Daikon Forge

I don’t participate in contests and tournaments much anymore, due at least in part to comments made by one well-known fighter after our duel where she said that it was apparent I was using my position as a C:SI developer to cheat (I wasn’t, so that really upset me), but one of the things I really do still enjoy and get into whenever the opportunity is available is Ayame’s "Master’s Treasure" competitions.  I might even go so far as to say that Master’s Treasure is my favorite "game within the game" I’ve seen thus far in Second Life®.

If you’ve not played "Master’s Treasure" before, it’s basically a kind of "King of the Hill / Capture the flag" competition where there is a treasure chest that must be protected.  If you protect it against all comers for a given amount of time, you win the L$ contents which sometimes range as high as $10,000L.  One of the challenges is that the treasure chest is on a platform raised up in the air high enough that you must use a double-jump to even reach the platform, and it’s not large enough to support large numbers of people.  If you fall, it could easily take you so long to get back on the platform that someone else has time to take the prize.

Those of you who have seen this in action will understand what I’m thinking, then, when I ask "How will these new weapons fare in such a game?"

Both Esprite’s Ninjaken and Ayame’s Dynasty Flame weapons have special attacks that do not move the player during the attack.  That movement, or charge, used to make it somewhat challenging to remain on the platform and probably discouraged use of the special somewhat (though for this and other reasons the naginata is quite popular during Master’s Treasure).  In addition to that, Ayame’s dual-wield swords can damage everyone around, which again is kind of like the naginata special.

This line of thought got me very curious about Archanox’s new weapons, a dual-wield set of daggers (currently in Beta testing) that among other things has movement as part of the attack repertoire.  In a normal duel this is very interesting as it makes for some visually appealing fighting as well as making distance and timing a little more important.  But what of Master’s Treasure?  Seems to me that it could make it somewhat hard to remain on the platform if you go to slash or kick someone and end up falling off the platform as a result.

I’m not really trying to make any significant point here, it’s just an interesting mental diversion – something to think about as I sit here and eat my breakfast – but you can bet I’ll be sitting straight up in my seat and paying attention to how these new weapons do during the next competition