[MUD-Dev] Integrating PK

[Huibai]

Brandon Cline hath ordained:
: I've thought about introduction name handling, and would have
: mentioned it before in my post, but have not figured out how to
: explain tracking 100 or 1000 aliases per player, client or server
: side, for pc names, but maybe this would be worth it, and if you

Client side! No need to bother the server, especially since the
'client' (player) is the only one working with the memory.  I am
going to trim the familiarity method by using only the most recent
100 or so 'aliased' names.  That should allow relationships to die
out fairly naturally, whether due to time or social scale.

: The only problems I see with who lists, are that they are un-
: realistic, and allow for generlizations like, oh so-and-so isn't on
: the who list, he must have logged out, which people shouldn't
: be able to tell anyways, shrug.

I'd lose it if I could protect the ability of players to find their
friends to play with fairly quickly upon login, i.e. this scenario:
Joe logs on and wants to find Tom and Janny to RP with.
(currently, it's done this way:
 by the 'who' list, Joe sees Tom in there but not Janny.
 Joe sends a money-costing page to Tom, who believes in a
 passing daydream that he should go visit someone in Goodtown)
Tom will either go to Goodtown and immediately meet Joe, or
Joe will get bored and log off, making it actually just a daydream
for Tom when he arrives and finds no skinny elf waiting for him.
mail messages can be sent town-to-town, but recipients aren't
notified upon receiving mail, much less which town it's in.

: I forgot to bring up about making stuff less game termish,
...
: So that you don't have someone saying "Oh man, that 50th
: level dragon took off 200 hit points per round, he's tough."
: Instead you get, "Wow, we fought an elder dragon ealier today
: and his claws sliced right through my plate armor, knocking me
: to the ground, it was all I could to to get up and run away while
: he was distracted by the rest of my group..." 

*excited* Yes! This is exactly my goal.  It is by far the best
way I can see to integrate PG and RP... you trick stat-oriented
people into respecting the environment for its surface and not
its mechanics because those are the only 'terms' you give them.
Instead of terms to say "you need ac16 to go 4 rounds and still
absorb 130hp of damage from that level 18 monster", they will 
have to express in environment-safe terms: "that dragon is so
tough that only full plate armor can last a minute against one".
Surely no passerby who's really into his RP would mind that.

: I've seen ranged combat done on mud systems using rooms,
: but you either have over powered or underpowered problems.

I favor underpowered, then.  A good archer will get in a third
shot on a longe-range target before the ground is closed.  The
damage done is not more than melee damage, but is harder
and less common to be protected against.  The best of bowmen
better also carry a close-combat weapon.  Unless the target
refuses their natural instincts to take cover or charge, they'll
be in close-combat by the second volley in most cases.

: [solo player vs. group player paragraph]
: should balance be geared towards group players, making solo
: players difficult, but not impossible, also, being solo, that would
: make it harder to recover without friends, i.e. all beat up, and no
: healer?  

I don't believe that all areas should be equally balanced, just 
that something out of 'balance' should defend itself from being
overly exploited.  The 'population container' idea, for example,
could well control the wealth of a particularly weak goblin tribe,
as well as the birth rate in their subterranean warrens.  I'd not
mind one area being considered 'rich' in plunder over another,
as long as the nature of the game made the players have to
hunt to find which areas are rich again this week.  Of course,
with the 'goblin warren' (howdy Magic fans!:) population con-
tainer going, and goblins' propensity to go fight when in bands
of sufficient numbers... well, so much for the town while the
players were off beating on the Kobolds of Lonely Mountain.
With ungodly-strong challenges (not particularly meant to be
conquerable) out there, I think you could make a world of
sufficient complexity where both solos and groups would find
their places.
Hah.."just make it more complex" - that's my new motto.

-John G.
(Chris, I couldn't reach you with the simplest telnet I have.
 Will try again another evening.)