[MUD-Dev] State of the art?

[J C Lawrence]

On Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:36:49 -0800 
Andy Cink<ranthor at earthlink.net> wrote:

> This got me thinking, is there a difference between "fun" and "state
> of the art"? For example, maybe mud A is well coded, has lots of
> fancy code, is extremely efficient, has lots of buzz words (all the
> fancy technical stuff about databases and such that goes right over
> my head :)) but is completely boring to play.

> Then we have mud B that's based on merc or envy or circle, and has
> lots of clever ideas, spells, races, classes, as well as interesting
> quests for the players, lots of items, variety, etc, etc.

Shades sets this divide extremely clearly.  It has no skills, no
classes, no races, no quests, no containers, no school, an extremely
primitive parser, extremely simplisitc magic (basically only
"summon"), actively enourages PK, resets the entire world every hour,
mobiles walk fixed paths (actually they teleport from room to room,
appearing to "walk"), there is no mobile AI or "talking", puzzles are
often simple word games or puns (with a few glaring and huge
exceptions such as the musical pillars), and advancement in only by
dropping treasure in the King's room or killing players or mobiles
(more profitable).  Yet, it is extremely playable and a whole lot of
fun despite all these lacks.

--
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                            Internet: coder at kanga.nu
...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...


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