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

[Quzah]

From: Matthew Mihaly <diablo at best.com>

> 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.

Ah, that's rather handy. Similar to an old MBBS game I saw once
where all the monsters had a number appended to their name. I was
of course speaking of the typical DIKU based mud where it would be
near impossible to grab the correct sword from a random pile of
50 long swords.

> > 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.

True. And I'd be one of the ones complaining. When I used to actually
play, I liked to run around and gather all the items in the game and
ID them, then write down their stats for my own use.

> 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

Yes, of course. I was missing the point. You were trying to
discuss a way to store everything, while I was pointing out a
way to avoid it all together.

> 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

Good argument for specific stat tracking I suppose. This of course
assumes again that you are using a numbers-visible sort of game.

Quzah.



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