[MUD-Dev] Wish revisited

[olag at ifi.uio.no]

Peter Harkins wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 04:03:49PM +0100, olag at ifi.uio.no wrote:

>> Problem: The user creates... crap.  Solution: The higher rating
>> you get the more monster you can create and the more often your
>> monsters spawn. After defeating a monster-camp the user is
>> required to rate the fight in order to get XP. This is timer
>> based to avoid random answers (meaning: the pop-up will stay on
>> screen for at least 10 seconds).

> It sounds like this is to avoid scripting. While there are a few
> players who script for the technical challenge, the great majority
> script what is 1. boring or 2. causes delays. I think it'd work
> more to avoid those two things than try to force players to put up
> with them.

Ah, I dislike my proposed solution, but it wasn't suggested as a way
to deal with unwanted scripting. I am not sure if you can script
effectively if all NPCs behave differently anyway... The timer was
suggested to discourage the user from providing random answers. A
less intrusive solution would be better obviously, but I think one
should start with the doable and then aim for perfection later ;).

> As for players coding 'simple heuristics': I seriously doubt it'll
> fly.  The biggest players don't code isn't because of complicated
> syntax or keywords, it's because most people don't enjoy thinking
> they way you have to do to code. (Strange but true, heh.)

Ah, and I agree that this might be an issue. Fortunately we don't
need all players to create content, in fact, we only want the most
capable players to create the majority of the content. On the other
hand we don't want to tell players not to create content either as
there might be hidden potential there. That's why you need some kind
of quality measurement so you can replicate (spawn) the better
designs more frequently.

Another fortunate incident is that many MMO players tend to be
programmers or wanna-be-programmers ;-). Maybe a design which reward
such skills would attract more of them too?

> Probably much better to go with the sandbox approach (here's some
> rooms, here's some mobs, arrange them) than the toolbox approach
> (here's a text editor and a manual).

Ah, but I see my own suggestion as having a "sandbox" with a very
dedicated toolbox which allows you to create more interesting NPC
behaviour.

Ola.
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