[MUD-Dev] Stranger in a Strange Land

[Adam Wiggins]

[JCL:]
>    at 07:46 PM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user2.inficad.com> said:
> >>   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.

I like it, but what's the mechanics, exactly?  This reminds me a little bit
of the first diku I played - it had a zone-wide 'where' command for players,
and all communications (yell, tell, auction, etc) were zone-wide.  This
had a nice effect where there was a lot of chatter going on when you were
hanging around in town but it was quiet when you were in some obscure zone.

However, given my lean towards realistic, consistant mechanics for the game,
I'd hate to tack something like this on there (like a town-wide who list)
just to help people find their friends a little easier.  We do currently
have character bonds - mages can sense each other especially those of the
same element, and *especially* those that are of the same bond-family (see
my earlier post about how mages are 'broken in' to the family).  This is
often kind of obscure, though, ala "There is a disturbance in the force" sort
of thing.  Again a similar thing for clerics of certain deities.  Still,
this doesn't help Bubba the Troll who just wants to find some buddies to
come swing swords with him.  Other options might be town registries (you
sign in with the guards at the gate - if you snuck into town by illicit
means, you won't be in the registry), NPCs whose specific task is to
keep track of who is where in the town, or a town crier who you can ask to
'page' someone for you, ie "Boffo the Elf!  Bubba the Troll is waiting for
you at the town square!"