[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is suppo

[coder at ibm.net]

On 05/10/97 at 02:12 PM, "Travis Casey" <efindel at polaris.net> said:
>clawrenc at cup.hp.com <clawrenc at cup.hp.com> wrote:

>>Nahh, just make default round times, with a defined tolerance for
>>submissions.  Exceed the tolerance and you either get a default action
>>(eg continue what you were doing last round), or do nothing at all.

>Yes... I've thought about doing that before, in order to increase the
>level of interactivity of a mud without giving a large advantage to
>skilled typists and/or scripters.

Yup.  Aside from the programmability aspect of combat (cf my concept of
Combat Scripts), these are the mainr easons I headed for combat rounds. 
The reason I ended up abandoning them is that I'm not unable to determine
what user commands and actions are combat related in the game system. 
There is too much question of context and intent.  My world interactions
have become sufficiently complex that extremely minor actions can have
significant combat significance (cf UggUgg's mana fight).

>>>In any case, though, it should be noted that typos are an artifact of
>>>the interface -- if the player actually *were* his/her character, it
>>>would be impossible for him/her to try to weld a sword when he/she
>>>meant to wield it.
>>
>>Good point.
>>
>>Can it not be considered that typos are a good analogy for physical
>>fumbles?  Typos == clumsiness?  The neat thing of course would be for
>>the server to attempt to track such typos, and to then generate
>>in-game bumble actions (trips over own toes, swings sword and cuts
>>self, fumbles potion and pours it over floor, stutters, gags, burps,
>>farts, etc).

>That could be done, but it moves more characteristics onto the player
>rather than the character.  For example, if a mud has an Agility or
>Dexterity attribute, shouldn't the character's clumsiness depend on this
>rather than on typos?

True.  (I have such stats for different bodies).  My temptation would be
to use the character's stats as merely a weight in the calculation.  A
clumsy typist would then add another weight, accentuating his character's
ineptitude.

>To put it another way, it just seems to me that this moves the game
>closer to being a video game, where the player's skill is the main thing
>that matters, and farther away from paper RPGs, where the character is
>more important.  Although not everyone might agree, I think it should be
>possible for a player who isn't very coordinated to play a character who
>is.

Hurm.  You've hit a nail on the head there.  That's exactly what I have
been aiming for: to make player skill more far important than character
skill.  I'd not considered its ramifications on RP or the comparison to
arcade games afore.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...