HOURGLASS_GAME

This hourglass is a magical giant hovering hourglass over Castle Square
in Medievia and eventually hovering over capital cities on many Medievia
planet servers. It is the size of a 20 story building and it is filled
with 188 rooms, not sand. The rooms work their way from the top section
to the bottom section just as one would expect. At the start the rooms
at the top form the shape of a filled funnel. As they slowly descend
down the shape becomes more of an emptying funnel where the bottom
section becomes a larger and larger hill. The top section and the bottom
section are actually 2 separate games used for the entire hourglass
game.

Players can move through the rooms and sink below and get jostled around
as the actual room moves. You move as you want but there are rules for
going up or down. The rooms slowly do what one would expect sand to do
in an hourglass, slowly sink down, fall down, be covered and jostle
around towards or away from the center depending if it is on the top or
bottom section.

Hourglass zone top side view, starting position:

NNMMNNMMNNMMNN 7 x 7 rooms - Level 9
NNMMNNMMNNMMNN 7 x 7 rooms - Level 8 - 1 point per second
NNMMNNMMNNMMNN 7 x 7 rooms - Level 7 - 2 points per second
NNMMNNMM    5 x 5 rooms - Level 6 - 4 points per second
NNMMNNMM    5 x 5 rooms - Level 5 - 8 points per second
NNMMNN     3 x 3 rooms - Level 4 - 16 points per second
NNMMNN     3 x 3 rooms - Level 3 - 32 points per second
MM       1 room      - Level 2 - 64 points per second
NN       1 room      - Level 1 - 100 points per second

That would be the starting position before the rooms begin to spill down
through the neck of the hourglass and into the bottom section. After an
hour the rooms will all be in the bottom section and look like the
reverse:

NN       1 room      - Level 1 - 100 points per second
MM       1 room      - Level 2 - 64 points per second
NNMMNN     3 x 3 rooms - Level 3 - 32 points per second
NNMMNN     3 x 3 rooms - Level 4 - 16 points per second
NNMMNNMMNN   5 x 5 rooms - Level 5 - 8 points per second
NNMMNNMMNN   5 x 5 rooms - Level 6 - 4 points per second
NNMMNNMMNNMMMM 7 x 7 rooms - Level 7 - 2 points per second
NNMMNNMMNNMMMM 7 x 7 rooms - Level 8 - 1 point per second
NNMMNNMMNNMMMM 7 x 7 rooms - Level 9

These are 2 static views that lasts for only seconds at the beginning
and the end. Between and during the whole hour the actual layout is what
you would expect, after 30 minutes the rooms will be half and half,
after a few minutes there will just be a few rooms on the bottom, after
50 minutes there will be around 15 rooms on the top.

Note that the top section becomes a funnel shape as the middle rooms
sink below and the sides sort of avalanche down towards the middle, just
like one would expect. The bottom section is always cone shaped, from
tiny in the beginning becomes huge at the end. Granted this is
represented in small arrays so it is never actually cone or funnel
shaped, but the top level after a few minutes will be something like
this on top down view with no inner part as they fell down:

NMMMMM
MM      MM
MM      MM
MM      MM
MMMMMM

To enter the game you go up one of the 4 ladders hanging from the
hourglass and walk towards the center. Then you enter down into the
game. If the game is half or more over you enter the bottom section
which pops you into a random room on the bottom level. This could mean
you are in the 1 room that exists at the first second or you may have 8
levels above you, depending on how many minutes are on the hour. If the
game is not yet half over you are popped randomly onto the top level of
rooms in the top section.


RULES:

The main rule is that you cannot attack a member of the same clan or
town, otherwise the whole hourglass is a PK zone free for all. You gain
points by what level you are on every second.

Game 1: the bottom section

This is a section that grows from a small area of 1 room to 188 rooms.
This is a King of the Hill game as what we have here is basically a
growing Hill and you want to be as high up as possible.

This bottom half is a game in flux, you have to fight your way up and
then defend yourself once there, but even once there if no one fights
you in 5 minutes you go back to the bottom as explained:

- You can always go down, except when you are fighting.
- When you do choose to go down you cannot go back up for 5 minutes.
- You can go up only if no one outside of your town is on that level.
- You can go up any time within 5 minutes after you personally kill
someone, this timer survives all rules.
- When you go up you are placed in a random room on the level above.
- If you are on the same level without fighting for 5 minutes you are moved
down to the very bottom.
- If you are killed you are healed and moved to a random room below. This
could be one level down or the bottom, or even the same level if already
on the bottom.
- If you kill someone you are healed.

Every second you gain points depending on your level:
100 points top level
64  points second level
32  points third level
16  points forth level
8   points fifth level
4   points sixth level
2   points seventh level
1   point  eighth level

Note that this game will play out countless ways. You could have 9 vs 9
on the top level or 1 vs 1. Forming into the same level and zone will
take good communication as the rules are brutal. This will typically
fall into the pure chaos PK category, sometimes solo, sometime formed,
always PK madness.

If your townie is king of the hill at the top and you fight or move your
way up to be with him, you can only stay there for 5 minutes. In fact he
or she may have already been popped down to the bottom again because no
fighting in 5 minutes for him or her and now you are king of the hill.
There is constant movement, constant fighting, the zone is changing as
rooms fall down from above, constant reforming, constant chaos except
for one thing, be working your way up as high as you can.

That is the bottom game. Why 2 games? It makes it more interesting as
one town would have a harder time ruling both sections at once, plus if
we combine scores and count the scores equal, one has to think about
what section is best for you, right now with what is going on. In the
beginning many more points are possible in the top section, during the
bottom of the hour more levels of rooms will create more points possible
on the bottom section. It is all in flux as the hour ticks away.

Game 2: the top section

The top section works much the same way. You go up the ladder to the top
of the hourglass and if the game is less than half over you are placed
in a random room on the top level. This game you want to go down for
more points instead of up.

- You can always go up except when fighting.
- When you go up you cannot go back down for 5 minutes.
- You can go down if no one outside of your town is on that level.
- You can go down within 5 minutes after you personally killed someone.
This timer survives all rules.
- When you go down you are placed in a random room on the level below.
- If you are on the same level for 5 minutes without fighting you are
moved to the top into a random room.
- If you are killed you are healed and moved to a random room on a random
level above.
- If you kill someone you are healed.

Every second you gain points depending on your level:
1   point  eighth level
2   points seventh level
4   points sixth level
8   points fifth level
16  points fourth level
32  points third level
64  points second level
100 points for bottom level

Just two player movements happen automagically:

- If you are not fighting and at the bottom of the top section, you are
moved up one room right before your room falls below.
- If you are not fighting and at the top of the bottom section, you are
moved up one room right before your room was about to be covered.

Imagine people fighting at the top of the hill on the bottom section,
and at the bottom of the neck in the top section, very soon those people
on the top will be king of the hill on the bottom, and the people that
were king of the hill will be a level below them or now in the same room
with them. Crazy!

You can recall when not fighting to leave the game at any time and free
to enter again or be done for this hours game.

On the hour every hour the hourglass is flipped over. Players points are
tallied and the final rankings are posted via the HOURGLASS command. You
gain quest points, gold, possible medals, often special bonuses are
announced in the hourglass scheduled multipliers.

There will be times when hardly anyone is in the hourglass and things
are boring but easy, and times when it is pure chaos. Even with 2,000
players on a planet there will be Adversary, Hourglass, Faeball,
Bloodswords and more. There will be ebb and flow, often directed by the
Hourglass itself as it helps try to get people playing together. The
hourglass hour for extra hourglass perks will be spectacular fun. The
hourglass feature creates different incentives for different mindsets.
If Adversary has quadruple perks it will mean the Hourglass zone is
easier as less players will be there, others will see it as a reason to
try Adversary.

When in the hourglass your prompt will have a line added before the
normal prompt when not fighting that shows how many points you have,
what rank you are, and other things, depending on the situation it will
show what is most important.

Prompt header examples:
3,210 points - rank 4 of 11 - 12.2 minutes to go
9,664 points - rank 1 of 12 - cannot go up for 2.2 minutes
7,404 points - rank 3 of 16 - fight in 1.2 minutes or be sent down
4,864 points - rank 2 of 10 - can go down for 1.4 minutes

This is a game that needs changing tactics as it is a different sort of
game in both sections as the hour goes, sometimes crowding everyone
together, sometimes the opposite, possible points all over for smart
players. It is not just fighting. If there are just 3 levels and you are
getting your ass kicked you are still getting decent points.

Eventually the hourglass PK game will need to be played a certain amount
for the hourglass to schedule multiplier bonuses for the next hour.

This hourglasss true purpose and origin are explained in the STORY. It
will be a story chapter that you will never forget having to do with
fiction vs reality and reality vs fiction.