[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again)

[Marian Griffith]

On Thu 25 Sep, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:

> On Thu, 25 Sep 1997 08:50:47 PST8PDT, Adam Wiggins
> <nightfall at user1.inficad.com> wrote:

> >The morals being: character creation should ask questions in the correct
> >order. - general to specific; and second, documentation about character
> >creation should be availible before you actually waste your time creating
> >a character that you'll decide to redo an instant later now that you know
> >what your choices are.   This gets even more important as your character
> >creation process gets longer and more involved (which I vastly prefer).

In many mushes this is handled quite nicely, with a series of rooms to
traverse each having a number of exits  that implies a certain choice.
In each room extensive documentation on the choice can be found so you
do not have to jump in blindly,  and hope you made the right decision.
The option to change your mind and return to the previous room thereby
undoing the last choice  would be a nice addition  that I have not yet
seen anywhere though.  And of course mushes come standard with a guest
character  that you can use to look around and get an understanding of
the game.

> Let me add another example. I gave the various 'specialist mages' in one
> of my AD&D campaigns appropriately atmospheric names, for example
> instead of 'necromancers' we had 'jaak-tsarin'. If you come across
> something like this in a MUD chargen, particularly in a list of twelve
> similarly inscrutable names, what the hell are you supposed to do?

Read the help on classes? Or pick one at random and pray ;)

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey