Malevolence Newsletter - Volume I, Issue I. July 18, 1998

Volume I, Issue I *All MUD news thats fit to print* July 18, 1998

Introduction	Welcome to the inagural issue of the Malevolence newsletter. The purpose of this newsletter will be to keep you informed of updates to the MUD as they happen, and in some cases before they happen. There is a lot going on now, and this newsletter will be your best source to stay abreast of the changes.
Now Playing: Your Requests	Though it may not always seem like it, we do listen to your input. In response to some recent requests, a few changes have been made: Complaints about the healer Severinus running out of spells points caused the creation of Leviticus. Though Leviticus does not heal as much per worship as Severinus, he is a worthy addition to the Clerics of the ALL-God. You can find him wandering the road between the Carnival and the Southeast gate. In a similar vein, non-alcoholic beverages have been added to the Toaster Pub in Harborside. You will find more and more of these non- alcoholic beverages showing up in pubs throughout the realms.
AI Update	The AI monsters, those monster with two names such as Orcbiter Ironbutt, have been changed to make identifying those that you can kill easier. The strength line in their description now reflects the combat ability of the monsters rather than their carrying capacity.
New Areas	A few new areas have opened this week, with more soon to follow: The first of these areas is the Dinosaur Volcano area. It is located in southern Twilight and coded by Darktoast. This area is mainly populated with evil dinosaurs, though there are a few other monsters. The monsters levels range from about 17 to 25. Some things to look out for include rockslides and rabies. Some things to look for include many rare spell components. Look for this area to link to another fire related area in the coming weeks. The second area to open is a cannibal village. Set in the swamps of southern Weslar, a group of trolls lies in wait to battle the evil cannibals. There is a puzzle to figure out to escape this area. The monsters range in level from about 3-8, fitting in nicely with the other nearby areas. There are several desirable objects to be found here. The evil Fairweather clan has returned to Newburyport. These nasty folks are mighty tough, and have been sighted on Fruit street. Xanax has offered all the platinum coins you can carry to the first player to bring him the head of a Fairweather.
Mudlib Changes	The ship code has undergone a major rewrite. You will find that the number of ships has increased from one to many, and new ports have been added as well. The Bounty no longer goes to every port, so you may have to change ships to get to your destination. Also the Bounty no longer stops on the beaches of Oceana, but rather stops at the docks of Amfipyron City. You may have noticed that headers such as 'The Center Square of Harborside' have been taken out this week. This is in preparation for a new basic room code that will show the short, the message that you see in brief mode, as the header for every room. The room code will also make all line lengths the same, so there will be a standardized appearance to all areas. You can help out in this effort by using the bug command to report any rooms that you find with headers in them.
Did you know	The high priest of Oraminam will heal you if you make a suitable donation to him? Detailed maps of many of the areas in Malevolence can be found at http://www.teleport.com/~jmcgrott/malev/intro.html? The Ranger, Paladin, and Sorital guilds are located through the north gate of Harborside in the Xanadu domain?
Upcoming Code and Changes	Several new areas are in the works. A graveyard that fills with undead at night is near completion, as is an underground network of lava tubes that lead to a phoenix. Personal ships and possibly a seafarers guild may not to too far away. In response to many requests I have to say that it will be quite a while before the Deepheart area reopens. Cin (who wrote it) is busy with RL concerns, and he intends to finish the Skaven City in the swamps of Baator before he rewrites Deepheart.
Behind the Scenes	Many thanks to Chancellor for purchasing a new server for us! We have just finished configuring a PentiumII 266 with 128 megs of RAM and a 6 gig hard drive. This server will replace the current box, a Pentium 133 with 80 megs of RAM and a 2 gig hard drive as our player site. The current player site will become the dedicated development server. Congratulations to Vilmos and Serrah on the birth of their son! He must have mudding in his blood. Welcome to the USA Perin! Perin the Dwarf, formerly of Siberia, has recently relocated to Houston, Texas. He has several extremely sweet pieces of code nearing completion, including player defined quests. As soon as he gets his ISP set up in Houston, we can expect to see many neat things from him.
Requesting Reviews	Good, bad, or indifferent, we would like for players to post reviews of Malevolence at http://list.ewtoo.org and http://www.mudconnect.com. Reviews, links from your web sites, and articles posted to the newsgroups will help to make Malevolence more popular and increase the number of players. We are growing quickly now, but more is better in this case.
Bug Fixes	The rooms in the evil city of Zolgath that used to give anomality messages will no longer do that. The 'push eye' action in the Monastery of Pythagoras that used to plunge you into a 100 room unescapable hell has been removed. The ships work better than ever! I am sure that many other minor bugs and typos have been fixed, but I cant recall any offhand.