Player Killing
Jason Cottrell
Hi all.
There has been a thread recently regarding Player Killing Muds, and
whether they were any good/popular/etc. This is a slightly different
topic.
One of the contributors to the above thread said that killing a player
was essentially more exciting/interesting than killing a monster. I
could not agree more with this point of view. I have been playing muds
since 1990ish and have player killed on all the games I have played on.
On Nemesis (probably now defunct), the actions of a group of player
killers caused the rules of the Mud to be rewritten and widespread
changes to be made. On StarMUD (an excellent mud by the way, not that
I'm biased at all) the PK rules have developed as attitudes have
changed. I have been an admin on Genocide and battled hard there for
some time to ensure the game was balanced (which is hard when your link
is not the best in the world :P).
This (rather tedious) preamble is leading me to several questions:
What is the best way to ensure player killing is balanced?
Can anyone argue against the claim that killing other players is more
exciting than killing monsters?
How do you write a monster that fights intelligently and is a bona fide
challenge to the player (I plan to write a monster on StarMUD that,
inter alia, teleports to the player if they run away--I fear players
will think this is "bullshit")?
Any discussion of PK would be welcome.
Cheers,
Jason
Huggybear/Doomgiver @ StarMUD and Genocide
************************************************************************
* She don't need a better mousetrap, She needs a faster pussycat *
************************************************************************
Matt Chatterley
On Fri, 3 Jan 1997, Jason Cottrell wrote:
> Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 04:44:25 +0000
> From: Jason Cottrell <Hugg...@huggybear.demon.co.uk>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Player Killing
>
> Hi all.
>
> There has been a thread recently regarding Player Killing Muds, and
> whether they were any good/popular/etc. This is a slightly different
> topic.
>
> One of the contributors to the above thread said that killing a player
> was essentially more exciting/interesting than killing a monster. I
> could not agree more with this point of view. I have been playing muds
> since 1990ish and have player killed on all the games I have played on.
On the point of excitement, etc, I'd agree.. yes.. it's also a good way to
get revenge *cackle*
> On Nemesis (probably now defunct), the actions of a group of player
> killers caused the rules of the Mud to be rewritten and widespread
> changes to be made. On StarMUD (an excellent mud by the way, not that
> I'm biased at all) the PK rules have developed as attitudes have
> changed. I have been an admin on Genocide and battled hard there for
> some time to ensure the game was balanced (which is hard when your link
> is not the best in the world :P).
I'll take the rest in context of a say, NM style LP Mud that allows PK,
but is not a wholly PK mud, thats what you mean, right? :)
> This (rather tedious) preamble is leading me to several questions:
>
> What is the best way to ensure player killing is balanced?
Personally, I'd say by making the risks involved knock back a lot of would
be PKers (to keep it in line), and in terms of 'balanced', player and
monster balance are two different animals. :) For instance, a lvl X of Y
class and lvl X of Z class may be able to kill the same monster.. but does
this mean they'll balance against each other? Probably not. :)
> Can anyone argue against the claim that killing other players is more
> exciting than killing monsters?
Some will try. ;)
> How do you write a monster that fights intelligently and is a bona fide
> challenge to the player (I plan to write a monster on StarMUD that,
> inter alia, teleports to the player if they run away--I fear players
> will think this is "bullshit")?
Will annoy some players.. interest others. I like indepth games.. good
atmosphere.. original 'smart' monsters.. etc, personally. :)
> Any discussion of PK would be welcome.
I'll add a question of my own:
How would you regulate PK in the sort of environment I mention? the
atmosphere is intended to be kinda friendly, warm, glowy.. er.. *puke* heh
;) There isn't a player council.. so:
Not allow PKing? (Personal dislike).
What kinda punishments for what kinda kills? Lvl 20 takes out Lvl 1, Lvl
15 takes out Lvl 14.. etc.. how would you do it?
> Cheers,
>
> Jason
> Huggybear/Doomgiver @ StarMUD and Genocide
>
> ************************************************************************
> * She don't need a better mousetrap, She needs a faster pussycat *
> ************************************************************************
>
>
Regards,
-Matt Chatterley
http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home"
-Ken Olsen (1977)
Abigail
On Fri, 3 Jan 1997 04:44:25 +0000, Jason Cottrell wrote in rec.games.mud.lp:
++ Hi all.
++
++ There has been a thread recently regarding Player Killing Muds, and
++ whether they were any good/popular/etc. This is a slightly different
++ topic.
++
++ One of the contributors to the above thread said that killing a player
++ was essentially more exciting/interesting than killing a monster. I
++ could not agree more with this point of view. I have been playing muds
++ since 1990ish and have player killed on all the games I have played on.
++
++ On Nemesis (probably now defunct), the actions of a group of player
++ killers caused the rules of the Mud to be rewritten and widespread
++ changes to be made. On StarMUD (an excellent mud by the way, not that
++ I'm biased at all) the PK rules have developed as attitudes have
++ changed. I have been an admin on Genocide and battled hard there for
++ some time to ensure the game was balanced (which is hard when your link
++ is not the best in the world :P).
++
++ This (rather tedious) preamble is leading me to several questions:
++
++ What is the best way to ensure player killing is balanced?
"balanced" in which sense?
++ Can anyone argue against the claim that killing other players is more
++ exciting than killing monsters?
Easy. Players are not always prepared, or don't always have a fair
change. A high-level player vs an unarmed, unequiped newbie is far
less exciting than the high-level player vs a high-level monster.
And more important, player killing can seriously spoiled the fun of
the player being killed. Monsters don't know the concept of fun.
Note also that (at least in 2.4.5 and derivates), most of the medium
and higher level monsters have way more hp's than players. Simply
stating that player-player fights and player-monster fights are
equivalent doesn't hold.
++ How do you write a monster that fights intelligently and is a bona fide
++ challenge to the player (I plan to write a monster on StarMUD that,
++ inter alia, teleports to the player if they run away--I fear players
++ will think this is "bullshit")?
That's hard. It's trivial to write a monster that is too hard for
a player - if only for the fact a monster can call its own and the
players functions at will.
varargs int hit_player (int damage, mixed * args...) {
return ::hit_player (0, args...);
}
and the monster can't be hurt.
Of course, this is "cheating", just as a monster doing teleports.
If your monster doesn't cheat, it needs to be as smart as a human.
And that's hard.
So, you need some balance between 'smartness' and 'cheating'.
Finding the right balance seems like a hard job to me.
++ Any discussion of PK would be welcome.
I have never liked player killing. Would that do?
Abigail
Doug Bora
: What kinda punishments for what kinda kills? Lvl 20 takes out Lvl 1, Lvl
: 15 takes out Lvl 14.. etc.. how would you do it?
The trick of course, is to make it not worth attacking a much weaker
player. How you do this could be done any number of ways. A ratio of
experience points perhaps. Who knows? Whatever method you use to
determine rankings if you have one. Over and above this, you can probably
have "NPC's" that help out. Perhaps increase the % chance of a guard
"hearing" the scuffle and coming to the weaker player's rescue, with
possible jail time for each player, etc. Implimentation could be a bitch,
though. :-)
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Matt Chatterley
On 4 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 4 Jan 1997 09:48:00 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
Hmm, this is definitely a theme I'd like to see discussed further. :)
The idea of some sort of helper NPC is actually a *brilliant* one given
the right context -- say in a town area, the chance of their apearance
being based on the level of the weakest combatant.. hmm. :)
What about in areas where having guards turn up isn't feasible? ;)
Not sure about the merits of a jail.. *ponder*.
This is perhaps where a player-council is useful.. but thats something we
plan to avoid in the particular context I have in mind. Any manually
distributed punishments will come from the wizards.
Making it 'unworthwhile' to kill a lower player is one way to discourage
it on the whole, but then there are still those who get annoyed at lower
players and kill them (sometimes with a degree of justification), who do
it for some other reason. Hmm.. any other views on this rattling around?
> --
> Doug Bora
> stig...@wwa.com
George Reese
Doug Bora (stig...@wwa.com) wrote:
: : What kinda punishments for what kinda kills? Lvl 20 takes out Lvl 1, Lvl
: : 15 takes out Lvl 14.. etc.. how would you do it?
:
: The trick of course, is to make it not worth attacking a much weaker
: player. How you do this could be done any number of ways. A ratio of
: experience points perhaps. Who knows? Whatever method you use to
: determine rankings if you have one. Over and above this, you can probably
: have "NPC's" that help out. Perhaps increase the % chance of a guard
: "hearing" the scuffle and coming to the weaker player's rescue, with
: possible jail time for each player, etc. Implimentation could be a bitch,
: though. :-)
This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
for weaker 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
Matt Chatterley
On 4 Jan 1997, George Reese wrote:
> Date: 4 Jan 1997 18:44:18 GMT
> From: George Reese <bo...@visi.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> Doug Bora (stig...@wwa.com) wrote:
> : : What kinda punishments for what kinda kills? Lvl 20 takes out Lvl 1, Lvl
> : : 15 takes out Lvl 14.. etc.. how would you do it?
> :
> : The trick of course, is to make it not worth attacking a much weaker
> : player. How you do this could be done any number of ways. A ratio of
> : experience points perhaps. Who knows? Whatever method you use to
> : determine rankings if you have one. Over and above this, you can probably
> : have "NPC's" that help out. Perhaps increase the % chance of a guard
> : "hearing" the scuffle and coming to the weaker player's rescue, with
> : possible jail time for each player, etc. Implimentation could be a bitch,
> : though. :-)
>
> This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
> not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
> of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
> comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
> for weaker players.
Thats exactly the angle which causes the glitch in most approaches to
'controlling' PK. What I'd like the system I have in mind to be like, is
something along the lines of PK being possible (hampered by guards in
designated town areas), *but* kept under control so noone is repeatedly
PKed (unless they do something horrendous to somehow deserve it, one could
argue), or so noone suddenly gets it into their mind to kill everyone
logged in, and so forth.
Perhaps a strong penalty would be the best deterrent (ie, a bounty and
allowing other players to legally kill them, or execution.. preferably not
the latter, it's all too final and not much fun.. but then, nor is being
PKed into the ground).
> --
> 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
>
>
Travis Casey
Jason Cottrell <Hugg...@huggybear.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Can anyone argue against the claim that killing other players is more
No, no one can. However, that's not because killing PCs is necessarily
intrinsically more exciting than killing monsters; it's because what
excites people differs for different people. No matter what you do,
there will always be some people who will prefer killing other player's
characters, and there will always be some people who loathe the idea of
PK.
> How do you write a monster that fights intelligently and is a bona fide
> challenge to the player (I plan to write a monster on StarMUD that,
> inter alia, teleports to the player if they run away--I fear players
> will think this is "bullshit")?
I would, if I were one of the players. Why does the monster need to
teleport? Do you have a "follow" command on your mud? You could make
the monster follow players who run away, perhaps with a chance of "losing
the trail" each time the player moves.
There are all sorts of things that can be done to make monsters fight
more intelligently; here's a few ideas:
- Monsters that use healing. Many muds allow players to heal themselves
with potions, alcohol, or other things. There's no reason why monsters
shouldn't be able to heal in the same ways.
- Looting corpses. Players take the equipment off of monsters they
kill -- why not have monsters take the equipment off of players they
kill, and use it if its better, use it? (I know... judging which
equipment is "better" can be hard. Still, any mud which has a
"compare" command for weapons and armor has at least a primitive
method for doing it.)
- Cooperating. I can't count the times that I've walked into a room
on a mud with 4 orcs/goblins/ogres/whatevers and attacked one of them
while the others ignored me. You can bet that if a team of players
were in a room and a monster came in and attacked one of them, the
others wouldn't just ignore it.
There are more options than just having all of the monsters join
in the fight -- they could rotate, with one taking damage while
others heal up (what's called "tanking" when players do it), or be
programmed to use other strategies.
Another possibility is to have a large group of monsters in one
central location who can respond to calls for help from other
monsters -- for instance, in an orc lair, there might be a guard
room where guards hang out, waiting for one of the sentries to call
for help.
All three of these are things that players do to help them against
monsters; there's no reason why you can't watch the players to see
what strategies they use, and then program the monsters to do similar
things.
Making monsters act smarter rather than making them tougher has another
benefit -- namely, it challenges players to think and come up with
counter-strategies instead of just going and getting the best equipment
they can. If the monsters team up, the players can team up to fight
them. If the monsters follow, players can lead them into an ambush, or
one player can lead a guard away while his/her teammates sneak in.
If the monsters try to heal themselves when the players they're fighting
leave the room, players can rotate combatants so the monsters don't get
a chance to heal. If there's a group of monsters which comes to help
sentries when they're attacked, it becomes possible for some players to
mount a distraction at one point so others can get past at another.
None of these improvements to monsters is incredibly difficult -- indeed,
code for two of them has been implemented on muds I've worked on, and
I've seen or worked on code which could be used in implementing the others.
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ System Manager, FSU CS department
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' (904) 644-4290; Room 101C Carothers
'---''(_/--' `-'\_) No one agrees with me. Not even me.
rec.games.design FAQ: http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~casey/design.html
Travis Casey
George Reese <bo...@visi.com> wrote:
<suggestions on preventing PK snipped>
> This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
> not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
> of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
> comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
> for weaker players.
I must agree with George... there are people who enjoy PK simply because
they want to make other people miserable, and/or get off on beating up
on those weaker than they are. They're nothing more than the MUD version
of the schoolyard bully. These people will continue to PK wherever they
can, and will do whatever they can to get around any restrictions on PK.
Doug Bora
: This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
: not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
: of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
: comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
: for weaker players.
There are many ways for people to make the game miserable for others. Not
all of them include PK'ing. If a player is abusing the system, the admin
either need to talk to the player and make them stop (with whatever means
are necessary), or fix the system such that they can't abuse it. The only
players that could really make trouble in this fashion are the higher
level ones, and generally speaking, the higher level characters shouldn't
be able to get that way by being stupid. It's simply a matter of coming
up with a reasonable system of checks and balances such that any character
that uses the system WILL be punished for it. I'm not saying this is an
easy thing to do, and it could take years of play-testing to perfect, but
I think it's possible. I could be wrong, but that doesn't make it not
worth trying.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: The idea of some sort of helper NPC is actually a *brilliant* one given
: the right context -- say in a town area, the chance of their apearance
: being based on the level of the weakest combatant.. hmm. :)
: What about in areas where having guards turn up isn't feasible? ;)
My theory towards mud creation, is to attempt to make it as realistic as
possible while not hampering playability. When you're out in the
wilderness, you're generally on your own. Assuming the wilderness is
sufficiently vast, the chances of something finding someone else are
reasonably slim. But still, there's nothing wrong with taking some
"friends" with you when you are planning on venturing out from a safer
area such as a town. Safety in numbers and that sort of thing. And don't
forget that there's always turning your tail and running if someone comes
after you.
: Not sure about the merits of a jail.. *ponder*.
Ah, but this is the best part. Put them in jail and make them wait for 24
hours (or however long punishment turns out to be), and not be able to
play their character. Seems like a good way to discourage PK'ing in the
towns where it should be safer for everyone.
: This is perhaps where a player-council is useful.. but thats something we
: plan to avoid in the particular context I have in mind. Any manually
: distributed punishments will come from the wizards.
You could use a guild system whereby the guild members will attempt to
protect their own. That would help cover non-town areas as far as safety
is concerned. Of course, this assumes that the guild is willing to play
this way. I don't know about you, but I'd hesitate going after some level
1 character with my level 20 character if a guild with 50 members might be
after my blood. Heck, that might even cause a blood-feud between 2 or
more guilds. :-)
: Making it 'unworthwhile' to kill a lower player is one way to discourage
: it on the whole, but then there are still those who get annoyed at lower
: players and kill them (sometimes with a degree of justification), who do
: it for some other reason. Hmm.. any other views on this rattling around?
I was originally going to post something here with some examples of my
ideas, but when I tried to get my thoughts down on paper, I realized that
I needed to put some more thought into it. I'll probably repost on this
later if I figure out how to impliment my thoughts in any reasonable
fashion.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: Thats exactly the angle which causes the glitch in most approaches to
: 'controlling' PK. What I'd like the system I have in mind to be like, is
: something along the lines of PK being possible (hampered by guards in
: PKed (unless they do something horrendous to somehow deserve it, one could
: argue), or so noone suddenly gets it into their mind to kill everyone
: logged in, and so forth.
Both the guards and the town need to not only be "smart", but have memory
as well. If some putz kills several people in the space of a couple days
in the same town, the local militia is certainly going to be interested in
capturing this person. One of the unanswered questions might be how to
impliment this sort of thing. I mean, how does the militia know who is
doing the crimes if they don't catch them at it? Perhaps a
ranger-character could track the murderer away from the scene of the
crime? Who knows? Perhaps the admin of the mud needs to step in and have
the town magistrate post a bounty for the head of the renegade player.
There's a million possibilities.
: Perhaps a strong penalty would be the best deterrent (ie, a bounty and
: allowing other players to legally kill them, or execution.. preferably not
: the latter, it's all too final and not much fun.. but then, nor is being
: PKed into the ground).
Sometimes you have to walk a fine line between playability and realism.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
George Reese
Travis Casey (ca...@cs.fsu.edu) wrote::
: > not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
: > of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
: > comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
: > for weaker players.
: I must agree with George... there are people who enjoy PK simply because
: they want to make other people miserable, and/or get off on beating up
: on those weaker than they are. They're nothing more than the MUD version
: of the schoolyard bully. These people will continue to PK wherever they
: can, and will do whatever they can to get around any restrictions on PK.
I would like to also emphasize that while they are not necessarily the
majority, just a single one of these types can make an entire mud
miserable.
George Reese
Doug Bora (stig...@wwa.com) wrote:
: : This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
: : not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
: : of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
: : comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
: : for weaker players.
:
: all of them include PK'ing. If a player is abusing the system, the admin
: either need to talk to the player and make them stop (with whatever means
: are necessary), or fix the system such that they can't abuse it.
Death is the ulimate in miserable on a mud. Allowing people control
over that aspect over other people's game makes it uniquely different
from other ways in which people can make the game miserable for
others. Name one thing one player can do to another that comes close
in having the game-wide impact that an asshole player-killer can have.
You cannot have a PK system that cannot be abused. The best you can
do is give players some sort of control over their involvement in a
system with such potential for abuse.
: The only
: players that could really make trouble in this fashion are the higher
: level ones, and generally speaking, the higher level characters shouldn't
: be able to get that way by being stupid.
Ahh, bullshit. Ever heard of low levels waiting for a high level to
become weak?
: It's simply a matter of coming
: up with a reasonable system of checks and balances such that any character
: that uses the system WILL be punished for it.
So what, they get punished. In the mean time they have ruined the
game for one or more players.
: I'm not saying this is an
: easy thing to do, and it could take years of play-testing to perfect, but
: I think it's possible. I could be wrong, but that doesn't make it not
: worth trying.
I have been trying for 6 years and I have not been able to accomplish
such a thing.
Matt Chatterley
On 4 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> Date: 4 Jan 1997 20:36:46 GMT
> From: Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> Jason Cottrell <Hugg...@huggybear.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > How do you write a monster that fights intelligently and is a bona fide
> > challenge to the player (I plan to write a monster on StarMUD that,
> > inter alia, teleports to the player if they run away--I fear players
> > will think this is "bullshit")?
First thing to note for the general audience is that smarter != harder. :)
You could have a monster that fights with some rudimentary simulated
intelligence, but isn't necessarily any harder than a monster of it's
level. OTOH you can argue that a straight lvl 10 monster compared to a
semi-intelligence lvl 10 monster is gonna be easier because it's
stupider.. not always true IMHO.
Err I'll also say I'm using the term 'intelligence' very very loosly here.
AI is one of my big interests, and what you consider 'intelligence' in
something of this nature is largely dependant on your personal definition
of intelligence. Here I'm looking at say, making a monster which when
being wiped out by players might use a spell of it's class to escape (as a
player would), and so forth.
In terms of MudOS (my own experience is limited mostly to NM 3.3.x derived
libs btw), the heartbeat() function in monsters can be very useful for
making monsters check their conditions, and do things depending on them.
> I would, if I were one of the players. Why does the monster need to
> teleport? Do you have a "follow" command on your mud? You could make
> the monster follow players who run away, perhaps with a chance of "losing
> the trail" each time the player moves.
Yup, although it could be simulated by just 'moving' the monster object..
or by having the monster call the follow functions to set itself as
following the player (rather than using the actual command).
> There are all sorts of things that can be done to make monsters fight
> more intelligently; here's a few ideas:
There are dozens, and dozens, and.. you get the point. It comes down to
basically putting in a half hour or more on one monster, rather than five
minutes to knock one up quickly.. it doesn't even require a vast amount of
code knowledge, although the more you know, the more likely you are to
find clever ways to do things.. but you can always ask someone for help.
:)
> - Monsters that use healing. Many muds allow players to heal themselves
> with potions, alcohol, or other things. There's no reason why monsters
> shouldn't be able to heal in the same ways.
Yeah.. cleric monsters who cast healing spells on themselves, for
instance. Cleric players would do this.. why not monsters. Monsters in
pubs who eat/drink if wounded and not in combat too.. excellent ideas. For
example, when a player runs out of a fight to heal by eating say, the
monster might do the same. :) Perhaps a monster that runs away from a
fight (uses wimpy) and then heals itself, much as a player might.. but
rather than just using a 'wimpy' function for it, make it check its
hp/whatever else it has, and 'judge' when it's worth going to heal.
> - Looting corpses. Players take the equipment off of monsters they
> kill -- why not have monsters take the equipment off of players they
> kill, and use it if its better, use it? (I know... judging which
> equipment is "better" can be hard. Still, any mud which has a
> "compare" command for weapons and armor has at least a primitive
> method for doing it.)
Lovely idea.. I love it. :)
Or theif monsters who steal and then use items.. *cackle*
> - Cooperating. I can't count the times that I've walked into a room
> on a mud with 4 orcs/goblins/ogres/whatevers and attacked one of them
> while the others ignored me. You can bet that if a team of players
> were in a room and a monster came in and attacked one of them, the
> others wouldn't just ignore it.
Definitely.. no doubt about this one.
> There are more options than just having all of the monsters join
> in the fight -- they could rotate, with one taking damage while
> others heal up (what's called "tanking" when players do it), or be
> programmed to use other strategies.
Lots of ways to do it. :) make the injured ones run out to heal while
others cover them.. all sorts of things that players might/do do, that
monsters could to make them more intelligent (but not necessarily
tougher.. sure it makes them harder to beat.. but so does giving them more
hps.. which is more fun?).
> Another possibility is to have a large group of monsters in one
> central location who can respond to calls for help from other
> monsters -- for instance, in an orc lair, there might be a guard
> room where guards hang out, waiting for one of the sentries to call
> for help.
I love this. :)
> All three of these are things that players do to help them against
> monsters; there's no reason why you can't watch the players to see
> what strategies they use, and then program the monsters to do similar
> things.
>
> Making monsters act smarter rather than making them tougher has another
> benefit -- namely, it challenges players to think and come up with
> counter-strategies instead of just going and getting the best equipment
> they can. If the monsters team up, the players can team up to fight
> them. If the monsters follow, players can lead them into an ambush, or
> one player can lead a guard away while his/her teammates sneak in.
> If the monsters try to heal themselves when the players they're fighting
> leave the room, players can rotate combatants so the monsters don't get
> a chance to heal. If there's a group of monsters which comes to help
> sentries when they're attacked, it becomes possible for some players to
> mount a distraction at one point so others can get past at another.
Abosolutely.. :)
> None of these improvements to monsters is incredibly difficult -- indeed,
> code for two of them has been implemented on muds I've worked on, and
> I've seen or worked on code which could be used in implementing the others.
None of this is that hard to *code* in terms of an NM style lib.. thinking
it up OTOH.. is quite different. :)
> --
> |\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ System Manager, FSU CS department
> |,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' (904) 644-4290; Room 101C Carothers
> '---''(_/--' `-'\_) No one agrees with me. Not even me.
> rec.games.design FAQ: http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~casey/design.html
>
>
Matt Chatterley
On 4 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> Date: 4 Jan 1997 20:42:59 GMT
> From: Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> George Reese <bo...@visi.com> wrote:
>
> <suggestions on preventing PK snipped>
>
> > This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
> > not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
> > of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
> > comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
> > for weaker players.
>
> I must agree with George... there are people who enjoy PK simply because
> they want to make other people miserable, and/or get off on beating up
> on those weaker than they are. They're nothing more than the MUD version
> of the schoolyard bully. These people will continue to PK wherever they
> can, and will do whatever they can to get around any restrictions on PK.
Hmm.. I think you've added a very valid point here, the 'schoolyard bully'
mentality most likely does enter into it. The problem comes when said
'bully' is too powerful for players to beat up on in return (although if
they ganged up, perhaps..), but still.. restricting PK more to prevent
this isn't really fair on those who might like to PK occasionally (ie,
once or twice now and then, as the system is intended). Stern punishment
for repeat offenders might be a suitable deterrent (such as execution for
third or subsequent offences, or such).
It's almost impossible to prevent this mentality causing problems..
and deterrents have a limited effect.. but are probably a better option
than limiting PK (for instance, I personally think restrictions such as
not being able to kill someone over 5 levels below you are daft..).
Matt Chatterley
On 4 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 4 Jan 1997 21:30:38 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : The idea of some sort of helper NPC is actually a *brilliant* one given
> : the right context -- say in a town area, the chance of their apearance
> : being based on the level of the weakest combatant.. hmm. :)
>
> : What about in areas where having guards turn up isn't feasible? ;)
>
> My theory towards mud creation, is to attempt to make it as realistic as
> possible while not hampering playability. When you're out in the
> wilderness, you're generally on your own. Assuming the wilderness is
> sufficiently vast, the chances of something finding someone else are
> reasonably slim. But still, there's nothing wrong with taking some
> "friends" with you when you are planning on venturing out from a safer
> area such as a town. Safety in numbers and that sort of thing. And don't
> forget that there's always turning your tail and running if someone comes
> after you.
Realism without a significant negative impact on playability and
enjoyability is a personal goal for me too.. I dislike superficial
restrictions.. which is one reason why I don't want to implement a system
whereby PK is impossible. In line with this, your points are very
relevant, and valid. Making towns a safe area.. punishments for captured
killers, or death if they resist guards.. and the like, to stomp out most
PK.. and leaving outer areas potentially dangerous might be the best
option. Then even if a 'bully' (see a recent post which mentions this), is
afoot.. there will be (relatively) safe places for other players? Sounds
pretty good. Running isn't an option if you get mugged and killed before
you can, though. :)
> : Not sure about the merits of a jail.. *ponder*.
>
> Ah, but this is the best part. Put them in jail and make them wait for 24
> hours (or however long punishment turns out to be), and not be able to
> play their character. Seems like a good way to discourage PK'ing in the
> towns where it should be safer for everyone.
*ponder* perhaps.. certainly better than just *whack* killing them for
their crimes (certainly for lesser offences). Being 'jailed' might work
best if it locked the player out of the MUD for say, 24 hours, rather than
sealing them in a room for a while (there would be ways to sneak around
this unless it was coded absolutely airtight, surely.. and it would take
a lot of work for something which would hopefully not be used that much).
> : This is perhaps where a player-council is useful.. but thats something we
> : plan to avoid in the particular context I have in mind. Any manually
> : distributed punishments will come from the wizards.
>
> You could use a guild system whereby the guild members will attempt to
> protect their own. That would help cover non-town areas as far as safety
> is concerned. Of course, this assumes that the guild is willing to play
> this way. I don't know about you, but I'd hesitate going after some level
> 1 character with my level 20 character if a guild with 50 members might be
> after my blood. Heck, that might even cause a blood-feud between 2 or
> more guilds. :-)
Heh Heh, I like the sound of that actually. I won't go into details on the
system I have in mind, but guilds will play a secondary role to class
(although a more prominent 'social' role I suppose), and something like
this is very feasible to my mind. Encouraging this sort of 'political'
consideration for those who join guilds would be very possible.. and I
think fairly desirable.
> : Making it 'unworthwhile' to kill a lower player is one way to discourage
> : it on the whole, but then there are still those who get annoyed at lower
> : players and kill them (sometimes with a degree of justification), who do
> : it for some other reason. Hmm.. any other views on this rattling around?
>
> I was originally going to post something here with some examples of my
> ideas, but when I tried to get my thoughts down on paper, I realized that
> I needed to put some more thought into it. I'll probably repost on this
> later if I figure out how to impliment my thoughts in any reasonable
> fashion.
Yeah, I know what you mean.. well, I look forwards to hearing more. :)
> --
> Doug Bora
> stig...@wwa.com
Matt Chatterley
On 4 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 4 Jan 1997 21:44:08 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : Thats exactly the angle which causes the glitch in most approaches to
> : 'controlling' PK. What I'd like the system I have in mind to be like, is
> : something along the lines of PK being possible (hampered by guards in
> : designated town areas), *but* kept under control so noone is repeatedly
> : PKed (unless they do something horrendous to somehow deserve it, one could
> : argue), or so noone suddenly gets it into their mind to kill everyone
> : logged in, and so forth.
>
> Both the guards and the town need to not only be "smart", but have memory
> as well. If some putz kills several people in the space of a couple days
> in the same town, the local militia is certainly going to be interested in
> capturing this person. One of the unanswered questions might be how to
> impliment this sort of thing. I mean, how does the militia know who is
> doing the crimes if they don't catch them at it? Perhaps a
> ranger-character could track the murderer away from the scene of the
> crime? Who knows? Perhaps the admin of the mud needs to step in and have
> the town magistrate post a bounty for the head of the renegade player.
> There's a million possibilities.
This sounds great, and just sparked off a few of my own ideas.. I'll run
through them here:
Guards in a town area would be dual faceted, in that they would first
offer those who are fighting a chance to 'surrender' and be arrested, and
then failing that, exact potentially lethal force to pursuade them (most
likely leaving the surrender option open). Players would be punished
(nature of punishment needs more thought), depending what they had done
(typically the attacker would be the only one to get in trouble.. unless
the players were very close to each other in level, in which case the
apparent victim would be punished to a lesser extent). Such things as
outlawing, fining, jailing.. come in here.
If a player escapes the guards (they would follow them, perhaps to the
town limits), by evading or killing them, they might be hunted (by player
and NPC bounty hunters?), anyways, this has a lot of potential and needs
more thought. :)
> : Perhaps a strong penalty would be the best deterrent (ie, a bounty and
> : allowing other players to legally kill them, or execution.. preferably not
> : the latter, it's all too final and not much fun.. but then, nor is being
> : PKed into the ground).
>
> Sometimes you have to walk a fine line between playability and realism.
Yeah. I'd much rather it be fun for all involved than 'fair' to the victim
soley.. but then, is it fun for the victim.. and so on.
Matt Chatterley
On 4 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 4 Jan 1997 21:37:32 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
> : not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
> : of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
> : comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
> : for weaker players.
>
> There are many ways for people to make the game miserable for others. Not
> all of them include PK'ing. If a player is abusing the system, the admin
> either need to talk to the player and make them stop (with whatever means
> are necessary), or fix the system such that they can't abuse it. The only
> players that could really make trouble in this fashion are the higher
> level ones, and generally speaking, the higher level characters shouldn't
> be able to get that way by being stupid. It's simply a matter of coming
> up with a reasonable system of checks and balances such that any character
> that uses the system WILL be punished for it. I'm not saying this is an
> easy thing to do, and it could take years of play-testing to perfect, but
> I think it's possible. I could be wrong, but that doesn't make it not
> worth trying.
Lots of ways.. yeah. Some certainly need the wizards to step in (spamming
is a good example), while others need to be dealt with by players, or the
'justice' system -- stealing and PKing being two examples.
In theory you're right again -- higher level players who can potentially
cause the most trouble should know better, wish it were always true (as
with all of life). Adapting the system to prevent 'abuses' which should
not be feasible is a definite 'must-do', but my prime concerns are with
what I call the 'justice' element -- dealing with naughtiness that the
system should allow.. presuming it allows them correctly, that is. Another
good set of points to consider in any case. :)
Matt Chatterley
On 4 Jan 1997, George Reese wrote:
> Date: 4 Jan 1997 22:44:04 GMT
> From: George Reese <bo...@visi.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> Travis Casey (ca...@cs.fsu.edu) wrote:
> : I must agree with George... there are people who enjoy PK simply because
> : they want to make other people miserable, and/or get off on beating up
> : on those weaker than they are. They're nothing more than the MUD version
> : of the schoolyard bully. These people will continue to PK wherever they
> : can, and will do whatever they can to get around any restrictions on PK.
>
> I would like to also emphasize that while they are not necessarily the
> majority, just a single one of these types can make an entire mud
> miserable.
Another sad-but-true fact of life. :(
If of course, it's one major asshole causing a big problem.. it can be
dealt with by the wizards (whether by temporarily banning them while they
cool of, or perhaps removing them if the problem is severe enough).
> --
> 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
>
>
Matt Chatterley
On 4 Jan 1997, George Reese wrote:
> Date: 4 Jan 1997 22:48:15 GMT
> From: George Reese <bo...@visi.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> Doug Bora (stig...@wwa.com) wrote:
> : : This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
> : : not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
> : : of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
> : : comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
> : : for weaker players.
> :
> : There are many ways for people to make the game miserable for others. Not
> : all of them include PK'ing. If a player is abusing the system, the admin
> : either need to talk to the player and make them stop (with whatever means
> : are necessary), or fix the system such that they can't abuse it.
>
> Death is the ulimate in miserable on a mud. Allowing people control
> over that aspect over other people's game makes it uniquely different
> from other ways in which people can make the game miserable for
> others. Name one thing one player can do to another that comes close
> in having the game-wide impact that an asshole player-killer can have.
Perhaps death is the ultimate 'damage' that can occur, yes, certainly, but
probably not the best way to make someone miserable. It is however the
biggest impact that someone could have.. particularly if they were in a
position where noone around (player-wise) could stop them.
> You cannot have a PK system that cannot be abused. The best you can
> do is give players some sort of control over their involvement in a
> system with such potential for abuse.
Definitely. Such cases of abuse would typical be abuse of the system
however, I imagine. In these cases it would hopefully be suitable for
wizards to step in and try to calm things down. Slightly idealistic view
perhaps. :) Abuse is somewhat inevitable in most cases when dealing with
people.. how you deal with it is another kettle of fish.
> : The only
> : players that could really make trouble in this fashion are the higher
> : level ones, and generally speaking, the higher level characters shouldn't
> : be able to get that way by being stupid.
>
> Ahh, bullshit. Ever heard of low levels waiting for a high level to
> become weak?
Possible.. not as likely. A gang of lower level players could certainly
cause problems for a higher level player (or if one, maybe two catch a
higher level when they're badly injured or such, as you suggest).
> : It's simply a matter of coming
> : up with a reasonable system of checks and balances such that any character
> : that uses the system WILL be punished for it.
>
> So what, they get punished. In the mean time they have ruined the
> game for one or more players.
Depends how you consider it. Death is perhaps very severe (as bad as
removing the character even), or not very (relatively harmless.. a couple
hours play down the drain), punishment may or may not be suitable in kind.
You have two extremes of the spectrum here.. the idiot who will repeatedly
kill another player to upset them / ruin their day, and the nice guy who
will kill everyone *once* to have them on his list.. then help them out a
bit to 'make up' for it.
> : I'm not saying this is an
> : easy thing to do, and it could take years of play-testing to perfect, but
> : I think it's possible. I could be wrong, but that doesn't make it not
> : worth trying.
>
> I have been trying for 6 years and I have not been able to accomplish
> such a thing.
No such thing as perfection.. but a balanced system, excepting the idiots
who abuse it isn't such a high goal. Mind you, everyone sees 'balance'
differently.
Ravnos
>: I must agree with George... there are people who enjoy PK simply because
>: they want to make other people miserable, and/or get off on beating up
>: on those weaker than they are. They're nothing more than the MUD version
>: of the schoolyard bully. These people will continue to PK wherever they
>: can, and will do whatever they can to get around any restrictions on PK.
>I would like to also emphasize that while they are not necessarily the
>majority, just a single one of these types can make an entire mud
>miserable.
Fortunately, everyone has to log off at some point. :)
And we admins _can_ make use of the sitebanish commands...
As with anything administrative, you have to walk the line between what is
acceptable and what isn't. There will always be assholes no matter where you
go, yes they make us all miserable... but such is life. Such is Mud.
Everyone always said they wanted realism in their muds. hehe
Rav
Visit StarMUD! - telnet://starmud.astrakan.hgs.se 4000
http://www.solace.mh.se/~starmud
http://archmage.draconia.com/~ravnos
Tim Hollebeek
In article <01bbfa80$a93fa8e0$0101...@slip5.cs.fsu.edu>, "Travis Casey" <ca...@cs.fsu.edu> writes:
> George Reese <bo...@visi.com> wrote:
>
> <suggestions on preventing PK snipped>
>
> > This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
> > not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
> > of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
> > comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
> > for weaker players.
>
> I must agree with George... there are people who enjoy PK simply because
> they want to make other people miserable, and/or get off on beating up
> on those weaker than they are. They're nothing more than the MUD version
> of the schoolyard bully. These people will continue to PK wherever they
> can, and will do whatever they can to get around any restrictions on PK.
It's interesting to note that most MUD admins actually *like* PK, they just
can't stand the idiots that abuse it, so they implement some (hopefully
reasonable) restrictions. Most players probably don't realize that MUDs
that have restrictions usually have them because PKing *did* get out of
hand at one point.
I must say I personally really hate having some newbie steal a corpse or
something, and not being able to do anything because of restrictions, but
certain people ruin it for everyone ....
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Hollebeek | Disclaimer :=> Everything above is a true statement,
Electron Psychologist | for sufficiently false values of true.
Princeton University | email: t...@wfn-shop.princeton.edu
----------------------| http://wfn-shop.princeton.edu/~tim (NEW! IMPROVED!)
Doug Bora
: option. Then even if a 'bully' (see a recent post which mentions this), is
: afoot.. there will be (relatively) safe places for other players? Sounds
: pretty good. Running isn't an option if you get mugged and killed before
: you can, though. :)
True, but this is more likely to happen with a lower-level player than a
higher, even if there is a level discrepency between the two. One thing
I'm worried about here though, is that it shouldn't be too easy to slip
away from someone who's after you, just as it shouldn't be impossible to
get away either. You need to somehow make the player's skills effect the
outcome of an escape somehow.
: *ponder* perhaps.. certainly better than just *whack* killing them for
: their crimes (certainly for lesser offences). Being 'jailed' might work
: best if it locked the player out of the MUD for say, 24 hours, rather than
: sealing them in a room for a while (there would be ways to sneak around
: this unless it was coded absolutely airtight, surely.. and it would take
: a lot of work for something which would hopefully not be used that much).
Actualy, this wouldn't be all that hard. Sure, a wiz could get someone
out of jail cell prematurely, but a regular player would be stuck if there
weren't any exits. Just use a basic room with descriptions. Now I don't
know what impact guilds and such might have on this. Would you want to
allow the possibility of breaking someone out of jail?
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: Guards in a town area would be dual faceted, in that they would first
: offer those who are fighting a chance to 'surrender' and be arrested, and
: then failing that, exact potentially lethal force to pursuade them (most
: likely leaving the surrender option open). Players would be punished
: (nature of punishment needs more thought), depending what they had done
: (typically the attacker would be the only one to get in trouble.. unless
: the players were very close to each other in level, in which case the
: apparent victim would be punished to a lesser extent). Such things as
: outlawing, fining, jailing.. come in here.
I've been thinking along similar lines. When a guard first came onto the
sight, they'd attempt to take the people fighting into immediate custody,
and haul 'em off to be placed before a judge where their crime and
punishment would be read to them. Punishment would be exacted on the
spot. The judge also would have a "memory" of previous transgressions,
and punishment would become more and more severe as time goes on. I would
put time-limits on how long a "memory" would be retained so that the judge
and/or guards will eventually start to "forget" about anything bad you've
done over time. Heck, with a system like this, we could forego trying to
figure out who started it. We'll just assume an investigation occured,
and the judge knows all the facts. There's lots of possibilities here.
: If a player escapes the guards (they would follow them, perhaps to the
: town limits), by evading or killing them, they might be hunted (by player
: and NPC bounty hunters?), anyways, this has a lot of potential and needs
: more thought. :)
Yep. The bounty hunter idea is a good one, except, I'd rather put a
bounty on the head of the criminal and let the PC's go after this person
as well. I think bringing back the head of a criminal and turning it in
for cash sounds like a really good time to me. :-)
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Matt Chatterley
On 5 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 5 Jan 1997 00:45:56 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : option. Then even if a 'bully' (see a recent post which mentions this), is
> : afoot.. there will be (relatively) safe places for other players? Sounds
> : pretty good. Running isn't an option if you get mugged and killed before
> : you can, though. :)
>
> True, but this is more likely to happen with a lower-level player than a
> higher, even if there is a level discrepency between the two. One thing
> I'm worried about here though, is that it shouldn't be too easy to slip
> away from someone who's after you, just as it shouldn't be impossible to
> get away either. You need to somehow make the player's skills effect the
> outcome of an escape somehow.
Hmm.. are you stabbing at players skills, or characters skills here? I'd
think the latter.. just to note that I see a large difference between the
two.. bit of a nitpick, perhaps. :)
Yeah.. lower level players are more likely to be in more trouble faster
than a higher level player in any case (although I intend to reduce the
impact that level might have, and emphasis other elements, in one
example). Balancing the ease of escape is going to be hard, I fear.
Perhaps restricting 'fleeing' in combat to be harder than simply typing a
direction (using special abilities will lock players in the room for a few
rounds, varying from ability to ability, to avoid 'foul' play in their
use, in this case). *big think* The 'wimpy' option, I intend to make
faliable.. perhaps the same should apply to standard movement, infact, it
should apply.. but what to base it on. Heh. :)
> : *ponder* perhaps.. certainly better than just *whack* killing them for
> : their crimes (certainly for lesser offences). Being 'jailed' might work
> : best if it locked the player out of the MUD for say, 24 hours, rather than
> : sealing them in a room for a while (there would be ways to sneak around
> : this unless it was coded absolutely airtight, surely.. and it would take
> : a lot of work for something which would hopefully not be used that much).
>
> Actualy, this wouldn't be all that hard. Sure, a wiz could get someone
> out of jail cell prematurely, but a regular player would be stuck if there
> weren't any exits. Just use a basic room with descriptions. Now I don't
> know what impact guilds and such might have on this. Would you want to
> allow the possibility of breaking someone out of jail?
Hmm.. If they're stuck in a room, they can quit out (you can't disallow
quitting). Mind you, you can set their start to that room until their
sentence is served, and make it block all possible 'spells' that could
free them.. this seems okay.. any other possible flaws there anyone can
highlight?
The lockout idea is very flawed in many aspects.. compared with a well
thought out cell perhaps? Hmm.. I gotta rethink my thoughts.
What impact would guilds/classes have here.. I have no idea.. hmm.. some
of the 'honourable' guilds should definitely serve their sentence.. and
breaking free should be negative for them.. but say we take a theif type
guild..
Jailbreaking would add a dimension of realism and run (I mentioned outlaws
somewhere, this 'fugitive' idea can be expanded). How could this be
handled.. a jailbreak would need to be externally handled.. say.. getting
into the jailhouse, killing the guards.. and opening up the cells.. in a
magical environment, the cell would be magically protected from internal
magical escapes, although.. any other original ideas spring to anyones
mind here?
Matt Chatterley
I've included your email in my reply this time, incase discussion in the
group breaks down, and we might like to continue personally, hope you
don't mind. :)
On 5 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 5 Jan 1997 00:53:07 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : Guards in a town area would be dual faceted, in that they would first
> : offer those who are fighting a chance to 'surrender' and be arrested, and
> : then failing that, exact potentially lethal force to pursuade them (most
> : likely leaving the surrender option open). Players would be punished
> : (nature of punishment needs more thought), depending what they had done
> : (typically the attacker would be the only one to get in trouble.. unless
> : the players were very close to each other in level, in which case the
> : apparent victim would be punished to a lesser extent). Such things as
> : outlawing, fining, jailing.. come in here.
>
> I've been thinking along similar lines. When a guard first came onto the
> sight, they'd attempt to take the people fighting into immediate custody,
> and haul 'em off to be placed before a judge where their crime and
> punishment would be read to them. Punishment would be exacted on the
> spot. The judge also would have a "memory" of previous transgressions,
> and punishment would become more and more severe as time goes on. I would
> put time-limits on how long a "memory" would be retained so that the judge
> and/or guards will eventually start to "forget" about anything bad you've
> done over time. Heck, with a system like this, we could forego trying to
> figure out who started it. We'll just assume an investigation occured,
> and the judge knows all the facts. There's lots of possibilities here.
Yeah.. the 'judge' can be made to know what actually happened, through
information channeling -- when a player attacks another, who and when can
be stored for his 'perusal'. Punishment would be perhaps on a scale
according to levels of the two involved, past infringements (which are
still held relevant), and such. Memories (which fade) are definitely a
good idea, to take into account those who frequently infringe, those who
do now and then.. and so forth.
> : If a player escapes the guards (they would follow them, perhaps to the
> : town limits), by evading or killing them, they might be hunted (by player
> : and NPC bounty hunters?), anyways, this has a lot of potential and needs
> : more thought. :)
>
> Yep. The bounty hunter idea is a good one, except, I'd rather put a
> bounty on the head of the criminal and let the PC's go after this person
> as well. I think bringing back the head of a criminal and turning it in
> for cash sounds like a really good time to me. :-)
Yeah, I love this idea.. a player with a bounty on his head is perhaps
treated as an 'outlaw', and whomever kills him next gets the bounty (I'd
like, that if it were a monster, the money is added to them, and bounty
removed.. depending on if they were 'sentient', and/or on their
alignment).
We're into this complicated system to make the whole affair more fun, and
automating everything doesn't accomplish that. Letting other PCs go for
the bounty in this case is a great way to involve other players. :)
Matt Chatterley
On 5 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 5 Jan 1997 00:59:53 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : Definitely. Such cases of abuse would typical be abuse of the system
> : however, I imagine. In these cases it would hopefully be suitable for
> : wizards to step in and try to calm things down. Slightly idealistic view
> : perhaps. :) Abuse is somewhat inevitable in most cases when dealing with
> : people.. how you deal with it is another kettle of fish.
>
> I think what we might be overlooking here, is that abuse of the system,
> whether it being PK'ing, spamming, taking advantage of bugs, etc. is going
> to happen no matter what you do. The import thing to do though, is plan
> ahead and try to minimize this sort of thing. People who abuse your mud
> are bad for the mud no matter WHAT they do to abuse your hospitality.
> Sometimes the only answer IS for a wiz to step in.
Agreed. Abuse will occur (live with it, and deal with it suitably), just
draw lines to define what actual abuse (where wizards will get involved,
and suitably discipline players), is, clearly, and publicly. Don't let
people trip over unwritten rules. If it's defined that PKing is illegal,
but given punishments and a system for dealing with it is inplace.. then
the system takes care of it (bug abuse or such to get around the system is
another matter). :)
> : Possible.. not as likely. A gang of lower level players could certainly
> : cause problems for a higher level player (or if one, maybe two catch a
> : higher level when they're badly injured or such, as you suggest).
>
> Possible. Unlikely. What low-level is gonna take the chance? Unless you
> provide some sort of visual cues that would tip off a player's injury
> level at a glance, I doubt any low-level player will be stupid enough to
> try it. Sure, there may be a few insane newbies willing to try it, but
> they're not the norm, I don't think. :-)
I wouldn't *grin* but I'm not all players. Players injury levels should be
descriptably displayed (ie, He is badly wounded, He is in good condition,
not given figures of HPs, based more on current percentage of max). Not
the norm, certainly. :)
Doug Bora
: I said bullshit. I didn't attack you. Get a little fortitude.
No, you didn't attack me, but you did assume an "attitude". Looks like an
offensive stance to me. I don't see a need to take that sort of hostile
tone. That's all. I can certainly hold my own in a battle of words if
necessary, but I'd rather avoid it.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Matt Chatterley
On 5 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 5 Jan 1997 00:36:30 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : Death is the ulimate in miserable on a mud. Allowing people control
> : over that aspect over other people's game makes it uniquely different
> : from other ways in which people can make the game miserable for
> : others. Name one thing one player can do to another that comes close
> : in having the game-wide impact that an asshole player-killer can have.
>
> Death sucks in any game, but if it's not there looming over the player's
> head, then there's no reason to fear the consequences of your actions.
> While I agree that being killed shouldn't be a mainstay of your mud, it
> should be a distinct possibility, and it should have some sort of
> consequences just as PK'ing someone should.
Quite true.. the severity of death also has influence on players actions,
for instance, if they can die twice fighting a powerful monster, and still
profit in the end.. well.. they're going to, if they're at all of that
mentality. Suitable consequences for actions is the key you and I are
getting at here, I think?
> : You cannot have a PK system that cannot be abused. The best you can
> : do is give players some sort of control over their involvement in a
> : system with such potential for abuse.
>
> Possibly. I'm not sure I agree at this point. I may come to agree in the
> future. Only time will tell.
Time tells all *grin*
Doug Bora
: Definitely. Such cases of abuse would typical be abuse of the system
: however, I imagine. In these cases it would hopefully be suitable for
: wizards to step in and try to calm things down. Slightly idealistic view
: perhaps. :) Abuse is somewhat inevitable in most cases when dealing with
: people.. how you deal with it is another kettle of fish.
I think what we might be overlooking here, is that abuse of the system,
whether it being PK'ing, spamming, taking advantage of bugs, etc. is going
to happen no matter what you do. The import thing to do though, is plan
ahead and try to minimize this sort of thing. People who abuse your mud
are bad for the mud no matter WHAT they do to abuse your hospitality.
Sometimes the only answer IS for a wiz to step in.
: Possible.. not as likely. A gang of lower level players could certainly
: cause problems for a higher level player (or if one, maybe two catch a
: higher level when they're badly injured or such, as you suggest).
Possible. Unlikely. What low-level is gonna take the chance? Unless you
provide some sort of visual cues that would tip off a player's injury
level at a glance, I doubt any low-level player will be stupid enough to
try it. Sure, there may be a few insane newbies willing to try it, but
they're not the norm, I don't think. :-)
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: Hmm.. are you stabbing at players skills, or characters skills here? I'd
: think the latter.. just to note that I see a large difference between the
: two.. bit of a nitpick, perhaps. :)
I meant character skills, but perhaps a little of both. Once you break
free, you gotta get outta there, or the person after you might keep coming
after ya some more.
: Hmm.. If they're stuck in a room, they can quit out (you can't disallow
: quitting). Mind you, you can set their start to that room until their
: sentence is served, and make it block all possible 'spells' that could
: free them.. this seems okay.. any other possible flaws there anyone can
: highlight?
Oops. Overlooked magic. :-)
Teleportation is a bitch. Yeah, you could simply block spells in the
cells, or even the jail itself. Breaking a character out probably should
be possible, but VERY, VERY hard (if you're attempting force), or require
an awful lot of luck (if you're attempting stealth). Afterall, guards are
generally EVERYWHERE in a jail. Something like this would be very hard
and time consuming to code, I bet, but it would probably be worth it if
you could get it to work the way you envision it.
: The lockout idea is very flawed in many aspects.. compared with a well
: thought out cell perhaps? Hmm.. I gotta rethink my thoughts.
I wouldn't do a full lockout. My original thought was as you mentioned
above, just adjusting their starting location to their cell for whatever
time period they've been sentenced. If they quit, it won't hurt them.
They'll still be in their cell until their time is served. If they're not
online when their sentence is up, it'll just be up the next time they
login, at which time they'll be set free.
Personally, I'd like to see stockades out in the jailyard with a nice
grocery store nearby so that you could buy some fruit and vegetables to
throw at the theif (or whoever) being sentenced. Ah, what fun! :-)
: What impact would guilds/classes have here.. I have no idea.. hmm.. some
: of the 'honourable' guilds should definitely serve their sentence.. and
: breaking free should be negative for them.. but say we take a theif type
: guild..
Also, what would happen if an entire guild went after someone? A big
guild could probably overrun an entire town if they wanted to. How do you
prevent that, much less a jail break? Better make those guards REAL
tough...
: Jailbreaking would add a dimension of realism and run (I mentioned outlaws
: somewhere, this 'fugitive' idea can be expanded). How could this be
: handled.. a jailbreak would need to be externally handled.. say.. getting
: into the jailhouse, killing the guards.. and opening up the cells.. in a
: magical environment, the cell would be magically protected from internal
: magical escapes, although.. any other original ideas spring to anyones
: mind here?
I've exhausted most of mine until some others are jarred loose, but keep
this thread going. It's one of the most interesting ones I've read in
quite some time. :-)
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: Yeah, I love this idea.. a player with a bounty on his head is perhaps
: treated as an 'outlaw', and whomever kills him next gets the bounty (I'd
: like, that if it were a monster, the money is added to them, and bounty
: removed.. depending on if they were 'sentient', and/or on their
: alignment).
First the "monster" would have to know there's a bounty on the person, and
the "monster" would also be required to be able to collect the award. I
don't know that your average dragon would be able to wander into town to
do that sort of thing. :-)
: We're into this complicated system to make the whole affair more fun, and
: automating everything doesn't accomplish that. Letting other PCs go for
: the bounty in this case is a great way to involve other players. :)
Yep. The more you let the players police themselves, the better off your
are. It helps encourage role-playing and the like.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: Death is the ulimate in miserable on a mud. Allowing people control
: over that aspect over other people's game makes it uniquely different
: from other ways in which people can make the game miserable for
: others. Name one thing one player can do to another that comes close
: in having the game-wide impact that an asshole player-killer can have.
Death sucks in any game, but if it's not there looming over the player's
head, then there's no reason to fear the consequences of your actions.
While I agree that being killed shouldn't be a mainstay of your mud, it
should be a distinct possibility, and it should have some sort of
consequences just as PK'ing someone should.
: You cannot have a PK system that cannot be abused. The best you can
: do is give players some sort of control over their involvement in a
: system with such potential for abuse.
Possibly. I'm not sure I agree at this point. I may come to agree in the
future. Only time will tell.
: Ahh, bullshit. Ever heard of low levels waiting for a high level to
: become weak?
Why do you always have to take this tone with people? I didn't attack
you. I was simply _discussing_ the topic at-hand. If you're going to be
rude in your replies, don't bother, as I'm going to ignore them.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
George Reese
Doug Bora (stig...@wwa.com) wrote:
: : Ahh, bullshit. Ever heard of low levels waiting for a high level to
: : become weak?
:
: Why do you always have to take this tone with people? I didn't attack
: you. I was simply _discussing_ the topic at-hand. If you're going to be
: rude in your replies, don't bother, as I'm going to ignore them.
I said bullshit. I didn't attack you. Get a little fortitude.
George Reese
Doug Bora (stig...@wwa.com) wrote:
: : I said bullshit. I didn't attack you. Get a little fortitude.
:
: No, you didn't attack me, but you did assume an "attitude". Looks like an
: offensive stance to me. I don't see a need to take that sort of hostile
: tone. That's all. I can certainly hold my own in a battle of words if
: necessary, but I'd rather avoid it.
Bullshit is not an attitude.
Travis Casey
Matt Chatterly (no...@trustme.com) wrote:
> Hmm.. I think you've added a very valid point here, the 'schoolyard bully'
> mentality most likely does enter into it. The problem comes when said
> 'bully' is too powerful for players to beat up on in return (although if
> they ganged up, perhaps..), but still.. restricting PK more to prevent
> this isn't really fair on those who might like to PK occasionally (ie,
> once or twice now and then, as the system is intended). Stern punishment
> for repeat offenders might be a suitable deterrent (such as execution for
> third or subsequent offences, or such).
I think that a large part of the problem comes from the old D&D paradigm which
most muds still use: that a character should be able to easily
defeat several lower-level characters in a straight-up fight. Changing
that kind of system is relatively easy from a coding standpoint -- the
problems come in with trying to change the mudding culture which is
built around that paradigm.
(Please note that I'm not saying that this setup intrinsically bad...
just that it can help out those who like being mud-bullies. The last
thing I want to do here is start a flamewar about social muds vs.
combat muds, etc. :-)
> It's almost impossible to prevent this mentality causing problems..
> and deterrents have a limited effect.. but are probably a better option
> than limiting PK (for instance, I personally think restrictions such as
> not being able to kill someone over 5 levels below you are daft..).
As you say, preventing people with that mentality from causing problems
is little short of impossible; the best that can usually be done is for
the wizards or whatever other law mechanism exists on the mud to handle
these players, and, if they really can't be controlled, to simply rid or
site-ban them.
Once this is done, you can then focus on the reasons why other people
PK -- such as the challenge, it being an easy way to get treasure and
XP, etc. Deterrents and restrictions definitely have their places, but
other things can be done as well: for instance, the XP value of killing
a PC could be adjusted based on how many hit points the character had
when you first started attacking him/her, so that killing weakened
opponents wouldn't give as large XP awards. Another thread in this discussion
is talking about making monsters fight more intelligently:
doing this might lessen the incentive for those who PK because of the
challenge.
Travis Casey
> : Possible.. not as likely. A gang of lower level players could certainly
> : cause problems for a higher level player (or if one, maybe two catch a
> : higher level when they're badly injured or such, as you suggest).
>
> Possible. Unlikely. What low-level is gonna take the chance? Unless you
> provide some sort of visual cues that would tip off a player's injury
> level at a glance, I doubt any low-level player will be stupid enough to
> try it. Sure, there may be a few insane newbies willing to try it, but
> they're not the norm, I don't think. :-)
Actually, I've seen it happen... on most muds that I've played on, "look
at X" will give some indication of how badly injured X is. I've been on
muds where there was little portable healing, and players would wait
around near where healing could be obtained, looking at everyone who
came through to see if they were badly injured.
I've also seen team efforts where four or five players would gang up on
someone higher level, using hit-and-run tactics, tanking, stealing,
working together to keep track of where their prey is, blocking exits,
and killing monsters in the area which provide healing beforehand.
I've even seen people on some muds "herd" high-power aggressive monsters
around, moving them into places where they'll be of use in these kinds
of hunts.
It's not easy, and it's almost never possible for newbies to kill a high-level
character, but I've seen low-levels kill mid-levels, and mid-levels
kill high-levels, quite often.
Travis Casey
Matt Chatterley <no...@trust-me.com> wrote:
> On 4 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> > Jason Cottrell <Hugg...@huggybear.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > > How do you write a monster that fights intelligently and is a
> > > bona fide
> > > challenge to the player
>
Well... it's not *necessarily* harder, I'd say, but it's *probably*
harder. :-)
> Err I'll also say I'm using the term 'intelligence' very very loosly here.
> AI is one of my big interests, and what you consider 'intelligence' in
> something of this nature is largely dependant on your personal definition
> of intelligence. Here I'm looking at say, making a monster which when
> being wiped out by players might use a spell of it's class to escape (as a
> player would), and so forth.
Yes... I often see posts from people talking about using AI for monsters,
both in muds and in stand-alone computer games, and I usually cringe a
bit when I see it. It's usually quite effective and much simpler to
simply code a few generally applicable strategies for monsters to use
and to do a bit of custom coding for monsters in unusual places.
For a monster to really qualify as "intelligent" from my POV, it would
have to be able to come up with effective new strategies on its own...
and that kind of AI is not easy to implement.
> In terms of MudOS (my own experience is limited mostly to NM 3.3.x derived
> libs btw), the heartbeat() function in monsters can be very useful for
> making monsters check their conditions, and do things depending on them.
Definitely.
> > I would, if I were one of the players. Why does the monster need to
> > teleport? Do you have a "follow" command on your mud? You could make
> > the monster follow players who run away, perhaps with a chance of "losing
> > the trail" each time the player moves.
>
> Yup, although it could be simulated by just 'moving' the monster object..
> or by having the monster call the follow functions to set itself as
> following the player (rather than using the actual command).
I wasn't thinking of having the monster use the command... what I
really meant to point out is that if you have a follow command on your
mud, you already have the code to do this written. An hour's work is
more than enough to create a general inherit or include which can be
put in monsters to make them follow players who run away.
That raises another point -- IMHO, it's vastly preferable to build these
kinds of things as "drop-in" components that any monster on the mud can
use. I usually make one monster which has a new feature to test it
first, but design the code in a modular fashion.
> There are dozens, and dozens, and.. you get the point. It comes down to
> basically putting in a half hour or more on one monster, rather than five
> minutes to knock one up quickly.. it doesn't even require a vast amount of
> code knowledge, although the more you know, the more likely you are to
> find clever ways to do things.. but you can always ask someone for help.
Of course, if you make it modular, you can spend that hour once, and then
any wizard on the mud can use it in any monster. :-)
> > - Looting corpses. Players take the equipment off of monsters they
> > kill -- why not have monsters take the equipment off of players they
> > kill, and use it if its better, use it? (I know... judging which
> > equipment is "better" can be hard. Still, any mud which has a
> > "compare" command for weapons and armor has at least a primitive
> > method for doing it.)
>
> Lovely idea.. I love it. :)
>
> Or theif monsters who steal and then use items.. *cackle*
Actually, something I've long meant to do is build a monster which will
semi-randomly wander around, killing things (both players and other
monsters), looting them, using the best equipment it can get, and taking
the rest back to a store from time to time and selling it -- and which
will show up on "who", etc. just like a player. I wonder how long it
would take people to decide whether it was a monster or just one of
those mudders who never talks to anyone. :-)
> > Another possibility is to have a large group of monsters in one
> > central location who can respond to calls for help from other
> > monsters -- for instance, in an orc lair, there might be a guard
> > room where guards hang out, waiting for one of the sentries to call
> > for help.
>
> I love this. :)
The main mud I code on has ranged weapons... what I'd really like to do
is have engage the players at close range, while others take pot-shots
at them... I know, it sounds sadistic, but the players can already do
it to the monsters...
> None of this is that hard to *code* in terms of an NM style lib.. thinking
> it up OTOH.. is quite different. :)
Actually, I don't think any of them is hard to think up either... like
I said, just watch the strategies the players use against the monsters
and find ways to make the monsters use them. Of course, this can
result in a sort of arms race: the monsters start using the players'
strategies, the players come up with new ones, the monsters start
using them, etc... :-)
Jason Cottrell
In article <01bbfa7f$ca4daf60$0101...@slip5.cs.fsu.edu>, Travis Casey
<ca...@cs.fsu.edu> writes
>> How do you write a monster that fights intelligently and is a bona fide
>> inter alia, teleports to the player if they run away--I fear players
>> will think this is "bullshit")?
>
>teleport? Do you have a "follow" command on your mud? You could make
>the monster follow players who run away, perhaps with a chance of "losing
>the trail" each time the player moves.
Following and teleporting are two totally different concepts. A monster
that tracks you (which you can presumably lose using various methods) is
not a patch on a ("magic-using") monster that actually teleports to you
if you try to flee. If I was an NPC mage I'd teleport rather than run,
wouldn't you?
>
>There are all sorts of things that can be done to make monsters fight
>more intelligently; here's a few ideas:
>
> - Monsters that use healing. Many muds allow players to heal themselves
> with potions, alcohol, or other things. There's no reason why monsters
> shouldn't be able to heal in the same ways.
>
> - Looting corpses. Players take the equipment off of monsters they
> kill -- why not have monsters take the equipment off of players they
> kill, and use it if its better, use it? (I know... judging which
> equipment is "better" can be hard. Still, any mud which has a
> "compare" command for weapons and armor has at least a primitive
> method for doing it.)
>
> - Cooperating. I can't count the times that I've walked into a room
> on a mud with 4 orcs/goblins/ogres/whatevers and attacked one of them
> while the others ignored me. You can bet that if a team of players
> were in a room and a monster came in and attacked one of them, the
> others wouldn't just ignore it.
>
> There are more options than just having all of the monsters join
> in the fight -- they could rotate, with one taking damage while
> others heal up (what's called "tanking" when players do it), or be
> programmed to use other strategies.
>
> Another possibility is to have a large group of monsters in one
> central location who can respond to calls for help from other
> monsters -- for instance, in an orc lair, there might be a guard
> room where guards hang out, waiting for one of the sentries to call
> for help.
All these are already implemented on the mud in question, and hence
could be "expected" by the player.
I want a monster that attempts to kill the player. Not by making a
monster that is impossible to kill (I did that on the first mud I wizzed
on, it seemed amusing at the time), but one that tries to do what I
would do. Chase EFFECTIVELY, preserve its own life, use its most
effective attacks.
>All three of these are things that players do to help them against
>monsters; there's no reason why you can't watch the players to see
>what strategies they use, and then program the monsters to do similar
>things.
>
>Making monsters act smarter rather than making them tougher has another
>benefit -- namely, it challenges players to think and come up with
>counter-strategies instead of just going and getting the best equipment
>they can. If the monsters team up, the players can team up to fight
>them. If the monsters follow, players can lead them into an ambush, or
>one player can lead a guard away while his/her teammates sneak in.
>If the monsters try to heal themselves when the players they're fighting
>leave the room, players can rotate combatants so the monsters don't get
>a chance to heal. If there's a group of monsters which comes to help
>sentries when they're attacked, it becomes possible for some players to
>mount a distraction at one point so others can get past at another.
Agreed. An obvious way to stop groups of players killing 'hard'
monsters is to give them area attack spells/effects. I like the
distraction idea very much indeed :).
>None of these improvements to monsters is incredibly difficult -- indeed,
>code for two of them has been implemented on muds I've worked on, and
>I've seen or worked on code which could be used in implementing the others.
Indeed. I'm not the world's best coder (I doubt I'm in the top
billion), but I find one can usually find a good coder who likes to show
off and solve your problem for you :).
Huggybear + Doomgiver @ StarMUD : starmud.astrakan.hgs.se 4000
Huggybear + Doomgiver @ Genocide : genocide.shsu.edu 2222
Also infrequently/previously seen @ Tron, Nuclear War, Nannymud, etc.
Jason Cottrell : hugg...@huggybear.demon.co.uk
Jason Cottrell
Going back briefly to my original point about killing players:
Some people have commented about 'asshole' players who like killing
people for the sake of it.
Why are players not allowed to play like assholes? A huge percentage of
real people are assholes (if you can't be arsed to log off and find this
out, trust me on this one), so why shouldn't player characters?
If I am a hardened convict character, my first thought is, what can I
steal and where? Stealing from newbies is usually pointless, since they
kill crap monsters with crap equipment. I will admit to kill-stealing
one of the hardest monsters on StarMUD--my victim had been working on
the monster for 30 minutes. In some ways, that was a very shitty thing
to do. In terms of role-playing a convict, it was pretty good [IMO].
Shit happens. Muds where shit cannot happen must be pretty boring.
On the other hand, I think that a mud where you could log on (or be
considered to be a newbie, whatever the cut-off point is) and be killed
by one of the top players would suck pretty hard. My personal reaction
would most likely to be type q-u-i-t-return and do something else. The
balance between realism, i.e. innocents being slaughtered, and
playability, i.e. being fair, is what differentiates a crap mud from a
good mud (or one of the things anyway).
For example:
Mud rule is you have to be an outlaw to engage in PK activity.
Plus point:People not interested in PK don't get involved.
Minus point:Realism levels dangerously low.
In the end, the stance taken on a mud will most likely be that of the
admin that run it. This is why some muds have no PK and others loads.
I know where I stand, but I'd be interested in a system that keeps
everyone happy :P.
Jason.
PS Logging on and seeing a thread I started with over 30 follow-ups made
me feel very special, thanks very much. Then again, at 6am that's not
hard.
Doug Bora
: : No, you didn't attack me, but you did assume an "attitude". Looks like an
: : offensive stance to me. I don't see a need to take that sort of hostile
: : tone. That's all. I can certainly hold my own in a battle of words if
: : necessary, but I'd rather avoid it.
: Bullshit is not an attitude.
Bullshit.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Matt Chatterley
On 5 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 5 Jan 1997 01:17:50 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : Hmm.. are you stabbing at players skills, or characters skills here? I'd
> : think the latter.. just to note that I see a large difference between the
> : two.. bit of a nitpick, perhaps. :)
>
> I meant character skills, but perhaps a little of both. Once you break
> free, you gotta get outta there, or the person after you might keep coming
> after ya some more.
*grin*
The players 'skills' come in terms of knowing their way around, knowing
the game, and such, nothing you can do about that.. is simply an advantage
that more experienced players will have. Letting a character's skills
dictate how easily they escape is a good course of action -- a theif type
character will be better at slipping out of combat than say, a barbarian
type character. :)
> : Hmm.. If they're stuck in a room, they can quit out (you can't disallow
> : quitting). Mind you, you can set their start to that room until their
> : sentence is served, and make it block all possible 'spells' that could
> : free them.. this seems okay.. any other possible flaws there anyone can
> : highlight?
>
> Oops. Overlooked magic. :-)
Doh! ;)
> Teleportation is a bitch. Yeah, you could simply block spells in the
> cells, or even the jail itself. Breaking a character out probably should
> be possible, but VERY, VERY hard (if you're attempting force), or require
> an awful lot of luck (if you're attempting stealth). Afterall, guards are
> generally EVERYWHERE in a jail. Something like this would be very hard
> and time consuming to code, I bet, but it would probably be worth it if
> you could get it to work the way you envision it.
Magic is a pain in cases like this, but I figure any town council worth
their salt would have figured on needing some kind of antimagic setup in
the jailhouse. Lots of guards, most of them powerful, all over the place
would be the theme I think.. and getting past them would need a lot of
luck either way. I can see how to do this so it'd work, and I think it'd
be worthwhile. :)
> : The lockout idea is very flawed in many aspects.. compared with a well
> : thought out cell perhaps? Hmm.. I gotta rethink my thoughts.
>
> I wouldn't do a full lockout. My original thought was as you mentioned
> above, just adjusting their starting location to their cell for whatever
> time period they've been sentenced. If they quit, it won't hurt them.
> They'll still be in their cell until their time is served. If they're not
> online when their sentence is up, it'll just be up the next time they
> login, at which time they'll be set free.
Yep, best way to set this up would probably be a timer daemon which checks
prisoners on logout/login, etc. Players will be given a choice of login
locations (depending on the player/character), and for prisoners this can
be removed, and simply hurl them into their cell/the cells.
> Personally, I'd like to see stockades out in the jailyard with a nice
> grocery store nearby so that you could buy some fruit and vegetables to
> throw at the theif (or whoever) being sentenced. Ah, what fun! :-)
Heh heh, I've seen this on another MUD. :)
Be a cute idea to implement as one kind of punishment. :)
> : What impact would guilds/classes have here.. I have no idea.. hmm.. some
> : of the 'honourable' guilds should definitely serve their sentence.. and
> : breaking free should be negative for them.. but say we take a theif type
> : guild..
>
> Also, what would happen if an entire guild went after someone? A big
> guild could probably overrun an entire town if they wanted to. How do you
> prevent that, much less a jail break? Better make those guards REAL
> tough...
Hrrrm... if a whole guild (or lots of them) were in on it, they probably
should be able to overpower the guards.. but then they'd all be outlawed..
and bountied I suppose. This'd mean everyone else after them.. and I was
thinking of setting automated 'bounty hunters' after bounties older than
say, a week, to menace players ;)
> : Jailbreaking would add a dimension of realism and run (I mentioned outlaws
> : somewhere, this 'fugitive' idea can be expanded). How could this be
> : handled.. a jailbreak would need to be externally handled.. say.. getting
> : into the jailhouse, killing the guards.. and opening up the cells.. in a
> : magical environment, the cell would be magically protected from internal
> : magical escapes, although.. any other original ideas spring to anyones
> : mind here?
>
> I've exhausted most of mine until some others are jarred loose, but keep
> this thread going. It's one of the most interesting ones I've read in
> quite some time. :-)
I agree *grin* especially since it's relevant to things I'm loosly
planning at the moment.
Matt Chatterley
On 5 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 5 Jan 1997 01:23:14 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : Yeah, I love this idea.. a player with a bounty on his head is perhaps
> : treated as an 'outlaw', and whomever kills him next gets the bounty (I'd
> : like, that if it were a monster, the money is added to them, and bounty
> : removed.. depending on if they were 'sentient', and/or on their
> : alignment).
>
> First the "monster" would have to know there's a bounty on the person, and
> the "monster" would also be required to be able to collect the award. I
> don't know that your average dragon would be able to wander into town to
> do that sort of thing. :-)
*rofl*
Err yeah. :)
Would have to be restricted to those races who could go into town, human,
elf, etc.
> : We're into this complicated system to make the whole affair more fun, and
> : automating everything doesn't accomplish that. Letting other PCs go for
> : the bounty in this case is a great way to involve other players. :)
>
> Yep. The more you let the players police themselves, the better off your
> are. It helps encourage role-playing and the like.
Definitely.. a setup of code where by the automated law interacts nicely
with the players (without the problems of a sort of 'player council',
which never works IMHO), and lets things (by and large) take care of
themselves. :)
Travis Casey
Jason Cottrell <Hugg...@huggybear.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >> (I plan to write a monster on StarMUD that,
> >> inter alia, teleports to the player if they run away--I fear players
> >> will think this is "bullshit")?
> >
> >I would, if I were one of the players. Why does the monster need to
> >teleport? Do you have a "follow" command on your mud? You could make
> >the monster follow players who run away, perhaps with a chance of "losing
> >the trail" each time the player moves.
>
> Following and teleporting are two totally different concepts. A monster
> that tracks you (which you can presumably lose using various methods) is
> not a patch on a ("magic-using") monster that actually teleports to you
> if you try to flee. If I was an NPC mage I'd teleport rather than run,
> wouldn't you?
That depends on how easy and reliable teleport and "locate person" spells are
in the world in question. If a monster which happens to be a mage teleports
after me when I run away, that'd be fine with me, *if* it's
already been established that it's possible to magically find someone and
go to them in the world.
In your original post, you didn't specify what kind of monster it would
be doing the teleporting. I've seen plenty of muds where coders had
implemented monster following by having the monsters teleport to the
player each heartbeat if they weren't already in the same room, which is
ridiculous for most monsters. IOW, I jumped to an unwarranted conclusion. :-)
Travis Casey
Jason Cottrell <Hugg...@huggybear.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Going back briefly to my original point about killing players:
>
> Some people have commented about 'asshole' players who like killing
> people for the sake of it.
>
> Why are players not allowed to play like assholes? A huge percentage of
> real people are assholes (if you can't be arsed to log off and find this
> out, trust me on this one), so why shouldn't player characters?
Because I don't want one or two players making lots of other players
unhappy, and it's my mud. I agree that everyone has a right to be an
asshole... however, I don't have to let them do it on my mud, any more
than I have to let someone stay at a party I'm giving in RL if they're
being rude to the other guests.
> Shit happens. Muds where shit cannot happen must be pretty boring.
PKing is not the only way that shit can happen on a mud. You're jumping
to the conclusion that if the wizzes/players on a mud want to get rid of
one kind of shit, they'll also get rid of all the others.
> In the end, the stance taken on a mud will most likely be that of the
> admin that run it. This is why some muds have no PK and others loads.
> I know where I stand, but I'd be interested in a system that keeps
> everyone happy :P.
There's really no way to keep everyone happy... people's tastes vary
too widely for any one mud to fit them all, in this or anything else.
IMHO, the best thing you can do is set up a mud the way you'd like it
to be, and then try to attract players who like the same kind of mud
you do. :-)
Matt Chatterley
On 5 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> Date: 5 Jan 1997 04:29:11 GMT
> From: Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> Matt Chatterley <no...@trust-me.com> wrote:
> > On 4 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> > > Jason Cottrell <Hugg...@huggybear.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > > How do you write a monster that fights intelligently and is a
> > > > bona fide
> > > > challenge to the player
> >
> > First thing to note for the general audience is that smarter != harder. :)
>
> Well... it's not *necessarily* harder, I'd say, but it's *probably*
> harder. :-)
Hmm.. depending on whether or not the 'intelligence' has
intentional/accidental flaws. For instance if it tries to do something it
currently can't, and wastes rounds. :)
Usually it'll be harder, depending how you do it, I guess.
At any rate, it's more interesting than simply making it harder by giving
it more hps, making it hit harder, etc :)
> > Err I'll also say I'm using the term 'intelligence' very very loosly here.
> > AI is one of my big interests, and what you consider 'intelligence' in
> > something of this nature is largely dependant on your personal definition
> > of intelligence. Here I'm looking at say, making a monster which when
> > being wiped out by players might use a spell of it's class to escape (as a
> > player would), and so forth.
>
> Yes... I often see posts from people talking about using AI for monsters,
> both in muds and in stand-alone computer games, and I usually cringe a
> bit when I see it. It's usually quite effective and much simpler to
> simply code a few generally applicable strategies for monsters to use
> and to do a bit of custom coding for monsters in unusual places.
Right. More or less what I mean here by intelligence is simply giving it
options that players might have, and simple routines for it to select the
best one to use to survive.
> For a monster to really qualify as "intelligent" from my POV, it would
> have to be able to come up with effective new strategies on its own...
> and that kind of AI is not easy to implement.
Same here, it'd need to be able to devise new strategies on it's own, for
us.. and er, I for one ain't trying to code that. :)
> > In terms of MudOS (my own experience is limited mostly to NM 3.3.x derived
> > libs btw), the heartbeat() function in monsters can be very useful for
> > making monsters check their conditions, and do things depending on them.
>
> Definitely.
>
> > > I would, if I were one of the players. Why does the monster need to
> > > teleport? Do you have a "follow" command on your mud? You could make
> > > the monster follow players who run away, perhaps with a chance of "losing
> > > the trail" each time the player moves.
> >
> > Yup, although it could be simulated by just 'moving' the monster object..
> > or by having the monster call the follow functions to set itself as
> > following the player (rather than using the actual command).
>
> I wasn't thinking of having the monster use the command... what I
> really meant to point out is that if you have a follow command on your
> mud, you already have the code to do this written. An hour's work is
> more than enough to create a general inherit or include which can be
> put in monsters to make them follow players who run away.
Sorry, kinda missed that. :)
Wouldn't take much work at all, to form a FOLLOW_MONSTER inherit, or some
such, you're quite right. :)
> That raises another point -- IMHO, it's vastly preferable to build these
> kinds of things as "drop-in" components that any monster on the mud can
> use. I usually make one monster which has a new feature to test it
> first, but design the code in a modular fashion.
Yeah.. for general things like this, it is much better if anyone can then
use your work later should they want to. :)
> > There are dozens, and dozens, and.. you get the point. It comes down to
> > basically putting in a half hour or more on one monster, rather than five
> > minutes to knock one up quickly.. it doesn't even require a vast amount of
> > code knowledge, although the more you know, the more likely you are to
> > find clever ways to do things.. but you can always ask someone for help.
>
> Of course, if you make it modular, you can spend that hour once, and then
> any wizard on the mud can use it in any monster. :-)
*grin*
> > > - Looting corpses. Players take the equipment off of monsters they
> > > kill -- why not have monsters take the equipment off of players they
> > > kill, and use it if its better, use it? (I know... judging which
> > > equipment is "better" can be hard. Still, any mud which has a
> > > "compare" command for weapons and armor has at least a primitive
> > > method for doing it.)
> >
> > Lovely idea.. I love it. :)
> >
> > Or theif monsters who steal and then use items.. *cackle*
>
> Actually, something I've long meant to do is build a monster which will
> semi-randomly wander around, killing things (both players and other
> monsters), looting them, using the best equipment it can get, and taking
> the rest back to a store from time to time and selling it -- and which
> will show up on "who", etc. just like a player. I wonder how long it
> would take people to decide whether it was a monster or just one of
> those mudders who never talks to anyone. :-)
*ROFL*
> > > Another possibility is to have a large group of monsters in one
> > > central location who can respond to calls for help from other
> > > monsters -- for instance, in an orc lair, there might be a guard
> > > room where guards hang out, waiting for one of the sentries to call
> > > for help.
> >
> > I love this. :)
>
> The main mud I code on has ranged weapons... what I'd really like to do
> is have engage the players at close range, while others take pot-shots
> at them... I know, it sounds sadistic, but the players can already do
> it to the monsters...
Ranged attacks are something else that could be discussed at length, I
think.. mebbe I'll try to start another thread on them ;)
> > None of this is that hard to *code* in terms of an NM style lib.. thinking
> > it up OTOH.. is quite different. :)
>
> Actually, I don't think any of them is hard to think up either... like
> I said, just watch the strategies the players use against the monsters
> and find ways to make the monsters use them. Of course, this can
> result in a sort of arms race: the monsters start using the players'
> strategies, the players come up with new ones, the monsters start
> using them, etc... :-)
I find planning things like this out in advance to start with hard. :)
Adapting it later is maybe not so difficult..
> --
> |\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ System Manager, FSU CS department
> |,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' (904) 644-4290; Room 101C Carothers
> '---''(_/--' `-'\_) No one agrees with me. Not even me.
> rec.games.design FAQ: http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~casey/design.html
>
>
Matt Chatterley
On 5 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> Date: 5 Jan 1997 04:54:28 GMT
> From: Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> Matt Chatterly (no...@trustme.com) wrote:
>
> > Hmm.. I think you've added a very valid point here, the 'schoolyard bully'
> > mentality most likely does enter into it. The problem comes when said
> > 'bully' is too powerful for players to beat up on in return (although if
> > they ganged up, perhaps..), but still.. restricting PK more to prevent
> > this isn't really fair on those who might like to PK occasionally (ie,
> > once or twice now and then, as the system is intended). Stern punishment
> > for repeat offenders might be a suitable deterrent (such as execution for
> > third or subsequent offences, or such).
>
> I think that a large part of the problem comes from the old D&D paradigm which
> most muds still use: that a character should be able to easily
> defeat several lower-level characters in a straight-up fight. Changing
> that kind of system is relatively easy from a coding standpoint -- the
> problems come in with trying to change the mudding culture which is
> built around that paradigm.
True.. the system I actually have in mind will alleviate this aspect to
some degree (level will be more of a guideline of overall ability, and
will most likely regulate skills, whereas physical stats can be improved
by anyone at any time, and will have a greater influence). Basically if a
higher level character is meant to be much more powerful in someone's
game.. good.. but as you say, perhaps it causes more of a problem in this
aspect.
> (Please note that I'm not saying that this setup intrinsically bad...
> just that it can help out those who like being mud-bullies. The last
> thing I want to do here is start a flamewar about social muds vs.
> combat muds, etc. :-)
Heh heh. :)
> > It's almost impossible to prevent this mentality causing problems..
> > and deterrents have a limited effect.. but are probably a better option
> > than limiting PK (for instance, I personally think restrictions such as
> > not being able to kill someone over 5 levels below you are daft..).
>
> As you say, preventing people with that mentality from causing problems
> is little short of impossible; the best that can usually be done is for
> the wizards or whatever other law mechanism exists on the mud to handle
> these players, and, if they really can't be controlled, to simply rid or
> site-ban them.
Right. If they get out of hand and are causing a problem with the standard
system can't cope with, then wizard level discipline must be called upon
to 'sort' them out.
> Once this is done, you can then focus on the reasons why other people
> PK -- such as the challenge, it being an easy way to get treasure and
> XP, etc. Deterrents and restrictions definitely have their places, but
> other things can be done as well: for instance, the XP value of killing
> a PC could be adjusted based on how many hit points the character had
> when you first started attacking him/her, so that killing weakened
> opponents wouldn't give as large XP awards. Another thread in this discussion
> is talking about making monsters fight more intelligently:
> doing this might lessen the incentive for those who PK because of the
> challenge.
All of this is valid. :)
Personally I'm thinking of a quite involved 'legal system' which will
punish PKers (essentially making them outlaws), infact, will probably
treat all kills in town like this (not sure about that yet).
Matt Chatterley
On 5 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> Date: 5 Jan 1997 05:05:11 GMT
> From: Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> > : Possible.. not as likely. A gang of lower level players could certainly
> > : cause problems for a higher level player (or if one, maybe two catch a
> > : higher level when they're badly injured or such, as you suggest).
> >
> > Possible. Unlikely. What low-level is gonna take the chance? Unless you
> > provide some sort of visual cues that would tip off a player's injury
> > level at a glance, I doubt any low-level player will be stupid enough to
> > try it. Sure, there may be a few insane newbies willing to try it, but
> > they're not the norm, I don't think. :-)
>
> Actually, I've seen it happen... on most muds that I've played on, "look
> at X" will give some indication of how badly injured X is. I've been on
> muds where there was little portable healing, and players would wait
> around near where healing could be obtained, looking at everyone who
> came through to see if they were badly injured.
Ouch, thats cruel. :)
> I've also seen team efforts where four or five players would gang up on
> someone higher level, using hit-and-run tactics, tanking, stealing,
> working together to keep track of where their prey is, blocking exits,
> and killing monsters in the area which provide healing beforehand.
> I've even seen people on some muds "herd" high-power aggressive monsters
> around, moving them into places where they'll be of use in these kinds
> of hunts.
Heh.. nasty tactics, and hard to account for when designing the system to
deal with PKs.
Ganging up would seem to be thought of as a common use tactic.. and fair
enough.. :)
> It's not easy, and it's almost never possible for newbies to kill a high-level
> character, but I've seen low-levels kill mid-levels, and mid-levels
> kill high-levels, quite often.
Things get fuzzy when you compare levels.. should 50 newbies (lvl 1) be
able to kill a lvl 50 player.. etc. :)
Ted Kaiser
Personally, when I play an RPG (face-to-face or computer), I enjoy the
story line and "drama" more that the act of killing (monsters or
otherwise). (I do kill, only when it suits the story.) I appreciate the
"art" of what has been (is being) created, especially when there is group
to share it with. Needless PKing destroys what the author has created,
unless this is what the author intended.
A main element in any game is seeing a character advance, and advancement
is usually based on XP. As such, I think a lot of PKing can probably be
"handled" by changing the foundation on how XP is given out within a game:
healers gain XP for healing and assisting those in need, knights gain XP
for rescuing others from certain demise, mages get XP for discovering new
spells, thieves get XP for stealing or overcoming traps. XP does not have
to be based on "killing". (For those games that are designed around PKing,
then you would give XP for PKing.) Of course, this multi-level XP system
could be hard to implement as it will *possibly* require a more detailed
environment.
What this would do is reward players more for what the character does in
terms of "roleplaying". Those people who delight in the demise of other
players will find their advancement extremely slowed.
Of course, there are holes with such a system. The challange is to come up
with a workable system for a given GAME. If a GAME permits PKing, great.
I don't have to play. However, if a game has a good story line that
encourages more roleplaying, that's where I'll be. (I have yet to find
one.)
Ted Kaiser
Ravnos
>I want a monster that attempts to kill the player. Not by making a
>monster that is impossible to kill (I did that on the first mud I wizzed
>on, it seemed amusing at the time), but one that tries to do what I
>would do. Chase EFFECTIVELY, preserve its own life, use its most
>effective attacks.
This is what would make perfect monsters, and realistic reactions...
But I can hear the cries of 'bullshit' already from many players faced with a
monster that actually can fight back. Making a monster tougher just leads to
making weapons that can kill such a monster... but making a monster that
actually thinks like a player, that would be a challenge for any coder.
But I don't believe Muds are quite ready for AI yet, no matter what Zac might
think. hehe
Fear being 3am and not even being able to type the telnet address to your mud
correctly. :P~~~ Need sleeeeeep....
Ravnos@StarMUD - starmud.astrakan.hgs.se 4000
David Bennett (pinkfish)
Matt Chatterley (no...@trust-me.com) wrote:
:
: Thats exactly the angle which causes the glitch in most approaches to
: 'controlling' PK. What I'd like the system I have in mind to be like, is
: something along the lines of PK being possible (hampered by guards in
: designated town areas), *but* kept under control so noone is repeatedly
: PKed (unless they do something horrendous to somehow deserve it, one could
: argue), or so noone suddenly gets it into their mind to kill everyone
: logged in, and so forth.
:
: Perhaps a strong penalty would be the best deterrent (ie, a bounty and
: allowing other players to legally kill them, or execution.. preferably not
: the latter, it's all too final and not much fun.. but then, nor is being
: PKed into the ground).
We rtried the bounty system on Discworld. It never really
worked terribly satisfactoraly.. We control pking now, you can
register yourself as a pker. Which means (in general) that players tend
to be a reasonable level before registering. So they are at
less immediate risk of being bumbed off by loonies (as most loonies don'
t hang around logng enough :)
We now have assassins who you can pay to kill people and the bouty system
where you can put a bounty on someone if they pked you
(and were not doing it to fulfill a contract). This seems
to be quite balanced and work fairly well. People rarely complain about
it or say that it should be changed to be this or that other
system.
May the frogs say 'ribbit' in your ear,
Daviud.
[DDT] Pink fish forever.
PS Please excuse the typing, its hard doing this with 3 second lag.
Doug Bora
: > Actually, I've seen it happen... on most muds that I've played on, "look
: > at X" will give some indication of how badly injured X is. I've been on
: > muds where there was little portable healing, and players would wait
: > around near where healing could be obtained, looking at everyone who
: > came through to see if they were badly injured.
: Ouch, thats cruel. :)
Actually, this is where your guards come in. Stake 2 of 'em right outside
the healer's door. :-)
: Things get fuzzy when you compare levels.. should 50 newbies (lvl 1) be
: able to kill a lvl 50 player.. etc. :)
I'd hope so! :-)
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: The players 'skills' come in terms of knowing their way around, knowing
: the game, and such, nothing you can do about that.. is simply an advantage
: that more experienced players will have. Letting a character's skills
: dictate how easily they escape is a good course of action -- a theif type
: character will be better at slipping out of combat than say, a barbarian
: type character. :)
I personally have no problem with the player's skills playing some small
part in things, as long as the quality of your link doesn't effect the
outcomes too much.
: Magic is a pain in cases like this, but I figure any town council worth
: their salt would have figured on needing some kind of antimagic setup in
: the jailhouse. Lots of guards, most of them powerful, all over the place
: would be the theme I think.. and getting past them would need a lot of
: luck either way. I can see how to do this so it'd work, and I think it'd
: be worthwhile. :)
You could always have a few wizards hanging out at the jailhouse that
block all spells.
: Yep, best way to set this up would probably be a timer daemon which checks
: prisoners on logout/login, etc. Players will be given a choice of login
: locations (depending on the player/character), and for prisoners this can
: be removed, and simply hurl them into their cell/the cells.
Come to think of it, most muds allow you to start the game wherever you
last quit. If that happens to be in a cell that you can't get out of,
that should work without a problem. Then you just need to compare the
time they went into the cell vs. the length of their sentence, and when
this time is up, free them. Pretty simple, actually.
: Hrrrm... if a whole guild (or lots of them) were in on it, they probably
: should be able to overpower the guards.. but then they'd all be outlawed..
: and bountied I suppose. This'd mean everyone else after them.. and I was
: thinking of setting automated 'bounty hunters' after bounties older than
: say, a week, to menace players ;)
Assuming you still have a town left after this, of course. But if a guild
became this out-of-line, the admin/wiz's would probably have to step in
anyway.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: Ranged attacks are something else that could be discussed at length, I
: think.. mebbe I'll try to start another thread on them ;)
Yes, this is another tropic that I've spent a little thought on, and
haven't come up with a reasonable way to handle. How do you hit something
3 rooms away if you don't even know if they're there?
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
David Bennett (pinkfish)
Matt Chatterley (no...@trust-me.com) wrote:
:
: > - Looting corpses. Players take the equipment off of monsters they
: > kill, and use it if its better, use it? (I know... judging which
: > equipment is "better" can be hard. Still, any mud which has a
: > "compare" command for weapons and armor has at least a primitive
: > method for doing it.)
:
: Lovely idea.. I love it. :)
:
: Or theif monsters who steal and then use items.. *cackle*
On discworld... the theives steal the stuff from
corpses (or just lying on the ground) and go and sell it. Its
funny listening to the chat lines and having players asking, 'where
dit that woman go?' Then going and buying their eqipment back :)
Lots of the npcs follow you and a few of them go around stealing stuff
off you, some of them also remember who killed them before and
hide and ambush the poor player.
The wizards all use their spells...
Come play Discworld, I am sure you won't regret it :)
Bing well,
David.
[DDT] Pink fish forever.
Abigail
On Sat, 4 Jan 1997 23:52:01 GMT, Ravnos wrote in rec.games.mud.lp:
++ >: I must agree with George... there are people who enjoy PK simply because
++ >: they want to make other people miserable, and/or get off on beating up
++ >: on those weaker than they are. They're nothing more than the MUD version
++ >: of the schoolyard bully. These people will continue to PK wherever they
++ >: can, and will do whatever they can to get around any restrictions on PK.
++
++ >I would like to also emphasize that while they are not necessarily the
++ >majority, just a single one of these types can make an entire mud
++ >miserable.
++
++ Fortunately, everyone has to log off at some point. :)
++ And we admins _can_ make use of the sitebanish commands...
Sitebanish commands are not something one should want to deal
with lightly.
++ As with anything administrative, you have to walk the line between what is
++ acceptable and what isn't. There will always be assholes no matter where you
++ go, yes they make us all miserable... but such is life. Such is Mud.
But that's entirely the reason many muds don't allow player killing.
Many people don't like to be playerkilled. Never. Many arches/admins
don't want to deal with all the conflicts arising from playerkilling
as well.
That's why there are player killing muds, and non-player killing muds.
That way, there's a mud for everyone.
Abigail
Abigail
On Sun, 5 Jan 1997 15:02:44 +0000, Matt Chatterley wrote in rec.games.mud.lp:
++ >
++ > Actually, something I've long meant to do is build a monster which will
++ > semi-randomly wander around, killing things (both players and other
++ > monsters), looting them, using the best equipment it can get, and taking
++ > the rest back to a store from time to time and selling it -- and which
++ > will show up on "who", etc. just like a player. I wonder how long it
++ > would take people to decide whether it was a monster or just one of
++ > those mudders who never talks to anyone. :-)
++
++ *ROFL*
Check out Igor the comrade on Igor. It doesn't go kill himself, but
it does the rest, including showing up with "who". (At least, I've
been told it still does, I haven't logged in to Igor for over
2 years.)
Abigail
Abigail
On Sat, 4 Jan 1997 23:11:53 +0000, Matt Chatterley wrote in rec.games.mud.lp:
++ On 4 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
++
++
++ > - Looting corpses. Players take the equipment off of monsters they
++ > kill -- why not have monsters take the equipment off of players they
++ > kill, and use it if its better, use it? (I know... judging which
++ > equipment is "better" can be hard. Still, any mud which has a
++ > "compare" command for weapons and armor has at least a primitive
++ > method for doing it.)
++
++ Lovely idea.. I love it. :)
I've done that, and it isn't that hard. What I did was compare wc (or
ac in case of armour) (after multiplying it with some constant if there
was a hitfunction) and wield the weapon which was much better. If the
wc's didn't differ much, the monster would randomly pick one of the two
(with some preference for the better one), allowing the monster to make
"misjudges". The misjudges would also prevent players for using the
monster as a free weapon compare - by giving it two weapons and then
kill it to get the weapons back.
++ Or theif monsters who steal and then use items.. *cackle*
Did that too. Under certain conditions, it would manage to "steal"
its oponents weapon during combat; and then, if the weapon was better,
it would use it of course.
The same monster would sell its loot when it would wander into a
shop (but not the stuff it was using of course), and buy healing
in pubs (if it had the money for it.)
Not to mention it would run away when its hp became low, yelling it
didn't want to fight anymore. It would also loudly complain about a
player killing in progress (the monster thought it was a player - and
some players did too) was not allowed in the mud, and that it would
tell the arches about the attempted murder - but it never did.
Abigail
Peter Lees
On Sat, 4 Jan 1997 14:45:43 +0000, Matt Chatterley (no...@trust-me.com) wrote:
> The idea of some sort of helper NPC is actually a *brilliant* one given
> the right context -- say in a town area, the chance of their apearance
> being based on the level of the weakest combatant.. hmm. :)
i've seen a dikumud do this very well. the system went like this:
- if you kill another player you become a criminal
- criminals can be killed by players without the killer
becoming a criminal
- town guards (etc) will attack and kill criminals
- town guards will call for help from other guards if they
are in a fight
- criminals killed by a non-criminal player, or a town guard,
are pardoned.
- certain powerful npc's (bounty hunters) will track down and kill certain
crimincals, even beyond the boundary of a town.
this seemed to work fairly well
and, when kept within an appropriate roleplaying environment,
(ie there should be a good in-game reason), killing and stealing
from other players should be allowed.
cheers
p
--
Peter Lees (pe...@next.com.au) - Technical Manager, Next Online
tel: +61 2 9310 1433 * fax: +61 2 9310 1315 * http://www.next.com.au
"You can have a day off when you're dead, Baldrick, and not before..."
Chris Turner
Matt Chatterley (no...@trust-me.com) wrote:
: On 5 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
: > Date: 5 Jan 1997 04:29:11 GMT
: > From: Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
: > Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
: > Subject: Re: Player Killing
: >
: > Matt Chatterley <no...@trust-me.com> wrote:
: > > On 4 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
: > > > Jason Cottrell <Hugg...@huggybear.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[Snip]
: > > > - Looting corpses. Players take the equipment off of monsters they
: > > > kill -- why not have monsters take the equipment off of players
: > > > they kill, and use it if its better, use it? (I know... judging
: > > > which equipment is "better" can be hard. Still, any mud which
: > > > has a "compare" command for weapons and armor has at least a
: > > > primitive method for doing it.)
: > >
: > > Lovely idea.. I love it. :)
: > >
: > > Or theif monsters who steal and then use items.. *cackle*
: >
: > Actually, something I've long meant to do is build a monster which will
: > semi-randomly wander around, killing things (both players and other
: > monsters), looting them, using the best equipment it can get, and taking
: > the rest back to a store from time to time and selling it -- and which
: > will show up on "who", etc. just like a player. I wonder how long it
: > would take people to decide whether it was a monster or just one of
: > those mudders who never talks to anyone. :-)
It would certainly make things a whole lot more fun. I once tried doing
that for a Circle mud (didn't get a site tho) with a race of dark elves.
They killed anything (except other drow) they found, looted corpses and
picked the best items to use. I even tried to get them to group and to help
each other out if nearby.
It certainly can't be any harder to do on an lpmud, although I imagine
players would object strongely to being put up against a small army.
[Snip]
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")
Travis Casey
Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com> wrote:
> : Ranged attacks are something else that could be discussed at length, I
> : think.. mebbe I'll try to start another thread on them ;)
>
> Yes, this is another tropic that I've spent a little thought on, and
> haven't come up with a reasonable way to handle. How do you hit something
> 3 rooms away if you don't even know if they're there?
Well, one of the first things you have to do is have a way for players to
look into other rooms. Nightmare, at least, comes with "peer" and "lpeer"
commands which allow the characters to see things up to 5 rooms away.
Of course, you can also know where a monster is from memory; e.g., go in
a room, see the monster, and walk three rooms south. As long as the
monster doesn't move, you know its three rooms north of you.
Lastly, you can find out that monsters are there when they start shooting
at you. On our mud, the victim of a ranged weapon attack gets a message
along the lines of: "A crossbow bolt fired by an orc guard misses you from
the north."
Matt Chatterley
On 6 Jan 1997, David Bennett (pinkfish) wrote:
> Date: 6 Jan 1997 00:10:05 GMT
> From: "David Bennett (pinkfish)" <d...@visi.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> Matt Chatterley (no...@trust-me.com) wrote:
> :
> : Thats exactly the angle which causes the glitch in most approaches to
> : 'controlling' PK. What I'd like the system I have in mind to be like, is
> : something along the lines of PK being possible (hampered by guards in
> : designated town areas), *but* kept under control so noone is repeatedly
> : PKed (unless they do something horrendous to somehow deserve it, one could
> : argue), or so noone suddenly gets it into their mind to kill everyone
> : logged in, and so forth.
> :
> : Perhaps a strong penalty would be the best deterrent (ie, a bounty and
> : allowing other players to legally kill them, or execution.. preferably not
> : the latter, it's all too final and not much fun.. but then, nor is being
> : PKed into the ground).
>
> We rtried the bounty system on Discworld. It never really
> worked terribly satisfactoraly.. We control pking now, you can
> register yourself as a pker. Which means (in general) that players tend
> to be a reasonable level before registering. So they are at
> less immediate risk of being bumbed off by loonies (as most loonies don'
> t hang around logng enough :)
Hmm.. yeah, I can see this working well, but it's not a system I
personally like (and it is a personal taste thing). I prefer a more
realistic approach (but this is where realism/playability) have to be
considered.
> We now have assassins who you can pay to kill people and the bouty system
> where you can put a bounty on someone if they pked you
> (and were not doing it to fulfill a contract). This seems
> to be quite balanced and work fairly well. People rarely complain about
> it or say that it should be changed to be this or that other
> system.
I like the assassin idea actually.. might work well for a very select
guild in the system I'm building up. Or assassin NPCs players can hire
(this might work better).
> May the frogs say 'ribbit' in your ear,
> Daviud.
> [DDT] Pink fish forever.
>
> PS Please excuse the typing, its hard doing this with 3 second lag.
>
>
Ain't it just. :)
Matt Chatterley
On 6 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 6 Jan 1997 00:05:17 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : > Actually, I've seen it happen... on most muds that I've played on, "look
> : > at X" will give some indication of how badly injured X is. I've been on
> : > muds where there was little portable healing, and players would wait
> : > around near where healing could be obtained, looking at everyone who
> : > came through to see if they were badly injured.
>
> : Ouch, thats cruel. :)
>
> Actually, this is where your guards come in. Stake 2 of 'em right outside
> the healer's door. :-)
More likely to have them on general patrol, kinda like beat-cops, but
perhaps the system (I'm planning a daemon to run it), might place
stationary guards if a room has a history of trouble.. *evil grin*
> : Things get fuzzy when you compare levels.. should 50 newbies (lvl 1) be
> : able to kill a lvl 50 player.. etc. :)
>
> I'd hope so! :-)
*grin* In theory, given the system I'm planning, yes they should be able
to. Any equal combination of player or monster levels have potentially the
same skills (between them), in terms of 'attack', 'defence' etc. Physical
stats will have a greater bearing (thus a lvl 1 with 15 str, and lvl 50
with say 75 str are not at all equal), but, the lvl 50 in this case, has
to kill 50 other players (will take him at least 50 rounds if he has no
area-effect abilities), while they all pound on him. :)
> --
> Doug Bora
> stig...@wwa.com
>
>
Matt Chatterley
On 6 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 6 Jan 1997 00:01:25 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> : The players 'skills' come in terms of knowing their way around, knowing
> : the game, and such, nothing you can do about that.. is simply an advantage
> : that more experienced players will have. Letting a character's skills
> : dictate how easily they escape is a good course of action -- a theif type
> : character will be better at slipping out of combat than say, a barbarian
> : type character. :)
>
> I personally have no problem with the player's skills playing some small
> part in things, as long as the quality of your link doesn't effect the
> outcomes too much.
Absolutely (as long as we draw a line, and note that a badly lagged player
is always worse off.. ie if you have phenomenal lag for some reason such
as a poor router.. but generally being on 14.4 or over, even a little
less, should be more than enough for it to make little difference). Player
knowledge will always swing the balance somewhat, and can't really be
helped.
> : Magic is a pain in cases like this, but I figure any town council worth
> : their salt would have figured on needing some kind of antimagic setup in
> : the jailhouse. Lots of guards, most of them powerful, all over the place
> : would be the theme I think.. and getting past them would need a lot of
> : luck either way. I can see how to do this so it'd work, and I think it'd
> : be worthwhile. :)
>
> You could always have a few wizards hanging out at the jailhouse that
> block all spells.
Something along that line would be 'atmospherically feasible' enough,
yeah. :)
> : Yep, best way to set this up would probably be a timer daemon which checks
> : prisoners on logout/login, etc. Players will be given a choice of login
> : locations (depending on the player/character), and for prisoners this can
> : be removed, and simply hurl them into their cell/the cells.
>
> Come to think of it, most muds allow you to start the game wherever you
> last quit. If that happens to be in a cell that you can't get out of,
> that should work without a problem. Then you just need to compare the
> time they went into the cell vs. the length of their sentence, and when
> this time is up, free them. Pretty simple, actually.
Hmm.. I'm in two minds about that, currently thinking of going with what
appears the more standard 'start in class hall or similar' approach,
because players won't keep their equipment between logins (there will
probably be ways to keep it, but not just by having it when you quit), and
if they log off in a dangerous place they could be in serious trouble.
Hmm.. OTOH you could say it's their fault for logging off there. :)
I haven't looked at coding this aspect yet, but I'm planning the daemon
that will handle this whole system out on paper (i take the approach --
don't fuss over if you can code it or not, write down what you want it to
do, then find a way to code it, learn if need be *grin*).
> : Hrrrm... if a whole guild (or lots of them) were in on it, they probably
> : should be able to overpower the guards.. but then they'd all be outlawed..
> : and bountied I suppose. This'd mean everyone else after them.. and I was
> : thinking of setting automated 'bounty hunters' after bounties older than
> : say, a week, to menace players ;)
>
> Assuming you still have a town left after this, of course. But if a guild
> became this out-of-line, the admin/wiz's would probably have to step in
> anyway.
*ROFL*
Yeah, quite probably. Lets just hope this doesn't happen ;)
Matt Chatterley
On 6 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 6 Jan 1997 00:12:00 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Intelligent monsters [Was Re: Player Killing]
>
> : Ranged attacks are something else that could be discussed at length, I
> : think.. mebbe I'll try to start another thread on them ;)
>
> Yes, this is another tropic that I've spent a little thought on, and
> haven't come up with a reasonable way to handle. How do you hit something
> 3 rooms away if you don't even know if they're there?
On most NM derivatives you can look one room in either direction with
'peer', and I personally wouldn't want weapons to work over more than a
one room range really.. gets awkward otherwise (LOS computations, etc, are
a pain in the arse typically).
Thing is.. it's not too hard to get working bows and arrows for instance
which can shoot into the next room. But if you have say, a static
monster in there, whats to stop players simply popping them off and
killing them? That appears to be the first problem anyways. :)
> --
> Doug Bora
> stig...@wwa.com
>
>
Matt Chatterley
On Mon, 6 Jan 1997, Abigail wrote:
> Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 01:09:21 GMT
> From: Abigail <abi...@ny.fnx.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> On Sat, 4 Jan 1997 23:52:01 GMT, Ravnos wrote in rec.games.mud.lp:
> ++ >: I must agree with George... there are people who enjoy PK simply because
> ++ >: they want to make other people miserable, and/or get off on beating up
> ++ >: on those weaker than they are. They're nothing more than the MUD version
> ++ >: of the schoolyard bully. These people will continue to PK wherever they
> ++ >: can, and will do whatever they can to get around any restrictions on PK.
> ++
> ++ >I would like to also emphasize that while they are not necessarily the
> ++ >majority, just a single one of these types can make an entire mud
> ++ >miserable.
> ++
> ++ Fortunately, everyone has to log off at some point. :)
> ++ And we admins _can_ make use of the sitebanish commands...
>
> Sitebanish commands are not something one should want to deal
> with lightly.
If you clearly define certain types of antisocial behaviour as against
immortal-held laws, and define the punishment upfront as temporary or
permanent removal from the game.. players cannot argue it was unfair for
you to exact that punishment. Remember we have in mind here severe cases,
those people who *try* to ruin the enjoyment of the game for others.
> ++ As with anything administrative, you have to walk the line between what is
> ++ acceptable and what isn't. There will always be assholes no matter where you
> ++ go, yes they make us all miserable... but such is life. Such is Mud.
>
> But that's entirely the reason many muds don't allow player killing.
> Many people don't like to be playerkilled. Never. Many arches/admins
> don't want to deal with all the conflicts arising from playerkilling
> as well.
PK causes no ends of problems if it isn't all laid out clearly in help
files, so that players know it can happen etc (admin should just point
them to the files if they appear ignorant of their content). Even if it
is, you get the 'but its not fair, he's bigger than me' type argument (and
others), which can only really be dealt with one way, if it was a legal
PK. "Tough.". Not nice, but to some degree, true.
> That's why there are player killing muds, and non-player killing muds.
> That way, there's a mud for everyone.
Exactly. "If you don't like that we have PK here, please play somewhere
else, rather than complain about it." ;)
>
>
> Abigail
Matt Chatterley
On 6 Jan 1997, Peter Lees wrote:
> Date: 6 Jan 1997 06:40:31 GMT
> From: Peter Lees <pe...@junior.next.com.au>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> On Sat, 4 Jan 1997 14:45:43 +0000, Matt Chatterley (no...@trust-me.com) wrote:
>
> > The idea of some sort of helper NPC is actually a *brilliant* one given
> > the right context -- say in a town area, the chance of their apearance
> > being based on the level of the weakest combatant.. hmm. :)
>
> i've seen a dikumud do this very well. the system went like this:
>
> - if you kill another player you become a criminal
> - criminals can be killed by players without the killer
> becoming a criminal
> - town guards (etc) will attack and kill criminals
> - town guards will call for help from other guards if they
> are in a fight
> - criminals killed by a non-criminal player, or a town guard,
> are pardoned.
> - certain powerful npc's (bounty hunters) will track down and kill certain
> crimincals, even beyond the boundary of a town.
>
> this seemed to work fairly well
This is a reasonable system, and something like what I have in mind. :)
Basically everyone is protected as the law protects them, and as they
protect themselves. There are no players involved in the legal process
(it's heartlessly, and fairly dealt out by the MUD itself, note that I say
fair, because computers aren't biased *grin* It may not seem fair, but as
far as the system is concerned, everything is right because it says so
:P).
> and, when kept within an appropriate roleplaying environment,
> (ie there should be a good in-game reason), killing and stealing
> from other players should be allowed.
This is my standpoint as well. :)
> cheers
>
> p
>
> --
> Peter Lees (pe...@next.com.au) - Technical Manager, Next Online
> tel: +61 2 9310 1433 * fax: +61 2 9310 1315 * http://www.next.com.au
>
> "You can have a day off when you're dead, Baldrick, and not before..."
>
>
Matt Chatterley
On 6 Jan 1997, David Bennett (pinkfish) wrote:
> Date: 6 Jan 1997 00:21:43 GMT
> From: "David Bennett (pinkfish)" <d...@visi.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> Matt Chatterley (no...@trust-me.com) wrote:
> :
> : > - Looting corpses. Players take the equipment off of monsters they
> : > kill -- why not have monsters take the equipment off of players they
> : > kill, and use it if its better, use it? (I know... judging which
> : > equipment is "better" can be hard. Still, any mud which has a
> : > "compare" command for weapons and armor has at least a primitive
> : > method for doing it.)
> :
> : Lovely idea.. I love it. :)
> :
> : Or theif monsters who steal and then use items.. *cackle*
>
> On discworld... the theives steal the stuff from
> corpses (or just lying on the ground) and go and sell it. Its
> funny listening to the chat lines and having players asking, 'where
> dit that woman go?' Then going and buying their eqipment back :)
*ROFL*
Sounds like fun. :)
> Lots of the npcs follow you and a few of them go around stealing stuff
> off you, some of them also remember who killed them before and
> hide and ambush the poor player.
I'm going to be working up a THIEF_MONSTER inherit I think, for those
instances when wizards want to make a static or roaming thief, who will
steal, etc. Won't take terribly long.. and would make life a lot easier on
everyone else later. :)
> The wizards all use their spells...
We won't go into this *grin* sometimes you may not want them to use
everything.. etc.. etc.. but making them use them more intelligently is
better than giving them stacks of spells (as some creators do).
> Come play Discworld, I am sure you won't regret it :)
Oh, but I will *grin* I don't have enough free time for everything I do as
it is ;)
> discworld.imaginary.com 4242
>
> Bing well,
> David.
> [DDT] Pink fish forever.
>
>
Matt Chatterley
On 6 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> Date: 6 Jan 1997 12:01:04 GMT
> From: Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Intelligent monsters [Was Re: Player Killing]
>
> Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com> wrote:
>
> > : Ranged attacks are something else that could be discussed at length, I
> > : think.. mebbe I'll try to start another thread on them ;)
> >
> > Yes, this is another tropic that I've spent a little thought on, and
> > haven't come up with a reasonable way to handle. How do you hit something
> > 3 rooms away if you don't even know if they're there?
>
> Well, one of the first things you have to do is have a way for players to
> look into other rooms. Nightmare, at least, comes with "peer" and "lpeer"
> commands which allow the characters to see things up to 5 rooms away.
Well peer at least ;) 'lpeer' is an NM-IV thing, IIRC.
> Of course, you can also know where a monster is from memory; e.g., go in
> a room, see the monster, and walk three rooms south. As long as the
> monster doesn't move, you know its three rooms north of you.
Not something you want to rely on (players who don't know are then at a
huge disadvantage).
> Lastly, you can find out that monsters are there when they start shooting
> at you. On our mud, the victim of a ranged weapon attack gets a message
> along the lines of: "A crossbow bolt fired by an orc guard misses you from
> the north."
This isn't the problem.. this is fair enough, and simple. :)
However, what do the monsters do in return if players start shooting at
them? If the monsters have no ranged attacks to throw back? Seems that
this is the first real hurdle to me. :)
Abigail
On 6 Jan 1997 12:01:04 GMT, Travis Casey wrote in rec.games.mud.lp:
++ Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com> wrote:
++
++ > : Ranged attacks are something else that could be discussed at length, I
++ > : think.. mebbe I'll try to start another thread on them ;)
++ >
++ > Yes, this is another tropic that I've spent a little thought on, and
++ > haven't come up with a reasonable way to handle. How do you hit something
++ > 3 rooms away if you don't even know if they're there?
++
++ Well, one of the first things you have to do is have a way for players to
++ look into other rooms. Nightmare, at least, comes with "peer" and "lpeer"
++ commands which allow the characters to see things up to 5 rooms away.
Looking or firing into other rooms isn't the problem. The big problem I
have with it is that "room" makes such a lousy distance unit.
Not to mention that while shooting 3 rooms away in a desert would
be ok (except that the distance might be too far), but that shooting
(or even looking) through 3 rooms in a castle is a bit absurd, and
not even necessarely matches the description.
++ Of course, you can also know where a monster is from memory; e.g., go in
++ a room, see the monster, and walk three rooms south. As long as the
++ monster doesn't move, you know its three rooms north of you.
What? In a *mud*? Of course, it should be there, but in many muds,
3s followed by 3n doesn't always lead to the same room.
++ Lastly, you can find out that monsters are there when they start shooting
++ at you. On our mud, the victim of a ranged weapon attack gets a message
++ along the lines of: "A crossbow bolt fired by an orc guard misses you from
++ the north."
Cool.
Abigail
Damaged Justice
An entity calling itself Matt Chatterley (no...@trust-me.com) allegedly wrote:
:
: However, what do the monsters do in return if players start shooting at
: them? If the monsters have no ranged attacks to throw back? Seems that
: this is the first real hurdle to me. :)
On my firstplayed mud (ah, nostalgia), non-sentinel mobs would, sooner or
later, notice that things were being hurled at them by a player, and run to
the player and attack.
--
http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~frogfarm ...for the best in unapproved information
"We think people like seeing somebody in a uniform on the porch." -US Postal
spokeswoman, quoted in AP, 1/27/96. I don't know about you, but most people I
know who saw someone in uniform on their porch would pull out the shotgun...
Doug Bora
: Hmm.. I'm in two minds about that, currently thinking of going with what
: appears the more standard 'start in class hall or similar' approach,
: because players won't keep their equipment between logins (there will
: probably be ways to keep it, but not just by having it when you quit), and
: if they log off in a dangerous place they could be in serious trouble.
: Hmm.. OTOH you could say it's their fault for logging off there. :)
This is one thing I'm not really sure how to handle yet. I'd like for
them to be able to quit anywhere, and then resume where they left off, but
what do you do with them while they're not online? Will they be camped
out where they quit? If so, can they be attacked? Will they fight back
as an NPC? Will they just go into limbo such that they cannot be
attacked? This might work, but you'd have to block quitting while engaged
in combat. I personally don't care for the "rent" concept, as I'd like
for people to be able to explore new places over several sessions without
having to go back and forth between a town and where they left off each
day.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: > Actually, this is where your guards come in. Stake 2 of 'em right outside
: > the healer's door. :-)
: More likely to have them on general patrol, kinda like beat-cops, but
: perhaps the system (I'm planning a daemon to run it), might place
: stationary guards if a room has a history of trouble.. *evil grin*
I would have them both on-patrol, and standing guard. Just like a real
town probably would have. Just have them stand guard in possible trouble
spots such as the healer and such. Just make sure they are willing to go
to a fight nearby, or players will simply stake out the room next door
instead.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Matt Chatterley
On 6 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 6 Jan 1997 21:12:23 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
It seems a common 'grey' area that people have to decide how to deal with
when beginning work on a MUD. There are basically two approaches:
Player quits, equipment is removed from them, and when they connect later
than begin in a class hall (or other arbitary location).
or
Player quits, keeps all equipment and upon next login will start in the
same location.
There are problems with both (and the first seems most common, since it is
the standard with many libs, I believe), but I personally prefer the
first, since it causes (for me) least problems..
Theres no need to worry about players logging into a room with an
agressive monster, or such, and the lib isnt really balanced for players
to keep their equipment (they should need to procure new gear in a new
session, or rather, after a reboot). I like the idea of an inn, or such,
where players can store kit safely.
The many questions about where they are when 'not logged in' with the
second approach are the main things which dissuade me from it's use..
where do they go? Can things be done to them? It's one of those cases
where I think a bank left from reality boosts playability substantially.
:)
> --
> Doug Bora
> stig...@wwa.com
>
>
Doug Bora
: Well, one of the first things you have to do is have a way for players to
: look into other rooms. Nightmare, at least, comes with "peer" and "lpeer"
: commands which allow the characters to see things up to 5 rooms away.
Yeah, but this still seems a bit "klunky" to me. I mean, you'd think that
for the most part, you'd be able to see at least 1 room in either
direction. Perhaps when listing players, you'd see something like:
[Description]
Ming the merciless [fully documented].
Bob the horrible player.
Stalin the title-less is to the north.
Braktal the warrior is to the east.
>
You'd of course have to add some sort of hooks to block sight in specific
directions and such, as you obviously wouldn't be able to see if there
were a door or other obstacle blocking your sight. Depending on how
complex you wanted to make it, you could also allow for seeing more than
one room in each direction, and then both modify the text displayed.
Also, you'd want to modify how far the player can actually see based on
the terrain type and light levels (possibly even weather, though this
could be tied to the light level) in the rooms between the two players.
: Lastly, you can find out that monsters are there when they start shooting
: at you. On our mud, the victim of a ranged weapon attack gets a message
: along the lines of: "A crossbow bolt fired by an orc guard misses you from
: the north."
These seems like a rather deadly method of determining this sort of thing.
Doug Bora
: Thing is.. it's not too hard to get working bows and arrows for instance
: which can shoot into the next room. But if you have say, a static
: monster in there, whats to stop players simply popping them off and
: killing them? That appears to be the first problem anyways. :)
In this case, we'd need to fall back to the AI in monsters discussion.
What would a player do if someone started pelting them with arrows? If
they were hit bad, they'd probably run. If they weren't, I'd imagine
they'd charge to the attack or if they have a ranged weapon, fire back.
Also, if you allow peering a room ahead for the players, shouldn't the
monsters receive the same ability?
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Matt Chatterley
On 6 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 6 Jan 1997 21:22:59 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Intelligent monsters [Was Re: Player Killing]
>
> : Well, one of the first things you have to do is have a way for players to
> : look into other rooms. Nightmare, at least, comes with "peer" and "lpeer"
> : commands which allow the characters to see things up to 5 rooms away.
>
> Yeah, but this still seems a bit "klunky" to me. I mean, you'd think that
> for the most part, you'd be able to see at least 1 room in either
> direction. Perhaps when listing players, you'd see something like:
>
> [Description]
>
> Ming the merciless [fully documented].
> Bob the horrible player.
>
> Stalin the title-less is to the north.
> Braktal the warrior is to the east.
>
> >
Hmm.. could get a bit spammy.. but then.. perhaps better than having to
conciously look in a direction to see there (ie, our vision is 3d, we see
some to the sides, and a further look reveals details if we want them).
Perhaps make descriptions of adjoining rooms vaguer:
Two elves and a goblin can be seen to the east.
And peer would identify them further?
> You'd of course have to add some sort of hooks to block sight in specific
> directions and such, as you obviously wouldn't be able to see if there
> were a door or other obstacle blocking your sight. Depending on how
> complex you wanted to make it, you could also allow for seeing more than
> one room in each direction, and then both modify the text displayed.
> Also, you'd want to modify how far the player can actually see based on
> the terrain type and light levels (possibly even weather, though this
> could be tied to the light level) in the rooms between the two players.
This could get nasty. *grin*
Doors (or hidden exits) need to prevent sight in this way, and anything
else of the like, light perhaps, and maybe even weather.. yes..
It does seem less of a hack to have some partial vision in other
directions without having to 'peer' in them.. *ponder*
> : Lastly, you can find out that monsters are there when they start shooting
> : at you. On our mud, the victim of a ranged weapon attack gets a message
> : along the lines of: "A crossbow bolt fired by an orc guard misses you from
> : the north."
>
> These seems like a rather deadly method of determining this sort of thing.
> :-)
*ROFL*
Doug Bora
: If the monster is guarding something.. will it have to, from now on,
: follow the player to avoid them just shooting it to get it out the room it
: guards, and slip past it?
You could put a maximum movement value on the monster such that they can
only get x number of rooms away from whatever they're protecting. If the
player exceeds this range, the monster will run back to whatever it was
guarding in the first place, assess it's wounds, and do whatever it can to
fix the damage.
: Can players use missile weapons in the *same* room (okay, not really a
: connected question, but I thought of it while I was here :P).
Ooh. This is a good point and effects my other post. I suppose it might
be a tad difficult to shoot someone with your trusty bow with any kind of
force when they're in your face attempting to brain you with a mace or
something. :-)
I'd probably say that only melee weapons can be used when in the same
room. That also solves my problem of where an arrow fired in the same
room as a monster flies.
: How do you determine hit/miss with missile weapons.. is there anyway to
: account for the territory? Perhaps a set_property("natural cover",4)
: giving everything natural ac 4 vs missiles..
You'd probably have to add modifiers for each type of "room" you're in,
but that would actually be one of the easier to impliment parts of this
whole thing, I think.
: All I can think of for now.. I'm *really* interested in hearing how people
: have (or think it's possible to) cope with this.. since I'd rather avoid
: the idea of missile weapons simply being handhelds with different
: messages. :)
Oh, I think we've already made some decent inroads on avoiding that. :-)
Oh, and one more thing. Don't forget that spells can also have ranges.
How about shooting a fireball across multiple rooms. This could be truly
fun if the fireball has some sort of area-of-affect attached to it.
A couple players sitting down having a nicing talk:
You see a giant fireball roaring towards you from the east!
You duck!
Bob ducks!
Steve ducks!
It's too late. You've been burned to a crisp.
It's too late for Bob. He's been burned to a crisp.
It's too late for Steve. He's been burned to a crisp.
Stigmata the incompetant wizard sees:
You fire a massive fireball to the west.
Hmm. You think you smell something burning to the west...
You see someone collapse into a pile of ash to the west.
You see someone collapse into a pile of ash to the west.
You see someone collapse into a pile of ash to the west.
Maybe it's just coincidence, but didn't you just hurl a fireball in that
direction? I'm not sure I'd stand around gawking if I was you.
>
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: If it's a spear, once you fire it once (throw it), it vanishes from you
: and either:
: 1. Dissappears (is lost).
: 2. Appears on the floor in the target room.
: 3. Appears in the target's inventory.
: Same for bows.. do you have arrows.. or is that an overkill in detail? Is
: a bow too powerful if it has infinite ammunition?
You'd need to code a missile object, I'd think. That way you could
define all the different types of missiles and their various messages in
a single object. Then when you fire an arrow (for example), it could do
1 of serveral things:
1. If the monster is hit, I'd probably just say the missile would drop to
the ground. Now a lot of this would depend on how we define the missile.
For instance, if it's an arrow, there should be a chance that it breaks.
If it's something like a sling stone, then the chance of it breaking
should almost be nil. After a hit, I guess the missile should drop to the
ground as it's individual object once again. Unless that is (in the case
of something like an arrow), we can find a way to allow you to pull them
out of a corpse when the monster is dead. That might be a pain, though.
2. You miss the monster. The missile should fly a random number of rooms
in the direction fired (possibly a random direction if you're in the room
with the monster) up to the max range of the missile weapon. Again, there
could be a chance that the missile breaks (though perhaps lower than if
hitting the monster, or the chance lessens the further the shot goes
before "stopping") somewhere in it's flight.
Another possible thought, is what to do with a missed shot if there are
either other players in the room, or along whatever path the missile takes
before stopping? Can it hit another player? If so, I'd probably say that
if it hits someone in the same room, they'd know who fired it. If it hits
someone in a different room, they see something like, "You're hit for x
damage by an arrow from the south!"
Again, another problem is missile weapon range. How do you determine them
with reasonable accuracy? Perhaps it's best in this case to simply state
that it can shoot 3 rooms and leave it at that. While this cuts down on
the realism somewhat, it's a heck of a lot easier to code.
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Doug Bora
: Theres no need to worry about players logging into a room with an
: agressive monster, or such, and the lib isnt really balanced for players
: to keep their equipment (they should need to procure new gear in a new
: session, or rather, after a reboot). I like the idea of an inn, or such,
: where players can store kit safely.
: The many questions about where they are when 'not logged in' with the
: second approach are the main things which dissuade me from it's use..
: where do they go? Can things be done to them? It's one of those cases
: where I think a bank left from reality boosts playability substantially.
On this point I disagree. For me, when I'm exploring to be forced to make
the choice of either stopping, walking back to town, finding an inn or
whatever to store my equipment in, or just quitting and watching all my
hard-earned equipment fall to the ground, would ruin the game for me. The
game now either becomes "collect equipment", or "stay in or near town".
I'd really like for people to be able to explore across multiple sessions.
This would allow for some truly large and detailed areas.
Maybe I need to suspend reality as you say, and create a "Squiggly's
Indestructable Pup-Tent" item that automatically protects a player when he
or she quits. This item of course wouldn't be available until a player
quits, and you could not quit while in battle (even if the attacker isn't
currently in the room). It could happen! :-)
--
Doug Bora
stig...@wwa.com
Tim Hollebeek
In article <5amiis$q...@kirin.wwa.com>, stig...@wwa.com writes:
> : This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
> : not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
> : of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
> : comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
> : for weaker players.
>
> There are many ways for people to make the game miserable for others. Not
> all of them include PK'ing. If a player is abusing the system, the admin
> either need to talk to the player and make them stop (with whatever means
> are necessary), or fix the system such that they can't abuse it. The only
> players that could really make trouble in this fashion are the higher
> level ones, and generally speaking, the higher level characters shouldn't
> be able to get that way by being stupid.
This isn't actually true; for better or worse, a team of one to three mid
to low level characters who know how to PK (good triggers, know how to
follow people, etc), supplied with good equipment and/or PK-abusable
items, can often kill highlevel characters in a matter of rounds on
many MUDs (this is partly due to the player/monster hp mismatch Abigail
mentioned).
The admins usually are forced to fix the system so that it can't be
abused; by far the easiest way to do this is to restrict PK :-)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Hollebeek | Disclaimer :=> Everything above is a true statement,
Electron Psychologist | for sufficiently false values of true.
Princeton University | email: t...@wfn-shop.princeton.edu
----------------------| http://wfn-shop.princeton.edu/~tim (NEW! IMPROVED!)
Tim Hollebeek
In article <5apgin$8...@darla.visi.com>, d...@visi.com writes:
> Matt Chatterley (no...@trust-me.com) wrote:
> :
> : > - Looting corpses. Players take the equipment off of monsters they
> : > kill -- why not have monsters take the equipment off of players they
> : > kill, and use it if its better, use it? (I know... judging which
> : > equipment is "better" can be hard. Still, any mud which has a
> : > "compare" command for weapons and armor has at least a primitive
> : > method for doing it.)
> :
> : Lovely idea.. I love it. :)
> :
> : Or theif monsters who steal and then use items.. *cackle*
I've seen many monsters that will pick up things and wield them; it's
actually quite fun to get them to wield something useless so you can
kill them easily. Some of the smarter ones check weapon classes etc
and only wield things *better* than they are using; I once wrote a
sword that had a high wc but very bad hit function for use such a
monster in a neighboring castle.
Hope that's readable through all the 2.4.5-isms :-)
Tim Hollebeek
In article <Pine.LNX.3.95.97010...@insanity.itl.net>, Matt Chatterley <no...@trust-me.com> writes:
> On 4 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
>
> > Date: 4 Jan 1997 20:42:59 GMT
> > From: Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> > Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> > Subject: Re: Player Killing
> >
> >
> > <suggestions on preventing PK snipped>
> >
> > > This is meaningless. The people who play the game for advancement are
> > > not the problem with PK. It is the assholes who like PK for the sake
> > > of PK. How much experience they get or whether some dorky monster
> > > comes to the rescue has no bearing on them making the game miserable
> > > for weaker players.
> >
>
> mentality most likely does enter into it. The problem comes when said
> 'bully' is too powerful for players to beat up on in return (although if
> they ganged up, perhaps..), but still..
One thing you learn if you play Genocide is that there really is quite a bit
of skill to PK'ing. The majority of MUD players have no idea how to go
about it, especially on non-PK MUDs. People mention "ganging up" on offenders
a lot in this thread, but in practice it may not be possible. It takes a
number of *experienced* PK'ers to manage to get 3 people hitting the same
person in the same room at the same time (assuming an experienced target).
Average MUDders will have a hard time getting even a two-on-one situation,
and that's assuming the PK'er is alone! Part of this is due to the fact
that on a typical MUD, players can move around *very* quickly; following
them becomes nearly impossible. You have to know how to track them down.
> restricting PK more to prevent
> this isn't really fair on those who might like to PK occasionally (ie,
> once or twice now and then, as the system is intended). Stern punishment
> for repeat offenders might be a suitable deterrent (such as execution for
> third or subsequent offences, or such).
The problem is that in many cases there isn't anything you can do to them.
This is especially true if they are using a low or mid-level character,
which can be replaced fairly quickly. You can ban them, but then they just
move to a new MUD ...
I've actually known a few people in RL who log onto MUDs just to go on
PK sprees; when they get kicked off after having a week or two of fun,
they just move on to the next MUD. I seriously doubt there is
anything a MUD admin could do to get them to stop.
Tim Hollebeek
In article <Pine.LNX.3.95.97010...@insanity.itl.net>, Matt Chatterley <no...@trust-me.com> writes:
> On 4 Jan 1997, George Reese wrote:
>
> > Date: 4 Jan 1997 22:44:04 GMT
> > From: George Reese <bo...@visi.com>
> > Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> > Subject: Re: Player Killing
> >
> > Travis Casey (ca...@cs.fsu.edu) wrote:
>
> > : I must agree with George... there are people who enjoy PK simply because
> > : they want to make other people miserable, and/or get off on beating up
> > : on those weaker than they are. They're nothing more than the MUD version
> > : of the schoolyard bully. These people will continue to PK wherever they
> > : can, and will do whatever they can to get around any restrictions on PK.
> >
> > I would like to also emphasize that while they are not necessarily the
> > majority, just a single one of these types can make an entire mud
> > miserable.
>
> Another sad-but-true fact of life. :(
>
> If of course, it's one major asshole causing a big problem.. it can be
> dealt with by the wizards (whether by temporarily banning them while they
> cool of, or perhaps removing them if the problem is severe enough).
Getting rid of them is easy; dealing with the hundreds of requests for
compensation is when the headaches start ...
Tim Hollebeek
In article <5amvtd$7...@kirin.wwa.com>, stig...@wwa.com writes:
> : I said bullshit. I didn't attack you. Get a little fortitude.
>
> No, you didn't attack me, but you did assume an "attitude". Looks like an
> offensive stance to me. I don't see a need to take that sort of hostile
> tone. That's all. I can certainly hold my own in a battle of words if
> necessary, but I'd rather avoid it.
On the other hand, getting upset when someone refers to your ideas as
bullshit is a bit sensitive; I've seen the word tossed about quite a
bit in this discussion. It's a rather crude way of expressing strong
disagreement, but it is only an expression of strong disagreement :-)
I'm rather fond of the word when confronted by claims which are
obviously similar in many ways to excrement, and would hate to see it
labeled as a personal attack.
There are (unfortunately) many people in the world who react similarly to
phrases like "I think you're wrong" or "Your idea sounds stupid to me",
which IMO is unfortunate. Your reaction appears to me to be similar.
I must say, I've seen plenty of things in this thread that certainly
qualify as bullshit. Huggybear's post comes to mind.
Ragnar Hojland Espinosa
Matt Chatterley wrote:
>
> On 6 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> > Lastly, you can find out that monsters are there when they start shooting
> > at you. On our mud, the victim of a ranged weapon attack gets a message
> > along the lines of: "A crossbow bolt fired by an orc guard misses you from
> > the north."
>
>
> them? If the monsters have no ranged attacks to throw back? Seems that
> this is the first real hurdle to me. :)
Well, if you can shoot them, they can also move to you and rip you in a
half or other "educational" tactic *giggle* Of course you have to be
sure that they can move to the player before you allow them to fire..
--
____/| Ragnar
\ o.O|
=(_)= Iluvatar, Implementor at Dragonsfyre
U (telnet://dragonsfyre.net:4000)
Travis Casey
Abigail <abi...@ny.fnx.com> wrote:
> On 6 Jan 1997 12:01:04 GMT, Travis Casey wrote in rec.games.mud.lp:
> ++ Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com> wrote:
> ++ > Yes, this is another tropic that I've spent a little thought on, and
> ++ > haven't come up with a reasonable way to handle. How do you hit
something
> ++ > 3 rooms away if you don't even know if they're there?
> ++
> ++ Well, one of the first things you have to do is have a way for players to
> ++ look into other rooms. Nightmare, at least, comes with "peer" and "lpeer"
> ++ commands which allow the characters to see things up to 5 rooms away.
>
> Looking or firing into other rooms isn't the problem. The big problem I
> have with it is that "room" makes such a lousy distance unit.
> Not to mention that while shooting 3 rooms away in a desert would
> be ok (except that the distance might be too far), but that shooting
> (or even looking) through 3 rooms in a castle is a bit absurd, and
> not even necessarely matches the description.
Both of these are problems with simple implementations of ranged
combat and distance looking. Ideally, there should be a way for
rooms to have sizes, distances between them, be "borderless", and
have the properties of what can be done *through* them set by the
creator. Doing all of this, and doing it well, isn't easy.
Further, monster behaviors have to be altered; monsters should be
able to use ranged weapons and respond to attacks with ranged weapons
either by shooting back, running away, or closing to melee range,
depending on the monster -- and that's the bare minimum which they
should be able to do.
To put it another way: any decent coder can throw together a ranged
combat system on an LP in a day or so at most -- but it won't be a
very good system unless a lot of related things in the mud are changed.
David Bennett (pinkfish)
Doug Bora (stig...@wwa.com) wrote:
:
: A couple players sitting down having a nicing talk:
:
: You see a giant fireball roaring towards you from the east!
: You duck!
: Bob ducks!
: Steve ducks!
: It's too late. You've been burned to a crisp.
: It's too late for Bob. He's been burned to a crisp.
: It's too late for Steve. He's been burned to a crisp.
This is one of those annoying things about muds. They geerate so much spam :)
Why not show this as:
You, Bob and Steve duck!
Its too late for you, Bob and Steve. They have been burned to a crisp.
This gets especialy bad if you mud implement following... Every time you move
several million messages wander up your screen...
I guesss this is unreleated. But I don't care :)
Its actually quite easy to handle the above cases and does not require
that much in the way of extra processing.
Frog on,
David.
[DDT] Pink fish forever.
(discworld.imaginary.com 4242)
Travis Casey
Ravnos <lada...@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote:
> >I want a monster that attempts to kill the player. Not by making a
> >monster that is impossible to kill (I did that on the first mud I wizzed
> >on, it seemed amusing at the time), but one that tries to do what I
> >would do. Chase EFFECTIVELY, preserve its own life, use its most
> >effective attacks.
>
> This is what would make perfect monsters, and realistic reactions...
> But I can hear the cries of 'bullshit' already from many players faced with a
> monster that actually can fight back. Making a monster tougher just leads to
> making weapons that can kill such a monster... but making a monster that
> actually thinks like a player, that would be a challenge for any coder.
> But I don't believe Muds are quite ready for AI yet, no matter what Zac might
> think. hehe
There are always some players who will complain about anything... and
it's very easy to find players who complain about things which make
the mud require even a tiny bit harder.
To put it bluntly... screw 'em. If they want to play a mud where
monsters act like they have the brains of bricks, there are plenty
of such muds out there. Build the kind of mud you'd want to play on,
and like-minded players will come.
I agree with you that building a monster with any kind of reasonable
AI would be a challenge -- however, you don't have to have AI in order
to make monsters use better tactics. See my other posts in this thread,
and in the "monster intelligence" subthread, for some easy ways to make
"smarter monsters."
Jason platt
In message <E3LKE...@nonexistent.com> - abi...@ny.fnx.com (Abigail)Mon, 6
Jan 1997 17:25:28 GMT writes:
:>
:>On 6 Jan 1997 12:01:04 GMT, Travis Casey wrote in rec.games.mud.lp::>++ Of course, you can also know where a monster is from memory; e.g., go in
:>++ monster doesn't move, you know its three rooms north of you.
:>
:>What? In a *mud*? Of course, it should be there, but in many muds,
:>3s followed by 3n doesn't always lead to the same room.
All you have to do is, just stipulate that the coders design their areas
so they can be gridded out (sort of othagonal areas) that follow real
life rules so that 3e,3s,3w,3n puts you back in the same spot.
+----------------------+
| Jason Platt |
| jpl...@coastnet.com |
| OS/2 Warp 4.0 |
| 486dx2/40 Overdriven |
+----------------------+
Ravnos
>It would certainly make things a whole lot more fun. I once tried doing
>that for a Circle mud (didn't get a site tho) with a race of dark elves.
>They killed anything (except other drow) they found, looted corpses and
>picked the best items to use. I even tried to get them to group and to help
>each other out if nearby.
>It certainly can't be any harder to do on an lpmud, although I imagine
>players would object strongely to being put up against a small army.
This sounds like a great idea, we do have similar things on StarMUD, monsters
do have the ability to group together and defend each other if the need arises
(as do players), and monsters have all the same attack commands as the players
have access to. When the monster kills a player it takes all the players
equipment. What I'd like to see, is the monster wearing/wielding any
equipment is better than its current stuff. Thus if players keep dying to a
monster the monster keeps improving. :)
Ravnos@StarMUD - starmud.astrakan.hgs.se 4000
company account
"Travis Casey" <ca...@cs.fsu.edu> writes:
>There's really no way to keep everyone happy... people's tastes vary
>too widely for any one mud to fit them all, in this or anything else.
>IMHO, the best thing you can do is set up a mud the way you'd like it
>to be, and then try to attract players who like the same kind of mud
>you do. :-)
While true -- it is also true that a single MUD can have ares
where PK is allowed and areas where it is not.
-McDaniel
company account
Matt Chatterley <no...@trust-me.com> writes:
>On 6 Jan 1997, Damaged Justice wrote:
>> Date: 6 Jan 1997 21:10:27 GMT
>> From: Damaged Justice <frog...@yakko.cs.wmich.edu>
>> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
>> Subject: Re: Ranged attacks [was Re: Intelligent monsters [Was Re: Player Killing]]
>>
>> An entity calling itself Matt Chatterley (no...@trust-me.com) allegedly wrote:
>> :
>> : However, what do the monsters do in return if players start shooting at
>> : them? If the monsters have no ranged attacks to throw back? Seems that
>> : this is the first real hurdle to me. :)
>>
>> On my firstplayed mud (ah, nostalgia), non-sentinel mobs would, sooner or
>> later, notice that things were being hurled at them by a player, and run to
>> the player and attack.
>Right.. so if we take a monster that's stood in one place.. and the player
>upsets it with an arrow.. it runs to them and fights with them.. not hard
>to do in itself.. but this has a few further disadvantages *grin*
>If the monster is guarding something.. will it have to, from now on,
>follow the player to avoid them just shooting it to get it out the room it
>guards, and slip past it?
>Can players use missile weapons in the *same* room (okay, not really a
>connected question, but I thought of it while I was here :P).
>How do you determine hit/miss with missile weapons.. is there anyway to
>account for the territory? Perhaps a set_property("natural cover",4)
>giving everything natural ac 4 vs missiles..
>All I can think of for now.. I'm *really* interested in hearing how people
>have (or think it's possible to) cope with this.. since I'd rather avoid
>the idea of missile weapons simply being handhelds with different
>messages. :)
I think MUD combat should be intimate. Ranged weapons makes possible
remote kills. Remote kills make losers feel they are not in a fair
game... but fish in a barrel.
My opinion, of course.
-McDaniel
Darren Doyle
Why not just put two monsters in the room? One that is static
and another that gives chase. I'd then add a return function
to the chase monster. After all if it's valuable enough to guard...
Also i'd like to point out that there is a mud that has distances
within rooms. It's called Dreamscape. It was made by Draemscape
interactive in Ottawa Ontario Canada. Go chek it out it's on the
Net. The down side is that they charge for the lib :( They use a
a simple system of + and - distances forward and back. One may
only melee at distance 0. At other ranges one could use a sling or
at a farther distance one could use a bow. As i remember there
were 6 or 8 total distances.
The down side of this system is that a low level character can
kill hard monsters just by keeping away from them in the room
by running and slinging them to death. But hey you could fix that
just have the monster grapple... or add relative speeds to the game.
I can just see the ogre trying to catch the ferry now...
While this is an option i still like the nightmare peer system
better. Peer into the room and see what there before ya shoot. Why
not have the monster duck out of the room when someone peers in.
He could always come back in after a few heart beats... Or have him
hide behind cover. The problem with bows and such is that most muds
were'nt designed with projectile weapons in mind. So what should be
done is to develope a good system and code it.
-Batzing
Phil Priston
On Sat, 4 Jan 1997 23:23:31 +0000, Matt Chatterley
<no...@trust-me.com> wrote:
>On 4 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
>> : Not sure about the merits of a jail.. *ponder*.
>>
>> Ah, but this is the best part. Put them in jail and make them wait for 24
>> hours (or however long punishment turns out to be), and not be able to
>> play their character. Seems like a good way to discourage PK'ing in the
>> towns where it should be safer for everyone.
>
>*ponder* perhaps.. certainly better than just *whack* killing them for
>their crimes (certainly for lesser offences). Being 'jailed' might work
>best if it locked the player out of the MUD for say, 24 hours, rather than
>sealing them in a room for a while (there would be ways to sneak around
>this unless it was coded absolutely airtight, surely.. and it would take
>a lot of work for something which would hopefully not be used that much).
>
Naa, lock them in a room, in which it is _possible_ to escape but VERY
difficult, use methods like bribe the jailor, pick the lock, get a
mage friend to teleport you out... BUT an escaped convict on the
loose, could start a huge man hunt, you could turn it into a quest,
and reward the person who finally bags the convict! of course, the
player will be unable to quit the game, for a certain time period, and
cutting link, will leave the player in the game etc. etc..
Sounds like fun, has anyone already done this?
Phil..
>> : This is perhaps where a player-council is useful.. but thats something we
>> : plan to avoid in the particular context I have in mind. Any manually
>> : distributed punishments will come from the wizards.
>>
>> You could use a guild system whereby the guild members will attempt to
>> protect their own. That would help cover non-town areas as far as safety
>> is concerned. Of course, this assumes that the guild is willing to play
>> this way. I don't know about you, but I'd hesitate going after some level
>> 1 character with my level 20 character if a guild with 50 members might be
>> after my blood. Heck, that might even cause a blood-feud between 2 or
>> more guilds. :-)
>
>Heh Heh, I like the sound of that actually. I won't go into details on the
>system I have in mind, but guilds will play a secondary role to class
>(although a more prominent 'social' role I suppose), and something like
>this is very feasible to my mind. Encouraging this sort of 'political'
>consideration for those who join guilds would be very possible.. and I
>think fairly desirable.
>
>> : Making it 'unworthwhile' to kill a lower player is one way to discourage
>> : it on the whole, but then there are still those who get annoyed at lower
>> : players and kill them (sometimes with a degree of justification), who do
>> : it for some other reason. Hmm.. any other views on this rattling around?
>>
>> I was originally going to post something here with some examples of my
>> ideas, but when I tried to get my thoughts down on paper, I realized that
>> I needed to put some more thought into it. I'll probably repost on this
>> later if I figure out how to impliment my thoughts in any reasonable
>> fashion.
>
>Yeah, I know what you mean.. well, I look forwards to hearing more. :)
Matt Chatterley
On Tue, 7 Jan 1997, Ragnar Hojland Espinosa wrote:
> Date: Tue, 07 Jan 1997 02:40:07 +0100
> From: Ragnar Hojland Espinosa <rag...@redestb.es>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Ranged attacks [was Re: Intelligent monsters [Was Re: Player Killing]]
>
> Matt Chatterley wrote:
> >
> > On 6 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
>
> > > Lastly, you can find out that monsters are there when they start shooting
> > > at you. On our mud, the victim of a ranged weapon attack gets a message
> > > along the lines of: "A crossbow bolt fired by an orc guard misses you from
> > > the north."
> >
> > This isn't the problem.. this is fair enough, and simple. :)
> >
> > However, what do the monsters do in return if players start shooting at
> > them? If the monsters have no ranged attacks to throw back? Seems that
> > this is the first real hurdle to me. :)
>
> Well, if you can shoot them, they can also move to you and rip you in a
> half or other "educational" tactic *giggle* Of course you have to be
> sure that they can move to the player before you allow them to fire..
Yup, concensus seems to be that the standard 'monster' needs to be
adjusted (in essence made smarter) to respond to missile attacks, by
moving itself along, and thumping the attacker, or, if it can, firing it's
own missiles back (also taking cover, if possible).
> --
> ____/| Ragnar
> \ o.O|
> =(_)= Iluvatar, Implementor at Dragonsfyre
> U (telnet://dragonsfyre.net:4000)
>
>
Matt Chatterley
On 6 Jan 1997, Doug Bora wrote:
> Date: 6 Jan 1997 23:30:56 GMT
> From: Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Ranged attacks [was Re: Intelligent monsters [Was Re: Player Killing]]
>
> : If the monster is guarding something.. will it have to, from now on,
> : follow the player to avoid them just shooting it to get it out the room it
> : guards, and slip past it?
>
> You could put a maximum movement value on the monster such that they can
> only get x number of rooms away from whatever they're protecting. If the
> player exceeds this range, the monster will run back to whatever it was
> guarding in the first place, assess it's wounds, and do whatever it can to
> fix the damage.
Yeah.. or.. rig it so they follow the player back (or perhaps they dash
back to protect their 'treasure' if someone moves in on it).
> : Can players use missile weapons in the *same* room (okay, not really a
> : connected question, but I thought of it while I was here :P).
>
> Ooh. This is a good point and effects my other post. I suppose it might
> be a tad difficult to shoot someone with your trusty bow with any kind of
> force when they're in your face attempting to brain you with a mace or
> something. :-)
I answered my own question in another post *grin*
The most reasonable solution is probably to only allow their use for
players and monsters not currently engaged in melee combat.
> I'd probably say that only melee weapons can be used when in the same
> room. That also solves my problem of where an arrow fired in the same
> room as a monster flies.
Or this.. although *ponder* missile weapons are just awkward to use in the
same room if not in melee combat..
> : How do you determine hit/miss with missile weapons.. is there anyway to
> : account for the territory? Perhaps a set_property("natural cover",4)
> : giving everything natural ac 4 vs missiles..
>
> You'd probably have to add modifiers for each type of "room" you're in,
> but that would actually be one of the easier to impliment parts of this
> whole thing, I think.
Oh yeah, just I think semirandomly. :)
I thing a property for 'natural cover' or something similar, is probably
going to be best (this affecting all shots fired INTO the room, not out
of).
> : All I can think of for now.. I'm *really* interested in hearing how people
> : have (or think it's possible to) cope with this.. since I'd rather avoid
> : the idea of missile weapons simply being handhelds with different
> : messages. :)
>
> Oh, I think we've already made some decent inroads on avoiding that. :-)
> Oh, and one more thing. Don't forget that spells can also have ranges.
> How about shooting a fireball across multiple rooms. This could be truly
> fun if the fireball has some sort of area-of-affect attached to it.
We've certainly made some headway.
Ooh, magic with ranges.. sounds interesting too.. needs some thought from
a technical angle though. :)
> A couple players sitting down having a nicing talk:
>
> You see a giant fireball roaring towards you from the east!
> You duck!
> Bob ducks!
> Steve ducks!
> It's too late. You've been burned to a crisp.
> It's too late for Bob. He's been burned to a crisp.
> It's too late for Steve. He's been burned to a crisp.
>
> Stigmata the incompetant wizard sees:
>
> You fire a massive fireball to the west.
> Hmm. You think you smell something burning to the west...
> You see someone collapse into a pile of ash to the west.
> You see someone collapse into a pile of ash to the west.
> You see someone collapse into a pile of ash to the west.
> Maybe it's just coincidence, but didn't you just hurl a fireball in that
> direction? I'm not sure I'd stand around gawking if I was you.
> >
*ROFL*
> --
> Doug Bora
> stig...@wwa.com
>
>
Matt Chatterley
On 7 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> Date: 7 Jan 1997 03:23:24 GMT
> From: Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Intelligent monsters [Was Re: Player Killing]
>
> Abigail <abi...@ny.fnx.com> wrote:
> > On 6 Jan 1997 12:01:04 GMT, Travis Casey wrote in rec.games.mud.lp:
> > ++ Doug Bora <stig...@wwa.com> wrote:
>
> > ++ > Yes, this is another tropic that I've spent a little thought on, and
> > ++ > haven't come up with a reasonable way to handle. How do you hit
> something
> > ++ > 3 rooms away if you don't even know if they're there?
> > ++
> > ++ Well, one of the first things you have to do is have a way for players to
> > ++ look into other rooms. Nightmare, at least, comes with "peer" and "lpeer"
> > ++ commands which allow the characters to see things up to 5 rooms away.
> >
> > Looking or firing into other rooms isn't the problem. The big problem I
> > have with it is that "room" makes such a lousy distance unit.
> > Not to mention that while shooting 3 rooms away in a desert would
> > be ok (except that the distance might be too far), but that shooting
> > (or even looking) through 3 rooms in a castle is a bit absurd, and
> > not even necessarely matches the description.
>
> Both of these are problems with simple implementations of ranged
> combat and distance looking. Ideally, there should be a way for
> rooms to have sizes, distances between them, be "borderless", and
> have the properties of what can be done *through* them set by the
> creator. Doing all of this, and doing it well, isn't easy.
Ideally *grin* as you well point out, this is a big change to a
semistandard LP/NM style lib.
> Further, monster behaviors have to be altered; monsters should be
> able to use ranged weapons and respond to attacks with ranged weapons
> either by shooting back, running away, or closing to melee range,
> depending on the monster -- and that's the bare minimum which they
> should be able to do.
This is one of the elementary things.. monsters need to all be adjusted to
respond in kind (if they can, they return fire and take cover, if not,
they make a spirited attempt to rush you and rip your jugular out - or
their other attack of choice). They could also run away, yes. :)
> To put it another way: any decent coder can throw together a ranged
> combat system on an LP in a day or so at most -- but it won't be a
> very good system unless a lot of related things in the mud are changed.
Right. It's something that needs consideration from a number of angles,
not just the 'what must i code so i can fire a bow into the next room?'.
Also the 'what happens if..' sequence, and friends.
> --
> |\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ System Manager, FSU CS department
> |,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' (904) 644-4290; Room 101C Carothers
> '---''(_/--' `-'\_) No one agrees with me. Not even me.
> rec.games.design FAQ: http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~casey/design.html
>
>
Matt Chatterley
On 7 Jan 1997, Travis Casey wrote:
> Date: 7 Jan 1997 03:29:08 GMT
> From: Travis Casey <ca...@cs.fsu.edu>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.lp
> Subject: Re: Player Killing
>
> Ravnos <lada...@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote:
>
> > >I want a monster that attempts to kill the player. Not by making a
> > >monster that is impossible to kill (I did that on the first mud I wizzed
> > >on, it seemed amusing at the time), but one that tries to do what I
> > >would do. Chase EFFECTIVELY, preserve its own life, use its most
> > >effective attacks.
> >
> > This is what would make perfect monsters, and realistic reactions...
> > But I can hear the cries of 'bullshit' already from many players faced with a
>
> > monster that actually can fight back. Making a monster tougher just leads to
>
> > making weapons that can kill such a monster... but making a monster that
> > actually thinks like a player, that would be a challenge for any coder.
> > But I don't believe Muds are quite ready for AI yet, no matter what Zac might
>
> > think. hehe
>
> There are always some players who will complain about anything... and
> it's very easy to find players who complain about things which make
> the mud require even a tiny bit harder.
This tends to be more of a problem if you introduce things after the MUD
has played a certain way for a while.. that changes it. Still.. there are
rewards to more difficult play (within reason).
> To put it bluntly... screw 'em. If they want to play a mud where
> monsters act like they have the brains of bricks, there are plenty
> of such muds out there. Build the kind of mud you'd want to play on,
> and like-minded players will come.
Exactly, I couldn't word it better myself. ;)
> I agree with you that building a monster with any kind of reasonable
> AI would be a challenge -- however, you don't have to have AI in order
> to make monsters use better tactics. See my other posts in this thread,
> and in the "monster intelligence" subthread, for some easy ways to make
> "smarter monsters."
Right. It's a 'checks and balances' approach to make monsters respond to
certain 'stimuli' in certain ways, and make them a little less predictable
and random in their behaviour. It's not truly 'AI' in the popular sense..
but.. it sure as hell makes them seem smarter ;)