[MUD-Dev] Character Perceptions

John Buehler johnbue at msn.com
Mon Jan 26 21:21:20 CET 2004


Adam M writes:
> John Buehler wrote:
>> Derek Licciardi writes:

>>> also believe that more needs to be added to such a system.  If
>>> my view of the world is limited by my perception skill, and I
>>> know that my perception skill is not complete, I then know my
>>> view of the world is also not complete.  This will generally
>>> frustrate a player.

>> Suppose you think of it as your view of the world being enhanced
>> by your perceptions.  I'm talking about adding to the information
>> that players receive from the world through their character, not
>> reducing it.

>> Will they be receiving a subset of all known information?  Sure.
>> Will this cause them to be concerned over the need to know more
>> information?  Only if the game is structured to encourage them to
>> be concerned over it.  I think that problem lies outside of the
>> inclusion of a perceptions mechanism into a game.

> Surely, theoretically speaking, there is just as high a chance of
> players "re-playing the game" (i.e. purchasing another character,
> either in series or parallel) as becoming "frustrated"?

> From personal experience, this is the kind of thing that makes me
> replay an adventure / CRPG from the start - the opportunity to see
> bits / experience situations / extra maps that were impossible
> with my original character choice. Without enough of this, I
> generally can't be bothered to go back and replay.

As I had envisioned the character perceptions thing, it was going to
be part of an experience that wasn't replayed.  There's no need to
create a new character to experience the world a different way.
Just retrain your character for a different set of skills and
perceive the world in a new way.

Given that the environment that I had envisioned also wasn't going
to be replayable.  It's moving forward.  Cheat sites are constantly
out of date, the front lines of battle are constantly moving, the
prices of goods and services are in flux, and cities are always
trying to grow.  Pick your starting point and go exploring.  Then
keep exploring.

Obviously, if somebody wanted to buy an additional copy of the game,
they could.  It would just give them two points of entry into the
game world instead of one.  One character in 'Russia' and the other
in 'Brazil'.

JB
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