Do you think Quake/Doom/etc will end mudding as we know it?
Chris Gleaves
Hey all,
Recently I have started to take a hard look at the Doom-like games that are playable
through a network. The latest one, Quake (name may change I think) by ID Software, is
_supposed_ to be playable on the Net (that may _not_ be true, but I think that is what
ID Software is shooting for either now or next game). Although Quake is supposed to be a
military style shoot'em up, Doom already has a area builder interface and I think that
Quake's will be very advanced...could you modify the game criteria to use swords instead
of shotguns? Dunno.
My question is, do you think the average hack 'n slash mud will survive in the long run?
Yes, I know that muds have been around for some time, but my concern is that the user interface
to these "doom-like" games is much more appealing to newer player to the Net. I am not
slamming muds, far from it, I just want to know what everyone is thinking.
It seems to me that muds will have to grow into a visual graphic interface, one that is
good enough to challenge the doom-like games, if we want to survive and prosper in the
long run. Oh, for those of you who have seen a few graphic interfaced muds, are they as
good as doom? The one that I saw was not even close, but I have not seen them all.
Am I misjudging the attraction of doom-like games? Not hardly, Doom was a smash hit
and Quake appears to have the same promise. Am I underestimating the muds? I don't think
so. I am _very_ proud of my (affiliation, not ownership) mud and I am sure that you are of
yours, but being creative may not be enough in today's net. Everything is GUI front-ended.
Geez, even ftp is easier via W3 than _typing_ anything God forbid. ;)
Sorry this is long, but I really am interested in what the mud world thinks....let me know.
thanks,
Ferret of Avatar
--
Chris Gleaves
Software Engineer/Systems Admin
cgle...@intecom.com
ShadowLord
On Fri, 17 May 1996, Chris Gleaves wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> Recently I have started to take a hard look at the Doom-like games that
> are playable through a network. The latest one, Quake (name may change I
> think) by ID Software, is _supposed_ to be playable on the Net (that may
> _not_ be true, but I think that is what ID Software is shooting for
> either now or next game). Although Quake is supposed to be a military
> style shoot'em up, Doom already has a area builder interface and I
> think that Quake's will be very advanced...could you modify the game
> criteria to use swords instead of shotguns? Dunno.
FOR THE SEVEN BILLIONTH, TIME... Graphical MUD-a-likes will not
replace text adventures. If what you suggest is true, then no-one should
read books anymore, and we know that people still read books, so why
should people stop playing text-MUDs for graphical-MUDs, especially ones
that aren't even _real_ MUDs, but are wannabes (Quake, etc.)
> My question is, do you think the average hack 'n slash mud will survive
> in the long run?
Hah, and Quake is going to outdate them? Quake will remain static
except for the world, the game mechanics, while someone changable via
scripting, will be mostly static, too. Suggesting that a static
enviroment will be able to beat out faster, rapidly-changing MUDs is a
ridiculous concept all together.
> Yes, I know that muds have been around for some time, but my concern is
> that the user interface to these "doom-like" games is much more appealing
> to newer player to the Net. I am not slamming muds, far from it, I just
> want to know what everyone is thinking.
If they're (a) not able to read well, (b) not interested in any kind
of social or non-combat interaction, (c) wanting a graphical enviroment
(pleading for lag-to-hell). For someone to just _play_ a game, it has to
be what they want to play or the only thing availible. Since graphic
MUD-a-likes will be far from commonplace, and not everyone wants
graphics, then why the Hell would I want to change my MUD to use
graphics? I personally don't want graphics.
> It seems to me that muds will have to grow into a visual graphic
> interface, one that is good enough to challenge the doom-like games, if
> we want to survive and prosper in the long run. Oh, for those of you
> who have seen a few graphic interfaced muds, are they as good as doom?
> The one that I saw was not even close, but I have not seen them all.
Now we get to the root of _YOUR_ problem. You like Doom, you prefer
Doom over MUDs. You prefer graphics. Stop thinking that everyone
prefers graphics, a small percentage of MUDders, I would say, want a
graphical MUD "right now."
> Am I misjudging the attraction of doom-like games? Not hardly, Doom
> was a smash hit and Quake appears to have the same promise. Am I
> underestimating the muds? I don't think so. I am _very_ proud of my
> (affiliation, not ownership) mud and I am sure that you are of yours, but
> being creative may not be enough in today's net. Everything is GUI
> front-ended. Geez, even ftp is easier via W3 than _typing_ anything God
> forbid. ;)
Your misjudging the type of people Doom-like games attract, and your
misjudging the purpose of MUDs, which is for social interaction,
hack-n-slash, and [not "or"] role-playing - sometimes in various
combinations The only thing Doom-a-likes are good for is killing, they
offer no role-playing and very little in the way of social interaction.
If your willing to give up two of the big reasons MUDs are fun, then go
ahead, but the majority of us, I would guess, won't.
> Sorry this is long, but I really am interested in what the mud world
> thinks....let me know.
Personally, I think your an idiot [j/k] :)
Graphical MUDs, while possessing the ability to graphically portray
things, will also have numerous short-comings. Besides, if you seen one
graphical MUD, what is so spetacular about the next? Better graphics ==
more lag. You overestimate the bandwidth.
Cory Tedder
Chris Gleaves (cgle...@intecom.com) wrote:
: Hey all,
: of shotguns? Dunno.
: My question is, do you think the average hack 'n slash mud will survive in the long run?
: Yes, I know that muds have been around for some time, but my concern is that the user interface
: to these "doom-like" games is much more appealing to newer player to the Net. I am not
: slamming muds, far from it, I just want to know what everyone is thinking.
: Ferret of Avatar
: --
In one simple word...Yes.
Most people enjoy mudding for the social interaction(or terrorism in
taunting another player). Games like doom etc are not made for decent
dialogues. So yes, Muds, MUSHes, MUCKs etc will live on.
=======================================
reddeT yroC moc.bewlac@reddetc
reganaM eciffO
secivreS tenretnI beWlaC
=======================================
Chris Gleaves
In article <Pine.BSD/.3.91.9605171702...@global.california.com>,
ShadowLord <dko...@california.com> wrote:
>
> FOR THE SEVEN BILLIONTH, TIME... Graphical MUD-a-likes will not
>replace text adventures. If what you suggest is true, then no-one should
>read books anymore, and we know that people still read books, so why
>should people stop playing text-MUDs for graphical-MUDs, especially ones
>that aren't even _real_ MUDs, but are wannabes (Quake, etc.)
>
No need to shout friend, I just asked a question.
>> My question is, do you think the average hack 'n slash mud will survive
>> in the long run?
>
> Hah, and Quake is going to outdate them? Quake will remain static
>except for the world, the game mechanics, while someone changable via
>scripting, will be mostly static, too. Suggesting that a static
>enviroment will be able to beat out faster, rapidly-changing MUDs is a
>ridiculous concept all together.
>
What about a mud interface that allows area builders to create a
visual representation of what they are trying to say with words?
>
> If they're (a) not able to read well, (b) not interested in any kind
>of social or non-combat interaction, (c) wanting a graphical enviroment
>(pleading for lag-to-hell). For someone to just _play_ a game, it has to
>be what they want to play or the only thing availible. Since graphic
>MUD-a-likes will be far from commonplace, and not everyone wants
>graphics, then why the Hell would I want to change my MUD to use
>graphics? I personally don't want graphics.
>
It seems kinda early to say that graphic mud-a-likes will not
be commonplace. I remember when everyone said the _exact_ thing
about WWW when it started up. Command-line interfaces just don't
seem as popular with the masses, look at Windows - it is slower and
not particularly stable but _incredibly_ popular (which baffles me
since I come from UNIX and detest Windows ;)
>
> Now we get to the root of _YOUR_ problem. You like Doom, you prefer
>Doom over MUDs. You prefer graphics. Stop thinking that everyone
>prefers graphics, a small percentage of MUDders, I would say, want a
>graphical MUD "right now."
>
Wrong assumption. I have never played Doom and only played the
Wolfenstien (sp?) 5-6 times. I am looking at the proven popularity of
these type of games and trying to learn how to harnass that popularity
to elevate mudding...if it is possible. Could be that the majority
of these players are looking for mindless bloodshed (I have heard that
those of us who like diku-style muds over mushes,etc are the same way ;)
>
> Your misjudging the type of people Doom-like games attract, and your
>misjudging the purpose of MUDs, which is for social interaction,
>hack-n-slash, and [not "or"] role-playing - sometimes in various
>combinations The only thing Doom-a-likes are good for is killing, they
>offer no role-playing and very little in the way of social interaction.
>If your willing to give up two of the big reasons MUDs are fun, then go
>ahead, but the majority of us, I would guess, won't.
>
Maybe, but how many of those people start playing Doom and then get
bored with it for that very reason? Would they then "graduate" to a more
sophisticated game like muds? And _would_ they come play without an
interface that they find comfortable?
>
> Personally, I think your an idiot [j/k] :)
>
Grin, if exploring every available option makes me an idiot, then
so be it.
>
> Graphical MUDs, while possessing the ability to graphically portray
>things, will also have numerous short-comings. Besides, if you seen one
>graphical MUD, what is so spetacular about the next? Better graphics ==
>more lag. You overestimate the bandwidth.
>
That is true today, but will it be 5 years from now? The lag that
exists today may not be a factor in the future. What if all the connections
_were_ fast enough? Users are switching to ISDN, backbones are being
upgraded constantly...who knows what the bandwidth capabilities will be
n the future?
Maybe I came across wrong. I _know_ that the typical mud will survive,
but how can it expand it's attraction? Have we already gone as far
as we can? Is there more? That is what I am trying to explore.
thanks for the candid input ;).
later,
chris
Jenna C Parker
As a new User to MU*s, I think the fact that you have to use more
imagination.. and emotion when creating characters and surrounding, makes
the text mud a MUCH more appealing venue.
Sure DOOM is great if you want to blow things up.. where interraction
between players is really secondary, But I think the draw of Online chat
and MUD and IRC is the personal contact and use of something more than a
trigger finger.
Just a thought from a newbie.
Stefan
The Darque Hippie
Well in my opinion, text MU*s will be around for awhile. There's nothing out
graphically that can emulate the social dialogues that text MU*s offer, which
a lot of the people who RP and frequent the MU*s crave.
For instance ... I've tried the Alpha World's beta test program and I still
find it quite unsatisfactory for it being just a talker program. Doom, Hexen,
and all the other 3D games that can be played over modem and/or Inet still
prove to lack the social graces that even the simplest text MU*s offer.
Graphical MU*s have been tested and implemented with varying degrees of
success and I think most MU* goers find them more of a novelty rather than a
place to frequent regularly.
As someone pointed out in this thread, graphical MU*s in any of their forms
can't exactly replace text MU*s just for the simple fact the people themselves
have varying tastes. One may perfer the exciting TV-esque style of graphical
MU*s while another may find that their imagination brings more satisifaction
and thus the 'demand' for text MU*s will still be around.
In my opinion, 'graphical MU*s' will be treated as nothing more than just
another genre of MU*s, like there is already Social MU*s, and Combat MU*s. So
to answer your question, graphical Multi-Player games won't be an end to MU*s
as we know it, however, it will be another option and genre to the already
large MU* base in the market.
My $0.02,
Kirk
=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=(THE DARQUE HIPPIE; aka GothNyte)=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-
| "For every truth there is a consequence... For every lie there are |
| so many truths to be found... For every consequence, you'll |
=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=- answer to me..." -=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=
Dr. Cat
People keep bringing up this 'issue' from time to time, as if graphics
were a direct competitor to text. It's not, exactly. Human beings have
a fundamental, powerful desire to communicate with each other through
language. Typed text can do that, control of a graphical figure couldn't
(unless you tried 'charades' I guess, which is a pretty sloooow way to
communicate words!) What's more of a direct 'competitor' to the
text-based communication of MUDs, IRC, and the like is voice-chat
products like Internet Phone. Of course voice-based chatting can (and
probably will) be integrated into text muds OR graphic muds. My feeling
is that text will continue to exist in those environments too, the real
question is how much of one's communication will be done by talking and
how much by typing. When it comes to that I have no idea.
***********************************************************************
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions ** Now available for Windows!
******************************************** ftp.eden.com pub/dspire
Dragonspires is a graphic mud for PCs. ** http://www.eden.com/~cat
***********************************************************************
Cobalt
Chris Gleaves (ch...@ponder.csci.unt.edu) wrote:
: In article <Pine.BSD/.3.91.9605171702...@global.california.com>,
: ShadowLord <dko...@california.com> wrote:
: What about a mud interface that allows area builders to create a
: visual representation of what they are trying to say with words?
I do not think that area builders will really benifit from this. Most
persons will find this procsess frustrating and useless. It take you back
to the Might & Magic series, not to mention Wizardy. Where the library
of "walls" was installed and there was say 7 types of passage walls that
could be created. To think that many new quality graphics will just
appear is foolish. All the Doom based games, use 3 or 4 types of
graphics, repeatedly.
This doesn't even account for the fact that most people have trouble
describing thier "visions", rather than actually creating them in a visual
context. I wonder how many artists really will spend time developing areas-
It could be done on a great scale, but even the major game producers
still have some trouble. Try sendind a very popular Myst picture across
the net, in any degree of speed, to many, many players, repeatadly...
Phil Priston
The Subject 'Re: Do you think Quake/Doom/etc will end mudding as we
know it?' prompted Cory Tedder to Write
_>Chris Gleaves (cgle...@intecom.com) wrote:
_>: Hey all,
_>: of shotguns? Dunno.
_>: My question is, do you think the average hack 'n slash mud will survive in the long run?
_>: Yes, I know that muds have been around for some time, but my concern is that the user interface
_>: to these "doom-like" games is much more appealing to newer player to the Net. I am not
_>: slamming muds, far from it, I just want to know what everyone is thinking.
_>: thanks,
_>: Ferret of Avatar
_>: --
_>In one simple word...Yes.
_>Most people enjoy mudding for the social interaction(or terrorism in
_>taunting another player). Games like doom etc are not made for decent
_>dialogues. So yes, Muds, MUSHes, MUCKs etc will live on.
Just An idea, but what is to stop future versions of doom/quake
making use of the microphone fasility of sound cards, netscape chat
addon's can handle it why shouldn't Id software do it?
I think its quite a nice idea, actaully being able to _hear_ the
people in your room speaking....
Phil...
_>=======================================
_>reddeT yroC moc.bewlac@reddetc
_>reganaM eciffO
_>secivreS tenretnI beWlaC
_>=======================================
--
Phil Priston, ph...@mis.marleyext.com,
http://www.demon.co.uk/mel - PC Support Analyst
Marley Extrusions LTD. ENGLAND, +44 (0)1622 858888
Dos is possibly the worst Text Adventure game I ever played.
Michael Sellers
ShadowLord (dko...@california.com) wrote:
: On Fri, 17 May 1996, Chris Gleaves wrote:
: > Recently I have started to take a hard look at the Doom-like games that
: > are playable through a network. The latest one, Quake (name may change I
: > think) by ID Software, is _supposed_ to be playable on the Net (that may
: > _not_ be true, but I think that is what ID Software is shooting for
: > either now or next game).
FYI: At E3 in LA last week, Id was saying Quake would be out in "1997".
: FOR THE SEVEN BILLIONTH, TIME... Graphical MUD-a-likes will not
: replace text adventures. If what you suggest is true, then no-one should
: read books anymore, and we know that people still read books, so why
: should people stop playing text-MUDs for graphical-MUDs, especially ones
: that aren't even _real_ MUDs, but are wannabes (Quake, etc.)
The common thinking is that, just as movies and books coexist, we
shouldn't expect to see graphical muds drive text muds into extinction.
Note that this analogy assumes that text muds have the depth and texture
of books, which is hardly the case. A better analogy might be the old
text adventures vs. the graphical adventure games that followed them. How
many single-player text-only games do you see out there today? Right.
But: this wasn't the question the original poster was asking. :-)
: > My question is, do you think the average hack 'n slash mud will survive
: > in the long run?
Doom/Quake, Diablo, and other games like this are "multiplayer" only in
the sense that you and up to 3 of your friends can play together. The
world is not persistent and changing as in muds, and you do not have
tens or hundreds of others playing around you at the same time. Even
if you _could_ do this, their focus is tightly focused on lethality,
making exploration, adventure, or social interaction difficult.
: > Yes, I know that muds have been around for some time, but my concern is
: > that the user interface to these "doom-like" games is much more appealing
: > to newer player to the Net. I am not slamming muds, far from it, I just
: > want to know what everyone is thinking.
You should try out our game: it has a first-person, Doom-like interface,
but is a bona fide MUD. You'll find about 50-100 people on all the time
in our free beta version (see the URL below), and more in our upcoming
commercial version. I want to emphasize that this is *not*
doom-on-the-net. We're making good use of the first person interface,
but we're not so tightly focused on lethality.
: If they're (a) not able to read well, (b) not interested in any kind
: of social or non-combat interaction, (c) wanting a graphical enviroment
: (pleading for lag-to-hell). For someone to just _play_ a game, it has to
: be what they want to play or the only thing availible. Since graphic
: MUD-a-likes will be far from commonplace, and not everyone wants
: graphics, then why the Hell would I want to change my MUD to use
: graphics? I personally don't want graphics.
If you don't want graphics, fine. But many of those who have said the
same have changed their minds after trying a graphical mud.
: Now we get to the root of _YOUR_ problem. You like Doom, you prefer
: Doom over MUDs. You prefer graphics. Stop thinking that everyone
: prefers graphics, a small percentage of MUDders, I would say, want a
: graphical MUD "right now."
I'm going to guess you have nothing other than your own opinion to back
that up. Your assumption of how many people prefer graphics in MUDs is
incorrect.
: Your misjudging the type of people Doom-like games attract, and your
: misjudging the purpose of MUDs, which is for social interaction,
: hack-n-slash, and [not "or"] role-playing - sometimes in various
: combinations The only thing Doom-a-likes are good for is killing, they
: offer no role-playing and very little in the way of social interaction.
: If your willing to give up two of the big reasons MUDs are fun, then go
: ahead, but the majority of us, I would guess, won't.
Again, your assumption is incorrect: a first person (doom-like) UI is
*ideal* for social interaction, exploration, adventure -- and action.
There are so-called "role-playing" games out there that fit your
description, but this hardly means that all graphical games are
"doom-alikes".
: Graphical MUDs, while possessing the ability to graphically portray
: things, will also have numerous short-comings. Besides, if you seen one
: graphical MUD, what is so spetacular about the next?
Hmmm. So, if you've seen one text mud, what is so spectacular about the
next? In both cases, it's the world and how it's portrayed that makes the
difference.
: Better graphics == more lag. You overestimate the bandwidth.
No, you overestimate the bandwidth needed! We are running a graphical MUD
that has less lag than most text muds I've been on. Come on over and try
it out -- put some facts under those assumptions of yours. :-)
--
Michael Sellers Archetype Interactive Corp. mi...@bestworlds.com
"The Best of All Possible Worlds"
** Download our free, 3D graphical MUD alpha at www.bestworlds.com **
Ola Fosheim Groestad
Michael Sellers wrote:
> of books, which is hardly the case. A better analogy might be the old
> text adventures vs. the graphical adventure games that followed them. How
> many single-player text-only games do you see out there today? Right.
Interesting point. But games like DOOM is an entirely different genre
than the general text-MUD concept. It would be more sensible to expect
this kind of competition from systems that focus on text as well as graphic,
that is more mature versions of Habitat, BSX etc.
The trouble is, graphics severely hampers development time. That is the
experience with BSX Regenesis. Textbased MUDS is faster to develop and
require fewer artistic skills of the creator. To develop good textbased
systems requires typically mudding-experience, book-reading-experience,
the ability to create a consistent atmosphere, some structured thinking and
some insight in usabilityproblems. To devlop a good graphical mud you need
all the above + all the new skills and problems with adding a new
dimension (artistic skill, consistency, balancing). Hence a good graphical
mud (by good I mean rich non-static graphics and good usability) is almost
impossible for a mud with a large world, but for a mud with a smaller, but
better world, it probably would knock out a textbased mud. Especially for
international MUDs where the graphics might help the user to understand
difficult sentences and and unfamiliar words.
> Again, your assumption is incorrect: a first person (doom-like) UI is
> *ideal* for social interaction, exploration, adventure -- and action.
Actually I have you disagree with you here. A third person view is superior
in many respects. Particularly when it comes to orientation. Try this:
there is a reason for children to play with dolls and small figures.
Playing through a "representation" like a figure has certain valuable
qualities.
> : Better graphics == more lag. You overestimate the bandwidth.
>
> No, you overestimate the bandwidth needed! We are running a graphical MUD
> that has less lag than most text muds I've been on. Come on over and try
> it out -- put some facts under those assumptions of yours. :-)
You can achieve good graphics with a small amount of data being sent over
the network. But it is quite obvious that we are more sensitive to lag in
a graphical system than in a textbased system. Especially if the graphics
are dynamic. And when it comes to sound, unstable network responsetimes is
a serious problem.
Ola.
Michael S. Moore
Chris Gleaves wrote:
> ID Software is shooting for either now or next game). Although Quake is supposed to be a
> military style shoot'em up, Doom already has a area builder interface and I think that
> Quake's will be very advanced...could you modify the game criteria to use swords instead
Last I read, Quake is medieval swords and sorcery type stuff. It was supposed to be ready
by last Christmas. Bleh, Vaporware. Although I did see a couple screen shots in a mag--
I think it was Computer Gaming World but don't quote me on that...
Does ID produce a Doom level editor? I've played with those, but they are third-party apps.
> It seems to me that muds will have to grow into a visual graphic interface, one that is
> good enough to challenge the doom-like games, if we want to survive and prosper in the
> long run. Oh, for those of you who have seen a few graphic interfaced muds, are they as
> good as doom? The one that I saw was not even close, but I have not seen them all.
MUDs are growing thusly. Many efforts I've seen/heard about are using VRML (Virtual Reality
Modeling Language) which, at best, is ssslllooowww (unless you've got a T-1 and a Sun) ;)
Ben Greear
In article <83258887...@marleyex.demon.co.uk>,
Phil Priston <ph...@mis.marleyext.com> wrote:
>
>Just An idea, but what is to stop future versions of doom/quake
>making use of the microphone fasility of sound cards, netscape chat
>addon's can handle it why shouldn't Id software do it?
>I think its quite a nice idea, actaully being able to _hear_ the
>people in your room speaking....
> Phil...
>
>http://www.demon.co.uk/mel - PC Support Analyst
>Marley Extrusions LTD. ENGLAND, +44 (0)1622 858888
>Dos is possibly the worst Text Adventure game I ever played.
try playing it in lab w/full sound!!
I personally would wrather just type...talking brings in too much reality..
and even though I don't do it, imagine the people who like to play
chars of different sex...or dragons..or elves....
Sound would have the same drawbacks as graphics for me.
Ben Greear
Hans Mikelson
This type of topic always seems to set off a flame war for some reason.
The number of graphical MUD's is growing very rapidly right now. There
are at least 20-30 that I know of. A year ago there were about five.
This growth is probably due to the current bandwidth level available to
most people.
Someone commented how long it takes to send an image over the net.
Actually the client can handle all of the graphics. Only the coordinates
of objects and communications need to be transmitted over the net.
Most graphical muds will continue to use text for communication for a long
time. Eventually bandwidth will be high enough to allow for spoken
communication. Although it would be possible to do this now it is not
really practical.
Someone always mentions that people still read books and so text based
MUD's will endure. I think a comparison between text based computer games
and graphical games is more appropriate. There are still some followers
of Zork and and other text based games around.
Will Quake be the ultimate graphical MUD? No. Quake requires too much
bandwidth and play is very sensitive to lag. It does, however, represent
what a future graphical mud will probably look like. Quake like Doom will
allow you to build new areas and add new stuff to it. Quake was
originally slated as a midieval scenario. That may have changed. Quake
on a LAN allows for voice communication with the volume of the voices
related to how close the speakers are in the game. I would estimate at
least five years before a Quake-like MUD is viable.
The most successful graphical muds will be those which achieve the best
compromise between high quality fluid graphics and bandwidth/lag
limitaions.
--
Hans Mikelson
Craig Sivils
Not a chance till there is quaketin++ :)
Craig
Cobalt
This still leads me to the point: How will the graphics evolve enough, to
actually describe anything text cannot. I assume clients will hold the
library of images, so then they are finite, thus creating a very bland
game. All the action may be there, but then, how does this differ any
from playing Doom or Quake over a some other sort of network? Although it
may be novel at first, the idea of the same images being rearaneged, can
only lead so far. Thus the clients would have to be udpadted to include
the new images. This also makes it terrible annoying from the average
players point of view. (Though it could be somewhat like AOL when you
move to a new area, it sends you the new images, which in turn would
dicatate huge bandwith usage.) If it graphics just to be graphics, then
it seems absolutely useless. We see neet pictures all day long. And to
move say, your typical PC gamer away from Myst, and give them a lesser
quality graphical immage would fair no better than a textual description.
Scott
Hans Mikelson
In article <4nqbk7$h...@hobbes.cc.uga.edu>, gre...@mordred.cs.uga.edu (Ben
Greear) wrote:
> I personally would wrather just type...talking brings in too much reality..
> and even though I don't do it, imagine the people who like to play
> chars of different sex...or dragons..or elves....
I have an effects processor which can (among other things) alter your
voice to sound like dragons, elves, ogres, etc.
--
Hans Mikelson
Phil Priston
The Subject 'Re: Do you think Quake/Doom/etc will end mudding as we
_>In article <83258887...@marleyex.demon.co.uk>,
_>Phil Priston <ph...@mis.marleyext.com> wrote:
_>>
_>>Just An idea, but what is to stop future versions of doom/quake
_>>making use of the microphone fasility of sound cards, netscape chat
_>>addon's can handle it why shouldn't Id software do it?
_>>I think its quite a nice idea, actaully being able to _hear_ the
_>>people in your room speaking....
_>> Phil...
_>>
_>>Phil Priston, ph...@mis.marleyext.com,
_>>http://www.demon.co.uk/mel - PC Support Analyst
_>>Marley Extrusions LTD. ENGLAND, +44 (0)1622 858888
_>>Dos is possibly the worst Text Adventure game I ever played.
_>try playing it in lab w/full sound!!
Headphone / mic combo usually work quiet well...
_>I personally would wrather just type...talking brings in too much reality..
_>and even though I don't do it, imagine the people who like to play
_>chars of different sex...or dragons..or elves....
This I can understand, and is the reason why text adventure games will
never die.
_>Sound would have the same drawbacks as graphics for me.
_>Ben Greear
--
David Forthoffer
Jenna C Parker wrote:
>
> As a new User to MU*s, I think the fact that you have to use more
> imagination.. and emotion when creating characters and surrounding, makes
> the text mud a MUCH more appealing venue.
Maybe to you. You probably also give up color TV in favor of radio.
But most people don't.
> Sure DOOM is great if you want to blow things up.. where interraction
> between players is really secondary, But I think the draw of Online chat
> and MUD and IRC is the personal contact and use of something more than a
> trigger finger.
The issue concerned the Doom UI, not the Doom game style.
David Forthoffer
Cobalt wrote:
> Try sendind a very popular Myst picture across
> the net, in any degree of speed, to many, many players, repeatadly...
Try sending a command from the server to a client where the client
has the Myst CD on-line. Then you can display pictures without lag.
The server should be handling multi-user and database aspects,
not the UI.
- David
Ben Greear
In article <31A200...@adobe.com>,
David Forthoffer <dfor...@adobe.com> wrote:
>Jenna C Parker wrote:
>>
>> As a new User to MU*s, I think the fact that you have to use more
>> imagination.. and emotion when creating characters and surrounding, makes
>> the text mud a MUCH more appealing venue.
>
>Maybe to you. You probably also give up color TV in favor of radio.
>
>But most people don't.
For some reason this really pissed me off. Maybe if you said give up
TV for books, which is much more likely, and quite appealing anyway...
Also, your assumption that most people don't seems to imply that most
people don't like text base muds, when offered a UI alternative. If you
have been following the thread, you might have noticed that you more
people actually proclaim to like text, for all the valid reasons
that have been posted.
>
>> Sure DOOM is great if you want to blow things up.. where interraction
>> between players is really secondary, But I think the draw of Online chat
>> and MUD and IRC is the personal contact and use of something more than a
>> trigger finger.
>
>The issue concerned the Doom UI, not the Doom game style.
My problems with the Doom UI... First there is all the
social issues that have been adequately covered... Now consider this,
who is going to write a new area for a Doom type UI? You? Can you draw
good enough rooms, make characters move realistically? A good computer
can do a lot, but you still have to be quite an artist... garbage in,
garbage out is a verified law. Every time you manage to write an area,
or change some minor aspect... Are you going to mail everyone a new
CD? Or do you just want them to download it and put it on their
school accounts? Their hd you say? hmmmm 500meg of pictures is a lot
for a game...
So then I spose you won't be doing many changes to the database of
pics/mobs/rooms..etc. So isn't this kinda gonna be static, boring...
gah, i rant, but for some reason...this article brought it all
out in me...
Ben Greear | "The meek shall inherit the Earth,
gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu | the rest of us are going to the Stars!!
Junior at UGA --Bumper Sticker
Michael Sellers
Ben Greear (gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu) wrote:
: In article <31A200...@adobe.com>,
: David Forthoffer <dfor...@adobe.com> wrote:
: >Jenna C Parker wrote:
: >>
: >> As a new User to MU*s, I think the fact that you have to use more
: >> imagination.. and emotion when creating characters and surrounding, makes
: >> the text mud a MUCH more appealing venue.
: >
: >Maybe to you. You probably also give up color TV in favor of radio.
: >
: >But most people don't.
: For some reason this really pissed me off. Maybe if you said give up
: TV for books, which is much more likely, and quite appealing anyway...
But the previous analogy is more apt. Graphic muds are more like TV than
text muds are like books -- text muds rarely have the depth of a good
book.
: Also, your assumption that most people don't seems to imply that most
: people don't like text base muds, when offered a UI alternative. If you
: have been following the thread, you might have noticed that you more
: people actually proclaim to like text, for all the valid reasons
: that have been posted.
The sample here is phenomenally skewed. Most people prefer a graphcial
game. Do the research; you'll come to the same conclusion, no matter what
your personal bias.
As for the rest of what you wrote: professional artists and designers are
necessary... but 500Mb of disk? No way.
Michael Sellers
Cobalt (scr...@annex.com) wrote:
: This still leads me to the point: How will the graphics evolve enough, to
: library of images, so then they are finite, thus creating a very bland
: game.
You really should stop just trying to imagine something like this and try
it out; you're talking about what you've never experienced. Our graphical
game world is not at all bland (is our language bland because we have only
26 characters?). It's not a question of whether graphics can describe
something text cannot, but of whether the graphics provide a dimension,
immediacy, and engagement that text does not. To hear the over 14,000
people who have played our mud tell it, the answer is yes.
George Reese
Michael Sellers (sel...@teleport.com) wrote:
: Ben Greear (gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu) wrote:
: : In article <31A200...@adobe.com>,
: : David Forthoffer <dfor...@adobe.com> wrote:
: : >Jenna C Parker wrote:
: : >>
: : >> As a new User to MU*s, I think the fact that you have to use more
: : >> imagination.. and emotion when creating characters and surrounding, makes
: : >> the text mud a MUCH more appealing venue.
: : >
: : >Maybe to you. You probably also give up color TV in favor of radio.
: : >
: : >But most people don't.
:
: : For some reason this really pissed me off. Maybe if you said give up
: : TV for books, which is much more likely, and quite appealing anyway...
:
: But the previous analogy is more apt. Graphic muds are more like TV than
: text muds are like books -- text muds rarely have the depth of a good
: book.
Good muds have the depth of a good book.
Bad muds have the depth of a bad book.
The book analogy still applies.
: : Also, your assumption that most people don't seems to imply that most
: : people don't like text base muds, when offered a UI alternative. If you
: : have been following the thread, you might have noticed that you more
: : people actually proclaim to like text, for all the valid reasons
: : that have been posted.
:
: The sample here is phenomenally skewed. Most people prefer a graphcial
: game. Do the research; you'll come to the same conclusion, no matter what
: your personal bias.
Where is your research?
--
George Reese (bo...@imaginary.com) http://www.imaginary.com/~borg
i think i've reached that point/where every wish has come true/
and tired disguised oblivion/is everything i do
-the cure
Myrddin Emrys
We intercepted this transmission from scr...@annex.com (Cobalt):
:Chris Gleaves (ch...@ponder.csci.unt.edu) wrote:
:
:: What about a mud interface that allows area builders to create a
:: visual representation of what they are trying to say with words?
:
: I do not think that area builders will really benifit from this. Most
:persons will find this procsess frustrating and useless. It take you back
:to the Might & Magic series, not to mention Wizardy. Where the library
:of "walls" was installed and there was say 7 types of passage walls that
:could be created. To think that many new quality graphics will just
:appear is foolish. All the Doom based games, use 3 or 4 types of
:graphics, repeatedly.
: This doesn't even account for the fact that most people have trouble
:describing thier "visions", rather than actually creating them in a visual
:context. I wonder how many artists really will spend time developing areas-
:It could be done on a great scale, but even the major game producers
:still have some trouble. Try sendind a very popular Myst picture across
:the net, in any degree of speed, to many, many players, repeatadly...
The problem is that to create a graphical MUD takes 2-10 times as long per
'room' or equivalent. If you wan't Myst type quality, start looking at 20-30
times as long.
It's not the technical limitations that will prevent graphical MUDs from
becoming... those are disappearing day by day. It will be the work limitations.
To create a spectacular text MUD, with wonderfully rich descriptions, excellent
combat system, lifelike Mobs, and fascinating plots... that could be done by 3
or 4 talented programmers/writers in a year. It's easily concievable that a
superb MUD could charge a small fee (I liked one persons idea, $0.50 and hour,
$20 cap per month) and actually turn a profit.
But if you make a Graphical MUD, you're looking at 10 programmers working a year
just to make the system... another 6 months making the rooms and characters...
and another year waiting for the artists and 3-D room designers to finish the
world.
And even after all that, a text MUD would still have more CONTENT... more rooms,
more characters, more interaction.
There is no way a graphical MUD could be competetive on the same grounds with
text MUDs. It's like comparing the book to the movie... the book almost always
comes out the winner, and it was a lot cheaper to make.
The thing to understand is that there are two kinds of people. Visual people,
who need to see things to get into them, and, umm, the other kind :) who can
look at a text description and believe they are there. Visual mediums are almost
always shallower, with less depth and content, but they have their definite
appeal.
So text Muds will NEVER die. They are too easy to create, too easy to use, too
much like a book to disappear. But graphical MUDs will eventually come into
their own... just don't expect them to be free, just like you don't expect a
movie to be free, even though you can get the book from a library. (If you ever
do find a free graphical Mud, start looking for the commercials ;)
--
Myrddin Emrys mailto:myr...@iosys.net
Myrddin Emrys
We intercepted this transmission from h...@cray.com (Hans Mikelson):
:This type of topic always seems to set off a flame war for some reason.
:The number of graphical MUD's is growing very rapidly right now. There
:are at least 20-30 that I know of. A year ago there were about five.
:This growth is probably due to the current bandwidth level available to
:most people.
:
:Someone commented how long it takes to send an image over the net.
:Actually the client can handle all of the graphics. Only the coordinates
:of objects and communications need to be transmitted over the net.
:
:Most graphical muds will continue to use text for communication for a long
:time. Eventually bandwidth will be high enough to allow for spoken
:communication. Although it would be possible to do this now it is not
:really practical.
With this I agree... the limitations on graphical MUDs will not be hardware...
that is growing so fast, it will quickly become a non-factor.
:Someone always mentions that people still read books and so text based
:MUD's will endure. I think a comparison between text based computer games
:and graphical games is more appropriate. There are still some followers
:of Zork and and other text based games around.
I hadn't thought of it like this, but I somehow don't agree. I'm not gonna
repeat my follow up to Cobalt, but I think graphical MUDs and text MUDs are more
like books vs. movies than text adventure games vs. graphical adventure games.
:Will Quake be the ultimate graphical MUD? No. Quake requires too much
:bandwidth and play is very sensitive to lag. It does, however, represent
:what a future graphical mud will probably look like. Quake like Doom will
:allow you to build new areas and add new stuff to it. Quake was
:originally slated as a midieval scenario. That may have changed. Quake
:on a LAN allows for voice communication with the volume of the voices
:related to how close the speakers are in the game. I would estimate at
:least five years before a Quake-like MUD is viable.
:
:The most successful graphical muds will be those which achieve the best
:compromise between high quality fluid graphics and bandwidth/lag
:limitaions.
By the time hardware catches up, I don't think bandwidth will be a limitation. I
think we'll have 57.6 as standard dial-up speed in 2 years, and T1 speed by
2002. At that speed, voice, video, 'n graphics go pretty darn fast.
But who's gonna make all that video and graphics? Who's going to design those
humongous 3 dimensional worlds we walk around in? Who's going to record voices
for the hundreds of NPC's in this graphical world? Who's going to create
hundreds of magabytes of graphics for these worlds?
Graphical MUDs will NEVER be free. And they will never have the sheer numbers
that text MUDs do. They will never be an amateur venture (Hey, let's make our
own MUD!) because of the sheer quantity of work necessary to create even a small
one.
That is why text muds will survive. They will be free. They will have more...
vastness than a graphical mud, more content. Just like a book versus a movie,
they will appeal to a different market, and that market will never die.
IMHO. :)
Hans Mikelson
> But who's gonna make all that video and graphics? Who's going to design those
> humongous 3 dimensional worlds we walk around in? Who's going to record voices
> for the hundreds of NPC's in this graphical world? Who's going to create
> hundreds of magabytes of graphics for these worlds?
>
> Graphical MUDs will NEVER be free. And they will never have the sheer numbers
> that text MUDs do. They will never be an amateur venture (Hey, let's make our
> own MUD!) because of the sheer quantity of work necessary to create even
a small
> one.
>
> That is why text muds will survive. They will be free. They will have more...
> vastness than a graphical mud, more content. Just like a book versus a movie,
> they will appeal to a different market, and that market will never die.
>
Excellent points. I think you are right that they will not be free but I
am hoping that several factors will make them as inexpensive as video
games are today. The amount of work necessary to design the initial mud
is very large; however adding on to a mud need not be that difficult.
Graphical editors can be used to make rooms, doors can be added like clip
art. Other objects can be added to the room as 3D clip art. Complex
textures can be specified for the walls. I'm not sure how advanced the
Doom level editors are currently but future game editors will probably be
fairly easy to use.
The things which will require a lot of work will be new textures, new
objects, new monsters and new traps. Adding on using existing objects and
monsters won't be too difficult once a large database is developed.
Of course this supports your contention that graphical muds will never be
as vast as text muds. I also think that graphics tend to limit the
imagination where text tends to expand the imagination. On the other hand
graphics are much more appealing to most people than text.
*Quake Gossip*
At one point I heard Id was going to give the Quake servers and level
editors away for free and just plan on selling the clients. The number of
connections to Quake was supposed to be 64 or more. Possibly hundreds.
Although they started with a medieval theme including dragons, death
knights and ogres the last I had heard they had scrapped the medieval
theme. Of course any Quake information is pure speculation and rumour.
--
Hans Mikelson
ShadowLord
On Tue, 21 May 1996, David Forthoffer wrote:
> > As a new User to MU*s, I think the fact that you have to use more
> > imagination.. and emotion when creating characters and surrounding, makes
> > the text mud a MUCH more appealing venue.
>
> Maybe to you. You probably also give up color TV in favor of radio.
>
> But most people don't.
Uhm, that would clearly explain why there are so many book stores
and libraries (and books and authors all together), because everyone
watches TV and never reads a book. Now I understand, thanks for clearing
that up...
In non-sarcastic terms, I only know very few people that would
rather sit and watch TV even when nothing worth watching is on rather than
immerse themselves into a world that they can put a distinct twist upon.
That's one thing that text has over images. Images look alike to everyone
(unless they're clouds :)), but text has a way of formulating itself
differently in each and every person's imagination. A well described
scene places a firm grasp of what there is, but doesn't completely remove
the influence of imagination from the picture. Although there are many
wonders that could never be described whether it is lack of knowledge of
them or lack of sufficient tongue to speak of them (or write of them) and
images could display these, in doing so, you take away all imagination and
offer in it's place something that looks nice to the eye...
As for whether the original poster was talking about the DOOM user
interface or DOOM-a-likes themselves, I suggest you look at the subject
more closely. It doesn't say, "Do you think the DOOM UI is better than
text?" It quite clearly states, "Do you think that Quake/Doom/etc..."
Besides which, whether the talk is about UI or the actual game,
the fact remains that neither do much for communication, role-playing, or
imagination. You can't say that any of this changes when we stop talking
about how DOOM represents things and start talking about the user
interface of DOOM. They are, after all, the same thing.
Josh Rantane
Here's my two cents on the whole thing. First off, I've run a text based
mud for about 3-4 years now. I've played a few MUDS, MUSES, MOO's and MUSH's
and maybe even a few other things. I've also played one or two graphical
muds, and I've seen Ultima Online and I've played Sierra's Realms graphical
MUD type things. I've also played a heck of a lot of PC games (Doom, Duke
Nukem', Quake, Zork (the old and the new), Ultima, WarCraft, etc etc...
I could go on forever.. I love to play videogames).
To answer the question, "Will text based MU*'s die because of Graphical
MU*'s". I don't think anyone can tell. Everyone loves to give analogy's
between TV, books, movies, radio, etc... Something else to take a look at
is gopher and the WWW. I don't think anyone could have told you that the
WWW was going to be what it is today. And I haven't used a gopher server
since it came out.
Now, about all these arguments about how hard it's going to be to
create a Graphical Mud, and they could never be free cause it's gonna
take too much to get them running. Humbug. First off, I'll start
with creating the "Graphical Mud". Sure, the first one might be hard...
but then again, I'm sure that the orginal DikuMUD wasn't a piece
of cake either. Once someone creates a decent public domain graphical
mud server/client that anyone can use/modify, then things will start
to go. I don't think it'll take 10 programmers to change very much
either... if it's done right, it shouldn't be any harder then it is to
change a text based mud. What about creating all those hard to make
areas? With a good editor it shouldn't that hard at all. I hate
to bring Doom (and all those games) into this, but do you know how
many areas and how much people screwed with everything there is in
that game? It's pretty much insane. And Id didn't even give out
an editor for anything dealing with that game. Some addicted fiend
created them (and mind you, it was public domain (IE: FREE)).
As some people have agreed already, bandwidth and hardware should
be up to par for it. What about having to deal with all 500 Megs
of disk space to store all the images for it? There's a few
solutions to this problem. First off you could just use cordinates
and draw the images (I don't know how possible this is, but it might
save on disk space). The other point is, in a world of Tetrabytes,
500 Megs isn't that much. Ok, so maybe there's only gig harddrives
out there... but it shouldn't be to long.
Well, that's about enough from me,
Josh Rantane
--
Ohio University - http://www.ohiou.edu/
Communication Network Services - http://www.ohiou.edu/cns/
jran...@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu - http://voyager.cns.ohiou.edu/~jrantane/
Evan Furchtgott
On May 22, 1996 08:17:06 in article <Re: Do you think Quake/Doom/etc will
end mudding as we know it?>, 'ShadowLord <dko...@california.com>' wrote:
>Besides which, whether the talk is about UI or the actual game,
>the fact remains that neither do much for communication, role-playing, or
>imagination. You can't say that any of this changes when we stop talking
>about how DOOM represents things and start talking about the user
>interface of DOOM. They are, after all, the same thing.
a dressed-up DOOM, while it may be fun to blow things up once in a while,
Quake will still be just an action game, rather than a multiplayer
environment. However, eventually MUD will probably go 3D. But it won't be
soon.
--
_____________
| he \ reator
Ben Greear
In article <4ntmaf$o...@nadine.teleport.com>,
Michael Sellers <sel...@teleport.com> wrote:
>Ben Greear (gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu) wrote:
>: In article <31A200...@adobe.com>,
>: David Forthoffer <dfor...@adobe.com> wrote:
>: >>
>: >> As a new User to MU*s, I think the fact that you have to use more
>: >> imagination.. and emotion when creating characters and surrounding, makes
>: >> the text mud a MUCH more appealing venue.
>: >
>: >Maybe to you. You probably also give up color TV in favor of radio.
>: >
>: >But most people don't.
>
>: TV for books, which is much more likely, and quite appealing anyway...
>
>But the previous analogy is more apt. Graphic muds are more like TV than
>text muds are like books -- text muds rarely have the depth of a good
>book.
>
>: people don't like text base muds, when offered a UI alternative. If you
>: have been following the thread, you might have noticed that you more
>: people actually proclaim to like text, for all the valid reasons
>: that have been posted.
>
>The sample here is phenomenally skewed. Most people prefer a graphcial
>game. Do the research; you'll come to the same conclusion, no matter what
>your personal bias.
let this matter drop...consider it a matter of opinion..
However the technical side still remains a problem.
>
>As for the rest of what you wrote: professional artists and designers are
>necessary... but 500Mb of disk? No way.
Ok, what does a good, full sized picture take up in memory? I figure
a low estimate would be 100k. Now how many rooms would you like?
how about 10k, I think there are muds out there with that now..at least.
hmmm 10000 * 100 => 1,000,000 K or 1000 Mb. Thats a lotta space, and that
still doesn't take into account the items and mobiles.
Even if you half either of those figures, you still get 500mb for world
alone.
>
>
>--
> Michael Sellers Archetype Interactive Corp. mi...@bestworlds.com
> "The Best of All Possible Worlds"
> ** Download our free, 3D graphical MUD alpha at www.bestworlds.com **
David Forthoffer
ShadowLord wrote:
>
> On Tue, 21 May 1996, David Forthoffer wrote:
>
> > > As a new User to MU*s, I think the fact that you have to use more
> > > imagination.. and emotion when creating characters and surrounding, makes
> > > the text mud a MUCH more appealing venue.
> >
> > Maybe to you. You probably also give up color TV in favor of radio.
> >
> > But most people don't.
>
What activity do people spend the most time on among the following, on average?
a) watching TV
b) listening to the radio
c) reading
It's my understanding that the answer is (a), like it or not.
That's a pretty good argument that watching TV is more appealing to the general
population than reading or listening to the radio, even though the latter two
encourage more imagination and involvement.
> In non-sarcastic terms, I only know very few people that would
> rather sit and watch TV even when nothing worth watching is on rather than
> immerse themselves into a world that they can put a distinct twist upon.
That's not the point.
The point is whether they'd rather immerse themselves in a graphical mud
vs. a text mud.
> (stuff deleted extolling the virtues of text)
Yes, text has many virtues. But the issue is not whether you or I prefer
text-based muds over graphical muds, nor is it what people *should* prefer.
It is what what people *do* prefer.
The arguments you make for text-based muds over graphical muds
equally apply for radio over color TV. But the population has voted
for color TV over radio. I'm saying I think the population will also
vote for graphical muds over text-based muds. I think this will happen
when the Doom-style 3-D engine is put in a net client that works with
a 3-D server, plus professional-qualty OLC, and all the source is freely
available on the net, a la diku.
Of course you're entitled to your own opinion.
I just want to let you know why I have mine.
- David
ShadowLord
On Mon, 20 May 1996, Phil Priston wrote:
> Just An idea, but what is to stop future versions of doom/quake
> making use of the microphone fasility of sound cards, netscape chat
> addon's can handle it why shouldn't Id software do it?
> I think its quite a nice idea, actaully being able to _hear_ the
> people in your room speaking....
Then that takes a great deal away from role-playing. It also has
the disadvantage of [A] requiring more people purchase more hardware, [B]
they'd have to create an alograthim for transfering the sound over the
internet conviently and compactly. Last time I heard, Netscape was being
sued for their answer to this demand . . .
This is a fairly unfeasable idea, it's downsides outweigh, by far,
any advantages it offered.
I can think of a few disadvantages:
* deaf people would face a barrier (not true for blind people and text
MUDs, because there are several devices meant to display text to the
blind (a voice, braile, etc.)
* some people have problems speaking clearly (stutterring, etc.)
* more hardware for people to dig up/buy
* alograthim for conviently/compactly passing the info
* talking to people/having on music/etc. (outside interferance)
* only one voice at a time can be sent
* kills a major aspect of role-playing
* easier to misunderstand/not hear someone
It's advantages? I can't think of any really. It's not more
convient by any means.
Ola Fosheim Groestad
Ben Greear wrote:
> >The sample here is phenomenally skewed. Most people prefer a graphcial
> >game. Do the research; you'll come to the same conclusion, no matter what
> >your personal bias.
> Well, neither of us have the capability to do real research here..so I'll
> let this matter drop...consider it a matter of opinion..
Why not? I'm starting a research project on virtual environments as my major,
not on the text vs gfx issue though.
Now, obviously users that prefer textmuds are overrepresented in the mudcommunity
due to the lack of workedthrough graphicalmuds. And so are the "DnD inspired"
hack'n'slash users, for the same reason. Muds are a lot more than this. There
is no reason to believe that MUDS are inherently different from similar
communication/entertainment media, is it? Stimulation of multiple senses seems
to be dominant in commercial entertainment.
When that's said, there is obvious that you loose something when you move
from pure text to text+graphics, but it is equally true that you gain something
new as well. I prefer graphical muds, cartoonstyle, they are personal and I can
utilize my vision for recognition (human patternrecognition capabilites are
remarkable), and they allow for richer descriptions and atmopshere etc.. IF
utilized properly. Gfx is effecient in respect to communication of roomdescriptions,
a glimpse is enough, that is not the case with pure textbased systems.
> Ok, what does a good, full sized picture take up in memory? I figure
> a low estimate would be 100k. Now how many rooms would you like?
> how about 10k, I think there are muds out there with that now..at least.
You are limiting yourself to existing textmuds and how they are built. Now, they
only represent a very limited class of muds.
> hmmm 10000 * 100 => 1,000,000 K or 1000 Mb. Thats a lotta space, and that
> still doesn't take into account the items and mobiles.
DVD CDROM. Diskspace is not a problem.
Or compressed shaded polygongraphics for graphics transmitted over network, etc.
Or, graphical libraries (objects, textures, renderingalgorithms) on CDROM, composition
of scenes over network.
> Even if you half either of those figures, you still get 500mb for world
> alone.
That's not much.
Ola.
Michael Sellers
Ben Greear (gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu) wrote:
: >As for the rest of what you wrote: professional artists and designers are
: Ok, what does a good, full sized picture take up in memory? I figure
: a low estimate would be 100k. Now how many rooms would you like?
: how about 10k, I think there are muds out there with that now..at least.
: hmmm 10000 * 100 => 1,000,000 K or 1000 Mb. Thats a lotta space, and that
: still doesn't take into account the items and mobiles.
You have several mistaken assumptions in there (not that I'm going to
point them out one by one :) ). Our current, large world (our game is
in public beta -- see the URL below) takes up about 15M *total* on disk.
Ben Greear
In article <31A527...@adobe.com>,
David Forthoffer <dfor...@adobe.com> wrote:
>ShadowLord wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, 21 May 1996, David Forthoffer wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > Maybe to you. You probably also give up color TV in favor of radio.
>> >
>> > But most people don't.
>>
>
>a) watching TV
>b) listening to the radio
>c) reading
>
>It's my understanding that the answer is (a), like it or not.
>
>That's a pretty good argument that watching TV is more appealing to the general
>population than reading or listening to the radio, even though the latter two
>encourage more imagination and involvement.
You are probably right that most "normal" people spend more time watching
television. However, would any of these people take the time to MUD?
Role Playing Games of all types only appeal to a certain segment of the
population. Within this segment, I don't think you will be able to say
that the answer to your question is "a". There is no way a person can log
20+ hours a week on MUDS, eat, breath, sleep and work and STILL have time to
watch all that much television. If you seriously think you can lure a
decent percentage of people away from TV with a MUD of any type, you are
dreaming. TV is just another way to spell Aldous(sp) Huxley's 'soma'.
>
>> In non-sarcastic terms, I only know very few people that would
>> rather sit and watch TV even when nothing worth watching is on rather than
>> immerse themselves into a world that they can put a distinct twist upon.
This could easily be true of you and all your friends, however, the general
population, as boring as they may be, would still wrather be spoon fed
entertainment that requires no use of the brain, ie TV. I don't think
this is a good thing by any means, but it is definately a thing!
>
>That's not the point.
>
>The point is whether they'd rather immerse themselves in a graphical mud
>vs. a text mud.
Correct, but then you have already used the general population to support
your idea that more people like TV than books, radio ect. Each assumption
you make will stand alone, but together in one post they contradict quite
nicely :)
>
>> (stuff deleted extolling the virtues of text)
>
>Yes, text has many virtues. But the issue is not whether you or I prefer
>text-based muds over graphical muds, nor is it what people *should* prefer.
>It is what what people *do* prefer.
>
Yep, but which segment of people?
>
>Of course you're entitled to your own opinion.
>I just want to let you know why I have mine.
>
>- David
Me Too, Me Too!
Travis Casey
Right now, I don't think that the first-person animated (Doom-type)
interface is a good choice for muds. Here's why:
- Such an interface requires more physical skill from players than
the current interface style. For example, shooting monsters in
Doom requires a free degree of hand-eye coordination on the part
of the shooter.
Most muds are role-playing oriented; that is, the players play
characters who have abilities that are relatively independent
of the player's abilities. A Doom-style interface would tend
to put more stress on the player's abilities, weakening this.
- A graphical interface requires some sort of client program
running on the player's machine that can display the graphics.
Text-based muds require only a telnet program, or modem access
to a machine that can use telnet. Such programs already exist
for most machines, and can be relatively easily ported to machines
that don't already have them.
A graphical client, on the other hand, will be considerably
harder to port. Graphics are one of the least standardized
areas on computers; indeed, this is one of the major sticking
points for conversions of games right now.
- In addition, the support requirements for such a client are
greater. Right now, many college students who mud don't
even own computers; they simply use computer accounts they've
been given by their college, mudding from terminal rooms.
People in this situation would be unable to use a graphical
mud, as would people with older computers (e.g., old IBM
XT-compatible) or with slow modems.
- A fully-animated graphical interface places great demands
on a computer; many machines that are only two or three
years old will only run Doom and similar games slowly, if
at all. In addition, the amount of work that the server
will have to do will be increased as well; most muds are
running on computer time donated to them by others, and
muds are often sent searching for new homes because they
consume too much resources right now. A graphical mud would
have an even harder time finding a home.
- The requirements for the builders of graphical muds would
be greater as well. If they want to create new monsters
and/or objects, they'll need access to graphics or modelling
software, and a computer to run the software on. Also, many
people who are good coders/builders are poor artists; a
graphical mud will need good artists to produce a good
environment.
These extra requirements also mean that builders on graphical
muds will need to devote more time to creating new things;
since most of them have other jobs, families, and/or school
to deal with, and almost none of them receive any pay for the
work they do for muds, this will cut down the number of
prospective builders greatly.
There are other reasons; however, I think that these are a
good sample. I think that Doom-style mud-like environments
are coming, but I doubt that they will be organized in a
"grass-roots" fashion the way muds are now; I think it's much
more likely that free muds will continue with text-based
interfaces, possibly adding some static graphics, and that
animated interfaces will be created for mud-like pay-for-play
games.
Of course, there are many improvements that can be made to
mud interfaces without going to a Doom-style interface...
but that's a topic for another post. :-)
--
Travis Casey (ca...@cs.fsu.edu)
FAQ maintainer for rec.games.design
aka Striker, mudlib coordinator for SWmud
Mathue
In article <4o0cb3$3...@hobbes.cc.uga.edu> gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu (Ben Greear) writes:
>Ok, what does a good, full sized picture take up in memory? I figure
>a low estimate would be 100k. Now how many rooms would you like?
>how about 10k, I think there are muds out there with that now..at least.
>
>hmmm 10000 * 100 => 1,000,000 K or 1000 Mb. Thats a lotta space, and that
>still doesn't take into account the items and mobiles.
>
>
>alone.
The problem with your equation is that you are making potentially invalid
assumptions... the largest of which is the assumption that each room's
"picture" is a complete, unique entity distinct from all other graphics.
It seems much more likely to me that many (if not all) rooms would be
designed in such a fashion that they used shared shapes/textures/patterns/etc.
This drops the memory usage you quoted waaaaaaaay down.
(Sorry if I missed something earlier in the thread that invalidates this
point... I could only find the last few posts when I went looking)
--
-----
mathue moyer
Email: mat...@ucsd.edu
URL: http://icse1.ucsd.edu/~mmoyer/
Farrell / Benjamin (COM)
In article <4o2uaa$2...@news.fsu.edu>, Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu> wrote:
>Right now, I don't think that the first-person animated (Doom-type)
>interface is a good choice for muds. Here's why:
>
> - Such an interface requires more physical skill from players than
> the current interface style. For example, shooting monsters in
Underworld, which doesn't require quite the reflexes of Doom (where 3 hits
can kill you).
> Most muds are role-playing oriented; that is, the players play
> characters who have abilities that are relatively independent
> of the player's abilities. A Doom-style interface would tend
> to put more stress on the player's abilities, weakening this.
CF: UU ... skills, including non-combat skills, different types of
attacks, puzzles that don't rely on killing, limited monster interaction.
Picture UU's interface and equipment with Nightmare IV's fisher class ..
(Actually, I think I'd go insane, but that's another matter entirely :)
> - A graphical interface requires some sort of client program
Very true, the second biggest downer ..
> - In addition, the support requirements for such a client are
> been given by their college, mudding from terminal rooms.
Depends if their terminals are IBMPC compats or not ;)
> - A fully-animated graphical interface places great demands
> on a computer; many machines that are only two or three
> years old will only run Doom and similar games slowly, if
UU is a much slower paced game than Doom, more suited to the pace of a
mud.
> consume too much resources right now. A graphical mud would
> have an even harder time finding a home.
True, but if you think of the number of graphical muds as a percentage,
I think that there would be enough machines out there to run a couple ...
Plus, due to the effort required in creating them, I don't think we'll be
seeing Yet Another Graphic Mud Clones anytime soon. Bandwidth is a major
consideration though ... I wonder if graphical muds would be a good
candidate for distributed mudding ...
> - The requirements for the builders of graphical muds would
Biggest Downer .. If free graphical muds are to take off, though, there
will need to be massive grassroots support, with major sharing of graphic
files etc., unless your GM has a rather large staff...
>Of course, there are many improvements that can be made to
>mud interfaces without going to a Doom-style interface...
>but that's a topic for another post. :-)
Yah ..
--OH. likes UU, as you may have guessed.
Ben Greear
In article <31A5DB...@ifi.uio.no>,
Ola Fosheim Groestad <ol...@ifi.uio.no> wrote:
>Ben Greear wrote:
>> Well, neither of us have the capability to do real research here..so I'll
>> let this matter drop...consider it a matter of opinion..
>
>Why not? I'm starting a research project on virtual environments as my major,
>not on the text vs gfx issue though.
get tired of people claiming that they are right when all they can really
claim is that they THINK they are right, or are right in some skewed
sense that makes no real sense in the real world.
>
>> Ok, what does a good, full sized picture take up in memory? I figure
>> a low estimate would be 100k. Now how many rooms would you like?
>> how about 10k, I think there are muds out there with that now..at least.
>
>You are limiting yourself to existing textmuds and how they are built. Now, they
>only represent a very limited class of muds.
Ok, so you are going to have a bunch of objects in a library and call
them up again and again? That should get quite boring after a while no?
>
>> hmmm 10000 * 100 => 1,000,000 K or 1000 Mb. Thats a lotta space, and that
>> still doesn't take into account the items and mobiles.
>
>DVD CDROM. Diskspace is not a problem.
>Or compressed shaded polygongraphics for graphics transmitted over network, etc.
>Or, graphical libraries (objects, textures, renderingalgorithms) on CDROM, composition
>of scenes over network.
>
Not a prob on a CD, no, but try transmitting that over the net, even if
just a one time deal for your client, its still a huge suck on bandwidth, and
who can store 1000, or for that matter, 500mb on your school account?
It would have to go on a hd, and 500mb or 1000mb is still a lot for a game
imho.
>> Even if you half either of those figures, you still get 500mb for world
>> alone.
>
>That's not much.
>
Not much storage, but a lot to transmit...how are you going to distribute it?
>Ola.
Ben Greear
Ben Greear
In article <4o77ji$d...@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, Mathue <mmo...@sdcc10.ucsd.edu> wrote:
>In article <4o0cb3$3...@hobbes.cc.uga.edu> gre...@pollux.cs.uga.edu (Ben Greear) writes:
>>a low estimate would be 100k. Now how many rooms would you like?
>>how about 10k, I think there are muds out there with that now..at least.
>>
>>still doesn't take into account the items and mobiles.
>>
>>
>>alone.
>
>assumptions... the largest of which is the assumption that each room's
>"picture" is a complete, unique entity distinct from all other graphics.
>It seems much more likely to me that many (if not all) rooms would be
>designed in such a fashion that they used shared shapes/textures/patterns/etc.
>This drops the memory usage you quoted waaaaaaaay down.
>
>(Sorry if I missed something earlier in the thread that invalidates this
> point... I could only find the last few posts when I went looking)
>--
>-----
>mathue moyer
>Email: mat...@ucsd.edu
>URL: http://icse1.ucsd.edu/~mmoyer/
I can see how that could be true, and evidently, one has already been
written like that (prev post). I guess I should go look at it before
I judge, but it seems to me that if you gain all that space, you are going
to lose more in appeal of the game. Tiles ect are cool, but they get
repetitious after a while.... As for tiles, how bout them little ascii
tiles all over the place... They can paint a truly vivid picture when
coupled with a working mind :)
Ben the sleepy.
David Forthoffer
Ben Greear wrote:
>
> In article <31A527...@adobe.com>,
> David Forthoffer <dfor...@adobe.com> wrote:
> >
> >What activity do people spend the most time on among the following, on average?
> >a) watching TV
> >b) listening to the radio
> >c) reading
> >
> >It's my understanding that the answer is (a), like it or not.
> >
> >That's a pretty good argument that watching TV is more appealing to the general
> >population than reading or listening to the radio, even though the latter two
> >encourage more imagination and involvement.
>
> You are probably right that most "normal" people spend more time watching
> television. However, would any of these people take the time to MUD?
> Role Playing Games of all types only appeal to a certain segment of the
> population. Within this segment, I don't think you will be able to say
> that the answer to your question is "a". There is no way a person can log
> 20+ hours a week on MUDS, eat, breath, sleep and work and STILL have time to
> watch all that much television. If you seriously think you can lure a
> decent percentage of people away from TV with a MUD of any type, you are
> dreaming. TV is just another way to spell Aldous(sp) Huxley's 'soma'.
I didn't mean to say "normal" people would *both* MUD and watch TV.
I meant that whatever induced people to switch from books/radio to color TV
would also tend to induce people to switch from text mudding to graphical
mudding (assuming graphical mudding becomes as easy as watching TV).
--
David Forthoffer Check out http://www.adobe.com
dfor...@adobe.com "I'm not speaking for Adobe"
Ola Fosheim Groestad
Ben Greear wrote:
> >You are limiting yourself to existing textmuds and how they are built. Now, they
> >only represent a very limited class of muds.
> Ok, so you are going to have a bunch of objects in a library and call
> them up again and again? That should get quite boring after a while no?
Huh, not neccessarily? But, even so...Why boring? Music is made up of a bunch of
parametric objects that are molded into a whole. The clue is to not use static
objects. And actually most textmuds are a lot more repetitive and boring than
some graphical muds I have seen.
> Not a prob on a CD, no, but try transmitting that over the net, even if
> just a one time deal for your client, its still a huge suck on bandwidth, and
> who can store 1000, or for that matter, 500mb on your school account?
I can. :) Your perspectives are too limited. Fully developed graphical muds won't
be available in approx. 3-4 years. (yeah, I know some are here today, but they aren't
fully exploiting the capabilities of the genre) So whether you concider 500mb a lot
today is rather irrelevant, it won't be a lot in 2 years.
> >That's not much.
> Not much storage, but a lot to transmit...how are you going to distribute it?
Pay by WWW, get by snail. CD pressing is cheap. approx USD2 per CD.
Ola.
ShadowLord
On Thu, 23 May 1996, David Forthoffer wrote:
> What activity do people spend the most time on among the following, on
> average?
> a) watching TV
> b) listening to the radio
> c) reading
>
> It's my understanding that the answer is (a), like it or not.
Different people like different things. Generalizing people is
ridiculous because not everyone has a TV or a radio. Not everyone can
read, not everyone can see, not everyone can hear. Not everyone has
cable TV and not everyone has a VCR.
I have cable TV (w/ the premium channels) and a VCR, and I still
prefer to read over watching TV because nine times out of ten, there's
nothing good to watch, but with a book, I can change the words or I can
grab another book. There are more books than there are channels.
> That's a pretty good argument that watching TV is more appealing to the
> general population than reading or listening to the radio, even though
> the latter two encourage more imagination and involvement.
Why is that a good arguement? What the Hell is the "general
population"? Read my above paragraph. It doesn't make sense. Basically
it's saying that, "People who like TV enough to pay cable bills and buy a
TV, like TV." Well there's the eigth wonder of the world <rolls eyes>.
> That's not the point.
>
> The point is whether they'd rather immerse themselves in a graphical mud
> vs. a text mud.
That is the point! Graphical MUDs have very little to offer right
now because of the limitations of building them and the limitations of
hardware. Text MUDs are easily accessable by anyone with proper 'telnet'
support, and text is easier to write. Therefore, most graphical MUDs
don't have a lot to offer, yet, while most text MUDs can present you with
a complete MUD world. Like it or not, that's the truth.
> Yes, text has many virtues. But the issue is not whether you or I prefer
> text-based muds over graphical muds, nor is it what people *should* prefer.
> It is what what people *do* prefer.
Uhm, people *should* prefer what ever the Hell they *want* to
prefer. And since I am a person (don't know about you) I *should* prefer
what I *want* to prefer, and therefore, I *do* prefer text MUDs.
And most people *do* prefer text MUDs, still.
>
> The arguments you make for text-based muds over graphical muds
> equally apply for radio over color TV. But the population has voted
> for color TV over radio. I'm saying I think the population will also
> vote for graphical muds over text-based muds. I think this will happen
> when the Doom-style 3-D engine is put in a net client that works with
> a 3-D server, plus professional-qualty OLC, and all the source is freely
> available on the net, a la diku.
Hah! This is a funny statement.
First, radio is intended for a different purpose than TV. Radio
is for music and talk shows, TV is for soap operas, movies, cartoons, talk
shows, etc. Radio's mainstream use isn't to give a person an adventure
story or a science fiction story. You're comparing apples and oranges.
What you're saying is that people like movies more than they like music.
Which isn't neccessarily true, but you seem to say so.
Second, it takes far more talent to code a graphical MUD or add
features to a graphical MUD. It also requires artistic talent to do
anything with the world of a graphical MUD. These two skills aren't
exactly common place between the 'net users of the world. Anyone on the
'net is capable of writing, and it requires far less time to code a text
MUD.
Finally, why in the @#$% would anyone give out a DOOM-like 3D MUD
freely? You seem to think that they would, but it requires money to get a
server that will run a graphical MUD, with all it's demands, properly, and
it requires a lot of coding and a lot of drawing, nothing liek a text MUD
which requires maybe three months of coding to a get a decent MUD base
server from scratch running and a year or two of expansion to have a big
world and a lot of good features and ideas. Graphical MUDs will have
trouble producing half of what a text MUD can within a year.
Oh, don't forget, you have less people that can draw than you have
that can write. Let me see, first you have the limitation of cutting out
most college students because a lot of them use the labs, then you have
the limitation of cutting out a lot of home PCs because they don't always
have the hardware neccessary, then you have the limitation of cutting out
any platform that you don't port the client to, and then the people
leftover have to be able to draw in order to build for the MUD? How many
people do you think that is? Hm. Not compare that to the people that
have 'telnet' access and can write fairly decent. I think you'll see that
you have more of latter.
>
> Of course you're entitled to your own opinion.
> I just want to let you know why I have mine.
*Laugh*
For your opinion, you sure stated a lot of (false) facts.
David Forthoffer
Ben Greear wrote:
>
> In article <31A5DB...@ifi.uio.no>,
> Ok, so you are going to have a bunch of objects in a library and call
> them up again and again? That should get quite boring after a while no?
No.
I'm going to have a bunch of object *templates* in a library
and call them up with different parameters.
It should be more interesting than the repetitive text descriptions
in a text-based mud.
> try transmitting (1 GB compressed) over the net, even if
> just a one time deal for your client, its still a huge suck on bandwidth, and
> who can store 1000, or for that matter, 500mb on your school account?
I'm not going to transmit lots of images.
I'm going to transmit coordinates and parameters describing 3-D objects,
and have a 3-D renderer in the client form them into images.
It's a trade off between bandwidth and client-side horsepower.
And the latter keeps getting more horses, making it easier.
Ben Greear
In article <31AC6B...@adobe.com>,
David Forthoffer <dfor...@adobe.com> wrote:
>I'm going to have a bunch of object *templates* in a library
>and call them up with different parameters.
Well, I'm truly interested now :)
I have never tried to code in graphics...so I don't know really
how this would work. It sounds nice though! Perhaps if
you would like to further explain, or let me know where I might
find info on this sort of thing.
>It should be more interesting than the repetitive text descriptions
>in a text-based mud.
Some are repetitive, some are very distinct. I like text, and
always will I think. You like graphics, and probably always will.
This topic has been beaten into the ground...
If you're interested, lets talk of
methods of coding a graphical mud efficiently instead. I'd almost
wrather code than MUD anyway :)
>
>
>I'm not going to transmit lots of images.
>I'm going to transmit coordinates and parameters describing 3-D objects,
>and have a 3-D renderer in the client form them into images.
>It's a trade off between bandwidth and client-side horsepower.
>And the latter keeps getting more horses, making it easier.
Are you going to try to transmit enough parameters and coordinates
to completely render an image, or just to position it and maybe
change it's color or something? If not the latter, it seems
to me that you will either suck down a lot of bandwidth, or
have a pretty bland.
Also, while the sparc suns have no problem w/power, many sysadmins
will be quite pissed off if a large chunk of memory and or cpu
is being used on a client for a MUD. This is even more true for
school accounts which run off of one, big, often overstressed
server. You could of course port
it to dos/windows, macs, OS2 and other platforms and let
the user's own computer do the thinking...but keeping up
with all the clients would then become quite a task..
>
>--
>David Forthoffer Check out http://www.adobe.com
>dfor...@adobe.com "I'm not speaking for Adobe"
Ben Greear
One thing I have noticed is that many people, or at least a few
loud ones, seem to believe that in a year or two, the NET will have
almost unlimited transfer capability. While it is certainly true
that ppl will have cable modems or other means of large volume
transfer between their own computer and the NET, it is not nearly
so certain that the NET will be able to match the throughput for
all these users. Even now, it is not the local connection that
slows down transfers, it is the trunklines. There are some
doomsayers that claim total collapse within a year or two. I'm
not sure this is the case, but as more and more people utilize
high, and effortless, data-transfer programs like Netscape
the average net load is going to grow tremendously. I'm sure
technology will *eventually* catch up and give us all the personal
t1's we desire, but untill then, and I think it will be a while,
we should strive to code efficiently and design good algorithms
and compression methods instead of just saying, "don't worry, in
two years we ALL will be able to download a 500meg+ client or
have a server that pumps out graphics in real-time."
Chris Lawrence (Contra)
Ben Greear (gre...@opal.cs.uga.edu) wrote:
: Also, while the sparc suns have no problem w/power, many sysadmins
: will be quite pissed off if a large chunk of memory and or cpu
: is being used on a client for a MUD. This is even more true for
: school accounts which run off of one, big, often overstressed
: server. You could of course port
: it to dos/windows, macs, OS2 and other platforms and let
: the user's own computer do the thinking...but keeping up
: with all the clients would then become quite a task..
Or you could release the client side source for a couple key
platforms, and then let users port to their platforms of choice.
--
J C Lawrence Internet: co...@ibm.net
---------------(*) Internet: claw...@cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...
ShadowLord
-- You know, it seems to me that when it's not someone that
doesn't have the sense to word-wrap, it's someone who doesn't know
when to stop a paragraph :)
Here's the thing. The point is not whether or not people could
write a graphical MUD, the point is whether it is worth the time and money
that'd you need to invest just to let it go to the public. I am not
saying there will never be a free graphical MUD, nor am I saying that
will never be source code availible for graphical MUDs, but the point is
that graphical MUDs will remain largely inaccessable by many college
students who use lab computers and many people at home who don't have good
enough hardware. The MUD is also inaccessable to machines that do not
support the client, and since not every MUD player is a programmer and not
everyone releases their source code to their client/server, the MUD
becomes further inaccessable. Then, out of those left that can connect
it, you need to get a decent site to run it on, and I think we can at
least agree that graphical MUDs will take up more hard-drive space and
processor, and require a fast link (even though a proper graphical MUD
server is not sending graphics, just telling what to show). So, now that
you've got the site [which would probably cost a pretty penny], you then
have the matter of coders and builders. Okay, so you can probably get a
few good coders to help, but building on the MUD is severly limited by the
fact that a good number of people can't draw on their computer worth a
damn.
While hardware limitations are likely to disappear, the limitation
on people not being able to draw well or code taking a bit longer to
implement under a graphical MUD for Joe Average Coder.
No-one suggested it'd take 10 programmers, but it'd take longer
than a text MUD to get it somewhere decent. A text MUD can get more
builders and in a year have a much larger world than a graphical MUD that
can't find builders capable of drawing -- in one year, a text MUD can grow
exponentionally if done somewhat decent, while a graphical MUD cannot grow
even half as fast and keep quality graphics in the game.
ShadowLord
On Wed, 22 May 1996, Hans Mikelson wrote:
> Excellent points. I think you are right that they will not be free but I
> am hoping that several factors will make them as inexpensive as video
> games are today. The amount of work necessary to design the initial mud
> is very large; however adding on to a mud need not be that difficult.
Ehm, last time I checked the prices for video games were going
up... :)
>
> Graphical editors can be used to make rooms, doors can be added like clip
> art. Other objects can be added to the room as 3D clip art. Complex
> textures can be specified for the walls. I'm not sure how advanced the
> Doom level editors are currently but future game editors will probably be
> fairly easy to use.
I think any decent graphical editor can do this, but this doesn't
solve the problems of creatures. Some things just can't be made into clip
art, and some thing's shouldn't. Tell me how they're going to represent
the weather system, lighting systems, and spells. Some things can't be
clip-art and some things are going to require a good deal of programming
to get right.
>
> The things which will require a lot of work will be new textures, new
> objects, new monsters and new traps. Adding on using existing objects and
> monsters won't be too difficult once a large database is developed.
Ah-hah, but that makes for a terribly repeative game. Text MUDs
often load objects and mobiles over and over and sometimes in multiple
numbers, but only those that are the same. It'd suck to have every single
elf look exactly the same...
>
> Of course this supports your contention that graphical muds will never be
> as vast as text muds. I also think that graphics tend to limit the
> imagination where text tends to expand the imagination. On the other hand
> graphics are much more appealing to most people than text.
To some people. And to some people it's just the opposite. For
the reason that text MUDs will always be larger and faster expanding than
graphical MUDs, I do and will prefer text over graphics. You seem to
think that people just like text MUDs because that's all that they can get
to. While this may be true for some people, it's not true for everyone.
>
> *Quake Gossip*
> At one point I heard Id was going to give the Quake servers and level
> editors away for free and just plan on selling the clients. The number of
> connections to Quake was supposed to be 64 or more. Possibly hundreds.
> Although they started with a medieval theme including dragons, death
> knights and ogres the last I had heard they had scrapped the medieval
> theme. Of course any Quake information is pure speculation and rumour.
The pre-alpha was a real disappointment, IMHO. Not only had they
scrapped the Medievial theme from it, apparently, but the weaponary was
horrifically stupid. I wasn't planning on walking around with a shotgun,
nail gun, lightning gun, etc. <rolls eyes> I think id screwed up in
scrapping the Medievial theme and the only reason why they did it is
because they didn't have the slightest clue on how to do it _right_.
That's why Heretic and Hexen weren't as popular as Doom. Because they
tried to make Heretic and it's sequel use a different theme, but kept
nearly everything else similar. That's like someone saying they're going
to make their MUD a talker by adding in more chatting facilities, but
leaving in a combat system, mobiles, objects, etc. <rolls eyes across the
table>
-DaK
Shane Kearns
In article <4okffo$c...@hobbes.cc.uga.edu>,
Ben Greear <gre...@opal.cs.uga.edu> wrote:
>In article <31AC6B...@adobe.com>,
>David Forthoffer <dfor...@adobe.com> wrote:
>>I'm going to have a bunch of object *templates* in a library
>>and call them up with different parameters.
>
<zpos><radius><height><xangle><yangle><zangle><colour>
now, short integers are probably the level of precision needed, so
maybe 10 short ints = 20 bytes to specify a cylinder. Something like
a triangular facet would be rather less, needing just
<triangle><x><Y><z><colour> = 10 bytes. Now, I assume you will be allowing
the server to group a series of things together as an object - e.g.
10 square facets and 3 triangular facets to be a sword, and allocate
a new object code for that, so you can then send <sword><transformation matrix>
to add a sword to the scene. 3d transformation matrices are 3x4, but it will
still be worth it for complex objects.
>
>>It should be more interesting than the repetitive text descriptions
>>in a text-based mud.
>Some are repetitive, some are very distinct. I like text, and
>always will I think. You like graphics, and probably always will.
repetitive text descriptions are a feature of lazy coders who want to get
an area up quickly. You will have the same problem with graphics -
lazy coders will not put the effort into using the libraries in novel
and imaginative ways.
Make a graphical contruction environment for scenes anyway - you can't
expect the average joe wiz to learn a complex scripting language:
you may say they have to learn LPC or whatever for a text mud, but
to be honest they don't.. all they do is learn they need to have set_long
or whatever and then type in the room description.
>>
>>I'm not going to transmit lots of images.
>>I'm going to transmit coordinates and parameters describing 3-D objects,
>>and have a 3-D renderer in the client form them into images.
>>It's a trade off between bandwidth and client-side horsepower.
>>And the latter keeps getting more horses, making it easier.
>
...
>Also, while the sparc suns have no problem w/power, many sysadmins
>will be quite pissed off if a large chunk of memory and or cpu
>is being used on a client for a MUD. This is even more true for
>school accounts which run off of one, big, often overstressed
>server. You could of course port
>it to dos/windows, macs, OS2 and other platforms and let
>the user's own computer do the thinking...but keeping up
>with all the clients would then become quite a task..
>
If java gets wide support, thats less of a problem - admittedly its
slow, but its ideal for a mud client, as just about anyone can run it.
It also avoids all those lovely porting problems
Strawman.
Michael Sellers
Ben Greear (gre...@opal.cs.uga.edu) wrote:
: In article <31AC6B...@adobe.com>,
: David Forthoffer <dfor...@adobe.com> wrote:
: >I'm going to have a bunch of object *templates* in a library
: >and call them up with different parameters.
: Well, I'm truly interested now :)
: I have never tried to code in graphics...so I don't know really
: how this would work. It sounds nice though! Perhaps if
: you would like to further explain, or let me know where I might
: find info on this sort of thing.
I know I keep saying this, but if you want to see a working mud like this
*today*, go to www.3do.com/studio3do/meridian. You can get an account
and download our 3D, first-person (Doom-like-view) graphical mud from there.
We've had over 10,000 people play our game; we actually have several
servers up and running now with 50-100+ on at any given time.
Despite the various posts here, we have a large, varied, graphical world
that takes up 15Mb on disk, and we're not transmitting graphics over the
net other than the initial download. Really.
: Also, while the sparc suns have no problem w/power, many sysadmins
: will be quite pissed off if a large chunk of memory and or cpu
: is being used on a client for a MUD. This is even more true for
: school accounts which run off of one, big, often overstressed
: server.
Our client runs on a 486/DX50 or better, with 8Mb or more RAM. I run it
on a 486/66 all the time. It _screams_ on a Pentium. :-)
Brandon Gabbard
Alot of companies have tried to make a Medievial 3D game and most if not
all sucked. Heretic & Hexen where probably the worst along with
Witchaven it was kinda good but the combat sucked. I not sure if you
could make a good 3D RPG. I kinda like the new theme Quake went with
it's kinda has a NIN style too which I think rocks. I think they're
"TEST" was pretty good maybe because we have 4 or 5 computers linked up
most of the time the death-matched totaly kick a$$. But keep in mind
that they haven't added any of the features in and so far it blows away
any 3D that I've seen. THough I'm still waiting to see Pray. But as for
Ending the MUD as we know defiantly NOT. DOOM/QUAKE are a long way from
a MUD but that doesn't mean the next game that comes along won't be a 3D
MUD, but if they get smart this will be id's next move.
Vagabond
aka Aristarchus
aka Brandon Gabbard
chem...@galstar.com
Bernie Carpenter
Here's my two-bob's worth ...
I am the computer coordinator at a high school in sydney. We have a
couple of computer rooms including a room of 15 pentiums. Almost every
afternoon, after school ends, I let anyone who's interested play
quake, doom, Warcraft 2, Simfarm or any of a number of other games,
including MUD which runs on our unix server. (The games are off limits
during school hours!)
Often some of the staff come down, join in and (usually) get our
collective asses kicked by the kids, but such is life...
I think you'd be surprised how many choose to play MUD. Often it
depends on people's mood, as well as who else is playing which game.
But there's still a lot of MUDDING going, even though a high tech
multi-player game like quake is running. Usually people will play a
few different games during the afternoon (2-3 hours). They may start
with mud, then move on to other games. Further, the pentium machines
are in high demand for quake, and those that cant get onto a pentium
machine will elect to play a less taxing game (eg doom or mud) on the
lesser machines (486s which were considered really cool only 12 months
ago!).
My thoughts are along the line of satisfaction. While its fun to blow
people up someone with a rocket launcher in quake, its much more
satisfying to solve a puzzle, or learn a new spell in MUD and advance
your character to the next level. Cooperation is much higher in mud,
many monsters take more than one person to kill while people playing
quake usually wont be able to help themselves and will eventually
betray those they are supposed to supporting by rocketing them in the
back!).
Further, more fights (in real life) break out, when one player in MUD
kills the other player. I've never had to break up a fight over a
death in quake, whereas Ive broken up quite a few over a MUD betrayal
or death. I guess its because it takes so much longer in mud to build
up and develop your character ... or perhaps the players identify more
closely with their MUD characters, than they do with their quake
characters. Or perhaps its so much nastier to be a MUD ghost and see
your killer gloat while they raid the equipment in your freshly killed
corpse.
Anyway, these are only my opinions and a few observations, but I think
text based adventure games have a certain charm that cant be
duplicated by todays multimedia shoot 'em ups.
Bonchlord
gan...@nectar.com.au (Bernie Carpenter) wrote:
>Further, more fights (in real life) break out, when one player in MUD
>kills the other player. I've never had to break up a fight over a
>death in quake, whereas Ive broken up quite a few over a MUD betrayal
>or death. I guess its because it takes so much longer in mud to build
>up and develop your character ... or perhaps the players identify more
>closely with their MUD characters, than they do with their quake
>characters. Or perhaps its so much nastier to be a MUD ghost and see
>your killer gloat while they raid the equipment in your freshly killed
>corpse.
>Anyway, these are only my opinions and a few observations, but I think
>text based adventure games have a certain charm that cant be
>duplicated by todays multimedia shoot 'em ups.
The other thing is that a mud allows the user to use their own imagination in
picturing thing's in their minds eye. I've seen a lot of artist's who do fantasy
stuff, and 99% of what they do doesn't come close to what I picture a certain
creature or item to be (maybe with exception of Jeff Easly, man that guy rules
for fantasy art). When I play Quake, Doom, etc, I'm having to follow an artists
conception of what certain players and beasties and items and rooms look like,
when I'm subjected to text only, it allows my mind to wander and visualize it
more clearly as I think it would be.
So I agree, untill the day
when a machine is made which can extract my thoughts and put on to a screen what
I see in my head, I'll always be a fan of text based games. Not too mention that
with the rate at which illertacy is growing in the world, it's a good way to
encourage people to read.
Tyler Wilhite
I'm looking for some builders for a my mud, the staff and I have
considered basing the mud off Darksun(tm) It's a roll playing game, a
world of dnd. Lotsa desert, really deadly, this is where thri-kreen
live as pcs. Giants and poison, fun for the whole family. So, if you
are interested send me personal mail, as I don't read the groups much.
Bradley Lawrence
Ben Greear (gre...@mordred.cs.uga.edu) wrote:
: In article <83258887...@marleyex.demon.co.uk>,
: Phil Priston <ph...@mis.marleyext.com> wrote:
: >
: >Just An idea, but what is to stop future versions of doom/quake
: >making use of the microphone fasility of sound cards, netscape chat
: >addon's can handle it why shouldn't Id software do it?
: >I think its quite a nice idea, actaully being able to _hear_ the
: >people in your room speaking....
: >
: >Phil Priston, ph...@mis.marleyext.com,
: >http://www.demon.co.uk/mel - PC Support Analyst
: >Marley Extrusions LTD. ENGLAND, +44 (0)1622 858888
: >Dos is possibly the worst Text Adventure game I ever played.
: try playing it in lab w/full sound!!
: I personally would wrather just type...talking brings in too much reality..
: and even though I don't do it, imagine the people who like to play
: chars of different sex...or dragons..or elves....
: Sound would have the same drawbacks as graphics for me.
: Ben Greear
I agree completely. I use MU*s as a breather from reality. I deal with
reality most of my life, sometimes i just need to get away and talk to my
Internet friends.
I dunno about the rest of y'all, but I think
sound/graphics would not only be a big, slow, waste of bandwidth, but they'd
also take alot away from the fun of the games... especially Roleplaying
games. And, just imagine how hard it would be to find a site for one of
those. It's hard enough to find a site for a (still pretty RAM intensive)
text-based MU*, never mind one that includes sound or graphics.
All of the above = IMHO
--
Brad Lawrence (blaw...@freenet.npiec.on.ca, ka...@netcom.ca)
Yes, that /is/ my whole .sig!