[MUD-Dev] Re: You think users won't number crunch and statistise your MUD?

[Vadim Tkachenko]

Travis S. Casey wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 1 Jul 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:
> > Travis S Casey<efindel at io.com> wrote:
> 

[skipped]

> I think we're approaching the whole idea of hiding numbers from different
> viewpoints.  My goal is not "security" -- if someone really wants to know
> how the game works underneath, that's fine with me.  Rather, my goal in
> hiding numbers would be to help preserve the illusion that you're playing
> a real character in a real world, and to encourage players to make
> decisions on the basis of "what would make sense in that situation" rather
> than on the basis of "how do the numbers look."  In short, to encourage
> roleplaying over GoP.

Well, there is a different solution which may please both GoPers and
role-players - allow several directions to progress. This way, whatever
the numbers are, it would be impossible to say 'this is cool' and 'this
sucks'. Just because all the numbers are relative and non-comparable -
like apples and oranges, two mages may be totally different mages - the
illusionist and the sorcerer. This is a simplified example, but let's
pretend, say, as someone mentioned, that the good sword fighter requires
a good rhythm skill, and a good archer or shooter requires ... say, an
advanced water breathing, which implies the ability to hold a breath and
get a good shot.

What do you think?

> In doing that, hiding numbers isn't the only thing that I'd need to do.
> To take a typical, D&D-derived game system and hide the numbers wouldn't
> help in the suspension of disbelief; indeed, it would quite likely hurt
> it, or make the game nearly impossible to play.  I'd need to try to set
> things up so that the game works as much as possible like the way you'd
> expect a real world to work -- so that you don't *need* the numbers as
> much as you do in a D&D-style world.
> 
> Doing so would also tend to make the numbers harder to figure out, but
> that's not the goal -- it's a side effect.

And let me guess, even today UO has so much numbers, that it would be
quite difficult to grok them.

> On the topic of "security through obscurity" -- you most often see that
> line brought up when considering one of two things:
> 
> - A situation where the *only* added security is obscurity (e.g., "I'll
>   just run my telnet daemon on another port, and then no one will be
>   able to break in!") or
> 
> - Where a company simply states that their code/method is secure, but
>   refuses to subject it to independent verification.

Snake oil?

> Heck, if I were to set up such a system, I'd probably put the details of
> how it "really works" on the web myself, for those interested in it.
> There's nothing that stops hackers from trying to "crack" something better
> than the fact that the info's free for anyone to download.

As would do any developer who is proud of his work do. And besides, it's
not the shame when someone is smarter than you (and you have a chance to
learn), the shame is when you try to conceal your ignorance.

> Travis S. Casey

--
Still alive and smile stays on,
Vadim Tkachenko <vt at freehold.crocodile.org>
--
UNIX _is_ user friendly, he's just very picky about who his friends are