[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Maddy]

Previously, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote....
> 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.

RuneQuest doesn't really maximums on skills - there is always a chance you
can increase a skill (based on int.).  I guess if there were any kind of
maximum, it'd be 500% which would mean that you'd critically do whatever it
was 100% of the time.  Well 99%, cos rolling 100% of a d100 is always a
failure.

If you die in RQ, it's only your body that is dead - your soul lives on. 
You could go off and find another body to take over.  I had one character
that spent several weeks in the body of a dog (who had a lovely litter of
puppies towards the end - awww) because he was locked in a jail and the best
way out was to die and take over another body.

Resurrection is possible as many times as you like - you just need an alive
body to put the soul into.

> 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.

Well you're going to get this kind of conversation if you have those kinds
of things in the mud. Get rid of levels, or XP, or level restricted
equipment and items stayed with you if you logged off and you end up with
Derfle's conversation asking you if you want to group.  Which although isn't
a very in character way of askingm but is still an in character question.

> > 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.

The religion offers the players, skills and spells in serving their god and
so would all the other religions available.  Imagine that you're an Orc mob
on a stockmud.  Once every hour you get a band of antisocial dorks coming
along and killing you and your family - what did you ever do to them.  All
you've ever done is stand there looking like a statue.

> > 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.

Yes I understand how such systems work, but with some of the things we've
suggested just don't fit in.  You mentioned earlier someone talking about
requiring a certain level to wear an armband.  Such things might not exist
in a skill based system.  There might be several factors that decide how
well this armband works for you, but even a newbie could wear it.

> > > 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.

*boggle* I won't even pretend to know what you mean *8).

> > 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.

Ok - but like I said earlier, you still have a chance.  He's walking along
and he's 100m away and advancing on you with a sword.  You've got the time
it takes him to travel that 100m (which could be several rooms) to do
something, like run away.

Say you could take 12 sword hits on average.  The average damage for a (1d8)
sword is about 4.5, so that would give you 54 hitpoints.  Scaling that down
to a system where the average human has 10 hitpoints means that on average a
sword does 1pt of damage.  The gross sword would therefore do 20pts of
damage a hit, which would kill a normal human.  That kind of weapon would be
unbalanced for such a system.  The best weapons would at most do 1d12,
unless you start getting into the more modern weapons (guns) in which case,
yes you could get a 6d6 weapon (average 21 damage).

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

So you just want the mobs to stand there waiting for you to come along and
kill them?  You'll not want them to hit back next won't you! *grin*

> > 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.

Notice you said for #3 that you _may_ get killed.  Ok time for a RL analogy. 
Cars kill people if they hit them.  Walking across a road may mean you get
hit by a car.  You therefore know to avoid crossing when there is a car
coming.

Orcs kill people on sight.  Walking about the wilderness may mean you might
encounter an orc.  etc..etc..etc..

> > 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.

If, if, if, if, if you're stupid enough to wait for someone who is obviously
armed to come up to you then you deserve to die.  If you don't want to fight
- don't stand there looking like a lemon and acting like a Diku mob.

> > 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.

Ok - I was joking about that.  Everyone won't want to chop you into tiny
pieces - only those who are evil, or want something you have.  The more
experenced players won't get any better by killing newbies, they'll have
good kit and lots of money already.  There isn't really any point.

I think the main problem with this thread is that although you understand
the ideas, you're still tainting them with the D&D/Diku/lp methods of
thinking.  Of course I could be wrong.....

Maddy