[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.

[Derrick Jones]

On Wed, 12 Nov 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:

> [Greg:]
> > From: Brandon Cline <brandon at merlin.sedona.net>
[snip]
> > >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
[snip]
> > 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
> 	<<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.

hehe. Sounds vaguely familiar, though...
Are you sure this isn't IMPed anywhere?

> > 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.
> > 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.

Not really, you allow the character to preset when and when not to eat.
Might get tricky trying to decipher contextual clues like knowing at what
point the characters are 'safe' from a pursuing foe, and if the characters
even realize they are being pursued.

> > 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.

You could even automate food-gathering.  As a general rule, if players
regularly automate certain activities via clients, then the game should
probably automate them.

> 
> 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.

True, the buy bread/eat bread/buy water/drink water cycle is boring.  Most
players automate this to avoid the tedium.  Add a level of complexity to
the food system so that players have reason to actually watch what they
eat.  Personally, if it came down to ignoring food and using DIKU food
code, I'd cut out food altogether.  Fortunately there are other options.

As for the slower timescale, they begin to be annoying while waiting for
your character to naturally regain strength.  Also they become unmanagible
if you require actions take time (Yes, you'd only have to eat once every
couple hours, but you'd spend 15 minutes cooking/eating)

Gunther