[MUD-Dev] Re: There can be.. only ONE! (fwd)

[Matt Chatterley]

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On Mon, 4 May 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Apr 1998 12:51:45 +0000 (GMT) 
> Matt Chatterley<matt at mpc.dyn.ml.org> wrote:
> > On Wed, 29 Apr 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:

[Extensive lawn-mowing]

> >>>>>> Nahh.  Everybody is *ALWAYS* anonymous _except_ to members of
> >>>>>> their own team.  
> 
> >>>>> So the notion of 'names' doesnt even exist, except within teams?

[Sniplet]
 
> > Which leaves me at having a 'name' for the login, but which does not
> > necessarily connect to characters. 
> 
> Nope.  They can log in as their character name -- its just that once
> in-game characters don't resolve to their character names.  eg:
> 
>   Login: bubba
>   Password: **********
> 
>   Welcome to OverTask!

Okay, I see what you're saying. When you look at someone, they don't auto
ID. Easy to do. Perhaps this would work well combined with semi-automated
recognition stuff. You can mark a certain number of unknowns with
'nicknames' (for insance 'quarry'). Perhaps have a piece of kit that
handles this, to restrict it.
  
>   > score
>            Kills      Deaths      Assists
>   Boffo:    28          16          37
>   Bubba:     5	       213           2
>   ...etc

*nod* Things refer to name and so forth, but the namespace is organised so
that you don't get:

Boffo is standing here, polishing his AK-47.

And so forth. Mind you, this isn't a huge problem if I take a graphical
approach. :) It's tricker to actually add textual labels to *known*
people!

>   > "Damn, need to stop getting killed!
>   > play
>   ...parachute sequence into game world...
>   > who
>   Boffo
>   Bubba
>   ...etc
>   Someone suddenly appears ahead of you!  They shoot!  You're hit!
>   Ouch.  You are dead.
>   > score 
>            Kills      Deaths      Assists
>   Boffo:    29          16          37
>   Bubba:     5	       214           2
>   ...etc
> 
> You can figure out who killed from the score change, but in-game you
> can't resolve character names to bodies.  

*nod*
 
> > I think I'll move 'persistant communication' (bulletin boards etc)
> > to a pre-character login state (account), after which you can choose
> > a name to play under. Hmm.
> 
> <shrug> I agree that it should be outside the game world, but you need
> to keep the feature set minimal.  You need something very clean and
> simple, sparse even -- otherwise you'll end up with Wallowing
> Monstrosity Mark II.

Yeah. This is all most likely utterly unnecessary. With a custom client,
ICQ-like features could be (optionally) added, and so forth. All this can
be handled away from the server (this reduces the load, if nothing else
:P). It also makes it a lot easier to get the server up and running, and
to keep it 'clean'.
 
> Consider: You could add a full feature introduction and naming system
> such as I've discussed and proposed here many times.  It would even be
> argued as being "useful".  The problem is that it does not forward the
> basic mechanics or functions of the game.  Its fluff.  Its a
> distraction.  

Yup.

[Snippage]

> Boffo was anonymous until you joined his team.  Bernie of course was
> not a member of team Smashers and so remained anonymous outside of the 
> score changes.

Yeah. Adding nametags of some sort to team members, and allowing 'tagging'
of a few unknowns seems the best approach developed so far. Interesting
stuff (ish).

- -- 
Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.." -John Lennon (Imagine)

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