
>> GAME BALANCE

  Ok, so we spend the majority of our coding time making monsters for
players to kill. Usually, we want players to kill our monsters so this
fleeting thing called 'fun' can be obtained *grin*.
  However, with castles full of easily 'killable' monsters, the
entire mud becomes a slaughter pit. That's not too kosher- because
there needs to be a challenge present.

  If you are going to put many non-aggressive high-level monsters in a
room, (which is highly discouraged), they _better not_ have homogenous
descriptions, and _better have_ some dangerous properties.
  Perhaps several of them being randomly aggressive, or one of them has
a highly inflated attack- that would be good. Putting 12 harmless monsters
in a single room is a good way to get yourself ostracized by the admin
on this mud, and puts your castle at the top of the 'to delete' stack.

  Level 20 monsters should fight like level 20 monsters! Definitely not
like meatballs! Extensive usage of wimpy functions and creative forms
of attack are a must for level 20s. Following a player is ok, as long as
the monster stays within your castle, or any set zone. Setting variable
stats, or even hiding hitpoint values is fair game too.

  We NEED more negative AC stuff. Wearing an armor such as 'The Emperor's
new clothes' should do something HARMFUL to the player, etc.

>> 'DISEASES'
  If you are going to code a virus... by all means- do! Just make sure
that newbies (level 1-5) are somehow not affected, or affected only
cosmetically by the ailment- you don't want to drive players away
because they dont know what's going on.
  A good virus should give the player some warning, and take off hitpoints
at a regular, prescribed pace- not 50 hp per chop. The deal is, whatever
harm the virus may inflict, the player should have a good idea where
he picked up the virus-

e.g. Joebob says: Gee... I guess i got mummy rot when i was in the
     Egyptian temple... damn! shit!

