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

[J C Lawrence]

On Mon, 11 Jan 1999 08:22:05 -0800 
T Alexander Popiel<popiel at snugharbor.com> wrote:

> The obvious pitfall to charging money for things like 'say' is
> that pretty soon most of your players will stop talking to each
> other.  This makes for a pretty boring game, IMNSHO.

A curious observation along that line is that for many people having
to type is actively considered as part of the cost of a command.
Thus a "say" command, which typically contains a fair bit of user
text, is subjectively considered an expensive command as it requires
more typing than, "kill bubba".

I've often seen comments by players along the line of, "I'm sick of
typing (chatting), I'm off to kill something."

Ease of use is the big hidden cost.

--
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
(Contractor)                             Internet: coder at kanga.nu
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