New Fantasy PBM Game Nearing Beta-test... From: tuff@ellis.uchicago.edu (Geoff Tuffli) Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 00:38:29 +0000 I'm pleased to announce that New World will be running a beta-test of our PBM "The Myths of Daar" no later than mid-July, and possibly as early as the middle of June. The beta-test will be conducted by email, and those participating throughout at least 70% of the duration will receive, courtesy of New World, five free turns for any single position when the game goes through its first official run. The beta-test will be slightly different from the official run, namely in that, unlike the official run, the beta-test will be closed- ended, most likely about 10 turns, and will be on a smaller map, how much smaller depending upon the number and type of positions chosen by the beta- testers. For the beta-test, players may take no more than one ruler position, but any number of hero positions, provided they are able to complete turns. It should be noted that there is no guarantee that your positions will be anywhere near each other on the map. MoD (Myths of Daar) is an open-ended fantasy play-by-mail that is computer-moderated. It has the capacity for at least 250 positions, and possibly more depending upon the certain programming factors. New World has an agreement with the programmer for reasonable updates in the future, so there will very likely be updates in the program code at unspecified intervals. There is no set-up fee, and there is not cost for the rules. The only cost is the by-turn fee per position, of which a player may have any number they can afford. Position costs range from $2.50 a turn for a warrior character to $5.00 for a standard ruler, to $7.00 for a vampire ruler, should one conquer a settlement. There is no per-order fee, and turnaround is expected to be three weeks. The first official version will be running most likely around Fall of '93, although this could be earlier or later depending upon the results of the beta-test. The beta-test's turn-around, BTW, will be two days for the first three turns, four days for the next three turns, and one week for the final four turns. The game has been designed with several factors in mind; we are thankful for the comments posted on a previous query to this newsgroup. It is designed to be extremely easy for a new player to begin; a straight warrior hero position is very simple, and takes only rudimentary knowledge of the rules. A ruler or priest character, on the other hand, is much more complex. A hero of any type, warrior, priest, mage, vampire, may by conquering a settlement by treachery or planning or simple brute force become a ruler. The character loses none of their own abilities or advantages, and gains those of a ruler. Their per-turn fee will increase to at least $5.00, and $7.00 in the case of a vampire, however. The problem with open-ended games favoring entrenched players has been dealt with by the fact that the farther a person's units are from the ruler or leader, the less likely their orders have of reaching the units. At ranges of up to 20 square diameter, this is not a major problem, and only comes into play if one has a vast kingdom. While this makes strict kingdoms difficult to support, it encourages empires: if a ruler is able to force another player into vassalage, they effectively become a ruler, with lesser rulers under them, and this way can expand into an empire. Thus, it is extremely difficult for any single player to totally dominate the game. On the other hand, it has also been designed to have an enormous diversity of options. Characters and nations may be of several races, including trolls and giants, and racial hatreds mean advantages for attacking heriditary enemies and difficulties in getting troops of hostile races to work together. Priests can convert populations, and even make a grab for power, very likely creating a schism, and two religions where there was one before. Mages, too, can be experienced in everything from necromancy to demon summoning to elemental control to more mundane magics such as the crafting of runed weapons. Players may even be vampires, and ultimately create vampire kingdoms that use the populations as human sheep to feed their lords' thirst; vampires may even create armies of vampires, although this is exceptionally harrowing, as these troops must be fed... Neutrals abound, and a hero might even dare attempting to bend to their cause dragons and undead legions, or even groups of bandits. If you are interested, please feel free to send email to tuff@ellis.uchicago.edu, and I'll email a copy of the rules to you. The rules undoubtedly still have typos, confusing sections, and unclear rules. We'd greatly appreciate any comments and suggestions on fixing what is already there, and in suggesting ideas for the next update. We'd also like to hear from people who might be interested in the beta-test. We look forward to hearing from you! Geoff Tuffli tuff@ellis.uchicago.edu New World Editor Up