[MUD-Dev] Metric vs. English System of Measurement in Games

[Lars Duening]

On Dec 20, 2004, at 1:54 PM, Michael Hartman wrote:

> It pains me as an American that we insist on perpetuating the use
> of the inferior English or Imperial measurement system.

> The game design question this raises is what should a developer
> use when create a new game world?

Honestly, I don't see the problem in it.

Internally, use metric. Then, make the UI capable of displaying
metric or imperial (and Klingon for the alpha geeks) - selectable by
the user, preset according to the country you're distributing the
program - or drop units altogether.

For comparison: I'm currently playing Morrowind (excellent game for
everybody who'd like to play a MMOGish game, but doesn't have the
time to), where weights don't seem to have a unit at all - my
character can currently carry 405 units, but I have no idea if those
are kilograms, pounds, or flogums - and while spells have
descriptions like "20pts fire damage in 15ft radius", the lack of a
tape measure in the simulated world makes the "15ft" just a synonym
for "small area effect".

And it works great.

--
Lars Duening; lars at bearnip.com
GPG Key: http://www.bearnip.com/lars/lars-duening.gpgkey
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