[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Matt Chatterley]

On Wed, 1 Oct 1997, Marian Griffith wrote:

> On Tue 30 Sep, Matt Chatterley wrote:
> > This is where you can hit problems - what if someone doesn't want to
> > remove a weapon? Its all these 'what if?'s that are troublesome! Mind you,
> > I am in an environment where someone may well want to directly attack the
> > guards (although it'd still be a bit of a daft thing to do). And guards
> > should not really 'realistically' win any fight, unless something
> > thematically depicts so. Infact, I'd put them at a disadvantage against
> > anyone with a greater reason than being paid some money, to fight! Just
> > for arguments sake, anyway. ;)
> 
> My thinking is that one guard would not necessarily fight and win automa-
> tically  but there are six or so of them.  With that many opponents there
> is no hope of winning. And they ought to be smart enough to allow no more
> potential enemies in the gates  than they can defeat.  The worls is after
> all dangerous and that trade caravan could easily be bandits in disguise.

True. To this end, my guards are 'virtual populations' (not in a very
sophisticated way), and finite (also replenishing over time), so that an
attacking army will not find several times its number in guards waiting
every time it attacks. This also depends on the overall strength of the
guards though - I can think of several places quite likely to be conquered
on my game map, due to their poor defences (this is absolutely deliberate,
and one is tied to a quest - a village under perpetual attack from a
population of kobolds).

> How to avoid that things happen automatically I have no idea. That is the
> kind of thing you have to work out :) Something like having the guard is-
> sue an order that is obeyed unless you refuse within a certain timelimit.
> Depending on the nature of the order  the guard may attack or run for re-
> inforcements after that.

This does get tricky indeed.

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics." -?