[MUD-Dev] Git out the boar spear, Martha!

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <Pine.LNX.3.96.970622203000.632J-100000 at mpc.dyn.ml.org>, on
06/22/97 
   at 12:56 PM, Matt Chatterley <root at mpc.dyn.ml.org> said:

>The thread(s) upon hunger/food/nutrition a short while ago were very
>popular and quite highly contested - I'd like to raise another issue
>of that - the gathering of food, and specifically, implementation of
>some way to hunt.

For this area I fall into the grunt player camp.  I expect my
cahracter, outside of unsusual circumsatances (forced march across a
desert etc), to take care of his own nutrition without requiring my
attention or direct involvement as player.  Possibly this is because I
try and handle feeding my own body in much the same manner -- utterly
ignorable automaticities.  Eating is a bother and an unfortunately
necessary waste of time.  (Conveniently ignoring my own gourmand
tendencies which I see as entirely seperate -- eating for pleasure as
vs nutrition which I can't see translating into a text MUD well at
all)

>I intend to allow the eating of corpses (of courpse, most players
>will have to cut them up into suitable food pieces and/or cook them
>first.. only trolls and orcs will be able to chow down on a freshly
>dead body with no chance of being ill). 

That "chance of being ill" piece is interesting.  Why should a
character get ill from eating a freshly killed carcass?  Parasites? 
There are amazingly few that can survive a human digestional system
long enough to be real bother.

>How about having certain types of terrain where players can look for
>animal tracks (if they're lucky enough to find some, they follow them
>for a bit, and an animal they can hunt is generated), and then hunt
>any beast they find. Hunting would involve following it until it
>stays still, and then either being unbelievably quick to attack it by
>hand (aka superman), or shooting it from afar with a spell or
>missile/thrown weapon.

There is considerable evidence (I find supportable) that Homo Sapiens
is by nature a cursorial hunter.  What is a cursorial hunter I hear
you cry in bewilderment?  Very simple:  A cursorial hunter is a hunter
which hunts its prey by running (jogging actually) it into the ground. 


  eg  Bubba hunter sees an antelope.  Bubba starts jogging toward the
antelope.  He approaches the antelope.  The antelope startles, jumps,
and runs away like the clappers.  Bubba keeps trotting after the
antelope.  He approaches the antelope.  The beast startles, jumps, and
runs away like the clappers.  Bubba continues jogging after it.  It
doesn't take all that long at all before you have one compleatly
winded antelope (if not actually dead from strain -- it happens not
infrequently) that Bubba can just walk on up to and hit over the head
with a nearby rock while it struggles to breathe.

Several "primitive" tribes continue to hunt this way to this day.  

--
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...