[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions

[Hal Black]

On Sun, Sep 27, 1998 at 05:07:02PM -0700, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> On 07:07 PM 9/27/98 -0400, I personally witnessed Hal Black jumping up to say:
> >
> >Exactly, you are arguing my argument for me.  Compare the age of the vampire
> >to the amount of sunlight, and tailor the description accordingly.
> 
> You're forgetting one of the things that I personally like so very much
> about MUSHes: People can build their own rooms and write their own
> descriptions. Such comparisons and programming of the description text are
> just not accessible to the majority of players -- and, in addition, it

Certainly there are servers that (by design) lack the sophistication for this
kind of thing.  But there are some servers that do, and it makes for neat
effects if taken advantage of.  Obviously if the engine doesn't support it,
you can't do this and the whole argument is moot.

> 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

I claim that they CAN be written otherwise.  It is certainly more difficult,
but it can be done.  Maybe it's not worth the hassle for 90% of mud builders.
That doesn't mean it can't be done and can't be cool.

> >if (character.body.can_see()) character.render(VISION,room.desc);
> >if (character.body.can_smell())  character.render(SMELL,room.scent);
> 
> This sort of construction would be an excellent way to build descriptions
> that suck.

Writing a simple text message is also an excellent way to build descriptions
that suck, many of which have been illustrated thus far. 8')

Keep in mind, this was a simple example to illustrate a point.  I didn't
illustrate any ways to make this more flexible and robust because the
base code to do this (not the room code) would be rather large and messy.

> 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?!

Who said all of your senses need to be stimulated every time?  I freely admit
it's more complicated.  However, I think it's more of a mindset issue than
anything.  There are, however, some modifications that you can do in the engine
to offload a lot of this to make building rooms simpler.  I'll have to finish
coding my mud and then I'll give you some good examples.  (don't hold your
breath.  8')

> My rule: Assume your players create characters with five senses. Those who

Also implicit in your rule - And here is the major reason I want to do these
things - you also assume that everyone will never LOSE any of their senses,
or face a serious hack to get the descriptions to work.  What about blindness
and ear-binding spells?  Blindfolds?  Darkness spells?  What if you want a bell
ringing to sound in one area and be able to be heard in other areas and
dissipate in distance?  These are the kinds of things that I would want to add,
which would be a lot easier to add given this kind of description, so it makes
sense (no pun intended) for the engine I have in mind.