[MUD-Dev] Better Combat

[Douglas Goodall]

Paul Schwanz wrote:

> It seems to me that in this example, freeing up her hands to chat
> involves a better UI design, not additional game-created dead
> time.

I came to a similar conclusion earlier today. There are two separate
problems: downtime and socialization.

Downtime is a design flaw. It's (arguably) accepted as a design flaw
in every other genre, unless you're talking about a pause
button. CoH corrected this flaw. Socialization should be an
unrelated problem, but it's connected to downtime because of the
interface.

I enjoy socializing. Given how social most humans are, I don't think
socialization needs encouragement of any kind. Most players will
socialize just by being human... So why don't they? Why does this
need encouragement at all?

Because the game makes it hard.

I can't talk and play at the same time. I use the keyboard (or more
accurately: my hands) to play. I also use the keyboard to
socialize. I have to look at one part of the screen to play and
another part of the screen to chat. This is the real flaw in the
system and why downtime is considered necessary. If chat and combat
occured simultaneously (as in multiplayer console games or while
using Teamspeak), downtime would not be necessary at all.

Give me a better interface (or built-in voice chat or, preferably,
speech-to-text-to-speech) and you can have your cake and eat it
to. Easier said than done, I know.

In exchange for simultaneous chat and combat, I'd even be willing to
give up female avatars.
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