[MUD-Dev] The impact of the web on muds

[Brandon J. Rickman]

I couldn't let this go unchallenged:

On Mon, 19 Jan 1998 20:03:15, Nathan Yospe <yospe at hawaii.edu> wrote:
>On Mon, 19 Jan 1998, Richard Woolcock wrote:
>:[lost attribution said:]
>:> But who says you have to?  Just as your text description doesn't try
>:> to give all the details of the dragon's color, size, texture, etc.
>:> that it could, there's no reason that a graphical representation has to
>:> be highly detailed.  The dragon could be shown in a cartoon/comic-book
>
>Ruins the flow...

The flow of what?  Photo-realism?  Maybe cartoon/comic-book doesn't
fit the mood of Severed Head Graphical Mud, but it all depends on the
mood/style/theme of the mud in question.

>:> fashion, could be represented by a semi-abstract icon, or could be shown
>
>Likewise, unless very subtly done.

Photo-realism seems to be the most unsubtle type of representation.
Maybe you aren't advocating that, but I sense some criticism
of abstration in the comment.

>:> like a charcoal sketch.  Such representation leave more room for the
>
>This is better. Still hard to do well, though.

Are you saying people wouldn't play these games, or just that they would
be hard to design?  Photoshop has all sorts of cool filters these days.
We need to start evaluating stylized muds against cool graphical
muds, both in the same category, otherwise they'll start giving out
awards like "Best Realistic Mud" and ghettoize everything else.

(Am I becoming paranoid?)

>:Seeing "A large green dragon claws you" wouldn't scare me.
>:Seeing a cartoon dragon hitting me would make me laugh - it would also
>:spoil the atmosphere, unless the mud was supposed to be funny.
>
>Agreed. The text that most muds use is a lot like said cartoon.

This is the true test:

A big cartoon dragon claws you.
A big cartoon dragon rips off your head.
** You have died. **
% page Wiz "Totally unfair! I can't be killed by a cartoon dragon!!!"

If this happened in a _silly_ mud the player wouldn't react the same
way.  Probably in the above universe cartoon monsters are a lot
meaner than normal monsters.  Pretty easy to justify, I imagine.

>:Despite my comments on dynamic descriptions earlier in this post, I do
>:still feel that being able to SEE a huge monster with tentacles/etc is
>:more effective than seeing a description.  Dynamic descriptions I can
>:do however, but not dynamic graphics ;)
>
>How about a fleeting glimpse in the background?

Monsters that move so quickly you never get a good look, and monsters
that even when you do see them clearly you can't comprehend them.

- Brandon Rickman - ashes at zennet.com -
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