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

[Adam Wiggins]

[Nathan Y:]
> On Sun, 25 May 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> :[Chris L:]
> :> In which case a better definition for your IQ stat might be,
> :> "Perceptive ability", no?
> 
> :We have a stat, "perception", which is used heavily (possibly more than
> :any other stat, although the things it affects tend to be less earthshatterin
> :than the other stats).  Most of the people I know that are stunningly
> :intelligent are also about as perceptive as a deaf horse wearing blinders.
> :
> :Perception == awareness of surroundings
> :Intelligence == speed of learning new concepts
> 
> I have three "learning curve" stats... reasoning, repition, and rapidness.
> Between the three, they fill what you have for intelligence. Perception is
> broken into each sense, detail orientation, recall, suspicion (which
> affects several other things, and would, for example, have told you right
> away that the kid had stolen your wallet, and probably allowed you to grab

Just a quick comment on these...although we don't order them in the
same way, we have pretty much all this stuff, and it's great.  They are simple
numbers, but they allow you to do so *much* more with things like drugs,
magical effects, and so on - you can affect more than just strength +2 or
int -4.

Let's see...I'd say our perception covers your sense and detail orientation.
Recall is covered by wisdom (probably a bad name, but I've yet to think
of a more appropriate one).  Suspicion is based on paranoia, which is actually
two values - a player set value, along the lines of:

> paranoia of touch to high
Okay, you're now pretty paranoid of people touching you.
>
Bubba tries to hug you, but you recoil backwards before he manages to come
into contact with you!
> paranoia of touch nonexistant
Boffa the disease-ridden Troll arrives from the north.
Boffa hugs you, rubbing his sore-encrusted arms all over you.

This is handy because of communicable disease and thievary (which is mainly
done via socials, although sometimes also in crowded rooms since people
frequently bump into each other while moving around).

There's also paranoia of attack (when you draw your weapon and assume battle
stance, etc), paranoia of senses (if you're very paranoid you'll be more
likely to hear someone sneaking by, but on the other hand you may also
get "You hear a branch snap" or "The hair on the back of your neck stands
up" even when nothing is happening..), and so forth.  Finally, there is
a paranoia value independant of the one that the user sets, which is
modified mainly by drugs.  Eat some of those strange mushrooms and
you'll be encountering hallucinations.  (This one is inspired by the time
I watched some guy run around a mud for over an hour convinced he was
being chased by a huge purple dragon.  Eventually he realized that the
dragon had shown up not too long after he had decided to kick his (online)
drug habbit...)

Oh, we also use paranoia as a way to warn people of impending death.  If
some archer is taking aim at you from a some hidden niche, you'll get
messages ala the hair standing up on the back of your neck to warn you
that something's up.

> him, if you had the skills for it.), and a few others. You start to see
> why skills pretty much take care of themselves? The skillnet is weighted
> to stats, which are sympathetic to skills, which... well, its a properly
> weighted two layer neural net with local truncation, if you know what
> that means.

Yeah - skill nets kick ass.  I am continually amazed at the complex situations
our seemingly simple stats and skilltree manages to handle; I think,
"Gee, in this situation, things should happen like this..." but then I
realize that that will happen anyway, thanks to the way skills are
propagated and weighted.  I find myself wondering how people not using
this kind of system ever manage to make anything work, but then I remember -
it looks sort of like this:

  if (...) then
    special case;
  else if (...) then
    other special case;

Heh...self-regulating systems kick ass. :)