[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.)

[Adam Wiggins]

[Marian Griffith:]
> On Fri 21 Nov, Jon A. Lambert wrote:
> > This seems to be the biggest area of difficulty.  I wish to avoid the
> > arcade-like quality to combat (fastest reflexes win), add a more 
> > thoughtful approach (cf. JCL's combat scripts), yet preserve a sense
> > of urgency (a time limit on decisions) without imposing excessive lag
> > on players.
> 
> I have been thinking on this. The idea to have to code to be playing the
> game does not appeal to me, and I think is excessive trouble.  Currently
> combat is handled very poorly in my opinion.  Why not try to find a mid-
> dle ground? E.g. there exist a variety of attack and defense patterns. A
> player must choose which of those his character will attempt,  of course
> to the best of its abilities. If you don't say anything at all your cha-
> will fight mostly defensive and try only the most obvious of openings in
> its opponent's attacks.  But as a player you can say "aim left or aim at
> the head."  and your character would concentrate on  achieving those two
> goals as long as you (it) know the suitable defense patterns. If the op-
> ponent is not skilled in defending those points eventually there will be
> an opening there. I think that the combat descriptions should focus more
> on the attack and defense patterns than on the force of the blow like it
> is now. E.g. "The black knight aims for your left arm. You can block the
> blow with your shield but your arm is getting heavy."  rather than  "The
> black knight annihilates you with his sword."

Heh, that's funny - you just described our combat system almost to
a tee.  The whole idea is basically to have it be very customizable
via simple toggles and value settings (rather than code logic), and
then your character tries to fullfill your wishes to the best of his
or her ability once in combat.  Naturally the defaults are set to be
something fairly reasonable, so that if you enter combat with a new
character they will do pretty much what you except an unskilled character
that is unfamiliar with combat to do.
In fact, this whole concept works so well that we use it all over, not
just with combat.  Almost anything that is based on a skill or skills
(which is most everything in our system) has settings to customize how
your character approaches a given task.  Naturally you can override
these settings at actual execution time by typing in commands; your
character may normally refuse to climb a given cliff (having a low skill
at climbing and no climbing equipment), but you can force them to
attempt it with the 'climb' command if you like.