[DESIGN] Threats in a MUD.
Katrina McClelan
In <5ldu5s$m6n$1...@cronkite.cc.uga.edu> gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu (Ben Greear) writes:
>It has occurred to me that what it takes to make a mud interesting is risk
>or threat to one's survival or advancement. (Yeah, I know...whopper of an
>idea!) Standard battle is the most common form of this. PK muds tend to
>spice this part up a bit...
This part is largely true because people don't tend to get creative.
>After that, I can't think of any other threats, and therefore goals.
>I'm curious to hear any other ideas on this topic...
Well for starters, death can be made to be not the only threat of combat.
Afflictions such as lycanthropy, mummy rot, diseases, petrification, and
such add new threats to combat itself, instead of just death. It becomes
possible to win the battle, but at a cost when you sweat the next full
moon's arrival after killing a werewolf.
Another dip that is rarely used is the trap/puzzle hybrid, although it can
get predictable for repeat runs. However setting up smaller traps to show
up randomly is a plausability (as an added boon this validates some
usefulness out of a thief character).
Few muds take advantage of the fear of falling and drowning, largely
because the area files are not set up to allow it. The code bases I've
seen assume that no one will walk off a cliff, but the idea of an
inobvious pitfall is overlooked. As far as water, the same thing, also
the combination of water and falling (heavy armor a minus) is overlooked.
Areas of intense heat, toxic vapors, high concentrations of acid,
quicksand, extreme cold, and such are largely untapped.
Weather is largely ignored as a potential threat. Mother nature can be a
mean foe, that you can't even strike back at. Tornadoes, Earthquakes,
Hurricanes, Floods, and such are not in general used. Beyond the normal,
lets not ignore the paranormal. In a world where magic exists, natural
anomilies of the magical variety can be a potential threat to players (a
section of the mud that randomly swaps the location of two characters [mob
or player] for instance. Imagine the warrior suddenly in an ogre camp,
and the party who suddenly has an ogre in their midst).
Speaking of anomilies, something like the mist of Ravenloft that engulfs
people and "entraps" them in Strahd's land... ok, this is a specific
example, but be creative witht he type of stuff. Entrapment is a very
general danger that can be very unnerving to players if done correctly.
All in all there is a vast variety of threats you can throw at players.
Alot of them really require designing the mud from ground up since the
stock code bases I've seen close them off to painless implementation (had
to get that plug in :). The problem is that people don't tend to think
of them being feasible, or players tend to whine when used to not having
to worry about threats etc etc.
-Katrina
Ben Greear
It has occurred to me that what it takes to make a mud interesting is risk
or threat to one's survival or advancement. (Yeah, I know...whopper of an
idea!) Standard battle is the most common form of this. PK muds tend to
spice this part up a bit...
Quests allow for another kind of competition, often knowledge of the MUD,
or the pure bad-assedness of the player in question (or the one with the most
resources).
After that, I can't think of any other threats, and therefore goals.
I'm curious to hear any other ideas on this topic...
Ben
--
Ben Greear | "He said he let the bottle do the thinking,
gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu | but you can't shake the Devil's hand and
www.cs.uga.edu/~greear | say you're only kidding. --TMBG
Jon A. Lambert
Ben Greear <gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu> wrote in article <5ldu5s$m6n$1...@cronkite.cc.uga.edu>...
>
> It has occurred to me that what it takes to make a mud interesting is risk
> or threat to one's survival or advancement. (Yeah, I know...whopper of an
> idea!) Standard battle is the most common form of this. PK muds tend to
> spice this part up a bit...
>
> Quests allow for another kind of competition, often knowledge of the MUD,
> or the pure bad-assedness of the player in question (or the one with the most
> resources).
>
> After that, I can't think of any other threats, and therefore goals.
>
> I'm curious to hear any other ideas on this topic...
Other threats:
Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease, robbery,
enslavement, war, natural disasters, poison, addiction and indigence.
Other goals:
Economic, political, religious, ownership, freedom, immortality,
godhood, research, building, romantic, dynastic and military.
JL
Erik Lavander
Jon A. Lambert wrote:
>
> Ben Greear <gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu> wrote in article <5ldu5s$m6n$1...@cronkite.cc.uga.edu>...
>
> Other threats:
> Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease, robbery,
> enslavement, war, natural disasters, poison, addiction and indigence.
>
> Other goals:
> Economic, political, religious, ownership, freedom, immortality,
> godhood, research, building, romantic, dynastic and military.
>
> JL
I think this is where the state-of-the-art muds are headed, into
modelling a world where xp points and levels is *one* way to progress in
the game world. So far, this way of making progress in a mud has been
the one people use the most, perhaps because they can easily check their
current rating in abovementioned stats. What if the players didn't know
the exact stats, but had to rely on the effects the use of skills and
such had on the environment? This takes some coordination of the mud, of
course. You must maintain consistency between areas - a dagger from a
high-level area would not be better than an battleaxe from a low-level
area, in most cases.
Hmm...guess I can hear the mob by now...They're shouting "We already
know that!". The reason I mentioned this is that many muds (not your
quality mud, I'm sure. :) lacks a lot in the way of consistency.
Back to the threats/goals mentioned by Ben Greear:
To be able to fulfill ones goals in, for instance, religion, the mud
must have a healthy (large, frequently visiting) playerbase. Many muds
don't have this, and most muds start out as small ones, rendering the
"social quests" useless until more players have started playing. This,
in turn, puts off new players - the mud is OK, cool commands and so on,
but no one around to try them on.
Interaction with the world above killing things is also vital. Consider
buying timber from a plyer woodbutter, hiring a horse and carriage to
get it to the sawmill, get the planks and wooden bars, build a cottage
in the woods, grow some grain, trade the grain for some bread at the
baker's, learning toolsmithing, opening a shop of your own and so on.
Cool? Yes! I wonder if this really could be so hard to implement:
function checks if player has the equip needed (pen, knife) and the
necessary materials (parchment, ink), and if machinery (leather curing
baths) or other large installations (desk) is at hand, deducts expended
resources from players inventory and makes a skill check(calligraphy) to
determine the quality of the produced goods(manuscript). To do this it
would be necessary to know who works with what(social), have some
money(economic) and the result would be having a stead income having a
steady income, and thereby enough food every day.
Needless to say, there has to be a lot of players around to make a
calligraphy shop profitable, but what if players were run as NPC's,
acting after established scripts when the player isn't playing, standing
in the shop, patrolling his properties to check if someone tries to
steal his timber/pigs/potatoes, getting a meal now and then and so on.
Comments on this?
EriK
Ben Greear
In article <337B39...@student.luth.se>,
Erik Lavander <eril...@student.luth.se> wrote:
>Jon A. Lambert wrote:
>>
>>
>> Other threats:
>> Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease, robbery,
>> enslavement, war, natural disasters, poison, addiction and indigence.
>>
>> Other goals:
>> Economic, political, religious, ownership, freedom, immortality,
>> godhood, research, building, romantic, dynastic and military.
>>
>> JL
First of all, thanks John and Katrina for some good ideas that slipped my
mind.. Sure it was late, but I now see how much I have been influenced my
stock MUD's I played years ago....
>Back to the threats/goals mentioned by Ben Greear:
>To be able to fulfill ones goals in, for instance, religion, the mud
>must have a healthy (large, frequently visiting) playerbase. Many muds
>don't have this, and most muds start out as small ones, rendering the
>"social quests" useless until more players have started playing. This,
>in turn, puts off new players - the mud is OK, cool commands and so on,
>but no one around to try them on.
Yep, and I don't see much that can be done on a coding level here. The
world has to be built conducive to this theme, and then it is up to the
players to interact...
>
>Interaction with the world above killing things is also vital. Consider
>buying timber from a plyer woodbutter, hiring a horse and carriage to
>get it to the sawmill, get the planks and wooden bars, build a cottage
>in the woods, grow some grain, trade the grain for some bread at the
>baker's, learning toolsmithing, opening a shop of your own and so on.
>Cool? Yes!
Well, its kind of cool, but I don't see the excitement. It might be
interesting one or two times, but to make a career of woodcutting? Now,
suppose you had to solve a quest of some sort in order to be granted a
piece of land by the rulers...that has promise...
>I wonder if this really could be so hard to implement:
>function checks if player has the equip needed (pen, knife) and the
>necessary materials (parchment, ink), and if machinery (leather curing
>baths) or other large installations (desk) is at hand, deducts expended
>resources from players inventory and makes a skill check(calligraphy) to
>determine the quality of the produced goods(manuscript). To do this it
>would be necessary to know who works with what(social), have some
>money(economic) and the result would be having a stead income having a
>steady income, and thereby enough food every day.
The code isn't so bad, I have a system like this set up already in my MUD.
Having a scarcity of food is also a possible idea. Take out the create-food
spells (and butcher if you have it) and make the economy more supply and
demand...hmmmmm. Still, I wonder if people would stoop to being
farmers? OR would they instead go play somewhere else? :) Perhaps if
you could gain enough power (ie money) by farming it would be worthwhile....
Also, how to model farming? Sure, in RL a person sweats long hours in
the sun, but it is not nearly so hard to type: sweat in fields..
>
>Needless to say, there has to be a lot of players around to make a
>calligraphy shop profitable, but what if players were run as NPC's,
>acting after established scripts when the player isn't playing, standing
>in the shop, patrolling his properties to check if someone tries to
>steal his timber/pigs/potatoes, getting a meal now and then and so on.
Why would you buy calligraphy on an (ascii) MUD? It would have to gain
you something in relation to the MUD.... I know this was just a far out
example on your part...but the same principle applies to all professions.
>EriK
Jon A. Lambert
Erik Lavander <eril...@student.luth.se> wrote in article <337B39...@student.luth.se>...
> Jon A. Lambert wrote:
> >
> > Ben Greear <gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu> wrote in article <5ldu5s$m6n$1...@cronkite.cc.uga.edu>...
> [snip]
> >
> > Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease, robbery,
> > enslavement, war, natural disasters, poison, addiction and indigence.
> >
> > Other goals:
> > Economic, political, religious, ownership, freedom, immortality,
> > godhood, research, building, romantic, dynastic and military.
> >
> > JL
>
>
> Back to the threats/goals mentioned by Ben Greear:
> To be able to fulfill ones goals in, for instance, religion, the mud
> must have a healthy (large, frequently visiting) playerbase. Many muds
> don't have this, and most muds start out as small ones, rendering the
> "social quests" useless until more players have started playing. This,
> in turn, puts off new players - the mud is OK, cool commands and so on,
> but no one around to try them on.
>
> buying timber from a plyer woodbutter, hiring a horse and carriage to
> get it to the sawmill, get the planks and wooden bars, build a cottage
> in the woods, grow some grain, trade the grain for some bread at the
> baker's, learning toolsmithing, opening a shop of your own and so on.
> function checks if player has the equip needed (pen, knife) and the
> necessary materials (parchment, ink), and if machinery (leather curing
> baths) or other large installations (desk) is at hand, deducts expended
> resources from players inventory and makes a skill check(calligraphy) to
> determine the quality of the produced goods(manuscript). To do this it
> would be necessary to know who works with what(social), have some
> money(economic) and the result would be having a stead income having a
> steady income, and thereby enough food every day.
>
> calligraphy shop profitable, but what if players were run as NPC's,
> acting after established scripts when the player isn't playing, standing
> in the shop, patrolling his properties to check if someone tries to
> steal his timber/pigs/potatoes, getting a meal now and then and so on.
>
>
Perhaps you are being overly player-centric. Players form a very small
portion of the population of any mud world. The mostly "invisible"
population is generally not modeled on many muds. The only thing that
is modeled in "most" muds is player vs player or player vs npc interactions.
A player who has religious goals needs to support, maintain, and otherwise
interact with a system within the game that effectively models the thousands
of "sim-peeps" that form the basis of their religion. This is in addition to
player vs. player activities. These sim-peeps can be used to influence
other players activities in negative or positive ways.
The same is true for economic modeling. If a shop's only income was due
to player spending, you would be hard pressed to find any shops in any
world.
Take a look at the various "Sim" games, the old classic Hammurabi, stock
games, Railroad simulations, etc. and imagine how some of these systems
can be running as part of a mud world background. The points of player input
and output on such systems, their influence on other systems, etc.
The approach I took was taking the topmost or highest level "system" and
attempt to model it, then work my way down into lower level systems. Noting
possible outputs on players and other systems and possible inputs into the
system being modeled.
Time, solar, lunar and stellar activity formed a good starter system for me.
The outputs of this system are fed into regional climate and weather systems.
Daylight and Nighttime provide input into economic systems(shops) and npc
activity. Outputs of lunar and stellar systems provide indirect effects to
player actions, in particular ones involving lycanthropy and benefits from
religious sacrifices. Climate and time of year has inputs into economy and
weather. Weather has direct influence on player activity. Inputs to this
system? You bet. Players may influence deity's to make localized or global
changes. Some particularly powerful mages can provide influence on these
systems to beneficial or detrimental effect, sometimes both.
Imagine a player trying to make money from agricultural activity. He is faced
with all the traditional problems of pestilence, drought and flooding. Perhaps
these are natural occurrences or perhaps a neighboring mage is causing
unfavorable weather in the area or the player hasn't performed the
some essential sacrifices to the gods or an player run army has pillaged his
lands on their march to battle.
In any event it sounds like a complex undoable task doesn't it? If you
break this seemingly Herculean task down into small simple systems it
becomes quite doable. Its a fundamental principle of software development,
divide a system into smaller systems until you have something you can
get your teeth into and code effectively. It does take a bit of experience
and art to distinguish these subsystems though.
JL
Erik Lavander
Ben Greear wrote:
>
> In article <337B39...@student.luth.se>,
> Erik Lavander <eril...@student.luth.se> wrote:
> >Jon A. Lambert wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease, robbery,
> >> enslavement, war, natural disasters, poison, addiction and indigence.
> >>
> >> Other goals:
> >> Economic, political, religious, ownership, freedom, immortality,
> >> godhood, research, building, romantic, dynastic and military.
> >>
> >> JL
>
> mind.. Sure it was late, but I now see how much I have been influenced my
> stock MUD's I played years ago....
>
> >To be able to fulfill ones goals in, for instance, religion, the mud
> >must have a healthy (large, frequently visiting) playerbase. Many muds
> >don't have this, and most muds start out as small ones, rendering the
> >"social quests" useless until more players have started playing. This,
> >in turn, puts off new players - the mud is OK, cool commands and so on,
> >but no one around to try them on.
>
> world has to be built conducive to this theme, and then it is up to the
> players to interact...
>
> >
> >buying timber from a plyer woodbutter, hiring a horse and carriage to
> >get it to the sawmill, get the planks and wooden bars, build a cottage
> >in the woods, grow some grain, trade the grain for some bread at the
> >baker's, learning toolsmithing, opening a shop of your own and so on.
> >Cool? Yes!
>
> interesting one or two times, but to make a career of woodcutting? Now,
> suppose you had to solve a quest of some sort in order to be granted a
> piece of land by the rulers...that has promise...
It sure has! However, I was maybe a little obscure in pointing out that
such activities are not to make up the major part of the time a player
spends online...Boring? Yes! :)
>
> >I wonder if this really could be so hard to implement:
> >function checks if player has the equip needed (pen, knife) and the
> >necessary materials (parchment, ink), and if machinery (leather curing
> >baths) or other large installations (desk) is at hand, deducts expended
> >resources from players inventory and makes a skill check(calligraphy) to
> >determine the quality of the produced goods(manuscript). To do this it
> >would be necessary to know who works with what(social), have some
> >money(economic) and the result would be having a stead income having a
> >steady income, and thereby enough food every day.
>
> The code isn't so bad, I have a system like this set up already in my MUD.
Good boy! :)
>
> Having a scarcity of food is also a possible idea. Take out the create-food
> spells (and butcher if you have it) and make the economy more supply and
> demand...hmmmmm. Still, I wonder if people would stoop to being
> farmers? OR would they instead go play somewhere else? :) Perhaps if
> you could gain enough power (ie money) by farming it would be worthwhile....
> Also, how to model farming? Sure, in RL a person sweats long hours in
> the sun, but it is not nearly so hard to type: sweat in fields..
Yep, not much fun in using the plow skill all day long, but to maintain
consistency, the characters has to remain in the game when the players
aren't logged on, performing the boring tasks of everyday life. (And
everyone would act like worst-case-split-personality dudes, calmly
working in the fields until suddenly - the player logs in and the farmer
draws his sword and run for the forest, in order to slay some monsters!)
> >Needless to say, there has to be a lot of players around to make a
> >calligraphy shop profitable, but what if players were run as NPC's,
> >acting after established scripts when the player isn't playing, standing
> >in the shop, patrolling his properties to check if someone tries to
> >steal his timber/pigs/potatoes, getting a meal now and then and so on.
>
> Why would you buy calligraphy on an (ascii) MUD? It would have to gain
> you something in relation to the MUD.... I know this was just a far out
> example on your part...but the same principle applies to all professions.
That's where roleplaying come in. Players acting like their characters
should would like the official documents to be of some quality, to prove
the wealth and good taste of the ruler who issued them, in order to
attract new followers to a religion, nice-looking pictures of the god is
good for the public relation.
It is the up to the players to have their characters act these things
out.
> Ben
EriK
Craig S. Dohmen
Katrina McClelan <kit...@kinger.com> wrote in article
<5le0jj$1...@cegt201.bradley.edu>...
> inobvious pitfall is overlooked. As far as water, the same thing, also
> the combination of water and falling (heavy armor a minus) is overlooked.
Heh. I just wrote an inheritable water room for Discworld. Killed about
10 people the first day. >:) And it was just stagnant water. I could've
put in a nasty undertow.
Hey, I warned them to advance their other.swimming skill.
--Craig (Presto@Discworld)
Craig S. Dohmen
Jon A. Lambert <jlsy...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in article
<01bc60ec$6674a4c0$3950...@jlsysinc.ix.netcom.com>...
> Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease,
robbery,
I've been on muds where you had to eat and drink to function, and I found
it a gigantic pain in the arse. YMMV, of course. :)
--Craig
Ben Greear
In article <5lg307$l...@cegt201.bradley.edu>,
Katrina McClelan <kit...@kinger.com> wrote:
>In <5lfihr$ihg$1...@cronkite.cc.uga.edu> gre...@sandstone.cs.uga.edu (Ben Greear) writes:
>
>>The code isn't so bad, I have a system like this set up already in my MUD.
>>spells (and butcher if you have it) and make the economy more supply and
>>demand...hmmmmm. Still, I wonder if people would stoop to being
>>farmers? OR would they instead go play somewhere else? :) Perhaps if
>>you could gain enough power (ie money) by farming it would be worthwhile....
>
>influence. It's still not fun. You'd get a moron that only wanted the
>position to decide who got food and how much and jerk around with people
>to be the only farmer. As far as create food, the spell isn't the
>problem, the lack of side affects for not eating varied foods and living
>on rations alone need to be implemented. Disease is a good step in this
>direction.
Actually, if you could corner the market, it would make killing you a
worthwhile task, especially with negative side-affects for !food. Once
again, if you can create or model a worthwhile struggle, it adds
something to the game. Also, with create_food, clerics basically become
farmers, and if food was scarse, they might sit around selling waybreads
for extra cash. Actually, if you made selling and buying automatic for
characters as well as MOBS, you might get some where...
>-Katrina
Ben Greear
In article <337C4B...@student.luth.se>,
Erik Lavander <eril...@student.luth.se> wrote:
>Ben Greear wrote:
>> Having a scarcity of food is also a possible idea. Take out the create-food
>> spells (and butcher if you have it) and make the economy more supply and
>> demand...hmmmmm. Still, I wonder if people would stoop to being
>> farmers? OR would they instead go play somewhere else? :) Perhaps if
>> you could gain enough power (ie money) by farming it would be worthwhile....
>> the sun, but it is not nearly so hard to type: sweat in fields..
>
>Yep, not much fun in using the plow skill all day long, but to maintain
>consistency, the characters has to remain in the game when the players
>aren't logged on, performing the boring tasks of everyday life. (And
>everyone would act like worst-case-split-personality dudes, calmly
>working in the fields until suddenly - the player logs in and the farmer
>draws his sword and run for the forest, in order to slay some monsters!)
*grin*
For some reason (lack of sleep??) I find this quite amusing! However,
the problems of leaving a character un-attended in the game brings up
more problems than I'm willing to try to code around...
>That's where roleplaying come in. Players acting like their characters
>should would like the official documents to be of some quality, to prove
>the wealth and good taste of the ruler who issued them, in order to
>attract new followers to a religion, nice-looking pictures of the god is
>good for the public relation.
>It is the up to the players to have their characters act these things
>out.
Me gusto mucho hack `n slash! Code need not, and in most cases cannot,
really help sponsor role playing. That is up to the immorts and the players.
>EriK
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
Dartmud?? implemented an economy of the type suggested by the unattributed
person, and according to an admin there they had problems getting
the players to adventure, so clearly it can be setup in such a way
that some people like doing the relatively mundane jobs. 'Course
they may have just had a wierd player base.
Katrina McClelan <kit...@kinger.com> writes:
>gre...@sandstone.cs.uga.edu (Ben Greear) writes:
>
>>>Back to the threats/goals mentioned by Ben Greear:
>>>To be able to fulfill ones goals in, for instance, religion, the mud
>>>must have a healthy (large, frequently visiting) playerbase. Many muds
>>Yep, and I don't see much that can be done on a coding level here. The
>>world has to be built conducive to this theme, and then it is up to the
>>players to interact...
>>>Interaction with the world above killing things is also vital. Consider
>>>buying timber from a plyer woodbutter, hiring a horse and carriage to
>>>get it to the sawmill, get the planks and wooden bars, build a cottage
>>>in the woods, grow some grain, trade the grain for some bread at the
>>>baker's, learning toolsmithing, opening a shop of your own and so on.
>>>Cool? Yes!
>>Well, its kind of cool, but I don't see the excitement. It might be
>>interesting one or two times, but to make a career of woodcutting? Now,
>>suppose you had to solve a quest of some sort in order to be granted a
>>piece of land by the rulers...that has promise...
>Yeah, the thing is, as Ben said, it's not exciting. People play to be
>heroes and people of influence. Being a tradesman, while nessecary to the
>world, is not prestigious. Non-Combat goals would have to center around
specify the e-mail address below, my reply-to: has anti-spam added to it
Mor...@physics.niu.edu
Real Men change diapers
john
Ben Greear <gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu> wrote
[snipsnip]
: After that, I can't think of any other threats, and therefore goals.
: I'm curious to hear any other ideas on this topic...
Events - a few pre-coded plotlines, i.e. invasion of a city by orcs
that spans a week's time. outcome is predetermined that the
invaders will win, unless of course the players blunt enough of
the scumsuckers that the siege fails.
Takes a lot of coder effort, but hey, whatever it takes for fun.
--
John Greenawalt (as...@pixi.com)
"I came, I saw, she conquered." \ /
(The original Latin seems to have been garbled) /
-R.Heinlein,_TimeEnoughForLove_ / \
Adam Wiggins
>> Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease,
>robbery,
> ^^^^^^^^^^
>I've been on muds where you had to eat and drink to function, and I found
>it a gigantic pain in the arse. YMMV, of course. :)
This falls into the category of, 'Why have it when it adds nothing to the
game?' It's common for you to have to eat and drink on a mud; it's also
usually pointless. Also common is eating and drinking not being required, but
food gives you back and little bit of hps or moves. This is slightly better,
but not much.
If you want food to be interesting, you need to make it varied. Characters
react to foods of different taste and texture - the elf pukes when he
tries to eat raw human flesh and the troll thinks it tastes great. You
can go to inns and purchase full meals which invogorate your character
in body but also in spirit. (A hot meal does wonders for morale.) You
can hunt animals for food, although it takes knowledge of how to hunt down
a critter, then clean the carcass and prepare it for cooking. How many
muds have you played where people hire ranger-types to take them places,
just because the ranger can hunt food, make a campfire, cook the food,
find water, etc? Some attempt this sort of thing, but I've yet to see it
on any kind of scale. Most people just shrug, say, "That's cool," and
pull 16 pipeweed breads out of their bag and chow down.
Martin Keegan
Ben Greear wrote:
> >> Other threats:
> >> Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease, robbery,
> >> enslavement, war, natural disasters, poison, addiction and indige
>
> First of all, thanks John and Katrina for some good ideas that slipped my
> mind.. Sure it was late, but I now see how much I have been influenced my
> stock MUD's I played years ago....
Ah, you mean "risks". That's an interesting one. In some muds,
especially the older ones, (MIST etc), if you died it was a
total catastrophe, whereas in Tiny* it's just a minor blip. Since
Tiny*'s aren't ABOUT personal advancement, the concept of risk is
irrelevant.
In Dikus, however, the entire game hangs around gratifying the player.
If you die you don't drop levels - it's just a minor inconvenience.
Mk
--
http://cyburbia.net.au/~martin/
http://cyburbia.net.au/~martin/cgi-bin/mud_tree.cgi
Erik Lavander
Adam Wiggins wrote:
>
> >> Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease,
> >robbery,
> >I've been on muds where you had to eat and drink to function, and I found
> >it a gigantic pain in the arse. YMMV, of course. :)
>
> This falls into the category of, 'Why have it when it adds nothing to the
> game?' It's common for you to have to eat and drink on a mud; it's also
> usually pointless.
Pointless for whom? Adventurers in need of food might be a source of
income to hunters, farmers and other players with
social/roleplay-oriented characters, and help form a rudimentary
economic system.
However, as this dicussion unfolds, I have began wondering if The Best
Mud would be one with advanced social parts. The restrictions all
(hmm...let's say most) muds have suggests that the optimum mud instead
would be focussed on adventurers, interacting with a computer-run
society (NPCs) and occasionally each other. In other words, the mud
interface is not a good interface for modelling the continous life of a
character, but instead the interface of short adventures, played in
intervals.
Is it possible to combine an adventuring-type mud and a social-type mud
into one?
I am not completely left without illusions of the Social Mud, though. So
if someone out there has some advice regarding where to find such a mud,
please post them or mail me. TIA.
EriK
Adam Wiggins
>> >> Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease,
>> >robbery,
>> > ^^^^^^^^^^
>> >I've been on muds where you had to eat and drink to function, and I found
>> >it a gigantic pain in the arse. YMMV, of course. :)
>>
>> This falls into the category of, 'Why have it when it adds nothing to the
>> game?' It's common for you to have to eat and drink on a mud; it's also
>> usually pointless.
>
>Pointless for whom? Adventurers in need of food might be a source of
>income to hunters, farmers and other players with
>social/roleplay-oriented characters, and help form a rudimentary
>economic system.
Right. This doesn't count as pointless. I do consider it pointless when
people just have to stop by the shire every hour to pick up 50 loaves of
bread and have an action to eat. If you #sub out the eating, it might
as well not exist.
Martin Keegan
Katrina McClelan wrote:
> As far as random mobs, I have not yet coded it, but intend to allow
> encounter tables for a zone and load mobs at random from that. It's not
> at all hard to code. Random rooms, well it can be done, but the descrips
> get in the way on a text based mud. It's still possible to algoritmically
> describe exits as a tack on to a room descrip, but these descrips risk
> being akward, although some random exits work fine, particularly stuff
> like the entrance to Ravenloft... an exit into the "mist" just appears
> somewhere and once inside you're stuck in Strahd's land. Other such
> situations can work and make people weary of pretyping directions.
This seems to be part of that Quest for Variety which forces some muds
to have loads of classes. "More Isn't Better!"
As for randomised rooms/exits, it probably has to be a core part of
the game, rather than something just tacked on to an existing system.
Check out the MUDDL documentation for a fun way of doing it.
Mk
-- "It's the Game, Stupid"
http://cyburbia.net.au/~martin/cgi-bin/mud_tree.cgi
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
@z=("I","os\'","dipu","so,emaGoeh");@s=reverse split'','0132';
@l[shift@s]=scalar reverse$z[scalar@s-1]while(@s);
map{print $_."\040"}split"o",join't',@l; print "\n";
Huibai
D.J.Miles <zgta...@qmw.ac.uk> wrote
[question about stationary monsters]
: I hate going into an area, and every monster is exactly
: where it was last time I was there.
the limitation is that most people want to shut down areas of
the mud not in use for long stretches of time. to keep the NPC
going and changing rooms will keep it and the unused rooms
in memory, which most people are trying hard to conserve.
one approach i've seen is like below - either a master area
file keeps track of which random areas the monsters will come
into the game, or it will keep track of where they 'would have
walked to' for when the stale area is reloaded. that way they
can simulate movement without keeping the rooms in mem.
: Why not use random monster, random location, random
: number coding? You code a base file with the monsters
: for that area, and they get pulled. You can choose to have,
: say, 25% of rooms with monsters in them, and code the file
: accordingly.
for the truly daring (me this one time;) you cut corners EVERY-
where in memory, then take it all back by not swapping to disk
anything ... that is, keep the entire mud in memory. luckily i
can afford this at the moment, even with only 24meg RAM. we
might not be so lucky once the place grows a few areas, though.
Katrina McClelan
In <5lpadr$a...@epsilon.qmw.ac.uk> zgta...@qmw.ac.uk (D.J.Miles) writes:
>I have one question though that I've not seen anyone touch on. One of the things that annoys me is the stationary aspect of mobs/rooms/areas/muds of those I've seen. I hate going into an area, and every monster is exactly where it was last time I was the
re. You walk into a room with 5 guards, and pick them off one by one. You can easily map an area, even so far as finding the route to the secret item via the easy to kill monsters. It's daft, IMHO. Why not use random monster, random location, random numbe
r
>coding? You code a base file with the monsters for that area, and they get pulled. You can choose to have, say, 25% of rooms with monsters in them, and code the file accordingly. Also make them so they autoattack anyone who autoattacks one of their buddi
es?
>This is something I work on with places I code, but I don't understand why it is not more generally used? Is it super memory expensive? Am I being too hard on players, or what?
>Any thoughts/feelings regarding this one?
Well, considering I've upped it a step and have mobs that will group and
fight as a unit, instead of merely assisting, I guess I agree. let the
mobs function in teams. It's always good to run into gate guards that
have haste because the mage in the group cast it on them, and good to have
the gate guard protect the mage from attacks so he can cast fireballs and
such.
As far as random mobs, I have not yet coded it, but intend to allow
encounter tables for a zone and load mobs at random from that. It's not
at all hard to code. Random rooms, well it can be done, but the descrips
get in the way on a text based mud. It's still possible to algoritmically
describe exits as a tack on to a room descrip, but these descrips risk
being akward, although some random exits work fine, particularly stuff
like the entrance to Ravenloft... an exit into the "mist" just appears
somewhere and once inside you're stuck in Strahd's land. Other such
situations can work and make people weary of pretyping directions.
-Katrina
Miroslav Silovic
Martin Keegan <mar...@cam.sri.com> writes:
>
> Ben Greear wrote:
>
> > >> Other threats:
> > >> Taxation, fines, imprisonment, starvation, crippling, disease, robbery,
> > >> enslavement, war, natural disasters, poison, addiction and indige
> >
> > First of all, thanks John and Katrina for some good ideas that slipped my
> > mind.. Sure it was late, but I now see how much I have been influenced my
> > stock MUD's I played years ago....
>
> Ah, you mean "risks". That's an interesting one. In some muds,
> especially the older ones, (MIST etc), if you died it was a
> total catastrophe, whereas in Tiny* it's just a minor blip. Since
> Tiny*'s aren't ABOUT personal advancement, the concept of risk is
> irrelevant.
This is from one of the Star Wars themed MUSHes:
*---[DEATH]
When a character is killed ICly, the following rules must be adhered to:
1) @mail your faction head with *ALL* the details and story surrounding
your death. 2) You will be allowed to keep your character (with the
appended word 'DEAD' to the name. IE: JackDEAD) for up to a week so that
you may notify friends and decide what to do for your next character.
But you may NOT go into any IC area. Please stay in the OOC area until
you have a new character. 3) When you are done, please go to the
Character Recycling Room and follow the instructions in there. The
character will be @nuked and you may start with your new character in
chargen. 4) When you are dead, you are DEAD. That means that you no
longer have access to any IC information, and any passing on of such
will result in a rejection for another character. So please don't do it.
:)
Those people would be really glad to find out that they only die with
'minor beep'. :)
> In Dikus, however, the entire game hangs around gratifying the player.
> If you die you don't drop levels - it's just a minor inconvenience.
Agreed. I'm very much in favor of the rule above - and the people who
seek ego boosting are free to do so elsewhere. :)
Miro
Katrina McClelan
In <3380A9...@cam.sri.com> Martin Keegan <mar...@cam.sri.com> writes:
>Katrina McClelan wrote:
>> As far as random mobs, I have not yet coded it, but intend to allow
>> encounter tables for a zone and load mobs at random from that. It's not
>> at all hard to code. Random rooms, well it can be done, but the descrips
>> get in the way on a text based mud. It's still possible to algoritmically
>> describe exits as a tack on to a room descrip, but these descrips risk
>> being akward, although some random exits work fine, particularly stuff
>> like the entrance to Ravenloft... an exit into the "mist" just appears
>> somewhere and once inside you're stuck in Strahd's land. Other such
>> situations can work and make people weary of pretyping directions.
>This seems to be part of that Quest for Variety which forces some muds
>to have loads of classes. "More Isn't Better!"
heh... what's dumb about the more classes is that most of the time the new
classes are just subtle variations of the base four, or combinations of
them. 1+4+6+4+1 = 16 possible combinations of the classes, tho really
only 15 cuz not having any class is pretty much invalid. About sums up
most of what people do with added classes. How'd we get to this anyway?
>As for randomised rooms/exits, it probably has to be a core part of
>the game, rather than something just tacked on to an existing system.
Well, text based room drawings with vt100 codes (ala nethack or moria)
would be a better way of doing for random rooms. Descriptions, I have a
program that'll write descriptions for random zones based on sentence
components and having a vauge map design. The descriptions come out ok.
They are not wonderful, and usually need touching up. The sad thing is
that the zones it comes up with beat out alot of the zones that people
wrote for the distribs. My conclusion above was not that it couldn't be
done, but that it worked far better in certain contexts. Our astral plane
gets mapped at run time, and remapped every so often, but it's SUPPOSED to
be shifting chaos. I used the Ravenloft example, but zones that appear
and reapper, and have random entry points work well. Zones that suck
people up into random parts of it work well. BTW: Another thing for
threats... mobs that hunt players instead of waiting for the players to
come to them. Players tend to frak out when they are the hunted, not the
huntees.
-Katrina
Et
Katrina McClelan wrote in article <5lq73c$4...@cegt201.bradley.edu>...
[snip]
>As far as random mobs, I have not yet coded it, but intend to allow
>encounter tables for a zone and load mobs at random from that. It's not
>at all hard to code. Random rooms, well it can be done, but the descrips
>get in the way on a text based mud. It's still possible to algoritmically
[snip]
I tend to think that Randomness done wrong can take away the depth of the
game. For example, Diablo randomly generates dungeons and monsters and
it's dead boring. Diablo does have some rules to add some consistancy, but
not many. I have chosen to do a graphical-grid-based mud so random area
generation is not a problem, BUT...
Randomness is used in simulations to cover the bottom end of simulation
rules that the designer didn't put in there. If there are no or little
rules between the user and the randomness, then the randomness will be very
apparent, the simulation will have no depth and will prolly suck. In my
mud I am aiming for a Sim-Life/Settlers type scenario where everyone just
goes about their business automatically, deaths are permanent with the
ocassion tweaking by the admin (me) to control population and to resseruct
extinct species. The thing is that the more accurate I get the rules, the
less tweaking I'll have to do.
This kinda complex system is being done on some muds already, ie Economic
systems with inflation, estates, growing towns displacing wilderness etc,
weather, disasters. (Anyone say Nightmare??) IMHO having a dynamic,
changing environment would encourage people to role-play characters better,
as their actions have repercutions through the whole mud, instead of just
until the next reboot.
Et