[MUD-Dev] UI Issues: Anti-scripting techniques

[Maddy]

Previously, clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote....
> In <199709260444.3287300 at bedford.net>, on 09/26/97 
>    at 12:15 AM, "Brian Price" <blprice at bedford.net> said:
> 
> >The first area of attack, preventing multiple commands and repetitive
> >sequences of commands, is simple, even trivial.  Multiple commands 
> >can be defeated easily in five steps:
> ...
> 
> This would annoy the crap out of me as a player.  The classical case
> is speed walking.  If I'm at point A and wish to get to point B, and
> know the exact sequence of commands to get from A to B (very likely if
> I've played more than a day or two), then I want to be able to sit
> there and bang out commands as fast as my KB will take them.  The game
> can catch up later.
> 
> Note: A key value here is the ability to interrupt such a stack of
> entered commands.  Consider the case:
> 
>   > n,n,n,n,n,e,e,s,s,w,w,u,u,e,u,w,w,w,s,e
>   Room 1.
>   Room 2.
>   Room 3.
>   There is a huge pile of gold here.
>   Room 4.
>   Room 5
>   Room 6
>   Room 7
>   ...etc.
> 
> Better would be:
> 
>   > n,n,n,n,n,e,e,s,s,w,w,u,u,e,u,w,w,w,s,e
>   Room 1.
>   Room 2.
>   Room 3.
>   There is a huge pile of gold here.
>   Room 4.
>   Room 5
>   > !stop
>   Room 5
>   >back,back
>   Room 3.
>   There is a huge pile of gold here.
>   > get gold
>   ...etc.
> 
> This is of course an extension of the more general Panama Canal
> scenario.

The problem I have with the second example, is that it implies that the user
has to notice something that their character has noticed.  Surely if
something interesting is spotted, the character should stop there and then
offer the chance to resume the journey?  I don't have any problems with
actually being able to stop the movement at any stage however.

> >The second area of attack, confusing and complicating triggers could 
> >be a lot of fun.  (Yes I have a warped view of fun)   
> 
> Agreed.  This ups the ante, adds flavour, and increases apparent
> complexity for little to no cost.  It also encourages mistakes of the
> form Nathan has commented taking advantage of (emoting the last
> character exit to lead the follower into a DT or similar).

Or like above, stopping the character when they least expected it.  That
would certainly throw most scripts out unless they kept track of how far
they'd moved.

Maddy