Dawn of the Dawn (computer game)
Dawn is next UNItopia one of the oldest German MUD - computer games . It was founded in 1992 in Münster . Most of the German-language MUDs that have been created since then are technically based either on Dawn or on UNItopia.
The world
Dawn takes place in a fantasy world that is divided into rooms. Rooms are each individual objects with description / entrances / inventory that can be entered with the player object. MorgenGrau now comprises around 20,000 rooms, which are divided into different areas such as plains, polar, desert, forest, far west, mountains, shadow world, lost land, jungle, islands and underworld.
As a player, you can choose between eight different races when you log in for the first time: human, elf, dwarf, hobbit, feline, dark elf, goblin or orc. Each race starts in the game in its own area.
As a feline you are automatically in the guild of the cat warriors, as an elf in the guild of the treetop runners and as a dark elf in the guild of the dark elves. All other races begin their playing career in the guild of adventurers. You can freely choose a guild (with slight restrictions) in the course of a player's life and change as often as you like. There are the following other guilds: Karate, Chaos, Fighters, Wizards, Beer Shakers, Tanjian and Clergy. The main purpose of these guilds is to increase the combat power of a player through newly learnable abilities (skills) in order to be able to compete against (increasingly strong) NPCs . Depending on the guild, the fight is based on different principles. For example, the karate fighters only use hands and feet to fight, the fighters can only handle weapons, whereas the magicians can only fight their opponents sensibly with spells.
Game concept
As usual in MUDs, there is no set goal in Dawn either. The game controls are largely the same as in other MUDs .
To improve their skills, players can level up. Dawn has a tier system; If a player has 100 so-called level points (which are made up of several individual values), he can increase his player level. By specifically researching (ie looking at) rooms and objects, players can receive so-called research points in some places. One researcher point counts for six level points. Furthermore, the adventures are an important part of the dawn, you get level points by solving official and mini-quests, whereby a quest usually consists of a mixture of an action (comparable to a text adventure ) and slaughter component. However, there are also some quests for multiple players that they can only complete with cooperation .
There are many monsters in the game. If a player kills one of these, he can receive experience points. Experience points are included in the level points with a special calculation: level points are awarded for experience points . You also get a number of permanent level points for killing strong monsters for the first time.
With a higher level you can learn more powerful combat skills and get more clues about hiding places for potions at the oracle. The 80 available magic potions permanently increase the attributes of a figure, consisting of endurance, intelligence, dexterity and strength, which indirectly increases the points of life and concentration, makes stronger weapons usable and increases the impact power.
If a player has achieved certain requirements (these were changed again and again in the "life" of the game - they always include a certain number of solved quests, defeated monsters etc.), he can be promoted to seer by Merlin . This gives him certain privileges, for example a house that he can design as he likes.
A seer can be promoted to magician at any time. As a magician (programmer) he is no longer allowed to actively participate in the game, but to participate in the development of the dawn. However, the real person behind the magician may continue to participate in the game with other players (characters).
The death of the game character does not play a significant role at dawn, the player receives a temporary reduction in attributes and attacks and loses some combat experience points, but does not lose any other combat and magic skills or other level points. The attribute points recover to their original value. So it can be that death is more common than in other MUDs, but there are fewer consequences to fear. Life and concentration points (also known as magic points) are mainly replenished by eating and drinking in pubs.
Technical basis
MorgenGrauen is an LDMud and is programmed in LPC . Due to the move of the server from Berlin to Cologne early February 2007, dawn is the original LPMud- Game Driver , Lars Pensjö that was used since 1992 to the company resulting from this development LDMud switched from Lars Düning.
The class library (so-called Mudlib ) from MorgenGrauen has found wide use in other MUDs and, together with that of UNItopia, is the most widespread among German-speaking MUDs. MorgenGrauen and UNItopia have decisively shaped the development of MUDs in German-speaking countries.
particularities
Blind friendliness
Dawn offers some blind-friendly functions:
- Switch off the ASCII graphics
It is possible to switch off ASCII graphics (ie graphics that are displayed with text characters) so that a screen reader can read the corresponding passages without any problems, and the blind player is not prevented from playing the dawn game.
- Switching off the output of text in a room
To cover longer distances at dawn, you often have to “walk” through a large number of rooms. This usually creates a lot of text, as each room has a description about 5–10 lines long. The Dawn now offers to display room descriptions as a short summary in one line (or to read them to a blind person), or to suppress the output entirely. The corresponding command can of course also be used by "normal" players in order not to produce too much output when running script-controlled paths.
- Sound output
The Dawn helps to emit a signal tone for text messages or the like in order to draw the attention of a blind person to it.
- Player Initiatives
Various blind players of the dawn are available as contacts for new blind players, test blind aids or screen readers as well as blind-friendly programming.
Team fight
A special feature of Dawn is the so-called team fight . Several players can form a team and fight together. Teams are organized in battle lines, whereby the first row can fight directly with the monster, the rest of the team only through magic or something similar. The players in the first row can also protect the rear players. The team fight also offers an organized fight start and a team channel, as well as the allocation of first kill points to a team member in the room who does not yet have it.
Player Numbers
At the moment (2009) around 9,400 players are registered at dawn, although it should be noted that a real person may register several players (so-called "second players" or "secondies"). On the other hand, players who have not achieved much are automatically deleted after a longer absence. In any case, it can be assumed that several thousand real people have visited the dawn.
On a normal evening (peak time) around 30–60 players and second players are present at dawn.
connection
Dawn can be reached on the server mg.mud.de on port 23 or 4711 via Telnet and via port 992 via stunnel . Alternatively, there is also a web Telnet interface.
As is common practice in MUDs, playing at dawn is completely free (except for any internet charges).
Individual evidence
- ↑ "help level points" at dawn
- ↑ http://mg.mud.de/newweb/hilfe/faq/faq4.shtml#AUFSTIEG
- ^ The updated German MUD list ( Memento from March 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ http://mg.mud.de/newweb/hilfe/blind.shtml