[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.

[Nathan Yospe]

On Tue, 9 Dec 1997 coder at ibm.net wrote:

:On 10/11/97 at 08:39 AM, Ola Fosheim Gr=B0stad <olag at ifi.uio.no> said:
:>coder at ibm.net wrote:

:>promotions is more likely to work in a multiuser setting.  I believe it
:>will work best if you provide free access, but limited freedom. This way
:>the user will log on, hear about all the fun the others (his new friends)
:>have access to and hopefully he will eventually pay...

:Yup.  I play a lot of demos as well, and never buy the "Real Thing".  I
:suspect that as the 'net broadens that game companies will find an
:increasing percentage of their potential revenues dissappearing into the
:free demo market.  Whether they'll get concerned of course is dependant on
:their own for-fee revenue growth rate.

:Demos for multi-user games have classically consisted of: log replays (see
:all the neat things that have happened!), movie-style trailers, guest
:characters, and freebie short lived (occassionally limited) "real"
:characters (usually convertable for fee into "real" characters).  I don't
:see any reason not to use all the techniques, encluding the AOL-style last
:one.  They're all cheap, re-usable, and create value in-game.

I frankly LIKE the AOL style last one, as you put it. If the GURU ever goes
commercial (and the original design does intend a beta in 2001, and
commercial by 2003) it will start with a limited-use freebee character, wit=
h
little potential for growth and artificial limits binding it to the specifi=
ed
intro zones, that can, for a registration fee, become a full-fledged
charactrer. Of course these partial characters are sufficient for the norma=
l
arcade player we are initially targetting, until they get hooked... the
design merges commercial game software/hardware with commercial
client/server, in an either/or system.

:>> Never take over control of the player's character.

*mutter* *mutter* It works fine for FF7, it does... *mutter* *mutter*

:>Is this beer thing actually used in muds?=20

:Nathan has claimed such for PhysMUD++.

Specifically for Singularity2 (now known as FerrisPoint Delta - "The
Singularity Project" is being written in as one of the primary scenarios.)
And its still a go on the drunkenness, berzerker rages, tempers, and so
forth. How else could I manage to communicate the experience of being a
representative of a totally alien culture?

:>(of course, if you have a
:>gamemaster he will try to make sure that the less skilled players stay in
:>character) Some automating is making adrenaline-pumping action possible
:>in a lag situation.

:Ahh.  I merely have the game assume that character =3D=3D human player for
:everything I can.

I do explicitely the opposite. I assume the human player has agreed to beco=
me
the character, and the closer the player gets, the more cooperative the
character's AI (and I think at this point it is begining to really EARN the
moniker) becomes, until it becomes an extension of the player, and the play=
er
of the character.

--=20

"You? We can't take you," said the Dean, glaring at the Librarian.
"You don't know a thing about guerilla warfare." - Reaper Man,
Nathan F. Yospe  Registered Looney                   by Terry Pratchett
yospe at hawaii.edu   http://www2.hawaii.edu/~yospe           Meow