Death March Jan 2013 Fireplane

As part of alteraeon 18th anniversary celebrations dentin ran a death march and tour of the fire plane realm.

Event was in two parts, a tour which was a slow walk through the upper level of the fire plane where dentin revealed some of the history behind the area and a death march of the lower more dangerous parts of the area.

Time of event

Event started about 10am pst on the 15th January 2013 and lasted approx 2 hours. First hour was a tour and the second hour was a death march.

Group

Group size

Group size varied between 35-40 players with about half the mud taking part in the event at any one time.

Participants

The following players took part in event:-

• Alkob
• Almaric
• Alyssabri
• Amasa
• Asclepius
• Bailey
• Burkcy
• Camlorn
• Caroline
• Cheetah
• Corwinte
• Danor
• Daugherty
• Eldrin
• Gordan
• Grist
• Guillermo
• Gunsmoke
• Ironhed
• Jaide
• Jennie
• Joanne
• Katye
• Kerrigor
• Ladislaus
• Laeg
• Laniloa
• Lex
• Lilianne
• Lutfukerim
• Mai
• Malerion
• Maxstat
• Neenah
• Nerri
• Neryll
• Nightmare
• Nocturnus
• Owyn
• Pillowpants
• Pug
• Rejbear
• Remedios
• Rengy
• Rhorae
• Ricolachen
• Rikimaru
• Ryanlow
• Samon
• Shadowfiend
• Starry
• Stefen
• Tamayo
• Trenton
• Trixee
• Truck
• Westie
• Wily
• Wuver
• Xera
• Zenith

Deaths

The following players died during the event:-

• Alkob
• Amasa
• Bailey (2 times)
• Burkcy
• Caroline
• Corwinte
• Grist
• Kerrigor
• Laniloa (8 times)
• Nocturnus
• Samon (2 times)
• Stefen
• Trenton
• Truck (2 times)
• Zenith (2 times)

Summoning

Because the event was off-plane players had to be summoned from the Cathedral in the Temple of Dentin.

Spam

Unlike some of the previous death marches where there was a high level of spam on this occasion it was greatly reduced, thanks to the new filters. The main source was:-

• oom messages
• lightning flashes
• wood gathering

Tour

First half of the event was a tour of the realm.

Narrative

The following is an extract of the narrative while on the tour. It is published as is and shows only the posts to the group warn channel made by dentin. It does not include any chat from the other players in the group from which dentin might be responding to.

Dentin warns the group, 'use warn only for combat or other group management related things.  I really dont want to see 'oom' all over the place'
Dentin warns the group, 'I recommend everyone do 'spam all' to turn on all spam filters, including the extreme filter'
Dentin warns the group, 'please keep low levels sancced and stone skinned if possible'
Dentin warns the group, 'also, be aware that people may very well die in this group'
Dentin warns the group, 'no warranties express or implied etc heh'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok, lets start'
Dentin warns the group, 'back in the olden days, we used portals go add lots of areas, because the game was too small'
Dentin warns the group, 'these posts here, which lead to the marine biolab zone, were based on the movie 'phantasm'.  They used to be anchored in the dark forest east of ralnoth'
Dentin warns the group, 'so the first real area that actually had creatures in it, and actually had objects in it, was the imp and gnome mines which I built. Later on, I built the ice plane, and after that this place, the fire plane'
Dentin warns the group, 'originally, the ice plane was connected to imps because we didnt have anywhere else to put it, then the fire plane was connected below it, because hey, what the hell.  The game was really, really small back then'
Dentin warns the group, 'this also caused a lot of deaths, because newbies would go to the level 5 imps and accidentally fall through the gate and die'
Dentin warns the group, 'feel free to nuke the statues here, I have no love of them'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok - before we do this, some group management stuff'
Dentin warns the group, 'a lot of the mobs in this area are ethereal, and cannot be hit by normal weapons'
Dentin warns the group, 'do not use fire and avoid lightning if possible'
Dentin warns the group, 'also please don't attack anything unless it hits you first or I say its ok'
Dentin warns the group, 'when I started on the ice plane, it was a testing ground for a lot of special code and special features.  We added a lot of specps and so forth for it'
Dentin warns the group, 'the fire plane was that on steroids'
Dentin warns the group, 'I ended up adding the initial code for iacts and dprocs here, which was a complete mess'
Dentin warns the group, 'and most of the mobs in the area, at least this top part, were designed to be pretty'
Dentin warns the group, 'if you ever get the chance, wander around in here and look at the creatures and objects.  there's some really good stuff in here'
Dentin warns the group, 'we're about to go into one of the more special rooms on the game'
Dentin warns the group, 'we're only going to spend a few seconds in there, so pay attention'
Dentin warns the group, 'there's a black pool here on the ground'
Dentin warns the group, 'the pool was one of the first really special things.  It's a piece of custom code that made up nearly all of todays interactive creatures.  The pool is based on the black tarpit thing in star trek the next generation that killed tasha yar'
Dentin warns the group, 'if you stay there, it will kill you, the same as it did her.  heh'
Dentin warns the group, 'rofl'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok, so I gotta say this'
Dentin warns the group, 'the blue darts, yes, they're actually college humor, as is the spell'
Dentin warns the group, 'my roommate at the time, who used to play the character 'buffboy', insisted that I add it'
Dentin warns the group, 'I should probably make it an obscure spell, heh'
Dentin warns the group, 'that ring elemental, if you ever manage to look at it, is my idea of what the inside of a tokamak nuclear fusion reactor would look like'
Dentin warns the group, 'well sorta'
Dentin warns the group, 'so hellhouns are another piece of wierdness'
Dentin warns the group, 'the first mud I played, hidden worlds, had hellhouns on the lowest level of hell.  They were fiery and probably fire resistant on that game'
Dentin warns the group, 'when I got halfway through building this, I was running pretty short on mob ideas'
Dentin warns the group, 'so I build some hellhounds.  I figured why not, they're fiery, right?'
Dentin warns the group, 'turns out that wasn't a great idea'
Dentin warns the group, 'the hellhounds are physical creatures that do physical damage, and it makes a lot of the traditional fire defenses useless'
Dentin warns the group, 'forces people to split defense in dumb ways.  But more about that later'
Dentin warns the group, 'muwahaha die blue dar'
Dentin warns the group, 'these fireworms are super cute'
Dentin warns the group, 'there'a a lot of decoration in here that has no purpose other than to be pretty'
Dentin warns the group, 'we're about to enter another very strange, very special room'
Dentin warns the group, 'its taking its time, heh'
Dentin warns the group, 'well anyway, this room has another specp on it'
Dentin warns the group, 'wow that sucks'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok, we're temporarily safe here'
Dentin warns the group, 'I think'
Dentin warns the group, 'let me figure out how to get back home'
Dentin warns the group, 'did anyone die?'
Dentin warns the group, 'heh sorry, thanks'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok, so word to the wise, stay out of the star wars room'
Dentin warns the group, 'I built that room when I was thinking about star wars, the one where they fly the millenium falcon out of the mouth of the giant space worm'
Dentin warns the group, 'I wasnt expecting it to actually eat us'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok, so these rock spheres'
Dentin warns the group, 'these are the silicon nodules from the old star trek episode with the horta'
Dentin warns the group, 'speaking of which, lets to see her.  Dont attack the horta, its a kind and gentle creature'
Dentin warns the group, 'this is the horta'
Dentin warns the group, 'it eats rock, and those nodules are its eggs.  Watch the episode at some point for more details :)'
Dentin warns the group, 'if you have specific area questions, ask on warn please, I cant track subgt'
Dentin warns the group, 'one other piece of trivia about this area'
Dentin warns the group, 'originally, the mobs were designed to be level aggro'
Dentin warns the group, 'the idea was that it would remain equally difficult at all levels, because as ytou gained levels more stuff would become aggeressive'
Dentin warns the group, 'there were two problems with that - most mobs didnt make sense to be level aggressive, and people just attacked everything they see anyway'
Dentin warns the group, 'eventually I abandoned that plan and started just putting level restrictions on things.  That worked way better'
Dentin warns the group, 'this mob is super special'
Dentin warns the group, 'it was the first creature with a dproc on it'
Dentin warns the group, 'basically when you hit that mob with a physical attack, it burns you'
Dentin warns the group, 'you can go into nomelee mode and crater it without taking a single point of damage'
Dentin warns the group, 'I was taking a class in compilers and parsers at the time, I think.  It was my first attempt at building a language'
Dentin warns the group, 'please move that question to subgt nerri'
Dentin warns the group, 'so the icy paladin was one of my roommates ideas'
Dentin warns the group, 'I never did understand exactly why they wanted to build him.  They were bigger d&d heads than I was, and I think they liked the idea of a mob adventurer wandering around down here killing stuff'
Dentin warns the group, 'amasa,  t6urn off your oom trigger'
Dentin warns the group, 'yeah, I never was convinced there was a good reason for him to be here'
Dentin warns the group, 'next room is pretty aggro'
Dentin warns the group, 'amasa, stop casting spells'
Dentin warns the group, 'if you cant turn off your trigger, just stop using mana'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok, aggro room ahead, get ready for carnage'
Dentin warns the group, 'the salamanders were guards to the exit down.  They're not particularly important'
Dentin warns the group, 'down to the next level!'
Dentin warns the group, 'as I mentioned before, the fire plane was supposed to be the sister plane to the ice plane, but because there were so many real, physical mobs instead of elementals, it just didnt work out very well as an area idea'
Dentin warns the group, 'now that we've leveled it up and just decided to make it level 25, I think it works a lot better'
Dentin warns the group, 'I remember making this bench and this little part of the world as a safe zone, a hangout place'
Dentin warns the group, 'Im a deadbeat though, so I never did anything else with it'
Dentin warns the group, 'wuver:  we moved it to redfernes portals recently, and the levels have been improved, but arent completely sane.  There's still a huge amount of decoration here, but the levels are much better than they used to be'
Dentin warns the group, 'if you look at the runes here, you'll see reference to kenai'
Dentin warns the group, 'there's references to kenai all over the place.  Kenai built a LOT of stuff in the early days, and the reason I keep bringing him up for god events is partially to make sure people remember him'
Dentin warns the group, 'kenai makes a great villian, but never forget that he's only a great villain because he did a lot of great things :)'
Dentin warns the group, 'this cavern has no purpose other than to rest and hang out.  The balls of light are cute, i like them, but they have no point other than to be cute'
Dentin warns the group, 'please keep only area questions for this area on warn'
Dentin warns the group, 'so this part of the cave system is a confusing maze, with a bonus'
Dentin warns the group, 'in fact, this whole section is really irritating.  It loops back on itself.  It used to be a lot worse, as the mobs in here used to be completely lethal'
Dentin warns the group, 'we're not going to go explore the maze'
Dentin warns the group, 'if you look south, you'll see a crack in the wall'
Dentin warns the group, 'sorry, group management'
Dentin warns the group, 'anyway, as a noob, I used to hide in that crack all the time'
Dentin warns the group, 'my characters were never strong enough to actually take on the dangerous stuff down here'
Dentin warns the group, 'my characters are very not powerful, heh'
Dentin warns the group, 'those of you with dclient maps will have noticed that we appear to be back where we started'
Dentin warns the group, 'this was also one of the first areas that truly loops left to right'
Dentin warns the group, 'I got the idea from playing the video game gauntlet'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok, down to the lower level'
Dentin warns the group, 'this was originally just a small part of the fire plane, a couple sets of rooms'
Dentin warns the group, 'this room is amusing, but is purely decorative'
Dentin warns the group, 'there's four pillars holding the place up, and a giant chain link which does a good job of looking ominous'
Dentin warns the group, 'heh, thats funny'
Dentin warns the group, 'we're one of the few groups able to actually kill those properly'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok, lets see'
Dentin warns the group, 'this level was originally two sets of rooms'
Dentin warns the group, 'no, it wont'
Dentin warns the group, 'a lot of this stuff is new and doesnt have history yet'
Dentin warns the group, 'this chamber however, im sure a lot of people know'
Dentin warns the group, 'this is where the spellbooks, elementals, and fire giant leader reside'
Dentin warns the group, 'in the olden days, you actually had to get cone of cold and the upper level spells by getting these spellbooks.  They were the only ones on the game for it'
Dentin warns the group, 'I remmeber boning up on saves and coming down here to kill these things, which was ridiculous at say level 28'
Dentin warns the group, 'if you guys spam stealing the book like that agian, I will kick you from the group.  that is NOT acceptable'
Dentin warns the group, 'anyway I used to come down here and kill the elementals with harm, because it was the only real way I could do damage to them through the saves'
Dentin warns the group, 'I would bone up on the appropriate saves, then get into a regen contest with each elemental and pray i didnt get imprisoned'
Dentin warns the group, 'code is now taught by normal trainers, which makes these spellbooks more of a historical item than something useful'
Dentin warns the group, 'I was down here solo all the time with my mortals, but I cant really say I ran the area.  There were very few things I could kill reliably'
Dentin warns the group, 'this is the second spellbook, once gain guarded'
Dentin warns the group, 'we probably updated the books so they made more sense'
Dentin warns the group, 'in the olden days it was cone and something else'
Dentin warns the group, 'im going to hold onto this highly contested stuff until later'
Dentin warns the group, 'this is more decoration'
Dentin warns the group, 'I dont think you can kill the column'
Dentin warns the group, 'I really was going for beauty down here.  The area was secondary to it being a creative outlet'
Dentin warns the group, 'unfortunately that doesn't always work out, but I still remember this place fondly'
Dentin warns the group, 'dont attack these guys'
Dentin warns the group, 'the giants here have one of the first ever iacts on the game'
Dentin warns the group, 'he answers probably a half dozen questions, you just have to figure out the keywords'
Dentin warns the group, 'when you get bored, you should come down here and talk to them for a bit :)'
Dentin warns the group, 'they dont like non-fire stuff'
Dentin warns the group, 'lets to see the chimera'
Dentin warns the group, 'we are now where the chimera used to be, in the odlen days'
Dentin warns the group, 'so some history on the chimera'
Dentin warns the group, 'back in the olden days, there was a god named dowart'
Dentin warns the group, 'dowart built some stuff'
Dentin warns the group, 'a lot of what he built was a Bad Idea'
Dentin warns the group, 'I got suckered into adding one of his mobs, this chimera, to the fire plane'
Dentin warns the group, 'it was a Bad Idea, but I never had the heart to move him elsewhere'
Dentin warns the group, 'the areas were largely flavorless, and were really just death festivals.  No character?  they just werent really suitable for use'
Dentin warns the group, 'anyway, chimera ended up here and it made no sense at all.  We finally got him in a sane prison with the latest update to this place'
Dentin warns the group, 'SHIELDS UP EVERYONE - CHIMERA IS AGGRO AND VERY, VERY DANGEROUS.  PROBABLE DEATH.'
Dentin warns the group, 'did we get everyone?'
Dentin warns the group, 'I didnt know.  its been updated'
Dentin warns the group, 'gunsmoke, you need to fix your encumberance'
Dentin warns the group, 'warning - if you have less than a couple hundred hitpoints, now might be a good time to recall'
Dentin warns the group, 'the areas get nastier as we go lower'
Dentin warns the group, 'these hellhouns were again based on the hellhounds from hidden worlds'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok, we're basically going to go on a mob killing spree for the lower layers'
Dentin warns the group, 'less tour mode, more killing'
Dentin warns the group, 'keep your sits about you, bail if you need to'
Dentin warns the group, 'wits'
Dentin warns the group, 'enter chasm'
Dentin warns the group, 'this is the latest extention to the fire plane'
Dentin warns the group, 'when we reworked the layer above with the fire giants, morpheus and I decided that we needed to make the threat to them more creditble'
Dentin warns the group, 'so we put dangerous shit below the fire giants to give the giants something to fight'
Dentin warns the group, 'and now, we get to fight them too'
Dentin warns the group, 'target giant'
Dentin warns the group, 'attack everyting in sight, heh'
Dentin warns the group, 'I dont know this area very well, so we're juist going to explore and nuke it'
Dentin warns the group, 'drop corpse neenah'
Dentin warns the group, 'dont see anyone, hrm'
Dentin warns the group, 'we all together'
Dentin warns the group, 'gt is now reenabled'
Dentin warns the group, 'I've been staffing sanc'
Dentin warns the group, 'ouch, and theres another death'
Dentin warns the group, 'holy crap revenge is awesome'
Dentin warns the group, 'die alien scum'
Dentin warns the group, 'nice, not even any deaths'
Dentin warns the group, 'please heal up caroline, id rather she didnt die'
Dentin warns the group, 'heh, I really need to invert the color on this thing'
Dentin warns the group, 'ok, lets see if we can kill everyone'
Dentin warns the group, 'everyone climb down'
Dentin warns the group, 'I dont know if we can heal up safely here or not, take a minute to get organized'
Dentin warns the group, 'heading out in about 30 seconds'
Dentin warns the group, 'someone kill that ice wall'
Dentin warns the group, 'there's something like eight different sections, we're going to just go round the clodk and hit them all'
Dentin warns the group, 'everyone refresh up'
Dentin warns the group, 'wow, nice'
Dentin warns the group, 'this is a death march, heh'