Design of a good MUD (was Stock MUDs, etc)
Brian James Green
New thread time!
George Reese stated an opinion on the old "Stock muds considered
harmful" thread about area coding being important for MUD originality.
I fully respect his right to have that opinion, but I would like to
start a (hopefully) intelligent discussion about MUD design
specifically the game play.
I am currently working with a group of friends to create a new MUD.
Although we easily could have, we do not wish to become another "stock
MUD". We want to be original and have people interested in our MUD.
First, a bit of specifics. We all "grew up" playing LPs and loving them
to death. Between us, we probably have significant experience on 20
different MUDs, and minor play time on several more. We have seen many
good MUDs, and obviously, several poor MUDs. Therefore, when we started
to design the MUD, we wanted the power and flexibility that LP MUDs
afford the coders.
Our current choice for driver is DGD. We're looking at obtaining a
driver that someone is coding, but are currently using Melville to set
up more details. We considered using Amylaar's driver and using either
2.4.5 or a derivative of it from a MUD we all played.
Here is a bit of the path of what we did to design the MUD. I'm not
saying this is the "one true path to enlightened MUD design", but it is
what we considered the best.
First, we all loved fantasy-based MUDs. So, the theme was chosen to be
Fantasy (or Swords & Sorcery). Yes, it made it a bit harder to do
something original (I have noticed an increase in interesting cyber-punk
type MUDs), but it is what we had the most familiarity and interest
with. Along with that, we liked a bit of horror, so we decided to put
some horrific elements in it. One example is the renaming of the
Wizards (immortals) to Demons.
Next, we decided we wanted a good role-playing environment. I never
particularly cared for MUSHes, so I didn't want a heavy-handed
role-playing requirement. Yet, the most fun MUDs I have seen had a
strong environment that lead to interesting role-play of characters and
interesting situations. If the MUD provided the vehicle, those who like
to role-play will do so.
So, following this, we set about designing the world in which the game
will be set. This included designing new races (giving them all a touch
of familiarity...you'll not find "Dwarves" by name, but you'll see some
friendly faces, none-the-less), a history of the world, a general
layout, a setup for the towns, an organization of the people "in
control" on this world, the heros of lore, etc. This was all general
enough so that the future can proceed without contradicting the past,
and new features (such as areas) can be added to the world without
ruining the continuity.
Then, we tackled some problems we found on other MUDs that were not
addressed before. What do you do for ultra-high level players? What do
you do when players get too much money? What do you do to keep the
guilds balanced and give people a variety? What do you do to keep the
uber-player from being created? What do you do to keep power-MUDders
happy while not upsetting the casual MUDder? And vice-versa?
I'm not saying we have all the answers, but finding the right questions
to ask can help significantly. We always keep these (and other)
questions in mind when we are designing the game.
Next, we looked at drivers and libs. You know how that goes....
Finally, now, we are fleshing out the skeleton of what we want for the
game. We are on-line, and looking for people to help us in our quest.
We want to bring back the interesting game play to MUDs.
This whole process has been going on for about a year.
No, it's not easy. Yes, it takes a crapload of time. Yes, I could be
spending my time with my GF. But, yes, it does impress game companies.
Yes, you can see, it's more than coding areas, IMHO.
What about other people? Has anyone else really sat down and thought
about how a game should be designed? What do other people think, is
this what the future should be? Is this how we get better and more
original MUDs?
Comments desparately wanted. Flames definitely ignored.
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...." -"Defender", Manowar
Brian Green, pch...@iastate.edu aka Psychochild
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Joshua J. Cantrell
In article <5f02hi$2o2$1...@news.iastate.edu> pch...@iastate.edu (Brian James Green) writes:
[Snipped text here. I liked what I read.]
> Then, we tackled some problems we found on other MUDs that were not
> addressed before. What do you do for ultra-high level players? What do
> you do when players get too much money? What do you do to keep the
> guilds balanced and give people a variety? What do you do to keep the
> uber-player from being created? What do you do to keep power-MUDders
> happy while not upsetting the casual MUDder? And vice-versa?
I've always been curious on how it would be if players didn't have any
levels at all, and really didn't differ that much. They would differ
only in the ways that people do in real life. If you use an attribute,
then it is improved, but you can't make it become infinitely better.
Guilds would be something that would not have to be strictly supported
in the code base, but then I don't really care much for guilds anyway.
As far as keeping different people who play MUDs happy, I'd be content
with keeping myself happy that I had a good product, and try to keep
the clientele that respected my MUD happiest.
> I'm not saying we have all the answers, but finding the right questions
> to ask can help significantly. We always keep these (and other)
> questions in mind when we are designing the game.
I like the sharing of ideas. Especially when they are new approaches
to problems.
[Snipped more information.]
> What about other people? Has anyone else really sat down and thought
> about how a game should be designed? What do other people think, is
> this what the future should be? Is this how we get better and more
> original MUDs?
I have thought extensively on how a multi-player game should be
designed, but because of the lack of free time available in school,
I haven't had much success in completing anything.
> Brian Green, pch...@iastate.edu aka Psychochild
Joshua Cantrell
j...@cory.berkeley.edu
FIZZIX
In article <s38g1yj...@delphinus.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>,
Joshua J. Cantrell <j...@delphinus.EECS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>I've always been curious on how it would be if players didn't have any
>levels at all, and really didn't differ that much. They would differ
>only in the ways that people do in real life. If you use an attribute,
>then it is improved, but you can't make it become infinitely better.
>Guilds would be something that would not have to be strictly supported
>in the code base, but then I don't really care much for guilds anyway.
>As far as keeping different people who play MUDs happy, I'd be content
>with keeping myself happy that I had a good product, and try to keep
>the clientele that respected my MUD happiest.
>
Levels were a necessary and viable abstraction in the pen and paper rpg's.
The calculation's involved in a "learning by practice" system were way
beyond the scope of a DM's capability. So we generalize, and come up with
concepts of "experience" and "levels" to represent the range of a
character's abilities.
Of course, this only works if we throw in the human element. A DM may
decide to reward Conan, the weak halfling thief who doesn't kill any orcs
but routinely saves the party from poison traps. It is only this
subjective element that gives the abstraction what Reese called "internal
consistency".
[ On a side note, this may not fit into his definition of internal
consistency, but I interpret it to mean that the elements of the game can
logically exist together. That is, they follow a reasonable line of
thought.
For example, take a player totally new to the concept of muds and rpgs.
Tell him that ha has three skills: killing, stealing, and casting magic.
Then tell him that killing things makes him a better killer. Many muds
expect him to reason like this:
"If killing a beastly fido makes me a better at killing, then killing
a beastly fido will make me better at stealing gold from a Peacemaker"
This is rather inane and silly. A more correct vein of reasoning goes
something like this:
"Killing, stealing, and casting magic are all types of skills. Killing
a beastly fido will make me better at killing a beastly fido. Then perhaps
as a general rule for skills, using that skill will make me better at it.
In which case stealing from a beastly fido will make me better at stealing
from a beastly fido."
In this case, the player recognizes "skill" as an abstraction. That is, it
is a group of things that common attributes. If killing things made you
better at everything, the abstraction should be "Things you get better at
by killing".
Now back to the point at hand ]
The concepts of levels and experience are flawed abstractions. Ths human
element in the pen and paper games corrects them. Unfortunately these game
mechanics were carried over to the muds, where no such element exists (or
if it does, in a very small quantity). This is understandable, considering
both the difficulty in designing new mechanics, and the comfort in
familiarity.
So yes, I agree absolutely that levels as we know them should be
either scrapped or reworked so they fit in logically. They're a throwback
from when they were necessary and such flawed abstractions often tend to
breed more.
>> I'm not saying we have all the answers, but finding the right questions
>> to ask can help significantly. We always keep these (and other)
>> questions in mind when we are designing the game.
>
>I like the sharing of ideas. Especially when they are new approaches
>to problems.
>
>> What about other people? Has anyone else really sat down and thought
>> about how a game should be designed? What do other people think, is
>> this what the future should be? Is this how we get better and more
>> original MUDs?
Yes, yes, and yes. This could be intersting, hey? Anyone up for a mass mud
design?
-griffie
Walter Goodwin
In article <s38g1yj...@delphinus.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>,
Joshua J. Cantrell <j...@delphinus.EECS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>I've always been curious on how it would be if players didn't have any
>levels at all, and really didn't differ that much. They would differ
>only in the ways that people do in real life. If you use an attribute,
>then it is improved, but you can't make it become infinitely better.
This is an approach that I and quite a few other people are taking :)
Thanks to this group I've gleaned all sorts of useful info and ideas.
The problem with this approach is that it has to be done properly.
For instance, done improperly a twink could setup a script to increase
their abilities by fighting lost puppies and children. The key (or
at least I believe it's the key after talking to Adam) is to only
improve a skill/stat when the character is in actual danger, ie. the
chance for death is high. The hard part is balancing the learning
rate, too slow, and people lose intrest and feel they never get anywhere,
too high, and they quickly "max out" and everyone starts looking the
same again. You have to find the balance so finding someone who can
pick that special lock is a small quest of its own, instead of everyone
being able to do everything. (well, you _could_ do everything, but
everything would be half assed for you ;)
>Guilds would be something that would not have to be strictly supported
>in the code base, but then I don't really care much for guilds anyway.
>As far as keeping different people who play MUDs happy, I'd be content
>with keeping myself happy that I had a good product, and try to keep
>the clientele that respected my MUD happiest.
More importantly, keep you happy :) If you dread logging on everynight,
then there is a serious problem IMHO.
>I like the sharing of ideas. Especially when they are new approaches
>to problems.
Sharing of ideas is probally the greatest accomplishment a person
can do. Sharing a code base to help others get started, making
a patch to fix a bug, theorizing on a pseudo formula for logical
and consistant damage, or even suggesting an improved interface
are the cornerstone of a "mud community" IMHO. Unfortunately, the
problem comes from a certain group that then thinks you owe them
enough to come code their mud, or (worst of all) the idea and code
thieves. I'm probally never going to release any mud I've coded
as a whole thanks to certain unamed individuals that feel they can
add a few large changes and call it theirs without giving me credit.
Thats even worse than having a hundred people a month demanding you
come and fix their code. Heh, Jeremy stated on the circle list just
a short while that a large number of the latest features of circle
were things to cut down on the number of newbie wanna be power tripping
imps mailing him with stupid questions. George took Nightmare out
of distribution for the same reason (more or less, I haven't really
talked to him about it)
>I have thought extensively on how a multi-player game should be
>designed, but because of the lack of free time available in school,
>I haven't had much success in completing anything.
After talking to many people more skilled than I (I've recently moved
from glorified mud code hacker to glorified hacker of mud code ;)
I think the best way to design a mud is to first figure out how the
mud feels. For instance, if I want Very large things very tough
indeed, while small things like rabbits and bugs pitifully weak,
then you should move hitpoints to a function of size (I believe
it was suggested hitpoints should be proportional to the cube of
its height (or width)) You should take time out, and fake a log of
what a player would see, possibly go through an entire game session
through your head (or on paper :) I think I'm gonna take a break
from coding for a week myself so I can work on the base formulas
and processes for what I want to do. Heck, I still have to put down
a lot of stuff into our todo file :)
Don't get me wrong, I think you should also be drawing large maps
of what your world looks like. Or not even a whole world, just
a continent. Draw in the major well known things, like mountatin
ranges, forests, vast plains and deserts. Even mark down the major
sites. Just make sure to leave plenty of extra space for whatever
your builders come up with. Heh, even make up short stories to comprise
legends. Imagine the player's surprise when the town's bard always
has a different story to tell every day :) (sometimes with a hint as
to where a treasure trove is ;)
Travis S Casey
FIZZIX <Fiz...@cris.com> wrote:
>Levels were a necessary and viable abstraction in the pen and paper rpg's.
They're not necessary in paper rpgs. The majority of paper rpgs have
neither levels nor classes. There are even "freeform" rpgs which have
no attributes numbers, skills numbers, or any other numbers at all.
Players simply write down a description of what their character is like in
English (or whatever language the game is being run in) and the GM works
from that.
>The calculation's involved in a "learning by practice" system were way
>beyond the scope of a DM's capability. So we generalize, and come up with
>concepts of "experience" and "levels" to represent the range of a
>character's abilities.
Actually, Runequest and the other systems based off of it have been
using a "learn by practice" system since the mid-1970's. I'm sure
that there are non-Runequest-derived rpgs that have this as well, but
I'm not certain which ones off hand.
>Of course, this only works if we throw in the human element. A DM may
>decide to reward Conan, the weak halfling thief who doesn't kill any orcs
>but routinely saves the party from poison traps. It is only this
>subjective element that gives the abstraction what Reese called "internal
>consistency".
There's no reason that this can't be objectified in a paper rpg; indeed,
many paper rpgs have done it, with varying degrees of success.
>The concepts of levels and experience are flawed abstractions. Ths human
>element in the pen and paper games corrects them. Unfortunately these game
>mechanics were carried over to the muds, where no such element exists (or
>if it does, in a very small quantity). This is understandable, considering
>both the difficulty in designing new mechanics, and the comfort in
>familiarity.
To restate something I've said before:
There's nothing wrong with the level/experience abstraction; the
problems are in the implementation of it and the fact that people
have tried to adapt it to situations which it was never meant for.
>So yes, I agree absolutely that levels as we know them should be
>either scrapped or reworked so they fit in logically. They're a throwback
>from when they were necessary and such flawed abstractions often tend to
>breed more.
Again, levels have *never* been necessary. The designers of D&D chose
to use classes and levels because they were suited for what they
wanted to do. The fact that they're not suited for what a lot of other
people want to do doesn't make them flawed, any more than a hammer is
flawed because it doesn't make a good screwdriver.
Well, most people have probably already stopped reading by this point,
but here's a few general thoughts about advancement in rpgs.
There are two main philosophies on how characters should advance:
realistic advancement and goal-based advancement.
Realistic advancement comes from the idea that the game should try
to simulate reality. In this form, characters advance through
practice and/or training. Systems which use realistic advancement are
usually skill-based systems rather than class-based systems.
Practice usually takes the form of learn-by-doing. The oldest and
best known implementation of this is Runequest's system, which works
like this:
When a character successfully uses a skill in the course of a game,
the GM may tell the player to make a check mark by that skill.
At the end of the current adventure segment, the player gets a
chance to advance each skill which has a check by it.
The player rolls percentile dice, trying to roll *above* his/her
current skill level (Runequest skills range from 0 to 100). If
the roll is made, the player rolls a six-sided die and adds that
many points to the skill level. Either way, the check mark is
erased.
The only subjective part in this is the GM's decision about whether
or not the character gets a check mark when a skill is used; this
can be replaced in several ways. The idea of an "adventure segment"
is also missing from muds, so this should also be substituted for
in some way to prevent characters from going up too fast.
Note that since the character has to first succeed with the skill
in play, and then *fail* a skill check in order to advance, the
chance for advancement starts out low, then goes up until around
a 40% to 50% skill level, then goes down again. Lastly, it should
be noted that starting skill levels in Runequest are usually in the
range of 1 to 30 percent.
I don't know of any games that *only* have learn-by-doing; Runequest
also allows characters to advance via training.
Learning through training has been implemented in a lot of ways.
In most paper rpgs, training takes place during "down time"; the
time that passes between when characters have adventures. Most
muds currently don't keep track of down time and don't allow it
to be used in any way.
There are two methods that are usually used; either X amount of
time spent training will result in a skill going up a point (where
X is determined by a formula), or for each X amount of time spent
training, there is a Y chance to go up a point, where X is fixed and
Y is determined by a formula.
Goal-based advancement is familiar to most people through experience-
point systems. In D&D, advancement points are given for accomplishing
the goals of killing monsters and gaining treasure. However, there's
no reason why these have to be the goals.
When setting up a goal-based advancement system, you should choose
what you want the players and their characters to do, and then reward
them for doing it. Thus, some systems give out points for good
roleplaying, some for doing "good deeds", and some for accomplishing
quests.
Systems that use goal-based advancement don't have to be class/level
systems; many skill-based systems use it as well. Indeed, goal-based
advancement and realistic advancement (usually in the form of training)
are combined in many systems.
A further development that some systems use is to have more than one
form of advancement/reward. This can be seen in muds that have
separate experience points and quest points; they combine two different
goal-based systems.
There is a third system that a few rpgs use, actually; no advancement.
In these, players are stuck with the skills their characters have when
they finish creating them. For obvious reasons, this isn't a popular
system; I know of only two rpgs which used it, neither of which is
in print any more.
--
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'---''(_/--' `-'\_) No one agrees with me. Not even me.
rec.games.design FAQ: http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~casey/design.html
George Reese
I love this desire on the part of admins to get rid of things like
levels and even numbers altogether. I have seen this discussion come
up zillions of times; I even once tred it myself. The fact is,
however, players like numbers. Just like they like using tells across
the mud. And they especially like levels since it allows them to
compare themselves with other players.
--
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
Anthony C.
In article <5f49q3$mg3$2...@darla.visi.com>, George Reese <bo...@visi.com> wrote:
:I love this desire on the part of admins to get rid of things like
:levels and even numbers altogether. I have seen this discussion come
:up zillions of times; I even once tred it myself. The fact is,
:however, players like numbers.
I agree, I think numbers are good primarily because they give many
more gradations to a value than we can with words. Players will eventually
come to "know" the meaning of numeric values in the light of the game
and gain an intuitive feel of what they mean.
:Just like they like using tells across
:the mud.
While tells across the mud are a danger to roleplay, I think they
are important for entertainment. However I did talk to a friend of
mine today about how his mush works (Ive never played one). An admiral
wanted to talk to another player that was on a planet. The admiral could
have used OOC channels, but instead sent my friend (an ensign) to go
get the other player. Perhaps not as convenient as tells, but much
more satisfying for the three people involved who are looking to roleplay.
:And they especially like levels since it allows them to
:compare themselves with other players.
Very true, my design partner who advocates levels feels very strongly about
this. It just is not fun trying to compare skill levels to overall
levels. It just isnt the same "I improved one level in brawling"
as compared to increasing from a level 39 fighter to a level 40 fighter.
My solution is to have guilds that give you ranks based upon your skills
as opposed to giving you skills based upon your levels. So your guild
rank is determined by your skill level in a variety of skills that are
important to that guild. Creating the algorithms for this is kind of
difficult though and I havent come up with anything good.
Some simple ones would be:
Sum all the skill levels of skills that are important to the guild
and base rank on that. At some point someone with level 100 in 5
skills will be a higher rank than someone who is level 400 in one skill.
Is this ok?
Choose a couple of index skills that guild rank is based upon.
Have tests which require skill roll successes to increase rank.
I would appreciate any other suggestions.
--
Anthony Chen
Interactive Games Network
http://ign.cy-net.net
George Reese
Anthony C. (acc...@scully.tamu.edu) wrote:
: Some simple ones would be:
: Sum all the skill levels of skills that are important to the guild
: and base rank on that. At some point someone with level 100 in 5
: skills will be a higher rank than someone who is level 400 in one skill.
: Is this ok?
See Nightmare LPMud (nightmare.imaginary.com 1701) for a system like
this in action.
Adam Wiggins
>>Levels were a necessary and viable abstraction in the pen and paper rpg's.
>
>They're not necessary in paper rpgs. The majority of paper rpgs have
>neither levels nor classes. There are even "freeform" rpgs which have
>no attributes numbers, skills numbers, or any other numbers at all.
>Players simply write down a description of what their character is like in
>English (or whatever language the game is being run in) and the GM works
>from that.
Of course, then it dengrates into even more subjectivity. This in itself
isn't necessarily bad, but it becomes, as an old GF of mine used to complain,
"...one giant bullshit session." That is, it's basically a bunch of folks
sitting around and thinking up an interesting story based on some
pre-determined stuff and making it a tad more interesting due to information
hiding (only the DM knows what's around that corner).
>Actually, Runequest and the other systems based off of it have been
>using a "learn by practice" system since the mid-1970's. I'm sure
>that there are non-Runequest-derived rpgs that have this as well, but
>I'm not certain which ones off hand.
Runequest kicked ass, for what it was. I would be vastly happier if all
muds were based off that instead of D&D, although I see no need to
work from a paper rpg at any rate.
>To restate something I've said before:
>
> There's nothing wrong with the level/experience abstraction; the
> problems are in the implementation of it and the fact that people
> have tried to adapt it to situations which it was never meant for.
Well, you could say the same about hitpoints, as well. People started
thinking of them as health, instead of a general indicator of your
fatigue, combat prowess, and toughness. The addition of stuff like
movement points and the overblowness of mud hitpoints doesn't help this
very much.
So while there's nothing "wrong" with these abstractions, I think
it's high time we move on. It's sort of like using a line editor
when you have access to a full-screen one. Sure, I got quite good at
using ed and ex back when my only connection to the internet was a 300
baud modem, but I took a little time to learn vi as soon as I got a fast
enough connection to be able to use it, and it's really vastly better.
That doesn't mean that there's anything "wrong" with ex; but why would
I continue to use it when I have something better at my disposal, other
than pure nostalgia? The only answer, of course, is the learning curve,
which on muds translates to a "coding curve" as well as a period of
adaption for the players. I still believe, however, that as long as
you keep at it, eventually players will learn and accept. For example,
Legend. For the longest time I saw 10 people, at most, online, despite
the fact that it's one of the best muds ever written, and was incredibly
interesting even when it first came up. Years went by, and the admin
kept polishing the system, and slowly the players came. Now they are
quite popular by any mud's standards. Most mud-coders don't seem
to have the patience or courage for this.
>Again, levels have *never* been necessary. The designers of D&D chose
>to use classes and levels because they were suited for what they
>wanted to do. The fact that they're not suited for what a lot of other
>people want to do doesn't make them flawed, any more than a hammer is
>flawed because it doesn't make a good screwdriver.
Right. Also, you have to look at the purpose that some element in a game
servers and make sure you've got those elements covered by other things
before you cut said element out of the system. For instance, levels and
classes provide an easy benchmark for your character, as well as a quick
way to know right off what you should be doing. My main complaint with
skill-based muds is that they tend to ask you for a gender and a race,
and then just toss you into the game. Having had no time to actually
define your character, you have no idea what exactly to do right off, not
to mention making it impossible to role-play or at all get into the
character, since you don't even know what she is like.
>Learning through training has been implemented in a lot of ways.
>In most paper rpgs, training takes place during "down time"; the
>time that passes between when characters have adventures. Most
>muds currently don't keep track of down time and don't allow it
>to be used in any way.
An interesting idea to explore, but not one that appeals to me, as a player,
very much. One thing I like about these games, muds being no different
from paper rpgs or single-player computer games, is that I can go away
for weeks or months and come back to find my character pretty much how
I left them. The thought that downtime counts in some way towards or
against my character bothers me quite a bit. On the other hand, maybe
I'm just not thinking of a good method of doing it, and certainly I
find this line of thought interesting as a designer if not as a player.
>There are two methods that are usually used; either X amount of
>time spent training will result in a skill going up a point (where
>X is determined by a formula), or for each X amount of time spent
>training, there is a Y chance to go up a point, where X is fixed and
>Y is determined by a formula.
Too simple. Again it's the line editor when you could be using the full
screen editor. In paper rpgs you have to keep track of numbers yourself,
and Runequest's simple system is perfect for this. On a computer you
don't have that human intution to tweak things to be just right, nor
do you need it. You can keep track of a character's general knowledge of
a skill, applied knowledge of a skill, time since last use (ie, "I'm a bit
rusty at this"), and so on. Do it well enough and it ceases to seem like
a "system" and more like it just works the way it should. Players learn
when they would expect to, can use different methods of actually learning
things (book learning vs practice vs real world experience), depending
on the resources availible to them.
>Goal-based advancement is familiar to most people through experience-
>point systems. In D&D, advancement points are given for accomplishing
>the goals of killing monsters and gaining treasure. However, there's
>no reason why these have to be the goals.
And again, depending on your DM, a large amount of your exp came from
doing less specific stuff. He could just toss you some exp for disarming
that particularly tough trap or smooth-talking that NPC; similarly, he
can say, "You take out the orcs without difficulty, but of course don't
learn anything at all."
Of course, one might say that muds could get a quick boost by giving more
attention to getting experience from more places. Certainly there are
tons of "You free the prisoners and gain 2500 exp" type quests special
coded into most muds, which is okay, but not really all that interesting
after the first time. I've only ever seen a few that actually give
proper experience for picking locks, disarming traps, stealing, casting
spells, and so on...of course, the argument is always, "But then you could
just pick locks all day long and get to max level!"
Welll...of course, here is the flaw in goal-oriented stuff. If you pick
locks all day long you should get better at lockpicking, but using
a D&D style system you end up with a thief that is also tougher, better
at fighting, stealing, and saving versus paralysis (huh?). Of course,
I'm not really too sure why killing lots of orcs makes me save better
versus paralysis, either.
>A further development that some systems use is to have more than one
>form of advancement/reward. This can be seen in muds that have
>separate experience points and quest points; they combine two different
>goal-based systems.
Not a bad method, MUME and others put travel points to good use, and
quest points are also a popular one (ala YaMUD). Was it ELF on Lost
Souls where they actually became better able to call upon gods based
on how many NPC deities they had actually "seen"? This, to me, is very
cool. Of course, now you start to leave the realm of goal based and get
back into 'realism', as it were. Or at least as 'realistic' as you can
call trying to find Cthulu so that you can become a better invoker. :)
And this, to me, is why realism is vastly better. It always works
logically, simply, and in a way that requires no human intuition. You
can't mess it up once your core system in in place.
>There is a third system that a few rpgs use, actually; no advancement.
>In these, players are stuck with the skills their characters have when
>they finish creating them. For obvious reasons, this isn't a popular
>system; I know of only two rpgs which used it, neither of which is
>in print any more.
Some (lame) muds have you pick all the skills your character will ever
be able to learn at the start. How boring! I thought it was supposed
to be called "character development", not "connect-the-dots"?
Adam Wiggins
>>I've always been curious on how it would be if players didn't have any
>>levels at all, and really didn't differ that much. They would differ
>>only in the ways that people do in real life. If you use an attribute,
>>then it is improved, but you can't make it become infinitely better.
>
>This is an approach that I and quite a few other people are taking :)
>Thanks to this group I've gleaned all sorts of useful info and ideas.
>The problem with this approach is that it has to be done properly.
>For instance, done improperly a twink could setup a script to increase
>their abilities by fighting lost puppies and children. The key (or
>at least I believe it's the key after talking to Adam) is to only
*bow*
>improve a skill/stat when the character is in actual danger, ie. the
>chance for death is high. The hard part is balancing the learning
Ah, careful how you phrase that. Does this mean I can't learn how to knit,
since my chance for death isn't very high? What you should say is where
your chance of _failure_ is in a certain "sweet spot." If your chance
is too good (you're up against something impossible for you), then you
won't learn. If it's too low (you're up against something impossible
for you to fail aside from horrible luck) then you won't learn either.
Getting better at swordplay from fighting dogs and children is similar
to getting to be an awesome programer by writing endless versions of
"Hello, world" or a great novelist by writing Dick and Jane over and
over again. We only learn when challenged, for it is then that we are
forced into making leaps of intuion and discovering how something actually
works, and what the 'trick' is.
>same again. You have to find the balance so finding someone who can
>pick that special lock is a small quest of its own, instead of everyone
>being able to do everything. (well, you _could_ do everything, but
Right. Specialization; nothing sucks more than muds with super-characters
who can do everything. What makes the fantasy "party" concept interesting,
of course, is that everyone has their own special skills. Normally
we break this down into very specific classes - the cleric heals, the
fighter fights, the thief steals and sneaks. There's no reason you can't
have the same concept and just make it more open ended.
Would the crew of the Enterprise been much of a crew is Spock could
simutaneously be logical, heal people, operate the communications chanels,
repair the engine, nagivate the ship, and get big-breasted alien women
into bed every episode?
>>Guilds would be something that would not have to be strictly supported
>>in the code base, but then I don't really care much for guilds anyway.
>>As far as keeping different people who play MUDs happy, I'd be content
>>with keeping myself happy that I had a good product, and try to keep
>>the clientele that respected my MUD happiest.
>
>More importantly, keep you happy :) If you dread logging on everynight,
>then there is a serious problem IMHO.
Here, here! As much as I believe that the best and funnest muds are
those where the admin listens to the players, it's still a hobby and
I urge everyone to do exactly as they please. There's enough players
out there that someone will agree with you on what is fun. Of course,
for this to work, you have to think your _own_ mud is fun. Trust me when
I say there's nothing better than not getting coding done, because you're
having too much fun playing your own mud.
>its height (or width)) You should take time out, and fake a log of
>what a player would see, possibly go through an entire game session
>through your head (or on paper :) I think I'm gonna take a break
Absolutely! I use this method _all_ the time - I have an entire directory
off the mud's root filled with fake "logs" of what certain situations should
look like. There's no better way to see immediately all the things that
you need to account for, and to notice shortcomings in a proposed system.
Adam Wiggins
>I love this desire on the part of admins to get rid of things like
>levels and even numbers altogether.
*nod* It's the natural desire for something different and more interesting.
The best rpgs I have ever played didn't get all bogged down in numbers;
but doing a system that works really well like this is incredibly difficult.
The other reason that it interests me - I like a good challenge.
>up zillions of times; I even once tred it myself. The fact is,
>however, players like numbers.
Agreed.
>Just like they like using tells across the mud.
This is all a matter of people not liking change. The first mud I ever
played you could only tell zone-wide. You had to either get the telepathy
spell or a helm of telepathy (hard to come by) in order to communicate world
wide, and global channels (shout) required a good cost of moves and mana
that made one not want to do it too much. At the time I didn't think
much about it, since it was all I knew - why would you do it any different?
It certainly gave the mud a sense of space the likes of which I have rarely
seen since. When I went onto another mud which had global tells, I was
literally flabbergasted. I couldn't believe that the admin would allow
something that 'powerful' to be allowed to everyone, even level 1 characters.
And of course once I made a few levels I found myself running off to zones
in an attempt to "ignore" people trying to talk to me that I didn't want
to talk to. Naturally this method was not very effective on 'normal' muds
with a free, world-wide tell.
>And they especially like levels since it allows them to
>compare themselves with other players.
Right...same as they like classes because it gives their character
definition. It's the choice between:
Adunaphel tells your group, 'ulfang wants to tag along with us'
> who ulfang
[27 Ma] Ulfang the Black
> gt cool we can use a good mage
versus...
Adunaphel tells your group, 'ulfang wants to tag along with us'
> who ulfang
Ulfang the Black
> gt uh, hmm...well...uh
Of course, here's the fundamental problem with this, and with your statement
about tells above. You haven't replaced the function served by these
devices, only taken them out. This is like deciding that there must be
a better method of changing gears in your car, so removing the manual
transmition altogether. Strangely, your car doesn't work very well any
more. You have to actually _replace_ it with an automatic transmition.
More work? Hell, yes. Worth it? I think so.
Okay, here's the line of speculation, then. You need to replace these
items with devices that accomplish the same thing, but in a (hopefully)
better way. Tells are communication; no one wants to feel like they are
playing by themselves. Levels are a gauge of character advancement.
Everyone wants to know how well they are doing, and especially how well they
are doing compared to others. Classes - players want definition and
guidelines for each character they play.
Suggestions?
Tim
>the mud. And they especially like levels since it allows them to
>compare themselves with other players.
I totaly agree with this... I've found that people like a way to
incrementaly keep score of where they're at beyond "experience"
related single numbers.
I also think there are allot more possibilities than people generaly
consider for advancment and experiential systems than what are
generaly considered. The "standard" way to do things seems to be
either a direct representation of an RPG system that exists on paper,
or some modification or variation thereof.
The problem with systems like this, and the general formation process
that goes on with them is that they tend to ignore the capacities of
the game that are there by virtue of the medium.
Quite simply:
With a paper system, advancment related issues have to be calculated
every time manualy. The whole system is designed to make this possible.
It has to be designed in such a way that even with a calculator it
can be reasonably done.
On a mud, that restriction doesn't exist. Rather complex formula
can be implemented once, that affect many variables, and it gets
repeated over and over automagicly. The basic system doesn't have
to be bound by paper logistics.
I'm not saying that its easy to do, or that people can just pull
systems out of their ass with no problem, but I think there's allot
of potential there that gets overlooked.
Tim
--
________________________________________________________________
t...@vampire.science.gmu.edu (NeXTmail, MIME) Tim Scanlon
t...@epic.org (PGP key aval.) crypto is good
Play Mystic: adsl-122.cais.com 3000
Dan Shiovitz
In article <5f5q5f$6...@user1.inficad.com>,
Adam Wiggins <nigh...@user1.inficad.com> wrote:
[..]
>Of course, here's the fundamental problem with this, and with your statement
>about tells above. You haven't replaced the function served by these
>devices, only taken them out. This is like deciding that there must be
>a better method of changing gears in your car, so removing the manual
>transmition altogether. Strangely, your car doesn't work very well any
>more. You have to actually _replace_ it with an automatic transmition.
>More work? Hell, yes. Worth it? I think so.
>
>Okay, here's the line of speculation, then. You need to replace these
>items with devices that accomplish the same thing, but in a (hopefully)
>better way. Tells are communication; no one wants to feel like they are
>playing by themselves. Levels are a gauge of character advancement.
>Everyone wants to know how well they are doing, and especially how well they
>are doing compared to others. Classes - players want definition and
>guidelines for each character they play.
>
>Suggestions?
Depends on how realistic you want to be, I suppose. You could replace
tell/who with some sort of magic spell or psychic ability. If you
want, take a line from the Dragaera books (which would be a great
model in general for a mud) and say you can only tell to people you
know. You could then have tell-blocking magic items and stuff, or
rooms/areas where you can't use this psychic ability and so can't talk
to other people magically.
Levels/classes .. well, there's nothing unrealistic about having
*guild* levels. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to be a
Journeyman Swordsmith, or an Apprentice Wizard, and they could
introduce themselves to others that way. Even if you're a skill-based
mud, it's probably sensible to have a system that encourages people to
specialize. So most people who can cast spells will be full-fledged
wizards, belong to the mage's guild, not have the time or inclination
to learn how to swing swords, etc. Those who don't won't have spent
nearly as many points on sorcery, and so they'll only be casting a few
wimpy spells. Which is just what I, at least, want to happen. For
more explicit power comparisons, I'm thinking of having a top-ten list
of players (or top-twenty, or top-fifty) but not telling the players
exactly how the score is derived. That'd let them smile if they got
in the top list, but they (hopefully) wouldn't spend all their time
trying to get there.
--
dan shiovitz scy...@u.washington.edu sh...@cs.washington.edu
slightly lost author/programmer in a world of more creative or more
sensible people ... remember to speak up for freedom because no one else
will do it for you: use it or lose it ... carpe diem -- be proactive.
my web site: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~scythe/home.html some ok stuff.
Alberto Barsella
nigh...@user1.inficad.com (Adam Wiggins) writes:
> We only learn when challenged, for it is then that we are
> forced into making leaps of intuion and discovering how something actually
> works, and what the 'trick' is.
Challenge does not mean "risk of getting killed", even with fighting
skill. Given a GOOD instructor and practice you can get quite good,
even better than someone which relies only on experience.
> Right. Specialization; nothing sucks more than muds with super-characters
> who can do everything. What makes the fantasy "party" concept interesting,
> of course, is that everyone has their own special skills. Normally
> we break this down into very specific classes - the cleric heals, the
> fighter fights, the thief steals and sneaks. There's no reason you can't
> have the same concept and just make it more open ended.
Just make the skills decay if you don't use them.
If you want to have high skills you MUST specialize, otherwise you'll
end up being able to do everything, but sucking hard at everything.
> Would the crew of the Enterprise been much of a crew is Spock could
> simutaneously be logical, heal people, operate the communications chanels,
> repair the engine, nagivate the ship, and get big-breasted alien women
> into bed every episode?
Hehehe :)
Alberto
Alberto Barsella
bo...@visi.com (George Reese) writes:
> I love this desire on the part of admins to get rid of things like
> levels and even numbers altogether. I have seen this discussion come
> up zillions of times; I even once tred it myself. The fact is,
> however, players like numbers.
Just too true......
Anyway the opposite is also bad, I've played some mud where stats,
skills, etc were replaced by words, and I've always asked myself:
"Not very good" is better or worse than "Average"?
Maybe it's clear for you (english), but not for me (italian).
I think it could be possible to give both:
Strenght 57 (quite strong)
Or let the player choose. In any case a difference of 1 point
shouldn't change gameplay drastically.
> Just like they like using tells across
> the mud.
Another big problem. Global communincations and channels are necessary
when you have few players, otherwise they never find each other or end
up playing alone.
> And they especially like levels since it allows them to
> compare themselves with other players.
More than "compare" I would say "judge at first sight". If you see
someone lv 50 you immediately think "hey a strong one!", while
comparison (call it "consider" command) should rely on visual
impression (a barbarian with a lot of muscle looks strong even if he
sucks with a sword) and previous experience.
The first time you "consider" a monster (or player) you should get a
result based just on visual appearance:
> consider troll
The troll is big and strong, but badly equipped. All in all you might
survive the fight.
Then, AFTER you got kicked by some troll:
> consider troll
The troll is big and strong, but badly equipped. You recall that you
got kicked pretty often by trolls.
Without any check on troll's hp/power/skill/whatever you use to
describe the mob.
(note that maybe this troll sucks hard at fighting and you'll eliminate
it easly because in the meantime you got much better at fighting)
Let me finish by saying that the best mud I played (Dartmud) had few
players, minimal chatting and I left it for the more sucky but more
crowded and fun Rom2.4 clone.
I play to have fun, and while I might be impressend and intrigued by
an original world model I'll leave if I play alone.
Alberto
Travis S Casey
Adam Wiggins <nigh...@user1.inficad.com> wrote:
>>Actually, Runequest and the other systems based off of it have been
>>using a "learn by practice" system since the mid-1970's. I'm sure
>>that there are non-Runequest-derived rpgs that have this as well, but
>>I'm not certain which ones off hand.
>
>Runequest kicked ass, for what it was. I would be vastly happier if all
>muds were based off that instead of D&D, although I see no need to
>work from a paper rpg at any rate.
I don't think there's a need to work from any paper rpg; however, I
believe that knowing what's been tried in paper rpgs and how well
it worked can be helpful in designing a mud.
>>To restate something I've said before:
>>
>> There's nothing wrong with the level/experience abstraction; the
>> problems are in the implementation of it and the fact that people
>> have tried to adapt it to situations which it was never meant for.
>
[stuff about hit points cut]
>So while there's nothing "wrong" with these abstractions, I think
>it's high time we move on. It's sort of like using a line editor
[analogy cut]
Oh, I agree... I'm not saying that we should stick with these methods...
I just get tired of people who don't understand what D&D's systems
were meant to accomplish bashing them. I also get tired of people
on the mud groups who paint all paper rpgs with the same brush.
[snip]
>way to know right off what you should be doing. My main complaint with
>skill-based muds is that they tend to ask you for a gender and a race,
>and then just toss you into the game. Having had no time to actually
>define your character, you have no idea what exactly to do right off, not
>to mention making it impossible to role-play or at all get into the
>character, since you don't even know what she is like.
I agree. IMHO, most skill based muds do it this way because it's simpler
than putting the player through a long character creation process in
which he/she could get to set beginning skills (which is what most skill
based paper rpgs do). I can see a few good ways around this:
- A form-based character creation system on the web. This could be
point based (a player starts with X points and can spend them to
buy skills, attributes, etc. for the character), life path based
(the player creates the character by creating the character's
history) or use any other system.
- Character templates. For those unfamiliar with the idea, it means
that you get to choose from a limited number of character "types"
and the type you choose determines your initial skills. For
example, you might choose to play a warrior and get the initial
skills of a warrior.
This differs from classes in that the system is still skill-based;
choosing to be a warrior to start with doesn't limit what skills
you can learn.
- Creation through play. This is a method that's rarely seen in
paper rpgs, and can be confusing to players. It's usually used
with a point based system; each time the character does something
that requires a skill or attribute, the player has to decide
what the level of that skill or attribute is. Once the player
runs out of points, the system stops asking and the character is
assumed to have the default level in whatever skills and attributes
haven't been set.
IMHO, this system probably wouldn't work well on a mud; heck, it
doesn't work well in paper games unless you have experienced
players.
- Combination methods. For example, many rpgs allow players to
either pick a template if there's one that suits their tastes or
custom-design their character if they don't mind taking the time
to do so.
As another example, players might be required to choose a template,
but be allowed to adjust that template in limited ways.
>>Learning through training has been implemented in a lot of ways.
>>In most paper rpgs, training takes place during "down time"; the
>>time that passes between when characters have adventures. Most
>>muds currently don't keep track of down time and don't allow it
>>to be used in any way.
>
>An interesting idea to explore, but not one that appeals to me, as a player,
>very much. One thing I like about these games, muds being no different
>from paper rpgs or single-player computer games, is that I can go away
>for weeks or months and come back to find my character pretty much how
>I left them. The thought that downtime counts in some way towards or
>against my character bothers me quite a bit. On the other hand, maybe
>I'm just not thinking of a good method of doing it, and certainly I
>find this line of thought interesting as a designer if not as a player.
For some muds this kind of thing might be a good idea. For example,
I've been working with other people on ideas for an rp-oriented
cyberpunk mud. One of the things we've decided is that, to be true
to the genre, money should be important. Thus, instead of buying a
condo like on many muds, you can rent an apartment. The rent for
the apartment is automatically subtracted from the character's bank
account every month of mud time. There are other "cost of living"
expenses as well.
This does several things:
- helps get rid of excess money the characters have
- gives a reason for characters to have to go out and find work
(I'm not talking about working at McDonald's... since this is
a cyberpunk mud, the characters will be doing things like
stealing R&D secrets from companies, doing assassinations,
extractions, and other dirty work the corporations want done.)
- it helps recreate the feel of cyberpunk fiction, where characters
are often eking out a living on the edge of poverty.
BTW, it will be possible to buy a house or a condo... it'll just cost
a whole lot of money.
>>There are two methods that are usually used; either X amount of
>>time spent training will result in a skill going up a point (where
>>X is determined by a formula), or for each X amount of time spent
>>training, there is a Y chance to go up a point, where X is fixed and
>>Y is determined by a formula.
>
>Too simple. Again it's the line editor when you could be using the full
>screen editor. In paper rpgs you have to keep track of numbers yourself,
>and Runequest's simple system is perfect for this. On a computer you
>don't have that human intution to tweak things to be just right, nor
>do you need it. You can keep track of a character's general knowledge of
>a skill, applied knowledge of a skill, time since last use (ie, "I'm a bit
>rusty at this"), and so on. Do it well enough and it ceases to seem like
>a "system" and more like it just works the way it should. Players learn
>when they would expect to, can use different methods of actually learning
>things (book learning vs practice vs real world experience), depending
>on the resources availible to them.
Umm... there's nothing in what I said that prevents you from doing
those kinds of things; perhaps I should have said "algorithm" instead
of "formula." There's no reason why the formula/algorithm used has
to be simple, or why it can't involve other numbers and factors (such
as the time since last use).
>>Goal-based advancement is familiar to most people through experience-
>>point systems. In D&D, advancement points are given for accomplishing
>>the goals of killing monsters and gaining treasure. However, there's
>>no reason why these have to be the goals.
>
>And again, depending on your DM, a large amount of your exp came from
>doing less specific stuff. He could just toss you some exp for disarming
>that particularly tough trap or smooth-talking that NPC; similarly, he
>can say, "You take out the orcs without difficulty, but of course don't
>learn anything at all."
However, there's no reason that the system can't specify that exp
should also be given out for disarming and smooth-talking, or that
the builder of an area can't specify that doing a certain thing
will give X exp.
To put it another way... an area builder is like a module writer in
paper rpgs, and the game engine is like a GM who just reads the module
and follows what's there. The person who designed the module can put
in hints for the GM, and in the same way, area builders can put in
"hints" for the game engine.
>Of course, one might say that muds could get a quick boost by giving more
>attention to getting experience from more places. Certainly there are
>tons of "You free the prisoners and gain 2500 exp" type quests special
>coded into most muds, which is okay, but not really all that interesting
>after the first time. I've only ever seen a few that actually give
>proper experience for picking locks, disarming traps, stealing, casting
>spells, and so on...of course, the argument is always, "But then you could
>just pick locks all day long and get to max level!"
>Welll...of course, here is the flaw in goal-oriented stuff. If you pick
>locks all day long you should get better at lockpicking, but using
>a D&D style system you end up with a thief that is also tougher, better
>at fighting, stealing, and saving versus paralysis (huh?). Of course,
>I'm not really too sure why killing lots of orcs makes me save better
>versus paralysis, either.
Actually, that's a flaw in level-based systems, not in goal-oriented
advancement. Many skill-based systems use goal-oriented advancement
and put limitations on how you can use the experience gained. (E.g.,
that you can only apply experience to skills that the character used
during the adventure).
As an aside, a midway point between skill-based systems and class-based
systems that some games have used is this: characters have very broad
skills, much like traditional classes and levels, but these skills do
not overlap. Thus, a character might have a "warrior" level, a "mage"
level, and a "thief" level. However, increasing your warrior level
doesn't improve your chance to resist magic, increasing your mage level
doesn't improve your combat ability, etc. Experience gained through
warrior activities only goes to your warrior level, and so on.
Such a system has the ease of understanding that traditional class/level
systems do, while reducing the "why does killing things make me better
at sneaking" problem.
Joshua J. Cantrell
> I love this desire on the part of admins to get rid of things like
> levels and even numbers altogether. I have seen this discussion come
> up zillions of times; I even once tred it myself. The fact is,
> however, players like numbers. Just like they like using tells across
> the mud. And they especially like levels since it allows them to
> compare themselves with other players.
What I dislike about players getting points and levels is that you
end up getting players who care for nothing but gaining points and
levels. If you remove point and level gaining, then you'll get
a different type of player (hopefully).
Personally, I wouldn't want to run a MUD just to attract players.
If it is my hobby, and I don't get payed for it, then I'd rather
have quality players instead of a great quantity of players. :-)
Joshua Cantrell
j...@cory.berkeley.edu
Alberto Barsella
ca...@upsilon.cs.fsu.edu (Travis S Casey) writes:
[......]
> For some muds this kind of thing might be a good idea. For example,
> I've been working with other people on ideas for an rp-oriented
> cyberpunk mud. One of the things we've decided is that, to be true
> to the genre, money should be important. Thus, instead of buying a
> condo like on many muds, you can rent an apartment. The rent for
> the apartment is automatically subtracted from the character's bank
> account every month of mud time. There are other "cost of living"
> expenses as well.
Isn't it exactly the same thing as rent in many fantasy muds?
Why shouldn't the character also earn money from his skills while
you're gone? Not a LOT of money, but something related to his ability.
> This does several things:
>
> - helps get rid of excess money the characters have
Actually this means that your economy system is screwed, so I wouldn't
call it a positive effect....
> - gives a reason for characters to have to go out and find work
> (I'm not talking about working at McDonald's... since this is
> a cyberpunk mud, the characters will be doing things like
> stealing R&D secrets from companies, doing assassinations,
> extractions, and other dirty work the corporations want done.)
This is good.
> - it helps recreate the feel of cyberpunk fiction, where characters
> are often eking out a living on the edge of poverty.
This can be obtained by extreme careful balancing, just draining money
for logoff time doesn't sound like a good idea.....
I don't know how much rp-ing will be in the mud, but if things are not
carefully balanced you risk having all the players doing the same
thing over and over just to squeeze money out of the system.
Now that you make me think of it, the economical system is usually a
very weak point of many muds.....
Alberto
Colin Coghill
On 26 Feb 1997 01:10:10 GMT, Brian James Green <pch...@iastate.edu> wrote:
>I am currently working with a group of friends to create a new MUD.
>Although we easily could have, we do not wish to become another "stock
>MUD". We want to be original and have people interested in our MUD.
My aim for the MUD I'm building is for it to be "the MUD I would want
to play". I'm just hoping that I can manage that, and that that will
be enough to make other people want to play it too.
>good MUDs, and obviously, several poor MUDs. Therefore, when we started
>to design the MUD, we wanted the power and flexibility that LP MUDs
>afford the coders.
I chose LP for much the same reasons. If, for some reason,
I couldn't use LPC, I would have done the whole thing from scratch, in C.
(No, not C++ :-) ).
>Our current choice for driver is DGD. We're looking at obtaining a
>driver that someone is coding, but are currently using Melville to set
>up more details. We considered using Amylaar's driver and using either
>2.4.5 or a derivative of it from a MUD we all played.
I started with the old LP2.4.5 driver, but found that mappings are insanely
useful, so jumped right to the latest MudOS.
>First, we all loved fantasy-based MUDs. So, the theme was chosen to be
>Fantasy (or Swords & Sorcery).
I too love fantasy, but wanted to make the game more thought-provoking
than straight kill,kill,kill. I know this is possible to do in any
setting, but I decided that a Science Fiction theme would make it easiest
for conveying the more deadly situations to a player. (I have many places
where the correct "solution" is not to kill a creature, but to find
a way to bypass, trick, or otherwise avoid it). In a fantasy game, I
don't think it's all that easy to give the player the feeling that monster
A will put up a good fight, whereas monster B will vapourise them.
One of the "puzzles" I have is a maze type setting where there are
guards on patrol. The players can get a map of the area, and can hear
the guards coming, and must work out a route to the middle. (A
variation I'm still working out is one where the players need to
work together to stand watch and cover for each other - distracting
guards, etc, to let their friends through.)
> Yes, it made it a bit harder to do something original (I have noticed
> an increase in interesting cyber-punk type MUDs),
I was worried about that too, but I found that once I had the basic
"outline" down and started on some "concept rooms" to get the feel
of it, ideas started rushing in at a great rate. Enough that I'm
having to discard "cool ideas" all the time to avoid getting distracted.
> but it is what we had the most familiarity and interest
>with. Along with that, we liked a bit of horror, so we decided to put
>some horrific elements in it. One example is the renaming of the
>Wizards (immortals) to Demons.
Yep, little things like the names used for things can have a large effect
on the overall atmosphere. I like the players to be *scared* when they
come across certain things.
>Next, we decided we wanted a good role-playing environment. I never
>particularly cared for MUSHes, so I didn't want a heavy-handed
>role-playing requirement. Yet, the most fun MUDs I have seen had a
>strong environment that lead to interesting role-play of characters and
>interesting situations. If the MUD provided the vehicle, those who like
>to role-play will do so.
Yep, I've found on some of the MUD's that I've played on, and especially
on one I built some areas on, that in some areas that were particularly
well designed in terms of atmosphere and really gave the feeling of
"being there", roleplaying just sort of happened. There was one notable
incident in a "casino room" where a bunch of players started playing
Russian Roulette with a cursed wand of fireball (worked one time in 10)
and ended up with one rich player and a pile of dead bodies.
I think if the world is rich enough, the roleplaying will follow almost
naturally.
>So, following this, we set about designing the world in which the game
>will be set. This included designing new races (giving them all a touch
>of familiarity...you'll not find "Dwarves" by name, but you'll see some
>friendly faces, none-the-less), a history of the world, a general
>layout, a setup for the towns, an organization of the people "in
>control" on this world, the heros of lore, etc. This was all general
>enough so that the future can proceed without contradicting the past,
>and new features (such as areas) can be added to the world without
>ruining the continuity.
I "cheated", and have been drawing a lot of my world from common
literature and movies, and the like. Sort of an amalgamation of all
the books that I've enjoyed and TV Series that I've become addicted
to, in a way that IMHO forms a solid, consistent universe.
>Then, we tackled some problems we found on other MUDs that were not
>addressed before.
>What do you do for ultra-high level players?
This is one I'm having trouble with. The game certainly approaches a
point where you can be said to have "completed" it, but by that point
the players will tend to be almost godlike in game terms anyway (although
nothing a well aimed laser rifle couldn't fix). I'm looking for a way
to make the transition from mortal (player) to immortal (limited builder)
fairly smooth, so that it just becomes part of the game.
Still working on that one though.
>What do you do when players get too much money?
Fortunately, my world isn't all that money based. Or at least, there
are a million and one different currencies that aren't particularly
portable from one world to the next. :)
The more experienced players become, the more areas they can access.
Hopefully that'll be a good substitute for the money carrot.
>What do you do to keep the guilds balanced and give people a variety?
I've opted for a totally skill/ability based approach, where there are
(at the moment) around a hundred skills/abilities. At character
creation, they receive half a dozen at fairly low values according to
choices they make. After that they can increase them with practice
or training (there are plenty of little opportunities to train specific
skills dotted all over the MUD). They can also join guilds (by different
names :-) ) that will offer them discounts or special training on
certain conditions (must perform some missions, or not attack certain
things, etc).
I'm hoping that just by keeping track of the number of people joining
specific guilds or training in specific skills it'll be possible to
see which ones need tweaking to make them more/less attractive.
>What do you do to keep the uber-player from being created?
I'm hoping that the way the world works, the only way such a player can
exist is if they've been through the proper process.
>What do you do to keep power-MUDders happy while not upsetting the
>casual MUDder? And vice-versa?
I've tried to design the game with a fairly definite "end" in mind.
This will vary from player to player what they percieve as the "end",
(killing the biggest monster, mapping the entire game, solving all
the quests, etc). But sooner or later the player will "finish" the
game. It might take some people years, it might take others just
a few days. I don't really mind. Once they've completed it, hopefully
they can be offered the option of contributing new areas/ideas.
>I'm not saying we have all the answers, but finding the right questions
>to ask can help significantly. We always keep these (and other)
>questions in mind when we are designing the game.
Yep. I'm also looking carefully at things like:
Is the game enjoyable for an individual player, or is it more suited
for people travelling in groups?
I have quite a few places where people must co-operate as a group to
get something done. Deliberately so. But I also fully appreciate the
fun of MUDding alone, and often prefer to do so myself.
So I've designed the game to be played much like one of the old single
player adventure games in terms of puzzles to solve and things to do,
but thrown in the occasional place where another players help is *needed*
to do some (non essential, but still desirable) act. The combat system
is designed to work well with groups (if a group of players attack
a group of creatures, then the combat tends to break into a pile of
1-on-1 fights with the extras getting hits in on the side), although
I'm still having trouble getting this working quite as well as I
hoped. ;-)
>Finally, now, we are fleshing out the skeleton of what we want for the
>game. We are on-line, and looking for people to help us in our quest.
>We want to bring back the interesting game play to MUDs.
It sounds fascinating, and if I wasn't doing my own one, I'd be
interested. :-)
>This whole process has been going on for about a year.
I've been loosely planning for about six months, and coding during my
weekends for about the last two. The game is taking shape enough to
keep morale up, but is still a long way to go. (I'm doing all the
coding, but have a group of builders to assist with things like
room descriptions and area design).
>No, it's not easy.
I don't think it'd be quite as fulfilling if it was.
> Yes, it takes a crapload of time.
It's a good cheap pastime though.
> Yes, I could be spending my time with my GF.
Ah, I don't have that "problem" at the moment. :-)
> But, yes, it does impress game companies.
I've never really been interested in impressing anyone other than
myself. If I can do that then I'm happy.
>Yes, you can see, it's more than coding areas, IMHO.
Absolutely.
>What about other people? Has anyone else really sat down and thought
>about how a game should be designed? What do other people think, is
>this what the future should be? Is this how we get better and more
>original MUDs?
I would hope so.
- Colin
George Reese
Joshua J. Cantrell (j...@delphinus.EECS.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
No, but I would assume you want to build a good game. If you do not
have players, you do not have a good game. After all, a good game is
a game that people like to play.
Brian James Green
>I love this desire on the part of admins to get rid of things like
>levels and even numbers altogether. I have seen this discussion come
>up zillions of times; I even once tred it myself. The fact is,
>however, players like numbers. Just like they like using tells across
>the mud. And they especially like levels since it allows them to
>compare themselves with other players.
Check out the Journal of MUD Research (JoMR). The first issue has an
article that attempts to divide the MUD into different groups. It was
rather interesting.
To summarize, here are the four groups:
Achievers: Like numbers, levels, etc.
Explorers: Like new things, finding bugs to exploit (for the fun of
finding the bugs...achievers exploit them to advance).
Socializers: Like to chat, talk to others.
Killers: Like to prey on others in various ways for whatever reason.
It shows some relationships between the different groups and how they
react to one another.
Basically, it's the achievers that love the levels. Of course, they
usually make up a large amount of the MUD population.
I truly suggest you check it out.
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...." -"Defender", Manowar
Brian Green, pch...@iastate.edu aka Psychochild
Nathan F. Yospe
In article <5f5q5f$6...@user1.inficad.com>, nigh...@user1.inficad.com
(Adam Wiggins) wrote:
<communication stuff snipped>
:Right...same as they like classes because it gives their character
:definition. It's the choice between:
:
:Adunaphel tells your group, 'ulfang wants to tag along with us'
:> who ulfang
:[27 Ma] Ulfang the Black
:> gt cool we can use a good mage
:
:versus...
:
:Adunaphel tells your group, 'ulfang wants to tag along with us'
:> who ulfang
:Ulfang the Black
:> gt uh, hmm...well...uh
*grin* How about this?
Adunaphel says in a low voice, "ulfang wants to tag along with us"
> eval ulfang
The young, dark cloaked man hardly looks like a fighter, but his eyes
are alert.
> murmer Adunaphel, have you fought alongside this Ulfang? Have any of you?
His reputation has not reached my ears.
Adunaphel says in a low voice, "He's of no small skill at spell slinging,
though he lacks some as a combatant in the baser arts of war."
> murmer Well, we do need a mage... do you think he stands a chance
against Grathlin's army?
As you can see, there is a lot more flavor and RP in my version of the above.
Of course, this does force a bit more RP... besides, if you've never met
the guy, how else would you know how good he was?
An additional note: most of the MUDs I've played would have only shown that
he was a mage, nothing of his level... nobody noticed the lack, and often
a player would boast of greater level than they actually had...
:Of course, here's the fundamental problem with this, and with your statement
:about tells above. You haven't replaced the function served by these
:devices, only taken them out. This is like deciding that there must be
:a better method of changing gears in your car, so removing the manual
:transmition altogether. Strangely, your car doesn't work very well any
:more. You have to actually _replace_ it with an automatic transmition.
:More work? Hell, yes. Worth it? I think so.
Hmmm... think about it.... the level and class thing can be replaced by
simple observation. (I got rid of classes too.) As for communication...
Here are the options: atatch channels to physical objects, either magical
foci or communicators (for sci-fi).... there can be global comms, etc, but
each one is hooked to a communicator...
:Okay, here's the line of speculation, then. You need to replace these
:items with devices that accomplish the same thing, but in a (hopefully)
:better way. Tells are communication; no one wants to feel like they are
:playing by themselves. Levels are a gauge of character advancement.
:Everyone wants to know how well they are doing, and especially how well they
:are doing compared to others. Classes - players want definition and
:guidelines for each character they play.
:Suggestions?
Communication: see above. I also have OOC comm, but it really is OOC...
it uses their "personal" name, not their character name. This is used for
internal mail, newsgroups, etc. as well.
Levels: advancement is based on completion of missions, ranging from intel
to war, even some for the creative types. (there are architecture and
entertainment assignments) When you complete the missions, you are able to
gain military advancement, plot advancement... there are thousands of hours
of plot, leading to a final climactic mission, one that is virtually
impossible without a huge team of very talented, skilled players with heavy
cybernetics (meaning the money for the operations) and weaponry, skilled
techs and hackers to break in, neutralize security... there is enough there
to give a strong feeling of advancement... stronger than I ever got from a
little number based on how many repetitive kills I'd pulled off.
Classes: There are no set classes in my system, but it would take more than
forever to become really really good at everything. There will be inevitable
jack-of-all-trades types... that's a good thing. There will also be those
who get _really_ good at hacking a system, or become the lords of
cyberspace, or
the ultimate cyborg warrior, or the perfect sniper, or the master engineer...
provide enough variety in the options in the game and the details _will_ take
care of themselves......
--
Nathan F. Yospe | There is nothing wrong with being a sociopath. Its
yo...@hawaii.edu | getting caught thats a problem. Be a mad scientist
UH Manoa Physics | Write poetry. Be an artist. Plot world domination.
Biomedical Phys. | Panthers make great pets. Muhahahahahahahahahaha!!
Nathan F. Yospe
In article <5f5pgr$6...@user1.inficad.com>, nigh...@user1.inficad.com
(Adam Wiggins) wrote:
:>>Levels were a necessary and viable abstraction in the pen and paper rpg's.
:>
:>They're not necessary in paper rpgs. The majority of paper rpgs have
:>neither levels nor classes. There are even "freeform" rpgs which have
:>no attributes numbers, skills numbers, or any other numbers at all.
:>Players simply write down a description of what their character is like in
:>English (or whatever language the game is being run in) and the GM works
:>from that.
:
:Of course, then it dengrates into even more subjectivity. This in itself
:isn't necessarily bad, but it becomes, as an old GF of mine used to complain,
:"...one giant bullshit session." That is, it's basically a bunch of folks
:sitting around and thinking up an interesting story based on some
:pre-determined stuff and making it a tad more interesting due to information
:hiding (only the DM knows what's around that corner).
There are MUDs (MUSHes, particularly) that do quite well as "BS sessions"
:Runequest kicked ass, for what it was. I would be vastly happier if all
:muds were based off that instead of D&D, although I see no need to
:work from a paper rpg at any rate.
No, but a paper rpg (of your own design) is a great way to test ideas for
a homebrew MUD... kick the ideas around with your rpg crew, then run a
test session...
<snip>
:That doesn't mean that there's anything "wrong" with ex; but why would
:I continue to use it when I have something better at my disposal, other
:than pure nostalgia? The only answer, of course, is the learning curve,
:which on muds translates to a "coding curve" as well as a period of
:adaption for the players. I still believe, however, that as long as
:you keep at it, eventually players will learn and accept. For example,
:Legend. For the longest time I saw 10 people, at most, online, despite
:the fact that it's one of the best muds ever written, and was incredibly
:interesting even when it first came up. Years went by, and the admin
:kept polishing the system, and slowly the players came. Now they are
:quite popular by any mud's standards. Most mud-coders don't seem
:to have the patience or courage for this.
Hmmm. Then there are perfectionist like me who will probably not open to
the public until another year or so of coding has resulted in the perfect
world modeling engine, and a perfect world model for my galaxy. But you
know, every time I revamp, I end up with something just a little order of
magnitude past whatever I had before... I may not have the flexibility of
my driver that LPs do... I never planned to... but right now, you can
define the following and create an utterly unique, consistant world:
elements (chemicals, for sci-fi, but the fantasy test model is based on
six fundamental elements in combination, and works flawlessly), environs
(gravity, temperature, etc are scaled for sci-fi, the fantasy has a magic
field and a constant grav field... the six elements intersect into the
magic field.), and maybe a few harcoded types of physical object. (They
can be created by players, but the hardcoded ones make the whole MUD
faster and smaller... and its easy enough to come up with a few
basic types of item...) This system takes a lot of its inspiration from a
series of p&ps that I and others I know wrote.
:>Again, levels have *never* been necessary. The designers of D&D chose
:>to use classes and levels because they were suited for what they
:>wanted to do. The fact that they're not suited for what a lot of other
:>people want to do doesn't make them flawed, any more than a hammer is
:>flawed because it doesn't make a good screwdriver.
:
:Right. Also, you have to look at the purpose that some element in a game
:servers and make sure you've got those elements covered by other things
:before you cut said element out of the system. For instance, levels and
:classes provide an easy benchmark for your character, as well as a quick
:way to know right off what you should be doing. My main complaint with
:skill-based muds is that they tend to ask you for a gender and a race,
:and then just toss you into the game. Having had no time to actually
:define your character, you have no idea what exactly to do right off, not
:to mention making it impossible to role-play or at all get into the
:character, since you don't even know what she is like.
Another idea I took from one of my p&ps (a skill based) is the personal
session... before starting to play, you run a "personal history" which
runs through your childhood and youth, and establishes both mood and a
number of
your starting skills. Rather than being a MUD, its a sort of multiple choice
session... there are hundreds of scenarios, and you choose from a huge list
of initial conditions. The birthplace (regional) choice is the critical
one. Once you have chosen where on your species' homeworld (or off) you
were born,
there is a random choice of parent's class, political alignments, etc...
based on this, you end up in a series of steps, until you reach adulthood,
and the Andromedan invasion, your entire species being herded up and
enslaved, exterminated, eaten... and the game begins. Its known as a
"hook" in fiction.
A short section before the body of the story starts off slow, fast paced
and brutal, setting the mood for the later events in the story.
:>Learning through training has been implemented in a lot of ways.
:>In most paper rpgs, training takes place during "down time"; the
:>time that passes between when characters have adventures. Most
:>muds currently don't keep track of down time and don't allow it
:>to be used in any way.
:An interesting idea to explore, but not one that appeals to me, as a player,
:very much. One thing I like about these games, muds being no different
:from paper rpgs or single-player computer games, is that I can go away
:for weeks or months and come back to find my character pretty much how
:I left them. The thought that downtime counts in some way towards or
:against my character bothers me quite a bit. On the other hand, maybe
:I'm just not thinking of a good method of doing it, and certainly I
:find this line of thought interesting as a designer if not as a player.
I don't have a lot of downtime in the story... when you are not logged on,
I assume a sort of gap, in which events were unfolding for others, but not
for you. I dunno.... it seems like people tend to play for more time
straight than is realistic anyway... witht he accelerated pace of events
in a MUD... so I
kind of figure the logged off time as balancing that out.
:>There are two methods that are usually used; either X amount of
:>time spent training will result in a skill going up a point (where
:>X is determined by a formula), or for each X amount of time spent
:>training, there is a Y chance to go up a point, where X is fixed and
:>Y is determined by a formula.
:Too simple. Again it's the line editor when you could be using the full
:screen editor. In paper rpgs you have to keep track of numbers yourself,
:and Runequest's simple system is perfect for this. On a computer you
:don't have that human intution to tweak things to be just right, nor
:do you need it. You can keep track of a character's general knowledge of
:a skill, applied knowledge of a skill, time since last use (ie, "I'm a bit
:rusty at this"), and so on. Do it well enough and it ceases to seem like
:a "system" and more like it just works the way it should. Players learn
:when they would expect to, can use different methods of actually learning
:things (book learning vs practice vs real world experience), depending
:on the resources availible to them.
Right. Well summed up. The mechanics of practice should be transparent to
the players. They use a skill, research it, whatever, they get better at
it... I prefer that they not even realize they have gotten better until
there is a significant improvement... "Hey, I haven't gotten hit by
another sword in a swordfight in a long time!"
:>Goal-based advancement is familiar to most people through experience-
:>point systems. In D&D, advancement points are given for accomplishing
:>the goals of killing monsters and gaining treasure. However, there's
:>no reason why these have to be the goals.
:
:And again, depending on your DM, a large amount of your exp came from
:doing less specific stuff. He could just toss you some exp for disarming
:that particularly tough trap or smooth-talking that NPC; similarly, he
:can say, "You take out the orcs without difficulty, but of course don't
:learn anything at all."
:Of course, one might say that muds could get a quick boost by giving more
:attention to getting experience from more places. Certainly there are
:tons of "You free the prisoners and gain 2500 exp" type quests special
:coded into most muds, which is okay, but not really all that interesting
:after the first time. I've only ever seen a few that actually give
:proper experience for picking locks, disarming traps, stealing, casting
:spells, and so on...of course, the argument is always, "But then you could
:just pick locks all day long and get to max level!"
:Welll...of course, here is the flaw in goal-oriented stuff. If you pick
:locks all day long you should get better at lockpicking, but using
:a D&D style system you end up with a thief that is also tougher, better
:at fighting, stealing, and saving versus paralysis (huh?). Of course,
:I'm not really too sure why killing lots of orcs makes me save better
:versus paralysis, either.
So don't even bother with XP... just improve each skill as it is used...
in relation to the degree of challenge of use, and the success rate... I
balance
it as follows: If you are really bad at something, you get better at it
every time you "get" some critical part of it... when you are really good
at it, you
get better faster by failing (you screw up that parry... you won't let
that happen again anytime soon!) but do improve by constant practice as
well... of course, since you are more likely to fail at parrying a
superior opponent...
you get the idea. Also, since a skill takes into account many factors...
(swordfighting = strength of arm, speed of arm, learned motions, hand eye,
sharpness of eyes, instinctive reflexes, control of arm, sensory
perception(general), etc... and that's just the offensive part) and all of
the factors are themselves affected by use.... getting better at
swordfighting will make you a better knife fighter too. And, ironic as it
might sound, a better baseball player.. fencing makes you a better
lockpicker. Why? precice hand-eye is a very heavilly weighted factor. And
it is all organic. A person knows how confident they are with a sword...
the feeling of it being an extension of the arm is communicated to the
player, if they are that good...
:cool. Of course, now you start to leave the realm of goal based and get
:back into 'realism', as it were. Or at least as 'realistic' as you can
:call trying to find Cthulu so that you can become a better invoker. :)
:And this, to me, is why realism is vastly better. It always works
:logically, simply, and in a way that requires no human intuition. You
:can't mess it up once your core system in in place.
Exactly. Exactly. I like how you think. *grin*
:>There is a third system that a few rpgs use, actually; no advancement.
:Some (lame) muds have you pick all the skills your character will ever
:be able to learn at the start. How boring! I thought it was supposed
:to be called "character development", not "connect-the-dots"?
*grin* not too realistic, is it?
Travis Casey
>: Personally, I wouldn't want to run a MUD just to attract players.
>: If it is my hobby, and I don't get payed for it, then I'd rather
>: have quality players instead of a great quantity of players. :-)
>
>No, but I would assume you want to build a good game. If you do not
>have players, you do not have a good game. After all, a good game is
>a game that people like to play.
A good game is a game that people like to play; I'll agree with you on
that. However, that does not necessarily imply that a game that has
more players is a better game; there are other factors involved.
Or, to put it another way... a good operating system is an operating
system that people like to use. However, this doesn't mean that
MS-DOS, which has sold more copies than any other operating system,
is the best operating system.
Also, you should remember that games can have different intended
audiences; asking whether chess is a "better" game than hide-and-go-seek
is a nearly meaningless question, to take an extreme example. In
the same way, roleplaying-oriented muds aren't necessarily "worse" than
hack-and-slash muds just because they appeal to a smaller audience;
they're simply different.
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ System Manager, FSU CS department
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' (904) 644-4290; Room 101C Carothers
George Reese
Brian James Green (pch...@iastate.edu) wrote:
: In <5f49q3$mg3$2...@darla.visi.com> bo...@visi.com (George Reese) writes:
:
: >I love this desire on the part of admins to get rid of things like
: >levels and even numbers altogether. I have seen this discussion come
: >up zillions of times; I even once tred it myself. The fact is,
: >however, players like numbers. Just like they like using tells across
: >the mud. And they especially like levels since it allows them to
: >compare themselves with other players.
:
: Check out the Journal of MUD Research (JoMR). The first issue has an
: article that attempts to divide the MUD into different groups. It was
: rather interesting.
:
: To summarize, here are the four groups:
: Achievers: Like numbers, levels, etc.
: Explorers: Like new things, finding bugs to exploit (for the fun of
: finding the bugs...achievers exploit them to advance).
: Socializers: Like to chat, talk to others.
: Killers: Like to prey on others in various ways for whatever reason.
:
: It shows some relationships between the different groups and how they
: react to one another.
:
: Basically, it's the achievers that love the levels. Of course, they
: usually make up a large amount of the MUD population.
:
: I truly suggest you check it out.
I believe this article comes from an aborted book I was part of. The
distinctions, IMHO, make sense. I do not, however, agree with your
conclusions.
I would say that, of the above, only the socializers *might* have no
concern for level. In fact, on most LPMuds, things are slanted so
that levels == measurement of killing. On Nightmare, however, we have
created a level system that provides meaning to each group with
respect to the way they enjoy playing. We have social classes with
skills that give them levels for succeeding in helping others. We
have killer classes that gain levels by killing; etc, etc.
The fact is, when playing a game, most people want some reflection of
how they are doing. It is just their criteria for success that may differ.
FIZZIX
In article <5f5u7e$a...@nntp5.u.washington.edu>,
Dan Shiovitz <scy...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>Levels/classes .. well, there's nothing unrealistic about having
>*guild* levels. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to be a
>Journeyman Swordsmith, or an Apprentice Wizard, and they could
>introduce themselves to others that way. Even if you're a skill-based
>mud, it's probably sensible to have a system that encourages people to
>specialize. So most people who can cast spells will be full-fledged
>wizards, belong to the mage's guild, not have the time or inclination
>to learn how to swing swords, etc. Those who don't won't have spent
>nearly as many points on sorcery, and so they'll only be casting a few
>wimpy spells. Which is just what I, at least, want to happen. For
>more explicit power comparisons, I'm thinking of having a top-ten list
>of players (or top-twenty, or top-fifty) but not telling the players
>exactly how the score is derived. That'd let them smile if they got
>in the top list, but they (hopefully) wouldn't spend all their time
>trying to get there.
>
The trick is to make levels gauge your abilities, not determine them.
Feyd the warrior sucks with melee weapons, but has a natural knack for the
bow, and knows how to take a punch. His skill with the bow may make him
eligible for the journeyman status. This is what i prefer.
On the other hand, Feyd could be a journeyman warrior. Because of his
level, he is decent with the sword and decent with the bow. All around he
is generally decent. I don't like this, because it hinders having a
unique character, and also takes an element out of smart mudding. That is,
if Feyd realizes that a bow could give him a substantial advantage over
other warriors, he can concentrate on that.
Many systems have a combination of the two. Diku has skills players can
specialize in, but only to a certain extent and the level of the player
is the largest factor. They pyramid is upside down, so to speak.
-griffie
Jon A. Lambert
Travis S Casey <ca...@upsilon.cs.fsu.edu> wrote in article <5f6r8k$9...@news.fsu.edu>...
> Adam Wiggins <nigh...@user1.inficad.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Runequest kicked ass, for what it was. I would be vastly happier if all
> >muds were based off that instead of D&D, although I see no need to
> >work from a paper rpg at any rate.
>
> I don't think there's a need to work from any paper rpg; however, I
> believe that knowing what's been tried in paper rpgs and how well
> it worked can be helpful in designing a mud.
>
I have designed my system around Rolemaster which is skilled-based
but much less abstract than D&D or Runequest. It happens to be
somewhat more difficult to play as a paper & pencil game because of
this and not as popular. However with the automation of a computer
simulation it becomes much more playable. I think it is smart
to look towards well-design paper and pencil games as a model of
balance since the older ones have been well play tested. Many
things have to be translated quite differently since the interaction
between game-master and player is somewhat different on muds.
> >>To restate something I've said before:
> >>
> >> There's nothing wrong with the level/experience abstraction; the
> >> problems are in the implementation of it and the fact that people
> >> have tried to adapt it to situations which it was never meant for.
> >
> [stuff about hit points cut]
> >So while there's nothing "wrong" with these abstractions, I think
> >it's high time we move on. It's sort of like using a line editor
> [analogy cut]
>
> Oh, I agree... I'm not saying that we should stick with these methods...
> I just get tired of people who don't understand what D&D's systems
> were meant to accomplish bashing them. I also get tired of people
> on the mud groups who paint all paper rpgs with the same brush.
>
Abstractions are very necessary. Some method is needed to represent
a character's state of health, strength and what not. The internal mud
representation as well as the representation to the user will be abstract.
Which is more "realistic"?
1) A picture of the character's condition (ala the little Doom Guy head)
2) A prompt that states you have X hit points.
3) A message stating that you feel "quite healthy" or "near death"
4) A metered bar that is green when healthy changing from yellow to red
as health decreases (ala some arcade style games).
5) Messages stating that your head contains X hit points, your torso Y
hit points, etc.
6) Messages indicating lists of wounds inflicted on various parts of the
characters anatomy followed by a net % of character effectiveness.
All are equally valid representations. It depends on what your player base
and what you will accept. I happen to favor method 6 over the others.
It's just a gut feeling on my part and find it difficult to promote or defend.
>
> I agree. IMHO, most skill based muds do it this way because it's simpler
> than putting the player through a long character creation process in
> which he/she could get to set beginning skills (which is what most skill
> based paper rpgs do). I can see a few good ways around this:
>
> - A form-based character creation system on the web. This could be
> point based (a player starts with X points and can spend them to
> buy skills, attributes, etc. for the character), life path based
> (the player creates the character by creating the character's
> history) or use any other system.
>
I really like this idea. It sounds very similar to Gurps, Vampyre and other
RPGs. The use of a web based interface is especially intriguing. I think
it would greatly alleviate the difficulty in selecting wide ranges of player
options. Intelligent use of listboxes, radio buttons, check boxes and all that
happy GUI stuff would probably be superior to text-based methods.
> - Character templates. For those unfamiliar with the idea, it means
> that you get to choose from a limited number of character "types"
> and the type you choose determines your initial skills. For
> example, you might choose to play a warrior and get the initial
> skills of a warrior.
>
Since I don't have a web-based interface yet, I am using something
called "training packages" in the rolemaster system. These are collections
of skills and talents that characters can buy (point creation system) that
relate to real world backgrounds. A character is assumed to have some
sort of adolescent life prior to becoming an "adventurer". Perhaps
they were raised by a blacksmith, a merchant, or in a noble family. These
training packages give a hodge podge of initial skills that a character might
be presumed to have acquired upon entering the world as player-controlled.
There is also some randomness involved here. For instance a player
raised by an upper-class family will have a higher percentage of acquiring
the "reading" skill. This can also be culture and race driven also. These
are of necessity determined by the theme of the mud.
> This differs from classes in that the system is still skill-based;
> choosing to be a warrior to start with doesn't limit what skills
> you can learn.
>
> - Creation through play. This is a method that's rarely seen in
> paper rpgs, and can be confusing to players. It's usually used
> with a point based system; each time the character does something
> that requires a skill or attribute, the player has to decide
> what the level of that skill or attribute is. Once the player
> runs out of points, the system stops asking and the character is
> assumed to have the default level in whatever skills and attributes
> haven't been set.
The Warhammer RPG uses this method extensively with some success.
<snip>
> >>Learning through training has been implemented in a lot of ways.
> >>In most paper rpgs, training takes place during "down time"; the
> >>time that passes between when characters have adventures. Most
> >>muds currently don't keep track of down time and don't allow it
> >>to be used in any way.
> >
> >An interesting idea to explore, but not one that appeals to me, as a player,
> >very much. One thing I like about these games, muds being no different
> >from paper rpgs or single-player computer games, is that I can go away
> >for weeks or months and come back to find my character pretty much how
> >I left them. The thought that downtime counts in some way towards or
> >against my character bothers me quite a bit. On the other hand, maybe
> >I'm just not thinking of a good method of doing it, and certainly I
> >find this line of thought interesting as a designer if not as a player.
>
I would say that downtime tends to be a "kludge" in both RPGs and
muds in general. I have some old Judges Guild D&D stuff which attempts
to randomly determine what events occur to a player after long periods
of downtime. However I still don't like the fact that much of this is out
of the player's control.
<snip>
> >>There are two methods that are usually used; either X amount of
> >>time spent training will result in a skill going up a point (where
> >>X is determined by a formula), or for each X amount of time spent
> >>training, there is a Y chance to go up a point, where X is fixed and
> >>Y is determined by a formula.
> >
> >Too simple. Again it's the line editor when you could be using the full
> >screen editor. In paper rpgs you have to keep track of numbers yourself,
> >and Runequest's simple system is perfect for this. On a computer you
> >don't have that human intution to tweak things to be just right, nor
> >do you need it. You can keep track of a character's general knowledge of
> >a skill, applied knowledge of a skill, time since last use (ie, "I'm a bit
> >rusty at this"), and so on. Do it well enough and it ceases to seem like
> >a "system" and more like it just works the way it should. Players learn
> >when they would expect to, can use different methods of actually learning
> >things (book learning vs practice vs real world experience), depending
> >on the resources availible to them.
>
> Umm... there's nothing in what I said that prevents you from doing
> those kinds of things; perhaps I should have said "algorithm" instead
> of "formula." There's no reason why the formula/algorithm used has
> to be simple, or why it can't involve other numbers and factors (such
> as the time since last use).
>
I am attempting to have the computer compute a "difficulty factor" based
on the activity the player attempts to perform and attempt to query the
player for confirmation if the player has a unreasonable chance for
completion.
Ex: A wide chasm lay before you, with a small ledge on the other side.
> jump chasm
>This maneuver appears to be "extremely difficult". Are you sure? Y/N
The warning would only appear on maneuvers or actions that are "non-routine".
Experience is awarded based on the difficulty of the maneuver. The more
skilled a character became at "jumping", more and more of these maneuvers
would become routine and therefore less experience is awarded. Failure at
completing an action also awards experience. Experience points are internal
representations of a characters development and they need not appear in
any sort of score command. They are gained both by real-world experience
and also by formal training.
> >>Goal-based advancement is familiar to most people through experience-
> >>point systems. In D&D, advancement points are given for accomplishing
> >>the goals of killing monsters and gaining treasure. However, there's
> >>no reason why these have to be the goals.
> >
> >And again, depending on your DM, a large amount of your exp came from
> >doing less specific stuff. He could just toss you some exp for disarming
> >that particularly tough trap or smooth-talking that NPC; similarly, he
> >can say, "You take out the orcs without difficulty, but of course don't
> >learn anything at all."
>
> However, there's no reason that the system can't specify that exp
> should also be given out for disarming and smooth-talking, or that
> the builder of an area can't specify that doing a certain thing
> will give X exp.
>
Right. Rolemaster experience is based on exercising skills and it
could be described as a curve of declining return. I am desperately
attempting to get away from giving XP through "Killing" only and
by "repeatable" exercising of skills
<big snip about goal-oriented systems>
I would like to get as far away from the concept that goals are
determined by the system into a more natural way, where the
players determine there own goals. I believe if you take a "leveling"
goal-based system and replace it with other systemic goals (like
questing or puzzle solving) you gain very little in the way of role-playing
which is what I want to achieve. Your mileage may vary. :-)
Cullen McGough
: What about other people? Has anyone else really sat down and thought
: about how a game should be designed? What do other people think, is
: this what the future should be? Is this how we get better and more
: original MUDs?
Thank god, a sane one.
Yes, yes, yes! At the risk of being flamed to death by this group (which I
suspect is primarily coders) Nifty features and applications not a game alone
make. I think one of the most valuable things any mud can have is an
areas/world coordinator. Story is everything. The reason that TSR can publish
(what is it now 300 dragonlance/forgotten realms books?) is that the world is
clear, there is consistancy and there are universal standards.
To me, a really good mud is a four dimensional book. (if you'll hang with the
comparison for a moment).
bleh I'm rambling now. But yes! Framework for a mud is horribly important.
-Malaclypse
mud.world-net.net 4000
Brian James Green
>Brian James Green (pch...@iastate.edu) wrote:
>: In <5f49q3$mg3$2...@darla.visi.com> bo...@visi.com (George Reese) writes:
[players like numbers snipped]
>: To summarize, here are the four groups:
>: Achievers: Like numbers, levels, etc.
>: Explorers: Like new things, finding bugs to exploit (for the fun of
>: finding the bugs...achievers exploit them to advance).
>: Socializers: Like to chat, talk to others.
>: Killers: Like to prey on others in various ways for whatever reason.
>:
[some conclusions snipped]
>I believe this article comes from an aborted book I was part of. The
>distinctions, IMHO, make sense. I do not, however, agree with your
>conclusions.
>I would say that, of the above, only the socializers *might* have no
>concern for level. In fact, on most LPMuds, things are slanted so
>that levels == measurement of killing. On Nightmare, however, we have
>created a level system that provides meaning to each group with
>respect to the way they enjoy playing. We have social classes with
>skills that give them levels for succeeding in helping others. We
>have killer classes that gain levels by killing; etc, etc.
>The fact is, when playing a game, most people want some reflection of
>how they are doing. It is just their criteria for success that may differ.
Very accurate. I was imposing an artificial limit when I did not
consider "level" as indicating anything more than "killing ability".
But, this does detract from the original thread. Are "levels"
necessary? Could we measure advancment and relative ability in a
different way? Or, is this the best and simplest way, regardless of any
suspention of disbelief?
I do like your evaluation that if levels are the best way, there should
be different ways to "advance" the level. Socials advance by helping
people, Killers by killing, etc.
Perhaps another thing to consider is having different levels for
different activity. "I'm a mid-level killer, a low-level magician and a
high-level social person" = I can fight, not very good at casting
spells, and can be of great use if interacting with (N)PCs. This could
be interesting and give people something to brag about besides how fast
they can kill things.
Comments?
George Reese
That's npt what players want. They want a way to be able to compare
themselves with one another, even if the activities in which they
engage are wholly unrelated. They also want a single unit for
measuring that. That is why i believe in the Nightmare system which
ranks people according to the way they indicate they want to be
measured. And thus you can compare a 10th level fighters as being as
good at fighting as a 10th level fisher is at fishing. This even
though a 10th level fighter would likely kill a level 10 fisher in one
shot.
Greg Munt
> [George]
>
> That's npt what players want. They want a way to be able to compare
> themselves with one another, even if the activities in which they
> engage are wholly unrelated. They also want a single unit for
> measuring that. That is why i believe in the Nightmare system which
> ranks people according to the way they indicate they want to be
> measured. And thus you can compare a 10th level fighters as being as
> good at fighting as a 10th level fisher is at fishing. This even
> though a 10th level fighter would likely kill a level 10 fisher in one
> shot.
I would be inclined to disagree. I think it is what you think players
want. You cant blanket user desires in this way. IRL, ppl dont have
'Senior Accountant' written on their forehead. IMHO, it would be more
realistic for ppl to know your skills by reputation rather than numbers.
However, if you *are* going to have a 'number system', the levels need to
be comparable. Eg 10th level fighter is as powerful in combat as a 10th
level mage, even tho if neither had their 'weapons', the fighter would
win every time. The skills of a fighter and fisher are too different to
be meaningfully compared.
Its not what you say George, its how you say it. And the way you say it
invites flames. I find it offensive, to various degrees, when someone
says something in the 'my word is law and fact' way, rather than
the 'this is what i think, what do you think?' way.
I have heard it said that 'the most annoying thing about George Reese is
that he is very often right' - its true. You often give very valid
viewpoints to a discussion, its just that very frequently the way you phrase
those viewpoints is inappropiate outside of a classroom situation. This
is why you get flamed - NOT because, as you seem to think, someone felt
like posting a flame, and you just happened to be there at the time.
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George Reese
Greg Munt (gr...@uni-corn.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: > [George]
: >
: > That's npt what players want. They want a way to be able to compare
: > themselves with one another, even if the activities in which they
: > engage are wholly unrelated. They also want a single unit for
: > measuring that. That is why i believe in the Nightmare system which
: > ranks people according to the way they indicate they want to be
: > measured. And thus you can compare a 10th level fighters as being as
: > good at fighting as a 10th level fisher is at fishing. This even
: > though a 10th level fighter would likely kill a level 10 fisher in one
: > shot.
:
: I would be inclined to disagree. I think it is what you think players
: want. You cant blanket user desires in this way. IRL, ppl dont have
: 'Senior Accountant' written on their forehead. IMHO, it would be more
: realistic for ppl to know your skills by reputation rather than numbers.
I have been running muds for 6 years now. I have worked very hard at
understanding what players want, and I have done a rather good job at
it. Therefore, what I think players want has a lot of bearing on this
argument.
: However, if you *are* going to have a 'number system', the levels need to
: be comparable. Eg 10th level fighter is as powerful in combat as a 10th
: level mage, even tho if neither had their 'weapons', the fighter would
: win every time. The skills of a fighter and fisher are too different to
: be meaningfully compared.
Sorry, that is not my experience.
: Its not what you say George, its how you say it. And the way you say it
: invites flames. I find it offensive, to various degrees, when someone
: says something in the 'my word is law and fact' way, rather than
: the 'this is what i think, what do you think?' way.
Please, show me a quote where I say my word is law? I do not need to
say 'this is what I think' because that is self-evident from the fact
that I AM THE ONE POSTING IT.
You just seem to have a personal problem with me.
: I have heard it said that 'the most annoying thing about George Reese is
: that he is very often right' - its true. You often give very valid
: viewpoints to a discussion, its just that very frequently the way you phrase
: those viewpoints is inappropiate outside of a classroom situation. This
: is why you get flamed - NOT because, as you seem to think, someone felt
: like posting a flame, and you just happened to be there at the time.
No, I think you got it close to exactly right, excepting the point
about my phrasing. I should not have to phrase everything as 'I think
this' and 'I believe that'. Everything I state as a fact is a
reflection of what I believe. What matters is if I provide the facts
to back them up. And that I do.
Adam Wiggins
>*grin* How about this?
>
>Adunaphel says in a low voice, "ulfang wants to tag along with us"
>> eval ulfang
>The young, dark cloaked man hardly looks like a fighter, but his eyes
>are alert.
>> murmer Adunaphel, have you fought alongside this Ulfang? Have any of you?
>His reputation has not reached my ears.
>Adunaphel says in a low voice, "He's of no small skill at spell slinging,
>though he lacks some as a combatant in the baser arts of war."
>> murmer Well, we do need a mage... do you think he stands a chance
>against Grathlin's army?
>
>As you can see, there is a lot more flavor and RP in my version of the above.
>Of course, this does force a bit more RP... besides, if you've never met
>the guy, how else would you know how good he was?
Yes, I love it. Allows you to hide some skills and things, also - if
people know you're a thief right away, they tend to be suspicious. If
they eval you and just see that "He carries himself like a fighter", then
you won't worry...except that one of his side-skills is swiping items. :)
Similarly, I like this sort of thing because it allows role-playing without
_forcing_ roleplaying. Enforcing roleplaying is, to me, ludicrous.
If the game naturally encourages it, however, it can be a whole hell of a lot
of fun.
>An additional note: most of the MUDs I've played would have only shown that
>he was a mage, nothing of his level... nobody noticed the lack, and often
>a player would boast of greater level than they actually had...
I liked the assassin class on Arctic. This was a class with the skills of
a thief, but also a few warrior skills. ("who" showed only name and title,
nothing else.) By mutual agreement members of the guild kept their class
secret; they would dress in warrior-gear and act like tanks. Except when
you foolishly went to sleep in their presence, they'd proceed to whip out
a dagger and backstab you, or relieve you of your cash. This kicked ass,
to my mind - what is really an assassin's best friend but for stealth?
>Hmmm... think about it.... the level and class thing can be replaced by
>simple observation. (I got rid of classes too.) As for communication...
Agreed. We started with some "basic" classes, knowing we had a skill based
system, as well as levels. As we worked with it, we quickly found
that class did almost nothing and levels did absolutely nothing at all,
so we removed them just to free up a couple bytes on the character structure.
>Here are the options: atatch channels to physical objects, either magical
>foci or communicators (for sci-fi).... there can be global comms, etc, but
>each one is hooked to a communicator...
Well, I don't have a real big problem with eliminating global channels
altogether. This is, of course, just a choice on how you want your
mud to be played; closer to a talker or closer to "reality" (whatever
that means). I like chatting with folks on muds, but limiting global
communication does give the mud a real sense of space, and actually
require people to converge on meetings-places. It also opens up a lot
of possiblities for spells and the like which give advanced communication
options, which I also like.
>Communication: see above. I also have OOC comm, but it really is OOC...
>it uses their "personal" name, not their character name. This is used for
>internal mail, newsgroups, etc. as well.
I went ahead and made a chat room and some boards which are accessable
from account mode, but nothing you can use in-game. We'll see if this
actually works...an OOC channel is a bit too useful given our language
barriers.
>Levels: advancement is based on completion of missions, ranging from intel
>to war, even some for the creative types. (there are architecture and
>entertainment assignments) When you complete the missions, you are able to
>gain military advancement, plot advancement... there are thousands of hours
>of plot, leading to a final climactic mission, one that is virtually
>impossible without a huge team of very talented, skilled players with heavy
>cybernetics (meaning the money for the operations) and weaponry, skilled
>techs and hackers to break in, neutralize security... there is enough there
>to give a strong feeling of advancement... stronger than I ever got from a
>little number based on how many repetitive kills I'd pulled off.
Very nice; how is this displayed, exactly? The analogy being "I'm a
level 22 psionist. I kick ass."
>Classes: There are no set classes in my system, but it would take more than
>forever to become really really good at everything. There will be inevitable
>jack-of-all-trades types... that's a good thing. There will also be those
Sure. It should just be incredibly difficult, and after a certain point
in certain skills you have to spend so much time just maintaining the skill
that you have no time for anything else. I do a lot of things, but I'm
only really good at the things that I do every single day for a long period of
time.
>who get _really_ good at hacking a system, or become the lords of
>cyberspace, or
>the ultimate cyborg warrior, or the perfect sniper, or the master engineer...
>provide enough variety in the options in the game and the details _will_ take
>care of themselves......
Yeah. I also like your theme - although it doesn't bother me that most
muds are fantasy-based, I really think there is a lot of potential for
the cyberpunk-derived genre; it has a lot of elements that would work
very well in a mud, but I've yet to see it done real well. (Shadowrun
MUSH (?) was pretty cool, but I'm not a big fan of mushes...)
Adam Wiggins
[taking numbers out of muds]
>There are MUDs (MUSHes, particularly) that do quite well as "BS sessions"
*nod*, this is fine, but not something I'm interested in. The main reason
is because I want to _play_ my own game, rather than coding it and
then having to sit around and DM everything that happens. If you've
got folks willing to do this, fine...but I think this more like using
the internet as a way to have a distributed paper-rpg session rather
than a real interactive environment, which I think is where muds have
more potential.
>:Runequest kicked ass, for what it was. I would be vastly happier if all
>:muds were based off that instead of D&D, although I see no need to
>:work from a paper rpg at any rate.
>
>No, but a paper rpg (of your own design) is a great way to test ideas for
>a homebrew MUD... kick the ideas around with your rpg crew, then run a
>test session...
Sure...it's a matter of deciding what's fun. There's nothing worse than
spending a lot of time coding something only to find out it's just not
really very interesting to actually use in play. I tend to look at
my favorite moments from other muds, and decide what it is, exactly,
that is cool about those elements. Then I expand upon that, which
(hopefully) has the effect of making a mud full of fun stuff. If there's
something which is specifically not fun, I take it out. Period. I don't
see any point in wasting the players' time - I've got little enough
time to mud, as it is...I certainly don't need to spend a lot of time
doing the busywork they like to put you through on many (most) muds.
>Hmmm. Then there are perfectionist like me who will probably not open to
>the public until another year or so of coding has resulted in the perfect
>world modeling engine, and a perfect world model for my galaxy. But you
>know, every time I revamp, I end up with something just a little order of
>magnitude past whatever I had before... I may not have the flexibility of
Oh geez, tell me about it...the worst part is when you have a bunch of
people with a bunch of ideas, all talking about things all the time.
We find that we get the most actual "work" done when no one talks to
anyone else and only codes. When we get together we only end up
"making" more work for ourselves by thinking up more new ideas.
>(gravity, temperature, etc are scaled for sci-fi, the fantasy has a magic
Yeah...funny how even those these sorts of things sound really difficult
to implement (and they are, in a way), they actually end up making your
coding job easier in the long run. For instance we put in a gravity
affect vector on each object - which makes it incredibly easy to do spells
like fly (gravity = 0, and presumably some sort of propulsion), reverse
gravity (players can walk on walls or the ceiling), as well as falling
and tossing things around (arrows don't fly forever, as gravity pulls
them down eventually).
>session... before starting to play, you run a "personal history" which
>runs through your childhood and youth, and establishes both mood and a
>number of
I've played a couple muds with things like this. They are generally
not too well done (a bit too few choices, for my tastes) but I like
the idea a whole lot. Certainly vastly better than nothing at all..
>enslaved, exterminated, eaten... and the game begins. Its known as a
>"hook" in fiction.
>A short section before the body of the story starts off slow, fast paced
>and brutal, setting the mood for the later events in the story.
Another cool thing would be to have some sort of "quest" for new characters,
which may involve choices. Such as the drow, who must prove himself worthy
of entering either the School of Magic, the School of Fighters, or the
School of Lloth. Simple enough, I think, but this would tend to
draw the player in right away, since they know what they are "supposed"
to be doing, and when they are done with it, they have a good feeling
as to what their character is actually like.
>I assume a sort of gap, in which events were unfolding for others, but not
>for you. I dunno.... it seems like people tend to play for more time
>straight than is realistic anyway... witht he accelerated pace of events
>in a MUD... so I
>kind of figure the logged off time as balancing that out.
Right; you're awake for 376 hours, then sleep for 892. :)
This is fine by me.
[snip skill stuff]
>Right. Well summed up. The mechanics of practice should be transparent to
>the players. They use a skill, research it, whatever, they get better at
>it... I prefer that they not even realize they have gotten better until
>there is a significant improvement... "Hey, I haven't gotten hit by
>another sword in a swordfight in a long time!"
Well, you can provide more positive reinforcement by having a guildmaster
say, "My, you're learning very quickly. Your parry is getting quite
difficult to get around!" Or in the case of something like picking
locks - one day you are finally able to get that one lock you've been
fooling with on and off for a long time. Very satisfying, I think.
In addition, there are different ways of actually learning something,
which should affect how your skill is applied. For example, you've got:
a) Tuor goes out to the streets and picks fights constantly. He gets beat
up a lot, but pretty soon he is a better fighter. (practical knowledge)
b) Tuor gets a few coins and goes to the local swordsman's guild. Every
day he practices a few hours, sparing with the swordmaster and other students.
Soon he gets better (practical and 'pure' knoweldge)
c) Tuor goes to the library, and reads everything he can find about
swordfighting. He soon knows every style and method there is. (pure knoweldge)
The first guy has the advantage of having the most useful knowledge, in that
he's been in real fights. The downside to this is that it probably takes
him much longer to learn things that the swordmaster could show you right
away, plus he gets the crap beaten out of him constantly. If you're talking
swordfighting, he may get run through before he gets a chance to learn
anything.
The second guy has the most rounded knoweldge; although he has never been
in a real fight, he has sparred quite a bit and trained his muscles to
respond in certain ways, plus he knows the 'proper' ways of doing things.
One thing I do to make this method "less" effective in certain ways is
to keep track of your characters 'courage', as it were. The rich nobleman's
son who spends all his time sparring may be a great swordsman, but when he
shits his pants and drops his sword at the first sight of blood, he's
not too useful in a fight.
The third guy knows a lot, but without having actually done it, he's
not in great shape. However...as soon as he goes out and tries putting
his knoweldge to use, he will quickly find himself saying, "Ah, I recognize
that - I just need to do this particular thing to counter it, now to
train my arm to actually do it."
Of course, combat is a very physical thing so it tends towards practical
knowledge. Something like spellcasting would benefit more from hours
spent in the library - just running out and randomly yelling runes and
waving your arms around probably won't get you too far. On the other
hand, you *do* still need to practise actually casting the spells.
>So don't even bother with XP... just improve each skill as it is used...
Naturally. This works extremely well, and fixes many headaches. Many
muds are moving into skill-based systems, which is good.
>it as follows: If you are really bad at something, you get better at it
>every time you "get" some critical part of it... when you are really good
>at it, you
"Ahhhhh! So _that's_ how it's done!"
>get better faster by failing (you screw up that parry... you won't let
>that happen again anytime soon!) but do improve by constant practice as
Thus you never learn by going up against people far inferior to you...
>you get the idea. Also, since a skill takes into account many factors...
>(swordfighting = strength of arm, speed of arm, learned motions, hand eye,
>sharpness of eyes, instinctive reflexes, control of arm, sensory
>perception(general), etc... and that's just the offensive part) and all of
>the factors are themselves affected by use.... getting better at
Another thing many muds could improve on. Why is my pick lock roll
only affected by my dexterity, my pick skill, and the difficulty of the
lock? What about the quality of my lockpicks? What about those spiked
gauntlets I'm wearing on my hands? What about my eyesight? Etc...
Combat only gets more involved, but this is great. You still have
"numbers" but they are trasparent to the player. The formulas are so
complex that it's not even worth the players trying to fathom them.
>swordfighting will make you a better knife fighter too. And, ironic as it
>might sound, a better baseball player.. fencing makes you a better
>lockpicker. Why? precice hand-eye is a very heavilly weighted factor. And
>it is all organic. A person knows how confident they are with a sword...
>the feeling of it being an extension of the arm is communicated to the
>player, if they are that good...
Nod...a good skill tree will handle this all automatically. The guy
who knows a whole lot about swordfighting is going to find mace fighting
not too hard to pick up. This also encourages specialization, instead
of just learning a couple of the "best" skills from wildly different realms.
>Exactly. Exactly. I like how you think. *grin*
Except for my file formats. *grin*
>:Some (lame) muds have you pick all the skills your character will ever
>:be able to learn at the start. How boring! I thought it was supposed
>:to be called "character development", not "connect-the-dots"?
>
>*grin* not too realistic, is it?
Yup. I suppose you could say that it is equivilent to picking your major
in college. Of course, I dropped out - where does that leave me? :)
Michael Sellers
Adam Wiggins wrote:
> >Adunaphel says in a low voice, "ulfang wants to tag along with us"
> >> eval ulfang
> >The young, dark cloaked man hardly looks like a fighter, but his eyes
> >are alert.
> >> murmer Adunaphel, have you fought alongside this Ulfang? Have any of you?
> >His reputation has not reached my ears.
> >Adunaphel says in a low voice, "He's of no small skill at spell slinging,
> >though he lacks some as a combatant in the baser arts of war."
> >> murmer Well, we do need a mage... do you think he stands a chance
> >against Grathlin's army?
>
> _forcing_ roleplaying.
> Agreed. We started with some "basic" classes, knowing we had a skill based
>
> I went ahead and made a chat room and some boards which are accessable
> from account mode, but nothing you can use in-game. We'll see if this
> actually works...an OOC channel is a bit too useful given our language
> barriers.
I don't mean to pick on Adam or anyone else in this thread, but it seems
to me there's been very little said about the _design_ of a good MUD.
I'm not talking about skills and levels and OOC rooms and such; making
the right decisions in all of these areas are necessary but *not*
sufficient for designing a compelling MUD.
I'd be interested in hearing if anyone here has put real thought and
work into the high-level design of their MUD: how do you make your MUD
not seem to be a static world (the "Gilligan's Island" problem, where
all conditions reset to their defaults at the end of an episode), or do
you just not worry about it? How do you make your MUD more than an
anonymous, cookie-cutter world of a particular genre? How do you
promote role-playing (good examples of that above)? Etc., etc.: how do
*you* think a good MUD should be *designed*? I'm not sure many people
are considering that things at that level yet.
--
Mike Sellers Internet Game Designer msel...@ricochet.net
"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others
may despise it, is the invention of good games. And it cannot be done
by men out of touch with their instinctive values." - Carl Jung
Travis Casey
Jon A. Lambert <jlsy...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Travis S Casey <ca...@upsilon.cs.fsu.edu> wrote:
>I have designed my system around Rolemaster which is skilled-based
>but much less abstract than D&D or Runequest. It happens to be
>somewhat more difficult to play as a paper & pencil game because of
>this and not as popular. However with the automation of a computer
>simulation it becomes much more playable. I think it is smart
>to look towards well-design paper and pencil games as a model of
>balance since the older ones have been well play tested. Many
>things have to be translated quite differently since the interaction
>between game-master and player is somewhat different on muds.
Thanks; that's exactly what I'm trying to get across. It's possible
to draw inspiration and ideas about what might work well from paper
games without slavishly imitating them.
>Abstractions are very necessary. Some method is needed to represent
>a character's state of health, strength and what not. The internal mud
>representation as well as the representation to the user will be abstract.
>Which is more "realistic"?
>
>1) A picture of the character's condition (ala the little Doom Guy head)
Doesn't Doom give you a metered bar (number 4) as well? Also, this really
is equivalent to number 3, just in graphical form instead of text form.
>2) A prompt that states you have X hit points.
>3) A message stating that you feel "quite healthy" or "near death"
>4) A metered bar that is green when healthy changing from yellow to red
> as health decreases (ala some arcade style games).
>5) Messages stating that your head contains X hit points, your torso Y
> hit points, etc.
>6) Messages indicating lists of wounds inflicted on various parts of the
> characters anatomy followed by a net % of character effectiveness.
One system that I've seen used in graphical games is a combination of 4
and 6; namely, an outline of your character with different body parts
colored differently depending on their condition: white for undamaged,
green for slightly damaged, yellow for moderately damaged, red for badly
damaged. Body parts that had been severed or destroyed weren't shown at
all.
>All are equally valid representations. It depends on what your player base
>and what you will accept. I happen to favor method 6 over the others.
>It's just a gut feeling on my part and find it difficult to promote or defend.
A lot of things in game design are like that. :-)
[ideas for character generation in skill-based games]
>> - Character templates. For those unfamiliar with the idea, it means
>> that you get to choose from a limited number of character "types"
>> and the type you choose determines your initial skills. For
>> example, you might choose to play a warrior and get the initial
>> skills of a warrior.
>>
>Since I don't have a web-based interface yet, I am using something
>called "training packages" in the rolemaster system. These are collections
>of skills and talents that characters can buy (point creation system) that
>relate to real world backgrounds. A character is assumed to have some
>sort of adolescent life prior to becoming an "adventurer". Perhaps
>they were raised by a blacksmith, a merchant, or in a noble family. These
>training packages give a hodge podge of initial skills that a character might
>be presumed to have acquired upon entering the world as player-controlled.
>There is also some randomness involved here. For instance a player
>raised by an upper-class family will have a higher percentage of acquiring
>the "reading" skill. This can also be culture and race driven also. These
>are of necessity determined by the theme of the mud.
The system you're describing is like what I was referring to as "life-path
based generation". Some systems limit what players can build by requiring
them to spend points; others use random rolls to decide the character's
social class and opportunities that were available. Another factor that
can be brought in is time; each selection of training makes the character
older. In paper rpgs, this can be significant, since a campaign can cover
many years of game time. Few muds have aging, however, so this is less of
a factor, though it could still be nice for roleplaying.
>I would say that downtime tends to be a "kludge" in both RPGs and
>muds in general. I have some old Judges Guild D&D stuff which attempts
>to randomly determine what events occur to a player after long periods
>of downtime. However I still don't like the fact that much of this is out
>of the player's control.
Well, a realistic rpg needs downtime, because there are some things which
just can't be done quickly. For example, without magical healing, it
takes weeks to months for a broken bone to heal properly. In a paper rpg,
the GM can simply say, "Ok, it's going to take a month for Joe to heal
up. What are the rest of you going to do during that time?"
There's really no good way of handling this kind of thing on a mud. If
you enforce realistic times for things like healing, doing research,
travel, etc., things would slow to a crawl and players would spend little
time doing anything that most would consider interesting. Personally,
I think that the lack of any good way around this is one of the biggest
drawbacks of muds from a realism and roleplaying standpoint.
>I am attempting to have the computer compute a "difficulty factor" based
>on the activity the player attempts to perform and attempt to query the
>player for confirmation if the player has a unreasonable chance for
>completion.
>
>Ex: A wide chasm lay before you, with a small ledge on the other side.
>> jump chasm
>
>>This maneuver appears to be "extremely difficult". Are you sure? Y/N
>
>The warning would only appear on maneuvers or actions that are "non-routine".
>Experience is awarded based on the difficulty of the maneuver. The more
>skilled a character became at "jumping", more and more of these maneuvers
>would become routine and therefore less experience is awarded. Failure at
>completing an action also awards experience. Experience points are internal
>representations of a characters development and they need not appear in
>any sort of score command. They are gained both by real-world experience
>and also by formal training.
This looks like a very good system. (Note for the flame happy--I mean,
"a very good system considering the goals you have in mind for your mud."
There is no absolute measure of how "good" a system is.)
>I would like to get as far away from the concept that goals are
>determined by the system into a more natural way, where the
>players determine there own goals. I believe if you take a "leveling"
>goal-based system and replace it with other systemic goals (like
>questing or puzzle solving) you gain very little in the way of role-playing
>which is what I want to achieve. Your mileage may vary. :-)
Well, it *can* be done, but this is one thing that I don't think can be
done in an automated fashion. Basically, the GM can take into account
what the goals of the characters are supposed to be, and award points
based on those considerations. Again, though, I don't think a mud can
be made to do this in any reliable fashion (yet, that is. :-).
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ System Manager, FSU CS department
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' (904) 644-4290; Room 101C Carothers
Brian James Green
Wow, here's a great post on this thread. Anyone else care to share with
us, and show the their design ideas?
In <slrn5hdrs4...@news.netbyte.co.nz> col...@news.netbyte.co.nz (Colin Coghill) writes:
>On 26 Feb 1997 01:10:10 GMT, Brian James Green <pch...@iastate.edu> wrote:
>>I am currently working with a group of friends to create a new MUD.
>>Although we easily could have, we do not wish to become another "stock
>>MUD". We want to be original and have people interested in our MUD.
>My aim for the MUD I'm building is for it to be "the MUD I would want
>to play". I'm just hoping that I can manage that, and that that will
>be enough to make other people want to play it too.
Well, I didn't write down the assumption that I liked what I was doing.
I'm not paying for a shell acct, arguing with my partners and using my
homework time to do something I hate. :) Demonscape is a labor of love.
[snip]
>One of the "puzzles" I have is a maze type setting where there are
>guards on patrol. The players can get a map of the area, and can hear
>the guards coming, and must work out a route to the middle. (A
>variation I'm still working out is one where the players need to
>work together to stand watch and cover for each other - distracting
>guards, etc, to let their friends through.)
Oh, that sounds cool. :) There's something more interesting than the
typical "You're in a maze where all the rooms are alike (and the coder
put about 2 seconds of thought into this)." This sounds like a great
puzzle to solve!
>> Yes, it made it a bit harder to do something original (I have noticed
>> an increase in interesting cyber-punk type MUDs),
>I was worried about that too, but I found that once I had the basic
>"outline" down and started on some "concept rooms" to get the feel
>of it, ideas started rushing in at a great rate. Enough that I'm
>having to discard "cool ideas" all the time to avoid getting distracted.
That sucks, don't it? :)
[snip]
>>Next, we decided we wanted a good role-playing environment. I never
>>particularly cared for MUSHes, so I didn't want a heavy-handed
>>role-playing requirement. Yet, the most fun MUDs I have seen had a
>>strong environment that lead to interesting role-play of characters and
>>interesting situations. If the MUD provided the vehicle, those who like
>>to role-play will do so.
>Yep, I've found on some of the MUD's that I've played on, and especially
>on one I built some areas on, that in some areas that were particularly
>well designed in terms of atmosphere and really gave the feeling of
>"being there", roleplaying just sort of happened. There was one notable
>incident in a "casino room" where a bunch of players started playing
>Russian Roulette with a cursed wand of fireball (worked one time in 10)
>and ended up with one rich player and a pile of dead bodies.
>I think if the world is rich enough, the roleplaying will follow almost
>naturally.
I'm glad someone else agrees. :) That example sounds spooky, but
interesting. :) People will interact given the right atomosphere and
encouragement. If other people on help to create the story, people will
want to be part of it all and will work to "fit in" to the story. I
think that a lot of MUDs should focus more on atmosphere than they do.
However, it shouldn't be the golden cow everything else is sacrificed to
(such as fun, gameplay, balance, etc)
[snip]
>I "cheated", and have been drawing a lot of my world from common
>literature and movies, and the like. Sort of an amalgamation of all
>the books that I've enjoyed and TV Series that I've become addicted
>to, in a way that IMHO forms a solid, consistent universe.
Nothing wrong with this! I like taking the positive aspects of other
ideas and changing them to make them my own ideas. Other ideas are
often a great place to jump off and help create derivatives that are
original. The problem comes when you don't use your creativity and
imagination and just steal someone else's ideas.
>>Then, we tackled some problems we found on other MUDs that were not
>>addressed before.
>>What do you do for ultra-high level players?
>This is one I'm having trouble with. The game certainly approaches a
>point where you can be said to have "completed" it, but by that point
>the players will tend to be almost godlike in game terms anyway (although
>nothing a well aimed laser rifle couldn't fix). I'm looking for a way
>to make the transition from mortal (player) to immortal (limited builder)
>fairly smooth, so that it just becomes part of the game.
Suggestion: Perhaps they can "buy" real estate to start designing their
own section of town. "Gee, Tommy don't beat up bums for beer money
anymore, he just bought some real estate some slick exec was
sellin'.... I wonder what that construction is there for?"
Fits into the game, and would "logically" explain the transition. :)
>Still working on that one though.
Always a problem. I don't know if all my solutions are that great.
>>What do you do when players get too much money?
>Fortunately, my world isn't all that money based. Or at least, there
>are a million and one different currencies that aren't particularly
>portable from one world to the next. :)
>The more experienced players become, the more areas they can access.
>Hopefully that'll be a good substitute for the money carrot.
Ah, attracting the exploring souls. ;) I'd much prefer that instead of
having to keep large bank accounts for the next level increase. ;)
>>What do you do to keep the guilds balanced and give people a variety?
>I've opted for a totally skill/ability based approach, where there are
>(at the moment) around a hundred skills/abilities. At character
>creation, they receive half a dozen at fairly low values according to
>choices they make. After that they can increase them with practice
>or training (there are plenty of little opportunities to train specific
>skills dotted all over the MUD). They can also join guilds (by different
>names :-) ) that will offer them discounts or special training on
>certain conditions (must perform some missions, or not attack certain
>things, etc).
>I'm hoping that just by keeping track of the number of people joining
>specific guilds or training in specific skills it'll be possible to
>see which ones need tweaking to make them more/less attractive.
The problem with that (not restricting skills), in my experiences, is
that it creates the uber-player (see below). Some skills are going to
be more interesting/useful than others. Why would someone pick "long
jumping" over "laser rifle" when the latter is probably more useful to
accomplish a goal? So, you pick the best selection of skills, train
them up to maximum level, and you have the super, can-do-anything
player. Bad for game play, IMHO.
>>What do you do to keep the uber-player from being created?
>I'm hoping that the way the world works, the only way such a player can
>exist is if they've been through the proper process.
But, is that at all desireable? I think not, IMHO. I think that all
characters should be equally viable, even if someone took "long jumping"
over "laser rifle". The difference is how they accomplish a goal.
Other opinions?
>>What do you do to keep power-MUDders happy while not upsetting the
>>casual MUDder? And vice-versa?
>I've tried to design the game with a fairly definite "end" in mind.
>This will vary from player to player what they percieve as the "end",
>(killing the biggest monster, mapping the entire game, solving all
>the quests, etc). But sooner or later the player will "finish" the
>game. It might take some people years, it might take others just
>a few days. I don't really mind. Once they've completed it, hopefully
>they can be offered the option of contributing new areas/ideas.
That's interesting. Much more unique than "reach max level". Will
players be able to individually pick an "end", or will it be restricted
to a few choices? Will players be able to play an "endless" game?
>>I'm not saying we have all the answers, but finding the right questions
>>to ask can help significantly. We always keep these (and other)
>>questions in mind when we are designing the game.
>Yep. I'm also looking carefully at things like:
>Is the game enjoyable for an individual player, or is it more suited
>for people travelling in groups?
>I have quite a few places where people must co-operate as a group to
>get something done. Deliberately so. But I also fully appreciate the
>fun of MUDding alone, and often prefer to do so myself.
>So I've designed the game to be played much like one of the old single
>player adventure games in terms of puzzles to solve and things to do,
>but thrown in the occasional place where another players help is *needed*
>to do some (non essential, but still desirable) act. The combat system
>is designed to work well with groups (if a group of players attack
>a group of creatures, then the combat tends to break into a pile of
>1-on-1 fights with the extras getting hits in on the side), although
>I'm still having trouble getting this working quite as well as I
>hoped. ;-)
A *very* important question our group is pondering over right now. Do
we make things 100% individual-orientated, or do we make everything 100%
group-orientated, or some mix between? How do we keep groups from
totally hosing stuff intended for individuals, or individuals from
getting hosed by stuff intended for groups? These are important for
gameplay.
>>Finally, now, we are fleshing out the skeleton of what we want for the
>>game. We are on-line, and looking for people to help us in our quest.
>>We want to bring back the interesting game play to MUDs.
>It sounds fascinating, and if I wasn't doing my own one, I'd be
>interested. :-)
That makes me feel a bit better. :)
>>This whole process has been going on for about a year.
>I've been loosely planning for about six months, and coding during my
>weekends for about the last two. The game is taking shape enough to
>keep morale up, but is still a long way to go. (I'm doing all the
>coding, but have a group of builders to assist with things like
>room descriptions and area design).
Having a group really helps sort "good ideas" from "bad ideas". But, it
sometimes delays the process as argu...er..."discussions" break out. :)
But, having extra hands you trust to do coding is a definite help.
A question related to this is: What is the best mix for someone wanting
to design and code a new MUD? An individual effort allows one more
control over all aspects, eliminates the need to "wait" on someone, and
allows you to set your own time schedule. A group effort adds more
hands, allows for more flexibility (such as, what if you can't continue
with the project? Will someone else pick it up?), and allows for
immediate feedback on ideas.
I would *never* go back and do what the group has done by myself. A lot
of my ideas I thought up (and liked) were exposed as turkeys by the
others. Some ideas I had that I hated were turned into real winners by
changing or adjusting some aspect of them, as pointed out by my team
members. They also help with some of the "busy-work". :) I shudder in
fear of doing all this by myself.
>>No, it's not easy.
>I don't think it'd be quite as fulfilling if it was.
Yep.
>> Yes, it takes a crapload of time.
>It's a good cheap pastime though.
Yep.
>> Yes, I could be spending my time with my GF.
>Ah, I don't have that "problem" at the moment. :-)
Heh. :)
>> But, yes, it does impress game companies.
>I've never really been interested in impressing anyone other than
>myself. If I can do that then I'm happy.
Well, I have a future to think about. Plus, designing and planning code
for Demonscape has let me know that this IS what I want to do, and that
I do have more than a small amount of talent for it. I hope to use my
experience coding the MUD as a reference to get companies interested in
me. (actually, I do have a couple people interested in me after hearing
some of the basic design ideas. It's cool. ;)
>>Yes, you can see, it's more than coding areas, IMHO.
>Absolutely.
>>What about other people? Has anyone else really sat down and thought
>>about how a game should be designed? What do other people think, is
>>this what the future should be? Is this how we get better and more
>>original MUDs?
>I would hope so.
I fear it's less than we think. See also the "Stock MUD" debate.
Anthony C.
In article <331A5E...@ricochet.net>,
Michael Sellers <msel...@ricochet.net> wrote:
:I don't mean to pick on Adam or anyone else in this thread, but it seems
:to me there's been very little said about the _design_ of a good MUD.
:I'm not talking about skills and levels and OOC rooms and such; making
:the right decisions in all of these areas are necessary but *not*
:sufficient for designing a compelling MUD.
The silly thing about the whole stock mud argument is that what makes a
mud fun is the dynamic environment not a lot of bells and whistles.
The primary thing that makes some muds more dynamic is the players
that play on it. If you have a mud that has 300 players it is going
to be much more dynamic than a smaller one. The bells and whistles are
not totally useless however, since they can attract the inital small
user base. To keep people playing though the world has to stay interesting.
:I'd be interested in hearing if anyone here has put real thought and
:work into the high-level design of their MUD: how do you make your MUD
:not seem to be a static world (the "Gilligan's Island" problem, where
:all conditions reset to their defaults at the end of an episode), or do
Agreed, I have never really played muds at all because I really disliked
the way that when areas "reset" everything is exactly the way they were.
I also dislike the fact that when you die you reappear in a church
or are reincarnated or whatever. All of these are related to the
static world feeling to me.
:you just not worry about it? How do you make your MUD more than an
:anonymous, cookie-cutter world of a particular genre? How do you
:promote role-playing (good examples of that above)? Etc., etc.: how do
As many people have said, one way to promote roleplaying is to provide
more than one role to play. Most diku muds (as far as I can tell from
reading the newsgroups) only allow character improvement by killing things
thus there is only one role to play, a killer. One hypothesis, which
hasnt been tested extensively, is that if you provide other roles then people
will still have fun doing things other than killing. I think this is true,
but Im not completely sure. In my mud there are warriors which improve
their skills by killing things. Sorcerors which get better by castng spells
which may or may not kill things. Healers get better by healing and raising
the dead. Crafters get better by making things and Seekers get better by
rescuing people. Hopefully this system creates an interdependance that
encourages positive (and some negative) player interaction.
However this is definitely not enough.
:*you* think a good MUD should be *designed*? I'm not sure many people
:are considering that things at that level yet.
Player interaction and persistance are two critical issues.
I think the only way to have a dynamic mud is to allow players to modify
the world or have admins that are constantly working on the world.
The first is easier although depending on the players may have varying
results depending on how its implemented. In a mush players can essentially
do anything and create anything. But they dont because the roleplaying
rules specify that they shouldnt. Im not sure that a diku system would
support that kind of trust, so modification of the world should be more
restricted. One example of roleplaying from a mush that a friend of mine
told me about was very interesting. An admiral on a ship wanted to talk
to and officer on a planet. Instead of just using a comm link he summoned
my friend and ordered him to go get the officer. My friend took a ship
flew down to the planet, presented himself and picked the officer up and
returned him to the ship. All of this was done with roleplaying which
was very surprising to me, but also exciting. So I would hope to encourage
this kind of interaction on a diku style mud.
So some design issues to encourage this type of activity:
1) Areas never reset, but they have to be designed with this in mind.
You can make the orc fortress but once it gets razed all the orcs are dead
and the descriptions may actually reflect the damage that is done in fights.
However maybe other creatures might move in and build new traps, or maybe
players will setup and use the fortress. The orcs may regroup and try
to come back. etc. Not resetting will allow people to "own" areas
this will give them the feeling of "home" and will allow the additional
struggles involved with keeping a "home". If there are only 3 castles
in the game the most powerful characters are going to want them, and
might hire low level chars to help protect it in return for letting the low
level chars stay/hang out there.
2) The admins need to plan out some very long term general goals or create
some struggles and then enter the game dropping hints or hiring players.
They should interact with the highest level players who will in turn interact
with the lower level players. There should be a general story like in a mush
but the players will influence the direction of the story and determine
it's outcome.
3) Typical quests are go kill X, or go find Y, these are given out by NPCs.
There is no reason that high level characters should be giving these quests
out to low level characters. Maybe it is just a hassle or is boring for
the high level char, so he pays a low level char to do it. i.e. The
high level mage needs a ton of spell components so he hires some
apprentices to find the components. In return he can pay the apprentices
or teach them skills.
--
Anthony Chen
Interactive Games Network
http://ign.cy-net.net
Anthony C.
In article <Pine.LNX.3.91.9703...@uni-corn.demon.co.uk>,
Greg Munt <gr...@uni-corn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[George reese wrote that people want to be able to compare]
:I would be inclined to disagree. I think it is what you think players
:'Senior Accountant' written on their forehead. IMHO, it would be more
However everyone who works around him knows he is a Senior Accountant
and thus is "better" than a Junior Accountant but not as good as a
Vice President. Except those around him, I doubt many really know
any individual by their skills, but primarily by his title.
In academia there are non-tenure faculty, assistant profs, associate
and tenured profs. I have no idea of the skills of these people
but there are definite levels. The same goes for kindergarten to
University, they can be considered levels as well. And the general
assumption is that those in higher grades know more, but not by direct
knowledge of their particular skills, but by the ranks conferred on them.
:realistic for ppl to know your skills by reputation rather than numbers.
:
:However, if you *are* going to have a 'number system', the levels need to
:be comparable. Eg 10th level fighter is as powerful in combat as a 10th
:level mage, even tho if neither had their 'weapons', the fighter would
:win every time. The skills of a fighter and fisher are too different to
:be meaningfully compared.
I agree with this. It is more fun if the levels are comparable.
Anthony C.
Oops found an error in my post:
:3) Typical quests are go kill X, or go find Y, these are given out by NPCs.
:There is no reason that high level characters should be giving these quests
^^^^^^^shouldn't
:out to low level characters. Maybe it is just a hassle or is boring for
^^^^ instead of having npcs do it.
:the high level char, so he pays a low level char to do it. i.e. The
:high level mage needs a ton of spell components so he hires some
:apprentices to find the components. In return he can pay the apprentices
Brian James Green
In <331A5E...@ricochet.net> Michael Sellers <msel...@ricochet.net> writes:
[snip!]
>I don't mean to pick on Adam or anyone else in this thread, but it seems
>to me there's been very little said about the _design_ of a good MUD.
>I'm not talking about skills and levels and OOC rooms and such; making
>the right decisions in all of these areas are necessary but *not*
>sufficient for designing a compelling MUD.
I have to disagree, Michael. These are very important for the design of
MUDs. Players will have to interact with the environment, and that
means defining such things as levels, skills, IC/OOC concepts, etc. If
I'm running a class-based MUD with levels, and level 20 blows the crap
outof level 1, then I will probably have to define monsters as how they
are perceived by the players. You'll probably call one a "kick ass
fighter killer" and another "newbie fodder".
On the other hand, if I am going for a classless, levelless system, I
will probably describe my monsters more in terms of what they do. "This
is a monster with high magic, only people with good magic resistance
should attack him". "These monsters have terrible attacks, they are
probably for beginning players that don't want much risk while learning
the system." Yes, the parallel phrases could describe the same monster,
but the specific way you describe it might flavor how you design the
monsters in the first place.
The same for IC/OOC considerations. Should I make a huge world that is
slow to move around in if my goals are to eliminate global communication
yet still encourage groups? Should I include areas for OCC discussions
if I don't want them ruining the IC suspension of disbeleif in the game?
I agree, these might be "advanced" topics, but they are certainly within
the scope of the original discussion (that I started ;)
>I'd be interested in hearing if anyone here has put real thought and
>work into the high-level design of their MUD: how do you make your MUD
>not seem to be a static world (the "Gilligan's Island" problem, where
>all conditions reset to their defaults at the end of an episode), or do
>you just not worry about it?
Good topic! Something I have dedicated a bit of time to, but not really
formalized any ideas. One idea I did have was to have a sort of
"on-going" story, where things like quests could actually be
*completed*, instead of just re-popping every few minutes. Have an
overall story that may or may not be able to completed within the game.
If the overall story is completed, perhaps then you start at the
beginning. If the overall story cannot be completed (ever notice how
comic book heros never run out of problems?), then you can go on. Make
little things change often, have big things change infrequently, and
have major changes either happen once or not at all.
>How do you make your MUD more than an
>anonymous, cookie-cutter world of a particular genre?
I think a lot of people have touched upon this. History, planning,
theme, mood, setting, etc. All these things help make the MUD different
form all others in the genre. Swords and Sorcery is tough to make
unique, but there are several interesting MUDs that do explore this
genre with a unique twist.
>How do you
>promote role-playing (good examples of that above)?
There's a topic I'll leave to another time. :)
Nathan F. Yospe
In article <5fbf8f$c...@user1.inficad.com>, nigh...@user1.inficad.com
(Adam Wiggins) wrote:
<snip RP example>
:Yes, I love it. Allows you to hide some skills and things, also - if
:people know you're a thief right away, they tend to be suspicious. If
:they eval you and just see that "He carries himself like a fighter", then
:you won't worry...except that one of his side-skills is swiping items. :)
:Similarly, I like this sort of thing because it allows role-playing without
:_forcing_ roleplaying. Enforcing roleplaying is, to me, ludicrous.
:If the game naturally encourages it, however, it can be a whole hell of a lot
:of fun.
Oh, yeah. I decided that "con" was ridiculous... the whole point of a
computer, in other types of games, is to hide the numbers. Ultima 8 would
have sucked if there were numbers all over the place, and I can't really
remember any numbers in the infocom games... that may be my memory playing
tricks on me, though. Personally, I find the insistance by certain
(unnamed) advocates of a particular LP base that all players prefer
numerical muds with levels insulting to the intelligence and flexibility
of the players. There
are many players out there with more than 2 digit IQs and a sense of poetry.
:I liked the assassin class on Arctic. This was a class with the skills of
:a thief, but also a few warrior skills. ("who" showed only name and title,
:nothing else.) By mutual agreement members of the guild kept their class
:secret; they would dress in warrior-gear and act like tanks. Except when
:you foolishly went to sleep in their presence, they'd proceed to whip out
:a dagger and backstab you, or relieve you of your cash. This kicked ass,
:to my mind - what is really an assassin's best friend but for stealth?
Heh.. now that is cool... I've got something slightly similar, but since
there are no actual classes, the secret clans are not even really
implemented, aside from a secret signal that they can use... which is
actually a hidden
emote command, nothing hardcoded.
:Agreed. We started with some "basic" classes, knowing we had a skill based
:system, as well as levels. As we worked with it, we quickly found
:that class did almost nothing and levels did absolutely nothing at all,
:so we removed them just to free up a couple bytes on the character structure.
*chuckle* Yeah, there is not much use to those kind of things... of
course, you're going to have to increase the RP factor... I call it the
immersion capacity of a mud. The higher the immersion capacity, the less
players will concern themselves with numbers.
:Well, I don't have a real big problem with eliminating global channels
:altogether. This is, of course, just a choice on how you want your
:mud to be played; closer to a talker or closer to "reality" (whatever
:that means). I like chatting with folks on muds, but limiting global
:communication does give the mud a real sense of space, and actually
:require people to converge on meetings-places. It also opens up a lot
:of possiblities for spells and the like which give advanced communication
:options, which I also like.
Hmmm. That, as you said, is personal taste. Again, immersion capacity will
determine how well it goes over... I do like to keep certain global
channels, though... the newbie to admin channel, for example, inter imm
channels, and various channels atatched to equiptment... or, as some of
the secret societies do, implant communicators... I kind of fudged in a
few tachyon transmission rules to make it all believable.
:>Communication: see above. I also have OOC comm, but it really is OOC...
:>it uses their "personal" name, not their character name. This is used for
:>internal mail, newsgroups, etc. as well.
:I went ahead and made a chat room and some boards which are accessable
:from account mode, but nothing you can use in-game. We'll see if this
:actually works...an OOC channel is a bit too useful given our language
:barriers.
Hmmm. Well, the player mode (player mode, I think, is equiv to your
account mode) channels are also common to the other inclusive game modes
(chess room, bridge room, chat rooms, tutoring centers, conference rooms)
so there would
be a rather angry reaction if people used the player mode channels for that
type of communication. Then again, all galactics speak galstand creole,
and Andromedans (the enemy) are not likely to use comms, considering they
are all NPCs...
:>Levels: advancement is based on completion of missions, ranging from intel
:>to war, even some for the creative types. (there are architecture and
:>entertainment assignments) When you complete the missions, you are able to
:>gain military advancement, plot advancement... there are thousands of hours
:>of plot, leading to a final climactic mission, one that is virtually
:>impossible without a huge team of very talented, skilled players with heavy
:>cybernetics (meaning the money for the operations) and weaponry, skilled
:>techs and hackers to break in, neutralize security... there is enough there
:>to give a strong feeling of advancement... stronger than I ever got from a
:>little number based on how many repetitive kills I'd pulled off.
:
:Very nice; how is this displayed, exactly? The analogy being "I'm a
:level 22 psionist. I kick ass."
Examples: "I took out a class seven Hyrdral base solo, armed only with a
200 kW plasma rifle and ten sonic pulse grenades. I kick ass." or "I
hacked through the core computer of Lord Croede's battle system, without
getting caught, and obtained their battle plans. I _really_ kick ass!" The
game is extremely event based. The above level 22 psionist thinks he kicks
ass, but, there is no guarantee that a level 22 palladin would agree. On
the other hand, when you measure your worth by actual accomplishments,
they are usualy acrued the respect they deserve.
:>Classes: There are no set classes in my system, but it would take more than
:>forever to become really really good at everything. There will be inevitable
:>jack-of-all-trades types... that's a good thing. There will also be those
:
:Sure. It should just be incredibly difficult, and after a certain point
:in certain skills you have to spend so much time just maintaining the skill
:that you have no time for anything else. I do a lot of things, but I'm
:only really good at the things that I do every single day for a long period of
:time.
That, and the other factor... it costs money to maintain the tools of your
trade. It takes more than that... the truth is, datajacks are not
compatible with some types of nanotech... reflex heightening cybernetics,
for example, or sensory boost equiptment. For fantasy, think magic and
steel... they don't really get along, and you pay in pain if you try to
mix them.
:>who get _really_ good at hacking a system, or become the lords of
:>cyberspace, or
:>the ultimate cyborg warrior, or the perfect sniper, or the master engineer...
:>provide enough variety in the options in the game and the details _will_ take
:>care of themselves......
:
:Yeah. I also like your theme - although it doesn't bother me that most
:muds are fantasy-based, I really think there is a lot of potential for
:the cyberpunk-derived genre; it has a lot of elements that would work
:very well in a mud, but I've yet to see it done real well. (Shadowrun
:MUSH (?) was pretty cool, but I'm not a big fan of mushes...)
Actually, I'm not cyberpunk, I'm space opera. There are a couple of
cyberpunk oriented LPs, ROMs, and circles out there... I could point you
toward them if you are interested... Singularity2 is a far future warzone
with our galaxy fighting invaders from the Andromedan galaxy. Of course,
you eventually do
get to take the fight to Andromeda... where you discover an oppressed galaxy
of innocents under the steel grip of a tyrant milirary empire. The mood is
somewhere between star wars and aliens, depending on where and when in the
game you are. There is enough melodrama to quench the romantic thirst, but
the meat of the game has the grim horror of cyberpunk... only eased by the
presence of a visable enemy. There is enough carnage that I have a "no
under
13" warning, and even a few zones that I have rated 18+ for violent
content. Genocide as a central theme does make for a heavy game... I've
got enough
volume of areas for a decent feeling of the game, but it should fill out a
bit more once it reopens.
Joshua J. Cantrell
> : Personally, I wouldn't want to run a MUD just to attract players.
> : If it is my hobby, and I don't get payed for it, then I'd rather
> : have quality players instead of a great quantity of players. :-)
>
> No, but I would assume you want to build a good game. If you do not
> have players, you do not have a good game. After all, a good game is
> a game that people like to play.
My feeling is that with time and patience, I'll be able to find people
who would like the game. My goal would not to build a game that the
majority of people would like (eg., I wouldn't write a game where you
programmed tanks to battle each other, like in Origin's Omega, and
expect arcade fanatics to play it, even though they are in greater
quantity). I'd make the game so that a certain type of people would
want to play it. Although the numbers may be small at first, at
least I'd know I hadn't ruined it by trying to make the majority
like my game. Origin tried to make Ultima 8 more arcadish to attract
more customers, and many people who liked the previous Ultimas didn't
like it as much as the previous games.
Joshua Cantrell
j...@cory.berkeley.edu
Joshua J. Cantrell
In article <5fan7n$asu$3...@darla.visi.com> bo...@visi.com (George Reese) writes:
> Brian James Green (pch...@iastate.edu) wrote:
> That's npt what players want. They want a way to be able to compare
> themselves with one another, even if the activities in which they
> engage are wholly unrelated. They also want a single unit for
> measuring that. That is why i believe in the Nightmare system which
> ranks people according to the way they indicate they want to be
> measured. And thus you can compare a 10th level fighters as being as
> good at fighting as a 10th level fisher is at fishing. This even
> though a 10th level fighter would likely kill a level 10 fisher in one
> shot.
As an ex-player, I know that when I was a player, I didn't care about
what you say players want. In fact, the reason why I don't play anymore
is because I became tired with people only trying to increase their
"scores". Rather than score increasing, I felt the environment should
be made a more social environment, where your score might be just the
fact that many people know your name because of your fame and activity,
not because they notice you have lots of computed points. This would
mean players, would develop their own goals, and it more role-playing
would result. I'd also have a system that allowed complex interaction
with the objects and NPCs in the world to help create puzzles and other
things to do than killing. This would be a MUD for players who have
their own feeling of self-worth on the MUD.
Joshua Cantrell
j...@cory.berkeley.edu
md...@insect.sd.monash.edu.au
>
>:I'd be interested in hearing if anyone here has put real thought and
>:work into the high-level design of their MUD: how do you make your MUD
>:not seem to be a static world (the "Gilligan's Island" problem, where
>:all conditions reset to their defaults at the end of an episode), or do
>
In my personal opinion, I think that if you are interested in roleplay it
is far to easy to get involved in the technical aspects of a world as
being able to provide the means of a roleplaying experience. Such things
like gravity, involved and realistic combat systems, dynamic worlds and
the like while being useful in some ways to roleplaying and being
very useful in terms of gameplay do not address the real issues of how to
encourage roleplaying on a mud.
As a caveat, my worldview on mudding is strongly influenced by my
experience as a desktop roleplayer and I want to see muds which take the
desktop roleplaying experience and expand it to the Internet. The closest
analogy to a mud in the desktop world, is what is called a freeform in
Australia and I think a live action roleplay (LARP) in the UK and USA, (but
not the ones where you have a rubber sword and go and beat up on monsters).
After playing on a variety of muds we decided when establishing our mud
that we wanted to make roleplaying the primary focus of the mud. The
real problem with roleplaying on most muds is that there are very few
roles to play. The basic two being psychotic killer and social butterfly
and generally nothing else, we decided that we wished to add extra roles
for people to play.
So to do that we had to do two things. Firstly we added clans, clan
warfare and the control of areas by clans. The actual system for this
is relatively simple and not particularly different from what can be
found on some other muds. But the system does reward clans for controlling
areas and provides means for alliances, betrayals, spies and negotiations.
So this immediately provided roles for players to adopt such as spy,
diplomat, general, scout and the like. There was also added the element
of danger for a purpose. Characters could get killed by higher level
players during a war but sometimes it was valiantly defending the clan's
territories and the rest of the clan could laud them for their bravery.
War on the mud is a very stressful and expensive pastime and clans
do not lightly enter in to war. It is actually interesting to see that
we get a generation gap in attitudes to war as new players join clans.
The younger characters who have not experienced war are often keen
to start one, while their older more experienced clanmates are often
far more reluctant to march to war.
Secondly, we built the world from scratch based loosely upon the
game world of one of the imm's destop roleplaying campaigns. We
developed a rough history and geography of the world and built areas
to match the major places in the world (an on-going project). We
developed a basic mythology of the world, where the imms are the
actual gods of the world and fulfill certain roles. We decided on
6 clans with various strengths and weaknesses and history and
philosophy (since when the players have taken the clans and changed
them and fleshed them out in very good ways.). Thus while not
detailing every little aspect of the world, we had a framework in which
we couldbuild up the detail necessary for roleplaying. And most
importantly, we were thinking about and building some major storylines
and conflicts into our world from the day we opened.
So given that we thought we would get some pretty good roleplaying from
day one and we did. But we also got a lot of very bad roleplaying and
over the
first few months we discovered that bad or no roleplaying drives out
good roleplaying. In any war situation a powerleveller will be the
winner over a roleplayer, because the roleplayer because of their character
will restrict their actions but the powergamer won't. So to compete, the
roleplayer is forced to powergame to the detriment of their roleplaying.
We had thought that we could run a mud where you could choose to powerlevel
or roleplay or both, but our experience showed that it was incompatible.
So we decided we would have to enforce roleplay and if people didn't
want to roleplay, then they could leave. To do this we introduced the
concept of Favour Points. Players receive favour points (FP) for roleplaying
only. They get them when watched by the gods and from certain players
who have been appointed FP spies by the imms. FP spies get to give out
5 FP a wwek via the imms and may not give FP to players who are in their
clans (removing conflict of interest). To get past level 15 20 25 30 etc
a player must expend a FP, no FP, you stay level 15 forever. You may
also expend 2 FP to go up a level, you may use FP to rename equipment,
you may use FP to build houses and hire servants and the like. The whole
game to a large extent revolves around favor points. Of course, this is
totally subjective but we consider that roleplaying is totally subjective.
Apart from the above, i think there are two other factors which are
necessary to develop roleplaying on a mud.
1) A culture on the mud where good roleplay is applauded by the players,
where all players are receptive to roleplay and don't ignore it or
insist that all roleplay revolve around them and where bad roleplay
is corrected by the players. This is of course much easier
said than done as most players arriving on a mud, don't have very much
experience of roleplaying.
2) An active immortal staff who provide ongoing mud-wide storylines and
who have the time energy and skill to support the individual storylines
of players and groups of players. This is by far much more demanding of imms
than normal and means that realistically you can't have as many players than on your standard hack'nslash mud but c'est la vie!
So this is where I think the criticism of stock muds is to some extent
unfounded. While I have a lot of admiration for those who go out
and build a mud from scratch, I don't think it is necessary to have
original code to build a good roleplaying world. Stock code built with
modifications to emphasise the roleplaying aspects of your world
combined with new areas integrated into a coherent world are far more
important in my opinion.
And probably more importantly the only practical way for many imms to
get their ideas out there. Despite having an excellent coder (who gets
paid heaps of money in the real world to program) if we had decided
to work from the ground up, the mud would never have got off the ground.
All three of the main imms are fulltime workers and would not have the
time to do this. By using stock code, it gave us a massive boost up
to get our ideas up and running and by far the best way to learn what
works and what doesn't is to actually do something.
So overall I think, that technical aspects of mudding and attempts to
make muds more realistic(?) while useful and necessary (we are slowly
working on these issues ourselves) are secondary to issues which give
players more roles to play and a world and culture on the mud which
encourage roleplaying.
Martin
David Rudy
In article 2...@darla.visi.com, bo...@visi.com (George Reese) writes:
>I have been running muds for 6 years now. I have worked very hard at
>understanding what players want, and I have done a rather good job at
>it. Therefore, what I think players want has a lot of bearing on this
>argument.
I believe the Journal of Mud Research has gone a long way towards the research
of "what players want". In truth, it's entirely different depending on the
classification of the player in question.
Achievers and Killers want a way to compare their stats. Role Players and
Socializers don't. Some view mudding as a game to "win". Others view it as
an interactive multi-user experience, where the interaction itself is the
goal and there is no winning or losing involved. Walking in to their favorite
mud and everyone shouting "Hi, Norm!" is a great feeling to a number of people,
and goes a lot further than having "level 100 superhero" by their name.
One need only look at the vast number of players on the various MUSHes and
talkers to see that this is true. There is no "one thing" that players want.
If this were true, then we would already have it by now, and little else.
>Please, show me a quote where I say my word is law? I do not need to
>say 'this is what I think' because that is self-evident from the fact
>that I AM THE ONE POSTING IT.
Above you said that your 6 years of experience running muds makes what you
post to be valid. Your further quote of "I have done a rather good job at it"
would indicate that you have a very large highly successful mud. By this
reasoning, since for 6 years you have perfected what players really want, it
would follow that your mud must have the most players of any other mud out
there - correct? Just logging on to Nightmare I found 3 players, 7 newbies,
and 1 coder. I do not consider three people to be a "rather good job" on
anything as large as the Internet. (As a note of comparison, The Two Towers has
52 people on this same time).
>You just seem to have a personal problem with me.
George, no one has a personal problem with YOU. The problem is with your
attitude that you are always right, despite evidence against it. And when
confronted about the validity, you quickly claim that people are "out to get
you" or have a "personal problem" with you. I find that highly unprofessional
and immature, despite any credentials.
>No, I think you got it close to exactly right, excepting the point
>about my phrasing. I should not have to phrase everything as 'I think
>this' and 'I believe that'. Everything I state as a fact is a
>reflection of what I believe. What matters is if I provide the facts
>to back them up. And that I do.
I have posted numbers, surveys, and data. I always try to reference where
my information comes from. Your facts seemed to be only based on your 6 years
of experience, which from the information I posted seem questionable.
I believe that player's tastes vary, and that each mud is coded to cater to
a certain type of player. A player interested in being a fisherman doesn't
care what "level" is tacked on next to his name - he just cares that he can
catch fish well, and getting into the role and playing the game of catching
fish. And he will continue to fish as long as fishing is 'fun' for him,
despite any level numbers. While a bodybuilder wants numbers of how much
weight he is lifting, and wants to compare his biceps inches with others.
What players "want" depends on who they are. Many consider ourselves good
with computers and better than others, but have no 'numbers' to prove it...
David Rudy
dar...@aule.eng.sun.com
George Reese
Travis Casey (ca...@cs.fsu.edu) wrote:
: bo...@visi.com (George Reese) wrote:
: >Joshua J. Cantrell (j...@delphinus.EECS.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
:
: >: If it is my hobby, and I don't get payed for it, then I'd rather
: >: have quality players instead of a great quantity of players. :-)
: >
: >No, but I would assume you want to build a good game. If you do not
: >have players, you do not have a good game. After all, a good game is
: >a game that people like to play.
: A good game is a game that people like to play; I'll agree with you on
: that. However, that does not necessarily imply that a game that has
: more players is a better game; there are other factors involved.
I did not want to imply that; that would mean EoTL is a good game.
No thanks.
: Or, to put it another way... a good operating system is an operating
: system that people like to use. However, this doesn't mean that
: MS-DOS, which has sold more copies than any other operating system,
: is the best operating system.
:
: Also, you should remember that games can have different intended
: audiences; asking whether chess is a "better" game than hide-and-go-seek
: is a nearly meaningless question, to take an extreme example. In
: the same way, roleplaying-oriented muds aren't necessarily "worse" than
: hack-and-slash muds just because they appeal to a smaller audience;
: they're simply different.
The point I was making, however, is that if you want to build as good
game, you want to build a game that will attract players. So ignoring
what players like is folly.
George Reese
Another 'David Rudy takes a post out of context to flame George' post.
Joy.
David Rudy (dar...@Eng.Sun.COM) wrote:
: In article 2...@darla.visi.com, bo...@visi.com (George Reese) writes:
: >I have been running muds for 6 years now. I have worked very hard at
: >understanding what players want, and I have done a rather good job at
: >it. Therefore, what I think players want has a lot of bearing on this
: >argument.
:
: I believe the Journal of Mud Research has gone a long way towards the research
: of "what players want". In truth, it's entirely different depending on the
: classification of the player in question.
I am not arguing against the JMR.
: Achievers and Killers want a way to compare their stats. Role Players and
: Socializers don't. Some view mudding as a game to "win". Others view it as
: an interactive multi-user experience, where the interaction itself is the
: goal and there is no winning or losing involved. Walking in to their favorite
: mud and everyone shouting "Hi, Norm!" is a great feeling to a number of people,
: and goes a lot further than having "level 100 superhero" by their name.
:
: One need only look at the vast number of players on the various MUSHes and
: talkers to see that this is true. There is no "one thing" that players want.
: If this were true, then we would already have it by now, and little else.
Yes, I have been saying this all along.
Please read the entire thread.
With the exception of socializers (socializers have nothing to do with
a thread on removing levels from non-social muds), players do want
some way to compare themselves with one another, *even if their
criteria for success is vastly different*.
: >Please, show me a quote where I say my word is law? I do not need to
: >say 'this is what I think' because that is self-evident from the fact
: >that I AM THE ONE POSTING IT.
:
: Above you said that your 6 years of experience running muds makes what you
: post to be valid.
It certainly gives weight to it. I did not suggest that it makes my
word law. The part you took out was the part where I was being
challenged as to how I would know what a player wants. Do you deny
that 6 years of experience is worth anything?
: Your further quote of "I have done a rather good job at it"
: would indicate that you have a very large highly successful mud.
I do.
: By this
: reasoning, since for 6 years you have perfected what players really want, it
: would follow that your mud must have the most players of any other mud out
: there - correct? Just logging on to Nightmare I found 3 players, 7 newbies,
: and 1 coder. I do not consider three people to be a "rather good job" on
: anything as large as the Internet. (As a note of comparison, The Two Towers has
: 52 people on this same time).
I have no idea when you logged in, but I will assure you that I have
nvever logged into Nightmare to find only 3 people on. Nightmare
averages 30-40 players on at a time and has peaks around 50. We are
slowly REBUILDING our players base after shutting down the mud in 1995
and converting to NM IV. A lot of what I know about what players like
in fact comes mistakes I made in doing that which cost NM players. After all,
Nightmare used to average 65 players online with peaks at 80 (we
capped the MAX at 80 at that time).
: >You just seem to have a personal problem with me.
:
: George, no one has a personal problem with YOU. The problem is with your
: attitude that you are always right, despite evidence against it.
What evidence? The problem, as several people have pointed out in
this thread, is that no one has argued evidence against my claims.
You tried above, but as I pointed out, your claims are wholly out of
context.
Can you show one post where someone has shown 'evidence' that I am
wrong on this point?
: confronted about the validity, you quickly claim that people are "out to get
: you" or have a "personal problem" with you. I find that highly unprofessional
: and immature, despite any credentials.
Why is it a lot of people seem to agree with me then that a certain
group of people, including yourself, just seem to be out to get me?
: >No, I think you got it close to exactly right, excepting the point
: >about my phrasing. I should not have to phrase everything as 'I think
: >this' and 'I believe that'. Everything I state as a fact is a
: >reflection of what I believe. What matters is if I provide the facts
: >to back them up. And that I do.
:
: I have posted numbers, surveys, and data. I always try to reference where
: my information comes from. Your facts seemed to be only based on your 6 years
: of experience, which from the information I posted seem questionable.
Your surveys are interesting, but I do not see how they counter the
claims I have made. As far as I remember, they have nothing to do
with the topics here.
As a side note, what players say they want and what they really want
in a game are often two different things. This is because players do
not have the game design experience to know whqt things really make
the game fun and what things ruin it. Surveys certainly need to be
taken with a grain of salt.
: I believe that player's tastes vary, and that each mud is coded to cater to
: a certain type of player.
I have never stated otherwise. In fact, as I pointed out, I agree
with the JMR player classifications.
: A player interested in being a fisherman doesn't
: care what "level" is tacked on next to his name - he just cares that he can
: catch fish well, and getting into the role and playing the game of catching
: fish. And he will continue to fish as long as fishing is 'fun' for him,
: despite any level numbers. While a bodybuilder wants numbers of how much
: weight he is lifting, and wants to compare his biceps inches with others.
: What players "want" depends on who they are. Many consider ourselves good
: with computers and better than others, but have no 'numbers' to prove it...
How dare you state this as fact! * sarcasm alert *
Clearly you have a different opinion of what players want. Now,
please tell me, what is this differing opinion based on?
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
pch...@iastate.edu (Brian James Green) writes:
>Wow, here's a great post on this thread. Anyone else care to share with
>us, and show the their design ideas?
Well, since you asked :)
>col...@news.netbyte.co.nz (Colin Coghill) writes:
>>Brian James Green <pch...@iastate.edu> wrote:
>The problem with that (not restricting skills), in my experiences, is
>that it creates the uber-player (see below). Some skills are going to
>be more interesting/useful than others. Why would someone pick "long
>jumping" over "laser rifle" when the latter is probably more useful to
>accomplish a goal? So, you pick the best selection of skills, train
>them up to maximum level, and you have the super, can-do-anything
>player. Bad for game play, IMHO.
>>>What do you do to keep the uber-player from being created?
>>I'm hoping that the way the world works, the only way such a player can
>>exist is if they've been through the proper process.
>But, is that at all desireable? I think not, IMHO. I think that all
>characters should be equally viable, even if someone took "long jumping"
>over "laser rifle". The difference is how they accomplish a goal.
>Other opinions?
1) Stats count. If you have a lousy dex you will be a lousy thief
1a) the only way to have an ultra high stat is to kill one or more other stats
1b) stats don't change (I am playing with allowing training to move stats
up 1 point (on a 20 pt scale) and taking aging into account)
2) Skills can be forgotten. (remembering is easier than learning...)
3) non-guild skills are harder to learn.
see below
>>>What do you do to keep power-MUDders happy while not upsetting the
>>>casual MUDder? And vice-versa?
I am not interested in the POWER-mudder.
I am interested in the role-player, the player who wants to be a Ranger
or a Thief or a Fighter or whatever. I hope to give those players the
opportunity to play a Ranger and explore the outlands, spying on Orc
movements; to play a Thief and break into the second story window
of the Jeweler's shop; to be a fighter and lead a squad to destroy the
chief's hut in a raid on an Orc Village
In this situation I don't think the idea of an uber-character has meaning.
To start with there will be two measures for players who like to make
comparisons, level within guilds ( which are gained by learning skills)
and reputation. Eventually I hope there will also be temporal power :)
how many shops owned, position in the politics, that sort of thing.
I am not sure how the casual mudder will deal with my mud. If they are
DIKU-oriented I think they will hate it, there is little opportunity
to just go around killing things*. You have to be willing to do some
exploration. I hope that it will be entertaining to those who are willing
to put a little effort into it.
*not quite true, I will have at least one arena, maybe more.
>>Yep. I'm also looking carefully at things like:
>>Is the game enjoyable for an individual player, or is it more suited
>>for people travelling in groups?
>>I have quite a few places where people must co-operate as a group to
>>get something done. Deliberately so. But I also fully appreciate the
>>fun of MUDding alone, and often prefer to do so myself.
>A *very* important question our group is pondering over right now. Do
>we make things 100% individual-orientated, or do we make everything 100%
>group-orientated, or some mix between? How do we keep groups from
>totally hosing stuff intended for individuals, or individuals from
>getting hosed by stuff intended for groups? These are important for
>gameplay.
I am hoping to have a fair amount of individual type of things, but I
am also going to have NPC groups for individuals to join.
Hope you found this interesting, I am quite happy to see a number of
people working on interesting new muds out there.
specify the e-mail address below, my reply-to: has anti-spam added to it
Mor...@physics.niu.edu
Real Men change diapers
Martin Keegan
Greg Munt wrote:
> > That's npt what players want. They want a way to be able to compare
> > themselves with one another, even if the activities in which they
> > engage are wholly unrelated. They also want a single unit for
> > measuring that. That is why i believe in the Nightmare system which
> > ranks people according to the way they indicate they want to be
> > measured. And thus you can compare a 10th level fighters as being as
> > good at fighting as a 10th level fisher is at fishing. This even
> > though a 10th level fighter would likely kill a level 10 fisher in one
> > shot.
>
> I would be inclined to disagree. I think it is what you think players
> want. You cant blanket user desires in this way. IRL, ppl dont have
> 'Senior Accountant' written on their forehead. IMHO, it would be more
> realistic for ppl to know your skills by reputation rather than numbers.
Bad news. He's right. Players (as a broad generalisation) want to
be able to rank themselves, with lots of numerical stats. They
want to be able to choose between a whole heap of races
and classes, and to be able to chat to anyone and see who's on.
They tend to want privacy, and to oppose rent and dropping stuff
when they get killed.
Don't be another Island and try to buck the trend. A dead hero is
still dead.
> I have heard it said that 'the most annoying thing about George Reese is
> that he is very often right' - its true.
Ha! You could at least have attributed it! :)
And what I said was "almost always", not "very often".
Mk
--
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
@z=("\'NsImeRoM","TeBm","!rE");
@s=reverse split'','012';
@l[shift@s]=scalar reverse$z[scalar@s-1]while(@s);
map{print ucfirst lc$_."\040"}split"m",join't',@l; print "\n";
Miroslav Silovic
nigh...@user1.inficad.com (Adam Wiggins) writes:
>
> [taking numbers out of muds]
> >There are MUDs (MUSHes, particularly) that do quite well as "BS sessions"
>
> *nod*, this is fine, but not something I'm interested in. The main reason
> is because I want to _play_ my own game, rather than coding it and
> then having to sit around and DM everything that happens. If you've
> got folks willing to do this, fine...but I think this more like using
> the internet as a way to have a distributed paper-rpg session rather
> than a real interactive environment, which I think is where muds have
> more potential.
Actaully, even the best MUDs I've seen have about 10% of the
paper-session interactivity. In other words, 95% of the time, you walk
around and kill thinks, the only variation being the fact that you
have a few more commands to type (except 'kill') - while on the other
hand, roleplaying (at least in my opinion) has nothing to do with
piling heaps of corpses. In fact, I'd say there are two views on this:
1) players interact with each other, in the game world
2) each player interacts with the game world on his/her own
It might be matter of personal preferance, but I think that game world
(and creatures within) simply need brains that only players, and
perhaps GMs, can provide. Actually, I've seen really complex world
environment, with elaborate AIs for the creatures, but it's /still/
much more fun with the gamemasters (unfortunately, I'm talking about
pay-to-play MUD here).
If you're looking for free RPGs, I think MUSHes do it right:
/everything/ is done through staff and player-ran roleplaying. It
still feels vastly different from paper-roleplaying session, though,
and is much stronger experience. MUSHes, on the other hand, tend to
lack power-development (in other words, you never get to become
godlike). Fortunately for me, I don't care for power trip over other
players.
Miro
FIZZIX
In article <5fhg68$rhl$3...@darla.visi.com>, George Reese <bo...@visi.com> wrote:
>Travis Casey (ca...@cs.fsu.edu) wrote:
>: bo...@visi.com (George Reese) wrote:
>: >Joshua J. Cantrell (j...@delphinus.EECS.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
>:
>: >: Personally, I wouldn't want to run a MUD just to attract players.
>: >: If it is my hobby, and I don't get payed for it, then I'd rather
>: >: have quality players instead of a great quantity of players. :-)
>: >
>: >No, but I would assume you want to build a good game. If you do not
>: >have players, you do not have a good game. After all, a good game is
>: >a game that people like to play.
>:
>: A good game is a game that people like to play; I'll agree with you on
>: that. However, that does not necessarily imply that a game that has
>: more players is a better game; there are other factors involved.
>
>I did not want to imply that; that would mean EoTL is a good game.
>No thanks.
>
>: audiences; asking whether chess is a "better" game than hide-and-go-seek
>: is a nearly meaningless question, to take an extreme example. In
>: the same way, roleplaying-oriented muds aren't necessarily "worse" than
>: hack-and-slash muds just because they appeal to a smaller audience;
>: they're simply different.
>
>The point I was making, however, is that if you want to build as good
>game, you want to build a game that will attract players. So ignoring
>what players like is folly.
>
I'd rather make a game that I like. Then I'd attract people like me, and
we'd all be happy.
-griffie
Greg Munt
On Tue, 4 Mar 1997, Martin Keegan wrote:
> Bad news. He's right. Players (as a broad generalisation) want to
> be able to rank themselves, with lots of numerical stats. They
> want to be able to choose between a whole heap of races
> and classes, and to be able to chat to anyone and see who's on.
>
> They tend to want privacy, and to oppose rent and dropping stuff
> when they get killed.
>
> Don't be another Island and try to buck the trend. A dead hero is
> still dead.
Following the line of thinking that trends stifle diversification, does
this mean that players are to blame for this thread, and not those
setting up the StockMUDs?
Might it be true that the blame for dire StockMUDs can be attributed to
the players? That StockMUD admin are simply catering to a demand?
NOTE: it would be both unwise and inappropiate to assume any opinions I
might hold, from the above.
Anthony C.
In article <5fhh8t$rhl$4...@darla.visi.com>, George Reese <bo...@visi.com> wrote:
:nvever logged into Nightmare to find only 3 people on. Nightmare
:averages 30-40 players on at a time and has peaks around 50. We are
He said 3 players and 7 newbies and a couple of gods.. I'm not sure
if a newbie is a player or not, but I logged in the other day and
it seemed that newbies are indeed players. At some point I logged in
by the way and the game was totally lagged. I was getting about 5 second
responses on the prompts.
:As a side note, what players say they want and what they really want
:in a game are often two different things. This is because players do
:not have the game design experience to know whqt things really make
:the game fun and what things ruin it. Surveys certainly need to be
:taken with a grain of salt.
While I have no evidence for this I believe it to be true in everyday life
as a whole, and including muds. Many people claim that plain descriptions
no levels are better, but players really want to be able to compare themselves
in an easy manner. Similar to Im a Junior, you are only a Freshman?
Or Im a Doctor, you are only a nurse, etc etc. Life is full of ranks and
"levels" and I think it is only natural to have them. However as you
said before the skills should determine the level, not the other way around.
I logged in to your mud as you suggested to try to find out more about
that system. I would rather read help files on it though than try to play :)
Any pointers you have would be appreciated.
Mush players are a different breed altogether.
George Reese
Anthony C. (acc...@scully.tamu.edu) wrote:
: In article <5fhh8t$rhl$4...@darla.visi.com>, George Reese <bo...@visi.com> wrote:
: :nvever logged into Nightmare to find only 3 people on. Nightmare
: :averages 30-40 players on at a time and has peaks around 50. We are
: He said 3 players and 7 newbies and a couple of gods.. I'm not sure
: if a newbie is a player or not, but I logged in the other day and
: it seemed that newbies are indeed players.
He lateer called it 3 players, which suggested he only counts mortals
as players. At any rate, I could call 10 people online very low for
Nightmare.
: At some point I logged in
: by the way and the game was totally lagged. I was getting about 5 second
: responses on the prompts.
This would almost certainly have to be on your end, as the machine
itself is doing fine right now.
: :As a side note, what players say they want and what they really want
: :in a game are often two different things. This is because players do
: :not have the game design experience to know whqt things really make
: :the game fun and what things ruin it. Surveys certainly need to be
: :taken with a grain of salt.
:
: While I have no evidence for this I believe it to be true in everyday life
: as a whole, and including muds. Many people claim that plain descriptions
: no levels are better, but players really want to be able to compare themselves
: in an easy manner. Similar to Im a Junior, you are only a Freshman?
: Or Im a Doctor, you are only a nurse, etc etc. Life is full of ranks and
: "levels" and I think it is only natural to have them. However as you
: said before the skills should determine the level, not the other way around.
: I logged in to your mud as you suggested to try to find out more about
: that system. I would rather read help files on it though than try to play :)
: Any pointers you have would be appreciated.
Type help at the command line or you can access the help system via
http://www.imaginary.com/LPMud/Nightmare
ThresholdMURPE
In article <kd0u3mr...@jagor.srce.hr>, Miroslav Silovic <sil...@jagor.srce.hr>
<5f5pgr$6...@user1.inficad.com>
<yospe-28029...@usrns75.dialup.hawaii.edu>
<5fbgsl$r...@user1.inficad.com> wrote:
>Actaully, even the best MUDs I've seen have about 10% of the
>paper-session interactivity. In other words, 95% of the time, you walk
Hmmm.... Is this the new math? 10 + 95 = 100% ? =)
-Aristotle@ThresholdMURPE
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
VISIT THRESHOLD MURPE! Online High Fantasy RPG!
Guilds: fighter, mage, thief, cleric, psion, bard, alchemist, shapeshifter
Player run clans, businesses, legal system, nobility, highly developed
religions, missile combat, tons of quests/areas, intense Role Playing!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Telnet: mud.chelmsford.com -or- mud.chelmsford.com 23
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Jon A. Lambert
Greg Munt <gr...@uni-corn.demon.co.uk> wrote in article <Pine.LNX.3.91.97030...@uni-corn.demon.co.uk>...
>
> Following the line of thinking that trends stifle diversification, does
> this mean that players are to blame for this thread, and not those
> setting up the StockMUDs?
>
> Might it be true that the blame for dire StockMUDs can be attributed to
> the players? That StockMUD admin are simply catering to a demand?
>
> NOTE: it would be both unwise and inappropiate to assume any opinions I
> might hold, from the above.
You are almost on the right track here. Allow me to rephrase without prejudicial
implications.
Following the line of thinking that appealing to popular tastes requires conforming
to popular expectations, does this mean that our frustration at meeting players
demands are to blame for this thread, and not those setting up the StockMUDs?
----YES ----
Might it be true that the success of StockMUDs can be attributed to
the players? That StockMUD admin are simply catering to a demand?
----YES----
Dan Shiovitz
In article <331C58...@cam.sri.com>,
Martin Keegan <mar...@cam.sri.com> wrote:
>Greg Munt wrote:
[..]
>> I would be inclined to disagree. I think it is what you think players
>> want. You cant blanket user desires in this way. IRL, ppl dont have
>> 'Senior Accountant' written on their forehead. IMHO, it would be more
>> realistic for ppl to know your skills by reputation rather than numbers.
>
>be able to rank themselves, with lots of numerical stats. They
>want to be able to choose between a whole heap of races
>and classes, and to be able to chat to anyone and see who's on.
>
>They tend to want privacy, and to oppose rent and dropping stuff
>when they get killed.
>
>Don't be another Island and try to buck the trend. A dead hero is
>still dead.
But I don't *want* those kind of players. I want the kind that like
to spend their time exploring and playing around with stuff and making
stuff and occasionally even fighting stuff. I don't think I'd have an
unsuccessful mud if it was like that and only had a few players.
>Mk
--
dan shiovitz scy...@u.washington.edu sh...@cs.washington.edu
slightly lost author/programmer in a world of more creative or more
sensible people ... remember to speak up for freedom because no one else
will do it for you: use it or lose it ... carpe diem -- be proactive.
my web site: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~scythe/home.html some ok stuff.
Miroslav Silovic
mac...@ix.netcom.com (ThresholdMURPE) writes:
>
> In article <kd0u3mr...@jagor.srce.hr>, Miroslav Silovic <sil...@jagor.srce.hr>
> <5f5pgr$6...@user1.inficad.com>
> <yospe-28029...@usrns75.dialup.hawaii.edu>
> <5fbgsl$r...@user1.inficad.com> wrote:
> >Actaully, even the best MUDs I've seen have about 10% of the
> >paper-session interactivity. In other words, 95% of the time, you walk
>
> Hmmm.... Is this the new math? 10 + 95 = 100% ? =)
No. The two numbers don't have to add up - I wasn't slicing a pie
there. Could you please actually read the article?
Miro
Martin Keegan
Miroslav Silovic wrote:
> > >Actaully, even the best MUDs I've seen have about 10% of the
> > >paper-session interactivity. In other words, 95% of the time, you walk
> >
> > Hmmm.... Is this the new math? 10 + 95 = 100% ? =)
>
> No. The two numbers don't have to add up - I wasn't slicing a pie
> there. Could you please actually read the article?
Perhaps this is the new literacy.
ThresholdMURPE
In article <kd0iv36...@jagor.srce.hr>, Miroslav Silovic <sil...@jagor.srce.hr>
<kd0u3mr...@jagor.srce.hr> <331cc...@news.athens.net> wrote:
>> >Actaully, even the best MUDs I've seen have about 10% of the
>> >paper-session interactivity. In other words, 95% of the time, you walk
>>
>> Hmmm.... Is this the new math? 10 + 95 = 100% ? =)
>
>No. The two numbers don't have to add up - I wasn't slicing a pie
>there. Could you please actually read the article?
>
Wah Miro. You messed up. Take yer lumps and move on. =)
-Aristotle@ThresholdMURPE
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David Rudy
In article 4...@darla.visi.com, bo...@visi.com (George Reese) writes:
>Clearly you have a different opinion of what players want. Now,
>please tell me, what is this differing opinion based on?
My opinion is based on my own experience with Mudding, which is limited
to about 5 years worth.
What I have personally seen, with muds based purely on levels, is there is a
limited amount of time in which they can keep a player 'amused' and having
fun. We see the question all too frequently: "What to do with bored high
levels?" - the player is amused only while gaining levels, at the top they
lose interest. I have seen this happen far too many times.
When a player has achieved the maximum level and 'won' the game, there
are often few options they are faced with: start another character to see
how fast they can win a 2nd time, immort and help code - which many aren't
too interested in, or transition into another type of player: socializer,
role player, or playerkiller. And of course the final option, to leave the
mud and find another game to play.
It has been my own personal experience that role-playing and socializing
muds hold on to players for a much longer amount of time. The players have
a reason to keep coming back: their role, and their friends. They have new
people to play their role with, and new friends to meet. And they can go
on adventures/quests with others and not have to always worry about how
much "experience" they are gaining or reward for the adventure - the adventure
and the friendship is enough by itself to be rewarding.
Players who want numbers are those who want a mud to be like any other single-
player game. They want to be able to see how well they are doing it and that
they are 'winning'. This sadly leads to the condition of figuring out what to
do once they have won. "What would the dog do with the car if he ever caught it?"
And of course, this is how a lot of people think the game should be. This does
not mean they are incorrect, simply that it puts an "end point" to a game which
is meant to continue on indefinitely - causing the mud to be a short-term means
of entertainment, which I think is bad.
There is nothing WRONG with levels, but there needs to be a lot more in the
game to provide enjoyment than just [doing whatever needs to be done to gain
levels] over and over again. Encouraging user interaction is great on big
muds, but really hurts beginning muds who don't have enough users that are
online to interact with. And more players breeds more players... getting
started is the hardest part of all... but that's another topic.
My appologies to George for taking his words out of context.
David Rudy
dar...@aule.eng.sun.com
Adam Wiggins
>The point I was making, however, is that if you want to build as good
>game, you want to build a game that will attract players. So ignoring
>what players like is folly.
This is very true - but what is important is not what "players" in general
think. It's what *you*, as a player, think is fun. The best muds are
those where the imps spend lots of time playing, because they think in terms
of being a player, and know what's fun for the players.
So, then, it all comes down to what I've said all along - write a mud
that you think is fun and engaging. The nice thing about this is that
regardless of what you think is fun, there's other people out there that
think that's fun, too.
I think skill-based systems are a lot more fun than level-based systems.
I may be in the minority, but I know plenty of people who agree with me,
so I'm writing a skill based mud, even though "players" may, in general
prefer levels. _My_ players don't.
George Reese
David Rudy (dar...@Eng.Sun.COM) wrote:
: In article 4...@darla.visi.com, bo...@visi.com (George Reese) writes:
: >Clearly you have a different opinion of what players want. Now,
: >please tell me, what is this differing opinion based on?
: My opinion is based on my own experience with Mudding, which is limited
: to about 5 years worth.
Ahh, so the same thing you are criticizing me for basing my opinion
on.
: What I have personally seen, with muds based purely on levels, is there is a
: limited amount of time in which they can keep a player 'amused' and having
: fun. We see the question all too frequently: "What to do with bored high
: levels?" - the player is amused only while gaining levels, at the top they
: lose interest. I have seen this happen far too many times.
Because you have levels does not mean that levels are the sole definer
of success. On Nightmare, levels are simply a tool for
interdisciplinary comparisons. You have titles, wealth,
accomplishments, winning elected office, and other things to name a
few.
: When a player has achieved the maximum level and 'won' the game, there
: are often few options they are faced with: start another character to see
: how fast they can win a 2nd time, immort and help code - which many aren't
: too interested in, or transition into another type of player: socializer,
: role player, or playerkiller. And of course the final option, to leave the
: mud and find another game to play.
I never said that level should be used as the criterion for winning
the game. Winning the game assumes niversal goals, which i have
already stated many times that players do not have.
: It has been my own personal experience that role-playing and socializing
: muds hold on to players for a much longer amount of time. The players have
: a reason to keep coming back: their role, and their friends. They have new
: people to play their role with, and new friends to meet. And they can go
: on adventures/quests with others and not have to always worry about how
: much "experience" they are gaining or reward for the adventure - the adventure
: and the friendship is enough by itself to be rewarding.
Again, a point that has nothing to do with levels.
: Players who want numbers are those who want a mud to be like any other single-
: player game. They want to be able to see how well they are doing it and that
: they are 'winning'. This sadly leads to the condition of figuring out what to
: do once they have won. "What would the dog do with the car if he ever caught it?"
Err. no. Many players want numbers who have no interest in the
concept of winning.
: And of course, this is how a lot of people think the game should be. This does
: not mean they are incorrect, simply that it puts an "end point" to a game which
: is meant to continue on indefinitely - causing the mud to be a short-term means
: of entertainment, which I think is bad.
:
: There is nothing WRONG with levels, but there needs to be a lot more in the
: game to provide enjoyment than just [doing whatever needs to be done to gain
: levels] over and over again. Encouraging user interaction is great on big
: muds, but really hurts beginning muds who don't have enough users that are
: online to interact with. And more players breeds more players... getting
: started is the hardest part of all... but that's another topic.
This is a far cry from arguing against my point, which is that players
like levels. That does not mean that a player will like a mud where
you login and press levers in the start room all day to get more
levels.
: My appologies to George for taking his words out of context.
Thank you.
Brian James Green
One asks what players want and where the justification comes from.
I say that I know what players want, because I am one. :)
I never really compared levels to compare myself all that much. Sure, I
used it so I didn't ask the lvl-20 ass-kicker to party when I was a
level 3 wuss. But, mostly, a gain in level didn't mean "I'm better
compared to others", but rather "I have more nifty skills to play with!"
I guess that's not all that great a reason to ditch levels. :) I guess
given my opinions, I'd rather keep 'em.
But, perhaps, as other people have suggested level should be based on
skills instead of skills being based on level. That would be a change
in the paradigm.
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...." -"Defender", Manowar
Brian Green, pch...@iastate.edu aka Psychochild
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Check out: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~pchild to find out about me!
Brian James Green
In <5fhkt5$3...@corn.cso.niu.edu> mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu writes:
>pch...@iastate.edu (Brian James Green) writes:
>>Wow, here's a great post on this thread. Anyone else care to share with
>>us, and show the their design ideas?
>Well, since you asked :)
I'm glad you answered!
>>col...@news.netbyte.co.nz (Colin Coghill) writes:
>>>Brian James Green <pch...@iastate.edu> wrote:
[snip]
>>>>What do you do to keep power-MUDders happy while not upsetting the
>>>>casual MUDder? And vice-versa?
>I am not interested in the POWER-mudder.
[snip]
>In this situation I don't think the idea of an uber-character has meaning.
[snip again!]
I guess I should clarify what I mean by power-MUDder vs. casual-MUDder.
When I first started playing, pulling all-night shifts (while usually
working on the next day's assignment) was par of the course. I'd be on
for 8 hours at a time, and one time was up to 30 or so hours straight.
(No, that's not that long....I knew someone on for a LOT longer...
measured in whole days, not hours).
Anyways, now I'm a casual MUDder. I log on for a bit, play for a
couple, three, four hours, then leave for the day. I don't have the
time or youthful stamina (or the desire to pump my body full of caffiene
again) to endure a huge MUD-a-thon.
How do you keep these two groups happy? If time = exp = skills (or some
progression like that), the casual MUDder won't raise in level as fast.
Now, that's okay, but let's take the typical LP MUD scenario. Assume
I have to get equipment when I log on. Assume that takes about an hour
for a mid-level character. Now, the three-hour MUDder has a two hour
playing time, while the eight-hour MUDder has a seven hour playing
time. If the casual MUDder spends most of his or her time equipping,
then it will become boring fast. (Trust me, it does...)
Besides the obvious "savable equipment" solution (which does have its
own advantages/disadvantages....discussion, anyone? :), how can you work
around this to interest casual MUDders (which might be just as
interested in role-play, even if they aren't on 24/7)?
Also, when I refer to uber-characters, I mean the character that learns
all available skills (worst case, all skills which are available to
everyone) and maxes them, maxes his level/ability, etc and is an
unstopable killing/spying/stealing/etc machine. What do you do when
someone reaches 999 level with 200% in all skills and has 99 for all
stats? Where do you go from there? How do you "discourage" this from
happening?
Comments welcomed. I'll post more of my ideas when RL quits trying to
mug me for all the free time I have.
Anthony C.
In article <5flf5t$120$1...@news.iastate.edu>,
:someone reaches 999 level with 200% in all skills and has 99 for all
:stats? Where do you go from there? How do you "discourage" this from
:happening?
The solution which has been implemented by some people on this group
is to have skill decay for skills that are not constantly used.
The skills the player doesnt use very often probably arent important
anyway. At the highest levels players should be struggling to keep their
skills finely honed.
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
pch...@iastate.edu (Brian James Green) writes:
>mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu writes:
>>pch...@iastate.edu (Brian James Green) writes:
>>>col...@news.netbyte.co.nz (Colin Coghill) writes:
>>>>Brian James Green <pch...@iastate.edu> wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>>>>What do you do to keep power-MUDders happy while not upsetting the
>>>>>casual MUDder? And vice-versa?
>
>>I am not interested in the POWER-mudder.
>
>[snip]
>>[Each of the various types of characters will have different advantages and
>> things to do that other types won't be able to do]
>>In this situation I don't think the idea of an uber-character has meaning.
>Also, when I refer to uber-characters, I mean the character that learns
>all available skills (worst case, all skills which are available to
>everyone) and maxes them, maxes his level/ability, etc and is an
>unstopable killing/spying/stealing/etc machine. What do you do when
>someone reaches 999 level with 200% in all skills and has 99 for all
>stats? Where do you go from there? How do you "discourage" this from
>happening?
stats: Three cases 1)realism, 2) start stats low and stats increase
through use, 3) start stats low and stats increase via training.
1) The max an adult who is not a couch potato can increase their stats
is perhaps 20%.
2) When a stat reaches max then all stats are frozen.
3) Set a max number of points that can be spent on stats
Skills: One possibility is to limit the max level a person can get
on a skill by the stat that the skill is dependant on. Another is
to limit the number of skills a character can learn (Two Towers does
this, though in a far too limiting manner for my tastes). Another
possibility, which is the one I will be using (If I ever get my mud
up and running :) is decay of unused skills. BTW the other two methods
are far easier to code :) (BTW Two Towers makes use of decay of unused
skills as well)
Or you could use some combination of those three
>I guess I should clarify what I mean by power-MUDder vs. casual-MUDder.
>for 8 hours at a time, and one time was up to 30 or so hours straight.
>(No, that's not that long....I knew someone on for a LOT longer...
>measured in whole days, not hours).
>Anyways, now I'm a casual MUDder. I log on for a bit, play for a
>couple, three, four hours, then leave for the day. I don't have the
>I have to get equipment when I log on. Assume that takes about an hour
>for a mid-level character. Now, the three-hour MUDder has a two hour
>playing time, while the eight-hour MUDder has a seven hour playing
>time. If the casual MUDder spends most of his or her time equipping,
>then it will become boring fast. (Trust me, it does...)
>Besides the obvious "savable equipment" solution (which does have its
>own advantages/disadvantages....discussion, anyone? :), how can you work
One possibility is to somehow provide the character with money every time
they log in. <the gears grind in the brain for a while....>
Assume a 100 level mud where power-mudders make it to 20+ with relative
frequency. First level newbies get newbie equipment, everybody else
gets X+Y*L eq-gold, where X and Y are some numbers and L is the level.
eq-gold can only be used for equipment, it can not be used for skills
and can not be given to anybody else, and it disappears when the character
logs off.
Characters can KEEP 1 + L/4 (or some such formula)
pieces of equipment. All non-KEPT equipment would disappear when
the character logs off. (presumably any unique equipment, such as
Orcrist, would either drop where the character was or be sent back
to where it is usually kept)
The disappearing eq-gold and equipment would keep wealth (and objects)
from building up while allowing ease of equiping. The KEEP command
allows builders to code special equipment that characters would lust
after and put it where it might take 1 or 2 hours to get to it. At the
same time it would limit the number of objects that would need to be
stored.
Players could have their characters give other characters their equipment
before logging off, but I think there would be far less incentive to do
so under this scheme.
Characters would still need regular gold for food and drink (if such were
in the game) to train up skills, to buy equipment that is out of reach
of their current allotment of eq-gold, perhaps to buy magic.
If you allow all equipment to be saved one possible way of limiting it
would be to code real encumberance so everybody doesn't carry around
the max wt. they can carry. Another possibility is to charge
rent accordingly.
Other thoughts?
Robert
Walter Goodwin
In article <5fmo3b$g...@news.tamu.edu>,
Anthony C. <acc...@scully.tamu.edu> wrote:
>In article <5flf5t$120$1...@news.iastate.edu>,
>:someone reaches 999 level with 200% in all skills and has 99 for all
>:stats? Where do you go from there? How do you "discourage" this from
>:happening?
>
>is to have skill decay for skills that are not constantly used.
>The skills the player doesnt use very often probably arent important
>anyway. At the highest levels players should be struggling to keep their
>skills finely honed.
And another thing Adam suggested, the skills degrade at a rate that
is proportional to how many/how well skills are known, I might only
know how to pick one type of lock, and thats the only skill I know,
so that skill degrades very slowly, on the other hand, that uber player
will be constantly trying to practice all his skills to keep them
from degrading.
Alberto Barsella
acc...@scully.tamu.edu (Anthony C.) writes:
> In article <5flf5t$120$1...@news.iastate.edu>,
> :someone reaches 999 level with 200% in all skills and has 99 for all
> :stats? Where do you go from there? How do you "discourage" this from
> :happening?
>
> The solution which has been implemented by some people on this group
> is to have skill decay for skills that are not constantly used.
> The skills the player doesnt use very often probably arent important
> anyway. At the highest levels players should be struggling to keep their
> skills finely honed.
Well....struggling is a bit extreme, but the idea would be that you
must choose if you want to be excellent at something and ignore other
things or if you prefer to be average at many things.
The same could be applied to stats, after all warrior have a high str
because they wear armor and do a lot of physical training.
Stats also should evolve with time, depending on your actions.
The limits for stats should be given by race and your "type" of
character (this to avoid a flattening) exactly as skills should be
affected by race and "talent". Both type and talent would be chosen at
character creation, randomly or by player choice, and they should
slightly alter your limits/learning capability.
Alberto
Anthony C.
In article <5fmqjh$c...@corn.cso.niu.edu>,
:>Besides the obvious "savable equipment" solution (which does have its
:>own advantages/disadvantages....discussion, anyone? :), how can you work
I like savable equipment however my system is quite different than
standard muds. In standard muds there are areas that are always the
same and players can always expect to get certain items from certain
mobs from a given area. I have chosen to have a completely random system
(with one shots mixed in) where items and mobs are determined randomly and
statistically. In this case savable equipment is great. I can figure
out frequencies of items based on hours of play or # of creatures killed
etc. I feel that savable equipment is a must have. One reason
I never played muds was because I was appalled at losing all my equipment
each time I left.
:The disappearing eq-gold and equipment would keep wealth (and objects)
:from building up while allowing ease of equiping. The KEEP command
Items building up is not a problem if you can control the statistical
frequency and balance that out by ocassional destruction of items either
through wear and tear or the action of certain creatures such as rust
monsters or slimes. One reason why equipment buildup is a problem in
standard muds is because players know 100% where and how to find
"rare" items.
[I deleted an alternative proposed system, and I wanted to reply to it, but it
is gone from my editor. I didnt really have a true understanding of it
so I won't reply to it now.]
:If you allow all equipment to be saved one possible way of limiting it
:would be to code real encumberance so everybody doesn't carry around
:the max wt. they can carry. Another possibility is to charge
:rent accordingly.
:Other thoughts?
I really dislike rent, and I think many players do also. Limiting equipment
by weight is fine also. I have weight included in the items, but I dont
use it for anything at the moment. Right now there is an inventory of
50 items which all get saved if you die. In addition you can create a
bank account which will let you deposit items into a safe deposit box.
I havent decided yet, but I am thinking that if you are pkilled all your
items are up for grab. To balance this I will implement a spell called
soul bonding which will let you "bond" an item to you so it cant be
taken in the event you are killed. Getting the spell to be cast might
be an adventure in itself, and might only be used for the most powerful
items by the most powerful players. Players hate pstealing, but it
can be balanced if your best items cant be stolen, and if you can keep lots
of backup items someplace that is 100% safe.
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
acc...@scully.tamu.edu (Anthony C.) writes:
>In article <5fmqjh$c...@corn.cso.niu.edu>,
> ocassional destruction of items either
>through wear and tear or the action of certain creatures such as rust
>monsters or slimes.
hmmmm
>I havent decided yet, but I am thinking that if you are pkilled all your
>items are up for grab.
Are you thinking of making a difference between pkill and npkill?
Why?
>To balance this I will implement a spell called
>soul bonding which will let you "bond" an item to you so it cant be
>taken in the event you are killed. Getting the spell to be cast might
>be an adventure in itself, and might only be used for the most powerful
>items by the most powerful players.
Interesting...
>Players hate pstealing, but it
Hey that's life :)
Anthony C.
In article <5fn1d2$s...@corn.cso.niu.edu>,
<mor...@physics.niu.edu.nospam> wrote:
:acc...@scully.tamu.edu (Anthony C.) writes:
:>I havent decided yet, but I am thinking that if you are pkilled all your
:>items are up for grab.
:
:Are you thinking of making a difference between pkill and npkill?
:Why?
I havent decided yet, but most likely no difference. I guess I would
change pkilled to killed. I was thinking that it would be fun if a monster
(say a humanoid) that kills you can equip your stuff. Then if you go
back to kill it it will be a lot harder. Right now when you die monsters
take all your money, however if you kill the one that has your money you
can get it back of course. I like the idea of monsters/player stealing
equipment, and if I played on a mud it wouldnt bother me under certain
conditions. If I could have alternate equipment stored somewhere completely
safe or I had a chance to get them back (even make a quest out of it, hire
people to get it back etc). On the other hand if someone takes a players
Unique Vorpal sword that is only found after about 500 hours of play and quits
the game, that may not be fun. However this may be able to be balanced by the
ability to get it back. i.e. victim puts the word out describing the sword
and if someone sees it in use (could even be a low level player acting as your
spy) they dont have to try to get it back for you, but may just tell you who
they saw with the item so you and your buddies can get it (assuming the user
is different than the person who stole it from you). Players will know who
killed them and who looted from them.
The transition from anger and frustration at the loss makes the triumph of
true success that much sweeter. I think that one part of gameplay
is having negative events occur that players have to get themselves out of.
This gives a feeling of true accomplishment and empowerment that can be
highly addictive. So I think bad events are ok if they are balanced by
equally good events.
One reason why people dont like pkillers in muds is
because the revenge that they can get is so weak. When people are
automatically resurrected after death, death becomes mostly meaningless.
Pkillers cannot be stopped because they can keep coming back and killing
and killing. In my game when you are dead you stay dead until someone goes
to your body and raises you from the dead. If you are a pkiller that goes
wild (as sometimes happens) and the mud gangs up on you, it is possible that
you will be in turn killed (someday if not that day) and your corpse looted
and your body hidden in a room with antimagic cast on it so you cannot
be detected (you have to be found by someone wandering around randomly).
If no one likes you such that no one is interested in rescuing you, you are
essentially permanantly dead.
Brian James Green
>In article <5flf5t$120$1...@news.iastate.edu>,
>:someone reaches 999 level with 200% in all skills and has 99 for all
>:stats? Where do you go from there? How do you "discourage" this from
>:happening?
>The solution which has been implemented by some people on this group
>is to have skill decay for skills that are not constantly used.
>The skills the player doesnt use very often probably arent important
>anyway. At the highest levels players should be struggling to keep their
>skills finely honed.
Good idea, but how do you determine how fast skills decay?
If it's time based, then you discourage communication (sitting around
bullshitting is causing my skills to decrease!), which in turn kills
role-playing (which seems to be a goal of a lot of people on this design
thread, including myself).
If it's use-based, then you effectively put a limit on the number of
skills someone can learn. Now, they have to 1) swing the sword, 2) cast
the spell, 3) sneak around the enemy, etc, etc, in that order in order
to keep their various skills in top shape. This also elimates character
uniquness (Everyone will be single-specialized because it's "easier", or
at the very least will have the "optimal" number of skills they can use
so that no one will decay).
Are there any other systems that I haven't heard or thought about? I'm
curious. Although skill decay does seem like a decent idea, the
implementation can lead to undesireable results.
No flames, only discussion, please.
Adam Wiggins
>>Abstractions are very necessary. Some method is needed to represent
>>a character's state of health, strength and what not. The internal mud
>>representation as well as the representation to the user will be abstract.
>>Which is more "realistic"?
>
>Doesn't Doom give you a metered bar (number 4) as well? Also, this really
>is equivalent to number 3, just in graphical form instead of text form.
This is still just hitpoints. The "abstraction" of how health is represented
inside the system is different from how you display it, and you guys seem
to be getting these things muddled up. The computer has the quantatize
things; that's just how it works. The player (a human) wants to be able
to gain information about the state of their character, so there are
really two questions: a) how to quantatize a character's state within
the system and b) how to display this to the player. Idealy I don't think
these would be all that related. The computer would keep track of tons
of things that the player doesn't "care" about, unless something happens to
them. My body is constantly doing things I don't care about - my lungs
drawing oxygen from the air, my heart pumping blood, my kidneys converting
waste products in my bloodstream to urea, my stomach digesting food that
I've eaten. I don't actually care about any of this, though, unless there's
something amiss and they are unable to perform their duties.
By the same token, it's perfectly possible for the game to keep track of
the state of my various limbs without making it too complex. The main problem
is that RPGs are usually written in such a way so that the internal
representation of the character and what is displayed to the player is
identical. Usually limb-based damage systems look like this:
> limbs
Your head is nominal.
Your neck is nominal.
You have a few bruises on your right shoulder.
Your left shoulder is nominal.
You have a few cuts and a 1st degree burn on your right upper-arm.
Your right lower-arm is nominal.
Your right hand has a scratch.
Your left upper-arm has been severed off.
Your left lower-arm has been severed off.
Your left hand has been severed off.
(etc)
Uh...er, okay. This is great, except, what I really care about is that
MY FUCKING LEFT ARM IS CHOPPED OFF! Do I care that I have a scratch on
my right hand? Of course not! The display should be more like:
> limbs
Your right arm has been severed!
> limbs right arm
You have a few cuts and a 1st degree burn on your right arm.
Or something similar.
>many years of game time. Few muds have aging, however, so this is less of
>a factor, though it could still be nice for roleplaying.
Usually aging is a big factor only if you play your character for a long
time, or get a lot of hastes cast on you. Frequently spellcaster-types
like to get hasted a bunch, which of course lowers their health but
raises their mana regen. Another popular trick is to paralyze someone
and haste them to the point of death, effectively destroying their
character.
>Well, a realistic rpg needs downtime, because there are some things which
>just can't be done quickly. For example, without magical healing, it
>takes weeks to months for a broken bone to heal properly. In a paper rpg,
>the GM can simply say, "Ok, it's going to take a month for Joe to heal
>up. What are the rest of you going to do during that time?"
Welll...originally we were referring to downtime as time that you aren't
logged in, as opposed to waiting for wounds to heal. Obviously waiting
for mana to come back and hitpoints to return are a major part of modern
mudding.
>There's really no good way of handling this kind of thing on a mud. If
>you enforce realistic times for things like healing, doing research,
>travel, etc., things would slow to a crawl and players would spend little
>time doing anything that most would consider interesting. Personally,
>I think that the lack of any good way around this is one of the biggest
>drawbacks of muds from a realism and roleplaying standpoint.
Hmmm. Again I don't think I agree. I don't have any problem with broken
bones taking a while to heal - would be cool if, after getting your arm
broken, you drag yourself back to town and get it patched up with a
splint, and find yourself having to basically do everything one-armed
for a couple weeks of gametime (which translates to a day or two real life,
depending on the speed of time passage on your mud). If the player doesn't
want to deal with this, they are welcome to log that character off for a day.
This is similar to just laying in bed and waiting for it to heal.
The other part of this is that people seem to assume that every character
should be getting bones broken every single day. Why? I'd like to think
that getting bones broken was pretty bad news, and not something that
happens constantly unless you're just hell bent for leather.
>>I am attempting to have the computer compute a "difficulty factor" based
>>on the activity the player attempts to perform and attempt to query the
>>player for confirmation if the player has a unreasonable chance for
>>completion.
>>
>>Ex: A wide chasm lay before you, with a small ledge on the other side.
>>> jump chasm
>>
>>>This maneuver appears to be "extremely difficult". Are you sure? Y/N
As we've discussed before, I hate having prompts like this pop up on me.
I prefer the old route of:
> n
There's a wide chasm before you, you don't know if you can jump over it.
> n! [or] n anyways
You back up a few steps, and go jumping over the chasm!
>>I would like to get as far away from the concept that goals are
>>determined by the system into a more natural way, where the
>>players determine there own goals. I believe if you take a "leveling"
>>goal-based system and replace it with other systemic goals (like
>>questing or puzzle solving) you gain very little in the way of role-playing
>>which is what I want to achieve. Your mileage may vary. :-)
Absolutely. What is a "goal", anyways? You just set it up so that there
is a whole bunch of stuff set up in a world, and arrange natural obstacles.
What the characters decide to pursue and then how the choose to get the
up to the player. The cool thing about this is that players will always
thing of things you never thought of. If you wrote your system in the
right way, however, whatever they think of should work just as it should.
A very simple example of this would be the chasm - you can jump over it,
fly over it (with the right spell), be riding some sort of flying mount,
climb down into it and then back out the other side, throw a grappling hook
across and climb across the rope attached, explore a while and find a way,
get your buddy the half-giant to throw you across...etc etc etc. Each way
will bring in new challanges (climbing down into the chasm - what's down
there? walking around - what's nearby? getting thrown - ouch!).
>Well, it *can* be done, but this is one thing that I don't think can be
>done in an automated fashion. Basically, the GM can take into account
>what the goals of the characters are supposed to be, and award points
>based on those considerations. Again, though, I don't think a mud can
>be made to do this in any reliable fashion (yet, that is. :-).
I very strongly disagree. Your goal is to, say, get a certain plant
which grows beyond yonder chasm. You need the plant because it is an
antidote to the poison in your friend who is suffering back in town.
Your "reward" is the plant, should you get it. In the meantime, whatever
skills you use to achieve that goal (climbing, throwing, exploring)
will go up as a part of the skill-system.
Narien
> : It has been my own personal experience that role-playing and socializing
> : muds hold on to players for a much longer amount of time. The players have
> : a reason to keep coming back: their role, and their friends. They have new
> : people to play their role with, and new friends to meet. And they can go
> : on adventures/quests with others and not have to always worry about how
> : much "experience" they are gaining or reward for the adventure - the adventure
> : and the friendship is enough by itself to be rewarding.
>
> Again, a point that has nothing to do with levels.
>
claim has nothing to do with levels, has everything to do with levels. IMHO, on muds with
primarily levels, most players care only about levels, and couldn't give a damn about RP.
RP is a very powerful link among players. Without it, you loose the whole atmosphere of the
mud, and most of the fun. "the adventure and the friendship is enough by itself to be
rewarding" Isn't that what the whole purpose of playing RP games is? We gather with our
friends, play roles, have fun, and get thrills from solving puzzles. Without the
socializing and RP, almost all of the spark is gone. Players loose sight of the purpose and
care only for leveling. Not ALL players care only for leveling, but most of those that
don't end up playing mushes, where socializing and RP are preserved.
> This is a far cry from arguing against my point, which is that players
> like levels. That does not mean that a player will like a mud where
> you login and press levers in the start room all day to get more
> levels.
Your statment about players liking levels is only a half-truth (some call them lies). Not
all players like levels, and IMHO, a great deal of RPers hate them. I don't understand your
comment about logging on and pressing levers to gain levels. Some muds give experience from
doing such things, maybe that is what you are saying... Anyway, the point I believe Mr.
Rudy was trying to make was that a level system destroys RP by attracting players who want
to compare themselves to others to make themselves feel good. If that is your goal, then
there isn't a problem. If you want the best mud, with the most fun, you should consider
other options. Just because levels have been used for a long time doesn't mean they are the
best system to use. Since the only way you can gain levels is by experience (from what
I've seen), fair and realistic ways to gain experience do not exist. Example: A thief
becomes better at stealing because he killed infinity+1 orcs. Doesn't make sense.
Mr. Reese, you should try not to take things so personally. People are intitled to their
own opinion, as you are yours. Try looking at both sides of the coin. Not all people hate
levels; not all people like them. Arguing one or the other is pointless. Arguing is
pointless. Find a median and solve the problem. I believe the best use of this newsgroup is
to discuss ideas, and propose new ones. Insulting and arguing with one another gets
nowhere, and does not make any progress. It only hurts feelings makes people uneasy. If
you wish levels on your mud, then place them there. If others want to try something new,
and experiment, don't critizise them. Some people want to cater to the levelers - like
yourself, others want to cater to the RPers, and some try to do both. People laughed at the
Wright brothers when they said they could fly. Not all people see things the way you do,
and the way you see things may not be the right way, or the best.
Narien (dben...@mc.net)
"Love thy enemies."
-Holy Bible
Joshua J. Cantrell
In article <5fl86d$bf0$1...@darla.visi.com> bo...@visi.com (George Reese) writes:
>David Rudy (dar...@Eng.Sun.COM) wrote:
>: What I have personally seen, with muds based purely on levels, is there is a
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>: limited amount of time in which they can keep a player 'amused' and having
>: fun. We see the question all too frequently: "What to do with bored high
>: levels?" - the player is amused only while gaining levels, at the top they
>: lose interest. I have seen this happen far too many times.
>
>Because you have levels does not mean that levels are the sole definer
>of success. On Nightmare, levels are simply a tool for
>interdisciplinary comparisons. You have titles, wealth,
>accomplishments, winning elected office, and other things to name a
>few.
Read his first sentence again. He was talking about MUDs that have
no more to do than kill, gain objects, and gain points and levels.
Basically, Circle MUD code seems to be an example of "based purely
on levels" if you don't update it.
[ Sniped comments about levels that I didn't think quite fit. ]
>This is a far cry from arguing against my point, which is that players
>like levels. That does not mean that a player will like a mud where
>you login and press levers in the start room all day to get more
>levels.
What he pointed out was that players who stick around don't do so
because of just their levels. When you say that players like levels,
and you won't get players because you removed visible points and
levels, you are neglecting the other features that players may like.
From reading your post, you even admit that levels are not the
only aspect that makes Nightmare successful. If you think about
having levels as a feature that draws people, you can also think
about a missing feature that people would really like. Removing
one and adding the other, you'll probably loose some players and
gain others. It just depends on the the players' preference.
Joshua Cantrell
j...@cory.berkeley.edu
Adam Wiggins
>>The problem with that (not restricting skills), in my experiences, is
>>that it creates the uber-player (see below). Some skills are going to
>>be more interesting/useful than others. Why would someone pick "long
>>jumping" over "laser rifle" when the latter is probably more useful to
>>accomplish a goal? So, you pick the best selection of skills, train
>>them up to maximum level, and you have the super, can-do-anything
>>player. Bad for game play, IMHO.
>>>>What do you do to keep the uber-player from being created?
Of course, the problem with this is to assume that "laser rifle" and
"long jumping" have the same weight, as a skill. First of all, learning
laser rifle should be difficult and expensive. You need equipment,
practise ranges, teachers to show you how the technology works. Long
jumping you can learn on your own with a soft area to jump into.
These skills are also not comparable. Your question is, "How can
I keep an insanely powerful player from being created?" My question
is - "What's insanely powerful?" If you're speaking in terms of who's
going to win the long jumping competition, laser rifle doesn't help you
much. Obviously this is an extreme example; I'll expand on a little less
ridiculous of a premise below.
>>But, is that at all desireable? I think not, IMHO. I think that all
>>characters should be equally viable, even if someone took "long jumping"
>>over "laser rifle". The difference is how they accomplish a goal.
>>Other opinions?
Yup. The trick here is that they allow you do to completely different
things which aren't actually related. The problem is that the current
mud outlook is that the only thing worth building is killing power. Of
course, this is perfectly understandable, since the only really interesting
thing to do on a mud is kill. What if there were other things to do
that were interesting? I have trouble seeing long jumping ever really
being a whole lot of fun on a mud, but there are plenty of other things
that could be. (Again, more below.)
>1) Stats count. If you have a lousy dex you will be a lousy thief
Right. There's a lot of things I want to do but I can't do it all.
I'm held back by my natural ability - I'll never be a pro-wrestler because
I don't have the build for it. I'll never be an astronaut or a pilot because
of my corrected eyesight. I'm not very good a driving boats, not because
I don't like to drive boats, but because I don't have the money or the
time to invest in learning such a skill.
>1a) the only way to have an ultra high stat is to kill one or more other stats
Well I don't know about that, but life is a game of balance. If you
want to be the sneakiest theif ever, you need to be very small so that
you avoid notice and can fit into small niches. If you want to be the
best fighter ever, size gives you a huge advantage - extra range in combat
due to armspan, being able to wield heavier weapons, being stronger, being
able to take more "damage" due to more flesh on your body. You can't
be both the best thief and the best fighter simutaneously. You could be a
combination of the two by choosing a mid-sized race that can do both
equally well - but you'll never be able to hide as well as that little hobbit
and you'll never be as devestating of a fight as that half-giant.
>1b) stats don't change (I am playing with allowing training to move stats
> up 1 point (on a 20 pt scale) and taking aging into account)
Well, it's reasonable that things like your strength would go up or down
a little, but things like intelligence are pretty fixed. Meaning
that half-giant is always gonna have trouble learning anything complex.
He'll probably prefer to stick to simple, effective skills, such as wrestling
maneuvers and bludgeonous weapons.
>2) Skills can be forgotten. (remembering is easier than learning...)
Naturally. The amount of time it takes to "mantain" a high skill is
large. Thus if you're really good at something, you need to keep
"in practise" or else your skill starts to fall. If you're only
mediocre at something, it probably won't be affected nearly as much
by lack of practise.
>>>>What do you do to keep power-MUDders happy while not upsetting the
>>>>casual MUDder? And vice-versa?
>
>I am not interested in the POWER-mudder.
>I am interested in the role-player, the player who wants to be a Ranger
>or a Thief or a Fighter or whatever. I hope to give those players the
>opportunity to play a Ranger and explore the outlands, spying on Orc
>movements; to play a Thief and break into the second story window
>of the Jeweler's shop; to be a fighter and lead a squad to destroy the
>chief's hut in a raid on an Orc Village
Well, this isn't necessarily role-playing, or even not power mudding.
Power mudding is simply the desire to be the best at what you are.
Since all players are meassured by their killing power, the only way to
be the best is to be the best killer.
Now - what if there were _other_ ways to be the "best", without necessarily
killing? You've already mentioned a few - the thief is a great example.
I had tons of fun with my thief on Arctic - sneaking around past aggressive
mobs, disarming traps, picking locks, stealing money and equipment from
mobs and other players, and when I needed to kill - poison a dagger and
stick it in someone's back. No, he wasn't a very good fighter. Did
it matter? Of course not. All these things were fun, and I was happy
to know I was good at _those_ things, rather than at fighting. By the
same token you can have a ranger who can fight, but this isn't his primary
ability. He can also identify and make use of herbs out in the wilds.
When it comes to travelling long distances he is the guy you want along -
he knows how to hunt for game, find edible plants, find fords in rivers,
set up camps and campfires, even in the pouring rain. If he gets into trouble
he may call upon his animal friends. Sure, everyone knows he's not the
best fighter around, but everyone oohs and aahs when he disappears into the
wilderness for weeks at a time and seems to actually like it BETTER than
a hot meal and a bath at the local inn.
More ideas, building on standard D&D style classes - a cleric who spends
time praying to his god, and converting the local populace. He goes out
on "missions" to find new converts, as well as aquiring wealth and treasure
(for the good of his church!). He also seeks to rid the world of the
scourge of his deity's arch-nemesis, and defiles the shrines of this god
wherever he can.
Different kinds of fighters - a huge minotaur who doesn't even bother with
weapons (they are so confusing, anyways, never knowing which is the sharp
side) and just grabs people, wrestles them to the ground, and chokes them
to death. A wiry human with a longsword and a buckler, who relies on his
speed and ability to parry in order to survive fights. The fully armor-clad
knight who ignores parrying - he just lets his opponent bang fruitlessly
away at his armor while chopping him to little bits with his lochaber axe.
The little hobbit who buy strange herbs from his druid-friend to poison his
knife, then sneaks up behind and slips them into a chink the unsuspecting
target's armor, then lets the paralytic agent in the poison do its work.
A mage who ignore the worldly goods which seem to obssess nearly everyone
else, but instead roams the land looking for new and powerful mystical
spells to enhance his repetoire. Few understand his ways, but those
few that have dared cross him regretted it; strange rumors about people
being turned in to newts or other small reptiles seem to follow in his wake.
The local healer - she relies not on the favors of deities, but only on
her own ability to bind wounds, make splints, administer herbs, and soothe
patients. Everyone likes her, of course, since she has had a chance to
mend some small wound for almost everyone at one point or another. She
is not at all "powerful", yet if someone had the gall to attack her, they
would quickly find the wrath of the community come down upon their heads.
Sorry, that sounds fun to me. I can understand if this sort of thing
doesn't appeal to everyone, but there's plenty of muds if all you want
to do is advance through killing. I'm hoping maybe there's someone
out there who agrees with me and thinks that maybe the above might be
interesting.
>In this situation I don't think the idea of an uber-character has meaning.
Everyone wants to be the best they can be. That's fine. Why does
this have anything to do with killing, unless you're a killer by
profession?
>To start with there will be two measures for players who like to make
>comparisons, level within guilds ( which are gained by learning skills)
>and reputation. Eventually I hope there will also be temporal power :)
>how many shops owned, position in the politics, that sort of thing.
Sure. All of these are relative, though. For that matter, levels
are very relative. You can have one 50th level warrior that totaly
kicks ass (due to equipment) and another who's pretty crappy (due
to lack of equipment). If both were naked they'd be near equal, but
that's not how it works.
Incedentally, I'd like to see a de-emphasis of equipment and
more emphasis placed on your character. The reason it's usually done
the way it is on eq-muds (LPs where you loose all your gear every time you
log off are an exception to this, obviously) is that gear is easy to limit.
Skills are a little more difficult; but that's no reason it can't be done.
How about this - a fixed number of position within certain 'guilds'.
Thus the only way to actually become the High Priest of the Ebon Hand is
for the current high priest to leave his position by whatever means, at
which point characters in the next lower rung would have a chance to
be promoted based on relative worth, or whatever. Being the High Priest
carries many nice benefits, but you must constantly be watching your back
for those that would disposse of you by underhanded means in order to gain
your position.
>I am not sure how the casual mudder will deal with my mud. If they are
>DIKU-oriented I think they will hate it, there is little opportunity
>to just go around killing things*. You have to be willing to do some
>exploration. I hope that it will be entertaining to those who are willing
>to put a little effort into it.
There seems to be a rather anti-diku setiment in this newsgroup. I suppose
I can see why, but I think it's unfair to give diku players, in general,
such a bad rap. Arctic is one of the more popular muds on the net (hangs
out around 160 at night I think), but it's a diku with a (mostly) skill-based
system. Or what about Legend? They do just fine, desipte that their
skill system shouldn't appeal to diku players who only want to kill things.
The thing is, on any mud where the only goal is to kill things, and the only
way to improve your character is to kill things, you're going to (gasp)
kill things. Get rid of this little problem (namely, with a skill-based
system) and your desire to kill things suddenly goes way down, unless you're
just some sort of homicidal maniac. Even though Arctic has standard D&D style
leveling, I could really care less when my mages gain a level - sort of like,
"Oh, look at that." But when he finds a spellbook in some remote location
and studies it to learn some new spell I've never even heard of, I go,
"YES! YES! YEEEEES!" Same thing with the thief - leveling is fine, but what
I really get excited about is finding a lock I've never picked before, because
there's a good chance I'm going to learn up my pick locks skill.
In fact - my mage used to group with a warrior. We made tons of levels
because I'd simply paralyze everything we went to fight, and then let him
beat the living hell out of it. Worked great - except - he started complaining
that he couldn't learn his skills up on paralyzed mobs! "What good is it,"
he asked, "to be a high level warrior that doesn't even have any fighting
skills?" Probably to those used to normal muds (especially dikus) this sounds
a bit odd, but strangely, it makes perfect sense. If you never actually fight
anything (just hack it to bits), how can you actually expect to be better at
parry, bash, dodge, weapon-wielding, etc etc?
>>>Is the game enjoyable for an individual player, or is it more suited
>>>for people travelling in groups?
>>>I have quite a few places where people must co-operate as a group to
>>>get something done. Deliberately so. But I also fully appreciate the
>>>fun of MUDding alone, and often prefer to do so myself.
>
>>A *very* important question our group is pondering over right now. Do
>>we make things 100% individual-orientated, or do we make everything 100%
>>group-orientated, or some mix between? How do we keep groups from
>>totally hosing stuff intended for individuals, or individuals from
>>getting hosed by stuff intended for groups? These are important for
>>gameplay.
To me, interacting with other players is most of what makes muds fun.
Try playing a mud with no players and you'll see what I mean. IMO
any mud where you spend most of your time alone and you just chat with
the other people online is inherently flawed. Maybe this is why I like
dikus - I _like_ getting into humungous 10, 20, or 30 person groups to go
try to take out some insanely tough dragon. I _like_ chasing down people
that ripped me off with that piece of gear they sold me. Stealing
from mobs is useful, but stealing from players is just plain _fun_.
So it's both about co-operation and about competetion. Whether you want
to be an asshole and have everyone hate you, be so nice that everyone likes
you, or somewhere inbetween (choose your friends and enemies), is up to
you. (Just remember that it's only a game, of course, and when someone steals
a few coins from you they are just playing their character, not being an
asshole or trying to insult you personally.)
So I'd say that while you should certainly be able to do plenty of things
by yourself, it should be very worthwhile to team up with others. The
trick is, of course, to make everything dependant on each other. Fred got
ripped off by Bill, so Fred now wants to kill Bill, but knows the only way
he can do it is with subterfuge. So, he goes and talks to a local druid/ranger
type, Steve. Steve says, "Sure, I can get that poison for you, but it
comes from a rare flower which grows only in a cavern inhabited by frost
giants." So Steve and Fred enlist the aid of Tim, the enchanter, to cast
a cloaking spell on them, allowing them to steal through the cave without
notice. Having aquired the flower, Steve goes to work extracting the poison.
Fred successfully poisons Bill. Bill now knows he only has a short time
to live, and guesses that someone probably poisoned him, so he goes to
the local healer. The healer sends him to Kim, the druid, who quickly
recognizes the signs of the poison. "A very rare and difficult to obtain
poison," she says, "which I believe comes from somewhere in the frost caverns.
We must aquire that flower for the antidote..." etc etc etc, onwards it goes.
>I am hoping to have a fair amount of individual type of things, but I
>am also going to have NPC groups for individuals to join.
Okay...this is fine, but NPCs are just still too stupid for this to ever
be much of a replacement for real, human interaction. This is a failing
of the medium, not of you as a programmer, so I see no need to try to force
the computer into doing something it's not too good at. I'd rather concentrate
on letting the computer do what it is good at (keeping track of numbers)
and let the players do what they are good at (breathing life and humanity
in the the game's interactions).
Nathan F. Yospe
In article <5fmqjh$c...@corn.cso.niu.edu>, mor...@physics.niu.edu.nospam wrote:
:pch...@iastate.edu (Brian James Green) writes:
:>mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu writes:
:>>pch...@iastate.edu (Brian James Green) writes:
:>>>col...@news.netbyte.co.nz (Colin Coghill) writes:
:>>>>Brian James Green <pch...@iastate.edu> wrote:
<SNIP>
:>Also, when I refer to uber-characters, I mean the character that learns
:>all available skills (worst case, all skills which are available to
:>everyone) and maxes them, maxes his level/ability, etc and is an
:>unstopable killing/spying/stealing/etc machine. What do you do when
:>someone reaches 999 level with 200% in all skills and has 99 for all
:>stats? Where do you go from there? How do you "discourage" this from
:>happening?
:
:stats: Three cases 1)realism, 2) start stats low and stats increase
:through use, 3) start stats low and stats increase via training.
There is a #4... make stats directly dependant on skills, and visa-versa.
This ties in closely with #1, but only works if the number of relevant stats
is tremendously high. (I have about 70 stats on Singularity2, though the
number tends to change.) The advantages of such a system, if these stats
are transparent, are: decaying stats, related skill sympathtic
improvement, balance and maintainance factors. In short, stats become
manageable by the
same methods you mentioned below for skills.
:1) The max an adult who is not a couch potato can increase their stats
:is perhaps 20%.
:2) When a stat reaches max then all stats are frozen.
:3) Set a max number of points that can be spent on stats
:Skills: One possibility is to limit the max level a person can get
:on a skill by the stat that the skill is dependant on. Another is
:to limit the number of skills a character can learn (Two Towers does
:this, though in a far too limiting manner for my tastes). Another
:possibility, which is the one I will be using (If I ever get my mud
:up and running :) is decay of unused skills. BTW the other two methods
:are far easier to code :) (BTW Two Towers makes use of decay of unused
:skills as well)
:
:Or you could use some combination of those three
I like the third option. I don't much care for the other two. They taste
strongly of artificial limitations, something I have always felt indicated
fundamental design flaws. An option here, perhaps, that you have
overlooked is hidden skill levels. Don't disallow anything - everyone has
every skill. But, skills decay, and no one knows precicely the level of a
skill. They may know that they are highly skilled in, say, combat, but not
specifically how good they are at thrust, except by comparison, or parry,
exept that they rarely get sliced. Another sneaky thing to throw in here
is the fatal misuse skill. Spell slinging, for the unskilled, can be
deadly. Attempting it can get you killed, if you are not trained. The
solution? Obtain professional training to get the skill up to safe levels
of mastery.
:>I have to get equipment when I log on. Assume that takes about an hour
:>for a mid-level character. Now, the three-hour MUDder has a two hour
:>playing time, while the eight-hour MUDder has a seven hour playing
:>time. If the casual MUDder spends most of his or her time equipping,
:>then it will become boring fast. (Trust me, it does...)
:>Besides the obvious "savable equipment" solution (which does have its
:>own advantages/disadvantages....discussion, anyone? :), how can you work
Savable equiptment, but combat damage permanently decays and ultimately
destroys it. A sophisticated damage system should include everything,
from those nice impressive cloth robes the mage wears to the tasteful
enchanted mail he has on under them. If somehow a dragon gets past his
defenses, he will certainly have to replace those robes... er... ashes,
however, his mail, with its anti-heat enchantment, is fine. On the other
hand, after that encounter with the ogre, his robes, though a little
soiled, are certainly servicable. Too bad about those huge dents in his
mail. And after his encounter with the acid mound, neither his robes nor
his mail survived. (Nor his leg, for that matter. Time to get a _really_
good healer, before the shock and blood loss gets to him.) The point of
this is that, unlike non save eq, this allows players to start and stop at
will, with little concern. Unlike normal eq saving, this prevents that guy
with the massive titanium breastplate from always having it at his
disposal.
:One possibility is to somehow provide the character with money every time
:they log in. <the gears grind in the brain for a while....>
Ugh! Hack!!!
:Assume a 100 level mud where power-mudders make it to 20+ with relative
:frequency. First level newbies get newbie equipment, everybody else
:gets X+Y*L eq-gold, where X and Y are some numbers and L is the level.
:eq-gold can only be used for equipment, it can not be used for skills
:and can not be given to anybody else, and it disappears when the character
:logs off.
:Characters can KEEP 1 + L/4 (or some such formula)
:pieces of equipment. All non-KEPT equipment would disappear when
:the character logs off. (presumably any unique equipment, such as
:Orcrist, would either drop where the character was or be sent back
:to where it is usually kept)
:
:The disappearing eq-gold and equipment would keep wealth (and objects)
:from building up while allowing ease of equiping. The KEEP command
:allows builders to code special equipment that characters would lust
:after and put it where it might take 1 or 2 hours to get to it. At the
:same time it would limit the number of objects that would need to be
:stored.
I really feel that this sort of a solution is a tremendous hack. Give some
thought to damage of equiptment. It is quite an effective solution to the
buildup problem. It does not reduce object storage, but... an additional
solution is the ellimination of the "inventory" equiptment location. Allow
them to wear sacks on their belts, perhaps, and on their backs, or
wherever else.. but these things, if they become full, hinder
tremendously. And strongly enforce the relationship between weight and
combat skill decline. (My skill code allows each skill to be based upon an
array of factors, all pretyped before the skill's function even gets
called, with mass, stats, condition, presense of certain items (limbs
being among them) condition of certain items (A sprained ankle is not
usable for running, but it might allow standing.), mass distribution...
you get the idea. All of these are boiled down to can use skill/return
error/hamper capability+return message. A completely damaged rope is
useless for climbing, as it will snap. A damaged hook will probably fail
to grapple.
:Players could have their characters give other characters their equipment
:before logging off, but I think there would be far less incentive to do
:so under this scheme.
Or under the damage scheme. On the other hand, can you imagine the used
sword salesman? "Previously owned, but not a bit of damage! Look at that
shine! What do you mean, the metal is fatigued?"
:Characters would still need regular gold for food and drink (if such were
:in the game) to train up skills, to buy equipment that is out of reach
:of their current allotment of eq-gold, perhaps to buy magic.
Money is money. Having special money for reequptment is silly.
:If you allow all equipment to be saved one possible way of limiting it
:would be to code real encumberance so everybody doesn't carry around
:the max wt. they can carry. Another possibility is to charge
:rent accordingly.
Hmmm.
:Other thoughts?
A nice, thought stimulating post. Thank you.
--
Nathan F. Yospe | There is nothing wrong with being a sociopath. Its
yo...@hawaii.edu | getting caught thats a problem. Be a mad scientist
UH Manoa Physics | Write poetry. Be an artist. Plot world domination.
Biomedical Phys. | Panthers make great pets. Muhahahahahahahahahaha!!
Nathan F. Yospe
In article <5fngv0$hth$1...@news.iastate.edu>, pch...@iastate.edu (Brian
James Green) wrote:
:In <5fmo3b$g...@news.tamu.edu> acc...@scully.tamu.edu (Anthony C.) writes:
:
:>In article <5flf5t$120$1...@news.iastate.edu>,
:>:someone reaches 999 level with 200% in all skills and has 99 for all
:>:stats? Where do you go from there? How do you "discourage" this from
:>:happening?
:
:>The solution which has been implemented by some people on this group
:>is to have skill decay for skills that are not constantly used.
:>The skills the player doesnt use very often probably arent important
:>anyway. At the highest levels players should be struggling to keep their
:>skills finely honed.
:
:Good idea, but how do you determine how fast skills decay?
:
:If it's time based, then you discourage communication (sitting around
:bullshitting is causing my skills to decrease!), which in turn kills
:role-playing (which seems to be a goal of a lot of people on this design
:thread, including myself).
:If it's use-based, then you effectively put a limit on the number of
:skills someone can learn. Now, they have to 1) swing the sword, 2) cast
:the spell, 3) sneak around the enemy, etc, etc, in that order in order
:to keep their various skills in top shape. This also elimates character
:uniquness (Everyone will be single-specialized because it's "easier", or
:at the very least will have the "optimal" number of skills they can use
:so that no one will decay).
:Are there any other systems that I haven't heard or thought about? I'm
:curious. Although skill decay does seem like a decent idea, the
:implementation can lead to undesireable results.
:
:No flames, only discussion, please.
Certainly. Besides, you are one of the least flamable of the current crop
of posters. (I know I'm about as flamable as lighter fluid soaked
mesquitte.)
OK, to the post... I certainly wanted to implement time based decay,
which, as you have pointed out, creates problems of people not
socializing. This is not a desired result... I like RP, and I wanted to
make my world as roll rich and robust as possible, but not at the expense
of socialization. The solution? On certain Dikus, there is a "chat"
function. It doesn't do much, just shuts up the annoying "You are hungry"
spam. Nevertheless, the idea of a similar function, a "I want to go
socialize for a while, so let's quit this worrying about game factors"
command, seemed a good one to me. Of course, for the sake of the game, you
really don't want people jumping in and out of character with their
character still standing in the middle of the battleground, suddenly
talking about the raiders game and turning off their "bleed to death"
progression. The solution? I have a social region, chat rooms, etc,
populated by Chatters, a much simpler class than the Character class
inhabited while in character (gives a whole new meaning to the idea of
IC/OOC) that exhibits social behaviors, but not combat behaviors. When you
leave your Character, you can move it into a storage area (offline file
based storage) or automate it with a script, confident in the strenght of
your script programming skills. (Yes, I actually _encourage_ scripts, in
the sense that I allow programming them on the game, instead of on a
client. On the other hand, I get logs of scripts, so I know where the game
is too predictable, and how to tweak it, or not, if I want to let them
script things like running a store while offline.) The end result of this
is a player base not afraid to socialize, out of character, or in
character, if the socialization is skill based. (Salesmanship, obviously,
is not skill based. You actually make offers and counteroffers when
haggling... bet you didn't realize that every time you got the other guy
down real low you improved your ability to haggle with NPCs... or, for
that matter, win diplomatic confrontations. Obviously, fooling around in
character will not make you a better warrior, but you might improve
something else.
Travis S Casey
Anthony C. <acc...@scully.tamu.edu> wrote:
>
>:The disappearing eq-gold and equipment would keep wealth (and objects)
>:from building up while allowing ease of equiping. The KEEP command
>
>through wear and tear or the action of certain creatures such as rust
>standard muds is because players know 100% where and how to find
>"rare" items.
Wear and tear is a must-have for any system which saves equipment, IMHO.
Most mud types make it very easy for players to get equipment, since
they're just going to lose it on logout anyways. With equipment
saving, looting dead bodies isn't as necessary... which frees up the
mud designers to implement damage to the equipment of monsters who
have been killed. For example, once you've hacked an orc guard to
goulash, his armor probably isn't going to be in very good shape
any more.
Also, such things as armor sizes can be added, since players don't
have to worry about having to find a creature the right size every
time they log on. It becomes possible to have such things as custom
armor (in the real world, plate armor was almost always custom
made... since people's bodies are built differently and metal plate
isn't very flexible, wearing plate armor built for someone else is
uncomfortable and restricting) and other custom items. Also, prices
can be raised, since equipment is now an investment that players can
keep for a long time if they take care of it.
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ System Administrator, FSU CS department
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' (904) 644-7339; Room 011 Love
'---''(_/--' `-'\_) No one agrees with me. Not even me.
rec.games.design FAQ: http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~casey/design.html
Travis S Casey
Adam Wiggins <nigh...@user1.inficad.com> wrote:
[much cut]
>> limbs
>Your right arm has been severed!
>> limbs right arm
>You have a few cuts and a 1st degree burn on your right arm.
I definitely agree; there's no need to tell the players about all
the things which are currently normal. If someone really wants to
see that information, you can make a "verbose" flag for the command.
>>Well, a realistic rpg needs downtime, because there are some things which
>>just can't be done quickly. For example, without magical healing, it
>>takes weeks to months for a broken bone to heal properly. In a paper rpg,
>>the GM can simply say, "Ok, it's going to take a month for Joe to heal
>>up. What are the rest of you going to do during that time?"
>
>Welll...originally we were referring to downtime as time that you aren't
>logged in, as opposed to waiting for wounds to heal. Obviously waiting
>for mana to come back and hitpoints to return are a major part of modern
>mudding.
My point (yes, I do have one) is that characters don't necessarily
have to be treated as if they're in suspended animation while the
player is logged out. Healing, recovery of mana, and some other
activities could be allowed to go on while the player is logged out.
>>There's really no good way of handling this kind of thing on a mud. If
>>you enforce realistic times for things like healing, doing research,
>>travel, etc., things would slow to a crawl and players would spend little
>>time doing anything that most would consider interesting. Personally,
>>I think that the lack of any good way around this is one of the biggest
>>drawbacks of muds from a realism and roleplaying standpoint.
>
>Hmmm. Again I don't think I agree. I don't have any problem with broken
>bones taking a while to heal - would be cool if, after getting your arm
>broken, you drag yourself back to town and get it patched up with a
>splint, and find yourself having to basically do everything one-armed
>for a couple weeks of gametime (which translates to a day or two real life,
>depending on the speed of time passage on your mud). If the player doesn't
>want to deal with this, they are welcome to log that character off for a day.
>This is similar to just laying in bed and waiting for it to heal.
Exactly... this is what I'm talking about with the idea of using downtime
in muds.
>The other part of this is that people seem to assume that every character
>should be getting bones broken every single day. Why? I'd like to think
>that getting bones broken was pretty bad news, and not something that
>happens constantly unless you're just hell bent for leather.
Well, it's not just broken bones... even a shallow cut takes a few
days to heal, and major wounds can take a very long time, particularly
if there's internal damage. Some wounds never fully heal. Characters
on hack-and-slash muds heal much, much faster than real people... they
have to, or the players would spend 90% of their time waiting to heal.
Of course, this doesn't mean that other mud types have to have
fast healing as well... just be prepared to ignore the complaints
you'll get from those who expect all muds to be hack-and-slash. :-)
>>Well, it *can* be done, but this is one thing that I don't think can be
>>done in an automated fashion. Basically, the GM can take into account
>>what the goals of the characters are supposed to be, and award points
>>based on those considerations. Again, though, I don't think a mud can
>>be made to do this in any reliable fashion (yet, that is. :-).
>
>I very strongly disagree. Your goal is to, say, get a certain plant
>which grows beyond yonder chasm. You need the plant because it is an
>antidote to the poison in your friend who is suffering back in town.
>Your "reward" is the plant, should you get it. In the meantime, whatever
>skills you use to achieve that goal (climbing, throwing, exploring)
>will go up as a part of the skill-system.
Umm... I discussed learn-by-use systems in my original post... the
person you replied to happened to cut out that part of the post. What
you describe is certainly true in learn-by-use systems, which is one
reason I prefer them. I only described goal-based systems for
completeness, and to give people who like them a few ideas on how
they can be set up.
Dan Shiovitz
In article <5fngv0$hth$1...@news.iastate.edu>,[..]
>Good idea, but how do you determine how fast skills decay?
>
>If it's time based, then you discourage communication (sitting around
>bullshitting is causing my skills to decrease!), which in turn kills
>role-playing (which seems to be a goal of a lot of people on this design
>thread, including myself).
>
>If it's use-based, then you effectively put a limit on the number of
>skills someone can learn. Now, they have to 1) swing the sword, 2) cast
>the spell, 3) sneak around the enemy, etc, etc, in that order in order
>to keep their various skills in top shape. This also elimates character
>uniquness (Everyone will be single-specialized because it's "easier", or
>at the very least will have the "optimal" number of skills they can use
>so that no one will decay).
>
>Are there any other systems that I haven't heard or thought about? I'm
>curious. Although skill decay does seem like a decent idea, the
>implementation can lead to undesireable results.
Hmmm.. well, how about making skills be two-part values? You learn
the skill slowly and quickly, simultaneously. The slow part you
forget slowly, and the quick part goes away quickly, after you stop
practicing. So, if you're the best swordswoman in the mud, and you
stop swinging a sword for a week, you drop to being only the second
best. Quit for a month, and you're the tenth best. Quit for a year,
or two years, and you're the twelfth best. Quit for five years or ten
years, and you're the thirtiest or fortiest best, but you'll get back
to being in the top ten once you start practicing again much quicker
than joe bob who has never been ranked higher than thirtiest.
> Brian Green, pch...@iastate.edu aka Psychochild
Anthony C.
:
:If it's time based, then you discourage communication (sitting around
:bullshitting is causing my skills to decrease!), which in turn kills
:role-playing (which seems to be a goal of a lot of people on this design
:thread, including myself).
It should be time based with a non linear decay. The curve should be
sigmoidal such that not using skills for say 12 hours of real time results
in little or no decay, after that the decay becomes close to linear such
that skills decay at some fixed rate, possibly a log rate instead.
Then the skills should plateau to some minimum level of skills say down
to 40-50% of the max level.
:If it's use-based, then you effectively put a limit on the number of
:skills someone can learn. Now, they have to 1) swing the sword, 2) cast
:the spell, 3) sneak around the enemy, etc, etc, in that order in order
:to keep their various skills in top shape. This also elimates character
:uniquness (Everyone will be single-specialized because it's "easier", or
:at the very least will have the "optimal" number of skills they can use
:so that no one will decay).
Use based decay doesnt sound very good.
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
yo...@hawaii.edu (Nathan F. Yospe) writes:
>mor...@physics.niu.edu.nospam wrote:
>:pch...@iastate.edu (Brian James Green) writes:
><SNIP>
>:Skills: One possibility is to limit the max level a person can get
>:on a skill by the stat that the skill is dependant on. Another is
>:to limit the number of skills a character can learn (Two Towers does
>:this, though in a far too limiting manner for my tastes). Another
>:possibility, which is the one I will be using (If I ever get my mud
>:up and running :) is decay of unused skills. BTW the other two methods
>:are far easier to code :) (BTW Two Towers makes use of decay of unused
>:skills as well)
>:Or you could use some combination of those three
>I like the third option. I don't much care for the other two. They taste
>strongly of artificial limitations, something I have always felt indicated
>fundamental design flaws.
maybe, maybe not.
Limiting the total number of skills (based on intellegence, or perhaps
based on the relevant stats, so the number of dex based skills you can
learn is based on how high your dex is... just throwing stuff out here)
reduces the amount of fine tuning you have to do with a skill decay
system or eliminates the need for it as a skill limitation device
(ignoring realism for the moment).
And I don't think limiting max skill level based on a relavant skill
is unrealistic. Though perhaps a better way is to reduce the ease
of increase of skill levels and combine that with skill decay.
>An option here, perhaps, that you have overlooked is hidden skill levels.
Don't like it :P
Certainly it is more realistic to provide a list of skill levels via
relatively rough word definitions rather than by fine numbers,
but for myself I don't like it, I like to know just where I am.
A fundimental character flaw? probably :)
>Don't disallow anything - everyone has every skill.
I am planning on effectively giving everybody a skill of -4 in everything :)
>:>I have to get equipment when I log on. Assume that takes about an hour
>:>for a mid-level character. Now, the three-hour MUDder has a two hour
>:>playing time, while the eight-hour MUDder has a seven hour playing
>:>time. If the casual MUDder spends most of his or her time equipping,
>:>then it will become boring fast. (Trust me, it does...)
>:>Besides the obvious "savable equipment" solution (which does have its
>:>own advantages/disadvantages....discussion, anyone? :), how can you work
>Savable equiptment, but combat damage permanently decays and ultimately
>destroys it. A sophisticated damage system should include everything,
>:One possibility is to somehow provide the character with money every time
>:they log in. <the gears grind in the brain for a while....>
[chomp on my suggestion]
>I really feel that this sort of a solution is a tremendous hack.
I agree, but some people don't want to work out a damage system,
some players don't want to have to worry about how worn out their
equipment is.
>:If you allow all equipment to be saved one possible way of limiting it
>:would be to code real encumberance so everybody doesn't carry around
>:the max wt. they can carry. Another possibility is to charge
>:rent accordingly.
>Hmmm.
charging rent accordingly is another hack, but it has some possibilities.
Real encumberance is a pain but doable. all objects need size and wt..
Agility is modified downward for both size and wt. and if you are
going through different terrains... hiking through an area with heavy
brush and no trail with a backpack is a pain (I speak from personal
experience here), try doing it with a sword, a shield, a backpack
and a sack or two full of treasure...
Thanks for the input (esp. on damage...)
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>>:stats? Where do you go from there? How do you "discourage" this from
>>:happening?
>>The solution which has been implemented by some people on this group
>>is to have skill decay for skills that are not constantly used.
>>The skills the player doesnt use very often probably arent important
>>anyway. At the highest levels players should be struggling to keep their
>>skills finely honed.
>Good idea, but how do you determine how fast skills decay?
playtesting
>If it's time based, then you discourage communication (sitting around
>bullshitting is causing my skills to decrease!), which in turn kills
>role-playing (which seems to be a goal of a lot of people on this design
>thread, including myself).
>Are there any other systems that I haven't heard or thought about? I'm
>curious. Although skill decay does seem like a decent idea, the
>implementation can lead to undesireable results.
This is what I like about this newsgroup, it gets me to think :)
The following is inspired by this post and another reply to it...
Both very high and very low levels decay fairly quickly, say one level
per ?day/week? of gametime non-use. Intermediate levels decay slowly,
say one level per month of gametime non-use.
Once a modest level has been reached, say 5th level in a skill, the max
achieved skill is kept track of and relearning a skill to that level
after it has decayed is significantly easier than learning it in
the first place.
I would probably define "non-use" as not using the skill more than
5 times in the time period under discussion. Though that may differ
depending on the skill.
Adam Wiggins
>>The solution which has been implemented by some people on this group
>>is to have skill decay for skills that are not constantly used.
>>The skills the player doesnt use very often probably arent important
>>anyway. At the highest levels players should be struggling to keep their
>>skills finely honed.
>
>Good idea, but how do you determine how fast skills decay?
I like to base it on a combination of how high the skill is versus the
character's mental stats (int and wis, usually). Very high skills decay
quickly, meaning you need to constantly be keeping yourself in top form.
(Like the Olympic skaters that skate 8 - 10 hours a day.) Mediocre or
low doesn't need nearly this much maintinence, although completely ignoring
it for long enough will cause falloff.
>If it's time based, then you discourage communication (sitting around
>bullshitting is causing my skills to decrease!), which in turn kills
>role-playing (which seems to be a goal of a lot of people on this design
>thread, including myself).
Indeed. I'm hoping that the decreased emphasis on killing and "level
as fast as you can" will cause people to desire to hang out in the towns
and chat more; even if they're just waiting for a broken bone to heal
or for their helm to be repaied at a local shop.
When I say skills should decay, I don't mean that they should go down
a point every so many ticks. I mean that, depending on a lot of things,
they may go down once you haven't used them for a certain period of time.
So as long as you get out and practice the things you're good at every
mud "day" or so, you'll be just fine. If you want to improve, of course,
you'll have to spend more time, or if you're really awesome, you'll
have to spend a lot of time to maintain it. But this certainly
shouldn't take away from being able to hang out in taverns and chat
with your buds; we have a time scale where a mud hour is 5 minutes of real
life time, so this means you'd have to be online for three hours without
doing anything before your skills start to go down. Even then, they
won't go down enough to be immediately noticable; but if you don't
practice a certain thing for a long enough time you may find yourself
"rusty" when you go to do it again. Of course, there are difficulties
for each skill, so spells tend to decay very fast (gotta keep those
mages on their toes) but things like swimming you'd have to litterally
not do for years before they go down. The other skills all lie somewhere
inbetween these two extremes.
>If it's use-based, then you effectively put a limit on the number of
>skills someone can learn. Now, they have to 1) swing the sword, 2) cast
>the spell, 3) sneak around the enemy, etc, etc, in that order in order
>to keep their various skills in top shape. This also elimates character
>uniquness (Everyone will be single-specialized because it's "easier", or
>at the very least will have the "optimal" number of skills they can use
>so that no one will decay).
Right. Plus, it gives the proper emphasis to certain skills. Staying
a top-notch swimmer requires no equipment, very little (if any) training,
and almost no time. Being a great fencer requires that you have weapons
and care for them, that you have training from master swordsmen, and that
you have opponents. You can spar, of course, but the best way to learn
how to handle yourself in a "real" fight (which is quite a bit different)
is to actually get into real fights. Unfortunately, this always carries
danger - and if you have a reputation for being the best swordsman around,
there are going to be all kinds of young whippersnappers challanging
that title. It'll only be so long before you slip up...hopefully the
result will only be an injury and not death.
>Are there any other systems that I haven't heard or thought about? I'm
>curious. Although skill decay does seem like a decent idea, the
>implementation can lead to undesireable results.
Well, this is true of anything. :) Decay is tricky. Skill caps (both
specific for skills, based on your character, and "overall", ie a sum
of all your skills) is a far more straightforward and simple way to
handle it, although I prefer a more subtle combination of the two
if you can pull it off.
Adam Wiggins
>>:to limit the number of skills a character can learn (Two Towers does
>>:this, though in a far too limiting manner for my tastes). Another
>>:possibility, which is the one I will be using (If I ever get my mud
>>:up and running :) is decay of unused skills. BTW the other two methods
>>:are far easier to code :) (BTW Two Towers makes use of decay of unused
>>:skills as well)
>
>>strongly of artificial limitations, something I have always felt indicated
>>fundamental design flaws.
>
>is unrealistic. Though perhaps a better way is to reduce the ease
>of increase of skill levels and combine that with skill decay.
One way to have "skill caps" without seems to penalize the players is
to make the display somewhat ambiguous. For instance, one system I've
seen has classes as well as skill levels that increase with use. Sure,
a mage gets his weapon skill to "excellent" in very little time, but a
mage's "excellent" is vastly lower than a warrior's "excellent", which is
in turn slightly higher than a ranger's "excellent", and so on. Although
we're speaking of a non-class system, you can easily implement this by
simple displaying their skill level as the percentage of their maximum
possible. Thus players are satisfied when they see that 100% there, even
if 100% in "sneaking" for a clumsy ogre isn't terribly good compared to
other races/characters.
>Certainly it is more realistic to provide a list of skill levels via
>relatively rough word definitions rather than by fine numbers,
>but for myself I don't like it, I like to know just where I am.
>A fundimental character flaw? probably :)
Shrug, most muds I've played have descriptions ("very good", "poor", etc)
rather than numbers, the main exception being LPs. Doesn't seem to bother
people too much, in fact it gives you a sort of plataeu effect - you
get your skill in a certain thing to fair, think, "Alright!", then it
doesn't go up for a while...when it does, it's cool. Vs number systems
where you go, "eh, another point in X..."
>>Don't disallow anything - everyone has every skill.
>
>I am planning on effectively giving everybody a skill of -4 in everything :)
Well, certainly someone has to show you the skill before you can know it
exists. (Or you read it in a book, or whatever.) I'd be pretty confused
if I logged onto a mud and typed skills and saw a huge list containing
all sorts of wierd things I've never heard of. Plus this increases the
excitement when you discover a "new" skill or spell.
>>:>Besides the obvious "savable equipment" solution (which does have its
>>:>own advantages/disadvantages....discussion, anyone? :), how can you work
>
>>Savable equiptment, but combat damage permanently decays and ultimately
>>destroys it. A sophisticated damage system should include everything,
Heh, I take it this is an LP person. I consider savable equipment around
the same importance as a savable character. Who wants to screw around
with getting new equipment every time they log in? Not to mention being
somewhat hard to swallow in the realism department...
>I agree, but some people don't want to work out a damage system,
>some players don't want to have to worry about how worn out their
>equipment is.
*shrug* the first mud I played had damagable eq, and this was a BIG factor.
People got pissed off if you killed the better repairmen, were hesitant
to fight things like stormgiants which hit really hard and tended to
"scrap" gear without even taking it to a damage state first. Mages had
to pick and choose their spells; they'd hold off on acid blast if they
wanted to preserve that crystal necklace they were trying to get off some
mob, but might open up full blast in a pk hoping to destroy anything and
everything their victim was wearing.
In addition, this provides a natural drain on your money supply that helps
keep the economy in balance. Come to think of it, that mud had one
of the most balanced economies I've ever seen on a mud, and largely because
of this factor.
>charging rent accordingly is another hack, but it has some possibilities.
Well, lots of mud use it and it works pretty well as far as keeping
people from hoarding and so on. What I don't like about it is that
it penalizes those that can't play a lot; sometimes I've lost good items
because I had to log off in a hurry (no time to make rent money) and
then wasn't able to log back on for a couple days. Not the end of
the world, but rather annoying.
>Real encumberance is a pain but doable. all objects need size and wt..
Uh oh! Size and weight! Is there any mud in existance which doesn't
already store these values, even if they aren't used much?
>Agility is modified downward for both size and wt. and if you are
>going through different terrains... hiking through an area with heavy
>brush and no trail with a backpack is a pain (I speak from personal
>experience here), try doing it with a sword, a shield, a backpack
>and a sack or two full of treasure...
Sure.
Jon A. Lambert
Brian James Green <pch...@iastate.edu> wrote in article <5fngv0$hth$1...@news.iastate.edu>...
> >is to have skill decay for skills that are not constantly used.
> >The skills the player doesnt use very often probably arent important
> >anyway. At the highest levels players should be struggling to keep their
> >skills finely honed.
>
> Good idea, but how do you determine how fast skills decay?
>
> bullshitting is causing my skills to decrease!), which in turn kills
> role-playing (which seems to be a goal of a lot of people on this design
> thread, including myself).
>
be detrimental to the roleplaying aspect.
I have chosen not to decay skills based on time. I however do decay stats
based on old age, injury and disease. A player's skills are are heavily influenced
by their stats so there will be skill decay in unusual circumstances and in very
long term play. Although it might be interesting to apply a huge penalty on the
1st or 2nd attempts of executing a mental skill that hasn't been used in several mud
monthes, then immediately restoring the skill to its full ability. This might
require storing a mud last-use timestamp along with players skill objects.
This is how it seems to work for me in RL with little used computer skills and
might be interesting for spell-casting types. Physical skills are of a different
stripe altogether.
> If it's use-based, then you effectively put a limit on the number of
> skills someone can learn. Now, they have to 1) swing the sword, 2) cast
> the spell, 3) sneak around the enemy, etc, etc, in that order in order
> to keep their various skills in top shape. This also elimates character
> uniquness (Everyone will be single-specialized because it's "easier", or
> at the very least will have the "optimal" number of skills they can use
> so that no one will decay).
In my implementation, a player may attempt any skill whether they know it
or not. There is a very heavy penalty however.
>
> Are there any other systems that I haven't heard or thought about? I'm
> curious. Although skill decay does seem like a decent idea, the
> implementation can lead to undesireable results.
Execution of any skill is called a maneuver. The manuever is given a rating from
'routine' to 'absurdly diffucult'. The difficulty of a manuever is based on a character's
current skill and situational modifiers. Skill experience gain is higher the more difficult
the maneuver. Repeated execution of a skill in the same situation results in that
manuever becoming "routine" and then little or no experience gain.
JL
FIZZIX
<Longish snippet about skill system>
make your maximum knowledge also a function of your ability. Learning the
intricacies of anything requires a basic fundamental understanding of how
it works. In most cases this is brought on by actually doingthe thing. To
follow your example, the juggler's teacher keeps telling him about a
special move with 6 balls, but he never really understands it. He can't
grasp what he's saying, because he's never been in the position necessary
for comprehension. In a similiar vein, a person who reads a book on
swordplay, but has never lifted a sword, can't possibly understand
everything he reads.
I thought the sytem was quite good.
-griffie
afader
Dan Shiovitz wrote:
[SNIP]
-> Hmmm.. well, how about making skills be two-part values? You learn
-> the skill slowly and quickly, simultaneously. The slow part you
-> forget slowly, and the quick part goes away quickly, after you stop
-> practicing. So, if you're the best swordswoman in the mud, and you
-> stop swinging a sword for a week, you drop to being only the second
-> best. Quit for a month, and you're the tenth best. Quit for a year,
-> or two years, and you're the twelfth best. Quit for five years or
ten
-> years, and you're the thirtiest or fortiest best, but you'll get back
-> to being in the top ten once you start practicing again much quicker
-> than joe bob who has never been ranked higher than thirtiest.
Hum. I really like that idea. However, lets say you do that for all
skills/spells...
How do you rank the quick and the slow part? Do you merge the quick &
the slow to from an overall skill? In certain places it would make
sense to keep the two divided - Casting some spell like Blade
Enchantment might fail more often if your poor at the quick part - but
you achive better results based on the 'slow' part.
Colin Coghill
On 6 Mar 1997 03:54:37 GMT, Brian James Green <pch...@iastate.edu> wrote:
>
>I guess I should clarify what I mean by power-MUDder vs. casual-MUDder.
>
>working on the next day's assignment) was par of the course. I'd be on
>for 8 hours at a time, and one time was up to 30 or so hours straight.
>Anyways, now I'm a casual MUDder. I log on for a bit, play for a
[snip]
>How do you keep these two groups happy? If time = exp = skills (or some
>progression like that), the casual MUDder won't raise in level as fast.
I'm not too worried about that, as such, but...
>time. If the casual MUDder spends most of his or her time equipping,
>then it will become boring fast. (Trust me, it does...)
Yeah. I initially attacked this one by just allowing saveable equipment.
Players can hire lockers and store things in them.
This then, as you point out, uncovered a whole new range of problems.
The worst, IMHO, being that important (unique) items could end up unreachable
and major parts of the game locked off as a result (Ok, who nicked the key
to the front gates?). There was also the problem that rare, hard to get, items
would start becoming commonplace as they weren't being removed from the game,
or would become too rare, depending on if items stored in lockers were
regenerated.
My current feeling on this is to allow players to "store" items by hiding
them somewhere. It's relatively easy to "hide" items in some rooms (the
rooms have a "hideability" type attribute), and they can be found again
by searching in the room. I have a perception stat, so it's quite possible
for some characters to spot hidden stuff without even looking, and if
the item is well enough hidden ("hide" skill :-) ), it can take quite a while
to find so only the players who are reasonably sure it's there can find it.
This encourages players to find somewhere to hide things if they want to be
able to get at them the next time they play. It also gives players something
else to do. Searching forests for cool junk, etc.
Important "unique" items can be found by means of "locate spell" type
means. (the MUD is mapped onto a strict co-ordinate system)
The obvious disadvantage to this is that the MUD might start to fill up
with junk, and disk space requirements rise noticeably. (not really a
problem). Of course, getting something like this working well with an LP
that does occasionaly reboot, and often has items being edited slightly,
is technically (IMHO) fairly tricky. Although certainly not impossible.
"Janitor" NPC's would probably be nice with this. (Oh dear, an idea from
a Diku :-) )
- Colin
--
"Before Rincewind could stop himself some part of his brain that had
nothing to do took control of his mouth."
-- Terry Pratchett / The Colour of Magic (1983)
-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------
Campaigning for 4 line sigs
Adam Wiggins
>>How do you keep these two groups happy? If time = exp = skills (or some
>>progression like that), the casual MUDder won't raise in level as fast.
>
>I'm not too worried about that, as such, but...
Well, anyone who puts more time into something is going to be better at it.
That's just how it works, and it doesn't really have anything to do
with mudding specifically. However, it should NOT be that time = exp =
skills, nor do I think it usually is. I always know people on the muds
I play that are online for half the day, every day, and have been playing
the same mud for the last five months. Whereas I usually do a sort of
'blitzkreg' routine, just because I have less time to spend mudding, where
I log on, "advance" as far as I can and explore all the interesting areas/
skills/spells very quickly, and then quit the game. This is why I dislike
hitpoints and mana as abstractions for slowing the player down, which is
basically what they do right now. Mana/hp regen is adjusted to keep players
from going "too fast." How boring...
>>time. If the casual MUDder spends most of his or her time equipping,
>>then it will become boring fast. (Trust me, it does...)
>
>Yeah. I initially attacked this one by just allowing saveable equipment.
>Players can hire lockers and store things in them.
Heh, that's what I love about this ng...lots of different folks posting from
different backgrounds. LPs don't seem to have eq saving except via lockers,
etc...most other mudlibs just save everything you're wearing or carrying
whenever you log off, simple as that. No "keep" or "store" commands
to fool around with.
>This then, as you point out, uncovered a whole new range of problems.
>The worst, IMHO, being that important (unique) items could end up unreachable
>and major parts of the game locked off as a result (Ok, who nicked the key
>to the front gates?). There was also the problem that rare, hard to get, items
!rent items. Meaning, if you try to quit the game while carrying a key,
it either disintegrates, falls on the ground where you were standing, or
prints a message that you can't rent with that item.
>would start becoming commonplace as they weren't being removed from the game,
>or would become too rare, depending on if items stored in lockers were
>regenerated.
Eh...normally the items stored on players are counted into the index for
limiting the number in the game. Of course, what you end up with is
"hoarding"...people get a good piece of gear and stash it on a storage
character "just in case", denying other players legitimate use of that
object. There's a lot of solutions to this (charging money for rented items
being the most common), but I dislike this whole routine regardless.
I tend to favor less eq-oriented muds, as this becomes much less of an
issue. In fact, I think eq-limiting is only really necessary for the insanely
powerful items (makes things a lot more interesting when there's only 6
dragon orbs, or one Platemail of Invulnerability); and in those cases the
main thing to prevent "hoarding" is to just make them so insanely rare that
no one would want to store it, ie they'd want to use it. (Could even put a
timer on the item that makes it go away after so long, meaning that people
would want to enjoy the good gear while they can...) And this is yet
another argument for unlimited PK - you've got a char who's wearing a full
set of really awesome unique gear, pretty soon a bunch of conspiritors are
gonna ambush him in the alley, beat the crap outta him, and divide up the
gear amongst themselves.
>My current feeling on this is to allow players to "store" items by hiding
>them somewhere. It's relatively easy to "hide" items in some rooms (the
>rooms have a "hideability" type attribute), and they can be found again
>by searching in the room. I have a perception stat, so it's quite possible
>for some characters to spot hidden stuff without even looking, and if
>the item is well enough hidden ("hide" skill :-) ), it can take quite a while
>to find so only the players who are reasonably sure it's there can find it.
Heh, interesting. Hopefully this isn't too arduous; the main thing I dislike
about eq-storing which requires special store and retrive rituals is that
I can't just log on and get into the game, I say, "Ah, dammit, gotta go get
my stupid spellbook so I can cast 'create food'" and go futz around trying
to get my stuff for a while. Then I have to leave in a hurry and have to
fool around with storing my gear...etc...just a pain.
>This encourages players to find somewhere to hide things if they want to be
>able to get at them the next time they play. It also gives players something
>else to do. Searching forests for cool junk, etc.
That is kinda cool. Maybe make all the best items unstorable, but normal
stuff (longsword and chainmail shirts, ie unlimited items) storable? Thus
when people get that really cool sword they have to go stash it in the forest
someplace, but if they don't want to bother they can just give it to a friend
or something when they log off and go back to using their normal sword next
time they log on.
>Important "unique" items can be found by means of "locate spell" type
>means. (the MUD is mapped onto a strict co-ordinate system)
Allows for the D&D style locate object, which tells you the direction
towards the object as opposed to exactly where it is. Could be cool.
>The obvious disadvantage to this is that the MUD might start to fill up
>with junk, and disk space requirements rise noticeably. (not really a
>problem). Of course, getting something like this working well with an LP
>that does occasionaly reboot, and often has items being edited slightly,
>is technically (IMHO) fairly tricky. Although certainly not impossible.
What difference would a reboot make, exactly?
>"Janitor" NPC's would probably be nice with this. (Oh dear, an idea from
>a Diku :-) )
Hehe...well I generally like to store a timer that indicates how long
it's been since a player interacted with the object, and if the timer gets
to a certain size (in proportion to its value, so that crap items disappear
quicker) it just gets purged as part of normal object maintinence. Also
objects which have a limited amount of usefulness before they disappear
(like drow gear that disentigrates in sunlight) can be interesting.
Colin Coghill
On 9 Mar 1997 11:33:26 -0700, Adam Wiggins <nigh...@user1.inficad.com> wrote:
>>
>>Yeah. I initially attacked this one by just allowing saveable equipment.
>>Players can hire lockers and store things in them.
>
>Heh, that's what I love about this ng...lots of different folks posting from
>different backgrounds. LPs don't seem to have eq saving except via lockers,
>etc...most other mudlibs just save everything you're wearing or carrying
>whenever you log off, simple as that. No "keep" or "store" commands
>to fool around with.
Mmm. The way the game database is held will influence the "usual" way
this kind of thing works. For example, in LP, it actually takes a bit
of effort to make an item survive a reboot, for example. Then there's
the problem of what happens if the code for an item changes with older
versions still in the game?
Certainly not unsolvable, but it can be tricky enough to mean that most
new mudlib-designers couldn't do it until they've already built enough
that it's too late to change everything to support saving.
>>This then, as you point out, uncovered a whole new range of problems.
>>The worst, IMHO, being that important (unique) items could end up unreachable
>>and major parts of the game locked off as a result (Ok, who nicked the key
>>to the front gates?). There was also the problem that rare, hard to get, items
>
>!rent items. Meaning, if you try to quit the game while carrying a key,
>it either disintegrates, falls on the ground where you were standing, or
>prints a message that you can't rent with that item.
Yeah. The problem I have with this is that important items aren't always
obvious to the players, and I really don't want people getting suspicious
over an item just because they couldn't store it along with their other
ones.
>>would start becoming commonplace as they weren't being removed from the game,
>>or would become too rare, depending on if items stored in lockers were
>>regenerated.
>
>Eh...normally the items stored on players are counted into the index for
>limiting the number in the game. Of course, what you end up with is
>"hoarding"...people get a good piece of gear and stash it on a storage
>character "just in case", denying other players legitimate use of that
>object.
Mmm, I'm keeping in mind that some players only log on occasionally, like
once a month. Or, as you say, "hoard" the good stuff.
> There's a lot of solutions to this (charging money for rented items
>being the most common), but I dislike this whole routine regardless.
>I tend to favor less eq-oriented muds, as this becomes much less of an
>issue.
And I like to give the players junk. Lots and lots of junk, with the
occasional cool thing in there. Items to wear, items to hit things
with, items to annoy other players with and, just occasionally, items
that'll open up whole new areas of the game.
>>My current feeling on this is to allow players to "store" items by hiding
>>them somewhere. It's relatively easy to "hide" items in some rooms (the
>
>Heh, interesting. Hopefully this isn't too arduous; the main thing I dislike
>about eq-storing which requires special store and retrive rituals is that
>I can't just log on and get into the game, I say, "Ah, dammit, gotta go get
>my stupid spellbook so I can cast 'create food'" and go futz around trying
>to get my stuff for a while. Then I have to leave in a hurry and have to
Yeah. I've been having a think about this "hide sword in bush" thing, and
am liking it more and more.
Players can have hidden caches of food and healing supplies when they're
adventuring far away from civilisation, they can hide their valuables
somewhere before wandering around the city of thieves, and so on.
I've been wondering how to start clamping down heavily on the amount
that people can carry, and this seems like a reasonable way to support
it.
>>This encourages players to find somewhere to hide things if they want to be
>>able to get at them the next time they play. It also gives players something
>>else to do. Searching forests for cool junk, etc.
>
>That is kinda cool. Maybe make all the best items unstorable, but normal
>stuff (longsword and chainmail shirts, ie unlimited items) storable? Thus
The problem that I have with this is that it draws attention to the
difference between two otherwise identical items (from the players view).
If you had two longswords that seemed pretty much the same, and you
could store one and not the other, you might begin to suspect that maybe
one of them is magical. Where you might not otherwise.
>>Important "unique" items can be found by means of "locate spell" type
>>means. (the MUD is mapped onto a strict co-ordinate system)
>
>Allows for the D&D style locate object, which tells you the direction
>towards the object as opposed to exactly where it is. Could be cool.
Yep, that was my intent.
Leaving players knowing that the item is "about 200 metres to the north",
but having to try and figure out a way there. Of course, such locates
would be expensive or unreliable. Much fun to be had when the item is
on (or even *is*) a wandering NPC.
>>The obvious disadvantage to this is that the MUD might start to fill up
>>with junk, and disk space requirements rise noticeably. (not really a
>>problem). Of course, getting something like this working well with an LP
>>that does occasionaly reboot, and often has items being edited slightly,
>>is technically (IMHO) fairly tricky. Although certainly not impossible.
>
>What difference would a reboot make, exactly?
With an LP (and as far as I know, Diku style) MUD, items are reset to
their "original" locations when the game driver reboots. I know not
all MUDs do this, but it does take a bit of effort (potentially quite
a lot of effort) to make them survive.
Then you have to cope with the code for items being altered, and dealing
with existing copies of the item.
Nothing unachievable, or particularly difficult, but it does require
quite a bit of forward planning when designing the lib.
>Hehe...well I generally like to store a timer that indicates how long
>it's been since a player interacted with the object, and if the timer gets
>to a certain size (in proportion to its value, so that crap items disappear
>quicker) it just gets purged as part of normal object maintinence. Also
Yep. LP's tend to do this by default, or at least provide means for
objects to do it easily. All items get called every <settable> period
to see if they wanna self-destruct, or switch themselves off, or something.
>objects which have a limited amount of usefulness before they disappear
>(like drow gear that disentigrates in sunlight) can be interesting.
Yeah, I like that.
I like equipment to take damage in fights, or while falling off cliffs,
or tramping through sewers, too.
Hmm, another reason for players to be able to hide equipment nearby.
The Orc swings his rusty battleaxe at you and...
...you dodge, deflecting the blow with your trusty backpack. *smash*
Chris Turner
Adam Wiggins (nigh...@user1.inficad.com) wrote:
[Snip]
: >>time. If the casual MUDder spends most of his or her time equipping,
: >>then it will become boring fast. (Trust me, it does...)
: >
: >Yeah. I initially attacked this one by just allowing saveable equipment.
: >Players can hire lockers and store things in them.
: Heh, that's what I love about this ng...lots of different folks posting from
: different backgrounds. LPs don't seem to have eq saving except via lockers,
: etc...most other mudlibs just save everything you're wearing or carrying
: whenever you log off, simple as that. No "keep" or "store" commands
: to fool around with.
: >This then, as you point out, uncovered a whole new range of problems.
: >The worst, IMHO, being that important (unique) items could end up
: >unreachable and major parts of the game locked off as a result (Ok, who
: >nicked the key to the front gates?). There was also the problem that
: >rare, hard to get, items
: !rent items. Meaning, if you try to quit the game while carrying a key,
: it either disintegrates, falls on the ground where you were standing, or
: prints a message that you can't rent with that item.
Or the character stays in the game (controlled by the computer) still
holding the key and faces the possibility of it getting stolen if they are
mugged. I'd imagine you'd have to "cheat" a little and give CPU controled
PCs better chances of getting out of dangerous situations, but it would
solve the problem.
Of course having a single item that can lock of a vast chunk of the game
seems a bit daft to be honest. I can understand it locking a castle or a
city - but such things would have more than one exit - even if it's the
sewer into the nearby river/lake/large body of water.
: >would start becoming commonplace as they weren't being removed from the game,
: >or would become too rare, depending on if items stored in lockers were
: >regenerated.
: Eh...normally the items stored on players are counted into the index for
: limiting the number in the game. Of course, what you end up with is
: "hoarding"...people get a good piece of gear and stash it on a storage
: character "just in case", denying other players legitimate use of that
: object. There's a lot of solutions to this (charging money for rented items
: being the most common), but I dislike this whole routine regardless.
: I tend to favor less eq-oriented muds, as this becomes much less of an
: issue. In fact, I think eq-limiting is only really necessary for the insanely
: powerful items (makes things a lot more interesting when there's only 6
: dragon orbs, or one Platemail of Invulnerability); and in those cases the
: main thing to prevent "hoarding" is to just make them so insanely rare that
: no one would want to store it, ie they'd want to use it. (Could even put a
: timer on the item that makes it go away after so long, meaning that people
: would want to enjoy the good gear while they can...) And this is yet
: another argument for unlimited PK - you've got a char who's wearing a full
: set of really awesome unique gear, pretty soon a bunch of conspiritors are
: gonna ambush him in the alley, beat the crap outta him, and divide up the
: gear amongst themselves.
Or a thief (or band of thieves) could sneak into the persons house and steal
all his stuff. Yet more things for the players to be able to do.
Chris
--
ch...@cimio.co.uk #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.cimio.co.uk/~chris
"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")
H. McDaniel
>My point (yes, I do have one) is that characters don't necessarily
>have to be treated as if they're in suspended animation while the
>player is logged out. Healing, recovery of mana, and some other
>activities could be allowed to go on while the player is logged out.
>
>
From a technical aspect of course the idea woud be to calculate recoup
during offline time at re-connect. The problem: should not negative aswell
as positive effects be calculated? In the interest of fairness, it would be
possible for a player's character to die while they are away from the game
-- in the same way it would be possible for their character to be `magically`
healed should the re-connect after a suitable period of time.
My opinion is that the entertainment would be second to "realism" in such
a VR. And that the vast majority of people want entertainment to outweigh
realism when push comes to shove.
Consider for instance that wheras traditionally MUD rules have only
applied within the VR of the game, you would be instituting something
that forces constraints on the player's real world. Now he or she will
be worrying about re-connecting to the game before the hour (or what have
you) is up and their character suffers.
>>>There's really no good way of handling this kind of thing on a mud. If
>>>you enforce realistic times for things like healing, doing research,
>>>travel, etc., things would slow to a crawl and players would spend little
>>>time doing anything that most would consider interesting. Personally,
>>>I think that the lack of any good way around this is one of the biggest
>>>drawbacks of muds from a realism and roleplaying standpoint.
Drawback? Not all muds are created equal! And they should not be either.
Your word, "interesting" is a key. Players *will* spend weeks RL trapped
here or there... or adventuring IF it is interesting. I have seen it.
But if it isn't ... well.
>>Hmmm. Again I don't think I agree. I don't have any problem with broken
>>bones taking a while to heal - would be cool if, after getting your arm
>>broken, you drag yourself back to town and get it patched up with a
>>splint, and find yourself having to basically do everything one-armed
>>for a couple weeks of gametime (which translates to a day or two real life,
>>depending on the speed of time passage on your mud). If the player doesn't
>>want to deal with this, they are welcome to log that character off for a day.
>>This is similar to just laying in bed and waiting for it to heal.
>
>Exactly... this is what I'm talking about with the idea of using downtime
>in muds.
>
>>The other part of this is that people seem to assume that every character
>>should be getting bones broken every single day. Why? I'd like to think
>>that getting bones broken was pretty bad news, and not something that
>>happens constantly unless you're just hell bent for leather.
If people did 1/5th the things they try in your average combat MUD in RL,
most of them would be dead. Less only laying up in the hospital. That
is part of why people like to play such games. E n t e r t a i n m e n t.
>Well, it's not just broken bones... even a shallow cut takes a few
>days to heal, and major wounds can take a very long time, particularly
>if there's internal damage. Some wounds never fully heal. Characters
>on hack-and-slash muds heal much, much faster than real people... they
>have to, or the players would spend 90% of their time waiting to heal.
They can also DIE faster. There is balance in a properly created game.
If you were poisoned on such a game, you could just as easily die in 5
minutes, as recoup from having every bone in your body shattered.
If people spent more time playing MUDS then living RL there would be
a serious demand for realistic time for such things in the game. As it
is, your average joe plays a few minutes here or there. Perhaps an hour
now and then. Yes there are some addicts who spend 8+ hours a day
playing, but they are not the norm.
And if you say there are lots of such people, it still doesn't justify matching
RL time, because it could impact user base growth.
Lastly -- I think there is a role for long time events. But only when the events
are INTERESTING. Most RL events are not interesting enough to justify
such time. And those that do invariably involve or can involve multiple
players (ie: a group doing something together.)
-McDaniel
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>>My point (yes, I do have one) is that characters don't necessarily
>>have to be treated as if they're in suspended animation while the
>>player is logged out. Healing, recovery of mana, and some other
>>activities could be allowed to go on while the player is logged out.
>From a technical aspect of course the idea woud be to calculate recoup
>during offline time at re-connect. The problem: should not negative aswell
>as positive effects be calculated? In the interest of fairness, it would be
>possible for a player's character to die while they are away from the game
>-- in the same way it would be possible for their character to be `magically`
>healed should the re-connect after a suitable period of time.
[lots of good ideas and thoughts deleted]
Die? I don't think so, just too drastic.
I like the idea in another thread (or maybe it was a subthread of this one)
that in order to allow players to keep valuable artifacts but to reduce
hording thieves should be able to steal from players when they are logged off.
I am playing with two types of quiting, one in which the character is
frozen, wounds and all, the other in which the character finds an Inn
to rest up in.
I would like wounds, sleep, fatigue to be dealt with, but hunger, thirst,
skill decay and interaction with other characters while logged off have to
be dealt with as well.
I am thinking of having time slow down and reducing healing and other good
stuff not only by time slow down but also by the amount of stuff the
PC keeps safe by keeping on hir body. (the rest of the material goods
would be stored in the (locked) Inn room and would be fair game for theives.
But this doesn't solve the problem of hoarded artifacts. Maybe everything
would be fair game (though the better the Inn the less likely a theif would
get in) but the locks would be improved for logged out players to reduce
the chance of break in.
Chris Turner
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
: >>My point (yes, I do have one) is that characters don't necessarily have
: >>to be treated as if they're in suspended animation while the player is
: >>logged out. Healing, recovery of mana, and some other activities could
: >>be allowed to go on while the player is logged out.
: >From a technical aspect of course the idea woud be to calculate recoup
: >during offline time at re-connect. The problem: should not negative
: >aswell as positive effects be calculated? In the interest of fairness,
: >it would be possible for a player's character to die while they are away
: >from the game -- in the same way it would be possible for their character
: >to be `magically` healed should the re-connect after a suitable period of
: >time.
: [lots of good ideas and thoughts deleted]
: Die? I don't think so, just too drastic.
Well death should be possible, but only if the player logs out in the middle
of a battle and is really really really unlucky. I'd expect the computer to
start fudging dice-rolls (just like a real human GM would) to keep the
player alive long enough for them to log on again.
: I like the idea in another thread (or maybe it was a subthread of this
: one) that in order to allow players to keep valuable artifacts but to
: reduce hording thieves should be able to steal from players when they are
: logged off.
Ideally what I was suggesting was that thieves should be able to steal from
houses etc.
: I am playing with two types of quiting, one in which the character is
: frozen, wounds and all, the other in which the character finds an Inn
: to rest up in.
: I would like wounds, sleep, fatigue to be dealt with, but hunger, thirst,
: skill decay and interaction with other characters while logged off have to
: be dealt with as well.
Having interaction when your logged off would help if you're on the wrong
side of the pond to everyone else on the mud. The only problem I see, is
that if you do this, you have to blur the differences between players and
other (non-player) characters, otherwise you'll end up with Mr. Well'ard P.
Killer wandering about trying to find players that "aren't really there" and
trying his hardest to kill them. If he couldn't tell who was a player & who
wasn't (from looking at the who list for example) then he can't go off and
single people out.
: I am thinking of having time slow down and reducing healing and other good
: stuff not only by time slow down but also by the amount of stuff the
: PC keeps safe by keeping on hir body. (the rest of the material goods
: would be stored in the (locked) Inn room and would be fair game for theives.
: But this doesn't solve the problem of hoarded artifacts. Maybe everything
: would be fair game (though the better the Inn the less likely a theif would
: get in) but the locks would be improved for logged out players to reduce
: the chance of break in.
Well the chances of a thief breaking into a room shouldn't really change if
the player is logged in or not. Even if the player is in the room the thief
can still break in. It just means that the thief hasn't done his homework
and is going to get his butt kicked. *8)
Adam Wiggins
>Drawback? Not all muds are created equal! And they should not be either.
>Your word, "interesting" is a key. Players *will* spend weeks RL trapped
>here or there... or adventuring IF it is interesting. I have seen it.
>But if it isn't ... well.
Right, and I've long been arguing this point - why put _anything_ into
the game if it isn't interesting? (My favorite example is food and drink.)
>>>Hmmm. Again I don't think I agree. I don't have any problem with broken
>>>bones taking a while to heal - would be cool if, after getting your arm
>>>broken, you drag yourself back to town and get it patched up with a
>>>splint, and find yourself having to basically do everything one-armed
>>>for a couple weeks of gametime (which translates to a day or two real life,
>>>depending on the speed of time passage on your mud). If the player doesn't
>>>want to deal with this, they are welcome to log that character off for a day.
>>>This is similar to just laying in bed and waiting for it to heal.
>>
>>Exactly... this is what I'm talking about with the idea of using downtime
>>in muds.
Hmmm I think what I was replying to (was a week or so ago, don't remember
exactly) was the idea that "downtime" should include you character working
a job and making money, then loosing money due to paying rent, buying food
and drink, etc. Healing while offline is cool in my book; I really hate
logging off in a hurry with low moves and hitpoints, then logging back on
two days later and going, "Ah man, now I gotta sit around for six ticks
while I regen." Sometimes you can get around this by going linkdead instead
of renting, so that you regen back to full.
>>>The other part of this is that people seem to assume that every character
>>>should be getting bones broken every single day. Why? I'd like to think
>>>that getting bones broken was pretty bad news, and not something that
>>>happens constantly unless you're just hell bent for leather.
>
>If people did 1/5th the things they try in your average combat MUD in RL,
>most of them would be dead. Less only laying up in the hospital. That
>is part of why people like to play such games. E n t e r t a i n m e n t.
This is fine, however I think the idea of getting annihilated 10 times a
round and shrugging it off has been beat into the ground. You get this
effect where one becomes totaly desensitized to this sort of thing.
What if a bone breaking was a pretty major occurance, one that made you
go, "Oh, SHIT!" if you were on the receiving end, and go "YES! I RULE!"
when you were on the delivering end? Versus, "Hmmm dammit this sort sucks,
I'm only delimbing him one swing in three with it."
>>Well, it's not just broken bones... even a shallow cut takes a few
>>days to heal, and major wounds can take a very long time, particularly
>>if there's internal damage. Some wounds never fully heal. Characters
>>on hack-and-slash muds heal much, much faster than real people... they
>>have to, or the players would spend 90% of their time waiting to heal.
Actually, having spent quite a bit of time speaking with experienced ER
and OR nurses on this topic for precisely the reason of bringing more
realism to my mud, it's rather amazing what the human body can do.
A youthfull, well-nourished person can recover from some truly massive
flesh wounds in a matter of weeks. Broken bones never take more than
two months. Burns are the only exception, because they are so massively
destructive.
Anyways, you're assuming hack-and-slash style combat where you _expect_
to get the shit beaten out of you in any fight that is worth doing.
Why? What if combat were a careful dance of parries, thrusts, ripostes,
feints, and lunges? In mortal combat you rarely end up with one
combatant dead and the other just inches away from death. It's more like
there's the winner who got away with some minor wounds (or none at all),
and the loser, who is dead. (For that matter, why does all combat have
to be mortal?)
>They can also DIE faster. There is balance in a properly created game.
>If you were poisoned on such a game, you could just as easily die in 5
>minutes, as recoup from having every bone in your body shattered.
Cool.
>If people spent more time playing MUDS then living RL there would be
>a serious demand for realistic time for such things in the game. As it
>is, your average joe plays a few minutes here or there. Perhaps an hour
>now and then. Yes there are some addicts who spend 8+ hours a day
>playing, but they are not the norm.
Well, I don't know about that. Granted, there aren't a lot of mudders
in general, but the ones that there are generally are pretty dedicated.
I remember when Arctic was on an up-swing in popularity a year or two
back; I'd be logged on for ten hours and be 2/3rds of the way down the 'who'
list of 150 people.
>And if you say there are lots of such people, it still doesn't justify matching
>RL time, because it could impact user base growth.
No, you're kind of missing the point. I don't think people should get
into a fight, get both their arms broken, spend eight weeks recovering,
then repeat the process. Getting your arm broken in a fight should be a
rare occurance, and in many cases it will be followed by death unless you
manage to escape somehow. Ie, any fight you get your arm broken in is
probably not a fight you're going to win.
I'd like to actually _reduse_ the amount of dead time on muds. I've
played muds where warriors would go kill something, get a whole bunch of
exp, then go sleep for 45 minutes RL while their hps come back, and they'd
just go read usenet or something. Why is this neccessary? Why not
be able to _play_ the entire time you're online?
>Lastly -- I think there is a role for long time events. But only when the even
>are INTERESTING. Most RL events are not interesting enough to justify
>such time. And those that do invariably involve or can involve multiple
>players (ie: a group doing something together.)
I heartily agree; however, interesting is what you make it. That is,
I don't find lockpicking very interesting on most muds, because there's
not much to it. But it's pretty interesting in real life. Why not borrow
that for use in a mud? Hell, being a doctor is one of the most complicated
and interesting professions there is - but on a mud, it usually translates
to either #3 cast 'heal' juma or #3 bandage juma. Gee, exciting.