[MUD-Dev] UI Issues: Dealing with Lag

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <199709260525.3291400 at bedford.net>, on 09/26/97 
   at 12:50 AM, "Brian Price" <blprice at bedford.net> said:

>One of the few places where I personally would like to allow 
>scripting is in exactly the cases where the client is helpless to 
>respond.  Lag is, unfortunately, a large part of mud play.  

I handle this indirectly:  user programming.

I don't remove characters from the game world when the player logs
out.  Protection of the character while its human is logged off is
left up to whatever devices the player came up with, with the full
power of (resource limited) user programming behind him.  The
intention is that playes will write, sell, trade, steal, purchase, etc
user-written programs to make this area more effective and
interesting.

The simplest solution of course is to go purchase protection from
another player (ie player programmed and run Inns), but other
variations are likely to prove popular as its incredibly tough to make
Inns or any other shared space secure.

Lag is then merely a special case of logging off -- the same user
programmed constructs apply.

>Nothing, not even pk by super char, destroys an 
>otherwise enjoyable mud experience as much as death by lag.

<nod>

I've considered special casing lagged characters.  The base mechanism
would be a timed ping done ever 30 seconds (don't care about shorter
instances) with the affected characters merely special cased for
perma-death.  They'd still be dead, but they'd still be in-game with
the brief opportunity to steal another body.  Ditto BTW for deaths
when logged off.

>The problem I'm faced with is the dual-edged sword of utility and 
>abuse.  Any ideas out there on how to do this in a useful manner that
>is difficult or impossible to abuse?

Nahh, the ability to abuse a tool is minimally directly proportional
to the power of that tool.  

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...