[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

[Damion Schubert]

-----Original Message-----
From: J C Lawrence <claw at under.engr.sgi.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Tuesday, July 21, 1998 1:03 PM
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun 


>On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 14:43:45 -0500  
>Koster, Raph<rkoster at origin.ea.com> wrote:

>> In fact, a question I'd ask is whether the increased freedoms that
>> have come over time in certain mud designs have increased the
>> dissatisfaction... in other words, seeing a line of evolution from
>> MUDI to Aber to Diku to M59 and UO, all gaming-oriented environments
>> in many ways, we do see an increased freedom in the feature set,
>> more ability for players to act freely. Does the fact that they have
>> more freedom make players more sensitive when a particular freedom
>> turns out not to be supported by the code base?
>
>Bingo.  Given a limited set of mechanics (and Shades is a perfect
>example here with is extremely primitive command and mechanic set, and
>incredible playability) there are few permutations and little to no
>expectation of depth.  Start adding depth and the number of mechanical
>permutations (n!) grows much faster than the actual depth (n**2(??)).


Once again, I'll play devil's advocate to the entire mailing list. =)  In 
my experience, mud *designers* (i.e. freaks like us) care about these 
things.  Mud *players*, on the other hand, are relatively quick to accept
the physics of the world around them.  In UO, you can't chop down trees
or mine out a spot of ore.  I've heard a lot of designheads talk about 
these disgraces and talk about ways that these things could be fixed,
but for the most part, players could care less.  They're actually just 
happy that, when they go to mine or chop down trees, there is ore 
there to be mined, and trees to be chopped down.

On a text mud I dabbled on once, you could refill your canteen from
rivers and streams.  Well, not all rivers and streams - some were 
built into the room description, as opposed to placed in the code
the proper way (most of these were older rooms we inherited with
the codebase).  As a player, me and my buddies were fine with 
this little incongruity.  When I got promoted to godhood, I was 
surprised to find that fixing this was actually someone's #1 
priority!

Similarly, in Meridian, I always was ashamed that player weapon 
repair was only done magically, with a 'mend' spell.  
Blacksmithing just seemed to keep slipping off the schedule.  
The players didn't care.  Hell, they invented backstory reasons 
for this oddness for me!

--damion