[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Nathan Yospe]

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

:> 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.

In my case, this is only true on a battlefield. Walking around with a rifle
on your back is not going to draw trouble, unless you do so in a place where
your rifle's value on the black market is high enough to make the mooks 
brave, even against an (apparently) seasoned soldier/killer. Walking around
with a rifle at the ready, aiming it at anything that moves, is going to get
you arrested, or pulled in by MPs, or shot. Shooting at anything and
everything in the area in any place but a battlefield is going to get you
alternately caught, shot, arrested, or court martialed.

:> 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).

And of course, making a system where the effective danger of an area is 
about the only way you are going to get piles of bones stacked up (unless
they were placed there deliberately to fool you, which can be assumed to
be an indication that weakling orcs are not as stupid as we thought) has
the side effect of negating this... it also negates the bordering danger.
The less agressive area (there are no levels) would have either become a
wasteland under constant raids, or adapted and become tougher. I generally
dump new players in the middle of an area that is, for the most part, held
by civilian friendlies or a token occupation force of relatively unagressive
enemies. I make sure there are information sources accessable to them. I
make sure they can't wander into seriously unfriendly territory by accident,
and then I leave them, and if they want to get cooked, they're welcome to
do so.

:> 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...

See "Ghost in the Shell", the movie, not the comic it was based on. I
recommend the subtitled version over the dubbed one (unless you speak
japanese). Though the dubbing was well done, a couple of choice scenes 
were edited out. There are a couple of scenes in which people wearing
cloaks or bodysuits of thermoptic camoflauge engage in combat or action.
Fast movement and damage to the suit tend to reduce invisability. Move
too fast and heat absorbtion is reduced, and you see a transparent figure,
sort of like a heat distortion in the shape of a woman. The visable
displacement of water was also nice. If I do invisability, that's how I'm
going to do it.

:> >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?

Another good variant on invisability is Skeeve's size reduction disguise in
one of the Myth books... the one with the Great Game... it is more a matter
of tricking the brains of all observers. A photograph would show, later, a
fully visable person. Doing something overtly obvious and stupid MIGHT, and
I emphasize MIGHT, cancel the invisability to a particularly strong willed
and suspicious observer.

--

"You? We can't take you," said the Dean, glaring at the Librarian.
"You don't know a thing about guerilla warfare." - Reaper Man,
Nathan F. Yospe  Registered Looney                   by Terry Pratchett
yospe at hawaii.edu   http://www2.hawaii.edu/~yospe           Meow