DESIGN: Original themes, running muds <rant>
Jon Lambert
In article <yospe-ya02408000...@News.hawaii.edu>,
yo...@hawaii.remove.this.edu says...
>
A most excellent and well-formatted rant ;)
(how the heck you do that?)
>We've now got people trying to claim themes... and yet using stock
>areas and clones of midgaard in unmodified (or virtually so) stock
>dikumuds. Roms, Circles, it makes little difference. This makes me
>ill. Now, I will admit that the code itself is flawed, but anyone,
>when planning to start a mud, ought to have at least a vague idea,
>some faint clue, about how to actually change parts of it. And the
>very idea of starting a mud with no more plan for theme than "With
>a sort of rennaisance feel" (and that wasn't a quote... the person
>who said something like that couldn't spell either.) is anathemic.
I was also at a loss at the "semi-renaisance" (sic) theme. I was
trying to picture Midgaard within this time frame with all the pagan
relics defaced and destroyed. What with all those elves, dwarves,
hobbitses and smurfs running around. Egads, you're a priest of Mota?
Burn the heretic!
>At the very least, create something of a reason for a mud in those
>austere settings of yours. In a time when the weapon of choice was
>hardly a weapon of mass war, and when arts flourished and forsook,
>even defied, the bounds set by a long ruling church, surely such a
>combat oriented codebase is inappropriate?
Nod. It wasn't until the latter 1500's that the lock was developed for
firearms. Somewhat beyond the rennaisance (of course it's "semi-" isn't
it). Rennaisance guns took the form of hand cannons lashed to a stick
and fired with a slow-burning cord (match). More often than not they
blew up on the firer and very rarely hit anything. They did however
scare horses and peasants. :)
>It saddens me that most
>of the non-stock themes out there are based on WoD and WoT. I will
>admit that they were both decent series, and fairly good reads, or
>what passes for such these days, but please! Surely there are some
>ORIGINAL worlds in the minds of people out there?
No you are sadly mistaken. There is ONLY generic fantasy. *sigh*
All fantasy IS identical. All fantasy IS described by D&D. :P
On a serious note. One would think that that the particular age group
of most those imping muds is either well-read in or at least fond of
reading fantasy/science fiction and would tend to be very imaginative
within this genre.
I guess not.
>There
>are a few other muds I know of that have consistant themes and the
>support of a detailed story. Some are Dikus, some are LPs, several
>are scratch, and a few are even Tiny based.
Yes these tend to be the most interesting. It's not the codebase that
is particularly important (much though we dwell on such technical issues)
It's the game (or theme) that makes the mud interesting and worthwhile.
And of course players willing to play within the scope of the environment.
>
>I've ranted enough. *whew*
>
Ok, relax now. :)
JL
Nathan F. Yospe
jlsy...@nospam.ix.netcom.com (Jon Lambert) wrote:
:In article <yospe-ya02408000...@News.hawaii.edu>,
:yo...@hawaii.remove.this.edu says...
:>
:
:A most excellent and well-formatted rant ;)
:(how the heck you do that?)
I'm a writer. =P Besides, I've had practice... see alt.fan.pratchett.
:Nod. It wasn't until the latter 1500's that the lock was developed for
:firearms. Somewhat beyond the rennaisance (of course it's "semi-" isn't
:it). Rennaisance guns took the form of hand cannons lashed to a stick
:and fired with a slow-burning cord (match). More often than not they
:blew up on the firer and very rarely hit anything. They did however
:scare horses and peasants. :)
As I recall, they took the form of ... blunderbusses, was it? However
real their existance, however, they were NOT prevailent in the common
person's culture.
:>what passes for such these days, but please! Surely there are some
:>ORIGINAL worlds in the minds of people out there?
:No you are sadly mistaken. There is ONLY generic fantasy. *sigh*
:All fantasy IS identical. All fantasy IS described by D&D. :P
*urgh* Does that mean Le Guin and Elizabeth Moon never wrote anything
good? Or Lawrance Watt-Evans, not to mention Terry Pratchett, Asprin,
Friesner, or Dave Dunkin? Some of the above crafted entire systems of
magic, worlds and cultures founded on that magic... and not a whit or
whim of AD&D. Heck, even that Tolkein fellow was pretty OK.
:On a serious note. One would think that that the particular age group
:of most those imping muds is either well-read in or at least fond of
:reading fantasy/science fiction and would tend to be very imaginative
:within this genre.
:I guess not.
What, you mean 13? Or do they only ACT like it?
:>There
:>are a few other muds I know of that have consistant themes and the
:>support of a detailed story. Some are Dikus, some are LPs, several
:>are scratch, and a few are even Tiny based.
:Yes these tend to be the most interesting. It's not the codebase that
:is particularly important (much though we dwell on such technical issues)
:It's the game (or theme) that makes the mud interesting and worthwhile.
:And of course players willing to play within the scope of the environment.
Well, I'm still impressed with the mud I tried last night (Hi Scott!)
as an example of what a consistant world can do. Shame it still based
its areas on the room concept... but that alone is demonstrative. You
don't NEED something like Physmud++ or some other new (Third? Fourth?
Fifth already?) generation codebase to be different and actually fun.
Just a theme. And a lot of work and thought. (though the mud above is
as far as I know, a new generation, such as it is, based mud)
:>I've ranted enough. *whew*
:Ok, relax now. :)
ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
--
Nathan F. Yospe | There's nothing wrong with being a sociopath. Getting
yo...@hawaii.edu | caught is the problem. Mad scientists are for real. I
UH Manoa Physics | happen to be QUITE furious about a lot of things. The
Biomedical Phys. | scientist is also the dreamer. Magic is in your mind.
Richard Woolcock
Matt Chatterley wrote:
>
> On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, Nathan F. Yospe wrote:[snip]
> > At the very least, create something of a reason for a mud in those
> > austere settings of yours. In a time when the weapon of choice was
> > hardly a weapon of mass war, and when arts flourished and forsook,
> > even defied, the bounds set by a long ruling church, surely such a
> > of the non-stock themes out there are based on WoD and WoT. I will
>
Just a comment in my own defence. I have only ever seen WoD MUSHES,
which are purely roleplay. I have seen muds which have copied a little
WoD stuff, but never well. Even though I still have a fair bit of coding
to add before going public, I still believe my mud is the most accurate
WoD mud there is.
I would suggest you only take into account muds which do a theme WELL
in your calculations.
KaVir.
Dee J Mann
Hrrmm...It's true it doesn't matter the code base, some peeps look at the
newer code bases, like myself, and see that the lib seems to fall more
toward what the Admin is aiming towards. Ie. I'm running Lima, which
we're modifying the stats (pretty easy) but for the stats to emulate the
system that they are derived from, which is very modular, just never(to
the best of my knowledge) has been implemented into a mud. The game
system is Hero(tm). It bases the combat on dex using a formula to come up
with an Offensive Combat Value (OCV) it also comes up with a Defensive
Combat Value (DCV) all of that effects combat and in turn makes it more
realistic, of course, with the skill modifiers etc. The combat values
have to be incorporated into the combat daemon as well as combat
manuvers(sp?). I'm also incorporating a phase setup which will determine
when everyone moves, the speed will be based on the player with the
highest Speed, which is a derived stat, from Dex. But there is no real
exp awarded for killing a monster, only using the skills involved with
killing the monster. That fits our RP theme more in the aspect of
encouraging everyone to flesh out what would actually make their character
have a personality, using skills more. We're also taking the rolling of
stats out completely, which makes everyone equal in the beginning unless
they specify otherwise.
Does this sound like AD&D?
The theme is still medieval, as the world is based on my own creation.
The races do NOT all live in harmony, I don't mean dwarf-elf wars, i mean
humans vs. everything else, by default of some of the various kingdoms.
Magic in some nations is illegal, and in some others you have to register
with the church. This is just some of the things we've developed into the
theme.
Orriginal muds are out there, not necessarily modified libs, but in most
cases they are, or scratch written. Like ya said, it doesn't depend on
the code base, it depends on how well the Admin thought out the mud, but
the code base can greatly influence how you actually implement it. Some
peeps get scared when they can't do what they wanna do with the lib, as in
that it's not already incorporated, so they water down the theme some
more, which in the end makes the mud less interesting. The sad thing is,
there are more of these muds than the other. But in my opinion, themeless
muds truly suck, there is nothing that holds them together. Only combat
and how quick you can level, and possibly the player base.
Laterz!
Icebreaker
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Web Page: www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~deemann * 'And out come the wolves,
Old Realms: oldrealms.tander.com 6000 * their paws trampling the
******************************************** snow the alphabet. I stand on
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there * my head and watch it all go
happy people? * away' - Junkyman, Rancid
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md...@insect.sd.monash.edu.au
In article <yospe-ya02408000...@News.hawaii.edu>, Nathan F. Yospe wrote:
>We've now got people trying to claim themes... and yet using stock
>areas and clones of midgaard in unmodified (or virtually so) stock
etc in a well-reasoned rant.
And by the way justifying the use of a stock codebase for most of us mortals.
Designing a mud with a coherent theme and world and storyline is a very
large task, while it is probably the best of all worlds to have the coders
with the time to build your code from scratch and then build your own
original world with the code exactly tailored to support it, but only
a very few of us have the time and energy and ability to build a utopia.
Using stock code as a base can be very rewarding in building a world
and can be very original and innovative in terms of storyline and
player interaction, not necessarily but can be.
I think people like Katerina(?) have a very narrow view of why
people are involved in muds and what is original. To my mind the
actual coding of the mud is not the exciting and the interesting
part of mudding. The exciting and interesting part of mudding is the
world, the story and most importantly where your players take your
story, of course that is just my opinion. Katerina obviously is an
in-depth, hands-on coder and that is what she enjoys and all power
to her, people like her and Nathan and George with Nightmare and many
others are an important driving force in making muds better.
But mechanics are far from the only thing driving the improvement
of muds and for those of us who are mainly interested in developing
coherent themes and worlds to create good roleplaying environments
they are only the start of the design process.
Using stockcode lets us spend our scarce time on the aspects which are
important to us and important in making our game a fun game for the
players.
Martin
they ar
John Adelsberger
Nathan F. Yospe (yo...@hawaii.remove.this.edu) wrote:
: whim of AD&D. Heck, even that Tolkein fellow was pretty OK.
Considering that Tolkein _invented_ the damn genre...
: Well, I'm still impressed with the mud I tried last night (Hi Scott!)
: as an example of what a consistant world can do. Shame it still based
: its areas on the room concept... but that alone is demonstrative. You
The room concept is actually _better_ for some stuff, but I don't know
what sort of mud you tried. (For instance, a room concept is perfectly
good for a setting in which you are _always_ indoors, and probably is
better suited to such than a pure coord setup.) Try not to assume that
anything new is always better than what it replaces.
: don't NEED something like Physmud++ or some other new (Third? Fourth?
: Fifth already?) generation codebase to be different and actually fun.
: Just a theme. And a lot of work and thought. (though the mud above is
: as far as I know, a new generation, such as it is, based mud)
I've always believed this, but I also believe that certain codebases are
so hideously out of date and so hideously hard to improve/modify/extend
that nobody will ever make a truly original game out of them again.
This tends to include the Diku crowd, although I will admit in advance
that if the Circle people, as they are discussing, rewrite Circle in
C++ in a truly OO fashion, it might become(and might not, who knows?:)
the absolute mack of fantasy combat muds of any theme or twist. Not
wonderfully original, but at least they wouldn't all have Midgaard:)
--
John J. Adelsberger III
j...@umr.edu
"There are none so blind as those who will not see." - Kansas
Threshold Fantasy Online RPG
In article <5usfqf$hs4$2...@news.cc.umr.edu>,
j...@ultra6.cc.umr.edu (John Adelsberger) wrote:
>Nathan F. Yospe (yo...@hawaii.remove.this.edu) wrote:
>
>: whim of AD&D. Heck, even that Tolkein fellow was pretty OK.
>
>Considering that Tolkein _invented_ the damn genre...
What genre are you saying that Tolkien invented? I hope you don't mean
fantasy, swords@sorcery, or any other term for the "AD&D-ish" genre, because
Tolkien certainly did NOT invent that.
Tolkien invented his story universe. He did not invent a genre.
-Aristotle@Threshold
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Player run clans, guilds, businesses, legal system, nobility, missile
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Jon Lambert
In article <5usujq$e...@dfw-ixnews12.ix.netcom.com>, thre...@counseltech.com says...
>
>In article <5usfqf$hs4$2...@news.cc.umr.edu>,
> j...@ultra6.cc.umr.edu (John Adelsberger) wrote:
>>Nathan F. Yospe (yo...@hawaii.remove.this.edu) wrote:
>>
>>: whim of AD&D. Heck, even that Tolkein fellow was pretty OK.
>>
>>Considering that Tolkein _invented_ the damn genre...
>
>What genre are you saying that Tolkien invented? I hope you don't mean
>fantasy, swords@sorcery, or any other term for the "AD&D-ish" genre, because
>Tolkien certainly did NOT invent that.
>
>Tolkien invented his story universe. He did not invent a genre.
>
I think Spencer, R.E. Howard, Lord Dunsany, E.R. Eddison, C.S. Lewis
and a host of others have defined the "modern" genre.
D. B. Brown
Threshold Fantasy Online RPG wrote:
> In article <5usfqf$hs4$2...@news.cc.umr.edu>,
> j...@ultra6.cc.umr.edu (John Adelsberger) wrote:
> >Nathan F. Yospe (yo...@hawaii.remove.this.edu) wrote:
> >: whim of AD&D. Heck, even that Tolkein fellow was pretty OK.
> >Considering that Tolkein _invented_ the damn genre...
> What genre are you saying that Tolkien invented? I hope you don't mean
> fantasy, swords@sorcery, or any other term for the "AD&D-ish" genre, because
> Tolkien certainly did NOT invent that.
>
> Tolkien invented his story universe. He did not invent a genre.
And Tolkien really didn't invent much of his story universe; most
of it was borrowed/stolen from the Niebelungenlied and
Volsungasaga.
Tolkien did a lot for popularizing the genre, but its roots (and,
even the roots of his stories) go back much further. If any single
men can be attributed as 'inventors of the genre', we'd have to
look at either Richard Wagner (writer of the epic opera 'Der Ring des
Niebelungen', a fantasy opera based on the Niebelungenlied), or
Snorri Sturluson, the 13th century Icelandic scholar who penned
down much of the current knowledge of early Norse mythology.
But anyway, Tolkien didn't 'invent' much, he even took the name for
many of his characters from the Eddas (even Gandalf is listed in
the Poetic Edda as one of the dwarves).
--
+=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-+=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-+
|Do you ever get the feeling that the story's|D. B. Brown |
|too damned real and in the present tense? |dbr...@stny.lrun.com |
| -Ian Anderson | "..." |
+=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-+=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-+
Chris Lawrence (Contra)
John Adelsberger (j...@ultra6.cc.umr.edu) wrote:
: Nathan F. Yospe (yo...@hawaii.remove.this.edu) wrote:
: : whim of AD&D. Heck, even that Tolkein fellow was pretty OK.
: Considering that Tolkein _invented_ the damn genre...
Not even remotely close. He was merely a mor popular champion in a long
long line of hopefuls.
--
J C Lawrence Internet: co...@ibm.net
---------------(*) Internet: claw...@cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...