[MUD-Dev] Stranger in a Strange Land

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <199709302130.OAA24809 at user2.inficad.com>, on 09/30/97 
   at 07:46 PM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user2.inficad.com> said:

>[JCL:]
>> I see the areas to be addressed as:
>> 
>>   Currency -- What is another player's state now?  Logged on?

>I like to handle this at the account level.

FWLIW so do I, with the interface between characters and accounts
being opaque.  There is no way of determining what characters another
account runs.

>>   Location -- Where is another player now?

>I don't like to handle this at all.  I consider it a plus that I can
>run off into the wilderness where no one can find me if someone is
>pestering me.  Hopefully common gathering points (towns mainly, but
>also energy vortexes for mages, shrines for clerics, etc) and the
>availibilty of information from NPCs (they remember who they've seen
>recently) will keep the player from feeling all alone all the time.

There's a social use that seem avoided here:

  When Bubba is in town, the fact that he is in town should be easily
determinable with decent probability, and he should be reasonably
easily findable once it is known he is in town (dependant on in-town
probability).

  If Bubba is out in the wilderness, it should merely be determinable
that he is probably not in town.

Compare this to the location of your own friends in town.  You can
find them most any time you want if they're in town.  Once they leave
town, you're SOL.  In a game world this would seem to encourage
socialisation while in-town, and discourage it out of town...seems
fair.

>What's with the long-ass lines, JC?

A buggy beta mailer.  I'll see if the new beta fixes.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...