[MUD-Dev] Level abstractions - Realism vs Game Issues

[Matt Chatterley]

On Thu, 14 Aug 1997 clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote:

>    at 07:01 AM, Nathan Yospe <yospe at hawaii.edu> said:
> 
> >On Sun, 10 Aug 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> 
> >I hope that reaction (yanking the axe and drawing the sword) was a
> >computer handled reflex... this list is populated with wimps
> >(kidding, really, c'mon guys, put down that LART, it was a joke...)
> >who don't want to offend people's senses of dominance over their mud
> >bodies by letting the bodies act instinctively or reflexively, even
> >in high stress situations.
> 
> I'd suggest that human players do enough reflexive and reactive
> thinking in situations of MUD-stress to satisfy that need (I've seen
> players hurl their bodies out of their chairs when killed, faces drawn
> and white, far too close to adreniline shock for comfort).  Given
> that, wouldn't coding it into the MUD characters tend to prevent the
> case of the nerves-of-steel chap, or the fellow who is normally an
> utter wimp, but this one time knows exactly what he is getting into,
> has steeled himself, and with teeth gritted bulls his way thru as a
> temporary piece of stone?

I suppose the converse side of this coin is the level of 'connection'
between player and character. I, like Adam, intend to force some actions
(for instance a 'panic' reaction if you are not very courageous, and are
caught in a truly nasty situation), given the reason that the player is
not the character - and although the player cannot see them exactly (can
get a brief description of them), there are stats to cope with some of
these things - for instance 'courage'. While you may strategically decide
to flee before your character does (this is only notionally restricted in
that flight from solo combat is hard, and flight from group combat
variably hard and dangerous), you may not decide to NOT flee when the
character decides it is time.

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"Speak softly and carry a big stick." -Theodore Roosevelt