[MUD-Dev] You, the game of philosophy.

[Richard Woolcock]

Adam Wiggins wrote:

[snip]
> > > As for single-player PC games, generally your character has a bit more
> > > built-in personality - in most side-scollers, a long delay without
> > > player input will cause your character to get bored, start looking around,
> > > scratching their ass, whatever.
> >
> > Interesting side note - if my players have no Linguistics (skill) then
> > whenever they speak their sentences are 'distorted' (often with swearing
> > and so on added).  They don't see this, but other players do - the
> > result is that people who can't speak properly often end up insulting
> > other players.  On a similar note, when I get the time I plan to code
> > 'ass scratching', 'nose picking' and so on for players with no Etiquette.
> > Of course, they won't see that they are doing it (because it will be
> > an unconsious act for them - they have no manners).  I don't consider
> > this to really be 'loss of control', as the player is unaffected (and
> > ignorant) of what they are doing.
> 
> Yeah, we have a lot of stuff like this, mostly to add flavor but
> sometimes for gameplay purposes.  We do simple sentence distortions
> for some characters with low intelligence where we replace every occurance
> of 'I' or 'I'm' with 'me' or their character's name.  Thus you get
> 'me break down door' or 'thugg break down door.'  Others with low
> intelligence see the sentence as it was originally written.  By the
> same token we have a certain race who is know for its pretentiousness.
> We insert 'thee's and 'thou's in the proper places to help this along.
> Naturally others of the same race see the sentence in its original form.

A quick example on a static mob (because static mobs have no skills).

<[454] [8H 2000V]> force undertaker say hello, this is a test of what happens when
someone with no linguistics tries to talk!

The undertaker exclaims 'Oy, asshole, dis is a test of wot happens wen someone wiv
no linguistics tries to talk, ya damn fool!'.

The undertaker exclaims 'Oy, dis is a test of wot da flip happens wen someone wiv
no linguistics tries to talk!'.

I hadn't thought of replacing the 'I' with the persons name, but that would
be interesting - and shouldn't that also constitude recognition?  I've been
toying with the idea of using a parser on what people say, so that rather
than typing 'intro' they can actually say 'I am called such-and-such'.

> > > Characters are indeed empty shells.  The difference is that I insert
> > > a personality which I created for that character, and which exists in
> > > my own head.  So while the personality may *belong* to me, it is not
> > > me.  It may or may not be anything similar to my own personality.
> >
> > Yes but you have to remember that while playing the character, you are
> > unlikely to feel real fear, pain, or whatever.
> 
> Fear or pain as a physical reaction, no.  That's left to my character.
> I may well feel these as emotional impact, however - fearing for ones
> character as one might a favorite pet.  I've also seen mudderes
> wince in pain or even cry out when their characters are severely hurt.
> 
> But yes, your point is valid for the physical sensations, which is why
> we have code to handle it.  This does take control away from the character,
> but it adds to the game IMO.  See my example about the wimp with an
> arrow in his leg.
> 
> > > Personally, I like to remove the characters from the gameworld.  They
> > > are 'asleep' because their consciousness (== me) has left them.
> >
> > This is something I'd like to change in my mud.  However I don't think I
> > will take control away from players unless they 'quit'.
> 
> I'd like to change it as well, but Orion and I discussed it at great
> length and finally decided that we couldn't settle on any improvement.
> We certainly don't want to require scripting, nor do I consider any
> script intelligent enough to deal even mildly well with the complex
> stimuli in our world.  If you've got any other ideas, I'd like to hear
> them.

Well my ideas are fairly simple.  For example, if your character is a
skilled lumberjack, you might well just go out and chop down trees when
not 'playing', or you might set your character to work on building a 
house before you go to bed.  This also adds interesting opportunities
for additions - you may well have avoided having any alchohol while
playing your character (and gone through withdrawl), but as soon as 
you 'quit', would your CHARACTER have enough willpower to avoid going
for a quick few pints?

> > > Another popular area of contention on this list.  I *like* directing the
> > > character's actions according to their instincts, whether the player
> > > agrees with this or not.  The most prominent example being the berserker
> > > rage - while in it, you have very little chance of controlling your
> > > character.  You get no status reports about wounds, nor are you affected
> > > by wounds except for completely debilitating stuff such as missing limbs.
> > > All characters show up as 'your enemy' or 'your foe'.  Attempting to do
> > > anything to anyone (such as pat them on the back) will generally turn
> > > into an attack on the closest person.
> >
> > Interesting :)  I could quite nicely slot something like this into my
> > player recognition system for (vampire) players in frenzy.  Mind if I
> > borrow the idea?
> 
> Go for it.  It's not completely mine - there are plenty of muds which
> gag your hitpoint display or shut off your ability to flee when you
> berserk, which is where we started from.  However, we were watching
> this terrible movie called 'Eric the Viking' (rent it if you get
> the chance, it's the best bad movie I've ever seen), and there was
> a character called Sven the Berserker.  He would constantly fly into
> rages at the wrong time, which resulted in him trying to headbutt
> a dragon the size of the goodyear blimp (with his father, also a
> berserker, yelling 'No Sven no, not now!'), and later on he couldn't
> get himself mad enough to go berserk during a real battle (which had
> him hopping around banging his forehead into things trying to make
> himself really mad).  We decided that the form of berserk which is
> currently popular is far to controlled and straightfoward; we wanted
> something which players could try to control, but which mostly controlled
> them.  All in all, berserkers don't live a real long time.  But dang
> are they fun while they last.

*grin* well the struggle against the 'inner beast' is one of the main
points about vampires in WoD.  Its certainly a good way to try and
avoid pk-massacres (loss of humanity from killing results in the beast
becoming stronger, and more difficult to resist).  Thus I want to make
the frenzy/berserk code quite advanced.  I'd love to have it respond
to insults, but I'm at a loss as to how I can do this.

> > > I think this is a lot of fun, but I can see how others would find the
> > > lack of control annoying.  Most of our control restrictions are a lot
> > > simpler - not being able to pull an arrow out of yourself due to a
> > > low pain tollerance, for example.
> >
> > Yes it can be very annoying.  I was just curious to see if anyone had
> > coded anything similar, and if so - how well it worked out.
> 
> I love this sort of thing; it really brings me into my character.
> It's one thing to have a character description which says, 'He is of
> the finest upbringing and cannot tolerate the slightest discomfort.'
> It's another thing to be lying on the ground bleeding, unable to pull
> the arrow out of his skinny little leg.  I can understand how someone
> might dislike this, however.

I think its a great idea.  I really WILL have to code it - I'm fed up
of chasing after newbies, trying to explain that they are bleeding to 
death from having a leg cut off while they hop around the mud.  I do
HAVE pain penalties, but they don't prevent you doing anything (other
than, for example, holding something with both hands cut off).

KaVir.