Telearena

From dodWiki

Tele-arena is a multiplayer text game (a MUD) that was originally coded and developed for the "Major BBS"[1] electronic bulletin board system back in the early 1990's. Development of the game essentially stopped at around 1994, though there appears to be various modified versions of the game still running on several public bulletin board systems today[2].

Unlike many MUDs today, Tele-arena had a goal -- to find different colored runes which were placed at various locations in the game. Many areas of the map were unreachable until your player found a particular rune, and thus, your character was forced to find each rune in a particular order. Whenever you found a new rune, that rune would be "tattooed" on your forehead, with the old one disappearing. When looking at a character, you could see how far they have gotten in the overall quest of Tele-arena. Each rune got consecutively harder to get :

White Rune
Yellow Rune
Green Rune
Blue Rune

(Minex): An interesting note is that I remember playing the game as it was being developed. When I started playing Tele-arena 4 back in 1992, you could only get up to the yellow rune. As the next version was released half a year later, the green rune was added. Finally, the blue rune was added. I remember the anticipation from all of the players scrambling to find and get the latest rune. The problem was that only one person could get the rune each day. You would essentially have to wait for the BBS to reset during its nightly cleanup process so that the rune reset.

One of the greatest challenges of Tele-arena was the way death was handled. Once your character died, you had to start over, period. To complicate gameplay, anyone could attack anyone, which forced some ruthless PvP action whether you liked it or not. There's nothing like not paying attention in the game and having someone attack you, kill you, thus forcing you to start completely over. Later versions of the game added a "Soulstone". While carrying this soulstone, your character would be resurrected at the temple in the first town upon death. Even worse was how the game parsed attack commands. For some odd reason, it would check if a player's name matches first before checking monsters. So if someone typed "a min" to attack a minotaur and a character call "Minex" was in the same room, you would end up attacking "Minex".

A Tele-arena 2 was in the works and made the initial release. However, the world size was small and contained only the first town and the surrounding areas. Tele-arena 2 never developed beyond this point.

The "Realms of Ta" area is based on Tele-arena version 5.6d. Everything has been copied exactly, including any typos and problems with maps.

For nostalgic purposes, here's an output of the help screen :

  Welcome to Tele-Arena. Tele-arena is basically a role playing swords &
sorcery type adventure game similar to many popular games such as Dungeons
& Dragons(tm), etc. It is a land where players and monsters battle for
treasure and glory. When you first enter the game you will be asked two
questions. The first is which race you would like to be. The second is
which class you would like to be.
  Race refers to your physical appearance and characteristics. Some races
are better suited to certain classes than others. The races currently common
in the world of Tele-Arena are Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Humans, Goblins, and
Half-ogres. Elves are lithe and intelligent and excel in spellcraft. Dwarves
are tough and strong and are skilled in physical combat. Gnomes are quite
agile and much heartier than elves, and do almost equally well as
spellcasters or rogues. Humans are the 'normal' average that all other races
are compared to and are equally suited for any class. Goblins are cunning and
agile creatures who are shunned by most other races. They make very skillful
rogues. Half-ogres are the toughest, and most durable of the races. They are
usually the offspring of renegade ogres and their unwilling human captives.
What they lack in intelligence, they make up for with brute strength.
  Class refers to your profession or calling in life. The current classes
available are Warrior, Sorceror, Acolyte, Rogue, Hunter, Druid, Archer, and
Necrolyte. Warriors rely on sheer muscle to defeat their enemies. They also
get the best choice of armor and weapons.
  Warriors are physically the toughest class of character, and may use any
armor or weapon, except for projectile weapons.
  Sorcerors may cast powerful offensive and utility spells, but may only wear
robes and wield a staff.
  Acolytes are fairly adept at physical combat, and they may cast curative
and healing spells. Acolytes may wield only bludgeoning weapons.
  Rogues are better at physical combat than sorcerors, but not as capable as
acolytes or warriors. They may wear unrestrictive armors and wield staves and
one-handed blades. Rogues also have a number of special abilities, such as
the ability to rob other characters, avoid traps, or pick locks.
  Hunters are as adept at physical combat as are warriors, but may only wear
unrestrictive armors and get a slightly more limited selection of weapons.
They too have special abilities which include tracking, hunting for food, and
taming wild creatures.
  Druids get the same choice of weapons that acolytes do, and may wear robes
or a leather cuirass. They may also cast an assortment of elemental spells.
  Archers are as adept at physical combat as are warriors, but may only wear
unrestrictive armors and wield a selection of projectile weapons.
  Necrolytes practice the darkest forms of magick. They get the same choices
of armor and weapons as do sorcerors, but gain power more rapidly. They are
not very skilled at physical combat.
  There are also six basic statistics dealing with the physical and mental
characteristics of your character. There are two mental and four physical
characteristics. These are intellect, knowledge, physique, stamina, agility,
and charisma. Intellect deals with how smart or intelligent your character
is. Knowledge has to do with how wise or knowledgable your character is.
Physique is used to describe your character's strength and physical build.
Stamina tells how healthy your character is as well as how much endurance
he/she has. Agility is used to describe your character's dexterity or
physical coordination. Charisma deals with your character's physical
appearance as well as how influential they are.
  There are two other statistics that you will have to keep track of in
order to survive. These are vitality and health. Vitality describes how much
physical punishment your character can take before death occurs. This damage
may be inflicted upon you by the weapons or spells of other players or by
the many monsters that wander the land. If your vitality reaches zero, you
die. Health describes your current state of health including whether or not
you're poisoned, hungry, thirsty, or just healthy.
  The following is a list of people who contributed to the production of
Tele-Arena version 5.6:  

  Sean Ferrell:       Author/Programmer

  Jim Sweeny,
  Chris Conant,
  Elizabeth Casino:   Design Assitants/Playtesters

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