[MUD-Dev] Spoken Languages & Food [was RP thesis...]

[Matt Chatterley]

On Mon, 26 May 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:

> [Matt:]
> > A noble sentiment, and one that I share. It's another reason why, whilst i
> > wish to keep the notions of numerative stats, hps, and levels (lets not
> > launch that one again.. these are not levels as you might know them, call
> > them guild-rankings, whatever), I wish to deal with them internally. The
> > player would see "You are very strong, and sturdy, but slow to learn."
> > Rather than "Strength: 50, Toughness: 50, Learning: 10", and "You are very
> > badly hurt, and bleeding." rather than "HP: 50/200".
> 
> Yup.  And although there tends to be kick-back to this sort of thing in
> the established mud community, I think it actually makes the game *easier*
> to get into.  One of the first muds I logged on to had an output that
> looked something like this:

This in itself is an interesting issue worth addressing. The community is
rather split (IMHO) about what it really wants. Personally (and this is
true for many of you, I believe), if I log into a game, and it strongly
resembles anything I've played for any length of time before, I find it
extremely hard to get into, and typically leave. Notably this is 'stock
mud syndrome'. Others seem to like the same-old-same-old with different
players and admin around. Are there 'changes' to the typical features that
you can make which put off players?
 
> <right hand>   10
> <left hand>    10
> <right arm>    25
> <left arm>     25
> <torso>        75
> 
> etc.  This was pretty useless to me - I quickly figured out that the list
> of numbers was somehow related to the damage level of each limb, but the
> numbers were meaningless for a while.  I would have understood immediately,
> however, if the output had been something like:

Heh. I'm also of the opinion that one should be able to learn by trial and
error on a mud - everything that is vital to playing should be fairly
self-evident, or at least contained in a concise newbie help file, so the
player can totter about, see if they like the game, then plough through
more files if they do. The help systems on some muds (which require help
<exact thing> and have no index) are even a turn off in this sense.
 
> You have a nasty cut on your right arm and a bruise on your left leg.

This is just far easier for the human mind to cope with, I think. We all
know what a cut is like (even a nasty cut, although thats slightly
interprative), and a bruise too.

I have no idea how badly hurt I am when my left leg has taken 20% of it's
max damage, or 30 points out of an unknown quantity. But if it's broken,
bruised or badly burnt, I can imagine how badly hurt I would be. :P

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"Fishing is complete and utter madness."  -Spike Milligan