[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Ian Collyer]

Raph Koster wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock
>> Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 8:21 PM
>> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
>> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

>> On Fri, 15 Jun 2001 22:33:34 -0700, "Sean Kelly" <sean at ffwd.cx>
>> wrote:

>>> One thing that's kind of surprised me is that none of the
>>> MMORPGs I've played had any facility for sending messages to
>>> players who aren't currently online (mail).

>> I'm shocked. NONE of them have this? Why not? It's one of the
>> primary wish-list features for my own system. Has been for years.

> The logic against it goes like this:

>   * Yeesh! HOW much storage per player again? That's (takes out *
>   calculator) WAAAY too much money!

Well, not much storage really for me.  Simply have a pointer for a
character's message file indicating the last message downloaded via
POP3 and a similar pointer for each message board that the character
has active.  When the player's email client connects to the
pseudo-POP3 server the email messages are generated on-the-fly.  A
few bytes at most per character.

>   * Won't they use email anyway? We can't possibly make a nice
>   * enough email system to match Outlook!

Why try to match Outlook, let your players _use_ Outlook, or any
other POP3 compliant email client they like.

>   * Yikes, think of the complications--email to account or to user?

Email to character, it's still in-character messaging, just using an
out-of-game delivery mechanism.

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