[MUD-Dev] The grass is always greener in the other field

[Ilya]

On Fri, 17 Dec 1999 10:23:03 -0600, Greg Miller wrote:
))J C Lawrence wrote:
))> Locked doors on houses were fine with percentage chances at picking
))> the lock -- until someone noticed that even a 0.0001% chance
))> requaled a ~100% given a pick-lock macro playing endlessly.
))
))This is one reason I dislike random numbers. Ideally, I prefer a system
))that would, at most, *appear* mostly random due to the number of factors
))involved in calculating success. Of course, it's not always easy to come
))up with reasonable formulae that make things variable enough.
))-- 

Seems this has already been resolved logically, if not in implementation,
by the expedient of calculating success based on a particular state of
the situation (lock and person).  Meaning, you get one try to use your
skill in a particular situation until something significant changes either in
the lock (damage to the lock, update to the locking mechanism, etc)
or the lockpicker (substantial increase in skill, new tool, access to
blueprints from the company that makes the locks, etc).  The player
doesn't KNOW this though, and so could be trying over and over
and over without the slightest chance of ever succeeding.

It's like the old security evasion system in VAX/VMS -- when
somebody tried to break in (presumably by guessing passwords),
they were "evaded" after a given number of tries, usually three.
Evasion meant that the system kept showing them prompts for
username and password, but would _always_ reject their login
attempts from that point out, even if the username/password
combination was correct.  Various methods were available to
the system manager to turn off evasion, or to reset the evasion
state on lines now considered secure.  I always thought it was
a much nicer system than many we see today.  And of course
it has applications to the mudding/ORPGing world.

--
  Ilya, Game Commandos     http://www.gamecommandos.com     





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