[MUD-Dev] Re: BUILDERS: Ferries

[Marian Griffith]

On Sat 06 Dec, s001gmu at nova.wright.edu wrote:

> On Fri, 5 Dec 1997, Sauron wrote:

> > In order to avoid this exact scenario in my mud I have started with a
> > map of the world, creating continents, oceans, major landmarks and other
> > places of interest which will be the majority of the programmed rooms on
> > the mud when I and my co-God Locke are done.

> > One of the challenges I
> > have found both interesting and enjoying about working with an entirely
> > original theme is that of creating a believable world with an enthraling
> > history which draws people in.

I belief this is much more important to the game than the actual map.
The history  will provide the game with a sense of continuity  and it
can guide the area builders in their efforts much more  than a fairly
abstract map can do.

> Amen.  :)  I think having a full world map also makes solving the problem 
> of long distance travel a little easier.. at least it's easier to keep it 
> a realistic solution.

Having a map is not the critical issue. You need to have a lot of back-
ground information of  how areas look,  how they interact  and how they
came to be to be able to create a consistent world.
You also run into a problem of scale. Certain areas have to be more de-
tailed than others and to keep everything into scale you will find that
you end up with countless rooms of 'wilderness'.  E.g. to create a city
you need rooms that are no bigger across than a couple of meters  to do
it justice. The same amount of detail on your 'plains of the east' will
leave you with an area of thousands of rooms across.  And if you decide
to make rooms in the plains  bigger by a hundredfold  than those in the
city you have effectively shrunk the plains to city size.  And lost the
scale of the mud.  Crossing the plains is no harder than walking across
the city. There's a more elaborate summary of this topic on the website
in case you want to discuss this more elaborately.

> > Concerning the matter of IC travel across long distances such as oceans
> > or "blank area" between important areas, I think it should take some
> > time for a player, however, they shouldn't have to sit at their terminal
> > for two hours waiting to finish crossing an ocean. I believe if you
> > follow the general rule: "keep it realistic (as applying to RL) only if
> > it does not interfere with the overall enjoyment of the players" works
> > effectively in this situation.

> The difficulty with doing long distance travel instantaeously is that, 
> unless you have some teleport mechanism (magically or techonology based),
> characters SHOULDN'T be able to travel vast distances in the blink of an 
> eye.  You have an inconsistancy in your game world.

Whatever solution you choose is going to be somewhat (or very much) un-
realistic. And if it is not then you have to a major redesign your game
to deal with 'in-between' areas that are in scale with the actual areas
in a way that does not annoy the players. The game will be rather small
geographically speaking though.
 
> I fully intend to have such teleportation devices (magically based as it 
> fits our very loose fantasy theme) available, to increase the 
> 'fun-factor', but leave the option for the normal over-land routes, 
> adding the 'adventure-factor' for those who are willing to undertake such 
> a journey.

You might want to consider  making such travels to be a central part
of the game. Then preparing for such a travel would be an acceptable
sub-game and the actual travel can be made as challenging and inter-
esting as the eventual goal.  If the world is dangerous  then it can
be fun to (role)play a caravan guard  that escorts traders and other
travellers to a neighbouring city.  The actual time spent travelling
is of less concern under those circumstances. In fact, by making the
world  too small and speedily travelled  you would actually diminish
the fun of the game. Travelling all two thousand rooms of 'the great
plane of the east' can be fun if you know there will be all kinds of
dangers varying from grass-cats and nomads to ghosts and undead, who
all are bent on something that is carried in the caravan.  And under
such circumstances  being -required- to find food, water and shelter
may indeed add to the game as well. It wouldn't be a traditional mud
but it can be made into an interesting and challenging game I think!

> We haven't decided if we want to have trans-contental transportation... 
> it never came up, actually. :)  I imagine we'd handle it in similar 
> fashion... tho I doubt sea-travel would be as exciting as land travel.

It can be, if properly embedded in the game. The only real difference
is that at see a group of players stay in the same 'room' or rooms of
the ship and are moved about by the game (currents and wind). There's
still plenty of opportunity for danger and excitement. And the oppor-
tunity  to add totally new skills and requirements to the game.  What
if a player can choose to become a captain of a ship  and be required
to learn to navigate the seas,  learn about the dangers and how to a-
void them. It may even allow skills that are only useful to groups of
players, like the handling of ship and sails in high seas.
The traditional 'you can walk on water if you carry a canoe' style of
gameplay would not be at all interesting I agree.

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey