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

[Adam]

Lars Duening wrote:
> On Thursday, September 11, 2003, at 03:40 PM, Chanur Silvarian wrote:

>> I know that I'm a radical in thinking it, but I believe that
>> complete removal of all numbers (except how much item X costs)
>> would go a long way to improving immersion in anything calling
>> itself an RPG and would stop a lot of the customer complaints
>> about how they can't optimize themself to be as good or better
>> than someone else.

> This topic showed up in text mud development before, and opinions
> differed widely and wildly. Practical experience showed that
> players are smart enough to assign numbers to the various
> measurable items and skills themselves and then circulate the
> lists.

And until they did, the lack of numbers even ruined some games
[note: for some people. Obviously, if you were playing in explorer
mode, you probably had a great time trying to figure out those
numbers!] - Shogun, Total War, for example. It's a game where the
exact numbers really really matter - when you're looking at a
tactical battle game where you can rout an enemy, there is a
threshold beneath which the "better unit" will be winning, and above
which, either unit could rout, and effectively be wiped out at zero
casualty cost to the opposition. The only way to predict the routing
was to know the numbers which indicated the relative effects of
differnt things on the "will they rout?" equation. The game sucked
until some players extracted some of the info out of the developers,
and then deduced most of the rest. Sadly, the main website with that
data has disappeared - a bit of a tragic ending I'm afraid :).

Anyway, this is an example from a single/multiplayer game, not a
MUD. But I offer it as a very strong example of what *can* go wrong
in a computer game without explicit numbers.

Once you have the numbers, it's an excellent game, and almost
entirely one of tactics - instead of being largely luck, as per
pre-numbers.

PS I actually prefer non-numbers where possible :). I'm just saying
it's a non-trivial decision whether to have them or not....

Adam M
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