senses. Sometimes, mobs
with a name like "human guard" or such will be targetable as "human"
anyway, because it's part of their name. If the guard just happens to be
human, though, and it's just called "guard" or even "bob the guard," it's
not a given that "human" a valid target, unless you have enhanced olfactory
senses.

In such a case, your inability to target that way is Not-a-Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

Thanks for continuing to care by sending in bug reports.
I just have a simple request.
If you're going to send a bug report that includes pages
of scrollback, please make a note of what we're supposed
to see/not see and what you're expecting to see/not see
at the beginning or end of the report.  This makes
tracking down problems much easier. Making them easier
to reason about allows quicker resolutions.

Thanks,
Wxyz

First of all I'd like to thank Wxyz for the huge effort to fix
and improve the advancement code.

What kind of difference we can expect assuming freinc into the
same guild combo?

There were many newsposts and discussions on channels, and I'm
not sure If I managed to follow everything.

In particular:
1. Is the chance to get correct skill and spell category bonuses
higher than before, or the same?

2. For a while some of us saw we have bonuses to skills and spells
we shouldn't have. Can we now expect similar number of bonuses to
be assigned to correct skills and spells or is it not so simple?

Hidden exits, discoverable through searching, typically do not reveal
themselves to others unless they also search. This means that pets, party
members and so forth must also find the exit in order to be able to pass
through it and will fail to follow through the exit if they do not.

Due to the way this is set up, there's not an easy way to change all such
instances throughout the MUD at once to let pets and party members through
without also making them search, so for the time being, it's left as it is
so that the behavior of searchable hidden exits will be consistent.

Thus, if your pet or party member can't seem to enter an area, and you got
into the area by searching for a hidden exit, and they haven't searched for
that exit, it's probably Not-a-Bug(tm). You should, however, consider
having them search.

-Kereth Midknight

think last should no longer break psionicists while mindlinked due to
having no prior thoughts.
white flower in the illusionist guild should now consider itself one.
clasped hands should have at least one less typo and one less useless blank
line in its description.
burgundy ruby had duplicate description functionality fixed and its
description reformated.
the emit spell had quite a few issues.  These have been fixed along with
addition of object handling.

Wxyz

After partially instigating some telemancer vs crate,
as well as party newbie summon hijinyx, a wooden crate
was broken many different ways.  I have remedied this
specific circumstance.  Note however, that the crates
are highly fragile and causing grief to an owner is
highly discouraged.

With the recent changes to destable items, this
item may need revisiting in the future.

Wxyz

PLEASE NOTE: It's come to my attention that, contrary to my earlier post,
"sidestepping" into another path is being restricted by the code to tert
paths which are offered by your secondary. It seems there's a previously
redundant check resulting in this restriction. The issue is under
investigation.

-Kereth Midknight

does anyone know which wiz fixed autoloot to target corpses in room
(instead of workin the same as regular object handling and going for ones
in inventory first)? I want to write a praise to them :)

(and also, in case you didn't know it yet: autoloot goes for corpes in the
room now^^)

Synder wrote:
>does anyone know which wiz fixed autoloot to target corpses in room
>(instead of workin the same as regular object handling and going for ones
>in inventory first)? I want to write a praise to them :)
>
>(and also, in case you didn't know it yet: autoloot goes for corpes in the
>room now^^)
>
After careful investigation, it turns out that was done in 2018 by. . . me?
Huh. I guess that was me. Well, now you know.

Non armor/weapons should now handle targetting by their thread
state.

<threaded/unthreaded/threaded to me> have been added.

Wxyz

Special joining requirements* for the fencer and myrmidon terts apply to
all terts at the time you join them. Credit for completing the required
task* clears at log out or boot. Those reincing into the guild and taking
all/most terts at once need only complete the task* once if they are doing
all their joining on that same day, but those attempting to join another
tert on a later day have been required to complete the task again.

This seems to be designed for the player to have a chance to demonstrate
their increased prowess as they level and progress, with the task* getting
easier each time. It is not new, and as an apparently intentional setup, it
is Not-a-Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

* You know the one.

I've got a number of reps about this from different angles, so here's a
general Not-a-Bug(tm) File:

Weapons and armors in shops have a size, or they don't. If you view an
item, and it shows as size 0, it will automatically resize to you when you
buy it. If you view it and it has a size other than 0, it will be that size
when you buy it. Anything that follows this pattern of behavior is
Not-a-Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

I've gotten a number of multiplay questions of late, many of which are
already handled explicitly in the file "help multi-playing". Please, take
the time to remind yourself what's in there. One helpful excerpt reads:

    Characters in parties
    should also not receive the benefits of their alt's services, 
    such as receiving a share of gold from loot their alt helped sell
    or an item their alt helped to craft.

-Kereth Midknight

A minor note, but something to be aware of if you want your reps to be
processed more easily: color codes don't display in reps, but they will be
processed.

This means that a.) If a message doesn't display a color code right, and
you copy/paste that faulty color code display into a rep, we won't see the
problem. Neither the fixed color nor the bad codes will appear. b.) if a
color does appear in a log you're copying, and that color is relevant to
the rep, we won't see it, even if you try to add the color back in.

When writing reps in general, describing the problem, not just copying the
output, is a big help, but if you rep a problem related to colors, that is
doubly the case.

And Now You Know!
-Kereth Midknight

There seems to be some issues with targetting weapons/armor by
condition.  The target by actual condition is kinda not that
useful, but currently doesn't work.  However, it appears there
has been added code that is useful by separating it into
three classes, broken, damaged and incredible.

See help object handling

Wxyz

Thanks to Sarov, Heal, Ziefera, Azamir, cliff, Kyle, and Quackbeam for a
quick and fun light eq run tonight. Killed Chideo Shi, Mean Lumberjack, and
Salty, and then I took all their hard earned loot and gave it away.

LF Loot sellage for LTM (loktai / taos / mintaj) - loot is in castle 3sw of
chantry.

TY in advance.

The following are Not-a-Bug(tm):

1. Trying to target by slot with "ring" and not getting results, such as in
a check room (the slot you're looking for is "finger").
2. The alignment cutoffs between evil, neutral and good, as per "help
alignment descriptions," apply only to the most general alignment checks,
such as racial alignment restrictions, align restricted eq, resses, etc.
For better or worse, things such as skill/spell restrictions, special
alignment checks on some items or areas, etc, have different, less
consistent boundaries.

Monk abilities cover a much larger range, for example, while some "must be
good" or "must be evil" spells may have larger or smaller ranges, as do
some "cannot be good" spells or similar. These are mostly-but-not-always
consistent within a single guild. The use of borders other than the general
ones is definitely desirable in at least some of these cases.
3. Not all chestable items can be threaded. While there are cases where
threading the items could be a desirable feature, there are several where
it is intentional design.
4. Necromancer pets modify the stats they receive based on a number of
factors. This includes stats received from equipments. This itself is
Not-a-Bug(tm), but it is conceded that there may be a lack of documentation
in this area.

-Kereth Midknight

Being unable to target a monster as "mob" is Not-a-Bug(tm). You were
probably looking for "monster" anyway.

-Kereth Midknight

Syntax quests are quests where you have to guess the right syntax to work
out what to do with no prompting. These can be confusing and unfun, making
you have to figure out which of a long list of synonyms the MUD is asking
for in order to get a job done. Such should be reported so we can fix them
to avoid this kind of metagame difficulty.

The following, however, do not count as syntax quests and are
Not-a-Bug(tm):

1. When the command you're looking for is "search" or "search <lookable
object in the room>"
2. When the correct syntax is discoverable via the above command.
3. When the correct syntax is spelled out in the description of an object,
the room, a lookable item in the room, etc.
4. When an npc earlier in the quest has given you the syntax.
5. When you're running the quest by memory without reading descriptions and
now you can't figure out the syntax for the next part because you missed
one of the above, don't have the right item or are standing in an entirely
different room.

-Kereth Midknight

P.S. Seriously though, item #1 comes up surprisingly often in reps. Try the
search command, if you're stuck.

I found myself repeatedly wishing for current data on
races and skills on the official RetroEQ site, so I 
did a thing.

First, I dug up an old backup I had of the code - one
from July of 2007 (the same week the first iPhone was 
released ;)

I uploaded it to a git repo - and yes, more than happy
to have committers help out. Bug fixes, migrations to 
non-crappy languages, and so on are happily accepted.
Or, feel free to fork if you want to do your own thing
or I get hit by a truck tonight.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/retroeq/
If you're less code inclined, feel free to submit tickets
at that same place about bugs or feature requests. Fair
warning: they'll probably be ignored unless I (or someone
else) decide it annoys us too.

Then I fixed up the data model to support changes to races,
skills, spells, etc and the scripts that scrape that data.
If you want to play with the data directly (and are ok with
it being slightly stale), there is a load script that will
do all the work of setting up a mysql db for you.
https://sourceforge.net/p/retroeq/git/ci/master/tree/db/all.sql

Finally, I made some minor tweaks to be able to hoist the
db and the ui into Google App Engine. Feel free to check out 
my DEV instance: https://retroeq.wl.r.appspot.com/.

Currently, only these queries have data:
- Races (now with remorts)
- Search Skills (skills, spells, and guild associations)
- Retro Doc Search (full text retromud help search)

I also disabled all log-in functionality; I have no interest
in running a duplicate eq db, though maybe I'll get bored and 
implement a read replica to do some bug fixing.

cheers!
Frog

The following are Not-a-Bug(tm):

1. If a stronger light source is in the room, it may be light despite your
darkness effects. This is not a case of the other sources overriding or
canceling out your effects, just the effects being cumulative. 0 + x - y =
a positive number if x > y.

2. "drop all minimally bulky" not affecting certain items is Not-a-Bug(tm).
The syntax is "drop all bulk minimally bulky"

3. Terrain types are mutually exclusive, but they are often defined in ways
that are not thematically mutually exclusive. For example, if a path leads
up the side of a mountain, alongside a river, surrounded by trees in
somewhat cold weather, one could justify calling it a mountain, a river, a
forest, a snowy mountain or a road. None of these takes general priority,
and the distinction is usually left up the the discretion of the coder
about which is the more dominant feature in a given room.

If a room contains multiple relevant features, it is Not-a-Bug(tm) that it
has not picked a certain one. If, however, there is no terrain, or the
terrain's relevant feature is not present in the description (such as if
the aforementioned room was set as deep ocean terrain, for example), please
do rep accordingly.

-Kereth "Not-a-Feature" Midknight

I've been fielding some inquiries and seeing plenty on channels about the
cost of settlement conversions. To clarify the intent behind this cost,
I've added a paragraph to "help settlements." We're not trying to get money
out of the economy with Big Cost(tm) (After all, blind bags have done that
much better, sinking almost 22 million so far in bags alone) so much as
encouraging settlements to be smaller in number and larger in size.

If you're looking for a small number of rooms of public settlement space,
I'd personally encourage you to work with others and add those rooms to a
larger settlement, rather than making your own. Your space is going to be
public anyway, after all.

-Kereth Midknight

The suck command specifies in its helpfile that it can only be used on
humanoid targets. Player dragons are not humanoids, so being unable to use
suck on a dragon is Not-a-Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

I meant nonplayer dragons. Still, THAT isn't a bug.

-Kereth Midknight

Identify range descriptions have been added to help scales.

Wxyz

The following are Not-Bugged(tm):

1. Guilds don't actually have separate means of calculating spell damage
from your stats and training. This is a common point of confusion, as
reported rates of getting max damage on a spell by players often are
rounded with a bias in one direction or another (ranging from "gamer brag"
to "my guild needs to be buffed"), which rounding errors may lead other
players to feel their spells do more/less per level/stat/training/etc than
the ones in the other guild and then rep it accordingly.

Close examination of spell results always leads to the same conclusion that
there isn't actually a difference. This is because those spells are using
the exact same code, just with different variable choices (stats, dtype,
etc) and flavor texts. The calculations don't vary from guild to guild, and
nobody's getting favored or hobbled, as such.

2. Components are all uniquely flagged by the game as their component type,
regardless of how you can personally target them. This means that if being
unable to target a component by the string mentioned in the skill/spell
help doesn't mean it's not going to work. Likewise, spells that use the
standard component listing in their help will not consume random objects in
your inventory with that name.

Carrying a headless horseman's skull, a skull puppet, a skull relic and a
skull on a chain in your inventory will not allow you to even cast ring of
death, let alone use up those items to do so. Having a skull component and
those items, and reordering your inventory in any given combination, will
also not cause it to use those items instead of the component. If you did
lose one of those items, the spell wasn't where it went.

-Kereth Midknight

Aligned shelter effects (those that allow individuals of the proper
alignment to pass through them freely) are not able to be bypassed via free
action effects. This is a perk of such shelter types and is Not-a-Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

a PSA: "holy weapon" does not make the weapon good-aligned.

so if you want +3 to hit in the slot that enchant weapon usually covers,
poke a pally^^

Without divulging mechanics, suffice to say that there is not a bugged or
inverted link between chaotic corruption, luck or training in chaos
control. At those points where those factors actually interact at all, they
do so in an intended and intuitive way, although I make no promises about
which checks those are or whether or not those are the full list of factors
involved at any given point in the process.

-Kereth "I checked and whatever it is isn't broken" Midknight

If you're interested in buying disco ammo, mail me what ammo type(s) you'd
be looking for.

Pet spellcasting does not display damage numbers to the room any more than
casts by anyone does. Only the caster (the pet in this case) sees the
numbers. Such spells do, however, affect the dpr of the pet's owner, even
if you don't see the details when the spell triggers. As such, this is
Not-Bugged(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

Salty/Pheonix/Pal died pre-boot

Terts provide only one skill or spell apiece. Most, if not all, terts
provide bonuses to more than one category of skill and/or spell. Each skill
or spell belongs to only one category. This means that most of the category
bonuses you will receive from a tert will not be to the same category as
that tert's one skill or spell.

While we welcome any petitions related to skill or spell category bonuses
which are somehow thematically or mechanically inappropriate to the guild
that provides them, a tert giving a bonus to a category in which it does
not provide an ability is Not-a-Bug(tm), so long as that category bonus is
correctly listed among the tert's info.

-Kereth Midknight

Offering the xp for GIDs, with the following caveats:
a) limited time offer, good until I run out of excess xp
b) good for items that are likely inaccurately listed in the eq db
c) you must be responsible for updating the db with the correct info (I
cannot)

cheers -
frog

For a mixture of realism and balance reasons (but more the latter), the
following is declared Not-a-Bug(tm):

If you are leading as a contingency leader (thus directing the party from
the back instead of the front), and you order the party to move, and the
rest of the party can move, but you can't, you CAN be left behind.
Thematically, this is one of the perils of leading from be back instead of
from the front. Balance-wise, this is maintained so that
lead-by-contingency doesn't gain an advantage over lead-by-leader by virtue
of having one less party member who can be accidentally left behind.

Note, however, that if the contingency leader is going to be left behind
due to exhaustion, they -can- enter the movement command twice, in order to
send the party out and then immediately catch up before the next round of
combat ticks. It's your responsibility to do this, however. The MUD will
not automatically do it for you.

-Kereth Midknight

Odd though it may seem, the npc-using-player-race physiology fix of
yesteryear also had the effect of making certain npcs with player races use
the "lightly damaged" etc scale for scan/look current health descriptions.
Since this comes up periodicially in reps, I thought it best to do a
general post to clarify that this is Not-a-Bug(tm), the mob you're fighting
is not weird in some way, and this is not another symptom of whatever
problem you may currently be having.

-Kereth Midknight

If you're familiar with the chaos corruption mechanic and can explain it to
me please send me a tell/mail doing so.

The builtin targeting option for threaded items is "thread" not "threaded".
If you try to "get all threaded" and fail to pick something up, this is
actually Not-a-Bug(tm). That said, this comes up often enough that I've
submitted a patch for maybe, eventually making "threaded" also be accepted.
For the time being, however, please try to remember that "thread" and
"nothread" are the preferred syntaxes.

-Kereth Midknight

Just a reminder that "No damage to worn armor" is not a real newbie
advantage. Your weapons are protected until level 18, but no newbie
advantage exists for preventing damage to armor. Damage to eq scales with
damage taken, so this is not a protection newbies generally have much need
for. If you get kneed in the groin at level 10 and it damages your pants,
it is Not-a-Bug(tm).*

-Kereth Midknight

* Technically, if you get a knee to the groin and it damages your helmet or
shoulderpads or so on, it's still not a bug, but I'll grant it's pretty
weird. Unfortunately, our code does not have support for making sure armor
damage is on a thematically relevant slot.

So, Froggy found the portal on Welstar, so, if we get the peeps,
we will go for it. Please send a mudmail or otherwise start 
a party and Lionhart will check through out the day for signs
of extra helpers.

Thank you all,
L.

Wanted to send a "Thank YOU" to the other members of the party 
today to complete the Remortal quest for Lionhart!

So, Thanks again to -

Avala, Froggy, Gunt, Lint, Nock, Sabotender, and Torch!!!

Lionhart, the now a newbie again, Remortal.

There's a typographical error in the last Thank You posting, so,
Thank YOU Keylos!!!

Feeling a bit like a Lah-ooo-ser at the moment.

LF wiz that can xp/goldfree reinc

knuckles
knuckles
if anybody logs in before boot who can sell loot, I have some sitting in my
tower-keep 3sw of chantry. I -think- I have everyone I can think of
friended. P1 is all solo loot, no split. thanks in advance.

The update to staves allows each limb wielding a staff to count as a
separate weapon. It does not simply add the left handed attacks you would
normally get to your right handed weapon. This is particularly relevant
when wielding a staff in something other than your first and second hands.
With ambidexterity and double hit trained, and not whirling, you should and
do see the following attack numbers:

1 + 2 limbs: a staff
    4 hits (two left handed with staff, two right handed with staff)

1 limb: a dagger
2 + 3 limbs: a staff
    4 hits (two left handed with staff, two right handed with dagger)

1 + 4 limbs: a staff
2 + 3 limbs: a staff
    4 hits (two left handed with staff b, two right handed with staff a)
    Note that this requires ahrimazda's awield.

1 limb: a dagger
2 limb: a dagger
3 + 4 limbs: a staff
    4 hits (all with daggers)

If you have four limbs, those same skills and whirling trained, you get:
1 limb: a dagger
2 + 3 limbs: a staff
    6 hits (two left handed with staff, two right handed with dagger, one
third hand with staff, one fourth hand unarmed)

1 + 4 limbs: a staff
3 + 4 limbs: a staff
    6 hits (two left handed with staff, two right handed with staff, one
third hand with staff, one fourth hand with staff)

1 + 2 limbs: a staff
3 + 4 limbs: a staff
    6 hits (two left handed with staff a, two right handed with staff a,
one third hand with staff b, one fourth hand with staff b)

Not getting 8 hits per round as an awield ahrimazda without whirling is
DEFINITELY Not-a-Bug(tm).

-Kereth Midknight

thanks to everyone who joined NECROMUD today. Final count was... a lot of
exp. I forgot to check soz.

Loktai wrote:
>thanks to everyone who joined NECROMUD today. Final count was... a lot of
>exp. I forgot to check soz.
>
The xp total was 5.7mil across 6.5 hours.  Lead by our fearless leader
Loktai.

Targets for items, mobs and so forth are generally lower case. If you try
to target something by the capitalized version of its name and fail, that
is Not-a-Bug(tm).

As per the earlier discussion in ideas-wanted, being animal physiology does
not mean a mob should give Hunter ranks. If a mob is humanoid and doesn'g
give hunter ranks, it's Not-a-Bug(tm).

If you check out an item from a check room, it will thread to you
automatically. Threaded items cannot be checked in to check rooms. Thus it
is Not-a-Bug(tm) if you are unable to check an item back into the check
room after borrowing it.

-Kereth Midknight

got the reinc itch. mail me your thoughts. 4 wishes or less, iirc.

PSA for those using zodiaque travel:

there's currently a bug with the sagittarius / saggitarius sign. Namely,
that one of these spellings is created, but the other one is required for
travelling to it.

so if you're using "create mark" in the hope of returning to a room, and
get sag(g)it(t)arius, best destroy it and try for a different one until the
bug is fixed.

Possessed wrote:
>PSA for those using zodiaque travel:
>
>there's currently a bug with the sagittarius / saggitarius sign. Namely,
>that one of these spellings is created, but the other one is required for
>travelling to it.
>
>so if you're using "create mark" in the hope of returning to a room, and
>get sag(g)it(t)arius, best destroy it and try for a different one until
the
>bug is fixed.
>
Missspelling has been fixed.  Might take til boot to fix any existing marks
affected.

Wxyz

F.Y.I. "<Char> looks warily at the fire." is the changeling emote "cfire".
Changeling mobs thus produce this emote regularly, even in the absence of
any fires, so this is, I guess, not a bug? It is, I admit, pretty weird for
mobs to behave this way, but due to the obscurity of the issue and
difficulties involved in changing it, it's probably not going to be altered
any time soon.

-Kereth Midknight