[MUD-Dev] Re: Introductions and descriptions

[Richard Woolcock]

This message is getting huge, so i'm going to give it a trim.

Matt Chatterley wrote:
[snip]
> > The name is purely random, and is seperate from their 'login name'.  I am
> > using the login name as the person's 'Soul name', which is permanent, and[snip]
> This is a very interesting way to tie things in, although I'm not sure I'd
> choose to do this (given your *theme* however, it seems very appropriate -
> will you tie in the 'special' character types to these soul points,
> somehow? Or will all your players be special, rather than mortal?)

All players will have soul points.  Its really just a way of getting around
the problem of perm-death.  Basically, its like saying "Okay, so you died
and that sucks...BUT your next character doesn't have to start completely
from scratch".

> The idea of giving an acct name (chosen), and then assigning character
> names is a good one to enforce certain things, but perhaps do two things:
> 
> 1. Allow players an appeal to change the name if they really do have a
> better idea (for instance, a culturally suitable name you did not consider
> in your master list).

There is an 'empty slot' in each list which represents a 'non normal' name 
(I can also add to the lists whenever). Not only can I add 'unique' (non-
listed) names, but I can also have people with no surnames.  This would 
represent particularly ancient characters/names, such as Caine, Absimilard, 
Lameth, etc.  Note however that they do still temporarily get a surname if 
they marry somebody with one (and you can lose your surname by marrying one 
of these people if you're female).  Odd, I know.  I didn't really think about 
that until now.  Maybe I should change it.

> 2. Set up probabilities of occurance for each name, rather than making it
> arr[random(sizeof(arr))] or something to that effect - this way you would
> have more Johns than Naseems, which is probably realistic. ;)

Or just put in lots of 'John's ;)  I've also wondered about matching
forenames to surnames.  Armand Smith sounds pretty silly, for example.
I've not really worried about it for now.

> [Snip]
> 
> > > This is good too - its starting to pull the concept of 'introductions'
> > > away from the very static thing that it tends to be, into something far
> > > more dynamic and more involved in the game. How are you coping with 'out
> > > of character' communications and such? Eg: Who lists, tells, and such?
> >
> > The 'who' list and 'tells' show your login name (or 'soul name').
> 
> Makes sense to me. Presumably all other 'out of character information'
> dealing commands will also relate to this, muchly like they might in a
> unix environment - finger, and suchlike.

Yes the finger command works the same (as it checks the parameter against
the pfile name).  I've still got a fair bit of tidying up to do with this.

[snip]
> There can be no doubt in your mind that if players can speficially set
> something with absolutely no checks and guards, it *will be abused* at
> some point or other. To what extent, and how severe this abuse will be
> really does depend, and only time will tell (although you could probably
> make a good guess). This leaves you with three options:
> 
> 1. Remove the players control, or restrict it in enough ways to minimise
> abuse, or to make it *look* is if they have full control, while you
> exercise total power over *what* they control.
> 
> 2. Put some form of administrator between the players self-adjustments,
> and their access to the game itself (some sort of 'approval process' for
> new characters).
> 
> 3. Rely on players to report other players who abuse the system.
> 
> Lets face facts firstly, and say that ideally 3 would work, but this being
> our world, it probably won't. 2 is quite a common approach, BUT is
> probably not consistant with the sort of environment that you wish to
> create, and is also something I despise doing in any environment (but
> sometimes find necessary within 'hardcore rp' circles, where a misinformed
> player can ruin their own enjoyment, and that of many others, and these
> must be informed so that they can approach things from the right
> direction).
> 
> This leaves us with option 1. Which in our case (description augmentation)
> might mean that rather than having a small text buffer to fill up, the
> player can select a list of words or phrases, and compose them with the
> assistance of the game systems, into a description. Consider it giving
> them full control over a small jigsaw puzzle - they may be in the drivers
> seat, but you're the one who gives them the pieces.

Interesting way of looking at it.  At the moment my descriptions are 100%
automated, but it would certainly be interesting if players could psudo-
generate descriptions.  My main worry then would be that they might leave
something important out because they didn't think it would look good in
the description ("Hey, I didn't know you had glowing eyes!").

[snip]
> > I do have eye/hair colour, as well as hair length and a choice of verb for
> > both hair and eyes - however this is only used in the 'look at' description.
> > I was considering working on some form of 'priority' to pull out features in
> > order to create a short description.  I mean, you don't want to see:
> 
> I overlooked hair length. :)

I only have 'short', 'average', 'shoulder length', 'half way down back' and
'down to waist'.  Hair doesn't grow yet either.

> > A tall, ugly fat man with a bushy black beard, bald head, piercing blue eyes,
> > heavily tanned skin dressed in expensive clothes says 'hello'.
> 
> Right, this is simply too verbose for most players. I personally am
> capable (no boast, just a fact) of reading a screen of text in a few
> seconds, and retaining most of the content - many, many, many people read
> FAR slower than me, something of which I have to be repeatedly reminded,
> because my messages for various minor game events tend to stray on the
> verbose side of things. It also gives you far too much information, unless
> your character is penomenally informative.

Hmmm so you're suggesting perhaps YOU the player could chose how much information
you want to see about other people?  Now that would be very interesting...

> > However it would be nice if it picked for example 'fat' and 'piercing blue eyes'
> > (your characters most outstanding two features) and displayed:
> >
> > A fat man with piercing blue eyes says 'hello'.
> 
> This is good - certainly do it this way with prioritising, so that not
> everyone is "A [size] [gender] with [colour] eyes."

The trouble is working out priorities - surely they are a personal thing?
If I like slender women with long dark hair and dark eyes (read "I do" ;),
then I might see something like:

   A slender woman with long dark hair and dark eyes stands here.

Whilst if Bob likes chubby women with short hair and long legs, he might see:

   A skinny women with uncut dark hair and lovely long legs stands here.

I suppose I could churn up a 'favored description' whenever you first see
someone, which it would give you (until you found out their name).

[snip]
> By this notion, are there any good themes, or is something wrong with the
> 'non-automated' approach taken by many games? Personally I am either
> minimalistic (very little code, very little built, because the game is
> really just a social construct between the players), or the other extreme
> (very heavy automation, and suchlike).

Well my theme - as I have mentioned before but will repeat in case anyone
didn't catch it - is World of Darkness.  There are a number of MUSH's
around which concentrate on the roleplaying aspects of that theme.  Perhaps 
I am trying to create the 'other approach'...  Most of all, I would just 
love to have something which would run with minimal admin interferance, so
that I could sit down and actually enjoy playing my own mud with other
players.  On a side note, my WoD theme is based AFTER Gehenna (futuristic
after an apolocolpse).  The main reason for this is to allow me a mixture
of technology (ranging from sticks and stones up to modern-day equipment).
I want people to start in my world with nothing, and have to make tools to
make tools to make tools...

KaVir.