[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Wednesday, September 24, 1997 5:03 AM, Adam Wiggins 
[SMTP:nightfall at user2.inficad.com] wrote:
>
> > development is a lot of fun when you're *developing*, but after a few
> > run-throughs you get tired of it. It really doesn't matter how detailed
> > I can make my character when someone else can walk up and destroy all 
my
> > work for no real reason.
>
> Wrong.  It makes it everything.  Again, I'm coming from years on Arctic
> where player-vs-player actions (stealing, fighting..) are common, and 
expected,
> parts of the game world.  I find it boring if the procedure is simply
> jumping through hoops until I have an all powerful character.

I don't want an all powerful character. I want a character capable of 
playing the game as long as *I* want to play it. Period. Not as long as 
people let me. Not as long as I haven't solved every quest. Not as long as 
I'm not level 50. As long as I want to play, be that a day, a month, a 
year, or even a decade. I always want someplace else to go, and I don't 
want any dork anywhere able to *stop* me. Slow me up, yeah; inconvenience 
me, annoy me, make my life hell? Yeah, go for it, but not *stop* me. ;)

> To sum up our mud, if such a thing is possible, in one sentence:
>
> Get as far as you can.

The supporting extrapolation:

	You will improve your lead by eliminating your competitors.

> This doesn't mean you every hit some sort of 'ceiling' on your 
character's
> abilities, although it does get progressively harder to advance or even
> keep up your skills, resistances, and so forth.  It means that's it's a
> dangerous world, full of surprises from both the game and other players.

Dangerous is good. Hostile is not. The difference between the terms is left 
as an exercise for the reader.

> I find this exciting, and it increases the 'glory' of characters that
> do well by tenfold.  You're correct that this means that not just anyone
> who sticks to it long enough will always land 'on top' (whatever that 
is).

You're misunderstanding my goal. My goal is to play the game for an 
extended period of time, being faced with progressively more challenging 
situations, without *ever* being faced by situations that are hopeless. I 
do not under any circumstances want to be faced with a situation which I 
cannot reasonably be expected to handle.

> You've got to be alert, and the more dangerous a profession you choose, 
the
> more likely you'll be facing an early retirement for whatever reason. 
 Even
> if you choose to be a farmer or a blacksmith (perfectly good professions
> given our economy), life won't be perfectly safe or complacent.  I 
understand
> that not everyone likes this sort of game, which is why we plan to state
> all of this straight off in the intro text, like a mission statement or
> whatever.



> Anyhow we've probably beaten this to death.  I like languages; they 
aren't
> a huge component, but they are one of those small details that can really
> bring a world to life.  Did Tolkien's languages make his books any 
better?

Yes, they did, as any linguist or historian could tell you.

> Not really, other than making it easy for him to churn out cool-sounding
> and consitent names.  But I feel they added a huge amount to the overall
> mood and setting.

Which made the books better...

> I never said there was no game balance problems.  If anything, they are 
more
> difficult, because the character 'states' are less discrete.  What I said
> was that that particular example was difficult for me to apply, although
> you'll note I did try anyhow.

Not very hard. You pointed out the problems with invisible people picking 
visible things up. Try pointing out problems with picking up players 
instead, which is where it all started. And *try*, instead of going 'well, 
okay, so you try to walk four miles carrying Bob over your shoulder'. 
Really consider for a moment that you want to take Bubba to place X. How 
would you get him there? Could you? Could you do it while Bob's player was 
in the bathroom and AFK without his consent? That's a problem, if place X 
is someplace Bob doesn't want to be or shouldn't ought to be.

> It's like someone asking me to fix their
> computer for them, and I end up saying, "Welp, if this were Linux I'd
> just look in file X, but this is Windows, so you either can't do that
> or I don't know how.  Sorry."

Actually, this happens all the time where I work. ;)

> We spend quite a bit of time, as well, concocting strange situations to 
'test'
> the system.  Ie: "What happens when someone is hanging from a rope by one
> hand and tying their shoes with another, and someone else either on a 
ledge
> or a nearby rope attacks them?"

It's more productive to attempt to cover these bases in the design phase so 
you don't keep tacking onto it. This is where Diku went bad, everyone just 
sort of hung bags off it and ended up with an overloaded server trundling 
along carrying forty million bags. Slowly. The derivatives, of course, just 
made it worse most of the time.

> Anyhow we're not immune at all.  The questions and answers are just
> different, which is something I like.

> One thing I hate about muds right now is the MASSIVE amount of time
> you need to invest to have a descently interesting character.  We're
> going for short-and-sweet character careers; I imagine few people will
> play the same character for four months.  Years is probably impossible.

Now we're talking. THIS is a Great Idea. (Yes, you *earned* the capitals 
there, my friend; this is probably the best thing I've heard from you yet.) 
While I'm not a fan of short term characters, short term characters need 
rapid development to be plausible... so this is just perfect.

> So I agree: permadeath is bad on a mud where you 'have' to spend 20+ RL
> hours just to get a character far enough into the game that it starts to
> be fun, and frequently 100+ hours for a 'good' character.  Forget that;
> I don't have time for it.  Back when I was attending a university and
> had nothing to do but ditch classes it was a little different.

But you're already creating a situation where it's time consuming to create 
the character. Why not have faster methods? Why not store your last 
character's starting stats and allow you to use those same choices next 
time? Then I could be back online in seconds, which would keep me playing 
longer. Interface, man, interface! Where are the problems and how do we fix 
them? No, I wouldn't want to play your game, but at least I can tell you 
what I dislike about it that's fixable; the PK thing, you can't fix, so we 
just have to disagree on that... but let's try and look at where the issues 
are and see if we can't get some *use* out of this thread. You mentioned 
already that character creation takes a while -- how can we make it faster 
for the existing players?

> We get around this two ways: for one, characters
> start descently strong.  No being defeated by dogs or squirrels.  Second,
> you get character points added to your account when you loose (via death
> or deletion) a 'built up' character, so that you can start you next one
> with more advantages.

That's also a good thing; I proposed that on a MUSH I was working at once, 
and got quite a lot of bad reaction to it. It's an idea not quite ready for 
prime time, but hey, someone has to prove it works. After you've played 
AD&D with the same people for 5 years, do you start their new characters at 
level 1? No! Of course not! They're above that now. Same with MUDders. :)

> Also, the power difference between a brand-new character and the best 
swordsman
> that ever lived is much, much, MUCH smaller than your average mud
> nowadays.  The best swordsman that ever lived will have a rough go of it
> against three or more descently trained opponents.  An army of newbies is
> enough to run him down no problem, assuming he's not smart enough to run
> the other direction as soon as he sees them.

I have to wonder how he'd fare against people with missile weapons and 
vice-versa. What about magic? Do spells have a similar balance against 
weapons?

> I think you're making an awful lot of assumptions on how our game works.
> Suffice it to say, it's nothing like anything I've ever played, and 
that's
> on purpose.  Yes, there's a learning curve.  No, not everyone will like 
it.

Actually, I wasn't making any assumptions about your game, I was going over 
what I dislike about existing MUDs -- since they're the only MUDs I can 
actually play. Think about it.

> Heh.  Twink usually means a whiner or someone just incompetent on a
> hack'n'slasher.  Guess the definiton of the term represents the
> views of the playerbase.

It's pretty damn hard to be an *incompetent* roleplayer. I mean, you can be 
a BAD roleplayer, sure, but incompetent? God, you'd have to suck.

> > >(This, of course, is why teachers
> > >are ideal, as they can tailor their own fighting to be at a 'virtual'
> > >skill level equivilent to that of the student.)
> >
> > My unarmed combat instructor most definitely did NOT do this, and I 
have
> > the scars to prove it.
>
> Are you saying that you think that this is a better method?
> Having tried both in a variety of different skill areas including
> unarmed combat, programming, archery, and plenty of others I could
> probably rattle off if anyone cared, I *much* prefer actual intruction as
> opposed to being pounded into the ground faster than I can even blink.

You *should* receive both. First, he knocks the shit out of you, then he 
tells you what you did wrong. After five or six times through this, you 
learn not to do that. Then he does something different. In a fighting 
situation, it has to be instinct. Which means listening to some guy say 
'here is how you do it' just plain isn't enough -- you need to practice, 
and not against some guy who's going to be good and let you get your 
bearings, but against someone who not only WILL hurt you if you get it 
wrong, but DOES. You learn a lot faster that way. A teacher will tell you 
what you did wrong, and THAT is the main benefit. The real combat opponent 
will just happily pound your face in, and let you continue trying to work 
it out on your own.

> > It's a little different when you have a game where any player can whip
> > himself up to full power in less than 60 seconds and 'death' basically
> > means 'hit the space bar'. Given that set of circumstances, as opposed
>
> Right.  You have to balance the power-gaining with power-loss.  We've 
tried
> to de-emphasize power anyhow, but for all the combat related skills 
(which do,
> indeed, make up nearly 1/3rd of our total skill tree) power is pretty 
much
> what it comes down to.  We have it set up so that you can learn quickly
> but it's always dangerous.  Mortal combat is definitely to be avoided,


> although if all you ever do is spar, your abaility to deal with dangerous
> situations and of course your pain tolerance will remain at pitiful 
levels.
> Even so, trying to train yourself by getting involved in fights to the
> death is a bad idea.  Half of being a good 'warrior' is picking the 
fights
> that you can win.

I think sparring can definitely help pain tolerance, under the proper 
circumstances (a sadistic and cruel teacher... hi, Sgt. Morgan). Dealing 
with dangerous situations -- I agree completely. I still go tharn half the 
time when there's anything going on around me that I might want to make an 
offensive move on, but which isn't a direct attack on *me*. When someone's 
trying to whale on *me*, no problem, but when he starts whaling on Joe at 
the next table I get pretty much confused about what to do and how to do 
it. Of course, that's not what I was being trained for anyway.

> Dunno if you caught the earlier thread with me griping about this, as
> well as my many examples about how to avoid this sort of thing.

Oh, I did. And I agree wholeheartedly. When the player dies, it has to be 
FAIR. He has to have a chance to avoid it.

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