[MUD-Dev] UI Issues: Anti-scripting techniques

[coder at ibm.net]

On 06/10/97 at 08:28 AM, Shawn Halpenny <malachai at iname.com> said: >On
Sun, 5 Oct 1997, Travis Casey wrote:

>I would like players to be able to get an idea if they could succeed at
>something like killing an NPC solely from its description and whether or
>not the player has beaten something like it in the past.  There is,
>however, no requirement that the description contain the information that
>every player who ever looks at that NPC would like to see to make a
>determination of whether or not he'd win.  I think the system has to help
>out here and give some feedback on where the player stands with respect
>to someone else.  That much is easy once they've played a while (indeed,
>after they've made their first kill), but if they've never killed anyone,
>are they good at it, bad at it, or okay at it?  Is there any way they can
>get a general idea aside from just "consider"ing it?

For me this is a question of familiarity.  If the player has attempted or
done something similar in this game afore, he'll have some idea of his
chances of success at doing it again.  Note that this is the player who is
aware of his chances, not the character.  As such I have no problem with
not having any systems in the game itself to attempt to calculate or
report on chances.  Either the player has epxerience to provide a
judgement base, or he doesn't.

Underlieing this of course are the principles that tasks should have
related and comparable difficulties.  Killing a deer shouldn't be that
different that different to killing an antelope.  Also the difficulty of
all sheep to each other, or of all deer to each other, should be of
comparable magnitudes.  Any exceptions should then be either implicitly
expectable (this sheep appears to belong to the Gods), or explicitly
obvious (this sheep appears to be magically charmed).

Looking at the squirrel question: Has anyone here ever attempted anything
with a squirrel?  Just how much blood did you lose?  Attempting to do much
of anything with a squirrel is much like washing cats: Its a martial art,
and you *will* get hurt.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...