From shren at io.com  Mon Jul  1 06:03:19 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Mon Jul  1 06:03:19 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what's next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24087.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Fri, 28 Jun 2002 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:
> From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]
>> On Fri, 21 Jun 2002 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:
>>> From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]
>>>> On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, Vincent Archer wrote:

> Well thats why I said have sanity checks and throttling. I don't
> think the problem can be prevented, but it can certainly be slowed
> and made less destructive. As far as I know NWN can have filtering
> of players on servers anyway, so you can check if peoples equip is
> viable for your module before letting them on.

You can filter the characters.  That means you draw a line and say,
"nobody taller than this beyond this point."  You have no way of
keeping out "unsavory" characters who were edited, if they were
edited to a point below your cutoff point.

> One good filter would be just how much xp they've made in how long
> and also cross reference with the server they did it on. Sure they
> can power up whilst watching tv if they create the right dungeon,
> but who cares if I can measure that and stop them playing with me
> or affecting my game?

You can't measure that.  Say that the server they did it on is down,
or the server they did it on lies.  There's no reason why one would
power up quickly - if the server flags xp gain of above 5000
experience an hour, gain 2000 an hour.  It's not like you have to
sit there and watch it.

It's not secure, which is why I imagine they didn't do it.

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From glowack2 at msu.edu  Mon Jul  1 09:47:51 2002
From: glowack2 at msu.edu (Edward Glowacki)
Date: Mon Jul  1 09:47:51 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Text Muds vs Graphical Muds
Message-ID: <mailman.24088.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Fri, 2002-06-28 at 09:33, Dave Rickey wrote:

> Threshold problem.  Each new player who joins the server is one
> more player to interact with.  At around the 500-1000 mark
> (100-200 peak population), each player that joins the server does
> more to increase the number of bad interactions than good ones,
> and effectively "crowds" someone else off the server.  Past 2500
> (500 peak), this turns around, the bad effects of additional
> people have gotten as bad as they are going to and now each
> additional person is a net gain for interactions.  You can hit
> other thresholds, your world may have a "carrying capacity", and
> certain rulesets (especially "agressive" PK+ rules) can push that
> capacity down.  But I think the next social scaling problem would
> set in around 50,000 players per world, and I don't know where
> stability would set in again (which makes TSO especially
> interesting to me, since its population will be in one world for
> social purposes).  The next one down is around 250 population
> *total*, or 50 peak.

I'm pretty sure I've heard the figure "250 people" for a max
community size before.  I'm not sure about the rest of your numbers,
but I'd guess that they are largely dependent on the organizational
structure of your population within the game.  I'd also wager that
if you can subdivide the population somehow, then you can
effectively keep the communities small or otherwise stable.

In Medievia (the MUD I used to play), clans (50 people max per clan)
were a good social division.  Ally a few clans together and you have
your 250 person social group.  Anyone else online I pretty much
ignored, except a few scattered friends in other clans.

I also suspect that if the players have the proper game mechanics
available, when they start feeling overcrowded, they'll move
somewhere else and somewhat avoid the problem.  Just like real life,
though it can potentially be a lot easier and safer (i.e. magic!) 
than some of the colonization journeys people have taken around
Earth.

The advantage of the virtual world is that land can be virtually
unlimited.  Not enough room on your one continent?  Add some
surrounding islands.  Then another continent.  Tired of continents,
add another planet.  Too many planets, make a new galaxy... ;) Of
course, this all really only works if you can add enough content to
these worlds to make them viable.  All the land in the world isn't
going to help if your hack-and-slash game only has 2 dungeons, in
which case the limiting factor is content, not social structure.

-ED
--
Edward Glowacki			glowack2 at msu.edu
Michigan State University	
"...a partial solution to the right problem is better than a complete
solution to the wrong one." (http://uiweb.com/issues/issue14.htm)

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Anderson  Mon Jul  1 10:19:47 2002
From: Anderson (Anderson)
Date: Mon Jul  1 10:19:47 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] It's About Time Dep... Food
Message-ID: <mailman.24089.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: John Buehler [mailto:johnbue at msn.com]

> Don't make food a required direct consumable for player
> characters.  Make food an NPC consumable.

After recently playing CivII as a break from coding, I came up with
an idea similar to this for my mud.

Basically, I wanted people to farm, bake bread, grow crops,
etc.. but of course people never would do this without a good
reason.  You always want to sell food fairly cheap so that newbies
won't have their characters starving (sending people away early
isn't a good way to grow).

So I was thinking you have people able to grow food in bulk, and
then transport it over to a storage room.  This room feeds the
invisible "population" of your city.  (Of course each kingdom would
have their own storage rooms).  Then you could have your population
of your kingdom working hard to feed the invisible people of the
kingdom.  Extra food in the storage room means growth (more tax
revenues, maybe larger armies, etc), less food means the population
may shrink.  Of course over time the food would be eaten, so you'd
always need people around to resupply.

Sounded like something people may enjoy, doing their best to
increase the size of their city (as long as having a large city
gives you nice benefits).

Dave

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From lynx at lynx.purrsia.com  Mon Jul  1 12:24:08 2002
From: lynx at lynx.purrsia.com (lynx at lynx.purrsia.com)
Date: Mon Jul  1 12:24:08 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what's next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24090.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Fri, 28 Jun 2002 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:

> Well thats why I said have sanity checks and throttling. I don't
> think the problem can be prevented, but it can certainly be slowed
> and made less destructive. As far as I know NWN can have filtering
> of players on servers anyway, so you can check if peoples equip is
> viable for your module before letting them on.
 
> One good filter would be just how much xp they've made in how long
> and also cross reference with the server they did it on. Sure they
> can power up whilst watching tv if they create the right dungeon,
> but who cares if I can measure that and stop them playing with me
> or affecting my game?

  1. People's standards of what makes for a 'fair' dungeon crawl
  experience and what are appropriate returns may vary widely.  Who
  sets the standards?  What happens if a module, through whatever
  design, provides 'inflated' rewards but we can only take the
  module's word for it that there was a matching risk?

  2. Some modules are designed for weaker characters, some for
  stronger.  Some people play their characters better than others.
  There just isn't a really good way to automatically scan a
  character to verify the character is suitable for your dungeon.

*I* think the problem would be trivially solved by having the DMs
create precreated characters and forcing the players to use them
instead of their own characters, but I doubt many people would enjoy
that.  They want to play *their* characters being tiny little gods
in the adventure.  They object to other people being tiny little
gods and stealing all the glory/loot/experience.  They probably also
object to the concept of multiple tiny little gods having done the
adventure before and more tiny little gods following them and
demanding they get through so that the other gods can have their
turn.

That being the case, I think they made the appropriate choice in
choosing not to support a central Vault concept, but rather, to
leave policing to the individual DMs.  This divides the playing
field into many smaller campaigns which can be managed according to
those DMs' tastes.

-- Conrad

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ChristopherA at skotos.com  Mon Jul  1 17:46:17 2002
From: ChristopherA at skotos.com (Christopher Allen)
Date: Mon Jul  1 17:46:17 2002
Subject: Player count threshholds (was: Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Muds vs Graphical
	Muds)
Message-ID: <mailman.24091.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Anderson, David" <david.anderson at tfp.com>

> Any other ideas why text muds seem to stop growing at some point?
> The servers aren't slowing down, it's not like the box can't
> handle another few hundred people.

"Dave Rickey" <daver at mythicentertainment.com> replied:

> Threshold problem.  Each new player who joins the server is one
> more player to interact with.  At around the 500-1000 mark
> (100-200 peak population), each player that joins the server does
> more to increase the number of bad interactions than good ones,
> and effectively "crowds" someone else off the server.  Past 2500
> (500 peak), this turns around, the bad effects of additional
> people have gotten as bad as they are going to and now each
> additional person is a net gain for interactions.  You can hit
> other thresholds, your world may have a "carrying capacity", and
> certain rulesets (especially "agressive" PK+ rules) can push that
> capacity down.  But I think the next social scaling problem would
> set in around 50,000 players per world, and I don't know where
> stability would set in again (which makes TSO especially
> interesting to me, since its population will be in one world for
> social purposes).  The next one down is around 250 population
> *total*, or 50 peak.

> Basicly, 500-750 players have many stable formations, as do
> 2500-15000+ (probably as high as 25K), but in between there are no
> stable social structures (this is handwaving, I don't know *why*
> there are no stable structures in those ranges, I've just observed
> it).  You need a *major* influx of population to carry you past
> the unstable population levels into the next stable regime.
> There's no reason you couldn't have a 2500+ player free MUD,
> except that drawing that many players requires promotional
> resources a free game isn't likely to have.  Social instability is
> interesting to observe, but usually not a lot of fun for the
> participants.

Wow, this is very interesting. I've heard of a number of other
thresholds or plateaus at smaller values, and a number of ideas
about causes of these thresholds, but this is the first time I've
heard this one or a threshold at this size.

In my two years commercial experience (Castle Marrach is almost 2
years old!)  and 5 games, we certainly have experienced some
thresholds.

One of the first is critical mass of players -- you need at least
50-80 active players before you have sufficient critical mass so
that the place doesn't often feel 'empty' for US customers. We have
figured out how to jumpstart that with our latest game because all
of our users can play all of our games, so when we opened the
'internal' beta we had critical mass from our own user base almost
immediately. There is another larger threshold, I'm not sure where
exactly, when there are sufficient people to attract from all
english speaking time zones so that the game is truly international.

Besides player thresholds, there are also staffing thresholds. You
need a critical mass of admins, builders, and coders. We had many
one or two person teams take our tools to develop games (the
original Skotos-Seven) but they were unable to sustain
development. I also think at >7-9 staff other issues come up (not
that different than when a small business grows.)

We have yet to cross the threshold where any single commercial game
is larger then 1000 users (though I've seen some free games with
slightly larger numbers, so maybe this threshold might be slighly
larger for a free game).  However, nothing in my experience can
refute the idea that there might be a threshold there as Dave
describes, and it might explain some things that are going on with
games that we already have released.

Dave, how did you come up with this hypothesis? Can you describe
some examples of this type of behavior in your personal experience?

Does anyone else have any evidence or anecdotes that support or
refute this hypothesis? Anyone familiar with the early history of
Simutronics, Kesmai, or other early commercial games?

-- Christopher Allen

------------------------------------------------------------------------
.. Christopher Allen                                 Skotos Tech Inc. ..
..                           1512 Walnut St., Berkeley, CA 94709-1513 ..
.. <http://www.Skotos.net>               o510/647-2760  f510/647-2761 ..



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com  Tue Jul  2 17:40:22 2002
From: Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com (Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com)
Date: Tue Jul  2 17:40:22 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights (Was: The Future of MMOGs... what's
	next?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24092.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]

> That, or let players play whatever they like, which is an
> interesting concept I wonder if anyone's tried yet.

Well it turns out this discussion is fairly moot as I was missing
the point of how NWN works when I wrote my parts of the above.

NWN isn't a tool for creating an MMORPG or MUD, its a tool for
creating traditional PnP style modules that people can drop into,
complete and then move on somewhere else. Since you, as the designer
can set the level range of your module, it makes no odds if someone
cheated to get their character to that level.

Furthermore, items have level restrictions on them based on their
properties. This means that if someone creates a 'vorpal sword+20
immunity to everything' they aren't going to be able to equip it on
a normal server, unless the host explictly turns off that
restriction.

Unlike a lot of multiplayer games, its not about your characters
level or equipment, its all about experiencing the module. Something
I tend to lose sight of spending so much time in MMOs and MUDs.

I really like it.

Dan
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Wed Jul  3 06:54:43 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Wed Jul  3 06:54:43 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Continuity of experience in movies
Message-ID: <mailman.24093.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, eric wrote:
> From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>
 
>> I don't see anything inherently wrong with linear games, or with
>> deciding you wish to restrict how your audience views your art.
 
> Nothing, as long as you know that "restrict how your audience
> views your art", really means restrict your audience. Restriction
> is just lost buisness and its not such a good buisness model.

There isn't a game either made or theorized, by anyone, that does
not restrict your audience. Further, saying that restriction is a
bad business model is a bit off. Movies restrict how you interact
with them. They do quite well. Books restrict how you interact with
them. Amusement parks restrict how you interact with them.
 
> The value and importance of art is the *art*, not the artist. They
> are very often connected anyway, thats just how our society works,
> rock stars and hollywood stars often get to speak of their
> personal beliefs and causes.  Does the average person really care? 
> I doubt it. Maybe the above is just my personal belief, its
> certianly a static one in my life. I recall an english teacher in
> high school when I was called on to explain a specific poem we had
> been reading, and then she went on to say I was wrong and that it
> meant X. It was humorous to me then, and still humorous to me now.

What does a good busines model have to do with art?
 
--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From daver at mythicentertainment.com  Wed Jul  3 09:19:35 2002
From: daver at mythicentertainment.com (Dave Rickey)
Date: Wed Jul  3 09:19:35 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Text Muds vs Graphical Muds
Message-ID: <mailman.24094.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>
> On Fri, 28 Jun 2002, Dave Rickey wrote:

>> Threshold problem.  Each new player who joins the server is one
>> more player to interact with.  At around the 500-1000 mark
>> (100-200 peak population), each player that joins the server does
>> more to increase the number of bad interactions than good ones,
>> and effectively "crowds" someone else off the server.  Past 2500
>> (500 peak), this turns around, the bad effects of additional
>> people have gotten as bad as they are going to and now each
>> additional person is a net gain for interactions.  You can hit
>> other thresholds, your world may have a "carrying capacity", and
>> certain rulesets (especially "agressive" PK+ rules) can push that
>> capacity down.  But I think the next social scaling problem would
>> set in around 50,000 players per world, and I don't know where
>> stability would set in again (which makes TSO especially
>> interesting to me, since its population will be in one world for
>> social purposes).  The next one down is around 250 population
>> *total*, or 50 peak.

> Hmm, this isn't born out by my experience insofar as I haven't
> ever noticed any problems from crossing any of the boundaries you
> speak of, and we haven't had to use any special marketing push or
> whatnot to move past them.

> You seem to be implying that it's player interactions that cause
> the problems, in which case choosing a number of participants
> doesn't seem appropriate as a measurement. 100 players stuck in a
> single room is a lot different from 100 players spread out among a
> million rooms.

Yeah, and if they can kill each other both would be different in yet
other ways.  I over-simplified, I'm trying to find a general set of
rules that works, and that might be applicable to situations we've
never seen (such as TSO's essentially one-world setup).  Interaction
levels definitely have something to do with it, and absolute numbers
do play a part, but so many influences act in the same ways at an
observable level it's difficult to isolate just one and figure out
how it is working.

> I think a huge part of it comes down to the design of the game.

But which part(s)?

--Dave


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Wed Jul  3 12:15:01 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Wed Jul  3 12:15:01 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24095.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Frank Crowell" <frankc at maddog.com>
> From: "Valerio Santinelli" <tanis at mediacom.it>
>> From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com>

>>> Rewind back to early 1998:

>>>   I wanted to release a suite of tools for UO. Specifically,
>>>   release a standalone Windows server (unencumbered by all the
>>>   multiserver cluster stuff--we had one for internal
>>>   development),

>> And we would not have had to build an UO server emulator in order
>> to bring up our own worlds. That would have been a hit on the UO
>> community. I wonder why the execs at Origin/EA didn't want to go
>> for

> Or have released a lightweight multiuser server and the tool for
> world building.  The majority of the people involved with emulator
> projects are not really interested in creating emulators -- they
> just want to have their version of worlds.  I believe that even
> the Unreal emulation project is more about porting to Linux than
> just to have an emulator.  Unreal is very good about having an
> open system as it is.

You are right. No one was really interested in emulating UO per
se. It's been done in order to be able to create our own worlds to
play on. And it worked quite fine, I can say. There still are UO
shards with hundreds of players online every day.

> With hindsight, UO had the chance to be the PC equivalent for
> virtual worlds. The other candidates could have been Quake or
> Unreal, but both continue to focus on a more limited approach to
> their worlds -- more niche marketing.

UO had the chance, but they missed it completely. And now its
technology is way too old to even consider building more on it. I
wonder if Nevrax is going to have a big impact on this. They are
already giving away their MMOG engine under the GPL licence. It is
going to be a good starting point to build our own virtual worlds
since it comes with all the features of a modern MMOG and has an
extremely rich API.  It's surely not going to be used by casual
world builders, but people with hacking skills are supposedly going
to be happy about it ;)

--
Valerio Santinelli
One Man Crew Gaming Community (http://www.onemancrew.org)
My Lab (http://tanis.hateseed.com)
HateSeed.com Founder (http://www.hateseed.com)
In Flames Italia Webmaster (http://www.inflames.it)



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From frankc at maddog.com  Wed Jul  3 17:45:25 2002
From: frankc at maddog.com (Frank Crowell)
Date: Wed Jul  3 17:45:25 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Meridian 59 purchased by developers
Message-ID: <mailman.24096.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Andrew Kirmse" <akirmse at pacbell.net>

> After 3DO shut down the U.S. servers, there were still localized
> versions running in Germany and Korea.  Someone in Russia also got
> hold of an unauthorized version and has been running it for
> awhile.  Any speculation about what will eventually happen to UO,
> EQ, and the like?  After they stop making money, will fans find a
> way to keep them alive?  

Yes, for a while the emulators will fill the gap.  Probably a longer
term way of dealing with this is sort of like movies -- you know
first run, second run, etc.  The existing commerical services are
more like the first-run theaters that have a high cost and expect
high return for their time.  The second-run could be licensees of
the world/game.  Of course this system doesn't exist yet, but if it
went into place it could help give the game a longer life.

Finally-- and this is my hobby horse isn't it-- tranferrable
characters and objects.The second-run servers are not going to have
the stablity that the commerical, first-run will have.  Without some
ability for transfer, you could spend 3 months on some server only
to find out that on Tuesday it is under water because of some storm
in Florida (really happened ) or the system crashed and the admin
"lost the whole darn system and there is no backup" (really
happened).

Although with licensees you would expect some minimum level of
service or they wouldn't stay licensees for long.

frank

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From xuri at sensewave.com  Wed Jul  3 18:04:18 2002
From: xuri at sensewave.com (Xuri)
Date: Wed Jul  3 18:04:18 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24097.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com>
> From: Jeff Freeman
>> burra at alum.rpi.edu wrote:

>>   I wanted to release a suite of tools for UO.

> If I remember, there were 2 fully functional UO server platforms
> created by customers who had reverse engineered the protocols.
> It's too bad that EA didn't go for the idea.

I don't think there has ever been any FULLY functional 3rd party UO
servers (meaning, there has always been some missing/incomplete
features/errors). Right now there are approxomately 10 different UO
servers being actively updated by non-OSI developers, and even the
oldest of those are still missing some of the features that have
been in the real servers for a long time.

Xuri


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From zcollins at seidata.com  Thu Jul  4 01:02:34 2002
From: zcollins at seidata.com (Zach Collins {Siege})
Date: Thu Jul  4 01:02:34 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] The importance of graphics
Message-ID: <mailman.24098.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

I was chatting with some friends last night, and we got onto the
subject of graphics in games.  One of them made the claim that
graphics will make or break a game, while another made a very
interesting point, that it's the *consistency* of the art direction
instead of just how pretty everything looks.

In a graphical MU* (MM or not), graphics can only be so dense, and
therefore have only a certain amount of inherent visual quality -
but under Moore's Law, that amount has been steadily improving with
the rest of computing.

So the question I want to ask is this, in three parts:

  How important is it to have graphics?  

  What level of visual quality (slickness, flashiness) is acceptable
  versus bandwidth or rendering considerations (assume that the
  graphics card has no effect)?  

  How is visual consistency important, how do you create it, and how
  do you maintain it throughout the life of a project (MMOGs being
  continuously expanded)?

--
Zach Collins (Siege)

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From daklozar at insightbb.com  Thu Jul  4 22:34:25 2002
From: daklozar at insightbb.com (David H. Loeser Jr.)
Date: Thu Jul  4 22:34:25 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24099.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Sean Kelly

> I was kind of hoping BioWare would put up an official player vault
> to facilitate this...  along with a few web boards specifically
> for organizing games, helping server owners interact, etc.  Still,
> I think NWN has a fantastic chance of becoming the game UO could
> have been.  Better late than never.

Am I missing something here? I mean NWN is not massive; I think
there is a max player count of 64. NWN is not persistent - as UO is.
How, then, can NWN be the game that UW could have been?  Don't
misconstrue my questions as being sarcastic... I really want to know
what you are comparing between the two games.

David "Dak Lozar" Loeser

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shannona at skotos.net  Fri Jul  5 16:53:40 2002
From: shannona at skotos.net (Shannon Appelcline)
Date: Fri Jul  5 16:53:40 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Completed Article Series at Skotos
Message-ID: <mailman.24100.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Two long series of articles have just concluded over at the Skotos
Articles area, one on parser engineering, the other on genre game
design.

NOTES FROM THE DAWN OF TIME
===========================
by Richard Bartle

PARSING. Richard's second series of articles is a lengthy engineer's
look at parsing for text games. It's quite in-depth.

  Notes from the Dawn of Time
  http://www.skotos.net/articles/DAWNOF.shtml

  * Notes # 9: "Introduction to Parsing" - 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof09.shtml

  * Notes #10: "The Stages of Parsing" - 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof10.shtml

  * Notes #11: "Lexical Analysis" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof11.shtml

  * Notes #12: "Grammar" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof12.shtml

  * Notes #13: "Parsing" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof13.shtml

  * Notes #14: "Algorithms for Parsing" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof14.shtml

  * Notes #15: "Backtracking" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof15.shtml

  * Notes #16: "Backtracking that Works" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof16.shtml

  * Notes #17: "Token Stream Management" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof17.shtml

  * Notes #18: "The Parse Tree" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof18.shtml
  
  * Notes #19: "The Binder" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof19.shtml

  * Notes #20: "Binding Noun Phrases" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof20.shtml

  * Notes #21: "Lightening the Load" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof21.shtml

  * Notes #22: "A Complete Example" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/dawnof22.shtml

Starting a week from Wednesday, Richard's *next* series will begin,
on Mobile AI.

BUILDING STORIES, TELLING GAMES
===============================
by Travis S. Casey

EXPLORING GENRES. Travis' recently completed series is all about
genres and how they can be used in on-line games. I personally found
this one as interesting for its discussion of genre as for the game
design perspective.

  Building Stories, Telling Games 
  http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG.shtml

   * BSTG #23: "Exploring Genres" 
     http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_23.shtml

   * BSTG #24: "Fantasy"
     http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_24.shtml

   * BSTG #25: "Fantasy, Part Two" 
     http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_25.shtml

   * BSTG #26: "Fantasy, Part Three" 
     http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_26.shtml

   * BSTG #28: "Science Fiction" 
     http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_28.shtml

   * BSTG #29: "Science Fiction vs. Science Fantasy" 
     http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_29.shtml

   * BSTG #30: "Horror" 
     http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_30.shtml

   * BSTG #31: "Horror, Part Two: Fear Itself" 
     http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_31.shtml

  * BSTG #32: "Metagenres & Stances" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_32.shtml

  * BSTG #33:  "Serious Talk about Comedy" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_33.shtml

  * BSTG #34: "There's Something Funny Going On Here" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_34.shtml

  * BSTG #35: "Romance" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_35.shtml

  * BSTG #36: "Mystery & Suspense" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_36.shtml

  * BSTG #37: "Suspense, Conspiracy & Closing Thoughts" 
    http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_37.shtml

Travis' series continues on two weeks from today, though I don't
know what the next topic is.

Shannon

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From azeraab at dies-irae.org  Fri Jul  5 17:54:13 2002
From: azeraab at dies-irae.org (Azeraab)
Date: Fri Jul  5 17:54:13 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] NWN upping the ante? Or is that too much to ask?
Message-ID: <mailman.24101.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

I'm sure I am not the only one who is disappointed with the current crop of
ORPGs.   Many of them are plagued with bland zones and tedious encounters.   

Without a doubt most NWN mods not worth it, but there certainly are a few
that really shine.   

Is it just a pipe dream of mine that the next generation of ORPGs will be
built by ex-NWN hackers who are into well designed and atmospheric
encounters instead of ex-MUDers who want to bury the player in text?  Or,
as I fear, will the cranial-anal amalgamation of the suits force a
continuance of the status quo?

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From brianhook at pyrogon.com  Fri Jul  5 23:27:47 2002
From: brianhook at pyrogon.com (brian hook)
Date: Fri Jul  5 23:27:47 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] The importance of graphics
Message-ID: <mailman.24102.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Zach Collins said:

> I was chatting with some friends last night, and we got onto the
> subject of graphics in games.  One of them made the claim that
> graphics will make or break a game, while another made a very
> interesting point, that it's the *consistency* of the art
> direction instead of just how pretty everything looks.

You need both.  Good quality graphics technology is sort of like
having a high school diploma -- having it doesn't mean much, but not
having it might just screw you pretty bad.

What people notice is consistent art direction on top of a good
engine.  High quality art direction and design can often lead to
much higher perceived technological quality.  Take a look at
Asheron's Call - - it had a decent engine, but completely piss poor
graphics which ultimately made it perceived as a "bad graphics
engine", which probably wasn't a fair assessment.

Everquest was lauded as having "Better than Quake 2" graphics (since
Quake 2 was the benchmark at the time of its release), but it
definitely did NOT have Q2 level technology.  It had progressive
meshes on the characters, but everything was vertex lit which made
things look atrocious vis a vis light radii.  BUT, Everquest had
astouding art, especially given that much of it was designed to run
on Voodoo 1.  Fantastic overall art quality really made it seem like
a much better graphics engine than it was.

A more modern example of this is World of Warcraft.  The first time
you look at it, it's "Wow, that looks great!" but then you REALLY
look at it, and it's just not that special technologically speaking
(which makes sense, given that Blizzard aims for much larger
demographic than most game companies are willing to target).
AFAICT, WoW doesn't even have bump mapping -- it's just regular old
Gouraud lit texture mapped stuff made with extremely gorgeous art.
The polygon counts don't even look that high.

>   How is visual consistency important, how do you create it, and
>   how do you maintain it throughout the life of a project (MMOGs
>   being continuously expanded)?

How it's done vs. how it should be done are two separate things.
The ideal is to have continuity with your art director and concept
artists who establish the flavor of the world.  Unfortunately,
personnel movement makes this difficult, not to mention the egos of
those that are doing the nuts and bolts of the art (making textures
and models and animations) who may have their egos bruised when
they're told that something they're making doesn't "fit the vision"
of the world.

-Hook


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu  Sat Jul  6 00:12:33 2002
From: Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu (Sasha Hart)
Date: Sat Jul  6 00:12:33 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights (Was: The Future of MMOGs... what's
	next?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24103.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

[Daniel Harman]

> NWN isn't a tool for creating an MMORPG or MUD, its a tool for
> creating traditional PnP style modules that people can drop into,
> complete and then move on somewhere else. Since you, as the
> designer can set the level range of your module, it makes no odds
> if someone cheated to get their character to that level.

I think you are right about the ostensible purpose of the game.

That doesn't stop it being put to another use - the emulation of
gameplay similar to what you might find in an "MMORPG" or MUD.

Arguably most of the precedent for MUD is set by the graphical
games, at least 90% of which don't climb above 64 simultaneous
players anyway.

The good I see in NWN is pretty much the same thing which most of us
cut our teeth on - smallish hobbyist games run for fun and local
prestige.  The tools are not as flexible as they could be, but they
are as flexible as the features of slightly modded DIKU. Which,
after all, spawned thousands and thousands of games, including
thousands of variations, some of them quite radically different from
the original.

As for tabletop style games, I know they are there, but the nature
of the beast as far as I can tell is to tend toward the
automated. Save the "roleplaying" servers or servers with
hyperactive GMs, you are left with a handful of games that ARE
basically equivalent to small to medium sized MUDs.

The point is well made that NWN is not itself a MUD or MMORPG. I
think there is a good case that it is *in effect* a MUD making tool
for several of the people running games there. And having played a
couple of these, not a terrible one at all.

Incidentally, how do people pronounce "MMORPG"??  Mumorpig?
MMMORPgee? ememoharpeegee? Hah.

Sasha

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From russw99 at swbell.com  Sat Jul  6 00:28:31 2002
From: russw99 at swbell.com (Russ Whiteman)
Date: Sat Jul  6 00:28:31 2002
Subject: Player count threshholds (was: Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Muds vs
	Graphical Muds)
Message-ID: <mailman.24104.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Christopher Allen" <ChristopherA at skotos.com>
> "Dave Rickey" <daver at mythicentertainment.com> replied:

>> Threshold problem.  Each new player who joins the server is one
>> more player to interact with.  At around the 500-1000 mark
>> (100-200 peak population), each player that joins the server does
>> more to increase the number of bad interactions than good ones,
>> and effectively "crowds" someone else off the server.  Past 2500
>> (500 peak), this turns around, the bad effects of additional
>> people have gotten as bad as they are going to and now each
>> additional person is a net gain for interactions.  You can hit
>> other thresholds, your world may have a "carrying capacity", and
>> certain rulesets (especially "agressive" PK+ rules) can push that
>> capacity down.  But I think the next social scaling problem would
>> set in around 50,000 players per world, and I don't know where
>> stability would set in again (which makes TSO especially
>> interesting to me, since its population will be in one world for
>> social purposes).  The next one down is around 250 population
>> *total*, or 50 peak.

> Does anyone else have any evidence or anecdotes that support or
> refute this hypothesis? Anyone familiar with the early history of
> Simutronics, Kesmai, or other early commercial games?

I started playing Simutronics (GemStone III) while they were only
available on GEnie, with a peak in-game population of 60-80, and I
started working for them a few weeks after they became available
through AOL, where population peaked at about 600, and on through
AOL's flat-rate, when the population ran around 2000 and
occasionally approached 2500.  So I've got observations from a
fairly wide range of sizes.  I could not say that I saw any
particular behavioral changes at the ranges stated above.  The
overall behavioral changes we saw seemed to be more related to the
explosive growth-rates that were caused by other factors (the
increased exposure we got when we first moved to AOL, and the same
again when AOL went flat-rate).  The flood of new arrivals simply
overwhelmed the existing culture, leading to something like anarchy.
It didn't help that we were chronicly undersized for both of those
periods, it was rather like the "overcrowded rat" experiments so
apochrophal during the 70's...

So, in short, my experience doesn't support the hypothesis, but I'm
not sure it can legitimately be used to refute it, either.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tedlchen at yahoo.com  Sat Jul  6 09:15:54 2002
From: tedlchen at yahoo.com (Ted L. Chen)
Date: Sat Jul  6 09:15:54 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] The importance of graphics
Message-ID: <mailman.24105.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Zach Collins (Siege) Writes:

>   How important is it to have graphics?

Ask a man to describe a tree.  

  The first tells of the fullness leaves, swaying in the wind.  The
  trunk, of deep earth-brown, a stout monolith, supporting the crown
  of green.

  Ask a second, and he describes an obstacle, one that is easily
  circumvented.

  Ask a third, and you get the response that it is a mere sapling in
  a forest of grand trees.  One that spans into the distant haze.
  The tree, sheltered in the broken light of its older siblings,
  sways gently in the breeze that runs through the passageways of
  this forest.

To each of these people, the same representation has different
meanings.  The first man sees a tree in detail.  This description is
equally suited to either a verbose MUD text, or a graphical MUD.

To the second man, the tree is just an object in the world.  The
text "A tree stands in your way" is just as effective than a picture
of a tree.  Graphically, it could be represented by a box for all he
cares.

The third, while doable on a text mud using look and examine
keywords, is much better suited to graphics.  With graphics, there
is no need to second-guess what level of detail the MUD supports as
the information can be intuitively gathered at a glance.  The
interaction between this tree and other objects in the world also
convey in a much easier form graphically.

So, in answer to the question of whether graphics are important, ask
yourself what would be important to your players.  Are they the type
to care about the pattern of light that falls on the leaves?  Or do
they just view the tree as some annoying navigation problem.  Or are
they a budding botanist?

>   What level of visual quality (slickness, flashiness) is
>   acceptable versus bandwidth or rendering considerations (assume
>   that the graphics card has no effect)?

Tied somewhat strongly to the question above, I would say that if
your target players fit type 1, then a rather detailed polygon
should be used.  Some people are very attentive to the fine detail.
If type 2, then something akin to a box is all that is
need... although I'd hazard that pure type 2's are rare - so it
should be at least aesthetically pleasing.  Type 3's will likely
forgo detail in exchange for a more holistic experience.  Day-night
cycles (even approximated) might be worth more in terms of bandwidth
than higher textures on the tree bark.

>   How is visual consistency important, how do you create it, and
>   how do you maintain it throughout the life of a project (MMOGs
>   being continuously expanded)?

The ins and outs of 'how', I'll defer to more esteemed persons on
this list who have had hands-on experience creating MMOGs.  However,
I'd hazard a guess that visual consistency ranks highest in type 3's
compared to the other two.


TLC

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From amanda at alfar.com  Sat Jul  6 10:37:24 2002
From: amanda at alfar.com (Amanda Walker)
Date: Sat Jul  6 10:37:24 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Building a \\\'Deeper\\\' MMOG
Message-ID: <mailman.24106.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On 6/30/02 3:58 PM, Paul Schwanz <paul.schwanz at east.sun.com> wrote:

> On the other hand, if there is no Thread to fight, can a player
> 'be' a person living on the planet of Pern.  I'll take it a step
> farther (and this is where I personally have difficulty with
> roleplaying centered games).  'Acting' like a person living on the
> planet of Pern is very different (at least for me) than 'being' a
> person living on the planet of Pern.  I play to 'be' a person on a
> different world, and for me, every time I have to 'act' it is an
> unwelcome reminder to me that I am not 'being.'  So for me, acting
> like I'm fighting Thread isn't nearly as fun as experiencing some
> sort of Thread combat.

This thread is reminding me of conversations I've had in different
contexts about activities ranging from historical reenactment to the
SCA to theatre.  I'll bring up the SCA, since it seems to be the
closest analogy.

One thing I've noticed in the SCA is a shift in how people
participate over time.  When they are new to it, they tend to focus
on "acting"--a bit of self consciousness, a focus on the persona
that they have constructed (or, more often, are in an ongoing
process of developing).  After ten years or so, it's not acting,
it's just being, because they now have enough personal and shared
context to make acting unnecessary.  So, for example, when a
grizzled old fighter is telling stories around the campfire
comparing the day's combat with years past, it's real.  Sure, it's
not real with steel weapons and actual death, but the *experiences*
are real.

You can also see this in gaming.  Once a game has lasted long enough
to provide its own historical and cultural context, "being" in the
game takes on a different hue than in the beginning when everything
is shiny and new.  Themed games often try to bridge this gap by
referring to literary or movie contexts (from Pern, Star Wars,
Gormenghast, whatever), but even non-themed games develop it over
time.


Amanda Walker

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Sat Jul  6 10:48:09 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Sat Jul  6 10:48:09 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights (Was: The Future of MMOGs... what's
	next?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24107.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com>
> From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]

>> That, or let players play whatever they like, which is an
>> interesting concept I wonder if anyone's tried yet.

> NWN isn't a tool for creating an MMORPG or MUD, its a tool for
> creating traditional PnP style modules that people can drop into,
> complete and then move on somewhere else. Since you, as the
> designer can set the level range of your module, it makes no odds
> if someone cheated to get their character to that level.

You are right. The main scope is to create online modules to
experience once. Like the adventures released by TSR for Dungeons &
Dragons. It's something like a port of this kind of adventures to a
computer game.

But there is more to NWN. People are already building servers for
persistant worlds. I am one of those and I'm confident that it can
be done with the tools that come with NWN.

NWScript, the scripting engine of NWN, is pretty good and very
powerful. At the moment you can virtually do anything you've already
seen in UO or DAoC for example. I've already implemented binding
points similar to the binding stones of DAoC. And I've made respawn
points like the ones in UO. The only problem I see right now is the
persistance of character's data.  In NWN you can assign local
variables to each character in order to track quests completion and
similar things. The problem is that when the server saves the
character, it does not save those variables. I'm confident Bioware
is going to add this feature in an upcoming patch. Once this is
done, you can be pretty sure that you will be able to make shards
like with UOX. And you get what the UO emulators are still
missing. You can link together servers and have people move from one
to the other.

I see NWN as the next step in user-created worlds, just like UOX3
was the first real step towards bringing user-run graphical MMOGs
with easy to create content.

> Unlike a lot of multiplayer games, its not about your characters
> level or equipment, its all about experiencing the
> module. Something I tend to lose sight of spending so much time in
> MMOs and MUDs.

Yes, basically it's like this. But you can completely rewrite the
rules of your online game and make them like in MUDs. It's all up to
the server builders.

--
c'ya!

Valerio Santinelli
tanis at mediacom.it
HateSeed Gaming Magazine http://www.hateseed.com/
My Lab http://tanis.hateseed.com/
In Flames Italia http://www.inflames.it/


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Sat Jul  6 10:58:17 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Sat Jul  6 10:58:17 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24108.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "David H. Loeser Jr." <daklozar at insightbb.com>
> From: Sean Kelly

>> I was kind of hoping BioWare would put up an official player
>> vault to facilitate this...  along with a few web boards
>> specifically for organizing games, helping server owners
>> interact, etc.  Still, I think NWN has a fantastic chance of
>> becoming the game UO could have been.  Better late than never.

> Am I missing something here? I mean NWN is not massive; I think
> there is a max player count of 64. NWN is not persistent - as UO
> is.  How, then, can NWN be the game that UW could have been?
> Don't misconstrue my questions as being sarcastic... I really want
> to know what you are comparing between the two games.

NWN can be massive. The limit on 64 players is not fixed. You can
bring it up to more players. It all depends on how much CPU power
you've got. And you can link together more servers to build a
shard-alike cluster.  NWN is semi-persistant. At the moment all the
changes to your world are saved in a savegame that you can import in
your original module before restarting the server in order to have
them applied. Characters can be saved on a server's vault.

The only problem about making it a fully persistant game is that
variables tied to characters, that are used to track quests
completion and similar thing, are not saved with the characters
themselves. I guess Bioware is going to release a patch fo this
behaviour.

Now, if you've seen the toolset released by Bioware, you can agree
with me that creating a world with that tool is really easy. I am
building a persistant world for NWN myself and I can make new areas
in a matter of minutes. Adding content is easy and can be done in
whatever fashion you like. I even got to spend 20 or 30 minutes
creating a single item and tweaking all its values to my liking. But
you can also drop standard items into your world with a single click
and build such content in 5 minutes. It all depends to you, the
server builder. And I see great power in that toolset.

You also get NWScript, which is a scripting language with syntax
similar to C. And you can do virtually everyhing with it.

I've had a look at the original scripts from Bioware. You can see
that all the code related to how combat works, how XP are assigned,
how spells affect other creatures, and more, are all done with
NWScript. This means that you can completely rewrite the rules of
your game. NWN holds great power. I agree it's the next step after
UO, but not only UO. It's the next step of what UO emulators have
done till now. Bring server-building capabilities to the masses.

--
c'ya!

Valerio Santinelli
tanis at mediacom.it
HateSeed Gaming Magazine http://www.hateseed.com/
My Lab http://tanis.hateseed.com/
In Flames Italia http://www.inflames.it/


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ericleaf at pacbell.net  Sat Jul  6 16:40:31 2002
From: ericleaf at pacbell.net (eric)
Date: Sat Jul  6 16:40:31 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Achaea's history
Message-ID: <mailman.24109.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>

>   7. Enjoy it. If you don't, give it up as you'll never stick with
>   it long enough. I still love running Achaea on a day to day
>   basis, which is one reason it is successful. I suspect that
>   attitude ends up permeating your entire world.

Fantastic post Matt, very interesting stuff. What about the server
and hosting?

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ericleaf at pacbell.net  Sun Jul  7 03:15:44 2002
From: ericleaf at pacbell.net (eric)
Date: Sun Jul  7 03:15:44 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] The importance of graphics
Message-ID: <mailman.24110.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Zach Collins (Siege)" <zcollins at seidata.com>

> I was chatting with some friends last night, and we got onto the
> subject of graphics in games.  One of them made the claim that
> graphics will make or break a game, while another made a very
> interesting point, that it's the *consistency* of the art
> direction instead of just how pretty everything looks.

>   How important is it to have graphics?

Picture...thousand words... Thinking in terms of bandwidth, the eyes
take in the most data. I think its the only thing of
importance. Myst sold millions on that one concept, of course Myst
was more than just a static piece of art on your monitor, but not
much more.

It sets the tone, creates the most immersion, and obviously is much
more agreeable for the mass market. I read books as much as the next
guy, but books, while often give more depth than a movie, force me
to pause my immersive entertainment once every 3-5 minutes when I
turn the page. Another thing of note in relation to much of the MUD
knowledge base, a book doesn't offer much in the way of exploration
and thats a strength of MUDs.

But back to the bandwidth thing, because I can take in more
graphically than text-ually, exploration gets subdued in a grapical
game. Especially when the cursor changes when I mouseover an object
I can manipulate (exploration by numbers, or something). This
follows though, since we are humans and we do live in a world where
visuals serve most of the information gathering needs we have. Are
there any statistics taken from a large population that place people
into those MUD groups, I'm sure some nutty professor has done
something like this. I don't know the terms used to describe or I
would search. I would bet the smallest percentage would be
explorers. Anyway, moving on...

>   What level of visual quality (slickness, flashiness) is
>   acceptable versus bandwidth or rendering considerations (assume
>   that the graphics card has no effect)?

My personal opinion on the subject is "be subtle", I think clean
effects are more immersive than flash. In other words some effects
look cool and neat, but don't particularly add anything to the
experience, and for some actually detract. A popular one that I
really dislike is lens flare, as soon as I see that my brain
interprets the entire image I'm seeing as if it were thru something
that actually has lens flare, my eyes sure don't. So its not me, or
a creature that has eyes in any fashion similar to humans. (This is
pretty lame on other levels as well. A good example Tribes had it,
they also had jetpack suits, but unfortunately on Tribes world
sunglasses don't exist or budgetary concerns prevent the military
from using them, spent it all on jetpacks no doubt.)

Personally I would let the user determine the flashiness of their
fireballs and lightningbolts, of course it would cost more mana if
they want to fill a room up with smoke and particles. I doubt it
would really require that much effort to create a personalize-able
spell effects system, would even be an interesting experiment to see
what users prefer themselves. Giving control the users, oh my,
blasphemy, not my view of course.

>   How is visual consistency important, how do you create it, and
>   how do you maintain it throughout the life of a project (MMOGs
>   being continuously expanded)?

Good art directors/direction, great artists.The more complex your
art the more work it would become to maintain a consistant
vision. Disney no doubt has a large pool of good to great artists,
and they are working with a simple medium, so consistency is
assured.  A long term, long life project like a MMOG would require
herculean efforts to gain the same. Or novel methods like sectioning
the world into subgroups where consistency can be easily handled on
a smaller scale (For example DAoC did this by having 3 separate
worlds that were internally consistent, but not nessarily all
together consistent. I would bet the artists were in different
groups too, since the quality varied overall between each world as
well.) This can be seen as a managerial solution.

You could easily think up a variety of situations that are similar
to simplify the art. If the world is very large and there are lot of
art assets you can group them by culture, climate and a variety of
different ways.  There are hundreds of varieties of grass, so they
don't need to all look the same, same with trees, as well as human
made objects. Compare ancient european, indian and eastern
architecture.



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From fullermd at over-yonder.net  Sun Jul  7 12:23:56 2002
From: fullermd at over-yonder.net (Matthew D. Fuller)
Date: Sun Jul  7 12:23:56 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] The importance of graphics
Message-ID: <mailman.24111.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Thu, Jul 04, 2002 at 01:02:34AM -0400 I heard the voice of
Zach Collins (Siege), and lo! it spake thus:

> I was chatting with some friends last night, and we got onto the
> subject of graphics in games.  One of them made the claim that
> graphics will make or break a game, while another made a very
> interesting point, that it's the *consistency* of the art
> direction instead of just how pretty everything looks.

I'm just going to touch on the 'consistency' point a bit.  I'm not a
graphical kind of guy; I have only the vaguest appreciation for
graphics, and if you go a few steps downward from zero, you'll find
my ability to create them.

I think consistency IS the make-or-break of graphics.  For an
example, take the game "Serf City" (also released as "Settlers").  I
played it on a 386/40.  The gameplay was fun, but extremely limited.
It had support for 2-player games, but only by splitting the screen
and using 2 meece.  The graphics were actually pretty impressive for
the era and computing muscle behind it, but they're nothing
spectacular; a few sprites with a couple variants of each for
walking, working, fighting, etc.

Everything was very simplistic.  The graphics made the game; not
because they were great, but because they were all very consistent,
and they all fit perfectly with the whole tone of the game.  This
was a FUN game, not a SERIOUS game, and the graphics inclined
beautifully in that direction.  So I guess this is 'fit' as well as
'consistency'.

If you have beautiful artistic near-lifelike rendering of carefully
crafted avatars with a few hundred thousand polygons each, in a
cartoon-ish gameplay, it's going to look like crap.


--
Matthew Fuller     (MF4839)   |  fullermd at over-yonder.net
Systems/Network Administrator |  http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/
       "Klein bottle for sale ... inquire within."

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From efindel at earthlink.net  Sun Jul  7 13:28:43 2002
From: efindel at earthlink.net (Travis Casey)
Date: Sun Jul  7 13:28:43 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Animals, Animal Handling,
	and Unexpected Side Effects
Message-ID: <mailman.24112.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Saturday 29 June 2002 11:58, Sean Kelly wrote:
> From: "Travis Casey" <efindel at earthlink.net>

>> Triggering more reminiscing here...

>> There's a lot of tactics along these lines that people use in
>> paper games:

>>  - turning fallen foes into zombies and using them to look for
>>  traps

> Ugh.  I regularly DMed for a group of friends, and this kind of
> stuff happened regularly.  On the way to one dungeon, their party
> encountered a random patrol in the mountains, who warned them of
> some goblin activity in the area.  My friend Todd levitated up
> from his horse and cast cloudkill on the patrol.... then spend the
> next few days animating them all as zombies.  Needless to say,
> when they got to the dungeon he had plenty of cannon fodder.  This
> is a very effective trick and one that I applaud.  It can be
> pleasantly challenging as a DM to try to come up with ways to
> defeat these tactics while maintaining the continuity of the game.

That's one of my favorite parts of being a GM -- putting my wits up
against the players'.  This happens in muds as well, but in a less
real-time way; players come up with new strategies, you hear about
them or see the effects, and then you have to think of a counter.

Of course, after a while, you get to where you anticipate, and start
thinking of such tactics in advance.  And, of course, you start
having NPCs and monsters use them too.  But there are always
surprises, and to me, that's part of the fun of being a GM.

>> Robert Plamondon's book _Through Dungeons Deep_ describes some
>> tactics for real paranoids -- e.g., his recommended handling of
>> chests in dungeons:

> Great advice, though as a DM I would punish a player for being so
> paranoid.  I appreciate (and reward) intelligence and creativity,
> but taken this far the game slows to a crawl.

Well, Plamondon himself says that most of the time, such tactics
aren't needed -- they're the ultra-safe extreme.  And they don't
need to slow the game to a crawl.  If such tactics are the standard
method the characters use, then you can simply gloss over them after
the first time or two, with an "Ok, you guys handle the chest the
usual way.  Twenty minutes later, you're done."

> My favorite trick towards over-powered characters was to have them
> find a cubic gate or amulet of the planes and trick them into
> using it.  There's nothing quite so fun as a panicked flight
> across hades.

Heh.

>> For the reasons *why* gamers sometimes got this paranoid, see
>> Flying Buffalo's wonderful "Grimtooth's Traps" series of books.

> Clever traps are so much fun.  I remember reading about one
> particularly nasty one that was a standard pit trap that had thin
> layers of slate every few feet with a glyph of warding inscribed
> on each.  Needless to say, it's unlikely anything would make it to
> the bottom.

The second "Grimtooth's" had a set of traps called the "various
killers of paranoids".  These were traps for chests which were
designed to leave someone right next to the chest alone, but hurt or
kill characters who opened the chest from a distance.  Arms races in
games can be so much fun... :-)

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_     Travis S. Casey  <efindel at earthlink.net>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-' 
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) 

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Sun Jul  7 14:51:16 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Sun Jul  7 14:51:16 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Achaea's history
Message-ID: <mailman.24113.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sat, 6 Jul 2002, eric wrote:
> From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>
 
>>   7. Enjoy it. If you don't, give it up as you'll never stick
>>   with it long enough. I still love running Achaea on a day to
>>   day basis, which is one reason it is successful. I suspect that
>>   attitude ends up permeating your entire world.
 
> Fantastic post Matt, very interesting stuff. What about the server
> and hosting?

Ahh, that's easy. We just use a high-end PC. I think right now it's
a 1.7 gig processor with 512 megs of RAM. Nothing
special. Hosting-wise, we started on Mudservices, which went to hell
when Fastnet bought the ISP that owned Mudservices. We now host with
Wolfpaw.net, and are very happy with it (as we're their largest
customer, we get whatever we want/need).

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ppboyle at centurytel.net  Mon Jul  8 05:21:36 2002
From: ppboyle at centurytel.net (Paul Boyle)
Date: Mon Jul  8 05:21:36 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24114.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

I'm new to this forum, so please bear with me if I step on any rules
of etiquette.

I'm interested in any articles or resources people could point me to
on the development of in-game creation systems for MUDs, MMORPGs,
and to a lesser extent, any computer game, like the Lego-based
games, or The Incredible Machine.

I'm also interested to hear peoples opinions on the most complex,
realistic, fun and/or effective crafting systems they've run into.

I know I should probably start with some examples of my own to get
the ball rolling.  So here goes.

  Simultronics - Dragonrealms - The most complex systems I've run
  across have been there.  The forging system in particular was
  almost as much complexity as I could have wished for.  However,
  the barriers to entry, the tedium, and the lack of balance really
  dissapointed.

  Everquest, and other items-by wrote combination - The easiest and
  most boring systems I've seen out there all use the everquest
  model.

  Simcity, and it's like - I think a MUD based crafting system could
  and should evolve from principles like those in SimCity, lots of
  relatively simple components (lots and lots and lots) connecting
  in myriad ways, rather than the current trend, which seems to be
  creation by predetermined recipe, or creation by jumping through
  several chokepoints.

    Note: I'm not asking about coding systems, I realize that asking
    which MUD type allows the most flexibility for a dev to create
    is a whole different ball of wax.

As to the reason for my request.  Part of it is personal interest, I
haven't run across a system that I was entirely impressed with.
Part of it is to get a feel for what kind of theory exists on
creating fun crafting systems.  Part of it is just cause I think
it'll be a fun discussion.  I hope I'm right about that at least!


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shren at io.com  Mon Jul  8 05:52:44 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Mon Jul  8 05:52:44 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24115.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, Valerio Santinelli wrote:

>> Or have released a lightweight multiuser server and the tool for
>> world building.  The majority of the people involved with
>> emulator projects are not really interested in creating emulators
>> -- they just want to have their version of worlds.  I believe
>> that even the Unreal emulation project is more about porting to
>> Linux than just to have an emulator.  Unreal is very good about
>> having an open system as it is.
 
> You are right. No one was really interested in emulating UO per
> se. It's been done in order to be able to create our own worlds to
> play on. And it worked quite fine, I can say. There still are UO
> shards with hundreds of players online every day.

I don't remember most of the emulators as being able to handle that
many.  As far as I remember, none of them split the world into
zones, so they're limited to at most one machine.  Granted, most of
my experience is with PoL shards, which have a scripting layer
handling a lot of the processing.  Flexible, but not particularly
fast.

>> With hindsight, UO had the chance to be the PC equivalent for
>> virtual worlds. The other candidates could have been Quake or
>> Unreal, but both continue to focus on a more limited approach to
>> their worlds -- more niche marketing.

> UO had the chance, but they missed it completely. And now its
> technology is way too old to even consider building more on it. I
> wonder if Nevrax is going to have a big impact on this. They are
> already giving away their MMOG engine under the GPL licence. It is
> going to be a good starting point to build our own virtual worlds
> since it comes with all the features of a modern MMOG and has an
> extremely rich API.  It's surely not going to be used by casual
> world builders, but people with hacking skills are supposedly
> going to be happy about it ;)

I'm never suprised to see the people promoting the next big thing as
the replacement to the existing thing.  Sort of ironic considering
that this is a list devoted largely to text muds.  If UO could get
something like this out in less than 6 months, they could still get
in on the whole coming "user edited" worlds movement.  It would
certainly help sell an expansion, maybe it's very own expansion.
(How many UO users follow the whole expansion cycle, anyway?)

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rgabbard at swbell.net  Mon Jul  8 10:59:01 2002
From: rgabbard at swbell.net (Ron Gabbard)
Date: Mon Jul  8 10:59:01 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24116.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

There have been a number of threads focused on the issue of
enhancing the game experience for players of MM games.  Me and a
couple pots of coffee just recently finished the 'pre-packaged'
modules in NWN.  It was one of the better CRPG experiences I've had
in years.  But, it then hit me that the fastest way to ruin that
experience would have been to add 3,000 concurrent players.  Every
encounter/area/quest was designed for the single player/group
systematically going through a achieving sequential goals.  There is
just a vast difference between single-player/group CRPGs and
MMORPGs.  It's kind of like the evolution of grocery stores.

Grocery stores used to be small corner markets where the owner
operated the store and knew most of their customers.  "Charge"
accounts were kept in paper books and the individual business owner
would extend or deny credit based on their previous experience with
the customer.  If an elderly person came to their store, they would
have someone help the person get their groceries to the car or even
deliver them free-of-charge.  It was a very individualized, personal
experience between the customer and the grocery store/owner.  The
person at the check out counter wore a friendly smile and had the
authority to knock a couple cents off the price if a cantaloupe was
particularly bruised.

Enter the 'supermarket'... Supermarkets carry a greater variety of
products at lower prices.  They are typically less convenient to get
to than the corner grocery store as they have opted for a
centrally-located position to many residential areas versus 'walking
distance' from a specific residential area.  The owner of the
grocery store probably isn't on-site and may even be comprised of
thousands of individuals in the case of publicly-traded corporate
chains.  Credit is given through Visa or Mastercard and checks are
accepted based on the issuance of 'check cashing' cards once the
customer has followed standardized 'credit check' procedures.  The
friendly face at the check-out counter has been replaced by a 'Hi My
name is Fred' robot whose goal it is to get you through the line as
fast as possible and will price things according to what the scanner
reads.

In short, they are both grocery stores but one is designed to serve
the needs of the massively multi-shopper market while the other is
designed for a more personal experience for a couple hundred regular
customers.  The supermarket just can't offer the same level of
personal experience as the owner-operated grocery store while
maintaining their economies of scale and the corner grocery store
can't profitably offer the low price, wide variety of products, nor
support as heavy of traffic as the supermarket while maintaining a
'personal' experience.

This presents an interesting dilemma for designers of MM games.  The
'shopping experience' in the supermarket is a by-product of the
customer going in and buying their products.  The 'gaming
experience' is the product in MM games.  Thus, creating a
'supermarket experience' isn't acceptable for many players as they
want that personalized attention (feeling like they are 'the'
hero... or at least significant in the game world).  Nor is trying
to cram thousands of customers through a 'corner market' acceptable
as the system just isn't designed to handle it.

The latest trend has been towards 'mass customization'.  That is,
giving each customer the ability to purchase the product/service
they specifically desire while still maintaining the benefit of
economies of scale.  This is true of almost every industry -- golf
clubs, computers, automobiles, supermarkets, and now MMOGs.
However, while mass customization may try to emulate the personal
experience of the 'corner market', the best it can do is to provide
the customized tangible product... not the experience.  Having a
last name that is not intuitively pronounced, I get to experience
this failure first-hand almost every day as sales clerks hand me my
debit card and say "Thank you for shopping with us, Mr. <Enter
bastardized version of my last name>.  Come again."  The clerk
doesn't know me from Adam yet they are trying to emulate a level of
intimacy that was pretty standard in the days of the 'corner
markets'... the personalized shopping experience.

Within the context of MMOGs, this is even harder to achieve.  I can
go in and buy groceries, a pair of jeans, or a new computer and come
home satisfied that I got my money's worth if I received a good
product at a fair price.  As long as the store is relatively clean,
not too crowded, and the service is adequate, the actual shopping
experience is of marginal importance.  (Note the other trend in the
rise of super mass-merchandising like Wal-Mart and Sam's Club.) It
may be that MMOGs are turning into 'virtual Wal-Marts' where players
now spend time to earn 'a bubble of XP', camp 'uber loot', or bump
'blacksmithing X points'.  The tangible costs and benefits (XP and
loot per hour spent in-game) dominate the intangible benefits of the
personalized experience (with the 'personalized experience' in an
RPG being defined as the player being significant in the game
world).

One attempt at mass customization has been the implementation of
'mission terminals' where players can get access to content that is
specifically designed by the player in terms of difficulty, theme,
and rewards.  This has helped alleviate many of the issues faced by
previous games that tried to cram thousands of players through a
'corner market' system.  However, is lowering the price (in terms of
time and availability) and increasing the tangible rewards a step
towards personalizing the experience for a mass market or is it a
step towards 'Wal-Martism'?  Does the player become any more
significant in the game world because they no longer have to camp
mobs for hours to get a specific weapon or no longer have to wait in
line for access to certain content or are no longer forced to group
with other players?

Having played MMOGs almost exclusively for too long, NWN was like
being parched and having a glass of water.  It was fun being
'significant' again and playing a game where the tangible rewards
(loot and XP) were the by-product of achieving in-game goals versus
being the goal in itself.  Are MMOGs destined to become 'Wal-Marts'
where "level-appropriate" content is conveniently provided at the
lowest cost possible or is there a way of achieving mass
customization where every player can be significant in a game world
of thousands?

Cheers,

Ron




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul  8 12:29:44 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul  8 12:29:44 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what's next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24117.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: lynx at lynx.purrsia.com

> *I* think the problem would be trivially solved by having the DMs
> create precreated characters and forcing the players to use them
> instead of their own characters, but I doubt many people would
> enjoy that.  They want to play *their* characters being tiny
> little gods in the adventure.  They object to other people being
> tiny little gods and stealing all the glory/loot/experience.  They
> probably also object to the concept of multiple tiny little gods
> having done the adventure before and more tiny little gods
> following them and demanding they get through so that the other
> gods can have their turn.

You make it sound so _dirty_ that people want to create, advance and
have control over their virtual alter ego. =)

As it is, it seems to me that the BioWare guys came up with the two
best scenarios anyway.  Either play on a character that plays on
that server only, or a DM has an option to simply not allow a
character in the front door.

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul  8 12:59:55 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul  8 12:59:55 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Text Muds vs Graphical Muds
Message-ID: <mailman.24118.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Dave Rickey

> Yeah, and if they can kill each other both would be different in
> yet other ways.  I over-simplified, I'm trying to find a general
> set of rules that works, and that might be applicable to
> situations we've never seen (such as TSO's essentially one-world
> setup).  Interaction levels definitely have something to do with
> it, and absolute numbers do play a part, but so many influences
> act in the same ways at an observable level it's difficult to
> isolate just one and figure out how it is working.

I recently found an old review of Meridian 59 that compared the
experience to be not unlike being dropped in the middle of New York
City naked.  The reviewer was expecting something more like a small
town, and instead got grand central station.  If you are not used to
the alien tone of online life, this first moment can be extremely
disconcerting to new players.

As for a general rule, the general rule I've seen is everyone is
limited amount of mental space for the number of connections they
can make.  For some people, that is literally a dozen people, but
for a handful of people, that number can be hundreds (these are the
people that will likely end up being the hub of your society).
Thus, as the societies get bigger, the greater importance guilds
have so that you can put handles and get a mental grasp on entire
percentages of the population at one time.

'The Tipping Point' is an excellent book that talks somewhat about
the phenomenon of people networks.  I highly recommend it.

--d


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From trump at trumps.net  Mon Jul  8 13:17:10 2002
From: trump at trumps.net (Dave Trump)
Date: Mon Jul  8 13:17:10 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights (Was: The Future of MMOGs... what's
	next?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24119.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

At 10:48 AM 7/6/02 +0200, Valerio Santinelli wrote:

> But there is more to NWN. People are already building servers for
> persistant worlds. I am one of those and I'm confident that it can
> be done with the tools that come with NWN.

> In NWN you can assign local variables to each character in order
> to track quests completion and similar things. The problem is that
> when the server saves the character, it does not save those
> variables.

As one of the people who has a persistant world up and running my
biggest problem early on was the inability to save those local
variables.  Obviously the most elegent solution would be for bioware
to attach those variables like this to the character, but myself and
many other builders have found some nice workarounds.

The most obvious route for the builder is to run quests EQ style.
The guy gives you a note.  You take the note someone else and get a
key.  You use the key to get into the boss's lair. You take the boss
head back to the guy.  It's all item driven, and the items are saved
with the character.

Some other people have done some rather clever things like assigning
values to the hidden natural weapons and natural armor slots on the
player, or making an inassessable zone and filling it with items
that hold the values of whatever variables they need to save.
Daggerof PlayerBob_Quest7_Step3 ... heh


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul  8 13:20:16 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul  8 13:20:16 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24120.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Valerio Santinelli

> The only problem about making it a fully persistant game is that
> variables tied to characters, that are used to track quests
> completion and similar thing, are not saved with the characters
> themselves. I guess Bioware is going to release a patch fo this
> behaviour.

The people attempting to create true persistent worlds with true
character persistance have run into greater problems with that.  The
one I've heard fairly frequently is problems adding substantial
changes to the game after the game has been up and running without
having to do a player wipe.

As a disclaimer, Bioware has said repeatedly that their game was not
designed to run Persistent Worlds, and that while they didn't mind
people trying, Bioware wasn't planning on adding features that
supported PWs over the Tabletop experience (the Tabletop experience
being, of course, the cornerstone of their game design).

That being said, the tenacity of the mod community for both UO and
Quake have taught me that players can find numerous ways around
these issues, and lord knows there are enough people out on the web
attempting to solve these issues that I give good odds to
workarounds to these problems coming, even if Bioware doesn't lift a
finger to help (and I think they will eventually).
 
> Now, if you've seen the toolset released by Bioware, you can agree
> with me that creating a world with that tool is really easy. I am
> building a persistant world for NWN myself and I can make new
> areas in a matter of minutes. Adding content is easy and can be
> done in whatever fashion you like. I even got to spend 20 or 30
> minutes creating a single item and tweaking all its values to my
> liking. But you can also drop standard items into your world with
> a single click and build such content in 5 minutes. It all depends
> to you, the server builder. And I see great power in that toolset.

The toolset is an absolute dream.  I give them mad props for the
toolset.

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul  8 14:53:44 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul  8 14:53:44 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Building a \\\'Deeper\\\' M MOG
Message-ID: <mailman.24121.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Paul Schwanz

> Yah, if you define achievement in shallow terms and then design
> that into your MUD, it will be shallow.  In life, achievement
> might mean becoming president of a nation, CEO of a corporation,
> leading a mission to Mars, starting a spiritual revolution, or any
> of a number of other interesting and deep pursuits that might have
> nothing to do with 'levels, items, or gold.'  I see no reason that
> achievement in a game cannot be just as interesting and deep.

Recently, while playing Neverwinter Nights, I was considering this
very debate.  What brought it to mind was the variance in depths of
the different aspects of the game.

I found that in Neverwinter Nights, all of the depth came from
building the character.  Bioware attempted to capture the vastness
of the 3rd edition ruleset, and largely succeeded, creating an
almost infinite number of possible choices along the achievement
game.  Should I advance in halberds?  But I've already advanced in
critical hits in long swords.  What goes well with that?  Would it
be better to get two-weapon fighting, and learn to get super-
criticals in both of those?  What if I choose weapons that I never
find the top versions of out in the world?  Is it worth having to
spend twice as many feats in order to do that? Once I completed the
single-player game, I felt strongly incentivized to go back and try
it again with a different character.

By contrast, the story in Neverwinter Nights is not very deep, nor
is it very clever.  The first chapter, in particular, I found to be
godawful (the later chapters I found to be enjoyable but cliched).
At no point did I ever feel entwined by the story, nor did I feel
any empathy for what was going on.  Also, the story is very linear
and focused, and nothing that my character did seemed like it could
affect how the story would end.  The story, in turn, seemed so
shallow that it washed right off of me.

What does this have to do with the current discussion?  It just
serves as a reminder that 'achievement' and 'shallow' are not
synonyms, nor is 'story' and 'roleplaying'.  In particular, 'story'
and 'achievement' both depend heavily on execution.

Calling 'roleplaying' deep is even trickier in my opinion - in my
experience, 'roleplaying' is only deep if (a) you have good tools to
roleplay, (b) the game responds well to your roleplaying, (c)
everyone you're roleplaying with has the same opinion of what
roleplaying is that you do, (d) at least some of the people you're
roleplaying with are good enough at it that their collaborative
stories draw the others in, and (e) you've got a good, impartial,
fair and entertaining GM/Volunteer type leading the group.

Given that a lot of those things you need are outside of the ability
to code, the ability for an imp to make 'deep' roleplay in their
games is largely nonexistent.  That decision, ultimately, is going
to be up to the players (albeit often with prodding from the imps).
 
--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul  8 14:53:45 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul  8 14:53:45 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Building a \\\'Deeper\\\' MMOG
Message-ID: <mailman.24122.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Brian Lindahl

> When players act in accordance to their character's self-interest,
> rather than their own, they will be 'role' playing. Players who
> act in accordance to their own self-interest are 'achievement'
> playing.

I would think that an achiever would be a player optimizing his
character's self-interest.  If he were acting in accordance with his
own, he'd go out and get some sun. =)

I think a better way to describe it would be that players who were
roleplaying should be more prone to act as their characters WOULD
perform, as opposed to how their characters SHOULD.

> The trick to building a deeper MMOG is not adding more features
> for players to achieve, but bringing the players into the world of
> 'role' playing, versus 'achievement' playing by increasing the
> dominance of theme. When players who signed onto the MMOG for
> achievement begin to play as their character and incorporate true
> 'role' playing, then you know that you have built a deeper
> MMOG. The MMOG encourages players to become involved in the theme
> and become absorbed in the fantasy world.

Here's an alternative opinion:

I've seen 'theme' trample more roleplayers than it's helped to
guide.  Consider: in EverQuest, I was one of many people who wanted
to play Dark Elves that were sinister, brooding but not necessarily
evil.  There were players who wanted to play lovable, good ogres.
However, the 'theme' called for all of us to be evil, twisted sons
and the game should force us all to be hunted down and killed, and
the game systems supported that (we could only use evil schools,
worship evil gods and guards would attack us on sight).

Thus, the 'theme' was anxiously pushing all of us who had
interesting, complex and deep characters to be mono- dimensional.
We had to fight against the system and work within the code
limitations in order to roleplay.

At the same time, if you followed the theme, the game rewarded you
with an easy lifestyle that actually removed the theme from
consideration in your daily life, making the game much more
advancement-driven.

The 'theme' vs 'non-theme' battle is one I've seen over and over
again.  Consider: in Ultima Online, a large portion of the
playerbase roleplays being an elf.  They like elves.  They created
their own elf culture, added their own elf language, and put up elf
websites.  The problem, of course, is that there are no elves at all
in the Ultima theme (this is, of course, post ultima III, which is
considered the 'real' ultima timeline and is the core of the UO
backstory).  There are a lot of people who felt quite offended that
these players would dare to impede upon Lord British's vision of a
game world by adding pointy-eared vermin to the game.  But there can
be no doubt that these elf communities were in fact roleplaying,
adding a great deal to the world, being extremely imaginative and
having a lot of fun in a non-achievement fashion along the way.

--d
 

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From daver at mythicentertainment.com  Mon Jul  8 15:22:48 2002
From: daver at mythicentertainment.com (Dave Rickey)
Date: Mon Jul  8 15:22:48 2002
Subject: Player count threshholds (was: Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Muds vs
	Graphical Muds)
Message-ID: <mailman.24123.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Christopher Allen" <ChristopherA at skotos.com>

> Dave, how did you come up with this hypothesis? Can you describe
> some examples of this type of behavior in your personal
> experience?

It's partially empirical, partially based on anthropological theory.
The empirical part is just from watching games of various sizes and
types, they seem to show definite growth spurts from one threshold
to the next, as if there was some invisible power curve at work, on
one side of the line they are sticky, gaining players much faster
than they are shedding them, from the other they are shedding faster
than they are gaining.  Generally, they tend to rise to a certain
point, and then stop growing for no explicable reason.  Sometimes
there does seem to be an explicable reason, if players are fully
occupying all available content, or even close to it, then it will
usually be pretty clear.

But even in the absence of such issues, I've seen these thresholds.
Pre-UO, this definitely seemed to be the case for the "old school"
online games, NWN, M59, LoK, SoY, MPBT, AW, etc.  There was a
minimum critical mass, having enough people in the world to make it
seem alive, and I don't think anyone would argue about that.  But
there seemed to be an upper limit as well, around 750 players (150
peak) all kinds of social and political issues leap to the
forefront.  They take all kinds of forms, and frequently are mixed
with other, game-specific topics, but two things made me think it
was some kind of threshold issue:

  1) The game-specific stuff was always there, but had not
  previously seemed as important.  It reminded me very much of that
  phase in personal relationships where things the other person has
  always done really start to bug the shit out of you.  The problem
  isn't the thing you're focusing on, it's just where an underlying
  problem is showing up.

  2) They always seemed to show up around the same population
  numbers, regardless of the game type.

For anthropological theory, there's a school of thought (presented
best in Guns, Germs and Steel) that states that the basic form of
government is a function of population.  If you have X amount of
people, you'll have a clan, Y is a tribe, Z is a kingdom, etc.
However, at many transitions you'll have social unrest (transitions
from tribes to kingdoms are accompanied by warfare as the chiefs
sort out who gets to be king).  In the real world, people keep on
living, keep on having kids, and barring unusual circumstances the
population just keeps rising and you transition into the next
regime.  It can work the other way, too; if a population that has
been operating at one level of government establishes a colony that
is too remote to be directly governed and lacks sufficient
population of its own, it will devolve to a lower level of
governance.

However, social unrest in an online game is usually accompanied by
people quitting, so barring outside influences you approach the
threshold and stall out.  Lately, I've been playing with a theory
where every player-to-player interaction can be categorized as
negative sum, zero-sum, and positive sum.  I've got types like
"commercial", "competitive", etc., but each of these types can have
an outcome in any of the three categories.  By theory, at certain
population levels zero and negative sum transactions are more
attractive on an individual basis, even though they are detrimental
to the society as a whole.  If you cross over into the next regime,
the overall balance shifts back towards positive sum interactions.
But you may never cross over under ordinary circumstances.  I've
gotten results that show stepped thresholds, although not where
observation would put them (IOW, the models say there are
thresholds, but either my hypothetical players are too rational, or
my weightings are wrong, or the theory is so much crap).

*Definitely* the rules and conditions of the particular game can
affect this.  For example, if it easily supports multiple
populations in the sweet spot through one means or another (say by
splitting them between multiple worlds).  But which rules, which
conditions, and for what reasons?  Is my "threshold" theory correct,
and if it is can a game be designed to smooth over those rough
spots?

--Dave


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rob at cs.northwestern.edu  Mon Jul  8 23:15:04 2002
From: rob at cs.northwestern.edu (Robert Zubek)
Date: Mon Jul  8 23:15:04 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] NLP tools?
Message-ID: <mailman.24124.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Reading Richard Bartle's excellent articles on command parsing made
me curious about the applicability of general NLP tools to text
games. The NLP research community makes available a large array of
text processing tools, including part-of-speech taggers and
parsers. Has anyone been successful using any of such tools in MUDs
or games, whether in product development or a hobby project?

Rob

--
Robert Zubek
rob at cs.northwestern.edu
http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~rob


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Tue Jul  9 04:38:28 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Tue Jul  9 04:38:28 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Text Muds vs Graphical Muds
Message-ID: <mailman.24125.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, Dave Rickey wrote:
> From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>

>> You seem to be implying that it's player interactions that cause
>> the problems, in which case choosing a number of participants
>> doesn't seem appropriate as a measurement. 100 players stuck in a
>> single room is a lot different from 100 players spread out among
>> a million rooms.
 
> Yeah, and if they can kill each other both would be different in
> yet other ways.  I over-simplified, I'm trying to find a general
> set of rules that works, and that might be applicable to
> situations we've never seen (such as TSO's essentially one-world
> setup).  Interaction levels definitely have something to do with
> it, and absolute numbers do play a part, but so many influences
> act in the same ways at an observable level it's difficult to
> isolate just one and figure out how it is working.

>> I think a huge part of it comes down to the design of the game.
 
> But which part(s)?

Sorry to make such a useless post, but frankly, I don't know, though
I can throw out some ideas. For instance, how cleanly your in-game
communities are separated from other in-game communities. In the
existing market, you have community models ranging from DAoC's
extreme of community separation (can't even talk to 2/3 of the other
players in the game) to Achaea's tightly grouped communities that
nevertheless have heavy interaction with enemies of that community
(ie other communities), and you can go all the way down to the
DIKU/Everquest model in which you just kind of toss everybody into
one big community, and let them completely voluntarily organize
themselves (guild system), and maybe even down to some games where
there are no tools whatsoever for formally generating separate
in-game sub-communities.

I think you can also point to factors such as population density, or
the level of interaction allowed (going a little more fundamental
than just PK or non-PK), or, in a world like Achaea where players
are dependant on other players for some of their advancement (you
can't gain a class permanently in Achaea without joining a guild as
a novice, meeting the guild's requirements for advancement to
apprentice, and then meeting their requirements for advancement to
full member. Quit/get kicked out before then, and you lose the
class-related skills, which are the majority of your important
skills), one might look at situations where you reach a pouplation
limit that is very difficult to solve without increasing the width
of the pipeline by adding more guilds, for example (which is what we
have slowly down over time).

Anyway, in pure speculation, I'm

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Tue Jul  9 04:43:53 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Tue Jul  9 04:43:53 2002
Subject: Player count threshholds (was: Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Muds vs
	Graphical Muds)
Message-ID: <mailman.24126.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sat, 6 Jul 2002, Russ Whiteman wrote:

> I started playing Simutronics (GemStone III) while they were only
> available on GEnie, with a peak in-game population of 60-80, and I
> started working for them a few weeks after they became available
> through AOL, where population peaked at about 600, and on through
> AOL's flat-rate, when the population ran around 2000 and
> occasionally approached 2500.  So I've got observations from a
> fairly wide range of sizes.  I could not say that I saw any
> particular behavioral changes at the ranges stated above.  The
> overall behavioral changes we saw seemed to be more related to the
> explosive growth-rates that were caused by other factors (the
> increased exposure we got when we first moved to AOL, and the same
> again when AOL went flat-rate).  The flood of new arrivals simply
> overwhelmed the existing culture, leading to something like
> anarchy.  It didn't help that we were chronicly undersized for
> both of those periods, it was rather like the "overcrowded rat"
> experiments so apochrophal during the 70's...

I'm be interested in knowing your thoughts on how Simutronics dealt
(apparently successfully given they're still around with a lot of
customers) with this kind of explosive growth. It's one thing to
create a graphical MUD where you are aiming for a ton of users, and
entirely another to take a MUD (text in this case, but that's
irrelevant really) that was designed for small number and ramp it up
suddenly.

I'd assume they added more world content to lower the player
density, but do you remember what systems were added or modified to
deal with the sudden increase? Which ones worked? Which ones didn't? 
Any speculation as to why?


--matt

"[AIDs is] the greatest single assault on humankind that we've ever
known, greater than war and greater than the Black Death." - Stephen
Lewis, UN special envoy to Africa.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shren at io.com  Tue Jul  9 06:25:50 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Tue Jul  9 06:25:50 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24127.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Damion Schubert wrote:

>> Now, if you've seen the toolset released by Bioware, you can
>> agree with me that creating a world with that tool is really
>> easy. I am building a persistant world for NWN myself and I can
>> make new areas in a matter of minutes. Adding content is easy and
>> can be done in whatever fashion you like. I even got to spend 20
>> or 30 minutes creating a single item and tweaking all its values
>> to my liking. But you can also drop standard items into your
>> world with a single click and build such content in 5 minutes. It
>> all depends to you, the server builder. And I see great power in
>> that toolset.
 
> The toolset is an absolute dream.  I give them mad props for the
> toolset.

I got to spend my first long session with the toolset last night.  I
have a large single player campaign in mind, that I think I'll be
working with on and off for a year or so.  (It's not long, but it's
somewhat open ended.)

3D design has always been my barrier to entry.  I've no knowledge or
desire to gain knowledge on how to render and align textures and
boxes and such, which has kept me from writing levels for things
like this before.  NWN has a good compromise between ease of use and
detail that leans a bit towards the ease of use when it comes to
laying out areas.  The two areas I designed took minutes to lay out
the geography.  I threw in some encounters and added the area
transitions, which took a few hours to both learn to do and do, then
got to playing around with scripting, like adding a trigger that
kicks the player up to 1000 xp if they're not already there.  (The
encounter system falls apart at the bottom end and top end of the
scale.  At the bottom, even "very easy" encounters that usually
scale to the player are hard.  The built-in campaign babies the
character through first level - I lack the patience for that.)

One amusing anticdote.  The first NPC I wrote was a crow, who
"caws!" and flys away at high speed when he sees the player.  The
second, third, and fourth were a cleric and his henchmen gathering
thier stuff to leave a cave they had been exploring.  I missed the
fact that I had modified the default scripts.  When I logged into
the player client to check the placement, the cleric took one look
at me, said "caw!", and ran away.  The "save as" button in the
scripting editor is your friend.

I also wrote an amusing little trap - a bunch of goblins on a small
island in a lake in a cave, with bows.  Between them and the
player's approach path is a searchable corpse.  Player sees corpse.
Player thinks loot.  Player clicks corpse.  Character runs up to
corpse and opens the inventory.  Goblins shoot Character while he
rifles the body, as auto-approaching the corpse puts the Character
in LoS.  Amusing.  I might as well exploit the fact that most
characters will lack a ranged attack at this point in the game.

  

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ericleaf at pacbell.net  Tue Jul  9 07:30:50 2002
From: ericleaf at pacbell.net (eric)
Date: Tue Jul  9 07:30:50 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24128.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Paul Boyle" <ppboyle at centurytel.net>

>   Simultronics - Dragonrealms - The most complex systems I've run
>   across have been there.  The forging system in particular was

Its been at least 5 years since I've seen this game, I don't even
remember it, so can't comment. However, overall the crafting systems
are soo bad in MMOGs that I would just go back to first principles
myself. The question I would try to answer is "Why is a person
crafting?"

A couple answers to that are, for personal enjoyment or for personal
gain.  Personal gain can come in many forms, one being fame, another
wealth. The tedium of all the current crafting systems obviously
removes them from being for personal enjoyment (unless you like that
sort of tedium, or you like "creating" a thousand identical
objects), and in most all games that tedium is used as a balance to
the creation of valuable items. Now because of that, creation
becomes a formula, do X for Y seconds with Z resources and you make
W item. Sounds like machinery to me, not craft. And since every
object you or anyone else in the world "creates" is actually
identical I would say the allusion to machinery goes deeper than
just the recipe nature of crafting.

A good system that didn't really exist in the hands of the users was
present in Simultronics games. The traveling blacksmiths/tailors/etc
that the GMs masqueraded as from time to time had the level of depth
you as a user would want. People create things everyday on thousands
of mediums, why can't I go get some paint and paint my house? Or
(DAoC/UO) what secret do those dye merchants know that I don't, that
allows them to make so much money on a simple thing as color? A good
personal example was that when I played gemstone, one of the most
rewarding experiences was finding or being present when one of the
travelling GMs decided to show up.  I could tell him what I wanted
(gold pieces acted as a surrogate to skill in this case since I paid
him with my time with earned gold) and he would create it. Wether it
was a shadowly longsword with a serrated blade, or a beautiful
flowing cloak of interwoven flowers, it was me using my creative
power as a thinking human that brought something into the world, so
thats the cloest I've yet seen to *real* craft in any MMOG. Put that
in the hands of the users with real resources and values (ie
economy) and you'll have all you need.

The best two completely player driven systems I've seen so far
implemented were UO and DAoC, they are both largely the same though.

Other things that are lacking in most skilled trade crafts like
blacksmithing is the a basic concept of human technology, sharing of
knowledge. You start as an apprentice to a master blacksmith. You
learn from him, and then go out on your own as a journeyman (I
wonder if he travels?), this is when you perfect your craft and or
bring something new to it, then when you are a master the cycle
repeats. Slowly evolving a more advanced technology. The things that
are missing other than evolution of the craft are the transfer of
knowledge, every crafter works in their own world (a single player
multiuser world for crafters). Some aspects had interest in UO, for
instance the metal mining things was interesting and promoted a
slight community of miners where sharing had value (Of course you
could buy the UO mining for dummies book for 15.95 on ebay, except
it wasn't called that.), that is sharing locations to particular
veins of metal types.  Another possibility that didn't exist was
sharing technique for extraction and the later process of
smelting. UOs main flaw was of course they weren't real resources,
they were metal generators, never changed, always output the same
value. And that is why they didn't promote any longterm community
value. And once you knew the locations, there was nothing new to
share with the community, nor an reason to do so, except for real
world cash as was done thru ebay.

Another reason many of the arificial contructs fail in MMOG is while
you are learning skills, expanding personal knowledge there is no
reason (familar to man) to pass on knowledge to others, because you
life forever. The cycle of life has defined human civilization, and
these are the definitions we are throwing in games, but the main
factor of their origin is absent in the games. If humans lived
forever we as a whole would be a lot more selfish, and even today
with our longer lifespans you see that happening.




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tedlchen at yahoo.com  Tue Jul  9 07:39:13 2002
From: tedlchen at yahoo.com (Ted L. Chen)
Date: Tue Jul  9 07:39:13 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24129.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Ron Gabbard writes a lengthy, albeit insightful analogy to grocery shopping.

> In short, they are both grocery stores but one is designed to
> serve the needs of the massively multi-shopper market while the
> other is designed for a more personal experience for a couple
> hundred regular customers.  The supermarket just can't offer the
> same level of personal experience as the owner-operated grocery
> store while maintaining their economies of scale and the corner
> grocery store can't profitably offer the low price, wide variety
> of products, nor support as heavy of traffic as the supermarket
> while maintaining a 'personal' experience.

<snippage>

> The latest trend has been towards 'mass customization'.  That is,
> giving each customer the ability to purchase the product/service
> they specifically desire while still maintaining the benefit of
> economies of scale.  This is true of almost every industry -- golf
> clubs, computers, automobiles, supermarkets, and now MMOGs.
> However, while mass customization may try to emulate the personal
> experience of the 'corner market', the best it can do is to
> provide the customized tangible product... not the experience.
> Having a last name that is not intuitively pronounced, I get to
> experience this failure first-hand almost every day as sales
> clerks hand me my debit card and say "Thank you for shopping with
> us, Mr. <Enter bastardized version of my last name>.  Come again."
> The clerk doesn't know me from Adam yet they are trying to emulate
> a level of intimacy that was pretty standard in the days of the
> 'corner markets'... the personalized shopping experience.

Have you considered data-mining as an option?  Drawing further on
the analogy between MMOGs and commerce, let's take a look at
Amazon.com (it's just the more prominent one).  You mentioned the
truely personalized aspect of corner stores, but just as
Mr. McDonald might tell me that the blueberries I usually buy every
season have just arrived fresh, Amazon's site is recommending the
Harry Potter DVD to me (based on my past purchases).  Both human and
computer use exactly the same insightful information about my
persona in order to further my experience.

Could a MMOG travel along these same lines?  Say the player spends
most of his time in a specific location on the world, the system
might notify him/her that a small local event is happening there.
These need not be BIG system-wide events, but could merely be
"Mr. McDonald from the corner market has just been kidnapped!"  To
most, this would be meaningless.  But because the player has spent a
good deal of time there, it may be reasoned that he/she has at least
met Mr. McDonald.  And because of the scope of these mini-events,
the player can be as significant as he/she desires.

Now the only problem comes from the fact that the resources behind
these 'personalized' events are finite.  There's only one
Mr. McDonald, otherwise it becomes meaningless (or does it really?).
You can have a Mrs. McDonald that gets kidnapped for the next player
but that only delays the inevitable.

This comes down to the slight problem with the store analogy in that
brick/mortar stores (or even Amazon.com) deal in mass produced
goods, each being exactly the same as the others.  The only
differential is in the 'service' (price, personalization, etc) of
the store.  In MMOGs, our service IS our goods and everytime you try
to improve service, you dwindle your stocks.  This industry is more
akin to limited art prints than it is to grocery commodities.

Maybe the key is to arrest all the apraisers so the consumer doesn't
know that print is being used more than stated.  Nah, I'm just
kidding ;)


TLC

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From archer at frmug.org  Tue Jul  9 10:24:46 2002
From: archer at frmug.org (Vincent Archer)
Date: Tue Jul  9 10:24:46 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24130.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

According to Damion Schubert:

> As a disclaimer, Bioware has said repeatedly that their game was
> not designed to run Persistent Worlds, and that while they didn't
> mind people trying, Bioware wasn't planning on adding features
> that supported PWs over the Tabletop experience (the Tabletop
> experience being, of course, the cornerstone of their game
> design).

So much, that the toolset is bugged in that respect, and you have to
jump thru hoops to get something to spawn repeatedly, because they
never used the feature during the official campaign and never
noticed some features were reverted.

> The toolset is an absolute dream.  I give them mad props for the
> toolset.

The toolset is nice, if quirky. What I lack is a text version. I'm
chiefly a text guy, all that mouse clicking tires me fast. There's a
lot of stuff that could be hand-edited in my favorite text editor,
then shoved into the game engine (notably conversation scripts)

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Aaron  Tue Jul  9 10:32:00 2002
From: Aaron (Aaron)
Date: Tue Jul  9 10:32:00 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24131.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Paul Boyle wrote:

> I'm interested in any articles or resources people could point me
> to on the development of in-game creation systems for MUDs,
> MMORPGs, and to a lesser extent, any computer game, like the
> Lego-based games, or The Incredible Machine.

Well, this most likely won't fit into your ideal, but one "crafting"
system that I liked was from Record of Lodoss War on the Sega
Dreamcast, and I was considering incorporating something like that
into a MUD that I am developing.

It basically involves searching for runes scattered throughout, and
then those magic runes can be inscribed on your sword/armor to give
it appropriate magic powers.  The smith can make those permanent for
a certain price, or he can remove ones which are only temporarily
set.  Certain weapons could only hold a certain number of runes, and
runes always took up a given amount of space.

This works good for me for a few reasons:

  1.  The chance to search out runes in the land provides for a
  chance to explore out of the way places.

  2.  Having to learn those words provides for the lack of an item
  that a player could pass to another.

  3.  It provides a reason to use gold.  I ran into a problem where
  basically gold had no value on the mud.  Spending it at the smith
  for inscription charges works out okay.

  4.  If you got creative, you could make your own modification to
  mix and match powers and effects.  For example, one rune could
  allow a spell effect on oneself, another one could provide a spell
  effect for an area.  So one could tie a heal to one of these, so
  using the power would either heal yourself or heal a small area of
  players/mobs.  On the other hand, you could also tie fire effects
  to the same self/other effects, and one could set oneself on fire.
  People are into self-destruction these days.

  5.  It provides for another attribute to determine a weapon's
  value to a player.  Some players may be after more rune space,
  others may not care.  A relatively weak sword with lots of space
  for runes may make it look good to a player who can afford to use
  up those spaces.

But that's just my 2 cents.  It may not work out in the end, but it
sure sounded like a good idea to me at the time.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Tue Jul  9 10:32:58 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Tue Jul  9 10:32:58 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24132.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Damion Schubert" <damion at ninjaneering.com>
> From: Valerio Santinelli

>> The only problem about making it a fully persistant game is that
>> variables tied to characters, that are used to track quests
>> completion and similar thing, are not saved with the characters
>> themselves. I guess Bioware is going to release a patch fo this
>> behaviour.

> The people attempting to create true persistent worlds with true
> character persistance have run into greater problems with that.
> The one I've heard fairly frequently is problems adding
> substantial changes to the game after the game has been up and
> running without having to do a player wipe.

This is a problem because their starting point was using the
savegame generated by the server and merge differences between the
save game and the modified original world. This is a mess and is
prone to corruption of your entire module.  I have seen a better
method that consists of dumping persistent variables to the
logfile. Next, when you shutdown the server because you want to put
online a newer version of your world, you run a parser on the log
that generates a script to include in the starting event of your
module that recreates the variables associated to each character.
It works even if it's not a solution totally clean. It's surely
better than nothing.

> As a disclaimer, Bioware has said repeatedly that their game was
> not designed to run Persistent Worlds, and that while they didn't
> mind people trying, Bioware wasn't planning on adding features
> that supported PWs over the Tabletop experience (the Tabletop
> experience being, of course, the cornerstone of their game
> design).

Yes. David Gaider, one of the designers at Bioware confirmed
this. Here's an excerpt from a post on Bioware's forums:

An user was asking "What would be very nice, is if we could get any
kind of response from Bioware on this either way. Are they or are
they not working on a way to allow variables to be saved within the
vault character files?"  And this is the answer from David: "We are
not working on this. We may look at it in the future, but there are
no plans for it, currently."

To my ears this sounds like: No, we don't mind about this.

> That being said, the tenacity of the mod community for both UO and
> Quake have taught me that players can find numerous ways around
> these issues, and lord knows there are enough people out on the
> web attempting to solve these issues that I give good odds to
> workarounds to these problems coming, even if Bioware doesn't lift
> a finger to help (and I think they will eventually).

Yes, I am one of those working in order to have a persistant NWN
world online. And I think I can succeed.

--
Valerio Santinelli
One Man Crew Gaming Community (http://www.onemancrew.org)
My Lab (http://tanis.hateseed.com)
HateSeed.com Founder (http://www.hateseed.com)
In Flames Italia Webmaster (http://www.inflames.it)



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Tue Jul  9 10:42:20 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Tue Jul  9 10:42:20 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights (Was: The Future of MMOGs... what's
	next?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24133.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Dave Trump" <trump at trumps.net>
> At 10:48 AM 7/6/02 +0200, Valerio Santinelli wrote:

>> In NWN you can assign local variables to each character in order
>> to track quests completion and similar things. The problem is
>> that when the server saves the character, it does not save those
>> variables.

> As one of the people who has a persistant world up and running my
> biggest problem early on was the inability to save those local
> variables.  Obviously the most elegent solution would be for
> bioware to attach those variables like this to the character, but
> myself and many other builders have found some nice workarounds.

Workarounds are the only way to go with NWN. Bioware is officially
not supporting persistant world development, and they stated clearly
that they are not going to add any new functions to save local
variables status in characters savefiles.

> The most obvious route for the builder is to run quests EQ style.
> The guy gives you a note.  You take the note someone else and get
> a key.  You use the key to get into the boss's lair. You take the
> boss head back to the guy.  It's all item driven, and the items
> are saved with the character.

This is a way to do the quests, but then I can repeat the same quest
an infinite number of times since there's no way with this method to
assess you already completed it once.

> Some other people have done some rather clever things like
> assigning values to the hidden natural weapons and natural armor
> slots on the player, or making an inassessable zone and filling it
> with items that hold the values of whatever variables they need to
> save.  Daggerof PlayerBob_Quest7_Step3 ... heh

Hidden slots are a nice idea, but you're limited to the number of
variables you can store. It's ok for a little module, but if you're
building a larger world you're going to get at a point where you
cannot add more quests.

The room with items is an optimum solution, but you have to take
special care when updating your world. I assume you're using a
"clean" module to make modifications. This means that when you stop
the server and restart it you've got to merge your savegame with
your development module. This procedure is prone to corrupting your
module very easily.

At the moment the best solution seems to be to dump variables to the
log and parse them back and create an include script to attach to
your module when restarting. This way you can double-check what
variables are assigned to each player since you get everything in
clear text, and you can remove unwanted/wrong ones. And you're
always sure that you're not going to corrupt your module.

I think that other ways to accomplish all this will pop-up in the
upcoming weeks.

People have also been siggesting simulating a DM client and
listening to special strings sent by the server in order to archive
everything to a database and then rebuild all the changes through
the emulator itself. There is an infinite number of ways to
accomplish what we're trying to do. It's just a matter of finding
the cleanest solution.

--
Valerio Santinelli
One Man Crew Gaming Community (http://www.onemancrew.org)
My Lab (http://tanis.hateseed.com)
HateSeed.com Founder (http://www.hateseed.com)
In Flames Italia Webmaster (http://www.inflames.it)



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From glowack2 at msu.edu  Tue Jul  9 10:44:29 2002
From: glowack2 at msu.edu (Edward Glowacki)
Date: Tue Jul  9 10:44:29 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] The importance of graphics
Message-ID: <mailman.24134.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sun, 2002-07-07 at 06:15, eric wrote:

> My personal opinion on the subject is "be subtle", I think clean
> effects are more immersive than flash. In other words some effects
> look cool and neat, but don't particularly add anything to the
> experience, and for some actually detract.

I like this observation.  There are a lot of great things you can do
with graphics that really add to the game, but aren't "flashy".  An
example that's fresh in my mind (because I've been playing it a lot
lately) is Final Fantasy Tactics (a single player game for
PlayStation).  The graphics for the individual characters aren't
terribly fancy, but you can gather a lot of information about the
character's status from them:

  - Normal living characters are shown on the screen walking in
  place.

  - Characters affected by "haste" walk (in place) twice as fast.

  - Characters affected by "stop" stand there without moving.

  - Characters that are heavily injured slump down to one knee.

  - Dead characters lie on the ground in a heap.

etc.

These are the same type of cues we look for in our everyday lives,
so our minds can readily absorb the information.  It's a very
elegant solution.

The thing I like about the graphics in FFT is that in addition to
the essential subtleties in the character animation, the game has
some incredibly cool graphics for spells and attacks.  But even
though they're "really nifty", they're still very tactful and fit
perfectly within the game.  Overall, it's a very polished product,
and that to me is a major component of a great game.

-ED

--
Edward Glowacki			glowack2 at msu.edu
Michigan State University	
"...a partial solution to the right problem is better than a complete
solution to the wrong one." (http://uiweb.com/issues/issue14.htm)

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From glowack2 at msu.edu  Tue Jul  9 11:11:52 2002
From: glowack2 at msu.edu (Edward Glowacki)
Date: Tue Jul  9 11:11:52 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Importance of graphic in different stages of gaming
Message-ID: <mailman.24135.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

This is a tangent on the recent thread on "The importance of
graphics". It's based on my own personal experience and biases, so
take everything with a grain of salt. =)


I'd argue that a typical player (or user of any software for that
matter) goes through a series of phases, each one focusing on a
different part of the product.

  1. Pre-purchase - Graphics, promises, and technical details are
  the key factors.  "X has the hottest ray-traced graphics,
  [screenshot], 200 different character classes, 10,000 spells and
  effects, 500 weapons, 700 multi-player game maps, and over 100 cut
  scenes filmed in a Hollywood studio."  Let's see, 10,000 spells,
  like "red magic missile", "green magic missile", "mauve magic
  missile"...  Your game is largely irrelevant at this point, all
  you need is good marketing... =)

  2. Initial impression - Graphics and sound, ease of learning,
  first few levels.  "Wow, look at the way those ray-traced 'mauve
  magic missiles' leave a semi-transparent smoke trail and whistle
  as they fly!  How'd you do that double-flip sword attack?"  The
  player is learning the game, exploring, and evaluating.  They are
  still impressed by all the fancy graphics, but the novelty is
  fading and they may be starting to notice that the game is not as
  user-friendly as it looked on the back of the box.

  3. Mid-term gaming - The game itself (storyline, game universe,
  game mechanics) becomes important along with the UI.  "I raided
  the Tomb of Mauve and got the uber Mega Mauve Magic Missile spell
  and the Rod of Mauveness!"  At this point the player has gotten
  over all the early hurdles and is just playing the game.  They
  don't ooh and ahh at the graphics anymore.  If they make any
  comments about the UI, it will likely be due to flaws, not good
  features of the UI, for exactly the same reason you never think
  about the sewer system until your toilet overflows...  Somewhere
  in this phase is where most games will be discarded as players
  lose interest or find flaws in the game they aren't willing to
  deal with anymore.

  4. Long-term gaming - Replay value, game play, user interface,
  overall quality.  "This game is one of my all-time favorites.  I
  have total control over my character, my will becomes his actions!
  I wish they hadn't used so much mauve in the game, but other than
  that it rocks!" If you can get the player here, they'll probably
  by the next game you produce.  A large part of it is how polished
  the game is, and how much work went into tweaking the user
  experience.

Note that flashy graphics are only important in the earliest phases,
and in the long run they are overtaken by the rest of the game.  So
the importance of graphics is directly related to what your goals
are.

If you're out to make a quick buck, then graphics are probably the
fastest way to move a few copies of the game out the door and get
some cash, but if the game doesn't live up to its expectations, you
probably won't get a lot of repeat customers.

If you'd rather set yourself up for continued business and customer
loyalty, then a polished experience and a quality product is more
important.  Given a fixed budget, this means less time/money to
spend on flashy graphics.  And in the long run, your graphics are
going to look outdated very quickly anyways as new technologies
emerge, especially in the PC and console game world where things
move very fast.

-ED
s
--
Edward Glowacki			glowack2 at msu.edu
Michigan State University	
"...a partial solution to the right problem is better than a complete
solution to the wrong one." (http://uiweb.com/issues/issue14.htm)

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Freeman  Tue Jul  9 11:41:14 2002
From: Freeman (Freeman)
Date: Tue Jul  9 11:41:14 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24136.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Damion Schubert

> The people attempting to create true persistent worlds with true
> character persistance have run into greater problems with that.
> The one I've heard fairly frequently is problems adding
> substantial changes to the game after the game has been up and
> running without having to do a player wipe.

The characters are stored seperately from the game data, so that's
not the problem.

The problem is that the tool cannot edit save-games.  By default,
doesn't auto-save the game.  And without scripting (and possibly not
even with scripting - I haven't tested adding ExportAllCharacters to
OnClientExit), won't save any player's character that drops
connection (due to client-crash, for example).

For the hobbiest gamer trying to set-up a persistent server, those
are pretty substantial hurdles.

> As a disclaimer, Bioware has said repeatedly that their game was
> not designed to run Persistent Worlds, and that while they didn't
> mind people trying, Bioware wasn't planning on adding features
> that supported PWs over the Tabletop experience (the Tabletop
> experience being, of course, the cornerstone of their game
> design).

It's actually not very good at that, either.  DMs cannot view the
players' character sheets, for example, and some really basic stuff
(like creating and naming an NPC on-the-fly) cannot be done.  You
have to make templates for the NPCs in advance before you'd be able
to drop them in "on the fly", and you can't rename them on-the-fly
(at least, again, not without writing some kinda rename-NPC script).

Basically, NWN is a good single-player CRPG.  And it comes with very
nice tools that will allow you to make a pretty good single-player
CRPG.

As for the other stuff, some people will do it.  But as for being
the everyman's graphical mud-builder, I think the technical
proficiency required is a bit on the steep side.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Tue Jul  9 12:57:30 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Tue Jul  9 12:57:30 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24137.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Ron Gabbard

> Having played MMOGs almost exclusively for too long, NWN was like
> being parched and having a glass of water.  It was fun being
> 'significant' again and playing a game where the tangible rewards
> (loot and XP) were the by-product of achieving in-game goals
> versus being the goal in itself.  Are MMOGs destined to become
> 'Wal-Marts' where "level-appropriate" content is conveniently
> provided at the lowest cost possible or is there a way of
> achieving mass customization where every player can be significant
> in a game world of thousands?

Fascinating post, Ron.  A lot to think about here, but as an opening
thought, I think that comparing Walmart to EverQuest is somewhat
simplifying the process.  The truth of the matter is that the bare
bones experience that NeverWinter Nights offers and that games like
Ultima Online offers differ vastly.  In Neverwinter Nights, the
theme is "Be a hero (or part of a small group of heroes).  Save the
world."  Fundamentally, having hero-centric Massively Multiplayer
titles is difficult, given that you can have 10,000 active players
on a shard and can't make that promise to all of them.  You can't
even do that on a smaller mud of 200 people efficiently.

Online games have a different promise, and what that is can vary
from game to game.  In Ultima Online, it was 'be part of a living,
breathing fantasy world'.  In Ultima Online 2, we were aiming for
something closer to 'Be a part of an epic'.  We actually identified
the problem of getting people who were used to the single-player
tradition of 'be a hero' into a massively multiplayer game to be one
of our top challenges in tapping the mass market.

Fundamentally, a player's expectations towards MMPs are set by their
successful single-player experiences, be it Final Fantasy, Baldur's
Gate, whatever.  But overall, saying that MMPs should have the same
player-centric feel as a single-player or small-party game is akin
to saying that Civilization would be better served if every game had
a tightly wound, elaborate story.  I.e. that's not what the game is
about.

In response to that, I figure you can do one of three things:

  1) Incorporate lessons from those single-player experiences into
  your MUD/MMP as best you can.

  2) Conclude that MMPs are evil.  This choice does seem to be in
  vogue nowadays.

  3) Recognize the strengths of MMPs (communities, group dynamics,
  etc), and work with them as best you can.

While #1 has a lot of appeal (and is probably the direction UO2 was
most going in), the problem is that it is often done in a way that
creates unsatisfactory solutions that emphasize the differences
instead of helping.  Does a bad random quest generator help slake a
player's thirst, or does it make him long for Icewind Dale, where
the quests will all be specific, well-written, meaningful, and have
great rewards?  For those reasons, I've been focusing more on #3 -
identifying and creating features that would suck if you were
playing alone.

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Tue Jul  9 12:57:31 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Tue Jul  9 12:57:31 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] The importance of graphics
Message-ID: <mailman.24138.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Zach Collins (Siege)

> I was chatting with some friends last night, and we got onto the
> subject of graphics in games.  One of them made the claim that
> graphics will make or break a game, while another made a very
> interesting point, that it's the *consistency* of the art
> direction instead of just how pretty everything looks.
 
> In a graphical MU* (MM or not), graphics can only be so dense, and
> therefore have only a certain amount of inherent visual quality -
> but under Moore's Law, that amount has been steadily improving
> with the rest of computing.
 
> So the question I want to ask is this, in three parts:
 
>   How important is it to have graphics?

That depends a lot on the game that you're making and the audience
you hope to get hold of.  Even in the pay-for realm, Ultima Online
continues to hold a couple hundred thousand subscribers despite the
fact that their graphics are undeniably dated looking by now (even
factoring in their 3D upgrade).  What UO offers is something
different entirely.

>   What level of visual quality (slickness, flashiness) is
>   acceptable versus bandwidth or rendering considerations (assume
>   that the graphics card has no effect)?

MMORPGs haven't so far looked as good as their offline counterparts,
but don't confuse that with technical insophistication.  Graphics
engines in MMORPGs have to deal with larger areas, longer horizons,
more unpredictable scenes, and customizable characters.  Given that,
3D for MMPs will probably lag behind the FPS market for quite some
time.

>   How is visual consistency important, how do you create it, and
>   how do you maintain it throughout the life of a project (MMOGs
>   being continuously expanded)?

It's incredibly important.  A great look and feel really does mean
the difference between the project looking like a patchwork quilt
and a whole, cohesive project.  I think that strong, central,
identifiable art direction is one thing that really makes the top
titles you've heard about really stand out (Myst, Sims, anything by
Blizzard).

One of the things I've noticed is that a strong, directed art style
can make lower quality art look better, simply because the total
cohesive picture is better.  On one of the projects I've contracted
on recently, this was especially true.  Their models were very
simplistic and wouldn't have stood muster against most of the titles
out at the time, but when the game was running in its entirety,
those models fit the mood so well with the atmosphere, the room
geometry, the animations and the models that the game looked far
superior to what else is on the market right now.  Tragically, the
company went bankrupt, so it'll never see the light of day.

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From lynx at lynx.purrsia.com  Tue Jul  9 15:39:46 2002
From: lynx at lynx.purrsia.com (lynx at lynx.purrsia.com)
Date: Tue Jul  9 15:39:46 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what's next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24139.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Damion Schubert wrote:
> From: lynx at lynx.purrsia.com

>> ...  They want to play *their* characters being tiny little gods
>> in the adventure. ...
 
> You make it sound so _dirty_ that people want to create, advance
> and have control over their virtual alter ego. =)

Well, *that* part isn't so bad but they're not very good about
*sharing* a world with other people, is the thing. ;) Gods are
jealous creatures after all.  It seems like an apt comparison.

> As it is, it seems to me that the BioWare guys came up with the
> two best scenarios anyway.  Either play on a character that plays
> on that server only, or a DM has an option to simply not allow a
> character in the front door.

Agreed.

I've been thinking about implementing a NWN scenario and one issue
I've been considering is, well...  I've seen how powerful characters
can get at higher levels and that doesn't suit the feel of the
scenario I want to implement.  Yet I enjoy playing 'my' character in
various situations, and experiencing various stories, and by playing
through the official campaign, I've established that my character
'works well' with a set of equipment and hotkeys.

Those two things conflict with each other in making a scenario open
to random people.  People are reluctant to give up the power that
they've 'earned' by playing elsewhere, but if they don't, the
scenario will be too easy.

Best idea I can come up with is to have people start at level 1 but
give them the necessary levels and ability to buy a selected set of
'useful but not too useful' equipment quickly, through NPC giveaways
and merchants.

-- Conrad

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com  Tue Jul  9 18:19:07 2002
From: Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com (Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com)
Date: Tue Jul  9 18:19:07 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] The importance of graphics
Message-ID: <mailman.24140.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Matthew D. Fuller [mailto:fullermd at over-yonder.net]
> On Thu, Jul 04, 2002 at 01:02:34AM -0400 I heard the voice of
> Zach Collins (Siege), and lo! it spake thus:
 
>> I was chatting with some friends last night, and we got onto the
>> subject of graphics in games.  One of them made the claim that
>> graphics will make or break a game, while another made a very
>> interesting point, that it's the *consistency* of the art
>> direction instead of just how pretty everything looks.
 
> I think consistency IS the make-or-break of graphics.  For an
> example, take the game "Serf City" (also released as "Settlers").
> I played it on a 386/40.  The gameplay was fun, but extremely
> limited.  It had support for 2-player games, but only by splitting
> the screen and using 2 meece.  The graphics were actually pretty
> impressive for the era and computing muscle behind it, but they're
> nothing spectacular; a few sprites with a couple variants of each
> for walking, working, fighting, etc.

I disagree that its a make-or-break. Its simply a possible
break. Doing it badly may lose you points, but do it well and people
won't notice. A hygiene factor if you like.

Dan

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From russw99 at swbell.com  Tue Jul  9 19:53:22 2002
From: russw99 at swbell.com (Russ Whiteman)
Date: Tue Jul  9 19:53:22 2002
Subject: Player count threshholds (was: Re: [MUD-Dev] Text Muds vs
	Graphical Muds)
Message-ID: <mailman.24141.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>

> I'm be interested in knowing your thoughts on how Simutronics
> dealt (apparently successfully given they're still around with a
> lot of customers) with this kind of explosive growth. It's one
> thing to create a graphical MUD where you are aiming for a ton of
> users, and entirely another to take a MUD (text in this case, but
> that's irrelevant really) that was designed for small number and
> ramp it up suddenly.

> I'd assume they added more world content to lower the player
> density, but do you remember what systems were added or modified
> to deal with the sudden increase? Which ones worked? Which ones
> didn't?  Any speculation as to why?

As to how they dealt with it, it often felt like we were running an
emergency room during a major urban military operation.  <g> I don't
think -anyone- expected the kind of growth we saw.  We hired new
staff as fast as we could get them trained...we implemented a
"GameHost" position when we realized just how much GM time was being
taken up with "How do I get my sword out of my backpack" type
issues...our primary task as GM's was to build new areas, and expand
the existing ones (in order to give the players a chance to spread
out a bit), with a strong secondary priority put on controlling the
ferals (which was the term used for griefers at that time and
place).  GemStone was fairly large when we first entered that period
(4-5000 rooms, I think), but over the next year, we tripled the
available space, while also extending the upper end of the supported
levels from 60-something to 90+.  We also added one new high-level
town about a year after we opened on AOL, and used that experiment
(until then, we only -had- one town) as the basis for building the
systems necessary to support such additions.  We added another
low-level town not too long after that, and several others since
then (we have 6-7 nowadays, I think, three of which are drop-zones
for new characters).  Building that high-level town was something of
a new experience, being that it was a huge project involving every
single staff member, whether they were coders, room-painters, or rp
event specialists (I think we numbered around 30 at that time).  We
were -all- drafted into the building of it...and it was probably the
most fun I've ever had.  I'd never worked with such a number of such
highly devoted and creative people.  <g> Oddly enough, when we
finally reached the point that -we- thought we had enough room for
the players, we found that 80% of them couldn't be bothered to move
from the overcrowded first town to someplace with a bit more elbow
room.  To this day, the newer towns aren't much more crowded than
the entire game was in the Genie-only days, while the Landing is
comparatively a major metropolis.

On the downside, we did suffer a pretty heavy backlash of burnout
among the staff...which was only kept as low as it was by the
presence of the Hosts.  After spending a few months dealing with the
newbies, I for one, was virtually worshipping those who'd
volunteered to filter out the questions that were really just a
complete lack of familiarity with text games, and let us deal with
the "real" problems and issues that affected the game.  That first
year and a half was one of constantly feeling like we were running
as fast as we could only to keep losing ground (particularly in
terms of overcrowding).  AOL's complete lack of support in terms of
controlling the griefers didn't help...we could only block a
screenname if it hadn't been deleted already (they wouldn't give us
any way to tie a screen name to an actual account).  The "clubs" of
griefers would, in some cases have deleted their entire set of
accounts and hacked new ones before we could even -try- to block the
first ones.  That AOL didn't seem to be overly concerned about the
fact that they had people playing on accounts that -they- couldn't
even find in their billing system, just boggled my mind.

Things could, no doubt, have been handled better, if anyone had
-ever- thought we'd see a 10-fold increase in population...but
overall, I think we came out of it in pretty good shape.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From sean at ffwd.cx  Tue Jul  9 23:30:33 2002
From: sean at ffwd.cx (Sean Kelly)
Date: Tue Jul  9 23:30:33 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24142.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Valerio Santinelli" <tanis at mediacom.it>

> NWN can be massive.

...

> The only problem about making it a fully persistant game is that
> variables tied to characters, that are used to track quests
> completion and similar thing, are not saved with the characters
> themselves. I guess Bioware is going to release a patch fo this
> behaviour.

Actually, so far as I know, it is possible to create invisible
inventory items and to store variables on these.  At the very least,
you could give players an actual inventory item and do the same.  So
far as I know, variables stored on items persists across servers (it
would have to, since that's how charges for wands are handled, etc).

> Now, if you've seen the toolset released by Bioware, you can agree
> with me that creating a world with that tool is really easy. I am
> building a persistant world for NWN myself and I can make new
> areas in a matter of minutes. Adding content is easy and can be
> done in whatever fashion you like. I even got to spend 20 or 30
> minutes creating a single item and tweaking all its values to my
> liking. But you can also drop standard items into your world with
> a single click and build such content in 5 minutes. It all depends
> to you, the server builder. And I see great power in that toolset.

Yup.  Very easy to use.  Beats the heck out of the editors used for
quake, unreal, or thief.

> You also get NWScript, which is a scripting language with syntax
> similar to C. And you can do virtually everyhing with it.

...except add new functionality via shared libraries or the like.
While this would be a perfect way to introduce instability,
malicious code, etc.  into game servers, it would also allow us more
resourceful types to do some truly incredible stuff.  That said,
NWScript is quite nice.  Combined with local variables, even complex
datatypes are possible.

There is, however, a huge lack of documentation for the scripting
language and included API (ie. none, unless you count the modules
that ship with the game).  Fortunately, the rabid fan base has
constructed some decent basic docs with the help of a few of the
designers.  Still, it would be nice if this sort of thing were
available from BioWare directly.

> I've had a look at the original scripts from Bioware. You can see
> that all the code related to how combat works, how XP are
> assigned, how spells affect other creatures, and more, are all
> done with NWScript. This means that you can completely rewrite the
> rules of your game.

Within reason.  Adding features that require a modification of the
basic rules would be difficult to impossible (new races or classes
that are not variations on existing ones).  But things like
vampirism should be quite doable.

> NWN holds great power. I agree it's the next step after UO, but
> not only UO. It's the next step of what UO emulators have done
> till now. Bring server-building capabilities to the masses.

It's one of the only ways I see that could generate enough content
to satisfy the gaming community.  And the content is as diverse as
the community itself.


Sean

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From casbaria at pacbell.net  Thu Jul 11 00:00:23 2002
From: casbaria at pacbell.net (Casbaria)
Date: Thu Jul 11 00:00:23 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Game Convention Development Survey
Message-ID: <mailman.24143.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

A friend of mine is going to run his first Gaming Convention next
February and has a survey to help hampster suggestions/ideas on a
few topics. (i.e. what kind of music to pipe in, if any; what kind
of tabletop/computer games to offer; etc.)  I believe the plan is to
offer organized computer tournaments via 8&16 player LANs, console
games, as well as the traditional gaming convention fare.

I've taken the survey and although the format could be better, it
was relatively painless and the people on this mailing list is
exactly the kind of demographic he's looking for, I believe.

The survey also has a few prize opportunities. ($5 coupon for completing
the survey, a drawing for 2 weekend passes, and a drawing for a PS/2.)

If interested, here's the link:

  http://survey.ubercon.com

Adam

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Maximus at Vaultnetwork.com  Thu Jul 11 02:37:18 2002
From: Maximus at Vaultnetwork.com (Maximus)
Date: Thu Jul 11 02:37:18 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights (Was: The Future of MMOGs... what's
	next?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24144.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

At 10:42 AM 7/9/02 +0200, you wrote:
> From: "Dave Trump" <trump at trumps.net>
>> At 10:48 AM 7/6/02 +0200, Valerio Santinelli wrote:

> At the moment the best solution seems to be to dump variables to
> the log and parse them back and create an include script to attach
> to your module when restarting.

One of our readers has created something very similar to this type
of setup and it's at version 1.3 currently. It's titled the PW
Unviersal Mind system

  http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/other/

Maximus at Vaultnetwork.com
Associate Editor - IGN
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shren at io.com  Thu Jul 11 07:00:24 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Thu Jul 11 07:00:24 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what's next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24145.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 lynx at lynx.purrsia.com wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Damion Schubert wrote:

> Best idea I can come up with is to have people start at level 1
> but give them the necessary levels and ability to buy a selected
> set of 'useful but not too useful' equipment quickly, through NPC
> giveaways and merchants.

... you never do know how much equipment the last module the PC went
through gives out, do you?  This is the option that I took - my
module bumps people up to second on entry (first level characters
just *break* too easy), and come to think of it, I could make the
same script pass out some kind of "useful" item to the player.

I wanted to start them at first, but it smelled too much like I'd
have to handle first level like Bioware did - you kill a series of 1
hp/1 damage goblins untill you reach second, then upon completing
the prelude, you get jumped to third.  Life's too short, so I find
it easier to be standing on a trigger area with an xp-boosting
OnExit event when you start the adventure.

This does show the dangers of raw tabletop system adaption.  While I
often find tabletop mechanics to be superior to MUD systems, that
doesn't mean that the tabletop mechanic is going to make a perfect
MUD system.

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rgabbard at swbell.net  Thu Jul 11 08:31:59 2002
From: rgabbard at swbell.net (Ron Gabbard)
Date: Thu Jul 11 08:31:59 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24146.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Damion Schubert" <damion at ninjaneering.com>
> From: Ron Gabbard

>>  Are MMOGs destined to become >> 'Wal-Marts' where
>>  "level-appropriate" content is conveniently >> provided at the
>>  lowest cost possible or is there a way of >> achieving mass
>>  customization where every player can be significant >> in a game
>>  world of thousands?

> Fascinating post, Ron.  A lot to think about here, but as an
> opening thought, I think that comparing Walmart to EverQuest is
> somewhat simplifying the process.

Personal opinion, EverQuest falls more into the 'trying to cram
3,000 customers through a corner grocery store' model more than a
'WalMart'.  The EQ game experience is close to the single-player RPG
except for the Tragedy of the Commons that hits.  Anarchy Online is
probably the closest of all the MMPs I've played to what I
envisioned as the 'WalMart model'.  It may be that much of the
resulting design was driven by the initial technical problems.  It's
a game specifically developed to handle thousands of players
conveniently logging in, getting content, earning loot and
experience, and then logging out.  Convenient save spots, convenient
banks, convenient stores, convenient mission terminals, little
dependence on other players...  it's a very low-cost model in terms
of investment required from the players.

> Online games have a different promise, and what that is can vary
> from game to game.  In Ultima Online, it was 'be part of a living,
> breathing fantasy world'.  In Ultima Online 2, we were aiming for
> something closer to 'Be a part of an epic'.  We actually
> identified the problem of getting people who were used to the
> single-player tradition of 'be a hero' into a massively
> multiplayer game to be one of our top challenges in tapping the
> mass market.

I've been trying to think of real-life examples where societies were
engaged in a conflict and everyone got the opportunity to be a
'hero' in that they were significant in their contribution to 'the
cause'.  The best example I could come up with is WWII.  Eisenhower,
Bradley, and Patton were all 'heroes'.  FDR was a 'hero'.  The
soldiers and pilots were 'heroes'.  But, less obviously, the women
that went into the factories to make tanks and weapons were heroes.
The neighborhood patrolmen that conducted air raids were heroes.
The people that grew Victory Gardens were heroes.  I am expecting
that things were much the same in the UK in that almost every member
of society contributed and believed that their activities made a
difference... even if it was just buying War Bonds and abiding by
the rationing programs.  It was the Allied war 'machine' versus the
Axis war 'machine' more than warriors versus warriors.  Thus,
factories and power plants became key strategic targets and the
people that worked in those facilities, 'heroes'.  The trick is that
this type of player emotional involvement at all levels requires
'patriotism' which can't be artificially coded into the game.

The reality is that players are going to be investing different
amounts of time, energy, and skill into the game.  The 'Churchill',
'FDR', 'Patton', and 'Rommel' roles will be played by players that
spend significant time in the game.  Creating games where the core
gamers get to be heroes isn't as large of a challenge as creating a
game where the casual gamer can still be significant.  Can the
infantryperson, platoon-leader, or factory-worker role be made such
that it is significant, fun, and fulfilling in the grand scheme of
things?

> I figure you can do one of three things:

>   1) Incorporate lessons from those single-player experiences into
>   your MUD/MMP as best you can.

>   2) Conclude that MMPs are evil.  This choice does seem to be in
>   vogue nowadays.

>   3) Recognize the strengths of MMPs (communities, group dynamics,
>   etc), and work with them as best you can.

>  For those reasons, I've been focusing more on #3 - > identifying
>  and creating features that would suck if you were > playing
>  alone.

I will agree with you here that MMPs could do a better job of
leveraging the players and the amount of energy and creativity they
can contribute in terms of the areas you mentioned.  I guess it gets
back to the original question of whether the resulting game is one
where the player logs off after each session feeling that they were
significant or if the experience just didn't suck.  In other words,
if the Fates were to go to the beginning of a character's life and
cut the thread such that they never existed, would it make any
difference whatsoever in the web of the world?

Cheers,

Ron

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Koster  Thu Jul 11 08:38:11 2002
From: Koster (Koster)
Date: Thu Jul 11 08:38:11 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Importance of graphic in different stages of gaming
Message-ID: <mailman.24147.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Edward Glowacki

> If you'd rather set yourself up for continued business and
> customer loyalty, then a polished experience and a quality product
> is more important.  Given a fixed budget, this means less
> time/money to spend on flashy graphics.  And in the long run, your
> graphics are going to look outdated very quickly anyways as new
> technologies emerge, especially in the PC and console game world
> where things move very fast.

Problem there is that then you will get fewer players as well,
unless you manage to overcome the fact that the purchasing decision
is driven so much by graphics. :P To be successful, you basically
need to cover all the bases at least adequately.

-Raph

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Koster  Thu Jul 11 09:30:22 2002
From: Koster (Koster)
Date: Thu Jul 11 09:30:22 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to being
	immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24148.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

A nice post and subsequent thread by folks on the Star Wars Galaxies
boards.  I'll include some of the postings here, but I urge people
to read the full thread because

  a) it shows that players aren't clueless :) 

  b) it's a collectively revealing analysis of playstyles

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/starwars/Forum3/HTML/062581.html

start quote--->

Singularity
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 07:22 AM 

I'm not gonna lie to you. Bajeezus had a tremendous point the other
day about MMO's being like child-development; something that Holo
affirmed.

As you trace the values of an online society parallel to the stages
of child-development, certain congruencies are pretty
apparent. Different features click into human develoment, and seem
to put the tone of the population squarely where the motivations
dominantly lie, you might say.  Simply put, the modal behavior type,
as dictated by game mechanics, shapes the tone of the player
population.

As was said the other day, MMO's have a great difficulty passing a
few basic hurdles relative to human development. Players have a
tendency to play "next to" each other, rather than with each
other. This is typified by an extreme reliance on PvE (and perhaps
indeed, just the E) in an MMO gameworld that encompasses thousands
of players who go unused in each respective player's
experience. Cooperative PvE, or grouping, signals players learning
the value of working together, which is a decently advanced
concept. However, as Raph is quick to point out, cooperative PvP of
the unconsensual type is still a relative taboo in online game
development. For obvious reasons, of course.

This is akin to online populations understanding the value of say,
noncompetitive sports, but stopping short of appreciating
soccer. Why is this?

I would argue, based solely on the principles of parenting and human
development, that online worlds are tantamount to spoiling children.
This isn't such a grandiose statement when considering that the
lamented point of games are to have fun, and the business objective
of the companies that create them is to keep people having fun in
them for as long as possible to keep subscriptions up. Online worlds
are based entirely on gratification; they're virtual-reality in
which having fun is the goal, all the time.

What does this do to somebody, and more appropriately, groups of
somebodies?  Let's go back to the child-development scenario. A
cardinal rule in bringing up a child (or so they tell me ) is to
keep perpetual gratification to a minimum - people are creatures of
habit, and habitual gratification is addictive and makes for snobby
little kids... Entire online worlds are based on the concept of the
pacifier. If somebody isn't happy, get them happy!  Give people a
quick reward to keep them smiling. Leveling dings are akin to oral
fixations, in my opinion.

Introduce soccer to this concept, and every time you score a goal,
you get to take the pacifier away from the other team. In the world
of gratification, half the people go away unhappy. That's
unacceptable in MMO design terms. Hell, it seems a little petty, but
apparently 90% of MMO players out there will recognize this
competitive feedback loop as being un-fun in the longrun and steer
clear of it. Like a child who doesn't like losing at dodgeball.

And so we get an interesting phenomenon that arguably defines MMO
player populations, and indeed MMO's at large. The concept of
self-chosen gratification in an environment designed for fun sees a
Darwinian process of selection - everything fun can stay, everything
that compromises fun is banished on an individual basis such that
each individual ends up voting with his or her virtual
feet. Anything that takes away the pacifier a child is going to
avoid.

What we're left with is a very sterile, non-competitive form of fun
that allows everybody to go about their business without any real
negative impact from other players. It's this parallelizing nature
of MMO's that keeps everybody safe and happy - but at the same time,
it really keeps people from interacting at higher levels of
"maturity". We haven't really seen a lot of interactivity between
players yet - the systems just haven't been there, for technological
reasons, yes, but also for reasons of design. People prefer to play
side-by-side, rather than with other players because interacting
with another person raises a variable. Particularly in competitive
play.

In this way, MMO's are content to operate at a relatively immature
level, so far as human development goes. They fail, so far, to take
advantage of many of the higher-level social interactions people are
capable of. And so, they're doomed to being relatively immature.

But it's a gleeful immaturity - we're just as happy as four year
olds in a candy shop.


Prijon
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 07:31 AM  

Hehe, nice post. I would like to add one thing if I may.

In raising children setting boundaries is very important. It is the
parents responsibilty to ensure these boundaries are fair and owe it
to the child to enforce them to allieviate confusion. It is unwise
to allow yourself to be drawn into a long, drawn out debate where
these hard and fast boundary lines are drawn. You are the one who
knows best. You are the one with the experience and knowledge above
their understanding. In time they will understand.

You have to confidence in yourself that the guidelines you set are
in fact what is best for the child. No matter how much they kick and
scream.

I can't think of a better analogy.

-Prijon 


PyRathedan
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 07:31 AM  

Err.....DING?

Actually thats a great write up Sing. And it's correct.

But the way I see it, MMOGs themselves are much akin to child
development, not just for the gratification in game, but the
development of the players over time.

The games have evolved, slowly to be sure, but htey have evolved and
grown.  Newer games have been producing more aspects of PvP that go
beyond just combat, introducing players to game styles that, much
like soccer and other team sports, only some poeple win, and it's
only some of the time.

MMOGs will continue to mature with each generation that comes out,
its a slow process, but when we're talking about a generation of
players that GREW up literally in a gaming world that centered on
them and rewarded them continually on the single player format, it's
hard to get them to adjust.

My personal vision of MMOGs still have a long way to grow, but they
only grow as fast as the community can adapt to it. I have a feeling
as more and more games come out over time, we'll see that change,
and we as players will adapt slowly but surely.


DarthSterling
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 07:35 AM  

I think the level of maturity on an MMORPG isn't all that different
from that in real life.

After all, we require rather strict measures in real life to
restrict people from commiting immature, criminal acts of harrasment
in real life, just as on an MMORPG.

Plus, having people not be forced to interact in ways they do not
wish to is a good thing. How many people wish to be 'drafted' onto a
football team?  Especially if they're, say, a 4'8" 12 year girl who
doesn't know the rules?

Frankly, the fact that we are having such an open discussion is a
signal of the increasing maturity of these forums. Look at the sort
of immaturity explified by the people who got into the boardroom and
created the Enron and Worldcom disasters. Those were professionals
in their 40's 50's, 60's and more who ruined 10's of thousands of
peoples lives with their greed.

In other words, I don't think we're so bad off


RazaelDemron
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 07:37 AM  

You must remember that people are hampsters. Do a trick... get a
pellet.


Hoggle
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 07:54 AM  

  quote: 

    Introduce soccer to this concept, and every time you score a
    goal, you get to take the pacifier away from the other team. In
    the world of gratification, half the people go away
    unhappy. That's unacceptable in MMO design terms. Hell, it seems
    a little petty, but apparently 90% of MMO players out there will
    recognize this competitive feedback loop as being un-fun in the
    longrun and steer clear of it. Like a child who doesn't like
    losing at dodgeball.

Losing isn't a problem. The problem is being forced to play a game
against the World Cup champians. If I go to PvP against a roughly
equal opponent and lose, I will try better next time. But some high
level l33tD00D that ganks newbie miners with no combat skills as
they enter a mine isn't a challenge or a good competitive match.


Khafar
Station Member 
  07-11-2002 07:57 AM  

That may be all true, to a point - but I don't think the converse is
true: that if "The Future of MMOGs is PvP" (e.g. competitive sports)
vision were realized, that online culture would improve all that
much. It might even get worse, which is what I'm concerned about
with the PvP-ish aspects of business and politics in SWG. Why? Well,
because of Lum's truism: People Are Broken. And in an online
environment, the "broken" parts of people are far more free to
express themselves. The biggest possible consequence is that you get
your account banned, and have to open a new account on a new CC. Or
at worst, go find another game to play. Big deal.

Also, people are far more likely to act "broken" towards each other
online because of the "virtual sociopath" phenomenon. There's a
fair-sized group of people who find it very easy to objectify people
online. Call it low empathic ability. To these people, other players
are mostly just some pixels and keystrokes coming down a wire, after
all. You can't see them, or hear their voices, go to their house for
dinner, or watch your kids play together. And so it's easy to
misbehave toward them - many psychology experiments have been done
on this tendency of human beings to objectify "them", and in online
games 95% of the stimulus that helps us to humanize each other is
simply missing.

There are no simple fixes for this. I'm not even sure there are any
hard fixes... the very thing that people value about online
socializing (semi-anonymous, low-commitment, low-risk ways to
communicate with as many human beings as they could possibly want
to) is what prevents some people from bonding well enough to treat
other player like well... people.

Khafar 


sabrelight
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:00 AM  

Comparing real-world sports to online games is just not a fair
comparision.

As others have said, the talent level is not equal.

Also it is much more difficult to enforce rules that esnure fair
play in an online world as compared to something like a soccer
match.

So I think the analogy is pretty much invalid.

It is more like kids playing a game on their own with no supervision
and the bully kid making up his own rules as the game
progresses. Eventually the other kids will not play with the bully
kid any longer because the game is not fair.


Shai-Tan
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:07 AM  

Singularity, your post does strike true, but the fact is there are
important differences between life and a MMORPG life.

Having a real life is a constant fact, and aside from the obvious,
there is no way to just turn it off and leave, or start a new one.

A virtual life on the other hand is a passing thing. It is very easy
to quit your virtual life, and since this is the case, the devs of
any MMORPG have the near impossible task of keeping everyone
happy. If they fail, then people will leave. It is very simple to
close an account with a game company; simply a few clicks of a mouse
and you no longer take part in the world. A child who is unhappy
with his world has relatively little he can do to change that world,
and is pretty much stuck there.

Basically, even though we(the player base) should be able to handle
the bad things, in general we won't, and we will find a better game
if we don't like where we are.


slugeater
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:09 AM  

[quote]
  Losing isn't a problem. The problem is being forced to play a game
  against the World Cup champians. If I go to PvP against a roughly
  equal opponent and lose, I will try better next time. But some
  high level l33tD00D that ganks newbie miners with no combat skills
  as they enter a mine isn't a challenge or a good competitive
  match.
[/quote] 

Very true. DAOC did great relating to this with their Battlegounds
features.

But it's also untrue. LOTS of people don't want to lose. They've
been given the habit in RPGs both PnP and computer, to save the
world and be the hero.

That someone can do better than them and shadow them angers them,
because basically there will ALWAYS be a beeter ranked/higher lvl
player. They go from winning all the time to amlays being the
underdog.

Khafar:

  quote:
    Call it low empathic ability 

Brilliant. Some people just don't care about their neighbors in a
virtual reality because they don't conceptualize them as people.

Often it happened to me not to leave a group because people needed
my class and there were no others available. (It's good to be a
Druid in the Bog of Cullen). I did so because I felt seven people
would have to wait or logout if I didn't stay. Some people can't
understand there are other feeling, living people on the other side
of the IP packets. Therfore they keep a 100% self centered view of
the game.


Nyght
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 08:11 AM  

Khafar's comments are dead on from my point of view.

I just finished Raph's UO postmortem and it really gave me pause. He
not near cynical enough about people for my tastes.

Today, in the real world, the vast majority of people are only
restrainted in their behaviours by the consequences of their
actions. In an online game the consequences are only consequences
relative to how much you wish to continue to play that game.

An awful lot of players don't really have any investment in playing
one game over the next.


slugeater
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:12 AM  

quote: 

  Singularity, your post does strike true, but the fact is there are
  important differences between life and a MMORPG life.

Shai-Tan,

Not so much as you would believe. Online loss is felt by the RL
players.  Online is part of RL, since you DO play the game in your
Real Life. People can be saddened by online events, and therefore
responsibility has to be taken to avoid all that can bring sadness
through online gaming: that's grief play. Play with the intent of
causing to the RL player emotional harm.


Thunderheart
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:15 AM  

No, it depends on how the game supports the social structure....

It must support player empowerment much in the way veteran posters
got props from Q-3PO for helping the noobs.

The education curve MUST be supported in the social structure.

Its ALLLLLLL about education baby...

th  


Shai-Tan
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:21 AM  

slugeater, I'm aware of the fact that the game can have a
significant impact on your RL emotions. I myself have been angry,
sad, and happy and many other emotions because of MMORPGs, but that
wasn't really the point of my post.

The point is that a MMORPG can be turned off. That is what happens
if the creators do not make a game that is enjoyable 99% of the
time. In order to make a successful game, they have to appeal to the
majority of the player base, and the fact is, the majority of the
player base is perfectly happy with the "relatively immature level"
that most MMORPGs achieve.

Those of us who desire the higher interaction, are mainly a minority
who have played many MMORPGs for a long time. Comparing it to Baj's
post on maturity levels, we've progressed further than most people,
and are closer to being gamer "adults" than most of the people who
will buy SWG. SWG has made some incredible progessions in
"maturity", but I believe it will be years before a MMORPG is
created that will cater to gamers like us.


Emile_Khadaji
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:30 AM  

Nice write up

The PvP part of the problem in future development has to do with
Solo vs.  Group rewards. A system mimicking The Prisoner's Delemma
is needed to discourge PK and encouraged team PvP (coopertive &
competitive play).

Solo vs. Group problem: In combat the first to run away can live to
fight another day, but if all stand firm all have a greater chance
of survival.  One runner is guarenteed survival, many runners cause
a route. If a route occurs more die then if the army combat unit
stayed together and fought. It is counter intuitive behavior and why
military training is so harsh in boot camp... people are trained to
put group survival up higher then personal survival. Without
negative behavior penalties for promoting individual priorities over
the groups goals PvP will remain PK/dueling centric and won't evolve
well in to team PvP.

FYI: The Prisoner's Delemma= a psych game of ratting out or keeping
quiet, those who rat out on the other first win the short term game
while those proven trust worthy win the long term game.


Alichai
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:31 AM  

Leave it up to Singularity to make an eloquent post on a sticky
subject and then manage to interject the phrase "Oral Fixation",
without anyone blinking an eye

Anyways, I think you're dead on accurate, though. The way that a
game is set up can push people towards different mind-sets.

AO, for example, requires no downtime, no cooperation whatsoever. Is
it any suprise to people that this turned out to grow the most
unfriendly player-base in the history of online games? I mean geez,
the people I play Jedi Knight with are nicer, and we're only there
to lop each other's heads off!

I think the key to molding MMORPG gamers into "good" people is to
REQUIRE a little downtime, and to force people to be reliant on
others. Not to the point that you can accomplish nothing on your
own.. but enough that treating people with respect is more efficient
in the long-run.

I think SWG is heading squarely in the right direction, even if some
people don't think so. They're afraid to have to depend on others
because in the past the others have let them down.. But I say its
the games in the past that required no intereliance that created
those players.

Long live Militias (And Free-Cities too)

__Alichai__


Jerid
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 08:45 AM  

Interesting point of view but my experiances differ a bit.

I played first person shooters (mostly team based PvP) fenaticaly
for about 4 years. I played Everquest (co-op PvE) for 2 years as if
my life depended on it.

Out of the two there were always some who acted very mature and some
who acted extreemly infantile. The pure PvP aspect of a highly
competitive enviornment seemed to draw out less civilized play
behavior.

This doesn't necessarily prove anything even if I had hard numbers
to back it up. The games are very diffrent in nature and some could
argue a role-playing game is more cerebral to begin with and you are
relying on some of the more basic animalistic behaviors to excell in
a PvP life of virtual death situation. Just something to chew on.

Since I love to rambel and cook up analogies here is one hot off the
presses.

Scenario One: Joe and Sue are at a fair. They go up to a booth where
you need to shoot targets to win a prize. Sue gets 10 of 10 hits and
wins a huge stuffed bear. Joe gets only 7 of 10 and wins a much
smaller toy. Joe sees what Sue got and decides he is going to play
again. If he shoots just a little better this time he can win one of
those BIG stuffed bears. They play again and they both win big
prizes.

PvE situation. Both players are playing the same game and both have
an equal opportunity to win the prize they want. Since the booth
owner has plenty of all the prizes what the other person wins is of
little consequence aside from motivating Joe to do as well as Sue.

Scenario Two: Joe and Sue see another game. You need to toss a ring
around a bottle and you need to hit a target with a mallet hard
enough to ring the bell to win the prize. Neither of them can do
both and win. They talk the person running the booth to let them
each do part of it and he agrees.  Working togeather they play twice
and win a prize for each of them.

PvE Co-Op. Working togeather they both had fun and both ended out
ahead.[i]

Scenario Three: Joe and Sue see another booth. Padded pugil stick
dueling while standing on a long thin plank. First to knock off the
other wins a prize. Sue promptly whips Joe's butt and collects
another big prize. Joe is sick of getting shown up by Sue. He asks
for rematch. This time he distracters her and hits her with a cheap
shot knocking her down. Who can blame him. There was a huge prize on
the line and she was in his way.

[i]PvP situation. There was a reward on the line and it ment more to
Joe than the idea of being fair to Sue. He saw an opportunity and
took it.

Both had fun in the first game but aside from maybe being jelous of
the other persons skills and rewards they had little interaction.

In the second they both had fun interacted and accomplished
something. The game was easy when they worked togeather.

In the last game they were up for a bigger challenge. Playing
against another person leads to an unpredictable contest. This to
many makes for a more satisfying win. The cost is someone has to be
a looser. Some people hate loosing more than they like a fair
game. Some people will act like Joe.

The actions of Joe in the last contest were childish. In a setting
where annonimity is the norm and feelings don't translate well
people will on some level think of their "opponent" as less of a
person and more of an obstacle.  I supose as MMOG's evolve and the
interaction becomes more and more "real" and "personal" this
childish behavior may evolve with it. This biggest obstical is we
are talking about a GAME, an ESCAPE. People play it to get away from
the responsibilities and concerns of mundane life as much as they do
for compitition or fun. How "real" do you realy want your "games"?

>From a keep people hapy standpoint PvP is dangerous. For many
dangerous = exciting = fun = something they don't get in real life.

/me wonders where he was going with all this psychobabble...

bah


Delphis
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 09:02 AM  

Nice essay, Singularity, and nice responses.

There are many types of motivation and reinforcement. People respond
to different stimuli based on their current needs. The [url
=http://web.utk.edu/~gwynne/maslow.HTM] Maslow's Heierarchy of
Needs[/url] is widely held as fairly accurate in determining how
people will prioritize their values.

As for MMOG's, I've had mixed experiences. RPG's are very much about
constant improvement. We like to see our characters grow and
progress, get stronger and able to do more things. Gratification
doesn't need to be instant, but we like to know that we are working
towards some goal, or completing some quest/mission. We don't like
to have our progress inhibited by other people in any way, nor do
most people wish to inhibit other people's progress.

The issue I would argue with you, however, is that these "sterile"
environments common in PvE games do not require a higher level of
maturity.  When the goals/quests/missions become so difficult that
there is simply no other way to accomplish them than by banding
together with a large force of individuals, we see people coming
together. Once people have a reason to come together, they become
more social and generally exhibit much more maturity. Typically,
someone or a few people will step up to organize the community and
we have Player Associations or Guilds. Not everyone in the PA will
act responsibly, but the leaders usually do or the PA breaks up
shortly.

People will gravitate towards the type of game that meets their
needs. Like minded individuals will tend to stick around each
other. Given the huge variety of options out there in the MMO
marketplace it is up to the game designers and developers to decide
which type of crowd they wish to serve.  In SWG's case, they're
trying for the widest possible audience by incorporating so many
disparate aspects of gaming: many different kinds of PvP, a wide
variety of PvE, focus on RP, hundreds of Skills, thousands of
Crafts, full support of PA's, a massive Civil War, thousands of
Faction, three sides of Conflict plus Neutrality, etc. There is no
doubt that SWG will be many different games to many different
people. And if they do a good job, SWG will surely have millions of
subscribers through the years.


Ewoklover
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 09:09 AM  

Very nice write-up.

I would agree with Khafar and swing towards his perspective.

My points are... what percentage of players are not of an age to be
mature and experienced in real life, let alone in an environment
where their identity is hidden and their actions do not necessarily
demand responsibility and accountability.

PvP, in itself, is not the matured product, if we are discussing
online societies within a gaming environment. I believe it to be
very improbable to have a full, non-consensual PvP
situation... until permanent death is accepted or tested in some
game(or some server ) With perma-death, we have accountability and
responsibility. Also, perma-death will nurture cooperative PvP in
the normally PvE types. When it is realized that a
multi-group(ie...town) environment can rid their area/countryside of
some (higher level/better player type of) villain by banding
together, the online society will reach puberty and rapidly advance
from that point to something more akin to real life.

Wow, I haven't posted that many words on these boards in a long
time. I hope it makes a little sense.  Back to work I go!
<---end quote

-Raph




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Jeff at nextelligence.com  Thu Jul 11 09:48:16 2002
From: Jeff at nextelligence.com (Jeff Lindsey)
Date: Thu Jul 11 09:48:16 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Importance of graphic in different stages of gaming
Message-ID: <mailman.24149.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Edward wrote:

> I'd argue that a typical player (or user of any software for that
> matter) goes through a series of phases, each one focusing on a
> different part of the product.

	-snip- 

>   3. Mid-term gaming - The game itself (storyline, game universe,
>   game mechanics) becomes important along with the UI.  "I raided
>   the Tomb of Mauve and got the uber Mega Mauve Magic Missile
>   spell and the Rod of Mauveness!"  At this point the player has
>   gotten over all the early hurdles and is just playing the game.
>   They don't ooh and ahh at the graphics anymore.  If they make
>   any comments about the UI, it will likely be due to flaws, not
>   good features of the UI, for exactly the same reason you never
>   think about the sewer system until your toilet overflows...
>   Somewhere in this phase is where most games will be discarded as
>   players lose interest or find flaws in the game they aren't
>   willing to deal with anymore.

	-snip-

> Note that flashy graphics are only important in the earliest
> phases, and in the long run they are overtaken by the rest of the
> game.  So the importance of graphics is directly related to what
> your goals are.
 
> If you're out to make a quick buck, then graphics are probably the
> fastest way to move a few copies of the game out the door and get
> some cash, but if the game doesn't live up to its expectations,
> you probably won't get a lot of repeat customers.

> If you'd rather set yourself up for continued business and
> customer loyalty, then a polished experience and a quality product
> is more important.  Given a fixed budget, this means less
> time/money to spend on flashy graphics.  And in the long run, your
> graphics are going to look outdated very quickly anyways as new
> technologies emerge, especially in the PC and console game world
> where things move very fast.

I'd have to say that the pacing of graphic (and tied content)
exposure would also factor into this theory. If the first area of a
game is the Haunted Forest, and you've seen every tree model and
texture by the time you reach the other side of it, 3. (above) would
set in very quickly.

Lately I've noticed many more RPGs stringing out unique graphic sets
(including monsters, effects, etc) in ways that keep the "oooh ahhh"
moments alive well into the late game stages.

-Jeff


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Thu Jul 11 09:53:26 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Thu Jul 11 09:53:26 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Continuity of experience in movies
Message-ID: <mailman.24150.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "eric" <ericleaf at pacbell.net>
> From: "Valerio Santinelli" <tanis at mediacom.it>
>> From: "shren" <shren at io.com>
>>> On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, eric wrote:

>>>> This is relevant to game development in many ways however, the
>>>> immaturity of the participants and their ego, and controlling
>>>> desires. Most games are linear because the designers are
>>>> control freaks.

>>> For really flexible plot, check out The Way of the Samurai for
>>> the PS2.  6 different endings to the same story, it's totally
>>> non-linear in play.  Different events happen at different times,
>>> and no matter which you go to or how you react to them, the game
>>> continues forward.  You only get herded at the end, to set
>>> things up for one of the 6 endings.

> I'll check that out, another game I enjoyed on the ps2 along these
> lines was Dynasty Warriors 3. There was a large cast of characters
> you played against and with. Good characters that is, background
> stories, believable plots and subplots. Interesting also as a
> historical tale of what went on during that period of asian
> history.

I've had the chance to try Dynasty Warriors 3 a few days ago. I've
not yet got into the depth of the game itself, but the concept is
good. Although you are bound to a certain plot, you are effectively
free to wander around the battlefield and act as you think it fits
best. I also noticed that your actions on the battlefield influence
the morale of your troops and consequently the actions they take
during battle.

>> I also consider Ultima 6 one of the best non-linear games. I've
>> spent months wandering around the world doing different
>> things. And Ultima has been my preferred serie since then. I've
>> yet to see a game where you can go around the world without
>> restrictions and without having to be bound at all times to a
>> single plot.

> Thats the particular issue of failing, when you have too much
> control you aren't bound by plots, and likewise when you are bound
> by plots you naturally haven't much control. That really only
> exists in SP oriented games, plenty of freedom to create
> spontanous plots in MUDs and MMOGs. And as soon as the old idea of
> the gamemaster/wizard/dungeon master being the active force in
> this is broken we may see some innovation in this regard.  Thats
> actually why my interest in muds was recently rekindled, working
> on that exact topic right now.

I do not see plots in MMOGs a problem per se. The real problem is
providing the same quests to every player without breaking your
world. What I mean is something that Ted L. Chen discussed in a
previous post. If you're going to provide a plot that is related to
an NPC being kidnapped, you cannot provide the same experience to
every user. Let's call the NPC Mr. McDonald (thanks Ted!). There's
only one such NPC. If he's been kidnapped, only certain players will
go and investigate on the case. If another player wants to join in,
that's fine. But you cannot repeat this same quest forever. It makes
no sense.

That's why GMs are needed to provide quests.

This makes sense if you're aiming at continuity in your world. If
you're not interested in having a life-breathing world, you can
provide the same quest over and over for as long as you want (thus
having it automated), but to people living there it would surely
look old that every 2 hours Mr. McDonald gets kidnapped.

I still do not have a clear idea about how to provide fully
automated quests without being repetitive. But there sure will come
a solution. The main problem I see is that the game has to maintain
a sort of knowledge base of events happening in the world, and
assign them a meaning. This way, based on data related to events,
characters, NPCs, etc.. it should be able to make simple quests
based on some guidelines provided by the implementors.  I am going
to think more about possible solutions to this issue.

--
Valerio Santinelli
One Man Crew Gaming Community (http://www.onemancrew.org)
My Lab (http://tanis.hateseed.com)
HateSeed.com Founder (http://www.hateseed.com)
In Flames Italia Webmaster (http://www.inflames.it)



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From PeterT at codemasters.com  Thu Jul 11 10:01:37 2002
From: PeterT at codemasters.com (Peter Tyson)
Date: Thu Jul 11 10:01:37 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24151.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Paul Boyle wrote:

> I'm interested in any articles or resources people could point me
> to on the development of in-game creation systems for MUDs,
> MMORPGs, and to a lesser extent, any computer game, like the
> Lego-based games, or The Incredible Machine.

The crafting system we're implementing at Dragon Empires is going to
be nicely different. If you want to email me about it feel free to.

With our system players will use machines to make their goods,
machines they can leave or even log off and let work. They buy
resources for a set price and then try and sell (or store) the
finished products at another price. All purchasing is done through a
central market unique to each town.

We figure the main fun in crafting is advancing to new recipes,
becoming known for your goods and making piles of cash! With DE we
allow everyone to craft a few basic items and to move in time to
advanced items. However, we don't think it's fun to sit for hours
clicking the same box, so the boring production elements are cut
back.

Peter Tyson
Community Liaison Manager - Dragon Empires
Codemasters
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Thu Jul 11 10:09:40 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Thu Jul 11 10:09:40 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what\'s next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24152.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Sean Kelly" <sean at ffwd.cx>
> From: "Valerio Santinelli" <tanis at mediacom.it>

>> NWN can be massive.

>> The only problem about making it a fully persistant game is that
>> variables tied to characters, that are used to track quests
>> completion and similar thing, are not saved with the characters
>> themselves. I guess Bioware is going to release a patch fo this
>> behaviour.

> Actually, so far as I know, it is possible to create invisible
> inventory items and to store variables on these.  At the very
> least, you could give players an actual inventory item and do the
> same.  So far as I know, variables stored on items persists across
> servers (it would have to, since that's how charges for wands are
> handled, etc).

I double-checked this. And got confirmation from other people, too.
Variables assigned to items in your inventory are NOT saved.  I do
not know how wands work, but I guess they use a different approach
than local variables. I'll have a look at them as soon as I get back
home.

>> You also get NWScript, which is a scripting language with syntax
>> similar to C. And you can do virtually everyhing with it.

> ...except add new functionality via shared libraries or the like.
> While this would be a perfect way to introduce instability,
> malicious code, etc.  into game servers, it would also allow us
> more resourceful types to do some truly incredible stuff.  That
> said, NWScript is quite nice.  Combined with local variables, even
> complex datatypes are possible.

You are right about both. You can have marvelous new functionality
and introduce instability and malicious code at the same time. It is
also true that games like Quake are using this approach anyway.
Bioware is never going to add support for external libraries,
anyway. They are not even going to add I/O functions to write to
file.

> There is, however, a huge lack of documentation for the scripting
> language and included API (ie. none, unless you count the modules
> that ship with the game).  Fortunately, the rabid fan base has
> constructed some decent basic docs with the help of a few of the
> designers.  Still, it would be nice if this sort of thing were
> available from BioWare directly.

The only real source of documentation are the forums on Bioware's
site.  Documentation is almost not existant. I've seen that a few
books about the NWN toolset have been published, but I do not know
how good they are since I've not yet put my hands on them.

>> I've had a look at the original scripts from Bioware. You can see
>> that all the code related to how combat works, how XP are
>> assigned, how spells affect other creatures, and more, are all
>> done with NWScript. This means that you can completely rewrite
>> the rules of your game.

> Within reason.  Adding features that require a modification of the
> basic rules would be difficult to impossible (new races or classes
> that are not variations on existing ones).  But things like
> vampirism should be quite doable.

At the moment it is possible to replace existing races with your
own. The issue is adding a new race to the game, but it's more
because of the menus used during character creations that are not
customizable.  Even .2da files (Baldur's Gate race and class files)
are working, but they are not supported.

>> NWN holds great power. I agree it's the next step after UO, but
>> not only UO. It's the next step of what UO emulators have done
>> till now. Bring server-building capabilities to the masses.

> It's one of the only ways I see that could generate enough content
> to satisfy the gaming community.  And the content is as diverse as
> the community itself.

Yes. And differently from UO, you can add completely new models to
your world, thus virtually enabling you to make worlds with
completely different graphics than Bioware's chapters.

--
Valerio Santinelli
One Man Crew Gaming Community (http://www.onemancrew.org)
My Lab (http://tanis.hateseed.com)
HateSeed.com Founder (http://www.hateseed.com)
In Flames Italia Webmaster (http://www.inflames.it)



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rob at cs.northwestern.edu  Thu Jul 11 10:28:32 2002
From: rob at cs.northwestern.edu (Robert Zubek)
Date: Thu Jul 11 10:28:32 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Salon article: "Showdown in cyberspace: Star Wars vs. The
	Sims"
Message-ID: <mailman.24153.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Tuesday's Salon had an interesting article on MMP online
games. Worth taking a look:

  http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/07/09/mmorpg/index.html

Rob

--
Robert Zubek
rob at cs.northwestern.edu 
http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~rob

<EdNote: Copied below>

--<cut>--
Showdown in cyberspace: Star Wars vs. The Sims
By Wagner James Au

  If online role-playing games are ever going to break out of the
  hardcore gamer ghetto, they'll have to do more than please the
  geeks.

July 9, 2002 | What if they gave a world and nobody came?

That's the dilemma facing dozens of companies and hundreds of
developers this year, as they gamble tens of millions of dollars in
the volatile realm of online games.

To be more precise, they're wagering on the growth of MMORPGs and
MMOGs -- the unwieldy acronyms for "massively multiplayer online
role-playing game." It's a genre with enormous commercial potential,
as demonstrated by the success of fantasy titles like Ultima Online,
Everquest, Asheron's Call and Dark Age of Camelot, each with paying
subscribers in the hundreds of thousands. (Everquest is the ranking
colossus, with around 400,000 players.)

Many industry analysts anticipate that those numbers will grow in
the coming years, and grow mightily. "I expect there will be 2 to 3
million more people in the U.S. that come on board in the next two
years," says David Cole, president of the multimedia research firm
DFC Intelligence. "Humans are a social species," says game designer
Brad McQuaid, formerly the prime creative force behind Everquest,
"which is what makes me believe MMOGs will rival the movie industry
in the next five to 10 years."

If they don't, it won't be for lack of trying. Virtual worlds
expected to go online this year or next include (by no means a
complete list): 3rd World, Ages of Athiria, Asheron's Call 2, A Tale
in the Desert, Black Moon Chronicles, Caeron 3000, Charr: The Grimm
Fate, Citizen Zero, City of Heroes, Darkfall, Dragon Empires, Earth
and Beyond, El Kardian, Endless Ages, Eve Online: The Second
Genesis, Horizons, Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle, Myarta, Myth
of Soma, PlanetSide, Quest of Ages, Realms of Torment, The Rubies of
Eventide, Shadowbane, The Sims Online, Star Wars Galaxies and World
of Warcraft.

Almost all of them are fantasy, with a smattering of sci-fi. Even if
you're a gamer, chances are you've never heard of most of them.

And in all likelihood, this is the last time you ever will.

Most of these games will fail for several prosaic reasons -- not the
least of which is an unavoidable fact of life: The hardcore gamers
who make these games successful can usually obsess over only one
game at a time. There are only so many hours in a week, after all,
and MMORPGs are nothing if not massively time-consuming. (For this
very reason, says Cole, "I think there is room for only a handful of
these games in each genre.") And because many gamers have long since
established a social network on established MMORPGs, it's unclear
how these new titles can lure them away.

"I play Everquest currently and have for three years," says Jennifer
Powell, an online community consultant and freelance writer based in
Colorado. "The only thing that would make me switch would be if all
my friends did, since my friends, including my husband, are the main
reason I continue to play."

But the main limitations on the MMORPG market really seem to be
self-imposed: Most developers can't shake the fantasy/sci-fi mindset
or conceive of an alternative way of playing. Very few role-playing
games have deviated far from the world imagined by that somewhat
dotty, Hobbit-fixated Oxford professor 50 years ago, or strayed much
from the central conceit of "leveling up" -- that is, improving the
traits and abilities of your persona in gradual steps -- originally
invented by Gary Gygax for Dungeons & Dragons more than 25 years
ago.

The genre restrictions create a kind of hardcore role-playing gamer
ghetto. "I think they're all kind of mining the same hardcore
group," says Will Wright, chief designer at Maxis Studios, speaking
of the current roster of MMORPGs. "I don't think they're bringing a
lot of new players in."

Are too many game companies chasing too few hardcore gamers? If so,
we could be set for a disastrous year of reckoning, as the game
industry's fixation on its own cultural inclinations sends it into a
downward spiral of failure. With so many entrants fighting for air,
companies will fold, game worlds will evaporate, investments of time
and capital will dissolve into ether -- all lost in a narrowness of
imagination and an unwillingness to build a space that accommodates
the rest of the world. In the short term, the real battle for an
online audience will most likely come down to two games in a clash
of true titans: Star Wars Galaxies and The Sims Online.

But there's some hope. Because while Star Wars Galaxies may seem at
first glance an exclusively geek nirvana, the developers have taken
an effort to make it something more. Even more intriguingly, The
Sims Online hints at a different future and could promise a true
breakthrough: a world of online role-playing where everyone feels at
home -- and everyone has a home.

"You're running a fucking service!" Bernie Yee growls at a group of
his industry peers. He's trying to persuade his fellow MMOG
developers not to force their subscribers into "a Darwinian survival
of the fittest," which benefits their most obsessed
subscribers. Instead, he argues, the developers should cater to
casual gamers, even at the expense of their hardcore fans.

"That's a new law, then," another developer scoffs back, suggesting
that designer Raph Koster's influential "Rules of Online Gaming"
will need an addition: "survival of the wimpiest."

Yee refuses to budge: "You tell me -- who do you want to alienate
more?" Since developers are often as hardcore about games as their
audience, many are evidently unwilling to buy his reasoning.

The exchange took place at the Game Developers Conference in March,
during a heated round table on the future of MMORPGs. Yee, former
director of programming at Sony Online Entertainment, was the
moderator. And from the start, the dialogue was interspersed by
shouts and smack talk. It was also an early glimpse at the oncoming
train wreck of soon-to-fail games.

"Will all the women in the room please stand up?" an overwrought
British developer fumes. "It's white males, all wearing glasses! 
Look at us!" The bespectacled Caucasians in attendance nod: The lack
of women players and developers, they agree, is keeping their games
from becoming truly mass market. And with so much potential revenue
out there, where are the games that aren't sci-fi or fantasy? "We're
all the Star Wars, D&D, Tolkien fans; those are the games we
create," another developer admits glumly.

Both Star Wars Galaxies and The Sims Online aim to break out of the
hardcore ghetto. And so, for varying reasons, the eyes of the gaming
world are upon them.

"Star Wars Galaxies and The Sims Online probably impressed our
editors more than other MMORPGs this year," says Ken Brown, editor
at Computer Gaming World. Set to launch sometime this December, both
these games -- from Sony Online Entertainment/LucasArts and Maxis
Studios/Electronic Arts, respectively -- represent the game
industry's first (and perhaps last) chance to prove how large the
market for massively multiplayer games can really be.

"We think Sims and Star Wars Galaxies will be a real indication of
the potential for the market," says DFC's Cole. As indicators of the
MMORPGs' overall appeal, he added, "either or both could be the
first games to top the 1 million [subscriber] mark."

Set shortly after the destruction of the Death Star, from the first
Star Wars film, Galaxies provides players with eight to 12 planets
to explore, including four (Tatooine, Naboo, Endor, and Yavin 4)
featured in the movies. (Spacefaring is planned in later releases;
for now, automated shuttles ferry players between these
destinations.) Each planet, according to LucasArts producer Haden
Blackman, is bigger than the entire Everquest landmass.

Major characters from the first trilogy are on hand: Jabba the Hut
offers assignments to prospective bounty hunters, for example, while
Han Solo or Boba Fett may drop in on the player, when the right
circumstances obtain. The designers also plan to have special
events, in which their "digiteer" staffers will take control of
Lucas' most beloved characters, in order to engage players in live,
semi-improvisational online theater. Killing any of the franchise's
key archetypes, however, will be impossible, as they'll usually
appear in contexts where fighting is prohibited, while only the best
player characters even stand a chance of beating them to a
draw. (LucasArts staffers doggedly maintain the game's internal
consistency to the world conceived by Lucas, even squaring it with
the films' other cross-media tie-ins -- books, comics, and so on --
the aggregate of which they lovingly refer to as "the continuity." 
They also speak with quiet pride of the role Galaxies will play,
after Lucas releases the next and final film -- when the MMORPG will
alone remain, as LucasArts publicist Tom Sarris puts it, "to carry
on the canon.")

It's the kind of space, in other words, that you can imagine "Star
Wars" devotees spending their entire lives in.

And that may be a problem. Is there room for a normal person in a
world of Lucas fanatics?

"Casual gamers -- even gamers most people would consider hardcore --
are intimidated by the zealots investing four to six hours a day
into an MMORPG character," says Erik Peterson, a freelance game
reviewer. "It ruins the game for them and turns playing into an
escalating arms race of online gaming hours that they just can't
win." Not to mention the even more noxious subset, who hack cheats
into a game, or still worse, the "griefers" who actively sabotage
the game, harassing newcomers (often sexually) or springing
practical jokes that leave their hapless marks lost, poor or
dead. "Making it so the hardcore experienced players don't totally
take advantage of and ruin it for the newbie players is essential,"
says Cole.

According to Star Wars Galaxies lead designer Raph Koster, they're
making a concerted effort to bring in more casual players as
well. "We're hoping that we can reduce the time commitment required
to play these sorts of games," Koster tells me by e-mail. "Until
now, it's not been uncommon to see the average player spending 20
hours a week online ... So we're hoping to cut that in half. Of
course, the die-hard Star Wars fans may well prove us wrong on that
in the end."

To ease the players' anxiety of leaving their world, Koster and his
team have implemented ways for remaining engaged with it
offline. For example, if you choose to play a merchant, you can hire
a computer-controlled character to staff your shop for you while
you're grappling with real life. You can also give missions to other
players, subcontracting tasks while you're away. Features like these
have helped mesmerize gamers during Galaxies' long production cycle
over the last couple of years.

"The sheer number of skills and professions is exciting," says Rick
Moffat, 36, a hardened veteran of games like Everquest and Asheron's
Call. "If they can actually make some of the professions viable --
bounty hunters, explorers, smugglers -- it's going to stretch the
boundaries of what's possible in an MMORPG."

It's impressive, to be sure, but I wonder if Koster and Rich Vogel,
his design partner, underestimate the militant devotion that the
franchise has accreted. There are people who actually waited in long
lines for the premiere of "Attack of the Clones." You have to ponder
how the same kind of Jedi masochists -- who kept the flame burning
even after the disheartening "Phantom Menace" -- might drive off the
more blas fans. Who wants to hang out in cyberspace with the kind of
guy who spent a week outside the multiplex in a pup tent?

"That's a definite possibility," says Ken Brown. "But I think guys
like Raph Koster and Rich Vogel are among the smartest online
designers in the business, and they know how to make a game
appealing to as many people as possible." Wright speculates that it
may come down to how well Koster and Vogel can mediate a balance
between the players who "are just hardcore -- they've been playing
this thing 40 hours a week, and now they're a super Jedi -- versus
somebody who just dropped into the world and is just cannon fodder."

LucasArts' Blackman insists this won't be the case. "The interaction
we've seen on our community message boards have been heartening," he
says. "The hardcore Star Wars fans have patiently educated all the
less-informed board members on the nuances of Star Wars, while the
hardcore MMORPG players have done the same for MMORPG newbies." (And
the zeal of the former group has an influence on the design team as
well: On learning that Wookie characters would speak English, as
opposed to the grunts and trills they associated with the beloved
Chewbacca, "the hardcore fans," says Blackman, "freaked out." Now,
before you can understand a Wookie, you must first learn the lingua
franca of Wookiese.)

Many in the industry argue that MMOGs won't become a breakout
success until they can bring in a substantial number of women into
the audience, and the Galaxies team says they have accounted for
that.

"We're definitely including elements that will appeal to women,"
says Blackman, pointing in particular to the many ways players can
customize the social interactivity aspects (like stylized chat
text), and a far more granular selection of female character body
types. (In previous MMORPGs, women often complained that the options
for their online alter ego were restricted to thin and busty -- or,
well, curvy and busty.) You can also customize appearance to an
infinite degree-- every facial feature can be subtly altered with a
slider control, as can skin tone -- to create a persona that's truly
unique. Of the 700 or so learnable skills available, only a third
are combat-related, with a number designed to appeal to women -- or
at any rate to those less interested in a life of galactic
swashbuckling. "I'm kind of embarrassed to mention this," says
Blackman, "but we have a hairdressing skill tree."

This attentiveness will also be evident in the game's handling of
the griefer problem, which anecdotal evidence suggests plagues
female players disproportionately. The anti-griefer policy hasn't
been totally enumerated yet, Blackman says, but will operate on a
basic principle: "Anything that loses revenue is bad." So bad, the
game will include a hot key for instant harassment reporting. (It
also transmits a snapshot of the victim's last five minutes of
conversation with the accused, allowing the company moderator to
make a fair deliberation between them.) Still, of the 250,000 people
registered on the Galaxies community site, LucasArts staffers
estimate that only 10 to 15 percent are women.

The breadth of choice may end up overwhelming the uninitiated. "It
might be too deep for casual players," says Computer Gaming World's
Brown, "but it will offer a rich, detailed, engrossing world to
those willing to spend a little time with it." Which might also mean
a game that's all things to all people -- but beloved by none. "The
gamers who would consider themselves mild Star Wars geeks won't
subscribe to the game," game reviewer Peterson predicts, "because
either they don't enjoy MMORPG games or they feel intimidated by
both the more hardcore Star Wars geeks and the more hardcore gamers
who play MMORPGs like they are a part-time job."

Not all the prerelease hype has gone to Star Wars Galaxies. "In
addition to Galaxies and The Sims Online," says Brown, "we're also
very interested in World of Warcraft, which will of course be huge." 
No doubt, given the phenomenal success of the strategy games that
inspired it -- but given Blizzard Studio's equally phenomenal
release delays, it's anyone's guess when Warcraft will
manifest. Another potential standout may be Asheron's Call 2, set a
hundred years after the first game, when the world has declined into
a chaotic wasteland -- which players must work together to tame and
rebuild.

"Game journalists are hardcore gamers," says Peterson, who attended
E3, the game industry's premier expo, held last month in Los
Angeles. According to him, the title with the most buzz among his
peers (after Galaxies) was City of Heroes, in which players take the
personae of costumed superheroes fighting crime and evil in a
virtual metropolis. "Despite the prevalence of fantasy tropes in
online games," says Rick Dakan, lead designer for Heroes, "very few
people can actually relate to what it's like to be an elf or wizard
or what have you. Players immediately understand superpowered
heroes."

But gamers understand The Sims even more. A networked variation of
Wright's game, The Sims Online arrives at a time when the original
title is still a bestseller (two years after its release), joined by
numerous expansion packs -- 6 million and 8 million sold so far,
respectively, easily making it the most popular game of all
time. Expectation has been building on the games' numerous fansite
communities. (Wright says with winning understatement, "If we can
convert a good percentage of that community to Online, then it'll
probably do very well.")

"Fans are already posting for roommates!" said the producer demoing
the game for me at E3, as she maneuvered her space alien alter ego
through her ornately furnished apartment, pausing to dance with,
then slap, a gentleman caller. As in the single-player game, you can
buy your own property, or share a lot with several housemates.

What you do there is entirely at your discretion. "Naked-clown
beauty pageants, superhero cowboy bars, and exclusive mountain
hideaways are just a few of the many strange possibilities this game
offers," says Computer Gaming World's Robert Coffey. This is because
the game comes with no overarching theme. Wright's idea is to
provide tools that are robust enough for players to shape their own
world, at their own leisure. "We're trying to make [success] more
correlated to your creativity than your time investment. What I want
is a game where people play three, four, maybe five hours a week,
and feel like they're getting a lot out of it."

While the world is laid out in a way that'll call to mind Sim City,
Wright's earlier hit, the game itself is expansive enough to include
genre elements of other MMORPGs. "A lot of neighborhoods will be
themed areas," says Wright. He envisions players with like tastes
naturally migrating together, and using the diverse range of objects
(homes, furniture, and so on) to create their own unique
communities. "So I look at the neighborhood, and I see, say, Western
town, or Futureville, or whatever... And that'll give me a good
sense of, 'Oh, if I'm into science fiction, I should go to
Futureville,' and I zoom down to Futureville ... and if I'm really
into that, I probably would want to move there and build my
futuristic house in that area ... You can buy a chair that looks
like it came off a starship, you can buy a chair that looks like it
came out of a castle or one that looks like it came out of a Las
Vegas casino. I think the range of objects that people have to build
with are going to suggest the breadth of theme that we hope to see
in the world."

There will be no segregation between hardcore and casual players;
rather, Wright is working to make their differing preferences
complement each other. "If you have everybody in one area, and
they're all trying to do the exact same thing, that's when it starts
feeling kind of repetitive. But when you have people all mixed in
pursuing different goals entirely, then it starts feeling like, you
know, the real world." He guesses that the more dedicated gamers
will devote their time to creating fictional businesses or pursuing
other economic goals. But doing this creates, in his words, a
"pyramid of dependency." A group of hardcore gamers can unite their
properties to create a grand theme park with rides and
entertainment, for example -- then sell tickets to casual
gamers. "I'd like to keep the game structured so that the hardcore
people are continually interacting with the casual people."

The user objects are designed so that players can even create their
own games within the larger game. "You could easily build a treasure
hunt with this one object that we're making," says Wright, "and
strew clues all over the world, and you kind of have to search the
world and find the clues. Or play a game like Assassin, where
everybody has an envelope and a name in it, and you have to go find
that person ... We want to have a lot of activities that kind of
span the world."

As with the original version of The Sims, another feature in the
online version enables players to define their relationship to other
people. But in the multiplayer realm, the function allows for all
kinds of wacky sociological chess games. During a testing session,
for instance, Wright competed with a member of his team to become
the most popular Sim on the server. "So we were being nice to
everybody, and they were making us their friends," he says. "We both
got very competitive about it, and we started paying people to be
our friends. And from that point it kind of escalated, and we
started hiring people [to become an enemy of the other person]
... It was kind of twisted."

Unlike every other game on the market, The Sims enjoys a fan base
that's roughly equal male and female. Which must be partly why
Wright has devoted so much attention to the griefer problem. While
the Ignore/Ban function allows players to summarily remove offending
persons from their lot, he's gone a bit further with The Sims
Online: Wright is trying to grief his own game. "Lately I've been
trying to play as a grief player in our internal tests of TSO," he
says, "both to explore what the likely tactics will be and also to
get a sense for how motivating or satisfying it is to play that way
-- and, hence, how to make it less so."

Some aren't so sure dedicated game fanatics will descend on Wright's
game. "I doubt TSO will appeal much to hardcore gamers," says
Computer Gaming World's Brown. "But I don't think that matters
much. Millions of non-gamers have discovered the fun of playing
games on their computer because of The Sims, and TSO may encourage
many of them to try online gaming for the first time. That's good
for consumers, good for game companies, and good for everyone
except, possibly, TV executives."

But even if TSO and Galaxies are the blockbusters they'll surely
become, it's unclear whether their success will mean a revolution in
online games. They may just sponge up the market so thoroughly that
the competition will be left to pursue increasingly smaller,
unsupportable niches. ("The worst case, really," notes Wright, "is
when you launch one of these things and it's just marginally
successful. Because then you're in a position where it's hard to
kill it, but you still have to incur the expense of just running
it.") TSO and Galaxies may be perceived as too exceptional for
others to follow the trail they blaze: Few developers, after all,
have Wright's ambition or commercial track record, and no other film
or book franchise has anywhere near the draw or scope of "Star
Wars." (Except, perhaps, "Lord of the Rings," the MMORPG adaptation
of which currently languishes somewhere in preproduction.)

But what happens when almost all of the upcoming fantasy/sci-fi
MMOGs fail and investors lose countless millions? Publishers may
cede the field to LucasArts, Maxis, and the current hits, convinced
that the genre takes too much time and money to be worth the wager.

"If they're all in the mold of, you know, the men-in-tights
Everquest model," says Wright, "we're pretty close to the limit
right now." Perhaps hardcore fantasy gamers will move away from
MMORPGs entirely, gravitating instead toward games that allow them
to customize an online experience according to their own
obsessive-compulsive calibrations. Toward titles like the
long-awaited Neverwinter Nights, for example, which enables player
to create and host mini-multiplayer worlds for up to 64 players.

"But as they start to diversify into these other themes," Wright
continues, "I think potentially the market is much bigger than it is
now. Maybe ten times bigger." This has proven true in the Asian
market, at least, where games like Lineage (recently imported into
the U.S. by Ultima creator Richard Garriott) enjoy subscribers in
the millions.

But all that depends on whether developers are willing to risk
creating games that appeal to other people besides themselves.

"Here's a little thought experiment," says designer Andrew
L. Tepper. "Ask yourself which of these stories is more appealing:

"1. A story about saving your family. 2. A story about saving the
world."

Tepper continues: "I can relate to a story about saving my family,
and so can most casual game players. So why does every game designer
insist on writing games about saving the world? MMORPG designers are
especially guilty of this, and it's the reason they have trouble
moving beyond the hardcore gamer market." Tepper is behind A Tale in
the Desert, an MMORPG being developed by his staff of three. Besides
The Sims Online, it was the only game that the GDC round table could
point to as being truly innovative. "It is a game about building the
perfect society," Tepper says. "After [life's] necessities are out
of the way, you advance your character spiritually ... Once your
character reaches a high enough spiritual level, you can lead large
projects that advance the entire civilization."

"When massively multiplayer games become simpler to learn, offer
more of a sense of online community and interpersonal communication
and different rewards than just killing and leveling up," says
Brown, "then these games will break through to a wider audience." 
Citing the massive sales of the sleeper single-player hit Roller
Coaster Tycoon a couple years ago, Brown suggests "a massively
multiplayer theme park game, where users of any age could ride other
players' rides, build their own rides, and hang out with other park
visitors."

But some prominent developers aren't sure the time for significant
change is now. "To me," says Everquest creator Brad McQuaid,
"'leveling up' ultimately just means a focus on character or persona
development." And he considers it an inextricable part of the
genre's appeal. "I'm not saying someone won't invent alternatives
one day ... maybe they will. But, at least short term, I'd advise
against it -- we need to see one or two more successful generations
of MMOGs before we get too experimental." Presumably this will be a
guideline for the online game McQuaid is working on now, under the
auspices of Sigil Games Online, his new studio.

"When it comes to attracting women and the mass market in general,"
says City of Heroes designer Rick Drakan, "I think the games need to
expand in both genre (out of the fantasy ghetto) and in gameplay
(out of the repetitious cycle of killing and looting)."

But are they ready to give women what they want? According to
longtime MMOG player Jennifer Powell, that means giving them "[a]
safe environment, definitely. Free of harassment and most forms of
vulgarity or verbal assault." But getting that might require a
cultural shift that the industry isn't ready for: "In the past,
continuing into the present, MMOGs have been designed and run mainly
by game geeks ... they are great, fun people in many ways," she
says, but "they are not for the most part socially skillful." It's
part of what makes customer support for the games she's played, by
her estimation, dictatorial and arbitrary. "I'd love to see that
replaced with something less personalized and more equitable, not to
mention more thoughtful. But that requires a level of maturity most
customer support departments in MMOGs don't yet display." For now,
there is no developer patch for social skills.

It might take some time to "level up" that social-skill stat. So the
first step might be for designers to confront their mania to become
micromanagerial gods in the universes of their own design. Wright
suggests it may require confronting a "moviemaker wannabe" streak
evident in many developers: "You know: 'Well, George Lucas made his
world -- here's my world!' And of course for them, in their
background and their interest, a cool world usually is either
postapocalyptic science fiction, or it's Tolkienesque ... Somehow we
keep falling into these two well-worn themes over and over and over
and it's getting a little, you know, worn out.

"I think another approach to this whole thing is that you give the
players that canvas," Wright says, "and let the players create the
back story and the theme and whatever, and you focus on being
innovative through the [game] mechanisms." The future, in other
words, may depend on an equal collaboration between game players and
game developers, working together to create worlds that neither
could dream up alone.

Or they can continue as they always have, playing heroes in the tiny
worlds they've made for themselves, designed to keep anyone unlike
them outside, drawing their virtual swords, once more, to fend off
the same stand-ins for innovation and genuine social intercourse,
and -- as the economic realities threaten to pierce the veil -- keep
whacking away.
--<cut>--
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From justice at softhome.net  Thu Jul 11 11:07:04 2002
From: justice at softhome.net (Kwon Ekstrom)
Date: Thu Jul 11 11:07:04 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] The importance of graphics
Message-ID: <mailman.24154.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Damion Schubert" <damion at ninjaneering.com>

> One of the things I've noticed is that a strong, directed art
> style can make lower quality art look better, simply because the
> total cohesive picture is better.

Having spent alot of time studying up on web development, the major
concern is UI.  One of the columns on Webreference deals
specifically with graphics and emphasizes this point.  Talking
mostly what makes a good UI, and how to draw the users eyes to where
you want them to go.  How to portray information without being
obtrusive, and allowing details to fade into the background when not
in use.  A game has several advantages over a web page, but those
factors are necessary whenever you're attempting to portray
information to an audience.  Layout, consistency, and a little bit
of psychology are very necessary skills.

The link to that column is www.webreference.com/graphics/ but the
majority of it talks about how to generate graphics in photoshop,
corel draw, psp, etc... mixed in with alot of analysis of various
web pages, and how the graphics work to improve the UI (or how
they're overdone and detract from the experience)

Personally I prefer minimalistic graphics with a strong game engine.
If the graphics get the information across that I need, it's good
enough for me, and although I appreciate and recognise good
graphics, I rarely even consider them when I form an opinion of a
game... My biggest graphics concern as a user is slowdown.

I like Blizzard games, and from what I've noticed they tend to use a
sprite system which is extremely fast with acceptable graphics level
(one of my favorite games is Starcraft, which runs just as well on
my dad's pentium 133 as it does on my athlon 1.4ghz)

-- Kwon J. Ekstrom

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ericleaf at pacbell.net  Thu Jul 11 12:32:47 2002
From: ericleaf at pacbell.net (eric)
Date: Thu Jul 11 12:32:47 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Continuity of experience in movies
Message-ID: <mailman.24155.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>
> On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, eric wrote:
>> From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>

>>> I don't see anything inherently wrong with linear games, or with
>>> deciding you wish to restrict how your audience views your art.

>> Nothing, as long as you know that "restrict how your audience
>> views your art", really means restrict your audience.

> There isn't a game either made or theorized, by anyone, that does
> not restrict your audience. Further, saying that restriction is a
> bad business model is a bit off. Movies restrict how you interact
> with them. They do quite well. Books restrict how you interact
> with them. Amusement parks restrict how you interact with them.

Well naturally, any "thing" is restricted in some sense. But if I
wrote a book in Klingon I would be restricting my audience even more
than books already restrict. The original topic I think was that DVD
that didn't have chapter headings, which still seems to me to be
just a UI flaw. Did it prevent fastforward? So I could just skip
parts of the movie and the original goal of the director was
subverted.

However, I've theorized games that didn't restrict their
audience. With only one exception, cost, cost of the product would
be the only restriction.  Can't see how to get around that in any
sense, that is as long as the bulk of our living world exists in the
real world.

>> The value and importance of art is the *art*, not the
>> artist. They are very often connected anyway, thats just how our
>> society works,

...

>> been reading, and then she went on to say I was wrong and that it
>> meant X. It was humorous to me then, and still humorous to me
>> now.

> What does a good busines model have to do with art?

Hmmm, art isn't a good buisness model.



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Thu Jul 11 14:41:45 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Thu Jul 11 14:41:45 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Importance of graphic in different stages of gaming
Message-ID: <mailman.24156.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Edward Glowacki

> This is a tangent on the recent thread on "The importance of
> graphics". It's based on my own personal experience and biases, so
> take everything with a grain of salt. =)
 
> I'd argue that a typical player (or user of any software for that
> matter) goes through a series of phases, each one focusing on a
> different part of the product.
 
>   1. Pre-purchase.
>   2. Initial impression.
>   3. Mid-term gaming.
>   4. Long-term gaming.

Fascinating.  If I had to tweak these a bit, I'd break them into the
following themes:

  1) Static art.  Wow, these screen shots look cool.  The monsters
  look cool.  The particles and fireballs look cool.  The box looks
  cool.  I'll buy it.

  2) Art in motion.  This is where you notice a lot of little things
  - the way the grass bends in the wind, the animations that a
  player performs, the way a fireball spirals to its target.  This
  is the 'sizzle' factor.  I'll stick around to see what else there
  is to see.

  3) Content amount.  Oooh, a new area I haven't seen before.  A
  monster I haven't fought before.  Something to see and explore.

  4) Customizability.  I want to turn off grass blowing in the wind
  now because it interferes with my frame rate in guild wars.  I
  want to never see a spell book icon because I have no spells.  I
  want the interface to suit my needs, and the art to bend to the
  specifications of my machine and my play style.

Of course, this is a gross over-simplification, but then, aren't
all of these observations?

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Thu Jul 11 18:26:47 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Thu Jul 11 18:26:47 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24157.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Ron Gabbard writes:
> From: "Damion Schubert" <damion at ninjaneering.com>

>> Online games have a different promise, and what that is can vary
>> from game to game.  In Ultima Online, it was 'be part of a
>> living, breathing fantasy world'.  In Ultima Online 2, we were
>> aiming for something closer to 'Be a part of an epic'.  We
>> actually identified the problem of getting people who were used
>> to the single-player tradition of 'be a hero' into a massively
>> multiplayer game to be one of our top challenges in tapping the
>> mass market.

> I've been trying to think of real-life examples where societies
> were engaged in a conflict and everyone got the opportunity to be
> a 'hero' in that they were significant in their contribution to
> 'the cause'.  The best example I could come up with is WWII.
> Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton were all 'heroes'.  FDR was a
> 'hero'.  The soldiers and pilots were 'heroes'.  But, less
> obviously, the women that went into the factories to make tanks
> and weapons were heroes.  The neighborhood patrolmen that
> conducted air raids were heroes.  The people that grew Victory
> Gardens were heroes.  I am expecting that things were much the
> same in the UK in that almost every member of society contributed
> and believed that their activities made a difference... even if it
> was just buying War Bonds and abiding by the rationing programs.
> It was the Allied war 'machine' versus the Axis war 'machine' more
> than warriors versus warriors.  Thus, factories and power plants
> became key strategic targets and the people that worked in those
> facilities, 'heroes'.  The trick is that this type of player
> emotional involvement at all levels requires 'patriotism' which
> can't be artificially coded into the game.

> The reality is that players are going to be investing different
> amounts of time, energy, and skill into the game.  The
> 'Churchill', 'FDR', 'Patton', and 'Rommel' roles will be played by
> players that spend significant time in the game.  Creating games
> where the core gamers get to be heroes isn't as large of a
> challenge as creating a game where the casual gamer can still be
> significant.  Can the infantryperson, platoon-leader, or
> factory-worker role be made such that it is significant, fun, and
> fulfilling in the grand scheme of things?

Yes, but only if players care about the grand scheme of things.

In Dark Age of Camelot, if I'm involved with a keep assault or
defense, I do my part of simply contributing as a secondary
participant and I did it happily.  I was contributing the overall
effort and I was part of something that was pretty big.  It's like
going to the Vatican for the Pope's birthday.  I was there.  I saw
him.  Or a rock concert or anything else that you think is 'pretty
big'.  Dark Age of Camelot's downfall with regard to keeps is that
it didn't really doesn't matter to me if the derned things fell.  So
I ignored the whole thing, visiting the PvP grounds only when my
friends went there.  It really wasn't any different than killing AI
monsters.  Initially I cared about the grand scheme believing that
there was something to it.  When I found out there wasn't, it was
ignored.

It is my opinion that a game that would hold my interest is one that
has a grand scheme that is controlled by the publisher and affects
the majority of the game world.  Let me be an X-Wing pilot in the
actual storyline of "Star Wars".  Or just a technician getting one
of the X-Wing fighters ready for use from its tired condition.  I do
it knowing that the Death Star is coming our way and that we have a
collective fight on our hands.  If we win, then I was there.  I did
something to help.  If we lose, perhaps my character survives to
tell the story of what went wrong and how we need to put down the
Empire.  (The Death Star use is a problem in that it
catastrophically wipes out whole planets, precluding non-miraculous
'survival', but you get my point)

The grand scheme here must be one that grabs the imagination of the
players and they log in each week to find out how they can help, how
they are affected, what happened, etc.  It's a big soap opera with
thousands of moving parts and it stays interesting and entertaining
because the publisher makes sure that it stays on track.  There are
no abrupt changes where some sneaky player character slinks into the
Emperor's chambers and whacks him, ending the entire story.

In my own game design, I have the player characters being unwilling
to break the game fiction.  I can tell my character to pinch
Princess Leia's rear end, but it won't do it because it would be
disrespectful to someone that my character respects.  But I can tell
my character to do things within its own sphere of influence just
fine and it will do them.  The player characters remain in a given
stratum of the game society and they can compete or cooperate as
they like, but the overall game fiction continues its relentless
activity.  Social strata above them affect them without real regard
to what they want or don't want.  It's a bit like the weather in
that regard.  Social strata below them are affected by them as they
see fit.  So henchmen, staff and hirelings do their bidding, just as
the player characters must abide by the mandates of their social
superiors (operated by the publisher).

>> I figure you can do one of three things:

>>   1) Incorporate lessons from those single-player experiences
>>   into your MUD/MMP as best you can.

>>   2) Conclude that MMPs are evil.  This choice does seem to be in
>>   vogue nowadays.

>>   3) Recognize the strengths of MMPs (communities, group
>>   dynamics, etc), and work with them as best you can.

>>  For those reasons, I've been focusing more on #3 -> identifying
>>  and creating features that would suck if you were> playing
>>  alone.

> I will agree with you here that MMPs could do a better job of
> leveraging the players and the amount of energy and creativity
> they can contribute in terms of the areas you mentioned.  I guess
> it gets back to the original question of whether the resulting
> game is one where the player logs off after each session feeling
> that they were significant or if the experience just didn't suck.
> In other words, if the Fates were to go to the beginning of a
> character's life and cut the thread such that they never existed,
> would it make any difference whatsoever in the web of the world?

That's the trap of the hero archetype.  I think that Americans are
of the opinion that only the hero is worth anything.  Yet it's the
littlest things that make a difference in the success or failure of
what goes on in America.  Or any social setting.  "It's a Wonderful
Life" says it far more eloquently than I ever could.

If I'm a technician that gets X-Wings up and running, maybe I
serviced Luke Skywalker's fighter one time over a year ago.  That
service made sure that the fighter survived another cycle of use and
eventually got used by Luke to pop the Death Star.  Just being at
the celebration at the end of episode 4 might be enough to let a
player feel like they were a part of the story.

But none of that works if the grand scheme doesn't grab their
attention.  If the grand scheme is wranglings between petty
dictators and its all chaotic, then players won't be inspired to
follow it.  It's just white noise.  Make the grand scheme a true
epic and you've got something.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From kebernet at kebernet.net  Thu Jul 11 18:31:02 2002
From: kebernet at kebernet.net (cooper)
Date: Thu Jul 11 18:31:02 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24158.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

eric wrote:
> From: "Paul Boyle" <ppboyle at centurytel.net>

>>  Simultronics - Dragonrealms - The most complex systems I've run
>>  across have been there.  The forging system in particular was

> Its been at least 5 years since I've seen this game, I don't even
> remember it, so can't comment. However, overall the crafting
> systems are soo bad in MMOGs that I would just go back to first
> principles myself. The question I would try to answer is "Why is a
> person crafting?"

I would also recommend Sie Ming's site:

  http://www.gatheringspot.com/crafthall/categories.php?op=newindex&catid=2

It has been dead for a while, but it still has his pair of writings
of the subject.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From kressilac at insightBB.com  Thu Jul 11 22:40:50 2002
From: kressilac at insightBB.com (Derek Licciardi)
Date: Thu Jul 11 22:40:50 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24159.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Koster, Raph

[ snipped a bunch of stuff]

> Delphis
> Station Member
>   posted 07-11-2002 09:02 AM

> Nice essay, Singularity, and nice responses.

> There are many types of motivation and reinforcement. People
> respond to different stimuli based on their current needs. The
> [url =http://web.utk.edu/~gwynne/maslow.HTM] Maslow's Heierarchy
> of Needs[/url] is widely held as fairly accurate in determining
> how people will prioritize their values.

> As for MMOG's, I've had mixed experiences. RPG's are very much
> about constant improvement. We like to see our characters grow and
> progress, get stronger and able to do more things. Gratification
> doesn't need to be instant, but we like to know that we are
> working towards some goal, or completing some quest/mission. We
> don't like to have our progress inhibited by other people in any
> way, nor do most people wish to inhibit other people's progress.

> The issue I would argue with you, however, is that these "sterile"
> environments common in PvE games do not require a higher level of
> maturity.  When the goals/quests/missions become so difficult that
> there is simply no other way to accomplish them than by banding
> together with a large force of individuals, we see people coming
> together. Once people have a reason to come together, they become
> more social and generally exhibit much more maturity. Typically,
> someone or a few people will step up to organize the community and
> we have Player Associations or Guilds. Not everyone in the PA will
> act responsibly, but the leaders usually do or the PA breaks up
> shortly.

> People will gravitate towards the type of game that meets their
> needs. Like minded individuals will tend to stick around each
> other. Given the huge variety of options out there in the MMO
> marketplace it is up to the game designers and developers to
> decide which type of crowd they wish to serve.  In SWG's case,
> they're trying for the widest possible audience by incorporating
> so many disparate aspects of gaming: many different kinds of PvP,
> a wide variety of PvE, focus on RP, hundreds of Skills, thousands
> of Crafts, full support of PA's, a massive Civil War, thousands of
> Faction, three sides of Conflict plus Neutrality, etc. There is no
> doubt that SWG will be many different games to many different
> people. And if they do a good job, SWG will surely have millions
> of subscribers through the years.

As I was reading this thread, I became pretty depressed about the
human condition as perceived by the players posting.  Although, I
agree with the posts in the thread, I couldn't help but think, that
this couldn't be the end-all-be-all of MMOGs and psychological
behavior in MMO games.  I certainly couldn't believe that we have
already classified and learned how all behavior exists in MMOs
enough to call it a closed case.  This thread would have the reader
believe that this is the way it is, as much fact as the sky is blue
on a clear day.  I simply am not willing to accept this assertion of
the future as depicted by the empirical analysis in this
thread. (Please read the original thread as I snipped much of it in
favor of brevity.)

I think the "Future of MMOGs" thread discusses the empowerment of
the players to affect the game world/story and the above post seems
to do a good job at drawing a parallel between the SWG concepts and
the future of MMOGs.  It would seem to me that the conclusions that
this SWG thread arrives at (excepting the above post) are purely
empirical in nature and describe only what has been seen.  As they
say in the stock market, "past performance is not an indicator of
future performance".  To a degree this has to be true about MMOG
behavioral patterns; it simply can not be the end of the MMOG
behavioral study.

In my mind there has to be a way to empower the players to create
stronger societies such that the threshold for accepting loss is
raised high enough to support higher forms of cultural and societal
interaction.  We can't have every city war/trade war/political war
resulting in 50% of participants canceling subscriptions because
they lost.  If the threads assessment of players holds true over
time, then it is nearly impossible to build communities in game that
thrive from politics, tradewars, and other emotionally deeper PvP
types.  According to the assessment of players in the thread, most
players would opt out of more mature gameplay because someone had to
lose by engaging in said gameplay.  It also assumes that there can
be no fun on a mass scale where there are losers.  Are we so afraid
of losing customers that we need to restrict the range of emotions
we invoke out of our players through our designs, fearing that any
non-happy/sterile emotion is beyond the capacity of a paying
customer to handle and keep paying?  I'm not sure this will hold
true with the emotionally deeper games of the future; I'm not sure
anything other than the RPG method of old has been tried to prove
otherwise.  SWG may be the first to even begin down the path this
different type of MMOG.  Sure, given the gameplay of today, the
conclusions in the thread are pretty spot on, but again, its
empirical and hopefully not a valid indicator of the future for
these games.

As the post above states, MMOGs will be many things to many people.
That's a significant design challenge.  Perhaps the idea centers
around giving players the tools they need to interact with their
world and enforce the social normals that arise from their
interaction.  Given that power over the world, it seems to me that
it is possible to create a world that delivers a significantly more
mature experience where emotions such as loss, trajedy, and failure
actually enhance the experience rather than detract from it.  As
these games mature, I believe we will have to learn how to utilize
these emotions from our players to effectively enhance the
experience they have while in the game, otherwise we might as well
shut the book and write the thread's assessments on Raph's law
pages.

I'm hoping that SWG opens the floodgates for new and creative ways
to build MMOG communities.  The industry will be better off for it.

Derek


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Fri Jul 12 00:30:23 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Fri Jul 12 00:30:23 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights (Was: The Future of MMOGs... what's
	next?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24160.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Maximus" <Maximus at Vaultnetwork.com>
> At 10:42 AM 7/9/02 +0200, you wrote:
>> From: "Dave Trump" <trump at trumps.net>
>>> At 10:48 AM 7/6/02 +0200, Valerio Santinelli wrote:

>> At the moment the best solution seems to be to dump variables to
>> the log and parse them back and create an include script to
>> attach to your module when restarting.

> One of our readers has created something very similar to this type
> of setup and it's at version 1.3 currently. It's titled the PW
> Unviersal Mind system

I could not stop from checking it out. Actually I've already checked
those scripts some days ago. It's a nice solution but it's got two
drawbacks:

1) You need to edit the world withing the toolset before you can
restart the server. Even if it's only due to a crash and you've
added no new content.  2) The parser's been written in Delphi and is
available for Win32 only. No Linux version (even if there's Kylix
that can compile Delphi sources for Linux, but I doubt a unix
sysadmin would use a non-console application to run a server).

--
c'ya!

Valerio Santinelli
tanis at mediacom.it
HateSeed Gaming Magazine http://www.hateseed.com/
My Lab http://tanis.hateseed.com/
In Flames Italia http://www.inflames.it/


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From mako at slicerhq.com  Fri Jul 12 03:01:36 2002
From: mako at slicerhq.com (Jay C.)
Date: Fri Jul 12 03:01:36 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Are gratifiction-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immature?
Message-ID: <mailman.24161.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 14:42:58 -0700 (PDT)
"Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com> wrote:

> A nice post and subsequent thread by folks on the Star Wars
> Galaxies boards.  I'll include some of the postings here, but I
> urge people to read the full thread because

>   a) it shows that players aren't clueless :)

>   b) it's a collectively revealing analysis of playstyles

> http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/starwars/Forum3/HTML/062581.html

An excellent read for anyone. I'd have to agree that out of the few
"Flopped" online communities I've been in, 99.99% of the reason it
flopped was due to the maturity level of people.

Singularity's quote "Next instead of with each other" perfectly
portrays the average member's mentality. They see Johnny doing it,
why can't they? This only leads to more of the problem IMO.

Yes every community has it's thorns, and it can't be
avoided. However, agreeing or giving in to everyone won't cut
it. People will see that, and simply "Join In the fun" which may
result in some bad things. I tend to think as Star Wars Galaxies as
the next "Stepping Stone" for the "Close Knitted Image" of player
communities. Not only as a long-time member, but an inspiring
artist, this community is what really keeps me going. And I feel it
will never lose it's edge, just from the fact that Star Wars in it's
own draws such a diverse crowd.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shren at io.com  Fri Jul 12 08:13:26 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Fri Jul 12 08:13:26 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24162.1356733407.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, Derek Licciardi wrote:

[snip]

> I think the "Future of MMOGs" thread discusses the empowerment of
> the players to affect the game world/story and the above post
> seems to do a good job at drawing a parallel between the SWG
> concepts and the future of MMOGs.  It would seem to me that the
> conclusions that this SWG thread arrives at (excepting the above
> post) are purely empirical in nature and describe only what has
> been seen.  As they say in the stock market, "past performance is
> not an indicator of future performance".  To a degree this has to
> be true about MMOG behavioral patterns; it simply can not be the
> end of the MMOG behavioral study.
 
> In my mind there has to be a way to empower the players to create
> stronger societies such that the threshold for accepting loss is
> raised high enough to support higher forms of cultural and
> societal interaction.  We can't have every city war/trade
> war/political war resulting in 50% of participants canceling
> subscriptions because they lost.  If the threads assessment of
> players holds true over time, then it is nearly impossible to
> build communities in game that thrive from politics, tradewars,
> and other emotionally deeper PvP types.  According to the
> assessment of players in the thread, most players would opt out of
> more mature gameplay because someone had to lose by engaging in
> said gameplay.  It also assumes that there can be no fun on a mass
> scale where there are losers.  Are we so afraid of losing
> customers that we need to restrict the range of emotions we invoke
> out of our players through our designs, fearing that any
> non-happy/sterile emotion is beyond the capacity of a paying
> customer to handle and keep paying?  I'm not sure this will hold
> true with the emotionally deeper games of the future; I'm not sure
> anything other than the RPG method of old has been tried to prove
> otherwise.  SWG may be the first to even begin down the path this
> different type of MMOG.  Sure, given the gameplay of today, the
> conclusions in the thread are pretty spot on, but again, its
> empirical and hopefully not a valid indicator of the future for
> these games.

What a lot of players miss is that the medium and the system has a
huge effect on who they are in the online world.  Certain behaviors
are rewarded, and all other behaviors are punished simply by not
being rewarding.

There was a character I played with (know nothing about the player)
when I was in the Skara Brae Rangers named - oh, we'll call him Ed.
Ed was in many ways a cornerstone of the anti-player killer faction
that was SBR.  SBR was unique in a lot of ways because a lot of the
people in it (not me) had a grudge against the people who played the
PKs, wheras most anti-pks saw it as a form of competition.  Oh, and
I've forgotten to state the important fact that we were playing
Ultima Online.

So he guided the guild in a lot of ways, and that's a lot of work.
He put more time into things than I did, and I put quite a bit of
time in.  To sink time into SBR because you dislike pks indicates a
pretty intense dislike of pks.

SBR has gone it's seperate ways now, but I bumped into one of Ed's
posts on a forum one day.  He told a short story where he was
playing Dark Age of Camelot.  Somebody pked him in DAoC, and not
only pked him, but laughed over his corpse.

Ed thought it was funny.  The same 'class' of experience that
encouraged Ed to be a leader in an anti-pk guild in UO was just sort
of vaguely amusing and fun in an odd way in DAoC.

I really think that the game enviornment shaped the way he behaved.
All of the little rules that add up to a rules-set encourage us to
act one way, discouage us to act another, and the little changes add
up to a big difference in the way people act - fundamentally, who
thier characters turn out to be in an online world.  Just like you
can't really analyze a person independantly of thier cultural
enviornment, you can't analyze the way a person acts in a MUD
independantly of each individual MUD.

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Fri Jul 12 10:20:02 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Fri Jul 12 10:20:02 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Continuity of experience in movies
Message-ID: <mailman.24163.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "eric" <ericleaf at pacbell.net>
> From: "Valerio Santinelli" <tanis at mediacom.it>
>> From: "eric" <ericleaf at pacbell.net>

>>> And as soon as the old idea of the gamemaster/wizard/dungeon
>>> master being the active force in this is broken we may see some
>>> innovation in this regard.  Thats actually why my interest in
>>> muds was recently rekindled, working on that exact topic right
>>> now.

>> I do not see plots in MMOGs a problem per se. The real problem is
>> providing the same quests to every player without breaking your
>> world. What I mean is something that Ted L. Chen discussed in a
>> previous post. If you're going to provide a plot that is related
>> to an NPC being kidnapped, you cannot provide the same experience
>> to every user. Let's call the NPC Mr. McDonald (thanks
>> Ted!). There's only one such NPC. If he's been kidnapped, only
>> certain players will go and investigate on the case. If another
>> player wants to join in, that's fine. But you cannot repeat this
>> same quest forever. It makes no sense.

>> That's why GMs are needed to provide quests.

> Not true. Who kidnapped Mr McDonald, and why? That is, what *is*
> the story here. Was it orcs, to eat him? Or maybe King Ivris the
> Red to force to devulge the floor plans of his enemy King Bulwark
> the Blue's castle? If there is a motive, then removing the GM, and
> letting players play orcs and Kings (or kidnappers) could
> reproduce this "quest" in a dynamic way. As for the notification
> of said event, if Mr McDonald was just a hermit living in the
> hills, its likely no one would even notice the kidnapping, if its
> the town sheriff and then you as a deputy will notice when Mr
> McDonald doesn't show up for morning muster.

You are making an assumption that your player base is willing to
build up the story. Or better yet, it's the players that are making
their own quests.  That would be the best, but I think that this is
not realistic. In my experience, only a few players are really
interested in creating their own quests, most of them are simply
looking for pre-made tasks to accomplish to gather XPs or magic
items. What you're talking about would work well in a strong RPG
system with a playerbase made of avid roleplayers.  What I see there
is that your players are taking the place of GMs.. isn't that like
having volunteering GMs?

>> This makes sense if you're aiming at continuity in your world. If
>> you're not interested in having a life-breathing world, you can
>> provide the same quest over and over for as long as you want
>> (thus having it automated), but to people living there it would
>> surely look old that every 2 hours Mr. McDonald gets kidnapped.

>> I still do not have a clear idea about how to provide fully
>> automated quests without being repetitive.

> Remove the automation and there ya have it.

Yes, that's a way to go, but to be able to let your world work
without automation, you've got to motivate your players to build the
world themselves. This also means that you're looking for a
percentage of users that are likely to be online for a long time,
and not the casual player.  All this can be accomplished, but it's
going to take a strong effort from the world admins in the starting
phase of your game. Nothing that cannot be done, but I see it as an
harder task than it looks like.

>> But there sure will come a solution. The main problem I see is
>> that the game has to maintain a sort of knowledge base of events
>> happening in the world, and assign them a meaning. This way,
>> based on data related to events, characters, NPCs, etc.. it
>> should be able to make simple quests based on some guidelines
>> provided by the implementors.  I am going to think more about
>> possible solutions to this issue.

> I don't think this is a problem. Players are more than able to
> pass news all by themselves. They also have the ability to choose
> their own feelings about a given subject. They can decide to take
> action or not. And given the oppurtunity, players will play the
> roles of hero and antagonist. That last statement was proven in
> the first age of multiplayer online games (that is until the
> implementors banned PvP).

> There is no other solution, you can't make any system to randomly
> create interesting events in a world. And by interesting I mean in
> the true sense of story, not what you currently see in
> games. We're basically in the black&white silent movie stage of
> development in gaming, despite the near realistic graphics.

You're right about both your statements. We're still in an early
stage of development for what concerns gaming mechanics, quests
building, UI, interaction, etc..

The perfect MMOG still does not exists, and it's going to be a long
way before we will get it. There are many design issues connected to
MMOGs that can go wrong when you release the game. Everquest, UO,
and all the other MMOGs are a good base for statistical analysis of
what worked and what not.  This, put together with community
talkings, give us the opportunity to look after issues raised by
players. When you're playing, you want to have fun.  The problem is
that what is fun for me could be not fun to you.  People are
different. And in MMOGs you're trying to build a world where
different people with different interests, behaviours, etc.. are
going to live together, just like in real life. It's a tough task,
and we're not even near being able to offer a "very" good solution
to all the issues raised till now.

> I always face this question when I'm playing a game, or especially
> an RPG.  This is me speaking: "Oh NPC Guldrag you lost your blue
> key? Yeah? So what, go find it, are your legs broke?", "Hi NPC
> Dria, no I won't deliever that message, and I think your are
> foolish for offering that magic sword to do so. Sell the sword
> then hire a kid to deliver the message and keep the other 90% of
> the gold.", "Hmm, NPC Yrreth the Mage let me tell you what I'm
> thinking. I stab you with this here sword, take your treasure map,
> find this treasure. And then ride my horse down to Certilde and
> pawn it. As for the tome of knowledge you want, I'll leave it
> there so you can haunt it once you are dead."

> Its like that supposed quote from Ford, "you can have any color
> that you want, as long as its Black". Remove the word NPC from the
> above and let all those be players and my responses could be
> used. As for why a player would want you to deliver a message or
> find them a magic tome, its likely they wouldn't without a more
> interesting story.

I can't blame you. I'm thinking the same. I've had a similar
experience while playing Morrowind. If you compare the efforts put
in developing 3D engines and those put towards the AI and most of
all at innovating an old way of building players-NPCs interactions,
you see that they are unbalanced.  Providing players tasks and a
good storyline without forcing odd situations is not easy at all in
a computer game. We've got to face it. I think that this way of
interacting with players was ok when computer equipment was not
powerful enough to build complex AI. Today it seems that this is no
longer a problem. It's more of a design issue.

What I would like to see is:

  Me: "Hey! Who's that guy roaming around the town looking in every
  corner?  What are you doing?"

  NPC: "Hi sir, I've lost my blue key and I'm looking for it. But I
  cannot find it anywhere, would you be so kind to help me?"

And the NPC would look around as you do. He won't be a static
character with a conversation and a script to reward you when you
bring him his key.  And this solution would work well for single
player RPGs, too.

When you move to MMOGs you also have the chance of having player
make quests like this, but it all depends on the players, and you
cannot be sure of the quality of the results.

--
Valerio Santinelli
One Man Crew Gaming Community (http://www.onemancrew.org)
My Lab (http://tanis.hateseed.com)
HateSeed.com Founder (http://www.hateseed.com)
In Flames Italia Webmaster (http://www.inflames.it)

P.S.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for a two weeks holiday, so I won't be able to
follow the discussions on the list. I'll get back to them as soon as
I get back home.



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From archer at frmug.org  Fri Jul 12 10:20:06 2002
From: archer at frmug.org (Vincent Archer)
Date: Fri Jul 12 10:20:06 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24164.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

According to John Buehler:

> big'.  Dark Age of Camelot's downfall with regard to keeps is that
> it didn't really doesn't matter to me if the derned things fell.
> So

Well it used to be. These days, it doesn't.

The introduction of Darkness Falls, which objectively measures your
progress, and produce an achievement reward for a killer activity
has revitalized the whole business of keep assault.

Yesterday, there was much maneuvering on the server I was playing on
between Hibernia, who was trying to get back into the running and a
roving force from Midgard who was attempting to secure their
advantage... and keeping access to Darkness Falls.

> The grand scheme here must be one that grabs the imagination of
> the players and they log in each week to find out how they can
> help, how they are affected, what happened, etc.  It's a big soap
> opera with thousands of moving parts and it stays interesting and
> entertaining because the publisher makes sure that it stays on
> track.  There are no abrupt changes where some sneaky player
> character slinks into the Emperor's chambers and whacks him,
> ending the entire story.

That sounds like Asheron's Call. It has problems too, namely that it
doesn't fit well an achiever model.

The two biggest player gripes on Asheron's Call are that:

  1) With one monthly episode, lovingly hand-crafted (one week of
  design and implementation, 1 week of additional engine tweaks, 2-3
  weeks of debug and delivery), most of the monthly episode is
  finished within 24h of the patch.

  2) You need to be pretty high level to participate (otherwise, you
  get the high level trivialising the efforts of the low levels)

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johna at wam.umd.edu  Fri Jul 12 13:02:23 2002
From: johna at wam.umd.edu (John Robert Arras)
Date: Fri Jul 12 13:02:23 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24165.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Thu, Jul 11 2002, Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net> wrote:

> I've been trying to think of real-life examples where societies
> were engaged in a conflict and everyone got the opportunity to be
> a 'hero' in that they were significant in their contribution to
> 'the cause'.

<snip WWII examples>

> Can the infantryperson, platoon-leader, or factory-worker role be
> made such that it is significant, fun, and fulfilling in the grand
> scheme of things?

> I guess it gets back to the original question of whether the
> resulting game is one where the player logs off after each session
> feeling that they were significant or if the experience just
> didn't suck.  In other words, if the Fates were to go to the
> beginning of a character's life and cut the thread such that they
> never existed, would it make any difference whatsoever in the web
> of the world?

I think it can be done, but I wouldn't count on players to be able
to do this themselves. It comes back to the same idea I think MUDs
need to embrace: simulation. Massive simulation.

Simulation to the point that there are thousands of NPCs per
player. Those NPCs have goals and do things independent of whether
or not the players do anything. There have to be nations that direct
the NPCs independent of what the players end up doing.

The thing is that most of the NPCs don't have to think too
hard. They follow orders (go here and fight, make this item, get
this raw material) and they know just enough to move around in the
world and get their little job done. There would be a few
centralized AI's that control the allocation of these people into
different jobs.

How do players feel like they can contribute to the world?  They
might join the army and get assigned to a unit. That unit will have
orders independent of what the player does. If the player does well
in his tasks, then he may advance and get to the point that he can
form a unit of other players or NPCs. They may get to the point that
they have the ability to influence what military objectives are
pursued.

Players may advance in politics to the point that the can influence
the AI used to control their nations, but they wouldn't actually be
in control of the nations. (For reasons I will give below.)

How could they feel a part of the war?

What if the enemies send out a raiding party? The players happen to
be in the area and stop the raiding party or alert their side and
the raiding party gets stopped that way. What if their nation tells
them about the raiding party and asks them to go take care of it.

What if their side needs iron and their supply lines keep getting
cut between the mines and the factories? Then, they might ask the
players to go and find out who's attacking the caravans and stop the
raiders.

And you don't even have to simulate rumors or news dissemination
accurately. You can record events when they happen: Army X attacked
Y, Forces from Z patrolled in W, and so forth, and then feed them
back to the players as rumors. The players will have an idea where
the action is and they can go there and help out. They will feel
like they're doing something because if they find 10 troops and kill
or capture them, those 10 troops are actually removed from the
resources that the other side can use. So, the players do have an
effect.

I am also not a fan of having players controlling the world. Some of
my reasons are:

  1. I don't trust players not to mess up the world. If they get to
  be the rulers of a nation and they have a bad day, they could
  decide to destroy the nation before they quit the game forever.

    How often do players leave the game in a huff pissed off at
    something that happens? It happens a lot. If players get real
    actual control of the world, they can destroy the game.

  2. Either players matter or they don't.

    I don't think players should have to play 24 hours a day. If
    players can log out for 20 hours at a time (let's assume they
    play 4 hours a day), what happens during the interim?

    If whatever they're doing just carries on without them, then
    they don't really have that much power. Granted there might be
    other "clannies" who can take over for them, but then you're
    talking about something less than an individual hero controlling
    something significant.

    If they can't leave without really bad things happening to the
    things they've built up in-game, then they won't want to
    leave. The only people who will be able to hold positions of
    true power are people engaging in what I consider to be an
    unhealthy amount of gaming.

    If they can leave for 20 hours at a time and nothing bad can
    happen, then why can't they leave for 40 or 60 or 100 hours? 
    Heck, why not take the week off? I don't see how to have a
    player-driven world without running into problems from players
    not logging in.

  3. Giving players power over other players is bad. Maybe this is
  my NPC (Nerd Persecution Complex) coming to the fore, but I don't
  like the idea of people being granted in-game power to make my
  life miserable if they want to. It's ok if they just happen to
  come into power because they've played longer and have more
  friends in the game, but I don't want the designers to
  intentionally give them positions of power that are designed into
  the game. What if they give out suicidal quests to newbies who
  have no choice but to participate if they intend to get ahead in
  their alignment? I think it's much better to have an impartial
  (computer/owner) person controlling the game.

  4. I don't want to make a game where only a small fraction of the
  players can ever experience the "best part" of the game. If
  players are able to become the leaders of nations then those that
  start playing later won't ever get to experience that. The leaders
  who make it first will do their darnedest to make sure that they
  can't be overthrown over time, and will certainly gather power
  around themselves to exclude others. This goes back to point 3.

If there's a simulation, then anyone can come along later and make
their mark.

------

So, the question is how do you make the game compelling and yet not
unhealthy and dependent on the players?

The only way that I can think of is using massive simulation.

If you divide the world into a few opposing
teams/kingdoms/alignments, and make players work within those sides,
then you remove the problem of needing to be online all the
time. The player populations will fluctuate during the day/night
cycle, but if there are enough people and inducments (like bonuses
for kingdoms with few people online at the moment) people should
balance it out.

The players should be given quests that arise naturally out of the
simulation in the world. They get resources as needed. They raid
enemy camps as needed. They get "quests" based on whatever state the
simulation has to be in at the moment. That means whatever they do
actually counts for something even if it isn't very much from any
individual quest. This is the way it should be. They should get some
kind of "points" or reward for doing the right thing for their
kingdom. They might be able to use these points (as someone else
suggested) to influence their kingdom's direction, but they
shouldn't be able to control the kingdom.

These points could also be used to build things for the players
(like a house or castle) since they're using the resources of the
nation for their own purposes, so it should be paid for by helping
the nation.

An important consideration is that the simulation should be hard to
alter because it's so big.  However, given concerted, long-term
effort by a large number of players, a nation should be able to
alter the world.

However, this isn't my idea, either. This is implementing a lot of
the ideas from the archives in '97-'99 in the Resets, Repops, the
"orc breeder" and the "kidnapped princess" threads. I don't know if
anyone ever actually wrote code to do all of that stuff, but it has
a lot of potential.

My own game will be like this if I ever get enough areas built. I
intend to have about 100 people online max, but have 100,000+ mobs
that will live inside of hundreds of "societies". The societies are
grouped into a few "alignments" that fight each other. Within an
alignment, societies pay taxes to the alignment in the form of
resources, and those resources get paid out to other societies that
are struggling.  They build cities and set up defenders and raid and
patrol and assist each other, and they search for resources to use
to make themselves stronger.

Players interact with the world by getting "quests" by asking for
recent news. They might get told that X attacked Y recently, or that
some things from Z were spotted in area W. They might hear that a
new population of X has moved to location Y. They might find out
that a raid is planned against X, and that they could use some
help. They might hear that the alignment is in need of resource R,
or that a certain society needs resource or item R so that the
players should go take some of that resource to the society that
needs it. They players might hear that someone was taken prisoner
and they need to go find them and bring them back. Societies can
even switch sides given enough inducement.

The idea is that there are a lot of "big events" going on in the
world, and the players hear about them. What they do about those
events is entirely up to them, but they CAN help out and the things
they do really do matter. For example, if you have a small
population of wimpy worms that's about to get wiped out and you
rescue them and protect them, in 2 months you may find that they
have massively powerful spellcasters that you never would have had
on your side had you not helped them when they were in need.  And
all of this is automated so that these "quests" are a natural
consequence of the simulation.

Maybe it sounds boring, and I admit that it's shallow at this point,
but I think it's moving in the right direction. More importantly,
the players can have an effect, and they can work together to do
great things, but no player is ever critical or needed or given
institutional power over other players within the system.


John

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From marc at genesisfour.com  Fri Jul 12 15:14:12 2002
From: marc at genesisfour.com (Marc LaFleur)
Date: Fri Jul 12 15:14:12 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24166.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Damion Schubert

>  1) Incorporate lessons from those single-player experiences into
>  your MUD/MMP as best you can.

>  2) Conclude that MMPs are evil.  This choice does seem to be in
>  vogue nowadays.

>  3) Recognize the strengths of MMPs (communities, group dynamics,
>  etc), and work with them as best you can.

> While #1 has a lot of appeal (and is probably the direction UO2
> was most going in), the problem is that it is often done in a way
> that creates unsatisfactory solutions that emphasize the
> differences instead of helping.  Does a bad random quest generator
> help slake a player's thirst, or does it make him long for Icewind
> Dale, where the quests will all be specific, well-written,
> meaningful, and have great rewards?  For those reasons, I've been
> focusing more on #3 - identifying and creating features that would
> suck if you were playing alone.

It seems like this is the path taken by most of MMOGS, force people
to "group" by making content either available to groups only or by
making the game less fun without a group.

The problem with this is that it automatically removes casual
players from your game. And isn't it these mainstream players that
the industry so covets?

Grouping takes a lot of time. The first requirement is finding
people to group with that share your interests. This can take a
while, even with tools to assist them. It took me two years to find
a group of players in UO that I had common interests with.

The real problem comes in *after* you have found some other players
to game with. There is no point in grouping with anyone other than
those of similar levels. A player at level 40 would not find much
value in playing with someone at level 10. This means that unless
you put in the time to keep your level in line, your new found
friends will end up leaving you behind.

Most casual gamers don't want to devote this much time to a
game. Even a large number of hardcore gamers dislike the grouping
push. I sure don't want it. Where is the value of grouping my
blacksmith with someone's tailor? :)

I guess I could also point out that even with DAoC, AC, and EQ all
pushing grouping and a similar play style; Ultima Online has still
retained a substantial player base.

- Marc

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From marc at genesisfour.com  Fri Jul 12 15:35:19 2002
From: marc at genesisfour.com (Marc LaFleur)
Date: Fri Jul 12 15:35:19 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24167.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

You have some seriously intelligent players over there. Two
generations of rabid fans with the intellectual prowess of a group
of sociologists all waiting for two years to play your game? Now
there is a scary demographic.

One thing caught my eye: "Lum's truism: People Are Broken"

Lum has a truism? Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 12 17:41:20 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 12 17:41:20 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24168.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, Derek Licciardi wrote:

> As I was reading this thread, I became pretty depressed about the
> human condition as perceived by the players posting.  Although, I
> agree with the posts in the thread, I couldn't help but think,
> that this couldn't be the end-all-be-all of MMOGs and
> psychological behavior in MMO games.

As far as I'm aware, the number of actual, legitimate studies of
their psychological behavior is extremely limited. Few truly
satisfactory conclusions have yet been arrived at. It's nearly all
speculation by amateur psychologists.

> In my mind there has to be a way to empower the players to create
> stronger societies such that the threshold for accepting loss is
> raised high enough to support higher forms of cultural and
> societal interaction.  We can't have every city war/trade
> war/political war resulting in 50% of participants canceling
> subscriptions because they lost.

This doesn't happen though. We'd be out of business if it
did. Granted, we're not subscription-based, but still, there's not
much of the "I lost, I quit." phenomenon that I've noticed.

> If the threads assessment of players holds true over time, then it
> is nearly impossible to build communities in game that thrive from
> politics, tradewars, and other emotionally deeper PvP types.

Those assessments are flat-out wrong. These are not new idea and
Achaea is not revolutionary in focusing on these aspects of the
player experience.  These sort of communities have existed in MUDs
for over a decade. I'm not sure what the fuss is about.

--matt
"[AIDs is] the greatest single assault on humankind that we've ever known,
greater than war and greater than the Black Death." - Stephen Lewis, UN
special envoy to Africa.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From gryphon at iaehv.nl  Fri Jul 12 20:31:37 2002
From: gryphon at iaehv.nl (Marian Griffith)
Date: Fri Jul 12 20:31:37 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24169.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Fri 12 Jul, Derek Licciardi wrote:

I will respond to more points raised in this thread but this one I
wanted to say immediately.

> In my mind there has to be a way to empower the players to create
> stronger societies such that the threshold for accepting loss is
> raised high enough to support higher forms of cultural and
> societal interaction.

But players already accept loss.  They know that they risk losing
some gold, equipment or experience when they fail in a fight. They
just expect to be able to recoup those losses, and that they are not
too frequent (or can be avoided if they so desire).

> We can't have every city war/trade war/political war resulting in
> 50% of participants canceling subscriptions because they
> lost. According to the assessment of players in the thread, most
> players would opt out of more mature gameplay because someone had
> to lose by engaging in said gameplay.

I did not read it like that.  At least not that strongly. To me it
was first a complaint towards the game staff, who strive to remove
any non-fun (i.e. possibility of losing) activity from the game in
an attempt to keep as many players as possible.  The original poster
said that encouraged the players to behave like spoiled four year
olds.  At no point did I read that he believed this to be the be all
and end all of online games. Quite the contrary, I read it as a plea
for more possibility of conflict within the game.  You only need to
look at quake, half-life or counterstrike to see that there is
indeed a large market for games that focus on direct confrontation
between players.


Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From gryphon at iaehv.nl  Fri Jul 12 20:50:34 2002
From: gryphon at iaehv.nl (Marian Griffith)
Date: Fri Jul 12 20:50:34 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24170.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Thu 11 Jul, John Buehler wrote:

> it knowing that the Death Star is coming our way and that we have
> a collective fight on our hands.  If we win, then I was there.  I
> did something to help.  If we lose, perhaps my character survives
> to tell the story of what went wrong and how we need to put down
> the Empire.  (The Death Star use is a problem in that it
> catastrophically wipes out whole planets, precluding
> non-miraculous 'survival', but you get my point)

Actually, I tend to think that the death star is an excellent way to
make the fight very, very meaningful to the players involved. But to
work it needs a different approach to games than you normally see.
Players would purchase an account with a number of 'lifes' to it. If
they lose all lifes the account is cancelled, and they have to buy a
new account to resume playing. In compensation the game world is not
really out to kill the character.  Players can happily spend their
time on a little backwater planet and never be bothered by anything,
much the same way nothing much is going to bother you or me in real
life.  However, if they become involved in the game's main politics,
then they are likely to get into a fight, and those deaths are per-
manent. That way the big assault on the rebel stronghold is going to
mean a great deal to the players defending it, seeing that if they
lose they are one step closer to being forced to reinvest in the
game.


Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From harts at reed.edu  Sat Jul 13 03:16:33 2002
From: harts at reed.edu (Sasha Hart)
Date: Sat Jul 13 03:16:33 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24171.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

[Marian Griffith]

> Players would purchase an account with a number of 'lifes' to
> it. If they lose all lifes the account is cancelled, and they have
> to buy a new account to resume playing. In compensation the game
> world is not really out to kill the character.  Players can
> happily spend their time on a little backwater planet and never be
> bothered by anything, much the same way nothing much is going to
> bother you or me in real life.  However, if they become involved
> in the game's main politics, then they are likely to get into a
> fight, and those deaths are per- manent. That way the big assault
> on the rebel stronghold is going to mean a great deal to the
> players defending it, seeing that if they lose they are one step
> closer to being forced to reinvest in the game.

I certainly think you have found a way to make people care
(gambling's very old).

What follows is intended to be constructive criticism, and I hope it
can be taken that way, because I really doubt that anything at all
blockheaded is being said here.

My biggest concern is that it will feel like being forced one way or
the other - forced to risk dying and therefore paying money if you
must do the good stuff, or forced to chat on a boring backwater
planet if you don't have the money. In either case the game isn't
enhanced at all. Instead you are punishing players for trying to
fulfill the box-copy promise of the game.

  (Obviously at this point the discussion could be taken to
  "maturity" and how it is "immature" to have this kind of
  reaction. To me it is an indicator of a *MUD operator's* maturity
  when he demands that players have his arbitrarily determined
  reactions to his arbitrarily constructed game. By excluding
  everyone who isn't happy you can ensure a 100% happy player base,
  but this is just you covering inadequacies in the game. By
  contrast, you might justifiably ban exploiters, or you might
  pretty unjustifiably ban Jews - although I guess you would at
  least have a reason if your playerbase was all neo-nazi. Arghhh,
  what a tangent..)

The given plan doesn't manage perceived prospect well. Which would
you rather have - a game in which you were assessed costs (which of
course you could not pay - if you wanted to quit the game) for being
on the losing side of a war? Or a game in which you could get a
bonus ($7 off next month's fee) for winning?  The loss is punishing
and unpleasant in a way that the winning side getting subscription
breaks would not be, even if the same total payments are being made
by the same people. By making the point of reference different you
can make the result less surprising. If I pay my usual subscription,
I might be disappointed but after all, I pay my fee up front, and I
get my play time. But if instead I start by default paying less and
apparently get a price hike for certain game events -not pleasant,
for the players or for your game, which will suffer. I would much
rather play a game which gave bonuses, and I would much rather have
one - if the bonus is applied to next month's subscription then
players have an incentive to pay next month's reduced rate. If this
is still sufficient, wow. Basically this involves making everyone
pay for the politics and combat, and if they sit on the backwater
planet then it is their prerogative because they have paid for all
of it. As wasteful as this seems it is less damaging to
expectations, and I think you are overestimating the number of
people and the amount of enjoyment derived by engaging in
second-class activities in a game, like sitting on the sidelines and
trying clothes on when there is intergalactic intrigue.

The given plan also manages prior expectations poorly. When I buy
(time on) a game, I expect to pay up front for a very good shot at
entertainment. I expect to get an experience which is comparable in
quality to other games and activities I could buy at the same
price. I expect the billing to take certain forms and not others. If
there are premium services I expect them to be very clearly marked
and to guarantee me something extra, certain and tangible. But in
this system it seems like I pay right after I die to continue, or
quit (which is also not so pleasant - if the game had promise, it is
only going to make me more bitter that I was forced to quit because
I wouldn't give up the money.) There is also a difficult issue of to
what extent I pay to win, or just to get a chance to win - I think
it depends substantially on how awful it is in non-money terms to
die.

If your "backwater planet" is actually engaging, then that's fine;
but it sounds to me like you are relegating everyone who doesn't
want to pay the extra fines to plodding noncombatant status, whether
they like it or not. Of course, no big dea if the basic fee is low:
if I want to talk to my friends on the planet it is pretty decent to
pay $3-5 and do so freely, but pay something more in the
neighborhood of typical subscription fees to be an active
participant. But if each account costs $40 one-time then this is
totally out of the question - You're dreaming if you think I am
supposed to compare a cost:benefit ratio that continuously drops as
time goes on to one which plods along at $40/mo. I will recognize
right away that you are milking me for all I'm worth. So it depends
a lot on the backwater planet actually being worthwhile generally,
and the amounts of money for dying not being too overwhelming.

I think right to the point of making the backwater planet
worthwhile, we have an issue which is in a way independent of the
backwater planet per se. And that is the perceived difference
between being on the backwater planet vs. being in the action. You
might call it "on-centerness."

Contrast: 

  1. Planet #452 on the Outer Rim is under attack. 

  2. The Offices of the Galactic Empire are under attack. 

Everything might be exactly the same between these two - same
physical experience, same graphics and sound and actions,
everything. But because the first is understood to be an important
place, the Offices of the Galactic Empire, missing out on it is a
big deal! Whereas missing out on planet #452 isn't as big a
deal. (Unless we deliberately try to break the example by assuming
that everyone knows #452 is the most important site of natural
resources in the universe, and that the Offices of the Galactic
Empire are the equivalent of the DMV.)

  1. "You cannot become a citizen of Vault City." (one place of
  many)

  2. "You cannot become a citizen of Vault City." (vault city is the
  only city in the game.) Again, because we've paid we might expect
  to get basic rights of some kinds, like being a citizen of the
  only city, or having opportunity to become a citizen. But that
  we've paid doesn't so strongly lead to the expectation that we can
  become citizens of any city we want, if there are a few of them.

What I would propose is this. That certain parts of the game have
explicitly attached to them the increased risk you propose, rather
than the entire game being focused on the aspect which is most
risky. If you decide to join a secret elite crime society, your
expectations are less violated by losing big than if you followed
the newbie school signs. If you decide to make a Wookiee character,
much stronger but with a greater chance of being harassed out of
prejudice, you are more likely to accept the loss. If you decide to
participate in a war of assassins, you will recognize the
appropriate conclusion of that war when you are poisoned.

On the other hand, if you have to deliberately withdraw into your
shell to avoid major loss, you have only made people who lose
nothing by doing so happy by allowing the backwater-planet option.
As far as the non-chatter is concerned you might as well have made
the loss noncontingent. When I weigh playing the game you describe,
I think the only way I could do it is if I assumed up front that
every character was going to die soon, and if the costs involved
were still low enough given that assumption, and only then, would I
consider playing.

---

In summary, the problem I identify is that it feels like it gives me
no choice as a player, not because I am immature and can't handle
loss, but because it punishes the pursuit of desired activity very
harshly. To the end of making it less I harsh I suggested:

  -- It would help to manage prospect, so that it's not a loss but a
  failure to gain. This isn't a confidence game because people
  really do make the distinction and feel that it matters. Some very
  funny experiments have shown this (although, as with all research,
  YMMV). This applies especially to premium services - I would much
  rather pay extra money for extra cool content than pay extra money
  not to be stuck in the poopy newbie school. The difference is
  partially in whether newbie school sucks, but also to a great
  extent in how it's framed, as a gain or a loss.

  -- I should be able to get adequate entertainment out of the safer
  options. Basically because I could always pick up and go somewhere
  else, and because sucky games are awful, and because I absolutely
  don't want to pay for a game not to suck at all, whether or not
  I'm interested in paying to make it better than adequate.

  -- The cost of losing should not in any case exceed some amount (I
  wouldn't pay more than $20/mo for any game that was less than
  outstanding). This is also ethically important - you should watch
  out trying to make people lay a lot on gambles, they will ruin
  themselves on your game and not blink an eye. Because it is so
  certain that it will happen it really is partly your
  responsibility to mitigate the problem as much as you can without
  sacrificing too much else.

  -- Signs should mark where I am risking the loss very clearly. I
  should not be able to stumble onto the risk; it should be a
  calculated choice of mine.

  -- Even accepting that I see the signs, I should get some help
  with feeling that my actions are free. Just that I know the score
  doesn't mean that it is agreeable. Just because I have a choice
  doesn't mean that I am happy, because the whole choice I am
  offered may be sour.  Actions and parts of the game which are
  "on-center," like being a Galactic Citizen, or engaging in an
  exciting ongoing war over the fate of the universe, should not be
  punished because they stand in the way of the most typical and
  reasonably expected activities. If my expectations here are not
  met, then you could argue that I'm childish, but that doesn't mean
  you did right in the design. On the other hand, parts of the game
  which are "off-center," like burglary, drug dealing, waging
  vendettas on other people, being an explicitly marginalized sort
  of person like a half-orc by choice, playing on planets which are
  specifically understood to be nasty war zones, playing with people
  who are specifically understood to be dangerous and/or seedy,
  playing with devices which are understood to be immensely powerful
  and/or unstable, ETC. With gambling, we know it's gambling; we
  might lose and feel bad, but, after all, we were in the casino.

But who wants to eat at a restaurant where you are allowed to order
sugar packets and water, but if you order chicken and dumplings you
have a 50% chance of being kicked out, having already paid the fee
up front? Even if we have to have the equivalent of a wacky gambling
restaurant, we need to be persnickety about the details to do it.

Sasha

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From harts at reed.edu  Sat Jul 13 03:54:05 2002
From: harts at reed.edu (Sasha Hart)
Date: Sat Jul 13 03:54:05 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24172.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

[Shren]

> What a lot of players miss is that the medium and the system has a
> huge effect on who they are in the online world.  Certain
> behaviors are rewarded, and all other behaviors are punished
> simply by not being rewarding.

To be a little persnickety.. technically they're not being punished.
Yes, in the sense of reduced in probability by competition - No, in
that the effects differ comprehensively (This is the kind of jargon
difficulty which leads to the often equally confusing usage of
"reinforcement," "positive reinforcement," "negative
reinforcement..."  it's sisyphean because most of us translate
"reinforcement" to "reward" anyway.)

With regard to reward/punishment - same end, different side effects.
Punishment suppresses behavior fast but causes other behaviors to
pop up which are often very bad. You can increase misbehavior by
actively punishing in ways which would be controllable by
rewards. You can easily drive people away from the game by punishing
them. Think electric shocks ;) Basically, you can get some behavior
by pulling you can't get by pushing, and vice versa. This is the
cause of all kinds of argument among dog trainers. But it is
asymmetric because once the player leaves, what else he does is moot
to the game. For the same reason, when your dog is bad and you want
to punish him, you'll be better off if you don't call him to punish
him (and then punish "come").

  (I hope no one finds the comparison offensive - that people keep
  track of what is bad and good for them, just as dogs do, doesn't
  make them stupid, but speaks to their capability. I remember Ola
  reacting quite violently to the comparison between rats and people
  - though rats are an extraordinarily successful species, hard
  workers and fast learners, even if they are only rats to us. So I
  don't mean to say here that players are idiots in the same way
  that dogs are.)

I might add a third, which is neutrally valued feedback which gives
information. If I learn early on that NPCs don't react to anything I
say, then it seems like I'll be a lot less likely to assume (all
else being equal) that if I am punished after talking to an NPC, it
was related to the NPC. Likewise, if I learn in the first 5 minutes
that they seem to respond really well, I might spend the next 5
treating them as human beings, or probing for their prominent
departures from humanity. Rats aren't that stupid either, for the
things they are made for - they'll learn the layout of a maze well
even if they is just wandering around it without food reward, this
learning is exhibited for food reward later but at the time of the
learning he wasn't being rewarded or prodded in a pavlovian sense.

Whether or not this boils down to a complex system of associations
is just technical nitty-gritty - for the present purposes it's worth
saying that players' behavior in the game is also shaped by the
models they have of the real world and the game world. Arguably this
aspect is somewhat less understood but I think quite evident anyway.

> I really think that the game enviornment shaped the way he
> behaved.  All of the little rules that add up to a rules-set
> encourage us to act one way, discouage us to act another, and the
> little changes add up to a big difference in the way people act -
> fundamentally, who thier characters turn out to be in an online
> world.  Just like you can't really analyze a person independantly
> of thier cultural enviornment, you can't analyze the way a person
> acts in a MUD independantly of each individual MUD.

This is so spot on it's not even funny.

For the benefit of people who don't care about the technical
nitty-gritty, it is worth thinking also about the influence produced
by how the game and its parts are framed and understood, what they
mean, etc. If you make a game in which you get points for beating
prostitutes to death with a lead pipe (Kingpin) - you don't just
reward that and competitively decrease slightly some other behavior,
but you change the way players explore, you change _how_ they
achieve the ends which get them rewards or escape the ends which get
them punishments... even their interaction. if you wanted to, you
could say that all of these influences on behavior together build up
a social system, a culture of that game.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ppboyle at centurytel.net  Sat Jul 13 10:54:14 2002
From: ppboyle at centurytel.net (Paul Boyle)
Date: Sat Jul 13 10:54:14 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24173.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Peter Tyson" <PeterT at codemasters.com>

> With our system players will use machines to make their goods,
> machines they can leave or even log off and let work. They buy
> resources for a set price and then try and sell (or store) the
> finished products at another price. All purchasing is done through
> a central market unique to each town.

> We figure the main fun in crafting is advancing to new recipes,
> becoming known for your goods and making piles of cash! With DE we
> allow everyone to craft a few basic items and to move in time to
> advanced items. However, we don't think it's fun to sit for hours
> clicking the same box, so the boring production elements are cut
> back.

Sounds like the Star Wars Galaxies System.  I'll definitely pay
attention to how systems like that work out.

I think everyone agrees that endless clicking is definitely out of
style.  And from everything I've seen, most game designers believe
the fun of crafting systems is not in the crafting itself, but in
the achievement play you gain from being a crafter.

Personally, I think something that gets overlooked is the explorer
style play that can come from crafting.  The thrill of discovering
or creating something new noone else has managed to.  That's why I'm
looking for alternatives to reciepe-style systems, where all the
possible results have been mapped out in extremis by the system
designer.

I realize that leaves the possiblity of unbalance items coming out
of the system.  I'm curious if anyone has thoughts on this as well,
if anyone's looked at balancing crafted items not by knowing the
possibilities at the beginning, but by coupling an evaluator at the
back end of the system to see if the product is allowable.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Koster  Sat Jul 13 11:22:41 2002
From: Koster (Koster)
Date: Sat Jul 13 11:22:41 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24174.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Marc LaFleur
 
> It seems like this is the path taken by most of MMOGS, force
> people to "group" by making content either available to groups
> only or by making the game less fun without a group.
 
> The problem with this is that it automatically removes casual
> players from your game. And isn't it these mainstream players that
> the industry so covets?

But are casual players who do not group (eg, who form no social
ties) going to stick anyway?

-Raph

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Sat Jul 13 11:58:05 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Sat Jul 13 11:58:05 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24175.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Marian Griffith writes:
> In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Thu 11 Jul, John Buehler wrote:

>> it knowing that the Death Star is coming our way and that we have
>> a collective fight on our hands.  If we win, then I was there.  I
>> did something to help.  If we lose, perhaps my character survives
>> to tell the story of what went wrong and how we need to put down
>> the Empire.  (The Death Star use is a problem in that it
>> catastrophically wipes out whole planets, precluding
>> non-miraculous 'survival', but you get my point)

> Actually, I tend to think that the death star is an excellent way
> to make the fight very, very meaningful to the players
> involved. But to work it needs a different approach to games than
> you normally see.  Players would purchase an account with a number
> of 'lifes' to it. If they lose all lifes the account is cancelled,
> and they have to buy a new account to resume playing. In
> compensation the game world is not really out to kill the
> character.  Players can happily spend their time on a little
> backwater planet and never be bothered by anything, much the same
> way nothing much is going to bother you or me in real life.
> However, if they become involved in the game's main politics, then
> they are likely to get into a fight, and those deaths are per-
> manent. That way the big assault on the rebel stronghold is going
> to mean a great deal to the players defending it, seeing that if
> they lose they are one step closer to being forced to reinvest in
> the game.

The only people who are going to want to help out in the assault on
the Death Star are the ones who believe that they are going to get
some remarkable experience commensurate with their risk.  The
inability to ensure that everyone gets something worthwhile out of
the overall encounter is the real difficulty.  If I'm flying my
X-Wing fighter and get blown out of the sky in the first 10 seconds
of the fight, am I going to be happy about having simply been part
of the casualties?  Especially if I've lost one of my lives - which
might be expensive?

Disappointment and disenchantment from game encounters by the player
population is something that I'm particularly sensitive to.  I want
to be able to be sure that I can provide a certain level of
entertainment to the vast majority of my players - and then
underpromise on that experience.  In the chaotic experience of war
with the possibility of catastrophic loss of character or character
life, it's entirely possible that I will not find entertainment out
of what is supposed to be an emotion-packed experience.  I don't
know how to *reliably* provide a positive, emotion-packed experience
in a virtual multiplayer environment and I have yet to see anyone
else do it either.  The sheer volume of messages on boards that say
'such and such game stinks' is, I believe, partly a result of the
game industry's desire to provide that emotionally-charged
environment, but without being able to ensure that the emotions are
*positive*.  Folks are getting charged up, but I suspect that it's a
wash as to whether it's a positive or negative experience.

So I continue to eye a model where the players are on one side and
the gamemasters are on the other, each controlling characters in a
struggle that never gets too emotionally charged because there is
never that much at risk.  Players play the game because it's
entertaining, not because of its ability to elicit strong emotions
from the players.  Those who are entertained only through strong
emotions will simply have to look elsewhere than my non-existent
game :)

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Sat Jul 13 11:58:07 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Sat Jul 13 11:58:07 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24176.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Vincent Archer writes:
> According to John Buehler:

>> big'.  Dark Age of Camelot's downfall with regard to keeps is
>> that it didn't really doesn't matter to me if the derned things
>> fell.  So

> Well it used to be. These days, it doesn't.

> The introduction of Darkness Falls, which objectively measures
> your progress, and produce an achievement reward for a killer
> activity has revitalized the whole business of keep assault.

> Yesterday, there was much maneuvering on the server I was playing
> on between Hibernia, who was trying to get back into the running
> and a roving force from Midgard who was attempting to secure their
> advantage... and keeping access to Darkness Falls.

The opening of The Falls has added value to keep taking, but it's a
completely manufactured mechanism.  There is zero fiction tying the
taking of stone-walled keeps and forts with the opening of a portal
that lets players go kill special mobs.  And I don't mean that there
is no backstory.  I mean that it's a silly reason.  It's completely
manufactured, in an attempt to get players to care about taking
keeps.

I restate my indifference to keep taking.  Of course, I've let my
subscription to Dark Age of Camelot lapse due to my advanced
indifference to the 'kill to level, level to kill' model as a whole.

>> The grand scheme here must be one that grabs the imagination of
>> the players and they log in each week to find out how they can
>> help, how they are affected, what happened, etc.  It's a big soap
>> opera with thousands of moving parts and it stays interesting and
>> entertaining because the publisher makes sure that it stays on
>> track.  There are no abrupt changes where some sneaky player
>> character slinks into the Emperor's chambers and whacks him,
>> ending the entire story.

> That sounds like Asheron's Call. It has problems too, namely that
> it doesn't fit well an achiever model.

I would present Asheron's Call as a game that had the same general
idea, but didn't begin to scratch the surface of the essentials of
the idea.  And to say that it doesn't fit well with an achiever's
model is good news indeed.  Having reduced the achiever-centric
entertainment means that other entertainment must be introduced.
But taking a month to create changes in content for only the highest
level characters is a clear statement that the explorers and
socializers aren't going to have much to work from.  Asheron's Call
doesn't have the dynamicism to support what I'm talking about.

As many have said here, most recently John Robert Arras, simulation
is going to be an important tool in providing the content that the
explorers and socializers want.  Many things have to be happening
simultaneously, and lots of content has to be considered throw-away:
content that no player is ever even going to witness or know about.
NPCs are going to be tilling their fields and making their wares,
sitting around, eating their meals or resting to heal a twisted
ankle.  None of which might be witnessed by a player character - or
only in passing - but all simulated, serving as backstory, history
and entertainment for those who want to find out about it (or just
let it be the ambient setting).

Given such simulation, the gamemasters can nudge a mayor to decide
to admit storm troopers to protect his town's shipments, causing a
complete rebalancing of activity in town because of the appearance
of storm troopers.  Of those who hate the empire, some will take
steps against the storm troopers.  Some people will move away.
Smuggling in the town may go deeper underground.  The society of the
town automatically rebalances, based only on one top-level decision
by the gamemasters.  Courtesy of simulation, the gamemasters may be
able to run the simulation at advanced speed to see what will
actually happen, based solely on NPC behavior models.  If they don't
like what happens, they tweak some NPCs and get things to work the
way they need it to.  If that tweaking becomes excessive, then
they've mis-designed their NPCs in the first place.

Advanced stuff?  Hugely so.  I'm working on my own ideas in
artificial intelligence in order to address this very model and it's
quite difficult.  It will require a ton of processing power and
it'll also require some serious tools to 'design' people.  But I
believe that it will permit a much greater pile of entertainment to
be available to players who are more interested in socialization and
exploration than simply achievement by killing.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rgabbard at swbell.net  Sun Jul 14 05:44:47 2002
From: rgabbard at swbell.net (Ron Gabbard)
Date: Sun Jul 14 05:44:47 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24177.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

PK switches, PK servers/non-PvP servers, PvP areas, etc...  

Some people point at the number of 'carebear' servers EQ/AC has
versus the number of PvP servers as proof that people prefer non-PK
environments.  However, if you go over to DAoC, most players
consider RvR the 'best part of the game' and consider PvE a
necessary evil in order to get to RvR.  They are both very
successful games with very large and very broad player bases.
However, they are contradictory 'proof' of the player's desire to
participate in PvP combat.

Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want to
participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want to
participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar with
similar customer bases?

Cheers,

Ron
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rgabbard at swbell.net  Sun Jul 14 06:30:17 2002
From: rgabbard at swbell.net (Ron Gabbard)
Date: Sun Jul 14 06:30:17 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24178.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "John Robert Arras" <johna at wam.umd.edu>
> On Thu, Jul 11 2002, Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net> wrote:

>> I guess it gets back to the original question of whether the
>> resulting game is one where the player logs off after each
>> session feeling that they were significant or if the experience
>> just didn't suck.  In other words, if the Fates were to go to the
>> beginning of a character's life and cut the thread such that they
>> never existed, would it make any difference whatsoever in the web
>> of the world?

> I think it can be done, but I wouldn't count on players to be able
> to do this themselves. It comes back to the same idea I think MUDs
> need to embrace: simulation. Massive simulation.

I would agree with you on the Massive simulation part... but
disagree in that the players can do it better than the designers.
Strange things happen to games over time when you put thousands of
people in a system.  I recently started casually playing EQ again
with some friends.  We started playing on Bertoxx which is one of
the older servers that has been around since early 1999... very
mature.

Anyhow, a lot of things have changed from my original EQ experience
back in 1999.  I had a necromancer character pay me 5 pp for 20 bone
chips I had looted from level 1 skeletons.  I could have sold them
to a vendor for 1/25th that amount.  And one of my friends was paid
120 pp by a guy to cast invisibility on him so he could sneak into
the dark elf city.  For a new level 8 character, 120 pp is HUGE.
The original EQ experience was such that players really had to work
to earn cash in order to buy their basic supplies in the beginning.
Kill mobs and sell loot to vendors and make choices between buying a
piece of armor or a spell.  Nowadays, the originally designed
economy is pretty much immaterial... there is just so much cash.
Players trade in items and services that have value to them (such as
resurrections, teleportation travel, or dropped loot) and these
things are almost never ever purchased through NPCs or the designed
economy/simulation.

I would argue that EQ is better for it.  The higher level characters
don't have to spend time on activities they don't enjoy (killing
low-level mobs) and the younger characters earn a boost in the
pocketbook while providing a service which makes the game more
enjoyable for them as well.  Through this one transaction that has
made both player's game-lives better they have both made a
'difference' in the world.  The older player just made the young
player's life much easier by allowing them to buy all their newbie
armor and spells while they're still young and the younger player
just saved the older player an hour of tedious killing of level 1
mobs.

Build an entire world around systems with these types of
player-driven transactions and you have a world where everybody has
the potential to make a difference to some extent while making the
game experience more enjoyable for all involved.

What is the material difference between a quest where NPC_Bob says
'Go kill skeletons and bring me their bones for a reward' and PC_Jim
saying 'Go kill skeletons and bring me their bones for a reward'?

<snip simulation description>

> I am also not a fan of having players controlling the world. Some
> of my reasons are:

>   1. I don't trust players not to mess up the world. If they get
>   to be the rulers of a nation and they have a bad day, they could
>   decide to destroy the nation before they quit the game forever.

>     How often do players leave the game in a huff pissed off at
>     something that happens? It happens a lot. If players get real
>     actual control of the world, they can destroy the game.

I disagree here.  Lum's quoted truism "players are broken" is just
wrong.  Players are flexible where game systems are rigid.  The
players are actually the ones 'working as intended'... it's the
systems that are breaking.  If there is a flaw in the system that
can be exploited, it will be exploited.  If advanced characters are
allowed to PK younger players, it will happen.  If a game system
requires players to exhibit the same modes of behavior and civility
that they would use in work, church, and school in order to provide
an enjoyable game experience for everyone, that system is broken.

All you have to do is look at the 'system' in which Enron/Arthur
Andersen operated and you can see the huge flaw in assuming 'the
best' in people and depending on 'honor codes'.  These two
megacorporations exploited an exploitable system where the real-life
stakes were incredibly high.  If 'players' with Enron and Arthur
Andersen were willing to face jail time and bankrupting one of the
most pretigious consulting/auditing companies in the world (as well
as destroying the retirement savings of thousands), can anyone
expect anonymous players to do otherwise in a game?  Do you think
the same thing would have happened with Enron if the CEO/CFO/Board
of Directors was accountable for those numbers and knew they would
face a minimum mandatory jail term of 30 years if they were
fraudulent?  Probably not, unless they were hardcore criminals with
nothing left to live for and didn't mind spending the rest of their
meaningful adult life behind bars.

The analogy that can be drawn from this is that players are not
broken...  game systems just don't have the sufficient checks,
balances, and flexibility to deter 'anti-social' behavior.  Is it
absolutely necessary to draw the box of possible player actions so
small that players are left with very few ways in which to interact
with each other in order to prevent 'anti-social' behavior or can
tools for checks and balances be included in the system such that
there is a player-driven penalty for anti-social behavior?  Can
players be given the responsibility for adhering to social norms if
they are also given the means to be held accountable for their
actions?

Cheers,

Ron


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From paul.schwanz at east.sun.com  Sun Jul 14 18:27:09 2002
From: paul.schwanz at east.sun.com (Paul Schwanz)
Date: Sun Jul 14 18:27:09 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immature?
Message-ID: <mailman.24179.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From:  "Derek Licciardi" <kressilac at insightBB.com>
> From: Koster, Raph (who is quoting an SWG thread)

> As the post above states, MMOGs will be many things to many
> people.  That's a significant design challenge.  Perhaps the idea
> centers around giving players the tools they need to interact with
> their world and enforce the social normals that arise from their
> interaction.  Given that power over the world, it seems to me that
> it is possible to create a world that delivers a significantly
> more mature experience where emotions such as loss, trajedy, and
> failure actually enhance the experience rather than detract from
> it.  As these games mature, I believe we will have to learn how to
> utilize these emotions from our players to effectively enhance the
> experience they have while in the game, otherwise we might as well
> shut the book and write the thread's assessments on Raph's law
> pages.

I hate to say it, but I think this goes back to the 'fun in games'
thread.

It seems to me that we have opened a resturant and decided to put
candy (an immediate, self-gratifying form of food) on our menu.
Next, we've discovered that our clientelle seems to be a bit
immature (i.e.  interested in immediate self-gratification).  Big
surprise, huh?  Now we feel we must continue to sell candy either
because we believe that sweeter cuisine equals better cuisine or
because we insist that this is what our current 'client base' likes.
If we put salads on the menu, we may lose 50% of our subscribers,
right?

It isn't just that online games serve gratification so much as that
they seem to serve a candy-like form of it.  I believe along with
Derek that deeper forms of entertainment are available that can
enhance the entertainment experience.  Perhaps they are still
gratification-based to a certain degree (after all, they may still
be about entertaining people and not about curing cancer), but at
least they offer something more satisfying than a sugar rush to the
mature palate.  The online world that discovers how to offer, "a
significantly more mature experience where emotions such as loss,
trajedy, and failure actually enhance the experience rather than
detract from it," like the resturant that expertly combines the
bitter, the sour, the salty, and the sweet, in my humble opinion, is
poised to enjoy a tremendous amount of success.  This despite the
fits that some of the immature may have about the fudge, chocolate,
carmel, brownie, ice-cream sundae being replaced by a sirloin steak.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle in all of this stems from being quite
uncomfortable when receiving something other than what I ordered
from the menu.  Resturants seem much better at avoiding this
unpleasant occurence than do MMORPGs at the moment.  One way to
handle this is to have a very limited menu with cuisine that is
quite similar in each resturant.  This way, the customers won't be
too upset about not getting exactly the experience they wanted,
since the experience will be similar.  If they wanted something
different, they'd go to a different resturant, right?

Of course, the other more difficult solution involves helping very
different players "get what they ordered" in your resturant.
Personally, I think that this involves giving players a lot more
control over their gameplay experience in the context of communities
and societies.  (From Derek's comments above, I think he'd agree
with me.)  They need to have the tools and the freedom to put in
place the sort of society that results in the kind of experience
they seek.  They need to be able to exert some form of control, not
necessarily over all parts of gameplay (i.e. physics or other basic
game mechanics), but especially over those parts that strongly
affect social atmosphere.  So, one town may decide (based on
whatever form of government they've chosen for themselves) that mild
harassment will get you banned from the town, stealing will mean you
get a 'thief' flag, and killing another citizen will get you a
summary permadeath execution.  If you don't particularly like this,
then you don't become a citizen of that town and are not put under
the authority of its government.  You find another town that is more
to your liking.  Why should the developers undertake to make all
such decisions up front for everyone and then be accountable for it?
Developers still have to set up the laws for the virtual world at
large, but let players customize parts of that world to their own
tastes and let them be accountable for its defense, growth, etc.

One interesting point is that by making citizenship/population a key
to advancement from town to city (and to touch on other threads as
well, the focus on community advancement instead of personal
advancement and community items instead of personal items is one way
to get you players to play with each other and not just next to each
other, moving from a single-player experience to the sort of
experience that can only be had in a MMOG), you give online
societies the incentive to work together to come up with the most
effective solutions to the social problems that plague players.
This gets your players very interested in the newbie experience,
retention, and all sorts of other issues that interest you as the
developer.

If done right, I think it can allow you to offer more than just a
single flavor to your players.

--Phinehas

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From madronatree at hotmail.com  Mon Jul 15 10:06:15 2002
From: madronatree at hotmail.com (Madrona Tree)
Date: Mon Jul 15 10:06:15 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24180.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com>

> But are casual players who do not group (eg, who form no social
> ties) going to stick anyway?

Yes.  No.  I mean: Yes they're going to stick, but you're tying two
things together that don't have to be.  And really - shouldn't be.

Newbies and Casual Players can form social ties without requiring
them to find an adventuring group every time they log in.
Especially if the game was built around Towns instead of Roadstops.
Nobody lives in Freeport, for example.  But people lived in Skara
Brae.  If casual players have a base of operation where other people
have a base of operations, they'd get to know these people without
being required to adventure with them.

And they'd stick.

Madrona Tree.
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com  Mon Jul 15 10:45:52 2002
From: Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com (Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com)
Date: Mon Jul 15 10:45:52 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what's next?
Message-ID: <mailman.24181.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]

> This does show the dangers of raw tabletop system adaption.  While
> I often find tabletop mechanics to be superior to MUD systems,
> that doesn't mean that the tabletop mechanic is going to make a
> perfect MUD system.

Well I think a lot of us have always suspected that tabletop
mechanics wouldn't necessarily work too well when subjected to the
cold harsh light of millions of online players. NWN seems to
demonstrate this with inconsistent balance between the classes, and
further shows (imho) how the typical D&D style caster is just an
ill-conceived entity. I wish games would be a little more
adventurous with casters, the model so many base theirs on is
fundamentally flawed.

Dan
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From lynx at lynx.purrsia.com  Mon Jul 15 12:04:27 2002
From: lynx at lynx.purrsia.com (lynx at lynx.purrsia.com)
Date: Mon Jul 15 12:04:27 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24182.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sat, 13 Jul 2002, Paul Boyle wrote:

> Personally, I think something that gets overlooked is the explorer
> style play that can come from crafting.  The thrill of discovering
> or creating something new noone else has managed to.  That's why
> I'm looking for alternatives to reciepe-style systems, where all
> the possible results have been mapped out in extremis by the
> system designer.
 
> I realize that leaves the possiblity of unbalance items coming out
> of the system.  I'm curious if anyone has thoughts on this as
> well, if anyone's looked at balancing crafted items not by knowing
> the possibilities at the beginning, but by coupling an evaluator
> at the back end of the system to see if the product is allowable.

Have you looked at Diablo II's 'crafting' system?

Items can have sockets (but do not always have them), and a variable
number of sockets up to a limit based on the type of item and the
quality level allowed (i.e. low level monster loot won't reach the
maximum for the item type).

In these sockets you can put:

  Gems (boosts some attribute or confers some extra damage; varies
  in quality)

  Runes (as gems but no variation in quality)

  A combination of runes (which fully occupies the sockets and which
  forms a 'runeword' which is valid for the item type; properties of
  runes plus some additional attributes)

It created a nice market for 'perfect' gems (and for the lesser gems
which could be combined to make perfect gems) and for runes, both
individual (and potentially powerful) runes and runes that belonged
to runewords.

An eventual interesting twist came about when they added a crafting
formula which took three chipped gems (the worst quality, easily
found by low-level characters) and a sword and turned it into
another random sword, socketed.  People quickly started a market
where high-level characters would pay prestige currency (Stone of
Jordan rings, unique items, etc.) for a large quantity of these
gems, which they would then use to repeatedly reroll a high-level
blade until it had the best possible attributes that could be
randomized, then could add perfect gems to the resulting weapon's
sockets.

Adding new formulas like that kept the economy going, that's for
sure.

Now, anyone could craft items under Diablo II's scheme; for some
formulas, higher modifiers would only be available to higher level
characters, but for others, it didn't matter what level or class you
were.  It remains to be seen if it would 'work' for crafting to be a
separate profession for players, so that players would not only have
to accumulate the ingredients, but find a 'reputed' crafter to
transform the ingredients into something worthwhile.

-- Conrad

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From vladimir_cole at yahoo.com  Mon Jul 15 12:46:27 2002
From: vladimir_cole at yahoo.com (Vladimir Cole)
Date: Mon Jul 15 12:46:27 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24183.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net> wrote:

> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want to
> participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want to
> participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar with
> similar customer bases?

I don't think that the games ARE that similar and can't give you
that assumption for free. Having played on several blue (non-PVP)
and red (pvp) Everquest servers, I think that Everquest's game
mechanics result in imbalanced and poorly executed
player-versus-player gaming. It seems that Everquest's designers
added PVP as an afterthought. They continue to make changes and
tweaks that are tested on red servers only after they've gone
live. This is not to say that EQ isn't a well-designed game, just
that it's not designed for PVP.

DAoC, on the other hand, committed to the Realm-vs-Realm idea from
the get-go.

I think a more appropriate question to be asking is, "Assuming
similar player-base demographics, what is it about Everquest's PVP
system that pales in comparison to DAOC's PVP system?" (Which is
really what you're getting at...)

Everquest PVP:

  1. Game balance changes are made first to blue servers and are
  tested on a blue-server environment, often with catastrophic
  effects for red servers.

    Example: One of the most frustrating and demoralizing changes
    for PVP players on red servers is the introduction of one-shot
    kills. Wizards (and necromancers to a lesser extent) can now
    one-shot kill any opponent on a PVP server with a new ability
    that was granted with the release of the "Shadows of Luclin"
    expansion pack. I don't have the data to back myself up on this,
    but I am willing to bet that there's been incredible attrition
    in the high-end player base on Everquest's PVP servers as a
    result of this.

  2. Classes are Balanced versus NPC encounters, not versus
  eachother in a PVP environment.

    Examples: Assuming equivalent gear and player ability, at
    certain levels of play one class is immensely more powerful than
    another class in PVP combat. Mages at level 8. Wizards and
    Necromancers at level 12. Shaman at 34. Wizards at 49. Wizards,
    Monks, Shadowknights at level 59-60. Because of these imbalances
    classes that are given short-shrift tend to become discouraged
    and drop out of the game to play a "powerful" pvp class.  The
    result: A server full of wizards, shadowknights, monks and
    shaman is not going to be able to access end-game content that
    was designed around the Warrior-Cleric and complete-heal
    rotation paradigm.

  3. Verant/Sony enforce play nice policies on blue servers but let
  red servers run amok (game design bias for blue-server play means
  that red-server play requires higher-touch customer service and
  that cuts into profit margins). When play nice policies are out
  the window, griefing becomes prevalant, driving many away.

    Example: The newest PVP server (Sullon Zek) had the highest
    population at launch. Today it has the lowest population of any
    of the PVP servers. A large part of the reason is that training
    (pulling dangerous NPCs onto an enemy in order to cause the
    enemy to die), bind-point-rushing (repeatedly killing a naked,
    defenseless players at their bind-points before they've even got
    full control of their characters), corpse camping (keeping a
    naked player from recovering his corpse by guarding the corpse
    and killing the player as he approaches), faction exploits
    ("bard-burn" tactics that exploit faction design) and so on have
    turned the majority of players away from the Sullon Zek
    server. As a result of these griefing activities and the huge
    experience loss from dying to NPCs on Sullon Zek, it's not
    uncommon for less-skilled and less-experienced players to lose
    5, 10, 20 or even 40 hours-worth of experience during a brief
    encounter with a griefer.

There are many more reasons... but I've gone on long enough in my
first post ever to the list. ;)
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From amanda at alfar.com  Mon Jul 15 13:46:12 2002
From: amanda at alfar.com (Amanda Walker)
Date: Mon Jul 15 13:46:12 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24184.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On 7/14/02 7:30 AM, Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net> wrote:

> Anyhow, a lot of things have changed from my original EQ
> experience back in 1999.

...

> I would argue that EQ is better for it.  The higher level
> characters don't have to spend time on activities they don't enjoy
> (killing low-level mobs) and the younger characters earn a boost
> in the pocketbook while providing a service which makes the game
> more enjoyable for them as well.

I agree.  I started playing some EQ again (the new player models in
the Luclin expansion really help the immersion factor for me, even
if the terrain still looks like origami).  I have been startled by
the ease with which my baby paladin could raise cash with bone chips
and spider silks, for example.  Much more pleasant than outright
"twinking".


Amanda Walker

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca  Mon Jul 15 15:01:53 2002
From: Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca (Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca)
Date: Mon Jul 15 15:01:53 2002
Subject: =?utf-8?q?R=C3=A9f=2E_=3A_RE=3A_=5BMUD-Dev=5D_Mass_customization_i?=
	=?utf-8?q?n_MM***_s?=
Message-ID: <mailman.24185.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Raph Koster

> But are casual players who do not group (eg, who form no social
> ties) going to stick anyway?

I cannot talk for the masses, but I sure did play all the major
MMORPG out there for 6-8 month each and I always kept a special kind
of hate for the pressure associated with grouping (granted, I am the
not the "I played the same game for 2 year" type). If you want to
provide casual, average joe, entertainement, please forget the whole
"My game cannot be satisfyingly experienced without a generous
amount of social interactions" trend...

Yannick Jean



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From efindel at earthlink.net  Mon Jul 15 15:15:06 2002
From: efindel at earthlink.net (Travis Casey)
Date: Mon Jul 15 15:15:06 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Continuity of experience in movies
Message-ID: <mailman.24186.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Saturday, May 11, 2002, 7:47:39 PM, eric wrote:
> From: "Valerio Santinelli" <tanis at mediacom.it>
>> From: "eric" <ericleaf at pacbell.net>

>>> And as soon as the old idea of the gamemaster/wizard/dungeon
>>> master being the active force in this is broken we may see some
>>> innovation in this regard.  Thats actually why my interest in
>>> muds was recently rekindled, working on that exact topic right
>>> now.

>> I do not see plots in MMOGs a problem per se. The real problem is
>> providing the same quests to every player without breaking your
>> world. What I mean is something that Ted L. Chen discussed in a
>> previous post. If you're going to provide a plot that is related
>> to an NPC being kidnapped, you cannot provide the same experience
>> to every user. Let's call the NPC Mr. McDonald (thanks
>> Ted!). There's only one such NPC. If he's been kidnapped, only
>> certain players will go and investigate on the case. If another
>> player wants to join in, that's fine. But you cannot repeat this
>> same quest forever. It makes no sense.

>> That's why GMs are needed to provide quests.

> Not true. Who kidnapped Mr McDonald, and why? That is, what *is* the
> story here. Was it orcs, to eat him? Or maybe King Ivris the Red to
> force to devulge the floor plans of his enemy King Bulwark the
> Blue's castle? If there is a motive, then removing the GM, and
> letting players play orcs and Kings (or kidnappers) could reproduce
> this "quest" in a dynamic way. As for the notification of said
> event, if Mr McDonald was just a hermit living in the hills, its
> likely no one would even notice the kidnapping, if its the town
> sheriff and then you as a deputy will notice when Mr McDonald
> doesn't show up for morning muster.

I've talked about this before, so I'm not going to go into a lot of
detail, but I've long liked the idea of semi-automated quest
generation.  That is:

 - A program generates ideas for plots/quests -- this could be done
   in batches.

 - A human GM looks over the generated ideas.  He/she can veto them,
   approve them as-is, modify them and approve them, or flag them for
   manual intervention.

 - The system has some ability to automatically implement
   plots/quests, once they've been approved.  This can also be used
   with the modifications given by GMs.  The automatic abilities are
   also exposed as tools, for use when a GM decides to do a manual
   implementation of a plot/quest (which would generally be when the
   GM wants to go beyond what the system can automatically do in some
   way, or tweak the output of the automatic tools).

For a bit more along these lines, check out these threads in the
archives:

"Reusable plots for quests"
  http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/1997Q4/msg00030.php

"Ramblings on resets and other random things"
  http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/1997Q3/msg01143.php

Also, my two Skotos columns about "Dirty Words:  Plot" don't
explicitly talk about automated quest generation, but have things
useful in that vein:

  http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_16.html
  http://www.skotos.net/articles/BSTG_17.html

--
Travis Casey
efindel at earthlink.net

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From szii at sziisoft.com  Mon Jul 15 15:15:44 2002
From: szii at sziisoft.com (szii at sziisoft.com)
Date: Mon Jul 15 15:15:44 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24187.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Ron Gabbard" <rgabbard at swbell.net>

> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want to
> participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want to
> participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar with
> similar customer bases?

IMHO, people who wanted PvP moved to DAoC from EQ.  They went there
FOR PvP.

Most people I've talked to on the EQ message boards are the "holier
than thou" type who blindly associate PvP with griefing.  They hold
their nose and point at the server imbalance and call the PvP
servers "the penal colony of the EQ world" and don't take the time
to look at the game.

Judging from the server boards, I'd venture a guess that the bulk of
the original "PvP types" have played UO or a PK MUD before.  This
contrasts greatly against the new players who've played, say, Sim
City and Oregon Trail all their lives.  A good number came from the
FPS world with no regard for the game(s) and simply saw it as
another FPS world to kill everyone/thing in.  Thus the number of
"griefers" who don't see it as such; they see it as "you die,
respawn and fight back" and not griefing.

On another tangent, I believe that 99% of the world has
over-sensitive egos and FAR too much attachment to their characters.
To watch that character die is hard for them.  It's one thing to die
in a situation and time/place of your choosing (ie, raiding or
whatever) but an entirely different story to get jumped and die by a
player or group.  They don't see it as a game, such as chess in
which you simply start again.  They don't see it as a challenge.
All they appear to see is the single dimension of "I lost.  I'm
leaving."

IMHO, I'm a staunch believer in that for every great story there
MUST be conflict.  Every epic tale you can think of (or at least
that I can) revolves around a conflict.  Perhaps not
physical...perhaps not a person, but still a conflict or a struggle.
The anti-PvP people tire of hearing people use it, but IMHO, it's
extremely valid.

In MUDs, UO, EQ, etc. PK is -the- most fun thing on the planet.
I've died a lot - many times losing every piece of gear I own.
However, in every respect I've gotten back up to try again.  I never
quit.  And if I lose at tennis/chess/whatever...well, you can quit
there too but do you?  Why would playing a game be any different?

Think about this:

  Why do people like PvE but not PvP.  

I believe, simply, that PvE is structured.  It's the SAME.  It's
static.  The mobs are dumb (AI).  The game is too easy.

PvP can be chaotic. It's unpredictable.  You have REAL LIVE THINKING
PEOPLE instead of broken mob pathing and "just flood them"
mentality.  PvP is HARD.  It adds an element of the unknown to the
mix and, well, people just don't like that.  How many people picked
Diablo on the "easy/normal" setting and never bumped it up?  How
"hard" is NWN(SP), really?  How many cheats exist for people to
use/abuse in just about every single game?

The game industry caters to the llamas and the lowest common
denominator in the pursuit of profits.  Easy = more people.  Big =
more time.  Easy + big = lots of online time spent = more money mo
money mo money.

I believe I deviated slightly from your original post, but perhaps I
may bring it back together here at the end...

DAoC was PvP from the start.  People knew what to expect.  EQ PvP
was an add on and not really built for PvP.  Tack onto that VI/SOE's
total "moronothon" of "oops, that's okay in PvE and not PvP" patches
since then and you see a semi-broken (but still fun) PvP system.

Semi-broken PvP addon versus a built-for-PvP/RvR game.  Llamas
avoided DAoC a lot simply BECAUSE of the PvP/RvR.
  
People are just too used to dumb AI and PvP is simply too "hard" for
them.  While a percentage really are just explorers and have the
capacity to play PvP but choose not to, most would simply quit when
faced with it.  They just can't hack it.  EQ popped up and
introduced the masses to graphical MUDding with zero PvP.  It set
the de facto standard (but UO was a much better game until the
trainer programs popped up) and everyone got used to FP games in a
fantasy world with no PvP.

Why kill a player when you can kill a dragon?  Oh yeah, because that
player has similiar gear and tactics, a brain, friends, and a clue.
Dragons are zerg fodder.  You take it down once, you rinse repeat
forever.  Players constantly change up on you.  Nothing's ever the
same.  Players come back with friends, hunt you in your towns and
actively seek revenge.

Players are hard to fight.  Llamas in EQ don't like a challenge.
They simply like to win without working for it (just like in
RL...why work for it when you can have this over here for
less/easier?)  This is true to a point.  You could apply the same
thing to charcoal vs gas grills.  Or matches to flint and steel.
It's one thing to strike a match for a campfire, but it just means
so much more to use flint and steel. (I use matches.)  Which is more
satisfying?  Which is more efficient?  Which gives you more pride?
Which simply gets you from point A to point B in the least amount of
time?  Flint-steel = more time, more effort, more pride, more
satisfaction.  Matches = faster, easier, no skill.

A Yugo will get you from point A to point B.  My Z28 gets you there
too, but in more style and you'll have more fun doing it.  My wife's
Cavalier is a median point.  Some people like to advance and advance
and advance with little effort and no setbacks (non-PvP EQ).  Some
people like the challenge, intensity, and pride that comes with
hitting the upper level cap on a hardcore PvP server.  Some people
just don't care about levelling and want to brawl all the time.

I know people that play both, even today.  I have friends on every
side of every fence.  Some of them play EQ to advance and swith to
DAoC to PvP.  But yet, they continue to rag on the EQ PvP.

Right, wrong, it's all about perception.


OT: BTW, Oregon Trail owns and I just picked up a copy for my 7yr
old son to play.  =)

-Mike/Szii
Addicted to pk since 1993 in every way/shape/form/game.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul 15 17:26:56 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul 15 17:26:56 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24188.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Marc LaFleur

> It seems like this is the path taken by most of MMOGS, force
> people to "group" by making content either available to groups
> only or by making the game less fun without a group.

I think that there are likely ways to make the online game
experience fun without requiring grouping, or without making
grouping as difficult and time-consuming as it is now.  Guild- level
politics, for example, is an example of a system that can have a
varied experience for different player types, and that takes
advantage of the unique features of the MMP genre.
 
> The problem with this is that it automatically removes casual
> players from your game. And isn't it these mainstream players that
> the industry so covets?

I don't think that grouping is one of the top problems that keeps
gamers from playing online games.  A lot of people are interested in
MMPs, and are interested in it because of the aspect of playing with
other people.  I think that they come in expecting group play, and
get turned off for other reasons (spotty launches, tedious
advancement, boring combat, jerks, poor interfaces, uninspired
visuals, etc).  While there's definitely a class of people for whom
having to group is always going to be a turn-off, forced grouping
doesn't even make my top ten as far as reasons why we can't get the
casual gamer.

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul 15 17:37:13 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul 15 17:37:13 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24189.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: John Buehler

> The only people who are going to want to help out in the assault
> on the Death Star are the ones who believe that they are going to
> get some remarkable experience commensurate with their risk.  The
> inability to ensure that everyone gets something worthwhile out of
> the overall encounter is the real difficulty.  If I'm flying my
> X-Wing fighter and get blown out of the sky in the first 10
> seconds of the fight, am I going to be happy about having simply
> been part of the casualties?  Especially if I've lost one of my
> lives - which might be expensive?

Judging from the keep takeovers in Lineage, yes you are.

One of my new maxims.  Shared loss is less painful than personal
loss.  I've seen people complain for weeks about dying to a spider
throw themselves into a guild fray and die repeatedly in Meridian 59
and Lineage and never bat an eye, never complain about it.

Why?  My theory is that falling in battle (a) Has honor ("You
sucked, but you fought the good fight.  We're proud of you"), (b)
Has less personal goals ("Through tragic loss of levels and
equipment, we won the fort!  We rock!") and (c) has people around to
pick you up and make you feel better ("Shame you died.  Here, here's
some of the loot we won.  Come on, let's go do it again.")

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Mon Jul 15 18:13:30 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Mon Jul 15 18:13:30 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24190.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Ron Gabbard writes:

> PK switches, PK servers/non-PvP servers, PvP areas, etc...

> Some people point at the number of 'carebear' servers EQ/AC has
> versus the number of PvP servers as proof that people prefer
> non-PK environments.  However, if you go over to DAoC, most
> players consider RvR the 'best part of the game' and consider PvE
> a necessary evil in order to get to RvR.  They are both very
> successful games with very large and very broad player bases.
> However, they are contradictory 'proof' of the player's desire to
> participate in PvP combat.

> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want to
> participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want to
> participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar with
> similar customer bases?

Because the fiction of a war between the kingdoms works far better
than the EverQuest and Asheron's Call guild wars model.  You can't
speak to the enemy and the enemy comes from a different geographic
location.  They look different, etc.  There is enough 'otherness' in
the fiction for me to look at PvP opponents as the enemy.  That
suffices for me to be able to go attack them.  Or at least defend
against them.

Although the folks at Mythic shut me off from two thirds of the
player base for socialization (which at first blush seems stupid in
the extreme), they gave me a reason to socialize with the one third
that I could talk to.  And exploration in the enemy realms wasn't as
easily accomplished as exploration in my own realm, so it added a
little extra something there as well.  Oddly, the inability to talk
to my opponents helped considerably in thinking of them as rough
equals.  Once a player opens his or her mouth, it frequently messes
up both my respect for them as well as the fiction of the game.

Which is not to say that Dark Age of Camelot is ideal.  Far from it.
I've let my subscription lapse.  The basic fiction of enemy kingdoms
simply doesn't hold together forever.  Just like the pretty graphics
keep players entertained for only so long, a thin fiction of enemy
realms only kept me entertained for so long.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Mon Jul 15 18:18:20 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Mon Jul 15 18:18:20 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24191.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Paul Boyle writes:

> I think everyone agrees that endless clicking is definitely out of
> style.  And from everything I've seen, most game designers believe
> the fun of crafting systems is not in the crafting itself, but in
> the achievement play you gain from being a crafter.

> Personally, I think something that gets overlooked is the explorer
> style play that can come from crafting.  The thrill of discovering
> or creating something new noone else has managed to.  That's why
> I'm looking for alternatives to reciepe-style systems, where all
> the possible results have been mapped out in extremis by the
> system designer.

> I realize that leaves the possiblity of unbalance items coming out
> of the system.  I'm curious if anyone has thoughts on this as
> well, if anyone's looked at balancing crafted items not by knowing
> the possibilities at the beginning, but by coupling an evaluator
> at the back end of the system to see if the product is allowable.

If you want to find out if your crafting system is inherently
entertaining, make it such that the items that it creates are
useless.  If players still craft, then you've got something.  Of
course, everything has a value to somebody, so it's a difficult test
to establish, let alone pass.  But that's the general idea.  Beyond
that test is the test of whether other players will find what is
crafted desireable, etc.

Imagine a game that only exists for the purpose of crafting.  There
are no achievements.  You just spend time creating things.  It's
"Legos Online" or whatever.  Can that be made into an entertaining
game?

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul 15 19:26:30 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul 15 19:26:30 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24192.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: John Buehler

> Dark Age of Camelot's downfall with regard to keeps is that it
> didn't really doesn't matter to me if the derned things fell.  So
> I ignored the whole thing, visiting the PvP grounds only when my
> friends went there.  It really wasn't any different than killing
> AI monsters.  Initially I cared about the grand scheme believing
> that there was something to it.  When I found out there wasn't, it
> was ignored.

Tragically, real politics is like this as well.  Who wins and who
loses affects a tragic few, the mercs take their coin either way,
and the peasants live their lives either way.

> The grand scheme here must be one that grabs the imagination of
> the players and they log in each week to find out how they can
> help, how they are affected, what happened, etc.  It's a big soap
> opera with thousands of moving parts and it stays interesting and
> entertaining because the publisher makes sure that it stays on
> track.  There are no abrupt changes where some sneaky player
> character slinks into the Emperor's chambers and whacks him,
> ending the entire story.

On UO2, we were toying with a new model which was event-driven but
still had a high degree of player involvement.  We called what we
were toying with 'skirmishes'.  The notion was that we would have
monthly events, and that event would be non-participatory, but would
announce the emergence of mini-activities that players could do to
move the world forward and further their cause.

For example, the event might be a speech where the king tells the
world that elves are treasonous.  This might be done via a web
annoucement or (in the mythical world where we had enough resources)
and in-engine movie instead of being a public, crowded, laggy
in-game event. The game would then periodically spawns camps in the
world, where elves are being held by human guards, and players who
have aligned themselves with the elven faction could try to rescue
the elves, with success earning score for their faction, as well as
their guild.  Other factions might have differing goals.

While not perfect, we found this solution had some interesting
outcomes.  Most notably, it allowed us to have a strong sense of
story.  Even more important to me, it gave the world a sense of
history, as the rules of the world changed around you.  The events
(skirmishes) spawned for the month were decentralized and sporadic.
Still, they were automated, and didn't need GM involvement. Players
could take part in the skirmishes no matter when they logged in, and
thus everyone could get involved.  Lastly, there were two scoring
mechanisms (faction vs faction and intrafaction guild vs guild),
which increased the odds that players would care about the outcomes
of the skirmishes.

Would it have worked?  Beats me.  But at the very least, it seemed
to have an entirely new set of problems to solve.

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Mon Jul 15 20:16:57 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Mon Jul 15 20:16:57 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24193.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sat, 13 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:

> The only people who are going to want to help out in the assault
> on the Death Star are the ones who believe that they are going to
> get some remarkable experience commensurate with their risk.  The
> inability to ensure that everyone gets something worthwhile out of
> the overall encounter is the real difficulty.  If I'm flying my
> X-Wing fighter and get blown out of the sky in the first 10
> seconds of the fight, am I going to be happy about having simply
> been part of the casualties?  Especially if I've lost one of my
> lives - which might be expensive?

So make death relatively painless. Maybe being blown out of the sky
only takes them out of the encounter for X period of time.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ericleaf at pacbell.net  Mon Jul 15 20:49:47 2002
From: ericleaf at pacbell.net (eric)
Date: Mon Jul 15 20:49:47 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Continuity of experience in movies
Message-ID: <mailman.24194.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Valerio Santinelli" <tanis at mediacom.it>
> From: "eric" <ericleaf at pacbell.net>

>> Not true. Who kidnapped Mr McDonald, and why? That is, what *is*
>> the story here. Was it orcs, to eat him? Or maybe King Ivris the
>> Red to force to devulge the floor plans of his enemy King Bulwark
>> the Blue's castle? If there is a motive, then removing the GM,
>> and

...

> You are making an assumption that your player base is willing to
> build up the story. Or better yet, it's the players that are
> making their own quests.  That would be the best, but I think that
> this is not realistic. In my experience, only a few players are
> really interested in creating their own quests, most of them are
> simply looking for pre-made tasks to accomplish to gather XPs or
> magic ...

I'm not using any connotation of "build", any building would take
time, I definately see that there will be no epic struggles between
the united orc kingdoms, and King Ivras' kingdom, until both those
entities exist.  I'm not sure where your definition of RPG players
lies, but I'm saying that doesn't strickly matter. Wether a person
wants to roleplay a King isn't relevant, people do want power, if
power can be achieved by gathering a group of warriors to the same
flag and goals, then there you have it. You see this already in all
MMOGs, most are called the clans. It should go without saying that
people that spend a lot of their own personal time to manage and
build a clan are doing it for some reason. Wether its only for
power, or community with a shared beliefs, its still a creation of
players, and as a group they have power. Now all they need is a
world where that matters and you have the basic materials of all
stories.

This is more anecdotal than assumption, I've seen this in many
games. From the losely grouped members in UO communities that create
player ran towns, or the more extreme communistic societies of
roleplayed orcs. UO spawned a lot of these player created
communtities that I am sure exist in different varieties in all the
MMOGs, as they existed before in the smaller scaled ones.

But still again, at the heart of this idea is that no one person
will be creating stories, just as our real human history didn't have
a grand writer so won't this world. The vast input of many players
will create the overriding themes of an area, and its history. At a
local level you will see the things that offer the entertainment
that is the limit of current MMOGs, you go to creature x's
cave/field/city base them, gather loot, go home. But no action will
have local effects, you could have just violated treaties, or even
just killed the son of a powerful orc lord, which will then come
looking for you. Of course this is another player so you can expect
this to be a potentially memorable experience and enjoyable for all
involved.

But in more defense of this idea, where primary motivation isn't
enough to evoke action on the players part, there are rewards. There
are artificial rewards I've set up that consist of basic worldly
power, for instance you played an evil human, you have now gained
the ability to play an assassin.  You may have killed for money
before, but as an assassin you have much more power at your
disposal. There are other reasons I've chosen that route, one of
them being a way to balance player skill versus world power. I
surely wouldn't want a newbie playing a dragon, that ends up being
easy to kill, and thus not giving the dragon slayers an adequately
fun experience.

> Yes, that's a way to go, but to be able to let your world work
> without automation, you've got to motivate your players to build
> the world themselves. This also means that you're looking for a
> percentage of users that are likely to be online for a long time,
> and not the casual player.  All this can be accomplished, but it's
> going to take a strong effort from the world admins in the
> starting phase of your game. Nothing that cannot be done, but I
> see it as an harder task than it looks like.

Its going to more closely approach free will, there will be no admin
maintance. If there is an orc village constantly raiding your
farmers, you have options, two of which are move(flight) or
fight. That is hire mercenaries, raise an army, convince a sappy
adventure group to save your town. Any of those might solve the
immediate problem. But just as the group of orcs built up a power
base, so will you be able to defend yourself from them.




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From listsub at wickedgrey.com  Mon Jul 15 23:09:57 2002
From: listsub at wickedgrey.com (Eli Stevens)
Date: Mon Jul 15 23:09:57 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24195.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net> wrote:

> PK switches, PK servers/non-PvP servers, PvP areas, etc...

> Some people point at the number of 'carebear' servers EQ/AC has
> versus the number of PvP servers as proof that people prefer
> non-PK environments.  However, if you go over to DAoC, most
> players consider RvR the 'best part of the game' and consider PvE
> a necessary evil in order to get to RvR.  They are both very
> successful games with very large and very broad player bases.
> However, they are contradictory 'proof' of the player's desire to
> participate in PvP combat.

> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want to
> participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want to
> participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar with
> similar customer bases?

Your question is somewhat loaded however, because of the implication
that the two PK systems are the same.  DAoC's RvR is not a
free-for-all, and it was a focus of the game design / balance from
the start.  DAoC basically implements a PK switch that can be turned
on and off almost at will (by entering or leaving the frontier areas
/ PK dungeon).  My understanding of the EQ PK servers is that other
PKs can come to you anywhere in the world, at any time (is this
correct?).

I suspect that what we are actually seeing is _not_ that there is an
odd distribution of PK-oriented players, rather that there is a
general pull toward being the hunter and a strong aversion to being
prey.  Control is the key here.  Almost never does a player engage
in RvR in DAoC _unless_ it is on the player's terms, which makes it
much more palatable.

To continue the disussion...  DAoC has done pretty well with
zone-based, large team PK.  What other methods are there that allow
players to manage their risk in (limited?) PK environments?

Just ramblin'

Eli

--
Give a man some mud, and he plays for a day.
Teach a man to mud, and he plays for a lifetime.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ericleaf at pacbell.net  Tue Jul 16 00:10:48 2002
From: ericleaf at pacbell.net (eric)
Date: Tue Jul 16 00:10:48 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24196.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: <szii at sziisoft.com>
> From: "Ron Gabbard" <rgabbard at swbell.net>

>> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want
>> to participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want
>> to participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar
>> with similar customer bases?

> Most people I've talked to on the EQ message boards are the
> "holier than thou" type who blindly associate PvP with griefing.
> They hold their nose and point at the server imbalance and call
> the PvP servers "the penal colony of the EQ world" and don't take
> the time to look at the game.

I think this is a rather dim view and generalization of a <size
modifier> group. And only manages to reuse the holier than thou
attitude.

You skirted the issue as I see it, its not that the dumb AI is more
enjoyable or easier. Its just easier than fighting other humans,
many of which you gain very little if anything from. And thats
really the point, if you are a PK then naturally you enjoy it on
some level. Since most games do not give you any value for the kill
beyond the satisfaction *of* the kill, that literally *is* your
motivation. Now obviously killing other players for no personal gain
will carry with it a stigma from the real world, and last I checked
serial killers weren't on top in the popularity department.  But
back to the point, monster bashing is easier than killing players,
and pking offers none of the rewards associated with monster
bashing, so people that are interested in worldly things don't care
about PKing. Even if you do drop valuable objects, monsters are
still easier. And on that plane, pks and non-pks are exactly
alike. Pks will target weak players because they are easier, rarely
do I ever find a noble pk (robin hood is an idealist that doesn't
exist).

> satisfying?  Which is more efficient?  Which gives you more pride?
> Which simply gets you from point A to point B in the least amount
> of time?  Flint-steel = more time, more effort, more pride, more
> satisfaction.  Matches = faster, easier, no skill.

For technology and the world as we know it I believe that statement
to be false. If that were the case for any large group of humans,
then we would still be in the stone age, all feeling quite satisfied
with our selves for having just started a fire with a stone.  Its
like my pa used to say, those that never faced any hardship, create
it for themselves. This sounds like you. Me, I'll go for the easy
victory every time, read Sun Tzu, its the strategy I follow.

Also, I don't agree with your statement on a physical level, flint
and steel aren't really more difficult and they have the added
benefit of lasting longer and being more durable to nature, mainly
water. If I was going on a year expedition in some uncharted area, I
would take both, but would depend on the flint and steel more. Maybe
hunting with a bow instead of gun would better suit your logic.

I say, every player upon being killed drop loot and gave experience
as per a level equivalent critter, and you would see a better PK
community. That is opposed to what I usually see, psychopaths and
sociopaths. Case in point for a good community is DAoC where PvP has
been a factor in the design.  (Although the marathon of mind-numbing
monster bashing is a major deterent.)




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From zcollins at seidata.com  Tue Jul 16 06:55:18 2002
From: zcollins at seidata.com (Zach Collins {Siege})
Date: Tue Jul 16 06:55:18 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24197.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Sat, 13 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:

>> If I'm flying my X-Wing fighter and get blown out of the sky in
>> the first 10 seconds of the fight, am I going to be happy about
>> having simply been part of the casualties?  Especially if I've
>> lost one of my lives - which might be expensive?

> So make death relatively painless. Maybe being blown out of the
> sky only takes them out of the encounter for X period of time.

Somewhat like CounterStrike, then, where a player becomes an
observer until the round is over, either by one side's victory or by
the time limit running out.  I wouldn't so much mind watching the
climactic battle versus the Death Star, it was fun the first time,
right?  Besides, what if you could respawn outside the combat zone
at any time, but without your ship or any of the supplies you loaded
onto it?

Imagine being killed in the first thirty seconds of a huge battle,
watching for two minutes and deciding your side will win, then
returning to base to tell the folks who stayed behind.  Then you
decide you want to go back in, but while your personal gear stayed
with you, the base has no more X-wings capable of flight.  So you
choose a B-wing, but it needs refueling, meaning another two-minute
wait.  By the time you finally come out of hyperspace, all you can
do is scavenge the floating scrapyard and hope you find your old
astromech that had the coordinates to that really nice little planet
with the cantina full of ice sculptures...

And then you find an active astromech with the coordinates to a
hidden treasure, one you haven't tried to loot before, one you know
your best friend wants badly enough to trade you his _personal_
spaceship just for this information!

.... To me, that would be gameplay worth paying for.

--
Zach Collins (Siege)

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shren at io.com  Tue Jul 16 07:01:59 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Tue Jul 16 07:01:59 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Boring Combat (was:Mass customization in MM***s)
Message-ID: <mailman.24198.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, Damion Schubert wrote:

> I don't think that grouping is one of the top problems that keeps
> gamers from playing online games.  A lot of people are interested
> in MMPs, and are interested in it because of the aspect of playing
> with other people.  I think that they come in expecting group
> play, and get turned off for other reasons (spotty launches,
> tedious advancement, boring combat, jerks, poor interfaces,
> uninspired visuals, etc).  While there's definitely a class of
> people for whom having to group is always going to be a turn-off,
> forced grouping doesn't even make my top ten as far as reasons why
> we can't get the casual gamer.

I was thinking about the whole "boring combat" thing while reading
_Snow_Crash_, and a little system formed in my mind.  Let the
players learn forms, which are techniques or styles, and let them
choose which forms to use during combat, swaping in different tricks
to react to the opponent.  Each form gives you a statistical
advantage, unless your opponent is also using it, in which case it
cancels out.  The number of forms you can use at once is governed by
character skill, but which forms you choose to engage is governed by
player skill.

I might start a combat with "brutal blow", "riposte", and "oblique
footwork" enabled.  I use "brutal blow" because it's a common but
dangerous technique that I want to make sure I don't get blindsided
with, "riposte" because it focuses on defense and counterattacks,
and "oblique footwork" because it's an obscure technique that I
don't think my opponent has access to.

I've been thinking of writing a "proof-of-concept" test in perl,
then using it for a combat system to attach to a simple chat system.
Let me get specific on the details:

  You may learn as many forms as you like, but may only use up to n
  forms.

  Using a form gives:

    -- Full bonuses if the target neither knows or is using the
    form.
  
    -- Half bonuses if the target knows the form but is not using
    it.

    -- No bonuses if the target knows the form and is using it.

  Each combat round you attack using one of the forms - on that
  round, the bonuses from this form are doubled.

There are some interesting possible ramifications of such a system.
Probably the most interesting is that "power techniques" may weed
themselves out.  In the average MUD, players tend to seek out and
use to exclusion the most effective damage techniques.  Under this
system, a powerful but well-known technique would be less effective
than a good but obscure technique.

Ramble off...

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shren at io.com  Tue Jul 16 07:09:56 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Tue Jul 16 07:09:56 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24199.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:
> Paul Boyle writes:
 
> Imagine a game that only exists for the purpose of crafting.
> There are no achievements.  You just spend time creating things.
> It's "Legos Online" or whatever.  Can that be made into an
> entertaining game?

Yes.  Battletech fans often sit around and design mecha by the
battletech mech design rules.  If the act of making an object is an
act of design and not an act of clicking, then a lot of people would
do it for the sheer joy of engineering.

If you could design a system where item components have a
tetris-like shape and you assembled them on a grid, and if the
design tradeoffs were interesting, then people might do it for the
sake of itself.

Under such a system there'd be two steps to object creation.  The
first, interesting step is the blueprint design, where you lay out
the components.  Actual creation would probably just involve
clicking the blueprint if you had the materials.

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Tue Jul 16 07:49:49 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Tue Jul 16 07:49:49 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24200.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Matt Mihaly writes:
> On Sat, 13 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:

>> The only people who are going to want to help out in the assault
>> on the Death Star are the ones who believe that they are going to
>> get some remarkable experience commensurate with their risk.  The
>> inability to ensure that everyone gets something worthwhile out
>> of the overall encounter is the real difficulty.  If I'm flying
>> my X-Wing fighter and get blown out of the sky in the first 10
>> seconds of the fight, am I going to be happy about having simply
>> been part of the casualties?  Especially if I've lost one of my
>> lives - which might be expensive?

> So make death relatively painless. Maybe being blown out of the
> sky only takes them out of the encounter for X period of time.

I thought Marian's original premise was to make the adventure have
high emotion through the possible loss of something valuable:

  "Actually, I tend to think that the death star is an excellent way
  to make the fight very, very meaningful to the players
  involved. But to work it needs a different approach to games than
  you normally see.  Players would purchase an account with a number
  of 'lifes' to it."

Given that, death is not supposed to be painless.  Or are you
suggesting that players can get right back into it, but perhaps at
the cost of another quick death?  Does that set up a player for huge
disappointment who really isn't capable of handling the ferocity of
the encounter and loses all his lives?  I know that you don't really
care about such a scenario unless it starts to impact your business
model.  But I care about structuring the entertainment so that my
players will reliably get a certain level of entertainment.  Thus my
original posting.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rgabbard at swbell.net  Tue Jul 16 07:51:00 2002
From: rgabbard at swbell.net (Ron Gabbard)
Date: Tue Jul 16 07:51:00 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24201.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
> Paul Boyle writes:

>> I think everyone agrees that endless clicking is definitely out
>> of style.  And from everything I've seen, most game designers
>> believe the fun of crafting systems is not in the crafting
>> itself, but in the achievement play you gain from being a
>> crafter.

>> Personally, I think something that gets overlooked is the
>> explorer style play that can come from crafting.  The thrill of
>> discovering or creating something new noone else has managed to.
>> That's why I'm looking for alternatives to reciepe-style systems,
>> where all the possible results have been mapped out in extremis
>> by the system designer.

>> I realize that leaves the possiblity of unbalance items coming
>> out of the system.  I'm curious if anyone has thoughts on this as
>> well, if anyone's looked at balancing crafted items not by
>> knowing the possibilities at the beginning, but by coupling an
>> evaluator at the back end of the system to see if the product is
>> allowable.

> If you want to find out if your crafting system is inherently
> entertaining, make it such that the items that it creates are
> useless.  If players still craft, then you've got something.  Of
> course, everything has a value to somebody, so it's a difficult
> test to establish, let alone pass.  But that's the general idea.
> Beyond that test is the test of whether other players will find
> what is crafted desireable, etc.

Make is such that the items created are useless?  That's the
situation with most MMOGs.  Mob-dropped items are almost always
superior to player-crafted.  I agree with the 'explorer' argument
with regards to crafting.  One thing I've tried to put into the
trades system I've been toying with is a sense of discovery and
ownership of that discovery... as well as random events that get the
heart racing.

Miners own their mines and the ore/gem/precious metal mined from
that vein will be relatively stable.  However, there is also the
chance that hitting a certain pocket will unleash a subterranean
monster to be dealt with, or that rare super-size gem might be
harvested, or a long-buried artifact from a long-dead civilization
might be uncovered which triggers a 'what the heck is this' quest
for the miner, or even breaking through to a subterranean cavern
that triggers a server-wide quest and introduces a new dungeon into
the world.  The gathering of raw materials by players is so
necessary in order to have a balanced, inflation-proof economy but
mining, lumberjacking and such are typically the most boring of all
the trades.

The second stage crafters are the component makers... the alchemists
and metallurgists.  I went with an attribute-based system instead of
a recipe-based system.  Thus, a metallurgist can combine any set of
ores and alloys to make a new alloy with its own unique properties,
e.g., Ore_A with a Hardness of 100 (determines damage/protection)
and a Durability of 50 (determines decay rate) can be combined with
Ore_B that has a Hardness of 50 and Durability of 100 to get Alloy_X
that is 75 in both.  Alchemist powders can also be added to the mix
to imbue the metal with certain properties.  The end result is that
Alchemists and Metallurgists can 'custom make' potions/powders and
metals to meet the specific needs of their customers.  Yes, there
are basic combinations that will provide very usable products (and
marketable) like basic health potions and base alloys for those
people who don't want to 'explore' the craft.  But, the people who
provide the custom services will end up with the higher-margin
products as there is more value-added.  Now, toss in an occassional
explosion (or the release of a toxic gas that poisons people in the
vicinity) when the alchemist/metallurgist tries a new combination
and has a critical failure and you have the opportunity for
something more than place-place-click.

The final stage crafters are the armorsmiths, weaponsmiths, etc.
Again, the final products are attribute-based instead of
recipe-based.  The weaponsmith that just wants to crank out standard
swords can do so using basic components created by the second stage
crafters.  The more advanced crafters can create custom products
specifically designed to meet the needs of a particular customer
using rarer components and/or more complicated alloys.  The player
determines the level of involvement they want to put into the craft.

This system makes some basic assumptions: Differences in item
attributes must be supported by the other systems in the game.  If
there is no encumbrance or inventory constraints, then the weight
and durability of an item makes little difference... players can
just carry an arsenal in their backpack.  If all players can wield
all weapons with equal effectiveness regardless of their character's
size or strength, then weight of the weapon makes no
difference... all players will select the weapon with the highest
'damage ratio'.  If you want people to be 'crafters' instead of
'button-pushers', differences in the final products have to be
determined by more than 'how many times has this blacksmith hit the
"combine" button' and those differences have to be supported by
other game systems.

Secondly, one of the biggest downfalls to most crafter communities
stems from the oversupply of crafters.  Rich players will log on
their trade mule and powerskill their trade mule character while at
work or otherwise occupied where they can't play a 'real' character.
It's that low of involvement.  The end result is that the trade mule
has the same skill set as the character who spends their entire life
in a city hawking their wares and really 'playing' the crafter role.
Increase the involvement of the crafting process and you have given
the 'core crafters' a much-needed competitive edge over the trade
mules.

Finally, just because someone likes making the items (regardless of
involvement) and enjoys the whole creation process doesn't mean that
they have the interpersonal skills to sell the items.  Language and
cultural differences may drive some of this but some of it is just
driven by differences in personality.  Design distribution systems
where crafters can sell their wares without being door-to-door sales
people.  The 'reward' to the crafter would vary by involvement of
the distribution system but the individual player can decide whether
the reward is worth the cost.

By varying the distribution systems and final products they can
carry, you end up with a world where each player can determine their
own experience.  A player may decide to hit the local '7-Eleven' and
pick up a 'stock' sword that isn't 'ideal' for them and expensive
given its effectiveness... but is usable and convenient.  Or, they
may travel a bit to get to a blacksmith's shop where there may be a
greater variety of inventoried weapons for sale that are better
suited for that character giving them 'more bang for the buck'.  Or,
the character may search out a specific blacksmith to have a weapon
custom-made for them given their strength, size, and other
determining factors.  The players place their own cost/benefit ratio
on activities... which is a good thing in promoting the
individualized experience.

The 'Crafter Experience' needs to be more than just repetitively
hitting a button and making generic products.  Imagine if the combat
systems were such that characters would run up to an opponent and
just hit <ATTACK> and the RNG would determine if you win or lose
based on the variance between character skill level and difficulty
of the target.  Casters would automatically cast 'Spell'... Ranged
combatants would automatically shoot 'Projectile'... Melee
combatants would swing 'Weapon'.  I could have written that code on
my Apple IIe in BASIC... yet that's where most games are with their
trade skills.

/rant off

Designing a robust trade skill and commercial system can go a long
way to broadening the appeal of the game to those players that want
more than the 'slay the dragon/save the princess' experience... at
least to this player.

Cheers,

Ron

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rgabbard at swbell.net  Tue Jul 16 08:48:19 2002
From: rgabbard at swbell.net (Ron Gabbard)
Date: Tue Jul 16 08:48:19 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24202.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Eli Stevens" <listsub at wickedgrey.com>
> Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net> wrote:

>> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want
>> to participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want
>> to participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar
>> with similar customer bases?

> Your question is somewhat loaded however, because of the
> implication that the two PK systems are the same.

Of course it's somewhat loaded, there are a bazillion 'right'
answers to this question but each answer will be framed by each
individual's personal experience.  System design is probably 95% of
the answer... but what is it about the systems?

Would the number of people involved in PvP in EQ and AC be different
if PvP+ was the default and players had to convert to PvP-?

What if the fiction were such in AC where, instead of the player
praying at the altar of an 'evil god' to get the ability to kill
others, they prayed at an altar where 'they feel their will seep
from them and they experience bovine dreams' while becoming unable
to harm others?  The fiction is such in EQ and AC where PvP+ is
associated with 'evil' and 'chaos' and PvP- is associated with
'good' and 'order'.  Even the color 'red' (most used with PvP+) is
associated with 'evil' in most western cultures.

Would the average player's PvP experience be different if it wasn't
based on experiences on 'red' servers where there is a high
concentration of hard-core PKers?

There are so many 'right' answers that they're almost uncountable.
A well-designed PvP system is fun... DAoC has shown this.  But, the
PvP system in DAoC is also somewhat of a separate game from the rest
of the DAoC experience as character development is only minimally
tied to PvP performance and the on-going player quests are
PvE-centric.

I guess I'm looking for insight on creating a PvP+ world in which
PvP can be enjoyed by players without being shoved into a corner or
made into a separate game that people join when they get to level
X... without turning the world into the lawless 'wild west' where
might makes right.

Cheers,

Ron

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com  Tue Jul 16 10:23:06 2002
From: Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com (Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com)
Date: Tue Jul 16 10:23:06 2002
Subject: =?utf-8?b?UkU6IFLDqWYuIDogUkU6IFtNVUQtRGV2XSBNYXNzIGN1cyB0b21pemF0?=
	=?utf-8?q?ion_in_MM***_s?=
Message-ID: <mailman.24203.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca [mailto:Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca]
> From: Raph Koster
 
>> But are casual players who do not group (eg, who form no social
>> ties) going to stick anyway?
 
> I cannot talk for the masses, but I sure did play all the major
> MMORPG out there for 6-8 month each and I always kept a special
> kind of hate for the pressure associated with grouping (granted, I
> am the not the "I played the same game for 2 year" type). If you
> want to provide casual, average joe, entertainement, please forget
> the whole "My game cannot be satisfyingly experienced without a
> generous amount of social interactions" trend...

I disagree intensely. When your recommendation is implemented, you
end up with the Anarchy Online feel and a million players (ok thats
optimistic...)  who don't talk to each other, or feel any real
compulsion to do so. If people don't need to group to make progress,
they won't - however easy you try to make forming a group, its
always going to take longer than soloing.

As you acknowledge, 6-8 months isn't actually a very long tie-in
either.  These games seem to have a 3+ years life expectancy and 6
months in, who knows if they'd even have recouped the investment. If
its a choice between forcing people to make social bonds (even if a
few players are lost on the way) and pleasing people for 6 months
who will then move on, I don't think its too difficult a decision.

Games in the mold of NWN and even Diablo II are better placed to
server that demographic.

Dan
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ghovs at plex.nl  Tue Jul 16 10:56:51 2002
From: ghovs at plex.nl (ghovs)
Date: Tue Jul 16 10:56:51 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24204.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Eli Stevens wrote:
> Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net> wrote:

> Your question is somewhat loaded however, because of the implication
> that the two PK systems are the same.  DAoC's RvR is not a
> free-for-all, and it was a focus of the game design / balance from
> the start.  DAoC basically implements a PK switch that can be turned
> on and off almost at will (by entering or leaving the frontier areas
> / PK dungeon).  My understanding of the EQ PK servers is that other
> PKs can come to you anywhere in the world, at any time (is this
> correct?).

This is correct, but one can gain favor with the guards of most
cities, leaving it quite risky to assault someone in there, since
you can't tell if the guards favor you or your target more. Outside
the cities, it's pretty much without any other risk than being
defeated by your intended target, or some friend coming in to rescue
them.

> I suspect that what we are actually seeing is _not_ that there is
> an odd distribution of PK-oriented players, rather that there is a
> general pull toward being the hunter and a strong aversion to
> being prey.  Control is the key here.  Almost never does a player
> engage in RvR in DAoC _unless_ it is on the player's terms, which
> makes it much more palatable.

That's right. Free for all is only really fun when you're an
extremely unattractive target :)

> To continue the disussion...  DAoC has done pretty well with
> zone-based, large team PK.  What other methods are there that
> allow players to manage their risk in (limited?) PK environments?
   
What seems to work particularly well is forming guilds, and exacting
revenge on anyone who attacks a guild member.

rgds,
ghovs

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From trump at trumps.net  Tue Jul 16 11:11:17 2002
From: trump at trumps.net (Dave Trump)
Date: Tue Jul 16 11:11:17 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24205.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Ron Gabbard writes:

> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want to
> participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want to
> participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar with
> similar customer bases?

Players combating players or players combating A.I.  I'm going to
propose that to 90%+ of the population, apart from the relative
difficulty, there is no difference.

Take a player and ask if he will join your group to combat a tough
group of clearly defined opponents, on a clearly defined
battlefield, over a meaningful prize.  9 times out of 10 he will be
happy to.  Relvealing then that the opponents are all player
controled or AI will not change his mind.

Take the same player.  Tell him you want him to play a game where
all the humans he encounters are likely to attack at random,
sometimes teammates will attack in the middle of a co-op fight.
Tell him that roving bands of characters as powerful as his will
attack him while he is shopping, resting or any other time it is
inconvenient.  9 out of 10 (probably more) will not be interested.
Relvealing then that the opponents are all player controled or AI
will not change his mind.

These 2 situations are DaoC PvP and early UO PvP respectively.  But
the first one really applies (more or less) to any popular PvP game,
Quake, AOE, etc.  While the second applies to the unused PvP servers
of a number of "bluebie" games, EQ, AC, UO, etc.

In the end it's not a matter of players being interested in PvP,
that's as silly as asking if players are interested in quests,
because the answer will always be the same: I'd love to do some well
designed quests.  I'd hate to do ones built by a moron.




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From lynx at lynx.purrsia.com  Tue Jul 16 12:13:41 2002
From: lynx at lynx.purrsia.com (lynx at lynx.purrsia.com)
Date: Tue Jul 16 12:13:41 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24206.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sat, 13 Jul 2002, Sasha Hart wrote:
> [Marian Griffith]

>> Players would purchase an account with a number of 'lifes' to
>> it. If they lose all lifes the account is cancelled...

> The given plan doesn't manage perceived prospect well. Which would
> you rather have - a game in which you were assessed costs (which
> of course you could not pay - if you wanted to quit the game) for
> being on the losing side of a war? Or a game in which you could
> get a bonus ($7 off next month's fee) for winning? ...

But this kind of system might be easy to 'game' so that participants
in a 'rotating war scheme' might work on getting each person or
faction freedom from a month of fees, then switch over to let the
next faction win, etc.

You'd need to make it a monthly determination of who gets a break
and who doesn't, based on accomplishments over that time period.
Let's do a totally back of the envelope calculation.

  Number of players in game: 1000
  Monthly fee: $10
  Number of territories or forts to be controlled: 10
  Amount you are willing to refund: 10% of monthly revenues or $1000
  Amount each fort is 'worth' to hold for the month: $100
  Length of month: 30 days
  Amount you get for holding a fort for one day: (to be divided
    among fort occupants) $3.33

So, if you occupy each fort with 10 players for a full month, 100
players will make enough money to fully cover their fees.  But 900
players out there will be paying full fees.  Which gives them
incentive to try and liberate a fort from its current holders.

Could be an interesting revenue model. :) You budget exactly how
much you want to give out, then you give that out in an incremental
fashion over the course of the game month.  On the other hand, I
would worry that this might run into laws concerning 'on-line
gambling'.

-- Conrad


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From gryphon at iaehv.nl  Tue Jul 16 12:45:22 2002
From: gryphon at iaehv.nl (Marian Griffith)
Date: Tue Jul 16 12:45:22 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24207.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Mon 15 Jul, Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Sat, 13 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:

>> The only people who are going to want to help out in the assault
>> on the Death Star are the ones who believe that they are going to
>> get some remarkable experience commensurate with their risk.  The
>> inability to ensure that everyone gets something worthwhile out
>> of the overall encounter is the real difficulty.  If I'm flying
>> my X-Wing fighter and get blown out of the sky in the first 10
>> seconds of the fight, am I going to be happy about having simply
>> been part of the casualties?  Especially if I've lost one of my
>> lives - which might be expensive?

> So make death relatively painless. Maybe being blown out of the
> sky only takes them out of the encounter for X period of time.

That would defeat the original point. The idea was to make the
outcome of the fight matter to the players. By making it pain- less
to be defeated the outcome is unimportant, just as dying is now on
most muds.

No, the solution would not be to make it less significant, but to
give the players more control. I.e. it would not be easy if at all
possible, to get blown out of the sky withing seconds.  By focussing
less on attrition of hitpoints, and more on skill and parry, then
players have a lot of action to determine the outcome of a fight.

Anybody here involved with the SCA, or otherwise skilled in the arts
of sword fighting?

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Tue Jul 16 12:51:17 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Tue Jul 16 12:51:17 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24208.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: John Buehler

> If you want to find out if your crafting system is inherently
> entertaining, make it such that the items that it creates are
> useless.  If players still craft, then you've got something.  Of
> course, everything has a value to somebody, so it's a difficult
> test to establish, let alone pass.  But that's the general idea.
> Beyond that test is the test of whether other players will find
> what is crafted desireable, etc.

In Meridian 59, players crafted because it made them important to a
wide range of other players.  There were very few menders, and those
menders ended up being the social hub for the game, as their craft
was fairly irreplaceable.

In Ultima Online, I don't know exactly how to describe the fantasy I
saw repeated over and over again, but I saw it on the boards over
and over again: players wanted the ability to 'open a little shop'
where they could sling ale or be a blacksmith or whatever.  Perhaps
it's nothing more than a chance to live out their opportunity to be
an entrepreneur without risk, or to live in a pastoral environment
of peace and tranquility.

> Imagine a game that only exists for the purpose of crafting.
> There are no achievements.  You just spend time creating things.
> It's "Legos Online" or whatever.  Can that be made into an
> entertaining game?

Well, we'll find out when the Sims comes out, now won't we? ;-)

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From gryphon at iaehv.nl  Tue Jul 16 13:20:54 2002
From: gryphon at iaehv.nl (Marian Griffith)
Date: Tue Jul 16 13:20:54 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24209.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Sat 13 Jul, John Buehler wrote:
> Marian Griffith writes:
>> In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Thu 11 Jul, John Buehler wrote:

>>> it knowing that the Death Star is coming our way and that we
>>> have a collective fight on our hands.  If we win, then I was
>>> there.  I did something to help.  If we lose, perhaps my
>>> character survives to tell the story of what went wrong and how
>>> we need to put down the Empire.  (The Death Star use is a
>>> problem in that it catastrophically wipes out whole planets,
>>> precluding non-miraculous 'survival', but you get my point)

>> Actually, I tend to think that the death star is an excellent way
>> to make the fight very, very meaningful to the players
>> involved. But to work it needs a different approach to games than
>> you normally see.  Players would purchase an account with a
>> number of 'lifes' to it. If they lose all lifes the account is
>> cancelled, and they have to buy a new account to resume
>> playing. In compensation the game world is not really out to kill
>> the character.  Players can happily spend their time on a little
>> backwater planet and never be bothered by anything, much the same
>> way nothing much is going to bother you or me in real life.
>> However, if they become involved in the game's main politics,
>> then they are likely to get into a fight, and those deaths are
>> per- manent. That way the big assault on the rebel stronghold is
>> going to mean a great deal to the players defending it, seeing
>> that if they lose they are one step closer to being forced to
>> reinvest in the game.

> The only people who are going to want to help out in the assault
> on the Death Star are the ones who believe that they are going to
> get some remarkable experience commensurate with their risk.

I do not know, perhaps you are right, but I think that there are
sufficient players around who are looking for a more meaningful game
than you give them credit for. The problem being that after a while
ordinary (as in: customary on muds today) gameplay tends to become
boring and stale precisely because there is no point to it. The game
is repetitive and resets exactly the same. All a player can do is
wait at some point, sometimes in a queue, for a monster to reappear
again. And again.  Some of these players may well be willing to risk
something of real value in order to con- tribute.  After all, for
many years now people have been willing to pay a lot of real money
to steer some blinking dots across a screen in game arcades.

> The inability to ensure that everyone gets something worthwhile
> out of the overall encounter is the real difficulty.  If I'm
> flying my X-Wing fighter and get blown out of the sky in the first
> 10 seconds of the fight, am I going to be happy about having
> simply been part of the casualties?  Especially if I've lost one
> of my lives - which might be expensive?

Not necessarily expensive, I would not be able to make up some
numbers without knowing more about the players and what they are
willing to pay, and the amount of risk they think acceptable.  Also,
while the game itself would not be out to kill the players (i.e.  no
roving monsters that attack on sight) the same should not be true of
the game plots.  If the death star would come pay a visit then the
players allied with its faction would presuma- bly be pulled out.
The opposing forces would have a fight, and the players who would
not want to risk their accounts can only hope they win, because if
they lose the whole planet, and their character with it, is going to
be blown up.  The same is true if the two factions happen to fight
it out in their hometown.  They might still get caught up in the
crossfire, and get injured, or worse.  The world might be safe, but
that does not mean the game has to be.  The idea is, after all, to
make the events matter to the players, and something like this
certainly would.

> Disappointment and disenchantment from game encounters by the
> player population is something that I'm particularly sensitive to.
> I want to be able to be sure that I can provide a certain level of
> entertainment to the vast majority of my players - and then
> underpromise on that experience.

I certainly agree that potential players of the game must have a
fair, and clear, warning that the game is not your run-of-the- mill
mud. On the other hand, giving the players a number of lives to play
with, and a way to limit the amount of risk they feel is acceptable,
would help a long way for the *players* to find the level of
entertainment they seek, without you having to second- guess them.
It must be possible, even easy, for players to avoid a fight they do
not want, and if engaged in one it must be about strategy and
tactics, not about clubbing each other to death with a blunt object.

> The sheer volume of messages on boards that say 'such and such
> game stinks' is, I believe, partly a result of the game industry's
> desire to provide that emotionally-charged environment, but
> without being able to ensure that the emotions are *positive*.
> Folks are getting charged up, but I suspect that it's a wash as to
> whether it's a positive or negative experience.

I am afraid you can not have both.  It is impossible to appeal to
all the players all the time, and I think pointless to make the
attempt.  You can only be honest about what your game offers, and
about what it does not offer. You may draw less players that way,
but they are likely to be those who want to play that particular
type of game.

> So I continue to eye a model where the players are on one side and
> the gamemasters are on the other, each controlling characters in a
> struggle that never gets too emotionally charged because there is
> never that much at risk.  Players play the game because it's
> entertaining, not because of its ability to elicit strong emotions
> from the players.  Those who are entertained only through strong
> emotions will simply have to look elsewhere than my non-existent
> game :)

Which is certainly a fair approach. After all I only came up with my
idea as an example of how you could provide a game where the main
conflict realy mattered to the players on a personal level.

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Tue Jul 16 17:02:53 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Tue Jul 16 17:02:53 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24210.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, Damion Schubert wrote:
> From: John Buehler
 
>> The only people who are going to want to help out in the assault
>> on the Death Star are the ones who believe that they are going to
>> get some remarkable experience commensurate with their risk.  The
>> inability to ensure that everyone gets something worthwhile out
>> of the overall encounter is the real difficulty.  If I'm flying
>> my X-Wing fighter and get blown out of the sky in the first 10
>> seconds of the fight, am I going to be happy about having simply
>> been part of the casualties?  Especially if I've lost one of my
>> lives - which might be expensive?
 
> Judging from the keep takeovers in Lineage, yes you are.
 
> One of my new maxims.  Shared loss is less painful than personal
> loss.  I've seen people complain for weeks about dying to a spider
> throw themselves into a guild fray and die repeatedly in Meridian
> 59 and Lineage and never bat an eye, never complain about it.

This also fits with my rather extensive experience admining PvP
games. Shared struggle, even loss, can be quite fun.
 
--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johna at wam.umd.edu  Tue Jul 16 20:45:51 2002
From: johna at wam.umd.edu (John Robert Arras)
Date: Tue Jul 16 20:45:51 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24211.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sat Jul 13, "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com> wrote:

> Given such simulation, the gamemasters can nudge a mayor to decide
> to admit storm troopers to protect his town's shipments, causing a
> complete rebalancing of activity in town because of the appearance
> of storm troopers.

Agreed. I don't see GMs being completely out of the loop for a long
time. I expect that GMs will make changes to some high-level aspect
of the simulation, then let the game work out the details. I expect
to abstract making occasional quests into tweaking the simulation at
a high level.

> Courtesy of simulation, the gamemasters may be able to run the
> simulation at advanced speed to see what will actually happen,
> based solely on NPC behavior models.

This is my favorite part. :) Starting the server at night then
waking up to see that the game is 30 days into the simulation...

> I'm working on my own ideas in artificial intelligence in order to
> address this very model and it's quite difficult.  It will require
> a ton of processing power and it'll also require some serious
> tools to 'design' people.

I'm still not at the level of deep individual AI. My guess is that
it isn't possible to have good AI for all creatures at all times, so
it will be necessary to store personalities offline and then
interact with an external AI/NLP module when individuals need to
interact with players. I've been reading about "narrative
intelligence" and "emergent narrative" to learn about how to
construct the individuals in the context of a world, but it's still
a long way off.

John

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From marc at genesisfour.com  Tue Jul 16 20:59:35 2002
From: marc at genesisfour.com (Marc LaFleur)
Date: Tue Jul 16 20:59:35 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24212.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Raph Koster
 
> But are casual players who do not group (eg, who form no social
> ties) going to stick anyway?

I'm not sure the current definition of "group" has all that much to
do with "social ties". In most games, it simple means we all go into
a situation together and share the rewards.

Personally I don't like to group. As a husband, father, and
professional I don't have nearly the same amount of time that a
single college student has on their hands. The typical form of
"grouping" requires that I first dedicate enough time to finding a
group (at least 30 minutes, often longer) and second that I can stay
with that group for a while (2-3 hours). I'm lucky if I get an hour
to play without interruption. I want to log in and escape reality
for a few minutes, not camp the "Item X Spawn" for three days.

Given, my personal experience doesn't necessarily reflect that of
the typical MMOG player. But it does illustrate the experience of
most non-MMOG players. Most gamers that I know wont play MMOGS for
the reasons I stated. Rather, they invest in WarCraft,
Counter-Strike, etc.  that allow them to play for a short time with
little preparation and no requirement on time. The only exception
has been UO, a game that didn't include the "group" concept for
years.

I don't play to crush, I play to bake bread. So why should I group?
Groups are not where I build my social ties. Vending my crafts to
the community builds them. I find those I enjoy playing with and
form a guild...

I'm not saying groups are bad, but by saying "group or pound sand"
you wont get very far with me. If all you are doing is offering
grouping as an option, to further the entertainment of an
appropriate player type, then I'm all for it. Just make sure that
you remember there is more to the MMOG experience than grouping up
to slay a villain.

If all I wanted to do was kill things, I'd toss in Counter-Strike
and rox u. :)

Marc LaFleur

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johna at wam.umd.edu  Tue Jul 16 21:06:00 2002
From: johna at wam.umd.edu (John Robert Arras)
Date: Tue Jul 16 21:06:00 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24213.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sun, Jul 14 Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net> wrote:

> I would agree with you on the Massive simulation part... but
> disagree in that the players can do it better than the designers.

> Anyhow, a lot of things have changed from my original EQ
> experience back in 1999.  I had a necromancer character pay me 5
> pp for 20 bone chips I had looted from level 1 skeletons.  I could
> have sold them to a vendor for 1/25th that amount.

> Build an entire world around systems with these types of
> player-driven transactions and you have a world where everybody
> has the potential to make a difference to some extent while making
> the game experience more enjoyable for all involved.

> What is the material difference between a quest where NPC_Bob says
> 'Go kill skeletons and bring me their bones for a reward' and
> PC_Jim >saying 'Go kill skeletons and bring me their bones for a
> reward'?

I am definitely not arguing against these kinds of interactions.  I
expect players to form their own guilds and cliques, and I expect
economies of some kind to appear in the game. But, I want something
else. Something much bigger than the players so that it isn't only
about players making their own fun. I want to do more than make a
world where players can make their own fun with each other. I want
to see something where the world also tries to make fun for the
players.

> Lum's quoted truism "players are broken" is just wrong.  Players
> are flexible where game systems are rigid.  The players are
> actually the ones 'working as intended'... it's the systems that
> are breaking.  If there is a flaw in the system that can be
> exploited, it will be exploited.  If advanced characters are
> allowed to PK younger players, it will happen.  If a game system
> requires players to exhibit the same modes of behavior and
> civility that they would use in work, church, and school in order
> to provide an enjoyable game experience for everyone, that system
> is broken.

> players are not broken...  game systems just don't have the
> sufficient checks, balances, and flexibility to deter
> 'anti-social' behavior.  Is it absolutely necessary to draw the
> box of possible player actions so small that players are left with
> very few ways in which to interact with each other in order to
> prevent 'anti-social' behavior or can tools for checks and
> balances be included in the system such that there is a
> player-driven penalty for anti-social behavior?  Can players be
> given the responsibility for adhering to social norms if they are
> also given the means to be held accountable for their actions?

I think I need to explain my objections more. I want games where
players have lots of freedom. I want to let players do what they
want. If they want to have a side where they pkill all the
newbies. Fine.  If some people on that side want to spam kill the
newbie killers, fine. I might even have different rules for
different sets of players (since I am assuming interaction between
these different sets will only be using the pointy end of a sword).

My problem is giving players institutionalized positions of power.
For example, making a player the "mayor" of a city is a bad idea
IMO. I don't trust players who are given that kind of institutional
power for whatever reason. If players want to earn points and then
use those points to influence the direction of the city, that's
fine. It's just that singling out players for special treatment and
giving them official titles that they can use to lord over other
playesr is bad.

John


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ppboyle at centurytel.net  Tue Jul 16 22:16:01 2002
From: ppboyle at centurytel.net (Paul Boyle)
Date: Tue Jul 16 22:16:01 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24214.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

"Marian Griffith"

> But players already accept loss.  They know that they risk losing
> some gold, equipment or experience when they fail in a fight. They
> just expect to be able to recoup those losses, and that they are
> not too frequent (or can be avoided if they so desire).

I think the poster knew that players accept small losses like that.
The poster also, correctly in my opinion, identifies the loss in
something as big as a PA war as a much bigger deal.  Especially if
PA wars are done, not as volunatry guild wars in something like EQ,
but as part of the gameplay.

> I did not read it like that.  At least not that strongly. To me it
> was first a complaint towards the game staff, who strive to remove
> any non-fun (i.e. possibility of losing) activity from the game in
> an attempt to keep as many players as possible.  The original
> poster said that encouraged the players to behave like spoiled
> four year olds.  At no point did I read that he believed this to
> be the be all and end all of online games. Quite the contrary, I
> read it as a plea for more possibility of conflict within the
> game.  You only need to look at quake, half-life or counterstrike
> to see that there is indeed a large market for games that focus on
> direct confrontation between players.

I don't know if holding up FPS twitch games as the model of maturity
makes your point that well.  I don't think it was a dig at the game
devs either, so much as it was an indirect dig at the desires of a
vocal population in that forum.  I participate in that forum
occaisionally, and lately a large number of the posts have been a
flame war between PvP posters and anti-PvPs.  I think that was just
one of the most sophisticated shots in that war.

While the points it brings up are in part valid, I don't think that
the point it esposes, that all higher level social interaction is
founded on player conflict, is valid whatsoever.  Isn't the idea
behind human development, as a species, that we seek win/win
situations, and that cultures that follow win/lose strategies,
though potentially succesful in the short term, change or die in the
long run?  For example, the Vikings, the Golden Horde, Nazi Germany,
Sparta.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ppboyle at centurytel.net  Tue Jul 16 22:47:48 2002
From: ppboyle at centurytel.net (Paul Boyle)
Date: Tue Jul 16 22:47:48 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24215.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Ron Gabbard" <rgabbard at swbell.net>

> PK switches, PK servers/non-PvP servers, PvP areas, etc...

> Some people point at the number of 'carebear' servers EQ/AC has
> versus the number of PvP servers as proof that people prefer
> non-PK environments.  However, if you go over to DAoC, most
> players consider RvR the 'best part of the game' and consider PvE
> a necessary evil in order to get to RvR.  They are both very
> successful games with very large and very broad player bases.
> However, they are contradictory 'proof' of the player's desire to
> participate in PvP combat.

> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want to
> participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want to
> participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar with
> similar customer bases?

If you asked a DAoC player if they'd enjoy EQ, and vice versa, I
think you'd see that their player bases are not similar on that
question. Players who've played the game for a certain amount of
time realize where the ultimate rewards in the game lie, and, if
those rewards are not for the playstyle they themselves prefer, they
will leave the game.  That's not new thinking.

One new thought I do have to offer up is that there is a second
option.  Some players, if they enjoy other aspects of the game
enviornment, will, rather than leaving the game, condition
themselves to enjoy or at least tolerate the gameplay that is most
rewarded in the game.

Let me give you a concrete example.  I know a woman playing EQ who
admits to being bored by the standard cycle of plane raiding,
monster killing, achievement playing that is the standard of the
game.  Whenever I ask her why she doesn't quit, though, she usually
answers that she feels obligated to be there for her guild, her
friends, and her husband who also plays.  Btw, she plays a cleric.
But she gets caught up in the thrill of getting that new bubble of
experience for her skills too.

I don't know what you should take from that.  Personally, I feel
sorry that she's sort of trapped herself in an enviornment that
really isn't rewarding to her.  I'm sure the execs at Sony, are
thrilled to have people like her who've maintained their game
account, not because of the game itself, but because of other
players.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ppboyle at centurytel.net  Tue Jul 16 23:10:11 2002
From: ppboyle at centurytel.net (Paul Boyle)
Date: Tue Jul 16 23:10:11 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24216.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com>

> But are casual players who do not group (eg, who form no social
> ties) going to stick anyway?

EQ really bashed people over the heads with grouping.  Dragonrealms,
which many people invested years & money in, despite the much great
number of broken systems, had a better approach, in my opinion.

There, you could reasonably perform most of the activities of the
game by yourself, and all of them if you really tried hard.  Their
were just time savings involved in relying on other players.

Furthermore, in EQ, the players they tried to bring together all
fundamentally had the same goal and playstyle, that of the
achievement oriented monster killer.  Dragonrealms, on the other
hand, allowed combat characters to go off on their own if they
choose, but every so often, they would require the services of an
empath, a fundamentally non-combat character, or a thief, or cleric.
And each of those guilds had their own draw and reward that was in
some respect different from the other guilds.

The biggest disagreements I saw on Dragonrealms were those of guilds
who had the same role (combat, in the majority of cases) disagree on
which piece of the combat pie they had to share with other combat
guilds.

What's the point of this rambling then?  Not that you shouldn't
encourage player interaction.  But that a game is often more
successful when it encourages player interaction between different
types of players, rather than forcing player interaction to achieve
the same goal.

One thing in particularly I think a game should encourage is
socialization between social-type players, and players of all other
types, rather than trying to force achiever or explorer types to
socialize with each other.

Of course, Raph probably knows this, since I can see one of the
underlying dynamics to SWG is the role of the merchants/socials to
interface with crafters/achievers, surveyors/explorers, and
combat/achievers-killers.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ppboyle at centurytel.net  Wed Jul 17 00:25:36 2002
From: ppboyle at centurytel.net (Paul Boyle)
Date: Wed Jul 17 00:25:36 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24217.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: <szii at sziisoft.com>

> A Yugo will get you from point A to point B.  My Z28 gets you there
> too, but in more style and you'll have more fun doing it.  My wife's
> Cavalier is a median point.  Some people like to advance and advance
> and advance with little effort and no setbacks (non-PvP EQ).  Some
> people like the challenge, intensity, and pride that comes with
> hitting the upper level cap on a hardcore PvP server.  Some people
> just don't care about levelling and want to brawl all the time.

<snip>

It's funny, but you demonstrate pretty well a lot of the things
anti-PvP players generally feel is stereotypical of PK.

The first is egotism.  Most anti-PvP players dislike PK's because of
their 'I'm better than everyone else, so they can all rot' attitude.

The second is the general dehumanization PK's enact toward their
opponents.  In this forum, you obviously feel that PvE players are
your opponents, so you've insulted their intelligence, and compared
them to 7-year olds, various animals, and a cheap european car.

I don't think anyone will take your post seriously, but I've seen a
couple of your points put forth often enough that I'd like to
comment.

  #1 PvE's don't seek challenge.  This just isn't true.  If EQ had
  come out, and killing the lowliest, least challenging mob netted
  the same reward as killing the biggest of dragons, PvE's wouldn't
  have flocked to it.

  #2 PvE's want something for nothing - Everyone wants something,
  that's not limited to PvE's.  PvP's want an enviorment in which
  their playstyle is rewarded as well.

  #3 PvP's seek extreme intellectual challenge - This just isn't
  true either.  The great majority of PvP encounters are settled by
  unequal power parties, in which the conclusion is foregone.  While
  it may be a social challenge to find a group of players to camp a
  zone line, it most certainly is not an intellectual challenge.  If
  PvP's really did seek that sort of challenge exclusively, then
  even-level dueling would be the encounter most often sought, and
  not the chase after the latest, greatest exploit.  Exploits
  wouldn't be a problem, because PvP's would avoid using them,
  instead seeking the greater honor of a fair match.

As you yourself pointed out though, any system that isn't exploit
free & perfectly balanced is unsuitable for PvP's.  This is another
reason MMORPG's are often unsuited to PvP.  It's exponentialy more
difficult to balance the broad array of classes and skill levels
(character and player) within the MMORPG community, that it is for
the small amount of character types in say, Counterstrike.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rgabbard at swbell.net  Wed Jul 17 08:20:22 2002
From: rgabbard at swbell.net (Ron Gabbard)
Date: Wed Jul 17 08:20:22 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24218.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: <lynx at lynx.purrsia.com>
> On Sat, 13 Jul 2002, Sasha Hart wrote:
>> [Marian Griffith]

> Could be an interesting revenue model. :) You budget exactly how
> much you want to give out, then you give that out in an incremental
> fashion over the course of the game month.  On the other hand, I
> would worry that this might run into laws concerning 'on-line
> gambling'.

Personally, I would keep a hard line dividing in-game occurrences
and the flow of real-world money... particularly credits going back
to the customer.  What happens when a new bug pops up that affects
the outcome?  Or, a server goes down for some reason.  All players
involved will demand some kind of refund because they've now been
trained that money flows both ways.  The funny thing is that the
amount of the credit would probably work out to about $0.02 to each
player... but that would't lessen the ranting.

IMHO, so many bad things can happen when that wall between in-game
activity and company pocketbook is breached that the benefit of
$3.33/X players in reward just isn't worth the risk.

Cheers,

Ron

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Wed Jul 17 09:14:51 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Wed Jul 17 09:14:51 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24219.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Matt Mihaly writes:

> This also fits with my rather extensive experience admining PvP
> games. Shared struggle, even loss, can be quite fun.

To be clear, I believe in the shared struggle as well - even at a
loss.  The question is one of how great that loss can be, and how
much can players share the struggle when we can only control the
experience to a certain extent?  That is, the game has to make the
shared aspect very clear, as others have stated before.  I'm sure
we've all seen cases where the shared struggle has been a great
experience for all concerned - win or lose.  But can we say that we
know how to reliably present that experience to players?  Getting a
great experience once, having the expectation of repeating it and
being unable to do so can lead to frustration on the part of the
player.

Would Disneyland be as big a draw if some visits you were able to
enjoy the rides, but on other days they didn't work as well, so it
was a bit of a crapshoot as to whether you'd enjoy yourself?
Nitpicking aside (yes, rides are shut down occasionally), the
expectation of a visitor to Disney parks is that they'll have plenty
of fun stuff to do.  That they *will* have a lot of fun.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Wed Jul 17 09:14:54 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Wed Jul 17 09:14:54 2002
Subject: =?utf-8?b?UkU6IFLDqWYuIDogUkU6IFtNVUQtRGV2XSBNYXNzIGN1c3RvbWl6YXRp?=
	=?utf-8?q?on_in_MM***_s?=
Message-ID: <mailman.24220.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Daniel Harman writes:
> From: Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca [mailto:Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca]
>> From: Raph Koster

> I disagree intensely. When your recommendation is implemented, you
> end up with the Anarchy Online feel and a million players (ok
> thats optimistic...)  who don't talk to each other, or feel any
> real compulsion to do so. If people don't need to group to make
> progress, they won't - however easy you try to make forming a
> group, its always going to take longer than soloing.

Recall that we have a pretty ugly barrier to entry for socialization
- the inability to talk.  I don't know what Koreans use to talk to
each other, but I suspect that it's either painful to enter it as
text or they use English.  That is, their barrier may be greater
than in cultures that fit the ISO-LATIN 1 'culture'.

For the record, I think that forcing social interaction is silly,
but that there are a number of legitimate reasons that can be used
to naturally bring players into interaction.  If players are averse
to it, they'll skip it.  Most will interact because it is natural to
do so.  But again, the inability to speak is an unnatural barrier
which makes almost all interactions impossible to be 'natural to
do'.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com  Wed Jul 17 09:37:11 2002
From: Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com (Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com)
Date: Wed Jul 17 09:37:11 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Boring Combat (was:Mass customization in MM***s)
Message-ID: <mailman.24221.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]

> There are some interesting possible ramifications of such a
> system.  Probably the most interesting is that "power techniques"
> may weed themselves out.  In the average MUD, players tend to seek
> out and use to exclusion the most effective damage techniques.
> Under this system, a powerful but well-known technique would be
> less effective than a good but obscure technique.

I like the idea and its something I've had in mind for a system
too. I didn't think of having bonuses/advantages if the opponent
knew/was using the form though, which is a nice idea. The forms I
was envisaging also added abilities in combat such as ability to
defend against multiple targets, or knock an opponent down etc.

My only concern with your approach is how one maintains obscurity of
technique in a large(ish) game. It tends to make me think of
Asheron's Call's (urg too many 's) spell economy where everyone knew
all the secrets after a couple of months.

Perhaps forms could be something players crafted. Extrapolating,
then one could consider the base components that forms are made up
of when seeing if they counter each other. i.e. if you were using a
self crafted for which gave you a 20% resist to knockdown (amongst
other things - higher level forms could have more components), and
they tried to use a form which gives a 20% bonus to knockdown, then
they'd nullify.

If forms were player crafted, then even more fun, there'd be
competitive disadvantage in teaching it to others. Of course you'd
be missing out on some money that way...

Dan
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Jeff at nextelligence.com  Wed Jul 17 09:54:38 2002
From: Jeff at nextelligence.com (Jeff Lindsey)
Date: Wed Jul 17 09:54:38 2002
Subject: =?utf-8?b?UkU6IFLDqWYuIDogUkU6IFtNVUQtRGV2XSBNYXNzIGN1cyB0b21pemF0?=
	=?utf-8?q?ion_in_MM***_s?=
Message-ID: <mailman.24222.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Daniel wrote:
> From: 
>> From: Raph Koster

> I disagree intensely. When your recommendation is implemented, you
> end up with the Anarchy Online feel and a million players (ok
> thats optimistic...)  who don't talk to each other, or feel any
> real compulsion to do so. If people don't need to group to make
> progress, they won't - however easy you try to make forming a
> group, its always going to take longer than soloing.
 
> As you acknowledge, 6-8 months isn't actually a very long tie-in
> either.  These games seem to have a 3+ years life expectancy and 6
> months in, who knows if they'd even have recouped the
> investment. If its a choice between forcing people to make social
> bonds (even if a few players are lost on the way) and pleasing
> people for 6 months who will then move on, I don't think its too
> difficult a decision.

It will be interesting to see how this timeline changes as the genre
expands and more titles are available to choose from. Will having a
new "major" MMOG title released every six months erode the
attraction of picking one game and sticking to it? Will developers
change their methods to target this short-term/high turnover group
(and is it even financially feasible?), or work towards better ways
to hook players for the long haul?

-Jeff

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Jeff at nextelligence.com  Wed Jul 17 10:22:01 2002
From: Jeff at nextelligence.com (Jeff Lindsey)
Date: Wed Jul 17 10:22:01 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24223.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

shren wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:
>> Paul Boyle writes:
  
>> Imagine a game that only exists for the purpose of crafting.
>> There are no achievements.  You just spend time creating things.
>> It's "Legos Online" or whatever.  Can that be made into an
>> entertaining game?
 
> Yes.  Battletech fans often sit around and design mecha by the
> battletech mech design rules.  If the act of making an object is
> an act of design and not an act of clicking, then a lot of people
> would do it for the sheer joy of engineering.
 
> If you could design a system where item components have a
> tetris-like shape and you assembled them on a grid, and if the
> design tradeoffs were interesting, then people might do it for the
> sake of itself.

> Under such a system there'd be two steps to object creation.  The
> first, interesting step is the blueprint design, where you lay out
> the components.  Actual creation would probably just involve
> clicking the blueprint if you had the materials.

Or how about something similar to Magic: The Gathering? Players
craft an object from unique components, field test it, return to the
drawing board to tweak things, repeat. If the system is designed
well, 'best' combinations become popular or common just like M:TG
themes, but everything is situational. Your Energy Blaster combo may
be all the rage right now, until someone designs an Absorbing Field
with just the right components to counter it, at which point you go
back and tweak the Blaster to account for it, or rethink your weapon
needs from a design standpoint.

-Jeff

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From paul.schwanz at east.sun.com  Wed Jul 17 11:41:45 2002
From: paul.schwanz at east.sun.com (Paul Schwanz)
Date: Wed Jul 17 11:41:45 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24224.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From:  Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net>
> From: "Eli Stevens"
>> Ron Gabbard wrote:

>>> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want
>>> to participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want
>>> to participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar
>>> with similar customer bases?

>> Your question is somewhat loaded however, because of the
>> implication that the two PK systems are the same.

> Of course it's somewhat loaded, there are a bazillion 'right'
> answers to this question but each answer will be framed by each
> individual's personal experience.  System design is probably 95%
> of the answer... but what is it about the systems?

> Would the number of people involved in PvP in EQ and AC be
> different if PvP+ was the default and players had to convert to
> PvP-?

Of the bazillion right answers, I think I tend to agree with Eli's
suggestion that it is basically about control or being able to
manage risk.  I think that this is probably a bigger part of the
discrepency than is the default PvP setting, although I don't doubt
that the default setting also has a large effect on the culture of
the game.  I think that Eli asked a very good question toward the
end of his post, and I thought I might as well give my own ideas
regarding player control and PvP here.

DAoC uses the concept of territory to help players manage PvP risk.
Your level of safety is very dependant upon your location.  In DAoC,
this is a binary thing.  On one side of a hard-coded, immutable
border, you are completely invulnerable, while on the other side,
you are not.  As for the level of danger once you are in the combat
zone, I didn't stick with DAoC long enough to find out how this
works.  Are there differences in the level of danger inside the zone
or are you pretty much in just as much danger in one spot as
another?  My impression was that the latter was a more accurate
description, but I don't know.

I can imagine other possible implementations that are a bit more
dynamic but which still allow the player to manage risks based on
territory or location.  Safety might be made dependant upon the
ability to exert control over an area based on military forces or
facilities in that area instead of being dependant upon hard-coded
boundaries.  I believe that the amount of risk could be made more
continuous instead of being discrete as it is in DAoC.  Also, safety
that is dependant upon community actions to some extent (such as the
building, defending, etc. of military installations) brings an
interesting incentive to gameplay that a hard-coded boundary does
not.

The other thing that I think would help tremendously in managing
risks would be a distinction between combatants and non-combatants
in a war.  The guy who opens a little mercantile in town may indeed
be interested in the pastoral theme or in becoming an entrepreneur,
as Damion suggested in another thread.  In some ways, he is playing
an entirely different game than the one being played by the militia
stationed in the same town.  When he thinks about PvP competition
and conflict, he may think about undercutting a competitor's prices
and driving him out of town, but the idea of doing physical harm to
another character just doesn't appeal to him.  By choosing a
non-combatant profession, his risks of getting killed should go way
down, in my opinion.  When another town declares war on this one,
the battles should be between militias, since by choosing that
profession, the players have declared themselves as being interested
in that sort of gameplay.

When you look at real life and the rules that the international
community has put into place to help determine what forms of
military intervention are legitimate and which are crimes against
the international community, I think you can find things that help
determine the same for an MMORPG.  Soldiers wear uniforms that
identify them as soldiers as well as identifying to which side of
the conflict they are allied.  This uniform basically serves as a
type of protection when performing their soldierly duties in that,
when captured, they are treated as prisoners of war instead of as
murderers, spies, traitors, partisans, etc.  This all serves to help
determine who is a combatant and who is not.  Non-combatants (in the
'perfect' war anyway, and I really am trying to stay away from a
political discussion on this) are not valid military targets.  If
they are not wearing a uniform and you kill them, then you've
committed a war crime.  If you are not wearing a uniform and you
kill someone, then you are acting as a spy, traitor, or murderer and
not as a soldier.

So, basically, in an MMORPG, I think that professional militia
should be easily identified as such and will always be considered
combatants.  Additionally, before a battle, perhaps even the
merchant will decide to take up arms to defend his home town.  If
so, then he must also be easily identified as a combatant for the
duration of the battle.  If the merchant remains a non-combatant but
is providing some sort of support for the battle, then there needs
to be non-lethal methods available to the enemy to intervene and
restrain the support.  The same would need to hold true for the
healer, else the healer would need to be considered a combatant
before being allowed to heal any combatant.

I think I'm starting to ramble a bit, so I'll shut up for now.
Basically, I think that the concepts of territory and location;
profession and combatant status; as well as some sort of justice
system that punishes or prevents war crimes can all work together
toward a more manageable PvP environment.

--Phinehas

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From efindel at earthlink.net  Wed Jul 17 12:37:01 2002
From: efindel at earthlink.net (Travis Casey)
Date: Wed Jul 17 12:37:01 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24225.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Tuesday, July 16, 2002, 7:45:22 AM, Marian Griffith wrote:

> No, the solution would not be to make it less significant, but to
> give the players more control. I.e. it would not be easy if at all
> possible, to get blown out of the sky withing seconds.  By
> focussing less on attrition of hitpoints, and more on skill and
> parry, then players have a lot of action to determine the outcome
> of a fight.

> Anybody here involved with the SCA, or otherwise skilled in the
> arts of sword fighting?

I've had some training and practice in sword, staff, stick, and
unarmed fighting, and have read widely on the subject.  What sort of
info are you looking for?

--
Travis Casey
efindel at earthlink.net

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu  Wed Jul 17 13:17:00 2002
From: Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu (Sasha Hart)
Date: Wed Jul 17 13:17:00 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24226.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

[Ron Gabbard]

> I guess I'm looking for insight on creating a PvP+ world in which
> PvP can be enjoyed by players without being shoved into a corner
> or made into a separate game that people join when they get to
> level X... without turning the world into the lawless 'wild west'
> where might makes right.

I agree! Fortunately there is a great big toolbox for doing anything
but the impossible (e.g., allowing PKs to inflict misery on the
unconsenting while avoiding unconsenting misery).

  - Safe zones, fleeing, and other kinds of cowardice; incl. systems
  where you sacrifice offense for defense ahead of time, to avoid
  one complaint

  - NPC/automated justice systems; player based justice systems

  - Admin based "justice," e.g. toading for abuses

  - Ability for players to avoid interacting with past defectors

  - Ability for players to defect on past defectors

  - Consent & implied consent systems; sparring & duelling

  - Offense at least as, if not more expensive / risky than defense;
  PD/ shallow or no power differences as a function of time spent in
  game

  - Probably several more pages I've missed

Sasha

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Wed Jul 17 14:16:49 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Wed Jul 17 14:16:49 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24227.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: szii at sziisoft.com

> I believe, simply, that PvE is structured.  It's the SAME.  It's
> static.  The mobs are dumb (AI).  The game is too easy.

> PvP can be chaotic. It's unpredictable.  You have REAL LIVE
> THINKING PEOPLE instead of broken mob pathing and "just flood
> them" mentality.  PvP is HARD.  It adds an element of the unknown
> to the mix and, well, people just don't like that.  How many
> people picked Diablo on the "easy/normal" setting and never bumped
> it up?  How "hard" is NWN(SP), really?  How many cheats exist for
> people to use/abuse in just about every single game?
 
> The game industry caters to the llamas and the lowest common
> denominator in the pursuit of profits.  Easy = more people.  Big =
> more time.  Easy + big = lots of online time spent = more money mo
> money mo money.

Okay, think about this.  A coworker bought WarCraft 3 here recently,
and we played a spawned network game where 3 of us played against
the computer.  All three of us are RTS junkies, and have a fair
amount of experience playing past RTSes, such as Age of Empires and
StarCraft.  The computer opponent was so insanely hard, that it took
three of us down without breaking a sweat.  (And no, there is no
difficulty setting on computer opponents in WC3)

There is easy, there is challenging, and then there is unacceptably
difficult.  Easy is fun.  Challenging can be fun, if the actual
conflict is fun.  WC3's unacceptably difficult coop play against the
computer has probably guarunteed that I won't pick up a copy.

Cut back to a couple years ago, when Counterstrike came out.  Again,
I do quite well at FPSes, and was an old hand at both LMCTF as well
as vanilla Unreal: Tournament deathmatch.  When CounterStrike came
out, though, I missed the boat and didn't start to play until 6
months after ship.  By that time, the people who had been playing
since it first came out were so good for it that I had no chance.
Death was near instantaneous, learning was impossible, and the game
was quickly removed from my hard drive.

Given my own gaming experience, I hesitate to imagine Joe Sixpack's
experience in either situation.

What we witness with EQ and DAoC is _not_ the case of "llamas" that
just "can't hack it".  PvP in EQ, UO and AC is unacceptably
difficult to a large percentage of the player base, and easy to a
small percentage.  DAoC's primary difference is that, since it was
actually built for PvP and therefore has safe learning areas and is
better balanced, moved that bar down to 'challenging'.

For other genres, 'deathmatch' play is the bread and butter of the
genre: FPSes, puzzle games, fighting games, RTSes, etc.  People are
used to fighting other people.  The excitement about doing so was
very noticeable before the release of UO.  The problem is mostly
that so far, it's been unacceptably difficult.


--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From helpsfamily at attbi.com  Wed Jul 17 17:39:30 2002
From: helpsfamily at attbi.com (Acius)
Date: Wed Jul 17 17:39:30 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Boring Combat (was:Mass customization in MM***s)
Message-ID: <mailman.24228.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

shren wrote:

> There are some interesting possible ramifications of such a
> system.  Probably the most interesting is that "power techniques"
> may weed themselves out.  In the average MUD, players tend to seek
> out and use to exclusion the most effective damage techniques.
> Under this system, a powerful but well-known technique would be
> less effective than a good but obscure technique.

Hmm ... that's eerily similar to our current forms system. We even
call them forms. I promise we didn't take your idea :-P. Although we
don't have any particular rules about form matching and form
dissonance, we do use the forms to reflect your approach to combat.

We're still in early development, so this hasn't been fully fleshed
out yet, but it *does* make combat a bit more interesting to
read. Each form consists of actions, reactions, and a function (this
is LPC) which chooses your next move. You can specify a move at any
time, overriding the default move selection. Forms can have variable
attitudes (such as blocking, parrying, attacking), and you have a
limited number of points which you can allocate between the
attitudes, and can reallocate at any time. You can fight a poorly
armoured beast with all points in 'attacking', throwing it off
balance, or you can keep the swordsman occupied with all points in
'parrying' while someone else backstabs it.

Different types of moves require different forms. Punch can be done
in many forms, but spellcasting is probably limited to a few spell
forms, which keep you from physical fighting. Sword fighting is done
using a different form than axe-fighting, and requires that you have
some kind of sword. Archery is yet another form.

Like I said, we're still in early development, but we are already
using forms-based combat for our fighting. Most of the players are
fighting with the 'brawl' or 'sword' forms, and the wolves are using
an 'animal' form that involves liberal doses of scratching and
biting. If you're interested, take a look at our stuff:
http://www.simud.org

-- Acius
Acius at Walraven

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Wed Jul 17 18:48:18 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Wed Jul 17 18:48:18 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24229.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, Marian Griffith wrote:
> In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Mon 15 Jul, Matt Mihaly wrote:
 
>> So make death relatively painless. Maybe being blown out of the
>> sky only takes them out of the encounter for X period of time.
 
> That would defeat the original point. The idea was to make the
> outcome of the fight matter to the players. By making it pain-
> less to be defeated the outcome is unimportant, just as dying is
> now on most muds.

This is a fiction that seems to exist in the minds of a number of
people on this list, but it's just that: A fiction.

I venture to suggest that our players in Achaea are more deeply
emotionally involved in encounters like this than you find in a game
where xp is ultra-important, despite the fact that death in Achaea
doesn't actually cost you all that much. It is all about glory and
shame, not whether some silly piece of data has been altered more or
less. Glory and shame are -far- more powerful motivators.

> No, the solution would not be to make it less significant, but to
> give the players more control. I.e. it would not be easy if at all
> possible, to get blown out of the sky withing seconds.  By
> focussing less on attrition of hitpoints, and more on skill and
> parry, then players have a lot of action to determine the outcome
> of a fight.

Yes, making it depend on skill is one way to imbue the qualities of
glory and/or shame into the outcome of an event. That's how Achaea's
combat system works.
 

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Wed Jul 17 19:23:31 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Wed Jul 17 19:23:31 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24230.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:
> Matt Mihaly writes:

>> So make death relatively painless. Maybe being blown out of the
>> sky only takes them out of the encounter for X period of time.
 
> I thought Marian's original premise was to make the adventure have
> high emotion through the possible loss of something valuable:

That is, in my opinion, a poor way to achieve high emotion. I posted
about that in a reply to Marian though.
 
> Given that, death is not supposed to be painless.  Or are you
> suggesting that players can get right back into it, but perhaps at
> the cost of another quick death?  Does that set up a player for
> huge disappointment who really isn't capable of handling the
> ferocity of the encounter and loses all his lives?  I know that
> you don't really care about such a scenario unless it starts to
> impact your business model.  But I care about structuring the
> entertainment so that my players will reliably get a certain level
> of entertainment.  Thus my original posting.

I just think the limited deaths idea is a poor one, generally
speaking (obviously there is really no design decision that can be
said to be universally poor, as it's entirely dependent on the rest
of the game).

As far as what I care about, I care first and foremost about making
money, because I'm an ethically responsible business operator who
understands that he has an obligation to make money for the people
who made the game possible in then first place (my
investors). Happily, the only way to do that is to ensure the
players are reliably entertained, and even more happily, we seem to
be damn good at it.

I'd actually like to check out your game though, where these players
are being so wonderfully satisfied in all the ways you speak of so
frequently. Point me to the address of it?

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Thu Jul 18 08:17:17 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Thu Jul 18 08:17:17 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24231.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Marian Griffith writes:

>> The only people who are going to want to help out in the assault
>> on the Death Star are the ones who believe that they are going to
>> get some remarkable experience commensurate with their risk.

> I do not know, perhaps you are right, but I think that there are
> sufficient players around who are looking for a more meaningful
> game than you give them credit for. The problem being that after a
> while ordinary (as in: customary on muds today) gameplay tends to
> become boring and stale precisely because there is no point to
> it. The game is repetitive and resets exactly the same. All a
> player can do is wait at some point, sometimes in a queue, for a
> monster to reappear again. And again.  Some of these players may
> well be willing to risk something of real value in order to con-
> tribute.  After all, for many years now people have been willing
> to pay a lot of real money to steer some blinking dots across a
> screen in game arcades.

Don't get me wrong.  I want players to be interested in the activity
of the game world.  I just draw the line earlier than many
enthusiasts on MUD-Dev.  I want to evoke the strongest emotions in a
controlled way, as a book or movie does.  If I rely on players to
find emotional triggers amongst themselves, then I can't guarantee
much of anything in the way of entertainment value.  This is one
reason that I don't favor player-run games.  While they work to a
degree for enthusiasts, I don't see them as being applicable to the
broader market.  That is, for the casual players who really want to
be entertained more than anything else.

>> The inability to ensure that everyone gets something worthwhile
>> out of the overall encounter is the real difficulty.  If I'm
>> flying my X-Wing fighter and get blown out of the sky in the
>> first 10 seconds of the fight, am I going to be happy about
>> having simply been part of the casualties?  Especially if I've
>> lost one of my lives - which might be expensive?

> Not necessarily expensive, I would not be able to make up some
> numbers without knowing more about the players and what they are
> willing to pay, and the amount of risk they think acceptable.
> Also, while the game itself would not be out to kill the players
> (i.e.  no roving monsters that attack on sight) the same should
> not be true of the game plots.  If the death star would come pay a
> visit then the players allied with its faction would presuma- bly
> be pulled out.  The opposing forces would have a fight, and the
> players who would not want to risk their accounts can only hope
> they win, because if they lose the whole planet, and their
> character with it, is going to be blown up.  The same is true if
> the two factions happen to fight it out in their hometown.  They
> might still get caught up in the crossfire, and get injured, or
> worse.  The world might be safe, but that does not mean the game
> has to be.  The idea is, after all, to make the events matter to
> the players, and something like this certainly would.

Well, I'd leave those aligned with the Death Star on the planet for
consistency.  They made their bed, just as you suggest that two
factions fighting might kill bystanders.  Note that a spy who sticks
it out with the rebels even during the Death Star fight - and
survives - is going to be that much more trusted.

>> Disappointment and disenchantment from game encounters by the
>> player population is something that I'm particularly sensitive
>> to.  I want to be able to be sure that I can provide a certain
>> level of entertainment to the vast majority of my players - and
>> then underpromise on that experience.

> I certainly agree that potential players of the game must have a
> fair, and clear, warning that the game is not your run-of-the-
> mill mud. On the other hand, giving the players a number of lives
> to play with, and a way to limit the amount of risk they feel is
> acceptable, would help a long way for the *players* to find the
> level of entertainment they seek, without you having to second-
> guess them.  It must be possible, even easy, for players to avoid
> a fight they do not want, and if engaged in one it must be about
> strategy and tactics, not about clubbing each other to death with
> a blunt object.

I'm all for accurate marketing, strategy & tactics and avoiding the
battles of hit point attrition.  I'm not sure about disclaimers.
They suggest to me that my product is busted or I'm trying to get
the wrong people to use it.

>> The sheer volume of messages on boards that say 'such and such
>> game stinks' is, I believe, partly a result of the game
>> industry's desire to provide that emotionally-charged
>> environment, but without being able to ensure that the emotions
>> are *positive*.  Folks are getting charged up, but I suspect that
>> it's a wash as to whether it's a positive or negative experience.

> I am afraid you can not have both.  It is impossible to appeal to
> all the players all the time, and I think pointless to make the
> attempt.  You can only be honest about what your game offers, and
> about what it does not offer. You may draw less players that way,
> but they are likely to be those who want to play that particular
> type of game.

I agree with all of this.  I suspect we're just talking about
different player groups.  I want to accurately and honestly market
to a group of people who are looking for rather lighter
entertainment than you're interested in providing.  The deepest
emotional impact that I want to have on my players is through the
grand story, not through personal experiences.  I want the personal
experiences to be as entertaining as watching some light comedy or
light drama, etc.  These are games, dernit.

>> So I continue to eye a model where the players are on one side
>> and the gamemasters are on the other, each controlling characters
>> in a struggle that never gets too emotionally charged because
>> there is never that much at risk.  Players play the game because
>> it's entertaining, not because of its ability to elicit strong
>> emotions from the players.  Those who are entertained only
>> through strong emotions will simply have to look elsewhere than
>> my non-existent game :)

> Which is certainly a fair approach. After all I only came up with
> my idea as an example of how you could provide a game where the
> main conflict realy mattered to the players on a personal level.

Yup.  I think this is where we part company, as I described above.
I don't want it to "matter" at a personal level.

John

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Thu Jul 18 08:40:29 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Thu Jul 18 08:40:29 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24232.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Ron Gabbard writes:
> From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
>> Paul Boyle writes:

> Make is such that the items created are useless?  That's the
> situation with most MMOGs.  Mob-dropped items are almost always
> superior to player-crafted.  I agree with the 'explorer' argument
> with regards to crafting.  One thing I've tried to put into the
> trades system I've been toying with is a sense of discovery and
> ownership of that discovery... as well as random events that get
> the heart racing.

I'll start out by saying that I *want* an entertaining crafting
experience.  The trades are one of my primary interests in gaming
and I'm similarly disappointed by the trivial treatment that they
receive.

My suggestion was to provide a test for designers coming up with
crafting systems to determine if their crafting system was
entertaining.  If they only packaged up the crafting system and
tried to sell it as a game on its own merits, would anyone play it?
In truth, I'd apply that test to the combat systems as well.  I've
gotta believe that people play these games primarily for social
reasons.  The raw entertainment really isn't there.

> Miners own their mines and the ore/gem/precious metal mined from
> that vein will be relatively stable.  However, there is also the
> chance that hitting a certain pocket will unleash a subterranean
> monster to be dealt with, or that rare super-size gem might be
> harvested, or a long-buried artifact from a long-dead civilization
> might be uncovered which triggers a 'what the heck is this' quest
> for the miner, or even breaking through to a subterranean cavern
> that triggers a server-wide quest and introduces a new dungeon
> into the world.  The gathering of raw materials by players is so
> necessary in order to have a balanced, inflation-proof economy but
> mining, lumberjacking and such are typically the most boring of
> all the trades.

I have an aversion to long hours of boredom punctuated by moments of
entertainment.  My most fundamental tenet to crafting is that the
boring part has to be entertaining.  If it can't be done, then don't
have players do that part.  Have NPCs do it and have the players
manage them.  I could easily imagine that harvesting could be made
entertaining, at least for a while, but it's not by hearing the same
chopping and cutting sounds and seeing the same animation on the
exact same tree graphic over and over again.  Every activity in a
game that a player is invited to engage in must be more entertaining
than current combat systems.  And that includes combat and forestry.

Note that I don't believe that harvesting raw materials *by players*
has anything at all to do with a balanced, inflation-proof economy.

> The second stage crafters are the component makers... the
> alchemists and metallurgists.  I went with an attribute-based
> system instead of a recipe-based system.  [snip details]

Doesn't that just delay the onset of a recipe system?  Same comment
for 'final stage crafters'.

> This system makes some basic assumptions: Differences in item
> attributes must be supported by the other systems in the game.

[snip examples]

Absolute agreement there.  Crafted items should ideally be variable
in every parameter that the game systems support.  And game systems
should support a bunch of 'em.  Not gratuitously, but meaningfully
such that they add to the entertainment of the game for everyone.

> Secondly, one of the biggest downfalls to most crafter communities
> stems from the oversupply of crafters.  Rich players will log on
> their trade mule and powerskill their trade mule character while
> at work or otherwise occupied where they can't play a 'real'
> character.  It's that low of involvement.  The end result is that
> the trade mule has the same skill set as the character who spends
> their entire life in a city hawking their wares and really
> 'playing' the crafter role.  Increase the involvement of the
> crafting process and you have given the 'core crafters' a
> much-needed competitive edge over the trade mules.

If you end up with recipe-based crafting, those recipes will be
published and all players will know how to make the stuff.  So that
cannot be the discriminator to separate serious crafters from those
who just want the end-result.  This is where game designers attempt
to make it hard to become a crafter.  And they do that by making
crafting boring.  Given that PvE is usually boring, this actually
doesn't deter the non-crafters any more than the crafters.  I favor
a simple statement by players that they want their character to be a
good crafter OR a good politician OR a good fighter OR a good
doctor.  Whatever specialization they care to pursue.  If you don't
want to specialize, be a pretty good politician-doctor-crafter.  Or
whatever.  The point being that the selection of profession and
character competency in the game environment should be arbitrary.
And the players should be able to rebalanced at any time, but with a
low change.  If I'm a perfectly trained fighter today and want to be
a perfectly trained crafter, I say today that I want to be a
perfectly-trained crafter.  In six weeks, I'll be fully changed
over.  In three weeks, half of each.  While I'm in transition, I'll
lose my fighting skills (starting at the high end) and I'll start
gaining on the crafting skills.  With skills gained, I may have to
visit trainers, go on quests, etc. in order to work with the game
fiction of acquiring all the skills, but I gain them inexorably.

Short form: being a crafter is a commitment by the player to pursue
a certain avenue of entertainment in the game.  If I want to be a
master tailor, I have to choose that over other avenues of
entertainment.

> Finally, just because someone likes making the items (regardless
> of involvement) and enjoys the whole creation process doesn't mean
> that they have the interpersonal skills to sell the items.
> Language and cultural differences may drive some of this but some
> of it is just driven by differences in personality.  Design
> distribution systems where crafters can sell their wares without
> being door-to-door sales people.  The 'reward' to the crafter
> would vary by involvement of the distribution system but the
> individual player can decide whether the reward is worth the cost.

> By varying the distribution systems and final products they can
> carry, you end up with a world where each player can determine
> their own experience.  A player may decide to hit the local
> '7-Eleven' and pick up a 'stock' sword that isn't 'ideal' for them
> and expensive given its effectiveness... but is usable and
> convenient.  Or, they may travel a bit to get to a blacksmith's
> shop where there may be a greater variety of inventoried weapons
> for sale that are better suited for that character giving them
> 'more bang for the buck'.  Or, the character may search out a
> specific blacksmith to have a weapon custom-made for them given
> their strength, size, and other determining factors.  The players
> place their own cost/benefit ratio on activities... which is a
> good thing in promoting the individualized experience.

I'm with you on this stuff.  Let the players discover natural
structures for the economy.  Of course, the game designers are going
to have to anticipate the difference between the virtual checks and
balances versus the real world checks and balances.  We all know
that they're not the same.

> The 'Crafter Experience' needs to be more than just repetitively
> hitting a button and making generic products.  Imagine if the
> combat systems were such that characters would run up to an
> opponent and just hit <ATTACK> and the RNG would determine if you
> win or lose based on the variance between character skill level
> and difficulty of the target.  Casters would automatically cast
> 'Spell'... Ranged combatants would automatically shoot
> 'Projectile'... Melee combatants would swing 'Weapon'.  I could
> have written that code on my Apple IIe in BASIC... yet that's
> where most games are with their trade skills.

It's funny that you say this because I've presented this exact
comparison in defense of how unentertaining crafting systems are.
Designers do not 'get it'.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From lars at bearnip.com  Fri Jul 19 00:07:11 2002
From: lars at bearnip.com (Lars Duening)
Date: Fri Jul 19 00:07:11 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Gamasutra plans to feature MMOGs
Message-ID: <mailman.24233.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

I just got this announcement in the 'Inside Gamasutra' newsletter
(which probably means that everybody here has already seen it :-) :

------------------------------------------------
>From     :   "Inside Gamasutra" <inside at gamasutra.com>
Date     :   Thu Jul 18 21:37:17 2002

Gamasutra is planning a September 2002 Resource Guide looking at
Massively Multiplayer Online Games.  The editors are taking
submissions for features articles on the design, production,
architecture, art direction, implementation, maintenance, and
postmortems of online and massively multiplayer online games.

Contact editors at gamasutra.com with your proposal.
------------------------------------------------

--
Lars Duening; lars at bearnip.com
PGP Key: http://www.bearnip.com/lars/pgp-lars.asc

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From apo11yon at hotmail.com  Fri Jul 19 01:24:01 2002
From: apo11yon at hotmail.com (apollyon .)
Date: Fri Jul 19 01:24:01 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24234.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

[Sasha Hart}
> [Ron Gabbard]

>> I guess I'm looking for insight on creating a PvP+ world in which
>> PvP can be enjoyed by players without being shoved into a corner
>> or made into a separate game that people join when they get to
>> level X... without turning the world into the lawless 'wild west'
>> where might makes right.

> shallow or no power differences as a function of time spent in
> game

I would disagree with this suggestion simply based on the assumption
that people ENJOY seeing that they have made progress over time by
having a clear distinction between themselves and those who have
invested less time.  It brings a sense of pride, growth, and
progress.

However, I think the problem that power differences create could be
reduced almost to non-existence with the proper structure.  DAoC has
taken the approach of segregating the PvP areas by level with four
different strata, three for levels 20-35 covering a span of 5 levels
each and then one more for everyone of any level.  Another approach
might be to reduce the strong-arm tactic and leave it up to player
choice, but make attacking someone weaker than yourself so
unappealing as to discourage it's common use.  Either way, for a
true PvP game, growth and progress would have to be rewarded for PvP
kills and not AI bashing, or at the very least the two would have to
be equal.

In the end, I suppose what you'd be looking for would be a situation
where players were strongly encouraged to engage in PvP against
others of appropriate level and just as strongly encouraged to avoid
engaging in PvP against those weaker than themselves.


apollyon

"You must be the change that you wish to see in the world."
- Mahatma Gandhi
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Koster  Fri Jul 19 07:18:56 2002
From: Koster (Koster)
Date: Fri Jul 19 07:18:56 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24235.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Marc LaFleur
> From: Raph Koster
  
>> But are casual players who do not group (eg, who form no social
>> ties) going to stick anyway?
 
> I'm not sure the current definition of "group" has all that much
> to do with "social ties". In most games, it simple means we all go
> into a situation together and share the rewards.

I'm using a pretty loose definition of group. In your examples in
your email, you cite getting together to trade goods, you cite
forming a guild.

The common statement seems to be "I don't like grouping, I want to
do everything solo." And doing everything solo leads to no social
ties. This is very different from what you are stating, which is "I
don't like grouping because I want to have a short play session and
traditional party-up-and-kill gameplay takes too long."

-Raph 

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From amanda at alfar.com  Fri Jul 19 08:52:02 2002
From: amanda at alfar.com (Amanda Walker)
Date: Fri Jul 19 08:52:02 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24236.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On 7/16/02 7:45 AM, Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:

> No, the solution would not be to make it less significant, but to
> give the players more control. I.e. it would not be easy if at all
> possible, to get blown out of the sky withing seconds.  By
> focussing less on attrition of hitpoints, and more on skill and
> parry, then players have a lot of action to determine the outcome
> of a fight.
 
> Anybody here involved with the SCA, or otherwise skilled in the
> arts of sword fighting?

I've been involved with the SCA for over 20 years, though not with
fighting except as a spectator.  This influenced my suggestions a
few months ago that combat could be treated more like "fighting
games", where there are no levels at all--the outcome depends on the
actual skill of the player, not the character.

However, this also influences my opinion that combat should not be
the only option.  The richness of the SCA milieu results not from
the fact that recreating 14th century foot combat is terribly
interesting in and of to everyone--it's because there are countless
*other* ways to participate, "advance", and so on.  For example,
while I've never fought in a tourney, I've made costumes, cooked
feasts, taught classes, played live music for dancers, won awards
for calligraphy and illumination, and so on.

It would be pleasant to find an MMO game where the ability to enjoy
game content depended more on actual skill than on punching an xp
time clock.


Amanda Walker

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From amanda at alfar.com  Fri Jul 19 09:06:16 2002
From: amanda at alfar.com (Amanda Walker)
Date: Fri Jul 19 09:06:16 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24237.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On 7/17/02 11:41 AM, Paul Schwanz <paul.schwanz at east.sun.com> wrote:

> Of the bazillion right answers, I think I tend to agree with Eli's
> suggestion that it is basically about control or being able to
> manage risk.

Indeed.  I won't do PvP in AC or EQ, but I will in DAoC, and would
consider it in AO.  I also have a much less "risk averse" play style
in the latter two games even in PvE.

Why?  One very simple reason: if I die, I don't lose my in-game
stuff.  The penalty for losing a 30-second encounter isn't "spend
the next week farming mobs for enough cash to replace items that got
looted/lost in one fight".

All of the rest is icing on the cake.


Amanda Walker

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From jo at groupinfo.com  Fri Jul 19 10:36:16 2002
From: jo at groupinfo.com (jo at groupinfo.com)
Date: Fri Jul 19 10:36:16 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24238.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On 16 Jul 2002 at 22:16, Paul Boyle wrote:

> While the points it brings up are in part valid, I don't think
> that the point it esposes, that all higher level social
> interaction is founded on player conflict, is valid whatsoever.
> Isn't the idea behind human development, as a species, that we
> seek win/win situations, and that cultures that follow win/lose
> strategies, though potentially succesful in the short term, change
> or die in the long run?  For example, the Vikings, the Golden
> Horde, Nazi Germany, Sparta.

Well, the Vikings and Sparta had a run of several hundred years, at
least as long as more 'peaceful' cultures such as, say, Athens or
Venice. After all, every culture, win/win or win/ lose, changes or
dies in the long run. I'm not sure there are any cultures that don't
on a fairly frequent basis pursue a 'win/lose' strategy in one way
or another, come to think of it. Even peaceful countries that, say,
focus on trade are still aiming to get their trading competitors in
other countries to lose their shirts and bank balances.  It's
obvious there are cases where higher-level (by which, do you mean
between organisations?) interactions are not hostile, but by and
large they tend to be one organisation supporting another against
hostile actions by a third organisation ;) Personally I would love
to see a MUD that simulated something like the mediaeval Holy Roman
Empire; that glorious tangle of jurisdictions, political powers of
different levels and obscure laws and traditions could potentially
make for some /very/ interesting player-driven politics.

--

	Jo


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From gryphon at iaehv.nl  Fri Jul 19 10:57:37 2002
From: gryphon at iaehv.nl (Marian Griffith)
Date: Fri Jul 19 10:57:37 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24239.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed 17 Jul, Travis Casey wrote:
> Tuesday, July 16, 2002, 7:45:22 AM, Marian Griffith wrote:

>> No, the solution would not be to make it less significant, but to
>> give the players more control. I.e. it would not be easy if at
>> all possible, to get blown out of the sky withing seconds.  By
>> focussing less on attrition of hitpoints, and more on skill and
>> parry, then players have a lot of action to determine the outcome
>> of a fight.

>> Anybody here involved with the SCA, or otherwise skilled in the
>> arts of sword fighting?

> I've had some training and practice in sword, staff, stick, and
> unarmed fighting, and have read widely on the subject.  What sort
> of info are you looking for?

Mainly I am curious to know how the experience of actual fencing
(which I have done only twice) can be translated to muds. For me the
actual experience is *vastly* different from watching messages
scroll by..

  You hit the ugly troll
  The ugly troll misses you
  You hit the ugly troll
  The ugly troll barely scratches you
  ... and so on.

>From what I understand fencing is more about blocking your oppo-
nent, and moving him into a position where you can strike, and I
wonder if that can be done in a mud. It would slow down the pace but
I can not help but think that it would be, in the end, more
entertaining. And on a graphical mud, where you can actually see
your opponent, it would look and work even better I think.


Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Fri Jul 19 11:29:56 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Fri Jul 19 11:29:56 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24240.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

John Robert Arras writes:
> On Sat Jul 13, "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com> wrote:

>> I'm working on my own ideas in artificial intelligence in order
>> to address this very model and it's quite difficult.  It will
>> require a ton of processing power and it'll also require some
>> serious tools to 'design' people.

> I'm still not at the level of deep individual AI. My guess is that
> it isn't possible to have good AI for all creatures at all times,
> so it will be necessary to store personalities offline and then
> interact with an external AI/NLP module when individuals need to
> interact with players. I've been reading about "narrative
> intelligence" and "emergent narrative" to learn about how to
> construct the individuals in the context of a world, but it's
> still a long way off.

Interestingly, verbal interactions with NPCs is the one area that I
avoid.  I don't see it being done well, so I don't go there.  I want
players to talk to each other as players, with roleplayers talking
through their characters to each other.  But talking to NPCs is
fundamentally unappealling to me.  But best of luck with your
investigations.  :)

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From lynx at lynx.purrsia.com  Fri Jul 19 15:37:04 2002
From: lynx at lynx.purrsia.com (lynx at lynx.purrsia.com)
Date: Fri Jul 19 15:37:04 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24241.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, Ron Gabbard wrote:

> Personally, I would keep a hard line dividing in-game occurrences
> and the flow of real-world money... particularly credits going
> back to the customer.  What happens when a new bug pops up that
> affects the outcome?  Or, a server goes down for some reason.  All
> players involved will demand some kind of refund because they've
> now been trained that money flows both ways.  The funny thing is
> that the amount of the credit would probably work out to about
> $0.02 to each player... but that would't lessen the ranting.

Don't people already expect that if the servers go down for an
unusual amount of time, they will be compensated in some fashion?
Or at least, isn't this a waterline mark for 'good customer service'
and 'accountability to customers'?

I think people already believe that their money buys them a certain
amount and quality of service.

-- Conrad

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 19 17:34:25 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 19 17:34:25 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24242.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, Paul Boyle wrote:

> While the points it brings up are in part valid, I don't think
> that the point it esposes, that all higher level social
> interaction is founded on player conflict, is valid whatsoever.
> Isn't the idea behind human development, as a species, that we
> seek win/win situations, and that cultures that follow win/lose
> strategies, though potentially succesful in the short term, change
> or die in the long run?  For example, the Vikings, the Golden
> Horde, Nazi Germany, Sparta.

All cultures change or die in the long-term, regardless of what
strategy they pursue. And take ancient Egypt, for instance, which
was very much a win/lose culture, and lasted for over three thousand
years.

In fact, when I think about it, I can't think of a single major
culture that didn't operate on a win/lose fashion. Egypt, China,
Persia, Greece, Rome, England, France, Japan, the US, etc. All
trying to win at the expense of surrounding cultures.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Jeff at nextelligence.com  Fri Jul 19 17:37:46 2002
From: Jeff at nextelligence.com (Jeff Lindsey)
Date: Fri Jul 19 17:37:46 2002
Subject: =?utf-8?b?UkU6IFLDqWYuIDogUkU6IFtNVUQtRGV2XSBNYXNzIGN1cyB0b21pemF0?=
	=?utf-8?q?ion_in_MM***_s?=
Message-ID: <mailman.24243.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

John wrote:
> Daniel Harman writes:

> Recall that we have a pretty ugly barrier to entry for
> socialization - the inability to talk.  I don't know what Koreans
> use to talk to each other, but I suspect that it's either painful
> to enter it as text or they use English.  That is, their barrier
> may be greater than in cultures that fit the ISO-LATIN 1
> 'culture'.

Actually, there's a pretty good article in the latest Wired ("The
Bandwidth Capital of the World", August 2002) that indicates many
Korean players actually do talk while playing, as they tend to group
up based on being in the same 'internet cafe'. It's a very
interesting read if you get the time.

-Jeff

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 19 17:39:02 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 19 17:39:02 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24244.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, John Robert Arras wrote:

> My problem is giving players institutionalized positions of power.
> For example, making a player the "mayor" of a city is a bad idea
> IMO. I don't trust players who are given that kind of
> institutional power for whatever reason. If players want to earn
> points and then use those points to influence the direction of the
> city, that's fine. It's just that singling out players for special
> treatment and giving them official titles that they can use to
> lord over other playesr is bad.

Bad why? It works in gameplay (see Achaea/Aetolia for instance), so
is the objection a moral/ethical one?

And incidentally, you don't just appoint a player as major of a
city, you let the player-citizens vote him in, and give the mayor
responsibilities vis a vis the citizenry, so that if he is an
immature ass, he'll quickly be out of office.

The player-base is so good at self-selecting their leaders this way,
in fact, that we give certain members of city government the ability
to change certain room descriptions without any review from the
admins (They can re-design any shop in their city, for instance,
albeit it for a fee in gold). Not that that's a huge deal, but it's
an example of the level of trust we can give them (we'd never give
the owners of the shops the ability to do so, as the bar for owning
a shop is a lot lower than it is for being one of the primary
members of government.))
 
--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 19 17:47:17 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 19 17:47:17 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24245.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, Paul Boyle wrote:

> As you yourself pointed out though, any system that isn't exploit
> free & perfectly balanced is unsuitable for PvP's.  This is
> another reason MMORPG's are often unsuited to PvP.  It's
> exponentialy more difficult to balance the broad array of classes
> and skill levels (character and player) within the MMORPG
> community, that it is for the small amount of character types in
> say, Counterstrike.

This is untrue. Achaea/Aetolia is not perfectly balanced and thrives
on PvP, including individual vs. individual and group vs. group PK,
limited competitive economics, highly competitive politics, and so
on. I should probably add that I don't even really know what people
mean when they say something is "perfectly balance." Perfectly
balanced from what perspective? There's no way, even in theory, to
take a system with multiple elements and make it perfectly balanced
in everybody's eyes, because everybody weights every element
differently.


--matt


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 19 17:49:33 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 19 17:49:33 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24246.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:
> Matt Mihaly writes:
 
>> This also fits with my rather extensive experience admining PvP
>> games. Shared struggle, even loss, can be quite fun.

> To be clear, I believe in the shared struggle as well - even at a
> loss.  The question is one of how great that loss can be, and how
> much can players share the struggle when we can only control the
> experience to a certain extent?  That is, the game has to make the
> shared aspect very clear, as others have stated before.  I'm sure
> we've all seen cases where the shared struggle has been a great
> experience for all concerned - win or lose.  But can we say that
> we know how to reliably present that experience to players?
> Getting a great experience once, having the expectation of
> repeating it and being unable to do so can lead to frustration on
> the part of the player.

Nod, absolutely that's true. It takes effort on the part of the
administration.

> Would Disneyland be as big a draw if some visits you were able to
> enjoy the rides, but on other days they didn't work as well, so it
> was a bit of a crapshoot as to whether you'd enjoy yourself?
> Nitpicking aside (yes, rides are shut down occasionally), the
> expectation of a visitor to Disney parks is that they'll have
> plenty of fun stuff to do.  That they *will* have a lot of fun.

Probably not, but MUDs aren't amusement parks either. The defining
aspect of a MUD is that you're playing with other players, not
merely playing at the same time as other players (such as in an
amusement park), and more to the point, you're playing with other
players who remain semi-consistent, such that you can develop
relationships with them.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 19 18:07:58 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 19 18:07:58 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Continuity of experience in movies
Message-ID: <mailman.24247.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, eric wrote:
> From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>

>> There isn't a game either made or theorized, by anyone, that does
>> not restrict your audience. Further, saying that restriction is a
>> bad business model is a bit off. Movies restrict how you interact
>> with them. They do quite well. Books restrict how you interact
>> with them. Amusement parks restrict how you interact with them.
 
> Well naturally, any "thing" is restricted in some sense. But if I
> wrote a book in Klingon I would be restricting my audience even
> more than books already restrict. The original topic I think was
> that DVD that didn't have chapter headings, which still seems to
> me to be just a UI flaw. Did it prevent fastforward? So I could
> just skip parts of the movie and the original goal of the director
> was subverted.

I posted that bit about the DVD chapter headings, in David Lynch's
"The Straight Story." Yeah, you can still fastforward and yeah, I
agree that it was mainly a gimmick. I appreciate his sentiment
though and don't object to it. Lynch is not a commerical director
insofar as he doesn't spend his time trying to figure out how to
suck money from the mass of brainless movie-goers who just want
bigger explosions, more T&A, and more fart jokes. I see any problem
with the artist deciding to limit how people view his work, even if
this instance of it was pretty gimmicky.
 
> However, I've theorized games that didn't restrict their
> audience. With only one exception, cost, cost of the product would
> be the only restriction.  Can't see how to get around that in any
> sense, that is as long as the bulk of our living world exists in
> the real world.

You've theorized games that don't restrict the audience? That's
clever. I assume they don't use language, since language is
inherently restricting. I assume they don't use any sort of
platform, since any platform you choose, from pen & paper to
computer to console restricts your audience. I assume it doesn't
require any body movement (wouldn't want to restrict those afflicted
with total paralysis) either. Take it a step further and I bet
you're restricting it to being played by awake human beings too.

I'll maintain my position that I don't think it's possible, but if
you want to post an example that provides an exception to my
statement, I'll happily change my opinion.
 
>>> been reading, and then she went on to say I was wrong and that
>>> it meant X. It was humorous to me then, and still humorous to me
>>> now.
 
>> What does a good busines model have to do with art?
 
> Hmmm, art isn't a good buisness model.

Depends on your definition of art and what art you're selling. The
Beatles sure made out well, and they're even good. Thomas Kincaide,
the richest living painter (quite rich too I might add), may have
all the ability of a drunken slug, but I would still be forced to
classify his work as art, even if I'd throw in some nasty adjectives
before calling it art.

Art isn't dependent on a business model, but they aren't mutually
exclusive.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ceo at grexengine.com  Sat Jul 20 07:43:55 2002
From: ceo at grexengine.com (Adam)
Date: Sat Jul 20 07:43:55 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] re: Crafting Systems - preventing recipe decomposition?
Message-ID: <mailman.24248.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
> Ron Gabbard writes:

>  If you end up with recipe-based crafting, those recipes will be
>  published and all players will know how to make the stuff.  So
>  that cannot be the discriminator to separate serious crafters
>  from those who just want the end-result.

Quick question (for those with experience with craftingd/etc
degenerating into recipe systems, with full-details published on fan
sites):

What if you adopt the approach used by the DragonCrystal game?

  http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/gamegear/review/R26217.html

  a simple straightforward
  levelling-treadmill-whilst-wandering-around-a-maze game

Every item (Rods, Books, Potions, Weapons, Armour, etc) came in IIRC
8 colours - with each colour mapping to a different magical
ability. You either had to use a Book/Rod of identify to find out
what a colour/item-type pair was (but identify was very rare) or
else just had to use the thing, and if you were lucky you
auto-identified it (but might kill yourself in the process - e.g. if
you targetted self with "lightning bolt" or targetted a monster with
"polymorph" and turned it into something lethal).

All of which would be ruined if someone wrote all the colour-item
pairs on a website (different for each item-type). Some idiot
actually did (if you search for hints/cheats, you can find such
pages) - I say "idiot" because if you played the game more than a
few times it became blatantly obvious that the mappings were
randomized every time.

So, (to finally get to the point ;), what if you had a recipe based
system (crafting, spellcasting, etc) with, say, 8 different actions
that could be combined in sequences up to, say, 10 actions long,
giving you 8^10 possible combinations, and then every time a new
player-character was generated, the server randomized which of those
possible combinations mapped to actual game recipes?

Obvious problem 1: The spell "armageddon" might (randomly) get
mapped to using the simplest action just once. Obvious solution:
introduce some heuristics, such that powerful/etc effects are less
likely to involve simple combinations.

Knock-on-effect: So long as the heuristics only altered the
probability, and still made it possible for every combination, the
number of actions that could match a certain effect is still as
large as originally, so there's still no point trying to map them
out (its a meaningless exercise!).

Obvious problem2: Players keep randomly recreating new characters
over and over again, in an attempt to get the 0.000001% chance that
the character will have "armageddon", "morph self into dragon", and
"instant unlimited wealth" as simple-to-execute actions
:). IANA:(psychologist), but I would suspect that with enough
possible combinations, the probability of success would be so low
that almost everyone would give up before getting such a powerful
combo - so that the rarity of such abilities would still be
preserved.

...but I've never run a MUD/MMOG which had this problem, so I'd be
interested to hear what anyone who HAS has to say...?

Adam M

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rgabbard at swbell.net  Sat Jul 20 11:34:49 2002
From: rgabbard at swbell.net (Ron Gabbard)
Date: Sat Jul 20 11:34:49 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24249.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
> Ron Gabbard writes:
>> From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
>>> Paul Boyle writes:

>> Make is such that the items created are useless?  That's the
>> situation with most MMOGs.  Mob-dropped items are almost always
>> superior to player-crafted.  I agree with the 'explorer' argument
>> with regards to crafting.  One thing I've tried to put into the
>> trades system I've been toying with is a sense of discovery and
>> ownership of that discovery... as well as random events that get
>> the heart racing.

<snip>

> My suggestion was to provide a test for designers coming up with
> crafting systems to determine if their crafting system was
> entertaining.  If they only packaged up the crafting system and
> tried to sell it as a game on its own merits, would anyone play
> it?  In truth, I'd apply that test to the combat systems as well.
> I've gotta believe that people play these games primarily for
> social reasons.  The raw entertainment really isn't there.

I agree with you that people play these games primarily for social
reasons whether it's conflict with other players, banding together
to achieve commons goals, hanging out with friends, etc.  This isn't
a bad thing.  It's a market dynamic that sets certain expectations
in the customer's head.  Players who pursue crafting in a
multi-player world expect that the output from their work will have
value to and be demanded by the player base... be meaningful.  Yes,
most trade skill systems are mind-numbingly dull.  However, this is
truly a secondary problem (that DOES need to get fixed).  The
primary issue is that the output is typically meaningless to the
in-game society which gets back to the 'social reasons' for which
the players play the game in the first place.

<snip description>

> I have an aversion to long hours of boredom punctuated by moments
> of entertainment.  My most fundamental tenet to crafting is that
> the boring part has to be entertaining.  If it can't be done, then
> don't have players do that part.  Have NPCs do it and have the
> players manage them.  I could easily imagine that harvesting could
> be made entertaining, at least for a while, but it's not by
> hearing the same chopping and cutting sounds and seeing the same
> animation on the exact same tree graphic over and over again.
> Every activity in a game that a player is invited to engage in
> must be more entertaining than current combat systems.  And that
> includes combat and forestry.

'Long hours of boredom punctuated by moments of entertainment' is
the main reason that I never got into writing code.  For some
people, writing code is a fun and exciting process and I respect
those people who can sit down for hours and turn functional
requirements into working code.  It's just not my cup of tea... it's
boring A multi-player game, like the real world, is made up of all
types of people with all types of personalities and all types of
real-life constraints on their play time.  What I tried to shoot for
with my trades system is a distribution of required involvement and
interpersonal interaction such that every type of player has a craft
that fits their personality and RL constraints.  (Picture a graph
where Involvement is the X-axis and Interaction is the Y-axis both
going from low to high.)  Each trade has a range of involvement and
interpersonal interactions required such that each quadrant is
represented.  Not every game experience can be so intense and
involved that players can't deal with RL issues that arise
(telephone ringing, bathroom breaks, dinner burning in the oven,
kids starting a fire in the living room) without being penalized by
the game.

> Note that I don't believe that harvesting raw materials *by
> players* has anything at all to do with a balanced,
> inflation-proof economy.

Ack! This is an entirely different thread.  I'm just going to list
the economic laws I used to derive that statement and people can
draw their own conclusion.  'Inflation-proof' and 'balanced' are
technical terms within the science of economics so this is coming
straight from the 'textbook' (Microeconomics 8th edition by Edwin
Mansfield and Macroeconomics 6th edition by Dornbusch and Fischer,
to be exact) as opposed to my opinion.

Macroeconomics -- The only significant costs of inflation are
associated with those wages and prices that are fixed and unable to
adjust to inflation (unanticipated inflation).

By definition, any game with hard-coded wages and/or prices and an
open economy with an ever-increasing money supply is not
inflation-proof.  Note: Wages and prices include obvious instances
like the prices at which NPC vendors buy/sell items but also include
not-so-obvious instances like mobs that drop currency as loot and
the Transmutation skill in AC2 where players themselves convert
items into coin (or visa versa).

Microeconomics -- A balanced economy is one where the supply of
goods equals demand for those goods and the resulting price is
determined by the value the market places on those goods in relation
to competing goods.  This is also called equilibrium... the point
where there is no tendency for change holding other factors
constant.

Thus, to have an inflation-proof, balanced economy you need: 1a. A
closed market with a fixed money supply, or 1b. An open economy with
no hard-coded prices or wages and a system by which prices can
adjust to inflation.  2. A system by which the supply of goods is
able to equal the demand for those goods.

If a game designer can create a system where the available supply of
raw materials equals the player-driven demand for raw materials
without the players providing the supply and where the price for
those raw materials can adjust to inflation and are market-driven,
more power to them.

>> The second stage crafters are the component makers... the
>> alchemists and metallurgists.  I went with an attribute-based
>> system instead of a recipe-based system.  [snip details] > >
>> Doesn't that just delay the onset of a recipe system?  Same
>> comment > for 'final stage crafters'.

It depends on the other game systems.  Being a 'master craftsperson'
in the system I put together has little to do with a character's
"skill level" and more to do with the player's ability to take input
variables and determine the optimal product for that customer given
the situation in which they are planning to use the item, (like
silver weapons versus undead in UO).  If the combat system is set up
such that any 'fighter' character can use any weapon and differences
in effectiveness for a single weapon across all opponents is
insignificant, then the result will be a recipe system with
templates that are posted on Stratics within a week (if not
shorter).

In short, the crafting system can be no more complex than the system
into which it's selling/supporting.  The exception to this is the
aesthetic or prestige angle where having an item with a
cool/unique/rare graphic adds value to the product even though it's
statistically similar.

<[snip and snips]>

>> Secondly, one of the biggest downfalls to most crafter
>> communities stems from the oversupply of crafters.  Rich players
>> will log on their trade mule and powerskill their trade mule
>> character while at work or otherwise occupied where they can't
>> play a 'real' character.  It's that low of involvement.  The end
>> result is that the trade mule has the same skill set as the
>> character who spends their entire life in a city hawking their
>> wares and really 'playing' the crafter role.  Increase the
>> involvement of the crafting process and you have given the 'core
>> crafters' a much-needed competitive edge over the trade mules.

<snip example>

> Short form: being a crafter is a commitment by the player to
> pursue a certain avenue of entertainment in the game.  If I want
> to be a master tailor, I have to choose that over other avenues of
> entertainment.

I agree depending on what is meant by 'master'.  (That term is so
over-used in games.) To be the best of the best should require a
huge commitment but should also have a huge reward.  This ties back
to crafting being supported by other game systems but also ties back
to the concept of a balanced, inflation-proof economy.  Support from
other game systems is obvious in that the items created by 'master'
craftspeople must be significantly superior to those produced by
journeyman crafters to justify the investment the master
craftsperson is asked to make.  Support from the economy is not so
obvious...

In most games currently available, becoming a master craftsperson is
a matter of player time and in-game currency invested into a trade.
The problem is that 'advanced' players amass huge amounts of money
which inflation has made virtually worthless and they typically play
more hours such that the 'real' cost of one hour of game time for
the 25-hour/week player is significantly less than one hour of game
time for the 5-hour/week player.  If the trade system is set up
'PvE' such that becoming a 'master' requires X coins and Y hours,
those players who have 'extra' money and time will build trade mule
'masters' at very little cost as both the coin and time had little
incremental value to them.

Kill inflation and create a 'PvP' economy where the advanced players
are bidding against each other for scarce resources and there is no
longer such a thing as 'extra' time and money.  Investing that time
and money into a trade mule automatically means that the player is
less competitive in bidding for items or on the battlefield against
their peers (people that play the same amount of time) -- they will
have lower quality gear, a less 'prestigious' house, etc.  Thus, the
trade-off mentioned.

I agree that making the process of crafting more exciting and
enjoyable is important.  However, making the crafter's activity
meaningful and protecting the crafter's investment in time is even
more important.  A player that invests 30 played days into
developing a 'master' combat character will have a character that
always has value because there are limitless mobs/respawning players
to kill out there.  A player that invests 30 played days into
developing a 'master' craftsperson will have a character of value
only as long as there is a market for their product that is large
enough to justify their initial investment and provide rewarding
on-going crafting experiences on a regular basis.  If there is no
market for the crafter's goods and what they are making has no
meaning in the game world, it would be more fun and honest to the
player to have the game kick over to a game of 'Gems' when they
craft and just deduct X coins from their account every couple
minutes and after they play Gems for 1000 hours give them the title
Master Craftsperson.

Cynical?  Yeah... sorry.  It's just that UO has been out for what,
5+ years?  MMPs released since then are actually going backwards
with regards to designing integrated systems that will efficiently
support thousands of concurrent players... particularly in the area
of crafting and economics.  What's up with that?

Cheers,

Ron

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From kressilac at insightBB.com  Sun Jul 21 00:23:37 2002
From: kressilac at insightBB.com (Derek Licciardi)
Date: Sun Jul 21 00:23:37 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24250.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Matt Mihaly
> On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, Derek Licciardi wrote:

>> In my mind there has to be a way to empower the players to create
>> stronger societies such that the threshold for accepting loss is
>> raised high enough to support higher forms of cultural and
>> societal interaction.  We can't have every city war/trade
>> war/political war resulting in 50% of participants canceling
>> subscriptions because they lost.

> This doesn't happen though. We'd be out of business if it
> did. Granted, we're not subscription-based, but still, there's not
> much of the "I lost, I quit." phenomenon that I've noticed.

I am glad to hear that someone in the MUD community has seen this.
The only question I have is that if you take your experience and
scale it by a factor of 100 or 1000 subscribers, will it still hold
true.  The threads in the article seemed to not think so and I think
we have a law about the maturity of players as scale increases or
something like that.

>> If the threads assessment of players holds true over time, then
>> it is nearly impossible to build communities in game that thrive
>> from politics, tradewars, and other emotionally deeper PvP types.

> Those assessments are flat-out wrong. These are not new idea and
> Achaea is not revolutionary in focusing on these aspects of the
> player experience.  These sort of communities have existed in MUDs
> for over a decade. I'm not sure what the fuss is about.

I think the assessment becomes more valid with scale.  Perhaps you
are sitting on the ceiling of that scale with a fairly large
successful MUD.  Perhaps not.  I'd wonder if the experience would
hold true with scale.

Derek

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From luke at rocketship.com  Sun Jul 21 19:57:09 2002
From: luke at rocketship.com (luke at rocketship.com)
Date: Sun Jul 21 19:57:09 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Gratification-based MUDs
Message-ID: <mailman.24251.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

--<cut>--
Note: This message was written via the list web archives.  There is
no guarantee that the claimed author is actually the author.
--<cut>--
Original message: http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/2002Q3/msg00076.php

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 14:42:58 -0700 (PDT)
"Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com> wrote:

> A nice post and subsequent thread by folks on the Star Wars
> Galaxies boards.  I'll include some of the postings here, but I
> urge people to read the full thread because
 
>   a) it shows that players aren't clueless :) 
 
>   b) it's a collectively revealing analysis of playstyles
 
> http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/starwars/Forum3/HTML/062581.html

Very interesting thread. It does seem to confirm something I've long
suspected about online communities: They are so wrapped up in trying
to be "fun" (gratifying) that any true artistic, educational value
is often traded off for little repetitious gratification traps. This
is very immature, and is one principal reason I (virtually) quit
mudding years ago. Some MUDs can be pretty nice artwork using copied
literature - The Two Towers LPMUD comes to mind. But really, you
could get almost as good (better in some ways) from the book, in so
much less time.

MUDs today appear to be designed for people who have way too much
time on their hands to burn. If I sit down to MUD (maybe it's my
personality, but a lot of people seem to be similar) I often don't
get up for 6-12 hours unless I have to.  Furthermore, all the memory
I have to show for it is often running around killing orcs to try to
level and thus be safe enough to try out something else to satisfy
my longing to explore. For hours on end. I'm sorry, but I would like
to come away from my escapism feeling a bit more grown up and able
to handle life's problems instead of becoming more of a wimp who
needs to escape more.

At the other extreme are totally disorganized Social MUDs where you
can explore a billion rooms, but they are all totally meaningless to
the game. You never know where someone might have put an interesting
mini-world but who wants to waste their time sorting through the
meaningless gag worlds? Not me.

I think the next generation will be a hybrid systematized game and
creative forum. Some kind of peer-review system could be rigged
(think slashdot) to filter out anything that doesn't contribute to
making the experience rich and enjoyably artistic or
educational. Then the players themselves could build the world, with
computer-tracked skills-mirroring points giving them more and more
access to being able to affect the main gameplay with their
creations.


Luke Parrish
Developer of CandleMUD
http://freeman.freeshell.org/candlemud/

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Blobule at hotmail.com  Mon Jul 22 04:36:08 2002
From: Blobule at hotmail.com (Blobule at hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jul 22 04:36:08 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Worlds of Carnage ( WoC )
Message-ID: <mailman.24252.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

--<cut>--
Note: This message was written via the list web archives.  There is
no guarantee that the claimed author is actually the author.
--<cut>--
Original message: http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/2002Q2/msg00308.php

On Wed, 24 Apr 2002 00:19:36 -0700 (PDT)
blobule at hotmail.com wrote:

> Just to keep this up to date... Carnage now resides at:
 
>     telnet wocmud.org 4000
 
> Should be the last move ever since I own the server :)

We also have a cool website now:

    http://www.wocmud.org/

Cheers,
Blobbie.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shren at io.com  Mon Jul 22 05:45:20 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Mon Jul 22 05:45:20 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24253.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, Travis Casey wrote:
> Tuesday, July 16, 2002, 7:45:22 AM, Marian Griffith wrote:
 
>> No, the solution would not be to make it less significant, but to
>> give the players more control. I.e. it would not be easy if at
>> all possible, to get blown out of the sky withing seconds.  By
>> focussing less on attrition of hitpoints, and more on skill and
>> parry, then players have a lot of action to determine the outcome
>> of a fight.

>> Anybody here involved with the SCA, or otherwise skilled in the
>> arts of sword fighting?

I've had some experience with sword and shield fighting in the
SCA...

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shren at io.com  Mon Jul 22 06:27:17 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Mon Jul 22 06:27:17 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Boring Combat (was:Mass customization in MM***s)
Message-ID: <mailman.24254.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:
> From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]
 
>> There are some interesting possible ramifications of such a
>> system.  Probably the most interesting is that "power techniques"
>> may weed themselves out.  In the average MUD, players tend to
>> seek out and use to exclusion the most effective damage
>> techniques.  Under this system, a powerful but well-known
>> technique would be less effective than a good but obscure
>> technique.

> I like the idea and its something I've had in mind for a system
> too. I didn't think of having bonuses/advantages if the opponent
> knew/was using the form though, which is a nice idea. The forms I
> was envisaging also added abilities in combat such as ability to
> defend against multiple targets, or knock an opponent down etc.

The big thing that one gets out of having known forms cancel is that
you can probably dodge the whole "escalation" thing.  Hit points and
damage seem to spiral constantly upwards in most games, which
creates severe balance challenges.

Like this...  If you have a system where players have 100 hit
points, do 1d10 points of damage per level of sword skill, then
somewhere around swords skill 20 people are killing each other in
one hit.  So you make it so people get more hit points too.  Then
you have a similar escalation war with to hit and armor class.

Now say things cancel out, and a sword does a base 1d10 damage.  You
still have 100 hps.  You have the following skills:

  1 - Precise Slash (+1d10 damage)
  2 - Repressed Twitch Reflex (+3 AC)
  3 - Skilled Feint (+3 to hit)
  4 - Balanced Strike (+2 damage)

You don't need to escalate hitpoints.  Two players with all four of
the above levels will just be at the base 1d10 damage, +0 hit, +0
ac, and the escalation is gone.  Against a weaker opponent, (no
combat skills) they'll hit more, be missed more, and do 2d10+2
damage.

Something interesting that pops up is that suddenly it's useful to
have a few points here and there outside your primary
specialization.  Playing a game like Diablo 2, in the late game most
skills are less than useful unless you have 20 points in the skill.
With a system like this, a mage might pick up Precise Slash, even if
he never intends to fight hand to hand, because by and large it
takes 1d10 off the melee damage, which is probably a worthy use of a
"point".

> My only concern with your approach is how one maintains obscurity
> of technique in a large(ish) game. It tends to make me think of
> Asheron's Call's (urg too many 's) spell economy where everyone
> knew all the secrets after a couple of months.

Non-optimum techniques are obscure.  If there's a 5 step tree called
"Rali's Oblique Angle Fencing Techniques" that gives minor bonuses
compared to other trees, then few will learn it - but then also few
will know how to counter it.

> Perhaps forms could be something players crafted. Extrapolating,
> then one could consider the base components that forms are made up
> of when seeing if they counter each other. i.e. if you were using
> a self crafted for which gave you a 20% resist to knockdown
> (amongst other things - higher level forms could have more
> components), and they tried to use a form which gives a 20% bonus
> to knockdown, then they'd nullify.

Hmm, random thread convergence.  I don't really know how to go about
this, because you can't easily cancel techniques if people are just
making them up.

You could let everyone have thier very own technique, that got more
powerful the more people they taught it to (because they help
improve the technique).  If just one person knows it, it's a weak
technique that nobody will ever be able to counter.  If a few people
know it, it's a little more powerful.  If everyone knows it, it's
extrodinairily powerful and completely useless at the same time.
Such a system would be very exploitable by mule.

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com  Mon Jul 22 10:16:41 2002
From: Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com (Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com)
Date: Mon Jul 22 10:16:41 2002
Subject: Rif. : RE: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM*** s
Message-ID: <mailman.24255.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: John Buehler [mailto:johnbue at msn.com]
> Daniel Harman writes:
>> From: Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca [mailto:Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca]
>>> From: Raph Koster
 
>> I disagree intensely. When your recommendation is implemented,
>> you end up with the Anarchy Online feel and a million players (ok
>> thats optimistic...)  who don't talk to each other, or feel any
>> real compulsion to do so. If people don't need to group to make
>> progress, they won't - however easy you try to make forming a
>> group, its always going to take longer than soloing.

> Recall that we have a pretty ugly barrier to entry for
> socialization - the inability to talk.  I don't know what Koreans
> use to talk to each other, but I suspect that it's either painful
> to enter it as text or they use English.  That is, their barrier
> may be greater than in cultures that fit the ISO-LATIN 1
> 'culture'.
 
> For the record, I think that forcing social interaction is silly,
> but that there are a number of legitimate reasons that can be used
> to naturally bring players into interaction.  If players are
> averse to it, they'll skip it.  Most will interact because it is
> natural to do so.  But again, the inability to speak is an
> unnatural barrier which makes almost all interactions impossible
> to be 'natural to do'.

Well I'm still not sure what people get from these games if they
don't want to/can't communicate. Its certainly not evolved game
play, polished quests and wonderful gfx...

I can't really comment on the Korean aspect, although I had been
under the impression they could speak using the Latin set (they seem
to communicate ok in the games I've played with any Korean
population of note).

I suppose what it comes down to, is ones definition of 'forcing
social interaction'. Some people would claim they are forced to
interact if progressing in the game was more efficient as a group. I
wouldn't really agree with them, but the games people complain about
forced grouping in, normally have solo routes which people seem to
overlook when bitching about being coerced into interactions.

Anyway, when I'm feeling antisocial I just boot up a good quality
one player game.

Dan

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Paul  Mon Jul 22 12:04:06 2002
From: Paul (Paul)
Date: Mon Jul 22 12:04:06 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24256.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: John Robert Arras <johna at wam.umd.edu>
> On Sun, Jul 14 Ron Gabbard wrote:

>> players are not broken...  game systems just don't have the
>> sufficient checks, balances, and flexibility to deter
>> 'anti-social' behavior.  Is it absolutely necessary to draw the
>> box of possible player actions so small that players are left
>> with very few ways in which to interact with each other in order
>> to prevent 'anti-social' behavior or can tools for checks and
>> balances be included in the system such that there is a
>> player-driven penalty for anti-social behavior?  Can players be
>> given the responsibility for adhering to social norms if they are
>> also given the means to be held accountable for their actions?

> My problem is giving players institutionalized positions of power.
> For example, making a player the "mayor" of a city is a bad idea
> IMO. I don't trust players who are given that kind of
> institutional power for whatever reason. If players want to earn
> points and then use those points to influence the direction of the
> city, that's fine. It's just that singling out players for special
> treatment and giving them official titles that they can use to
> lord over other playesr is bad.

Isn't this highly dependant upon implementation, though?  I mean, if
a mayor can lord his position over other players then wouldn't that
mean that you haven't hit Ron's mark where players can be held
accountable for their actions?

When you talk about making a player the mayor of a city, who is
doing the making?  Is this a developer thing or a player thing?
Does time=experience points='level to mayor' like in many current
games, or are we talking about mayors being elected to the position
by citizens of the town, as we would intuitively understand this to
work in the non-virtual world?

Can we not design a game where the players can hold the mayor
accountable for his actions?  I can think of a couple of ways to do
this off the top of my head.

  1.  Mayors are elected.  If you try to use strongarm tactics or
  lord you position over your constituents, you might just be
  shooting yourself in the political foot.

  2.  The power of a position is somewhat dependant upon population.
  If players don't like living in your town, they may decide to go
  elsewhere.  If enough players leave, your town might slip back to
  being merely a village.  Since only towns have a mayor, you would
  also lose a 'level' personally and be relegated to be the Village
  Headman.  As a village, you don't draw the same caliber of NPC
  trainers as you did when you were a town.  You also are not able
  to order the construction of many of the city structures that help
  make community life advantageous.

If we can create more symbiotic relationships so that the community
needs its leaders and the leaders need the community, I think that
player run governments complete with governmental positions like
mayors can be a wonderful thing for an MMORPG.  There need to be
checks and balances so that institutional power comes with
accountability, but I would personally prefer a system with that
kind of freedom and flexibility over a theocracy run by an
overworked and overwrought development team; entirely too human to
be gods.

--Phinehas

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul 22 16:48:40 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul 22 16:48:40 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24257.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: John Robert Arras

> My problem is giving players institutionalized positions of power.
> For example, making a player the "mayor" of a city is a bad idea
> IMO. I don't trust players who are given that kind of
> institutional power for whatever reason. If players want to earn
> points and then use those points to influence the direction of the
> city, that's fine. It's just that singling out players for special
> treatment and giving them official titles that they can use to
> lord over other playesr is bad.

We effectively do this now commonly, with the title of 'guildmaster'
being the most common.  It seems to work marvelously, largely
because these systems are usually democratic.  If you lord your
status over other players and they don't enjoy that interaction,
they'll join another guild, or they'll vote the current master out
of power.

The difference between a guildmaster and a mayor, arguably, is
largely that the guildmaster leads a player-created, nebulous
concept, whereas a mayor leads a tangible piece of territory
supported by the fiction.  One could argue that giving players that
level of lordship over the fiction might give them too great of
bragging rights.  But I prefer the counterargument, which states
that fiction will never be meaningful until players can assume key
roles inside of it.

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul 22 17:29:00 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul 22 17:29:00 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24258.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

>From Paul Boyle

> Let me give you a concrete example.  I know a woman playing EQ who
> admits to being bored by the standard cycle of plane raiding,
> monster killing, achievement playing that is the standard of the
> game.  Whenever I ask her why she doesn't quit, though, she
> usually answers that she feels obligated to be there for her
> guild, her friends, and her husband who also plays.  Btw, she
> plays a cleric.  But she gets caught up in the thrill of getting
> that new bubble of experience for her skills too.
 
> I don't know what you should take from that.  Personally, I feel
> sorry that she's sort of trapped herself in an enviornment that
> really isn't rewarding to her.  I'm sure the execs at Sony, are
> thrilled to have people like her who've maintained their game
> account, not because of the game itself, but because of other
> players.

I think that this is going to always be the case, and I think it is
also healthy.  It isn't much different than a guy being forced to
watch Melrose Place because his wife does.

Despite our best efforts, these games are never going to appeal to
everyone.  We'll probably do better at appealing to more people, but
as more games come on the market, different folks are going to be
drawn to different things, and people will continue to do things
that probably aren't the 'best for them' because society pulls them
in that direction.

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Mon Jul 22 18:28:47 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Mon Jul 22 18:28:47 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24259.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

>From John Buehler:
> Ron Gabbard writes:

> My suggestion was to provide a test for designers coming up with
> crafting systems to determine if their crafting system was
> entertaining.  If they only packaged up the crafting system and
> tried to sell it as a game on its own merits, would anyone play
> it?

The problem, of course, is that the self-worth valuation a crafter
is liable to come up with is largely based upon how much he adds
value to the economy of the world.  Which is to say: if you have a
core feature of the game (say: combat), then the best crafting
systems will tend to support that, as that is the way that crafting
really has an opportunity to gain value.

> I have an aversion to long hours of boredom punctuated by moments
> of entertainment.  My most fundamental tenet to crafting is that
> the boring part has to be entertaining.  If it can't be done, then
> don't have players do that part.  Have NPCs do it and have the
> players manage them.  I could easily imagine that harvesting could
> be made entertaining, at least for a while, but it's not by
> hearing the same chopping and cutting sounds and seeing the same
> animation on the exact same tree graphic over and over again.
> Every activity in a game that a player is invited to engage in
> must be more entertaining than current combat systems.  And that
> includes combat and forestry.

Um, why?  I don't think at all that the fun of crafting comes from
the complexity of the interface of crafting.  The fun of crafting is
more externally-driven.

  + The romance of setting up your own smithy.

  + The gathering of knowledge.

  + The need to make 50 swords by noon to aid in the war effort.

  + The acquisition of an extremely rare item, allowing you to make
  an extremely rare sword.

  + Being a master to an apprentice, or vice versa.

  + Experimenting with materials to try making new things.

  + The need to get to the Black Forge of Vulcan on the bottom of
  the Dungeon of Doom in order to make the UberAxe.
 
Overall, the one thing I'd stress is that one should recognize the
difference between making crafting more fun, and simply making its
interface more cumbersome.

>> The second stage crafters are the component makers... the
>> alchemists and metallurgists.  I went with an attribute-based
>> system instead of a recipe-based system.  [snip details]
 
> Doesn't that just delay the onset of a recipe system?  Same
> comment for 'final stage crafters'.

Yes.  A system like this will (a) be harder to balance, as designers
will have a harder time counting for all possibilities and (b) end
up being shared as knowledge.  Also, even though you have more
freedom, there will usually be a 'best', which people will
gravitate.

>> Increase the involvement of the crafting process and you have
>> given the 'core crafters' a much-needed competitive edge over the
>> trade mules.

I'll definitely agree that this is a worthy goal.

> If you end up with recipe-based crafting, those recipes will be
> published and all players will know how to make the stuff.  So
> that cannot be the discriminator to separate serious crafters from
> those who just want the end-result.

If recipes are limited by knowledge only, this is true.  Consider,
for example, the possibility that these recipes are physical objects
(didn't EQ have a 'words of power' concept similar to this?)  Using
real-world knowledge to create rarity is always a bad plan (although
its worth noting that this sharing of knowledge is a fun and
interesting design pattern in its own right and should not be
discounted).

Enforcing rarity of objects is a tried and true pattern, though.

>> Finally, just because someone likes making the items (regardless
>> of involvement) and enjoys the whole creation process doesn't
>> mean that they have the interpersonal skills to sell the items.

Agreed.  Just be sure that you don't short-circuit the 'salesman'
trade trying to help out the 'craftsman' trade. =)

>> The 'Crafter Experience' needs to be more than just repetitively
>> hitting a button and making generic products.  Imagine if the
>> combat systems were such that characters would run up to an
>> opponent and just hit <ATTACK> and the RNG would determine if you
>> win or lose based on the variance between character skill level
>> and difficulty of the target.

Aside from pushing the 'kick' button, isn't that what combat is in
EverQuest now? ;-)

> It's funny that you say this because I've presented this exact
> comparison in defense of how unentertaining crafting systems are.
> Designers do not 'get it'.

We get it.  It's just a lot easier to talk about some of these
things in abstract conceptual terms of 'what it should be like', and
much harder to actually create a system that is fulfilling on that
level.  And given it's hard enough to make ONE core game system
(combat), other systems end up getting less time and resources than
designers would prefer.

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From greg at omnigroup.com  Wed Jul 24 02:14:27 2002
From: greg at omnigroup.com (Greg Titus)
Date: Wed Jul 24 02:14:27 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24260.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Friday, July 19, 2002, at 02:57  AM, Marian Griffith wrote:

> Mainly I am curious to know how the experience of actual fencing
> (which I have done only twice) can be translated to muds. For me
> the actual experience is *vastly* different from watching messages
> scroll by..

>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll misses you
>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll barely scratches you
>   ... and so on.

> From what I understand fencing is more about blocking your oppo-
> nent, and moving him into a position where you can strike, and I
> wonder if that can be done in a mud. It would slow down the pace
> but I can not help but think that it would be, in the end, more
> entertaining. And on a graphical mud, where you can actually see
> your opponent, it would look and work even better I think.

It really depends upon what form of sword fighting you are
attempting to model. SCA style broadsword bashing, Kendo, the many
different martial arts that include sword forms, et cetera. Stage
fencing (which is its own speciality and training) _looks_ a lot
like what you are describing above, except of course, that the
actual purpose is to make the fight look good, not to try to kill
the other guy.

But I'm a foil fencer, so when you say fencing, I think of the sport
with saber, foil, or epee.

Foil fencing is originally based on sword-armed infantry
practice. The foil is a long, thin sword with a point and no
blade. The idea was to pierce the guy in front of you in the vitals
as quickly as possible so he can't pierce you, then move on. Almost
any hit to the body was quickly incapacitating, while almost any hit
to the limbs was nearly useless (and likely to get your blade
caught, resulting in _you_ becoming quickly incapacitated).

Fencing is very fast. It makes a terrible spectator sport because
(a) it is over so quickly and (b) usually the untrained eye can't
even see what happened. You go back and forth on the strip,
maintaining distance, with a few feints and quick changes to try to
wrong foot your opponent. When you sense an advantage, you attack --
preferably with a particular sequence in mind -- and there is a
flurry where you react without thinking. Most of the time resulting
in a touch. If not, get distance, settle yourself, and repeat.

It is mostly about training your arm and your footwork to react
instinctively. You also train your eye to see that your opponent
tends to lean forward too far in en garde position exposing the
shoulder to an easy flick, or almost always does their circular
parries counter-clockwise. That sort of thing.

The strategy and mind game part of it is very much like
rock-scissors-paper. If you succeed with the same attack twice in a
row, is your opponent going to be over-prepared for it, and fall for
a feint? Or is he thinking that surely you won't do the same thing
three times in a row, and it will work again? You come together,
your hand takes over, and whatever you both pre-planned mostly
happens. (Assuming you are of relatively equivalent speed and
technique.)

Would modeling this make a good game? Hard to say. I'd sure love to
try it. But I think the style of system that modeled foil fencing
would look a lot like "Firetop Mountain"
<http://www.gamerz.net/~fm/>. Lots of feints. Worrying about having
the right timing. Then the results unfolding simultaneously and
quickly. It seems like it'd result in a lot of fast player deaths.

Speaking of which, the other game that has the same sort of 'feel'
as fencing to me is the RPG "Paranoia". You go along for a while,
trying to be careful, trying to figure out what is going on, then
BAM you just died. The weapons were so deadly (and the excuses to
use them on each other so plentiful) that each character had a
number of clones (5? 6?) to replace yourself because you expected to
die a couple times on each adventure.

Hope this helps, 

-Greg

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu  Wed Jul 24 04:25:39 2002
From: Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu (Sasha Hart)
Date: Wed Jul 24 04:25:39 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24261.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

[Apollyon]

> I would disagree with this suggestion simply based on the
> assumption that people ENJOY seeing that they have made progress
> over time by having a clear distinction between themselves and
> those who have invested less time.  It brings a sense of pride,
> growth, and progress.

Well, it was just intended to be an idea, you can combine them in
any way you like. All of the suggestions I put on that list had some
other problems, and each of those problems had various ways of
solving them that create other problems.. you're simply not going to
converge on a problemless design, doesn't exist.

But while we're here, there's nothing inherently wrong with this
idea - some people also ENJOY killing newbies, or ENJOY playing by
themselves, or ENJOY being in a game where you don't start out
killing rats and work for two years to achieve "Citizen" rank and
the privilege to engage in any kind of vaguely interesting PvP. The
suitability of any of these ideas isn't really an absolute thing.,
there are just too many variables of intent, what other systems are
present, etc.

> In the end, I suppose what you'd be looking for would be a
> situation where players were strongly encouraged to engage in PvP
> against others of appropriate level and just as strongly
> encouraged to avoid engaging in PvP against those weaker than
> themselves.

Well, I agree with you in the context of games like DAOC, but you
know, I snap up anything that weakens the concept of level lately.
10+ years on the leveling treadmill and I really have trouble seeing
the merit of partitioning a player base into level groups for PvP,
and then giving them incentives to complete the game, get bored and
drop out. I'll take my chances even in the likely event that I am
totally wrong and off-base. If I haven't said anything about it in
six months then you'll know you were right. :)

Sasha




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu  Wed Jul 24 04:29:21 2002
From: Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu (Sasha Hart)
Date: Wed Jul 24 04:29:21 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24262.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

[Matt Mihaly on players in positions of in-game power]
> On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, John Robert Arras wrote:

>> My problem is giving players institutionalized positions of
>> power.  For example, making a player the "mayor" of a city is a
>> bad idea IMO. I don't trust players who are given that kind of
>> institutional power for whatever reason. If players want to earn
>> points and then use those points to influence the direction of
>> the city, that's fine. It's just that singling out players for
>> special treatment and giving them official titles that they can
>> use to lord over other playesr is bad.

> Bad why? It works in gameplay (see Achaea/Aetolia for instance),
> so is the objection a moral/ethical one?

In light of Matt's extreme sensitivity and delicacy, I won't give
details, but I had an incredibly annoying time on Achaea the last
time I logged on for exactly this reason - some dopey player had
declared that an activity which used to be actively encouraged at
the city level was now subject to harsh punishments, but had
neglected to make this obvious anywhere. I didn't stick around very
long when I figured it out, because the player run governments in
Achaea can make in-game life lose a lot of its savor when they've a
mind to. Not that I was particularly dedicated to the game at that
point anyway.

That said, I have been spending every hour of my spare time lately
hacking a game with a core premise of players having actual power
over the world. I think it's a GREAT idea. But really, it's quite
clear that players CAN wreck each other's fun left and right IF they
get the wrong kind of tools. Appeal to "democracy" doesn't help if
the elected official is a putz, or if the majority is actually made
up of neo-nazis, or if people get bored and use the enforcement of
harsh laws as a kind of sanctioned griefing. If giving players the
tools to enact a totally annoying tyranny of the majority is the
tenor of "democracy" -- sign up me as a monarchist.

Are people having fun on Achaea? Yes, all over the place. Is Achaea
still a good and interesting game? Substantially.  Is it about
ethics or morals? Not necessarily, but if I had invested $1000+ in
the game like some people... I might have seen it differently.  As
soon as pay enters in, you ride a fine line - if not of obligation,
then of player-perceived implicit contracts with regard to
service. Which you are (sort of) free to disregard...

Sasha

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shren at io.com  Wed Jul 24 06:25:17 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Wed Jul 24 06:25:17 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24263.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Marian Griffith wrote:
> On Wed 17 Jul, Travis Casey wrote:
>> Tuesday, July 16, 2002, 7:45:22 AM, Marian Griffith wrote:
 
>>> No, the solution would not be to make it less significant, but
>>> to give the players more control. I.e. it would not be easy if
>>> at all possible, to get blown out of the sky withing seconds.
>>> By focussing less on attrition of hitpoints, and more on skill
>>> and parry, then players have a lot of action to determine the
>>> outcome of a fight.
 
>>> Anybody here involved with the SCA, or otherwise skilled in the
>>> arts of sword fighting?
 
>> I've had some training and practice in sword, staff, stick, and
>> unarmed fighting, and have read widely on the subject.  What sort
>> of info are you looking for?

> Mainly I am curious to know how the experience of actual fencing
> (which I have done only twice) can be translated to muds. For me
> the actual experience is *vastly* different from watching messages
> scroll by..
 
>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll misses you
>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll barely scratches you
>   ... and so on.

Trying to turn my "real experience" into a mud is actually where my
forms system that I've been babbling about arises from.  Two
fighters facing off against each other each have a big bag of tricks
that they are going to try against the other.  While you've got to
improvise, saying that each combatant runs through a list of tricks
untill one works isn't too far off the mark, in my experience.

I even remember the first trick I practiced, which was simply a
forehand-backhand combination.  I practiced it quite a bit, enough
to actually strengthen the muscle groups involved.  You throw a shot
at the target's head, then when it's blocked you shift the blade
around a bit and turn it into a really quick backhand.  I could
catch people - at least untill they caught on - that were much
better than I.

Another fighter had a trick that she practiced quite a bit, except
it was a lot more creative.  She'd reach in with the corner of her
shield and bump the corner of your shield, which would, when done
right, open up a shot right up the middle without lowering her
defenses.

I heard a story once about a fighter in the group I trained with who
was in some kind of "king of the hill" competition where one person
held the hill and other people challenged one at a time.  Apparently
he beat 5 people in a row with a polearm and something described
only as a "Circle C" shot or some such nonsense.

... and there's a very simple trick for people wielding two handed
swords or bastard swords against people with a sword and a shield.
Often the sword/shield guy holds the blade with the hilt just above
chest level with the blade pointing up.  Let go of the bastard sword
with one hand, grab the bottom of the hilt, and pull out.  Done
right against an unsuspecting opponent, the bottom of the hilt comes
towards you and the target's own blade goes into his head.  It's not
a trick that will work at all if your opponent is aware of it - it
relies on sword/shield fighters not having much experience against
people with bastard swords.

All of these things put together is why I've fiddled with the idea
of some kind of combat system built largely around tricks, or forms,
or techniques, or whatever, where each trick gives you an advantage
unless your opponent knows the same trick.

You can see this "trick vs trick" phemonena in almost any
competitive game with flexibility.  In the Real Time Strategy arena,
the proverbial "first trick" is a rush, an early attack designed to
cripple the target's infrastructure or wipe him out before he builds
defenses.  People gripe about "pansy rushers" all the time ...
nonetheless, there are anti-rush techniques and you have to learn
them to be competitive.  It's just a matter of knowing what kind of
forces that a rush can bring, and making sure you have enough
defenses ready when he can bring them.

--
<a href="http://www.shren.net/.nail.html">
The client needs a tool built. He sends you a description of a nail...
</a>

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Jeff at nextelligence.com  Wed Jul 24 08:55:37 2002
From: Jeff at nextelligence.com (Jeff Lindsey)
Date: Wed Jul 24 08:55:37 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24264.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Amanda wrote:

> Indeed.  I won't do PvP in AC or EQ, but I will in DAoC, and would
> consider it in AO.  I also have a much less "risk averse" play
> style in the latter two games even in PvE.
 
> Why?  One very simple reason: if I die, I don't lose my in-game
> stuff.  The penalty for losing a 30-second encounter isn't "spend
> the next week farming mobs for enough cash to replace items that
> got looted/lost in one fight".
 
> All of the rest is icing on the cake.

Would you play a PvP game in which the penalty was replacing
items/cash if obtaining them was fun, as opposed to 'farming' or
'camping'?

-Jeff


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From archer at frmug.org  Wed Jul 24 09:50:11 2002
From: archer at frmug.org (Vincent Archer)
Date: Wed Jul 24 09:50:11 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24265.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

According to Matt Mihaly:

> mean when they say something is "perfectly balance." Perfectly
> balanced from what perspective? There's no way, even in theory, to
> take a system with multiple elements and make it perfectly
> balanced in everybody's eyes, because everybody weights every
> element differently.

My own definition of a system that is not balanced is when everybody
including the interested parties agree that either X is better than
everyone else, or Y is worse than everyone else.

If John says Mages are the own, and Smith says they're losers, it's
ok.  When they both say the same thing, then you have a balance
problem.

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From SieMing at sewardweb.com  Wed Jul 24 09:55:44 2002
From: SieMing at sewardweb.com (Sie Ming)
Date: Wed Jul 24 09:55:44 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] re: Crafting Systems - preventing recipe decomposition?
Message-ID: <mailman.24266.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>

> Quick question (for those with experience with craftingd/etc
> degenerating into recipe systems, with full-details published on
> fan sites):

Speaking mostly as someone who spent considerable time
deconstructing crafting recipes and formulas and posting them on
websites...

> So, (to finally get to the point ;), what if you had a recipe
> based system (crafting, spellcasting, etc) with, say, 8 different
> actions that could be combined in sequences up to, say, 10 actions
> long, giving you 8^10 possible combinations, and then every time a
> new player-character was generated, the server randomized which of
> those possible combinations mapped to actual game recipes?

If you go with a system where the combinations (for crafting,
spells, whatever) are generated randomly for each player, you can
avoid the possibility of basic procedures generating advanced
outcomes by putting the procedures into categories.  You won't have
a player generated for whom whistling summons forth the Blinding
Cone of Death(tm), because Blinding Cone of Death(tm) is a second
level spell, and they require an "easy, easy, medium" combination of
actions.

So you're generating each character's recipes sort-of randomly, but
you're requiring that they are gradiated from easy to hard.  This
does limit the possible combinations, and makes publishing them
easier than pure random, but this will mostly be a problem at low
levels where, presumably, there are fewer choices of actions.

You will certainly have people publish that making a Potion of
Eternal Flosing requires a combination of common, very common,
uncommon, uncommon, uncommon, very rare ingredients to make, but
maybe that's an acceptable compromise between players getting
enjoyment from sharing knowledge and from discovering things on
their own.

You'll have to take care that the items in each category are really
in that category.  It will throw the game off for someone if one of
your "very common" ingredients is in reality "rare".  When I was
suggesting alchemy changes for UO we came up with this general
spread:

  very common                     NPC(low priced),
  common                          NPC(medium priced), spawn rate(high)
  uncommon                        NPC(high priced),spawn rate(medium), 
  monsters(easy)
  rare                            spawn rate(low), monsters(medium)
  very rare                       monsters(tough)

HTML formatted version in context is here: 

  http://uo.stratics.com/alchemy/community/ideas/sieming308.shtml#reagents

Then we found out that LOTS of the players who were doing alchemy in
UO were really really really against any system where the
ingredients were not all the same for everyone.  Maybe they didn't
get the safe guard against the problems with some folks getting easy
recipes to advanced potions, and maybe it was just different from
what they were used to.  I don't know, but I thought I would mention
it.

Sie Ming
AKA
Lloyd Sommerer

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From daver at mythicentertainment.com  Wed Jul 24 10:02:55 2002
From: daver at mythicentertainment.com (Dave Rickey)
Date: Wed Jul 24 10:02:55 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24267.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Ron Gabbard" <rgabbard at swbell.net>

> Thus, to have an inflation-proof, balanced economy you need: 1a. A
> closed market with a fixed money supply, or 1b. An open economy
> with no hard-coded prices or wages and a system by which prices
> can adjust to inflation.  2. A system by which the supply of goods
> is able to equal the demand for those goods.

> If a game designer can create a system where the available supply
> of raw materials equals the player-driven demand for raw materials
> without the players providing the supply and where the price for
> those raw materials can adjust to inflation and are market-driven,
> more power to them.

In DAoC, there's an interesting dynamic that has set in now that
players have realized that even without special magical bonuses, a
good player-crafted weapon is significantly superior to a loot drop
weapon.  In DAoC, quality of output is random in a range from 94-100
(the best non "Dragon-grade" loot is 93%), with equal chances of
94-99 and one chance in 71 of a 100% quality item (aka
"masterpiece").  Players being the way they are, and the system
working the way it does, a 97% weapon is considered barely
acceptable, a 98% workable, a 99% preferrable, and you really want a
100% masterpiece.

But the only way to guarantee the quality is to keep trying to make
the item until it comes out at the quality you want.  It comes out
low you have to salvage it (with some loss of raw material) and
start over.  If you insist on 97%+, it's going to cost, on average,
50% more.  98% doubles the effective cost, 99% quadruples it, and if
you insist on 100% it's going to increase the cost by a factor of 40
(plus whatever premium the crafter demands for spending so much time
creating and salvaging weapons to make your perfect specimen).

Keep in mind, the combat performance difference between a 98% and
99% item is not very large, in fact it would take some careful
analysis of combat logs to see it.  But because it is present,
players will demand it, *if* they can come up with the funds.  If
the player has more, he spends more.

This isn't applying to armor yet, because the other bonuses gained
from loot-drops (bonuses to stats, resists, etc.) are outweighing
the gain they would see in reduced melee damage.  However,
instilling equivalent magical bonuses into player-crafted items is
only a few weeks off, and I fully expect that once it does
player-crafted items will become the equipment of choice (and that
players won't be able to afford full sets of it, but that's a
different discussion).  The main thing is that players will spend
themselves broke chasing tiny marginal gains in performance,
regardless of whether the economy is open or closed, or if raw
material prices are fixed or floating.

>From a purist viewpoint, DAoC's economy is inflationary, in the
sense that players can get arbitrarily large amounts of money, and
equipment can get arbitrarily stronger (spellcrafting and alchemy
will have "soft failure" regions where attempts to improve an item
can fail to take, consuming their raw material but exceeding normal
caps when successful).  But in practice the things that normally
create inflationary pressures have been converted into safety valves
to *prevent* inflation from becoming significant.

> Cynical?  Yeah... sorry.  It's just that UO has been out for what,
> 5+ years?  MMPs released since then are actually going backwards
> with regards to designing integrated systems that will efficiently
> support thousands of concurrent players... particularly in the
> area of crafting and economics.  What's up with that?

I ain't done yet.  The economy I designed included Spellcrafting,
and has had a big hole where that belonged.  Even so, the underlying
economy in DAoC has proven fundamentally sound, and I'm proud of how
*little* I've had to worry about it since launch.

--Dave


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From daver at mythicentertainment.com  Wed Jul 24 10:10:57 2002
From: daver at mythicentertainment.com (Dave Rickey)
Date: Wed Jul 24 10:10:57 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24268.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Derek Licciardi" <kressilac at insightBB.com>
> From: Matt Mihaly
>> On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, Derek Licciardi wrote:

> I am glad to hear that someone in the MUD community has seen this.
> The only question I have is that if you take your experience and
> scale it by a factor of 100 or 1000 subscribers, will it still
> hold true.  The threads in the article seemed to not think so and
> I think we have a law about the maturity of players as scale
> increases or something like that.

It's pretty simple.  Players need to be able to lose, and still have
fun.  Too often, in the name of giving the winners "real victory"
the losers are left with nothing, and therefore no reason to
continue playing.  This was the fundamental problem with 10Six: New
territory became playable only when a newbie entered the game and
was utterly destroyed.  Eating your young is rarely a successful
survival strategy.

--Dave


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Anderson  Wed Jul 24 10:45:15 2002
From: Anderson (Anderson)
Date: Wed Jul 24 10:45:15 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] re: Crafting Systems - preventing recipe decomposit ion?
Message-ID: <mailman.24269.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Adam [mailto:ceo at grexengine.com]

> Obvious problem2: Players keep randomly recreating new characters
> over and over again, in an attempt to get the 0.000001% chance
> that the character will have "armageddon", "morph self into
> dragon", and "instant unlimited wealth" as simple-to-execute
> actions :). IANA:(psychologist), but I would suspect that with
> enough possible combinations, the probability of success would be
> so low that almost everyone would give up before getting such a
> powerful combo - so that the rarity of such abilities would still
> be preserved.

I've seen a mud that had a combat system for monks like the one you
described.. you'd be able to enter a string of up to 8 actions I
believe it was, and each action could be a hard/medium/light punch,
hard/medium/light kick, block, and a few other things I don't
remember.  Each character had their "good" combinations randomized
into their characters file, so that every player had to discover
things on their own.  Since you couldn't really use your good
combinations until you hit higher levels, no one would think of
recreating in hopes of getting some easy combination.. besides the
fact that there were no "easy" combinations, you just had to
methodically go through every combination, which of course was quite
a lot.. in fact there were so many combinations that many people
didn't play the class because they could never figure out any decent
combinations.

Dave

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com  Wed Jul 24 10:51:31 2002
From: Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com (Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com)
Date: Wed Jul 24 10:51:31 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] EQ in mainstream news again...
Message-ID: <mailman.24270.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Camping in EQ makes it onto BBCNews online!

Dan

From:

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2129912.stm

--<cut>--

Cyber heroes forced to wait for glory 
Ragefire: The dragon people are queueing to kill
BY Mark Ward 
BBC News Online technology correspondent  
 
 
The life of a hero was not supposed to be like this. You can walk
the Planes of Power where gods do dwell and have stood fearless
before the mightiest creatures that call Everquest their home.

Your history is one of glorious deeds but now, to complete the epic
quest that will make your life as a priest complete, you have to
stand in line and wait like a peasant at the village pump.

Perhaps Everquest should be renamed Everqueue.


Waiting room

The huge popularity of the online adventure game Everquest is
causing problems for some players keen to complete key tasks for the
characters they control.

Characters in Everquest assume a profession while adventuring in the
online world. As they travel, complete tasks and defeat monsters
they accrue experience making them more skilled in their chosen
profession.

 
Players of Star Wars: Galaxies will be limited
 
Whether they choose to be a warrior, thief, wizard or priest, all
have the chance to complete an epic quest that rewards them with a
hugely powerful magical item.

The artefacts are coveted because they cannot be sold or passed on
to other players.

Completing the epic quest can soak up weeks of playing time as
characters and their fellow adventurers journey through the
continents and caves of Everquest completing all parts of the task.

But the epic quest of the game's clerics (priests and healers) is
causing big problems.

"I should see my shot at the epic in December sometime," said Lance
Berg, who runs a powerful cleric in Everquest.

Mr Berg is currently number 52 in the list of clerics queueing to
complete the epic task. Three months ago he was at number 67.

Many of the other Everquest servers that host replicas of the game
world have waiting lists just as long.


Red and dead

The bottleneck is caused by the need to kill a red dragon called
Ragefire.

Monsters rarely permanently die in Everquest, instead they respawn
some time after they have been killed.

Unfortunately the Ragefire dragon only respawns every few days and
the timer that triggers its re-appearance is re-started when the
Everquest servers are taken offline for maintenance.

 
Life in Everquest is a struggle
 
"Clerics are also one of the most common characters at the high-end
of the game," said player Jeremiah Kristal, "so you have a
significant percentage of the characters all competing for a single,
three to five day spawn."

On a few Everquest servers some players are spending days of real
time hanging around in the game world just for Ragefire to appear.

On some servers the appearance of Ragefire sparks a free-for-all
which sees player-controlled characters turn on each other.

"It's not uncommon to see 45 characters from 3 guilds sitting at
that spot all hoping to attack first," said Mr Kristal.

Another player James Grahame said Verant, the makers of Everquest,
have resisted suggestions that the red dragon should respawn more
often.

"Verant rightly sees the cleric epic as a very powerful item," he
said, "and in Everquest, power and rarity usually go hand-in-hand."

This problem of too many players and not enough for them to do could
strike other online game worlds.



Galactic hopes
Star Wars game explores the film world
 
One game that is trying to avoid the bottlenecks is Star Wars:
Galaxies which is due to launch later this year.

The game is set in the Universe laid out in the Star Wars films,
books and comics and takes place during the Galactic civil war after
the destruction of the first Death Star.

Although players of the game will not be able to take on the roles
of key personalities of Star Wars such as Luke Skywalker and Han
Solo, they will be able to play Jedi knights, star pilots and bounty
hunters.

Lucas Arts is working with EverQuest creators Sony on the Star Wars:
Galaxies game and is capping the number of players that can be on
any one server to limit population density.

Players will be able to buy or build their own homes on the various
cities and if too many people crowd into one location the
playability of the game could suffer.

The game's release is also likely to carried out in stages to ensure
a slow build up of players on the servers supporting the online
Universe.
--<cut>--
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From dshepherd at mcl-birmingham.com  Wed Jul 24 10:55:40 2002
From: dshepherd at mcl-birmingham.com (Dave Shepherd)
Date: Wed Jul 24 10:55:40 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24271.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Marion wrote:

> From what I understand fencing is more about blocking your oppo-
> nent, and moving him into a position where you can strike, and I
> wonder if that can be done in a mud. It would slow down the pace
> but I can not help but think that it would be, in the end, more
> entertaining. And on a graphical mud, where you can actually see
> your opponent, it would look and work even better I think.

When I think of ideal individual PvP, I always think of the fencing
match at the top of the Cliffs Of Despair in The Princess Bride.
There is time for conversation, the terrain has influence over the
combat, there are feints, parries and maneuvering for advantage.
There are multiple, viable styles within the same discipline.  You
don't immediately know the strength of your opponent, rather you
gain understanding as the fight plays out.  There are no one hit
kills and winning doesn't mean having to kill.  It also has a point
- Inigo wont let the Man in black pass to chase down the kidnappers
of his one true love.  And the most important thing is, I would find
being both Inigo or the Man in black 'fun'.

I don't think this kind of complexity would work well in mass PvP,
but it would be nice to try to include some of these features.

(If you haven't seen the film, I thoroughly recommend it.)

Back to lurking...

=Dave Shepherd

---excerpt from The Princess Bride---

[Slowly, a great battle ensues.  Inigo tests the Man in black, and
the Man in black tests Inigo.  They continue to battle on.]

Inigo: You are using Bonetti's Defense against me, ah?

Man in black: I thought it fitting considering the rocky terrain.

Inigo: Naturally, you must suspect me to attack with Capa Ferro?

Man in black: Naturally...but I find that Thibault cancels out Capa
Ferro.  Don't you?

Inigo: Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa...which I have.

[They continue to exchange attacks and parries]

Inigo: You are wonderful!

Man in black: Thank you.  I've worked hard to become so.

Inigo: I admit it, you are better than I am.

Man in black: Then why are you smiling?

Inigo: Because I know something you don't know.

Man in black: And what is that?

Inigo: [switching hands] I am not left-handed!

[Inigo switches to his right hand, and appears to overwhelm the Man
in black]

Man in black: You're amazing!

Inigo: I ought to be after twenty years.

Man in black: [struggling to keep Inigo away] There's something I
ought to tell you.

Inigo: Tell me!

Man in black: I'm not left-handed either.

[The Man in black switches to his right hand, and performs a few
amazing feats.  They stop fencing for a brief moment.]

Inigo: [in awe] Who are you?

Man in black: No one of consequence.

Inigo: I must know.

Man in black: Get used to disappointment.

Inigo: [disappointed] Okay...

[The battle rages on again, this time, the Man in black is
dominating.  The Man in black knocks the sword out of Inigo's hand,
and circles in behind him]

Inigo: [kneeling] Kill me quickly.

Man in black: I would as soon destroy a stained glass window as an
artist like yourself.  However, since I can't have you following me
either...

[The Man in black hits Inigo on the back of his head with the hilt
of his sword, knocking him out.]

Man in black: [sincerely] Please understand I hold you in the
highest respect.
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Wed Jul 24 11:53:42 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Wed Jul 24 11:53:42 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24272.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Marian Griffith writes:
> On Wed 17 Jul, Travis Casey wrote:
>> Tuesday, July 16, 2002, 7:45:22 AM, Marian Griffith wrote:

>>> No, the solution would not be to make it less significant, but
>>> to give the players more control. I.e. it would not be easy if
>>> at all possible, to get blown out of the sky withing seconds.
>>> By focussing less on attrition of hitpoints, and more on skill
>>> and parry, then players have a lot of action to determine the
>>> outcome of a fight.

>>> Anybody here involved with the SCA, or otherwise skilled in the
>>> arts of sword fighting?

>> I've had some training and practice in sword, staff, stick, and
>> unarmed fighting, and have read widely on the subject.  What sort
>> of info are you looking for?

> Mainly I am curious to know how the experience of actual fencing
> (which I have done only twice) can be translated to muds. For me
> the actual experience is *vastly* different from watching messages
> scroll by..

>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll misses you
>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll barely scratches you
>   ... and so on.

> From what I understand fencing is more about blocking your oppo-
> nent, and moving him into a position where you can strike, and I
> wonder if that can be done in a mud. It would slow down the pace
> but I can not help but think that it would be, in the end, more
> entertaining. And on a graphical mud, where you can actually see
> your opponent, it would look and work even better I think.

One way of considering enterainment is to think of it as a spectrum,
with 'doing' at one end and 'watching' at the other.

"Quake" is 'doing' entertainment.  The customers use their skills to
be entertained.  "Saving Private Ryan" is 'watching' entertainment.
The customers observe in order to be entertained.

As applied to fencing, we can either attempt it as 'doing'
entertainment, as you've suggested, or as 'watching' entertainment,
which might be a more appropriate treatment, given the computer's
limited ability to permit players to actually fence.  There might be
some level at which the players can 'do' fencing, exploring a middle
point in the spectrum, but I would favor keeping the pace at a
normal one and trying to figure out what players can be 'doing' at
that pace.  For example, the player decision to be aggressive,
defensive, go for a specific type of injury or score, favor a
certain location, etc. could all be part of the player's 'doing'
activity, while the 'watching' activity of seeing the movement of
the fencers can be additional entertainment.  In that case, the
character has the skill of fencing, while the player drives the
larger-scale activity of the encounter.

In a text MUD, I don't see the fencing happening unless you do the
trick of altering the pace of the game, which is problematic in a
multi-user environment.  Certainly if a writer were to hand-author a
fencing match, readers would be entertained if they were in any way
an afficianado of fencing.  I wonder what the computer can do,
however, to make descriptions of a fencing match be anything near
that in entertainment value.

I used to be in the camp of having players 'do' everything.  I'm
getting more and more into the attitude of having players 'watch'
more stuff.  For me, the classic example is having players control
the eating habits of characters.  There really is no 'doing' with
respect to eating.  But I can imagine watching my character eat and
I can imagine me enjoying that.  Seeing somebody really enjoy a good
meal can be entertaining.  But it requires some serious visual and
audial treatment.  Far more than current games would go anywhere
near.  In Asheron's Call, eating consists of the character's hand
moving to its mouth, followed by a crunching sound, as if an apple
was being bitten into.  I'm imagining a dwarf noisily tucking into a
rack of lamb with bread and a goblet of wine in a tavern.

So I guess my maxim is "If you can't make it interesting to do, make
it interesting to watch.  If you can't make it interesting to watch,
drop it."  I would make fencing have a strong watch component and
less of a do component - relative to actual fencing.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Wed Jul 24 11:53:44 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Wed Jul 24 11:53:44 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24273.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Damion Schubert writes:
> From John Buehler:

>> I have an aversion to long hours of boredom punctuated by moments
>> of entertainment.  My most fundamental tenet to crafting is that
>> the boring part has to be entertaining.  If it can't be done,
>> then don't have players do that part.  Have NPCs do it and have
>> the players manage them.  I could easily imagine that harvesting
>> could be made entertaining, at least for a while, but it's not by
>> hearing the same chopping and cutting sounds and seeing the same
>> animation on the exact same tree graphic over and over again.
>> Every activity in a game that a player is invited to engage in
>> must be more entertaining than current combat systems.  And that
>> includes combat and forestry.

> Um, why?  I don't think at all that the fun of crafting comes from
> the complexity of the interface of crafting.  The fun of crafting
> is more externally-driven.

I'm sure that's the case for you and for many who get into crafting.
The current player base is strongly achievement-oriented.  I'm not
as achievement-oriented, so I represent those who are more
interested in the crafting process itself.  I'm also interested in
the achievement side of things, but not as much as you are.

> Overall, the one thing I'd stress is that one should recognize the
> difference between making crafting more fun, and simply making its
> interface more cumbersome.

Oh sure.  I agree with this.  Note that I consider the interfaces in
EverQuest and Asheron's Call to be quite cumbersome and, at the same
time, not very entertaining.  I think that Dark Age of Camelot
really helped me to distill the importance of making the crafting
operation itself entertaining.  Camelot didn't make the crafting
process annoying and painful, so the pain was removed.  But what was
left was just the creation of zillions of items in order to advance
the character's skill.  It reminded me that crafting really is a lot
of fun and can be entertaining in and of itself.  To be able to
create things and then sell them, have a positive impact on the game
world at large, etc, is gravy beyond that.

>> If you end up with recipe-based crafting, those recipes will be
>> published and all players will know how to make the stuff.  So
>> that cannot be the discriminator to separate serious crafters
>> from those who just want the end-result.

> If recipes are limited by knowledge only, this is true.  Consider,
> for example, the possibility that these recipes are physical
> objects (didn't EQ have a 'words of power' concept similar to
> this?)  Using real-world knowledge to create rarity is always a
> bad plan (although its worth noting that this sharing of knowledge
> is a fun and interesting design pattern in its own right and
> should not be discounted).

As described, I was fairly sure that Ron was emphasizing
entertaining the players by having them experiment with components,
producing player-known recipes.  I favor what you're talking about,
which is character-known recipes.  While the player may know the
ingredients through their character's knowledge, the character
cannot assemble the recipe without the in-game knowledge of the
character-known recipe.  Indeed, even knowing the ingredients may
not be transferrable.  If my character knows that powdered eye of
crocodile is an ingredient, I can tell you.  But if you have no way
of figuring out what powdered eye of crocodile is through your
character's perceptions, then you can't even go find the
ingredients.

I don't place particular emphasis on the exchange of knowledge
because I figure that it is simply the entertainment of games
predicated on player-knowledge.  It moves the entertainment out of
the game and onto the web.  While not necessarily a bad, thing, I
like to think that a game that causes players to visit *it* instead
of the web is a good game.

>> It's funny that you say this because I've presented this exact
>> comparison in defense of how unentertaining crafting systems are.
>> Designers do not 'get it'.

> We get it.  It's just a lot easier to talk about some of these
> things in abstract conceptual terms of 'what it should be like',
> and much harder to actually create a system that is fulfilling on
> that level.  And given it's hard enough to make ONE core game
> system (combat), other systems end up getting less time and
> resources than designers would prefer.

As Matt Mihaly has taken exception to, I often speak of these ideals
as something that should be embraced by the designers of the games,
yet I haven't built them into a game and published it.  I appreciate
the effort that goes into making software, being a long-time
software engineer myself.  I'd simply like to see more statements of
ideals by the active designers so that we can all know what the
ideals really are in your eyes.  If the problem with developing the
ideals is the difficulty of producing multiple core systems, then
that is a problem to be addressed.  Everyone in the industry may
have an unspoken understanding of the ideals and the challenges, but
those of us on the outside can't read your minds, only your posts.
What I read generally points to status quo, which is why I talk
about ideals so often.  It may simply be that ideals aren't
discussed because they are your stock-in-trade.  Just as I don't
hand out my source code as a software engineer, you don't hand out
your design ideas.  So I guess I'll continue to espouse my design
ideas into the vacuum.

If resources for multiple core systems is really the problem, then
maybe we should start talking about component design and development
again.  Yet another ideal to be discussed.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Wed Jul 24 11:53:46 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Wed Jul 24 11:53:46 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24274.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Ron Gabbard writes:
> From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
>> Ron Gabbard writes:
>>> From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
>>>> Paul Boyle writes:

>> My suggestion was to provide a test for designers coming up with
>> crafting systems to determine if their crafting system was
>> entertaining.  If they only packaged up the crafting system and
>> tried to sell it as a game on its own merits, would anyone play
>> it?  In truth, I'd apply that test to the combat systems as well.
>> I've gotta believe that people play these games primarily for
>> social reasons.  The raw entertainment really isn't there.

> I agree with you that people play these games primarily for social
> reasons whether it's conflict with other players, banding together
> to achieve commons goals, hanging out with friends, etc.  This
> isn't a bad thing.  It's a market dynamic that sets certain
> expectations in the customer's head.  Players who pursue crafting
> in a multi-player world expect that the output from their work
> will have value to and be demanded by the player base... be
> meaningful.  Yes, most trade skill systems are mind-numbingly
> dull.  However, this is truly a secondary problem (that DOES need
> to get fixed).  The primary issue is that the output is typically
> meaningless to the in-game society which gets back to the 'social
> reasons' for which the players play the game in the first place.

I won't argue primacy of problems, but I will certainly agree with
you that lacking a use for crafted items is a problem with current
multiplayer games.

>> I have an aversion to long hours of boredom punctuated by moments
>> of entertainment.  My most fundamental tenet to crafting is that
>> the boring part has to be entertaining.  If it can't be done,
>> then don't have players do that part.  Have NPCs do it and have
>> the players manage them.  I could easily imagine that harvesting
>> could be made entertaining, at least for a while, but it's not by
>> hearing the same chopping and cutting sounds and seeing the same
>> animation on the exact same tree graphic over and over again.
>> Every activity in a game that a player is invited to engage in
>> must be more entertaining than current combat systems.  And that
>> includes combat and forestry.

> 'Long hours of boredom punctuated by moments of entertainment' is
> the main reason that I never got into writing code.  For some
> people, writing code is a fun and exciting process and I respect
> those people who can sit down for hours and turn functional
> requirements into working code.  It's just not my cup of
> tea... it's boring

<laughs> My career over the past 20 years or so has been as a
software engineer :) I find the process of crafting the code itself
entertaining, and that partly serves as the basis for my
observations here.  I enjoy the crafting process, and then I enjoy
the use of my product by customers.  Games are about entertainment,
and having to do something that is not entertaining in order to gain
something that you *do* find entertaining is just silly.  If there
are people who just want to sell crafted items from their shop, then
they should be able to hire NPCs to craft items for them to sell.
That way, they retain a sense of ownership of the items without
having to go through the non-entertainment of crafting, but they get
to provide the service of new items for the community.  And all the
checks and balances of the world economy are retained (e.g. no
insta-crafting).

> A multi-player game, like the real world, is made up of all types
> of people with all types of personalities and all types of
> real-life constraints on their play time.  What I tried to shoot
> for with my trades system is a distribution of required
> involvement and interpersonal interaction such that every type of
> player has a craft that fits their personality and RL constraints.
> (Picture a graph where Involvement is the X-axis and Interaction
> is the Y-axis both going from low to high.)  Each trade has a
> range of involvement and interpersonal interactions required such
> that each quadrant is represented.  Not every game experience can
> be so intense and involved that players can't deal with RL issues
> that arise (telephone ringing, bathroom breaks, dinner burning in
> the oven, kids starting a fire in the living room) without being
> penalized by the game.

I think that's an admirable approach to crafting.  I guess I
described something similar just above, but with the attitude of
breaking each trade into chunks so that a player can step into the
overall process at any level that they care to.

>> Note that I don't believe that harvesting raw materials *by
>> players* has anything at all to do with a balanced,
>> inflation-proof economy.

[snippage]

> Thus, to have an inflation-proof, balanced economy you need: 1a. A
> closed market with a fixed money supply, or 1b. An open economy
> with no hard-coded prices or wages and a system by which prices
> can adjust to inflation.  2. A system by which the supply of goods
> is able to equal the demand for those goods.

> If a game designer can create a system where the available supply
> of raw materials equals the player-driven demand for raw materials
> without the players providing the supply and where the price for
> those raw materials can adjust to inflation and are market-driven,
> more power to them.

All I was really saying was that whether NPCs provide raw materials
or whether players provide them makes no difference.  As you've
suggested, uncontrolled introduction of assets (cash being something
of an aside) into an economy with fixed prices is another of those
'sillies'.  We're in essential agreement on what is viable and what
is not in an economic model.

> It depends on the other game systems.  Being a 'master
> craftsperson' in the system I put together has little to do with a
> character's "skill level" and more to do with the player's ability
> to take input variables and determine the optimal product for that
> customer given the situation in which they are planning to use the
> item, (like silver weapons versus undead in UO).  If the combat
> system is set up such that any 'fighter' character can use any
> weapon and differences in effectiveness for a single weapon across
> all opponents is insignificant, then the result will be a recipe
> system with templates that are posted on Stratics within a week
> (if not shorter).

> In short, the crafting system can be no more complex than the
> system into which it's selling/supporting.  The exception to this
> is the aesthetic or prestige angle where having an item with a
> cool/unique/rare graphic adds value to the product even though
> it's statistically similar.

Ah, I see.  You're saying that the player's decision is not mindless
when crafting an item for a customer.  That each item is
custom-designed.  If sufficiently involved, I could see that working
well.  It certainly seems to answer my hope to make crafting itself
entertaining.  It would, however, take a very involved environment
in which the items functioned.

>> Short form: being a crafter is a commitment by the player to
>> pursue a certain avenue of entertainment in the game.  If I want
>> to be a master tailor, I have to choose that over other avenues
>> of entertainment.

> I agree depending on what is meant by 'master'.  (That term is so
> over-used in games.) To be the best of the best should require a
> huge commitment but should also have a huge reward.  This ties
> back to crafting being supported by other game systems but also
> ties back to the concept of a balanced, inflation-proof economy.
> Support from other game systems is obvious in that the items
> created by 'master' craftspeople must be significantly superior to
> those produced by journeyman crafters to justify the investment
> the master craftsperson is asked to make.  Support from the
> economy is not so obvious...

I didn't mean anything particularly specific by my use of 'master'.
It's simply a statement that if I want the elevated levels of
entertainment in a given character skill set, I have to commit to
doing that and forego other entertainment.  What the entertainment
that I gain access to might be is highly dependent on the game.
Being a master tailor might mean that my character gains access to
certain social circles because nobility only hires master tailors.
No journeymen are admitted, thank you.  At the same time, that
tailor is completely unable to engage in combat or do any magic.
The player has chosen the career of a tailor, and the most complete
entertainment that a tailor has is available to that player.

> I agree that making the process of crafting more exciting and
> enjoyable is important.  However, making the crafter's activity
> meaningful and protecting the crafter's investment in time is even
> more important.  A player that invests 30 played days into
> developing a 'master' combat character will have a character that
> always has value because there are limitless mobs/respawning
> players to kill out there.  A player that invests 30 played days
> into developing a 'master' craftsperson will have a character of
> value only as long as there is a market for their product that is
> large enough to justify their initial investment and provide
> rewarding on-going crafting experiences on a regular basis.  If
> there is no market for the crafter's goods and what they are
> making has no meaning in the game world, it would be more fun and
> honest to the player to have the game kick over to a game of
> 'Gems' when they craft and just deduct X coins from their account
> every couple minutes and after they play Gems for 1000 hours give
> them the title Master Craftsperson.

I broadly agree with this.  I suspect that many interested in
finding some kind of real reward from combat would argue that there
is no purpose to all their combat in much the same way that
tradesfolk argue that there is no purpose to all their crafting.
All of the discussions about player-controlled worlds is a sign of
that discontent.  While I think that player-controlled worlds are a
bad idea, I certainly like the idea of players feeling a sense of
impact and involvement in the operations of the game world.  All I
want to do is to make some wagon wheels and know that the NPCs of
the town are using them - and that the NPCs are going to be around
for a while and do something with their lives while they're around.

> Cynical?  Yeah... sorry.  It's just that UO has been out for what,
> 5+ years?  MMPs released since then are actually going backwards
> with regards to designing integrated systems that will efficiently
> support thousands of concurrent players... particularly in the
> area of crafting and economics.  What's up with that?

I guess it's the perception of Folks With Money that combat is
entertaining, while the more subtle stuff is not.  When the games
that successfully pursue the subtle stuff come out and are hugely
successful, Folks With Money will start cranking out copies as fast
as they can.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Wed Jul 24 11:53:50 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Wed Jul 24 11:53:50 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24275.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Matt Mihaly writes:
> On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:

>> Would Disneyland be as big a draw if some visits you were able to
>> enjoy the rides, but on other days they didn't work as well, so
>> it was a bit of a crapshoot as to whether you'd enjoy yourself?
>> Nitpicking aside (yes, rides are shut down occasionally), the
>> expectation of a visitor to Disney parks is that they'll have
>> plenty of fun stuff to do.  That they *will* have a lot of fun.

> Probably not, but MUDs aren't amusement parks either. The defining
> aspect of a MUD is that you're playing with other players, not
> merely playing at the same time as other players (such as in an
> amusement park), and more to the point, you're playing with other
> players who remain semi-consistent, such that you can develop
> relationships with them.

I suppose I was offering Disneyland as the ultimate in ensuring that
entertainment would be found, precisely because we barely rely on
the people that we're with in order to find entertainment (I'm
thinking in terms of the people I'm with, not particularly the
people that are around me).  The more we introduce a dependency on
other players for our entertainment, the greater the chance that the
entertainment devolves into random chance instead of structured
encounters.

The observation about consistent contact definitely would have an
impact on avoiding purely random chance, but I wonder how far away
from random things would go.  Typically, a group of enthusiasts in
any field require leaders to keep an organization, well, organized.
I put this onus on the game publisher, not on the players
themselves.  So I look to Disney's parks as a simple model of an
entertainment service provider.  Perhaps I should be citing
Westworld.

JB

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com  Wed Jul 24 12:06:36 2002
From: Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com (Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com)
Date: Wed Jul 24 12:06:36 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24276.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

>From Marian Griffith [mailto:gryphon at iaehv.nl]

> Mainly I am curious to know how the experience of actual fencing
> (which I have done only twice) can be translated to muds. For me
> the actual experience is *vastly* different from watching messages
> scroll by..
 
>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll misses you
>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll barely scratches you
>   ... and so on.
 
> From what I understand fencing is more about blocking your oppo-
> nent, and moving him into a position where you can strike, and I
> wonder if that can be done in a mud. It would slow down the pace
> but I can not help but think that it would be, in the end, more
> entertaining. And on a graphical mud, where you can actually see
> your opponent, it would look and work even better I think.

I used to fence in school and county competitions in the UK.

Frankly in fencing it doesn't take that long to land a hit
generally, so as a model for a game I don't know if its viable. Its
not nearly as full of blocking as films would have you believe. I
have this suspicion that most sword fighting would be over pretty
damned quickly if done for real.

If one looks at Epee, which is probably the closest to real dueling,
the sport is almost funny when you consider how it has adapted to
become a sport. Consider that to score points people regularly aim
for each others feet, or try to flick the tip to hit the opponents
sword holding hand.  Effective if one is trying to score points, but
not something to copy in a game I think. The other thing you do in
competitive fencing that wouldn't be too smart in the real world, is
not worry about being hit as long as you land the point first.

Dan

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From szii at sziisoft.com  Wed Jul 24 12:08:33 2002
From: szii at sziisoft.com (szii at sziisoft.com)
Date: Wed Jul 24 12:08:33 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24277.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Damion Schubert" <damion at ninjaneering.com>

> months after ship.  By that time, the people who had been playing
> since it first came out were so good for it that I had no chance.
> Death was near instantaneous, learning was impossible, and the
> game was quickly removed from my hard drive.

> What we witness with EQ and DAoC is _not_ the case of "llamas"
> that just "can't hack it".  PvP in EQ, UO and AC is unacceptably
> difficult to a large percentage of the player base, and easy to a
> small percentage.  DAoC's primary difference is that, since it was
> actually built for PvP and therefore has safe learning areas and
> is better balanced, moved that bar down to 'challenging'.

As with your CS experience, I entered into PvP late.  I started into
it well after people were established and the major divisions set.

I also started CS late....about 2 months ago, in fact.

The difference between us?  I'm willing to get in there and scrap,
even when it means losing.  You don't get better by quitting (CS,
EQ, chess, craps, etc).

I still play CS, and I still get worked....regularly.  I don't play
EQ anymore, but I started at the bottom of an established game and
fought my way upwards.

I have many friends that don't like PvP.  I don't think I'm "better"
than they are as pointed out by Paul Boyle ppboyle at centurytel.net

> It's funny, but you demonstrate pretty well a lot of the things
> anti-PvP players generally feel is stereotypical of PK.  The first
> is egotism.  Most anti-PvP players dislike PK's because of their
> 'I'm better than everyone else, so they can all rot' attitude.

Most PKs are scrappers.  They're tenacious.  Perhaps they look down
on people who aren't...people who give up too quickly/easily and
move on looking for easier food in a greener pasture.  That's not a
good thing, but I will agree with Paul that it happens.

It's not about that, though.  Peoples be peoples.  My wife can't
stand most PvP.  Do I look down on her?  I think not.  =)

You couldn't get good at CS quickly...so you quit.  To most pk-types
I know, that's kinda funny. *shrug* We don't really care whether you
play or not, except that you're missing out on a great game once you
achieve a certain level of play...regardless of the arena.  I could
state that 'Go' is hard, too.  It's an immensely challenging game
that you never really can master.  But once you get a feel for it,
it's great.

Perhaps it's best summed up by "PvP has a dramatically steeper curve
and tends to drive people away faster" than by any other analogy.

-Mike/Szii



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com  Wed Jul 24 12:32:35 2002
From: Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com (Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com)
Date: Wed Jul 24 12:32:35 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Boring Combat (was:Mass customization in MM***s)
Message-ID: <mailman.24278.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]
> On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:
>> From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]

>> Perhaps forms could be something players crafted. Extrapolating,
>> then one could consider the base components that forms are made
>> up of when seeing if they counter each other. i.e. if you were
>> using a self crafted for which gave you a 20% resist to knockdown
>> (amongst other things - higher level forms could have more
>> components), and they tried to use a form which gives a 20% bonus
>> to knockdown, then they'd nullify.

> Hmm, random thread convergence.  I don't really know how to go
> about this, because you can't easily cancel techniques if people
> are just making them up.

Well I meant the techniques to come out of a dictionary that the
developer created. The forms however would be groups of techniques
combined in various fashions. These could then be researched and
developed by players.

> You could let everyone have thier very own technique, that got
> more powerful the more people they taught it to (because they help
> improve the technique).  If just one person knows it, it's a weak
> technique that nobody will ever be able to counter.  If a few
> people know it, it's a little more powerful.  If everyone knows
> it, it's extrodinairily powerful and completely useless at the
> same time.  Such a system would be very exploitable by mule.

Well knowing something and using it are two different things. Taking
that into account would remove the mule issue I think.

Dan


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shecky at experimentzero.org  Wed Jul 24 12:56:03 2002
From: shecky at experimentzero.org (Britt A. Green)
Date: Wed Jul 24 12:56:03 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] TECH:
Message-ID: <mailman.24279.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

A friend and I are working on a small MUD as a way to teach
ourselves more Python. We're kind of stuck and could use some
guidance from the more knowledgeable members of this mail list! :)

Briefly, we have classes for rooms, items, players and
whatnot. What's the best way to update these things? If a player
picks up an item, should that code be in the player object? A
function callable my main that's outside of any object?

Hope what I'm asking isn't too confusing. Thanks!

Britt

--
"My mom says I'm cool."

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From efindel at earthlink.net  Wed Jul 24 14:55:35 2002
From: efindel at earthlink.net (Travis Casey)
Date: Wed Jul 24 14:55:35 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24280.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Friday, July 19, 2002, 5:57:37 AM, Marian Griffith wrote:
> On Wed 17 Jul, Travis Casey wrote:
>> Tuesday, July 16, 2002, 7:45:22 AM, Marian Griffith wrote:

>>> No, the solution would not be to make it less significant, but
>>> to give the players more control. I.e. it would not be easy if
>>> at all possible, to get blown out of the sky withing seconds.
>>> By focussing less on attrition of hitpoints, and more on skill
>>> and parry, then players have a lot of action to determine the
>>> outcome of a fight.  >>> Anybody here involved with the SCA, or
>>> otherwise skilled in the arts of sword fighting?

>> I've had some training and practice in sword, staff, stick, and
>> unarmed fighting, and have read widely on the subject.  What sort
>> of info are you looking for?

> Mainly I am curious to know how the experience of actual fencing
> (which I have done only twice) can be translated to muds.

> For me the actual experience is *vastly* different from watching
> messages scroll by..

>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll misses you
>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll barely scratches you
>   ... and so on.

> From what I understand fencing is more about blocking your oppo-
> nent, and moving him into a position where you can strike, and I
> wonder if that can be done in a mud. It would slow down the pace
> but I can not help but think that it would be, in the end, more
> entertaining. And on a graphical mud, where you can actually see
> your opponent, it would look and work even better I think.

Well... in theory, you can -- and there are "fighting games" that
try to do it.  I can see a few ways to increase the excitement level
of combat in the game:

 - Increase player involvement.  A player who has something to do
   besides watch messages scroll is going to feel more involved and
   more interested in what's happening.  However, you have to be
   careful to make sure that the choices involved are meaningful -- if
   it's just "click on the target to try to attack it", then players
   are still going to be bored... and they'll have sore fingers on top
   of it.  The same thing will tend to happen if there's a single
   tactic that's *always* best -- players will become bored, because
   they're doing the same thing over and over.

 - Make time important.  Making combat faster will tend to increase
   excitement -- but it also runs the risk of turning combat into a
   "twitch game" if you do it too much.  There's also connection
   problems and the like to deal with -- if players lose fights every
   time their network connection gets slow, they're not going to be
   happy.

 - Increase risk.  Fighting for your character's life is more exciting
   on a visceral level than fighting for points.  I won't go into the
   negative consequences here, since they should be obvious.

One thing that should be noted is that the more optional you can
make combat, the more room you may have to turn these up without
alienating players.

The combat system need not be especially realistic to create more
excitement in these ways -- a lot of fighting games manage to be
very exciting without being remotely realistic.

--
Travis Casey
efindel at earthlink.net

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From jessica at mm3d.com  Thu Jul 25 06:50:18 2002
From: jessica at mm3d.com (Jessica Mulligan)
Date: Thu Jul 25 06:50:18 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24281.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Friday, July 19, 2002, at 02:57 AM, Marian Griffith wrote:

> Mainly I am curious to know how the experience of actual fencing
> (which I have done only twice) can be translated to muds. For me
> the actual experience is *vastly* different from watching messages
> scroll by..

This is one of those areas I have thought about for years.  I fenced
in college, spent some time in the SCA and was also a stage fight
captain and combat choreographer for years.  If the object is to
recreate it, I'm not sure the feel of the 'true' experience can be
adequately translated using today's technology.  The essence of
fencing is a combination of long hours of training, speed and
strategy applied to what your eye is seeing and the body is
experiencing, so that parries and attacks happen almost
instinctively.

If the object is to define a number of styles for a number of
weapons and give the player more detailed control over the process,
this could be done fairly easily (ignoring the vagaries of Internet
latency, of course).  I'm not sure how fun it would be for a text
MUD, unless the players were into learning various styles and
becoming subject matter experts at some level.  For graphical MUDs,
it would certainly be visually appealing.

In fact, I solicited a proposal from Gordon Walton in 1988 while I
was a game wonk at AOL and what he came back with was a great
arena/gladiator style game that would see players training their
fighters in various styles, weapons, moves and combinations, then
facing off in battles in the arena in various combinations of 1-on-1
through X-versus-howevermany.  It included an observer mode, so
players could sit in the stands and watch, and also a
camera/recorder mode, so fights could be put in an archive and
downloaded later as 'research.'  It also included a management mode,
so you could own a stable of fighters, and betting. It was a great
proposal and we were all very interested, but the 'betting' part
scared some people, so AOL passed on it, irritating me no end.

But for that, we might be discussing to fine-tune fencing online,
rather than how to actually implement it, <g>.

-Jessica Mulligan

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Thu Jul 25 07:13:47 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Thu Jul 25 07:13:47 2002
Subject: =?utf-8?b?UkU6IFLDqWYuIDogUkU6IFtNVUQtRGV2XSBNYXNzIGN1c3RvbWl6YXRp?=
	=?utf-8?q?on_in_MM***_s?=
Message-ID: <mailman.24282.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Jeff Lindsey writes:
> John Buehler wrote:

>> Recall that we have a pretty ugly barrier to entry for
>> socialization - the inability to talk.  I don't know what Koreans
>> use to talk to each other, but I suspect that it's either painful
>> to enter it as text or they use English.  That is, their barrier
>> may be greater than in cultures that fit the ISO-LATIN 1
>> 'culture'.

> Actually, there's a pretty good article in the latest Wired ("The
> Bandwidth Capital of the World", August 2002) that indicates many
> Korean players actually do talk while playing, as they tend to
> group up based on being in the same 'internet cafe'. It's a very
> interesting read if you get the time.

It was an interesting read and only goes to support my theory that
players want to communicate verbally.  Well, South Korean players,
anyway.  The South Koreans are very social players and they like to
play together in the same room.  As you mention, groups of players
tend to take over an Internet cafe in order to play Lineage as a
group and they don't message each other - they yell at each other.
This is a model that I've speculated on for American gamers so that
we can socialize effectively during gameplay, but we're a different
society.  It might just be a bad idea for Americans.

Here's a link to the article that you referenced:

  http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/korea.html

JB

<EdNote: Below>

--<cut>--
The Bandwidth Capital of the World

In Seoul, the broadband age is in full swing - online games have
become a national sport, and cybercafes are the new singles bars.

By J. C. Herz

AT FIRST GLANCE, Seoul seems like just another sprawling metropolis:
Its buildings, hastily constructed with dubious financing in the
months leading up to South Korea's 1997 economic crisis, are the
sort of blocky, concrete-and-glass high-rises that give many modern
cities the air of prefab homogeneity. Wide boulevards are choked
with the oppressive traffic common in East Asia or, for that matter,
Silicon Valley. Megamalls and underground shopping centers filled
with Body Shops and Burger Kings cater to teens and young
professionals. There's none of the high tech visual overload you see
in Tokyo, or the clean-scrubbed, old-meets-new urbanism of
Scandinavia - nothing to indicate that Seoul is the most wired city
on the planet.

Burrow a bit, though, down the alleys, up flights of stairs, or into
the corners of malls, and you find something that sets Seoul apart
and fosters its passion for broadband: online game rooms, or PC
baangs, as they are called here. There are 26,000 of them, tucked
into every spare sliver of real estate. Filled with late-model PCs
packed tightly into rows, these rabbit warrens of high-bandwidth
connectivity are where young adults gather to play games,
video-chat, hang out, and hook up.

They are known as "third places" - not home, not work - where teens
and twentysomethings go to socialize, to be part of a group in a
culture where group interaction is overwhelmingly important. As
elsewhere, technology scratches a cultural itch. It is the social
infrastructure, as much as the hardware and software infrastructure,
that's driving the statistics.

And the numbers are impressive - South Korea has the highest per
capita broadband penetration in the world. Slightly more than half
of its households have high-bandwidth connections, compared to less
than 10 percent in the US. The growth in broadband has surged in the
last three years from a few hundred thousand subscribers to 8.5
million.

When it comes to rolling out bandwidth, South Korea's population
density is an advantage. Seventy percent of its citizens live in the
seven largest cities, in residential towers nestled close to DSL
switching stations. The capital city of Seoul itself accounts for a
quarter of the population. To put this in perspective, consider that
South Korea's national communications backbone consists of 13,670
miles of optical fiber. Last year, Verizon laid down 20,500 miles of
optical fiber in West Virginia alone. This fact doesn't make the
Korean information infrastructure any less impressive. But the
country does have an easier job on its hands than say, Indonesia, or
the Philippines, or Mexico.

As luck would have it, urban apartment dwellers have a lot of
broadband capacity right under their noses, courtesy of Kepco, the
public power utility, which developed a network of fiber-optic
cables for its own use years ago. In 1996, South Korea allowed Kepco
to lease the unused 90 percent of its capacity, giving upstart
providers a cheap, instant last-mile solution. Sharp competition
with Korea Telecom, which the government forced to open its network
in the early '90s, has driven broadband prices down to the world's
lowest levels. All-you-can-eat service is available for as little as
$25 a month.

The government has even set up a certification program to rate
buildings based on the quality of their data lines. Developers who
install fatter pipes take the opportunity to bump up their prices -
not an insignificant policy in a country where 50 percent of the
population lives in large apartment complexes. Fast connections are
even getting bundled into the rent, as construction companies
repackage minuscule high-rise people-boxes as cyber-apartments. (A
typical four-bedroom is 1,150 square feet and costs $2,000 a month,
not counting utilities, cyber or otherwise). Built by conglomerates
like Daelim Industrial and Samsung in partnership with broadband
carriers and content providers, the sales pitch is oddly reminiscent
of 1950s American suburbia - except that instead of lawns and trees,
developers promise an endless expanse of bandwidth allowing
residents to buy flowers, chat with neighbors, and search for the
perfect kimchi recipe on the local Ethernet. It's all very Epcot.

DESPITE THIS UTOPIAN vision of e-domesticity, the real allure of
high-rise broadband is escape from the constraints of real
estate. Escape into the wide horizons of a computer game, or into
the welcoming company of other micro-apartment dwellers - preferably
at the same time. Not only is South Korea a more wired country than
the US, it is also a more gregarious one. Even if most Koreans had
an American-style mega home-theater cocoon, they would still go
out. These people do not bowl alone, particularly if they're single
(most don't move out of their parents' place until they get
married). They want to be with their friends.

And right now, the place to be with your friends is a PC baang in
downtown Seoul upholstered in Romper Room hues. A hundred monitors
glow with the candy colors of computer games. There are also a
handful of "love seat" stations, outfitted with two computers and a
double-wide bench. Theoretically, this is so guys can play
videogames while their girlfriends video-chat with pals.

If you really watch the love seats, though, it becomes apparent that
they're not so much a porch swing as an Internet-mediated bar
stool. Every so often a girl will saunter by one of the stations,
eye the occupant, and then sit down - or not. As it turns out,
singles are video-chatting in game rooms all over town. If they hit
it off, the guy says something like, "I'm sitting at love seat
number 47 at this particular PC baang, if you'd care to join me." If
the girl is sufficiently intrigued, she hops on the subway or walks
- nothing is more than 20 minutes away in central Seoul. She cruises
by, checks him out, and if she likes the look of him in person she
sits down, hoping the lighting and shading algorithms she used to
enhance her features in the video chat don't make her seem
unglamorous in person.

Young-Baek Kim, 50, the proprietor of this PC baang, spends his days
watching these scenarios play out. A former pharmacist, Kim used to
work in a PC baang as a second job. Now he's the boss, and the
business has expanded to seven locations staffed by his aunt, uncle,
and cousins. Overhead is low, and margins are high - two years ago,
South Korea's PC baangs raked in $6 billion. They are a great
small-business opportunity.

But they are also the product of a huge business crisis. In 1997,
when the Korean economy imploded, thousands of middle managers were
laid off, with no hope of finding new suit-and-tie jobs. They had
tightly knit extended families, though, and as a result, access to
moderate amounts of capital from relatives (the cornerstone of the
nation's small-business culture). A lot of them opened PC baangs -
it cost the same as opening a restaurant, and it was less
sweaty. Their out-of-work compatriots needed an inexpensive way to
spend time. Tech-savvy students wanted to get out of the house. All
the PC baang owners needed was something to draw people in groups
and keep them paying a buck an hour while laying down extra cash for
sodas and instant noodles.

THAT SOMETHING was online computer games. Because Korea was a
Japanese colony for 40 years, until the end of World War II, it has
had an acrimonious relationship with Japan. The latter's consumer
electronics have traditionally been all but verboten thanks to both
trade policy and cultural resentment. No PlayStations, no Sega, no
Nintendo. As a result, PCs have become the dominant game platform in
South Korea - unlike in the rest of the world, where consoles
rule. And in 1998, with Starcraft the most popular game on the
market, PC baang owners started hosting tournaments to boost
business.

That snowball has now reached the bottom of the hill. Starcraft is
not just a game in South Korea, it is a national sport, what
football was in America in the 1970s. Five million people -
equivalent to 30 million in the US - play. And three cable stations
broadcast competitive gaming full-time to a TV audience.

Why watch gaming on TV? Partly for the same reason millions of fans
tune in for golf - if you play, it's compelling to see the pros do
their thing. But largely it's about production values. There is so
much insane enthusiasm staged around an event, it takes on a kind of
obsessive allure - seeing a subject this arcane, broadcast with such
a degree of adrenaline, described in frenzied, masterful detail, is
riveting.

As an Enigma-esque theme song introduces the broadcast, a
three-camera studio crew stands by in a PC baang in the basement of
one of Seoul's largest malls. Two opponents decked out in metallic
vinyl armor face each other across flat-screen workstations,
steeling themselves for a five-game session of Kingdom Under
Fire. Dry-ice fog rolls across the floor. As the music builds to a
gothic intensity, YES or NO appears on the TV screen, giving at-home
viewers a chance to vote online for the contestants: Maxim, a
two-time winner from the Cherry Clan, versus Fusion, a rising star
from the Saint Clan. Their faces zoom briefly onto the screen as the
commentator, sequestered in an adjacent room, announces the Korean
equivalent of "Let's get ready to rumble."

Kingdom Under Fire, like many real-time strategy games, is a mixture
of Tolkienesque imagery and resource allocation. Players micromanage
supply chains staffed by tiny serfs while casting flashy magical
spells to vanquish their opponents. Televised games are played in
fast-forward, like speed chess, creating a spectacle of medieval
Europe on Benzedrine: villagers frantically mining, keystone-cop
masons bricking up buildings in seconds, antlike armies on the
march. The excitement builds. The villagers are smelting! Six
minutes in, swarms of little soldiers are wreaking
micromayhem. Flocks of bats and fire-breathing dragons are on the
wing - all accompanied by color commentary and a soundtrack.

The music reaches a crescendo as the challenger finishes off the
defending champion in round one. Cut to a commercial: sexy teens on
the run, snacking on Atlas candy bars. Then the commentators are
back, trading banter and postgame analysis, replaying the highlights
and gearing up for round two. More music. More frenzied medieval
villagers. One hour and 55 minutes later, the defending champ
prevails.

"We had a 41 share last week of people who watch cable TV at that
time," says Chong Il Hun, 32, the lead announcer, who has become a
celebrity TV personality in the three years he's been covering game
tournaments. His station also airs online tutorials - playback
footage of pro players along with voice-over commentary ("In this
situation, I chose to go for the Yamato Gun, as opposed to the Optic
Flare").

Chong points out a 20-year-old in an orange sweatshirt, immersed in
online tactical warfare. "He's a pro gamer. Most of them practice 10
hours every day, like musicians," he says. "In Korea, people play
games using the Internet like that. It's a kind of boom. It's the
culture, it accelerates things. The first person gets something,
other people get jealous, it spreads to the mainstream." Seventy
percent of the country's Internet users are also online gamers, as
opposed to 20 percent in the US.

SOUTH KOREA'S hypersocial culture affects how people connect in
virtual space. Lineage, a homegrown online world, is a testament to
the overlay of virtual and physical environments. It hosts more than
3 million players. On any given night, 150,000 of them are signed on
simultaneously. Most play from PC baangs, which buy Lineage access
for 20 cents an hour and sell it for a dollar, but an increasing
number - those with wives and families - pay $25 a month to
subscribe from home.

Like its Western counterparts EverQuest and Ultima Online, Lineage
is a role-playing game set in the Middle Ages. Based on a comic
book, the story involves the efforts of an evil king's stepson (the
rightful heir) to rally a group of faithful followers (the Blood
Pledge) and topple the usurper. In practice, it unfolds like a
massively multiplayer king of the hill. The goal is to capture the
castle, which allows you to raise money by levying tariffs on chain
mail and mead. That enables you to buy more weapons and recruit
soldiers to guard the castle against the onslaught of other
attackers who want to do the same thing. Competing Blood Pledges -
large gangs of players that can number in the hundreds - lay siege
to one another's castles for hours at a time on fat broadband
connections that allow the battles to play out in full glory.

What makes Lineage a distinctively Korean experience is that when
players assemble to take down a castle, they do so in person,
commandeering a local PC baang for as long as it takes. In the
middle of a battle, these people aren't text-chatting. They're
yelling across the room. Platoons sit at adjacent computers,
coordinating among themselves and taking orders from the Blood
Pledge leader. Lineage has a fixed hierarchy, unlike American
role-playing games, in which leadership structures emerge
organically. At the outset, you choose to be either royalty or a
commoner. If you're a prince or princess, your job is to put
together an army and lead it. If you're a commoner, your job is to
find a leader. You pledge loyalty and fight to take over castles,
and no matter how great you are at it, you can never be in charge.

This kind of tightly defined clan structure, which mirrors the
Confucian hierarchy of Korean society, would be anathema to American
players, who generally want to be the hero-king Lone Ranger. "In
Korea, everyone is very comfortable with taking on subordinate
roles," says Richard Garriott, who created Ultima and now runs the
US division of Lineage's developer, NCsoft. "Their groups are
extremely well structured, to the point where they march in lines,
attack in waves, and have a style of coordination that you could not
possible match in the United States."

Arguably, it is the tight-knittedness of Korean society, and its
people's tendency to physically gather around technology, that makes
Lineage and the PC baangs a success. Unsurprisingly, Lineage hasn't
taken off in North America, partly because it's a game in which not
everyone can be the boss. More fundamentally, the distance between
Americans, physically and socially, makes it impossible to replicate
the contagiousness of the game, which is also the contagiousness of
PC baangs in South Korea and of broadband overall in the country. In
the US, going online is not generally a group social experience and
almost never a face-to-face social experience - in fact, we presume
that if you're online, you're not talking to someone who's in the
room.

The merging of virtual and physical space has huge implications, not
just for the players but also for the way companies operate and
where their costs are carried. NCsoft has only a few dozen
customer-service reps to deal with 3 million gamers. Why? Because if
a guy in a PC baang has a question, he can turn to someone next to
him and ask "What is this about?" or "How do you do that?" If the
person doesn't know, there's always the proprietor, who's been
trained by NCsoft to troubleshoot. Afterward, not only has the
question been answered, but the person who asked it is that much
more of an expert, in case the player next to him ever has the same
question. Essentially, customer support has been completely
decentralized, because players help one another - and also market to
one another. Buzz across the room sells broadband better than any
targeted advertisement can.

IN THE US and Europe, where media companies are obsessed with
pumping copyrighted content into living rooms, online games are not
acknowledged as the market driver for broadband. But in other parts
of the world, especially where population density is high and PC
game rooms are giving millions of people their first taste of
connectivity, online games are becoming the hottest high-bandwidth
ticket in town.

"We're talking to Singapore, Thailand, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South
America," says Heo Hong, NCsoft's CFO. In Taiwan, there are a
million Lineage players, most of whom play from home. In Japan,
NCsoft has a joint venture with Yahoo! and Softbank to package
Lineage as a subscription service. Last year, the game launched in
Hong Kong. This year, a Chinese partner will roll it out in Beijing.

In Asia, where copyright law is only loosely enforced, massively
multiplayer online games are less risky for media developers than
movies, music, TV programs, or console games. Unlike freestanding
content, online worlds are almost impossible to pirate. Someone
could copy the client application, but the game itself lives on a
centrally maintained network. Even if that person were able to
duplicate the backend system (it costs millions to run Lineage as a
reliable service), there is no way to replicate the presence of 2
million people and the dynamics that occur in a human system of that
scale. The value isn't bound up in the content. It's bound up in the
interactions - in the group experience.

South Korea's broadband commons challenges North American
assumptions about what bandwidth is for and why it's relevant. In
the US, cable, telephone, and media companies spin visions of
set-top boxes and online jukeboxes, trying to "leverage content" and
turn old archives into new media streams. There is a profound fear
of empowering consumers to share media in a self-organizing way on a
mass scale. Yet this is precisely what makes South Korea the
broadband capital of the world. It's not a futuristic fantasy that
caters to alienated couch potatoes; it's a present-day reality that
meets the needs of a culture of joiners - a place where physical and
virtual are not mutually exclusive categories.

When NCsoft, originally a systems integrator, decided to move into
broadband media, it could have chosen to distribute "webisodes," or
online animation. After all, South Korea is the third-largest
producer of animation after the US and Japan. Instead, NCsoft's Heo
says, the company "wanted to focus on interaction. And what is more
interactive than games? We made this market. We made new
sectors. American media companies were just using online capacity to
distribute offline media."

So what about those of us in channel-surfing American cocoon-land?
The vision of streaming media piped into the home, video-on-demand
24/7, and needle-narrow target markets is heralded as the way
forward. Yet it is possible that this vision is holding us
back. Perhaps the real market opportunities have nothing to do with
connecting people to the Universal back catalog and everything to do
with connecting people to each other. If Seoul is any kind of
signpost, the way forward does not lie in the single servings of
media we consume but in the playgrounds we share - no matter who's
manning the turrets and storming the castles.

J. C. Herz (jnhq at yahoo.com) wrote about Star Wars Galaxies in Wired
10.06.
--<cut>--
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From bruce at cubik.org  Thu Jul 25 08:20:52 2002
From: bruce at cubik.org (Bruce Mitchener)
Date: Thu Jul 25 08:20:52 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] TECH:
Message-ID: <mailman.24283.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Britt A. Green wrote:

> A friend and I are working on a small MUD as a way to teach
> ourselves more Python. We're kind of stuck and could use some
> guidance from the more knowledgeable members of this mail list! :)

Depending on your other motivations and intentions, you might find
that that goal is better met by finding an existing mud in Python
and contributing to that.  Maybe not though.

> Briefly, we have classes for rooms, items, players and
> whatnot. What's the best way to update these things? If a player
> picks up an item, should that code be in the player object? A
> function callable my main that's outside of any object?

Something that I find useful in this regard is the Law of Demeter:

   http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/lieber/LoD.html

   "The Law of Demeter was originally formulated as a style rule
    for designing object-oriented systems. "Only talk to your
    immediate friends" is the motto. The style rule was invented
    at Northeastern University in the fall of 1987 by Ian Holland.

    A more general formulation of the Law of Demeter is: Each unit
    should have only limited knowledge about other units: only
    units "closely" related to the current unit. Or: Each unit
    should only talk to its friends; Don't talk to strangers.

    The main motivation for the Law of Demeter is to control
    information overload; we can only keep a limited set of
    items in short-term memory. The definition of "closely
    related" is intentionally left vague so that it can be
    adapted to particular circumstances.

    In the application of LoD to object-oriented design and
    programming we have:

       unit = method f

       closely related = methods of class of this/self of f and
          other argument classes of f and methods of immediate
          part classes of class of f (classes that are return
          types of methods of class of this/self) and methods
          of classes of objects that are created in f.

    Rumbaugh summarizes the Law of Demeter as: A method should have
    limited knowledge of an object model."

There are other and longer explanations on the site linked above
... and really, it is a pretty basic underpinning of OO design.

To get back to your question, the code could live on both.  Some
code will live on the user for handling the actions of the user,
which will call code that is on the item being picked up to handle
manipulation and movement of the item.  That code on the item will,
in turn, call call on the user to update the user's inventory and so
on.

> Hope what I'm asking isn't too confusing. Thanks!

Not at all and good luck!

  - Bruce

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Jeff at nextelligence.com  Thu Jul 25 08:48:47 2002
From: Jeff at nextelligence.com (Jeff Lindsey)
Date: Thu Jul 25 08:48:47 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24284.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Vincent wrote:
> According to Matt Mihaly:
 
>> mean when they say something is "perfectly balance." Perfectly
>> balanced from what perspective? There's no way, even in theory,
>> to take a system with multiple elements and make it perfectly
>> balanced in everybody's eyes, because everybody weights every
>> element differently.
 
> My own definition of a system that is not balanced is when
> everybody including the interested parties agree that either X is
> better than everyone else, or Y is worse than everyone else.
 
> If John says Mages are the own, and Smith says they're losers,
> it's ok.  When they both say the same thing, then you have a
> balance problem.

That assumes all involved players thoroughly know the components to
be balanced. If John doesn't take full advantage of the Mage's spell
lines, or otherwise isn't using it to its intended potential, he may
very well think they're unbalanced.

-Jeff

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From jeff.cole at mindspring.com  Thu Jul 25 08:56:39 2002
From: jeff.cole at mindspring.com (Jeff Cole)
Date: Thu Jul 25 08:56:39 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting Systems - preventing recipe decomposition?
Message-ID: <mailman.24285.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Sie Ming
> From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>

>> Quick question (for those with experience with craftingd/etc
>> degenerating into recipe systems, with full-details published on
>> fan sites):

> If you go with a system where the combinations (for crafting,
> spells, whatever) are generated randomly for each player, you can
> avoid the possibility of basic procedures generating advanced
> outcomes by putting the procedures into categories.

...

> So you're generating each character's recipes sort-of randomly,
> but you're requiring that they are gradiated from easy to hard.
> This does limit the possible combinations, and makes publishing
> them easier than pure random, but this will mostly be a problem at
> low levels where, presumably, there are fewer choices of actions.

> You will certainly have people publish that making a Potion of
> Eternal Flosing requires a combination of common, very common,
> uncommon, uncommon, uncommon, very rare ingredients to make, but
> maybe that's an acceptable compromise between players getting
> enjoyment from sharing knowledge and from discovering things on
> their own.

I do not understand what is inherently wrong with publishing recipes
(or any other game data).  Publishing information does not prevent
players from "discovering things on their own."  You can never
satisfy players who "curve" with respect to other player's enjoyment
their own enjoyment.

I am surprised that developers have not more effectively utilized
such sites or more proactively developed their own information
resources (inter- and extragame).

Players will always look behind the curtain and it seems to me that
resources allocated to preventing such peeks are better spent
developing that which is behind the curtain.

Yrs. Affcty,
Jeff Cole

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From daver at mythicentertainment.com  Thu Jul 25 09:14:38 2002
From: daver at mythicentertainment.com (Dave Rickey)
Date: Thu Jul 25 09:14:38 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24286.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>

> Oh sure.  I agree with this.  Note that I consider the interfaces
> in EverQuest and Asheron's Call to be quite cumbersome and, at the
> same time, not very entertaining.  I think that Dark Age of
> Camelot really helped me to distill the importance of making the
> crafting operation itself entertaining.  Camelot didn't make the
> crafting process annoying and painful, so the pain was removed.
> But what was left was just the creation of zillions of items in
> order to advance the character's skill.  It reminded me that
> crafting really is a lot of fun and can be entertaining in and of
> itself.  To be able to create things and then sell them, have a
> positive impact on the game world at large, etc, is gravy beyond
> that.

My initial design, when I was defining the "perfect" crafting
system, essentially amounted to having a specialized subgame for
each trade, you'd make a sword or piece of armor by manipulating a
virtual hammer and monitoring the color of virtual metal, trying to
hammer it into the perfect shape.  Then I started cutting things
away based on how much programmer time I could actually get for it,
and wound up with a functional, but uninspiring, core system of
ingredients and outputs.  Realities of the process being what they
are, I wasn't even able to get the entire system in (no coding time
for magical trades, which needed special outputs), and had to turn
it over to others about 8 months ago.

--Dave


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From sean at hoth.ffwd.cx  Thu Jul 25 11:01:26 2002
From: sean at hoth.ffwd.cx (Sean Kelly)
Date: Thu Jul 25 11:01:26 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Preventing recipe decomposition (why?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24287.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>

> So, (to finally get to the point ;), what if you had a recipe
> based system (crafting, spellcasting, etc) with, say, 8 different
> actions that could be combined in sequences up to, say, 10 actions
> long, giving you 8^10 possible combinations, and then every time a
> new player-character was generated, the server randomized which of
> those possible combinations mapped to actual game recipes?

While I grant that such randomization would largely inhibit
web-based recipe perpetuation, I have to ask what the real
motivation is behind this aim, and if this approach really produces
a desirable result.

>From an abstract point of view, it's generally the case that the
same steps should produce an identical result, regardless of who
follows them.  Magic systems can use a few creative outs ("the ether
responds differently to every individual") but IMO this is a weak
excuse.

How is knowledge transferred?  That is, we have developed as a
society because we can build off one another's knowledge in order to
achieve even greater depths of understanding of that topic than the
teacher had... and then we can teach all our knowledge to someone
else.

If there were no such thing as repeatable cause and effect, we would
still be stuck in the stone age.  Everyone would have to start from
scratch because the knowledge of others would be useless.

Another more practical issue is whether a random system is
self-defeating.  That is, if every individual is required to spend
countless hours of trial and error learning various skills, how many
people will actually bother with those skills at all?

Asheron's Call took an interesting approach to this with their magic
system.  A spell is based entirely on components, and each component
has a fixed, universal effect (either verbal, elemental, or
somatic).  So a mage with enough knowledge could try discover a
fireball spell by experimenting with the components for fire,
damage, other (for example), so long as he knew which components
represented these things.  This worked fine for spells from 1st-3rd
level (if I recall correctly).  Beyond this, tapers were introduced
into the equation which were predictably random, based on certain
criteria from your login information.  Until some people spent an
obscene amount of time cracking the formula and wrote an application
to calculate it, discovering any high level spells meant an
inordinate amount of trial and error for each prospective mage.
This would have been fine in and of itself except for the fact that
spell components were both costly and frequently consumed in the
casting, both for success and failure.  Thus the only way a mage
could do any real research was to have an unlimited supply of funds
with which to purchase spell components.  Some argued that this was
only fair as mages are an elite class of individuals who gained
their power from perseverance, but frankly I think this is a weak
defense.  For me, the random factor in the AC magic system combined
with my limited resources in-game (no clan so no cash so no
components) and limited time to play AC meant that I gave up on
spellcasting quite quickly.

If the problem with skill systems is that people rarely use them,
why erect yet another barrier to prevent their use?  It will only
cause player frustration and create an elite class of individuals
who use those skills because they have the free time and will to
play the game 18 hours a day, leaving casual players in the dust.
And it is often the casual players who are most interested in skill
systems in the first place.

And IMO there was a well-implemented skill system and players found
it quite useful: Ultima Online (especially in beta before
overcrowding and a broken ecology).  Crafting was, for the most
part, easy, fun, and very useful.  Players could create furniture
for their houses, weapons to fight monsters, and tame animals to
sell as pets.  If there was anything wrong with the system it was
that items did not wear quickly, creating a glut of products, and
the world was far too overcrowded, which dramatically reduced
available resources.  The other effects were good, though
frustrating for casual players -- resources such as mines were
quickly taken over by guilds and jealously guarded, and their
distance from town combined with the rampant PK problem meant that
there was little chance in getting to them anyway.  I played UO from
beta on as a miner/blacksmith.  My last time online I had just
finished mining a ton of ore and was on my way to a nearby anvil in
the mountains.  A bunch of robed players ran out of the forest and
mauled me, discovered that I had nothing on me but a bunch of ore
and some tools, and left.  I logged off laughing, because if they'd
given me a chance to speak before killing me I'd have offered to
make them weapons and armor with my packload of ore for free (this
shortly after release and I was one of the only GM miner/blacksmiths
on the shard).

Anecdotes aside, rather than ask how to make a skill system
uncrackable, why not ask why you'd want to do such a thing in the
first place.


Sean

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From amanda at alfar.com  Thu Jul 25 11:14:00 2002
From: amanda at alfar.com (Amanda Walker)
Date: Thu Jul 25 11:14:00 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24288.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On 7/24/02 8:55 AM, Jeff Lindsey <Jeff at nextelligence.com> wrote:

> Would you play a PvP game in which the penalty was replacing
> items/cash if obtaining them was fun, as opposed to 'farming' or
> 'camping'?

Depends greatly on the situation.  In the most general terms,
probably so.  However, I have yet to find an MMO game where
obtaining items or cash was "fun", especially solo.  I like group
play, but time zones and real life schedules make it the exception,
not the rule.

By temperament, I'm a hunter, not a farmer.  I really like taking on
new mobs or exploring new content.  I really hate killing 500 of
something, one at a time, so that I can get enough X to achieve goal
Y.

--Amanda

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From sean at hoth.ffwd.cx  Thu Jul 25 11:14:18 2002
From: sean at hoth.ffwd.cx (Sean Kelly)
Date: Thu Jul 25 11:14:18 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24289.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Greg Titus wrote:
 
> It really depends upon what form of sword fighting you are
> attempting to model. SCA style broadsword bashing, Kendo, the many
> different martial arts that include sword forms, et cetera. Stage
> fencing (which is its own speciality and training) _looks_ a lot
> like what you are describing above, except of course, that the
> actual purpose is to make the fight look good, not to try to kill
> the other guy.

Yup.  Real sword fighting is, for the most part, quick, efficient,
and brutal.  Except when you're wearing full plate armor and it more
consists of a lot of bashing each other until someone gets tired :)

> But I'm a foil fencer, so when you say fencing, I think of the
> sport with saber, foil, or epee.
 
> Foil fencing is originally based on sword-armed infantry
> practice. The foil is a long, thin sword with a point and no
> blade. The idea was to pierce the guy in front of you in the
> vitals as quickly as possible so he can't pierce you, then move
> on. Almost any hit to the body was quickly incapacitating, while
> almost any hit to the limbs was nearly useless (and likely to get
> your blade caught, resulting in _you_ becoming quickly
> incapacitated).

I would say that this is where epee came from (the epee is heavy and
stiff, a lot like a short rapier, while foils are extremely
flexible).  IMO the foil technique was later added as a gentleman's
version of the practice, as it incorporates things like
right-of-way, a limited target area, and a thin, flexible blade that
is unlikely to really hurt anybody.  Sabre is the flashiest of the
three, though it still incorporates right-of-way and a limited
(though larger) target area, like foil.  Epee is basically a free
for all, and even allows body contact.

> Fencing is very fast. It makes a terrible spectator sport because
> (a) it is over so quickly and (b) usually the untrained eye can't
> even see what happened. You go back and forth on the strip,
> maintaining distance, with a few feints and quick changes to try
> to wrong foot your opponent. When you sense an advantage, you
> attack -- preferably with a particular sequence in mind -- and
> there is a flurry where you react without thinking. Most of the
> time resulting in a touch. If not, get distance, settle yourself,
> and repeat.

This is true of foil and even moreso of sabre.  Epee points tend to
last a tad longer though they rarely go over perhaps 60 seconds.
One thing I've noticed with sabre is that because of right-of-way,
points frequently depend on who gains right-of-way after the judge
gives the opponents the go-ahead, and rarely go longer than a single
exchange.

> It is mostly about training your arm and your footwork to react
> instinctively. You also train your eye to see that your opponent
> tends to lean forward too far in en garde position exposing the
> shoulder to an easy flick, or almost always does their circular
> parries counter-clockwise. That sort of thing.

Like all combat.

> Would modeling this make a good game? Hard to say. I'd sure love
> to try it. But I think the style of system that modeled foil
> fencing would look a lot like "Firetop Mountain"
> <http://www.gamerz.net/~fm/>. Lots of feints. Worrying about
> having the right timing. Then the results unfolding simultaneously
> and quickly. It seems like it'd result in a lot of fast player
> deaths.

It would be interesting trying to integrate a level-based system
with an active combat system like this.

> Speaking of which, the other game that has the same sort of 'feel'
> as fencing to me is the RPG "Paranoia". You go along for a while,
> trying to be careful, trying to figure out what is going on, then
> BAM you just died. The weapons were so deadly (and the excuses to
> use them on each other so plentiful) that each character had a
> number of clones (5? 6?) to replace yourself because you expected
> to die a couple times on each adventure.

Fantastic game, paranoia :) For fencing though, remember that there
are 5 points to a bout.  Epee touches are often on the sword hand or
sword arm... it might take more than one hit to kill someone.  It
would be especially nice if some target areas granted more points
than others.  I used to be fond of the toe-touch :)

Sean

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From sean at hoth.ffwd.cx  Thu Jul 25 11:21:45 2002
From: sean at hoth.ffwd.cx (Sean Kelly)
Date: Thu Jul 25 11:21:45 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Boring Combat (was:Mass customization in MM***s)
Message-ID: <mailman.24290.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:
> From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]
>> On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:
>>> From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]
 
>>> Perhaps forms could be something players crafted. Extrapolating,
>>> then one could consider the base components that forms are made
>>> up of when seeing if they counter each other. i.e. if you were
>>> using a self crafted for which gave you a 20% resist to
>>> knockdown (amongst other things - higher level forms could have
>>> more components), and they tried to use a form which gives a 20%
>>> bonus to knockdown, then they'd nullify.
 
>> Hmm, random thread convergence.  I don't really know how to go
>> about this, because you can't easily cancel techniques if people
>> are just making them up.
 
> Well I meant the techniques to come out of a dictionary that the
> developer created. The forms however would be groups of techniques
> combined in various fashions. These could then be researched and
> developed by players.

Random thought: this reminds me a lot of that old unix game, Robot
Wars, where you code your robot and have it fight others.  It's
abasically a battle of the best AI.  I imagine a similar thing could
be done for player combat.  Give the player a set of actions as well
as a bunch of default attacks and defenses using this library of
actions, but give the player the ability to code new ones using the
same library.

Sean

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rgabbard at swbell.net  Thu Jul 25 11:29:00 2002
From: rgabbard at swbell.net (Ron Gabbard)
Date: Thu Jul 25 11:29:00 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24291.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Dave Rickey" <daver at mythicentertainment.com>
> From: "Ron Gabbard" <rgabbard at swbell.net>

>> Thus, to have an inflation-proof, balanced economy you need:
>> 1a. A closed market with a fixed money supply, or 1b. An open
>> economy with no hard-coded prices or wages and a system by which
>> prices can adjust to inflation.  2. A system by which the supply
>> of goods is able to equal the demand for those goods.

>> If a game designer can create a system where the available supply
>> of raw materials equals the player-driven demand for raw
>> materials without the players providing the supply and where the
>> price for those raw materials can adjust to inflation and are
>> market-driven, more power to them.

> In DAoC, there's an interesting dynamic that has set in now that
> players have realized that even without special magical bonuses, a
> good player-crafted weapon is significantly superior to a loot
> drop weapon.  In DAoC, quality of output is random in a range from
> 94-100 (the best non "Dragon-grade" loot is 93%), with equal
> chances of 94-99 and one chance in 71 of a 100% quality item (aka
> "masterpiece").  Players being the way they are, and the system
> working the way it does, a 97% weapon is considered barely
> acceptable, a 98% workable, a 99% preferrable, and you really want
> a 100% masterpiece.

<snip description>

bah!  I harassed Iain to get these numbers from Spyke for a long
time!  I loved the concepts behind the DAoC crafting scheme (and
even got my Armsman up to 800+ in armorcrafting).  I personally felt
that crafting was just another money and time sink both in the
short-term and the long-term... so I stopped rather than push to
1000+.  Yes, it's really time consuming and expensive to ramp up a
trade skill to 'Master+' level... but, that's not the problem.

Let's say the total population on the server is 2,500.  Now, assume
that I play in a larger realm on that server that has a population
of 1,000.  (Some realms have significantly fewer players.) Within my
realm, people are equally distributed amongst casters, rogues, and
melees so that there are 333 of each.  Thus, the total market for
metal weapons is 333 as the other 667 use bows or staves.

Now, lets assume for reference purposes a level distribution of 15%
levels 1-10/15% levels 11 - 20/30% levels 21 - 30/20% levels
31-40/20% levels 41 - 50.  That means that there are 66 players in
my realm that would use the high-end gear made by Grandmaster
weaponsmithers (1000+).

Next, take decay rate into consideration.  I only had one weapon
decay on me to the point where it needed replacing during my 44
levels so I don't have a good sample size to determine the actual
decay rate.  But, for illustration purposes, let's say a weapon
lasts 10 days.  Thus, on any given night there are an average of 7
people needing a new high-end weapon in my realm.

Now, divide 7 by the total number of Grandmaster crafters.  Let's
just say there are 2. (I hate prime numbers.)  So, there is a
potential market of 3 to 4 weapons for each weaponsmith on any given
night.  But, will these people buy crafted weapons?

The price of the weapon cannot exceed the value of the difference in
effectiveness between the readily-available mob-dropped weapon
(which is free) and the crafted weapon.  (Unless, as you later point
out, it's either spend the money on the crafted item or it's
worthless.)  In addition, the cost in time of finding a crafter,
ordering the weapon, and traveling to pick it up (transaction costs)
has to be added to the price.  Example: If I have multiple 14
effective-dps weapons sitting in the bank from various mobs and a
spare in my pack, the price for the crafted 16.2 weapon cannot
exceed the perceived value of an additional 2.2 dps + transaction
costs.

The problem is that by fixing the ore costs, the weaponcrafter has a
minimum that they can charge to the customer and still be
profitable.  Compound that by the fact that the ores for the high
end weapons are only obtainable in the Relic Keeps (where there
weren't forges when last I played) and the travel time required by
the crafter boosts that cost up as well.  (Whether the crafter gets
paid for that time is a different issue.)  In DAoC, if the players
mined the raw materials for crafted goods, the player-driven market
price for ores, leathers, and woods would drop
dramatically... particularly at the higher-end where there is little
demand.  This would allow crafters to price their goods in such a
way that they are competitive with mob-dropped loot and increase
their business.

The bottom line is that there just isn't enough business to support
a crafter role given the current decay rate and cost structure that
would allow them to recoup their investment and on-going costs in
their craft.  The option is always open to increase the decay rate
and reduce the drop rate of mob loot.  However, crafter-made weapons
are so expensive that players would eventually have to increase
their PvE mob-killing to earn loot and cut back on their RvR... even
the level 50's who no longer get any XP from killing mobs.

> The main thing is that players will spend themselves broke chasing
> tiny marginal gains in performance, regardless of whether the
> economy is open or closed, or if raw material prices are fixed or
> floating.

This is only true in a situation where players have nothing better
on which to spend their money... which is inflationary in itself in
a different manner.  If the only thing in the world to buy is
armor/weapons, the only value that the currency has is the
incremental performance bonus from improving their equipment.  It's
either buy better equipment or the money is worthless.  Money is
intrinsically worthless... it's just a number representing coins in
vault.  The only value it has are the values of goods and services
that can be bought with it.

> From a purist viewpoint, DAoC's economy is inflationary, in the
> sense that players can get arbitrarily large amounts of money, and
> equipment can get arbitrarily stronger (spellcrafting and alchemy
> will have "soft failure" regions where attempts to improve an item
> can fail to take, consuming their raw material but exceeding
> normal caps when successful).  But in practice the things that
> normally create inflationary pressures have been converted into
> safety valves to *prevent* inflation from becoming significant.

...

> I ain't done yet.  The economy I designed included Spellcrafting,
> and has had a big hole where that belonged.  Even so, the
> underlying economy in DAoC has proven fundamentally sound, and I'm
> proud of how *little* I've had to worry about it since launch.

Yeah, Spellcrafting is actually the most important component of the
DAoC trade system as it's the primary differentiator between crafted
and mob-dropped loot.

The difference between DAoC and the other MMORPGs I've played is
that 'end-game' players don't spend their time in 'income-producing'
activities... they play RvR.  Since there is no monetary reward for
killing PC opponents from other realms, you don't have to worry
about those thousands and thousands of hours played on each server
every night generating more and more cash.  In addition, because of
the cost of repairing keep doors, making siege weapons, and buying
ammunition, RvR is actually a money-sink with a negative currency
flow.  It's a very simple, straight-forward economic model and has
supported the game model very well which is the purpose of economic
systems in MMPs.

Everything with DAoC is basically, fundamentally sound.  It caters
to a specific player type and has a narrow scope of activities and
rewards that supports that group well.  From a high level, it's a
series of power-ups that culminate in a massive team-based PvP
arena.  Personally, I like a broader experience, but that's
OK... 200,000+ subscribers enjoy your model and that's what
counts. <grin> Some people like Italian food, some people like Thai
food, some people like burgers... that's what choice is all about.

Cheers,

Ron



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Thu Jul 25 11:30:36 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Thu Jul 25 11:30:36 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] re: Crafting Systems - preventing recipe decomposition?
Message-ID: <mailman.24292.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

>From Sie Ming:

> Then we found out that LOTS of the players who were doing alchemy
> in UO were really really really against any system where the
> ingredients were not all the same for everyone.  Maybe they didn't
> get the safe guard against the problems with some folks getting
> easy recipes to advanced potions, and maybe it was just different
> from what they were used to.  I don't know, but I thought I would
> mention it.

Part of the appeal of both Alchemy systems as well as the Ultima
series is that there is an internally consistent sense of physics.
For example, sulfurous ash results in spells causing fire and
destruction.  Learning and sharing that lore, while not enforcing
rarity in of its own rite, was definitely part of the appeal, and
helped to make Ultima seem like an internally logical place.

It would seem like a tactic that might fit the Ultima universe
better might be one where the reagents mixed the same, but different
players were better or worse at making the same potions.  I.e. a
player who was attuned to fire could make better firebombs than a
player who was attuned to water, and that was an invisible variable
that was attached to a player at character creation, so the only way
to learn was to experiment.

We played around with ideas like this on UO2, but hit multiple
roadblocks.  It seemed like it still created a system that was too
unpredictable, and also it did bizarre things to the in-game alchemy
market, where players who want to buy a fire bomb potion want to
know exactly how powerful it is and whether or not they can depend
on it when they purchase it.

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Thu Jul 25 11:50:46 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Thu Jul 25 11:50:46 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24293.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

>From Marian Griffith

> From what I understand fencing is more about blocking your oppo-
> nent, and moving him into a position where you can strike, and I
> wonder if that can be done in a mud. It would slow down the pace
> but I can not help but think that it would be, in the end, more
> entertaining. And on a graphical mud, where you can actually see
> your opponent, it would look and work even better I think.

I helped design a system for LegendMUD that Raph used that made for
a combat system that was more interesting to watch.  It took
variables on the players and the room into account in order to
create meaningful combat messages.  Fighting in a desert room?  Land
a small ('scratch') blow?  Say "You grab a handful of sand and throw
it in XXX's face!"  Are you a hobbit fighting a half-giant?  The
game says "You jab XXX right in the crotch!"

Raph and co actually implemented it, and can offer feedback on how
well it worked.  I will note that, on systems that I worked on that
were similar, I noticed that uniform combat messages in text MUDs
serve a solid purpose, which is that they are easy to read when you
have a jillion combat messages flying by at light speed.  Until you
cut down on the amount you spam players from multiple attack
messages, resistance messages and other noise, please tread
carefully in this regard. ;-)

--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Thu Jul 25 11:50:46 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Thu Jul 25 11:50:46 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24294.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

>From szii at sziisoft.com

> I also started CS late....about 2 months ago, in fact.
 
> The difference between us?  I'm willing to get in there and scrap,
> even when it means losing.  You don't get better by quitting (CS,
> EQ, chess, craps, etc).

Sure.  But you know what?  The mass market lacks your patience.  I
went through that same learning curve to get good at the games that
I am already good at (Unreal Tournament, LMCTF, etc), and I didn't
relish starting at the bottom of the ladder again.  Many people are
unwilling to start at the bottom of that ladder the first time.

PvP is frequently overwhelming to the new player.  You can get
attacked anywhere at any time.  You're at a disadvantage because you
lack character skill (low level).  You're at a disadvantage because
you lack player skill (knowledge on how to win).  You don't have a
pack to run around with yet.  You're fighting with cruddy stock
weapons.

Will there be a handful of players who persevere through those odds
in order to be as good as other players?  Sure.  It will be a
handful of people.  In some games, it requires little more than
tenacity.  In others, however, it requires that you quit your job
and focus on learning the game full-time.

And when players log onto a game and realize that, not only are they
on the bottom of the ladder, but that it will take hours and hours
of camping and learning in order to stand on even ground with their
counterpart, they will make a decision as to whether or not this
game is worth their tenacity.
 
--d

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From lars at bearnip.com  Thu Jul 25 12:02:22 2002
From: lars at bearnip.com (Lars Duening)
Date: Thu Jul 25 12:02:22 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24295.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

szii at sziisoft.com wrote:

> You couldn't get good at CS quickly...so you quit.  To most
> pk-types I know, that's kinda funny. *shrug* We don't really care
> whether you play or not, except that you're missing out on a great
> game once you achieve a certain level of play...regardless of the
> arena.  I could state that 'Go' is hard, too.  It's an immensely
> challenging game that you never really can master.  But once you
> get a feel for it, it's great.

And there's the problem: it's only a great game if you achieve a
certain level. Those people who already play games with similar
steep learning curves (for me it's programming and triathlons) then
simply run out of investable spare time.

--
Lars Duening; lars at bearnip.com
PGP Key: http://www.bearnip.com/lars/pgp-lars.asc

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shecky at experimentzero.org  Thu Jul 25 12:11:41 2002
From: shecky at experimentzero.org (Britt A. Green)
Date: Thu Jul 25 12:11:41 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] TECH:
Message-ID: <mailman.24296.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Bruce Mitchener" <bruce at cubik.org>

> Something that I find useful in this regard is the Law of Demeter:

Thanks for the tips, Bruce.

After discussing it with my partner on this project, I think we've
roughly got it figured out. mudObjects - things like swords, armor,
and other items - will use methods when that object affects
something. For example, armor would have a method called
adjust_armor_class(). However it would not have a get_object()
method. Things like that would be better put in the game class
somewhere.

Although we could do it otherwise, we basically came to the same
conclusion you did with the Law of Demeter: some things are just
more harmonious. Not to mention it might create coding problems down
the road.

Again, thanks for the help! Actually, I've learned a lot just by
reading this mailing list. Very helpful and intelligent.

--
"My mom says I'm cool."
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Thu Jul 25 14:01:30 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Thu Jul 25 14:01:30 2002
Subject: =?utf-8?b?UkU6IFLDqWYuIDogUkU6IFtNVUQtRGV2XSBNYXNzIGN1c3RvbWl6YXRp?=
	=?utf-8?q?on_in_MM***_s?=
Message-ID: <mailman.24297.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

>From John Buehler:
>> John Buehler wrote:
 
>>> Recall that we have a pretty ugly barrier to entry for
>>> socialization - the inability to talk.  I don't know what
>>> Koreans use to talk to each other, but I suspect that it's
>>> either painful to enter it as text or they use English.  That
>>> is, their barrier may be greater than in cultures that fit the
>>> ISO-LATIN 1 'culture'.

I don't know exactly what the language font for Korean is, but if
you go into any Korean Lineage server, you'll see a lot of symbols
above the heads of characters which aren't latin Characters by any
stretch of the imagination.

NCSoft and EverQuest are currently going through quite an ugly
process to make EQ display Korean as well. They certainly aren't
playing in English, and in fact, the current belief is that
unlocalized games don't do well in Korea at all.

>   http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/korea.html

> It was an interesting read and only goes to support my theory that
> players want to communicate verbally.  Well, South Korean players,
> anyway.  The South Koreans are very social players and they like
> to play together in the same room.  As you mention, groups of
> players tend to take over an Internet cafe in order to play
> Lineage as a group and they don't message each other - they yell
> at each other.  This is a model that I've speculated on for
> American gamers so that we can socialize effectively during
> gameplay, but we're a different society.  It might just be a bad
> idea for Americans.

It's a different culture.  The people that I've talked to who work
over there say that the primary reason people play in these cafes is
because the homes are so small that you can't fit a computer space
in easily.  This would, however, argue contrary to what the article
says about most homes in Korea being on broadband.

I've been told by many people that any designer worth his salt needs
to really go over there and visit these rooms to understand the
phenomenon.  If I ever get to, I'll be sure to file a report to
y'all. =)
 

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Anderson  Thu Jul 25 14:07:08 2002
From: Anderson (Anderson)
Date: Thu Jul 25 14:07:08 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Preventing recipe decomposition (why?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24298.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Sean Kelly [mailto:sean at hoth.ffwd.cx]

> Anecdotes aside, rather than ask how to make a skill system
> uncrackable, why not ask why you'd want to do such a thing in the
> first place.

Well, from my point of view, people do crafting for mainly two
reasons.

  1. To get the end product.

  2. To discover all the secrets about the crafting system.

The end product will be made either way you do the crafting, either
a set system with no secrets, or an uncrackable system.

The main issue for making an uncrackable system is number 2.  Many
people use the crafting systems to see if they can't figure out the
secret to become one of the "best" crafters.  If the formula's are
available online (which they would be, if they're not uncrackable),
then there are no secrets.. it's impossible to be "special".

This goes along with the issue of some muds making maps for every
one of their areas, and posting them online.  Now that I can see the
maps online, I see no purpose in exploring all their areas.  I
explore simply because there's a chance I'll find something that no
one else knows about.. some secret cool thing that I can get, sell
and people will say "dang, where did you find that".

I think a lot of people are attracted to a system where they know if
they put in enough time, there's a possibility that they'll figure
out something that no one else has, and that's what would be lost if
you allowed information to be transmitted between people.

Now, I agree that our characters should be able to "learn" from
someone else's character.  Maybe you could learn what your specific
recipe is, or maybe your character could have a "crafting" skill
which could improve if they watch someone else craft.. etc.  In
either case, I think it's good to stay away from things which could
easily be put on a webpage.

Dave

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From rgabbard at swbell.net  Thu Jul 25 14:22:26 2002
From: rgabbard at swbell.net (Ron Gabbard)
Date: Thu Jul 25 14:22:26 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24299.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
> Damion Schubert writes:
>> From John Buehler:

>>> I have an aversion to long hours of boredom punctuated by
>>> moments of entertainment.

You just captured the essence of baseball, deer hunting, fishing,
and NASCAR in a one sentence... yet each of these activities has
millions and tens of millions of fans.  Broadening the type of
activities is all about broadening the appeal of the game to make
room for players who aren't high 'twitch factor' or even
combat-oriented.

>>> My most fundamental tenet to crafting is that the boring part
>>> has to be entertaining.  If it can't be done, then don't have
>>> players do that part.  Have NPCs do it and have the players
>>> manage them.  I could easily imagine that harvesting could be
>>> made entertaining, at least for a while, but it's not by hearing
>>> the same chopping and cutting sounds and seeing the same
>>> animation on the exact same tree graphic over and over again.
>>> Every activity in a game that a player is invited to engage in
>>> must be more entertaining than current combat systems.  And that
>>> includes combat and forestry.

This is where the Falacy of Fun enters in...

A single-player game is considered pretty good if it has what?  30
to 70 hours of solid, fun game play?  MMPs/MUDs measure played time
in DAYS.  It's not unusual to have MMP/MUD players with 30 to 70
(some even higher) played days on a character.  Even the 'casual'
player that invests 4 hours per week in a game will accumulate over
200 hours played in a year.  Relying on processes and mechanisms for
'fun' will fail in online games because no mechanism designed by God
nor man will still be 'fun' after 200, 700, or 1,600+ hours of play.
I'm not saying that the game won't still be fun, just that the
novelty and fascination with the mechanics will be gone... like the
initial 'oooooooh' factor of new, fancy graphics.  I don't disagree
with you that crafting systems could be more engaging.  I just
wouldn't remove integral components of a balanced economy because
the mechanism is perceived to be boring by some people as the 'fun'
from boring mechanics and the 'fun' from engaging mechanics will
both be the same in the long run... pretty much zero.  It's the Law
of Diminishing Marginal Utility again and isn't the goal to acquire
and retain long-term subscribers?

So, after 500+ hours of using the mechanics and processes, there
better be some reason to make another 'sword' outside of transient
'fun' because the 'fun' of the process is long gone.

>> Um, why?  I don't think at all that the fun of crafting comes
>> from the complexity of the interface of crafting.  The fun of
>> crafting is more externally-driven.

> I'm sure that's the case for you and for many who get into
> crafting.  The current player base is strongly
> achievement-oriented.  I'm not as achievement-oriented, so I
> represent those who are more interested in the crafting process
> itself.  I'm also interested in the achievement side of things,
> but not as much as you are.

The difference isn't between achievement versus non-achievement.
It's self-focused versus society focused.  What you are describing
is an 'artisan' more than a 'tradesperson'.  An artisan is more
focused on the creation and innovation process and isn't worried
about the marketability of their output.  They create items for the
fun of it and don't care what society thinks of their work.  The
tradesperson plays a role in an economy where they create their
products to meet market needs and be purchased by other players.
While the creation process may be involved or shallow, the true
reward for the tradesperson is the appreciation they receive from
others for their work. The word 'trade' in trade skills is a
commercial term with vocational definitions.  Thus, this
appreciation comes in the form of sales.  If there is no demand for
their product, there will be no appreciated tradespersons and the
tradespeople will stop crafting.  Thus, the only people doing crafts
would be the artisans who enjoy creating for its own sake and who
can afford to spend their money on non-profitable activities, i.e.,
another trade skill money sink for the trade mules of end-gamers.

>>> If you end up with recipe-based crafting, those recipes will be
>>> published and all players will know how to make the stuff.  So
>>> that cannot be the discriminator to separate serious crafters
>>> from those who just want the end-result.

>> If recipes are limited by knowledge only, this is true.
>> Consider, for example, the possibility that these recipes are
>> physical objects (didn't EQ have a 'words of power' concept
>> similar to this?)  Using real-world knowledge to create rarity is
>> always a bad plan (although its worth noting that this sharing of
>> knowledge is a fun and interesting design pattern in its own
>> right and should not be discounted).

> As described, I was fairly sure that Ron was emphasizing
> entertaining the players by having them experiment with
> components, producing player-known recipes.  I favor what you're
> talking about, which is character-known recipes.

What I am shooting for is a trade skill system that is profitable
for the tradespeople as well as appealing to a broad range of
personalities.  Some people enjoy the exploring, inventing, and
creating process like John described.  Some people don't care too
much for high involvement in creation of the items but enjoy the
selling process and visa versa.  Some people just want a steady
income so they can save up and buy a house or open a store.  Some
players don't want to do trade skills at all, others want to be 100%
tradespeople, while many are somewhere in between.  There is room
for all types of personalities and ambitions in an efficient economy
and trade skill system as long as trade skills are designed as
alternative vocations to killing 'n looting and not money sinks.

Cheers,

Ron



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From daver at mythicentertainment.com  Thu Jul 25 16:10:50 2002
From: daver at mythicentertainment.com (Dave Rickey)
Date: Thu Jul 25 16:10:50 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24300.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Ron Gabbard" <rgabbard at swbell.net>
> From: "Dave Rickey" <daver at mythicentertainment.com>

> Let's say the total population on the server is 2,500.  Now,
> assume that I play in a larger realm on that server that has a
> population of 1,000.  (Some realms have significantly fewer
> players.) Within my realm, people are equally distributed amongst
> casters, rogues, and melees so that there are 333 of each.  Thus,
> the total market for metal weapons is 333 as the other 667 use
> bows or staves.

Just FYI, your numbers are low by about a factor of 5.  In general
only 20% of all players are logged on at peak time.  Also, you need
a jigger factor for alts, there are a non-trivial number of players
with multiple 50's in the same realm.

> The price of the weapon cannot exceed the value of the difference
> in effectiveness between the readily-available mob-dropped weapon
> (which is free) and the crafted weapon.  (Unless, as you later
> point out, it's either spend the money on the crafted item or it's
> worthless.)  In addition, the cost in time of finding a crafter,
> ordering the weapon, and traveling to pick it up (transaction
> costs) has to be added to the price.  Example: If I have multiple
> 14 effective-dps weapons sitting in the bank from various mobs and
> a spare in my pack, the price for the crafted 16.2 weapon cannot
> exceed the perceived value of an additional 2.2 dps + transaction
> costs.

At the high end, tiny differences in utility value can have huge
effects on perceived value.  If you have a weapon with an effective
DPS of 16.1, and the crafter can make you one with a eDPS of 16.2,
most players will consider the 16.2 almost infinitely more
desirable.

> The problem is that by fixing the ore costs, the weaponcrafter has
> a minimum that they can charge to the customer and still be
> profitable.  Compound that by the fact that the ores for the high
> end weapons are only obtainable in the Relic Keeps (where there
> weren't forges when last I played) and the travel time required by
> the crafter boosts that cost up as well.  (Whether the crafter
> gets paid for that time is a different issue.)  In DAoC, if the
> players mined the raw materials for crafted goods, the
> player-driven market price for ores, leathers, and woods would
> drop dramatically... particularly at the higher-end where there is
> little demand.  This would allow crafters to price their goods in
> such a way that they are competitive with mob-dropped loot and
> increase their business.

And that *would* be dramatically inflationary.

> The bottom line is that there just isn't enough business to
> support a crafter role given the current decay rate and cost
> structure that would allow them to recoup their investment and
> on-going costs in their craft.  The option is always open to
> increase the decay rate and reduce the drop rate of mob loot.
> However, crafter-made weapons are so expensive that players would
> eventually have to increase their PvE mob-killing to earn loot and
> cut back on their RvR... even the level 50's who no longer get any
> XP from killing mobs.

I've been working on that problem recently.

>> The main thing is that players will spend themselves broke
>> chasing tiny marginal gains in performance, regardless of whether
>> the economy is open or closed, or if raw material prices are
>> fixed or floating.

> This is only true in a situation where players have nothing better
> on which to spend their money... which is inflationary in itself
> in a different manner.  If the only thing in the world to buy is
> armor/weapons, the only value that the currency has is the
> incremental performance bonus from improving their equipment.
> It's either buy better equipment or the money is worthless.  Money
> is intrinsically worthless... it's just a number representing
> coins in vault.  The only value it has are the values of goods and
> services that can be bought with it.

And the mark of a truly failed game economy is when cash stops being
an acceptable form of exchange.  There are many things in other
games that literally cannot be purchased for any amount of cash,
because cash is available in almost infinite supply to anyone who
wants it.  With the partial exception of dragon loot (which has an
insane perceived value for various reasons), everything is
negotiable for cash in Camelot.  I say partial because there *have*
been a few such purchases, but they've usually required the treasury
of a largish guild.

> Everything with DAoC is basically, fundamentally sound.  It caters
> to a specific player type and has a narrow scope of activities and
> rewards that supports that group well.  From a high level, it's a
> series of power-ups that culminate in a massive team-based PvP
> arena.  Personally, I like a broader experience, but that's
> OK... 200,000+ subscribers enjoy your model and that's what
> counts. <grin> Some people like Italian food, some people like
> Thai food, some people like burgers... that's what choice is all
> about.

Easier to start from a firm foundation and build out.  I can use
economic incentives as a key to expanded gameplay possibilities
precisely because the core system is sound, and I don't have to
worry about having effectively infinite supplies of cash undermine
other game systems.  We can let players create arbitrarily effective
magical items (something crafting systems for OLRPG's have never
been able to do), because we don't have to worry about infinitely
effective items being generated from infinite amounts of cash, and
breaking everything else.

--Dave


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Koster  Thu Jul 25 16:33:00 2002
From: Koster (Koster)
Date: Thu Jul 25 16:33:00 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24301.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Damion Schubert
 
> I helped design a system for LegendMUD that Raph used that made
> for a combat system that was more interesting to watch.  It took
> variables on the players and the room into account in order to
> create meaningful combat messages.  Fighting in a desert room?
> Land a small ('scratch') blow?  Say "You grab a handful of sand
> and throw it in XXX's face!"  Are you a hobbit fighting a
> half-giant?  The game says "You jab XXX right in the crotch!"
 
> Raph and co actually implemented it, and can offer feedback on how
> well it worked.

We weren't able to implement all of it--the multiplication factor on
messages got crazy. :) I believe we ended up with all the damage
levels, and all the weapon types, plus random factors. Still a hefty
matrix of possible messages.

I think, but am not positive, that we set it up such that an area
file builder could theoretically overload the fight messages with
custom messages per area to get effects like the desert one cited
above.

Side note: all of Legend's area files are set up that way; they can
inherit base data files, and they can overload stuff. Lots of
sections in the areafile provide configurability to the area--for
example, you can use the default weather messages, or write
area-appropriate ones. For Legend this was important because each
area is strongly distinctive, thematically. The mud is themed around
history, so for example the Beowulf area is written in a style
approximating typical translations from the poem...

> I will note that, on systems that I worked on that were similar, I
> noticed that uniform combat messages in text MUDs serve a solid
> purpose, which is that they are easy to read when you have a
> jillion combat messages flying by at light speed.  Until you cut
> down on the amount you spam players from multiple attack messages,
> resistance messages and other noise, please tread carefully in
> this regard. ;-)

This is very true. Once again, gameplay trumps immersion. And in
fact, Legend ended up with a configurable setting for players,
whereby you could choose how verbose you wanted the fight messages
to be. I think it ended up with three levels, where the least
verbose is dry factual info with no fictional content whatsoever.

Also, it's worth noting that Legend had, for a while, completely
discontinuous combat. Meaning, no rounds; all attacks were simply
based on intervals of pulses. We ended up rewriting it to issue the
messages in clumps of rounds after all, simply because the constant
flow of text was too hard to read.

-Raph

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Koster  Thu Jul 25 16:35:25 2002
From: Koster (Koster)
Date: Thu Jul 25 16:35:25 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24302.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Damion Schubert

> And when players log onto a game and realize that, not only are
> they on the bottom of the ladder, but that it will take hours and
> hours of camping and learning in order to stand on even ground
> with their counterpart, they will make a decision as to whether or
> not this game is worth their tenacity.

It's worse than that. Talent is distributed unfairly in this
world. Most people will NEVER get good enough.

  (I have an essay brewing about power-law distributions, scale-free
  networks, the relationship between these systems and the "glory
  and shame" concepts, etc. But who knows when I will get to write
  it).

-Raph

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Thu Jul 25 16:52:19 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Thu Jul 25 16:52:19 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Preventing recipe decomposition (why?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24303.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Sean Kelly writes:
> From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>

>> So, (to finally get to the point ;), what if you had a recipe
>> based system (crafting, spellcasting, etc) with, say, 8 different
>> actions that could be combined in sequences up to, say, 10
>> actions long, giving you 8^10 possible combinations, and then
>> every time a new player-character was generated, the server
>> randomized which of those possible combinations mapped to actual
>> game recipes?

For the record, I'm getting a number of things mis-attributed to me.  This
is one of 'em.

JB

<EdNote: That quote is from Adam.  The error in attribution came
about when Sie Ming erred on editing the attribution list and left
you at the top versus Adam.  See Message-ID:
3D3906AB.3010108 at grexengine.com for the original post>
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From greg at omnigroup.com  Thu Jul 25 18:30:48 2002
From: greg at omnigroup.com (Greg Titus)
Date: Thu Jul 25 18:30:48 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24304.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

This is drifting off-topic for MUD-Dev, but...

On Thursday, July 25, 2002, at 11:14 AM, Sean Kelly wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Greg Titus wrote:

>> Foil fencing is originally based on sword-armed infantry
>> practice. The foil is a long, thin sword with a point and no
>> blade. The idea was to pierce the guy in front of you in the
>> vitals as quickly as possible so he can't pierce you, then move
>> on. Almost any hit to the body was quickly incapacitating, while
>> almost any hit to the limbs was nearly useless (and likely to get
>> your blade caught, resulting in _you_ becoming quickly
>> incapacitated).

> I would say that this is where epee came from (the epee is heavy
> and stiff, a lot like a short rapier, while foils are extremely
> flexible).  IMO the foil technique was later added as a
> gentleman's version of the practice, as it incorporates things
> like right-of-way, a limited target area, and a thin, flexible
> blade that is unlikely to really hurt anybody.  Sabre is the
> flashiest of the three, though it still incorporates right-of-way
> and a limited (though larger) target area, like foil.  Epee is
> basically a free for all, and even allows body contact.

You are right, of course, about the differing right-of-way and
target area rules with the various weapons.

But (or so I've been told is the history)... The foil is an infantry
soldier's practice weapon. The saber is a cavalry soldier's weapon
(blunted for practice). The epee is a gentleman's dueling practice
weapon.

The limited target area and right-of-way rules in foil and saber
were originally intended as training tools for the troops. Arm and
leg touches are disallowed because in actual battle, they weren't
likely enough to incapacitate your opponent. Right of way is how
they chose to deal with the difference between practice with blunted
blades and life-and-death. If someone is stabbing you, you better
parry or evade instead of stabbing back and calling "I got you
first!". The right of way rule forces you to parry or evade before
riposting (ignoring counter-time actions, of course...)

So these rules are intended to encourage actions during practice
that will be appropriate to the battlefield.

Epee, on the other hand, allows things like toe touches and discards
right-of-way because it is practice for dueling, and usually dueling
was to first blood. Sticking someone on the hand or foot is
perfectly effective in drawing blood and ending the duel with a
victory.

Of course, modern foil and saber are miles away from these
origins. Modern foil involves heavy use of the flick (sort of
whipping motions that cause the flexible blade to bend - half of my
bruises from points against me end up on the _back_ of my shoulders
rather than my chest). The flick would be completely useless, of
course, in any sort of real battle.

Similarly, modern saber training has caused saber to become
completely unbalanced in favor of attack over defense (this happened
to saber, because a cut can be so much faster and at so many more
possible angles than a stab). The parry is now a relatively rare
action in competitive saber. The most important skill is the
footwork, because retreat is much more effective than blade
contact. I have to guess that having great footwork is not the most
important skill to have when you are mounted on a horse.

It is much easier to see the original purpose in modern epee.

--Greg

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From SieMing at sewardweb.com  Thu Jul 25 19:22:57 2002
From: SieMing at sewardweb.com (Sie Ming)
Date: Thu Jul 25 19:22:57 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Preventing recipe decomposition (why?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24305.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

[Sean]

> Anecdotes aside, rather than ask how to make a skill system
> uncrackable, why not ask why you'd want to do such a thing in the
> first place.

Well, since you asked, here are the reasons that I've heard in the
past.  And, while I don't necessarily think that doing it by
randomizing ingredients/results is the best way to do it, I do think
some of these goals are worthwhile....

  1) Differentiate Player Knowledge from Character Knowledge. Why
  would you want to do that?  Perhaps to make the game more real?
  If you have to actually gain knowledge instead of looking it up on
  a website to become good at something then becoming good at
  something will mean more.

  2) To cut down on mules.  By raising the bar of entry to trade
  skills higher you also reduce the number of people who will create
  trade skill mules.  I am not suggesting that this is the best way
  to cut down on mules, just that it will serve to reduce them.

  3) To allow those who enjoy it to participate in any "discovery"
  aspect of your trade skills.  There are those who maintain that
  this is forcing a style of play on everyone so that a few people
  can enjoy this aspect of the game when they could just as easily
  enjoy it by simply not reading websites.  I'd like to address
  those issues with some highly suspect arguments.

    a) Forcing styles of play is what game designers do.  You allow
    freedom where you can, and don't allow it when it will have an
    effect that you think is detrimental.  THere is nothing wrong
    with removing some options from players if it makes your game
    more like you want it to be, even if some players disagree.
    It's a big world with lots of games.

    b) It is NOT as much fun to discover something if you know that
    everyone else knows it already.

    c) I am not saying that you need to require everyone to
    participate in the discovery aspect of your game.  Let them also
    buy that knowledge from others in the game.  Apart from it
    seeming a little silly, I would not see anything wrong with me
    paying someone who could make a x-ray vision potion for that
    knowledge even though for him that knowledge is X, Y, Z, Z, Z
    and for me it is Z, Y, Y, W.

Personally, I prefer skilling the randomization aspect, and would
just require characters to obtain the knowledge themselves before
they could make something.

Sie Ming
AKA
Lloyd Sommerer


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johna at wam.umd.edu  Thu Jul 25 21:21:35 2002
From: johna at wam.umd.edu (John Robert Arras)
Date: Thu Jul 25 21:21:35 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24306.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

(Sorry for the late response. I have been away.)

On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Paul E. Schwanz, II wrote:
> From: John Robert Arras <johna at wam.umd.edu>

>> My problem is giving players institutionalized positions of
>> power.  For example, making a player the "mayor" of a city is a
>> bad idea

> Isn't this highly dependant upon implementation, though?  I mean,
> if a mayor can lord his position over other players then wouldn't
> that mean that you haven't hit Ron's mark where players can be
> held accountable for their actions?

Yes this is dependent on implementation. But, when people talk about
"mayors" or "kings" they are talking about offices that would give
players too much power over other players. If the position is
ceremonial, or if it won't let a player ruin the fun of another
player, then I don't have a problem with it.  I think the way you
implement these positions safely is by taking most or all of the
power (to affect or control other players) out of them.

> When you talk about making a player the mayor of a city, who is
> doing the making?  Is this a developer thing or a player thing?
> Does time=experience pointsB='level to mayor' like in many current
> games, or are we talking about mayors being elected to the
> position by citizens of the town, as we would intuitively
> understand this to work in the non-virtual world?

I was thinking that the developers create a city and decide that the
city needs a mayor and that the mayor gets put into position
somehow. The position might be won by doing a quest or by a vote or
by developer choice. It makes no difference to me. What bothers me
is that the developers made a real position of power that a player
could take.

> Can we not design a game where the players can hold the mayor
> accountable for his actions?  I can think of a couple of ways to
> do this off the top of my head.
 
>   1.  Mayors are elected.  If you try to use strongarm tactics or
>   lord you position over your constituents, you might just be
>   shooting yourself in the political foot.

I am assuming that grief players will flock together to make the
other players miserable in at least some parts of the world.

>   2.  The power of a position is somewhat dependant upon
>   population.  If players don't like living in your town, they may
>   decide to go elsewhere.  If enough players leave, your town
>   might slip back to being merely a village.  Since only towns
>   have a mayor, you would also lose a 'level' personally and be
>   relegated to be the Village Headman.  As a village, you don't
>   draw the same caliber of NPC trainers as you did when you were a
>   town.  You also are not able to order the construction of many
>   of the city structures that help make community life
>   advantageous.  

I don't like the idea that mean players can make parts of the game
"off limits" because the designers set up the game that
way. Dictators regularly cut their countries off from the rest of
the world so they can be a big fish in a little pond.

I don't mind if a guild just decides to kill anyone who enters a
certain town. I do mind if the developers set up a "mayor" position
and the guild takes over the town and then proceeds to kill anyone
who enters the town and justifies it by saying that "they're the law
becuse they earned/stole/were given these positions of power that
were set up by the developers."

> If we can create more symbiotic relationships so that the
> community needs its leaders and the leaders need the community, I
> think that player run governments complete with governmental
> positions like mayors can be a wonderful thing for an MMORPG.
> There need to be checks and balances so that institutional power
> comes with accountability, but I would personally prefer a system
> with that kind of freedom and flexibility over a theocracy run by
> an overworked and overwrought development team; entirely too human
> to be gods.

I'm happy if governance arises from within the playerbase. I am
happy if people in a certain part of the world take it upon
themselves to tame that part of the world and remake it in their own
image. I just don't like the idea of players getting "official"
positions that were precreated by the developers that get filled
somehow by players during the course of the game. IMO such positions
need to be ceremonial and bereft of power or they can and will be
abused.

John


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johna at wam.umd.edu  Thu Jul 25 21:31:59 2002
From: johna at wam.umd.edu (John Robert Arras)
Date: Thu Jul 25 21:31:59 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24307.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Damion Schubert wrote:
> From: John Robert Arras
 
>> My problem is giving players institutionalized positions of power.

<snip>

> We effectively do this now commonly, with the title of
> 'guildmaster' being the most common.  It seems to work
> marvelously, largely because these systems are usually democratic.
> If you lord your status over other players and they don't enjoy
> that interaction, they'll join another guild, or they'll vote the
> current master out of power.

> The difference between a guildmaster and a mayor, arguably, is
> largely that the guildmaster leads a player-created, nebulous
> concept, whereas a mayor leads a tangible piece of territory
> supported by the fiction.  One could argue that giving players
> that level of lordship over the fiction might give them too great
> of bragging rights.  But I prefer the counterargument, which
> states that fiction will never be meaningful until players can
> assume key roles inside of it.

I just posted a response to the previous response to my message that
essentially covers this point. I like the idea of your guilds. They
aren't official positions. Their power comes from the players who
respect those positions, not from the developers who created a
position and let a player earn or gain the position somehow. Allow
the politics and power to emerge from within the game. Allow players
to organize and band together for a common purpose. Let these bands
of players oppose and ally with other bands of players. Let the
politics flow naturally from the rules of the game. These are some
of the things that I want to see. I just don't want to see players
given positions of power that were set up by the developers.

John

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johna at wam.umd.edu  Thu Jul 25 21:43:30 2002
From: johna at wam.umd.edu (John Robert Arras)
Date: Thu Jul 25 21:43:30 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24308.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, John Robert Arras wrote:
 
>> My problem is giving players institutionalized positions of power.

<snip>
 
> Bad why? It works in gameplay (see Achaea/Aetolia for instance),
> so is the objection a moral/ethical one?

I'm not sure. I will try to explain it like this:

When I think of adding a feature to my game, my thought process
isn't like:

  "How cool would this be if used wisely by the playerbase?"

My thought process is more like:

  "If the biggest a-hole in the game managed to get access to this,
  how much misery could he cause?"

In short: I think like a cheater.

If I plan on putting something into the game, I try to implement it
in a way that I can't figure out how to game the system. I haven't
been able to figure out how to implement positions of power other
than ones with at most superficial power. I don't know if it's
possible.

> And incidentally, you don't just appoint a player as major of a
> city, you let the player-citizens vote him in, and give the mayor
> responsibilities vis a vis the citizenry, so that if he is an
> immature ass, he'll quickly be out of office.

But a large group of of them could cause a lot of pain locally. Even
if it's only one city out of many, I don't like the idea that the
developers set something up where players can restrict access to
parts of the game with the imprimatur of the admin staff.

<snip>

> (They can re-design any shop in their city, for instance, albeit
> it for a fee in gold).

But we both know that this isn't really a power that can hurt other
players. :) Ceremonial positions are fine by me since they don't
give real power over other players.


John

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From kressilac at insightBB.com  Thu Jul 25 22:18:01 2002
From: kressilac at insightBB.com (Derek Licciardi)
Date: Thu Jul 25 22:18:01 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Preventing recipe decomposition (why?)
Message-ID: <mailman.24309.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Sean Kelly
> From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>

>> So, (to finally get to the point ;), what if you had a recipe
>> based system (crafting, spellcasting, etc) with, say, 8 different
>> actions that could be combined in sequences up to, say, 10
>> actions long, giving you 8^10 possible combinations, and then
>> every time a new player-character was generated, the server
>> randomized which of those possible combinations mapped to actual
>> game recipes?

> While I grant that such randomization would largely inhibit
> web-based recipe perpetuation, I have to ask what the real
> motivation is behind this aim, and if this approach really
> produces a desirable result.

[snip]

> Anecdotes aside, rather than ask how to make a skill system
> uncrackable, why not ask why you'd want to do such a thing in the
> first place.

I think I'd have to agree here.  There is value in being able to
share knowledge.  Isn't the idea to stop spoiler sites based from
the single player game?  I remember a night where I stayed up into
the late hours of the morning looking at an Everlore forum that
contained about 20-30 people and 20 pages of text trying to decipher
a quest.  Trying to work through a problem is not always a single
person issue.  I've seen the same happen with players trying to
figure out a recipe, though most of the time the problem seemed to
be a content bug in the recipe and not what they were doing.
Players inevitably band together to solve a problem that they
struggle with, be it a quest or a recipe and this form of community
development can be a good thing.  I'd go as far as to argue that it
is undesirable to have crafting systems that didn't promote
information sharing because community is what binds an MMORPG player
to your game.

[static item stat rant on]

It also seems to me that the days of static stats on an item are
quickly fading.  Everything on the item needs to be dynamic and
based upon the character's skills in a semi-predictable manner.  Not
all leather armor is exactly AC 2.  It seems our game systems are as
much to blame for this perceived problem as the player's nasty habit
of decomposing our hard written recipes.  I understand that there
are balance issues with making the core attributes of items vary but
we have highly sophisticated data analysis tools in the world today
and there is nothing stopping us from using those decision support
tools to balance a significantly more flexible and intuitively
complex crafting system.  Too many of these crafting systems are
binary results producing.(ie you make the exact same item or fail)

The key doesn't seem to me, to be adding randomness for the sake of
confusing the player.  If you add a game play element, it seems to
me that there should be a better reason than thwarting your players
because as a small team of developers we are no match for the
collective minds of our hundred thousand head player bases.

Add depth to the crafting system and force your players to
specialize because they can't learn it all.  Make the depth of your
crafting system expand over time so that it is impossible to learn
everything about every skill then make the actual outcomes dependant
upon the character's skills and not some binary formula.  Add layers
to the system forcing dependencies.  Allow specialization to pay
dividends with even the easiest of items.  A master blacksmith can
make horseshoes of higher quality than an apprentice and when the
master blacksmith makes them they are worth more to someone than the
apprentice made items.  All too often your skill level dictates the
items you make and sell because of the game system.  Granted, I
probably can't become a master making horseshoes, but if I am a
master blacksmith and choose to make my living making horseshoes it
should be viable and I should have an edge over the newbie.

[rant off]

Just my two cents.  Ok two and a half cents.

Derek


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From moonvine at austin.rr.com  Fri Jul 26 00:22:58 2002
From: moonvine at austin.rr.com (Moonvine)
Date: Fri Jul 26 00:22:58 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24310.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Paul Boyle

> One new thought I do have to offer up is that there is a second
> option.  Some players, if they enjoy other aspects of the game
> enviornment, will, rather than leaving the game, condition
> themselves to enjoy or at least tolerate the gameplay that is most
> rewarded in the game.

> Let me give you a concrete example.  I know a woman playing EQ who
> admits to being bored by the standard cycle of plane raiding,
> monster killing, achievement playing that is the standard of the
> game.  Whenever I ask her why she doesn't quit, though, she
> usually answers that she feels obligated to be there for her
> guild, her friends, and her husband who also plays.  Btw, she
> plays a cleric. But she gets caught up in the thrill of getting
> that new bubble of experience for her skills too.

I am bored by plane raiding.  I loathe and detest the high end game,
thus I don't participate in it.  But achiever gameplay isn't
necessesarily most rewarded in the game.  I'm not sure if I can say
this in a way that makes sense to anyone but me, and I don't know
about your friend, but I'm a socializer and I set my own goals.  And
they aren't necessarily what the designers thought they would be
when they created the game.

> I don't know what you should take from that.  Personally, I feel
> sorry that she's sort of trapped herself in an enviornment that
> really isn't rewarding to her.  I'm sure the execs at Sony, are
> thrilled to have people like her who've maintained their game
> account, not because of the game itself, but because of other
> players.

I am sure this sounds unbearably lame, but to me the players are
more important than the game.  Without players, for me there is no
game.  I've been mudding since 1993 and I don't really play single
player games at all.  I did buy Diablo, and it looked really pretty,
but there wasn't any real community, so it didn't hold my interest.
I can no more imagine playing a game with the goal of killing other
players than I can imagine waking up tomorrow as a man.  It is just
completely and utterly foreign to me.  As I suspect my view is to
people who enjoy PVP.  Although I know the mud a lot of the original
EQ designers came from, and there is a strong sense of community
there.  So I'm not particularly surprised by people maintaining
their game account because of the other players, and I doubt they
are either.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From philen at monkey.org  Fri Jul 26 02:16:12 2002
From: philen at monkey.org (Phillip Lenhardt)
Date: Fri Jul 26 02:16:12 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] TECH:
Message-ID: <mailman.24311.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, Jul 24, 2002 at 12:56:03PM -0700, Britt A. Green wrote:

> A friend and I are working on a small MUD as a way to teach
> ourselves more Python. We're kind of stuck and could use some
> guidance from the more knowledgeable members of this mail list! :)

The listing on Agora of mud-related Python projects is pretty
complete:

	http://agora.cubik.org/wiki/view/Main/PythonLanguage

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From damion at ninjaneering.com  Fri Jul 26 17:46:14 2002
From: damion at ninjaneering.com (Damion Schubert)
Date: Fri Jul 26 17:46:14 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Gossip, fiction and tactical lore
Message-ID: <mailman.24312.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

>From Matt Mihaly:
 
> I venture to suggest that our players in Achaea are more deeply
> emotionally involved in encounters like this than you find in a
> game where xp is ultra-important, despite the fact that death in
> Achaea doesn't actually cost you all that much. It is all about
> glory and shame, not whether some silly piece of data has been
> altered more or less. Glory and shame are -far- more powerful
> motivators.

I recently did an IRC chat where I espoused my opinion that player
stories are more important than character stories.

When designers think in terms of gripping fiction, they think in
terms of having a backstory that goes on for ages, is 10 layers
deep, is evident in books around the world, takes half the manual to
describe, etc, etc, etc.

However, while there are some people who actually read all of this
cruft we put out there, players have always seemed universally more
interested in stories about player interactions.  The king declared
war on the orcs?  Fascinating.  *yawn* Joe killed Steve?  Oh, dear.
What's Steve going to do?  Why'd Joe do it?  Steve was cybering
Joe's online girlfriend?  Who was really a guy?  Good stuff!

Okay, so Gossip is powerful.  Got that.  But it goes a layer deeper
than that.  Players also describe game interactions to each other in
player-terms and not fictional terms.  We hear it all the time.
Players don't say "I was greviously wounded when I expelled the last
of my spiritual energy."  They say, "Wow, that was close!  I was
down to 3 hit points, and I thought I was doomed, when I remembered
I had enough mana points to cast Delayed Blast Fireball!  This
killed the main guy, but aggroed his friends..."

Why do people fall back on describing the game from the player
perspective (in what I'll call 'tactical lore') instead of character
perspective?  Lots of reasons that have surprisingly little to do
with a lack of imagination.  First off, you need to use player terms
to teach another player and teach these tactics.  Trust me, when
you're teaching a newbie how to kill monsters in EverQuest, you want
to be sure he's crystal clear on what it means to 'aggro' a monster
- and you don't want that lost in flowery rhetoric.

Secondly, you need it for bragging rights.  "Greviously wounded"
could be any level of pain.  "3 hit points" - now, that was a close
call!  No doubt about it!

So is this a bad thing?  I would vote 'no'.  In fact, I would vote
that you want your gameplay mechanisms to be so much fun that
sharing tactical lore is incredibly interesting in its own right.
Consider if you heard someone describing a chess match or a Magic
the Gathering hand in fictional terms only.  You'd think he was daft
and, what's more, you might even think that he was so wrapped up in
telling a fancy story that he didn't notice how ingenious inspired
and imaginative the play he witnessed actually was!
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 26 18:00:48 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 26 18:00:48 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24313.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 szii at sziisoft.com wrote:

> You couldn't get good at CS quickly...so you quit.  To most
> pk-types I know, that's kinda funny. *shrug* We don't really care
> whether you play or not, except that you're missing out on a great
> game once you achieve a certain level of play...regardless of the
> arena.  I could state that 'Go' is hard, too.  It's an immensely
> challenging game that you never really can master.  But once you
> get a feel for it, it's great.

In Go and Chess and other games like that, you usually aren't
playing against other masters, but when you play CS or PK in many
games, you end up stuck against people with FAR more experience than
you. If you had to play a Master every time you started playing
chess, I bet it'd become unentertaining. Challenge is good. Feeling
as if you are screwed from the start is not fun.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 26 18:19:25 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 26 18:19:25 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24314.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Amanda Walker wrote:

> I've been involved with the SCA for over 20 years, though not with
> fighting except as a spectator.  This influenced my suggestions a
> few months ago that combat could be treated more like "fighting
> games", where there are no levels at all--the outcome depends on
> the actual skill of the player, not the character.
 
> It would be pleasant to find an MMO game where the ability to
> enjoy game content depended more on actual skill than on punching
> an xp time clock.

There are MUDs that work alone these lines, you know. My company's,
Achaea and Aetolia, for instance, and we're not alone.

It's not entirely skill, of course, because there ARE levels, but
they aren't particularly important. Most of the best fighters aren't
ultra-high level anyway, because if you fight a lot, you're
inevitably going to die with some frequency. You do need to build up
your skill tree some, and you can buy items that give you reasonably
minor advantages (for instance, for ~US$250 you can get a sword
whose speed, to-hit, and damage stats are about 10% better than the
average sword, and won't decay.

But all in all, what's coming from the player is the most important
factor in success in our combat. We have had players who have spent
thousands of dollars, gotten to be reasonably high level (though
it's just not that important. Gives small incremental advantages.),
and are still incompetent combatants. (I'm talking PvP combat
here. Our PvE combat is underdeveloped and isn't the focus.) I don't
know any graphical MUDs that work like this, but if this is what you
want, play Counterstrike, or maybe wait for the SOE product,
PlanetSide, which bills itself as a first-person shooter graphical
MUD.

And in MUDs with politics, skill is 90% of that part of the
game. Real idiots have a hard time staying in office. You see this
in probably more games than you see skilled combat in, including
Dark Ages, Achaea, Aetolia, and many more. Sure, I've seen people
buying other people's votes for some desired office in a guild or
city-state before, but those people generally don't successfully
stay in office long, because they can't afford to keep buying the
voters indefinitely.

Anyway, there are games out there that have what you're looking for,
they're just not (yet) among the biggest releases.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 26 18:33:13 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 26 18:33:13 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24315.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sun, 21 Jul 2002, Derek Licciardi wrote:
> From: Matt Mihaly

>> This doesn't happen though. We'd be out of business if it
>> did. Granted, we're not subscription-based, but still, there's
>> not much of the "I lost, I quit." phenomenon that I've noticed.
 
> I am glad to hear that someone in the MUD community has seen this.
> The only question I have is that if you take your experience and
> scale it by a factor of 100 or 1000 subscribers, will it still
> hold true.  The threads in the article seemed to not think so and
> I think we have a law about the maturity of players as scale
> increases or something like that.

Well, it's really more like a factor of 10, because you're dealing
with things on the scope of an individual game world. (Achaea peaks
260 online right now, so that works out to roughly the daily peak on
graphical 'shards.') Granted, you have to ensure there's enough of
an audience to support multiple worlds.
 
>> Those assessments are flat-out wrong. These are not new idea and
>> Achaea is not revolutionary in focusing on these aspects of the
>> player experience.  These sort of communities have existed in
>> MUDs for over a decade. I'm not sure what the fuss is about.

> I think the assessment becomes more valid with scale.  Perhaps you
> are sitting on the ceiling of that scale with a fairly large
> successful MUD.  Perhaps not.  I'd wonder if the experience would
> hold true with scale.

I can't remember the names, but don't some of the larger Korean
graphical MUDs have group PvP wars? I don't think it's really been
tried to a significant extent in the large American market yet, but
it does work on a smaller scale. I guess from my point of view, the
"It won't work." perspective is based on fairly off-the-cuff
speculation, and I'd prefer to believe it can be scaled (and maybe
has. Can anyone talk knowledgeably about how the Korean games handle
this at a larger scale? Jake? David?) and someone will manage to
implement it at some point on a larger scale in the American market.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 26 18:36:21 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 26 18:36:21 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24316.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Vincent Archer wrote:
> According to Matt Mihaly:
 
>> mean when they say something is "perfectly balance." Perfectly
>> balanced from what perspective? There's no way, even in theory,
>> to take a system with multiple elements and make it perfectly
>> balanced in everybody's eyes, because everybody weights every
>> element differently.

> My own definition of a system that is not balanced is when
> everybody including the interested parties agree that either X is
> better than everyone else, or Y is worse than everyone else.
 
> If John says Mages are the own, and Smith says they're losers,
> it's ok.  When they both say the same thing, then you have a
> balance problem.

But when you have 200,000 customers, you can be guaranteed that
every interested party will never agree on anything.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 26 18:54:40 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 26 18:54:40 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24317.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On 24 Jul 2002, Sasha Hart wrote:
> [Matt Mihaly on players in positions of in-game power]
 
>> Bad why? It works in gameplay (see Achaea/Aetolia for instance),
>> so is the objection a moral/ethical one?

> In light of Matt's extreme sensitivity and delicacy, I won't give
> details, but I had an incredibly annoying time on Achaea the last
> time I logged on for exactly this reason - some dopey player had
> declared that an activity which used to be actively encouraged at
> the city level was now subject to harsh punishments, but had
> neglected to make this obvious anywhere. I didn't stick around
> very long when I figured it out, because the player run
> governments in Achaea can make in-game life lose a lot of its
> savor when they've a mind to. Not that I was particularly
> dedicated to the game at that point anyway.

Well, that's fair enough, though I'd appreciate it if you'd drop the
slander, as neither you nor I should be the subject of anything
discussed here, but rather the ideas we're speaking about. In any
case, yes, this happens. You break some eggs to make an omlette. I'm
not claiming that nobody is made unhappy by our political systems,
because they CAN make your life miserable, but they are one thing
that most of our long-time players love, and they're something that
lets us sit in our little profitable niche relatively safe from
Everquest and company.

My annoyance, by the way, isn't born out of delicacy, but
frustration, because I so often see things speculated on here when
they've already been done, usually in multiple places (I see it more
often from people who didn't start playing MUDs until the big
graphical ones came out. You should check out text MUDs even if for
the sake of just understanding where the graphical MUDs evolved
from. That's the generic 'you' not actually you, Sasha.)

> That said, I have been spending every hour of my spare time lately
> hacking a game with a core premise of players having actual power
> over the world. I think it's a GREAT idea. But really, it's quite
> clear that players CAN wreck each other's fun left and right IF
> they get the wrong kind of tools. Appeal to "democracy" doesn't
> help if the elected official is a putz, or if the majority is
> actually made up of neo-nazis, or if people get bored and use the
> enforcement of harsh laws as a kind of sanctioned griefing. If
> giving players the tools to enact a totally annoying tyranny of
> the majority is the tenor of "democracy" -- sign up me as a
> monarchist.

Sure, and this also happens. I'll use details as you're familiar
with the game to some extent. Look at Hashan. That city's government
has been completely dominated by Twilight (God of Darkness) or his
minions for real-life years. Even when his worshippers were kicked
out of the other city governments during a period of McCarthy-like
paranoia, they maintained their hold on Hashan. If you don't like
Twilight, or agree with the tenets of his Order, then Hashan can be
a pretty miserable place to be a citizen, as I understand it, and if
you're an apprentice in one of their guilds, and thus can't quit the
guild without penalty, it can be somewhat worse than miserable. If
you speak out against Twilight, you'll be punished and most of the
city will support it.

Now, I admit, I like this because I just think it's really really
cool that the political life in each city has evolved so
differently, which I know doesn't help the player who wants to live
his life without interference by other players, or the player who
was abused by some functionary.
 
> Are people having fun on Achaea? Yes, all over the place. Is
> Achaea still a good and interesting game? Substantially.  Is it
> about ethics or morals? Not necessarily, but if I had invested
> $1000+ in the game like some people... I might have seen it
> differently.  As soon as pay enters in, you ride a fine line - if
> not of obligation, then of player-perceived implicit contracts
> with regard to service. Which you are (sort of) free to
> disregard...

You know, I'm not sure I'd agree that it's not about ethics or
morals. I think it's an excellent example of the subjectivity of
ethics and morality, in fact. Each city government has a distinct
ethical outlook and often, within the city, competing variations on
that outlook. Take the conflicts Ashtan has had with its self-given
label, "City of Freedom" and some of its actions, such as regularly
killing orphaned children for their pineal glands, or the strife
surrounding the placement of Sartan's shrines in the city. There was
legitimately interesting and passionate argument/discussion within
the city over freedom of religion vs. the safety of
citizens. Shallam and the Church have similar discussions about the
nature of Good vs. Evil, and their obligations thereby.

Of course, the high-minded discussions don't always translate
directly into policy, and without the decades or centuries of
institution-building to lend a stable culture that all the
participants can draw from, policies fluctuate far more, and the
implementation of those policies may be erratic, a lot like a new
government in a third world country.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 26 19:00:31 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 26 19:00:31 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24318.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Dave Rickey wrote:
 
> It's pretty simple.  Players need to be able to lose, and still
> have fun.  Too often, in the name of giving the winners "real
> victory" the losers are left with nothing, and therefore no reason
> to continue playing.  This was the fundamental problem with 10Six:
> New territory became playable only when a newbie entered the game
> and was utterly destroyed.  Eating your young is rarely a
> successful survival strategy.

I agree. Here's a question for you: Do you think your PvP areas in
DAoC will still be important to the playerbase in 5 years? Since
they don't have a large effect on the game if you choose to ignore
them, do you think players will get bored by the PvP that can be
labeled meaningless (that's not a criticism from me), or will the
sheer thrill of beating on other people's characters be enough?

--matt


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 26 19:11:01 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 26 19:11:01 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24319.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:
> Matt Mihaly writes:

>> Probably not, but MUDs aren't amusement parks either. The
>> defining aspect of a MUD is that you're playing with other
>> players, not merely playing at the same time as other players
>> (such as in an amusement park), and more to the point, you're
>> playing with other players who remain semi-consistent, such that
>> you can develop relationships with them.

> I suppose I was offering Disneyland as the ultimate in ensuring
> that entertainment would be found, precisely because we barely
> rely on the people that we're with in order to find entertainment
> (I'm thinking in terms of the people I'm with, not particularly
> the people that are around me).  The more we introduce a
> dependency on other players for our entertainment, the greater the
> chance that the entertainment devolves into random chance instead
> of structured encounters.

Hmm, yeah, I hadn't considered the fact that you can go through the
park with a group of people. But here's a question: Given that you
are quite into the idea of MUDs with a more mass-market, and with a
more casual gameplay style, do you think people will actually group
together online to run through this game?

I noticed on Warcraft III on Battle.net that the larger the group,
the faster my side loses. We're all terrible at it, but manage to
get online together because we all 'hang out' in Achaea. Any group
above 2 people on the enemy side, however, seems to be composed
entirely of highly-skilled teenagers with names like HappiMooCow or
mo_murdah. It leads me to speculate that the only people who are
actually getting together in groups online, at established times to
participate together, are hardcore gamers. Being a casual gamer
would seem to preclude setting yourself a gaming schedule.
 
> The observation about consistent contact definitely would have an
> impact on avoiding purely random chance, but I wonder how far away
> from random things would go.  Typically, a group of enthusiasts in
> any field require leaders to keep an organization, well,
> organized.  I put this onus on the game publisher, not on the
> players themselves.  So I look to Disney's parks as a simple model
> of an entertainment service provider.  Perhaps I should be citing
> Westworld.

Right, I see what you're saying. We actually do this to some extent,
insofar as our admins are also in-role Gods that regularly interact
with players, patron various organizations (city-states, guilds,
etc) and provide guidance and that kind of thing. I don't think the
intensity of our God-mortal interaction would scale very well
though, because the extra layers of management you'd need to support
this kind of highly-empowered admin structure would be extremely
expensive. (I don't think using volunteers with the kind of power
ours have would work well at scale either.)

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Fri Jul 26 19:25:41 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Fri Jul 26 19:25:41 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] java clients
Message-ID: <mailman.24320.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

There was a thread recently (a month or two ago? I was unable to
locate it with a quick archive search.) talking about java clients
for text MUDs and complaining about the general lack of ability to
resize the window, change the size of the font, etc. We were curious
about whether there was any real reason you couldn't do this, so
went ahead and did it. You can check out our new java client at
www.achaea.com/javaclient/play.html. What you see is pretty much
what you get, though if you login with a character (or create one),
you'll get health, mana, endurance, and willpower status bars. It's
got a nice feeling when using it, and has key-binding and variable
substitution capability, window and font resizing, different
backgrounds, etc. That's the good news.

The bad news was that I should have listened to something
Christopher Allen told me. He said they (Skotos) had investigated
expanding a java client they have for more general use, but ran into
a lot of problems with Java, and man was he right. We have been
unable, for instance, to enable any sort of copying from the output
window into a clipboard, and are also unable to log anything to the
player's computer. This inability alone basically renders Java
unsuitable for a full-featured text MUD client. (And while I'm not
much of a programmer, if any of you clever programmers out there
have figured out good work-arounds for this, I'd love to hear them.)

--matt


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From talien at toast.net  Fri Jul 26 20:01:20 2002
From: talien at toast.net (Michael Tresca)
Date: Fri Jul 26 20:01:20 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24321.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Sasha Hart posted on Wednesday, July 24, 2002 7:29 AM

> Appeal to "democracy" doesn't help if the elected official is a
> putz, or if the majority is actually made up of neo-nazis, or if
> people get bored and use the enforcement of harsh laws as a kind
> of sanctioned griefing. If giving players the tools to enact a
> totally annoying tyranny of the majority is the tenor of
> "democracy" -- sign up me as a monarchist.

This is consistent with my experiences as Mayor on BatMUD.  The
resident group at the time had a manifest interest in not being
governed, even though I was attempting to merely keep the game's
"Wild West" code of rules.  The gamers who felt they "owned" the
game disagreed with any sort of law whatsoever.

Eventually, one of the lead members of the group became Mayor and
nullified the role.  In other words, he became Mayor only so no one
else could.

This goes back to the overall gaming culture of a MUD.  You can make
all the laws you want.  If a dominant group determines a certain
style of play, you cannot change it short of removing them from the
game.  Failure to closely monitor a game's initial playerbase
atmosphere runs the risk of a griefer/GOPer,
only-the-strongest-survive game that is extremely unfriendly to
newbies.  Which is fine if that's what you wanted, not so fine if
you wanted to let a game naturally evolve -- it doesn't.  Games that
involve violence suffer a form of personality entropy that
eventually degrades to outright PK.

Mike "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org/talien


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ChristopherA at skotos.net  Sat Jul 27 12:04:52 2002
From: ChristopherA at skotos.net (Christopher Allen)
Date: Sat Jul 27 12:04:52 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24322.1356733408.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

"Marian Griffith" <gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:

> Mainly I am curious to know how the experience of actual fencing
> (which I have done only twice) can be translated to muds. For me
> the actual experience is *vastly* different from watching messages
> scroll by..
 
>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll misses you
>   You hit the ugly troll
>   The ugly troll barely scratches you
>   ... and so on.
 
> From what I understand fencing is more about blocking your oppo-
> nent, and moving him into a position where you can strike, and I
> wonder if that can be done in a mud. It would slow down the pace
> but I can not help but think that it would be, in the end, more
> entertaining. And on a graphical mud, where you can actually see
> your opponent, it would look and work even better I think.

You might want to take a look at Marrach's fencing system (trial
accounts are free) -- it is quite sophisicated and outputs very good
prose. It is based on real documents on fencing, and some input from
fencers after it was released.

Basically it is what I call an 'n-dimensional ro-cham-bo' -- each
attack maneuver is paired against a defensive manever, and then
there are 10 possible prose outcomes, from good for attacker to good
for the defender, based on their relative skill and some
chance. Also, we take some advantage of the Skotos proximity system,
where players can approach and retreat from various objects and
people inside a room.

Though our prose is excellent, we've found one of the limitation is
the exponential growth of prose outcomes. For each new manuever we
add, we have to write entries for every existing manuever.

The current limited number of manuevers mean that the output is
somewhat repetive. To quote one of our players, Martel: "The Marrach
system isn't bad for the first dozen duels.  But after a thousand,
its just the same text you've seen before.  You skim the text to see
what's happening, or you recognize the length of the response and
that tells you what it says. Combat tends to be either too terse (in
other games) or too spammy (Marrach).  Finding a balance that is
still interesting to read after a year would be very very hard."

We are working on some ideas on how to prune this exponential growth
of outcomes somehow, but have not come up with a satisfactory answer
that gives as good prose as our existing system. As an alternative
we are also in the process of rewriting our fencing system so that
our players volunteers can build new prose for maneuvers -- at this
point, they understand the fencing system better then we do!

I'll enclose a brief log of a real Marrach duel, some documents
written by our players on fencing, as well as some stuff on the
culture of Code Duello in Marrach.

-- Christopher Allen

------------------------------------------------------------------------
.. Christopher Allen                                 Skotos Tech Inc. ..
..                           1512 Walnut St., Berkeley, CA 94709-1513 ..
.. <http://www.skotos.net>           o510/647-2760x202  f510/647-2761 ..

=====================

A short duel:

  Dame Catharsis bows to you easily.
  Dame Catharsis has challenged you to a duel.
  Type "duel Dame Catharsis" to accept this duel.
  
  You smile at Dame Catharsis, "Alrik has worked with me a bit on my 
  thrust."
  You accept the challenge from Dame Catharsis.
  
  Dame Catharsis slides into a guarding stance.
  You shift into the guard stance.
  
  Dame Catharsis chuckles, "I've noticed..."
  
  You salute Dame Catharsis.
  Dame Catharsis salutes you.
  
  You shift into the guard stance.
  Dame Catharsis shifts into a guarding stance.
  
  With a thrust, you nearly stab Dame Catharsis, who desparately parries 
  from guard.
  
  Dame Catharsis eyes your steel practice sword warily.
  
  You perform an elegant deflection of Dame Catharsis' swing.
  You recover from your attacking.
  
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You drop into the guard stance.
  Dame Catharsis drops into a guarding stance.
  
  You attack Dame Catharsis -- she parries from guard.
  Your blades ring as your attacks are parried.
  You recover from your attacking.
  
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You drop into the guard stance.
  You feint and attack Dame Catharsis; she parries while pulling back her 
  blade.
  
  Dame Catharsis makes a careful attack on you, which you barely succeed 
  in parrying.
  
  You recover from your attacking.
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You shift into the guard stance.
  
  Dame Catharsis moves from the center of the ballroom to you.
  Dame Catharsis shifts into a guarding stance.
  Dame Catharsis makes a feint and cuts at you -- you parry.
  
  Dame Catharsis wildly parries your sword, while launching an attack of 
  her own - which you effortlessly parry.
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You recover from your attacking.
  
  Dame Catharsis shifts into a guarding stance.
  You drop into the guard stance.
  
  >From guard, Dame Catharsis easily parries your uncertain feint and 
  thrust.
  
  Dame Catharsis slides.
  Dame Catharsis makes a careful slice at you, which you barely parry.
  
  You recover from your attacking.
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You shift into the guard stance.
  Dame Catharsis drops into a guarding stance.
  
  Your swords ring as you barely parry Dame Catharsis' thrust.
  You begin resting.
  
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You drop into the guard stance.
  Your swords ring as you barely parry Dame Catharsis' thrust.
  
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  Dame Catharsis nods approvingly.
  Dame Catharsis slides into a guarding stance.
  
  You attack Dame Catharsis -- she parries from guard.
  
  Dame Catharsis makes a quick slash at you, which you barely succeed in 
  parrying.
  
  You recover from your attacking.
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  Dame Catharsis slides into a guarding stance.
  
  Even as you pull your blade back, you quickly parry one of Dame 
  Catharsis' thrusts.
  
  Dame Catharsis performs a practiced parry of your jab.
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You recover from your attacking.
  Dame Catharsis drops into a guarding stance.
  
  You parry a cut made by Dame Catharsis while you are pulling back your 
  sword.
  
  You begin resting.
  
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  You shift into the guard stance.
  
  Dame Catharsis drops into a guarding stance.
  Dame Catharsis makes a thrust at you -- you parry.
  
  Dame Catharsis makes an elegant deflection of your sword.
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You recover from your attacking.
  Dame Catharsis drops into a guarding stance.
  
  Even as you pull your blade back, you quickly parry one of Dame 
  Catharsis' jab -- ignoring her feint.
  
  Dame Catharsis makes a practiced deflection of your attack.
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You recover from your attacking.
  Dame Catharsis slides into a guarding stance.
  
  Dame Catharsis frowns.
  
  You parry a cut made by Dame Catharsis while you are pulling back your 
  sword.
  You begin resting.
  
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You shift into the guard stance.
  Dame Catharsis slides into a guarding stance.
  
  Dame Catharsis begins to rest.
  Dame Catharsis drops into a guarding stance.
  
  You attack Dame Catharsis -- she parries from guard.
  
  Dame Catharsis makes a strong slice at you, which you barely parry.
  
  You recover from your attacking.
  You shift into the guard stance.
  
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  Even as she pulls her sword back, Dame Catharsis quickly parries your 
  attack -- ignoring your feint.
  Dame Catharsis drops into a guarding stance.
  
  You and Dame Catharsis make quick parries of each other's attacks.
  You recover from your attacking.
  
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You shift into the guard stance.
  You quickly parry Dame Catharsis' thrust.
  You begin resting.
  
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  
  You take up the guard stance.
  You quickly parry Dame Catharsis' thrust.
  
  Dame Catharsis recovers from her attacking.
  Dame Catharsis moves from Darvius to the center of the ballroom.
  
  Your swords clash as your attack on the advancing Dame Catharsis is 
  parried.
  
  Dame Catharsis shifts into a guarding stance.
  Dame Catharsis easily avoids your attack and cuts you with her own 
  sword.
  
  Dame Catharsis and you stop dueling. Darvius has been declared the 
  loser.
  
  Dame Catharsis bows to you elegantly.
  Dame Catharsis smiles at you warmly, "Excellent!"
  
  You bow to Dame Catharsis formally.
  

=====================

> read swordplay book's cover
Upon the cover of the book is written:

ART OF THE BLADE


> read swordplay book's first page
Upon the first page of the book is written:

ART OF THE BLADE
By ser Daris

I base my system partly on the instruction I received long ago from Lord 
Bernier, and partly on certain lucid works treating on combat and 
swordplay. To the authors of those works, to Lord Bernier, and to my 
many opponents since then, I give thanks for both skill and insight.


> read swordplay book's 2nd page
Upon the second page of the book is written:

THE SWORD

The sword consists of two principal parts - the blade and the hilt.

The Hilt: The hilt of a sword consists, for simplicity, of everything 
not part of the blade forward of the guard. A hilt usually consists of a 
guard, a grip, and a pommel.

The Grip: The handle by which the weapon is held, with the strong hand. 
Usually the grip is made of wood, bone, metal or ivory with leather, 
wire or cord wrapped around it; it is built around the tang, a 
continuation of the blade itself. Wood and horn are preferred for the 
body of the grip, as they absorb some of the shock of combat.

The Pommel: At the extreme end of the sword is the pommel. This item, 
typically a finial, disk or knob of steel, is of sufficient size and 
weight to balance the sword; the tang is welded, bolted or otherwise 
securely fasted to it. It also has minor functions: to protect the 
smaller fingers, to secure the fingers on the grip, and to provide a 
striking surface for some of the more rowdy bludgeoning blows. 

The Guard: This portion of the weapon takes many forms, from a brief 
disc barely larger than the blade itself, to complicated structures or 
shells surrounding the hand and connecting to the pommel. These 
structures have their root at the joint between the grip and the blade. 
The guard is often the most easily discerned difference between various 
types of swords. The weapon used for military purposes within the castle 
has a cross-bar blade, also known as a quillon; with sometimes a few 
smaller curled bars to protect the grip.



> read swordplay book's 3rd page
Upon the third page of the book is written:

The Blade: The blade carries the cutting edge or edges (if any) of the 
sword and serves to move the point to hit the opponent. The blade as a 
worked object is divided into three parts: the tang, which fits within 
the hilt; the forte, the half of the visible blade closest to the guard, 
and the strongest point of the blade; and the foible, the remaining half 
of the visible blade at the outer end, and the weakest section. The 
edges of older swords will be parallel; our more modern weapons taper 
slightly from the ricasso to the point. Some swords are sharpened 
completely, partially or not at all on one or both edges; for a practice 
sword the edges of the blade are neither tapered nor sharpened. Blades 
may bear one or more fullers (grooves) on each face, or they may have 
ridges. At the base of the blade, where it meets the hilt, there is 
usually a short section with an unsharpened - in fact, square - edge: 
the ricasso. The makers mark is usually inscribed or engraved here.

The Point: This is of course located at the far end of the blade, on the 
foible. In a practice or rebated sword the blade is blunted or bent back 
at the very end, or carries a knob.


> read swordplay book's 4th page
Upon the fourth page of the book is written:

Guard [command: guard]

A proper guard position is the root of all proper swordplay. Care must 
be taken not to confuse the term with parry, a distinct defensive motion 
for the purpose of stopping a cut or thrust. The guard position defends 
your strong side from attack and provides the readiest place for a 
switch to any other defensive position or to an attack. 

To take the guard position begin with the feet lined up, about shoulder-
length apart with front foot pointing towards the opponent and the rear 
foot perpendicular to the front foot. Bend at the knees, in a half-
crouch. The torso should remain straight; you should not lean forward, 
back or to either side. Bend the weapon arm at the elbow. The distance 
between the elbow and your body should be one hand length. The 
traditional on guard calls for the blade to be in position for the sixte 
parry. Your strong arm should be positioned so that your blade will 
block an attack to your weapon side from hitting your body. Put your 
weak hand at your hip, or behind your back, or behind the head; unless 
you are armored, or equipped with, and skilled with, some defensive 
weapon such as a shield, cloak or dagger. A common flaw of a poor 
swordsman, experienced or otherwise, is a poorly-learned guard position.

Holding the Sword

The sword is held lightly but firmly with the thumb along the back of 
the grip, and the fingers closed round it so that the center knuckles 
are in line with the edge of the blade. At times the thumb may be 
shifted to encircle the grip, similarly to the fingers, to relieve the 
hand.


> read swordplay book's 5th page
Upon the fifth page of the book is written:

Defense [command: recover]

The parry is a movement of the blade that prevents the opponent's blade 
from hitting your target.

You can be attacked in three basic areas: your guard side, your flank 
side or your head. Accordingly, there are three main parries used in 
sword, one for each attack you need to defend against. The guard parry 
(known as the sixte) has your arm in the guard position with the 
knuckles facing outward and the blade angled at 45 degrees from your 
hand. The blade should be in position to block an incoming blow from 
that angle. When you are in guard this is the parry you should use. The 
flank parry is made by beginning with a guard parry and bending your 
hand at the wrist and your arm at the elbow. Your arm should be across 
your body. Make the head parry by raising your weapon hand bent at the 
elbow with the blade almost horizontal right above your head about a 
foot in front of your face. Check all your parries by making sure an 
attack to that side cannot land. 

[note that the recover command is automatically part of the attacks, and 
thus the command is not often employed in actual play; however, training 
in this important skill will improve a swordsmans defense ability.]


> read swordplay book's 6th page
Upon the sixth page of the book is written:

The Dodge [command: dodge]

Swordsmen in desperate straits may wish to employ any of the variety of 
dodges and tricks which are known of. Of course, one can only rarely 
attack while engaged in a dodge; but sometimes this tactic is called 
for.


> read swordplay book's 7th page
Upon the seventh page of the book is written:

The Rest [command: rest]

In duels of some duration, or when the opponent is out of reach, the 
resting guard may prove useful when recovering ones stamina. Lower the 
sword hand until the pommel rests on the thigh about six or eight inches 
above the knee.

[note also the command: health]


> read swordplay book's 8th page
Upon the eighth page of the book is written:

Advance & Retire [commands: advance, retire]

If guard is the root of swordplay, the advance and the retire are the 
main branches of movement. A well executed advance will press your 
attack against your opponent and force them to react rather then lead, 
and the best defense against this is a careful retreat. 

To execute an advance, begin by keeping your body in on guard position. 
Lift the front foot, toe first, then heel, and put it down one step 
forward, heel first and then toe. Your upper body should remain still. 
Next, you should pick up your back foot and place it so that you are 
again in on guard position. Bring your upper torso forward with your 
back foot. 

Retire is essentially like the advance in reverse. Move your feet like 
in the advance except in the reverse direction and order. Begin by 
moving your back foot backwards, and then bring back your torso and 
front foot (toes picked up first, heel put down first. One must conduct 
a proper retire in order to gain the distance for conducting some 
maneuvers, such as the lunge.

In both the advance and retire, it is important to keep the upper torso 
perfectly straight. Also make sure that your heels remain lined up and 
your feet perpendicular. Many beginners have a tendency to let their 
feet drift out of line, watch this carefully. 

To practice the advance and retire, go to a place where there is a 
straight line on the ground, which you can follow. Advance or retreat 
along that line over and over again. You should get to the point where 
you don't need to look at the line to keep going straight.


> read swordplay book's 9th page
Upon the ninth page of the book is written:

The Thrust [command: thrust, jab]

The thrust is the quickest way to get close to your opponent and allows 
you to move into a defensive position quickly if your attack does not 
land. For the skilled swordsman, the thrust is the best form of attack, 
speedy and safe. 

To thrust, begin in an on guard position. There are two parts to the 
thrust: the attack and the recovery. The attack delivers the blade to 
your opponent, and the recovery will bring you back to the guard 
position. To begin the attack, extend your arm forward pointing towards 
the center of your opponent's chest. Finish by throwing out your front 
leg forward so that your knee is at a right angle and when you look 
down, your leg eclipses your foot. Your back foot should remain firmly 
planted. Many swordsmen prefer to throw their weak arm out behind them 
to help channel their momentum into the lunge; this is a matter of 
preference. 

The recovery is the simple act of returning to on guard position. Pull 
back your leg, bringing your torso back, but leave your arm extended. It 
will make it easier for you to move to a parry (described below). This 
whole lunge, the attack and the recovery, should be one continuous, 
swift movement. If there is a pause or a break between movements you 
will open yourself to attack.


> read swordplay book's 10th page
Upon the tenth page of the book is written:

The Slash [command: slash, cut]

The slash, an attack performed with the edge of the blade, is not so 
quickly performed as the thrust; nor is it as safe for the swordsman. 
However, for a swordsman of superior strength, or a desperate one, this 
attack may prove useful, as it may can quickly overcome an opponent. 

To slash, begin in an on guard position. Slashes may be made vertically, 
horizontally upwards or downwards, or horizontally. The common slash, 
downward horizontally from your strong side, is made as follows: extend 
the sword arm somewhat, the hand to be in quarte, and the point a little 
raised, the hilt of the sword being about the height of the chin, and 
the edge directed obliquely downwards towards your weak side. Then, drop 
the point diagonally downwards from your strong side to your weak side, 
taking care that the edge leads during the passage of the blade along 
the line on the target; then allow the wrist to revolve so as to bring 
the thumb downwards, and the back of the hand and the flat of the blade 
opposite your weak side, and cause the sword to describe a complete 
circle, thus bringing it again to the position of guard. These movements 
are carried out continuously, and when done well is a useful tool of the 
swordsman.


> read swordplay book's 11th page
Upon the eleventh page of the book is written:

Advanced Attacks: The Feint [command: feint]

Many times a thrust or lunge attack will not be enough to strike your 
opponent. They only have to move their blade a short distance to execute 
a parry while the point of your sword needs to travel a much greater 
distance before that parry can be made. Because of this compound attacks 
were created. These are attacks of at least two parts that make it 
harder for your opponent to parry. The most common compound attack is 
the feint attack. To perform a feint, extend your point towards one side 
of your opponent, and then switch your line to the other side in the 
middle of the lunge. If your feint was convincing, then your opponent 
will try to parry it as if it were an attack. When you attack to their 
other side, they will have to work harder to parry it. You can feint 
many times with one action. You perform an attack, starting with your 
blade towards one line on the advance, then another at the beginning of 
the thrust and finishing with a different line. If you can do it well, 
the opponent will have no idea where to parry.


> read swordplay book's 12th page
Upon the twelfth page of the book is written:

Advanced Attacks: The Lunge [command: lunge]

The lunge is a combination move beginning with an advance and ending 
with a thrust as the attack; two of the most basic moves in swordplay. 
But the advance lunge itself is so much more than basic; it is a 
distance gaining move and powerful attack, and a strategy to get the 
advantage of an opponent. It can lend great power to quick movement. 
Many complex bladework moves can be executed during the advancing lunge 
such as the pris de fer (taking of the iron), a move that shows total 
control of the situation and beautiful finesse of movement. In short, 
the advance lunge can stand for everything that is beautiful about the 
art of the sword. 

To conduct a lunge, one must first gain the proper distance from ones 
opponent; the opponent might first retreat, or the swordsman may retire 
to the correct measure.


> read swordplay book's 13th page
Upon the thirteenth page of the book is written:

Advanced Attacks: The Slip [command: slip]

The slip is a very sophisticated combination attack, in which the 
swordsman dodges aside, defending against the opponent's blade, and 
makes a thrust. The slip is somewhat slow to recover from -- a period of 
great danger. Few novices at swordplay can succeed in a slip; but for 
the skilled, it is a powerful tool.


> read swordplay book's 14th page
Upon the fourteenth page of the book is written:

Advance: a movement forward by step, cross, or balestra. 
Attack: the initial offensive action made by extending the sword arm and 
continuously threatening the opponent. 
Attack au Fer: an attack that is prepared by deflecting the opponent's 
blade, e.g. beat, froissement, pressure. 
Balestra: a forward hop or jump, typically followed by an attack such as 
a lunge or fleche. 
Beat: an attempt to knock the opponent's blade aside or out of line by 
using one's foible against the opponent's foible. 
Bind: an action in which the opponent's blade is forced into the 
diagonally opposite line. 
Bout: swordplay practice at which the score is kept; or, a single 
conversation without a wound being inflicted. 
Broadsword: an older military sword; any straight-bladed, double-edged, 
single-handed cutting sword. 
Broken Time: a sudden change in the tempo of one swordsman's actions, 
used to fool the opponent into responding at the wrong time. 
Button: the blunted tip on the end of some practice swords. 
Change of Engagement: engagement of the opponent's blade in the opposite 
line. 
Compound: also composed; an attack or riposte incorporating one or more 
feints to the opposite line that the action finishes in. 
Conversation: the back-and-forth play of the blades in a bout, composed 
of phrases punctuated by gaps of no blade action. 
Counter-attack: an attack made against the right-of-way, or in response 
to the opponent's attack. 
Counter-disengage: a disengage in the opposite direction, to deceive the 
counter-parry. 
Counter-parry: a parry made in the opposite line to the attack; i.e. the 
defender first comes around to the opposite side of the opponent's 
blade. 
Counter-riposte: an attack that follows a parry of the opponent's 
riposte. 
Counter-time: an attack that responds to the opponent's counter-attack, 
typically a riposte following the parry of the counter-attack. 
Coupe': also cut-over; an attack or deception that passes around the 
opponent's tip. 
Croise: also semi-bind; an action in which the opponent's blade is 
forced into the high or low line on the same side. 
Cross: an advance or retreat by crossing one leg over the other; also 
either a forward cross or backwards cross. 
Cut: an attack made with a chopping motion of the blade, landing with 
the edge or point. 
Deception: avoidance of an attempt to engage the blades; see disengage, 
coupe' 
Derobement: deception of the attack au fer or prise de fer. 
Direct: an attack or riposte that finishes in the same line in which it 
was formed, with no feints out of that line. 
Disengage: a circular movement of the blade that deceives the opponent's 
parry, removes the blades from engagement, or changes the line of 
engagement. 
Displacement: moving the target to avoid an attack; dodging. 
Double': an attack or riposte that describes a complete circle around 
the opponent's blade, and finishes in the opposite line. 
Dry: a bout with practice weapons, as opposed to wet, a bout or duel of 
where there is risk of blood. 
Engagement: when the blades are in contact with each other, e.g. during 
a parry, attack au fer, prise de fer, or graze. 
En Garde: also on guard; the basic position; the stance that swordsmen 
assume when preparing to engage; the guard position subsequent to the 
salute. 
Envelopment: an engagement that sweeps the opponent's blade through a 
full circle. 
False: an action that is intended to fail, but draw a predicted reaction 
from the opponent; also, the back edge of a blade with only one sharp 
edge. 
Feint: attacking into one line with the intention of switching to 
another line before the attack is completed. 
Finta in tempo: lit. "feint in time"; a feint of counter-attack that 
draws a counter-time parry, which is deceived. 
Fleche: lit. "arrow"; an attack in which the aggressor leaps off his 
leading foot, attempts to make the hit, and then passes the opponent at 
a run.


> read swordplay book's 15th page
Upon the fifteenth page of the book is written:

Flying Parry or Riposte: a parry with a backwards glide and riposte by 
cut-over. 
Foible: the upper, weaker part of the blade. 
Forte: the lower, strong part of the blade. 
Froissement: an attack that displaces the opponent's blade by a strong 
grazing action. 
Graze: also glissade; an attack or feint that slides along the 
opponent's blade. 
Guard: the metal cup, ba, bars or bow that protects the hand from being 
hit. Also, the defensive position assumed when not attacking. 
Hilt: the handle of a sword, consisting of guard, grip, and pommel. 
In Quartata: an attack made with a quarter turn to the inside, 
concealing the front but exposing the back. 
In Time: when a stop-hit arrives at least one time before the original 
attack. 
Indirect: an attack or riposte that finishes in the opposite line to 
which it was formed, by means of a disengage or coupe'. 
Insistence: forcing an attack through the parry. 
Interception: a counter-attack that intercepts and checks an indirect 
attack or other disengagement. 
Invitation: a line that is intentionally left open to encourage the 
opponent to attack. 
Line: the main direction of an attack (e.g., high/low, inside/outside), 
often equated to the parry that must be made to deflect the attack; also 
point in line. 
Longsword: the ordinary military and duelling weapon of the castle, with 
a tapering double-edged blade useable for both cut and thrust work; 
normally having a simple crossbar guard. 
Lunge: a thrusting attack made by extending the rear leg and landing on 
the bent front leg. 
Mal-parry: a parry that fails to prevent the attack from landing. 
Measure: the distance between opponents. 
Neuvieme: an unconventional parry sometimes described as blade behind 
the back, pointing down (a variant of octave), other times similar to 
elevated sixte. 
Octave: parry with the blade down and to the outside, wrist supinated. 
Opposition: holding the opponent's blade in a non-threatening line; a 
time-hit; any attack or counter-attack with opposition. 
Parry: a block of the attack, made with the forte of one's own blade. 
Pass: an attack made with a cross; e.g. fleche. Also, the act of moving 
past the opponent. 
Passata-sotto: a lunge made by dropping one hand to the floor. 
Passe': an attack that passes the target without hitting; also a cross-
step (see cross). 
Phrase: a set of related actions and reactions in a conversation. 
Plaque': a point attack that lands flat. 
Point: a valid touch; the tip of the sword. 
Point in Line: also line; an extended arm and blade that threatens the 
opponent. 
Pommel: the weight and guard at the extreme end of the blade, opposite 
the point. 
Presentation: offering one's blade for engagement by the opponent. 
Press: an attempt to push the opponent's blade aside or out of line; 
depending on the opponent's response, the press is followed by a direct 
or indirect attack. 
Prime: a parry with the blade down and to the inside, wrist pronated. 
Principle of Defence: the use of forte against foible when parrying. 
Prise de Fer: also taking the blade; an engagement of the blades that 
forces the opponent's weapon into a new line. See: bind, croise, 
envelopment, opposition. 
Pronated: when referring to the hand or wrist, facing downwards or 
backwards; as opposed to supinated. 
Quarte: a parry with the blade up and to the inside, wrist supinated. 
Quinte: a parry with the blade up and to the inside, wrist pronated. The 
blade is held above the head to protect from head cuts. 
Rapier: a long narrow-bladed thrusting sword, with a complicated guard 
and little or no edge on the blade. Only recently introduced to the 
Castle. 
Redoublement: a new action that follows an attack that missed or was 
parried; see also reprise.


> read swordplay book's 16th page
Upon the sixteenth page of the book is written:

Remise: immediate replacement of an attack that missed or was parried, 
without withdrawing the arm. 
Reprise: renewal of an attack that missed or was parried, after a return 
to en-garde; see also redoublement. 
Retreat: step back; opposite of advance. 
Riposte: an attack made immediately after a parry of the opponent's 
attack. 
Salle: a hall for the practice of swordplay. 
Salute: with the weapon, a customary acknowledgement of one's opponent 
and audience at the start and end of the bout. 
Second Intention: a false action used to draw a response from the 
opponent, which will open the opportunity for the intended action that 
follows, typically a counter-riposte. 
Seconde: a parry with the blade down and to the outside, wrist pronated. 
Septime: a parry with the blade down and to the inside, wrist supinated. 
Simple: an attack or riposte that involves no feints. 
Single Stick: a form of sword practice with wooden sticks; the sticks 
themselves. 
Sixte: a parry with the blade up and to the outside, wrist supinated. 
Slip: an attack maneuver beginning with a dodge, and culminating in a 
thrust. 
Stop Hit: a counter-attack that hits; also a counter-attack whose touch 
is valid by virtue of its timing. 
Stop Cut: a stop-hit with the edge. 
Stop Thrust: a stop-hit with the point. 
Supinated: when referring to the hand or wrist, facing upwards or 
forwards; as opposed to pronated. 
Thrust: an attack made by moving the sword parallel to its length and 
landing with the point. 
Tierce: a parry with the blade up and to the outside, wrist pronated. 
Time: the time required to complete a single, simple action. 
Time Hit: also time-thrust; old name for stop hit with opposition. 
Trompement: deception of the parry.


====================


> read swordplay book's cover
Upon the cover of the book is written:

.................Combat, Theory and Practice.................. 
...........................July 2001..........................





...........................Author............................. 
.........................ser Martel........................... 
...........................Duelist............................


> read white book's first page
Upon the first page of the book is written:

I would first wish to thank ser Daris, for his tomes.  His work has 
inspired me to write these books, and I believe in giving credit where 
it is due.

Second, the purpose of these tomes is to pass what knowledge I have 
gained onto a future generation of duelists.  To help in the education 
of new Guests, and to act a place for others to go.  To see what has 
been said and done before.

Lastly, but never last, I write these tomes in the hopes that they will 
please Her Majesty and the Court of Honor.  My views on some things may 
be different than what has gone before, but I will attempt to defend the 
practical knowledge I place here with my interpretations of what is 
correct and good.


> read white book's 2nd page
Upon the second page of the book is written:

..........Table of Contents
Page..1 - Preface
Page..2 - Table of Contents
Page..3 - Openings - Weapons, Blade kiss
Page..4 - Openings - Examine and Bow
Page..5 - Openings - Salute and Guard
Page..6 - Attacks - Thrust and Cut
Page..7 - Attacks - Feint and Lunge
Page..8 - Attacks - Slip and Advice
Page..9 - Attacks - Skill and Timing
Page.10 - Attacks - Dishonor and Recovery
Page.11 - Defense - Guard and Dodge
Page.12 - Defense - Dodge and Recover
Page.13 - Defense - Rest,  Movement - Opening
Page.14 - Movement - Advance and Retire
Page.15 - Conclusions - Honor and Respect
Page.16 - Issues and Problems



> read white book's 3rd page
Upon the third page of the book is written:

OPENINGS

Before a duel is to take place, there is as much to be done as during 
the duel, if you wish to proceed with courtesy and honor.

The first step is to procure your weapon and move to the center of 
whatever space is being used for the duel, either practice or in Ernest. 
It is appropriate if you duel with a weapon out of the ordinary to seek 
approval and permission from your opponent.  If objections are raised, 
tis good to offer to utilize a more standard long sword, but this is not 
required.  But, if one insists on using a different weapon, tis possible 
that allusions will be placed upon the skill of the victor.  Tis also at 
this point that any examinations of the weapons should be made.

A newer custom, but one I advocate for formal duels is the chaste 
kissing of the blade before combat ensues.  With the obvious use of 
poisons so vile as to be unseeable, this acts as another check to insure 
proper behavior.  Any poisons on the blade would effect the sword's 
wielder, and thus show that person to be the cad they are for the use of 
poison.  


> read white book's 4th page
Upon the fourth page of the book is written:

A second custom that I have seen beginning is the extending of the 
swords to make examinations of them easier.  I find this a well and good 
thing for a formal duel, but in a long practice, it should be dispensed 
with after some time.  Unless the swords are changed of course.  For it 
takes too long, and slows the proceedings.

Once both duelists are girded and ready, they should bow or curtsey to 
each other, to show respect for their opponent.  As to whether to bow or 
curtsey, I am of the opinion that any wearing a dress or skirt should 
curtsey, while any in a man's pants or hose should bow, no matter their 
sex.

After the bow, both parties should take up a defensive stance, and 
inform their opponent that they are ready to proceed.  Upon hearing 
this, tis time to start the proceedings in earnest.




> read white book's 5th page
Upon the fifth page of the book is written:

As all know, once the proceedings begin, both parties should salute the 
other and then move into a guarding stance.  To attack during or before 
the salute tis a sorry accident, but it does occur.  One or both parties 
should shout 'Hold', and hold their blows.  If either party refuses to 
hold, he shows himself a most dishonorable sort. Once held, tis up to 
the attacked party to either continue with salutes and guards and 
proceed, or demand a surrender.  If a surrender is demanded, tis the 
aggrieved parties decision in a formal affair to allow another duel, or 
to declare the match over by forfeit.


> read white book's 6th page
Upon the sixth page of the book is written:

ATTACKS

The modern schools of dueling use five main attacking styles.  The two 
most basic, thrust and cut, the more complex offenses of a feint, and 
the combinations of lunge and slip.

The thrust or jab is the most basic attack form in the inventory of a 
new duelist.  It consists simply of a quick extension of the blade of 
the sword, generally from either a guard low or guard high position. Tis 
one of the fastest attacks, but also one of the attacks that most leaves 
the duelist open to counter attack, unless he can recover quickly.

The next most basic attack is the long cut or slash.  Tis a slower 
attack than the thrust, but with more power behind the sword, and thus 
requiring a greater exertion to parry.  The attack also results in a 
more solid defensive posture because of the more compact body 
positioning when executing the maneuver.  Also, because of the ability 
of a sword to cut along its entire edge, and the ease with which it can 
be swung, tis possible to lash out in this way from many more positions 
than the more contained thrust.  Thus while off balance, this is the 
maneuver of choice.


> read white book's 7th page
Upon the seventh page of the book is written:

Now we venture into the more complex maneuvers.  I start with the feint, 
as it is a self contained maneuver, and not a combination as the others 
are.  Feints are hard to master, but when you can do so, they make a 
deadly attack.  Some believe that while your opponent is off balance, as 
in rest or after a poor attack, they may be more susceptible to the 
deceptions of this attack, but I believe this not. I do believe though 
that a poorly executed feint doth leave you more open than almost any 
other attack, and thus it should be only attempted when you are 
knowledgeable or fresh.  To feint when you are unskilled or tired is to 
invite defeat.

Now for the first of the combination moves, the lunge.  A lunge is a 
rapid advance across the floor, culminating in a vicious thrust backed 
up by the weight and speed of the moving duelist.  This gives a lunge a 
fair degree of punch should it land, but because of the movement leading 
up to it, it can be easier to avoid or sidestep in a more open environ. 
If the defender needs to prevent the entry or a room or the passing of 
his opponent though, he sacrifices this mobility.  Because of the pieces 
of a lunge, if you wish to perfect this maneuver, you need to study both 
the aspects of thrust and advancing toward your enemy.




> read white book's 8th page
Upon the eighth page of the book is written:

The last maneuver is the slip, or the dodge feint.  Tis one of my 
favorite combinations, but like a feint, hard to execute well.  The 
maneuver involves sidestepping your opponents attack, and then pushing 
your blade down along his attack when he can not defend against it. This 
works well against the thrust or feint, which have a more direct line of 
attack, but is a poor response to a slash which may catch even one 
excellent in moving themselves from harms way.  As a final caution, this 
maneuver is a slow one, so if you be not an expert with the feinting 
forms you may wish to train more before relying upon this.

These different offensive styles and collections of positions do each 
have their advantages and disadvantages.  I have attempted to point some 
out within the texts speaking on each, but I will include some more 
within this section.




> read white book's 9th page
Upon the ninth page of the book is written:

The biggest advice I will give is to stick with your skills.  If you 
find the wide slash to be your most proficient, then do rely upon it. 
Little will make up for a lack of skill.  And while I will endeavor to 
discuss some of the finer points of the maneuvers, this is secondary to 
relying on your natural talents.

After skill though, there are a few things that lead one to shift into 
different maneuvers.  The most important of which is timing.  As you 
exchange blows with your opponent, if you can attack while they are just 
recovering from an attack of their own, their blade will be likely to be 
out of position, and thus they will be more vulnerable. This leads to 
the use of the quicker thrusting attacks, as you have the flexibility to 
attack quickly, and the advantage that you will recover quicker.

As a short side thought.  I have during my time witnessed many who 
during a duel insist on demandingly following the rigors of exact 
timing.  To the point that I have watched two duelists stop during an 
exchange and simply stare at each other, waiting for the other to act. 
To those people who follow this school I say fie.  To behave so is to 
dishonor your skills and teachers.  To show that you have not enough 
skill to control a flurry of blows, but must use a crutch such as this.




> read white book's 10th page
Upon the tenth page of the book is written:

If you find yourself fighting such a dishonorable opponent, I would 
suggest finishing the match if possible, and then simply declining to 
face that person in a practice again.  In a formal duel though, I would 
give them the benefit of the doubt the first few times.  But if it 
becomes apparent who is behaving such, I would simply ask the Marshal or 
second of the duel to intervene.  If you opponent will not engage, tis 
not your place to force things upon him.  Tis obvious that he wishes not 
to actually duel, and thus the duel should end so he or she can get on 
with whatever activity they feel is that much more important than 
defending their honor.

Now, as a last note on the various attacking styles, I have witnessed 
long debates on whether tis better to resume a guarding posture after 
such things as a rest before pressing your attack, or to use a slower 
slashing attack from the slightly off balance positions one finds 
themselves in.  To this, I say tis mostly to the preference of the 
dueler.  I who tend toward a very aggressive style to prefer to get back 
to the offensive, but I have seen others who can guard and then lunge 
forward in the blink of an eye utilize this combination quite well.



> read white book's 11th page
Upon the eleventh page of the book is written:

DEFENSE

Now that we have covered the main attacking forms, we will shift our 
attention to the defensive maneuvers.  The Guard and Dodge. Recovering 
from an attack and resting from the exertion of battle.

I shall start with the most basic defensive posture, the guard stance. I 
have seen many such stances.  Chest on or turned away.  Swords held 
high, low, or to the side.  Alternate arm held back for balance, or to 
the side to distract and take advantage of openings.  But all these 
stances have in common the desire to parry the opponent quickly and 
effortlessly, and open them to return attacks.  The slashing attacks and 
feints tend to end in a more stable position than the thrusts, thus the 
ability to actively parry instead of simply recover quickly is more 
valued.

The next stance is that of actively avoiding attacks instead of parrying 
them.  The bob and sway of a mobile opponent, using a quick move to 
leave their opponent facing an empty space, while their blade comes in 
for a devastating slash.  Dodging is also an inherent part of the slip 
or dodge feint, allowing your opponent to attack, then quickly following 
up into that opening.  




> read white book's 12th page
Upon the twelth page of the book is written:

For most duelists, to dodge their opponents attacks will tire them more 
quickly than a simple parry, as it involves more effort.  But if what 
you must do is cross open ground, or deal with bows and crossbows, the 
dodge may be your only option.  To parry a crossbow bolt is something 
attempted only be the true grand masters.

Now, defense is not all in prepared stances, but tis also in being able 
to use an attacking weapon to turn the next attack of your opponent. 
And to be able to attack quickly and be ready for the riposte that is 
sure to follow.  To recover well is an art form practiced most by those 
who focus on the devastating lunge and thrust. For while fast, the 
thrust leaves the body more open, and there is little chance to properly 
guard.  

One technique I have well learned is after the thrust, to rapidly raise 
or lower the arm to bring the blade tip backwards, and use the blade to 
cover more of the body. Another technique is to swing the sword point to 
the side, toward the sword arm of your opponent.  Thus threatening this 
limb, and requiring your opponent to forestall his own attack.



> read white book's 13th page
Upon the thirteenth page of the book is written:

Lastly, for each fighter can not fight forever, all must know how and 
when to breathe.  How to quickly take a step back from your opponent, 
catch but a moments extra wind, then pounce back with a slash, or even 
let them come and feint toward their legs.  As well, breathe not to 
long, for most can defend better when their minds are upon it, than when 
they try to force back the colored lights in their vision.  Now, one 
topic I have heard some debate on is how best to return t the fray from 
these brief breaks.  Many advocate the slash, as it is easy to launch 
from the slightly off balanced position, and thus re-engage quickly. 
But for those who's skills are in the fast and quick thrusts, to simply 
bring the sword to a guard position and from there launch into a thrust 
or lunge.

MOVEMENT

Now, while I espouse the 'mountain does not move' style of fighting, 
letting you opponents dance about you and tire themselves out, while you 
hold your ground and only follow if they refuse to engage, not all do 
this.  Some prefer a more mobile combat, and for those the art of 
advance and retreat takes a great deal of interest.


> read white book's 14th page
Upon the fourteenth page of the book is written:

To advance toward your opponent is a difficult thing.  For you needs 
approach carefully and not run upon your opponents blade, but still make 
forward progress.  Advancing can be especially important if your 
opponent does wish to give ground in exchange for time or some such. If 
he has friends coming to his aid, or needs just delay you, and thus your 
need to advance upon him.

In response, tis the retreat.  To give ground to either gain a bit of 
wind, or to exchange ground for time.  If you needs just delay your 
attackers, or fall back to a better position, then the retreat is for 
you.  The problem is frequently that backing away, you need spend your 
attention on your opponent, and not where to place your feet.  Thus you 
should know the ground you will backing across if possible. Else, if you 
do not, be very careful, and be prepared to act quickly should the 
unexpected occur.  But tis rarely a good idea to glance back over ones 
shoulder during a fight to oversee the ground, for that doth leave you 
the most open.

But again, these are not maneuvers I use in the most.  While they be 
fancy, and interesting to watch, I find them little us during a formal 
duel.  There the goal tis not to avoid your opponent, but to face them 
and triumph.  Therefore, leave off the movement over much, and simply 
face your opponent and do the deed.



> read white book's 15th page
Upon the fifteenth page of the book is written:

CONCLUSIONS

Once the duel is done, one person having fallen, there are still things 
to do to show your respect.  First, always acknowledge your opponent. 
With a bow or nod at least.  This shows that you have respect for your 
foe, for in victory of defeat, your opponent has still served his Honor 
by defending it and himself in duel.  Even in a duel to the death, if 
you can physically manage it you should acknowledge your opponent after 
each round.

Another thing to recall is that duels and even practices are a matter of 
honor.  Never cackle or laugh at your opponent.  Treat them with respect 
and honor, as you would them treat you.  To do otherwise is to call 
question on your own honor, and may well reflect badly upon you.

And lastly, tis generally appropriate to close with some words of 
encouragement in a practice, but less so in a formal duel.  If the 
matter was close, or your opponent did especially well, let them know 
that.  To respect and admire skill is a good thing, even in an opponent.



> read white book's 16th page
Upon the sixteenth page of the book is written:

ISSUES AND PROBLEMS

Now, during a duel, many problems and issues may arise, and tis good to 
treat them with honor as well.  If either duelist or a second does cry 
'Hold!', tis appropriate to do so, and drop back into a guard stance. 
Tis not honorable to immediately being to rest and pant during the pause 
though.  Tis also well to pause if a bystander does cry this, but if any 
abuse this, they should be ejected from the practice or duel, and 
reported to the Court of Honor.

Also, while tis a strange thing here, I have seen a few duelists 
suddenly pause in their duel and just hold, barely defending themselves. 
If this does happen, I would feel perfectly fine in attacking once or 
twice, for you can not tell if they pause for strategy, or this other 
thing.  But if they stand rigid for too long, tis honorable and polite 
to hold and wait for them to return from whatever far off land they have 
gone.

That brings to a close what I have to relate on the basics of the art of 
combat.  May this book find its way into good hands, and allow you to 
learn from it.  If there be comments or questions upon these words, I 
would be happy to hear and answer them, while Her Majesty wills that I 
take breath in her realm.

===============================

> read duelling book's cover
Upon the cover of the book is written:

THE CODE DUELLO


> read duelling book's 1st page
Upon the first page of the book is written:

THE CODE DUELLO

CONTENTS

2. - Introduction
3. - How Duels Are Begun
4. - When Duelling Is Impermissible
5. - Conditions For A Duel
6. - On Seconds
7. - Sanction For Formal Duels
8. - Putting One's Affairs In Order
9. - Beginning The Duel
10. - The Duel Itself
11. - Finish Of The Duel
12. - Practice
13. - Informal And Unsanctioned Duels
14. - Masters Of The Court Of Honor
15. - A Toast
16. - Updates


> read duelling book's 2nd page
Upon the second page of the book is written:

Never draw your sword without good reason; never sheath it without your 
honor. 

INTRODUCTION

Inhabitants of Castle Marrach may decide to resolve their serious 
disputes by a duel (also known as an encounter, or passage of arms). A 
duel is one-on-one combat between persons of honor, with a specific set 
of conditions agreed to by both parties. Duelling is governed by the 
Duelling Code, sometimes known as the Code Duello. Duels are fought to 
express, protect and restore ones honor, the honor of someone one feels 
bound to protect, or (unofficially) to build a reputation as a duelist. 
A duel is only possible when there has been an insult or a slight to 
someones honor. Any word, action, intention, or gesture, which injures 
the self-esteem, sensibility, or reputation of another, is for this 
person an affront. Duels are most emphatically not acts of revenge or 
retribution - at least not according to the Duelling Code. Duelling is 
sometimes considered a ceremony of the cult of honor, an entirely 
unofficial, un-organized but real group nebulously composed of all 
persons with the right - and the duty - of demanding satisfaction in a 
duel. Allegations of misconduct by prospective or actual duelists and 
seconds, with regard to their participation in a duel, may be inquired 
into by the Masters of the Court of Honor, three respected, perceptive 
and impartial persons. These Masters are skilled with weapons, fully 
conversant with the rules, precedents, and spirit of the Duelling Code, 
and have some not-well-defined authority in the area of personal honor. 
If someone issues a challenge and is refused, the Court of Honor can be 
appealed to for a ruling on the honor of the refusal. The Court also 
answers questions touching on the manner and practice of duelling; their 
decisions may be appealed to the Lord Chancellor. Violations of the 
spirit and rules of the Duelling Code will (if detected and reported) 
result in censure by (at least) the Masters of the Court of Honor. 
Appeals to the Queen may be made regarding the decisions of the Lord 
Chancellor. Within Castle Marrach, the Queen, the Lord Chancellor, the 
Lord Marshal, the Lord Treasurer, and the Lord Chamberlain are the 
premier honor lords of the Court.


> read duelling book's 3rd page
Upon the third page of the book is written:

HOW DUELS ARE BEGUN

Two persons have or imagine a quarrel upon some point. One of them, 
feeling their honor to be insufferably transgressed upon, says something 
like, Sir, a gentle person cannot accept that insult - there are any 
number of acceptable phrasings for the challenge. Persons issuing a 
challenge are termed the injured party or person, as they claim to have 
suffered some damage to their reputation, veracity, pedigree, person, 
etc; they are also said to have requested or demanded satisfaction. 
Being manhandled without permission is often considered the minimum 
insult that will lead to a duel, but each person is the best judge of 
his or her own honor. For a challenge to be made, the challenger must 
consider whoever is challenged to be worthy of it - specifically, in a 
position to provide satisfaction in a duel. Stating that one will not 
issue a challenge due to the unworthy nature of the person giving 
offense is tantamount to saying the person is not honorable (and hence 
not worthy of attending Her Majestys court, as an honored guest, 
courtier, knight, noble, or otherwise). Challenges need not be delivered 
in person. In fact, if the challenge does not follow immediately upon 
the act that gave offense, the offended party (i.e., the challenger) 
should obtain the services of one or more seconds, to convey his or her 
challenge - rather than delivering it in person. Challenges may not be 
delivered in writing; written challenges have many opportunities for 
error. The seconds may convey written statements by the principals, but 
they themselves must confirm that the challenge has been received, and 
whether it has been accepted. The challenged party may accept or reject 
the challenge. If the challenge is accepted, then from that point until 
the duel is fought the two parties to the dispute should avoid each 
other socially. They are both parties to the dispute, in rather the same 
sense that litigants in a court of law are parties to a suit.


> read duelling book's 4th page
Upon the fourth page of the book is written:

WHEN DUELLING IS IMPERMISSIBLE

The Queen or Her Lords may forbid persons to make or receive challenges 
for some period of time, or from some person, or from a category of 
persons, etc. Encounters with persons of widely (OOC: OB denizens 
challenging Lords, for instance)different social rank are possible, but 
may result in loss of favor or even punishment for one or both parties; 
certainly persons of high rank are under no obligation to accept 
challenges from those of a widely lower rank. Persons married to each 
other; persons not physically fit; and persons in close family relation 
to each other may not enter into a duel. The Queen may from time to time 
issue restrictions upon encounters by her subjects; for instance, in 
time of war, duelling may be forbidden entirely.


> read duelling book's 5th page
Upon the fifth page of the book is written:

CONDITIONS FOR A DUEL

There are several conditions to be met before a duel can be fought:

Approval or sanction by the authorities is not required; however, 
duelling without approval can result in social disfavor, censure by the 
Court of Honor, or actual punishment (loss of status, position, rank, or 
privileges). The consent of both parties is absolutely required. Deadly 
combat without the consent of all parties is regarded as murder. Seconds 
or friends must make at least a pro forma attempt at reconcilement, and 
must arrange the conditions of the duel. The offer and acceptance of an 
apology brings the challenge to an end. A delay of at least one day 
(from the challenge to the actual combat); duels fought with less than a 
days delay are viewed with disfavor. Challenges must be issued or 
communicated within two days of the challenging party becoming aware of 
the offense (which might, of course, be years after the commission of 
the offense itself). If more time passes, the nature of the offense 
cannot have been unbearable, and the affront is said to have expired.


> read duelling book's 6th page
Upon the sixth page of the book is written:

ON SECONDS

No duel may be fought in Castle Marrach without at least one second for 
each party. A second is some other person, also capable of providing 
satisfaction, who agrees to act on behalf of one (and only one) of the 
parties to a duel. The terms representative or friend are sometimes also 
used to designate seconds. The second has two duties: to the person he 
or she is seconding, and to the Duelling Code. This censure can fall 
equally heavily - or in some cases, more heavily - upon the seconds. If 
a second cannot not both fairly represent his or her principal, and also 
the Duelling Code, he or she should withdraw, and the duel should be re-
arranged with a new second. There is no requirement that a second 
actually be a friend, or even an acquaintance, of his or her principal. 
Persons should not serve as seconds if there would be some substantial 
conflict of interest involved; also, the spouses, parents, and children 
of a duelist should not serve as his or her second.


> read duelling book's 7th page
Upon the seventh page of the book is written:

SANCTION FOR FORMAL DUELS

Each party to the dispute chooses a second (presumably a friend); the 
seconds call together upon some competent authority-an honor lord of the 
Queens Court, or the Queen herself. The Chamberlain is most often 
conveniently available for this, but the Chancellor, the Lord Marshal, 
or the Lord Treasurer are each also empowered to sanction duels. The 
Chamberlain (or other sanctioning authority): 
-- asks the seconds who the parties to the duel are; asks whether any 
attempt has been made for reconcilement; 
-- ensures the parties are not barred from duelling (due to 
hierarchical, social, legal, physical, etc. conditions); 
-- enquires and consents as to the form of the duel (the weapons to be 
used, any strange variant rules, and the desired outcome-death or 
wounding, or some number of wounds, a cry for quarter, or some other 
measurable or detectable finish); 
-- enquires and consents to any victory or defeat conditions involving 
Castle Marrachs court or society (i.e., changes to official positions); 
-- enquires and consents to the time and place of the encounter and 
issues instructions to prepare the site if need be; 
-- instructs and charges the seconds to see that no chicanery takes 
place, and to carry out their duties as representatives of the Court of 
Honor at the duel; 
-- instructs and charges the seconds to contact an authority as soon as 
possible if there is some obstacle to the duel proceeding, or if one of 
the parties wishes to withdraw; formally approves the duel, with the 
restrictions agreed to previously; 
-- advises the seconds to have the principals put their affairs in 
order; causes some form of notice of the duel to be made public. This 
notice will include the names of the participants, and their seconds; 
the time and date of the duel; and some of the elements of form. 

Persons may wish, as suggested, to put their affairs in order prior to 
taking part in a duel. They should certainly not carry items of great 
personal value into a duel, as there is a chance they may lose them if 
the duel is lost.


> read duelling book's 8th page
Upon the eighth page of the book is written:

PUTTING ONE'S AFFAIRS IN ORDER

Persons wishing to produce registered wills should arrange to have their 
testament taken down and filed with a Court Clerk (or the Royal 
Archivist). Other wills and testaments, not filed in the archives, may 
not be enforced by the Chancery. The Court Clerk may also be willing to 
hold messages for delivery after a persons demise.


> read duelling book's 9th page
Upon the ninth page of the book is written:

BEGINNING THE DUEL

If the parties to the quarrel, and their seconds, are present at the 
time and place agreed, someone will bring weapons to the seconds 
(although the parties may possess and use weapons of their own, if they 
agree). The seconds and all other parties should avoid standing in the 
middle before the duel begins, and the armed duelists should stand in 
the middle of the area, room, or whatever. The seconds may (or may not) 
keep things organized, advise spectators to step back, etc.; they should 
(but dont have to) ask the duelists if they can yet be reconciled, etc.; 
but their duties are not enforced - they must merely be present in the 
room. Once the duelists have taken up their positions [command: duel 
name], and each saluted the other with their weapons, the duel begins, 
and cannot be interrupted by the spectators; the spectators and seconds 
should not enter the middle of the area. Duelists may, if they wish, 
conduct a full salute - a bow to the audience, followed by a salute to 
the opponent. The duel as an affair of honor still begins from when both 
duelists have saluted their opponent.


> read duelling book's 10th page
Upon the tenth page of the book is written:

THE DUEL ITSELF

During the duel, the combatants must remain in the room, but they may 
move about the room. Duels are normally assumed to be conducted with the 
generic sword; some persons possess and may use rapiers, sabers, 
cutlasses, short swords, backswords, schiavone, small swords, two-handed 
swords, bastard swords, etc. The Court of Honor can decide if the use of 
unequal or unusual weapons in a duel is a violation of the Duelling 
Code. The Court of Honor might admit other weapons that might be become 
available; these might include the foil, scimitar, single-stick, great 
stick, etc.

In a duel to first blood, a single wound ends the bout and the duel 
itself. In duels of a more serious nature, the fighting ceases 
momentarily when a wound is received; the seconds may wish to enquire if 
the principals can or wish to continue. If a continuation is agreed to, 
the duellists re-engage [duel and salute as usual; a duel to the death 
might thus consist of as many as eight bouts].


> read duelling book's 11th page
Upon the eleventh page of the book is written:

FINISH OF THE DUEL

In a formal duel, the passage of arms is completed when either the 
agreed-upon conditions are met, one of the combatants surrenders 
[command: surrender], one of the combatants leaves the room, or both of 
the seconds agree to end the duel [although this is not enforced by the 
system]. [A bad connection should not result in a lost duel. The seconds 
are responsible for observing their principals; if they think too much 
time has gone by without any communication, they may wish to call out 
some notice of this. Honorable duelists should not take advantage of 
inconvenienced opponents in this situation.]


> read duelling book's 12th page
Upon the twelfth page of the book is written:

PRACTICE

For the practice of swordplay within the Castle, the practice room, 
armory, and various open courtyards are normally employed. Practice may 
also take place in the guard rooms, the quarters of the Winter Watch, or 
the personal room of any guest. Blunted or rebated weapons are normally 
used in practice. Opponents move to the middle of the room, salute, and 
begin; no seconds are required. In a practice bout conducted with blunt 
or rebated weapons, the duelists may acknowledge a hit ( Your point, ser 
) by extending their empty hand, palm uppermost, to their opponent [OOC: 
possible command: extend my left hand briefly ]. Challenges from newly-
arrived guests may be honorably refused until they prove themselves able 
to give and receive satisfaction - Duelling is for those worthy of it, 
my dear ; however, non-fatal duelling is certainly possible before then, 
if only as practice.


> read duelling book's 13th page
Upon the thirteenth page of the book is written:

INFORMAL AND UNSANCTIONED DUELS

If an immediate or sub rosa duel is felt to be needed, the parties to 
the dispute should still choose seconds. The seconds negotiate the 
nature of the duel - when and where, and to what lengths; they also will 
have to obtain weapons by some method or other. An informal or 
unsanctioned duel may incur the wrath of the Queens officials, or the 
Court of Honor, or both, or neither. Much depends on the circumstances, 
and on how much the affair deviated from fair and traditional duelling. 
Combat without seconds is almost never recognized as a proper duel; it 
is no more or no less than combat, proper in some circumstances but not 
in others. The Queen and the Court of Honor do not look with favor on 
common murder.


> read duelling book's 14th page
Upon the fourteenth page of the book is written:

MASTERS OF THE COURT OF HONOR

Currently, the Masters of the Court of Honor are:

Lord Bernier;
Sir Anselm; and
Dame Petronille.


> read duelling book's 15th page
Upon the fifteenth page of the book is written:

"Stand now and raise your glasses, let us by the world be seen, Good 
health and heaven's grace attend you, VIVIENNE OUR QUEEN."


> read duelling book's 16th page
Upon the sixteenth page of the book is written:

UPDATES

As rulings are made by Her Majesty or the Court of Honor respecting the 
conduct of encounters of honor, the text of this book will be 
mysteriously updated.







_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From mud at experimentzero.org  Sat Jul 27 13:39:18 2002
From: mud at experimentzero.org (Jack Britt)
Date: Sat Jul 27 13:39:18 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24323.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Hello,

I'm trying to find alternatives to the AD&D-style of hit points but
I'm not having much luck. Couldn't find anything on google, and
can't seem to come up with anything on the mud-dev archives
(although this is probably due to my inability to do a decent
search.)

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a different
way of doing hit points?

Britt

--
"My mom says I'm cool."

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com  Sat Jul 27 19:23:33 2002
From: vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com (Brandon J. Van Every)
Date: Sat Jul 27 19:23:33 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Creative guy seeking a MUD
Message-ID: <mailman.24324.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Hello, I've met some of you in person at GDC 2002 and have posted on
the list a few times.  So hopefully you guys can answer some
questions without screaming at me.  :-)

Currently I'm slogging away at nuclear explosions for my own non-MUD
game project.  At times things bog down and it gets dull.  Lotta
programming, not a lot of creative reward or instant gratification
happening.  I have other things to do in Real Life to keep me
balanced, but some nights there's just nothing to do.  I snapped my
Morrowind CD the other day because I'd done too much of that.  So,
I'm looking for yet-another-hobby to keep my brain cells alive and
interested:

  - I'd like to code content for MUDs with the greatest of ease!

I'm mainly interested in making bots and automatons that probably
will annoy some people.  For instance, many years ago I made a
Mimic.  It had a default form, but would assume the form of whomever
looked at it.  It would memorize a few sentences of whatever the
copied person said and replay it later, plus an occasional random
expletive.  After a time lapse, or after another person came by to
look at it, the Mimic would revert to its default form.  It was
pretty easy to figure out that the Mimic was not a real person, the
illusion didn't last very long.  I thought it was a fairly harmless,
clever use of MUSE coding, but it drove the sysadmins bonkers.  They
thought I was the Devil!  Our MUD marriage didn't end well, and I
daresay it's kept me away from MUDs for a decade.  This really hit
home for me the difference between "social" and "gamer" types on
MUDs.  I'm the latter.  I'm looking for a MUD where the admins are
into the possibilities of powergaming, aren't terribly
authoritarian, and like clever things that players have coded up.

I'd love any excuse to program in Python.  Maybe nobody uses Python
as the user scripting language, I dunno.  If it isn't Python, I'd
like the scripting language to be pretty painless.

I've also run my own freeform PBEM RPG games quite a number of
times.  I consider myself to have skill at writing,
characterization, plot, improvisational online performance, etc.
Ergo, a MUD that encourages roleplaying would be nice.  But if not,
no biggie, so long as it's filled with powergamers.  I don't want a
MUD where roleplaying is enforced.  That would get in the way of my
bot coding.

I'd like fairly painless tools for uploading user content.  I figure
I'll be doing a lot of that.  Also, I'm much more interested in MUDs
that don't try to make me sign away the copyright on my work.  If
you want to own what I write, I'll write very little and leave soon.

So, in the words of the immortal Cyndi Lauper, "Geeks just wanna
have fun!"  You guys know of a MUD out there where I can do this
stuff and not get a bunch of pointless moralisms thrown at me?

Finally, I would comment that http://www.mudconnector.com/ is quite
a slog.  Its search engine does not pull up the criteria I'm looking
for.  I figure you guys are pretty smart and also more commercially
relevant as a group, should my hobby turn into something else.


Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From kressilac at insightBB.com  Sun Jul 28 12:13:37 2002
From: kressilac at insightBB.com (Derek Licciardi)
Date: Sun Jul 28 12:13:37 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24325.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Damion Schubert
> From szii at sziisoft.com

>> I also started CS late....about 2 months ago, in fact.

>> The difference between us?  I'm willing to get in there and
>> scrap, even when it means losing.  You don't get better by
>> quitting (CS, EQ, chess, craps, etc).

> Sure.  But you know what?  The mass market lacks your patience.  I
> went through that same learning curve to get good at the games
> that I am already good at (Unreal Tournament, LMCTF, etc), and I
> didn't relish starting at the bottom of the ladder again.  Many
> people are unwilling to start at the bottom of that ladder the
> first time.

> PvP is frequently overwhelming to the new player.  You can get
> attacked anywhere at any time.  You're at a disadvantage because
> you lack character skill (low level).  You're at a disadvantage
> because you lack player skill (knowledge on how to win).  You
> don't have a pack to run around with yet.  You're fighting with
> cruddy stock weapons.

> Will there be a handful of players who persevere through those
> odds in order to be as good as other players?  Sure.  It will be a
> handful of people.  In some games, it requires little more than
> tenacity.  In others, however, it requires that you quit your job
> and focus on learning the game full-time.

> And when players log onto a game and realize that, not only are
> they on the bottom of the ladder, but that it will take hours and
> hours of camping and learning in order to stand on even ground
> with their counterpart, they will make a decision as to whether or
> not this game is worth their tenacity.

It seems to me like some of the issues you mentioned here could be
counteracted by giving the new players a means through which to find
a group to run around with before they even get in the game.  If a
newbie has some meaning to the ability of the group then the group
would actively seek out the newbie to be part of their group.  I'm
thinking cities and such that gain a population benefit.  Not that
this would solve what you are saying but the immediate acceptance
into a group should go a long way towards reducing the effects.  To
me all it would take is a set of gameplay elements that encourage
veteran players and groups to mentor newbies.

I'm thinking things like selecting a guild or a city to belong to
during character creation from a list of guilds that have open
membership policies.  Allowing veteran characters a specific set of
experience that is derived from helping newbies. *shrug* the
possibilities haven't been explored by any of the big MMOs out there
to date.  Hell, I usually remember the people that helped me out
when I was a newbie.  Its a significant positive
relationship/community builder as well which usually goes towards
increasing the users tenacity.

It doesn't solve the problem but it certainly helps makes PvP less
overwhelming.

Derek


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Koster  Mon Jul 29 08:57:38 2002
From: Koster (Koster)
Date: Mon Jul 29 08:57:38 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] "The Artisan's Hands" - Storytelling tools
Message-ID: <mailman.24326.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Excellent article at Waterthread.org.

http://www.waterthread.org/news/102790232827285.html

start quote--->

The Artisan's Hands
by Bucky Carooe

It would be easy to take the optimist's route and claim that as
technology gets better, the quality of storytelling in MMOGs will
increase with it; after all, for all the stigmata of
button-hammering adrenaline indulgence attached to video gaming, the
medium offers the very real possibility of mashing a good novel into
the grinder with a classic film and spreading the results out over
50 or 60 hours. But while single-player games have started to tap
into the narrative possibilities offered by interactive
entertainment, in online venues the results frequently feel listless
and uninspired - in many respects, MMOGs represent the nadir of a
genre not exactly renowned for its storytelling prowess in the first
place. Not for lack of tales to tell, obviously, otherwise the likes
of Jon "Calandryll" Hanna or Ragnar Tornquist would be out of a job
by now. No, where the whole enterprise falters is in the options
those budding auteurs have at their disposal. It's tempting to roll
one's eyes and sigh as news of the latest orc or mutant
slaughterfest rolls in - for as much time as said fonts of
creativity spend writing long-winded backstories, it's depressing to
realise just how much of it boils down to rampages from the Monster
of the Week, with some scripted GM encounters thrown in for good
measure. But even that's pushing the limits of what their games'
technology is capable of; without the tools to turn their visions
into reality, online storytellers are stuck in the current rut of
beasts and blather.

What's needed, in short, is a better mousetrap.

The root of the problem lies in the sources of the genre; when
looking at how stories are told in a MMOG environment, it helps to
consider the contrast between traditional and massively multiplayer
RPGs. In pen-and-paper gaming, finding adventure is relatively
straightforward process; each group has a dedicated storyteller in
its Gamemaster, who interacts with them on a one-on-one basis and
keeps unspooling fresh quests and challenges to keep the group on
its toes, while at the same time laying down the law and ensuring
everybody keeps in line. Make the leap to MMOG, however, and the GM
often mutates into something almost unrecognisable; a faceless
non-entity whose sole concession to "player entertainment" is their
ability to transform into any number of murderous,
nigh-on-invincible monsters

  http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?s=ece6cdbc47fcdd7331a5b12a45ff804c&threadid=28048

It's all a matter of numbers, though. Around the table, the magic
ratio between players and GM is somewhere around 5 or 6 to 1;
smaller groups mean less interaction and larger groups are damn-near
unmanageable. Given those numbers, we can take a wild shot into the
dark and estimate that a server with a capacity of 2000 would need
roughly 300 dedicated GMs to create quests, mime NPCs and hand out
rewards. That this is patently impractical goes without saying;
moreso if you figure in multiple servers - EverQuest, one of the
most popular MMOGs out there, would have a support staff of no less
than 14,000 GMs under this model. Even if you were dealing with
volunteers, rather than paid members of staff, the logistics needed
to coordinate operations effectively on this sort of scale would be
beyond the capabilities of most gaming companies currently in
existence.  Given the current state of things, there's hardly much
danger of that to begin with; the miserly handful of GMs most
major-league titles employ to do their dirty work couldn't be
counted on to flesh out an entire server farm's worth of content if
their lives depended on it. Hardly helping matters is the increased
burden of responsibility said GMs bear; trying to keep the players
entertained with a skeleton crew is one thing, but having to juggle
it with the unenviable task of answering the hundreds of complaints
and petitions a typical MMOG workday generates is - for lack of a
better word - flat-out impossible.

Things were different once. It was Ultima Online which first drew
clear distinctions between service and story, splitting support into
GMs - who handled the more mundane player services and meted out the
jail sentences and bannings - and Seers, who coordinated
events. Between them, UO's official storyline was nothing if not
diverse, beginning with the machinations of the self-styled
Followers of Armageddon, the Zog Cabal

  http://town.uo.com/cgi-bin/archive.pl?s=141

and gradually mutating into high-concept interdimensional battles
mingled with the steampunk stylings of Ultima Online 2, which had
been hastily shoe-horned into the existing proceedings after said
title's cancellation. The end results were a toss-up in terms of
quality - in some cases, little better than an improvisational
series of threat-of-the-week sketches which grew considerably more
unhinged with Richard Garriott's departure; in other instances, epic
fantasy referencing the high points of Lord British's nine-game
career, liberally sprinkled with enough player-run events to keep
everybody occupied. Whatever your stance on the quality and
consistency of UO's events, though, it's hard to deny the
contributions of the various Seers and Elders who pitched their time
and talents into the pot during UO's pivotal years. The fact that
OSI's divide-and-conquer model never quite became more an industry
standard can be attributed to a number of factors, but in the end,
only one really matters: cost. From a balance-sheet perspective, the
division between serviceman and storyteller is a needlessly
extravagant one; moreso these days, given the highly volatile nature
of volunteer labour in the aftermath of the infamous AOL suit

  http://news.com.com/2100-1023-226360.html?legacy=cnet

Asheron's Call's Advocates were the first to go as many companies
began to see this hitherto-free source of labour as an unneeded
liability or ticking timebomb; as of 9th March 2001, OSI too joined
their ranks, discontinuing its Volunteer program in its entirety in
light of a high-profile lawsuit

  http://dir.salon.com/tech/log/2000/09/21/ultima_volunteers/index.html

launched by former UO volunteers in search of compensation. That the
greed of a few individuals rang the death-knell

  http://www.uo.com/cgi-bin/newstools.pl?Article=4607

on four years' worth of community-building efforts is deplorable
enough, but the resulting fallout has succeeded in all but
regressing event coordination and player relations back into the
stone age of the massively multiplayer genre; save for holdouts like
the Advisors of Rubi-Ka

  http://ark.anarchy-online.com/php/team_events.php

support now tends to follow the Verant example, enshrined in the
hands of an invisible minority of underpaid, overworked
individuals. Should players who dedicate their time to improving
their fellow gamers' virtual lives be compensated for their efforts? 
Absolutely. But let's be realistic; today's development studios are
barely willing to spend the money needed to hire enough GMs to keep
up the petition queues moving, let alone cut into their precious
profit margins by employing a pack of amateur roleplayers to slip
into the shoes of a convenient god-cliented deus ex machina. In
spite of this, MMOGs are still able to provide adventure and
excitement to the masses; not by virtue of a dedicated support
staff, but through simple automation. Let's go back to the tabletop
for perspective's sake. In traditional RPGs, the GM is the narrative
equivalent of a one-man band, flitting from innocent victim to
sneering villain at a second's notice and breathing life into the
world's inhabitants. But why pay somebody to stand around in a cave
to issue death threats and be r0x0red on an hourly basis if AI
scripting can do the same job for less? The same applies to the NPCs
who provide the local "color", or send the player on various inane
fetch quests for 30 XP and a Rusty Dagger +2; for a simple
kill-the-monster-and-return-the-item-to-me-style affair, a few lines
of dialogue and a convenient receptacle from which to issue them is
about all it takes to get things going. Impersonal, sure; it's a bit
like showing up to a gaming session in anticipation of a night's
worth of roleplaying, only to have your GM hand you a Fighting
Fantasy gamebook <http://www.fightingfantasy.com/index2.htm> and a
pair of dice. "Here, go wild. I'll be in my room surfing the
internet for porn if you need me." But the scale of a MMOG is
self-defeating; the only way to keep up with a population that
stretches into the tens, if not hundreds of thousands, is to turn
the Hero's Journey into a self-perpetuating little engine through
which the players bounce on their journey to greatness. In light of
this, it's curious to consider just how much of a throwback to the
pen-and-paper ideals the average "GM event" is. Take the traditional
- or rather, typical - setup: monsters or characters pop into the
game world, either shred through the players en masse, or deliver a
few tepidly-scripted pieces of dialogue to set some half-assed quest
in motion. Traditionally, these "named characters" are nothing more
than sheep in wolves' clothing; in-game support staff control their
actions and movements, and pop them out of existence again when
their purpose is done. It's a labour-intensive process, though -
perhaps needlessly so, given the relatively low quality of the
events produced in this fashion; at the risk of slighting current
efforts, invasions of baby-eating minotaurs

  http://www.mnstarfire.com/everquest/defenseofakanon.html

and invincible terrorists


  http://www.ir-news.org/news/article.php?id=68

are not exactly the stuff legends are made of. Given the right
tools, however, the hypothetical Event Team can free up its limited
resources to be used in a more productive manner - a point in case
can be found in Final Fantasy XI's very first event. The setup was
that of a glorified scavenger hunt; players were tasked with finding
21 moogles - the Final Fantasy series' furry white mascots -
scattered across the entirety of Vana'Diel. Sighting a moogle earned
a player "Moogle points" which could be redeemed for items at the
end of the four-hour event, with additional modifiers for the size
of the player's current party and their Level. Simple premise? 
Probably, but that would be overlooking the two most critical
factors. For one, unlike the tiny blink-and-you'll-miss-it events
Western players are used to, this one was truly global in scale,
involving each server's entire population and covering the entirety
of the gaming world. To boot, the event was almost entirely
automated; special one-off NPCs were spawned into the area to
dispense information and direct the players, taking the weight off
the Events team while at the same time allowing all 20 servers to
experience the event. No small feat by anyone's reckoning, and given
the fact that no Western MMOG since UO has been able to match it, a
stirring testament to the power - and potential - of automation in
MMOGs. What do tools have to do with all this, though? 
Plenty. Taking the same basic "monsters invade city out of
nowhere"-style event showcased by the two above examples as a
starting point, the Team lead begins by sketching out a quick
encounter, then pulls up the GM client. Through a series of
drop-down menus, they select the number of monsters, the model used,
the location they'll spawn in, their names, loot and special
properties. From another series of menus, they hammer out a quick AI
script, a few taunts, and set a general behavioural path. The
resulting encounter is duplicated several times - once for each
server - and then saved; to give the encounter some added
verisimilitude, the designer takes ten minutes to whip up an NPC or
two to broadcast some warning messages, copies them a few times, and
then "hot-patches" the whole mess in across the server farm. Voila;
half an hours' worth of mindless entertainment replicated across a
dozen servers. If this example sounds strangely familiar, chances
are you're one of the cadre of world-builders currently struggling
to squeeze some functionality out of the long-delayed, yet hideously
premature 

  http://www.waterthread.org/news/102470392161646.html

Neverwinter Nights and its hit-and-miss Aurora toolset. While what
landed on store shelves a few weeks back came significantly short of
delivering "actuality and potentiality in a single package" in the
user-friendly manner Bioware's own ad copy suggested, it's at the
very least a step in that direction - perhaps the subtlest form of
irony is that the would-be destroyer of massively multiplayer gaming
may just offer the template needed for its salvation.  Consider the
NWN module as a proto-MMOG with a development team of one; an
environment is developed and then opened to the public, continually
refined over time for balance and entertainment value. As the DM,
the module's owner can possess random NPCs, create encounters, warp
anywhere on the map, establish traps and do on-the-fly interior
decoration, all without ever having to disrupt play.

The key word to carry away here is "dynamic": in order to create the
impression of a constantly-changing world, a world-builder has to
have the capability to readily alter and add to the game's
environment on a regular basis with a relative minimum of hassle. In
MMOGs, the ability to spawn in a particular monster or NPC is a
given in most cases, but doesn't leave the budding narrator with a
hell of a lot of other options on his or her hands; the most
critical difference between the NWN DM Client and a GM in almost any
given massively multiplayer game is the fact that MMOG GM is usually
tied to their specific character, thus limiting their ability to act
upon the gaming world they co-inhabit with the players. Neverwinter
Nights detaches its DMs from the proceedings; though the DM has a
specific avatar to focus on, they can just as easily play
fly-on-the-wall. In keeping with the idea that virtual worlds are
less novels and more terrariums, this eye-in-the-sky functionality
which allows the prospective designer to monitor large areas with
relative ease is nothing short of essential; after all, if we're
going to be introducing stimuli into the environment, we'll need to
see exactly what effects they have on its inhabitants. It's an idea
that Cornered Rat Software recently parlayed into World War 2 Online
with the introduction of specialised "vehicles" - a buzzard and a
flaming skull, respectively - to observe and screencap large battles
with a minimum of hassle, but without the ability to manipulate the
proceedings, it's really only an interesting diversion. However,
once coupled with the usual suspects - NPC and monster creation,
item-summoning - and a good scripting tool or two, a GM can simply
set up events and let them run, observing the results from on high
and intervening if anything particularly problematic crops up.  By
temporarily possessing one of their creations, they can even create
the illusion of a GM character where none actually exists; the best
of both worlds at a fraction of the effort. But why leave it at
that? If we really want to push the envelope of our hypothetical
toolkit, why not give our fictitious Events team the ability to slap
together throwaway dungeons and other areas from prefab elements and
then connect the resulting creations to the main gameworld via a
one-off gateway or teleport? In an Anarchy Online-style system where
each "mission" is a separate, self-contained zone, adding to the
world in this manner is far easier than having to expand existing
zones to incorporate a particular event - a "mini-packet" of data
downloaded to access the new area would be significantly more
convenient on the player side than having to wait for an entire
existing zone to recompile. Furthermore, these "event" dungeons
could then be reused for other parties and purposes as its designers
see fit.

But in spite the advantages conferred by building a game with such
tools pre-planned and fully supported, there are a few problems with
this particular angle. Given the fact that most MMOGs rely on
scratch-coded engines which take several years to reach even a
reasonable level of stability and functionality - "reasonable", of
course, being a relative term in light of such atrocities as the
crash-prone, memory-hungry Anarchy Online client upon release - the
time to code these tools, let alone bring them up to the kind of
user-friendly functionality and convenience outlined in our example
above, is almost non-existent. There's a reason designer tools for a
given game tend to be a little rough around the edges; in most
cases, it's hard to justify the extra time investment if the basic
functionality's already there. The additional complication of having
to deal with true-3D worlds compounds the problem; UO's flat,
isometric worlds allowed for considerably more elaborate events than
the carefully-modelled environments of its competitors simply
because they already depend heavily on prefabricated objects in
their creation. For all their comparative simplicity, tilesets and
sprites can be juggled more readily than polygons.  Then there's the
monetary factor. In a time where production budgets have escalated
to the point where companies can't even afford to send out beta CDs
without jeopardising their game's feature set

  http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/starwars/Forum3/HTML/065568.html

the additional time and manpower needed to produce a functional,
easy-to-use set of tools can cost more money than said tools are
worth - first priority is getting a game on the shelves and stopping
the painful, cash-bleeding development process. As a result, you'll
find these little conveniences are supplied after the fact, pieced
together on whatever minutes can be spared from fixing bugs and
coding up new high-level loot. Anarchy Online's new NPC toolkit

  http://www.ragnartornquist.com/2002_07_01_thoughtsarchive.html

for instance, wasn't completed until almost a year after the game's
launch, but is a nonetheless perfect example of the kind of
materials a game's story-builders should have at their
disposal. That isn't to say that constructing a game engine around
dynamic environments is entirely out of the question - witness
eGenesis' proprietary eClient, currently powering A Tale In The
Desert; designed from ground up to support both hot-patching -
facilitating the introduction of new content without the need for
server downtime - and a high degree of customisability. Other games,
such as the module-based 3rd World, also are edging towards this
kind of functionality, but have the added advantage of being under
significantly lower financial and chronological pressure than their
big-budget counterparts; as EverQuest and its successors have
proven, PvE content is cheaper than story-based content and just as
effective, if not moreso, taking a great deal of the impetus out of
putting the extra effort into designing a game with a story-friendly
toolset. Characterisation and plotting are all fine and well, but
when mindless dungeon crawlers like Lineage and Legend of Mir can
draw in subscribers by the millions, the suits can be forgiven for
not wanting to screw around with a winning formula.

Fortunately enough for today's penny-conscious MMOG developers,
there are far simpler alternatives. If the primary challenge in
telling a story in MMOGs lies in actually being able to relay said
storyline to the playerbase at large, in-game news sources are one
of the easiest "fixes" to this situation. In spite of this, they
remain criminally underutilised; while almost every major game from
Ultima Online to World War 2 Online sports its own riff on the
"community news" theme, none of them make a concerted effort to
bring these stories out of the websites and into the game
itself. Less of a tragedy in some cases; given SOE's willingness to
abuse EverQuest's Message of the Day to advertise the exciting
possibilities offered by Jeopardy College Bowl and the rather
limited journalistic potential inherent in stories like "Area man
wastes 70 hours of life on Ragebringer spawn" or "Lag kills 60 at
Bard tournament", it's just as well that EQ players aren't being
kept abreast of current events. It's a similiar situation in WW2O's
case - bearing in mind the fact that the war "resets" on a regular
basis, somewhat lessening the need for up-to-the-date dispatches
from the front - and with Dark Age of Camelot's hollow Realm
vs. Realm conflict. But what about Anarchy Online? Say what you will
about the shambolic, stop-start nature of its metaplot, but the
variety of "in-character" news organs presented on the game's
official website, ranging from the rabble-rousing Voice of Freedom

  http://www.anarchy-online.com/content/community/people/rubikanews/clannews/

to the sober, propagandistic Rubi-Ka Times

  http://www.anarchy-online.com/content/community/people/rubikanews/omninews/

do an admirable job in painting a picture of an active, complex
virtual society. But does anybody really take notice? Stuck in the
ass-end of the site's frontpage and divorced from any kind of
context, they are little better than deadweight, doomed to be
ignored by the hundreds of players who are just checking in to get
the 411 on the newest patch or have a hard time remembering
"forums.anarchy-online.com". Why not mirror the content to an
in-game venue, allowing the players to peruse the stories in an
environment where they actually make sense? In AO's case, the
addition would be entirely consistent with the game's futuristic
theme; a planetwide news network with multiple channels is easily
feasible in a world where teleportation and anti-gravity are facts
of life. More to the point, it takes some of the sting out of the
static setting; even though events are between far and few and
Rubi-Ka itself only changes whenever a patch comes down the
turnpike, a regular flow of news gives the impression that
something's always brewing, no matter what day of the week it
is. It's a more sensible cure for downtime than Gems

  http://tweety.bowlofmice.com/tweety/gems.html

if you're going to be parked on your ass for while, you might as
well have the ability to scan the daily headlines. Hell, why stop
there? Syndicate a couple of webcomics, throw in some virtual sports
scores, a crossword puzzle and weekly advice from Mennix

  http://eqlive.station.sony.com/community/dear_mennix.jsp

and the time will just fly. But there's more to these tools than
just simple time-wasting and world-building, especially in a setting
like AO's, where the four-year storyline is an indelible part of the
proceedings. Given the paucity of dedicated staffers, it's
inevitable that those rare occasions when a GM finally decides to
descend from the Ivory Tower to coordinate an event are random,
improvised and chaotic; all the more for their sporadic nature. GM
events happen wherever and whenever; for most players, the only way
to get involved with things is to be in the right place at the right
time - easier said than done when you're talking about a world
covering hundreds of simulated square miles. Enter the humble news
source, the perfect way to keep a game's populace up to date with
the has-beens and will-bes. Of course, just flat-out telling
everybody where and when events are held can be a two-edged sword
for obvious reasons; once everybody knows where the action is,
chances are that you'll end up with rubberbanding and lag en masse
as guilds and groups rush in to get a piece of the proceedings, but
given the predominance of instant messenger programs, in-game /say
and /guildsay functions and voice communications, it's practically
inevitable one way or another. Informing the players doesn't
necessarily mean giving the whole game away, though; a little bit of
subtlety can go a long way. If a GM-controlled feature character is
going to start a battle somewhere, the GM in question can put in a
small in-character notice a few days beforehand, giving the NPC a
chance to announce his or her plans in broad terms and spout off a
bit of RP-friendly ideological claptrap. If specialised monsters
have been designed for a one-off "invasion", letting a few
"sightings" slip ahead of time gives the players at least a general
idea of where to expect the event when it happens - a few select
individuals might even get it in their heads to patrol the general
area, in which case the designers can add more encounters on the fly
and create a satisfying buildup to the "main event". More important
- at least from a storyteller's perspective - is the fact this
approach introduces a certain sense of continuity into things; for
most players, the first they'll hear of an event is when it's
already over and done with, at which point they frankly couldn't
give less of a damn about it. The news stories leading into an event
create a kind of anticipation; the news stories concluding them a
fitting resolution.  Consider an example in which a GM character
announces and then carries out a protest or political rally; the
first news item primes the player, but can easily be set aside. When
the second item hits, however, there's a little flash of recognition
- and the story suddenly becomes relevant, even if it is off the
back of a "So that's what happened!" feeling. This does, however,
necessitate additional planning and a greater degree of coordination
than what's found in most of today's market leaders, unless major
events are involved; given the largely intangible benefits, some
would probably see it as more trouble than it's worth. To date, only
one big-name developer seems to have twigged onto the power inherent
in in-game news sources; Final Fantasy XI's mouthpiece, the
Vana'diel Tribune

  http://www.playonline.com/ff11/vt/03/index.html

is a slicky-designed little faux-paper with topics ranging from
current events to naming conventions

  http://www.playonline.com/ff11/vt/03/04-2.html

which can be read in the comfort of your in-game home, the Mog
House. Though somewhat less regular in appearing than, say, Voice of
Freedom, the combination of "crunchy" event- and gameplay-related
articles and roleplay material sets a sterling example to Western
developers to follow.

For the more ambitious souls out there, the environment itself can
be just as effective a storytelling tool as any event or NPC, a fact
that Asheron's Call's episodic metaplot has demonstrated time and
again. In the real world, things change from day to day; people are
born, people die, seasons shift, places are built and destroyed. But
expecting to see the passage of time take its toll on a gaming world
is generally about as rewarding as looking for horsefeathers; while
players come and go, save for the odd expansion pack or patch, the
picture still remains the same - a static little collection of
locales and quest machines upon whom the sun never sets.  Asheron's
Call, however, bucked the trend in a fashion no game since has
managed to emulate; snowy one day, covered in sinister dark spires
the next, ever-changing and evolving. It helps that Turbine's
willing to break their toys every so often. Part of Asheron's Call's
gonzo appeal stems from its casual disregard for major landmarks;
entire towns have been levelled from one month to the next,
sometimes leaving nothing more than a gaping crater to mark their
passing. Compare this to Anarchy Online, where one recent news story
describes a Clanner raid on the massive Notum Cannons

  http://www.anarchy-online.com/content/community/people/rubikanews/clannews/articles/3540L

which send valuable minerals off-planet. Despite the fact that five
groups participated in the raid and the attack resulted in at least
one cannon being "destroyed repeatedly", a quick visit to Clondyke
will confirm that none of the three structures evidence even the
slightest bit of damage, let alone suggest the aftermath of a
massive commando raid.  Wasted potential, if anything; a one-off
event fades almost as soon as it's done, living on only in a few
message board posts and the odd ICQ log. A true "global event", on
the other hand, remains engrained in the world after it has passed,
allowing the players who participated to leave a permanent mark to
commemorate accomplishments - and perhaps facilitate a few bragging
rights. However, that particular example is at odds with the
ponderous way in which Asheron's Call's world changes; major
alterations to Dereth's terrain only appear after patch day is over
and done with and the servers are back up again. Without the ability
to dynamically change the environment, there's only so much a
storyteller can do with the material at hand, though it's to
Turbine's credit that their arc plot is still considered one of the
best in the mainstream in spite of the limitations imposed by this
"cold-patching" approach. So, what's the alternative?

While deformable terrain, a feature promised in several forthcoming
games - most notably the dark sci-fantasy MMOG Charr: The Grimm Fate
- offers an at least partial panacea, a simpler solution can be
built in at a modular level, much like Shadowbane's RPG/RTS hybrid
promises to do in regards to player-created towns. Instead of making
buildings and other notable features part of the immediate terrain,
they can be treated as a kind of stationary mobile object, complete
with its own invisible HP score and "death animation" - read: fiery
explosion followed by timbers or futuristic building materials
collapsing in on themselves. Then, when the plot dictates a bombing
or otherwise spectacular act of destruction, the GMs in charge can
just reduce the structure's HP to 0 and watch the fireworks go off.
Similarly, by keeping structures as objects rather than as "hard
terrain", introducing them into the game world via hot-patching
becomes a significantly easier task. The remaining slack can be
taken up by palette and texture swaps; decaying grounds and rivers
of blood wouldn't be any more difficult to pull off than the work
required to replace one set of textures with another and saving the
end result. The drawbacks are obvious - after all the "disgruntled
GM goes on rampage, kills hundreds of players" horror stories that
have surfaced over the years, the idea of some loose cannon playing
"Virtual Unabomber" and decimating an entire city through their GM
Clients should be enough to give any developer pause for
thought. It's not a terminal problem, though; with enough checks and
balances and careful monitoring, there's no reason why it couldn't
be made to work. Whether there's actually any professional desire to
see it work is another matter entirely; those forthcoming MMOGs that
do incorporate destructible features do so because of they're a
necessity imposed on them by their basic feature set - in other
words, a side-effect of having player-built structures entering the
game's world in large numbers. Expecting such features to be born
out of simple profit motive is an exercise in futility. However,
that's only wishful thinking at work, and even then, only half of
the puzzle. The possibilities inherent in all of these areas are
certainly intriguing, but no matter how good the tools are,
designers and developers can only take a game's story so far. Where
things go from there rests entirely in the hands of the players
themselves. 
<---end quote

-Raph

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From marc at genesisfour.com  Mon Jul 29 17:07:02 2002
From: marc at genesisfour.com (Marc LaFleur)
Date: Mon Jul 29 17:07:02 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24327.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Raph Koster:

> I'm using a pretty loose definition of group. In your examples in
> your email, you cite getting together to trade goods, you cite
> forming a guild.
 
> The common statement seems to be "I don't like grouping, I want to
> do everything solo." And doing everything solo leads to no social
> ties. This is very different from what you are stating, which is
> "I don't like grouping because I want to have a short play session
> and traditional party-up-and-kill game play takes too long."

You are correct. I am not looking to "do everything solo". I
personally look for some in-between "solo" and "forced group".

I think that grouping, when it is a purely social tool, adds a lot
to the game. It helps to build social ties that in turn keep players
interested in the world itself. My problem comes in when grouping
moves from a socialization tool to a game mechanic.

When all you are doing is grouping for the sake of the game
mechanics, you are not building social ties at all. The group exists
to fill a selfish desire to raise one's level. They are not group
for the "common good", they are group to accumulate objects in the
game (treasure, experience, etc).

Ultima Online is a good example. There was little value in Guilds
other than social and most players wanted to find a guild to play
with. And even though the game itself offered few tools for it, the
social ties in the game were so strong that player run towns popped
up with complete government and elections.

It sounds to me like you are planning to implement a similarly
flexible system into SW:G (albeit with significant enhancements).

I guess I now have another reason to want to play your game. In
fact, stop reading this. Right now. Go work, make game. Its your
duty as American (insert patriotic music here). :)

Marc


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Koster  Tue Jul 30 20:43:11 2002
From: Koster (Koster)
Date: Tue Jul 30 20:43:11 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24328.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: John Robert Arras

> I just posted a response to the previous response to my message
> that essentially covers this point. I like the idea of your
> guilds. They aren't official positions. Their power comes from the
> players who respect those positions, not from the developers who
> created a position and let a player earn or gain the position
> somehow. Allow the politics and power to emerge from within the
> game. Allow players to organize and band together for a common
> purpose. Let these bands of players oppose and ally with other
> bands of players. Let the politics flow naturally from the rules
> of the game. These are some of the things that I want to see. I
> just don't want to see players given positions of power that were
> set up by the developers.

Well, there's countless guild and clan structures like that working
in muds and MMORPGs these days. The days when the guilds or clans
were set up by the developers in advance seem to be gone. I know
when I started mudding, that's how it was, by and large--guilds had
to be set up by admins. But most every game I see now lets players
form guilds arbitrarily...

I will quibble with the notion that this is democratic,
though. Usually, these guilds are the fruit of a single individual's
efforts, and losing them usually leads to it crumbling away. It's
not often that I have seen a guild or town survive the loss of its
founder or leader. I attribute this in part to the fairly small
scale of the social organizations in these games...

-Raph


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Koster  Tue Jul 30 20:49:36 2002
From: Koster (Koster)
Date: Tue Jul 30 20:49:36 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed t o
	being immatu re?
Message-ID: <mailman.24329.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Matt Mihaly

> I can't remember the names, but don't some of the larger Korean
> graphical MUDs have group PvP wars? I don't think it's really been
> tried to a significant extent in the large American market yet,
> but it does work on a smaller scale. I guess from my point of
> view, the "It won't work." perspective is based on fairly
> off-the-cuff speculation, and I'd prefer to believe it can be
> scaled (and maybe has. Can anyone talk knowledgeably about how the
> Korean games handle this at a larger scale? Jake? David?) and
> someone will manage to implement it at some point on a larger
> scale in the American market.

Lineage is premised almost entirely on it. The pure gameplay of
Lineage minus the PvP is a very simplistic Diablo-like mud. However,
the nifty aspect of it is that of the four classes that exist, one
of them is "prince." Princes are special because they can run
Bloodpledges. Basically, Bloodpledges can conquer castles. Whichever
Bloodpledge holds a castle gets revenue from the taxation of the
citizens, and other perks.

You never hear about the regular gameplay of Lineage. You only hear
about the castle sieges and the Bloodpledges. The sense of teamwork
and shared experience is extremely powerful. Sieges are scheduled
events, so there's ample planning and the like involved.

Aspects that I suspect "don't work" for the Western audience--the
visuals (especially the lack of customization). The gameplay outside
of Bloodpledges. The limited array of classes. And the fact that
leaders are a class, not something you achieve (though it does take
hard work to become the leader of a powerful Bloodpledge).

Overall, this is not at all dissimilar to what Shadowbane is
attempting. Key differences: arbitrary groups can build cities
anywhere; no preselected leaders.

-Raph

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From jb at co-laboratory.com  Tue Jul 30 21:42:21 2002
From: jb at co-laboratory.com (John Bertoglio)
Date: Tue Jul 30 21:42:21 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] About Fencing (was: mass customisation)
Message-ID: <mailman.24330.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Christopher Allen" 

<cut to the chase: user criticism of the fencing system>

> The current limited number of maneuvers mean that the output is
> somewhat repetive. To quote one of our players, Martel: "The
> Marrach system isn't bad for the first dozen duels.  But after a
> thousand, its just the same text you've seen before.

If you do ANYTHING a thousand times, the text description of the
event will become repetitive. This is a given. Listen to any
description of any sporting event . . . after a thousand baseball
games you will not hear anything new. You would be lucky to hear
something new after the first ten. It is the nature of computer
simulations of any kind for users to burn through commentary. How
many times did you laugh at the "Why are you touching me!" line in
Warcraft before you turned the comments forever?

> You skim the text to see what's happening, or you recognize the
> length of the response and that tells you what it says. Combat
> tends to be either too terse (in other games) or too spammy
> (Marrach).  Finding a balance that is still interesting to read
> after a year would be very very hard."

No matter how sophisticated the system, at some level it still comes
down to "scissors, paper, rock". You will quickly drop the "paper
covers rock" prose to get to the meat of the bout. However, in the
beginning, it helps to expain that action and help you plot your
tactics. A simple switch to toggle on and off the verbose
descriptions should help with the problem above.

> We are working on some ideas on how to prune this exponential
> growth of outcomes somehow, but have not come up with a
> satisfactory answer that gives as good prose as our existing
> system.

Again, this is the nature of these kind of systems. Users will burn
novelty from the system faster than you can ever add it. One partial
solution is to throw a few low probability events into the mix. This
would add some spice especially if they were timed to only happen on
long cycle.  Add a few events keyed to skill level, class, location
(or whatever) and the system will seem much richer. (The first time
you cut the candles in half would be a real treat).

Another "solution" is to have so many things like fencing that
people move to a new activity before they exaaust all the potential
events.  Of course, this is still more work!

> As an alternative we are also in the process of rewriting our
> fencing system so that our players volunteers can build new prose
> for maneuvers -- at this point, they understand the fencing system
> better then we do!

This is an excellent solution. You move from writer to editor which
is more far more efficient in terms of content creation. It also
allows you to channel the much higher level of expertise and
commitment this special group of users bring to the enterprise.

> I'll enclose a brief log of a real Marrach duel, some documents
> written by our players on fencing, as well as some stuff on the
> culture of Code Duello in Marrach.

(Brief?) Very cool.

<but cut>

---
John A. Bertoglio
co-laboratory, Inc.
(503) 781-3563
jb at co-laboratory.com
www.co-laboratory.com






_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ammon at simud.org  Tue Jul 30 22:16:05 2002
From: ammon at simud.org (Ammon Lauritzen)
Date: Tue Jul 30 22:16:05 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24331.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Jack Britt wrote:

> I'm trying to find alternatives to the AD&D-style of hit points
> but I'm not having much luck. Couldn't find anything on google,
> and can't seem to come up with anything on the mud-dev archives
> (although this is probably due to my inability to do a decent
> search.)

> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a
> different way of doing hit points?

Apart from storing health in some sort of number or set of numbers? 
I don't think there is any other way that could be implemented in a
computer game.

However, I do have a few thoughts, many of which have been said
before me by other people in different forums, but I can't recal who
said what, and as such am going to just continue this sentance as
long as I can, stringing in as many commas as is possible, until I
run out of ways to stall.

This is not meant as a single idea, but as a great jumble of
randomness that might hopefully help you bounce in the right
direction.

First off, it would be possible to drastically limit the range of
hit points. Say 2 is average and 5 is godlike. Any time you suffer
an injury that is actually life threatening, you take one or two
points of damage.  Otherwise, you just ignore the hit.

If you want, you can incorporate some sort of endurance system to go
along with this. Endurance would be spent whenever doing something
strenuous, but would also be reduced when you take non-threatening
hits.  So, it is possible to wear somebody out to the point where
they can no longer defend themselves or walk or whatever. Then they
take a telling blow.

Now that I think about it, this is similar to how the Palladium role
playing system works. They use two separate numbers to determine a
person's health. One is their actual life energy, the other is a
measure of structural damage capacity (I think that's what they call
it, I can't quite remember). Whenever you get hurt, both numbers are
likely to be reduced.

With HP regenerating slower than SDC, your body may be fully
functional and may not show signs of injury, but you still wind up
nursing a week-old wound that could re-open at any moment and
suddenly cause you a lot more distress than you had anticipated.

The other extension that I can think of is to divide the SDC up
among the different body parts. This has been done to death, but an
interesting twist might be that healing the external body parts
takes away from the internal HP regen, or possibly feeds off of
nearer, stronger body parts to some extent or another - the body
diverting blood flow or somesuch.

The implications for one-shot assassination, diseases, and poisons
as means of inflicting injury in this sort of scenareo become a lot
more interesting. Also, the image of two knights in platemail
whacking each other with swords until one falls over a few hours
later is also an option.

Shrug, just my thoughts.

--
Ammon Lauritzen
http://www.simud.org/


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From efindel at earthlink.net  Tue Jul 30 23:35:11 2002
From: efindel at earthlink.net (Travis Casey)
Date: Tue Jul 30 23:35:11 2002
Subject: =?utf-8?b?SGFuZ3VsICh3YXMgUmU6IFLDqWYuIDogUkU6IFtNVUQtRGV2XSBNYXNz?=
	=?utf-8?q?_customization_in_MM***s=29?=
Message-ID: <mailman.24332.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Thursday 25 July 2002 3:01, Damion Schubert wrote:

> I don't know exactly what the language font for Korean is, but if
> you go into any Korean Lineage server, you'll see a lot of symbols
> above the heads of characters which aren't latin Characters by any
> stretch of the imagination.

The major writing system in Korea is called Hangul.  It is a
syllabary -- each symbol represents a particular syllable.  This
means it has a lot more characters than English (which builds
syllables from multiple characters), but nowhere near as many as
traditional Chinese writing, in which a symbol corresponds to a
particular word.

Hangul has exactly 140 characters.  Each of these is a consonant +
vowel combination.  There are also separate symbols for the
consonants (of which there are 14) and the vowels (of which there
are 10).

I've never dealt with typing Korean (heck, I don't even know
Korean... I'm just interested in languages and writing systems), so
I don't know exactly how they set it up.  If it were me, I'd map
each of the consonants and vowels to one of the English letters --
since there are 24 of those, and 26 English letters, that wouldn't
be a problem.  You'd have to type two keys to get one Hangul symbol,
but since each symbol is equivalent to two to five Roman letters in
the standard Romanization of Hangul, it'd actually be more efficient
than typing in Romanized Korean.

Thus, typing for the Koreans shouldn't be too much of a problem, I'd
think... not like the nightmare that Chinese can be.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_     Travis S. Casey  <efindel at earthlink.net>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-' 
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) 

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From frankc at maddog.com  Tue Jul 30 23:56:43 2002
From: frankc at maddog.com (Frank Crowell)
Date: Tue Jul 30 23:56:43 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Creative guy seeking a MUD
Message-ID: <mailman.24333.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com>

> I'm mainly interested in making bots and automatons that probably
> will annoy some people

I tried a couple of times to recruit people for a bot-dominated mud.
I even invited the AI guys over a couple of times.  But no one ever
showed any interest.

As for bots annoying people, I used to have some interesting papers
on the wars between Mud Admins and bot developers.  This same hate
relationship has carried into FPS where bots are considered evil.
Finally my Mud-Dev post of "No Bots Allowed" got one big
zzzzzzzzzz. I guess a big zzzzzzz is better than a punch to my nose.

> I'd love any excuse to program in Python.  Maybe nobody uses
> Python as the user scripting language, I dunno.  If it isn't
> Python, I'd like the scripting language to be pretty painless.  

I have used Strout's python agent for a few things.  Of course a few
years ago I did a quick mod to colins to get rid of his panic
attacks whenever he entered a MOO.  But colins and all his relatives
are written in C; it's not that hard to modify colins, but I
wouldn't recommend doing it in C although there are several agent
libraries available in C++.

Other choices include Java or Perl.  Both have agents libraries for
them.

> I'd like fairly painless tools for uploading user content.  I figure
> I'll be doing a lot of that.  Also, I'm much more interested in MUDs
> that don't try to make me sign away the copyright on my work.  If
> you want to own what I write, I'll write very little and leave soon.

If you are doing external bots, then the bot software is your own.
If you are doing NPCs, then the mud should have the right to use
your works although you get to keep the copyright (naturally) and
you can do whatever you want with your property.

The biggest issue that I have seen in muds is when the developer
decides to leave the mud and take his stuff with him.  Mud Admins
must have the right to continue to use the property but they may not
have the right to modify it.

> So, in the words of the immortal Cyndi Lauper, "Geeks just wanna
> have fun!"  You guys know of a MUD out there where I can do this
> stuff and not get a bunch of pointless moralisms thrown at me?

It's going to be hard.  External bots are the outlaws of the mud
world except for MUSH/MUX where puppetry is part of their role
playing. MOOs/Cold are also interesting if you have programmer
permission because you can create and destroy objects so you have a
lot of room to play around.  LPmuds and Dikus are closed systems;
only NPC bots are allowed.

I would run a bot-dominated server -- either a text Cold or a 3D
server -- but I don't believe that I am allowed to run a mud server
on my service.


frank



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From liet at lietcam.com  Wed Jul 31 01:36:21 2002
From: liet at lietcam.com (Sara Jensen)
Date: Wed Jul 31 01:36:21 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Gossip, fiction and tactical lore
Message-ID: <mailman.24334.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Damion Schubert wrote:

> I recently did an IRC chat where I espoused my opinion that player
> stories are more important than character stories.

In my experience, playing Dark Age of Camelot on a "roleplaying"
server, in a strict "roleplaying" guild and strict "roleplaying"
alliance, "roleplaying" in MMOGs is all about communicating in what
you've called "fictional terms."  It's not about complicated
backstories and poor Elizabethan English, for most -- it's just
spending an extra moment to compose an in-context sentence when
speaking with others, instead of a string of abbreviations.  It's a
language game.

I once messaged a stranger after my entire group died in a dungeon,
and said "our party'd been brutally slain and we're in need of
miracles." She said "????," but she still came out of her way to
resurrect us.  I got to stay "in character" and she got to laugh at
someone for being "daft," so we probably both enjoyed ourselves.  :)

/tangent

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu  Wed Jul 31 01:51:08 2002
From: Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu (Sasha Hart)
Date: Wed Jul 31 01:51:08 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24335.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

[Matt Mihaly]

> Well, that's fair enough, though I'd appreciate it if you'd drop
> the slander, as neither you nor I should be the subject of
> anything discussed here, but rather the ideas we're speaking
> about.

I'm sorry, that wasn't intended to be slander. The comment about
delicacy was actually intended to be sarcastic as I've always
perceived you as being extremely thick-skinned to
criticism. (However, I see you making few apologies for the design
decisions below - which is as it should be).  That was much too
informal on my part, and I am nothing but sorry for the misstep. :/

> You break some eggs to make an omlette.

Absolutely! And, of course, the decision about whether the omelette
is worth it is up to the developer, certainly not up to ME per
se. Good heavens, I go through games at warp speed, and am pretty
unmanageable within each. If my attendance were any kind of arbiter
of game quality then I would fear for anyone making money on MUDs.

As the metaphor implies, it is still impossible to make *any* kind
of omelette without breaking *some* eggs. Which ones you finally
decide to break is fairly arbitrary.  I can think of many worse
decisions to make. Certainly I'm not any happier with giving players
no power, as much as that might free us to think about spawn rates.

> I'm not claiming that nobody is made unhappy by our political
> systems, because they CAN make your life miserable, but they are
> one thing that most of our long-time players love, [...]

You seemed skeptical of the claim, so I made an attempt (poorly
managed, in retrospect) to provide a firm and substantial example of
the problem, in a nutshell. I interpret the above as basically total
acknowledgement of the problem, but a denial that it is crippling. I
would tend to agree, especially in light of the ongoing success of
games which incorporate the idea in one way or another.

What I hope I can convey is that at least some people some of the
time will not like it. Some eggs are broken. Does that matter? Up to
you. I guess I didn't express this adequately in my preceding post.

> I so often see things speculated on here when they've already been
> done, usually in multiple places (I see it more often from people
> who didn't start playing MUDs until the big graphical ones came
> out. You should check out text MUDs even if for the sake of just
> understanding where the graphical MUDs evolved ;from.

There is creativity in text games which the graphical games will
still be afraid to try or apply for years to come. Too much is at
stake. I think exploration, including the trial of design ideas
which are chancy, interesting, counterintuitive, which break a few
other eggs in order to make a different kind of omelette - is both
vastly interesting, and vastly useful. Text games still have a near
monopoly on exploration of the design space (IMO) even if their
scope tends to be much more limited (unless we consider the
hobbyist/amateur, in which case text games win out again - there are
really so few established hobbyist graphical games).

I think we are missing out on huge swaths of the design space simply
because we are too busy worrying about whether everyone will drop
our game immediately on the basis of one tenuously conceived
problem.  Look, all games have problems, and you DON'T have much of
an idea of what will work until you try it (or consult w/someone who
has tried it.)

Achaea is a successful game which nonetheless tries a number of
strange and interesting ideas.  As a consumer of designs this is
what I have the highest respect for, and have the most use for -
successful (even unsuccessful) explorations.) My observation that
some eggs have been broken isn't intended to be a slander on the
game.

Summary:.

  1. I am a martian and my attendance does not represent my esteem
  of a game necessarily; nor is my esteem any objective indicator of
  quality, nor do I even think it is.

  2. Observing the failure modes of an interesting idea is much more
  instructive than observing the homogenous failures of a very
  conservative and boring idea. (To a martian like me, it also is
  more fun.)


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu  Wed Jul 31 02:08:03 2002
From: Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu (Sasha Hart)
Date: Wed Jul 31 02:08:03 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24336.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

[Ammon Lauritzen]
> [Jack Britt]

>> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a
>> different way of doing hit points?

> Apart from storing health in some sort of number or set of
> numbers? I don't think there is any other way that could be
> implemented in a computer game.

Something I toyed with for a while was probabilistic damage.  I
won't vouch for the sanity of the idea, but it accomplished certain
odd goals. It is more or less an extreme spin on the already
existing variability in hits (variable hit points, "to-hit rolls"
and the like. I got started on it as part of a bigger project to get
rid of problems like the death of a thousand paper cuts.

Instead of manipulating exactly how many points it is until death
(reducing hit points by variable amount), you would each round
basically roll a die. This would allow you in principle to keep less
state per combatant; I saw this as a kind of accessory for "monsters
lite" that took up very little memory, or a model to apply per part
of a more detailed monster.

Obviously you can change the probability as a function of anything,
ensure a death at some point, and so on. My code back then applied
it per-part, and each part's capabilities were effectively disabled
or enabled by the wound labels that would be applied to it in the
course of the probabilistic fighting. IMO it worked OK, in some
respects better and in others worse. It's been shelved.

Sasha

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com  Wed Jul 31 02:37:38 2002
From: vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com (Brandon J. Van Every)
Date: Wed Jul 31 02:37:38 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] remote 56K editing, especially for lpmud?
Message-ID: <mailman.24337.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

I found a project.  I am now a wizard on a lpmud.  I have a
/homedirectory and I can type ls, mv, rm commands from within the
mud.  Editors are available within the mud, but the character echo
is too slow over my 56K modem connection to be usable.  My work is
going to consist mainly of creating foo.c files in /homedirectory.
I need an efficient way to download foo.c to my local computer, edit
it, then upload it again.  Ideally, I'd like a setup that makes the
download-upload step transparent to me.

The mud owners are not willing to give wizards system shell accounts
or system FTP access.  They feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are
more secure if they don't.

Apparently there's some kind of in-mud FTP capability, but it's
currently broken and they say it's too much hassle to do anything
about it.

Has anyone encountered these problems and come up with a solution
for them?  They've cooked some homebrew stuff to deal with it, but
their solution doesn't appear to be robust or industrial strength.
I'm not relishing the prospect of integrating their solution into
some arbitrary editor.  It sounds like at least a day of my time and
I don't like spending my time that way.


Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ceo at grexengine.com  Wed Jul 31 03:32:44 2002
From: ceo at grexengine.com (Adam)
Date: Wed Jul 31 03:32:44 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A question of PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24338.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 szii at sziisoft.com wrote:

> You couldn't get good at CS quickly...so you quit.  To most
> pk-types I know, that's kinda funny. *shrug* We don't really care
> whether you play or not, except that you're missing out on a great
> game once you achieve a certain level of play...regardless of the
> arena.  I could state that 'Go' is hard, too.  It's an immensely
> challenging game that you never really can master.  But once you
> get a feel for it, it's great.

For a set of interesting reasonably short (and quite fun) articles
this, see (in order of decreasing direc relevance):

    http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlaytoWinPart0.htm

Snippet:

  "Some may be wondering why this site about game design includes a
  section on playing competitive games. Here you go:

  One cannot hope to design a hugely successful competitive game if
  one is ignorant of how such games are played at the highest level.

  It's that simple."

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart1.htm

Snippet:

  "In the world of Street Fighter competition, we have a word for
  players who aren't good: "scrub." Now, everyone begins as a
  scrub--it takes time to learn the game to get to a point where you
  know what you're doing. There is the mistaken notion, though, that
  by merely continuing to play or "learn" the game, that one can
  become a top player. In reality, the "scrub" has many more mental
  obstacles to overcome than anything actually going on during the
  game. The scrub has lost the game even before it starts."

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart2.htm

Snippet:

  "I found Survivor to be a huge, blazing advertisement for "playing
  to win." The community on that island so closely mirrored my
  Street Fighter community that I was shocked. There was one expert
  player and 15 "scrubs." Richard Hatch, the winner of Survivor, was
  the only participant who really even played the game at all."

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_AoW3-Deception.htm
http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_AoW1-SheathedSword.htm

Snippet:

  "To further drive home the two points we've covered from The Art
  of War (win before the fight begins, and wait for the opponent to
  beat himself), I'll now tell the story of one of my own Street
  Fighter tournament victories. The tournament was called the East
  Coast Championships 4, or ECC4. I had won the Street Fighter
  Alpha2 portion of the ECC3 tournament, so I felt a lot of pressure
  to win again."

(And one about how Sun Tzu can be applied to the commercial aspects
of game development :). You have to credit the author with being
consistent in his homage to ST :)

  http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_AoW2-SheathedSwordRevisited.htm


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From bruce at cubik.org  Wed Jul 31 04:57:54 2002
From: bruce at cubik.org (Bruce Mitchener)
Date: Wed Jul 31 04:57:54 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24339.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Jack Britt wrote:
 
> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a different
> way of doing hit points?

Well,

A google search for 'alternative hit point system' turned up these:

   Grim-N-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules:

   "Variant combat rules for the d20 system that increase the danger
   and sense of realism of combat without bogging down gameplay.
   The Grim-n-Gritty rules have an alternative system of determining
   hit points, special rules for defens, armor that reduces damage
   inflicted on a character, a simple means of tracking injuries
   that retard a character's performance, and instructions for
   implementing called shots."

      http://www.sleepingimperium.rpghost.com/downloads/GrimNGrittyHitPointRules.pdf

   No Hit Points Combat Rules

   "An older variant of the Grim-n-Gritty system that lets you
   perform d20 combat without hit points. No longer supported by the
   Sleeping Imperium, but offered as a curiousity."

     http://www.sleepingimperium.rpghost.com/downloads/NoHitPoints.pdf

And once upon a time, Ling Lo had done a summary of some of the
various character health systems in Agora:

   http://agora.cubik.org/wiki/view/Main/CharacterHealth

Anyone can feel free to extend that document with further
information. :)

  - Bruce


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com  Wed Jul 31 05:38:52 2002
From: vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com (Brandon J. Van Every)
Date: Wed Jul 31 05:38:52 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] web-based MUD editing tools?
Message-ID: <mailman.24340.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

MUDs are often programmed by editing local files on the mudhost,
like lpmud *.c files and so forth.  Giving wizards easy remote
access to such files without giving them carte blanche over the mud
server is a challenge.  Has anyone met that challenge using
web-based editing tools?  Like, you fire up a webpage that points at
the mud, you manipulate files from that web interface, and hey
presto the mud gets changed?  Seems like someone somewhere would
have done something more feature-laden and cross-platform than the
telnet drill by now.


Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From shren at io.com  Wed Jul 31 06:03:42 2002
From: shren at io.com (shren)
Date: Wed Jul 31 06:03:42 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24341.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 szii at sziisoft.com wrote:
 
>> You couldn't get good at CS quickly...so you quit.  To most
>> pk-types I know, that's kinda funny. *shrug* We don't really care
>> whether you play or not, except that you're missing out on a
>> great game once you achieve a certain level of play...regardless
>> of the arena.  I could state that 'Go' is hard, too.  It's an
>> immensely challenging game that you never really can master.  But
>> once you get a feel for it, it's great.

> In Go and Chess and other games like that, you usually aren't
> playing against other masters, but when you play CS or PK in many
> games, you end up stuck against people with FAR more experience
> than you. If you had to play a Master every time you started
> playing chess, I bet it'd become unentertaining. Challenge is
> good. Feeling as if you are screwed from the start is not fun.

Warcraft III claims to match people to your skill level when you
play online.  There are both good reviews and bad reviews of the
system.  The first time I played, though, it seemed to put me up
against other newbies.  Hardly fair, as I had read a lot of
strategy.  Unfortunately, I had to drop, but when I did my Tauren
warchief was pounding one of my enemy's town to pieces.

--
We in the USA have plenty of freedom.  
We import it from everywhere.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Wed Jul 31 08:23:05 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Wed Jul 31 08:23:05 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24342.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Ron Gabbard writes:

> From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
>> Damion Schubert writes:
>>> From John Buehler:

>>>> I have an aversion to long hours of boredom punctuated by
>>>> moments of entertainment.

> You just captured the essence of baseball, deer hunting, fishing,
> and NASCAR in a one sentence... yet each of these activities has
> millions and tens of millions of fans.  Broadening the type of
> activities is all about broadening the appeal of the game to make
> room for players who aren't high 'twitch factor' or even
> combat-oriented.

None of those activities are long hours of boredom punctuated by
moments of entertainment.  They are long periods of one type of
entertainment punctuated by moments of another type of
entertainment.  Current games truly do consist of lots of boredom,
primarily due to the lack of variation in the experiences.

>>>> My most fundamental tenet to crafting is that the boring part
>>>> has to be entertaining.  If it can't be done, then don't have
>>>> players do that part.  Have NPCs do it and have the players
>>>> manage them.  I could easily imagine that harvesting could be
>>>> made entertaining, at least for a while, but it's not by
>>>> hearing the same chopping and cutting sounds and seeing the
>>>> same animation on the exact same tree graphic over and over
>>>> again.  Every activity in a game that a player is invited to
>>>> engage in must be more entertaining than current combat
>>>> systems.  And that includes combat and forestry.

> This is where the Falacy of Fun enters in...

> A single-player game is considered pretty good if it has what?  30
> to 70 hours of solid, fun game play?  MMPs/MUDs measure played
> time in DAYS.  It's not unusual to have MMP/MUD players with 30 to
> 70 (some even higher) played days on a character.  Even the
> 'casual' player that invests 4 hours per week in a game will
> accumulate over 200 hours played in a year.  Relying on processes
> and mechanisms for 'fun' will fail in online games because no
> mechanism designed by God nor man will still be 'fun' after 200,
> 700, or 1,600+ hours of play.  I'm not saying that the game won't
> still be fun, just that the novelty and fascination with the
> mechanics will be gone... like the initial 'oooooooh' factor of
> new, fancy graphics.  I don't disagree with you that crafting
> systems could be more engaging.  I just wouldn't remove integral
> components of a balanced economy because the mechanism is
> perceived to be boring by some people as the 'fun' from boring
> mechanics and the 'fun' from engaging mechanics will both be the
> same in the long run... pretty much zero.  It's the Law of
> Diminishing Marginal Utility again and isn't the goal to acquire
> and retain long-term subscribers?

Hmmm.  Software engineering has kept me 'entertained' for 20 years.
Dancing kept me entertained for 5 years.  I still play cards and
board games with friends.  I've helped any number of friends with
moving, painting, gardening, etc, etc.  As have we all.  Yet these
things remain entertaining.  Why?  For me, it's because they permit
socialization.

The idea that whacking on a chunk of metal in order to make a sword
is supposed to be great fun is not what I was getting at.  But
whacking on that chunk of metal should be engaging, all the while
knowing that each whack on the iron relates to some future social
interaction.  I can talk to other smiths about what I did.  I can
point out flaws and finery of the sword to customers.  I can sell
the sword at a low price as a 'second' of my work.  But none of that
is possible if every sword is identical and every sword was created
in exactly the same way.  There must be entertainment inherent in
the crafting else there is no socialization value to any given
sword.

This is why I harp on the idea of voice communication between
players.  To permit greater socialization.  This is why I harp on
complexity of game systems.  Linearity limits the fodder of
socialization that these games can provide.  So the actual crafting
of a sword must be entertaining.  It must be variable.  It must be
engaging.  I don't really know a word for what I'm after, I guess.

> So, after 500+ hours of using the mechanics and processes, there
> better be some reason to make another 'sword' outside of transient
> 'fun' because the 'fun' of the process is long gone.

I agree with the general sentiment here, but the caveat remains that
fun remains in the process because of things that get implicitly
tied to the process.  I'm hammering out a shorter sword because of a
specific reason.  That makes it entertaining.

>>> Um, why?  I don't think at all that the fun of crafting comes
>>> from the complexity of the interface of crafting.  The fun of
>>> crafting is more externally-driven.

>> I'm sure that's the case for you and for many who get into
>> crafting.  The current player base is strongly
>> achievement-oriented.  I'm not as achievement-oriented, so I
>> represent those who are more interested in the crafting process
>> itself.  I'm also interested in the achievement side of things,
>> but not as much as you are.

> The difference isn't between achievement versus non-achievement.
> It's self-focused versus society focused.  What you are describing
> is an 'artisan' more than a 'tradesperson'.  An artisan is more
> focused on the creation and innovation process and isn't worried
> about the marketability of their output.  They create items for
> the fun of it and don't care what society thinks of their work.

Hmmm.  Well, my points above would suggest otherwise.  Perhaps this
is all just miscommunication on my part.

> What I am shooting for is a trade skill system that is profitable
> for the tradespeople as well as appealing to a broad range of
> personalities.  Some people enjoy the exploring, inventing, and
> creating process like John described.  Some people don't care too
> much for high involvement in creation of the items but enjoy the
> selling process and visa versa.  Some people just want a steady
> income so they can save up and buy a house or open a store.  Some
> players don't want to do trade skills at all, others want to be
> 100% tradespeople, while many are somewhere in between.  There is
> room for all types of personalities and ambitions in an efficient
> economy and trade skill system as long as trade skills are
> designed as alternative vocations to killing 'n looting and not
> money sinks.

I agree with all of this.  Removing the attitude of 'crafting as a
money sink' would be a great first step.

Note that I'm not really interested in the exploration, invention
and creation process as you seem to think I am.  I want that process
to be entertaining if some player is going to do it.  And making it
entertaining doesn't mean that it is a great single-player game, but
rather it remains a multiplayer form of entertainment, through
socialization.  Smiths won't talk to each other about what they did
if there isn't any content to the crafting.  Just as warriors don't
talk to each other about tactics or techniques of combat because
there isn't much content there.  Instead, players talk about class
balance, pretty art and the occasional flub by a player that
produced an atypical (and usually disastrous) result.

JB


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Wed Jul 31 08:26:45 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Wed Jul 31 08:26:45 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Gossip, fiction and tactical lore
Message-ID: <mailman.24343.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Damion Schubert writes:
> From Matt Mihaly:

> I recently did an IRC chat where I espoused my opinion that player
> stories are more important than character stories.

> When designers think in terms of gripping fiction, they think in
> terms of having a backstory that goes on for ages, is 10 layers
> deep, is evident in books around the world, takes half the manual
> to describe, etc, etc, etc.

> However, while there are some people who actually read all of this
> cruft we put out there, players have always seemed universally
> more interested in stories about player interactions.  The king
> declared war on the orcs?  Fascinating.  *yawn* Joe killed Steve?
> Oh, dear.  What's Steve going to do?  Why'd Joe do it?  Steve was
> cybering Joe's online girlfriend?  Who was really a guy?  Good
> stuff!

I dunno about the example of the player entertainment that you
offered, but I certainly support the notion that it's all about the
players.  The characters are game pieces, and their machinations
serve as socialization fodder for the players.  It is decided a much
richer context than a deck of cards or a bunch of chess pieces, so a
rich game environment has serious value.  But I'll offer (believing
myself to be in agreement with Damion) that it all goes back to the
players.

I look forward to the first game that explicitly acknowledges the
existence of the player in addition to the character within the
overall context of the game. This means things like having the
ability to contact a player by name instead of contacting them by
character name.  Or player-to-player voice communication.  There's a
reason that we didn't bother much with characters talking to each
other in our D&D days.  The player conversations were far more fun.

JB


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From SieMing at sewardweb.com  Wed Jul 31 08:31:10 2002
From: SieMing at sewardweb.com (Sie Ming)
Date: Wed Jul 31 08:31:10 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24344.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

At 01:39 PM 7/27/2002 -0700, Britt wrote: (assuming Sie got the
quote right this time)

<EdNote:  Now now!  Play nice.>

> I'm trying to find alternatives to the AD&D-style of hit points
> but I'm not having much luck. Couldn't find anything on google,
> and can't seem to come up with anything on the mud-dev archives
> (although this is probably due to my inability to do a decent
> search.)

> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a
> different way of doing hit points?

Is anyone here familiar with the Play-By-Mail game DuelMasters?
It's an "all we do is combat" type of game where you manage
"characters" who are gladiators.  You set their physical
characteristics, weapons, armor, style of fighting, and list what
they do in various situations.  The game (1-2 weeks later) sends you
the results.  Here's a sample:

    TARUL of THE DARK FOUNDATION challenges ORCREST of METALSTORM
    TARUL is 5'4".
    TARUL is right handed.
    TARUL has chosen to wear PADDED LEATHER ARMOR and will wear a LEATHER CAP.
    TARUL will swing a BROADSWORD.
    TARUL uses a PARRY-STRIKE fighting style.
    TARUL is not quite bright enough to use this weapon to full effect.
    
    ORCREST is 6'.
    ORCREST is right handed.
    ORCREST enters the arena in RINGMAIL ARMOR and will wear a STEEL CAP.
    ORCREST fights using a LONGSWORD and a MEDIUM SHIELD.
    ORCREST will use the PARRY-LUNGE style.
    ORCREST is well suited to his selected weapons.
    ORCREST has a SHORTSWORD thrust into his waistband.
    
  The audience falls silent as the dueling begins.
    
    TARUL circles to his right.
    ORCREST strikes with his MEDIUM SHIELD!
    TARUL parries the attack with his BROADSWORD.
    ORCREST lunges with his LONGSWORD!
    TARUL is wounded in the BREAST!
    ORCREST makes a slashing attack wielding a LONGSWORD!
    TARUL takes a hit to the RIBS!
    TARUL is becoming desperate!!!
    TARUL is staggered visibly!
     From the stands a voice yells "Come on, TARUL, you can do it!"
    ORCREST is fighting defensively to preserve his energy.
    TARUL is out of control and misses widely!
    ORCREST makes a slashing attack wielding a LONGSWORD!
    TARUL parries the attack with his BROADSWORD.
    Weapons clash as the warriors each strive for an opening.
    ORCREST lunges with his LONGSWORD!
    TARUL is hit in the UPPER CHEST!
    TARUL is gravely injured!
    ORCREST is going for the kill!
    TARUL falls lifeless to the ground!!!
    
    ORCREST has won the duel!
    The crowd chants its praises!
    
    ORCREST'S popularity has GREATLY INCREASED.
    ORCREST learned an Attack skill.
    ORCREST learned an Initiative routine.
    
I played it for a while in high school, but was way too poor to
really get into it ($ per duel per gladiator).  This looks like a
nice system for combat where you never see what your HPs are.
Unfortunately, it's not a very transparent system, and it's hard to
see what they are doing behind the scenes.  You can read more about
it here: http://www.duelmasters.com

Does anyone know of a game that gives combat summaries like this?

Sie Ming
AKA
Lloyd Sommerer



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From johnbue at msn.com  Wed Jul 31 08:57:52 2002
From: johnbue at msn.com (John Buehler)
Date: Wed Jul 31 08:57:52 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24345.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Matt Mihaly writes:
> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:
>> Matt Mihaly writes:

>>> Probably not, but MUDs aren't amusement parks either. The
>>> defining aspect of a MUD is that you're playing with other
>>> players, not merely playing at the same time as other players
>>> (such as in an amusement park), and more to the point, you're
>>> playing with other players who remain semi-consistent, such that
>>> you can develop relationships with them.

>> I suppose I was offering Disneyland as the ultimate in ensuring
>> that entertainment would be found, precisely because we barely
>> rely on the people that we're with in order to find entertainment
>> (I'm thinking in terms of the people I'm with, not particularly
>> the people that are around me).  The more we introduce a
>> dependency on other players for our entertainment, the greater
>> the chance that the entertainment devolves into random chance
>> instead of structured encounters.

> Hmm, yeah, I hadn't considered the fact that you can go through
> the park with a group of people. But here's a question: Given that
> you are quite into the idea of MUDs with a more mass-market, and
> with a more casual gameplay style, do you think people will
> actually group together online to run through this game?

I think that players will want to interact with each other, but only
casually.  For short periods of time.  So the tasks available to
those players cannot involve a time commitment of multiple hours.
They should be more transient.  One model that jumps to mind is the
notion of having the 'front lines' for combat.  If you want to
casually engage in combat, you go to the front lines and help out.
You might stay for one attack or one defense, but if they happen
regularly and you aren't an integral element to the success of an
encounter, you can come and go as you please.

Compare that with the class-based games where the formation of an
effective group is a lock-and-key exercise.  "Looking for a healer!"
"Looking for a bard!"  The class-based structure makes the existence
of a player's character in the group critical to the entertainment
of the group.  In that respect, I consider it almost a grief
structure because it places the entertainment of multiple players in
the hands of a single player or of few players.  It's a grief
structure only in the nicest way of course, because there is an
invitation to the critical player character.

> I noticed on Warcraft III on Battle.net that the larger the group,
> the faster my side loses. We're all terrible at it, but manage to
> get online together because we all 'hang out' in Achaea. Any group
> above 2 people on the enemy side, however, seems to be composed
> entirely of highly-skilled teenagers with names like HappiMooCow
> or mo_murdah. It leads me to speculate that the only people who
> are actually getting together in groups online, at established
> times to participate together, are hardcore gamers. Being a casual
> gamer would seem to preclude setting yourself a gaming schedule.

I generally agree with this paragraph, but remember that you look to
PvP as a primary source of entertainment, and that gets very
personal.  I assume that players *want* to go up against the same
opponents because it's the personal element that makes it most
entertaining.  Beating or being beaten by random opponents isn't
really in the true spirit of competition.  Competition takes a
desire to excel and to invest of one's time and energies to get
better.  And that is the opposite of a casual gamer.  Or so goes my
claim.

Note that I don't equate 'casual gamer' with 'flippant gamer'.  A
casual gamer can be very interested in the game, but doesn't want to
be playing it for more than a couple hours at a time, and only once
or twice a week.  A casual gamer probably has a very specific time
that they play, as well.  They shoehorn the game into their day,
possibly playing for that hour at the end of the day when the kids
are put to bed and they have a little time to fool around.  They
could read a book, watch television - or play a game on the
computer.

I emphasize social interactions in the games, but try to keep
interdependencies light so that a casual gamer feels comfortable
coming and going according to their own schedule.

>> The observation about consistent contact definitely would have an
>> impact on avoiding purely random chance, but I wonder how far
>> away from random things would go.  Typically, a group of
>> enthusiasts in any field require leaders to keep an organization,
>> well, organized.  I put this onus on the game publisher, not on
>> the players themselves.  So I look to Disney's parks as a simple
>> model of an entertainment service provider.  Perhaps I should be
>> citing Westworld.

> Right, I see what you're saying. We actually do this to some
> extent, insofar as our admins are also in-role Gods that regularly
> interact with players, patron various organizations (city-states,
> guilds, etc) and provide guidance and that kind of thing. I don't
> think the intensity of our God-mortal interaction would scale very
> well though, because the extra layers of management you'd need to
> support this kind of highly-empowered admin structure would be
> extremely expensive. (I don't think using volunteers with the kind
> of power ours have would work well at scale either.)

Yes, and I can't figure a way to efficiently handle it using people
power, nor with any existing technologies.  So, as you already know,
I'm just blowing smoke for the future.  I'm working on my ideas in
artificial intelligence for this exact reason.  Once the NPCs can be
relied upon to set the stage and keep the world's fiction moving, I
believe that the players will adapt to that fiction.  And I believe
that this is very well suited to my image of the casual player.
Casual players want to have things happening, not to have to make
things happen.  Non-casual players that want to make things happen
may very well oppose the flow of the world's fiction.  Or simply
control it.  Which takes me back to the whole problem of players
influencing each other.  So long as players are into that - and
Achaea is successfully pursuing that model - that's great.  I
continue to wonder about the size of the player groups that are
interested in actively investing of their time and in being
entertained more passively.

JB


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From sean at hoth.ffwd.cx  Wed Jul 31 09:24:06 2002
From: sean at hoth.ffwd.cx (Sean Kelly)
Date: Wed Jul 31 09:24:06 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24346.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Jack Britt wrote:
 
> I'm trying to find alternatives to the AD&D-style of hit points
> but I'm not having much luck. Couldn't find anything on google,
> and can't seem to come up with anything on the mud-dev archives
> (although this is probably due to my inability to do a decent
> search.)
 
> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a
> different way of doing hit points?

There are a lot of methods, even among P&P games.  My favorite that
I encountered was in Top Secret, where each body part had hit points
(either 6 or 8 max, if I recall) after which that part became
useless.  Bludgeoning damage was supported and it was entirely
possible to knock someone on the head a few times to knock them out,
or shoot someone in the leg to affect their movement rate.

One system I worked out a few years ago had a fixed number of hit
points (not level-based) and broke an attack down to 3 rolls: the
first determined if the attack got through a player's defenses
(parrying/swordplay/dodging), the second determined if the attack
penetrated the player's armor, and the third determined damage, with
armor offering damage reduction.  A bit cumbersome for P&P but not
at all for CRPGs.

I understand the rationale behind the D&D system, but I've never
liked it.  It has always bothered me that it couldn't account for
instances where a player is not defending and it still takes 6 or 7
sword thrusts to kill him.  A DM can handle such situations
differently, but a CRPG cannot.

Sean


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From sean at hoth.ffwd.cx  Wed Jul 31 09:35:25 2002
From: sean at hoth.ffwd.cx (Sean Kelly)
Date: Wed Jul 31 09:35:25 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev]
	=?X-UNKNOWN?Q?Re=3A_Hangul_=28was_Re=3A_R=E9f=2E_=3A_RE=3A_?=
	=?X-UNKNOWN?Q?=5BMUD-Dev=5D_Mass__customization__in_MM***s=29?=
Message-ID: <mailman.24347.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Tue, 30 Jul 2002, Travis Casey wrote:
> On Thursday 25 July 2002 3:01, Damion Schubert wrote:

>> I don't know exactly what the language font for Korean is, but if
>> you go into any Korean Lineage server, you'll see a lot of
>> symbols above the heads of characters which aren't latin
>> Characters by any stretch of the imagination.
 
> The major writing system in Korea is called Hangul.  It is a
> syllabary -- each symbol represents a particular syllable.  This
> means it has a lot more characters than English (which builds
> syllables from multiple characters), but nowhere near as many as
> traditional Chinese writing, in which a symbol corresponds to a
> particular word.

However Chinese is monosyllabic and the base part of each symbol
represents the phonetic sound.  This is the same, so far as I know,
for all words represented by this sound.  The rest of the word (some
added bits in the upper right, I think) represents meaning or
context modifiers to the symbol to differentiate each word from its
generic phonetic base.

Japanese is odd because it is a polysyllabic language but they
adapted the Chinese writing system for their use, so they have
multiple symbols per word (even for the non purely phonetic writing
form... I can never keep the names straight).

Interestingly enough, the Mayan language is much like Chinese.
There's a book out about the decipherment of Mayan that's
fascinating, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Sean


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From daver at mythicentertainment.com  Wed Jul 31 09:36:06 2002
From: daver at mythicentertainment.com (Dave Rickey)
Date: Wed Jul 31 09:36:06 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24348.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>
> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 szii at sziisoft.com wrote:

>> You couldn't get good at CS quickly...so you quit.  To most
>> pk-types I know, that's kinda funny. *shrug* We don't really care
>> whether you play or not, except that you're missing out on a
>> great game once you achieve a certain level of play...regardless
>> of the arena.  I could state that 'Go' is hard, too.  It's an
>> immensely challenging game that you never really can master.  But
>> once you get a feel for it, it's great.

> In Go and Chess and other games like that, you usually aren't
> playing against other masters, but when you play CS or PK in many
> games, you end up stuck against people with FAR more experience
> than you. If you had to play a Master every time you started
> playing chess, I bet it'd become unentertaining. Challenge is
> good. Feeling as if you are screwed from the start is not fun.

This is a core problem that is going to have to be solved before any
MMFPS game is going to succeed: Setting up fights between equal
opponents.  I eventually quit playing Tribes because the only place
I could consistently find a match where everyone there was as good
at the game as myself was in the OGL Top 100 tournaments, and I
didn't want to deal with the politics of that organization.

I call it the "Testosterone Trap", the best team with the best and
play against the best when they can, and the rest of the time they
drop into matches against vastly inferior opponents and use them for
target practice.  A player in the top 1% could join an ordinary
pickup game and, all by himself, determine the outcome.  Frequently
it was a humiliating walkover.

In an ordinary FPS, this isn't a problem, there are thousands of
servers and you can keep trying until you find one that is more
even.  The past doesn't matter because each match and each server is
a separate thing, with only the most tenuous of relationships to any
other.  In a persistent world, this is no longer true, and even if
what is persistant is no more than a win/loss ratio, such games
quickly turn into small clicques of extremely skilled players who
absolutely destroy any newcomers, and drive them away just by being
too *good*.

--Dave



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From archer at frmug.org  Wed Jul 31 10:17:23 2002
From: archer at frmug.org (Vincent Archer)
Date: Wed Jul 31 10:17:23 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems
Message-ID: <mailman.24349.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

According to Dave Rickey:
> From: "Ron Gabbard" <rgabbard at swbell.net>

>> Let's say the total population on the server is 2,500.  Now,
>> assume that I play in a larger realm on that server that has a
>> population of 1,000.  (Some realms have significantly fewer
>> players.) Within my realm, people are equally distributed amongst
>> casters, rogues, and melees so that there are 333 of each.  Thus,
>> the total market for metal weapons is 333 as the other 667 use
>> bows or staves.

> Just FYI, your numbers are low by about a factor of 5.  In general
> only 20% of all players are logged on at peak time.  Also, you
> need a jigger factor for alts, there are a non-trivial number of
> players with multiple 50's in the same realm.

However, there's a compensating factor for crafters too. Just like
there's an average of 4 unconnected players for each on-line, there
should be also 4 off-line crafters for each available master
crafter.

I had my own calculations done earlier in DAoC's life (back in
november, when discussion about crafting was all the rage, and the
single most asked feature for crafting was... the display of the
exact stats rather than the "reference blueprint" ones), and had
concluded that a server could host about 5-8 self-sufficient
craftsmen (i.e. people who do crafts for a "living", without
additional income) in each craft.

> At the high end, tiny differences in utility value can have huge
> effects on perceived value.  If you have a weapon with an
> effective DPS of 16.1, and the crafter can make you one with a
> eDPS of 16.2, most players will consider the 16.2 almost
> infinitely more desirable.

Witness today. There's a raid scheduled, and the requirements are
posted as being a 35%-bonus, player crafted weapon (the bonus
translating into a specific minimum achievable DPS, due to material
use). Nothing else.  You don't have such a weapon, don't bother
showing up.

> And the mark of a truly failed game economy is when cash stops
> being an acceptable form of exchange.  There are many things in
> other games that literally cannot be purchased for any amount of
> cash, because cash is available in almost infinite supply to
> anyone who wants it.  With the partial exception of dragon loot
> (which has an

As an aside, in EQ, which is often touted (and by me too) as an
economic failure, everything that can be traded IS available for the
right amount of pp. Even things that aren't tradeable in practice
(want a nodrop Skyshrine Armor? No problem, for the right amount).

The things that cannot be purchased for money are the things that
aren't tradeable at all to begin with.

> other game systems.  We can let players create arbitrarily
> effective magical items (something crafting systems for OLRPG's
> have never

When's that patch dammit? We've been left salivating over the
Spellcraft design document, but there's still no spellcraft on the
test server :)

The ability to create custom magical items is monstruously powerful,
and potentially very imbalancing, btw. I've been toying for example
with the NWN item creator, and it's easy to have characters that are
insanely powerful at relatively low levels with "legal"
items. Granted, you don't have to worry about an economy in there,
but the potential for abuse is huge. And almost identical in DAoC.

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Wed Jul 31 10:45:54 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Wed Jul 31 10:45:54 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] java clients
Message-ID: <mailman.24350.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>

> There was a thread recently (a month or two ago? I was unable to
> locate it with a quick archive search.) talking about java clients
> for text MUDs and complaining about the general lack of ability to
> resize the window, change the size of the font, etc. We were
> curious about whether there was any real reason you couldn't do
> this, so went ahead and did it.

> The bad news was that I should have listened to something
> Christopher Allen told me. He said they (Skotos) had investigated
> expanding a java client they have for more general use, but ran
> into a lot of problems with Java, and man was he right. We have
> been unable, for instance, to enable any sort of copying from the
> output window into a clipboard, and are also unable to log
> anything to the player's computer. This inability alone basically
> renders Java unsuitable for a full-featured text MUD client.

Is your client a Java desktop application or a Java applet?  I'm not
a Java master but if it's a Java desktop application, then you can
write to files on the player's computer.  If it's an applet, then
it's part of the security of Java applets not to let it write
anything on the client's disk.  If I were you I would have developed
a standalone C++ client where you have full control over the
features you want.  In the case of Skotos I guess they implemented
some of their games with an ActiveX interface that gets included in
Internet Explorer and lets you have browser's capabilities merged
with a standalone client. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

--
Valerio Santinelli
One Man Crew Gaming Community (http://www.onemancrew.org)
My Lab (http://tanis.hateseed.com)
HateSeed.com Founder (http://www.hateseed.com)
In Flames Italia Webmaster (http://www.inflames.it)




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From claw at kanga.nu  Wed Jul 31 13:18:21 2002
From: claw at kanga.nu (J C Lawrence)
Date: Wed Jul 31 13:18:21 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] ADMIN: List configuration changes
Message-ID: <mailman.24351.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Writing as list owner:

  Some of you have recently started receiving requests to confirm posts
  you've sent to MUD-Dev and may have been surprised by that.  This
  message is intended to discuss various changes I've recently (last
  night) made in the setups for MUD-Dev, their impact, and the reasoning
  behind them.

  In an effort to control SPAM and virus email sent to MUD-Dev, as well
  as the torrent of such mail sent to mud-dev-owner and mud-dev-admin,
  I've installed am extra filtering system in front of MUD-Dev.  The
  details were recently (briefly) discussed on Meta:

    http://www.kanga.nu/archives/Meta-L/2002Q3/msg00005.php
    http://www.kanga.nu/archives/Meta-L/2002Q3/msg00013.php

  Those interested in the background reasoning of the system as well as
  the forces driving its adoption may wish to see:

    http://mail.python.org/pipermail-21/mailman-developers/2002-July/012710.html

  Or for the cursory How-To I wrote on how I built the system:

    http://mail.python.org/pipermail-21/mailman-developers/2002-July/012700.html

  What does this mean for you in practice?  

    Loosely it means that if you send a message to MUD-Dev from an
    address which isn't listed as a subscriber you'll receive an email
    message asking you to confirm that you really did send it, and meant
    to send that message.  The confirmation request will look something
    like:

          From: List Filter System <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
          To: you at your.address
          Subject: Please confirm your message for final delivery
          Date: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 2:41 PM
          Reply-To: mud-dev+confirm+1028149476.13450.a0b07b at kanga.nu
    
          THIS IS AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE FROM A MACHINE.
    
          Your e-mail message with the subject of "Message subject here"
          is being held because your address was not recognized by the
          mail filtering system at kanga.nu.
    
          To release your message for delivery, please send a message to
          the following address, or use your mailer's "Reply" feature.
    
            mud-dev+confirm+1028149476.13450.a0b07b at kanga.nu
    
          You don't need to to anything other than reply to this message
          to have your original message delivered. This confirmation
          process verifies that your message is legitimate and not
          junk-mail.
    
          Thank you for your patience and assistance in helping keep the
          mailing list systems at Kanga.Nu SPAM free.

    Just reply to the confirm message and your message will be passed
    forward to the list and your address will be added to the whitelist
    so that future messages from you at that address are not held.

      Note: Don't worry if the exact text of the message you receive is
      different.  I'm rewriting it now to be a bit more friendly.

  How:

    All this was done by inserting a system called TMDA
    (http://www.tmda.net) in front of MUD-Dev.  TMDA is what is known as
    a "whitelist system".  A whitelist system is an automated system of
    building lists of known-good or known-bad email addresses, and then
    filtering mail on the basis of those lists.  The extra value that
    TMDA adds in particular is its system of building and maintaining
    those lists of addresses.

  Implementation details:

    All mail send to any of the list related addresses (list itself,
    -owner and -admin) at Kanga.Nu now passes through a TMDA filter
    system and:
  
      a) If the address you sent from is listed as a subscriber your
      message will go straight through to the list or -owner or -admin
      addresses as if TMDA were not there.  If the list is moderated
      your message will then be held for moderator review, otherwise it
      should be broadcast immediately.
  
      b) If your address is blacklisted (should never happen to a valid
      poster) your message will be bounced (and you'll receive a message
      telling you so).
  
      c) Mail from whitelisted addresses is passed through to the list
      or -owner or -admin addresses.
  
      d) All other mail is held by TMDA.
  
    TMDA then provides a confirmation system for held mail by sending a
    message back to the address that sent the held message, requesting
    confirmation that the poster not only exists, but really meant to send
    that message.  The confirmation message contains both instructions on
    how to confirm, and a copy of the original message.
  
      If the original sender follows the instructions in the
      confirmation request the held message will be sent straight
      through to the list or -owner or -admin addresses as if TMDA had
      never intercepted it.  Further, TMDA will add that address to its
      whitelist so that future email from that address will pass
      straight through TMDA and not be held.  In this manner
      non-subscribers can post to the list without having to subscribe a
      NoMail account or putting more load on the list moderator.
  
      If the original sender doesn't confirm his message TMDA will hold it
      for a while awaiting confirmation before silently deleting it.  As
      SPAMers almost universally don't run proper mail systems they never
      receive the confirmation requests from TMDA and so never confirm and
      thus their messages never get to the list, -owner, or -admin.  While
      it is possible that the very few SPAMmers who do run proper mail
      systems could build systems that can confirm TMDA requests (I
      haven't heard of even one yet that does), their population is so
      low, and they are so easily detected, that the effort of manually
      blacklisting them is not large.
  
        Should SPAMmers get the hang of TMDA, TMDA can trivially change
        its confirmation process to be less and less automatable --
        essentially making the confirmation process more and more of a
        Turing test.  Happily, that's not necessary yet.  The current TMDA
        method of, "Just reply to this message to confirm," works well for
        now.
  
  Summary:

    The end result is that subscription and posting rights for
    TMDA-fronted lists have effectively been separated.  You now
    subscribe to a list to receive mail from the list (and establish an
    initial address from which you can post to the list).  You simply
    send mail to the list (and confirm each email address) to be able to
    send messages to a list.  Asides from establishing a default allowed
    address to post from, subscribing to a list no longer has a relation
    to being able to post to a list.

  In less than a day's operation it has already trapped 23 SPAM and
  6 virus emails.  Even more pleasantly from my end, there hasn't
  been a single non-MUD-Dev message in the queue in that time.
  Moderation is now back to what it should be: working on list
  messages, not dealing with offers to trash my machine or give me
  blimp sized mammaries and a Nigerian investment scheme.

--
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From zcollins at seidata.com  Wed Jul 31 13:38:05 2002
From: zcollins at seidata.com (Zach Collins {Siege})
Date: Wed Jul 31 13:38:05 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24352.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Tue, 30 Jul 2002, Ammon Lauritzen wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Jack Britt wrote:

>> I'm trying to find alternatives to the AD&D-style of hit points
>> but I'm not having much luck. Couldn't find anything on google,
>> and can't seem to come up with anything on the mud-dev archives
>> (although this is probably due to my inability to do a decent
>> search.)

Since Ammon mentioned the Palladium system, I'll mention
Storyteller.

> First off, it would be possible to drastically limit the range of
> hit points. Say 2 is average and 5 is godlike. Any time you suffer
> an injury that is actually life threatening, you take one or two
> points of damage.  Otherwise, you just ignore the hit.

> If you want, you can incorporate some sort of endurance system to
> go along with this. Endurance would be spent whenever doing
> something strenuous, but would also be reduced when you take
> non-threatening hits.  So, it is possible to wear somebody out to
> the point where they can no longer defend themselves or walk or
> whatever. Then they take a telling blow.

Under Storyteller, characters all have the same low number of HP
(5-10, depending on which edition of LARP or P&P books you're
using). However, more powerful characters have a greater ability to
inflict or avoid damage, and different weapons or abilities affect
these by only one or two points/dice.

[cut description of Palladium: SDC (Structural Damage Capacity) vs HP]

> With HP regenerating slower than SDC, your body may be fully
> functional and may not show signs of injury, but you still wind up
> nursing a week-old wound that could re-open at any moment and
> suddenly cause you a lot more distress than you had anticipated.

And Storyteller has three different "kinds" of damage: bruising,
lethal, and aggravated, which have different effects.  Bruises cause
stunning and unconsciousness, lethal and aggro cause weakness and
death; aggro is much harder to heal.  Ordinary humans only recieve
bruising and lethal, because they can't regen or insta-heal; each
point of bruising takes a day to heal, lethal takes a week.
Supernatural types heal much more quickly, of course.

> The other extension that I can think of is to divide the SDC up
> among the different body parts. This has been done to death, but
> an interesting twist might be that healing the external body parts
> takes away from the internal HP regen, or possibly feeds off of
> nearer, stronger body parts to some extent or another - the body
> diverting blood flow or somesuch.

This would be the sort of system used in Twilight 2000, which based
a character's HP on their constitution score, multiplied by ratios
over different areas of body mass.  Also the Albedo RPG used a
similar system, though each limb was a separate item rather than a
"mass group".

Of course, I've also seen mention here of an injury-based health
system, where a character's body parts could be separately damaged,
and each type of injury had to be healed in its own way.  Thus, a
serious combat might leave you with a broken arm, slashed gut, a
cracked skull, and several bleeding leg wounds: these would require
appropriate binding, splinting, medication, and time to heal
cleanly, and can provide for lingering wounds such as a badly set
arm or infected/scarred cut.

Searching the archives for this list might yield even more answers.

--
Zach Collins (Siege)


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From zcollins at seidata.com  Wed Jul 31 13:47:56 2002
From: zcollins at seidata.com (Zach Collins {Siege})
Date: Wed Jul 31 13:47:56 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] java clients
Message-ID: <mailman.24353.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Matt Mihaly wrote:

> The bad news was that I should have listened to something
> Christopher Allen told me. He said they (Skotos) had investigated
> expanding a java client they have for more general use, but ran
> into a lot of problems with Java, and man was he right. We have
> been unable, for instance, to enable any sort of copying from the
> output window into a clipboard, and are also unable to log
> anything to the player's computer. This inability alone basically
> renders Java unsuitable for a full-featured text MUD client. (And
> while I'm not much of a programmer, if any of you clever
> programmers out there have figured out good work-arounds for this,
> I'd love to hear them.)

While Java is conveniently included with most users' Web browsers,
Tcl/Tk also has a very clean install, and is the basis for several
nice MU* clients, including Trebuchet.  Not just the standard
features; it includes support for MCP as well.

  http://www.belfry.com/fuzzball/trebuchet/

--
Zach Collins (Siege)


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Trickey  Wed Jul 31 14:09:08 2002
From: Trickey (Trickey)
Date: Wed Jul 31 14:09:08 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24354.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu

> Something I toyed with for a while was probabilistic damage.  I
> won't vouch for the sanity of the idea, but it accomplished
> certain odd goals. It is more or less an extreme spin on the
> already existing variability in hits (variable hit points, "to-hit
> rolls" and the like. I got started on it as part of a bigger
> project to get rid of problems like the death of a thousand paper
> cuts.
 
> Instead of manipulating exactly how many points it is until death
> (reducing hit points by variable amount), you would each round
> basically roll a die. This would allow you in principle to keep
> less state per combatant; I saw this as a kind of accessory for
> "monsters lite" that took up very little memory, or a model to
> apply per part of a more detailed monster.
 
> Obviously you can change the probability as a function of
> anything, ensure a death at some point, and so on. My code back
> then applied it per-part, and each part's capabilities were
> effectively disabled or enabled by the wound labels that would be
> applied to it in the course of the probabilistic fighting. IMO it
> worked OK, in some respects better and in others worse. It's been
> shelved.

One system I starting work on was accruing Danger Points rather than
reducing hitpoints.  I was considering movie-style combat, which has
the common rule that lethal weapons almost never hit until the final
killing shot/blow.  The exception is the "ouch" hit to the shoulder,
leg, etc that's just for drama.  This pretty much holds true in most
action movies, whether its a sword or a machine gun.

So the idea is that attacks don't immediately deliver hitpoint
damage, but rather increase the target's Danger Level, which is a
measure of how close the character is to getting struck with that
final lethal blow (or one of the threshold "ouch" blows).  There
were quite a few special cases in it (like the strange fact that
throwing a punch in the middle of a gunfight is invariably a GOOD
thing), but that's the central point.

Keep in mind, I didn't completely work out the system; I switched to
a different project before finishing it, and that project doesn't
make sense with movie-style combat, so unfortunately I don't know if
it's a viable approach or not. But there's the idea for what it's
worth :)

Rob Trickey

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From mud at experimentzero.org  Wed Jul 31 14:09:26 2002
From: mud at experimentzero.org (Jack Britt)
Date: Wed Jul 31 14:09:26 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24355.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Ammon Lauritzen" <ammon at simud.org>
> On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Jack Britt wrote:

>> I'm trying to find alternatives to the AD&D-style of hit points
>> but I'm not having much luck. Couldn't find anything on google,
>> and can't seem to come up with anything on the mud-dev archives
>> (although this is probably due to my inability to do a decent
>> search.)

>> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a
>> different way of doing hit points?

<snip>

> First off, it would be possible to drastically limit the range of
> hit points. Say 2 is average and 5 is godlike. Any time you suffer
> an injury that is actually life threatening, you take one or two
> points of damage.  Otherwise, you just ignore the hit.

> If you want, you can incorporate some sort of endurance system to
> go along with this. Endurance would be spent whenever doing
> something strenuous, but would also be reduced when you take
> non-threatening hits.  So, it is possible to wear somebody out to
> the point where they can no longer defend themselves or walk or
> whatever. Then they take a telling blow.

I was thinking of doing something like this. Each body part would
have x number of hit points. A torso would have 3x, head 2x, arms
and legs would have x. Whenever a successful hit is made, there's a
chance that the character will lose a point. When the hit points are
at zero, that part is dead (arms are hacked off, torsos are
disembowled, etc.) If its the torso or head that's reduced to zero,
the player is dead. If its an arm or leg, the player might bleed to
death, and suffered penalties to some skills rolls.

Has anyone tried something like this before?

Britt
--
"My mom says I'm cool."


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From jake at ncaustin.com  Wed Jul 31 14:41:09 2002
From: jake at ncaustin.com (Jake Song)
Date: Wed Jul 31 14:41:09 2002
Subject: Hangul (was Re: Ref. : RE: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s)
Message-ID: <mailman.24356.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

For more information on Hangul, you can visit

  http://korean.sogang.ac.kr/class/Korean/introductory.html

(free registration required).

---------quote from the site------------------

  Koreans call their alphabet Hangul. Like English, the letters of
  the Hangul alphabet represent individual sounds or phonemes.
  Hangul was invented by King Sejong of the Choson Dynasty, and
  introduced to the public in 1443 in Hun-Min-Jeong-Eum. King Sejong
  believed that Koreans needed an easy-to-learn system for writing
  their own language.  Before King Sejong deigned the Hangul,
  Koreans had either written in the Chinese language or had written
  Korean using Chinese characters to represent the Korean sounds in
  a complex system, Idu. The alphabet originally contained 28
  letters composed of 11 vowels and 17 consonants.



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From justice at softhome.net  Wed Jul 31 15:01:00 2002
From: justice at softhome.net (Kwon Ekstrom)
Date: Wed Jul 31 15:01:00 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] web-based MUD editing tools?
Message-ID: <mailman.24357.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com>

> MUDs are often programmed by editing local files on the mudhost,
> like lpmud *.c files and so forth.  Giving wizards easy remote
> access to such files without giving them carte blanche over the
> mud server is a challenge.  Has anyone met that challenge using
> web-based editing tools?  Like, you fire up a webpage that points
> at the mud, you manipulate files from that web interface, and hey
> presto the mud gets changed?  Seems like someone somewhere would
> have done something more feature-laden and cross-platform than the
> telnet drill by now.

For my mud (which is still in development) I have a port that
listens for advanced clients, namely a JSP webpage which allows it
to submit forms, but I have visions for using that port for
specialized clients, perhaps including an applet when I have time to
write them.

Pretty much it's a simple deal, you pass data to the mud in XML and
receive data from the mud in XML, slap a stylesheet on it and away
you go.  Theres a simple request/reply syntax... and I pretty much
convert forms into a set XML syntax... with each form type having a
specific name referencing the data it's meant to modify.

Some data, such as help files are stored in the database and the web
page references them directly.

-- Kwon J. Ekstrom


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From justice at softhome.net  Wed Jul 31 15:05:48 2002
From: justice at softhome.net (Kwon Ekstrom)
Date: Wed Jul 31 15:05:48 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] java clients
Message-ID: <mailman.24358.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Zach Collins (Siege)" <zcollins at seidata.com>
> On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Matt Mihaly wrote:

>> expanding a java client they have for more general use, but ran
>> into a lot of problems with Java, and man was he right. We have
>> been unable, for instance, to enable any sort of copying from the
>> output window into a clipboard, and are also unable to log
>> anything to the player's computer. This inability alone basically
>> renders Java unsuitable for a full-featured text MUD client. (And

Um, sounds like you're using an applet, which unfortunately most
browsers are still using Java 1.0 and the AWT... even so, the
problems you're running into are clearly security issues, you'd have
to sign your applet in order to allow them to handle those tasks.
Standard java supports those features.

Running a java client from the command line doesn't have any of
these restrictions.  Take a look into java signing utilities.

-- Kwon J. Ekstrom


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ChristopherA at skotos.net  Wed Jul 31 15:48:20 2002
From: ChristopherA at skotos.net (Christopher Allen)
Date: Wed Jul 31 15:48:20 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24359.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Jack Britt wrote:
> "Ammon Lauritzen" <ammon at rincewind.simud.org> wrote:

>> I'm trying to find alternatives to the AD&D-style of hit points
>> but I'm not having much luck. Couldn't find anything on google,
>> and can't seem to come up with anything on the mud-dev archives
>> (although this is probably due to my inability to do a decent
>> search.)

> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a
> different way of doing hit points?

> Apart from storing health in some sort of number or set of
> numbers?  I don't think there is any other way that could be
> implemented in a computer game.

The biggest variant to HP that I've seen I think was original Harn
Lore paper-RPG system.

In that game, if I recall it right, you could get minor wounds,
serious wounds, and deadly wounds. Too many of each category would
create a wound in the next category. As you advanced in skills or
wore armor, you could avoid some of those wounds. Maybe someone with
a copy of Harn Lore can give more details?

We do something like that in Marrach, where when Dueling with
non-practice weapons you'll receive either a minor or serious
wound. If you do not get it treated (which takes a week) and try
duel again (say in the case of a duel to the death, or a foolish
duelist) and loose you can have a grave injury, or die.

-- Christopher Allen




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From Anderson  Wed Jul 31 15:52:58 2002
From: Anderson (Anderson)
Date: Wed Jul 31 15:52:58 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24360.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu

> Something I toyed with for a while was probabilistic damage.  I
> won't vouch for the sanity of the idea, but it accomplished
> certain odd goals. It is more or less an extreme spin on the
> already existing variability in hits (variable hit points, "to-hit
> rolls" and the like. I got started on it as part of a bigger
> project to get rid of problems like the death of a thousand paper
> cuts.

I've seen something similar before, basically HP were changed to
something like "luck wearing out", don't remember exactly how they
explained it.  Something about exhaustion and how you'll eventually
get unlucky.  Then skills would compare, and it'd reduce your luck,
eventually you'd get hit and die.  It could be done with normal
weapons, changing their messages to "barely misses you" etc, but
still reduce hp (now luck).  When hp runs out, make a final swipe
that you can't dodge, and you die.

Dave


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ChristopherA at skotos.net  Wed Jul 31 15:57:57 2002
From: ChristopherA at skotos.net (Christopher Allen)
Date: Wed Jul 31 15:57:57 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] web-based MUD editing tools?
Message-ID: <mailman.24361.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

"Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com>:

> MUDs are often programmed by editing local files on the mudhost,
> like lpmud *.c files and so forth.  Giving wizards easy remote
> access to such files without giving them carte blanche over the
> mud server is a challenge.  Has anyone met that challenge using
> web-based editing tools?  Like, you fire up a webpage that points
> at the mud, you manipulate files from that web interface, and hey
> presto the mud gets changed?  Seems like someone somewhere would
> have done something more feature-laden and cross-platform than the
> telnet drill by now.

Our games are all created via a web based interface, jokingly called
the "Tree of Woe". In it you can edit objects in 3 modes, a forms
based interface, and XML interface, and an abbreviated interface for
just editing descriptions called KarMode.

There are some screen shots of it at

  http://www.skotos.net/articles/TTnT_61.shtml

Typically the only thing done in the text interface is spawning the
objects, possibly modifying some properties that make a child object
unique, and placing the object in the game once it is tested.

The latest addition to our interface is linking it closer with the
text interface. Our clients (Java, ActiveX, and Mozilla/Javascript)
all support opening arbitrary web pages, so now you can do things
type "+tool woe edit %SkotOS:object:name" and it will open that
object in a web page for editing.  +tool also has some cool
web-based viewers for our LPC-sandboxed language we call Merry, our
scripting language called Bilbo, which will color-code the output
making it easier to find some mistakes.

-- Christopher Allen

------------------------------------------------------------------------
.. Christopher Allen                                 Skotos Tech Inc. ..
..                           1512 Walnut St., Berkeley, CA 94709-1513 ..
.. <http://www.skotos.net>           o510/647-2760x202  f510/647-2761 ..



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From sage at austin.rr.com  Wed Jul 31 16:42:07 2002
From: sage at austin.rr.com (Sage)
Date: Wed Jul 31 16:42:07 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24362.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Jack Britt wrote:

> I'm trying to find alternatives to the AD&D-style of hit points
> but I'm not having much luck. Couldn't find anything on google,
> and can't seem to come up with anything on the mud-dev archives
> (although this is probably due to my inability to do a decent
> search.)

> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a
> different way of doing hit points?

I am not sure how different you are looking for.  You could use a
system whereby there are actually N number of different versions of
health.  All attacks would attack only one of these "types" of
health.  So you could diversify in this way.  Of course I think
keeping N low is very important... at most 4 or 3 IMO.  Players
would be allowed to grow in one of these types of health based on
their own choices.  Gives you the ability to really diversify your
combat from encounter to encounter depending on how you implement
attack types and growth.

Still, this isn't anything but a variation on the theme, so I don't
know how helpful this was.

-Sage


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From jo at groupinfo.com  Wed Jul 31 17:00:45 2002
From: jo at groupinfo.com (Jo Dillon)
Date: Wed Jul 31 17:00:45 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] java clients
Message-ID: <mailman.24363.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On 31 Jul 2002 at 10:45, Valerio Santinelli wrote:

> Is your client a Java desktop application or a Java applet?  I'm
> not a Java master but if it's a Java desktop application, then you
> can write to files on the player's computer.  If it's an applet,
> then it's part of the security of Java applets not to let it write
> anything on the

It's also possible to sign Java applets. I've done this. Doing it
'properly' requires paying for a certificate from people like
Verisign or Thawte, but if you can get your users to ignore a
warning message it'll work without that. A signed Java applet can
get rights to do things like write to the disk, while still running
in a browser.

> client's disk.  If I were you I would have developed a standalone
> C++ client where you have full control over the features you want.
> In the case of Skotos I guess they implemented some of their games
> with an ActiveX interface that gets included in Internet Explorer
> and lets you have browser's capabilities merged with a standalone
> client. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

C++ is the way I'd go, but only because of bad experiences
developing large Java applications and some degree of personal bias
;)

--

	Jo



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From efindel at earthlink.net  Wed Jul 31 17:07:04 2002
From: efindel at earthlink.net (Travis Casey)
Date: Wed Jul 31 17:07:04 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?
Message-ID: <mailman.24364.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Saturday, July 27, 2002, 4:39:18 PM, Jack Britt wrote:

> I'm trying to find alternatives to the AD&D-style of hit points
> but I'm not having much luck. Couldn't find anything on google,
> and can't seem to come up with anything on the mud-dev archives
> (although this is probably due to my inability to do a decent
> search.)

> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a
> different way of doing hit points?

Lots.  Let's start off, though, by talking for a minute about what
the AD&D style of hit points is -- there's a few common
misunderstandings about them.

AD&D hit points combine two main things: the ability to take damage,
and the ability to avoid or minimize damage taken.  This latter is
the main part of why hit points go up with levels -- a 6th-level
fighter can't physically take as much damage as a dozen normal
people -- he's just so much better at dodging, parrying, etc. that
he/she can take *attacks* (not actual *damage*, but *attacks*) that
would kill the twelve of them before dropping.

This is why none of the core D&D rules include parrying or other
rules for defensive actions, except to represent "total defense" --
our 6th-level AD&D fighter is assumed to be parrying, dodging,
rolling with blows, etc., but all that is factored into his/her hit
points.

This also explains the differences in hit points gained per level by
different classes.  Warrior-types get the most, because they learn
the most about how to survive a fight.  Wizards, who are supposed to
be the worst fighters, get the least.  (Note that better hit die
types go hand-in-hand with having a better rate of improving to-hit
scores in AD&D.)

Secondly, AD&D hit points are generalized and abstract.  You take
five points of damage -- you don't take a hit to a leg, a broken
bone, or any other form of specific injury -- just a loss of points.


So... there's two basic ways to depart from AD&D's style: divide up
"hit points" into multiple things, and go towards more detailed
injuries instead of the "points" abstraction.  However, there are a
lot of specific ways to go about doing those things.  Here's a few,
used by different games:

  1.  Divide up "hit points" into multiple pools of points.

    WotC's Star Wars RPG is an example of this; instead of having
    just "hit points", the game has "wound points", which represent
    actual physical injury, and "vitality points", which represent
    one's ability to avoid real damage.  Most damage comes out of
    vitality points; once those are gone, characters start taking
    wound points.  A few types of attacks can only do vitality, and
    there are ways in which an attack can bypass vitality and go
    straight to wounds (e.g., a critical hit).  Wound points are
    fixed; vitality points go up with levels.

    Palladium divides things up into hit points and structural
    damage capacity, as someone else mentioned in another post.
    Same basic idea as SW's wound points and vitality points,
    although Palladium did it before SW.

    Both Lands of Adventure and Villains & Vigilantes divide things
    up as well.  LoA has "life points" and "body points" -- "life
    points" represent vital damage (e.g., organ damage), while "body
    points" represent flesh wounds.  Body points depend on how much
    a character or creature weighs, so elephants, for example, can
    take a lot more of them than humans.  V&V has "hit points" which
    perform both those functions.  Both of these, however, have
    fatigue points, and in both, a character can choose to take some
    of the damage from a hit as fatigue -- representing effort put
    forth in making an extraordinary defense or dodge.  Fatigue
    recovers more quickly than real damage...  but fatigue is also
    useful for other things, such as making extra effort in an
    attack.

    Lastly, several games have "luck points" of some form.  These
    can often be spent either to reduce or eliminate damage from an
    attack, and can also usually be spent to "be lucky" in other
    ways as well.

  2.  Represent defensive ability with skills.

    Many RPGs have some form of defensive skill.  Runequest is the
    oldest I know of off-hand.  Such systems usually give characters
    two or more actions per round -- with two, a character can
    either attack twice, defend one and attack once, or defend
    twice.  Using these skills makes it less likely that the
    character gets hurt, effectively increasing hit points.

    Rolemaster does things a little bit differently -- it lets you
    divide up your skill with a weapon between attack and defense
    each round.  So, someone with a Sword skill of 65 using a sword
    can split those 65 points however they want between attack and
    defense.

  3.  Use wound levels, with nonlinear "adding".

    In many games, a character who takes a 5-point wound and then a
    6-point wound isn't necessarily as bad off as someone who's
    taken a single 11-point wound.  Instead of just adding damage
    points up against a "hit point" total, different strategies can
    be employed:

      - Worst one counts.  In this sort of system, the worst wound
      you've taken is the only one that matters, as far as your
      fighting condition goes.  Generally such games also impose
      penalties for fighting while wounded, so that while a 5-point
      wound taken when you already have a 5-point wound doesn't make
      you any worse off, an attack that would have given you a
      5-point wound when you were fresh in the fight might give you
      a worse wound when you're already wounded.

      - "Bumping" methods.

       In this sort of system, a character generally has only a few
       wound levels -- maybe a dozen or so.  If you're unwounded and
       take a hit, you take whatever wound level it gives.  If
       you're already wounded, and you take a hit that's less than
       the wound you've got, it just "bumps you up" one level.  If
       you take a hit that's worse than what you've already got, you
       go up to that level.)

    There are a lot of other ways to work things... for another
    example, see below when I talk about Chill.

  4.  Use specific wound areas.

    Several RPGs use hit locations -- every hit is assigned to a
    body part.  In such systems, damage to a specific body part may
    have specific affects -- e.g., if your leg has been badly hurt,
    you may have a chance of falling down each round, and move
    around more slowly.  If your arm has been hit, you might have a
    chance of dropping something held in that hand, and have have a
    penalty to strength using that arm.  If the head is hit, you
    have have a chance of being knocked out.  And so on.

    In a traditional hit point system, each body part will be
    assigned a number of hit points it can take before it's injured,
    and possibly higher numbers at which it's badly injured and/or
    destroyed.  Another possibility is to use wound levels with body
    parts, as in #3.  #5 presents another possibility.

  5.  Use wound effects instead of hit points.

    Some of the more modern games don't have hit points at all;
    instead, each time you're hit, there's a chance of some effects
    happening immediately (e.g., knockout, stun, killed, bone
    broken, etc.), and you may get penalties applied to further
    actions, depending on the wound.  This is often combined with
    #4, so that penalties and possible immediate effects depend on
    where you were hit.

Some systems combine two or more of these; I've mentioned a couple
of examples already, but here's a specific one that I find
interesting -- the old Mayfair game, Chill.

Chill had both wound levels (scratch, light, heavy, critical,
mortal, if I remember right) and a sort of hit point total, called
shock points.  All attacks did shock points; some attacks would also
do a wound.

The character sheet had an area for recording wounds, with two boxes
beside each wound level except mortal.  When your character took a
wound, you checked off an appropriate box.  If both boxes on that
level were checked off, you "bumped up" to the next level -- thus,
if you already had taken two light wounds, a third one would count
as heavy.  If you had a mortal wound and took a second one, your
character was dead.

When a character reached zero shock points left, that character
would either fall unconscious, or die.  Which they'd do depended on
their wound status -- if they had a mortal wound, they'd die.

Critical and mortal wounds both "bled" -- that is, the character
would lose shock points each round for several rounds, unless they
got first aid.  And also, wounds of "light" or worse had action
penalties associated with them, so someone running around with a
heavy wound would find it harder to do things.

  (Note that all this is from memory, so I may have some things
  wrong here; however, the overall picture should be right.)


--
Travis Casey
efindel at earthlink.net


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From lars at bearnip.com  Wed Jul 31 17:22:18 2002
From: lars at bearnip.com (Lars Duening)
Date: Wed Jul 31 17:22:18 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] remote 56K editing, especially for lpmud?
Message-ID: <mailman.24365.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> I found a project.  I am now a wizard on a lpmud.  I have a
> /homedirectory and I can type ls, mv, rm commands from within the
> mud.  Editors are available within the mud, but the character echo
> is too slow over my 56K modem connection to be usable.  My work is
> going to consist mainly of creating foo.c files in /homedirectory.

There is of course the built-in 'ed' line editor, which should at
least solve the slow character echo problem.

ed's append mode can be used to upload files simply by copy&pasting
your local copy into the telnet terminal window. Downloading is more
tricky, as you'd have to run the telnet session from within script,
print the file from within the mud (again using ed), and afterwards
extract the file data from the 'typescript' file.

> The mud owners are not willing to give wizards system shell
> accounts or system FTP access.  They feel, rightly or wrongly,
> that they are more secure if they don't.

They're right.

> Apparently there's some kind of in-mud FTP capability, but it's
> currently broken and they say it's too much hassle to do anything
> about it.

They're also lazy.

--
Lars Duening; lars at bearnip.com
PGP Key: http://www.bearnip.com/lars/pgp-lars.asc

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From ryumo at merit.edu  Wed Jul 31 18:18:10 2002
From: ryumo at merit.edu (Marc Bowden)
Date: Wed Jul 31 18:18:10 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] remote 56K editing, especially for lpmud?
Message-ID: <mailman.24366.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

--On Wednesday, July 31, 2002 2:37 AM -0700 "Brandon J. Van Every" 
<vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com> wrote:

> I found a project.  I am now a wizard on a lpmud.  I have a
> /homedirectory and I can type ls, mv, rm commands from within the
> mud.  Editors are available within the mud, but the character echo
> is too slow over my 56K modem connection to be usable.

Wait, what? What's the actual connection speed on the line?

--
Marc Bowden - Soulsinger         Dreamshadow:The Legacy of the Three
  ryumo at merit.edu                                 206.246.120.2 3333

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From d at djames.org  Wed Jul 31 19:12:30 2002
From: d at djames.org (Daniel James)
Date: Wed Jul 31 19:12:30 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK
Message-ID: <mailman.24367.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Dave Rickey wrote:
> From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>

>> In Go and Chess and other games like that, you usually aren't
>> playing against other masters, but when you play CS or PK in many
>> games, you end up stuck against people with FAR more experience
>> than you. If you had to play a Master every time you started
>> playing chess, I bet it'd become unentertaining. Challenge is
>> good. Feeling as if you are screwed from the start is not fun.

> This is a core problem that is going to have to be solved before
> any MMFPS game is going to succeed: Setting up fights between
> equal opponents...

We face a similar problem in our mmpoarrrrpg, Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates --
the gameplay is based on skill-based Puzzle games (e.g Tetris).

> I call it the "Testosterone Trap", the best team with the best and
> play against the best when they can, and the rest of the time they
> drop into matches against vastly inferior opponents and use them
> for target practice.  A player in the top 1% could join an
> ordinary pickup game and, all by himself, determine the outcome.
> Frequently it was a humiliating walkover.

> In an ordinary FPS, this isn't a problem, there are thousands of
> servers and you can keep trying until you find one that is more
> even.  The past doesn't matter because each match and each server
> is a separate thing, with only the most tenuous of relationships
> to any other.  In a persistent world, this is no longer true, and
> even if what is persistant is no more than a win/loss ratio, such
> games quickly turn into small clicques of extremely skilled
> players who absolutely destroy any newcomers, and drive them away
> just by being too *good*.

We intend to solve this problem in a few ways: firstly, all players
have a competitive win/loss rating, calculated as per a chess
rating, for all the competitive Puzzles.  Before you accept a
challenge from a player you can see their rating, and there's no
shame in refusing. Also, it's very risky for a highly rated player
to go up against a low-rated player: nothing to gain from a win, and
plenty to lose from a defeat.

Sea Battles are trickier, as we intend for the Seas to be dangerous,
i.e.  open to non-consensual PVP. However, Crews also have a
chess-style rating ('Notoriety') based on their success battling
other Crews at Sea. The above risk/reward applies for the Crew's
rating. Additionally we intend to (unrealistically, but we don't
care much for realism) penalise Crews that have a record of
attacking low-ranked ships -- cruel Pirates, beware the Black Ship!

Finally, though, and I suspect that this might work out well in
MMPFPS games, too, we will start new players at the edges of the
world and encourage stronger Crews & Flags to gravitate towards the
most contested, high-prestige, wealthy Seas at the heart of the
Ocean. Whether this carrot (and the above stick) will overcome the
inclination of cruel skilled Crews to vacation in (or stick around
in) the easy-pickings Seas of more pedestrian Pirates remains to be
seen.

a tip of the hat to yer

Daniel


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From kallisti at tahoesnow.com  Wed Jul 31 19:18:04 2002
From: kallisti at tahoesnow.com (David Kennerly)
Date: Wed Jul 31 19:18:04 2002
Subject: =?utf-8?b?UkU6IEhhbmd1bCAod2FzIFJlOiBSw6lmLiA6IFJFOiBbTVVELURldl0g?=
	=?utf-8?q?Mass_customization_in_MM***s=29?=
Message-ID: <mailman.24368.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Korean is the easiest alphabet in the world to learn.  It's
phonetic.  With a few exceptions, it's logical and sounds exactly
like it's written.  Each one of those blocks contain King Sejong
created it around the 1500s in order to improve literacy rate,
because Chinese language is too hard.  In many people's opinion, he
(or whoever he's taking credit from) did a good job.  It has nuances
too.  It's vowels have yin or yang, each one is male or female.
Some of the consonants are ideograms related to the position of the
mouth to make the syllable.

The standard Korean keyboard map is intuitive.  Korean has more like
40 common characters when practically used, so all can be typed on a
western keyboard using only the letter keys and the shift key.  The
shift key combos are intuitive.  If you wanted to try the keyboard
map, you could try AsianSuite (http://www.unionway.com), or install
Korean language system if your OS supports it.  However, Korean
language, beyond the alphabet, is a monster for a Westerner to learn
(and vice versa), because it shares no roots.  Western language has
an alien philosophy, grammar, and alphabet from Korean.

Incidentally, I'm ending a four month business stay in Korea, and a
four and a half year job with a Korean company, tomorrow.  For the
last four months, I've seen and typed a lot of those funny symbols.
:)

David



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From sanvean at ginka.armageddon.org  Wed Jul 31 20:07:42 2002
From: sanvean at ginka.armageddon.org (Sanvean)
Date: Wed Jul 31 20:07:42 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] web-based MUD editing tools?
Message-ID: <mailman.24369.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> MUDs are often programmed by editing local files on the mudhost,
> like lpmud *.c files and so forth.  Giving wizards easy remote
> access to such files without giving them carte blanche over the
> mud server is a challenge.  Has anyone met that challenge using
> web-based editing tools?  Like, you fire up a webpage that points
> at the mud, you manipulate files from that web interface, and hey
> presto the mud gets changed?  Seems like someone somewhere would
> have done something more feature-laden and cross-platform than the
> telnet drill by now.

We've taken a step in that direction using scripts: formerly written
in a sort of homemade language, and more recently in javascript. Any
staff member can use a web interface to write a script and upload it
for use on the test port, and then debug happily. We could make it
so they could use the same interface to load it into the live game,
but everything that goes into the game has to be proofed/approved by
another team member, so we've left that capability out of the
equation so far. This is a relatively recent change (within the last
year) and it's done a lot to ennable staff members to do wild and
wonderful things with scripts with a minimum of torment and crashes.

Sanvean
Armageddon MUD. Roleplay required.
http://www.armageddon.org


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From yospe at kanga.nu  Wed Jul 31 20:08:34 2002
From: yospe at kanga.nu (Nathan F. Yospe)
Date: Wed Jul 31 20:08:34 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Phonetic and Ideographic languages (was Hangul)
Message-ID: <mailman.24370.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Travis Casey <efindel at earthlink.net> said:
> On Thursday 25 July 2002 3:01, Damion Schubert wrote:

>> I don't know exactly what the language font for Korean is, but if
>> you go into any Korean Lineage server, you'll see a lot of
>> symbols above the heads of characters which aren't latin
>> Characters by any stretch of the imagination.

> The major writing system in Korea is called Hangul.  It is a
> syllabary -- each symbol represents a particular syllable.  This
> means it has a lot more characters than English (which builds
> syllables from multiple characters), but nowhere near as many as
> traditional Chinese writing, in which a symbol corresponds to a
> particular word.

> Hangul has exactly 140 characters.  Each of these is a consonant +
> vowel combination.  There are also separate symbols for the
> consonants (of which there are 14) and the vowels (of which there
> are 10).

The unicode standard provides, for Hangul Jamo (the consonant and
vowels combined to make the 10K plus Hangul) 96 noncombinable, of
which only 51 are in use as modern letters, and what's called the
Hangul Jamo combining alphabet, with 60 (0x1100 - 0x1159) initial
consonants, 66 (0x1161 - 0x11A2) vowels, and 82 (0x11A8 - 0x11F9)
final consonants...

The standard states that the compatibility section is the portion
of Hangul Jamo that cannot be algorithmicly decomposed to normal,
standardized Jamo.

Of the Hangul Jamo letters, 19 leading, 27 trailing, and 21 vowel
characters are listed as being in common modern use.  That's much
more than 14 consonants and 10 vowels, and results in a total set
of 11,172 complete Hangul in modern use.  That's not counting the
Hangul produced by the less standard 51 Jamo or the degenerate or
unused products involving one of the remaining other 140 odd Jamo
in the normal block.  The Johab set (the 11K formed sylables) are
unquestionably going to be typed using combined keystrokes.  With
a shift or control key, I'm sure all modern Jamo could easilly be
typed with one stroke.  It may even be possible to automate parts
of each Hangul in sequence - initial jamo, vowel jamo, and final,
if present, spacebar (maybe) to move on if not.  I don't know how
it's actually done, but that would seem a sensible approach...

What you describe sounds closer to Hiragana, which has (really) a
total of fourteen consonants (five accessed only by accents added
to similar sounding consonants, eg ka -> ga, ha -> ba -> pa), but
only five vowels, with a few others formed by combining vowels to
get long forms ("yaw" would be ia -> "eee" + "ah") and a few sets
of combining sounds are neglected (y is only "yah", "yoo", "yoh";
w is only "wah, "woh"; tsu replaces "too", chi replaces "tee", ji
replaces "zee", and there is a vowelless "n" that doesn't start a
new word, but can end one), and the vowels exist as unadorned but
seperate characters.  There's also a rare case of a plain u "ooh"
getting accented to become a vu "vooh", but I've only seen it one
or two times, ever.

Mind, there's also a complete parallel alphabet, Katakana, with a
slightly different, less fluid shape, used for foreign words, and
a majority of Nihongo is written in Kanji, which is analogous to,
and ultimately derived from, Han ideographs, the chinese writing.
Clasical writing is in Kanzi, which retains archaic flourishes, a
bit like gothic scripts in english.

Korean was, until sometime in the last century, also written with
a Han derived ideographic form.  Several of the nonstandard Jamo,
ultimately, reflect that root.  Purely Han derived characters are
called Hanja and look just like Han.

Again, I don't know how that would be handled in Korean typing.

What gets particularly complex is the integration of dictation in
a combined phonetic/ideographic typed environ.  Worse still, when
dealing with Han (pretty much the last pure ideographic language)
there are actually multiple spoken languages mapped to one print,
and the only phonetic standards format is something refered to as
BoPoMoFo.  It isn't used in writing, but does provide for a basic
standard mapping from phonetic (keep in mind that this includes a
set of tonal elements used for differentiation of meaning) to Han
for a given language.

If a MMOG were to attempt to support, on the same server, a large
set of languages, written and spoken, it would have to overcome a
great deal of incompatibility between languages.  Were the goal a
more modest portability - single release of software, but servers
for each language supported - it would simply be a case of having
operating system support tie-ins and (probably) internal unicode, 
or at the very least multilingual encoding, support.

If it also had voice input support, or even worse, mixed mode and
unified presentation (recipient chooses to see text or hear voice
independant of what originator chose to use), something better in
the way of phoneme encoding would have to be developed, and there
would have to be a pretty advanced context-aware mapping resolver
figuring out what each phoneme-set was *supposed* to mean... just
as much, figuring out which _word_ a given ideographic symbol was
meant to be, not to mention unmangling typos and horrific typing,
u know, 2 b kewl?

I'd like to propose now, should anyone ever do this, that l33t be
translated to a spoken form that resembles an especially retarded
hillbilly just after a run-in with a large mallet.  Or Elmer Fudd
just after getting shot with his own rifle.

--

Nathan F. Yospe -  Programmer, Scientist, Artist, JOAT with a SAK
yospe#kanga.nu   Home: nathanfyospe#mac.com  Work: nyospe#a2i.com



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From jb at co-laboratory.com  Wed Jul 31 20:22:50 2002
From: jb at co-laboratory.com (John Bertoglio)
Date: Wed Jul 31 20:22:50 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] web-based MUD editing tools?
Message-ID: <mailman.24371.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Brandon J. Van Every" <>

> MUDs are often programmed by editing local files on the mudhost,
> like lpmud *.c files and so forth.  Giving wizards easy remote
> access to such files without giving them carte blanche over the
> mud server is a challenge.  Has anyone met that challenge using
> web-based editing tools?  Like, you fire up a webpage that points
> at the mud, you manipulate files from that web interface, and hey
> presto the mud gets changed?  Seems like someone somewhere would
> have done something more feature-laden and cross-platform than the
> telnet drill by now.

Brandon:

Our system (which I am working on again) is 100% web-based. (The old
version has some obsolete but potentially useful information:
http://www.paper.net/mud/).  There is no reason why the same tools
we use could not be made to work with a standard mud.

The database/app sever program we use the ability to open files,
parse them, build a HTML page and send it to a user. The user then
makes the edits and sends it back. After the system checks for a
valid user account/login, it reassembles the file and puts it back
in the proper place.

Any web based app server can do this as long as its command set (or
that of the database it connects to) allows it to read and write
files. It could be as simple as allowing you to download the text
file and upload the edited version. We have a client project right
now that uses Miva Merchant which has a funky dBase backend. You
down load an XML doc and edit it. Their back end parses and compiles
it into the proper scripting language to run the system. We use a
simple HTML upload screen to move it up to the server.

All the mud lib would need is the ability to listen for a "recompile
button" to know it is time to use the new code assuming it is
compiled and not interpreted.

John A. Bertoglio
co-laboratory
503.781.3563
www.co-laboratory.com
jb at co-laboratory.com

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Wed Jul 31 21:20:52 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Wed Jul 31 21:20:52 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24372.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On 31 Jul 2002, Sasha Hart wrote:
> [Matt Mihaly]
 
>> Well, that's fair enough, though I'd appreciate it if you'd drop
>> the slander, as neither you nor I should be the subject of
>> anything discussed here, but rather the ideas we're speaking
>> about.
 
> I'm sorry, that wasn't intended to be slander. The comment about
> delicacy was actually intended to be sarcastic as I've always
> perceived you as being extremely thick-skinned to
> criticism. (However, I see you making few apologies for the design
> decisions below - which is as it should be).  That was much too
> informal on my part, and I am nothing but sorry for the
> misstep. :/

No problem. As much my fault for missing the sarcasm!
 
>> I'm not claiming that nobody is made unhappy by our political
>> systems, because they CAN make your life miserable, but they are
>> one thing that most of our long-time players love, [...]
 
> You seemed skeptical of the claim, so I made an attempt (poorly
> managed, in retrospect) to provide a firm and substantial example
> of the problem, in a nutshell. I interpret the above as basically
> total acknowledgement of the problem, but a denial that it is
> crippling. I would tend to agree, especially in light of the
> ongoing success of games which incorporate the idea in one way or
> another.

I'd say your interpretation is correct. It definitely happens, but
not often enough to make us want to water down the system. In fact,
all of our future plans call for increased power in the hands of
player-run political systems.
 
> What I hope I can convey is that at least some people some of the
> time will not like it. Some eggs are broken. Does that matter? Up
> to you. I guess I didn't express this adequately in my preceding
> post.

Oh, no doubt, but I can't think of any decision that at least some
people some of the time will be upset about. That criteria alone
would paralyse your decision making process. As you say, some eggs
are broken, but some eggs are also broken with any other
model. Everquest's decision to focus more or less solely on bashing
broke me as an egg for them, for instance, as I'm not interested in
that. I doubt they're crying in their milk though.
 
>> I so often see things speculated on here when they've already
>> been done, usually in multiple places (I see it more often from
>> people who didn't start playing MUDs until the big graphical ones
>> came out. You should check out text MUDs even if for the sake of
>> just understanding where the graphical MUDs evolved ;from.

> There is creativity in text games which the graphical games will
> still be afraid to try or apply for years to come. Too much is at
> stake. I think exploration, including the trial of design ideas
> which are chancy, interesting, counterintuitive, which break a few
> other eggs in order to make a different kind of omelette - is both
> vastly interesting, and vastly useful. Text games still have a
> near monopoly on exploration of the design space (IMO) even if
> their scope tends to be much more limited (unless we consider the
> hobbyist/amateur, in which case text games win out again - there
> are really so few established hobbyist graphical games).

Well, that's true to some extent, but I think we're seeing real
innovation on the graphical front too. Shadowbane's group vs. group
system, while not revolutionary, seems likely to be one of the most
comprehensively-implemented such systems, and I think Star Wars and
TSO are likely to be counted as innovators when they come out, aside
from expanding the market and whatnot.

I think graphical MUDs can innovate, they just have to be a little
more methodical about it as there's so much more at stake, as you
said.
 
> Achaea is a successful game which nonetheless tries a number of
> strange and interesting ideas.  As a consumer of designs this is
> what I have the highest respect for, and have the most use for -
> successful (even unsuccessful) explorations.) My observation that
> some eggs have been broken isn't intended to be a slander on the
> game.

It's ok, it wasn't taken as a slander on the game. I could talk to
you for hours about all the problems Achaea has. =)
 
--matt


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From d at djames.org  Wed Jul 31 21:28:16 2002
From: d at djames.org (Daniel James)
Date: Wed Jul 31 21:28:16 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] java clients
Message-ID: <mailman.24373.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Matt Mihaly wrote:

> You can check out our new java client at
> www.achaea.com/javaclient/play.html.

Very nice!

> ... [Skotos] ran into a lot of problems with Java, and man was
> [Christopher Allen] right. We have been unable, for instance, to
> enable any sort of copying from the output window into a
> clipboard, and are also unable to log anything to the player's
> computer.

I believe that it's possible for the user to grant permission to
write to the disk to a *signed* Java applet, but they have to do it
every time the applet is run. It probably also depends on the
JVM/Browser combo and the user's security settings.

> This inability alone basically renders Java unsuitable for a
> full-featured text MUD client. (And while I'm not much of a
> programmer, if any of you clever programmers out there have
> figured out good work-arounds for this, I'd love to hear them.)

We're using Java, but we're using Java 1.4 and running the client
completely separately as a standalone application via Java
Webstart. This lets the user grant an application once-off
permission for network and disk access. It also lets them add
desktop icons etc, and manages the download of updates (not
especially efficiently, but it does it). Oh, and you can
cut-and-paste.

Using Java this way gets you away from the jungle of browser JVMs (I
wouldn't try to do a complex application in the browser, the
variations alone will drive you nuts), but comes with penalties --
notably the 9mb Java 1.4 download -- that would probably drive most
folks into platform specificity or even other platforms like
python/tcl.

We're doing it because we're Java fans: we're betting that the
platform independence and other aspects of the language (good
support for code reuse, increasingly good libraries, broad
programmer acceptance) will stand us in good stead, especially when
we come to porting the game to other platforms, making new games, or
open-sourcing our toolkit.

Besides, I'd have to develop new motivational 'therapies' to get my
engineers to write Window$ code. Alas, we will probably have to do a
little of this -- even 1.4 has keyboard manager issues that may end
up needing platform specific code. Break out the rrrum!

Daniel


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com  Wed Jul 31 21:36:47 2002
From: vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com (Brandon J. Van Every)
Date: Wed Jul 31 21:36:47 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] portable ftpd daemon for lpmud?
Message-ID: <mailman.24374.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Does anyone know of a portable ftpd daemon for lpmuds?  The guys I'm
working with have been doing a lpmud from scratch and they don't
have a FTP capability, which makes remote editing a nuisance.  A
ftpd that can be ripped out of someone else's lpmud and is intended
to be portable / fairly easy to configure would be nice.  I believe
the desired item might be something written in LPC.  Not sure about
that exactly.  At any rate, something internal to the MUD is
desired, so that the MUD can govern all the permissions and file
accesses.  These MUD admins aren't willing to provide external FTP
and UNIX shell accounts, they feel more secure doing everything from
inside the lpmud.


Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Wed Jul 31 21:42:34 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Wed Jul 31 21:42:34 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Gossip, fiction and tactical lore
Message-ID: <mailman.24375.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, John Buehler wrote:

> I look forward to the first game that explicitly acknowledges the
> existence of the player in addition to the character within the
> overall context of the game. This means things like having the
> ability to contact a player by name instead of contacting them by
> character name.  Or player-to-player voice communication.  There's
> a reason that we didn't bother much with characters talking to
> each other in our D&D days.  The player conversations were far
> more fun.

But characters don't have conversations in the sense I think you're
using it. Players already do, using the characters as mouthpieces
and semi-anonymous masks. I don't think most people would play a
game that required them to make their real name available to other
people, and without that requirement, you have to have some way to
identify people. A character name seems as good as any to me.

--matt


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com  Wed Jul 31 22:19:57 2002
From: vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com (Brandon J. Van Every)
Date: Wed Jul 31 22:19:57 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] current portable lpmud code libraries?
Message-ID: <mailman.24376.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

Are there any web forums or mailing lists that deal with lpmud / LPC
coding issues in a centralized way?  Besides rec.games.mud.lp.  I'm
mainly interested in portable code libraries that are useful across
different, current lpmuds.  When I do general searches for this sort of
stuff in the newsgroups or on the web, the information I find usually
dates from 1998.  Is lpmud hopelessly Balkanized now?


Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From the_logos at achaea.com  Wed Jul 31 23:05:05 2002
From: the_logos at achaea.com (Matt Mihaly)
Date: Wed Jul 31 23:05:05 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM***s
Message-ID: <mailman.24377.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, John Robert Arras wrote:
 
> I'm not sure. I will try to explain it like this:
 
> When I think of adding a feature to my game, my thought process
> isn't like:
 
>   "How cool would this be if used wisely by the playerbase?"
 
> My thought process is more like:
 
>   "If the biggest a-hole in the game managed to get access to
>   this, how much misery could he cause?"
 
> In short: I think like a cheater.
 
> If I plan on putting something into the game, I try to implement
> it in a way that I can't figure out how to game the system. I
> haven't been able to figure out how to implement positions of
> power other than ones with at most superficial power. I don't know
> if it's possible.

Sure, I understand. I'm willing to let some holes go and regulate
them with human intervention, because I think it gives a richer
experience by allowing for expression that can't be adequately
covered by a rigid set of rules. Whether or not that translates into
a more or less profitable system is up for debate, as is how well it
scales. Not scaling isn't a slur on an idea though.
 
>> And incidentally, you don't just appoint a player as major of a
>> city, you let the player-citizens vote him in, and give the mayor
>> responsibilities vis a vis the citizenry, so that if he is an
>> immature ass, he'll quickly be out of office.
 
> But a large group of of them could cause a lot of pain
> locally. Even if it's only one city out of many, I don't like the
> idea that the developers set something up where players can
> restrict access to parts of the game with the imprimatur of the
> admin staff.

> But we both know that this isn't really a power that can hurt
> other players. :) Ceremonial positions are fine by me since they
> don't give real power over other players.

It's not just ceremonial power though. Players in government have
the power to set tax rates on other players shops, repossess them,
kick them out of the city, enemy them to the city, which then causes
the player to be attacked by the rather hefty city-guards any time
he enters. Is this too much power? On the one hand, it seems
trivial. Just go join another city. On the other hand, players are
extremely attached to their cities, and being kicked out can be
quite traumatic. You lose that community, and the protection and
assistance of that community in the larger world.

Guild leaders have even more power over newbies, though not over
established players. They can, at will, kick someone below guild
rank 3 out of a guild, removing that person's class and all his
related skills.

Now, we've been doing this for 5 years now, and I could count on my
fingers the number of times we've intervened in a guild kicking
someone out (in other words, someone got kicked out for spurious
reasons, and it cost them credits, which they paid real money for),
and I can't recall -ever- taking any action to punish or regulate a
city leader. Occasionally that power is abused, but unless it's of a
large scope, we don't care. Corruption is fun. If it's abused on a
large scope, well, the patron God of that city, or my God, who is
the Creator, may decide that someone isn't worthy of holding
power. So far that's never been necessary though.

I just think that if you worry about the worst case scenario, then
you will never do anything, because the worst case scenario in any
given situation is, by definition, quite bad. Any venture is risky
if you only measure the risk. Measure risk vs. reward instead.

--matt




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev


From tanis at mediacom.it  Wed Jul 31 23:13:08 2002
From: tanis at mediacom.it (Valerio Santinelli)
Date: Wed Jul 31 23:13:08 2002
Subject: [MUD-Dev] remote 56K editing, especially for lpmud?
Message-ID: <mailman.24378.1356733409.28139.mud-dev-archive@dworkin.nl>

From: "Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com>

> I found a project.  I am now a wizard on a lpmud.  I have a
> /homedirectory and I can type ls, mv, rm commands from within the
> mud.  Editors are available within the mud, but the character echo
> is too slow over my 56K modem connection to be usable.  My work is
> going to consist mainly of creating foo.c files in /homedirectory.
> I need an efficient way to download foo.c to my local computer,
> edit it, then upload it again.  Ideally, I'd like a setup that
> makes the download-upload step transparent to me.

> The mud owners are not willing to give wizards system shell
> accounts or system FTP access.  They feel, rightly or wrongly,
> that they are more secure if they don't.

I can't understand why they would not allow you to have FTP access
to your homedir. If the admin is able to install an FTP server like
proftpd or pure-ftpd, he could also chroot your user to his home
directory in order for you not to roam around the system's
directories.  Talk with the admins and convince them to give you FTP
access. That's the best way to go and solve your problem.


--
c'ya!

Valerio Santinelli
tanis at mediacom.it
HateSeed Gaming Magazine http://www.hateseed.com/
My Lab http://tanis.hateseed.com/
In Flames Italia http://www.inflames.it/



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev