[MUD-Dev] Games vs. simulations

[Richard Tew]

> From: adam at treyarch.com
> 
> On Wed, 14 Jun 2000, Dmitri Zagidulin wrote:
> > Not to spark a holy war, but can anyone explain to a 
> newcomer why non-room
> > systems (read some kind of coordinate systems) are a bad idea?
> > They seem like a good holy grail to me...
> 
> I think I've discussed my own experiences with room based systems here
> before.  In a nutshell, I spent a while on them, and decided 
> that although
> they worked great from a designer's and prorgammer's perspective, the
> implementation was inferior from the gameplayers POV.  I 

I'm finding that the biggest problem so far is working out how to
generate decent room descriptions based on where everything is
placed in the room.

Other than that, I can't say I have any other major concerns that
I can think of at this time about the gameplayers POV.

> was present.  Unlike some implementations of this kind of 
> system (mostly
> on LPs from what I've seen), there was no limit to how far 
> you could go in one
> direction, and objects and NPCs persisted on the game map 
> even after you left
> the room.

This is odd, you would think that if you went to all the effort of 
adding space to your rooms (and the rest of it), the much easier
details like these would be a must.

> > Which turns the question around for matt & other avid room-based
> > proponents -- how _do_ you handle things like flight, 
> sailing, and, most
> > importantly, the question of world scope discussed in that excellent
> > article on Gamasutra (don't remember the name).
> 
> All this was covered in my system, without loosing any of the pluses
> associated with rooms.

Most of these things are trivial compared
to the initial task of getting a system like this running. And in fact
they are the reason we wanted a non-room-based world.  However, since
we are just in the stages of polishing the system off, we haven't
actually allowed ourselves to move onto them.

Flight:

Our system recognises by your coord when you are hanging in mid-air.
Gravity is built in, so you drop to the ground beneath wherever you are.
This might be on top of a building, or in the sea. Thats the default
behaviour, depending on how far you want to take flight, its not very
hard to change our system to handle it.

Sailing:

Our boats are implemented on the same level as our islands, so in the
same way we know where a player is by their movement, we also know
when a boat runs into another boat or island. This is something I am
really looking forward to fleshing out.

> > That is, do you agree that having a large, wide-scope world has many
> > in-game benefits and is desirable?
> > If so, do you think it's really possible to do expansive 
> terrain (lakes,
> > fields, wilderness in general, seas, planets) using the 
> myopic room-based
> > system?
> 
> it) in college; I chose to leave it out of my current mud.  
> Simply put, it
> added little value to the game as a player.  My intention was 
> to give a feeling
> of a large and rich gameworld; instead, players just feel 
> like they are on a
> huge, empty mud where all the rooms look the same.

I think how we justify having the large world is that we see
more in the rooms than just filler between locations.
More below.

> The fact that some of the terrain rooms were high forest with 
> pine trees,
> and others were low forest with sandalwood and birch, and 
> others still were
> open plains was not terribly exciting to anyone but me, the creator.

Well, really if you look at a non-room based coordinate system
as a basis for providing consistent depth in your mud, its not
too much of a step to see that all this huge emptiness provides
an opportunity for more consistent depth.

Where you have terrain of a given type you can provide resources
that suit it.  Herbs, minerals, vegetables, wildlife.  These can
be used by the players to make them part of the economy, whether
its using them to make goods or supplying other players or NPCs
who have uses for them.  This is just a basic example of what the
empty filler is good for but you can take this alot further.

> Again, though, as a hobbiest mud creator, that's all your 
> choice.  Having the
> freedom say, "Players?  Who gives a damn!" is definitely a boon.  Even
> as a hobbiest, though, I do find myself giving a damn here 
> and there.  (Just
> don't tell any of my players I said that, it'll spoil my 
> reputation...)

We are in it for the challenge and out of personal interest,
rather than whatever motivates other people - perhaps this is why
we have actually achieved some of the advanced features that
most open muds have chosen cop-outs over due to the difficulties
getting there. One of my co-workers had no interest in staying
when we opened, he was just there because he found it interesting.

Having someone argue that players would find what we plan difficult
to use in-game is something I enjoy. I find it satisfying to
come up with user interface ideas to make the game as easy to use
(relatively speaking, considering the game is very different because
of the features) and winning the arguers over.

Anyway,
Just thought I would comment on this since it is one of my favourite
topics :)

Richard Tew.




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