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

[Brandon Cline]

 On Wed 21 Jan, Mike Sellers wrote:
 
 > The nifty thing about a graphical world is that you can
 > show the user the more detailed version of the object, but you don't have
 > to actually *tell* them about it.  So are those parts of the design on the
 > chest really teeth, or am I imagining things?  Is that a pin with a glob of
 > poison on it, or just a trick of the light?  Sometimes such ambiguities are
 > easier to bring off with graphics than with plain text.  

Yes, but then it is up to the "player" to deal with the ambiguities and
not the "character" which in roleplaying I believe is important to keep
separate.  As for details within text, if written correctly I believe it
would be possible to scale the detail that the character sees depending on
his actions.  I.e. running through the street at full speed would tend to
have sparse and brief images of stuff that happens to be in your
characters way or catch your characters attention.  Where as stopping and
examining an object carefully could reveal many layers of detail.  What
the "player" sees would all be up to what the "character" knows. 
  What I know isn't as possible with pure text is fast paced reaction to
visual combat, but then I am aiming towards designing an immersive true
roleplaying environment.  And even though fast paced reaction on the
players part might not be possible, the character within the game can
"react" to fast paced combat within a text based environment. 


Brandon L. Cline      |      Imagination is more important than knowledge.
brandon at sedona.net    |                                -- Albert Einstein