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

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Sat, 18 Dec 1999, Quzah wrote:

> From: Matthew Mihaly <diablo at best.com>
> 
> > Darn right they do. Most players know _exactly_ the stats of their
> > favourite swords. If they get a sword with particularly good stats, they
> > would be furious to have it reduced, as the distribution is a bell curve,
> > and getting ahold of a good sword is a fantastic thing for
> 
> That being the case, who in their right mind would toss their long
> sword of ass beating into a pile of 49 other visibly identical long
> swords? Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to get the
> right long sword out of a stack even when they have different key
> words and there are only five or six of them?

It's quite easy actually as our objects all have visible, unique
identifying numbers attached to them. GET 438 will get sword #438. INFO
HERE will give you a list of what is in the location and visible to you.

 
> The point is, if you are foolish enough to toss your one super
> sword into a pile of 49 other visibly identical swords, then
> you deserve not to get the right one back ;)

I suppose, but again, what happens when they pick up and examine all 50 of
them and none of them match? Much complaining and filing of bug reports.

> > Well, in my experience in most certainly is true. I am quite sure my
> > players would be extremely annoyed to find their groups of weapons being
> > averaged together stat-wise (and I don't like it design-wise either, as I
> > like there to be a disparity in the quality of things).
> 
> The real problem then lies with your statistic model, not your method
> of handling objects. Let's talk physics for a moment. A sword of a given
> mass, with an edge of N thickness, swung at X speed, with Y given arm
> length, has Z force behind it. Therefore, magic aside, all swords with
> NXYZ similarity will in fact do the same amount of damage given that
> their physical composition is the same. Period. Yes, you can make one
> a tiny bit sharper by lessening N, and you can get a bit more force
> behind it by increasing either X or Y, but all in all, they *WILL*
> be the same.

I appreciate the physics lesson, but really, I don't care what the physics
of something is. The system exists so differentiate items and make some
more desirable than others. It's perfectly internally consistent, and
that's what matters, not whether it maps to real life newtonian physics
(which isn't 'real' anyway, being a mere approximation, albeit quite close
under normal conditions). People who have the forging skill and who make
armour and weapons get quite excited when they produce a palpably superior
weapon, and I like that.

--matt




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