[MUD-Dev] Gender and Mud Development (back on topic, some)

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Katrina McClelan [mailto:kitkat at marcus.pants.nu]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 1999 1:41 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Gender and Mud Development (back on 
> topic, some)
> 
> 
> 
> Bringing it back to a mud level, when is the last time you saw a mud let
you use 
> illusions, traps, and tactical combat for handling monsters instead of
brute 
> force?  And by tactical, I mean making use of the terrain, as well as
skills.  In one
> game we used a charmed enemy, and an illusion (both spells 
> availible to new characters) to lure a pair of ogres into a castle 
> courtyard, and then droped the portcullis, and picked them off with arrows
and 
> spells from our perches atop the towers.  Very creative and tactical, but
not 
> something that you can accomplish with most mud engines (mine 
> included).

This sort of tactic (not literally illusions, but other uses such as bardic
techniques of enticement and the like) are extremely common on graphical
muds. In fact, many players consider them to be unfair! As an example, it's
quite common in Ultima Online to teleport up onto ledges and shoot or
magically fry monsters that cannot reach you below--and it's considered to
be "cheap" because there's no element of risk (UO monsters are really quite
stupid, and can't teleport up onto the ledge after you). Also common is
using any of several skills to lure monsters into traps where you have
summoned things like energy vortices or blade spirits that are
uncontrollable but deadly aggressive for the duration of their existences.
No risk to the player, and the monster gets chopped/fried to death.
Sometimes these traps rely on the landscape--other times, players use spells
like Wall of Stone to make the traps.

-Raph


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