[MUD-Dev] Realistic travel times/virtual terrain

[Zak Jarvis]

> From: Richard Tew [richard.tew at wiredgroup.com]
> Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 6:39 PM

<snip>

> My question is, has anyone actually implemented a mud where the
> travel times are proportionate?  Where the distance travelled
> in the mud world is directly proportional to the time it takes
> the player.  What do your players think?  Do they like or dislike it?

Yup.  We've done it (as I suspect a fair number of others have as well),
and the few testers that saw the areas that used it heavily felt it was
unbearable. However, it's worth noting a few things about that. We didn't
do it very well. Essentially, it was the same text-based movement system
everyone does, except it gave you a round-time when you moved across very
large areas. We didn't provide enough feedback on movement (there was only
a single message, and that was when you tried to do something else while
moving) and it wasn't an interruptible process. (dumb,dumb,dumb) We still
have time on travel, but we've shied away from using really large rooms.

I don't think realistic round times are at all unfeasible. My suggestions
are:

Use LOTS of smaller rooms, even with the same description. It gives more
sense of interaction.

Give good feedback on what's happening with this kind of movement.

Develop procedural tools for building large areas like forest or desert.
Writing descriptions for hundreds of rooms like this absolutely kills your
creative folks.

-Zak Jarvis
 http://www.voidmonster.com

 "What sort of where is this are we"
  -Warren Defever





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