[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Broly]

On Wed, 1 Oct 1997, Marian Griffith wrote:

> On Tue 30 Sep, Matt Chatterley wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Marian Griffith wrote:
> 
> > > In most cases I'm in favour of making such things happen automatically.
> > > E.g. the moment you cross the towngates  the guards order you to remove
> > > your weapon and you simply immediately do so.  What is the point of re-
> > > fusing after all?  You want to enter town for trading or something like
> > > that,  not to take on all guards at the gate  (who should realistically
> > > win any fight).
> 
> > 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.
> 
This is the type of situation where apparent strength (power, level,
skill, whatver term is in fashion) vs actual strength becomes an issue.
Three old men with walking sticks wouldn't pose too much of a problem for
the gateguards, but if those three men happened to be masters of the
arcane and those 'walking sticks' were really magic fire-shooters...A
single master swordsman would be able to mow down a half-dozen
rent-a-mercs before they could drive him off.  Especially if the master
swordsman caught the group off-guard. (Hack,Hack,'Hey, what the.'Hack,)
Now if the town was currently under seige, or the character was a
suspicous stranger, then there might be some drawbridge mechanism...The
drawbridge stays up, a character approaches the town, requests entry, then
the drawbridge is lowered after the character removes his/her
weapons(possibly being "asked" to leave the offensive items at the gate to
be picked up when the character leaves).  Now once in town, it would be
expected that no weapons be drawn, and the local police force will be
summoned if anyone is spotted with a weapon...
This is how I intend to enforce a 'safe' zone.  A powerful NPC police
force in a walled-in town that attacks trouble-makers on sight.  Only the
most brazen (or foolish) would start a fight in this town, and only the
very skilled (or lucky) will survive doing this.
A problem I'm facing is dealing with magic within the town...I don't want
to code out offensive spells, although that is easy enough(can't think of 
a decent in-game reason for it). A mage could wander into town, torch a
large portion of the population, then gate (teleport/phase/fly) out of
there, thus avoiding the parimeter town defences.  Perhaps having the
town gathre up a mob, hunt down the offender, and splat him/her; but that
can easily be avoided with the player loggin off...

On a side note, it seems that most of my game constructs only work if I
prohibit my players from ever leaving their keyboards...

> 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.

The gate idea above is one suggestion, but that only works in the most
sequestered of settings...I couldn't imagine any well-traveled town having
its gates closed during peak business hours in any but the most dire of
times.  Another is to have the guards physically stop you from coming into
town if you have your sword drawn.  To do that right, however would
require a somewhat extensive nonleathal nonweapon combat system.  Or it
could be as simple as a DIKU-style 'detain' skill...

Gunther