[MUD-Dev] Re: Dynamic muds

[J C Lawrence]

On Tue, 21 Sep 1999 11:52:29 +1200 
Colin Coghill <C.Coghill at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:

> We also have a rule that anything mentioned in a room description
> (the mountains lie to the north) should at least respond sensibly
> to "look at mountains", if not more.

I follow the expensive path:

  I never mention a different object or item in the description of a
given object or location.  Never.

Ergo, if I want this to be in a forest, well I'd better create a
bunch of trees and make sure the anonymous group code is working so
that they get compressed into a "forest" at runtime.  If I want
mountains in the distance, well, umm, I'd better go create some
mountains...

>> Players - How much of an addition do you think dynamic rooms are
>> to the atmosphere of the game?

> For me, they add a terrific amount. Even if it's only night/day or
> snow/no snow.  I'd love to see a mud that gets this kind of
> dynamic room descriptions right.

The simple dynamism of fleshing out key objects, light/dark etc I
don't find very interesting.  All it really communicates to me is
the old adventure technique of "Hey!  Here's a widget -- lets find
the place in the game where its useful!"  99.999% of objects IRL are
not useful and do not represent possibly useful activities.  Its
when the descriptions are sufficiently well done that I actually
never notice that they are fixed, that I'm innately certain that
every object mentioned can be manipulated, that I find it gets
interesting.  Its an all or nothing thing.

--
J C Lawrence      Life: http://www.kanga.nu/   Home: claw at kanga.nu
---------(*)                Work (Linux/IA64): claw at varesearch.com
 ... Beware of cromagnons wearing chewing gum and palm pilots ...


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