[MUD-Dev] Re: PK and my "Mobless MUD" idea

[Adam Wiggins]

On Fri, 1 May 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:
> Caliban Tiresias Darklock<caliban at darklock.com> wrote:
> > ...Some of the suggested rules would be like, Eldar the Everstrong
> > creates the mighty Sword of Dragon Slaying, which will decapitate
> > any dragon with one swing! So he offers it to Bob the Wimpy, only to
> > receive the message "You cannot give an item of this power directly
> > to a player." So he goes, fine, I'll leave it somewhere and tell Bob
> > to come and get it! Then he goes to drop the mighty sword in a room,
> > and receives the message "This item is far too powerful to be left
> > unguarded." So he has to construct a big powerful monster to guard
> > it, which he does, and then drops the monster in the
> > room. Cunningly, he then tells the monster to leave, but the monster
> > refuses -- he's on guard duty!  So Eldar tries to kill the monster,
> > but is told that he cannot directly assist in the destruction of his
> > own guardians. And so on. And so forth.
> 
> First thought:
> 
>   1) Create super-weapon, and put guard on it.
>   2) Create slightly less super weapon and put slightly wimpier 
>      guard on it.
>   3) Repeat #2 until until both weapon and guard are easily 
>      killable by newbie
>   4) Sic newbie on bottom level guard/weapon.
>   5) Newbie uses each new weapon on next higher guard.
>   6) See Newbie with super-weapon!
>   7) Run newbie!  Run!
> 
> Bootstrapping...

I believe you just described almost every hack-n-slash in existence, mud
or otherwise.

Seriously, though, I like this idea a lot.  Don't have much to add except
that you'd probably need some method of quality control unless you want to
put up with monsters named "A phat dragon-dude hyped up on smack" and
weapons named "Reggie's bong".  Perhaps, upon reaching immortality, they
become lesser gods that can only manipulate previously existing creatures
and objects?  You'd need some way to gauge their advancement.  Perhaps
they get exp for setting up new areas/quests, or perhaps they only receive
the exp upon players actually completing the quest.  (Thus there is high
incentive to make a popular area - every player that comes through is a
few more exp for you.)  Or perhaps admin (or even players) give your area
a rating which contributes to your exp.  However you do it, the immortal
would advance up the ranks, slowly gaining power - first the ability to
modify the stats on objects, followed by the ability to modify their
descriptions slightly (changing a single adjective, for example), and
someday they'd be a full-fledged god that can create just like a regular
builder.

Of course, this opens the door wide open for what is practical another
game going on above the regular players' heads.  Feuding gods raining fire
on each others creations, trying to gain followers by leading potential
recruits on quests for powerful artifacts (see JC's quote above), and so
forth.  Could really kick ass, and the best part is that you'd get a
constantly changing and expanding mud without requiring any special
fractal algorithms or random room generation - just a handful of fevret
players.

Adam



--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.