Hyperborea.net

Introduction

Congratulations! Most likely, you have just joined the ranks of the Wizards of Hyperborea. This means that you have completed your mission as a player, and have now grown into a new position. This document describes the responsibilities of you as a wizard, and some guidelines that you should follow. Please notice that we use the word guidelines, and not rules. Unlike players, as a wizard, you will be allowed to break these guidelines if you really feel that you should do that.

Position of the wizard

In the world of Hyperborea, players should consider the wizard as someone mysterious and somewhat frightening. The wizard is someone who has reached a higher level of power and understanding than mere mortals. The wizard is involved with many powerful forces that shape the fundamental structures and items of Hyperborea. As a wizard, you should always realise that you are no longer part of the game, but that you define the game!

Non-interference

The most important guideline that you, as a wizard, should keep in mind is the non-interference guideline. With non-interference, we mean that as a wizard, you are not allowed to influence players, or the way they play the game. Examples of undesirable behaviour are giving out hints to players, excessive participation in discussions on player accessible bulletin boards, healing players or restoring equipment that they lost, etc. Of course, there are exceptions that might lead to you violating these rules. With good reasons, that is not necessarily a problem. For example, giving a new player a few hints on how to get started is perfectly acceptable. If discussions on a bulletin board are offensive, or directly aimed at certain persons, you even have the moral obligation to interfere. Healing and restoring is something you should avoid at all costs, no matter how players complain. There is more than enough money, equipment and healing available on Hyperborea.

Socializing

Everything said before could be interpreted as wizard being people who do not interact with players in any way. This is very untrue. Wizards are as important in the social aspects of the game as players are. There is absolutely nothing against wizards who use public channels to chat with players. Also, you are more than welcome to participate in a nice play of Uno, or a bit of socializing in the junk room. But while you are doing that, keep two things in mind: Firstly, the non-interference guideline is important, even while you are socializing. As long as the chatter does not involve gameplay, feel free to participate. Secondly, while you interact with players in a socializing way, keep in mind that you are not in your role of wizard. Once you go back to your workroom, you become Wizard again. Like Tolkien wrote, and Sandman's plan so clearly states: make sure that players realise the following:

Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards,
for they are subtle and quick to anger.
- Gandalf

Suggestions of players

While you are doing your wizard stuff, players will unquestionably present you with a lot of suggestions on how the game can be improved. A lot of those suggestions range from  plain out silly: "I want an armor that will make sure that the frost giant cannot hit me, and I want it now and for free", to suggestions like "I feel that there should be more blunt weapons in the game so that Clerics can use them". There are a few ways you can deal with these remarks. The best approach is ask players to address the suggestions on the bulletin boards. If the idea or suggestion is clearly related to the Guild of the player, let them post on the Guild boards. Keep in mind that, because of the non-interference guideline, wizards will not interfere in guild discussions! Once the guildmaster decides that the suggestion is a valid one, and that there are enough arguments in favour of the idea, she or he will post a message on the guildleader board. The guildleader board is accessible to all wizards and players alike, since it addresses issues about the game, and not gaming issues themselves. If the suggestion is a general suggestion, ask the player to post it on the bulletin board in the adventurers guild. For now, the general adventurers guild bulletin board can be treated
just like the guildmaster bulletin board.

Building an area

The main goal of a wizard is to expand Hyperborea by building an area. There are only a few restrictions on area building.

• The area must be in the theme of Hyperborea, which is Medieval European fantasy.
• The area must be of high quality
• The area must be balanced

While you are building you area, you can always ask other wizards for help. This help can range from providing you with ideas, just listing to you swearing because the computer refuses to cooperate, or by giving you coding help. A few hints and tips:

• Make a plan. Before you start coding, get out a sheet of paper and start drawing. Make some scetches about what kind of area you want to make, what kind of monsters (wizards call them NPCs, or Non-Playing Characters) you want, what kind of equipment, etc. Also think of the atmosphere you want to create, since that will determine that room descriptions.
• Keep your relatively small. There are brilliant people who can make a first area that is fun to play, that contains very detailed descriptions, that has a nice quest and has no bugs. We have not found them yet, but rumour has it that they are out there! A first area that is between 25 and 40 rooms is good enough.
• Keep the reviews in mind. When your area is (partially) finished, you can request a review. Hyperborea aims to high quality areas, so before we release a game to the players, we review it thoroughly. See the next section for more details.

If you are going to make a quest in your area, you should also provide a walkthrough that can be used for tech review later on. See the rules online that deal with test playing.

Area Reviews

Your area will undergo the following reviews:

• Typo: your area must be typo free. On Hyperborea, American English is the mainstream spelling, but British English is acceptable too. Whichever spelling you choose, make sure you do it consistently throughout your area.
• Completeness: Everything a player can look at should be described. Nothing is more annoying that walking into a room that mentions a table, and then getting a "What?" when you try to look at the table.
• Balance: Balance is a tricky concept. It has two meanings. The first aspect of balance involves the fact that objects, treasure and equipment should be tuned to the area in which they are. In an area where there are only low -level monsters and hardly any questing aspects, it is not wise to hide a weapon of WC20 with an extra_hit of 10 for dragons. The other way around is the same; if you just beat a monster that almost killed your three times, a reward of 400 exp and a weapon of WC5 is disappointing to say the least. The second aspect of balance is that you should not make too powerful weapons or armors. Powerful weapons or armors should be rare and hard to get.
• Bug free: all areas that are released should be bug free. The tech review will focus on code correctness and code effiency. Code that is not documented or properly structured (indent indent indent!) will not even be considered. You do not have to worry about code effiency too much when coding. Most things you will pick up as we go.

Privacy

Privacy is something which is very important. As a wizard, you will have full access to all chatlines that players can have. This includes all guild lines, the token line and the chat line. If you hear something on one line, please do not relay this information.

You will have the snoop command. By using the snoop command, you will see everything a player sees. DO NOT USE THE SNOOP COMMAND UNLESS YOU HAVE A VERY GOOD REASON. If you do use snoop, tell the player that you snoop what you are doing. Only high wizards and archwizards are allowed to snoop without the knowledge of a player, and only if they think they need that information to point out breaking of rules or other issues that influence game play.

Also, all players have email addresses. After you reach the level of full wizard, you will be able to see them. Do not use this information unless absolutely required, and NEVER share this information with someone else!

Final words

Even though you are now a mighty wizard, that does not mean that you are not involved to have fun anymore. Having a good time is still the most important part of being on Hyperborea. Being a wizard only means that the way you have fun changes a bit. You will notice soon enough that there are as much interesting things going on for wizards as there are for players. Finally, you can read this overview for new wizards too.