[MUD-Dev] Re: Levels versus Skills, who uses them and when.

[Mik Clarke]

Koster, Raph wrote:
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Mik Clarke [mailto:mikclrk at ibm.net]
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 1999 3:35 PM
> > To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> > Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Levels versus Skills, who uses them and when.
> 
> > On CthulhuMud I have replaced classes with professions
> > (borrowing a bit
> > from Warhammer RPG).  Each character has a primary profession that
> > determines which skills they are offered to practice. When they gain a
> > level, they also gain a level in the profession (and possably
> > access to
> > new skills).  It is also possible for characters to change profession
> > for a fairly low cost (3 practices and can't change again until 3rd
> > level in the new profession).  They keep all of their old skills, hits
> > and whatever, but are now studying something different.
> 
> This sounds interesting! Are all your skills "all-or-nothing" or do you
> have advancemnt within a skill? I wonder what effect this would have on
> a system wherein you had percentage abilities in each skill as well.

Yes, we have ranks within skills, although not percentage ones.  You
have a score ranked from 1 to infinity (practially around 150) in each
skill.  A rank of 100 is considered mastery. Named ranks occur at 20,
40, 60, 80, 100, 120 and 150 (an extension of the Diku adept rank).  As
your skill gets higher it gets harder and harder to improve.  You can
improve skills through either usage or practice sessions (and there are
a few other methods around - books and both mobs and players who can
teach skills that they know).  The restriction on getting to third level
before you can switch is to stop low level characters from hopping round
the professions and picking up lots of easy skills early on.

We're still waiting to see the long term effects. It's been running
about a month now, and so far I've not heard any negatives.
 
> > At the moment I'm working on quests and the like to give players some
> > way of getting xps without having to kill things.
> 
> Quest XP is a classic tactic. XP for merely visiting rooms (or for
> visiting specific rooms), which we always termed "explore XP" is a nice
> tactic too, until the rooms become known. [And yes, right here someone
> is going to say they implemented remembering every room visited, or
> every room remembering who visited it, and don't have that problem, and
> once again I'll shudder at the data storage their mud entails. Am I the
> only one who is paranoid about memory usage?]

Not in the least.  We still run as a guest, so a small memory and CPU
footprint are important.  Xps for specific rooms or for entering each
area sounds plausible though.  Quests, Deeds and Rewards are all planned
as a Xp independent guild levels (which will probably give xps when you
gain them).
 
Mik
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