[MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...

[Adam Wiggins]

[Shawn H:]
> Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > Yeah.  It always amazes me how anxious people are to burn through the
> > levels, get the kick-ass gear, etc etc.  I always think that the *worst*
> > possible thing you can do to a newbie is give them a bunch of great eq.
> > Basically, you've just spoiled the game for them.  Now any other item
> > they strive to aquire is going to pale in comparisson to what you already
> > handed them.
> 
> I have no problem with newbies having kick-ass gear as long as there is
> something like a puzzle whose solution doesn't involve having kick-ass
> gear.  Instead you have to sit down and think about it yourself, get a
> few things yourself to solve it, and if someone told you how he did it,
> you'd be no further ahead since some aspects of the puzzle are different
> every time it's done.  This is all more work, but it means one doesn't

Yeah, I think telling someone how to do a puzzle is the exact same thing.
I have a pretty strong dislike for the adventure-game style puzzles found
in LPs, so I don't worry about this as much.  However, I'm curious -
has anyone come up with a way to make puzzles be randomly solvable (ie,
different for each person who does them, thus making telling the solution
useless) and still interesting?  Every 'random' puzzle I've ever seen on
LPs involves randomized mazes or throwing objects into random locations,
which is IMO pointless and not particularly fun.  Usually there is some
'trick' to a puzzle, which, once told, will allow someone to defeat it
every time.

> care if there are a bunch of clownchildren all brandishing Ray Guns of
> Subatomic Disruption after 20 minutes of newbie play, and (IMO) makes
> for a more fun game experience.

Well, to summarize the argument: "A goal is only as worthwhile as
the effort it takes to acheive it."

> > This is common, on good muds.  In fact, I usually tend to think that
> > the mid-levels are the funnest time on a level-based mud.  At low level
> > things are just too hard (you can't walk more than 10 ft without collapsing
> > from exhaustion, you're constantly droping your weapon in combat, you get
> > the hell beat out of you by squirrel and fidos).  At high level everything
> > gets competative; you've got everything to loose and very little to gain.
> > At mid-levels you can actually do things and be relaxed in the meantime.
> > I don't see any reason why *any* mud, level-based or not, would make
> > any part of the game not be fun.  As near as I can tell, the attitude is
> > that you have to 'work' for a while (low levels) before you get to 'enjoy'
> > the fun parts of the mud (mid and high levels).  Yeah, whatever.
> > 
> > Our goal is to make a mud where you can do whatever you like, and you'll
> > get exactly what's coming to you.  If you want to be an all-powerful mage,
> > you're going to have to work *hard* at it, people are probably going to
> > be constantly coming after you...etc etc.  If you want to socialize, explore
> > a bit, maybe even get into an occasional fight...you can do that too.
> > Sure you'll never be as powerful.  Likely you'll live longer, too.
> > I guess our whole philosophy is that we'll just design a world full of
> > interesting and engaging stuff to do and see and visist and be.  What you
> > as a player want to do with that is completely up to you - there's no
> > default "game", persay.
> 
> This I like and plan to have something embodying the same concepts.  You
> can pretty much do whatever you like, become whatever you want.  There's
> a large amount of freedom in that:  you're not forcing someone to play
> your game, but instead are giving them the means to (in a sense) create
> their own game as they go along.  Much more enriching and fun, methinks.

And, more importantly to me, it makes the game still lots of fun to play
as the creator of the game.  If you make a linear, Zork-style game, 'playing'
your game isn't any fun at all, since you're just typing in commands that
you already know will lead you to the same goal, every time.  With the
stuff we're talking about above, mucking about in your own world is a lot
of fun, because things interact in unexpected ways.  That's when I enjoy
what I do the most - when I see two completely seperate pieces of code
which I wrote interact in a way I never would have thought of, and work
correctly.