[MUD-Dev] Re: combat

[Ben Greear]

diablo at best.com wrote:


> Yes, you are right in both ways: Detailed PvP systems and detailed mob
> combat systems do seem to be exclusive of each other, and it is a matter
> of opinion as to which you prefer. I guess I prefer PvP
> because of the challenge. There is no way a mob is going to ever be as
> interesting to fight as another player. The mob isn't going to
> intelligently trade insults with me after the fight, and beating the mob
> brings me no sense of accomplishment. I know there is another person
> behind another player, and as Hegel said, dominating your fellow mankind
> is (for better or for worse, I make not qualitative judgements here) one
> of the greater pleasures in life.
> 
> --matt

Apologies for this being the first post in this thread that I have
read with any detail!

It would seem to me that PvP combat would happen w/out any coding
what-so-ever.
It's restricting it that takes work.

On the other hand, mob combat is a lot of work to code, and it's hard
for
the builders to build what they really want (if they even care that
much).

I settled on setting about 4 personality traits:  Bad-assedness,
social-concious,
skill/spell-activity, protectiveness-v/s-defensiveness.  This allows me
to
control stuff in the code in a somewhat generic way (I have the other
stats
of the MOB to draw on as well, if I choose.)  It is also quite easy for
the
builders.

--
Ben Greear (greear at cyberhighway.net)  http://www.primenet.com/~greear 
Author of ScryMUD:  mud.primenet.com 4444        (Released under GPL)
http://www.primenet.com/~greear/ScryMUD/scry.html