[MUD-Dev] Re: Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ]

[J C Lawrence]

On Sun, 26 Jul 1998 22:33:09 -0500 
Damion Schubert<zjiria at texas.net> wrote:

> By comparison, I've played Unreal lately, and I can't stress how
> unsatisfying it is to never fight more than 2 monsters at a time.
> And sure, they all exhibit good AI, but in some cases, it's so good
> that the only way I could beat the level was to abuse holes in the
> AI.  I felt like a cheat when I did that.  When I killed 60
> skeletons in M&M6 with one spell, I felt like a god.

I've never played Quake and recently found that Quake had been ported
to Irix and would run quite happily on the Indigo2 behind me.  So I
did.  Note: I'm not much of a fan of the genre in general but liked
plaing DOOM, Descent, Wolf3D etc for about a day each before I got
bored (I liked Descent in particular for its 3D sense requirement of
the player).  

  What games do I play repeatedly?  Puzzle games mostly.  I'm a big
fan of Sokoban and have happily spent weeks figuring out how to do a
particular level.  I also collect and adore computer versions of
Othello (haven't found one I can't reliably beat yet).  I realise this
hardly places me in the target market for first person shooters.

I can't comment on multi-player Quake.  Single player quake is just
plain boring and monotonous.

Perhaps this has to do with my play style.  Some, I know, run in with
all guns blazing, and more or less attempt to out run and out shoot
whatever is there in a mega-testosterone paroxysm.  I don't.  I play
the angles, the ricochets, the cautious advance, the careful
arrangement such that I can (nearly always) waste them without ever
placing myself at risk, let alone in the line of fire.  My goal is to
play each level such that I don't even get shot, let along nicked,
once.  Just leave a perfectly clean slate.

Quake made this approach very easy.

Grenades/rockets could be bounced of walls and arranged in a line
along the row an NPC would advance.  BOOM!  BOOM!  BOOM!  No risk to
me, just a little care and they're dead.  Shotguns have almost zero
spread and infinite range, and there are LOTs of places where
supposedly "tough" sections are overviewed or partially seen from
earlier locations.  Lob a grenade up to stir the NPC's and then pick
them off at your leisure at great range with the shotgun (for which
there is a nearly infinite supply of shells).  Now that area is a cake
walk (I recall one level where I did this to two shambling yeti-type
creatures, rending what was a supposedly "difficult" bit almost
trivial after some 300+ shotgun shells (yes, I had to go away and
reload in the middle) fired in compleat safety from the swamp
underneath the area.  Heck, even the penultimate bad guys on the
freebie version (you get four of the pink clawed chaps and then a yeti
teleports in) submitted trivially to the same attack:
 
  1) Ascend the elevator
  2) Step back and wait for the elevator to drop
  3) Lob a grenade to wake up the NPC's
  4) Run about until the pink claw things fall into the pit formed
        by the dropped elevator.
  5) Lob grenades from the top down the pit until they all die.
  6) Once they die the yeti teleports in, so drop down the pit
        yourself.
  7) Reload and heal as necessary.
  8) Use the shotgun and shoot the yeti every time you see him over
        the edge of the pit.
  9) Reload.
  10) Repeat #8 until the yeti dies.
  11) Teleport back up to the top and exit the level.
  
Hardly difficult, never challenging.  It wasn't fun.  I found that I
could compleat the entire freebie game at the most difficult level in
a couple hours, never having attempted it before.  I never felt
challenged.

There are several lessons that apply equally well to MUDs in there.

> Does this have relevance for MUDs?  I think it has a lot.  On the
> other hand, about a third of the posts on this forum is dedicated to
> controlling powergamers, instead of indulging them. =)

I prefer indulging them while aggressively hiding the fact.

--
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...