Just a bit of musing

[Chris Gray]

:	I think one of the common problems is viewing these as a dichotomy.

Yep. I seem to be fighting against that view all the time whenever I post
to the newsgroups about it. Perhaps most MUD folks have never seen a client
that displays both text and graphics properly.

:					Make it a 2-D bird's-eye view (red
:dots are mobs, blue dots are players, white squares are buildings,
:whatever). The possibilities are really endless and not necessarily
:complex. Now we stay sort of "open" because we can use arrow keys to move
:around (out in the open an arrow might mean "head towards" while inside it
:might mean "depart thru this exit").

You can go a bit more towards graphics: make the overhead view such that
a good artist *can* make a glorious bitmap image of the region. Have the
blob for the character move around on it. If the user doesn't have that
glorious picture on their system, don't try to send it over the connection,
just send a small binary stream that approximates the image using a few
lines and rectangles. The key is to have the main features in the same
place in both forms, so that the cursors/icons work out right. That's
what I try to do. I currently use arrows only for up/down, and just let the
imagery indicate obvious exits within the plane. Moving around using the
numeric keypad (which allows ne/nw/se/sw/u/d in addition to just the
n/s/e/w that using the cursor keys does) is *very* handy.

--
Chris Gray   cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA