Note 52 Morwen (01/24/10 22:50) Current Vision Everyone, In an effort to be more open with the most vital part of the mud and get you, our players, involved, we feel it's a good time to share our current vision and direction for the mud with everyone. First and foremost, for some time now there's been a general unrest about the state of affairs on this mud, and many of you have voiced your concerns about the amount of our user numbers, or lack thereof. Let's put this one to rest with the reassurance that we are aware and that we are taking an active approach to continuing to develop and improve upon the status quo. Let me outline some of the things we are working on right now: DEVELOPMENT ----------- Valinor has recently made the decision to place a stop on all new area development, with the exception of a handful of on-going projects that are drawing close to completion. While new content does provide for some excitement, the impact it creates is minimal and it is beginning to cause problems. These problems can be best defined as balance problems this ever increasing expansion is causing. It is also drawing resources away from the things that we should be focusing instead, which are bound to have a much greater impact on helping us prosper as a mud. So now that new area production has been halted, what are we going to work on, you may be wondering? NEW PLAYER REGIONS ----------- Part of our staff will be focusing on evaluating existing newbie regions, which includes West Arda, and to a lesser degree, Far Harad. We'll be looking at the front-end experience new players are subjected to and work on updating areas that in many cases are more than 10y old up to current standards. We won't be redoing or removing anything, unless absolutely necessary, but you will notice some towns getting better descriptions, more interactive monster, and additional features for our newer players. SYSTEMS ----------- The other half of our staff will be focusing more on system development, the back-end of gameplay our older players will hopefully appreciate more, items that are listed on our dev list, but also additional projects that have been backlogged due to a lack of resources, dealing with servants, our alignment system, tradeskills, high levels, and so on and so forth. By re-allocating our resources and having less experienced coders work in tandem with more experienced ones, we hope to see more progress in this area again. WEBSITE ----------- But this isn't all. An effort is being made to update our current website at www.t2tmud.org and give it a new facelift, with a bit more flash and zap. I am pleased to say that the initial draft has us very excited, and upon completion, I am confident it'll be well recieved. The content is bound to get updated, but we're also looking to add additional features, such as a live link to our news, updates, and gossiper, as well as other worthwhile information and resources you might want to read up on without having to log in. FACEBOOK ----------- Yes, you read that right. An interface has been created and also successfully testing allowing you to login to T2T from facebook. While there's a whole lot more development that needs to be done to make it a full-fledged facebook application, it too holds promise that may allow us to expand our exposure onto a more age-current platform. You could then invite your friends, flood your accomplishments on your wall, and recieve regular notification of upcoming events. INVOLVEMENT ----------- Now, all of these things won't happen overnight, and no matter what we as the administration or our staff do, your participation as a community is not only welcome and encouraged, but down right vital. There are a multitude of ways for you to become actively involved in contributing to our efforts and help us prosper: 1. Spread the word. Tell your friends about T2T. Promote us. 2. Vote for T2T on various mud listings. Write reviews. 3. Donate so we can continue to keep this place hosted and running for a long long time to come. Read 'help donations'. 4. Immort and join us in Valinor, where you will be put to work on things that matter and will have a direct impact. Experience is not a requirement, only motivation is! Please read 'help immorting'. 5. Become a newbie helper and put a friendly face forward to our new players, and assist Valinor in making sure they are tended to and nurtured as they should be. Read 'help helper_rules' and visit Bree or Khemnahr to sign up. And lastly, we're looking for two volunteers: 1. If you have experience working with application development, you're welcome to send us a mail and we can get you involved in the project outlined above. Web-based graphic designers are also welcome, as there will quite a bit of graphic works that needs doing. Experience required! 2. We're also looking for someone who is open to working directly with the administration and spend a few moments each day to help promote T2T on various websites, mud listing, write reviews, and in general get us further exposure. The only requirements are your time, and that you keep us regularely updated on all of your doings on behalf of T2T. As you can imagine this is a pretty big responsibility, a position that was previously held by Powers, but we have faith that there are some of you who care and want to help as much as our volunteer staff does on a daily basis. If interested, send us a mail! Thanks for your continued support! That's all for now, folk. -Morwen On behalf of the administration.
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