Mixture

[Furball]

Can't think straight right now so forgive me for not making sense.


Regarding command parsing, in NathanY's example:
 
> Use rifle on bob

This would result in bopping Bob over the head with the rifle butt if
there was no ammo left in rifle.  What would happen if it was:

> Use spear on bob

If Bob was quite close, do I end up throwing the spear, jabbing Bob or
bopping him over the head with my spear?  Sounds silly but I usually try
dumb tactics when I'm testing stuff (Steve Jackson's Game Design Theory
book ref: GEV's and Ogre and Fuzzywuzzy).


About economies, I think NathanY prolly had one of the better ideas.  I
was thinking of allow a bit of trade like in the game Elite and trying to
simulate a full blown planetary economy using NPCs is nothing short of
stupid.  A good example involving actual individual NPCs, I think, is the
game The Settlers (Serf City in the States).  The player indirectly
controls a lot of little guys who you can assign jobs to and there is a
pretty simple web of flow of resources.  Gold to encourage your knights to
fight better which means you need gold mines and goldsmiths, the
goldsmiths need coal from coal mines, the miners need food or they'll go
on strike, to make food, you need farmers, who need millers, etc. 


I read on the usenet about trees and lists.  Currently, I don't have time
for any research so what's a tree?  I prolly know how to do it but don't
have a name for it (I guess my way thru coding and I don't give my work
fancy names).  Prolly the wrong place to ask this question...Hmm..


Colours in magic, I've always liked this concept instead of black and
white, bad and good magic or magic is a complete mess but maybe it's
because I go around quantifying things. I've seen this in a David Gemmel
book too and it worked pretty well, everything felt natural.  Magic was
not evil nor good as such but there was a harmony to be retained.  The
colours all depend on what it's like in the region.  By spreading terror
in a city, Red would be the dominant colour but the laws of probability
says that the colours should all be at the same level.


I just read the EVOLUTION response again and... waste, restrooms and
procreation?  I've always wondered what would happen if someone stuck
stuff like this in a mud.  I think I will have to watch some other mud
take the flak for trying it out.  Characters should be allowed to take a
leak wherever though (and get arrested if a guard is looking) and does
this mean you also account for oversexed teenagers (I suppose if it was a
fantasy setting then oversexed teenagers might not necessarily exist
because no one even refers to 'it', then again, there's experiments to
be carried out :).

For character creation, ever thought about using 'lifepaths' instead of
straight choosing a name, gender and race then leaving the player to train
up skills.  It seems silly that a character of adventuring age would start
with no skills.  The aim of lifepaths is that the player would choose (or
be forced to choose) paths during character creating.  Did her parents die
during the War?  Is she the only surviving sibling?  Has she got an old
friend who she can always rely on?  Has she got an enemy or ten?
Which school did she go to?  What did she specialise in?  What job did she
secure afterwards?  How long did she stay in that job?  Maybe she picks up
some contacts on the way too.  As she goes along, she gets older, learns
more skills, saves more money (maybe) and acquires more possessions.  The
player could bail out at anytime (limiting it though so there's no 4 year
old characters, 80 year old is perfectly fine).

A balance is needed for this kind of creation process so points are not
assigned in a random fashion and some more petty players keep remaking
characters hoping for a good roll.  This kind of thing works better for
muds where 5 mins real time equates to 1 game hour.  Coz if skills go up
quite quickly then there will be the case of a 12 year old having more
skills than an 80 yr old.


Language... One of the best implementations I've seen with language was at
DartMUD (don't know if any of you guys are familiar with it).  Instead of
randomly substituting words because you don't know the language, so if a
player repeated a sentance again and again, another player can eventually
work out what the sentance meant, each player had certain words which were
always substituted.  As the player learns a language more, certain words
won't be substituted anymore.  The side effect of this was that once a
player got to average skill and was talking to someone else, although the
word 'the' was substituted into 'eek' (in my case), really complex words
were understood perfectly.


>From the same mud, they have a concept that creators/builders/wizzes
should not be restrained from interferring with mortal politics.  If a
mortal is stupid enuff to bug a creator, he should be dealt with as
appropriate (within the confines of the theme).  I thoroughly agree with
this because creators should have the time of their life role playing out
a character, not restricted to a hole (as seen at 99.9999% of LP Muds).


Petty note: I think stillsuits cover the entire body and are quite
distinctive things because they're a water recycler/armour suit so
I'd imagine a player would notice the stillsuit, unless the player was a
fremen too in which case the player would actually notice a lack of
stillsuit.  But that would all depend on the setting.  If the fremen saw
Chani arrive whilst in a sietch (den/cave/home) then the fremen will
expect the stillsuit.  Whilst had the fremen been sitting in a throne
room, stillsuits will stand out amongst a room full of royalty.  Doesn't
mean I don't adore the idea. :)



*moan*moan*moan*
I leave my email box untouched for 2 days and you guys fill it up!  I try
reading all the email in one sitting and I'm getting more email right now! 
*moan*moan*moan*


Ciao

  |				"Peachy keen!" - Death
_O_O_  Ling - Freshwater fish