DivineTraveller wrote:

Is it a nethackish game? I've been playing it a lot recently and thought how awesome it would be if someone ported it to byond.

In someways it is "Nethackish". It plays like most Rouglike games, you play as an "@" in a randomly generated dungeon where the objective is to get to the bottom for some random reason. The further down the dungeon you get the harder it gets, the floors get larger and more complex (top floors will consist mainly of rooms connected by passages, but near the bottom you're likely to run into complex mazes), monsters get stronger and more frequent, traps more dangerous and frequent and so on.

But I'm not trying to directly port any other game or be too heavily influenced by others. As such there is major differencec between this game and other Roguelikes.
Firstly it is obviously multiplayer and will cater more to a multplayer experience. Due to it being multiplayer I also had to lose the turn-based aspect of the game.

The second difference is that I am trying to make combat in the game more indepth that something like Nethack. Since it is multiplayer you will not be capable of slaying epic dragon gods on your own (unless you spend insane amounts of time getting stronger) and you will require the help of other players to topple some of the stronger
monsters.
Combat it's self will be more indepth in that you will be capable of attacking enemy limbs and scoring a critical hit on that limb has a chance of crushing, piercing or lopping it off. Limbs that are damaged or missing cannot be used and will severely weaken enemies (rendering arms useless will prevent certain types of enemies from attacking, legs will slow down enemies, wings will stop flying enemies from moving very fast, tails will stop certain enemies, like scorpions from using special attacks and heads has a chance of instantly killing enemies that need a head to live). Also, all weapons, armor and other equipment has a skill related to it that increases as you use said equipment (so does everything in the game actually). As the skill increases you recieve bonuses for using that type of equipment, for swords they will become more accurate and do more damage, and you will be able to learn special sword based attacks. For armor it will provide better defence (or in the case of light armor better evasion) and you will be able to move around in it more freely (making it more possible to cast spells in armor).
Stealth for Rouges will be a key stratergy. As Rogues get better at sneaking they will get special bonuses (harder to hit and at high levels they will be able to enter sneak mode while other things can see them), as they get better at assassination they will do more damage with sneak attacks, they will hit more often (to the point where they never miss), might make enemies bleed (slit throat, if possible) and at high levels have a chance of instantly killing enemies. Thieving skills such as stealing items, picking locks, seeing/setting and disarming traps are also massively helpful (nothing more fun that stealing an enemies weapon then using that weapon to kill them).
Magic will also be much, much more indepth. Magic will be very powerful, but like a bazooka. One shot will kill more or less anything, but one shot might be all you get. There will be a variety of magic spells (so far there is about 30 out of maybe 200) and most magic spells will grow in power with the caster. Fireball for example will initially only do fire damage, but at a certain point it will have a chance of burning the enemy, and once the spellcaster becomes powerful enough the fireball will become explosive, damaing enemies close to the intended target of the fireball. The majority of spells are like this, and have additional effects as the spellcaster gets stronger (not just more damage).
Other parts of combat involve the ability to shapeshift into any enemy and make use of said enemis special abilities and attacks and the ability to either tame any enemy, summon it or in the case of one powerful spell clone it (tames enemies are treated as pets and are permenant so long as they do not die, summons are only temporary).

The final big difference is the game will have two sides to it. One side is like I have just described, a Roguelike.
The otherside will hopefully play more like a more personal version of Dwarf Fortress, where you take control of one person as apposed to simply giving the group of people tasks.
Initially this will play out as something along the lines of Cow RP, on steroids. But I hope to develop it into a small scale sim city like game. Where by building buildings and then placing certain things inside said buildings you will attract certain types of NPC. For example building a decent sized building with a forge, smelter and anvil could attract a blacksmith NPC, which will then give you access to the services this blacksmith provides. And over time players would be able to build their own full scale town.
But as I said, this is what I hope to turn the other side of the game into, and it is still in the planning stages and will probably be one of the last things I do add to the game (due to it being both complex to make and something requires careful implamentation, lest it attract griefers).

But yeah, that will be the game. For those who prefer Rougelikes it will be exactly that, though it will be my own brand of Rougelike that takes influences from others but without being to heavily influenced by them.
But for those who would prefer to simply have a RPing session I also want to provide that for them.