[MUD-Dev] text user interface

[Chris Gray]

[Eli Stevens:]

> My question boils down to this:  should the note commands be able to
> override the character and account commands?  Or, said another way, should
> the player's input be parsed from a high level command set, then lower ones,
> or low to high?

I'd say make them all explicit. The last thing most players want is to
have a guessing game over what a given command means. If commands are
coming and going, I'd want *no* input sequence to change its meaning.
This isn't quite answering your question, I know, but I guess I'm not
directly answering because I don't really like either alternative. For
commands that are rarely used, I see nothing wrong with having to put
an explicit prefix command in front of it. For example, my online building
commands are setup hierarchically. There is only one command for building
things: "build". Within that, there are room building commands, object
building commands and some miscellaneous. Within, say, room building, there
are a variety of commands, each with their own set of parameters. E.g.

    build room new north indoors in the pub

is broken down as:

    build [ room [ new north indoors [ in the pub ] ] ]

Allowing "build" to be abbreviated as "@", "room" as "r", and having
the usual direction abbreviations, makes it all quite acceptable, I think.
However, I also have building via mouse-clicks, so the commands
themselves are hardly ever used.

--
Don't design inefficiency in - it'll happen in the implementation.

Chris Gray     cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA
               http://www.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA/cg/



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