[MUD-Dev] Expectations of in-game reality

[Matt Mihaly]

On Sat, 27 Oct 2001, J C Lawrence wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Oct 2001 22:03:46 -0400 
> Michael Tresca <talien at toast.net> wrote:
 
>> On RetroMUD, we distinguish PCs from NPCs as "Gifted Ones."
>> Gifted ones can telepathically contact each other (through
>> "tells") and are capable of distinguishing the "real" time
>> stream.  Only they know the universe is destroyed and restarted
>> so often, only they can see that life and death are meaningless
>> to some beings and that they come back to life, repeating the
>> same actions over and over.  Gifted Ones also retain their memory
>> upon death (unlike the NPCs, who die and respawn as if nothing
>> happened).
 
> One of my core annoyances with NPCs has been the attempt to
> conflate NPCs with players, to somehow make them analagous, to
> strive for the ideal that an NPC should be mistakable for another
> (human) player.  I tend to this being a Bad Thing, and that the
> attempt is generally destructive of player reality and of general
> verisimilitude.

I think this is why I don't really care about respawning NPCs. They
aren't players, they aren't alive, and no one is going to be fooled
into thinking they are.

--matt


 

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