[MUD-Dev] Usability and interface

[Matt Chatterley]

On Sat, 27 Sep 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:

> [Caliban:]
> > On Wednesday, September 24, 1997 4:48 AM, Maddy [SMTP:maddy at fysh.org] 
> > > What do you class as "no real reason".  If you
> > > were playing an orc and I were playing a dwarf, it would make perfect 
> > sense
> > > for me to kill you.  You're a vile scum sucking orc, a spawn of evil
> > > etc..etc..
> > 
> > It also makes perfect sense for anyone in your game world to randomly catch 
> > fatal diseases, so why not implement that?
> 
> Why, thank you.  We have.  Actually, most of them aren't necessarily fatal,
> but many of them can be.

But you're just evil swine, Adam. ;) You really cannot define "no real
reason" for doing something in this sort of form (particularly not when
killing someone/something is your focus). Perhaps "no apparent reason" is
a better phrase.

> > > There could be a religion that requires its members to kill
> > > anyone with blond hair.
> > 
> > There could be all sorts of things. What exactly does this religion add to 
> > the game? Ummm... pissed off players and roving groups of antisocial dorks. 
> > Maybe we should do something different.
> 
> You seem to be opposed to killing in general.  It doesn't bother me, but
> I do think it's been done to death.  Why not get rid of it altogether?
> I'm not being sarcastic at all, BTW.  I'd love to see a mud with a totally
> different focus.  (Needs to still have game mechanics of some sort, though,
> so talkers aren't quite what I mean.)  Go for something totally abstract -
> AIs in a Technocore, an alien race along the lines of Niven's puppetmasters
> who are completely afraid of personal danger and risk and instead spend
> all their time manipulating other races into doing things for them, or
> even a simple capitalism-based mud where everyone is just out to make the
> most money.

It'd certainly be interesting either way. Capitalism is possible under the
systems we are designing (BUT not as sole intent, you also have to put
some effort into surviving, and keeping hold of the money you asmass).
>From Caliban's original tone, it seems that he is against anything likely
to annoy or irritate the victim (is this a correct assumption, Caliban?).
I believe this to be avoidable, and request sufferance from all players.
Those without the patience to play should not.
 
> > > Well the problem is, is that all your balance problems seem to be based 
> > upon
> > > XP/Level based systems and they don't really make sense if you don't have
> > > either of them.  I'm sure that I'll have loads of balance problems to 
> > start
> > > with, which is why I'm going to take most of my system from an already
> > > stable PnP system.
> > 
> > I'm basing my examples on level/XP based systems because it's relatively 
> > certain that we all understand how those work. I could always base it on 
> > the attribute/skill based system White Wolf uses, but that's very MUSHlike 
> > and people would complain. I could also base it on Amber diceless, but 
> 
> I disagree.  I think you'll find that the vast majority of the active members
> with servers in development have some sort of skill-based system, or at the
> very least nothing at all related to levels, classes, or experience.  What
> we're talking about is a system which uses a lot of specialized resources to
> get a more detailed and exact representation of your character, instead of
> the gross overgeneralization that is 'level'.  Methinks you'd have more luck
> just talking about a general skill/attribute system along the lines of
> existing muds (ie Legend or YaMUD) or along the lines of PnP games (ie WW
> or Runequest).

Absolutely. I recently changed to a fully (and dynamically) skill based
setup, as levels, experience and other concepts because extraneous to the
game and our notion of the gameplay and environment. It does seem a
natural evolution to me.
 
> > people would still complain. I could base it on Man, Myth, and Magic which 
> > had a dozen nationalities and a hundred odd skills and sixty some classes, 
> > but I don't think anyone here has any experience with it. What *should* I 
> 
> I'm not fond of classes, but I do know what they are.  I also know what
> skills are, of course.  If you'd like to talk about that go right ahead -
> I bet you'll have better luck than talking about D&D.

Heh, probably. Even for those of us who dislike classes as a concept (I am
still ambivalent, although my definition kept widening until I simply
threw it away) understand some of the notions and intents behind them.
 
> > target toward? 'Level' is a generic term we all understand. Race, class, 
> 
> Yes, but it's TOO generic.  You like to say 'high-level character' by which
> you mean an experienced character that has been playing the mud for some
> time and has aquired some sort of 'power'.  This doesn't give me much
> info though - a master fencer, a skilled wrestler, a really good chef, a
> great woodsman, and an experienced herbalist can all be considered 'high level',
> yet they are all completely different characters.  The chef, the woodsman,
> and the herbalist may have no more defence against physical attacks than
> any other newbie, although they are probably better able to steer clear of
> any such encounters.

Level is also too abstract for many of those on this list, given their
intents gamewisedly. I think a brief, verbose, (hah!) description would
probably serve better here.

[Snip]

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics." -?