Plans for the MUD

I had a huge amount of ideas myself before starting this, and, let me say, we are only about 1/4 - 1/3 of the way through implementing them, both with code and with areas. It has taken 2 years to get to that stage! Over that time, there have also been a great many ideas presented, some of which have changed some of the plans somewhat. I will have a post in this thread for each type of plan for the game.

Skills/jutsu

Every single skill and jutsu ever used in the series will be in the MUD.

If you saw the skill or jutsu used in the series and want to see it here, don't worry, it will be, guaranteed.

Of course, in saying that, *how* we do it is up to interpretation.

For example, your idea of blood summons might be quite different to how we them work.

Some things will be deliberately interpreted to be stronger or weaker than they are perceived in the series purely for balance reasons.

Some things, which we would ideally like to have work in one way we will end up working in a completely different way simply because we couldn't get the ideal way to work. One example of this is exploding notes, with throwing shurikens another example. These might be changed again one day, but please *DO NOT* suggest to have them changed just because you don't like how they work - this is as best as we could get to work. If we can figure out a way to get them working in the ideal way, they will be made to work that way. If not, they won't. Ideas along these lines are useless and quite irritating/insulting to read.

Kekkei genkai and sharingan

The number 1 most asked question is:

"Why isn't sharingan in yet?"

or

"When will sharingan be put in"

or variations thereof.

Sharingan is in fact incredibly easy to write, code wise. It is a simple matter of getting it to copy skills as you see them. It is used against you, then I set it to be that you had gained the skill.

The difficulty is in deciding how strong to make it, so that it isn't any stronger than skills that other clans get.

If sharingan was put in and made too powerful, then it would forever destroy the game's balance, because we wouldn't be able to take those ill-gotten skills off players.

Thus, in order to have sharingan in, we must first put in *ALL OTHER* kekkei genkai. Before kekkei genkai can be put in, we must put in advanced skills (the jutsu that are passed down through families, such as Aburame's destruction bugs or Nara's shadow manipulation) and before that we must put in basic clan skills and have a system to ensure that your choice of clan does not make you stronger or weaker.

And before we can get to clan skills of any kind, we must have, if not every skill in the game, at least a fair range of them, at least enough to fairly represent all major types of skills, and a fairly large number of skills.

When sharingan is in, we will be ready to open the game properly. That is one of the major keys I have to state that the game is ready for people to play. Until then, we are in development.

At the current developmental rate, we are about 1/3-1/4 of the way through after 2 years, so you can do the math on that one. It is not happening anytime soon.

If someone opens up an alternative Naruto MUD that decides to put Sharingan in first, we will give you the address. One MUD did try to do it, but fell apart very quickly. Another one added it as an experiment, just sharingan, and then spent 4 months undoing it and all of the skills it gave people. We don't want to repeat those mistakes.

Guilds and warfare

My aim is to have all villages at war with each other on a permanent basis, with truces and alliances of different kinds, changing at different stages. To do this, I would have leaders of all villages (not just the 5 major ones, but the 4 minor ones too), who would then have a command to decide who they are allied with, how strong the alliance is, and who they are at war with.

Then, if you enter an enemy village, that you are at war with, *ALL NPCs* attack you on sight. In addition, extra NPCs, just for warfare, would appear to attack you.

There has been some debate as to whether I should force all players to participate in the war (PvP) or to allow people to turn a switch on and off for that, so that they can elect NOT to PvP. I am still unsure on that one, and the debate continues on, which is the main reason why this hasn't been implemented. If we had a clear path as to how this should be done, then this could probably be put in.

Ultimately, I want to represent the ninja world, specifically the World of Naruto, which, as one of its main aspects, had truces and alliances of different levels.

At the same time, though, I also want to appeal to everyone. Not just people who PK, not just people who don't PK, not just people who RP, not just people who don't RP. I want to have something for everyone.

Once we can work out the magic way to do this, then it will be done.

As for guilds, I realise that they are a little shonky right now and I do aim to put in a better system at some point. I downloaded something about a year ago but never got around to putting it in properly. For the moment, the current system is not ideal but it does work.

All of this primarily requires a lot more players than we have now before it can be put in properly, as without a full set of active leaders, all least for all villages, the whole warfare situation can't really happen.

Demon possession

Obviously, since demon possession is in the series, we will have it in the game. The question is how to do it.

The initial idea was that we would have it be imm-controlled such that only 1 player could be possessed by a demon and so that there were at any time only 9 jinchuuriki (or less). Everyone would know who was a jinchuuriki, as it would appear on the who list, henge wouldn't work and they would be PKable by everyone. It would give them huge advantages, and, if they just log on for 1 minute per week or whatever just to avoid losing it, an immortal would have the discretion to take it off them if they felt that they weren't really active.

One part of the problem is that the demons were intended to be on the 4th level of the crypt (noting that I am only half way through the 3rd) with the "God level" on the 5th level of the crypt, which would give you ways to allow demon possession, by beating the Sage of the 6 Paths, Rokudou, and some other nasties. Since I haven't finished the 3rd level to lead up to that, well, you can't go there. We are looking at demons being around level 300 and God level being 300-500 or so, so some pretty nasty fights there.

Whilst in theory we know how to do it, in practice it isn't that simple. We are yet to truly work out how to do it. As a flag like how leader flags work, or something more than that? We also aren't 100% sure what being possessed by demons would mean.

Some people also suggested having the ability to allow someone else to be possessed by a demon that you captured. I personally consider that if such a thing were allowed then it would be abused, to allow a super powerful level 1 player. Of course, realistically, since you'd lose the demon as soon as you died, a level 1 player wouldn't survive, with realistically the most powerful players in the game being the ones with demons.

Elite weapons - chakra absorbing and so forth

In the series, there are a number of chakra absorbing weapons. We were always planning on having these as elite weapons but have fairly recently worked out how to do it.

There would be 4 main types of weapons:

* Chakra absorbing - takes chakra from the enemy and gives it to you
* Chakra draining - takes twice as much chakra from the enemy but doesn't give it to anyone
* Stamina absorbing - same deal
* Stamina draining - same deal

We would also have both unarmed and armed for each type, so that taijutsu users, who utilise unarmed weapons, can have them.

At one point we were going to have these as being rewards from special missions, with only 1 of each kind in the game but, after some discussion, it seems that it is more practical and fun to have these as mission items.

With our work on vampiric weapons, we are part of the way there but aren't there yet. Another immortal was working on it but recently went AWOL and I wasn't working on it myself so we are basically stuck for now.

Custom jutsu

The idea of having custom jutsu was part of the initial thinking before the MUD was started, so this is not a new idea (although everyone who says it seems to think that they are the only one ever to have considered it). It has also been worked out how it would work.

Basically, existing jutsu would be combined in some way into new jutsu. You would get up to perhaps 5 custom jutsu that you could have. Perhaps we would let you delete one and replace it with a new one, if you had a change of heart. The jutsu would work out so that you were doing 2 jutsu at once, or perhaps even 3 at once, with combined lag at the end of it.

Of course, with us putting in perhaps 10% of the jutsu in the series, it seems somewhat premature to have custom jutsu as we don't have a good enough basis for it yet.

Guild jutsu

We decided a very long time ago to have guild jutsu. Each guild would get 1 or 2 (or perhaps more) specific jutsu just for being members of the guild.

The first problem with this is choice. Not everyone wants to PK yet if you join a guild then you are forced to PK. If we introduced guild jutsu, then it would be unfair on the people who don't want to PK. What would they get instead? Or would it be reasonable, as compensation for the risk of potentially being killed?

The other major issue is that you might leave a guild at some point. If you leave a guild with special guild jutsu, do you lose the jutsu? If not, then how fair is it?

I would ideally like that guild equipment could not be stolen, but every attempt I make to try to get this to work seems to be worked around by players somehow and until we can deal with this issue, we aren't going to have guild jutsu.

We aren't yet really ready for this, as we don't have proper village jutsu (village clones will be the first real stage of this) and don't have enough skills in general to put this in.

Elemental jutsu

Elemental affinity is fairly recent and there is now talk to have special elemental jutsu. I am still not sure about this either way, so am delaying this thinking. The current thought is just to have elemental dragons - prime dragons (for your prime element), which we already have, and combo dragons (for your prime and secondary elements). I am not currently thinking beyond that, as it may detract from other plans, but it might happen. This one is still up in the air. I am just not convinced in the series that there were elemental jutsu just for having one element or other. Perhaps in time, you would have 5 or 6, or even 9 or 10, jutsu just for being in an element, that aren't available for people in other elements.

As with so many other things, for this to be put in properly we need to have a lot more skills in the game.

Sub specialties

A long time ago there were ideas to have sub specialties, beyond the initial 4, which would probably start at level 101.

You have the choice of either:

• Further enhancing your prime specialty
  
• Having a taste of another specialty
  

For having an off-spec, you would gain levels 1-101 in the other specialty, but gain them at levels 101-201.

For having a prime enhancement, it would allow you to access new skills only available if you choose to go with this enhancement.

Some possible suggestions include:

Ninja Artist:

• Puppetteer - allowing you to use human puppets and a wide range of other puppets, basically every puppet in the series plus perhaps more, with higher expertise in the normal puppets.
  
• Trapmaster - allows remote controlled bombs and traps of various kinds, with many new types of bombs that others don't have access to.
  
• Toolsmaster - allows you to create your own everything - not just weapons but every item in the game, plus a series of unique items that only you can create, which would include Tenten's weapon summoning and similar traits.
  
• Samurai - allows you to be highly skilled in swords specifically, as well as utilising the off-hand weapon for the full 4 attacks. Allows access to certain special samurai-only weapons, ability to sharpen and give extra potency to weapons and many other abilities
  

Ninjutsu:

• Elementalist - allows you to have greater proficiency in your prime element and access to a number of special jutsu of that element which only you can use.
  
• Medinin - teaches you about all of the most advanced healing methods, ability to create your own potions, healing wounds, poisons, and so forth, in addition to being able to make your own punches hit a lot harder and able to change your body to absorb blows (like Tsunade, Sakura and Kabuto did).
  
• Sensor - you can detect things well, seeing traps, hidden doors, seeing a distance away and so forth, generally to make you aware of all that is going on - essential for large groups.
  
• Collector - gives you access to a wide range of ninjutsu, including easier access to forbidden jutsu and more easily able to steal jutsu from villages etc (when stealing jutsu and warfare is implemented) Orochimaru-style, that lets you access an enormous range of jutsu, more than anyone else can access, in terms of sheer volume
  

Taijutsu:

• Ninja monk - Like the ninja monks of the Fire Temple, it gives you access to many highly specialised monk-type moves, as well as greater healing (similar to medinin but not quite the same). It also gives you the ability to use special kinds of attacks that do HOLY damage, specifically aimed at targetting ghosts, demons and other evil beings.
  
• Gatesmaster - lets you access all 8 gates, rather than just the 2 that normal taijutsu specialists can access, as well as all of the skills that go along with this.
  
• Chi Master - teaches you about the pressure points, to cause massive blood loss and bone breaking from well-timed blows, with instant kills, huge reduction in hp, chakra and stamina from the enemy in well-timed blows, great for taking on hugely powerful mobs or for PVP.
  
• Martialist - allows your own fists to act as weapons of themselves, giving an extra enhanced damage as well as the ability to make your own fists cause poison, sharpen, be "powered up" and so forth, effectively nullifying the need for weapons of any kind for any reason
  

Genjutsu:

• Hypnotist - lets you take over the mind of another being to use to your own will, letting them act effectively as pets, possibly also including players, with a range of other mind-controlling illusions that put them completely in your control.
  
• Demon - gives you a wide range of nasty attacks to send your enemies straight to hell and keep them there, begging for death, with many new types of curses and assaults aimed at harming them.
  
• Illusionist - allows you to set up illusions to completely confuse enemies, so that they can fight practice dummies, or each other, on your behalf, as you sit back and watch, or send them off into whole worlds of your creation
  
• Ghost - gives you access to different methods to make you intangible, unable to be easily touched, unable even to die (at all), letting you instead transfer to a safe place if you are close to death (with no exp penalty) - although of course there are ways around the intangibility and it has a heavy cost. Like Itachi with his crows or so many other methods to simply be untouchable, or seemingly so.

These are just ideas of course, and the skills are nowhere near ready. As you can imagine, that's about 100 new skills there, which would be months of work to put in, so we are nowhere ready for this, and we may end up going away from this idea but that is the general thought process.

Note that, yes, Taijutsu and Ninjutsu both have similar sub-specs (ninja monk vs medinin) but this is because there was a bit of confusion as to whether the medinin and ninja monk were nin or tai.

As for the "know it all" type, that would only be possible if we had 100s of skills about and wanted to give many that weren't specific to anything else all to ninjutsu (who tend to have more available skills than anyone else anyway), in which case, to ensure balance of others, they would go to the "know it all" type.

And of course the question - what about the poor reincarnated souls?

Well, they could, perhaps, choose what their sub specialties were, for their past incarnations, if we decide to go that way.

And of course if you go off-spec, you could have a decent amount of skills with just 1 reincarnation, with 2 off-specs, which is something that a lot of people might go for, for that quick power.

Naturally, all of these things would be adjusted to make sure that all of the choices would be exactly equal - at least the 16 choices above for sub specs would all be equal with each other. I wouldn't care if off-specs were more powerful or not, as that would be a choice that people would make.

Mass-adding skills

As many realise, there are thousands of jutsu in Naruto and yet we only have about 150 unique ones (plus about 250 stock ones) in the game, most of which are levels 1-51, which leaves levels 52-201 rather empty and deserted.

Part of the reason why we are at this stage is because I have been trying to add in skeletons, if you like. I put in one skill at level 70 for everyone, one at level 110, one at level 152, one elemental skill and now I am in the process of adding in one type of village skill (bunshins). I also had my starter unique sets for genjutsu, ninjutsu, ninja arts and taijutsu.

A lot of these skills were rather complex, whilst most skills in Naruto itself are fairly simple and could be added really easily. Now that I have the bases covered, I think that I can just add in huge amounts of skills really quickly and not worry too much about upsetting balance. I can add fairly simple commands, which just do raw damage. It still usually takes 1 full day to add a skill, even fairly simple ones (although I did once manage 9 unique skills in a single day).

In doing this, I will at times have interpretation as to whether a skill should be ninjutsu, taijutsu, ninja arts and genjutsu. I will likely go with whichever specialty most needs it for balance reasons.

Long-term, though, you can expect ninjutsu to have a lot more skills than any other specialty, simply because they do in the series. Genjutsu will likely have the least number, with ninja arts the next least and taijutsu not having anywhere near as many as ninjutsu has either. This, though, shouldn't make genjutsu any less powerful. Many genjutsu skills tend to be "all or nothing" skills, so expect a lot of that type going in - with instant death-type skills going in and so forth.

If it all looks unbalanced at some point in doing this, I will turn to fan forums for ideas to help out, or I may deliberately make some skills more powerful or less powerful than they are interpreted as being.

One of the good things with mob programs is that we can pretend to put in jutsu that don't exist in the game yet - which in turn helps to get an idea for how they should work.

Senzoku no Sai, the skill that requires Kyuumon to use, was initially put in as a mob program for the ninja monks of the Fire Temple, but is now a skill available for players. Many of the things that mobs do as mob programs will be easy to turn into real skills, and hence once the full set of 3rd level crypt ghosts are in, I should have clear ideas as to what kinds of skills can be put in and what they can do.

I hope to get to a stage where every day I put in a new skill, or at least 2 or 3 new ones per week. It will still take a long time to add them all, but it will give just reward for a lot of foundation work.

In a similar way, now that we have skeleton zones for the villages, I hope for building to really take off, towards having a 100% unique world, area and mob-wise, and we can delete all of the stock zones.

Stock areas and stock skills

Ultimately, as with any game, we want to have the game, long-term, to be 100% unique, or at least realistic to the series.

As such, long-term we aim to get rid of all stock zones, which includes all "old" villages (which are reworked stock zones). The only reason that they still exist now is because we do not yet have enough areas of that level range to fight in. Once we do, they will be deleted.

There are some exceptions though. Elemental Canyon, a stock area, is actually quite reasonable for Naruto, which has a lot of focus on elements. Gangland, while it has the "trolls" and "ogres" gangs, is nonetheless quite reasonable. Perhaps the gang names could be changed, but it isn't a bad zone to have. Sewers, similarly, is quite realistic to the series. Many of the "newbie zones" have been sufficiently reworked to be usable in the series, although they are all stock zones essentially.

Once we have all of our unique areas, we will probably move these stock areas, the ones that we keep, into places that are connected with "the new ninja world", rather than the old world. The Ninja Academy would still be up from the anki point, but down from the Ninja Academy may, for example, take you to the Valley of the End, which could be the new central point. Or we could have 9 separate ninja academies, all slightly different, one with Kurenai with another having Gaara and Kankurou leading you and so forth.

Similarly, many of the skills are simply stock skills and "spells" (though of course we don't use the term spell). Many others have been reworked from stock. Almost all of the "perform"-type jutsu (ninjutsu type especially), with the exception of oodama rasengan, are reworked stock "spells" - and yes, that includes rasengan and chidori. Chishin and Retsudotensho were changed so much that they are basically new skills but the others are very similar.

Just the same, do we really want to change that? If we got rid of things like "bless" or even "sanctuary" because they aren't realistic, then it makes it a lot harder to fight. We do need to have some form of buff to help to get about. Or do all mobs lose sanctuary as well?

At the end of the day, it may look like it is "mostly stock really" but in actual fact we are about 80-90% unique as it stands. The world is nowhere near complete, as far as either skills or areas, but we are more unique than stock, a lot more.

One day, we would aim to be 100% unique, of course, at least in terms of skills and areas, or at least true to the series, but at the same time I really don't see why some things which fit within the Naruto theme need to be removed or rewritten. Perhaps once everything else is done we can look at such things and see if we want to remove them or not.

Before we are ready for sub-specs and off-specs

I imagine that, when the sub-specs and off-specs are put in, we will have no need to have any skills beyond level 101, as everyone will pick a sub spec or an off spec and use that.

As such, all skills that are currently over level 101 (currently only 2 per specialty) will eventually end up in a sub spec of some kind. Sanshouo could be in puppet master for Ninja Artists, as could Kuroari for that matter. Taijutsu's 2nd and 3rd gates would be in gate master. Raikiri could be in elementalist, while Nanairo could be in "know it all". The zombie skills (Shishi etc) could be in master of illusions, while Chisei (intelligence) could be in hell master.

Thus, as a lead up to that, while we mass add skills, I may be mindful of trying to have a few of them for each sub specialty. Thus, once we have about 100 skills between levels 101-201 (across all 4 specialties combined), we are, in that sense, ready for sub specialisations.

I am not sure whether we want to have general skills that everyone gets, or just have it all sub spec.

I suppose we could have general skills from 101-201 that everyone gets, but these should be more general skills.

So, while preparing for this, everyone will get lots of skills, some of which may end up being taken away again later.

More on the sub-specs and off-specs

Off-specs will be level 1-101 in their 2nd specialty but learning them from 101-201

In this way, by level 201 you will have 2 full specialties, level 1-101 worth of them at least. This will make you quite diverse. But you will be missing all of the more powerful moves, that are only available to sub specialties.

Similarly, people who want to go this way (and some will), will be able to get all 4 basic specialties in just 1 extra reincarnation (i.e. 2 times through only). You won't have any sub specialties though.

Existing reincarnated players can choose which sub-specialties they wanted

They can pick whatever sub specialty (or off specialty) they want for each specialty they have previously had, so that they aren't disadvantaged.

All existing level 101+ skills will either become sub specialties or else have their levels pushed down to 52-100

Skills currently over level 101:

1. Chisei - can be pushed down
   
2. Kaimon - Gates Master
   
3. Kuroari - Puppetteer
   
4. Raikiri - can be pushed down
   
5. Kyuumon - Gates Master
   
6. Shishi Dojou - Illusionist
   
7. Nanairo no Rasengan - Elementalist
   
8. Sanshouo - Puppetteer

Looking at existing skills to be potentially pushed up, there are a few possibilities:

1. Tamashiwara - Chi Master
   
2. Jubaku Satsu - Illusionist

Before the sub specs are added in, a number of new skills will be added, which will then be taken off everyone

It is just easier to do it this way, even though it is a bit mean. You will have a whole range of skills, then it will say something like "Sorry, but only Puppet Masters can use Sanshouo" and delete the skill from your list.

It will save not only your current sub spec but all of your previous sub specs

It currently doesn't save your previous specialties, and it still won't, but it will save your previous sub specs or off specs.

Names for the Off specs

Names for each of the off spec combos, whichever the order of main and off.

Art + Nin = Exploder
Art + Gen = Manipulator
Art + Tai = Warrior
Nin + Gen = Sage
Nin + Tai = Punisher
Tai + Gen = Defender

SUBSPEC command

Usage: SUBSPEC <choice>
Requires: Min level 101
Cost: A number of trains, depending on choice (to be decided later)
Checks: That you can use the choice and don't already have it.
Result: Makes you a particular sub spec / off spec, allowing you to use scrolls to learn individual skills.

You will then have to go around and get the individual scrolls for the commands. Note that, yes, this will include all off spec commands, including ordinarily low level skills.

That means that skills like Juuha Shou, Rasengan, Chidori etc will be on scrolls - but the scrolls will only be usable by Off Specs, and only once they have reached the required level.

Thus, all skills gained in offspec or subspec will only be learned to 50%, more in use.

A suggested amount of trains is 50, although this number may be revised.

Immortals will be able to grant existing reincarnates subspecs.

The following combo elements will be used:

Element combo = new element - which clan (used by) - village - notes if any

1. Earth + Fire = Lava - Kazangan (Roushi) - Rock
   
2. Earth + Lightning = Crystal - Tsubaki (Guren) - Grass (officially listed as "earth + unknown element" but lightning is the obvious answer)
   
3. Earth + Water = Wood - Senju (Hashirama/Tobirama/Yamato) - Leaf (officially "earth + water + unknown element" but most people say just earth + water)
   
4. Earth + Wind = Dust - Kyogan (Ounoki) - Rock
   
5. Fire + Lightning = Blaze - Uchiha (Sasuke) - Leaf (a use of Ameratsu's ever-burning flame, combined with Sasuke's Fire + Lightning elements, is itself not a kekkei genkai but rather uses a kekkei genkai to combine elements)
   
6. Fire + Water = Steam - Ishigaki (Han) - Rock
   
7. Fire + Wind = Ash - Sarutobi (Asuma) - Leaf (not a kekkei genkai for Sarutobi, but rather the name of a technique Asuma used that was Fire + Wind)
   
8. Lightning + Water = Storm - Rakurai (Darui) - Cloud
   
9. Lightning + Wind = Sound - Shiin (Sound 4) - Sound (not a kekkei genkai and not officially an element, but seems likely to be)
   
10. Water + Wind = Ice - Kaishin (Haku) - Mist

List of all off specs and sub specs by main specialty

Artist:
Exploder, Manipulator, Warrior, Puppetteer, Trapmaster, Toolsmaster, Samurai

Ninjutsu:
Exploder, Sage, Punisher, Elementalist, Medinin, Sensor, Collector

Taijutsu:
Warrior, Punisher, Defender, Ninja Monk, Gatesmaster, Chi Master, Martialist

Genjutsu:
Manipulator, Sage, Defender, Hypnotist, Demon, Illusionist, Ghost

Details of all off specs

Exploder
A combination of Ninja Artist and Ninjutsu specialist, the Exploder can throw bombs and also cause explosions through handseals.

Manipulator
A combination of Ninja Artist and Genjutsu specialist, the Manipulator can manipulate all objects and minds to their will.

Warrior
A combination of Ninja Artist and Taijutsu specialist, the Warrior is the ultimate fighting force, both armed and unarmed.

Sage
A combination of Ninjutsu and Genjutsu specialists, the Sage is the master of all types of illusions, whether they harm the mind or the body.

Punisher
A combination of Ninjutsu and Taijutsu specialists, the Punisher can hurt with both fists and jutsu, making it impossible to escape their wrath.

Defender
A combination of Taijutsu and Genjutsu specialists, the Defender can block all attacks and stop you from hurting them, leaving you wide open for their wrath.