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

[Adam Wiggins]

[Matt C:]
> 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?

Well, there are two levels, to my mind.  One is the gameplay and game world
itself - there, as long as everything is fun and reasonable/well documented
enough that you can figure things out without too much trouble, it doesn't
matter too much to me.  I have my personal favorites, of course - I do
prefer fantasy (despite it being incredibly trite right now).  I also like
evenly spaced rooms (ie, I can go n, w and be in the same spot as if I
went w, n).  But I am perfectly happy to play on a mud that isn't exactly
my favorite type as long as it's still fun and interesting.

There's a second level, and that's just the technical stuff.  How do you
connect, how do you get lists of who's online, what are the commands?
My first mud was a MUX (I think...not positive) which required that you
type "look at <target>".  This drove me absolutely BONKERS, and I have
a hard time forcing myself to play muds which use this notation even today,
after being used to it from playing various LP, Abber, 3M and Ya codebases
which use it.  I also like having a 'config' or 'options' command which
gives you a list of all your options, instead of hunting through the commands
to find the ones you're looking for.
I think these sorts of difference are actually the primary reason why
people stick to one codebase - they know the interface.  Similar to the reason
people use only one OS; they spent a while learning the one they know,
and don't feel like investing time learning another, even if you tell
them over and over that another one is better.  Good helpfiles are, of
course, a necessity.  We're also going to add help pages for newbies,
experienced mudders, and possibly even codebase specific stuff to make
the change-over easier.  Ie, 'help lp' will give you command LP commands
and their equivilents on our mud.  Also, many common commands which aren't
even used on our mud have help files and messages when you type them, the
most obvious being 'wield' (gives a message about wield not doing anything,
and prompting the user to get help on 'hands' or 'combat').  One thing
that drove me nuts when I started playing YaMUD (unique codebase) were
its obscure commands, like eprim (wield), eoff (offhand), etwo (twohand).

Anyhow...my point is that it's all what you're used to.  People are
always going to bitch about something when it's different from what they
know.  Let them; try to make it easier for slightly more open-minded
people to make the transition, and sooner or later people will get used
to *that*.  We've often conjectured that it will be a lot easier for
a person unfamiliar with muds to play ours, since they will be thinking
in terms of real-life logic instead of mud-logic.  Ie, a mudder will
find a bronze gauntlet and wonder if it's better ac than their leather
glove.  A non-mudder will find a gauntlet and (correctly) assume that
it is better protection than the leather glove and less prone to damage,
but that it is heavier and will hinder their hand movements quite a bit.

> 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.

Heh, yeah.  I think mainly the problem is incomplete and out of date
helpfiles.  Personally, I'm looking forward to writing the help files -
for one thing, that will mean everything is done and working (grin),
and secondly, I think our system for most everything kicks ass, and I
look forward to explaining it.  (Hell, that's half the reason I post
here...I'm so happy with the way things are working for us, I just
can't wait but to share them with others.)

> 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

Yup.  I always made the stupid assumption that if my arm was at 50%, where
100% was perfect and 0% was severed, that it's pretty well beat up.
Of course, 50% *usually* means that it's starting to get hurt; rarely
does it cease to function until 0%.