[MUD-Dev] trade skill idea

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Patrick Dughi
> Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 4:10 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] trade skill idea
> 
> 	Most of the talk I hear about skills involves a level of depth and
> detail that couldn't easily be represented short of designing a game
> around _Each_ skill.  Each 'game' then, for all it's variety, etc,
> couldn't easily be delivered short of a several day piece of work.  

Why? Why can't you design a crafting system that takes as long as a combat
to craft something, and which is challenging and tactical and dynamic?

> 	The comparisons with 
> SimCity/Coaster/ThemePark/Bread/etc all hinge
> on the fact that it IS the game.  That's great, but most muds out there
> spend 5 years developing just the combat/magic/interaction section of
> their game. 

Radical suggestion: drop the combat/magic stuff. :) Less people like it
anyway. 

OK, so I am being (slightly) facetious. But seriously, this point is
nonsensical. For some people, crafting IS the game, and the rest of it is a
pretty backdrop. For some, the crafting is the pretty backdrop. It's up to
each individual designer and implementor to decide where they fall on that
scale, but I would NOT go in assuming primacy goes automatically to one
point of view or the other.

> Do they have 5 years to put into bread making?  How many more
> to expand that to a general 'Cooking'?  Too bad you left out the
> blacksmith, or the tanner, or the talior, the candle-maker, the chimney
> sweep, and the janitor.  How long did it take to make SimAnt (a fun game,
> but not very detailed simulation) anyway?  

Got me. I don't actually know. I am pretty sure that more people played it
than played all the muds open at the time it came out, though.

> 	Sounds like you better just make a single-player non-mud Sim-<your
> job here> game.  Maybe include an internet option to exchange job skills &
> their results for game $. ie, your SimForeman has to use the services of a
> SimBuildingInspector, a group of SimUnionLaborers, a couple of
> SimTruckDrivers to get the materials (originally from the SimMiner to
> SimFactoryWorker, etc)...so on and so on.  You could have the 
> opportunity to get a computerized or real person.
> 
> 				That's fine.
> 
> 	It just doesn't sounds like a mud.  It's more like a single user
> game with an interactive auction line.

Well, of course not, not the way you described it. But your description
doesn't even remotely sound like what a mud with solidly implemented trade
skills could be like. So I am not sure what you're saying here.

[snip extremely un-fun-sounding odd mud simulation thing]

> 	I know most people wouldn't want to spend their personal time
> pretending to be an accountant or fry cook, or even a vaunted, much sought
> after interior decorator role. Ask them if they want to get the credit for
> potentially saving the world from a monster invasion though, and they get
> glossy-eyed.

I heard this argument before UO came out. It has already been disproven.
*shrug* You don't need to understand why it is so (I don't) in order to
observe empirical evidence.

I would never in a million years be able to convince my aunt JoAnne in Ohio
to try to save the world from amonster invasion on a computer. In fact, I
don't think I could convince any of my relatives to. But I am pretty sure I
can convince them to build rollercoasters and houses and yes, to bake bread.
	
> 		People already get enough 'regular'.
 
We are, by the nature of the spaces we make, fulfilling fantasies. I can't
believe you'd presume to dictate everyone's fantasies, or to denigrate
someone whose fantasies are a bit more modest than saving the world--not
intentionally, and not when it's put to you that way. Suffice it to say that
such people do exist, and are more numerous than our insular little
community tends to think. If I say "stake & garlic" on this list, everyone
thinks vampire; the rest of the world is more likely to think "medium rare,
with a baked potato." 

-Raph



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