<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers --> <!--X-From-R13: "Penaqba X. Dvpxzna" <nfurfNcp4.mraarg.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 14:34:46 -0700 --> <!--X-Message-Id: Pine.LNX.3.93.980820145208.3074A-100000#pc4,zennet.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: Marcel-1.46-0819202441-d07Ky&5#catling,demon.nl --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, [MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:ashes#pc4,zennet.com"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00797.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00799.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00777.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00846.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00798">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00798">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00798">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: Mud Dev Mailing list <<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A>></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: "Brandon J. Rickman" <<A HREF="mailto:ashes#pc4,zennet.com">ashes#pc4,zennet.com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 14:34:10 -0700 (PDT)</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Marian Griffith wrote: > In <URL:<A HREF="news:local.muddev">news:local.muddev</A>> on Wed 19 Aug, Scatter wrote: > > Marian's Tailor Problem seems to me to be a case of "how do we enable > > Buffy to prevent Bubba ruining her fun without ruining Bubba's fun when > > both players are enacting different but valid facets of the game?" > > I actually was more concerned with how to prevent the fighter spoiling > the fun of the tailor without forcing the tailor to become a fighter in > the process. I have been avoiding this topic [for months] because there seems to be little prospect of progress for what is now the pro-tailor/anti-fighter camp. Well, time to throw my hat in the ring (as opposed to throwing down my glove, a decidedly aggressive gesture). There are too many wanna-be computer science majors raised on "traditional" role-playing games trying to develop muds, leading to an overwhelming emphasis on aggression and combat as _fundamental_ elements for muds. When games are geared so that it is easy and profitable to be a fighter there should be no surprise when that particular activity is dominant. Even though there is no need to defend the "fun of being a fighter", fighter activity is constantly being defended in this thread with no explicit justification. Solutions that make the game less fun [for fighters] or make the game less realistic [for fighters] are rejected out of hand. Let us do away with market research for the moment. Someone will invariably comment that it is all the little boys with cash in hand who drive the computer game market. While that is a valid commercial reason for violent games it doesn't particularly satisfy cultural or social demands. I will propose some priorities for how to develop a combat-unfriendly mud environment: 1) Minimize the ability of players to critically disable (i.e. maim, cripple, or kill) other players. 2) Maximize the difficulty for player actions that directly harm other players. 3) Eliminate the rewards for pro-active violence against all creatures. Comments: These are numbered priorities; 1 is more important than 2 and 2 is more important than 3. 1 is not a pure anti-PK rule, but rather the critical injury of one player by another should be an extremely rare case. This may mean: - Preventing a critical blow by some kind of external intervention (the attacker is disabled by acute stomach cramps). - Limiting one-on-one interactions (if a fighter is in a player's shop, have an NPC customer conveniently stop by.) - delude the attacker by declaring the victim dead when they have only fainted with minor injuries. This isn't intended to prevent sophisticated methods of player killing (Damion Schubert posted an interesting list the other day) but to make it a difficult and very risky challenge. The second priority is basically to take the fun out of player combat. Make quality weapons hard to obtain and keep. Make the skill curve very steep. More important is to limit the basic ability of players to attack other players. In the Chill character creation system there are two related disabilities, Won't Harm (+6) and Won't Kill (+3). When you take them you get extra points to spend on stats/skills, and usually you can buy them off after a session or two (someone with Won't Harm might move to Won't Kill after being attacked by various horrible monsters). If this system were in place for all new characters then the newbie urge to "go out and kill something" is frustrated. Player aggression must be justified through the player's experience in the mud. Thus to create a new fighter character, the player must knowingly put himself in a dangerous and unpleasant environment, provoking attacks on himself to gain resolve for violence. The new fighter is then frustrated in obtaining skills and equipment for his chosen occupation. Start fighters at a pre-adolescent age. The character must wait until they are physically mature enough to lift a sword. None of this "I grew up on the streets, I know how to fight" stuff, the character hasn't grown up anywhere yet. The last priority is to prevent the weirdness of encouraging players to go about decimating rabbits/sheep/mold while discouraging them from attacking each other. To slaughter an animal - to prepare it as food - is fine. Defensive wilderness skills are fine. "I'm gonna go out and kill everything that moves" skills are not. A player hacking at a deer with a sword is not going to get a usable hide. The purse of the innocent but now dead goblin was torn during the attack and all the gold fell through a hole in the ground. More comments: Anyone who to tries really really hard to be a fighter can eventually develop into a very skilled and dangerous player. One hopes that the time and effort required will also make him a sophisticated player as well. If all it takes to be a fighter is knowing the right commands and a small loan from the fighting collective then I don't think there is much chance of encouraging any variety of non-combat activity. The easiest route to learning how to fight may well be by becoming a tailor. If a tailor suffers from attacks and extortion he would quickly gain the resolve to fight back if he chose. (But then there is more potential for drama, for unexpected twists and character development.) Priority conflicts: I say these are priorities because just about any implementation of the above would conflict with the most popular de facto priority: the purity of the simulation. Online human nature doesn't seem to recognize (or care about) this purity; when a player is told "the letter 'k' by itself may be used as a shortcut for the 'kill' command" any concern for simulation is shadowed by the combat-oriented character of the game. That is not to say that a combat mud is the unavoidable product of a pure simulation, there are too few uncompromised simulations to know what form they could eventually take. Regardless, simulation gives a nice argument for the purity of combat, indirectly emphasizing combat and role of fighters in a game. To de-emphasize combat, what better way than to break the expectations of those who by default choose fighter roles? Well that is probably enough for this little manifesto. - Brandon Rickman - ashes#zennet,com - While I have never previously found a need for a .sig, this may be considered one for the purposes of this list </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00850" HREF="msg00850.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Adam Wiggins <adam#angel,com></li></ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00846" HREF="msg00846.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Travis Casey <efindel#polaris,net></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00777" HREF="msg00777.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Marian Griffith <gryphon#iaehv,nl></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00797.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Marion's Tailor Problem</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00799.html">[MUD-Dev] Article: A Summary of Principles for User-Interface Design.</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00777.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00846.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00798"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00798"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00774" HREF="msg00774.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong>, Damion Schubert <a href="mailto:zjiria#texas,net">zjiria#texas,net</a>, Wed 19 Aug 1998, 06:10 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00775" HREF="msg00775.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong>, Dr. Cat <a href="mailto:cat#bga,com">cat#bga,com</a>, Wed 19 Aug 1998, 07:45 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00776" HREF="msg00776.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong>, Scatter <a href="mailto:scatter#thevortex,com">scatter#thevortex,com</a>, Wed 19 Aug 1998, 10:50 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00777" HREF="msg00777.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong>, Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Wed 19 Aug 1998, 19:40 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00798" HREF="msg00798.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong>, Brandon J. Rickman <a href="mailto:ashes#pc4,zennet.com">ashes#pc4,zennet.com</a>, Fri 21 Aug 1998, 21:34 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00846" HREF="msg00846.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong>, Travis Casey <a href="mailto:efindel#polaris,net">efindel#polaris,net</a>, Wed 26 Aug 1998, 03:20 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00916" HREF="msg00916.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong>, Brandon J. Rickman <a href="mailto:ashes#pc4,zennet.com">ashes#pc4,zennet.com</a>, Thu 03 Sep 1998, 02:05 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00850" HREF="msg00850.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Wed 26 Aug 1998, 04:09 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00783" HREF="msg00783.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: UBE/high: Re: FW: UBE/high: Re: W IRED: Kilers</A></strong>, Scatter <a href="mailto:scatter#thevortex,com">scatter#thevortex,com</a>, Thu 20 Aug 1998, 09:49 GMT </LI> </ul> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>