[MUD-Dev] Geometric content generation

[Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt]

On Mon, 1 Oct 2001, John Buehler wrote:
 
> I'm not picking on Adam specifically, but I notice that folks seem
> to be more interested in dissecting the idea on the basis of
> finding holes in the intended implementation.  I happen to be on
> the 'single, flexible character' bandwagon and was wondering if
> folks consider it desireable or not, regardless of whether it can
> be implemented well right now.
 
> Is it enough to make it more difficulty to mule?

The problems that might arise from 'single, flexible character'
design is that every character in the game ends up exactly the same.

As was described, some of the design in the game allocates needed
skills exclusively (you cannot be the best at everything) by the
skill system as well as the spaceship design. However 'trying to
find holes in the system' is healthy, since the holes will be found
by the players, and if these holes effectively breaks parts of the
gaming system for others, it effectively breaks the game. There is
nothing wrong with 'single, flexible character', but it has to be
balanced between the two extremes of

  "every character is identical" : where cooperation is not needed
  and the individual character posesses all skills
  needed. (effectively Quake?).

and

  "every trait is needed but not available simultaneously" : where
  the incentive to use mules is great enough and advantageous enough
  that the players will attempt it. (many class-based fanatasy games
  have this problem with f.inst. clerics)

In my opinion, some balance is found if you make most skill
combinations equally interresting to play. This way you will not
have a shortage of other players with different skill combinations
to cooperate with. (who want to be a barge pilot, if you can be a
crack-shot fighter ace?).


Hans Henrik Stærfeldt   |    bombman at diku.dk    | work:  hhs at cbs.dtu.dk      |
Address:                |___  +45 40383492    __|__       +45 45252425     __|
DTU, Kemitorvet,        | Scientific programmer at Center for Biological     |
bygn 208, CBS.          |  Sequence Analysis, Technical University of Denmark|

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