[MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[John Buehler]

Madrona Tree writes:

> How do I find out what an Aviak Charm is used for, then?  Besides
> doing the "/gu What's an Aviak Charm for?"  Asking in Guild chat is,
> in what I was trying to say, the same to me as looking it up on a
> spoiler site.  There is nothing about the Aviak Charm that says
> "Centaurs might want this."  If I looted a Centaur Hoof off of an
> Aviak, I might intuitively know that I should go talk to a centaur
> about it.

How do you find out in the real world?  When you see a centaur, you'll
see it wearing aviak charms around its neck.  So you ask it if it
wants to buy yours.  Or you carry the aviak charm on the end of your
walking staff and the centaur sees it and asks if you want to sell it.

A perception model is critical for natural interactions between
characters.  It's a character perception model, of course, because the
screen resolutions are far too low to try and have player perceptions
do the job. Further, we want to be able to enhance character
perceptions, so we'd need a character perception mechanism to
enchance.

I mention the perception model because if you hand that charm on the
end of your walking staff as a decoration (because you have no idea if
it's useful for anything), other characters may not even *see* that
charm being displayed to them.  Certainly not in a specific way.  A
character perception model lets the player who is running a centaur
tell his character to keep an eye out for aviak charms.  When you come
walking by, the player is alerted to the fact that there is a charm on
the end of your staff, and that can begin the interaction.

While incredibly valuable, implementing good perception models will be
a real tough nut to crack.

JB


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