[MUD-Dev] Character development [was Re: ]

[J C Lawrence]

On Fri, 20 Mar 1998 02:07:02 PST8PDT 
Matt Chatterley<matt at mpc.dyn.ml.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:
>> On Mon, 16 Mar 1998 21:16:49 GMT Richard Woolcock
>> <KaVir at dial.pipex.com> wrote: 

>>> Character development is an important aspect of muds (for
>>> example, would you play a mud where your character never saved?).
>> 
>> Err, yes.  Tron is a perfect example, if debateable as being a MUD.

> Fascinating question - "If you remove 'character development' over
> the long term, can you still have a successfu game?"

> Perhaps not so interesting after brief thought - yes, you can. One
> of the muds I used to play (and which I liked very much) was a
> PK-only mud in a vaguely futuristic setting which focussed on high
> violence, high damage, and short-term development (pick up better
> weapons, gain a few hps, etc), and also on very short lives.

I posit:

  Character development is fundamental to the concept and definition
of a MUD.  The only variation in application of this definition
between games like Tron, and say LambdaMOO, Duris, Sojourn, MUD2, etc,
is that the character development occurs solely in the human player
for the former, and partially in the virtual character for the
others.  This creates a scale of development locale with some MUDs
having the balance of their character development in the human player, 
and some almost utterly in the virtual character.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                               Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------(*)                     Internet: claw at under.engr.sgi.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...