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

[Travis Casey]

Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> wrote:
>"Travis Casey" <efindel at polaris.net> wrote:
>
>>Many people who say "all blacks are lazy" will also tell you that they're
>>generalizing from past experience, if you press them.  Why do you consider
>>what they're doing wrong, but what you're doing right?
>
>Because such a generalisation is an excuse, rather than a convenient
>shorthand which would be needlessly encumbered by a clarification of
>legal proportions to specify exactly what group of people is meant.

>From my point of view, your generalizations about the group appear to be an
excuse for you to post messages which insult people who didn't take part in
the
discussions you're talking about.  Ah, well... this is definitely off-topic,
so I'll stop discussing it.

>>[discussion of different things that "second X" could mean trimmed]
>>
>>Very true.  In order to make use of orderings, the mud needs to ensure
>>that orderings are stable (i.e., "the second ball" in the room stays
>>"the second ball" until and unless an event in the game world occurs
>>which would change the ordering) and to document for the players what
>>the ordering means.  Personally, I feel that "'the second X' is the
>>second X that you see in the list of items when you look around" is
>>the most reasonable definition for most muds (i.e., that it's the
>>definition that players are most likely to use without thinking about
>>it.)
>
>One of the biggest problems I have with that (and it's a pretty minor
>one, so obviously there aren't many problems) is that as items are
>picked up, their position in the order changes. If there's a bag in the
>room already, but neither of us notice it, and you drop a bag which I
>then get, it's probably the wrong bag. If there are three bags in the
>room, I drop one, someone else drops one, and a third person picks one
>up, then the numbers shift around. It becomes annoying (and exasperating
>when you have some guy in there shifting things around and dropping or
>picking up bags all over the place).

That's true, but, as you point out, it is minor.  On most muds there will
be messages generated when other characters drop or pick up items in the
same room, so the players will know to look again to make sure they're going
to get the right one.

Of course, the only time you should really *need* to use "the second X" is
when there's no other way to differentiate between the items.  Hmm....
perhaps messages from picking something up should say something like, "Joe
picks up the second ball" in these sorts of situations?  A character
dropping
an item shouldn't rearrange the order of things -- the dropped item can be
put on the end of the list.  Thus, picking up items is the only thing that
can actually change the position of an item in the list.

>>Another solution is what I'd call "progressive automatic documentation" --
>>when the player first performs an action in which a certain assumption is
>>used, output some documentation about the assumption.
>
>I don't like this idea. I have visions of typing a command and getting
>four screens of spam as a result. ;)

I don't really like it either, which is why I went on to the "tip of the
day" idea.  However, I threw it out there anyways, since someone out there
might like it...

>>Perhaps the idea of a "tip of the day" could be borrowed
>
>You know... I really like this idea! I know several people who have used
>the tip of the day stuff to get a lot better at an application than they
>originally were... I *really* like this concept.

The more I think about it, the more I like it too.  IMHO, there should also
be a "tip" command, so those who like seeing tips can get more of them
without
having to log off and on repeatedly.

>>That's why I only wish to use partial NLP -- because I feel that NLP
>>techniques can be useful in figuring out what players are trying to do,
>>but I don't feel that NLP is a perfect solution.  I prefer the standard
>>command-based interface for its exact meanings, but a robust parser should
>>be able to handle such things as the presence or absence of articles, and
>>common variations in syntax such as "give joe the sword" vs. "give the
sword
>>to joe".
>
>Agreed, but I still have a real aversion to NLP in servers. From what
>I've heard so far, your ideas make perfect sense and seem to be taking
>into consideration most of the inherent problems with the structure; are
>there any other things you've done or planned with respect to the
>interface that you think are above and beyond the normal operations of
>servers?

Well... that depends on what you consider the interface to include.  In
addition
to the borrowings from NLP, I'd like to have a lot of things, some of which
are
more likely to actually get implemented than others.  Here's a list of a
few,
off the top of my head:

- Good, usable documentation.  Ideally, I'd like to have some sort of
hypertext
  documentation accessible from inside the mud.  However, that isn't too
likely
  to actually happen, since it would involve a lot of programming, and I'm
  planning on just using telnet instead of a client.  My fallback position
is
  cross-references in the online version, and having the documentation
accessible
  in hypertext via the web.  Under "documentation," BTW, I include
background
  info as well as interface docs.

- User-customizable coloring.  Many clients support this sort of thing, but
I'd
  like to try to put those without anything other than telnet on as equal a
footing
  with those using clients as possible.

- Text-based menu interfaces for such things as mail and game news.  The
menus
  should be optional for those who prefer command interfaces or who have
very
  low-bandwidth connections.

- Web form-based interfaces for some things -- e.g., for creating a
character.

- A view of the world which varies for different characters.  This is only
  somewhat a user interface issue, but I feel that it's easier to imagine
being
  a different race if the game can somehow give you the feeling of being
  something other than human.  Basically, I'd like descriptions to vary
  according to the character's senses, size, etc.  For example, where a
human
  character might get:

    You're standing in a small, walk-in freezer, dimly lit by a single bare
light
    bulb.  A puddle of what looks like blood is steaming slightly on the
floor.

  A player who was playing a cat might see:

    You're standing in a huge, cold room, lit by a single bare light bulb.
A puddle
    of what looks like blood is steaming slightly on the floor.  The room
smells
    of fresh blood.

  Of course, this is much easier said than done.  I have ideas on how to do
it that
  ought to work -- the primary problem is that builders would need to write
  more description than they currently do, and would need to mark the
conditions
  under which some parts of the description can be seen.

I can't think of anything else off-hand, but that's probably due more to
sleepiness
and needing to go to work in the morning than anything else.  I'll see if I
can
think of more tomorrow and post it.
--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'        rec.games.design FAQ:
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)      http://www.io.com/~efindel/design.html