[MUD-Dev] Re: Introductions and descriptions

[Richard Woolcock]

Marian Griffith wrote:
> 
> On Wed 19 Nov, Richard Woolcock wrote:
> > This message is getting huge, so i'm going to give it a trim.
> 
> > Matt Chatterley wrote:
> 
> > > 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.
> 
> How about straight, wavey, permanented, frizzy, curly, braided, afro, pony-
> tail, etc?  Not to mention the more outlandish things  you can have done to
> your hair if you go to the hairdresser. *grin*

I have 'soft', 'shiny', 'curly' and something else I can't remember offhand.
They're only really in their for testing purposes, and I'll probably add a bit
more later (I also have a selection of words like 'dark', 'cold' 'piercing', 
etc for eyes).

> > > > A tall, ugly fat man with a bushy black beard, bald head, piercing
> > > > blue eyes, heavily tanned skin dressed in expensive clothes
> > > > says 'hello'.
> 
> Keep the description about the same size of the message. If the message is
> only "says hello" you probably want to stick to the most important part of
> his description, in this case likely the expensive clothing. And maybe his
> most striking feature, either tall or bearded.  So you would get something
> like "A rich bearded man says 'hello'.[snip]

Yes I agree, this is the point I was trying to make (the example I gave was
to show just WHY a description of that length wouldn't work).

> > > 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.
> 
> This largely depends on the speed of events. When descing rooms for a mud
> I like to keep the length just under one page, adding more details in ad-
> ditional descriptions of objects that might be interesting. I never heard
> complaints, but then on muds most players don't read anything at all any-
> way, so I guess nobody ever noticed.

A page?  I like descriptions of between 3-5 lines, with longer ones for rooms
that require special attention.  However, as several of my players pointed
out, once they have read the description they don't want to see it all the
time - and so they stick brief mode on.

> > 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...
> 
> Yes, and especially important when you are dealing with different races.
> But in general I would like to see that players  who are (apparently) in
> a hurry should miss more detail as they run by. Perhaps this can be done
> through the speed with which you walk as well as with abilities?  If you
> choose to run you might make better speed, but all kinds of details will
> be lost, like that bridge that looks like it is waiting for an excuse to
> collapse.  And certain races, and characters, should simply be less per-
> ceptive.  Unless they take extra care with looking around  they ought to
> miss all but the most obvious of clues.

Interesting ideas, I'll have to look into it.

> > > > 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'.
> 
> > The trouble is working out priorities - surely they are a personal thing?
> 
> Well, not really. There is probably somebody around who has studied just
> this thing :)  But realistically speaking  your character would pick out
> the things that are most important for his immediate goals. In muds that
> would primarily come down to survival.  Things like 'rich' would be very
> important because it implies successfull and thus dangerous. The same is
> true for weaponry and size. Appearance is far less importance and serves
> mostly as a way to identify the other.

I disagree - some people would consider appearance to be very important -
particularly when dealing with people of the opposite sex.  In addition,
things like 'rich' are only relative.  What the beggar considers rich,
the King might well consider rags.

> Of course if your character is a testosterone soaked adolescent  priori-
> ties may be slightly different.

Okay forget that last bit I said about appearance.

> > 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.
> 
> Or you would see:  A pretty woman, or:  A beautifull woman, depending on
> how closely she matches your personal ideal.

True, this again is relative.

> > 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.
> 
> A bit too verbose, but that is probably justified because she matches at
> least one of his ideals. If she didn't the description should be reduced
> to 'an ugly woman'  or to just 'a woman'.  Only when he makes the effort
> to actually look at her would he see more detailed information.

Yes its a bit verbose, and was only typed that way to try and explain the
example better.

KaVir.