[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Tue, 23 Sep 1997 09:30:20 PST8PDT, Maddy <maddy at fysh.org> wrote:

>I think locking spellbooks out of the hands of the masses is a good thing. 
>You don't want Bubba the barbarian who can barely add 2 numbers together
>trying to cast magic do you?  Magic is best left to the professionals. 

Actually, I *do* want Bubba the Barbarian trying to cast magic, because
that allows him to transcend those class distinctions... more along the
'fun' angle, it permits lots of wonderful screwy effects to happen, and
more along the 'reality' angle, if he can't add how do you expect him to
read? And along the 'game' angle, magical scrolls have traditionally
been readable by anyone, even the illiterate, due to their magical
nature. A spell in a spellbook isn't generally castable as is; it
includes *instructions*, but those instructions must be followed
exactly, and they tend to preclude referring to a book in the middle of
it. Thus the concept of memorising spells.

>However having one consistant language for magic makes far more sense.

Agreed, although people will of course argue that there are different
types of magic...

>> Even the silent room could have been dealt
>> with using a 'writing' skill. 
>
>Writing is still a form of communication though.

Which would have been comprehensible to everyone -- not just people who
can write. Agreed, someone illiterate would have a problem, but how many
illiterate characters do we have on MUDs? (I can just see it now,
auto-parsing descriptions to translate signs and messages into
gibberish...)

>> >> > I hate artificial restrictions and inconsistencies like
>> >> > 'You cannot pick up another player'.
>> >> 
>> >> Artificial worlds will impose artificial restrictions.
>> >
>> >Yes, but the above statement implies that you *can* pick up NPCs, just not
>> >players.  I find this to be massively inconsitent and unnecessarily 
>> >restrictive.
>> 
>> The specific example above is based on an error message I picked out of
>> the air, which was intended to illustrate that an error message should
>> tell you specifically what it is that it didn't let you do and why. The
>> realism or implications of the specific error message used as an example
>> are actually irrelevant.
>
>So you'd expect something along the lines of "You aren't strong enough to
>pick up Bubba."?

Yeah, that would work. Or more like 'Bubba is too heavy for you to pick
up', as I'm certainly strong enough to pick him up with a little extra
help.

>Of course if you go idle in
>the middle of the Orc's warren you deserve everything you get.

Whereas if you *lag* in the middle of the Orc's warren...

>> Theoretically, in the real world, you would be able to pick up the
>> player provided you could carry him and all the weight he was carrying. 
>> 
>> Realistically, I certainly hope you don't walk down the street picking
>> people up.
>
>I'd hope you don't walk down the street brandishing a sword, but it's what
>most people do in muds.

Security professionals and police officers routinely walk the streets
with holstered weapons, which is the modern equivalent of a professional
adventurer packing a sword. 

>Well for a start, it's unlikely that someone will be able to go far whilst
>carrying you.  And secondly whilst you're over their shoulder you can attack
>them?

They don't necessarily have to go far. They can cast a portal, pick me
up, and enter the portal; then a simple drop and a word of recall can
take them out of harm's way. Macro'd, it would be somewhat difficult to
respond to this.

>I never liked the idea that because of your level you weren't allowed to go
>in a certain area, but since I'm planning on basing my game on RuneQuest I
>won't have that kind of problem.

Yeah, you'll just have areas that don't look tough but actually are, so
the low-power characters will get killed more easily. 

>But there is a really obvious way to solve this.  If you're invisible,
>obviously no-one can see you, so if you do something that means that people
>do see you, then cancel the spell.  

This differs according to the observer. If I pick up a lamp and carry it
across the room and set it down, why should that cancel the spell? 

>If you attack someone, or you're
>carrying something large and visible.  Just because you're invisible doesn't
>mean something you pick up becomes invisible as well - not unless you put it
>in your invisible rucksack - you'd have to use some kind of 'sneak' skill to
>pick up something without people noticing.

Just because you know someone is there doesn't mean you know WHO.

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 You see me now, a veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I've been 
 living on the edge so long, where the winds of limbo roar. And 
 I'm young enough to get involved, too old to see, all the scars 
 are on the inside; I'm not sure that there's anything left of me
               -- Blue Oyster Cult, "Veteran of the Psychic Wars"
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