[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)

[Adam Wiggins]

[Caliban:]
> Yes, a wide choice of skills is great, but skills like musical instruments 
> are just plain stupid. What the hell does this add to the game?
> 
> 	>play lute
> 	You play your lute.

Gosh, you're right!  By the same token:

>kill monster
You kill the monster.

>pick lock
You pick the lock.

>summon hellbeast
You summon a Greater Hellbeast.

>destory world
You destroy the world.

It's just trappings.  Obviously anything you want to implement as a skill
is going to need some sort of mechanics in any game which is not 100% RP-based.

I've seen some really nicely done bard stuff on muds.  Typically you have
songs which work vaguely like spells - persuasion, sleep or charm.
I think I've detailed my favorite bard character here before; on that mud,
bards needed copious amounts of alcohol in order to play their songs, which
were mostly battle-hymns.  My main concern with that character quickly became
how to carry as much alcohol as I possibly could.  This meant traveling around
trying brews from different cities to see which got me the most drunk for the
least volume; finding the lightest drink containers; searching for spells or
magical bags which could help me carry extra, etc.  And of course the stunned
reactions from people as I downed inhuman amounts of beer was worth it
altogether - as well as having level of drunkeness in my prompt.
Naturally I was always in search of better instruments.  Unlike the normal
bard implementations, new instruments didn't give you new songs.  Instead
they simply allowed you to play louder, and longer (they didn't go out of
tune as quickly).

> Yes, it's nice being able to run some form of bard who carries around a 
> musical instrument, but does a 'play lute' command REALLY enhance the 
> experience for anyone? What's wrong with ',plays his lute merrily, skipping 
> about the marketplace' instead of a social command?

,massacres you with his deadly slash!
,casts a massive fireball!
,picks your pocket.

If certain elements like song-related skills have no value to you, then
sure, don't implement them.  They are certainly more difficult than
your 'standard' skills due to their subjectiveness, but I enjoy the aesthetic
of the traditional bard quite a bit.  Certainly it's a nice break from the
usual sword-swinging he-men or mysterious, ancient spellcasters.  And, I
like to have in-game mechanics for the things I do - having an actual effect,
as opposed to just role-playing for some mood (which isn't bad, but I'd
just as soon role-play 'over the top' of the basic mechanics).

> > Well that 12 year old is going to have a hard time with my place.  For a
> > start - he'll only be able to have one account.
> 
> Pray tell, how exactly do you intend to enforce that? I have several dozen 
> shell accounts, each with an associated e-mail address, and it's trivial 
> for me to create more. Any hacker worth his salt can have several hundred 
> with little difficulty.

Gotta agree here.  If someone has it out for you, it's difficult to keep
them out.  Your best bets are to make it less interesting for them, and
empower the players such that they can deal with the situation the same way
they would deal with an annoying person in RL.  Again, this is part of the
reason I hate things like global channels, who lists, global tells, and
even no-PK.

> > Why will the game suck because the game allows people to form groups to 
> > large tasks?
> 
> You seem to be misunderstanding my point. If you TARGET the game, meaning 
> you SPECIFICALLY code the game as though most activities will be carried 
> out under certain circumstances, at groups of four to six, any group less 
> than four is hamstrung.

A large world should have enough things for groups of many different sizes
to do.  Not to mention they can do the same thing in different ways - to
pick a simple and extreme example, think of the single thief sneaking into
a dragon's lair to nab an object as opposed to an army bent on overrunning
the same dragon and taking the loot.

> Players should also be able to do all kinds of things themselves. Consider 
> whether most players actually WANT teams and teamwork. I don't know whether 

As usual, I don't care whether 'most' players want team and teamwork or not.
*I* like teamwork as a player; my partner is the same; everyone I like to
mud with also agrees.  This is the group to which we cater.
I don't see why I should ever consider what most players want, unless I'm
out to make money off of it.  In which case I would probably try to get
some hard data instead of just speculating based on my own experiences.

> they do; I certainly don't, because -- as I said in another post -- I don't 
> *like* these people. I don't understand them, I don't get along with them, 
> and they certainly don't understand or get along with me. I'm your 
> classical computer geek.

<smirk>...well, that's fine.  Might I ask, though, why in the world you
want to play a multi-player game, then?  Smarter targets?

Most muds offer plenty to do regardless of your group size, from 1 to whatever.
Making the world _bigger_ (as we have been discussing) shouldn't impact this
negatively; in fact, it should only help things further.

> All of us are PROGRAMMERS.

Most of the messages are written by programmers, but not all.  In the
lurking readership I believe there are quite a few non-programmer types.

> We are by definition *not* the average player. 

Questions, then:

What is the average player?
Why do I care?
How does this knowledge affect the mud I want to write, which I want to be
fun for myself and other like-minded folks?

I might point out that, thinking in a broad sense, the 'average' player
wants Quake.

> And this attitude is exactly the type of arrogance that pisses me off about 
> MUD development, because your market is too specific and too narrow and as 
> far as I'm concerned it makes you the single worst type of MUD admin on the 
> face of the planet. I'd like to design a flexible and easy to use game that 
> middling numbers of people (say 50 at a time) will log onto and enjoy. I 
> don't need hundreds of people online; that's just too crowded.

Not sure I understand your statements here, although I agree with the last
half.  Certainly I'd like enough players to make the world interesting, but
too many can be worse than none at all, unless of course you're going for $$.

> I've been on it for a good long while, and this is true. However, the 
> discussions tend to be 'how much should the players be able to do' rather 
> than 'how should the players communicate with the server'. We're discussing 
> design issues on the back end and administrative issues on the front end, 
> and somewhere in the middle there are a bunch of players trying to play a 
> game who SHOULD be the main concern.

And that's fine, but I still find vague discussions pretty unhelpful as
far as deciding how I want to actually implement things.  It's perfectly
possible to discuss abstract, high-level concepts through simple, concrete
examples (Bubba and crew).  This makes it both easier to understand and
more fun to talk about, and you achieve the same result in the end.  As
long as you don't take the examples too literally but instead realize they
are just expressions of larger concepts.

> > NLP has been the easiest part of my mud to write so far, but then I don't
> > have "commands", I have verbs and the verb works the same way it does in
> > real life.
> 
> What if English isn't my native language? What if my vocabulary isn't quite 
> as good as yours? How do you handle verbs that have multiple meanings?

I find english much too ambiguous for this sort of use.  NLP is nice, but
when I'm in a tight situation the last thing I want is to have to think
about phrasing my command.  A good interface is no different from 'interfacing'
with your own body - you don't *think* about it, you just *do* it.
Personally I find simpler interfaces better for this purpose.  They
are fast to execute, easy to learn, and unambiguous.  If I could get
an interface as simple as a joystick for a mud, I'd do it.  A mud is
obviously much too complex for that, but once I've got the basics down, I
find myself moving and reacting to various stimuli just as fast and
thoughtless as pressing up on a joystick to move some sprite around.
I doubt anyone who has played standard video games for any period of time
actually thinks about what the various directions on the joystick do.

> > Documentation isn't hard and in most cases you don't need it -
> > surely anyone above the age of 5 knows what the verb 'get' does by now?
> 
> 	> get sword
> 	You pick up the sword.
> 	> get bob
> 	You yell "Hey Bob!"
> 	> get laid
> 	...

Right.  Some other fun ones:

> open door
You open the door.
> open eyes
You open your eyes.
> open chest
You tear open your chest.  It's very painful.

> pick lock
You pick the lock.
> pick up lock
You pick up the lock.
> pick up woman
You say, 'Hey baby, what's your sign?'
> pick nose
You pick your nose.
> pick #2
You pick door #2.

> draw sword
You draw your sword.
> draw sword
You draw a picture of your sword.
> draw card
You draw a card from the stack.
> draw water
You draw water from the well.

etc etc etc.
Personally I'm pretty happy with the single verb == single command method
used by muds right now.  The only beef I really have is bad verb choices
(frequently because one command is made at a later date than the other)
and bad documentation.

> > I agree with being able to say anything, but emoting (or posing) anything 
> > too prone to abuse.  Say if you want languages and anything you 'say' is
> > translated for people who don't speak your language, well to get around 
> > you just emote what you want to say.
> 
> Clarify for me exactly *how* it is helpful for certain of your players to 
> be unable to communicate with each other.

For the same reason that it's useful for players not to be able to walk
across a continent in two seconds.
For the same reason it's not useful for players to be able to live no matter
what kind of harm is inflicted upon them.
For the same reason it's not useful for players to be able to cast unlimited
spells.

etc.  It's just a game mechanism, like any other.  It happens to be a social
mechanism, which I like, becuase it's a bit different and less straightforward
than the others, and useful/harmful in different (and IMO, more interesting)
ways than normal mechanisms.

We are allowing players to be mute or deaf, as well, either through
actions in the character's 'career', or chosen at character creation.
Are these things 'useful'?  Impossible to say.  They are just character
attributes, like any other.  They cause obstacles, no different than
distance, wounds, fatigue, or anything else.

> Ahh, so you would rather give me a small well defined set of things I am 
> allowed to do. Let's say I want to 'dance'. Should it be a slow sweeping 
> waltz, or a frenetic jungle boogie? Give me the ability to select, and I 
> will abuse it just as easily as I could have abused emoting.

I think the 'abuse' we're worried about here is emoting 'gives you 10,000
coins', 'tears you in half and eats you', 'puts you over her knee and
spanks you', etc.

Here's a question, for you and others: Arctic allows free emotes, but they
are all lead with an '*', thus:

Bob smiles.
*Bob smiles.

The first being a social, the second being 'emote smiles.'  Is this
a reasonable solution?  Also, there are things that turn off your
ability to emote - a silence spell, being underwater, or that cool mask
that garbles your speech so horribly that no one can understand you.
This, of course, kind of sucks from the standpoint that it takes away your
ability to do 'emote gestures madly, pointing at his mouth', but it does
leave in emotes without loosing anything in terms of game mechanics.

> > I personally like the idea of a mud that has languages.
> 
> I personally hate it.

And you wonder why you get such negative reactions to your posts?  Sheesh,
I thought I was inflamatory...try, 'I'm not interested in this, so I won't
comment.'

> There's no way to enforce it,

You speak.  People that don't understand the language you are speaking
won't be able to understand what you're saying.  People who only understand
the language slightly will understand only a few words.  Now it's 'enforced.'

Naturally if you have free emoting this gets rid of this.  If you consider
this an unreasonble trade-off, that's fine, but you're (once again)
getting yourself into trouble by making absolute statements like the above.

>and everyone more or 
> less speaks 'common' anyway. What the hell do you gain from it?

Yes, this is annoying.  If you're going to just have a common language that
everyone starts with there's no much point, unless you want to extend
it a bit:

- Spellbooks come written in a variety of languages.
- Sign language for underwater and silence rooms.
- NPCs that refuse to speak to you in common (say, certain teachers..).

Plus other stuff I've mentioned, such as saying 'friend' in high-elven to
get into Moria.

> > I personally feel that channels are a waste of time and like the 'who'
> > command are too open for abuse.
> 
> Abuse is possible wherever you have user input. Deal with it.

Yes.  But I as a player find it annoying that I can't just disappear into
the wilderness when I want to be left alone, and I find things like
who lists and global channels more or less destroy any sense of
location I might have.

> To use a recent example from another thread, if I can go into the woods 
> with an axe and build a log cabin, I can also build a reasonable facsimile 
> of a telephone pole. I can also build a big cross and set it on fire. Abuse 
> is possible in any situation. Wouldn't you say walking off into the woods 
> and finding a big line of telephone poles would be disconcerting on a MUD?

I doubt they would be presented as telephone poles, unless the mud was
some sort of strange juxtaposition thing.  More like:

> n
Deep in the Forest
There is a line of shorn tree-trunks stuck into the ground here.
Bubba is here, digging a hole.
There is a tree trunk lying here.
> say er...whatcha doin?
Bubba says, 'Putting up telephone poles!'
> say tele-who?
Bubba says, 'Telephone poles!  So you can call people!'
> say uh, yeah.  I gotta stand overe here now.
> roll
You roll your eyes.
> n

This is just one looney player, and the reaction of a 'normal' player who
is more or less in-character should match the world's setting.  If it's
a fantasy setting and someone is talking about telephone poles, your
character will probably figure that they are completely insane and
ignore them.

> > I think we all want to play a mud that is fun.
> 
> Then why wasn't anyone else discussing it?

Allow me:

  I want to play a mud that is fun.

Furthermore:

  I want to play several muds, all of which are fun in their own way.

The point being, I doubt people discuss implementing features that they
don't think are fun.  You're welcome to explain why you think that *you*
won't think it's fun, but I don't think an explicit statement of, "I want
to implement the following feature because I believe it is fun" is necessary
for each post.

Now that that's out of the way...

> Like, say, Ultima IV? When was that published anyway, early 80's? You mean 
> to tell me after 15 years we still haven't caught up to that standard?

All of the Ultimas are a fixed set of encounters revolving around a
single player (the recent UO excluded, of course).  Although it's possible
to draw on these sorts of games for ideas about what's fun, I don't
think that they have a whole lot of relevance to a mud world for anything
major.

> All in all, I could be easily misled into thinking you're being overly 
> defensive.

How about we all just settle down a bit and discuss the issues at hand?
The need to 'defend' one's ideas seems to imply that someone is attacking
them.  Neither seems necessary.  One simply argues the merits of a given
idea, but at some point you're going to get back to basic premises which
aren't really arguable - what's 'fun' or not, what's worthwhile or not,
what aesthtics are appealing or not.  It's also perfectly possible to
discuss an idea from someone else's standpoint - 'I don't think this sort
of thing is very fun or interesting, but if I did I'd do it this way...'