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

[Maddy]

Previously, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote....
> On Thursday, September 18, 1997 1:08 AM, Maddy [SMTP:maddy at fysh.org] wrote:
> >
> > I think you're being a bit melodramatic here *8).  I'm sure if anyone is
> > doing anything along the lines of 'grasp sword handle right', which is
> > probably going to include me, then all that extra stuff is optional.  If
> > anything I'm definitely going to accept 'wield sword' or 'wield the sword 
> in
> > my right hand', it'll be up to the users how much detail they put into 
> their
> > actions with the rest using defaults.  'wield sword' will obviously wield
> > the weapon in your primary hand, unless there is a weapon there already 
> in
> > which case it may (if you're good enough) wield it in your other hand(s).
> 
> I've always found it unintuitive to have to put a weapon away before 
> wielding another one. When I say 'wield sword', and I'm carrying an axe, 
> then I'd say it's pretty damn obvious I want to stop using the axe, which 
> the game OUGHT to be able to figure out.

Which obviously is what I meant by "defaults".  And obviously the players
should be able to wield a sword and the axe if they so desire.

> > Surely you also see that having a wide choice of skills makes things more
> > interesting for people?  Don't you think it'd be boring if there was only 
> a
> > "use weapon" skill?  Having every player looking the same, with the same
> > skills and speaking the same language is very boring.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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?

Because some players might find it fun to be able to play a musical
instrument.  Play lute wouldn't even be a social - it'd be a command like
'hit' or 'pick lock' - it could have an affect on the surrounding people.

> > 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.

But we're talking 12 year olds - not hackers.  If some immature 12 year old
wants to max out his stats by repeatedly creating characters then he's not
the kind of person I want on my game. *shrug*

> > If he destroys it (as
> > opposed to being killed) it won't be able to get another account for a 
> fixed
> > amount of time, that I've not decided.
> 
> So if I decide I don't like this character, and I decide to delete it, you 
> kick me off the game? That really sucks. If I really like the game, and 
> just want to start a new character, what POSSIBLE rationale would convince 
> me to come back after several days when you say 'sorry, you just threw away 
> a perfectly good character, you can't have another one until date X'? A 
> message like that would really hack me off, and I'd go play elsewhere.

You may decide you want to delete the character, but it won't let you. 
Given that you've just spent N-minutes creating this character according to
your own needs, it doesn't really make sense that you'd want to delete him
so soon.

> > And even then, it won't under any
> > circumstance tell him what his stats are in numbers.
> 
> But it will give him some relative idea of how well he does on character X 
> as opposed to character Y, which is what he wants anyway.



> > Why will the game suck because the game allows people to form groups to 
> do
> > 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.

Yes - but no-one said they were targetting the game for large groups - we
were discussing how to add elements to the game that make it more fun for
groups.

> > There will obviously still be tasks for solo players, it's
> > just that making a mud where the only use for a team of players is so 
> that
> > they can kill something big, seems a bit pointless.  Players should be 
> able
> > to do all kinds of things together.
> 
> 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 
> 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.

Er where in the above paragraph did I state the players should only work in
teams.  Lets see - I said that players should be able to do stuff in groups,
I don't see how this equates to they shouldn't be allowed to do stuff by
themselves.

> > All of us (and I imagine I speak for all of us) are trying to create a 
> game
> > that we as players would want to play.  Who cares if Biff the 12 year old
> > doesn't like it, there are plenty of muds out there that do play like he
> > wants.  And if they don't, then he (like we are) can write his own.
> 
> All of us are PROGRAMMERS. We are by definition *not* the average player. 
> 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.

We might be programmers - but some of us have played muds, some of us have
done PnP RPGs, some of us have done both - therefore we have some vague idea
about the kinds of games we like to play.  I personally don't care if anyone
logs on, I'm just running it for my fun.

> > I'm not sure where you've been, but even tho I've been on this list for a
> > short while all I can see are people discussing how the players interact
> > with the game.
> 
> 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.

The "how should the players communicate with the server" part already works
tho.  They type in what they want to do and they get told what the outcome
was, or if they can't do it.  Discussing what the players can do in the
world is far more useful, unless you want them to just be able to go around
killing things.

> > Take the thread you're replying to.  It's about whether
> > players should be able to kill each other, indirectly or not.
> 
> Yep. Exactly.
> 
> > It's very easy to cater for a lot of the groups you mention.  If you add 
> a
> > varied assortment of puzzles and monsters and traps, you'll end up with a
> > varied assortment of players.
> 
> If it's so easy, why do we spend so much time discussing how different the 
> underlying server has to be for these types of people?

Because so far the only type of player that is really catered for in MUDs,
are powergamers.

> > The easiest way to make sure you can cater
> > for almost everyone is to get rid of the powergamers
> 
> This is just plain offensive. Try replacing 'powergamers' with your 
> favorite social, ethnic, or religious group. Maybe 'gays', 'blacks', or 
> 'Jews'. I'm not even going to dignify it with a response.

No - I'll replace them with um..nothing at all - they're powergamers - they
run around killing things for XP & levels.  Since I don't have XP or levels,
my mud isn't going to be that interesting for them.  I primarily play
thieves on muds, or at least I try to - it's a bit hard being a thief when
there is nothing to steal and then only way to advance is to kill things as
if you were a fighter *8).

> > > Any and all commands in the game should have some purpose...
> >
> > All of the above goes without saying - sure at the moment, there are lot 
> of
> > old muds that do this, but I doubt anything we've been discussing is 
> going
> > to make those mistakes again?
> 
> It does NOT go without saying, because people are STILL DOING IT.
> 
> > >       Natural language processing is BAD. Bad bad bad, I hate it and 
> it's a
> > > big pain to implement which takes time away from more useful things 
> like
> > > documenting the commands (which becomes impossible in NLP *anyway*).
> >
> > 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?

Well you're going to have a hard time reading/understanding the room
descriptions etc aren't you?  The whole mud is in english, so if you're
going to have problems knowing how to type "get sword" you're not going to
get very far.

> What if my vocabulary isn't quite as good as yours?

Well I'm sure your vocabulary will be good enough to use fairly wildly used
verbs.

> How do you handle verbs that have multiple meanings?

See below.

> > 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
> 	...

Ok what if you're amazingly strong and able to lift up bob.  Surely "get
bob" would pick bob up and sling him over your shoulder?  What if there is
an object called "laid"...etc...

> > I agree with being able to say anything, but emoting (or posing) anything 
> is
> > 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 
> it
> > 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.

It's not helpful - it's not meant to be.  It's meant to make players
different.  Why bother having races if they all look, act and sound the
same.  You might as well only let players be human fighters or something.

> > A wide range of socials with optional
> > adverbs and even the ability to set default adverbs (I hate grinning 
> evily)
> > should give you enough scope for self expression.
> 
> 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.

So if you wanted to tell Bubba that the dragon was coming you'd type what?
"dance the dragon is coming" ??? Well when I last checked none of "the
dragon is coming" are adverbs.  You'd perfectly within your rights to type
"dance quickly" tho.

> > I personally like the idea of a mud that has languages.
> 
> I personally hate it. There's no way to enforce it, and everyone more or 
> less speaks 'common' anyway. What the hell do you gain from it?

Yes there is - there are only two "speech" commands (if you ignore channels
and the like) - say & shout.  You gain difference between the various races,
why would a dwarf in a remote village miles from human settlements be able
to instantly speak your language.  Why would he want to speak to you, rather
than killing you on sight for being different?

> > 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.

Abuse to the players - not to the game.  JerkFace logs on - does a who -
spots a player and goes and kills then.  Remove the who command and JerkFace
has no idea who is a player and who isn't.

> > I'd like to play a mud that has none of
> > these.  Without being able to find out who is on, you remove the 
> difference
> > between players and NPCs, which I believe there should be no difference. 
>  If
> > players & NPCs look the same then the jerks that log on to haress players
> > will have a much harder time getting their kicks.
> 
> This is another problem I have with MUD design. Quit modifying the game 
> concept to prevent assholes, okay? Assholes are ubiquitous. I don't design 
> a game to keep assholes out of it, I design a game to get good people INTO 
> it. Turn around, now, and start thinking about how the game should play for 
> GOOD players. Security, I repeat, is the reciprocal of convenience. A game 
> completely unattractive to assholes is completely unattractive to EVERYONE.

Yes, well removing the difference between players & NPCs improves the games
fun-factor as well.  I (personally) think it sucks that when you walk into a
room you automatically know the names of everyone.  It removes the need to
socialise with them since you already know who they are.  What if you heard
that "apparently" Bubba was a child killer and you wandered into a room and
found him.  If you didn't know who he was, you could probably start chatting
with him and find out that in actually fact he's a really nice guy and that
the rumours are all lies.  Where as if you see that he's called Bubba, you'd
already have prejudged him.

> 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?

Well since there isn't a "build telephone pole" skill/command, how would
they do this?  Cutting down a tree, stripping it of branches etc would
produce a long pole or log.  Sticking them in the ground wouldn't make then
into telephone poles, especially since there aren't any telephone cables
running between them.

Abuse is certainly possible if you let the players have too much of a free
reign, but if you're sensible you can remove most of their chances.

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

We were - you have just mistakenly assumed that because our ideas aren't to
your liking - they aren't fun.

> > Yup - you don't get any of these things in any of the muds I've seen, but 
> to
> > get these features you need a game that is a bit more complicated than 
> your
> > average diku.
> 
> 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?

Mid/Late 80's more like.  The ultima series are very primitive - you're
restricted to a set number of actions - a bit like the point-n-click
adventure games.

> > Jokes from reallife are a big no-no - players aren't omnipotent and 
> you're
> > bound to get a large number of players that might not have read the book, 
> or
> > seen the movie/tv program.
> 
> Then they don't get it. It's called life. I'm not saying do a big 'Holy 
> Grail' area where the 'fluffy white rabbit' is a level 46 monster with 
> vorpal dentures, I'm saying put tongue firmly in cheek now and again. Yeah, 
> a lot of people won't get it, so don't overdo it. If you scatter those 
> jokes sparsely, like little treasures to be found, then they won't harm the 
> experience for the people who don't get it, and they'll be vastly amusing 
> to others. Back to the 'Ultima' series: Ultima 1 had an area where two 
> large legs of a statue stretched into the sky, the rest broken off long 
> ago, and a plaque on the base said 'I am Ozymandias, king of kings; look 
> upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!' -- and I *seriously* doubt more 
> than 2% of the players recognised or understood that reference. But those 
> of us who did were amused, and the rest just sort of went 'huh, cool' and 
> went about their business.

Means nothing to me *8).  I'd rather let the players have their own jokes
amongst themselves.

> > All in all I could be easily misled into thinking you're still stuck in 
> the
> > Diku/hack'n'slash/lpmud mentiality.
> 
> All in all, I could be easily misled into thinking you're being overly 
> defensive.

Maybe I am - maybe I'm not - maybe I just disagree totally with what you
said?

Maddy