[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Travis Casey]

Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Sep 1997 20:40:41 PST8PDT, "Travis Casey"
><efindel at polaris.net> wrote:
>
>>Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> wrote:

>>I hope you didn't mean what you said there... after all, in order to be
able
>>to play the game as long as *you* want to play it, irrespective of
anything
>>else, your character would have to only be able to die if you wanted it
to.
>>("The dragon killed me because I'm only first level?  But I still want to
>>play!")
>
>I think it should be rather obvious that from my preferences, I don't
>like permanent death. Removing permanent death as a game requirement
>opens up a tremendous number of things which I consider unacceptable on
>a permadeath MUD.

Of course, it also makes the mud less like a roleplaying game and more
like a video game, which many of us don't like.  Personally, I like the
idea of permanent death -- however, (1) that doesn't mean that *all* deaths
have to be permanent -- AD&D has permanent death, but characters can still
come back from the dead sometimes, and (2) if death stands a chance of being
permanent, it should also be less common than it is on most muds --
otherwise,
the players will spend too much of their time making new characters, and not
enough playing.

>>A more reasonable version might be, "I want a character that I can
continue
>>to play as long as I'm reasonably cautious."
>
>I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect that I can be completely
>reckless, and still keep playing as long as I like.

I don't -- or at least, I don't think that you should be able to be
completely
reckless and keep playing *the same character* as long as you like.

Basically, this boils down to a difference in tastes -- neither of us is
right or wrong, any more than we would be if, say, you liked chocolate ice
cream and I liked vanilla.  All it means is that we won't both be happy on
the same mud.

>>Something I've thought about off and on is a fantasy mud where "dead"
>>characters go to the celestial realms to be reincarnated -- i.e., to redo
>>the character with the possibility of changing race, etc.  The
reincarnated
>>characters would be better than a normal starting character, according to
>>how successful they'd been in previous lives.
>
>Like for example, you just cut a few points off major statistics and
>allow the player to reassign where they are and choose new
>race/class/skills/whatever? I like that... particularly if you can just
>hit the go button and keep all the same assignments, except for the loss
>of those few points.

Exactly.  This allows some continuity of characters, and even gives a
game-world reason for it.  Of course, the "reason" of reincarnation doesn't
work very well, since the new character doesn't start out as a newborn, but
that's less of a strain on believability than the traditional mud "death"
system, IMHO.
--
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