[MUD-Dev] MUD Wimping

[Raph Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Dan Shiovitz
> Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 12:58 AM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] MUD Wimping
>
> Anyone have an example of a player base taking a largish code change well,
> and saying "man, that was a good change even if it hurt in the short
> term"?

Always add, never take away.

In other words, you can get away with all sorts of sweeping changes as long
as you always extend the capabilities of players, not reduce them. But if
you reduce them, then you're in trouble.

This is not always feasible, of course. A good example--if you accidentally
introduced an overly powerful magic weaopn, the lowest-impact response is to
increase the capabilities of all the monsters, add cool new combat
abilities, etc, so that the super-duper m,agic weaopn is no longer as cool
as it once was, and everything is in harmony and balance.

Yeah right. :) A better solution might be to run a cool plotline or create
cool monsters that desperately need those weaopns for some purpose, thus
creating an event out of it, and giving lpayers a cool reason to give them
(or be hunted down...)--whatever. Make the loss more fun than the gain.

For smaller things, the "always add, never take away" rule works quite well.
There've been many examples of such in countless muds, it's a tactic known
to every mud admin I've ever discussed the topic with.

-Raph




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev