[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Broly]

On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:

> On Thu, 25 Sep 1997 09:06:01 PST8PDT, Maddy <maddy at fysh.org> wrote:
> 
> >> Security professionals and police officers routinely walk the streets
> >> with holstered weapons, which is the modern equivalent of a professional
> >> adventurer packing a sword. 
> >
> >There is a whole lot of difference between brandishing a weapon and having
> >it in your holster.
> 
> Not in the eyes of the law, actually... walking out in the street with a
> holstered weapon is indeed considered 'brandishing'. But this is a
> legalistic term, in any case, and what you might also want to consider
> is that the social standards on a MUD are significantly different with
> regard to weaponry, as you can logically expect each and every person
> you see on a MUD to be armed at all times and rather experienced in
> combat.
> 
Remember that most of us are designing muds that are a bit more dangerous
than real life(excluding New York), and the denziens have grown accustomed
to armed adventurers.  Imagine how out of place a soldier _without_ a gun
would look in the middle of a warzone.

> >> Yeah, you'll just have areas that don't look tough but actually are, so
> >> the low-power characters will get killed more easily. 
> >
> >Low-power _stupid_ characters will get killed more easily.  A tough area
> >will obviously give plenty of warnings.  Large numbers of well chewed bones,
> >signs warning of great evil, neighbouring villages full of frightened
> >villages with scary stories to tell.
> 
> Excuse me, but this is a bad assumption. I've been in level 5-15 areas
> on MUDs and taken one step too far east to find myself in a level 35-50
> area, with only one sign saying 'The area to the east is dangerous to
> those who are seen'. I had therefore cast invisibility on myself before
> stepping east, which unfortunately did not fool the mob that attacked me
> one bit. 

I've seen that too.  I've also seen piles and piles of bones stacked
outside a weakling orcs cave.  It all boils down to the writers ability
and some intelligent area placement.  The level 35-50 area shouldn't even
border the 5-15 area (the lower levelers would have been long overun).

> >It depends on how you impliment the spell.  I for one would want an
> >invisibility spell to be broken if you do anything which gets the attention
> >of another person.  Now that does mean that if you're clever, if you're
> >going to pick something up, you'll make sure no-one is watching.
> 
> I strongly disagree. If I am invisible, and I pick something up, and the
> spell is canceled because someone saw me: what if that person wasn't the
> one I was trying to hide from? What if that person saw me cast the spell
> in the first place? When I walk into the next room, do I turn back
> invisible? Basically, you're saying I have to cast the spell in utter
> secrecy and then do nothing whatsoever... some spell!

I was always under the impression that if you picked up an item, the item
would also disappear, so the witness would see the item vanish (if they
were watching), but would not see the person who picked it up.  Even if
someone watched you cast the spell, that doesn't give them (in most
designs) the ability to see you.  Now you may still have a shadow, or you
may be smelly, or noisy, but you'd still be invisible.  Personally I don't
like auto-appearing for combat.  There's nothing to get the adrenaline
pumping like being attacked by some invisible creature, and relying on
reflexes to defend yourself...

> >> Just because you know someone is there doesn't mean you know WHO.
> >
> >It doesn't even matter if you know who - you should still be able to swing
> >at someone if they're invisible, especially if they've got someone over
> >their shoulder.
> 
> It *does* matter, because I'm trying to hide ME. Not what I'm carrying.
> If I wanted to hide what I was carrying, I would have cast invisibility
> on that instead. ;)
> 
Depends on how you define the spell...does it affect the target's
equipment? Does the target have a shadow? It would seem that to remain
invisible, the target would have to strip naked, and stay quiet.  Not much
of a spell in mud terms because most muds are designed so that you need to
use items for most actions. So you make the spell encompass the articles
carried by the target...now what about what the target picks up?  Does
that turn invisible too?  What is it about being in the possesion of the
target that makes things invisible?  Where do you draw the line?  If its
cold outside and the target is warmblooded, does the target's breath mist?
Or is that invisible too?

Here's how I would approach the spell, but this is just my personal
preference...The magic of the spell is such that the user, and any object
whose location is defined soley in terms of the user at the time of
casting(equipment carried) refracts light around itself in such a way to
appear invisible.  This would prevent a shadow from forming.  Any object
dropped would lose its magic, thus becoming visible, and any object picked
up would remain visible, apparently suspended in mid air.  Thus if you
threw paint on an invisible character, the paint would remain visible,
thus effectively negating the spell...Anything that is part of the target
itself would remain invisible even if it is separated from the bulk of the
target.  If you turned a stick invisible, then broke it in two, both parts
would remain invisible.  This would also cover breath mist(the water in
the mist is part of the character) and shed blood.

Remember this is magic.  It doesn't need to have real world logic to it.
Just consistent logic.  I would also have a book in my muds library titled
'The philosophy of invisibility' with an equivalent explaination of the
spell. (books in my world are very short, as the writer could be hacked to
pieces by a rampaging horde on a moments notice, and has better things to 
do than write long books...)