FW: [MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[the_logos at www.achaea.com]

On Fri, 9 Mar 2001, Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services wrote:

> I think that John B. was advocating a system where characters got a
> copy of a knowledge token and were then able to pass that token to
> others.  So, I wouldn't have to get the knowledge from Gandalf, I
> could get it from Matt, since he had the token.  Of course, the
> sticky part then is that there would have to be some sort of coded
> method for passing this knowledge which might lead to:

Nod, I understand what he's suggesting, but he can only implement it
in such an incredibly limited way that it seems to me it'd do nothing
but detract from the environment. Why, for instance, does my character
know how to get from point A to point B when he never had a knowledge
token passed to him telling him that? I'll tell you why: cause he
learned from other characters, and you don't need a knowledge token to
do that. My objection to this really lies in that. Why is it that my
character needs a knowledge token ONLY for a relatively very few
pieces of knowledge? (cause no matter how many kinds of tokens you
make, you're only going to cover a very small portion of what your
character 'knows.')

>   Matt:  /{formalized_share_secret_command} {target} {secret}

> And perhaps the second would be an immersion killer.  However,
> depending on the quest, I would think it would be possible to pass a
> token in the first instance as well, if you assumed that whenever a
> character "heard" Matt say porkmelon, they were passed the knowledge
> token.  This might also include observing him actually perform the
> quest, which should pass a knowledge token as well.
 
> So, why bother?  To insure that it is Matt the _character_ who is
> passing information and not Matt the _player_.

Why is that important? It's only going to matter to serious
roleplayers, and serious roleplayers are serious enough not to need
rather unsophisticated crutches like tokens.

--matt

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