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

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Thu, 25 Sep 1997 10:31:35 PST8PDT, "Jon A. Lambert"
<jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>I can easily imagine an entire game geared around musical talents.  
>Where magic and combat are inextricably linked to music and musical 
>instruments.  Methinks I recall several fantasy novels where this was 
>the case?

Alan Dean Foster's "Spellsinger" being a good example... there are no
doubt others. But even here, I could, for example, make a woodworking
skill (which few people have ever needed) a requirement to build certain
magical items; however, I have not now given woodworking a use as much
as I have complicated the use of the existing system. I could have
selected any skill, really, and whether it is logical doesn't really
matter. The end effect is to subtract development from more 'useful'
skills to place them into a peripheral special-purpose skill. 

Add to this that I have found it almost impossible to give the proper
feel to musical events and actions in a game context. Perhaps, being a
musician, I'm just too picky; but I've always felt that even Foster's
descriptions of existing songs paled in comparison to the real thing.
Describing an original composition is even harder, as evidenced by my
extreme difficulty in describing the kind of music I write and
perform... "Well, um, it's sort of industrial and sort of techno and
sort of punk and it's um, kind of alternative but sort of like rap or
house and um.... have you ever heard the opening theme to the movie
'Seven'?" "No." "Uhhhhhh..." ;)

>> "It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more
>> doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a
>> new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by
>> the preservation of the old institution, and merely lukewarm defenders in
>> those who would gain by the new one."                      -- Machiavelli
>
>*Cheers!*
>He's number 3 on my top ten favorite "philosophers" all time.  :)

I knew I had heard something about designing systems that was perfect
for this list somewhere, but I couldn't recall exactly who or where or
what it was and I was going through my little library off and on for
weeks trying to locate it. Finally, I did, and I'm glad at least someone
noticed :)

=+[caliban at darklock.com]=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=[http://www.darklock.com/]+=
"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more 
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a 
new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by 
the preservation of the old institution, and merely lukewarm defenders in 
those who would gain by the new one."                      -- Machiavelli
=+=+=+[We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams]+=+=+=+=