[MUD-Dev] Re: Levels (was: Administrative notes)

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <199705160508.WAA08513 at user2.inficad.com>, on 05/16/97 
   at 08:29 AM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at inficad.com> said: > [ChrisL:]
 
>> I'm in two minds on this one.  I sodding well despise the model of
>> having to go track down some mobile so I can then issue a standardised
>> command (or perform some standard obesiance/duty) and have my "skills"
>> automagically increased in response.  Blech.

>Agreed, when you put it this way.  But...

Okay.  What's the effective difference between this and (quoting from
later in your post):

  "...I like the scenario of a person hiking deep into the wilderness 
  to find the hermit who is rumored to live somewhere high upon a 
  mountain.  The hermit declares that he will only teach her the 
  fabled herbal recipe for his cure-all concoction if she will bring 
  him the blosom from the century plant which grows upon a faraway 
  peak, and is blooming sometime in the next three months."

>> OTOH I am quite fond of having to figure out what other player may
>> know something about XXX skill that I don't know, and then tracking
>> him down, and personally persuading him to teach me (followed by the
>> same automagical part).  

>I like mobiles as teachers just fine.  For one thing, they are online
>24 hours a day.  

Remember: I don't remove player characters from the game when they
logout.  If the player for the character you want doesn't set up his
character to handle teaching when he's not online, then tough -- you
have to go find someone else.  Life is like that: not fair.

>What I _don't_ like is only being able to practise, or being limited
>(ie, I can only learn so much on my own) by what the mobiles teach. 
>Our system allows you to learn anything you like on your own.  In
>most cases you won't necessarily know _what_ to do, so learning from
>someone else (or a book) is a good idea.  Also, you can learn much
>more quickly under someone's tutiliage.  The best route to learning,
>say, swordplay, is to go find a trainer (hopefully for cheap).  Since
>your chance of learning is based largely off your opposing skill
>level (*), the teacher can choose to use his skills at a level
>comparable to yours.  Thus you'll learn up many combat-related skills
>(parry, dodge, weapon skills etc).  There are other methods.  You can
>just go out and fight; less effective since they are not necessarily
>fighting at your same skill level, plus they don't (usually) give you
>tips while you're fighting.  Also possibly dangerous, though probably
>cheaper.  You can learn from a book, which will give you knowledge
>but not applied skill, which is the one that 'counts' for actually
>doing it.

A more significant difference is being missed here: practical skill vs
theory.  Theory is one thing -- practical application when under fire
is another.  

>> The obvious fault with this scenario is, "How are the players going to
>> learn the skills with no pre-existant teachers?"  You can either do it
>> all yourself as a Wiz (ie everything ends up sourcing from you), or
>> (and I like this one) given enough activity and cogitation (yup, add a
>> "think" command) in an area, a player character will have
>> "cognitions", resulting in them realising that there's some other
>> nifty special thing they could also do in XXX area.

>I played a mud where the mobiles which taught the skills for each
>(bleh) class only taught one person.  That person then became the
>'guildmaster' for their class, and could charge exhorbent amounts to
>teach others.  Or teach them for free, at their discresion.  At any
>rate, it didn't really work, because the guildmasters would either
>not be on when people wanted to learn, or would just quit playing
>altogether meaning that if there was no one else learned in that
>skill it was basically lost forever.

I note that both problems are addressed by not having player
characters removed from the game when the player is logged off, and/or
by having the above mentioned "think" command.  The first case allows
inactive players to still communicate their skill bases, and the
latter for disassociated players to independantly arrive at new
abilities. 

>Two things; first of all, this didn't work very well, and I see no
>reason to try to do something along that line.  Secondly, I want my
>mud playable even if there is no one else online.  This means having
>NPCs 'fill in' when there aren't players around.  

Don't remove the player characters and you get a lot fot his for free.

>> <<Actually I'm still debating on the "think" command.  Currently I'm
>> against it for the same reasons I'm against any general IQ stat.>>

>Hmmm.  I don't find that idea very interesting either as a player or
>a creator.  

Nor I right now.  I'll have to ccome up with a replacement.

>I'm still not sure why you don't like mental stats; they
>reflect your charcters ability to do certain things in the world,
>they don't have the mud try to do the player's thinking for them.

If you have the stat it will tend to be used by the system for some
form of decision making despite your best efforts (someone will make
the short-circuit), and I consider that unacceptable.  If you have the
stat and manage to keep the system from ever using it (eg Bubba is
dumb as a post and has an IQ stat to indicate that to RP'ers so that
they RP him as dumb as a post, but the system never accesses that IQ
stat) they I see little reason for that stat to be in the system in
the first place (tho it might be excused as in the example as form of
inter-player notes on the character).

--
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...