NEW MetaLIfe 2 Manual (English)

[ENGLISH] MetaLife Manual, version 2.00
Preliminary version

The MetaLife System is a participatory project! YOUR wishes and suggestions are welcome!

1. What ML measures and what not
Skills:
Unlike other RP games, SL allows for much more realism in the handling of weapons. Skills in weapon handling are not only theoretical anymore, but can be trained and developed actively (The MetaLife System is the only combat system in Gor that supports this philosophy strictly). For this reason ML does not simulate attack skills but rather is designed in a way that the user will see effects of his real skills in the amount of damage caused (e.g. by good aiming etc). ML measures only skills which cannot be acquired in reality in SL. Therefore ML does not measure attacking skills. Defending on the other hand is badly realizable in SL, there ML supports a defence point system (THIS IS OPTIONAL AND CAN BE ENABLED OR DISABLED BY A SIM OWNER). This measures your experience in defending yourself and can be trained in numerous fights (remember: you can only learn from stronger opponents, under hard conditions).
Damage:
The calculation of the effective damage delivered by a weapon is done completely by ML. ML does not trust the weapon to decide this, since this is an open door for cheaters; and moreover it is not logical to let the weapon alone decide when it hits stronger or weaker. Such modifications of attack damages are calculated by ML for various parameters like distance, impact point etc. No simple and crude "zoned damage concept" is used but an elaborate way to calculate the impact on health depending on the actual handling of the weapon. This creates a feeling of realism unknown with other meters, and experienced fighters can take advantage from this.
Health and Stamina:
These two parameters reflect the state of your body. If you are hit and a weapon wants to inflict damage on you, your health will decrease. Some weapons may also drain your stamina, or affect health and stamina at the same time. This is shown in the left number of the indicator. The right number is stamina and measures how exhausted you are. You decrease stamina by running, running backwards, with and without armor. If your stamina is low you will have to rest a bit until it is built up again.
If you find yourself in a situation where you really cannot rest, you can give yourself an adrenalin boost by typing /1! or /1ml! or via the menu. As shortcut you can also activate the gesture ? which reacts on SHIFT+F12 by default (you can change this).
When gender differences are switched on (this is done by default) women's stamina drops slower, but their health decreases faster.
If your health is at zero you will not be able to continue fighting but you will lie injured on the ground. In this situation you are at the mercy of your opponents who can aid, kill or take you as prisoner. Aiding will decrease stamina of the helper. If nobody aids, your stamina will decrease over time; if it reaches zero you will die. Also, if you lie injured on the ground and someone still hits you with a weapon (active killing), stamina will decrease faster. Note: killing is always consensual, no forced killing is possible!

2. Roles, genders, races
In the default configuration, ML uses the built-in races male, female and beast, where beast is toughest and female is weakest (by default defence points are disabled).
These roles can be disabled/replaced/extended and adjusted by sim owners.
This affects:
• the floating token identifying the role
• toughness and its behaviour when defence points are enabled
• health regeneration speed
• stamina regeneration speed
• soundsets

3. Remarks on defence points

Unless gender differences are switched off, women have lower defence than men. Collecting defence points will increase defence (for women as well as for men). Women will need around 1000 points to be at eye level with men with 0 defence points. Read this carefully: defence points are NOT earned by winning fights, since this has nothing to do with defence but rather with good weapon handling. You can acquire defence points only if you dare to engage in a hard fight, which is of course risky for you. The higher your risk (i.e. the stronger and numerous the opponents and the higher the damage they inflict on you) the higher your reward when you manage to escape. It must be stressed that defence points do not measure or influence your attacking skills and are not increased through victories. They are increased, for example, by running away and managing to escape a fight that you almost loose. Having high defence points means either you have run away very often or have met many opponents who fight better than you. Good fighters need no high defence, they can be offensive.
4. Armor, helmets, weapons

ML supports the use of armor and helmets. First make sure the ML indicator is attached before you attach armor or helmet. If you want to use a helmet you must also attach the ML HUD. In case you have everything attached but the helmet complains that no HUD is found, simply touch the HUD (or re-attach it). Armor will have negative effect on your stamina and will worsen drowning. Helmets will inhibit your vision.
For obtaining experiences with armor use the provided items "ML Armor 30%" and "ML Helmet 60%". You will find them in the folder "MetaLife ML" in your inventory. It also includes a new realistic bow with variable arrow velocities and damage strengths, a simple shield and a sword with variable attack strength and cut and cut/thrust attacks.

5. Shielding and blocking

The ML folder contains a simple shield as demonstration. It is very easy to use: as soon as you attach it, the shield tries to register with the meter as shielding/blocking device. There can only be one active shielding/blocking device at a time, so if another shield or weapon has been in use, it will be deactived. In order to re-register your shield, simpy touch it (or re-attach it). You will get a message telling you how many % the shield will block.
In order to use the shield, simply press the down-key (PG-DOWN or C). As long as the shield is up all attacks will be blocked. But be careful: shields are heavy and using them drains much of your stamina! So, use it wisely!
If you do not have a shield you can also use weapons for blocking (note: make sure that you use a ML compatible weapon which supports blocking). The sample sword "Beefeater" contained in the package has this feature. It registers automatically as shielding/blocking device once you draw it (note: if you want to use the sword and a shield at the same time, you must attach the shield AFTER drawing the sword, OR touch the attached shield after having drawn the sword!). Its blocking features are, again, activated by pressing the down-key.
As soon as shields/armour/helmet are present, the according strengths will appear as numbers on the right side of the HUD. Touch the numbers to get more information.

6. Using ML

To access the menu, type

/1ml

You can also touch the HUD to get the menu (note: the HUD is not necessary for the MetaLife System to work properly, except when you want to use helmets or the ooc chatter). Alternatively, you can use and activate the gesture "ML" which comes with the meter. It reacts by default on F12 (you can of course change this).

Other commands are:

/1ml help (gives this card)
/1ml hud (attaches a HUD at 'top', 'bottom', 'center' or 'center2'.
REMARK: if the HUD does not show a semitransparent background you are hit by a known SL bug.
In this case detach and re-attach the HUD manually in order to use is correctly!
See JIRA report VWR-434 and VWR-884)
/1ml arena (toggle arena mode. No experience points are collected)
/1ml restore (restores your power in arena mode)
/1ml ooc (enter out-of-character mode)
/1ml afk (enter away-from-keyboard mode)
/1ml back (go back from afk or ooc mode)
/1! or /1ml! (gives you an adenalin boost)
/1ml name XXXX (where XXX is the title you want to display. To get a multiline title include \n as linebreaks)
/1ml look at PARTIAL_NAME (gives you information about a person within 20m range. Type "me" to get that information about yourself)
/1ml reset (initiates a hard reset; breaks RP)

If you want to be a tiny bit faster you activate the gesture "ML" which you get with the meter. Then you can replace "/1ml" by "/ml" in all the commands above, i.e.
/ml
/ml help
/ml hud
etc

You do not need the HUD for the MetaLife System to work correctly, except when you want to hear a helmet.
However, if you want to use the OOC chatter, you also must have the HUD attached.
To talk OOC, type
/1ooc YOUR_TEXT
or activate the gesture "OOC" to be able to type
/ooc YOUR_TEXT

Note: the HUD can be attached to TOP, CENTER, CENTER2 or BOTTOM

Remark: in arena mode you will not need to reset manually. Use reset only if problems appear!

7. Downing

If your health reaches zero this means your injuries are so severe that you cannot fight anymore. In fact, your injuries might even be lethal. In this state you are immobile and exposed to the mercy of others. Your body is kept alive only as long as your stamina is high -- and since you are getting weaker and weaker, your stamina will decrease slowly.
If stamina reaches zero you will either die or fall into unconsciousness. You can only avoid this by being aided.

Note: If you would prefer to see the 'fallen sphere' better, please press ALT+CTRL+T in order to make is visible.

8. Aiding

In order to aid somebody come close to him, touch him and keep the mouse button pressed for at least 5 seconds. While you do this, stamina is transferred from you to the victim. The longer you press the more stamina will be transferred.

9. Killing and death

If you do not want to aid the victim but rather kill him, you can do that by shooting at him or hitting him while lying fallen on the ground. Each hit decreases his stamina. When it reaches zero, he will asked if the RP and killing is accepted. If not, the victim will fall into unconsciousness. Death forces you to appear as ghost for 1 day (24 RL hours). You can resurrect when the ocal sim laws allow this.

10. Unconsciousness

If you fall into unconsciousness you must lie there immobile. Other people can wake you from unconsciousness in a way similar to the aiding procedure: by holding the mouse button down and transferring stamina. But: in this case the stamina of the unconscious patient must reach FULL VALUE before he wakes up again.

If you find yourself in the desperate situation that you fell into unconsciousness and nobody is around to help you because RP went off, there's a backdoor: after 15 min (note: sim owners can change this value) you will be asked if you want to continue the unconsciousness RP or if you want to reset. Note: if you reset earlier there will be no punishment for this. It is up to you to decide weather a reset breaks RP or not.

11. Bindings

If you want to bind your fallen victim make sure you FIRST bind him and THEN aid him! Once the bindings are attached and he has been aided you can touch the ropes to get a menu. "Leash" means you attach a leash to the victim and enable him to walk after you. "Immobilize" means you detach the leash and bind the feet again, so that he cannot escape.

12. Illness, weakness

You now can RP your character being in an unhealthy state. The menu "illness..." lets you choose between "healthy", "weak", "exhausted" and "injured". These states of health affect the maximum values for HEALTH and STAMINA. There is no mechanism present that forces you into a state of reduced health, nor is there any consequence when you switch to full health again. This is intended purely for RP.

13. Weapons List

If is true that MetaLife is much more sure for user we adding a Weapons List in our meter folder, we make test on all maker, under your request and if we desire to check, looking for strange "BUG" making weapons more strong or that penalizy a sim with lag. In this lsit we indicate the makers that have specific weaposn for ML and who is only compatible, the weapons supported etc.. This list want to be the only one Legal List, as maker of the meter (we don't make weapons), we are the only one really able to test weapons makers.

14. ML weapons versions

We invite all the makers to realize ML version of their own weapons, with ML weapons can be much more light for server in SL and causing so less LAG.
Maker will be sure to be legal in all SIMs using ML because after controls will be7Sins Company to write up the list of maker approved and this help all maker to save a lot of time for pass sim for sim.

7Sins Company - MetaLife2
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