[MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...

[Adam Wiggins]

[Caliban:]
> Miro and I had a great talk on this the other day... this is the
> conclusion we reached as well, over the discussion of a court dinner
> (under his system, and under mine) in which, in my system, the food was
> actual existing material, as were a lot of other details, and spam was
> kept low by a player specific filter (the centerpoint of my output
> language parser) and in his, everything was emoted. With mine, I proposed
> a young woman secretly dosing the knight she has been pining over with a
> love philter in his wine glass. Under his system, she makes no real secret
> of this, and simply privately informs him. (or any accidental victims if,
> as I suggested, the wine was undrunk and made it back to the kitchen and
> the help, the greatest dullard of which gulps it... free wine!... and
> finds himself less in control of his body than he is used to) Under my
> system, she tells noone, and broadcasts nothing unless the others, by the
> very action of her adding the poison, or failing to keep a passive face -
> remember my involuntary mood actions - are alerted... being unusually
> perceptive or suspicious or aided by sheer dumb luck. (yes, Chris, I AM
> putting dice back in. Reluctantly, and not at the point of calculation of
> a specific event, but over the time cast event region.) Under my system,
> the poor galant may not figure out what has happened for... well, he may
> never figure it out.

Ah, excellent!  Yes, this is exactly what I am going for.  The trick is
to give users enough tools by which they can actually _do_ everything they
want to do.  Tinys 'solve' this by simply allowing the players to do whatever
they like.  LPs 'solve' this by having builders use LPC to try to create
all the tools users would ever want/need.  Dikus 'solve' this by only
modeling certain parts of the world and ignoring others altogether.
None of these are very good, to me.  LP would appear to have the best
solution, but the inconsistant building usually found on them has turned
me off to this approach.  What you've outlined above is what we're going
for, as well - creating very, very simple tools with a broad number of
applications, usable in a broad number of situations.  It's difficult
to do this, because you can't just create little 'specialty' routines
for handling a given situation - you have to consider ALL situations
and create elements which will work correctly in every situation and
combination.  Quite a task.

> :> The interesting thing is that the roll-player generally gets good
> :> descriptions like this on a MUD, but doesn't usually care. The
> 
> :I can agree with this.  It's more about general layout of the area and
> :the *stuff* you can do inside it.
> 
> Right. Of course, if the *stuff* requires you to _pay_attention_.. (I hate
> those "<obvious exits - north, east, up>" lines.) 

Yeah, me too.  It falls in the same category as 'Left arm: 10%' and
'Hunger level: 24', as far as I am concerned.  We write messages for
everything which explain it in plain english.  In some cases this is
fairly easy (such as hunger).  In the case of exits, I hope I never have
to change the routine that displays them, because I wrote it well over a year
ago, and it's so hideously complex that it would probably take me a day
of staring at it to try to remember how it worked.  (Part of the problem
is that we don't have such discrete exits - it's possible that several of the
directions you can go aren't exits at all, but in fact just lead to forests
or plains or mountains or something.)  It was this sort of thing that
tempted me to go to a completely co-ordinate based system, however I like
the hand-crafted feel of the areas we have right now, so I'll stick to that
(for this project, at least).

> As for that... a sucess oriented player will fare about the same as a role
> player on my system. You see, the whole point of having a totally
> consistant world... especially one that, while it might have that second
> description above, would only have the dampness on the wall after having
> actually made a damp wall... and floor, such that you can actually slip on
> it and break your neck... is making those types of reactions (ew, damp!) a
> critical part of success, as much as it is of role play. Sure, they might
> end up in the role of a very low on personality warrior who barely flicks
> his eyes across the muck, only enough to register its presence and take it
> into account before proceeding... but I'd much rather see the guy suddenly
> start moving cautiously instead of running than worry about whether he
> actually cares that its mucky. I HAVE provided a framework for the guy who
> just wants to complete the game, so he (or she - yes, there are genuine
> females, not just males in drag, on those success oriented muds, I
> promise...) will play it. I suppose making imagination optional will bring
> in some of this "wrong element" of yours... but hey! Imagination is
> optional in books too. They are just as passive. As long as I can provide
> as much of a consistant and absorbing a background as a good book, I'm
> happy. On the other hand, I've also endeavored to make true role play
> possible. By this I mean that the roles are all open and _playable_. If
> you want to play a role, all that is required is the hard work to
> establish yourself. Rich playboy type? Gotta earn that money first, I hate
> to break it to you. But yes, feel free to play the demented beggar who
> thinks he is a rich playboy. (And you RP types were wondering what success
> oriented players thought of role players... there you have one main part
> of it. No desire to earn the role they would claim.)

Yup.  I think that your mud is closer to mine in gameplay than anyone
else on this list.  In a way, it's somewhat 'reactive' role-playing - you
can just react to situations as is best for your character, and by default,
you will be role-playing.  The world provides building blocks with which
you can do whatever you like; by defining _what_ it is that you like (ie,
your goals in the game), you've defined yourself a role.

> :All I ask is that you know how a numbers-mud is played, what makes it fun,
> :and what motivates the people that play them before you start making
> :comments about them, which as near as I can tell are based on no research
> :or knowledge whatsoever.  Or if they are, I'd say that the muds that you
> :chose to try to play as your foray into the realm of roll-playing were the
> :worst muds I've ever heard of.  Go play Legend for a while and maybe it
> :will become a tad clearer.  (Based on MERC, no less.  Blah!)
> 
> I've played some pretty damned decent combat muds. Even a few where, in
> spite of the mechanics, role playing arose. In a sense, I tend to find
> most Tinys as deficient as dikus and LPs, for the same reason... lack of
> unified _sense_.

Yes.  I'm not a proponent of any codebase or any style of mud-play;
I find them all equally lacking, but all of them hint at what can really
be done.  Part of the 'problem', as it were, is that most muds are created
as the side-project of some bored undergrads.  They frequently have
many, many contributers, lots of clashing styles, tons of typos and grammatical
errors, and a world which seems to be built kind of like a patchwork
quilt.  I don't find fault with this, specifically - it's just that I'd
like to see it taken to the next level.