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

[Broly]

On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Marian Griffith wrote:

> 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.

It's always seemed odd that when a builder designs an NPC, (s)he always
has the option of going back and editing the work.  Seems only logical
that players should have the same option concidering the importance of the
character to the player compared to the importance of the NPC to the
builder.  How about a menu screen for creating a character, much like the
ones that many builders use (OasisOLC for example)  That way the player
can enter the information in any order, going back easily, having help
easy to find (just have help files as a menu choice at each stage), and
having much of the important character information veiwable at the same
time to get a general overview of what has been created so far.

Most muds, however let players delete and reuse names if they change their
minds early on.  This however turns out to be a very time-consuming and
frustrating way to learn about each race/class.  And its downright nasty
if the creation system is involved.  From experience I've noticed that a
fair number of players create one character, play the game for a short
while, then go back and create a second character to 'undo' the mistakes
made in the first go around.  This is especially common in the powergaming
muds, where precious points are 'lost' from not optimizing the character
from the very start.

As to going back and changing your character in-game once you have begun
to play...I might allow some changes early on, but would find it quite
hard to justify 'but I realy wanted to be an elf' in game terms after the
character had lived the first 70 years as a dwarf (~18 in human terms)...

Gunther