[MUD-Dev] Life

[Adam Wiggins]

[Nathy Y:]
> [Adam W:]
> :Yup, I hate this style of death probably more than just about anyone.
> :If it were up to me I'd get rid of it on just about every mud in existance,
> :but unfortunately many of them have actually been built up around the
> :presuposition that death works this way.
> 
> I have a feeling that the consequences of death are going to seriously
> turn a lot of people off on my own game, but honestly, I don't give a
> damn. The ones that stay will eventually increase, and I really never want
> to get trapped in the 'do it this way because everybody does it that way'
> trap.

I really don't think it'll be that big of a deal once you get off the
ground.  It's just a matter of what players are used to.  The hard-core
roleplayers I've introduced to computer gaming are generally agahst at
the idea of being able to save and load your game, or death not being
permenant.  This is because they aren't used to the style of game in
question; once they learned how it worked, they understood.
It works the same in reverse.  Take any mud on the net and give it permadeath
without changing anything else and you will have probably basically
destroyed its playability.  IF you start from the ground up, and everything
is designed more or less in such a way to support permanent death, then
there shouldn't be a problem.  It's only a design issue, just like any
other.

> :I've played a large number of muds with unrestricted player interaction
> :(ie, PK etc allowed).  Most of them had little to no admin intervention,
> :pre-suposed social structure, or any sort of built-in policing.  Yet
> :most of them managed to sustain dozens or even hundreds of users living
> :in what is more or less harmony, with the occasional problem case being
> :quickly taken care of by players.  There is social structure; there is
> :policing; but it's all 100% defined by the players - complete outside
> :the 'system'.
> 
> Hmmm. I tend to think in terms of what is needed to support the system if
> the player number is about 10. At that point, it is nice to have some NPC
> establishments that serve these roles. BUT... that's not hardcoded.

At 10 players, I've found that PK becomes more or less irrelevant.
Why didn't the first villages which formed when man was still in his
barely-civilized days form gangs similar to those found in LA today?
A small number of people means close-knit, in most cases.  At the very
least, you loose the anonomynity of numbers.  On a largish (100+ players)
mud, you can more 'safely' piss people off and fade into the crowd.  With
10 players it doesn't work quite this way.  Even if it did, the small
number of regular players usually get to know each other pretty quickly,
and things are generally pretty friendly.  I suppose one could easily
do a social study on why 10 people on 10 different muds will get along
just fine, but put all 100 on the same mud and hostilities will inevitably
arise, and tend to last longer than on the ten muds seperately.  I suppose
the easy answer is comptetion for resources.
Whatever, but at any rate, small numbers are not the 'problem', as it were.
(If anything, they are too darn friendly for my taste.)

> :As near as I can tell, you're saying that this could never happen.
> :I don't mean to seem negative, but since I've been playing games that work
> :EXACTLY like this for the last ~3 years, I tend to disagree.
> 
> *grin* Absolute statements always seem to get people into trouble.

There's nothing like a little CYA via preceeding your oppinions with,
"In my experience..." and "I've always felt...".  One should, however,
qualify all generalized statments just to avoid misunderstandings, which
seem to explode into long, drawn out threads which end in 'Oh!  You meant
in *this* case!  Now I understand...'

> :Okay, I guess what keeps me in constant confusion is your reference to
> :'roleplayers'.  You're actually talking about a subset of role-players;
> :I think possibly that the name 'story-conscious role-players' or even
> :'story-builders' is a better and less confusing name.  Myself and others
> :on this list qualify as role-players without ever necessarily playing
> :the game the way you describe.  I think of role-playing (without an
> :qualifiers) in the pure sense of the word - you play a role.  That's
> :it.
> 
> Agreed. I think it is rather snobbish to usurp the word (which originally
> refered to a type of impromptu acting activity in the nineteenth century,
> if certain books are to be believed, and did not resemble mushes in the
> slightest) and define world immersive role players out of it. World
> immersive role players require a world that at least approximates support
> for them. I think story immersion, which is what most mushes seem to do,
> is fine, at times, but hardly the only "true role play" option.

Being True(tm) seems to be a popular way for people to say, "I am
frightened and confused by change.  Therefore, I will extoll the virtues
of the old, 'true' ways while simutaneously slagging the new, 'untrue'
ways as best I can."  I've seen this in just about everything from
music to politics to muds to cars, and it makes me laugh every time.
Drawing clear lines is, at best, only a way to limit your own options.
Getting back to muds, all I want to do is make a game which satisfies
myself.  For this I've drawn my favorite elements, taken from many different
muds of many different codebases, from old pen and paper RPGs, and plenty
of things I've never seen but always thought would be cool.  As a result,
I take heat from all quarters.  The 'true' role-players I show my mud
to say, 'Ew!  Feature <X> reminds me of LP!'  The diku players say, 'Ew!
Feature <Y> looks like something from a MUX!'  The LP players say, 'Ew!
Feature <Z> seems like a diku thing of some sort!'  I tried explaining
the rudiments of my mud to a co-worker whose only exposure to RPGs
is Ultima and Diablo, and he just sort of starred at me, jaw hanging open,
before he finally decided I was just pulling his leg.
People are reistant to change.  Whatever.  I'm still going to do what
I'm going to do, and there's no way in hell I'm gonna do something a
certain way just because that's how it was always done before.

> :night (kinda like the Crying Game or Usual Suspects), but I'm bored
> :to death with 'action' sequences where the hero goes up against some
> :gun-wielding guys.  You know full well there's no way he's gonna die, because
> :it's only 45 mins into the movie, the question is only HOW he will dispatch
> :said gun-wielders.  There's no suspense or surprise anywhere, two things
> :that I find add greatly to the mood and enhance my entertainment.
> :I guess that's why I enjoy the Band Apart movies so much (Resevoir Dogs
> :is my favorite, Pulp Fiction ain't bad either).  You have characters
> :like Vincent Vega - a trained hitman, one of the 'heros' of the movie, who
> :dies when he leaves his gun lieing on the counter to go to the bathroom.
> 
> I KNOW I've seen an action movie in which the purported main character
> dies a third of the way through. The rest of the movie focussed on his
> father out seeking revenge. I wouldn't have minded seeing the physicist/
> love interest character from The Saint fighting her way out of a hostile
> russia after Val's character had been gunned down.

Awesome, let me know if you remember the name.
One fantasy author who is not terribly original as far as setting but
who has the BEST style of twisting-path fiction I have ever read is
Mickey Z. Reichert.  Besides having written the best book I've ever written
about a thief (from which my account name comes, not the Greek black metal
band if you were wondering), her Renshai books (think there's about five
of 'em now) are great in this respect.  She likes to do thinks like
introducing a character, setting him up as the greatest warrior who ever
lived, having various other characters ramble off all these prophesies
about him, and then...have him paralyzed from the waist down due to some
bad luck.  Lots of characters, and she's not at all afraid to kill them
off or otherwise do just about anything but what you'd expect.  This is
the only series of books I think I've ever read where I've found myself
gasping and yelling, 'WHAT?!?' outloud while reading, at least several
times per book.  (Occasionaly several times in a single chapter when
things really get wild.)  I *love* this, and I think it maps perfectly
to a mud.