[MUD-Dev] Better Combat (long)

[Douglas Goodall]

Paul Schwanz wrote:

> So what makes chess so successful as a game of strategy?  I
> believe it is the result of a good balance/mixture of simplicity
> and complexity.  (This suddenly reminded me that good music is
> often seen as the result of a good balance/mixture of repetition
> and variation.  <friendly jibe> I'd wonder whether other forms of
> good art share a similar quality if I didn't hear Dave Kennerly's
> admonition to not compare art forms bouncing around in my
> head. </friendly jibe> ) The movements of chess pieces are simple
> enough for a child to learn, but a lifetime of playing cannot
> plumb the depth of patterns to be learned.  (If you are not
> familiar with Raph's "A Theory of Fun," I *highly* recommend
> taking a look at it, especially as it pertains to models for
> combat: http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/theoryoffun.html )

A bit off topic, but there was an Idea back when fractals became
popular that art of all kinds exist on the boundary between order
and chaos. I want to say this is called the K2 boundary and has
something to do with the point on a bifurcation chart where it
becomes complex. But google isn't giving me any support, so perhaps
I'm misremembering it. Someone even analyzed the information density
(predictability) of "classical" composers to find out which one was
closest to this boundary. It turned out to be Mozart.

Unfortunately, it's an Idea, not a Theory. Like all Ideas (memetics,
rule of 250, "tipping point" marketing, to name a few that have been
mentioned in this forum) it has the power to explain, but not the
power to predict.

For instance, Mozart is near the order/chaos boundary, but most
music is not. The notes/beat of most songs are too
ordered/repetitive/self-similar while the sound of modern pop music
is much closer to chaos/noise than Mozart. Some modern music is much
closer to the K2 boundary (jazz and fusion, for instance), but they
were never as popular as the repetitive stuff.

Color me old, but this combination of repetition and noise makes
modern music simultaneously dull and unpleasant, much like the
majority of computer games. Perhaps "art" near the K2 boundary only
seems superior to elitists like myself.
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