[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.

[Brandon Cline]

On Mon, 10 Nov 1997, Chris Gray wrote:

> [Brandon C:]
> :> [Me:]
> :> I think I would not be bothered by such things as long as they didn't
> :> bother me! There needn't be a point - it can all be "atmosphere". However,
> :> if I have to spend a minute or two every time my character needs to eat,
> :> then I *will* become bothered.
> :
> :In a mud environment though isn't it true that in order to create
> :"atomosphere" you need these details?	 Or should players be expected to
> :"emote" everything the designer decides is too tedious to implement?
> 
> Having a tedious requirement to 'eat food' is not hard to implement - it
> would probably take an afternoon to add. I'm all for having atmosphere in
> a game, but there are lots of players (often including me), that don't care
> to spend a lot of time doing things that don't move my character forward.
> 
> I wonder if it is feasible to have a "detail switch" in a game. Players
> who want to go through the motions would turn it on, and so would have to
> choose and buy food & supplies, and use them periodically as appropriate.
> Other players could turn it off, and just have a small steady drain from
> a "food counter", and would automatically stock up when they go into a
> store. The former player would have to 'eat food' (or something possibly
> a lot more detailed involving setting up camp, taking out utensils, filling
> a pan with water, building a fire, choosing what to cook, paying attention
> to the cooking, eating the result, washing the pan, putting things away,
> etc.), while the latter would only have to occasionally check their
> "food count" to make sure it doesn't get too low.
> 

Not sure if you saw my point or not.  What i was trying to say, is that in
order to build up atmosphere some details are required... esp if you
intend there to be some sort of roleplaying or other such things involed. 
So just removing somthing, like say combat, or eating food just because at
it's base level it is annoying to do could be destructive in the end to
the ability to create that atomosphere. 
  Conversely, having boring and tedious "details" that are required by
every player is just as destructive in other ways.  The solution I was
hoping you'd see was that instead of removing these things maybe there
should be a better way of doing them so that they are not boring, or
tedious or required to do all the time...  Like you were saying, some way
of having a detail level for player actions...  So say on the eat food
thing, you shouldn't be required to eat food every few minutes etc, and
obtaining, cooking, and consuming food should be allowed to be regulated
to low detail "unless" the player sees need in which he would want to do
it himself, does that make sense?  There should also be a way to convey
that all the above detail is assumed, so that people don't feel like their
characters go on without just because they don't have to, but they go on
not visiably eating because it is assumed that when they are hungry they
eat and it is just not shown... or shown in very low detail.  

Brandon L. Cline      |      Imagination is more important than knowledge.
brandon at sedona.net    |                                -- Albert Einstein