[MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock [mailto:caliban at darklock.com]
> Sent: Thursday, June 03, 1999 1:10 AM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)
> 
> 
> On 07:10 PM 6/2/99 -0700, I personally witnessed Matthew 
> Mihaly jumping up
> to say:
> >
> >As an example, in 4 seconds, I may have to: 
> >
> >   light pipe 
> >   smoke pipe 
> >   apply mending to left arm 
> >   apply mending to right arm 
> >   charge death 
> >   fling death at <target>
> >
> >If you can type the equivalent of that much text, without 
> error, in 4 
> >seconds, while under pressure, then I bow to you as the 
> Master Typist that 
> >you are =).
> 
> Oh yeah?! Well, I give you the finger for making a combat system that
> requires that! ;)
> 
> Seriously, if your combat system requires that many commands 
> of that length
> and complexity to be typed in that short a time, it's pretty 
> badly broken.
> You have designed a combat system that it is humanly impossible to use
> effectively. Your MUD is designed to be played by machines. 
> Not people.

I wouldn't go that far. Actually, it reminds me of fighting games. The ones
where you mash lots of buttons and try to execute combos. Trying to get some
of that feel was the intent behind that spatial combat thing that I posted
here a while back. It's also the intent behind stuff like Mage2Mage, IMHO.

It does present a *massive* barrier to entry, though. And it might well be
better suited to non-textual commands in many ways -- he described using the
keypad and control-keypad as shortcuts for targeting, etc, and that sounds
an awful lot like a non-textual interface to me--like 'button-mashing'
instead. That's not a bad thing, it just tends to emphasize the point I was
getting at originally.

-Raph


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