That's it. I quit. Again.

[Ziram]

I've been without a game to play for a very long time. I decided to return to Sojourn after a very long hiatus. I used to have a lot of fun on this mud, but now I've only found frustration. My real life friends don't play anymore and this has left me with no one to group with, literally. Do a who list at any time of the day and two thirds of the people will be over forty. I've gotten some characters up to 16, but then I'm too big to solo and too small to group since there's no one under 20. I've gone from class to class trying to find a character that can solo up to a decent level.
Today, I made a barbarian shaman. I gave him all the equipment I had been given and was enjoying him. After a very long trek to Waterdeep this happened:
< P: std > s
The Great Market Square of Waterdeep
This large open area is nearly a hundred feet in diameter, with a raised
platform at it's center. It appears that this is where traveling merchants
from other towns come to trade their goods. The platform might be used
for large auctions, or where town criers could shout out news and information.
Two large roads lead away from here, the largest in all the city. The Delzaren
road to the east and west, and the Street of Silks to the north and south.
Exits: - North - East - South - West
A pool of blood covers the ground.
Corpse of Kwirl is lying here.
[2] Corpse of an ancient zombie is lying here.
An ancient zombie stands here groaning and moaning.
The town crier stands at ease.
A guard of the watch stands here, enforcing the law.
A guard of the watch stands here, enforcing the law.
An elite militia guard stands posted here, watching the gate traffic.
An elite militia guard stands posted here, watching the gate traffic.
An elite militia guard stands here, watching for trouble.

< 67h/67H 86p/86P 80v/115V >
< P: std >
An ancient zombie beats you extremely hard.
OUCH! That really did HURT!

< 56h/67H 86p/86P 80v/115V >
< T: Lon TC: small wounds E: zombie EC: excellent P: std > s

Oteb flies in from the north.

< 56h/67H 86p/86P 80v/115V >
< T: Lon TC: small wounds E: zombie EC: excellent P: std >
Oteb flies south.

< 56h/67H 86p/86P 81v/115V >
< T: Lon TC: small wounds E: zombie EC: excellent P: std > Sorry, you aren't allowed to do that in combat.

< 56h/67H 86p/86P 81v/115V >
< T: Lon TC: small wounds E: zombie EC: excellent P: std > flee

An elite militia guard half kills you with his mighty slash!
You are mortally wounded, and will die soon, if not aided.

< -10h/67H 86p/86P 81v/115V >
< P: rcl > You are in pretty bad shape, unable to do anything!

< -10h/67H 86p/86P 81v/115V >
< P: rcl > You lose a level!
Your magic armor fades away.

*** Welcome to Sojourn ***

0) Leave Faerun for a Time.
1) Enter the realms of Sojourn.
2) See who is currently playing.
3) Read the background story.
4) Change your password.
5) Enter your character description.
6) Delete this character.

Make your choice:

I can't stand this crap. Why the hell did the damn guard assist a fucking zombie?! I know this crap happens all the time. I remember back on Sojourn 2 when that damn demon attacked me outside of Griffon's Nest and the guards assisted it. I can put up with that crap when I'm playing an evil race character. It's supposed to be difficult. But I made my shaman a barbarian because I wanted to be able to walk through a town without having to worry about being killed. I was wrong. Fuck this crap. If I'm going to have to fear for my life ever damn second I'm playing, I'll go play Duris. I hate that mud, but at least I can get to level 20 in two days instead of two months.
I've never been able to find a mud that comes close to Sojourn, but there's just too many problems that never get fixed. It's boring as hell. There's forced grouping, but no one to group with. And this stupid guard crap that people have been complaing about forever. Games are supposed to be fun, but this has just been one headache after another.

[Corth]

There's forced grouping, but no one to group with

Thats basically the problem. On toril when there was 250+ people on it was difficult enough to find groups as a noob if you didnt know anyone. Now with a smaller player base its much much harder. The NHC, and the newbie forum are helpful as far as information. They don't help with actual gameplay which is frankly, too difficult unless you can find a group...

Ziram, I actually would consider rolling an evil if I were you. It might sound counter-intuitive because the evils have an even smaller pbase than goodies. However, from what I'm told, because their pbase is so small, they are more willing to help strangers. Anyway, good luck wherever you end up.

Corth

[Bipple]

I assume this would be considered a case of pkill as I'm sure Kyrend knew what would happen togging aggro pets at the guards. I wouldn't give up the game due to the stupid actions of one player.

[Dalar]

who's the dumbass who left an ancient zombie in GMS?

[Pheten]

http://sojourn3.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10120

[Dalar]

roflmao that's who I was guessing it is

[Ziram]

I have played evils. I really wanted to play a dire raider because they were a new class and sounded interesting. Then I discovered that Bloodtusk is north of BGR, about as far away from DK as you can get. Now THAT sucked! Being the only evil player north of Waterdeep and no way to get past the gnolls, wildcats, and vines. I made a drow invoker, as well. I got powerleveled by Zizev (thanks a lot!) to 9 or so and soloed up to 16. After that I was stuck. I was trophied out on satyrs. I could kill merchants and giants sometimes, but if they could also kill me in one or two hits if they got lucky. It wasn't worth the risk. I logged on once and I was the only evil on under 25, maybe even 30. Before that I had made a duergar elementalist because I read elementalists were the best at soloing. I leveled fast on rothe island, but that dried up quickly. My knowledge of the Underdark is very limited and I didn't know where to go after that. I know DK and Mir forest well and really wanted to get there. Someone was kind enough to get me to DK, but as I was running to the inn to rent, I passed the fountain and there were some demons or something there that killed me in one hit. Figures.

[Ragorn]

I don't understand why code issues like this can survive for seven years and live through ten different threads urging the gods to fix it. Guards are killing newbies in hometowns due to ridiculous mob AI left over from staple diku code. Can't somebody take an hour or two and dig into the guard code to flag all hometown guards to not assist mobs under any circumstances?

[Ashiwi]

That would keep guards from assisting townsfolk, and in cities like Waterdeep they really should assist local citizens. Wouldn't it be easier to flag an entire zone the way they do for justice? Flags something like allow_aggro/disallow_aggro would cause hometown guards to hunt down aggro mobs and kill them. You could still keep the pain in Bloodstone that way, at least. Don't guards automatically hunt down shaman spirits?

[asamoth]

I don't understand why code issues like this can survive for seven years and live through ten different threads urging the gods to fix it. Guards are killing newbies in hometowns due to ridiculous mob AI left over from staple diku code. Can't somebody take an hour or two and dig into the guard code to flag all hometown guards to not assist mobs under any circumstances?

Actually they originally made it that way cuz ht guards use to assist people of same align over mobs, which would end up with people draging displacer beast to gate guards to get them whacked.
Only sorta decent solution I could thing of is having them do a level check, and if the mob a pc is fighting is < 30 or so, then have them assist the pc if same align. Which would result in smushed neutral/evil pc's, but that should be fine.

[Sartorix]

Mobs have "race" flags just like players do, except mob races include reptiles, undead, demon, etc. so the mud <i>can</i> tell a zombie from a kitten.
Guards should look at the race of the player, the race of the mob, and their own race. Let's face it, without spells, a guard wouldn't be able to determine my alignment by just looking at me, but he could tell that I'm a human.
Then there should be a routine that compares the three. A human guard should not assist a zombie against a dwarf. I'm not saying that the guard should assist the dwarf against the zombie though.
I can't believe that such a sub-routine would be so complicated that it's not worth adding. It would definitely fix a major problem that this mud has, and I think it should be near the top of the target list of bugs.[/list]

[Nekler BlazingWolf]

Easy way to fix this?
Change guard code to check mobs vnum and only assist that mob if its from the same zone the guard is in. Keeps people from draging in mobs from other zones to have guards kill them, and keeps mobs from other zones getting assist from a guard that shouldn't be assisting them.

My two cents.

[Kifle]

Easy way to fix this?
Change guard code to check mobs vnum and only assist that mob if its from the same zone the guard is in. Keeps people from draging in mobs from other zones to have guards kill them, and keeps mobs from other zones getting assist from a guard that shouldn't be assisting them.

My two cents.

That wouldn't fix the problem with the GN demon and other things of that nature though.

[Nekler BlazingWolf]

True, it wouldn't.
Then again, someone has to let it out.
But on that same note, someone also had to put those zombies in WD.
Sure, there would be some problems it wouldn't fix, but it would fix the zombie thing, wouldn't allow mobs to be tracked back to guards to be twinked if guards were changed to assist players, ect.
It would fix the problem elves have and so on though.
I think anyway. Never been an elf, so dunno if its all same zone or not.

[Valke]

I have played evils. I really wanted to play a dire raider because they were a new class and sounded interesting. Then I discovered that Bloodtusk is north of BGR, about as far away from DK as you can get. Now THAT sucked! Being the only evil player north of Waterdeep and no way to get past the gnolls, wildcats, and vines. I made a drow invoker, as well. I got powerleveled by Zizev (thanks a lot!) to 9 or so and soloed up to 16. After that I was stuck. I was trophied out on satyrs. I could kill merchants and giants sometimes, but if they could also kill me in one or two hits if they got lucky. It wasn't worth the risk. I logged on once and I was the only evil on under 25, maybe even 30. Before that I had made a duergar elementalist because I read elementalists were the best at soloing. I leveled fast on rothe island, but that dried up quickly. My knowledge of the Underdark is very limited and I didn't know where to go after that. I know DK and Mir forest well and really wanted to get there. Someone was kind enough to get me to DK, but as I was running to the inn to rent, I passed the fountain and there were some demons or something there that killed me in one hit. Figures.

I had the same problems as you. Started off and new nothing, Sojourn 3 was my first mud and, rarely did I ever use a computer before that time.
I was stuck in DK/Mir for days and days, 27pdays I believe and was able to level to 27 from killing Satyrs and Voadkyns. Seems like every three times I would kill a A giant or a merchant I got axed. Like you, I too grew tired of not being able to group and wanted more out of the game, I wanted to explore and group with people, I couldnt wait to zone. So I rolled a troll warrior and away I went, leveled him up! and got him to 50 after about 60pdays I died so many fukn times it was unbelievable, ("You can tell Grps mudding again, his corpses are all over.") but I kep going and going. And soon got into group and was happy, then I got bugged too much... So I decided to roll an enchanter, I found my groove. Hyssk was beautiful, gettn killed by monkeys and misquetos, hippos and snakes, finally I got out of hyssk and was pleveled quite a bit. I guess what I am trying to to tell you is.. Dont get depressed keep pressing on and things will look brighter. Stick with one character and Exp it, group when you can,
cause someday you will be asked to group, and depending on which class/race you choose at some point you will be ordered to group. You will get bugged all the time, people asking for this and that, groups telling you "consent me". Hey ill help you out if you need, I understand your frustration. look for me Grp/Ssirri/Valke

Grp, 60 pdays man I tried to tell people that playin a warrior was hard for me, they all said "shit why dont you try a chanter if you want hard".

Ssirri 25 pday. Ssirri is my enchanter and at 47 25pdays is damn good for me. this character has been alot easier to play, alot easier to level, and alot less stressful in zoning. SO HAHAHAHAHAH! I WIN! 24 of those pdays are in hyssk at level 1. :( kiddns


Grp.... Tried too hard at times, Sszantiel spotted the farm back there.

[Shevarash]

For what it's worth, we've discussed a fix that should eliminate silliness like what you describe, and it should be implmented soon.