[MUD-Dev] Re: pet peeves

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

-----Original Message-----
From: Kristen Koster <koster at eden.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Friday, February 12, 1999 11:11 AM
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: pet peeves


>I think there's a big difference between sitting down and talking with
>someone about the approach to running a mud and giving them full unbridled
>rein of the place.


True, but usually people want something in the middle. (Generally closer to
the former than the latter.) For example, they may want to be handed a few
"free" levels -- most MUDs are boring as hell until level 20, and only run
really cool stuff for levels 40 and up -- or some extra starting cash.

That's a big pet peeve of mine. For the first ten to fifteen levels on most
Diku variants, you can't afford anything. Then you can pretty much afford
whatever you want. Cash, in the end, is a boolean value -- "if(level<15)
goto hell; else give(cool_stuff);" -- which is basically meaningless. Once I
hit level 30 or so on a MUD, I tend to spend a little time every now and
again hanging around the newbie areas and handing people large sums of money
at random.

I dislike places that tie everything to levels. I say, if you want to build,
submit your idea. Level is irrelevant. If your IDEA is good, then we'll
talk, and I don't care if you haven't even logged in yet and only submitted
the idea by email. If it sucks, I don't care what level you are, you ain't
building it.

I mean, aren't we all basically agreed that level as a measure of player
quality is pretty worthless? If not, why? What does having level X really
say about the player behind the character? What do we expect it to say? What
do we wish it would say?

It occurs to me that on many MUDs, people use the level as a sort of
double-edged sword. Wouldn't it be more efficient to use two swords? Has
anyone thought about having two levels -- player and character? Anyone done
this? I know several folks here were talking about separating the player
from the character on a basic level, i.e. login to a player and thence to a
character.

| Caliban Tiresias Darklock            caliban at darklock.com
| Darklock Communications          http://www.darklock.com/
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