[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Wednesday, September 24, 1997 4:48 AM, Maddy [SMTP:maddy at fysh.org] 
wrote:

> I don't think any of my PnP characters have ever stopped developing and 
I've
> had some of them for years.

They stop developing as soon as you hit the limitations of the game system 
(max level or max skills or max abilities, or even just a point of 
diminishing returns), the limitations of the medium (the field allocated in 
the MUD data structure overflows or maxes out), or the limitations of the 
game world (your character wanders into the wrong area and dies instantly 
because you typed 'e' instead of 'w'). If, for example, you were playing a 
permanent death system and you died, no further development is possible. 
Period. If you're playing stock AD&D, a normal character can be resurrected 
a MAXIMUM of 18 times. Period. Constitution drops by one every time you're 
resurrected, and you get weak and sickly long before that.

On a P&P game, incidentally, you have a personality that can be developed 
infinitely. Even when any of the listed 'maximums' are reached, even if you 
never gain a single experience point and never get off level 1. On most 
MUDs, you don't have this option. You try to speak to someone in character, 
and they look at you strangely and ask you some game mechanics question.

	Lady Derfle has arrived.
	>'Greetings, fair maiden. And where art thou bound?
	You say "Greetings, fair maiden. And where art thou bound?"
	Lady Derfle says "what level are you"
	Lady Derfle says "im 10"
	Lady Derfle says "wanna group?"
	Lady Derfle says "i need xp"
	Lady Derfle says "so i can level and use these armbands"
	Lady Derfle says "if i log off ill lose them"
	>quit

Please spare me the Diku comments, I have yet to be on any MUD where people 
actually RESPONDED in character.

> What do you class as "no real reason".  If you
> were playing an orc and I were playing a dwarf, it would make perfect 
sense
> for me to kill you.  You're a vile scum sucking orc, a spawn of evil
> etc..etc..

It also makes perfect sense for anyone in your game world to randomly catch 
fatal diseases, so why not implement that?

> There could be a religion that requires its members to kill
> anyone with blond hair.

There could be all sorts of things. What exactly does this religion add to 
the game? Ummm... pissed off players and roving groups of antisocial dorks. 
Maybe we should do something different.

> Well the problem is, is that all your balance problems seem to be based 
upon
> XP/Level based systems and they don't really make sense if you don't have
> either of them.  I'm sure that I'll have loads of balance problems to 
start
> with, which is why I'm going to take most of my system from an already
> stable PnP system.

I'm basing my examples on level/XP based systems because it's relatively 
certain that we all understand how those work. I could always base it on 
the attribute/skill based system White Wolf uses, but that's very MUSHlike 
and people would complain. I could also base it on Amber diceless, but 
people would still complain. I could base it on Man, Myth, and Magic which 
had a dozen nationalities and a hundred odd skills and sixty some classes, 
but I don't think anyone here has any experience with it. What *should* I 
target toward? 'Level' is a generic term we all understand. Race, class, 
experience, spell, we all understand what these mean. There IS an 
equivalent in your system, regardless of how you classify it. Ars Magica 
doesn't really *need* a canned spellbook; you can do anything you like, 
magic is infinitely mutable, and really a 'spell' ought to be a foreign 
concept under this system. But there ARE established 'standard' magic uses, 
because people demanded them -- thus, they are spells just like any other 
game might have.

> > I have that problem on occasion myself. I mean, really, you can emote
> > about anything, and I see people who pose such ludicrous things you 
feel
> > like demanding to see their character sheets. Building a house of 
cards,
> > no problem. Balancing a dagger on the top? Hold on a second here,
> > Houdini! Make a roll for that one...
>
> A good reason to get rid of emotes?

Baby and bathwater.

> Well think about the situation.  You're walking along and you see this 
guy
> walking towards you with a sword.  At that stage I'd give the guy a wide
> berth as will all the NPCs walking about too.  What if you were walking
> along and a mobile/NPC killed you?  There isn't really that much 
difference,
> you're still dead.

There are vastly different power levels in the game. I may be walking 
around with some decent armor and a hefty weapon, but some other guy will 
have no armor or weaponry at all, and someone else may be wearing all but 
impregnable armor and some vastly damaging weapon that ignores all physical 
armor worn by the opponent. If I can take twelve sword hits on average, and 
that weapon does as much damage as *twenty* sword hits on the average, it's 
a one shot. Even without any weaponry, if he's significantly stronger and 
faster and more skilled than I am, he's going to win. Period.

And I *do* have the same problem with mobs, incidentally.

> If there isn't any risk in the game, then there really
> isn't any point in playing.  You'll just wander about, swatting NPCs like
> they were flies safe in the knowledge that they couldn't harm you.

Consider...

	Game 1: If I start a fight, I may get killed.
	Game 2: I will never be killed, ever.
	Game 3: If I log on, I may get killed.

Game 1 has a moderate risk. Game 2 has no risk. Game 3 has an extreme risk. 
Game 2 is no fun after a while, because you figure out there's nothing to 
stop you. Game 3 is no fun after a while, because it's essentially random. 
Game 1, on the other hand, carries a definite 'fault' assignment -- if *I* 
start a fight, *I* may get killed. It's my implicit consent to the 
possibility. People seem to like the idea of Game 3 far too much for my 
taste, because they're betting they'll be the ones doing the killing.

> Yes I can see this is a problem, but the game would only suck if the 
other
> player could kill you in one blow.  I'm expecting that you'll have 
several
> seconds before he'll even get his first attack in, giving you plenty of 
time
> to get away.  If he does kill you and other people have seen him kill 
you,
> he's going to be a lot of hot water.  The locals will report him as being
> your murderer and the local Lord will make him a wanted criminal.

If, if, if, if, if, then it's not a problem? In other words it's not a 
problem 2^-5 of the time? One out of 32? Yeah, that's a good argument.

> Don't you think it a challeng surviving in a hostile environment, where
> everyone wants to cut you into tiny pieces?

Not when 'everyone' includes people who have significantly more experience 
in the environment than I do. Which it does, because your development team 
and your friends and the people you like will get onto it earlier, so by 
the time the public can get onto it there's an existing userbase of maybe a 
dozen people who are already experts. Those people proceed to dominate the 
game. The rest of the userbase can avoid them. Some small part of that 
userbase then gets good at the game, and eventually begins to rival the 
existing experts. Over time, the number of experts grows, and the longer 
the game has been around the less attractive it is to new players -- 
because it now operates purely on an expert level, and the new player is 
hopelessly outclassed. Such a game really and truly sucks.

> Well I'd assume that the vast numbers of people on it, actually do like 
it.
> The game has been targeted at X, so like you've already said, Y is going 
to
> hate it.  Admittedly it seems odd that the founders just left it running,
> since it is their game I'd have expected they'd just take it down.

They were going to, because Group X wasn't playing: Group Y was. They 
expected Groups X and Y to both log onto the game, with Group X eventually 
outweighing Group Y as the game was more targeted to their desires. 
However, Group Y turned out to be so distasteful to Group X (even in small 
numbers) that Group X would rather leave a good game than hang out in the 
same place with Group Y. Group Y eventually outnumbered Group X. Members of 
Group Y took over the game, creating a social culture to their liking even 
though there were few game constructs to support it. When the founding 
staff said 'this is a big mistake' and indicated a desire to take it down, 
some members of Group Y wanted the game to stay up and volunteered to 
maintain it, run the site, etc. The founding members, being reasonable and 
fair-minded people, said no problem and turned it over.

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