[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions

[apocalypse at pipeline.com]

Caliban Tiresias Darklock:
>On a MUD, where the people who build rooms tend to be technically capable
>and familiar with programming, you can have much more complex rules of
>descriptions. As a result, they tend to be badly written, badly
>constructed, and sound very strained. I rarely see descriptions on MUDs
>which inspire me or spark my emotions. In fact, most of them are so
>universally bad, I go around with descriptions turned off, which means
>those few descriptions which ARE inspiring and emotional probably never
>even come across my screen.

Hehe, you, me, and a load of other people.

Hal Black :
>>  Since you aren't seeing it, here is some code you can have in every room
>and
>>it will work perfectly:
>>
>>if (character.body.can_see()) character.render(VISION,room.desc);
>>if (character.body.can_smell())  character.render(SMELL,room.scent);

Caliban Tiresias Darklock:
>This sort of construction would be an excellent way to build descriptions
>that suck.
>
>"You stand by the river, smelling the flowers nearby and feeling the soft
>breeze as you gaze upon a large wrought iron gate. Somewhere behind it, a
>churchbell rings."
>
>A blind man walks in.
>
>"You stand by the river, smelling the flowers nearby and feeling the soft
>breeze. Somewhere behind it, a churchbell rings."
>
>What? Behind the river, or behind the breeze? If I was blind *and* deaf, I
>would get:
>
>"You stand by the river, smelling the flowers nearby and feeling the soft
>breeze."

If I understand mr.blacks' intent correctly, the blind man wouldnt see any
description at all. 


>If you build your descriptions like this, then every builder must build
>their five sense descriptions independently and in a prescribed order, such
>that any description stands on its own and all of them in any combination
>are sensible. Christ, it's hard enough getting people to write ONE
>description that makes sense, and you want *five* that work in all
>thirty-two possible combinations?!

Not just a mere 32 possible combinations....You also have to take into
account the plethora of gear the character could wear to interfere with
the description....The time of day, the climate (surely smoke would linger
and make you cough more and be 'oilier' on a humid day),and a billion
other things. AND, there is the matter of making it fit into the
classes/races own view. So lets say 10 items that could affect senses 
(very modest),3 basic times of day(morning, noon, night), 4 basic climate 
types (wet,cold,dry,hot),6 basic races....wow...a conservative 
(extremely conservative) estimate puts the number of possibilites 
in the tens of thousands. And what do we have to do to acheive this 
oal? write a huge(immense) set of exceptions to the rule.
Whats the rule? the room description itself, what exceptions? the possible
viewpoints based on the above items. 
Sure, we dont have to stimulate every sense every time, but you still
have to write the code to do it when its needed, and you still
have to go throught the ENTIRE check process of all the excpetions
to the rule for every room entered.


Caliban Tiresias Darklock:
>My rule: Assume your players create characters with five senses. Those who
>do not have them should be few and far between, and should expect to
>selectively edit the descriptions they receive. While the suspension of
>disbelief is the first major concern, one should certainly not complicate
>the living hell out of the game in order to achieve it.

You reading my mind Cal? Why couldnt I get that out?
Id say having to write loads of exceptions to the general rule
of room descriptions surely complicates things.

Caliban Tiresias Darklock:
>The literal quote (translated from the Latin) is "One should not multiply
>entities unnecessarily." I think it was originally something about birth
>control.

Not sure of its original intent, but its been used like Tsun Tzu's
quotes applied to many things..Multiplying entities is definately
not a good thing ;)

Shakti.