[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Dan Shiovitz]

On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 24, 1997 5:03 AM, Adam Wiggins 
[..]
> The closest thing I can think to point to is Angband, one of my favorite
> Rogue/Hack/Larn/Moria derivatives.  There are a couple key points about
> the flow of gameplay in that game that I really like:
> 
> - It's fun from the moment you start playing the game.  The game does
[..]
> - Your character may have a lifespan of five minutes or five months.  Most of
[..]
> - There is a large luck factor.  A good player can, if they are careful,
[..]

I agree, Rogue-style games have a really nice feel that I'd like to
see more in muds (part of which comes from their short character
creation time .. hmm..)  And yeah, luck plays a big role. On the other
hand, there's a certain feeling of control that I have when playing
nethack that I don't when playing muds: nethack is a turn-based
solitaire game. Every step I take I choose when to take, and I control
the environment totally in the sense that it's just me and the
computer. On the other hand, in muds, I've got to react when the game
wants me to, not when I want to, and other humans can wander over and
bash me for no reason. I think it's harder to deal with bad luck in
the second situation (at least it is for me).

[..]
> > > Also, the power difference between a brand-new character and the best 
> > swordsman
> > > that ever lived is much, much, MUCH smaller than your average mud
> > > nowadays.  The best swordsman that ever lived will have a rough go of it
> > > against three or more descently trained opponents.  An army of newbies is
> > > enough to run him down no problem, assuming he's not smart enough to run
> > > the other direction as soon as he sees them.

This seems to make multi-charring even more beneficial than it already
is, doesn't it?	If I get annoyed with someone, I go and make three
newbies and go and run him over. Part of this is unavoidable, I
guess, but is there any way of dealing with it? (Sure, he can run
away. But IMO that's just evading the issue, since you've still got a
way to make anyone run away, even if you can't kill them)

[..]
> A good mage, however, is very powerful.  You'll probably hate this, but a
> really powerful mage can easily roast a whole town full of people with
> a minimum of effort, given some time to prepare and plenty of mu nearby.

I don't mind this sort of thing myself -- it certainly fits with the
genre I'm shooting for -- but there has to be some sort of reason why
mages _don't_ do this on a regular basis. In fantasy novels it's often
enough to say "Oh, Gandalf is a _white_ warlock .. he'd never do
anything like that!", but that won't swing it on a mud (well, probably
not. If Athena's paladins are going to kick your ass for being evil,
that might be enough to convince mages to change their ways).

[..]
> Back to the original issue, though: on my mud, going out and wrestling
> with a bear won't teach you much more than just wrestling with the
> corner bully if you don't know anything about wrestling, and it will likely
> get you killed.  Simply picking the hardest possible opponent you can
> fight and jumping them is not the best way to learn.  By the same token,
> it's easier to learn to pick locks by starting with one of moderate
> difficult instead of the most complex lock ever made.  Or climbing: you
> start on a short bluff, then move up to sheer rock-faces.  Or swimming:
> you start by paddling around in the shallows of a lake, then move to
> a slow-moving river, then go into the ocean, and finally you could try
> to swim across the shark-infested waters of Tsunami Bay.

I think there's some initial hump to get over, and once you've got a
basis for the skill then you can learn from proportionately tougher
opponents. But yeah, you're right in general. I'd guess you learn only
a little more sparring with someone ten times your skill than someone
one tenth your skill.

> > > Dunno if you caught the earlier thread with me griping about this, as
> > > well as my many examples about how to avoid this sort of thing.
> > 
> > Oh, I did. And I agree wholeheartedly. When the player dies, it has to be 
> > FAIR. He has to have a chance to avoid it.
> 
> See my talk about fairness, above.  I'm interested in getting rid of
> instantaneous occurances with no warning, which I suppose makes it more
> 'fair'.  People will still die or otherwise be hurt due to 'unfair'
> situations.  I just dislike turning to look at the clock and then looking
> back to see that my character is dead.  I'd rather turn to look at the
> clock, look back to see that my character is in trouble, panic for a while
> and try to escape, then possibly die anyways.  The important thing is
> that you never feel boxed in, like there are just no options, nothing for
> you to even try.  At the very least I want to be able to bite off the
> ear of that guy who's trying to crack my spine, even if that doesn't
> save my life.

Yeah. Incidentally, Nethack is really good about this. Even though
there are instadeath situations (You fall into a pit! -more- You land
on a set of sharp iron spikes! -more- The spikes are poisoned! -more-
The poison is deadly -more- You die ...), they're virtually all
avoidable. You could have searched for traps before you stepped, or
you could have stuck around on earlier levels until killed monster
that gave poison resistance.  

--
(Dan Shiovitz) (dbs at cs.wisc.edu) (look, I have a new e-mail address)
(http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~dbs) (and a new web page also)
(the content, of course, is the same)