[MUD-Dev] Justifying twinking

[Todd McKimmey]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Raph Koster" <rkoster at austin.rr.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 11:10 PM
Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Justifying twinking


> Yes; although players are not stupid, and will quickly realize that a rat
> that happens to look like an orc king is still a rat.

Part of this is perception, though. If that orc (I wouldn't go so far as to
say 'orc king' but a normal run-of-the-mill orc) exists side by side with a
number of rats, cats, dogs, pigeons etc that are significantly easier to
kill (1 swing with a newbie sword but still gives SOME exp or whatever) they
won't feel like they're at the absolute bottom of the totem pole. That's one
goal that we're attempting to achieve with SushiMud -- characters will start
at a power level somewhere equal to about level 5 or so on most stock diku
muds.
In the end, however, a newbie played by an experienced character is always
going to feel like a newbie and relatively powerless given their experience.
To a new player, fighting something that's roughly described to be about
their equal, maybe even wielding a weapon or have some sort of treasure that
can be looted post-kill is much more appealing than killing a small mammal.
(Nothing more frustrating as well as going to your guild to train and
finding out it costs 1000+gp to train in a skill and the most a mob of your
level ever gives out it is about 3 or 4 coins).

On a side note, frustrated me to no end when starting out on EQ that 90% of
what was killing me most of the time I either never saw or was looking
nearly straight at the ground to see. Made me feel even smaller than the 'a
rat' or 'a small snake' that was prominently displayed above the creature's
head.

-Todd





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