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

[J C Lawrence]

On Sun, 26 Jul 1998 23:16:18 -0500 
Damion Schubert<zjiria at texas.net> wrote:

> From: J C Lawrence <claw at under.engr.sgi.com> 

>> 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. =) 

Ooops.

> 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.

...

> 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!

Consider the following example as a programmer:

  You have written a large block of code, say a hundred thousand lines
or so for a project that is personally important to you.  Down in the
bit that handles XXX the code gets pretty ugly.  It works, but its
brute force, crude, inelegant, and generally just a hack.  Heck,
you're not even very sure why it works (or doesn't break) even tho
testing reveals that it does work and doesn't break.

  How important is it to you to go "fix" that code?

  Why?

In essence its tolerance for logical inconsistency.  As programmers
we, in a manner, rend order out of primal chaos.  We take chaotic
electron patterns and create something we think is kinda neat.  We
defeat, fleetingly, entropy.  (Yes, I'm laying it on thick: buy hip
waders) We tend to care about creeping chaos (partially -understood or
logically inconsistent) sections of our code or its behaviour.

Billy Joe really doesn't care that his rockets in Quake don't cause
the lava/sewage/water to fountain.  I'd wager that that very item is
scrawled on some poor schmuck's notebook for Quake III.

--
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...