[MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD

[Ling]

On Thu, 5 Jun 1997, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:

> On Wed, 4 Jun 1997 20:02:47 PST8PDT, Adam Wiggins
> <nightfall at inficad.com> wrote:
> 
> >Hmmm, methinks we ought to get our terms straight. I use mud (capped or
> >not) to group Tiny, LP, Diku, and everything else we think of as
> >being online, text-based role-playing games into one giant lump.
> 
> I used to do that. Then I figured out that they were so outrageously
> different that a MUSH and a MUD were entirely different animals. 

<sigh>

[much ado about creating rooms snipped]

> >> that the type of person who makes a good RP-centric game designer is not
> >> generally the type of person who makes a good MUD builder, and the
> >> converse also holds. The learning curve is steep. The problem is not so
> >
> >Hmmm, don't know that this is true.  I've found that a good builder is a
> >good builder, and a good builder is a hell of a hard thing to find.

Yep.  Once you find one, you bribe him with cookies and sweets.

> Well, if someone would DOCUMENT THE INTERFACE maybe we could RTFM.

Hmm..

> >In my mind it's identical to a good author - they may have their strengths
> >and weaknesses (fiction/non-fiction, sci-fi/fantasy/modern day/western,
> >tragedy/romance/heroic/horror) but generally a good writer is a good writer
> >at whatever they choose to try their hand at.
> 
> That's because they write in one language that has documented and
> accepted rules, instead of forty incompatible half-assed command formats
> that nobody ever wrote down.

I'll tread carefully.
For power muds, there is an art to creating a good area.  Part of this is
to do with the QA of the mud.  The rest is down to the builder himself.
It's like creating levels on a computer game.  Everyone can make a level.
But... a good level...

This applies to a lot of things...

> >> much that the commands themselves are bad, but that there's too little
> >> documentation and what there is tends to be incompletely indexed. 
> >
> >Oh, yes.  An offshoot of being a part-time project of college kids who
> >generally only want to fool around with things that are fun for a while,
> >and then move on.  Something like keeping docs up to date isn't really
> >all that much fun.
> 
> Then you shouldn't be writing a MUD.

Thanks.

I'll drop everything and go home.



I like reading long messages.
Long messages which don't look out of place in r.g.a.m.


  |    Ling
_O_O_  Freshwater fish since 1976

Heheheh...

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<grin>