Mixture

[Furball]

On Sun, 23 Mar 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:

> > Regarding command parsing, in NathanY's example:
> >  
> > > Use spear on bob
> 
> I don't like this syntax at all.  I don't desire to use it as a player,
> for the same reason that I don't desire to try to implement it.
> This falls into the same category, I feel, as typing 'aquire money' and having
> your character automatically decide what the best method for aquring money
> is, and then going out and doing it.  Not only is it ambiguous, but I don't
> see how it adds to the game at all.

Me neither, I asked because I was curious.  As a player, I wouldn't
type 'use' in a critical situation if I didn't know what the outcome was,
I'd rather type 'smack bob over the head with the rifle butt'.  If I was
quest solving though, I'd end up typing 'use' in every location with every
object in hope of solving the quest by brute force.

[...stuff...]

> Hmm, this also brings up the issue of number-hiding.  Good or bad, and if
> so, how to implement it?  I realize most of the folks on this list come
> from an LP background; my experience with LPs has been that they show you
> all the numbers right up front, at least those that have stats and skills
> as a major part of gameplay.  I cut my teeth on Diku, however, (please,

That's generally the case.  There's only a few LPs that do hide the stats.
DartMUD is the only one which I've been to which hides everything and it
actually works.  Genesis hides everything as well but each and every
number has an equivalent worded version.  Eg: Skill level 10 = seasoned
novice, skill level 11 = vetern novice, skill level 30 = seasoned student,
it's just two sets of words combined to form a level, which I think
defeats the point.

Some LPs just hide the skills exact level with words and leave the stats
alone, probably because the same LPs evolved from the original 2.4.5 lib
and the players liked the way stats were in numerical form but didn't
object to skills being vague. 

Is it good or bad?  Depends what kind of players do you want to attract.
It's true the majority of players like numbers, they *know* that somewhere
in the mud there's a number to represent how far they've got.  If you want
a 150 odd players online in your mud, stick to numbers, guilds, parties
and levels.  Personally, I prefer words and being completely blind as long
as the mud isn't too stat orientated.  I went to one mud which said:
Don't worry about levels or stats, they don't mean anything, just enjoy
yourself and roleplay.  I found this false as to get anywhere required
levels and roleplaying was greatly hindered by channels and the way the
admin would say OOC stuff on the channels whilst telling us players off
for following his example.

> This would actually all work pretty well, except for a nasty little thing
> called breakpoints.  This is a problem which plagues all RPGs, but I find
> it most annoying in muds.  That is, only certain points of stats cause
> 'rollover'.  Thus having a 90 con is the same as a 99 con, but a 100 con
> is vastly better than a 99 (or 90, for that matter).  Why?  Mostly
> it's because muds still rely on tables, ie:
> 
>   hitpoints = hp_table[ch->class][ch->con / 10];
> 
> Of course the simple solution to this is to make it a formula:
> 
>   hitpoints = ch->con * ch->level;
> 
> Assuming you had levels and hitpoints (we don't), of course.
> 
> So what sorts of things are you guys doing for character creation and the
> handling of numerical abilities for rating varies attributes of characters,
> weapons, and so on?

Hmm...Character stats for my mud don't change unless the character is
still growing or has sustained some painful injuries.  They get augmented
(sp?) by implants though.  I'm thinking of displaying it to the player as
'relative to their race average' with a little fudging (fudging with a
psuedo random number generated from the player's id similar to one
described below) in worded form.  Same applies to skills which
is 50,000 / 500 to get the percentage which is then translated into words.

That pseudo random number of probably the most useful thing in the mud.
When I get round to nabbing that recall idea, I was going to make a
database of everything in the mud and header each item in the database
with a skill and a number.  Easy to do this by example.  If a player typed
'recall tower' to figure out what that tower in his hometown means, the
database retrieves the correct item somehow and adds/subtracts that pseudo
random number to the players' knowledge of the area rating.  The higher
the result, the more the player will recall.  And as the number generated
is always the same, the player can't repeat the command and hope for more
information.  Another player from the same area with the same knowledge
rating won't get the same result, etc.

The problem with this is that the player will inevitably find more
information about the tower...

> > 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
> 
> A *very* cool mud, definitely ahead of its time.  Hmmm, is it still up?
> I was looking for it on the mud connector the other day and didn't see it.

Um.  Not too sure if it is still up, it's gone down recently and I think
it's on the move.  But, DartMUD2 is at 131.179.32.131 8000, it's at alpha
stage so there's practically nothing to do except read the boards (which
are full of ideas).  However, for some reason, it feels as if it's taken a
step back (my opinion). 

> Well, basically what we're talking about here is deciding what the player
> should 'notice'.  There are only so many things you can keep track of;
> I can't think of any way to code the above in any generalized way.
> So the method I mentioned (keeping track of what one character's normal
> perecption of what another should look like) is a pretty good way to fake it
> and still keep things reasonable.  This also brings in the Silke effect
> to a certain extent.  Two character, both know Silke (possibly by different
> names).  At first:

[nice example of Silke and his alter ego Amber of Koshu snipped]

Ouch, that's really complex.  This could be extended to other senses as
well, like over comms everyone would have a different voice and a player
could recognise different voices instead of printing out:

[100 Mhz] Ceilidh says: Um.

It'll be:

[100 Mhz] A baritone voice says: Um.

Then there's the fact that people sound different over some comms device
and if the player met Ceilidh, the two won't necessarily recognise each
other.



Oh, how do you view your mud as a whole?  Do you have plans for the next
year on how it'll evolve?  For example, I was originally admin of a
fantasy mud, the plan was to get the basic mudlib working then build very
small areas like a village.  As more players enter start playing the game,
we start putting more areas online and expand the village into a town,
then into a city instead of entering the mud world with a full blown city
(pain to design from scratch anyhow, asides, I was hoping to have the
players inspire me for city extensions).

The current plan atm is to create this universe (all 3 solar systems),
then keep working on it and making it more and more detailed, as
intersystem travel is uncommon, maybe even have each solar system on a
different server (then I could have really complex systems :).  Once the
player population reaches something sizeable to abuse, I was
hoping to stage lots of special one off creator run quests.  These little
quests lead up to one great big finale involving some glorious plot
endings.  And...then...I'd close the mud down and work on a sequel.

In case you're wondering why the mud should close down, it's coz the
finale involves opening up a gateway to the rest of the galaxy and there's
zero chance of me even considering making up an entire galaxy.


About inviting George Reese to this list, one word:  Eeek!
Just my experience in dealing with him hasn't been something to write home
about.


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