[MUD-Dev] The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <3.0.32.19970603210122.009e2b90 at mail.tenetwork.com>, on 06/03/97 
   at 09:07 PM, Jeff Kesselman <jeffk at tenetwork.com> said:

>Chris Lawrence wrote:

>>In <199706020309.WAA16765 at dfw-ix13.ix.netcom.com>, on 06/01/97 
>>   at 08:19 PM, "Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> said:

>>>This is cute.  The word balloon idea is neat.  I was leaning against
>>>avatars since the range of emotions expressed might be limited.  
>>
>>It also is rather twee.  Have a look at the various Habitat inheritors
>>like Palace and V-World.  The general impression is more of kicks and
>>giggles than say Conan the Barbarian's testosterone grunts.

>I took a serious look at bubble-chat a bit ago for our needs.  In an
>envrionment thats already cartoony (great exampel is Sierra's The
>Realm) it fits the metaphor quite nicely.  

>The big problem is lack of history.  In a chat window when it comes
>fast and furious you can look back.  
...
>A secondary issue is that it often gets in the way of seeing what
>else is goign on in the envrionment.  

Good arguments against bubble speech.  A good one for it is that it
gives a very direct sense of context to speech.  If Bubba says, "Help!
It attacked me!" and a matching bubble appears over his head, it gives
a very direct and obvious frame of reference.  Having the same text
only appear in a scrolling text buffer, visually unassociated with the
Bubba avatar on screen next to the blob is a different matter.

Note: The visual occlusion of the bubble hiding what's behind it can
be handled by making the bubble transluscent or by making bubbles
appear out-of-picure as Habitat did.

>>>Any thoughts on avatars, good or bad?

>We've looekd at this exhaustively. Our conclusions are as follows,
>for what theya re worth:
>(1) 1st person (Doom) ...
>(2) Overhead/three-quarter view (Diablo) ...
>(3) Side View ...

I've been thinking of attempting a
three-feet-back-of-the-character's-head view with a 270 degree
fish-eye presentation.  

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...