[MUD-Dev] trade skill idea

[Brian 'Psychochild' Green]

Quoting from a few related posts here.  Sorry to all that like to thread
your messages. ;)

"Koster, Raph" wrote:

> > From: Josh Olson

> > But trade skills are ultimately formal processes with static 
> > components and predefined outcomes.

> That's only because they have been made so thus far. They don't have 
> to be. Heck, I can make a combat system that is a formal process with 
> static components and predefined outcomes. 

Didn't you already do that?  Isn't it called UO? :)

> Nobody would call that fun.

Hey, I bet a good share of that 200k or so people disagree. :)

I'm being semi-serious here.  People have been talking about combat as
if it were this wonderful, dynamic event that keeps people on the edge
of their seat.  It's not.  The only thing that separates combat from
trade skills on most games is the fact that if combat goes horribly,
horribly wrong, you can get penalized by the game through character
death.

Hasn't the PK problem taught us that combat can be heavily weighted
toward one side?  After all, the real bastard PKers are the ones that
attack other people and make sure that the victim has almost no chance
of winning.  This means that combat isn't quite as dynamic as we've
imagined it.

Also consider that in most single-player RPGs, I want the outcome of
battle to be relatively assured.  I equip my characters and use whatever
player skills needed (twitch, "tactics", etc) to become victorious. 
Failure usually results in death and either doing something different,
hoping the random number generator favors me better, or avoiding that
combat until I am better able to overwhelm the opponents.  In all,
though, I want to win 99.9% of the time.

Remember, there are many rules for combat that designers might not have
explicitly stated in the mechanics.  For example, initiating combat
generally gives you an edge.  Initiating combat generally indicates that
you are prepared for it.  Aggressive monsters are harder because they
initiate combat, especially at times when you are not prepared for
combat.

Most combat "tactics" are nothing more than rules for getting the best
results.  In EQ, rushing into combat is not advised, you should have
someone pull a monster to the group.  In AC, you need to know where to
stand when attacking a monster so that you don't draw unwanted attention
from other monsters.  Most serious players have these tactics/rules
memorized.

I think one major problem is that people are looking at the wrong scale
for both sides of the equation.  One use of a trade skill is not like an
entire combat, it is more like one round of combat.  I use my tool
(weapon) on an object (monster) to get a desired product (damage).  It's
just that most games have a mechanism so that you can continue with the
next round of combat automatically.  Plus, you generally don't get your
reward in combat until you have produced a specific amount of product
(damage).

> > From: Patrick Dughi
>
> >       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?

See above.  We haven't even made combat all that tactical and dynamic. 
I question if we really want to....

But, I think it's more than that.  The more detailed you get in a trade
skill, the more obvious it becomes that you might as well be doing the
same thing offline.  If I have to go through lengthy preparations and
have extensive knowledge of breadmaking, why not do the same thing
offline?

I think the aspects that can't be easily done offline are what will be
most appealing.  I may not have the strength and stamina to pound heated
metal at a forge all day.  Or, I might be a master swordsman offline,
but going around running people through with a sword is generally
frowned upon in the offline world.  Online, where death is temporary, it
is a bit more acceptable.  Therefore, combat is quite a bit more fun in
a game than offline.

Plus, there are a lot more people with breadmaking experience than with
combat experience.  Ask any combat-hardened veteran (besides Col.
Grossman), and they will tell you that games are very little like real
combat.  But, most players don't care because it fits their perceptions
of how combat should work.

Yet, if you don't implement breadmaking right, you are likely to get a
lot of people nitpicking your work.  ("A 200 degree oven is not hot
enough to bake bread effectively!")  Consider how often people with no
combat experience cry out that our combat simulations aren't
"realistic".  Now, imagine how many bored housewives are going to
complain if breadmaking isn't entirely up to snuff!
 
> >       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. 

Okay, so what's the new focus of this game?  Trade skills for the sake
of trade skills?  I dunno if this would be significantly more attractive
than traditional swords and sorcery.  In current MUDs, most trade skills
supplement the combat focus of the game.  People forge weapons and tools
for other skills.  People make food for the bonuses it gives to combat. 
People make leather to form into armor.  Yes, people can often use
skills in non-combat roles, but I'd propose that these are the
exceptions, not the rule.

Plus, our current audience *does* like combat more than breadmaking. 
EQ, a game with a heavy combat focus is the most popular graphical MUD. 
I realize that you intend to grow the audience for these games (as do
I), but this is an important thing to consider.

> 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. 

I think that's one thing that's been overlooked in most of the
arguments; what about the people that like the current systems?  The
wife of the ranter Lum the Mad has made it known that she *likes* the
trade skills on EQ and has a few characters dedicated to mastering trade
skills.  Few developers really admire the EQ system, but here's someone
that is having quite a bit of fun with them!

Of course, she likes improvements (especially the recent ones), but they
are fun for her.  Are we potentially fixing something that isn't all
that broken?  I got the feeling from the original post that a player
that enjoys combat wanted more combat-like aspects to be applied to
trade skills.  Is this the type of person we want to design for?
 
> > 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.  

And, this is the rub, I think.  We can barely get our stuff together and
make combat the right combination of fun, interesting, and not
exploitable.  Now, we're going to put the same effort into a wide
selection of trade skills?  Ugh, sounds like the recipe for disaster. 
(You have advanced the skill of cooking (212))  

Design takes time.  At least, it does the way I do it; am I doing it
wrong?  The more complex features you add to your project, the longer it
takes to design and implement.  Eventually you have to cut something in
order to make your deadlines.  Did you manage to negotiate a "no
deadlines" clause in your contract, Raph? :)  I knew you were good, but
wow. :)

> > 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.

I'd suggest that's more a question of access than quality, though. ;) 
SimAnt was released in 1989, quite a bit before many people (including
me!) had even heard of the Internet.  (I was just learning Pascal at the
time!)

> >       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.

Argh!  You're gettin' sloppy here.  We should try to understand it,
especially if you're going to make a whole game out of it!  What makes
trade skills attractive to people?  Is it because they like it?  Is it
because the game was set up to reward people who did them?  Is it
because the wanted to fill a niche no one else had dominated?  Is it
because it's easier to macro than combat?

I agree with Patrick, though.  I rarely want to do something I could be
doing offline.  The Sims wasn't about making friends, it was about
tweaking the variables and gaming the game in order to accomplish
whatever goal you had set for yourself.
 
> 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.

You could convince her to bake bread online?  How about letting me
explain to her that for less money (computer, internet conneciton, game
fees) and effort she could buy a bread machine and make real bread?  Or,
for less money but a lot more effort, she could make bread from
scratch?  Heck, we can throw in some social elements and let her start
up a bread baking club in her neighborhood.  Again, if we're going to
make breadmaking so complex, why should people bother doing it online
instead of offline?

Does online breadmaking still sound appealing as a developer?
 
> >               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. 

One word: Sex.  If you want to fulfill fantasies, here ya go.  We've
already discussed this topic, though, so let's not go into details.

> 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."

Look up my previous rant/essay on casual gamers.  You're talking about
non-gamers, Raph, which are an entirely different beast.  It's going to
take more than detailed online breadmaking, tailoring, etc, to attract
these people to our games.

--
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...."  -"Defender", Manowar
     Brian Green, brian at psychochild.org  aka  Psychochild
       |\      _,,,---,,_      *=* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=*
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   "They're not bugs, they're 'place-
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'    holders for code that works.'"
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)         - Andrew Kirmse, Meridian 59 creator



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