[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD Design doc - Combat

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James Wilson <jwilson at rochester.rr.com> wrote:

> I'm curious - has anyone implemented a system allowing variable 
> levels of combat detail ('brief-mode' vs 'verbose-mode', for
> instance)? 

Yes.

My system, modelled on a mud I used to play, allows you to turn
on or off 9 different types of combat message to increase or
decrease combat spam. Each type is made up from one of three
combatant types and one of three message types. 

The combatant types are 'me' - messages where the player hits 
something or is hit by something, 'group' - messages where 
another person involved in the same fight as the player hits 
something or is hit by something, and finally 'other' - for
messages where the player is not involved at all.

The damage types are 'miss' - for when no damage is done at
all, 'damage' - for actual hp damage and 'major' for a 
particularly massive amount of damage.

Thus on a poor net link you can prevent other people's fights
slowing you down by turning off 'other-miss', 'other-damage' and
'other-major'. Another common one is to turn off 'me-miss',
'group-miss' and 'other-miss' which can reduce the amount
of spam considerably if one or more parties are not very
good at fighting. Turning off group- messages can be useful
if fighting in a large group so that messages important to
you are not lost in the scroll.

I've also known healers to turn off all the combat messages
and just watch people's injuries to know when to heal.

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