BUILDERS: Ferries

[s001gmu at nova.wright.edu]

On Wed, 17 Dec 1997, Marian Griffith wrote:

> On Tue 09 Dec, Derrick Jones wrote:

 <snip maps and scale original quote>

> > Of course, most clients have an equivalent to #2000 east to move a
> > character 2000 rooms east.  (you'd have to add in breaks to prevent the
> > mud from cutting you off for spamming?)
> > The trick with scale is to increase the time it takes to travel larger
> > rooms.  (You can replace 'rooms' with 'areas' or 'locations' for different
> > designs)  Therefore, a player can walk across a small town almost
> > instantaniously, but the 'plains of the east' may take 2 full minutes to
> > cross, even tho both sections have the same number of areas described.
> 
> [quoting from my own web page about building]
> **Plains** are the hardest thing to describe properly in a game world. They
> combine the problems of forests with those of streets.  There is nothing to
> prevent a player to travel in just about any direction which isn't possible
> in all practicality.  And players can see many leagues, which does not work
> well with the rooms-and-exits organisation.

I disagree with the bit about not being possible in all practicality.  
We've repeatedly discussed full coordinate systems which allow for such 
movement nicely.  Granted, most current muds do not support such systems, 
but since when have we accepted the status quo? :)
 
> Finally there is the issue of **relative sizes**.  Inside, rooms reasonably
> match  the actual locations in size  (ignoring for now  the special cases).
> Planes,  at the other extreme,  but this really is true  for just about any
> outdoor region,  have rooms sized in kilometers or more.  Fixed size rooms,
> as have been proposed,  would lead to deserts of tens of thousands of rooms
> across.  All with identical descriptions.  Clearly this would be tedious to
> create and even more tedious to travel.

I agree that the above solution is silly, at best, but if one HAD to do 
it, a simple script should take care of it.  cut'n'paste is pretty 
mechanical.  :)

> [end quote]
> 
> The problem as I see it is that there simply is no convenient way to create
> the richness of a natural environment in a way that is both simple to build
> and pleasant to play.  A region 2000 rooms across is impossible to write. A
> game that has the same physical size compressed in a dozen rooms  stretches
> credibility. Not to mention that it totally upsets any realistic travelling
> times to the point of being silly.
> The best solution that I can see  is having a world where travel takes time
> according to the actual distance being crossed.  If a plain is a hundred km
> across  then it will take some ten mud days  or so  of dedicated walking to
> cross it.

all of the above solutions you proposed attempted to do this, force 
movement to take a consistent amount of time for the distance traveled.
The solution we are leaning towards is what I believe you were trying to 
say, that a 'single room' of plains, 100 km across, should take 10 
mud-days to cross, essentially forcing the player to sit and watch as the 
mud kills 10 mud days for them.  We plan on using 'rooms' of much smaller 
scale... approx 1km square, for our largest single 'room', but the 
principle holds.  we plan on scaling the time it takes to cross the 
'room' based on the terrain and the size of the 'room'.

> Clearly that would majorly change the nature of a game set in such a world.
> Travelling across the plain would indeed be a major expedition  and players
> could be expected to prepare carefully for the undertaking.  Also there can
> be no more quick equipment or experience runs in remote areas. Simply since
> getting there itself is taking too much time.

ayup.  With our world layed out as it is, with cities of humans rather 
isolated and somewhat distant from eachother, overland travel is a major 
undertaking.  We plan to scale the system and ballance it so that to 
travel from one city to the next is a full evening's / afternoon's 
entertainment.  In order to keep the game interesting and quick, we do 
have those teleporters, mentioned in earlier postings, but there's a 
cost... :)  And of course, players can become powerfull enough to 
teleport themselves (well, mages at least), but we'd like to keep 
starting players mostly confined to the city and it's surrounding wilds.
 
> > Many muds I've seen use a 1:48 time scale (30 min RL to 1 mud-day), so the
> > plains would be crossed in 1.5 hrs mud-time, and the town in less than a
> > minute (most players wouldn't notice a 1 second delay over the course of a
> > dozen moves).  Now neither of these times is anything close to realistic,
> > but realistic times (3.5 hours per week walking) would be unplayable.

unplayable is an awfully strong word... :-)
 
> It would be unplayable  if you expect an ordinary game.  Games designed for
> this situation  may still be quite playable.  Roleplaying would play a more
> significant role, since there is less else to do. Roleplaying here is meant
> to be taken as 'acting out a character'. And the travelling itself could be
> made more interesting.  At the moment, in the typical mud, those plains are
> in themselves uninteresting. This need not be the case, without much change
> to the game mechanics one expects in a mud.  Suppose there are nomads roam-
> ing the plains.  If an attack by those would be dangerous  (the way the can
> not be on a mud at the moment)  then the players crossing those plains have
> to be alert for signs of possible attacks.  Add to that a need for food and
> water and dangerous animals roaming the world.  All this could provide lots
> of entertainment  and adrenaline rushes for the players  while they spent a
> week or more real playing time crossing an area.

exactly.  By imposing a realistic scale on the mud, it forces you to 
rethink the local dangers.  It's almost entirely unrealistic to have a 
traditional tolkeinesque dragon perched a mere 10 minutes walk from every 
town!  I see imposing a realistic distance scale as forcing one to impose 
a more realisitc danger scale.  Aye, there can and should still be 
dragons (or whatever big nasty you want), but they should not be very 
frequently encountered.  More run of the mill creatures, like orcs, or 
goblins or what have you, should be what the characters deal with on a 
more day to day basis.  

Having said all that I think there is still a place for games with no 
'realistic' sense of scale, where time flows more in the players head 
than on the computer, but if that's the case you need to make sure that 
time doesn't become an important thing (tm) in the game at all.  Most 
traditional muds do this pretty well.  IMHO, you only run into real 
conflicts when you don't realize that attemtpting to add a 'realistic' 
scale to the mud will radically change the nature of the game.
 
> > Fast travel times can be a 'Good Thing' for two reasons...walking isn't
> > all that interesting, and the mechanics can be hdden from the players.
> > Also it increases the chance of a character performing a dramatic rescue.
> > (They can act more quickly on information, and can get to the 'scene'
> > before all te action is over.)

ayup.  which is exactly why we have the teleporters.  you can take the 
overland route, if necessary, or if you feel like it, but if yer in a 
hurry, you can always pay the *cough* nominal fee *cough* and the mage 
will plunk you wherever.  :)  Best of both worlds, IMO.

> Depends on if you feel this should be allowed. Dramatic rescues can also be
> considered cheap plot devices. If a party gets into bad trouble they should
> have prepared better, or the gameworld should be somewhat less dangerous.

Overuse cheapens dramatic rescues.  Limitin the frequency helps a lot, I 
think.
 
> Not to mention that walking is not the fastest way to cross large distances
> in any case. It would at least give a good reason to have mounts of various
> types and perhaps other travelling equipment  to speed up time spend in the
> field.

for long distance travel, one man with one horse travels about as fast as 
one man walking.  according to my partner in crime, at least.  if you 
switch horses, and ride the horse a little harder, you can make 
considerably better time tho.  There are perks to one man and one horse 
tho... you can put on bursts of speed, you can carry quite a bit more, 
and you aren't as dead tired at the end of the day.  :)

Now, if you want mounts other than 'real world horses,' well, that's up 
to you.  :)

-Greg