[MUD-Dev] MUD Wimping

[adam at treyarch.com]

On Tue, 1 Aug 2000, Raph Koster wrote:
> In other words, you can get away with all sorts of sweeping changes as long
> as you always extend the capabilities of players, not reduce them. But if
> you reduce them, then you're in trouble.
> [snip]
> For smaller things, the "always add, never take away" rule works quite well.
> There've been many examples of such in countless muds, it's a tactic known
> to every mud admin I've ever discussed the topic with.

Which, of course, often results in a sort of "creeping power-itis" that
causes a game to gradually shift to something else entirely.

AnotherMUD was such an example.  The creatures that mid- and low-level
characters killed were once the hardest on the mud, but had long been
usurped by new areas with more powerful creatures as player abilities were
ramped up.

Perhaps the most telling remnant was the fact that clerics got a spell called
"full heal" which healed around 350 hitpoints of damage.  For reference,
your average warrior had over 1000 hitpoints, and my character had nearly 3000.
Even necromancers (who actually *lost* hitpoints when they gained a level)
usually hung out around 500 max hps.

Every so often a newbie would ask, "Why the heck is this spell called full
heal?  It's not a full heal at all!"  To which an old-timer would respond,
"Because when it was first added, warriors had about 300 hitpoints, and it
*was* a full heal!"

Adam





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