Sherwood Dungeon
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Sherwood Dungeon is a browser-based online Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game from Maid Marian Entertainment.
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[edit] Beginning
It is possible to start playing Sherwood Dungeon immediately, there are no charges, and no need to create an account. The site saves a file on the local system of the player to automatically remember them the next time they enter the site.
Upon entering the game the player can choose the name of their avatar, their race (Male, female, Black Knight, or Skeleton) and their colour, choosing from such colours as red, blue, green, and gray. Players cannot attack players of the same colour so this produces 4 "teams". However, your avatar's colour can be changed in the game if desired.
It is possible on the start screen to select a server rather than be randomly assigned one. This is of use to players who wish to meet friends from outside or inside the game. Some players will always sign onto the same server and even room so they can be easily found.
[edit] The Game
After one has made a character, your character is spawned around the outskirts of the Castle, in the Sherwood Level. This is a large landscape with a large castle in the middle. Play takes place on a number of islands and in dungeons. Locations are connected by 'portals' but may also be accessed using teleport codes. All islands except Sherwood castle have a minimum XP-level recommendation. These islands are known as Haunted Palm, Frost Bite, Lost Lagoon, and Ancient Sherwood.
Movement is controlled using the arrow keys. When fighting, <CTRL> attacks and <CTRL> + <SHIFT> blocks. Successfully blocking an attack doubles the power of your next attack. This is called "charging" your attacks. The mouse is used to interact with some computer characters, open chests/barrels and alter your characters weaponry. You can also dance by pressing and holding the <UP> + <DOWN> Arrow Keys.
Characters receive experience for every damage point inflicted from fights with monsters, which allows them to obtain better equipment and gives improved stats. Gold may be obtained from those who use chests and barrels in dungeons or it can be acquired through selling equipment, to be spent on equipment.
Through the Merchant players can sell or buy equipment. Players may only buy equipment of their XP-level. Equipment may be found in chests/barrels in dungeons but again only up to their experience level.
A version of the game, sherwood2, running on a new 'test' server has been released. This does not add any new features at present but should allow community features such as user accounts, guilds and friends lists, to be added at a later date.
The game receives periodic updates and Gene Endrody maintains a developers diary on the website detailing new features and future plans.
[edit] PVP (Player Versus Player) Combat
In the Sherwood Castle level, players may fight the various computer controlled monsters which are continuously spawned there. It is not possible to use health potions in the keep of the castle, and for this reason PVP combat often takes place here as it prevents combat being merely decided by potion stacking (continual usage of health potions). Players may not attack other players of the same colour, although colour may be changed by clicking on the face of a black knight in the upper left corner of the screen. Although combat in Sherwood dungeon has simple controls compared to many other RPG's, emergent behaviour and tactics adopted by players can make fighting much more complex and tactical than would perhaps be expected, therefore it makes Sherwood more tactical than other RPG's. The lack of mouse control for rapidly changing views and/or attacking, sets Sherwood Dungeon apart from other RPG's, as keyboard control is not very common in other RPG's.
A popular way to fight PVP battles is to go to the top of the highest tower where many colors will battle to see who can hold the tower for the longest. Many of these battles consist of only two colors (most commonly Red and Black). There is also another way to battle against other users which is called a battle tourney. Battle Tourneys mainly consist of around 16 people. They are not necessarily clan related, although some clans use tournaments as ways to see who are some of the stronger, or weaker members of said clan.
[edit] Quests
By talking to Lady Marian, (one of only two NPCs in game), players receive quests which require them to kill a certain number of a named monster on a dungeon level equal to their experience level. Upon completion, and returning to Lady Marian, they are rewarded with a piece of equipment and bonus experience. An example of a quest is "Level 26 of the dungeon is over-run by amethyst marines! Kill 6 of these and you will receive the kite shield of supremacy!."
[edit] Clans
When adventuring, it is easy to chat with other players to possibly call for help or form a clan. These clans usually form some kind of website to keep in touch and as way to recruit new people into their establishment, and also to give out 'missions' to current recruits. Unlike some other MMORPG's, Sherwood Dungeon does not at present offer any in-game support for clans, except for the new verion of Sherwood Dungeon, Sherwood2 which creator Gene Endrody says will most definitely feature a friends list, which will really help out this matter.
[edit] Monsters
All standard monsters in the game have 2 part names consisting of an "element" eg. fire, amethyst, ice followed by the type eg. scrapper, demon. These monsters are totally colored to represent their elements, and are slightly transparent. Many use the same 3D models as the playable characters, sometimes shrunk or enlarged, but there is no confusion due to the coloring system. At present there are 3 basic subdivisions of monsters, spiders, human-based and undead skeleton monsters. Undead monsters appear from level 5 onwards.
Skeleton boss monsters appear on level 5 onwards, with 3 times the health of the normal monsters. These are not 'elemental' and resemble large versions of the playable skeleton character. Their names are produced from a monster type, eg. demon,and a boss part, eg. sergeant. These bosses are usually defeated by potion stacking, and charged attacks. However, when you go to higher levels, it is possible to kill them by using weak charge attacks with good block timing, with using talismans.
The creator, Gene Endrody, has also been working on introducing dragons into the game. A statue of a dragon, presumably using the same model that these dragons will have, recently appeared in the courtyard of the castle, fueling rumor and speculation as to when and how they will be introduced. According to the developer, they will be introduced late April, although he has not released an exact date. Many are anticipating the release of dragons, as much of the player community has outgrown the presently implemented monsters, and needs stronger pray. It is rumored dragons will have a land to themselves, as so they don't go smighting low levels willy-nilly.
[edit] Codes
All codes are typed into the chat box without the quotes, and with the forms in <here> replaced with the appropriate number. The teleport codes take the player to special areas other than the Castle level and the Dungeon levels.
- "/teleport 1" This teleports you to the place where the player is spawned, in the Sherwood Castle level.
- "/teleport 2" This teleports you to the area known as Haunted Palm.
- "/teleport 3" This teleports you to the area known as Frost Bite.
- "/teleport 4" This teleports you to the area known as the Lost Lagoon.
- "/teleport 5" This teleports you to the area known as Ancient Sherwood. This area is a replica of the original Sherwood game.
- "/who" This lists the names of everyone in your current chatroom.
- "/level <A number between 1 and your XP level>" This takes you to the inputted level of the Sherwood Castle dungeon.
- "/join <A number between 1 and 99>" This will take you to the chatroom indicated by the number entered. This merely changes the chatroom, it does not change your current location.
- "/fps" Show your frame rate.
[edit] The Islands
There are currently five Islands (also known as realms) in Sherwood Dungeon. These realms are filled with monsters that drop items when defeated, and range from level 5 to level 30 depending on which island you choose to go to. These islands are:
- Sherwood Castle (any level)
- Haunted Palm (level 5)
- Frost bite (level 10)
- Lost Lagoon (level 20)
- Ancient Sherwood (level 30)
There will probably be more areas to come. If there are new areas, there is a high chance that they will feature dragons.
[edit] Items
There are many different types of items in Sherwood. These include Weapons, Shields, Rings, Potions, and Amulets. Most of them can be bought, but a bigger variety of these items can be found in the dungeons.
[edit] Weapons
This is a list of the kinds of weapons and their damage ranges:
- Swords: Minimum attack is always 1 (plus the minimum damage bonus of elemental swords, which also applies to maximum damage), maximum damage goes up by approx. 11 per level. Not many swords have an Elemental bonus, but are commonly found as special weapons, such as the "Long Sword of Victory". Although available from merchant at low levels, swords are only found in crates and dropped by monsters after you reach a certain level.
- Axes: The minimum damage is higher then swords, but the maximum smaller. The merchant sells emerald axes, and a frost axe after you reach a certain level.
- Maces: The damage range is smaller than both axes and swords. A commonly used mace is the Flaming Mace, and are very oftenly duel-wielded. The merchant will sell fire axes after you reach a certain level.
The elemental bonus is ALWAYS your level added to all damage. You can sacrifice your shield slot for another weapon, which is called dual-wielding. An example of the Elemental bonus: Flaming Mace- 36-85 damage (+ 35 or your level) so the mace would be doing a total damage of 71-120.
In most dungeon levels, there is a chest holding an elemental weapon, whose level is equal to the dungeon level.
[edit] Shields
All normal shields add 4X the shield's to armor. Special shields add 5X the shield's level to armor. (IE, a level 16 "Shield of Conquest" adds +80 armor) Now, shield type (shield, box shield, kite shield, buckler...) does not affect how much armor. Instead, the shield's level, which corresponds to either your level if dropped by a monster, or the dungeon level where the chest it was obtained from is, predicts the armor.
[edit] Rings
Rings either add HP, armor, increase healing rate, or add both HP and armor. Among the most popular of these rings is the hard to find, 100% healing time increase, Ring of Healing. There is also both a 33% and 66% healing time increasing ring. Rings are found only in chests, or bought from the merchant
[edit] Potions
These stack and heal about 50% of your total health. Players cannot use potions (commonly referred to as 'pots') in or near the Sherwood Castle in Realm 1. Potion stacking comes in handy when fighting hard boss monsters in the dungeon, or when you go to dungeon levels higher than your level. They are also extremely handy when fighting the stronger monsters in Frost Bite, etc.
[edit] Amulets
There are five known amulets in Sherwood Dungeon. The four basic ones are fire, poison, ice, and shadow amulets which envelop the opponent in different colored flame, and cause damage. These amulets also provide an armor bonus. An additional amulet, the Talisman of Speed, is available from level 5 onwards, giving a period of faster attacks and also provides an armor bonus. Although it might add speed, it can be blocked, which could mean defeat by a charged attack if you are not careful while using this Talisman. Talismans are very common quest-rewards, and sell extremely well to the merchant. As such, the merchant also sells talismans for a very high price, ranging into the 100s for even low levels. However, the Talismans are also very common in chests in the dungeon, and are easily collected. Commonly, players will go 'ammy-hunting', and with comb dungeon chests for JUST amulets, that they will proceed to sell to the merchant for gold.
[edit] Sherwood 2
In the developers diary in the most recent update he spoke of a new game called Sherwood 2 which he says will have a friends list, and much more that can currently not be done on the current version. Sherwood2 is accessible by players, although it is still under constant development.
On Sherwood 2, you can click on a player, an object, or a monster, the hold down the S key. After doing this, drag your mouse in and out to change the objects size, width, height, and depth. Changes only appear on your screen.
The T key, when held down with the 1,2, or 3 numeric keys, will make a tower. Dragging the mouse will resize the tower. After it is created, it can be resized with the above S command, or the D command talked about below. The tower is only on your screen, is not solid, can be passed through, and is completely useless.
Additionally, you can press the D key, and click an object, monster, etc. to delete it. However, some browsers have trouble with this, and it results in shockwave crashing, or even forcing the user's PC to crash.
Both above commands are probably only temporary, as they are glitchey and hold no purpose in Sherwood as a game. The D and S key-commands can also be used to delete the bridge over the river, the dragon-statue, etc., but these changes only delete their appearance. you can still walk over the bridge, it will just look like you are floating over the river.
[edit] Technical Details
Sherwood dungeon is developed with Adobe Director and run in a web browser using the Shockwave plug-in. There are three servers for Sherwood dungeon/Maid Marian running the Shockwave Multiuser Server under Windows 2003 on a 100 megabyte connection. The application "Always Up" runs the SMUS server as a Windows Service and restarts it automatically if a crash is detected. Much of the game content, such as dungeons, forests, and islands is procedurally generated for download and performance efficiency, rather than the more traditional method of manually placing content.*
