Spamfunet Nanny Forum

I have been thinking about which areas seem to be the most popular, and began to think about why they are so popular.  I know I tend to hang out in areas that aren't frequented quite so commonly, but I was wondering which areas other players tend to gravitate towards.

I don't think you should necessarily give up your favourite hunting grounds - otherwise I am sure Gunnar's and Vasques' areas would be the most popular by far.

Perhaps if people could just mention some of the general areas they like to haunt it might be possible to derive which features are the most popular and share that with the great minds who construct these areas for our pleasure.

The more good areas the less traffic in your favorite hunting grounds.

Good area doesn't equal favourite hunting ground actually. When i hunt i concentrate on the kill, either for the xp or for some unique, and have no time to look much around, but the real pleasure comes when I'm exploring. This is the moment when i can enjoy all details of an area and appreciate a wizard's work :)

So the areas I liked most of the ones i explored recently are Gemfibrozil's, Block's, Longstrider's and Drechbrel's (the last one might be a bit annoying since it requires exact sintax, but its a pleasure to read nethertheless). Among the ones as old as Nanny I can mention Dagoth's and Leowon's which always manage to give me a thrill, no matter how many times i was in them. Leowon's area actually can give you more than just a thrill, I killed a lot of chars in there :P
Mirage's area is very good too, since it manages to combine good kills with great descriptions.
And i was forgetting Andra's, one of the best areas around, perfectly balanced between good kills and interesting quests, not to mention some extra stuff :)

None of these is however my hunting ground, apart maybe Mirage's dungeon or Andra's caves. According to what i need (money, xp, items to sacrifice to viking deities...) I visit Soulfly's, Weronoop's, Danny's portals... Too bad after first visit i don't watch around anymore... go, kill, return, thats all  8)


Its late here and i might have forgot some area. I apologize in advance with creator and promise that if it comes to my mind  I'll add it later ;)

The completeness of Andra's and Erendi's area is perhaps what makes it so good. I love their quests, I love their area, I love everything about it.

Anothr such area is Readis' and Firelight's area, also excellent quests and an excellent area.

I have spent a lot of time in Andra and Erendi's area. It is one of my favorites. Well written, nicely animated, good puzzles and kills and very nice loot.

I enjoyed exploring Barbarella's area, which is now gone I think. It was a beautifully descripted area, almost poetic. Barb's area had no peer. It had the best room descriptions of any area I have explored in Nanny.

I enjoyed Prof's area way back when. It was the area I first did quests in without someone having me follow them to a room and do some action which made no sense at the time. He had great puzzles and a very interesting area.

Readis and Firelight's rendition of Anne McCaffrey's world is always a pleasure to visit. It is a much larger area than is first apparent. I love their quest to help Aquarian(sp?).

Mordor's bat towers were a favorite haunt of mine as a low level knight. And his spider island always gave me the creeps. It has been gone for some time as well.

Dagoth's area is often a fine challenge, and he manages to change things every now and then so that I need to explore it from time to time to see what is new. It is also much bigger than is first apparent.

Leowon's has fine puzzles and rewards explorers that keep digging. It has some rather deadly areas for the unwary.

Meep has one of the most amusing areas, well worth a look. It is full of quirky characters and monsters.

Those are the area's that come immediately to mind that kept me entertained over the years. There are many more. A big Thank You! to all the creators who have made the world of Nanny such a joy for so many years.

Ok... it's not really conceited since Kiki did so much of the work, but I still love my area and my quest.   :D

Other people's:

I really used to like Charmangle's area... before they moved it.
I really like Andra's.
I absolutely loved Akasha's area and the bonsai quest.
That area where you fight germs in a giant is very clever.

I'd have to think about it some more.

Could we please keep only opened area in this thread and talk about the good old but alas! gone ones in the nostalgia thread?

I'd have to say my favorite area is Brom's, but Meep's and Beldin's are right up there on my list as well.  I'd also throw Traste's area in on my toplist....


Oasis

My favourite areas are Vincent's (many great puzzles), Leowon's (really fun to explore), Andra's & Erendi's (very good in lots of ways), Readis' and Firelight's (Nice quests and generally good area).

As for closed ones, I really liked Profezzorn's and Slakktor's areas.

I always liked my descriptions, even if I never got around to finishing 10% of my area. :P

I like areas with nice kills. :) (depending on guild).
Areas that:

1) I can speedwalk to (and back).
2) Have high level kills (6k++ exp), as many as possible, with nice loot, and extreme alignments. :P

That's all.

I don't explore much, I find it pretty boring, I just explore sometimes when questing and need to. Otherwise I explore very rarely, that's why there are no areas where I kinda kill alone, I just go to the usual over-populated areas. And again, and again, and again. Anyways, sometimes you just have to keep killin' hundreds and hundreds of monsters with no time to read descriptions.

The biggest complement I ever received for my area was:
"Oh, I thought that was part of Leowon's area."

I prefer areas that blend in with the areas around them. The transition from one to another should, imo, be seamless. I think that was part of the aim when the new continent was implemented.  Most of the areas there are of a higher caliber than average. It's a pity that it takes so long to travel there, making it another Lost Continent.

Arbre,
I apologize for not spending as much time in your area as I once did.  I think I might have been the one that said it seemed part of Leowon's.

It is definately a seamless transition, and a well crafted area full of great rewards for those who choose to look.  Definately an area for the thinking player as well.

From my own experiences, and what I have heard from others, the most popular areas have several things in common.

1) Easily accessible.

2) Some easy to find, adequate kills with decent standard equipment that might be worth putting in a Share Room type setting.

3) Maybe one, possibly two, familiar unique items that are not too hard to get for most players.

4) A thinking aspect - although an open hunting plains may have some appeal for certain players/guilds, the majority of players like to see something that must be figured out in the area - which leads to the next point quite often...

5) A slightly more hidden portion of the area.  Some place that is not immediately noticeable, yet not completely hidden from the exploring players.  This area usually has some more choice kills, slightly better standard equipment and possibly an extra good unique.

6)Puzzles/Quests!  I can never tell if the majority of players like these, but they definately seem to run rampant in the most popular areas.

7) The real kick it up a notch... the Legendary Item.  There are a few uniques on the Mud that only turn up every once in a great while, and for good reason.  These are the items that legends are made of.  There are some players who will spend weeks scouring an area for a hint as to the whereabouts of such rumours.

8 ) The Super-monster!  Ok, this doesn't come up in a lot of comments on the thread, but what would the Mud be without our Pets and Beasts of Nurgle?  Some of the most well known areas may not be visited consistently, but they will be visited for one reason - The Monster.

9) Added attractions - clubs, shops, pubs, healing, auto-loaders are all good ways to bring some players flocking to an area.

Granted, not all the most popular areas have all of these, but they seem to have a special balance of them.

So there are some ideas for budding Wizards who are stumped as to what to code next.  Being of an exploring nature I truly hope this list might help to inspire some great things, most importantly - if you build it, at least I will come!   :twisted:

I agree with Yav 1000%. That couldn't be said better. I would suggest that note to be posted on nanny as well.

Haha, after reading Yav's note, I can't help but think of making a game in the vein of Roller Coaster Tycoon.

Wizard Tycoon:
Become a wizard and create an area to attract adventurers from around the world.  Populate your area with monsters and pubs and equipment. blah blah blah.... Hehe, don't mind me...

I thought, given the direction that this thread went, I might simply add this bit to it.

I was wondering why so many wizards code their areas and then just leave them.  It seems that there are a few who consistently update and add things, but it seems that even that number is becoming less and less.  One of the greatest treats is to find that new things have been added to an area.  By this I do not simply mean a brand new unique, but entire facets.  There have been several areas historically that players can see, but can not enter since construcion is not done... mind you, some of these were old bits when I first started and they are still closed.  What a shame.  Someone had inspiration at some time and has lost it  :cry:

I understand that it is a lot of work to code something like an area, but I have certainly seen a few who continue to contribute.

As an example - Wolfenhex has been extremely prolific as of late, and not only have his newer creations been well recieved, but I think they have helped to encourage newer players to stick around and enjoy the game more.  I can also remember when Blackfire added on to her area.  It was a phenomenal boon to all players and only added interest to her area.  The same can be said of other Wizards areas, but it does seem to be a rare occurence.

Out of curiosity, is it time, motivation or inspiration that stymies this with most wizards?

Most people loses interest I think. Most people would probably have the time to work on their area. I mean, perhaps you work a lot but if Nanny is a hobby then you'd try to allocate SOME time at least, like a half day in the week-end or 1-2 hours in the evening when possible or something. People tends to have less and less time, that is also true, unfortunately. For most people it is not easy or comfortable to earn a living and it consumes a lot of time and energy. But IMHO, if you want to do it you can. Perhaps much slower than opening your first area (as a student, let's say :P ) but it should be possible.
But interests change and focus is moved to other things after a while, I believe. I am not sure that the time invested in Nanny is completely lost, even if I think that too sometimes. Actually you can never know because it may even pay off, by knowing people, experiencing many things that you couldn't, without. It is a special type of interaction, I believe, that you cannot find in RL or on chats. Perhaps it is not a very good idea to waste a lot of time on it but I am not sure wether it is completely useless.

Uhh, I have read my post's preview. I use lots of 'i think', 'i believe', 'perhaps', 'not sure', 'should be' and these kind of things. It's just this happens when I don't write a note with a specific goal just start something, meanwhile thinking further and continue. So I tend to get away from the given subject and go totally off-topic, sometimes. :P Sorry.

It's a question of having time to sit down for a longer period of time I think ... atleast it is for me.

While I have done various changes to my own area over the years, the main problem now is not having the chance to sit down a weekend and work on my area. It's frustrating, I have so many things coded, but it's only half done and I need to finish it all to wrap it up and open it up for the public but I'm not in a position in life to give such hobbies that amount of time (single parent, working full time etc).

Anyways, when you don't have time to sit down for a few days, it's hard to get any quality work done. Working an hour here, an hour there, it's very slow work and not much fun as you just about get on a roll when you have to stop.

Its not helped by the 1970's standard development environment and the fact that there is no test/prototype area here. Its as though some people love the thrill of hacking the Live system.

Lets hope the banking world doesn't catch on.

Moan moan moan

Good areas
Harthorns: Bunch of stuff to search and explore in every room it seems, at least in the forest, and the caves have nice loot. Can't understand how he managed to make an area with that much stuff, I never get bored in there. Also a bunch of stuff happening while you just stand there, leaves flying around, stuff cracking beneath your feet and so on. Really feels as if I'm really there  :D.
Kerish: Bunch of animals to kill  :) . also fun stuff to find in there and a really nice quest that I just stumbeled upon while exploring. As I think I said before, those are the quests I like the most, especially when they fit so perfectly in the environment.
Bad area
Bansees: Dark (or was it black) knight, lemming, abbess. Need I say more. Heh, people might say "you learn by your misstakes", but that only makes me think "Is it possible to create a monster that automatically brings you down to level 1 when you get killed? Oh, or why not a monster that totally erases your char from nanny, now that would really an even greater learning experience  :wink: .

This note is actually intended to be read by people who are like me, that are more into balanced areas and old fashioned fantasy. But then again, maybe Nanny wasn't created for people like me, maybe it's made for people who find it funny with stuff like an UFO apearing behind some bushes and blasting them to death in one single ttack and stuff like that. Makes me think if I even belong here. But anyway. Now that you know what preferences are about areas, maybe someone could give me more advice on great areas like harthorns and kerish's

If you really enjoy Harthorne's and Kerish's areas I think you might also find that Andra's, Mirage's, Blackfire's, Asarni's, Leowon's and Arbre's are also quite fun (just to name a few).  Although I don't think of Banshee's area as bad - I can certainly sympathize with you about that annoying lemming.  When I was a young, and I mean young, Knight, one of my companions suggested I train my parry skill on that lemming.  A full heal and a lot of luck later I managed to escape it - with 1 hp left.   :twisted:

I really hope Phade doesn't think I will let him live down that piece of advice!

Anyway, there really are a lot of excellent areas on Nanny.  If you see my earlier post in this thread about the 9 suggestions for good areas, those thoughts all exist in some of the current areas.  The part that I find amazing is that sometimes I will be the only one in those areas.

That should add a few new places to explore a bit.

Well, I can talk for myself. Although i can code (with some-lots of- help) im not that skilled at it, so every new room takes me a considerable effort, much more than it takes ppl like say, Wolfenhex or Mirage ot other coding freaks ;) ...
So I've tried to make my area interesting, since i dont care for a 100 hack and slash rooms area. I've added uniques and painfully gone though the approval routine... and all this for what? Less than 20 players have actually visited it, and less then 10 actually solved everything it offers... :(
Would you use 6 months of your sparetime for this?
I really enjoyed it when i created it, but now i have somehow lost will. I know, most of it is due to the fact than im not selfconfident when it comes to coding so i dont consider it fun to get mad trying to get rid of bugs. I like writing descriptions, coming out with new ideas...
Boh, enough for rant, maybe ill find will back one of these days :)

I hate descriptions. I'd like to create like one full screen (25 rows) longdescs but I am just not able to do it. Guess it's not hard to believe considering my name. I'd rather focus on the coding part, but also usually I don't have the patience to work on one single item two weeks, or more. It might worth it but I just can't focus that long, I get bored.

Ladychris, your area is good and interesting. Part of the problem may be that you placed it on Antharis, which is rarely visited anyway. Of those areas that are used, hack and slash is the main aim.

As an aside, I can't believe that only 20 'explorers' haven't got your area registered in their globe  :wink:

M

Being one of those 20, I can definately vouch that not only is Loreley's area a good one to go to, but it is worth it as well.  Not much in terms of hack and slash for me - although I could see potential for less alignment restricted individuals.  

I have a hunch though, if the few of us that keep going there for a unique or two start to be noticed (assuming there are still those that think it is worthwhile to try equipment they haven't seen before), that the demand will drive more explorers that way.

For now though, I am not giving guided tours of the place since I think a player should at least make an honest attempt to solve the puzzles on their own first.  Well, that and one of the pieces there is among the favorites of someone I party with - even though the item is worthless to me personally...   :twisted:

As for location, it is just off from one of the most visited (if not the most visited) area on Antharis... I just don't think many people get past there.

I think my current favorite is Carrion's newbie land. Leowon's has also been a favorite (I *heart* typosquad). And I also miss Akasha's.

I really like this post/list thingie, it has given me some thoughts as to areas I might like to explore soon. :)

I like exploring best, places where you can look at the room, and look at the items referenced in the room descriptions and the item descriptions.

*is a wierdo that way among others* //Cie

I love Kadagar's area, though I haven't really got any chars
to exploit it much these days. If you like exploring, its huge,
and quite interesting. If you have been there already, sorry.

Also, If there are any pink panther fans out there, or people
that generally like wearing pink (me me me!!!!), its a good
place to go. I think I miss retrib somehow.

Happy days of yore

M

There are many areas I  like for some reason or another. I have never used brief description, so I used to read everything in the room...then all areas where I found some little reward because of a puzzle solved I enjoyed very much.

But to name some areas with a very pleasant reading for me, I will name: Andra, Drechbrel (i like more the inland than Antharis), Barbarella, and on a different note Meep.

I have been in the tag club while Wolfenhex was making new things so I had much fun searching his place, and it's a nice area for puzzles as there are so many.

I will think of more some other day :D

Favourite areas:

Longstrider - Fairly new, the descriptions are gorgeous and really immerse me. One of the kills is very nice, but you have to be clever to discover its secret. I hope this area is expanded on some day.

Syrinx - A very high quality area with nothing in it. Such a shame. She told me she had more plans for it, then left and hasn't been on since. I won't get my hopes up.

Beldin - This area is perfect. it is rather small, but for one who values quality over quantity that isn't important. What is there is immaculate. The descriptions look balanced and poetic, without being difficult to read. Also the big challenge can be overcome quite easily with a bit of clever thinking (or luck).

Brom - Full of mysteries, a few of which I still haven't solved after months of intensive exploring.

Mats - There are some things I dislike, such as the items which appear to be only half-coded. But the troll cave is excellent; there aren't enough such places in nanny.

Leowon - This area is fantastic, but my fondness for it has diminished for having passed through it so often. There are some very lethal monsters that scare the pants off ordinary players, but there is always a reward for those who can overcome those challenges (minus one or two which the admins got their mitts on and downcoded mercilessly).

Lorenzo - Not visited this one for a while, but I remember enjoying it very much.

Panic - Dreadful in terms of quality, but this area never failed to get me excited about the supposed artifacts that are hidden within it. The simple descriptions tickled me, filling me with a sense of child-like wonder. Of course there aren't any good items or kills there, don't waste your time.

Earendils - Sprawling, Lord-of-the-Ringsy area without any obvious reference to Lord of the Rings. I don't know, but this has always evoked a feeling of fantasy and mystery within me that reminds me of that book. Suffering from lack of maintainance.

Worst areas:

All those that have been mutilated through too many downcodes. A few more that just plain suck, but I won't name them.

so which area is ladychris's area then?

Check this thread out: http://spamfunet.com/nanny/forum/viewtopic.php?t=79&highlight=loreley
and you will find some of Ladychris' aliases. Get back here (or on Nanny herself) to get further hints if needed!

I already named areas I like, and there are many others I've enjoyed very much, but for being new I'll comment on two:

I liked Olaftheblue's for the stories one can read there, really entertaining. I solved an easy puzzle and have the feeling there are more...so one day I'll go warlike to inspect more  :twisted:

And Russ's I also liked very much, small area yet as well but with a fabulous entrance, an entertaining puzzle, a library and some devices one may find useful...not for killing but for taming  :D

Thanks for the nice words Hewe  :D  I'm glad you liked it.

As I'm sure you are aware, you can only open up quite a small area to start with...  I have lots more ideas, but it is getting the time to code them at the moment... a lot has been happening in RL for me recently...  :(

 :grin:
One of my all time favorite areas is back!!!!
I've already snuck in to check out some of the best parts of old.  There are still a few bits being held closed until the quests are re-approved (Oh, that all the older quests were held up to the standards of Nibs').  Highly reccomeneded.

Nice area for a high khorne, definitely :)