[MUD-Dev] Life

[Adam Wiggins]

[JK:]
> When I roleplay, I am in fact method-acting, which is my own personal love.
>  However, the goal is to play a hero.  A schmuck most of us can do in real

Ah, okay.  I like heros as much as the next person, but I got pretty
tired of them after about the third one.  I like to play a broad range
of characters.  My personal favorites are the less heroic types - I
think thieves and mages are possibly my favorite, because their 'goals'
are so different from those of other characters, and their methods, too.
Actually, I lied.  I don't like heros very much.  I can only think of
two hero-types I've played in the last year; one was pen and paper
RuneQuest, the other a paladin on Arctic.  The former was actually
interesting because he was balancing a less-than-noble background with
a desire to do right; the second kicked ass as far as 'power', but in
all honest wasn't really a notable character for me.

> Thsi is why it coems back down to "story".  I roll up a charatcer, he goes
> out around town, meets a few people, gets jumped and dies.  Thats not the
> story of a hero.

Heh, well I'd say that's yet another fundamental difference I had never
even thought to question.  If you're not trying to create a hero or
a hero's story, things are a bit different.

> A heroic story shoudl have a grand climax. One shoudl at

One of the reasons I find them trite - they all have to have some
heroic ending. *yawn*

> least die in teh pursuit of something great (be it good or evil).  Ild
> argue (and have in articles in the past) that the manner of oens death more
> then anything else speerates the hero from the man on teh street.  Average
> peopel die for a lot of very stupid and pointless reasons, but heros don't.

I can agree with this even if i don't agree with your desire to play
a hero 100% of the time.

> Anyway, the Roleplayers I've played with were all seriously immersive and
> obtaine enjoyment from getting into their characters heads, they also
> implicitly understood that to every OTEHR player they were a MINOR
> character.  They are only the major character in their own story.  This
> precludes them from killing each other out.  Moreover, they would not even

Okay, but this isn't in-game, therefore is irrelevant to me.  I like to
give people good reasons within the game itself to do or not do things
(especially something a notable as murder).  If they want to bring
in their own ethics/thoughts/whatever (and they undoubtably will),
that's fine.  It's just mostly unrelated to the actual development of the
mud, as far as I am concerned.  One nice side-benefit of this is that
NPCs have the same reasons to do and not do things as players, and thus
tend to behave the same way.  I have a strong dislike for NPCs that exist
only to 'throw themselves on your sword' (ie, they attack everything
they see).

> trhow major chnages into the characters background withotu their consent
> (ie It would be the hight of impolite for me to roll up your character's
> brother and start playign it without your consent.)  

Also outside of the game, although we have briefly considered allowing
you to start a family name as a possible way to generate characters.
This would allow things like having two characters which are similar but
not the same (brothers, say) as well as having a basis for creating
new characters.  Plus we could even pass on heriditary traits...so
if you 'play' a single family for long enough, the physical strength
or great intellect of the Stonebow family becomes known, and new characters
created will carry this on.  Also a nice tie-in for roleplaying, ie, "I'm
here to avenge my brother's death" or "You knew my father" or "My mother
owed you a debt that she was unable to repay before her death, so I am
here to repay it now."  You would, of course, be able to give other
player accounts 'access' to your family name, in order that they could
create characters within the family.

> I suppsoe you can look at it this way-- my killing you out is a very
> forceful and nasty way of saying we can't BOTH be the hero, so Im the hero
> and your the dead schmuck.

Fine by me, I never wanted to be a hero.

> Its not a group story, thats part of the point. Its N stories for N
> characters.  If it were a single group story then competition for the lead
> role MIGHT make sense.

I don't understand why it's competition, or why the living character
is necessarily the 'lead' role.  Two characters exist; one throws himself
in front of a dragon to save the town, the other one stays cowering in
a shed.  Who is the 'lead' role, here?
Once again, though, I have no particular desire to be in a lead role.
By default my character's own life 'stars' him, until the day of his death,
at which point the story is over, and there are no more roles at all.

> >character will do depending on what other people (real people, not NPCs)
> >will be influenced by your actions, and you certainly wouldn't play a
> >character that didn't fit in well with a given mud's current
> storyline/setting.
> 
> Yes, the end part is correct.  Playing a charcter with no relation to the
> envrionmentis generally considered a bit childish and impolite amoign the
> folks I generally game with.

I *love* picking a role which is completely at odds with a world that
has become completely stagnent in its own repetition.  If it's a mud full
of spell-slinging mages, I make a magic-hating barbarian.  If it's a mud
full of corrupt and underhanded thieves, I make a shining paladin.  If it's
a mud full of towering warriors decked out in magical armor, I make a
bumbling, fat hobbit who enjoys brightly colored clothing and a good pipe,
and wouldn't know one end of the sword from the other.

> As an example, we had a bunch of Thri-Kreen
> in DSO who decided they weer gonna be Mecha-Bugs.  Most of us thought this
> silly, pointless, and less then fully mature but we left em alone to play
> their game as long as they didn't impinge on the rest of us.

The roleplaying response to this sort of thing is just that they are insane.
Ie, Player A says, "I'm a Mecha-Bug!"  Player B says, "You look like a
Thri-Kreen to me.  Is that some sort of clan?"  Player A says, "No, I
am a robot that just LOOKS like a Thri-Kreen!"  Player B says, "Uh...
ro...bot?  Whatever...<mumbles to self about nutty thri-kreens who spend
too much time in the sun>"

> No skin off our nose :)

True.  There's something to be said for just relaxing a little and
not getting too uptight about your precious immersive RP.  A clan I was
in on Arctic was the Tarsis Shriners; our entire clan was based around
the sweet, suculent hams one could buy only in the city of Tarsis.
Or at least, that was our 'for show' reason.  Obviously we were just a
group of people who hung out together and did clanny things, but "Bunch
of People Who Do Clanny Things, and Are Pretty Similar to the Other Clans
Except (In Our Humble Opinion) We Are Much Cooler" just didn't have
quite the same ring.

> >> Pkilling as a regular thing does take control away.  Neither is right or
> >> wrong, btu they are imcompatable game models.
> >
> >Yeah, hopefully I've accounted for this in the above - you consider
> >the 'control' others have over a situation when considering your character's
> >actions.
> 
> Hmm. Not quite.  Its a matter of not seriosuly imapcting the others' story
> without their approval. Did i make it cleaerer or mushier (MUSHier?) above?

Which is why I wonder how you could *ever* regulate this.  I am playing
a hermit - thus, by talking to me, you are impacting my story without
my approval.  I am playing a long-distance runner, thus, by standing in
my way, your are impacting my story without my approval.  How do you know?
Where is the line drawn?

> Thing is, today's DSO is a product of what has gone before.  Its a game
> with very strict rules of behavior enforced by semi-god-like game staff.
> Thsi is unfrotunate. We had no chocie however bncasue DSO was built WITHOUT
> any thought to these issues and thus no in-game mechanisms to handle any of
> it.  I consider administrative fixes to be the WORST answer.

Unfortunate, but it really doesn't surprise me too much with a comerical
endevour.

> We have current hardware limit (due to bad code, one of the many reasons
> for DSOII) at about 160.  DSO runs over 100 most of the day peaking at
> between 150 and 160.  So the numerbs sound about comperable actually.  

Ah, so it's equivilent to one of the larger muds.  I only know of maybe
a dozen that can boast these kinds of numbers.  Most I ever saw was
Sojurn back in the days when it was still a single mud - over 400 players
on the average weekday night.

> I guess anoither question is "how big is the woirld" and "is tehre

It was smallish when it started out, since they have high standards about
quality of zones, and stated completely from scratch.  (Actually, that's
not completely true, since the mud is loosely based on Dragonlance...
but they wrote all their own areas, anyhow.)  At this point they've
been online for years, and many players have grown into admin positions
and added their own areas to the world.  (The mud itself has changed
admin hands at least ten times.)  I don't know room count, but I'd
guess it's somewhere are 15,000.  I do know that with 60 people online
(which happens occasionally, during the summer in the early morning) the
place is EMPTY.  You can play for hours without seeing another player.
With 160-200 it is fairly well populated but hardly ever real full.

> something that makes people with different goals collect in different
> places"?

Oh, absolutely.  There are seven classes (right now, anyhow) which
all are played completely differently.  As a thief you stick to cities.
Mostly you're interested in learning how to pick locks, sneak, hide, and
steal from people - none of which can be easily done out in the countryside.
A mage almost never even goes to town, since they are constantly out hunting
spellbooks (all the good spells come from spellbooks which load out
in the vast game world).  Clerics and paladins spend most of their
time in the various ruined temples fighting undead, since they have
special skills that make them very good at taking out undead, plus
they get massive experience bonuses for it.  Druids are similar to
mages in that they are constantly searching for tablets with new spells.
Also they are always on the lookout for elemental stones, which allows
them to summon really buff elementals to help them out.  They have even
less reason to go into town than mages do.

>ANMother issue with DSo frabnkly is that its too small.  We have
> had to arbitrarily designate PvP and non-PvP zones because otherwise the
> PvPers coudl effectively take voer the entire game and force people to
> either PvP or not play.

It's very difficult to try to include both of these things in the same
game, and I've never seen it done very well.  They just don't go together
real well.

> >Of the dozens
> >or possibly hundreds of PKs I was involved in, I was actually killed
> >three times.  Yes, I remember all three times, and all of them were quite
> 
> AH!  A biggie here.  Its soudns like combat rarely results in death.  PvP
> in DSo basicly ALWAYS resulted in death of someone.

Oh...well I'd say that does rather suck.
I'd say the following is true of all muds: if you know where you're
going, the limitations and strengths of your character, and are a descently
fast thinker/typer, you can run away from almost anything.  There are also
safe zones, such as temples, which you can find sanctuary if things get
too hot.  (If you've attacked someone/stolen from someone etc these
sanctuaries don't function for you.)

> >(No, there's no permanent death - certainly this makes PK
> >a somewhat different experience.  However, death does rather suck - you
> >loose a level and quite a few permenant hitpoints.  Making enemies will
> 
> Thsi actually is like DSO death. the difference I suspect is that form what
> you said, death from Pvp appears to not have been all that common.

I don't know about that.  Maybe I'm a bad example; I'm a good player, a
fast typist, a fast reader, and have an inherent knoweldge of the system
that most people probably lack.  I've killed dozens of people in my time
on Arctic.  The number of people I've stolen from, blinded, or paralyzed
is nearly innumerable, although these are only mildly incoveniencing
offenses.  I'd say there are still tons of deaths at the hands of players,
but anyone who knows what they are doing has at least a chance to make
it away.  Given that I've killed dozens of people, I've fruitlessly pursued
hundreds upon hundreds and ended up with them simply outrunning me or
hiding somewhere I couldn't find them, at which point I considered
my point made (my point usually being something like, "DON'T try to
pick my pocket, EVER") and went back to whatever I was doing before.
I'd say this is representative of most other players, as well.

> Another system issue is how much more p[woerful one character can be then
> another.  If thsi differnece is limited then it makes it less of a
> probloem. Powergamers however like to be able to achieve power and so I
> woudl assume any game catering to them DOES allow characters to get much
> more pwoerful relative to each other...

Yes.  Arctic is not as bad in this respect as some others, but it is
still based more or less on AD&D where seperations of more than
a few levels means that a fair fight is always going to result in the
lower level person losing.  I despise this, and have done everything
I can to get rid of it in our code.

> >I assume by muzzle you mean some sort of admin 'mute' command.  We don't
> 
> No, actually i meant a personal mute list.
> 
> >have any sort of global channels, so it's easy enough to just walk
> >far away from someone you don't like.  And if all else fails:
> >
> >A deep male voice you know as Imadork shouts, 'U R A PHUKK1NG L00Z3R!!1!'
> >> #gag {deep male voice you know as Imadork}
> >#Okay, {deep male voice you know as Imadork} is now gagged.
> 
> Ah., hokay you DO have one.

No, this is a client called TinTin, which allows you to do a large
amount of text manipulation.  You can highlight things, substitute strings
for other strings, gag out lines altogether, and so forth - normal
client functionality.  I can hardly stand to play through straight
telnet anymore, being used to my aliases, tab-completions, substitutions,
highlights, and so forth.