[MUD-Dev] The Best Guy on the Mud Thing

[Dundee]

On Thu, 16 Sep 1999 21:16:35 -0700 Thu, 16 Sep 1999 23:20:22 CST, Caliban
Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> wrote:

> Isn't this basically grading on a curve?=20

Basically.

I figure if everyone in the world was really, really good at picking =
locks,
every lock in the world would be really, really hard to pick.  Or for
example, if every fencer in the world was terrible, then the very best
terrible fencer would be the best fencer in the world.

I don't like character-building systems.  I think if the world isn't
interesting *after* you have a maxed-out, top-level, highest-skill,
whatever character then it probably isn't a very interesting world.

So everyone starts out average and stays average, except they could get
better at particular skills while gradually getting worse at others.

But mostly it's just a matter of preference.  I just don't like the =
"start
out weaker than a bunny and slowly turn yourself into a lesser deity,
usually by killing crap over and over" sort of thing.

> And wouldn't it unfairly favor the  original playerbase over the newer =
players?=20

I don't follow.

New player has used skill-X 1 time and has used a total of 10 skills.  =
His
skill value is therefore .1

Old player has used skill-X 1000 times and has used a total of 10,000
skills.  So his skill value is also .1

Now whether ".1" is good or bad would just depend... could be "average".

But I think with newbies, the best thing to do might be to start them out
with the average, across the board - it would take them a while to become
exceptionally good at any thing, and in the mean time they wouldn't
influence the mud-average too much.

> PCs are special. They will always be special. They are not treated like
> mobs, because they are not mobs. PCs are special *because* they are =
PCs.
> Because players do not want to play average Joe Blow members of the
> society. They want to play SPECIAL members of society. If I wanted to =
be
> Joe Blow, I could do that IRL.=20

Well, the mobs skills are based on the players-averages, after all, not =
the
other way around. :-P

PCs are so special, I'm trying now to script some bots to remember who
they've met and talked to, and develop likes/dislikes toward pc's they
frequently meet with.  Basically once a mob takes a dislike to you, he'd
continue to dislike you, maybe increasing degree... Maybe to the point =
of,
in the negative, refusing to speak with you any longer, insulting you,
throwing you out of their shops... maybe contracting another player to =
kill
off their "enemy"...=20

Or in the positive, to start with just speaking more friendly towards =
you,
moving from there to even more praise, to the point of telling other
players what a great person you are.  Maybe cap it off at proposing
marriage.

heh.  Anyone else done something like this?  I'm sort of thinking to go
with a dual system - one to track familiarity (the more you see the mob,
the more familiar it gets with you), and another to track it's =
like/dislike
of you.

Thing is... I'm not sure what should make a bot like or dislike a person.
I can't even figure out what makes people like or dislike each other.
Should it just be random?

--=20
http://dundee.uong.com/



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