[MUD-Dev] Re: There can be.. only ONE! (fwd)

[Matt Chatterley]

On Wed, 22 Apr 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Apr 1998 07:04:16 PST8PDT 
> Ling <K.L.Lo-94 at student.lboro.ac.uk> wrote:
> > On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:
> 
> >> First thought: Throw the players into the game at a couple miles of
> >> altitude.  Give them crude trajectory controls.  Have
> >> impact/landing generally not be fatal (or if fatal, non
> >> penalising).  this gives the new player an instant physical world
> >> context.
> 
> > Parashooting with 70 lbs of combat equipment is reserved for the
> > extremely lucky, gullible, insane - or rather talented. :)
> 
> Ahh!  But they are parashooting in nekkid -- all the equipment is
> groundside remember?

Yup. I'm now leaning more strongly towards a 'TV show' theme involving
human players, and providing the capacity to view, rather than any of the
other ideas that have been floating around. Contestants are dropped in
(this seems as good a way as any other - controlled placement is
problematic). I'm actually considering setting up various things for
players to keep tabs on game action while not playing (eg a web-side
interface to watch progress), too. It's fun pondering this.
 
> <Sudden image of GeorgeOfTheJungle-style tree and building impacts>
> 
> <<wince>>

LOL. That film made me wince whenever George had one of his accidents.
 
> >> > Yeah. This would work nicely. Give them tools, let them build
> >> their > own teams / organisations.
> 
> > Team work in muds? ;)
> 
> Yeppirs.  Ideas to encourage.

The main thing in favour for the players is that they will get quite
completely truly massacred if they are solo for too long. I plan to tweak
some things so that the occasional 'Rambo' type situation might occur
(player finds particularly nice kit designed for the suicidal/homicidal
maniac combo, for instance, but it is unsuitable for team play due to area
effects), but generally if you are solo, and a team begins to hunt you -
you've had it. If there are four of them, they can attack you from four
sides, and its very hard to defend against that sort of crossfire.

Putting your back to a wall helps. But then again, it won't stop big
explosions, and still leaves half the compass as vulnerable regions. This
gets evil btw, because one could pause by a wall to hide, and as the enemy
close in, plant a destructive device of some sort, before running. Enemy
dashes up to wall. *tick* *tick* *KA-BOOM*.

Of course, such tricks won't work too often, and if a solo player *upsets*
a team rather than just appearing to be easy play.. they could find
themselves fending off ground and air based assaults.

This leads into.. vehicles.

I plan on a theme providing a range of weapons (contemplating how to skew
the balance so that gradually more and more powerful kit is available);
ranging from swords and bludgeons upto sci-fi/cyberpunk type weapons which
sound fantastical. Included here is a range of vehicles - ground and air
based.

On the ground they might range from things like rollerskates upto a
hovercar of some sort (assuming the latter cannot move up into the air,
and is just very fast over the ground due to extremely low friction). In
the air, gliders which can be launched off walls for short flights, upto
futuristic assault aircraft (like the flying ships that attack
ground-based troops in the movie StarGate).

Vehicles bear obvious limits, and dangers. They have limited fuel, and
limited ammunition - replacements for both will be sparse (although in
some cases it will be compatible with other available items). Some
(particularly those around our era) which use highly combustable fuels
will be prone to exploding violently if shot up badly. Air-borne vehicles
which take severe damage will cease being air-borne and rapidly seek to
hug the ground.

Oh, one last thing, I'm contemplating imposing a wait before you can
rejoin the game after dying - and making it longer if you get badly
overkilled. Then again, that just seems to be an annoyance, since
placement is random.

--
Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
Spod: http://user.super.net.uk/~neddy/spod/spod.html




--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.