[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.

[Adam Wiggins]

[Greg:]
> From: Brandon Cline <brandon at merlin.sedona.net>
> >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.  
> 
> hmm... I wonder how feasable it would be to have eating be a semi-automated
> process?  Kind of like breathing.  You can take control, but most of the
> time it's automated.

Oh christ, you just gave me a terrible vision:

> inhale
You inhale.
> exhale
You exhale.
> inhale
You inhale.
> exhale
You exhale.
> inhale
<<lag>>
Your brain becomes starved for oxygen, and you pass out.
You tumble down the stairs you were standing on and die.  R.I.P.

> When you get hungry, assuming you are not too busy
> doing something else (like fighting for your life, or casting a spell), the
> game has the character pull out a loaf of bread or whatever, and eat it.
> You do sacrifice a bit of realism, in that they might be running for their
> lives from that nasty dragon whose layer they just raided, but it takes care
> of a tedious detail, while still keeping some flavour (I am assuming that the
> character and everyone within visual range will see them going about eating).
> It also requires the player to have enough food on hand, adding another
> resource to manage, and a layer of complexity.  

I think that hurts the whole thing.  I'd much rather that my character
take out a loaf of bread and start munching on it if I'm standing around
chatting with friends, but I certainly don't want them doing it the midst
of combat.

> Granted, a system like that could be argued to be only shoving the tedium off
> to another level, that of obtaining the food, but hey.  You had to do that
> when you were forced to tell your character to eat.  I see it as getting rid
> of half of the tedium.

I like slower timescales.  They take care of this problem pretty
nicely; 24 mud hours for us is about 2.5 RL hours.  Since I can go
pretty easily for 24 hours after eating a big meal, I figure people
that don't want to worry much about food can fill up and not have to
worry about it for several hours of play.  Of course, this still doesn't
solve the basic problem, which is that diku/lp-style food is pretty
boring no matter how little you have to do it, and as I always
say I don't see much point to putting something in the game that doesn't
add anything in particular.