From Mazeworld

Revision as of 15:17, 31 October 2014

Latest released Mazeworld update: MazeWorld v3/CRU3 - 18-10-2014
Next planned update: MazeWorld v3/CRU4 - 31/10/2014

Future

October 31st 2014

Community Requested Updates part 4 (CRU4)

IMPORTANT NOTE: As this update promises the rest of the planned Valuables expansion, which had to be split in two due to the new augs not being all introduced, all players with a currently alive Contestant (including unaugmented ones) will be offered 1500 P$ in bionics workshop credit, and will immediately reappear in a bionics workshop in order to give these Contestants the possibility to remove any old-generation bionics they have, if any, as well as the chance to replace them with similar current-gen augmentations. This will give a chance to all Contestants to start over on the bionics side of things, maybe even return to an unaugmented state if they wish to.

The Pain system revamp

• Essentially, this is a modification of the various Pain thresholds (Hurt/Agony/Blackout/Death), particularly an expansion of the Blackout window and its effects on a creature, meant to replicate the effects of shock.
• The term "maximum Pain threshold" now refers to the amount of Pain needed until blackout instead of the one until death. Death always occurs 50% Pain
• Hits in the LIMB or EXTREMITY body groups no longer lead to capped Pain. They CAN immediately kill once again, if the hit was sufficiently powerful.
• The unmodified death threshold is pushed to 150% Pain instead of 100%. Blacking out now occurs between 100% and 149%, and means a complete inability to move or act until either death or waking up (Pain goes back under 100%) occurs, barring other extraneous means.
• Other thresholds do not change, but have varying effects; for instance, being Hurt (40% to 69%) causes FT+1, and Agony (70% to 99%) causes FT+2, again to simulate shock, and incite not to receive too much Pain at once even if it doesn't means death or blackout.

Expanded Poison system

• Poison now exists in two types; Venom-type and Cyanide-type. Nearly all current "Poison-type" attacks and effects are converted to Venom-type, while anything involving Cyanide syringes (see below for details) become Cyanide-type.
• Cyanide-type poison works like the old Poison system - when poisoned, a turn countdown begins, and if an antidote isn't administered before the end, instant death occurs. Cyanide poisoning is now treated as a secondary effect rather than a statistic. The corresponding antidote is Hydroxocobalamin (syringe).
• Venom-type poison, which replaces the Poison counter with a Venom counter. The new Venom counter now tracks the amount of venom in the sufferer's bloodstream, and is compared to the current amount of Blood. Depending on the quantity of Venom injected compared to the current amount of blood, various effects may be suffered.
  • Each successful Venom-type attack on a creature that is not naturally resistant to poison, results in that creature's Poison counter going up by 1. Venom-type poison isn't naturally eliminated, and must be treated with antivenom or at a Hospital room.
  • Venom counter superior to zero, but inferior to 25% Blood: Will damage 1 HP on a random body part, or damage 1 meat worth on non-human creatures, every turn.
  • Venom counter superior to 25% max blood but inferior to 50% Blood: Will damage 2 HP on a random body part, or damage 2 meat worth on non-human creatures, every turn.
  • Venom counter superior to 50% Blood: Will damage 4 HP on a random body part, or damage 4 meat worth on non-human creatures, every turn.
  • The corresponding antidote is the current Universal antidote, which is renamed Universal antivenom. Each vial of antivenom instantly cures 5 Venom.

Related changes:

• Paracetamol is modified so that it only cures 15% Pain per use, and no longer causes poisoning from taking two under 10 turns of each other. Paracetamol can now be swallowed by the shovel and no ill effects will be suffered, and is intended to become the cheap, always-reliable painkiller. ("Pills here!")
• The Amulet of the North is modified to provide protection against Cyanide-type poisoning: If the Amulet of the North is worn, Cyanide poisoning requires an extra 5 turns before causing death.
• All blueprints detailing the creation of poison ammunition will now list both Cyanide and Venom as suitable ingredients, each with corresponding effects. Cyanide-tipped ammo is the successor to the old Poison ammo (they'll simply be renamed "Cyanide <ammo>"), and Venom-tipped ammo becomes craftable, and will work just like a natural Venom-type attack.
• Cyanide-tipped and Venom-tipped ammunition will also both be findable at random as well as sold in shops, however Cyanide-tipped will be much rarer and harder to find at random. Prices will also be adjusted accordingly; cyanide-tipped is much more lethal, and thus more expensive.

Introducing the Trading Boards

The Trading Boards are both part of the Mazes in-game and a new meta function, as they will allow Contestants to indirectly sell gear to other Contestants, while following certain principles and a few rules.

The Boards offer Contestants the possibility to indirectly sell items to other Contestants. In the game, Contestants buying and selling through the boards do not see each other, or even learn of the identity of each other; all of the intermediate process is handled by the bank. Thus, as far as Contestants are concerned, they are placing items for sale which the bank holds onto in one of their many vaults, wait for it to be sold, then receive money on their account when it does sell.

Rules and Principles

As the boards rely on circulating (in-game) money and items of value, it will rely on the bank services and particularly the item vault. As such, in order to access the Trading Boards, the Contestant must head to the Bank and request to see the boards. Any items purchased on the TB will be dropped in the buying Contestant's item vault, and any money received from TB sales will be wired directly on the seller Contestant's bank account.

As said before, almost any item can be placed by the Contestant on the boards, if it fits two simple criteria:

• It can be placed in the inventory (supply crates, for example, do not qualify)
• It is not a meaningless item (anything marked as meaningless is not sellable; ie papers, pens, books, etc.)

When an item is placed on the boards, a Listing is created.

• Multiple items can be placed on a single listing if the selling Contestant so desires, forming a bundle which will be sold as a whole. However, there are limits to the amount of items that can be placed in a single bundle (see Limits and Balancing Measures below)
• Listings can remain on the boards indefinitely, until they are sold, or if the seller desires, until it is pulled away.
• A listing's value must be set by the Contestant at 10 P$ minimum, but has no upper limit. Once the Contestant has chosen a value to set their listing at, a flat 11.5% tax is applied to it to obtain the real sell value (may be rounded) - the amount of money other Contestants will have to pay to acquire the items on this listing. When that item is sold, the seller's bank account is wired with the amount of money they had requested, while the tax is explained in-universe as the banker's bonus on handling trading boards transactions.

When placing one or multiple items on a trading boards listing, the bank takes the item(s) away and places it in safe storage. Until the listing is sold or pulled away, the seller MAY NOT access the items, and are kept in storage.

EXAMPLE:

• Contestant A places an item listing and sets its value at 450 P$.
• The listing's buy value thus becomes 502 P$ (450 + 11.5% tax = 501.75, rounded to 502).
• Contestant B sees listing, pays 502 P$ to purchase it.
• A's bank account is wired with 450 P$ , 52 P$ of tax are paid, and B receives the item instantly afterwards .

Limits and Balancing Measures

• As stated above, a 11.5% tax is applied to the price set on all listings. This means that the minimum actual buying value of an item is 12 P$ (11.5 rounded).
• A Contestant cannot have more than one active listing at a time.
  • If we see the need to, e.g. more players creating more demand, the need to use the trading boards increases, the limit may then be raised...
• A single listing may not contain more than 40 weight units worth of items.
  • Regarding weapons, it is perfectly valid to sell them with pre-installed accessories in order to "save" max weight (reminder that mounted accessories do not increase a weapon's weight).
  • For LBE, only FIVE items of this category may be placed, and must be sold empty.
  • For items rated "Unsparable" (which is theoretically above 40 units), only ONE such item may be placed.

• The GM may decide AT THEIR OWN DISCRETION to void a listing if it is deemed inappropriate, if it is discovered to be a scam, or done in an attempt to give an unfair advantage to another player.
  • If required, punishments may be enforced on players attempting to scam or abuse the trading boards. Punishments may vary, and may be as light as simply deleting the listing without returning the items, or as heavy as being banned.

Minor medical changes

• Minor but important expansion of the Wound system: "Woundable" body parts can no longer have just one open wound, but can bear multiple, each of them contributing to Blood loss.
  • Mostly intended to increase realism, particularly to facilitate kills by blood loss on tougher creatures.
• Certain meds will receive modifications as well:
  • Scrapped meds: Bandages and Merbromin vials, scrapped in favor of more realistic counterparts (see below:)
  • New medical item: Gauze roll; Weight 1 item which provides enough gauze bandage to treat up to 10 wounds.
  • New medical item: Individual Bandage (IB); Weight 0.1 item, which can only be used on a single wound.
  • New medical item: Hemostatic Agent Pack (HAP) (essentially QuikClot); Weight 0.1 item of great value and healing power; contains enough hemostatic agent powder to treat up to 5 wounds. HAPs are -very- valuable due to their healing power-weight ratio, and will be accordingly expensive.
  • Modified medical items: First Aid Kit (FAK) and Field Surgery Kit (FSK): On top of providing their usual limb-healing effect, they will work like Military Rations do, and will carry meds in a compact package until opened. FAKs will carry 2 IBs and 2 Paracetamol, while FSKs will carry 4 IBs, 1 HAP, 4 Paracetamol, 1 Epinephrine, 1 Hydroxocobalamin and 1 Universal antivenom.

New augmentations

Augmentations that could not be added until features above were introduced:

• Chest Augmentation Platform augmentations:
  • ColdHeart XR fainting-resistant cardiac regulator. Shrinks the blackout window to 125-149%. PP cost: 20. Cost: 2200 P$.
  • Bionic Antidote bloodstream regulator. Affects poisoning, see below. PP cost: 15. Cost: 1650 P$
    • If Cyanide poisoned, the poison requires an extra 15 turns before causing death.
    • If Venom poisoned, the augmentation enables free, natural elimination of venom, at a rate of 0.1 per turn.

• Extra augmentations:
  • Gem Power Extractor (GPE), the successor to the Gem Cannon. Extracts energy from gems, and provides various effects. PP cost: 20. Cost: 2200 P$.
    • The GPE extracts and draws power from gems the user inserts in a suitable compartment. The GPE can only hold one gem at a time.
    • The GPE requires energy to function. Every time a gem is inserted, 1 charge is consumed in order to break the gem down and discharge its effects on the user. When the GPE is first installed on the user, 20 charges come pre-installed. The GPE can hold a maximum of 40 charges, and charges can be replenished by inserting a HITB battery (1 battery = 20 charges).
    • For a list of effects, see here: List of Gem Power Extractor effects (page will be written on release date).

• Bionic Arm augmentations:
  • Directional Beam Upgrade (DBU), which requires the GPE to function.
    • The DBU is connected to the GPE by means of a sort of retractable arm cannon, installed in one of the user's arms. The principle is simple: it channels the energy extracted by the GPE into a directional beam fired by the arm cannon, so that the effects can be delivered to another creature.
    • If the DBU is used to fire an effect beam, 2 GPE charges are consumed instead of just 1.
    • Using the DBU is like using a weapon - it needs to be aimed, but has a fixed FT of 5.

Valuables expansion part 2

• Completely revamped list of gems, which will bump the total amount of valuable gems to 33 plus 11 glass variants in 11 different gem colors. The list of gems will be updated on the Valuables article in due time.

Other minor additions

• All Missions are now optional, and when passing the single door leading to one, the player will be notified that a mission is coming, and given the choice to head to the mission room, or resume usual progress in the Mazes. This is done in an effort of increasing freedom of movement. Missions also sometimes "cancel out" other scripted events such as shops, which this change aims to correct and restore the possibility to get to shops or otherwise get more time to prepare for incoming missions.

• New weapon, the Short stake], a Class 5 Short weapon made of wood, intended to be a smaller, one-handed version of the Stake.

Latest

October 18th 2014

Community Requested Updates part 3 (CRU3)

• Completely revamped Bionic augmentations system.
  • Augmentations now require installing base parts (replacement or enhancement of body parts with augmented ones, aka basically "the hardware"). Each augmented body part supplies with a certain amount of power, which can be spent into various augmentations which provide the majority of interesting effects (basically, "the software" to pair it with).
  • 6 body parts which can be augmented (arms, legs, brain, eyes, torso, dermal)
  • Over 20 different augs, a lot of which can be upgraded for increased effects and power, and many introducing all-new tools at the Contestant's disposal; From the basic muscular, skeletal and dermal enhancers to the unique hacking aug or Ripperclaws weapon-aug, bionics are the ultimate Contestant customization tool. Whether your style is more "super soldier" or more "super spy", bionics can help your Contestant become anything in between, and more.
    • NOTE: In order to remain fair towards players, all Contestants currently augmented with pre-update Bionics will get a chance to convert to new generation post-update augmentations, or revert to an un-augmented state if they so desire.

• Introduction of an all-new unique environment: the Mines
  • Replacing the Kennels, Mines are an unique area, fitting to the game's theme, where the Contestant may navigate through mineshafts in order to dig out precious ores, to be later turned into valuables.
  • Mines introduce an unique break to the room-based experiment, by offering an unique alternate method to earn money. Mine exploration isn't without risks; the deeper you venture, the higher the chance to meet dangerous creatures inhabiting the mineshafts, but the greater the chance of finding valuable ore patches.
  • Added Mines to the list of scripted events: they are scheduled to appear every 50 rooms starting from the 65th visited room (65th, 115th, 165th, etc...)
  • Added Mines to the event list, to have a chance to find one at random (which Kennels didn't have).

• Going hand-in-hand with the Mines, we introduce an expansion of the valuables system.
  • Copper, Silver, Gold and Platinum ingots are now complemented with two new valuable metals to find and make ingots out of: Palladium and Scandium.
  • Precious metal ingots can now come in various sizes (250g, 500g, and 1000g), which can be appraised at varying rates.
  • Gemstones will also be re-made; while several species will continue to exist, the total amount of gemstones is jumping from 27 to 33 types, with 11 different gem colors in lieu of 9.
  • Each and every gemstone is associated with an unique effect when used in the Gem Power Extractor bionic augmentation, giving another use to gemstones as a source of protective, healing, or otherwise affecting secondary effects.

• Introduction of a new shop, the Jewelry store.
  • As the name suggests, jewelry stores specialize in the sale and purchase of valuables. Naturally, as with all other shops, they may also appraise them.
  • The real attraction of the jewelry store is not their products, but their service, the jewel workshop, which can turn your precious metal ingots into rings, collars and bracelets, and then mount gemstones to these in order to create custom valuables.
  • These custom valuables are a powerful new way to carry large amounts of wealth in little backpack space, as a single custom jewels takes up less space than its raw materials, while being at the same time more valuable! Whether it's for making tons of money or for pure vanity of sitting on overly-expensive shinies, your Contestant may now make his or her own riches.

• Other changes:
  • The Failed, and the legacy special event Survival Mode, will be both scrapped after nearly 4 years of existence.
  • The achievement Order of Superiority is renamed Great Gross of Death, and the conditions are now Kill 1728 creatures. Those who know their math, know the meaning of the name.
  • The pawn shops cease existing, to be replaced with the jewelry stores mentioned above.
  • All combat badge conditions are changed to require less kills, so that it is less unrealistic to achieve all of them
    • Bronze still requires 10 kills - this does not change.
    • Silver requires 25 kills in lieu of 50.
    • Gold requires 50 kills in lieu of 200.
    • Platinum requires 100 kills in lieu of 500.

Older

See the Changelog Archive.