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

[John Buehler]

Kevin Littlejohn writes:
> Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services wrote

>>   Matt:  Hey Paul, you can say "porkmelon" to this statue to move it.
>>
>> vs.
>>
>>   Matt:  /{formalized_share_secret_command} {target} {secret}

> How about using "give" as the "formalized_share_secret_command", and
> calling the secret something like, I don't know, "key"?  ;)

> My problem is this works for that sort of information, but how do
> you extend it out?  The above is surely the _most_ trivial example -
> how many of us actually have many quests of this sort in their
> games?  How many are faking the above mechanism with, say, a string
> of untradable items that need to be taken from one NPC to another to
> complete the quest?

> The above is the trivial case, and is already being solved by a
> slight remodelling of the quest - instead of a password, most places
> will use a key, and make people collect it.  The hard case, the one
> that's really useful for the players, is "hey, where would I find
> the key for this statue?", or "hey, what's the best place for xp for
> a level 12?", or "hey, what does the burning blades spell do?", or
> "how tough is this giant ape, really?".  For all of these, your AI
> modelling thing is going to have a _real_ hard time tracking
> knowledge-transfer, and disallowing it via non-sanctioned channels.

> It seems to me _that's_ the kind of information that JB doesn't want
> his chars learning from his players, and it's _that_ information
> that's almost impossible to codify.

Good grief.  This whole thing started with a statement that modeling
character knowledge was a Good Thing.  From there, it has degenerated
into an assault on the idea that all knowledge transferred between
characters using a 'say' mechanism cannot be implemented.

Who cares?  I'll take what I can get in order to enhance the
entertainment experience of the players.  I believe that coming up
with a mechanism or mechanisms that permits me to represent character
knowledge is valuable.  I can't get all character knowledge covered,
and I accept that.  As I can figure out how to pack more value into a
character, I'll pursue it.  Passwords, recognition of characters,
arbitrary skills, faction with other characters, language knowledge,
geographic knowledge, blahblahblahblahblah.  Whatever I can represent
in characters means that many more options that I have with NPC to PC
interactions.  Or NPC to NPC interactions for that matter.

To be more specific, I don't care about players talking about things
that players are obviously going to learn from the game.  If players
never learned *anything* about the game, it wouldn't be very
entertaining.  I am most interested in character knowledge that
permits scenarios to unfold naturally.  The password example is a
pretty good example of that.

Note that I'm interested in making player knowledge entertaining, but
largely useless.  Not needlessly so, but I hope to introduce a
significant level of dynamicism into the game world such that players
who document things will find that those things change from week to
week.  Why do I feel like I have to start writing for about an hour to
include all the disclaimers for that statement now?  Only things that
would be expected to ever be dynamic would be dynamic.  Towns don't
move and forest don't appear overnight.  People don't expect that, so
I wouldn't include that in my dynamic elements.

JB

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