DOORMUD PROFESSIONAL ADD-ON =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Copyright 2001 Evan Elias. Thank-you for purchasing the DoorMUD Professional Add-on. This document explains how to use DoorMUD Professional's features. Additional Files Included ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You may have been sent a ZIP file containing the following: PROSYSOP.TXT -- This document. REGINFO.REF -- If you purchased a standard DoorMUD registration at the same time as the Professional add-on, this file will be included in the zip file. This is your standard DoorMUD registration file. CONFIGPR.EXE -- If you are using the DOS (16-bit) version of DoorMUD, this file should be in the zip. If you are running the DOS version of DoorMUD and did not receive this file, please send an e-mail to RhythmNp@aol.com immediately. ============================================================================== Contents ~~~~~~~~ 1. Features 2. Disclaimer 3. Setup 4. Pro configuration options 5. Recommended Settings ============================================================================== 1. Features ~~~~~~~~~~~ DoorMUD Professional adds the following features to your DoorMUD game: - Increases the max user count to 16 users, meaning that 16 people can play DoorMUD at the same time on your BBS. Please note that hardware and memory restrictions may effectively reduce this number on some systems, especially when using the DOS version of DoorMUD. - New config options to configure these settings: 1. Experient point tables (controls how fast players gain levels) 2. Difficulty mode 3. Player-vs-player level range Please see section 4 for information on these options. ============================================================================== 2. Disclaimer - Agreement ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Users of this program must accept the following: DOORMUD PROFESSIONAL is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of DOORMUD PROFESSIONAL. You may not modify or disassemble this software, in whole or in part. Use of decompilers, hex editors, etc on DOORMUD PROFESSIONAL is strictly forbidden. DoorMUD Professional files and activation codes are NOT public domain. Before running this software, you must agree NOT to distrubute REGINFO.REF in any form. You also may NOT distribute your DoorMUD Professional Activation Code. Should you distribute either these, you will be held liable for any and all damages. ============================================================================== 3. Setup ~~~~~~~~ Installing the DoorMUD Professional add-on is easy. First, unzip dmpro.zip to your existing DoorMUD directory. * If you ordered a basic registration and DoorMUD Professional at the same time, your Professional activation code has already been entered automatically. In this case, DoorMUD Professional is already activated. * If you ordered DoorMUD Professional separately, instructions on entering your DoorMUD Professional activation code should have been e-mailed to you. Once your activation code has been entered, your DoorMUD game will now run in Professional mode. This means that up to 16 users can now play the game at once, instead of the 4-user limit that the basic game had. For an explanation of DoorMUD Professional's other added features, please see the next section. ============================================================================== 4. Pro Configuration Options ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DoorMUD Professional allows you to access several new configuration options. * In the Synchronet (Win32) version of DoorMUD Pro, the new configuration options are automatically available from the in-game Configuration menu. Enter the door with a Sysop account to access this menu. * In the DOS (16-bit) version of DoorMUD Pro, a new program called CONFIGPR.EXE is used to access the new config options. You should now always use this program instead of the old CONFIG.EXE. DIFFICULTY MODE This option can be used to toggle the game's difficulty mode from "standard" to "hard". Standard mode is the same as the basic DoorMUD game, while hard mode makes the game more difficult. Hard mode is HIGHLY recommended if the users of your BBS are experienced MUD players. In hard mode, the following changes occur: - Monsters now have 25% more max hitpoints. Please note that this bonus is not instantly applied to current monsters until the monster is killed once or until the next day when maintenance is run. So do not be alarmed if monster hitpoint displays seem odd the first day that hard mode is enabled; all monsters will be fixed the next time maintenance is run. - Monsters hit for about 20% more damage. - Dead monsters respawn at a faster rate. The actual increase to the respawn rate varies depending on how many players are in the game. The bonus is about 30 seconds faster per player in the game. So if six players are in the game, all dead monsters respawn 3 minutes faster than normal (as compared to standard difficulty mode). - Gold is a little more scarce; it will drop from monsters less frequently. The actual change is somewhat proportional to the Experience Table setting, so that players still make an appropriate amount of gold for each level. - The "rest" command doesn't restore player's hitpoints quite as quickly as it does in standard mode. - Penalties for criminal actions last twice as long as normal. - Fewer game areas have set level restrictions. Several areas that are level-restricted in standard mode can now be entered in hard mode at lower levels through interaction with NPCs. In other words, low-level players can now bribe guards and other NPCs to allow them to enter areas that were previously level-restricted. Since monsters have more hitpoints in hard mode, and resting is slower for players, it will take players slightly longer to kill a given number of monsters in hard mode as compared to standard mode. This also makes hard mode a useful option if you want to be able to let users play longer without needing to greatly increase the daily monster fights. EXPERIENCE TABLES This option can be used to directly increase how long it takes for players to gain levels. Using this option is highly recommended if you have increased the number of monster fights each player gets per day, in order to prevent players from gaining levels too quickly. The experience table setting allows a range from 1x (the game's standard experience table) to 10x (an EXTREMELY high experience table). In other words, a setting of 1 is for the fastest rate of gaining levels, while a setting of 10 is the slowest. Please note that raising this setting mid-game will not cause players to ever "lose" levels. For example, if a player had 20,000 experience points and was level 8 with the default experience table (1x), and you then set the tables to 3x, the player would remain level 8 and still have 20,000 experience, even though reaching level 8 would now ordinarily require much more than 20,000 experience. However, future levels would be affected, so it would take the player an extra-long time to reach level 9. You may have to try out different settings to determine what works best for you and for your players. Be warned that if you set the experience tables low and the monster fights very high, players will "max out" their characters very quickly. On the other hand, if you set the experience tables too high, players will become frustrated with how long it takes to gain levels. Many players find tables above 4x to be much too steep for playing by hand. Please see Section 5 for recommended settings regarding experience tables! PLAYER-VS-PLAYER LEVEL RANGE This setting determines the level restriction for player-vs-player combat. The default is 2 levels, which is the same as in basic DoorMUD. A setting of 2 means that there is a span of two levels for player-vs-player (PvP) fighting. For example, with a setting of 2, a level 10 player can attack other players within the level range of 8 to 12. This setting also controls the level range for robbing other players with the thievery skill. Putting this setting at 0 means that only players of the same level can attack or rob each other; it does not disable PvP. To totally disable PvP, put the setting at -1. With a PvP level range setting of -1, players can never attack each other. Players of the same level can still rob each other, though; there is no way to totally disable thievery, because this would make the Thief and Bard classes underpowered. HIDE WEB SITE ADDRESS This setting prevents the game from displaying the address of the DoorMUD web site on the game's entrance menu and when players exit the game. This option is useful if you don't want your players to find out about the official web site for whatever reason. For example, if you run a pay BBS, you may want to use this option so that players don't find out about the free telnet BBS list on the DoorMUD web site. Please note that the web site address is still displayed in several places throughout the game's help files. To remove these references, you must open up GAME.HLP with a text editor. Search for "http" to find occurances of the web address, and remove those lines if desired. You should probably make a backup of GAME.HLP first to be safe. ============================================================================== 5. Recommended Settings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DoorMUD Professional gives you a lot of options for configuring the game. You will have to select whatever options you feel will work best for your BBS. If you plan on running a very MUD-oriented BBS, you will probably want to set the Daily Monster fights setting fairly high, and then set the Experience Tables proportionally to that. You can use these numbers as a statistical guide to determine your settings: - A skilled player can kill 100 monsters (thus using 100 monster fights) in about 50 minutes in the standard difficulty mode, or about 70 minutes when the game is running in hard mode. - With default settings (35 fights per day and 1x exp tables), it takes about two months for a skilled player to go from level 1 to level 24. This number will vary greatly depending on your experience table settings and daily fight settings. Remember, if you increase the Daily Monster Fights to a very high number, it is HIGHLY recommended that you increase the experience tables as well. Otherwise, players will gain levels MUCH too quickly, and will soon grow bored of the game once they've defeated every monster. You may wish to use the following chart to determine what experience table settings to use: 35 to 70 daily fights: Standard (1x) experience table recommended. 71 to 125 daily fights: 2x experience table recommended. 126 to 300 daily fights: 3x experience table recommended. Over 300 daily fights: 3x table recommended if most players aren't using all of their daily fights. 4x experience table if most players are indeed using all of them. If players are gaining levels using scripting programs to play all day, try 5x or higher. If you think you will have a fairly active DoorMUD game, but are unsure of what settings to use, give the following a try at first: - 300 monster fights per day - 1000 maximum accumulated fights - Hard mode - 3x experience tables - Player-vs-player combat range of 3 levels These settings have been extremely popular on testing boards. You'll probably find that only a handful of players will use all 300 fights every day; most players will tend to use less than that. If you want to run a pay-for-access BBS, this can be easily accomplished. Allow paying users to get unlimited time per day on the BBS, while trial or nonpaying users only get about 30 minutes of access per day. This way, trial / nonpaying users won't be able to use all of their monster fights per day, and hence they'll have an incentive to pay. ============================================================================== If you have any questions or comments about DoorMUD Professional, please consult one of these sources -- - Visit the official DoorMUD webpage: http://dmud.thebbs.org - E-mail the game's programmer: rhythmnp@aol.com