[MUD-Dev] Striving for originality

[shren]

On Tue, 4 Jun 2002 szii at sziisoft.com wrote:

> 90% of all MUDs I've found (been doing a lot of MUD-hopping the
> last 2 weeks looking around) are all very very similiar and in all
> cases melee ruled the day for "efficiency."  If you then want to
> tack on making the spells that much "harder to cast" as well as
> start requiring components then those particular spells had
> -REALLY- better be worth it.  Most MUDs have imbuded/proc-items so
> the players many times don't NEED the caster's spells for day to
> day.  Sure, they may increase the productivity of the group, or be
> usefull in certain situations, but hey...a warrior can still solo,
> get float/fly/lev gear and really not need a caster.  Yet that
> same level of "dependence" doesn't work the other way where a
> caster REQUIRES the "tank" due to low hps, finite mana supply,
> fizzles/interruptions/concentration/
> bash/trip/gesture-time/etc. Hmm....doh. </rant>

I've always thought that this should be faced by making different
'skills' able to do different things, functionally.  You can inflict
ranged damage with a bow?  Fine, but why do you need another source
of ranged damage other than "bows"?  It seems you then end up trying
to balance bows, slings, and crossbows with "magic", which never
seems to work.  One is more powerful than the other, always, and any
attempts to balance them never seem to work out.  Melee weapons
should do melee damage, ranged weapons should do ranged damage, and
magic should do all sorts of useful things that arn't melee damage
or ranged damage.

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