<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions --> <!--X-From-R13: Oqnz Ivttvaf <nqnzNnatry.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 14:30:14 -0700 --> <!--X-Message-Id: Pine.SGI.3.96.980930142326.17052J-100000#zazu,angel.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: Pine.GSO.3.95q.980930102423.26946A-100000@uhunix2 --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, [MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:adam#angel,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="msg01385.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01387.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg01385.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01392.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#01386">Author</A> | <A HREF="#01386">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#01386">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions </LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Adam Wiggins <<A HREF="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 14:36:17 -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, 30 Sep 1998, Nathan F Yospe wrote: > On Mon, 28 Sep 1998, J C Lawrence wrote: > :Adam Wiggins<adam#angel,com> wrote: > :> I don't think this sort of constructed world will ever be > :> interactive in the way that I'm thinking; it will always be a > :> sophisticated Zork spinoff, which is to say you only have the > :> interactions which are coded by whoever created the area. > > :Bingo. > > Which is to say, there can't be anything more than case switching without > a full scale simulation? It certainly can; I'm just not sure that it works too well. Most muds are, indeed, an approximately 50/50 hybrid of simulation and special casing. How many times have you seen: You are in a dark, quiet, empty hallway. You see Bubba the Troll here. You see Buffy the Troll here. You see Biffy the Troll here. You see Boffo the Troll here. [...more trolls...] There are 23 lit lanterns lying here. Quiet? Empty? Dark? The simulation parts (lightsources, freely movable objects and characters) clash rather heavily with the special cased parts. One could, of course, argue that mudders have been ignoring this sort of thing for over a decade now, and thus it's "not really that important." This may be true, except that now if someone (say, the readership of this list) decides to "advance the art" and try to expand what already exists, we find that the old methods get more and more klugey. At a certain point you just aren't gaining by trying to extend the old methods. Which, of course, leaves you with two primary options: one, to try to not innovate too terribly much, and instead just do it "the old way", except do it really really well, and maybe put some twists on it that no one has ever seen before. Legend falls into this category, as (I'd guess) most of our favorite muds (Arctic, of course, is mine, and most definitely qualifies in this category). The second choice is to abandon the well-beaten path and instead forge something new, with the intent of eventually surpassing the tried-and-true methods. This is a route with high stakes. DartMUD is one of the best examples here, and despite all its efforts still remains relatively unappreciated and unknown. Ultima Online is another, and has experience wild success the likes of which the world has never seen before. Naturally, it's this second category of mud development which is like a siren's call to developer like myself, and many others on the list. One might even note that it (quite accidentally) leads to a minor disdain for those servers still doing things the "old way" (which is most of them). This is ironic because in many ways we're just trying to find a better way to do the same sort of game; as I always say, I'm trying to write the mud I *thought* was playing when I was still naive to its inner workings. A tangential question this raises: Raph, how much of UO's success would you attribute to cutting edge game technology, and how much to just having a ton of marketing and one of the most popular single-player RPGs whose shoulders you could ride on? If you did the same (or similar) game but not Ultima and minus Origin's marketing, would it have done as well, or nearly as well? If they had done Ultima Online as a standard, scripted Ultima game with multiplayer capability and a burly central server, would *that* have done as well? Would it have done better? Adam W. </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="01385" HREF="msg01385.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Nathan F Yospe <yospe#hawaii,edu></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01385.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01387.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: META: What are you looking for in this list?</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01385.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01392.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#01386"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#01386"><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: Room descriptions</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="01337" HREF="msg01337.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></strong>, Koster, Raph <a href="mailto:rkoster#origin,ea.com">rkoster#origin,ea.com</a>, Mon 28 Sep 1998, 20:34 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01339" HREF="msg01339.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Mon 28 Sep 1998, 22:26 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01340" HREF="msg01340.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.com">claw#under,engr.sgi.com</a>, Mon 28 Sep 1998, 22:39 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01385" HREF="msg01385.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></strong>, Nathan F Yospe <a href="mailto:yospe#hawaii,edu">yospe#hawaii,edu</a>, Wed 30 Sep 1998, 20:34 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01386" HREF="msg01386.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Wed 30 Sep 1998, 21:30 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01392" HREF="msg01392.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></strong>, Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com">jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com</a>, Thu 01 Oct 1998, 00:08 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01394" HREF="msg01394.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Thu 01 Oct 1998, 01:09 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01341" HREF="msg01341.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></strong>, Koster, Raph <a href="mailto:rkoster#origin,ea.com">rkoster#origin,ea.com</a>, Mon 28 Sep 1998, 22:41 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01343" HREF="msg01343.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:adam#angel,com">adam#angel,com</a>, Mon 28 Sep 1998, 23:28 GMT </LI> </UL> </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>