unsolveable puzzles

[Shaitan]

I've noticed that some remote action puzzles aren't reasonably solvable by a player who hasn't been playing majormud for decades / isn't auto pathing with megamud. Take this for example:



You can tell there is a hidden exit east by the map, and the text indicates that the wet footprints abruptly stop which also indicates a hidden exit... but there's nothing in the text guiding you on how to actually reveal the exit. Looking at the data I can see there is a hidden item (a stone), and when you look at that it becomes obvious what you need to do, but there is nothing in the room description that would prompt the player to look at the stone.

In my mud I intend to fix things like this and I was wondering if anyone knows of any other examples of this kind of thing (puzzles with no reasonable way for a player to know how to solve them).

Alternatively if I'm just being ignorant and there's a hint somewhere else telling a player to look for a stone when they get to the dead end that'd be good to know too.

[ebonbetta]

Megamud knows to say "Faith" when you go up on the rocky trail... But why and how do we learn this in game ?

[Shaitan]

Thanks! That one is actually pretty well done though.



The room description mentions a skeleton, the skeleton description mentions a disk, and the disk has a riddle to which the answer is "faith".

[lucid2310]

I believe the way Majormud handled giving information to the player was adding hidden items in a room, so when the player would look at <item name> it would provide a description. So, in theory, you could provide the same kind of mechanism in a room.

For example, if you look at room 1, 1038 (Crypt, Stone Hallway) it has a hidden item "lever" #184, the description on the item: "This simple iron lever is set in the center of a steel plate. Its round knob is dull and smoothed by much use"

So you could add something to the description like "This simple iron lever is set in the center of a steel plate. Its round knob is dull and smoothed by much use, you have heard rumors that "pull lever", "push lever" or "move lever" might work.

[BearFather]

The stone one, this is from many many users of bong resin, and back from pre mod1 times. But it was either a letter somewhere or an npc mentions it when talking about cob, and getting into the fort.

[Shaitan]

The stone one, this is from many many users of bong resin, and back from pre mod1 times. But it was either a letter somewhere or an npc mentions it when talking about cob, and getting into the fort.

Cool thanks, I'll try to track it down.

[Shaitan]

Found an interesting one. The button you push on the 2nd floor in the crypt currently has no way to find out about it... but it used to.

The description of the statue in the room mentions a sword and a shield, looking at the sword doesn't show anything interesting, but looking at the shield mentions that it has a griffon on it, and looking at the griffon reveals that the eye of the griffon is actually a button.

One problem though, the griffon shield in question is no longer a fake hidden item in this room, it's an actual shield that spawns in the slums on a fresh realm. So the button you're allegedly pushing is on a griffon on a shield that isn't even in the room anymore and hasn't been since Mod whatever.

[lucid2310]

Hmm maybe I read the question wrong, are you looking for a list of puzzles that are missing relevant information to solve them?

[Shaitan]

Hmm maybe I read the question wrong, are you looking for a list of puzzles that are missing relevant information to solve them?

Yep exactly. I'm not looking to hold people's hands or straight up tell them what to type, just to make sure that there is information available to them to make the puzzle solvable at all. It seems like there are places in the game where due to changes over the years something that once had some kind of in game clue about an action no longer does and would be virtually impossible for someone to solve if they didn't already know what to do or didn't have megamud or nightmare etc.

[lucid2310]

Gotcha, disregard my earlier posting.