[MUD-Dev] Re: Administrative notes

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <199705112357.TAA22200 at babe.globecomm.net>, on 05/11/97 
   at 05:04 PM, tlair at mailzone.com (Todd Lair) said:

>[On 05/11/97 Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> said]

>>The simple way to get rid of combat twinks is to have a real (gamewise)
>>cost attached to it. Make armour and weaponry expensive to get and
>>maintain. Don't give it away for free with each corpse, but make players
>>purchase it with a armourer and weaponssmith. Make money hard to get at,
>>and make not having it a hazardous lifestyle (e.g. characters can really
>>starve to death if they don't eat enough, or the right things). Don't
>>reincarnate characters when they get killed but make that dependent on
>>the actions of other players. If you don't have friends then your
>>characters won't last long. That should make players who are looking to
>>fight think twice and give players who don't want to other things to do.

Bingo.  I approach this from a number of avenues:

  All objects decay over time.

  Magical objects consume mana.  Should they run out of mana to 
  consume they decay almost instantly.

  Get too many magical objects together and they consume all the 
  mana in a room and all self-destruct in a second or two.

  Non-magical objects just decay.  

  Some non-magical objects decay more quickly in the presence 
  of magical objects.

  Some non-magical objects consume mana.

  Some extremely rare and typically immovable non-magical objects 
  produce mana (usually slowly).

  Death is permanent.  There is no recovery.  Everything is lost.

  Combat is dangerous with the outcome (who wins) non-guaranteed.  
  Thus low-level characters are often able to kill high-level 
  characters.

  That said, I don't have levels.

  Defence is easier than attack.
  
  Magical protections are more expensive to maintain (mana etc) 
  than physical weapons etc, but are also more effective.

  Carrying a lot of EQ can seriously disadvantage a character 
  (combat, mobility etc).

  Player characters and their EQ are not removed from the game when 
  they log out.  

  It is up to the players to suitably arrange for their character's
  and their character's possession's safety before they log out.

  There is no gobal naming system for characters.  ie there is no 
  WHO command, and there is no automatic walking up to a player 
  and seeing "Bubba is here."

  Instead player characters can assign names to the bodies they 
  meet.  These names don't have to agree with the names that the 
  bodies request.  These names don't have to agree with the names 
  other player characters have assigned to that body.  The names 
  are private to the character that assigned them.  (cf Silke 
  effect).

  Should a name be assigned to a body, the playe will see, "<name> 
  is here, " or some contextual equivalent.

  Player name assignments are lost along with everything else 
  on death.

>For example, a healer type should simply heal.   

As a player I *REALLY* dislike games that attempt to enforce some sort
of role upon me due to a classification.  This is one of the reasons
that I absolutely refuse to play class based systems.  The idea that
my character is somehow disabled from stealing because he is not a
thief, or healing because he is not a healer etc seem both ludicrous
and designed more to arificially constrict my character's abilities
for the sake of game simplicity than to enhance game play in any
manner.

--
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...