[MUD-Dev] Something complete different

[Marian Griffith]

On Wed 08 Oct, Brandon J. Rickman wrote:

> On Sun, 5 Oct 1997 03:36:41 PST8PDT Marian Griffith
> <gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:

> >On Thu 18 Sep, Brandon J. Rickman wrote:

> I am, it turns out, not after realism at all.  I am interested in 
> storytelling.

This is a distinction that occasionally causes heated debates  on the
various mud newsgroups. Realism in muds does not mean 'like the world
in which we live'.  Rather it means that the world behaves consistent
and predictable.  This includes that rabbits are easily killed every-
where or nowhere (to borrow from another subject on this list) and it
means that people should not, in general manipulate more objects than
they can hold in their hands.
Advanced realism (that the talk here was about) requires things like:
if a tree is downed by something  it is really down  and stays on the
ground.  Characters should not normally be able to defeat tens of op-
ponents at the same time and so on.

> >> I might not have made a clear enough distinction between /objects/
> >> that decay and /details/ that decay. 

> >Now you are confusing me :(

> Objects are basically the traditional physical things that exist in the
> mud universe.  A sword, a banana, a rabbit are all objects.  And rooms tend
> to be objects.  The decay of objects is related to a change in the state
> of the actual object: the sword rusts, but slowly; the banana will rot; a
> rabbit, if killed, becomes a corpse (which may or may not be the same 
> object... this is not important) that "decays".

> Details are typically information about the state of objects or the
> universe that just aren't important enough to be their own objects.
> Tinyscenery (potted plants in rooms that you can't actually interact with),
> clues ("You notice some runes on the stone."), and orientation hints
> ("There is a forest to the north, a small stream burbles to the west.")
> are your typical mud details.

> Object decay is usually intergral to the mud universe: too many objects
> make things very messy.  One way of decaying objects is to turn them into
> details.

> Detail decay is a more complicated thing.  How do you know if a detail
> is completely uninteresting and irrelevant to the world?  It is hard to
> justify throwing away details, partially because the accumulation of 
> details creates a certain atmosphere in the game.  Games without details
> are sterile.  Too many details also make things very messy, but these
> details are only indirectly manipulable by the players so players are more
> likely to notice any change of detail. (If a sword disappears you assume
> that someone took it.  If the "forest to the north" disappears you get
> confused.)

> In a completely excessive restatement: objects are manipulated by the
> players; details are manipulated by the game.  These distinctions may
> not matter to the programmers, or even the players, but they are useful
> for mud design.

Thanks for the explanation.

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey