[MUD-Dev] DGN: Why give the players all the numbers?

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

From: Lee Sheldon [mailto:lsheldo2 at tampabay.rr.com]

> The only way to test this would be to direct you to a world with
> combat that didn't use public numbers. The first virtual world I
> worked on had consistent descriptors similar to those people have
> suggested elsewhere in this thread. Its emphasis was heavily on
> story and role-playing, but it had its share of combat for those
> interested in it, and the testers who wanted to kill stuff became
> comfortable with the system very quickly. Unfortunately I don't
> know of any of the large commercial worlds today that have tried
> this.

I don't disagree with your premise, but you will need to make the
worlds an awful lot more interesting first.

You mentioned in a previous posts that developers mutter about
players not stopping to smell the roses. As a player I'm muttering
about them not having planted any. My reading of their complaint is
actually 'why won't players go and kill monsters in this badly
balanced out of the way area, and stop going to the popular,
convenient and well balanced one?'

The worlds would need to be filled with non combat activities for
the games to survive a de-emphasis on progression by combat. I guess
'A Tale in the Desert' is the closest to offering this, or perhaps
'Puzzle Pirates' (not played either I must confess).

Dan
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev